Stolen from fayelafee:



*droooooooooooooooooooooool*

Custom-sized pieces for my very small unit:

Dining set in glossy white duco



The place I had this made doesn't produce the leather-and-chrome dining chairs that I wanted, so I chose the dining set with the stool-type chairs instead. I could use the stools for my dresser/study table in the bedroom anyway. The leather chairs I can just get from SM.


White leatherette sofa



Guess what my peg for this was? Irene Adler's couch! I fell in love with it when I first saw it on Sherlock. (Actually I loved her entire living room decor.) Too bad they couldn't copy the actual chrome base. I also didn't have them put in the dimples because I wasn't sure if it would work as well with leatherette as it did on Irene's plush leather version.

In 2000, my sister's college friend in Los Banos had a dog who gave birth to several puppies. My sister, who had first dibs, chose the biggest one, which was black, because we've never had a black dog in years. She brought the puppy home, via public bus, during a storm, and so called him Squall.

In a few short months, Squall began to change from black to reddish black, to red. So much for our dreams of having a black dog! He also grew big, and developed from a super-shy dog to a super-snobbish, and super-confident, one.

Last Friday, our millennium baby turned 12. And we celebrated with cake, spaghetti, and lots and lots of chicken (his favorite food in the whole world).


Squall and his birthday cake


Another photo, with the cake turned right-side-up and Squall the other way around.

Happy birthday, Squall! Thank you for the twelve years of happiness you have shared with us. I love you soooo much! ♥♥♥


***


I was looking for old Squall birthday posts, and I found this one from 2003:

Squall turned three yesterday :)))) He still can't 'talk,' though. He still communicates very doggily, which is to say we can only sense emotions (eg, resignation), instead of something more concrete (like, *sigh* why do my humans always choose to cuddle me when I'm trying to sleep).

Looks like he turned suplado much earlier than I remembered. XD

Fringe is getting interesting once again, with all the new plot points and twists that were introduced during the second half of this season.

I want to rewatch from Season 1 to refresh myself with all the villains and minor characters, but then I'll have to view the mess they made of the story during season 3. Plus the major reset they did at the end of that, which I still can't get over. It's a lazy-ass way out, nullifying almost all major plot points from the first to the third seasons. (Although there probably WAS no other way to wipe Alt!Olivia and Peter's mutant baby from the timeline. Which genius thought up that outrageous plotline, anyway?)

Haha! This started out as a post to say how much I enjoyed the Fringe season finale. Why did it end up as a rant? XD

***

PS:

I still don't like the way they handled the Lincoln Lee thing, killing off the alternate and making the normal world Lee permanently migrate to the other side. They should plan out season arcs better so they won't have to do resets and sweep superfluous new characters under the rug when they don't know what to do with them anymore.

Last Thursday, I used up my 170th, and final, personal training session. At last. Those sessions were such chores! Between my trainer's habit of being 10-15 minutes late, and mine of always thinking up excuses to skip sessions, it's no surprise that I never saw any lasting results.

My trainer wouldn't quit bugging me to get more sessions, though. I kept putting him off by giving vague answers, but eventually I had to tell him I'd text him next week, just to get him to shut up. Of course, we all know I won't. Haha! I'm thinking it's easier to ignore text messages than face-to-face sales talk.

I really should post a Squall photo weekly, since he's hogging most of the storage space on my cellphone anyway.


Squall, clashing with my bed's color scheme
Not that he spends a lot of time on the bed. But next time, I should get green sheets. :)


Having a refreshing sleep. Still a bit wet from his bath. Summer is a difficult time for fuzzy dogs.

The male Avengers may seem to be competing against each other in sheer muscle size and ripped body parts, but I think Loki out-sexy'd them all, hands down. Especially when he strode in wearing this:


Fashyon!

The plot of The Avengers was a little thin (and pointless, unless the point was just to introduce the team), but the way the story was presented -- with the super-funny, comic moments suddenly popping up in the middle of all the explosive action and serious bits -- made it very entertaining to watch. I liked that it's not overly cheesy on the heroic front, too. We're actually made to laugh at the heroes' outrageousness: Thor's cape, Captain America's spangles, etc. etc. I really have to give it to Joss Whedon; he's always spot-on in the superhero parody department. It's like his basic rule: no one, neither the hero nor the villain, is allowed to take themselves too seriously.

(I actually can't help but compare this movie with another popular comic-movie franchise, The Dark Knight, which is also great, but in a completely opposite way. The plots generally have a dark and dreary atmosphere, and therefore have a more depressing feel.)

One thing I didn't like about all the snarkfest though was how Tony Stark almost always seems to come out ahead when he's bickering with his teammates. But that's probably just me and my intense dislike of Stark's arrogance. (Yeah, I know, that's just the way he is. But he should be put in his place sometimes... a little pounding from The Hulk would have been terrific!)

***

We watched The Avengers on a special block-screening for a church fundraiser. It felt a bit weird to be saying a prayer before watching a movie, but at least it's not a full-on mass. Sitting beside a church manang was amusing, though. She was totally surprised when Dr. Banner turned into the Hulk. "Ayyy! Anong nangyari sa duktor??!!!!!!"

I don't know which entertained me more, that manang's reaction, or the movie ticket design:

Net connection went down at work yesterday. A lot of work left pending, with no way of making up because of the 5-day weekend. So it was a battle between money and laziness today: commute to the office on a holiday and get paid double, or do the work at home but not get paid for it.

Of course, laziness winning will always be the foregone conclusion. Let's just call it my token sacrifice for the Lenten season.

***

Meanwhile, I feel really productive today. I have already completed all my pending work for the office. Plus, I replaced my sheets and pillowcases with the new plum set I got at the Homeworld warehouse sale last week. They're crappy low-thread-count sheets, but at least they smell fresh.

Also, Squall my red direwolf is done with his bath.

All before noon. Beat that!

***

I hear Ever is open today. All other malls I know are closed today and tomorrow. I'm too lazy to go out, but I think I will regret this tomorrow, when we have nothing left to do. And eat.

I don't know why I turn my nose up at chick lit, when I like reading young adult (YA) fiction. Isn't that more juvie? I hope I don't subconsciously think kids are smarter than grown women. XD

The white Duco finish of the wood furniture weren't as shiny as I expected, but all in all I like how the condo interior turned out. The mirrors lessen the cramped feel of the small space, and all the white makes the area feel airy and pristine.

Bedroom: tall cabinet with mirrored sliding doors, dresser/desk, and aircon mount (seen in the mirror)	Living room / Dining area: TV wall panel with floating shelf, frameless beveled mirror
Kitchen: floating cabinets	Bathroom: Glass-door floating cabinets and frosted-glass shower enclosure.

I'm crappy at taking photos, but I swear these look fabulous in real life!

The LCD TV I've been using as a PC monitor has to be installed at the condo tomorrow, so I had to get a new one. Right smack in the middle of a Mercury retrograde. I've been decided on this LED model months and months before, though, after a lot of comparison shopping, so I'm quite sure it's the best fit for my requirements. I just hope I didn't get a dud. It seems to be working out quite well so far. (Although if it IS going to give me trouble, it might as well do it on the first week so I can get a full unit replacement.)

The retrograde didn't entirely leave me alone today, however. My AVR gave out while I was setting up the new monitor. I think it was because I mistakenly plugged in the CPU on the 110V slot. Oh well, better an AVR than more expensive gadgets. Knock on wood.

Meanwhile, I will need to get some PC speakers because I've been using the LCD TV for sound as well. This monitor doesn't have any built in. But I don't want to risk any more retrograde karma so I'll probably make do with my old earphones for now.

***

After I pay the balance to my architect for the condo work tomorrow, I will be officially naghihikahos. I don't even have a dining set yet. And a mattress for the bed. At least I'll have a TV and some duco cabinets! XD

You know what's strange? That all the current shows I follow are on the Friday night, 8/9c slot in the US!



Guh. I'm just glad I don't live there, or I wouldn't know what to watch. (Over here, they all air on the Universal Channel, with different timeslots.)

I wonder what What Would You Do? is about. Maybe I should just follow that as well, to make it a clean sweep. (Or not, because why is it hogging the ratings of my favorite shows when I don't even know what it's about?!)

***

Meanwhile, my friend and I were discussing our TV ships, and I realized once again how I still don't ship characters unless they have outright "shippy" relationships in canon (or at the very least, deliberately-written sexual innuendos, or fan-service references/dialogues thereof). For example, here are my OTPs for recent shows:

Supernatural: Dean/Castiel
Fringe: Lincoln/Olivia
Grimm: Nick/Monroe
Sherlock: Sherlock/John
Doctor Who: 11/Tardis, 11/River, 9/Capt. Harkness, 10/Capt. Harkness

You have to agree they're all pretty obvious if you follow these shows. I really can't get into obscure pairs with characters that don't interact even remotely sexually/romantically. Like Nick/Hank. And Mycroft/Lestrade. Hehe. (I know, I know, obvious and remotely are highly subjective. But you know what I mean! ;p)

There are rare times though when I am converted by a well-written fic to follow an obscure pair. Noteworthy examples are Harry/Draco and Mulder/Krycek. But I usually end up thinking about them within the setting of the fic and not the actual show.

***

Late PS of outrage:

A Grimm rerun ranked higher than Castiel's comeback episode??!!! So much fails! T__T

Back to back Grimm posts. Obsessed much? XD

It feels like when the writers discovered the sparkage between Nick and Monroe, they just went for it with gusto. Not that I'm complaining. I now find them very cute!

For instance, this:



Dinner, and that smile on his face, you'd think he was talking to his girlfriend, Juliette. You'd be wrong. Because the next scene is this:



Okay Nick talks shop, but what is this? He's having dinner with Monroe! At Monroe's house! Just that morning, Monroe was pouring him coffee in Monroe's kitchen. What, does Nick live there already?! See, I don't even remember him having any eating scenes at his home with Juliette.

( But wait, there's more! )

***

Four episodes left to download. I don't even know if the show is on hiatus or if 14 episodes is the entire season. Guess I'll find out soon.

Excerpt of the Day Project

The only use I have for television lately is for discovering interesting shows to download and watch on my PC. I've been spoilt by the view-on-demand mentality of the internet. Now I don't have the attention span and patience to hang around and wait for weekly air schedules of shows I like.

My latest discovery is this new series called Grimm. Universal channel was showing nice teasers of it these past several weeks. It's about a secret race of people called Grimm, who have the ability to see through paranormal creatures' human disguises, and whose task is to hunt those creatures down. Nick, a detective, and also a descendant of an old Grimm family, only finds out about this hidden world of dark fairy tale creatures when his talent begins to manifest.

I have wondered a lot about all the Grimm Tumblr posts slashing Nick with Monroe, a reformed Blutbad (Big Bad Wolf) Nick meets in one of his first supernatural cases. Yes, Nick always seeks out Mr. Exposition Monroe for advice on random creatures, but for me that's less slashy than creepy. Nick doesn't even know Monroe at all and he bugs the guy at all hours! And I do get the frenemy thing, but it hasn't ever even been explored as an angle. Until I saw this episode, that is:


Nick: Ooh. What happened to you?


Monroe: Funny you should ask. YOU happened to me. Get in here. Shut the door, will you?

( What I'm doing with you is definitely messing with the status quo... )

***

Ayun na. The eye-seks alone is enough to seal the deal for me. Grimm/Blutbad slash approved! :3

Excerpt of the Day Project

Mommy with me and my sisters and cousins
(Squall, me, Diana, Janzel, Catin, Mommy, Rain, Jane, Kim)


At the alcove under the stairs (a favorite camwhoring spot)

( Click for more PICSPAM )

Bonus sexytimes tarp:


Mommy gave my sister a formal gown-wearing photo for her banner, but my sister replaced it with hipper pics. XD

I'm baaa~~ck! Sorry for disappearing from LJ-land again. Hehehe.

Things have been busy since the Iloilo training, mostly because I unofficially assumed a few more responsibilities at work. It's pretty exciting because I'm interfacing with a lot more people than I'm used to, but also it's a bit draining. My inbox never stays at 'No Unread Messages' for long.

I still haven't seen any papers relating to my promotion, but my new job title did get announced during our most recent General Assembly. So I guess it's a go despite my lackluster showing at the meeting with the bosses. Whew!

***

Iloilo


Trainer Ric with the I-River team

My Iloilo working trip with Ric went well. I was a bit apprehensive because I wasn't what you'd call a guru in Genesis and WordPress, but I seemed to have been able to get my point across. The I-River people were fast learners, I guess because they're used to coding logic. They were very nice, too!

Fritz and Christine, the I-River heads, treated us to lunch the first day at this open-air place with a gorgeous view of the river (sadly, I forgot the name of the place). We had Filipino fiesta food, like kare-kare, crispy pata, grilled bangus, etc etc. All my favorites! I didn't gorge myself though, because I was still a little tired from the flight. (From the airport, Ric and I just had enough time to check into the Sarabia Manor Hotel before heading back out to the I-River offices for the first day of training.)

After the first training day, Ric and I went swimming at the hotel pool to relax. And then we had dinner at Ocean City, just across the street from the hotel. We had kare-kare (again!) and stuffed squid. I can't believe how affordable the food was in Iloilo City! The small kare-kare, which could easily serve three people, was just about 150 pesos. The same goes for the serving of squid (three medium pieces for 150 pesos). And this was a nice resto with a live band!

Breakfast the next day was Jollibee, though, because we realized we still had to buy pasalubong for people. XD

We didn't have time to explore the city more because our airport transfer schedule was right after work the next day. I hope I can go back. I never even got to see the famous Smallville!

Surprise bomb from work: Ric and I need to be in Iloilo for two days to conduct Genesis/WordPress training. We fly out tomorrow morning.

Never mind that we hashed out the training modules in one day, the more pressing problem is this: what am I going to wear??! I have no decent trainer-type clothes. T__T

***

Where can we go to in Iloilo at night? We only have one night free for looking around. Officemates suggested Smallville(!), which is close to where we'll be staying. But I hear it's Lex Luthor-less (haha!), and more a drinking/party place, and I'm wanting something more laid back and relaxy. Or at least someplace I can get pasalubong.

Never let me go home before a gimik, even if I cross my heart, hope to die, that I'll follow you to the venue after I change clothes. Squall's happy face will always glue me in place at home. And then nothing, not even free karaoke, can pry me away.

I got this from a Miley Cyrus tweet, would you believe?



I love it. ♥

Full (correct) text quote:

The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand.

It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode.

So forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

- "A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

!!!This cot scene, what?!!!
Oh, brilliantly plotted, Steven Moffat! *slow clap* You have earned yourself another potentially rabid fan.

How I wish I watched this Doctor Who season along with everyone else. The audience reactions must have been amazing. Although then I would have had to wait months for the continuation as well.

I want to continue watching the remaining season 6 episodes, but I need to wake up early tomorrow. But here's a bonus dressed-up Doctor screenshot to tide me over until then:


I love the framing for this shot.

More detailed reactions when I've digested everything. Night all! :)


[THE MORNING-AFTER UPDATE]

One minor nitpick I have for Let's Kill Hitler is the sudden introduction of Amy's childhood friend, Mels. (Or was she introduced before, and I just forgot?) If it weren't for that small point, I would have easily believed that the River Song / Melody Pond plot was conceived ever since River's first appearance.

I'll be watching albatoudilandau's favorite episode The Girl Who Waited tonight. She thinks this is better than these pre- and post-hiatus episodes? I can't wait to be floored!

Have you seen the story of Kabang, the pet dog who saves two children and ended up getting his face/snout crushed because of it? So sad.

That's why I always tell Squall to never ever ever ever save me. I hope he understands. I'd rather be dead than safe at his expense. Besides, it's my duty as his mom to protect him, not the other way around. :(

I've heard it said that your first Doctor Who Doctor will always be your favorite, and I used to agree. My first was the ninth, Christopher Eccleston, and I've never gotten to really accept the David Tennant incarnation (the tenth) even after all those seasons. And then when David left the series, I lost the desire to even continue watching because, well, at least David Tennant was cute; the new Doctor (Matt Smith) wasn't even that! Hahaha!

So I eventually got around to watching the eleventh Doctor episodes of the show, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but Matt Smith is turning out to be MY FAVORITE DOCTOR! (My favorite among the three new ones, I mean. I haven't seen any of the pre-2000s Doctor Who series.)

I don't know if it's the character-development, or the writing, or just his storylines. But I'm pretty dang sure it's not his looks (although I have to admit he's starting to become attractive to me, hyperactinginess and all). All I know is that once I began watching his seasons, I just can't stop! None of the other Doctor Who seasons ever got me this hooked.


Isn't he just adorkable? ♥

***

Who's YOUR favorite Doctor? Discuss.

Schadenfreude is nasty, nasty! *bangs head on desk*

I must think nice thoughts.

Had a horrible dream about my Canada-based aunt yesterday that kept me awake the remainder of the night. Sent her an advanced birthday e-card as an excuse to check if she's all right. She replied. Thank god. ♥

In other news: Ang cute talaga ni Mitchell (Aidan Turner)!!! ♥♥♥



He looked too dirty and derelict on the screencaps from my previous post that I thought it my duty to post a nice(r) photo of him.

***

PS: I don't know whether to love The Hobbit or hate it. That's the second TV series I follow that it apparently ended up messing.