Trivial Stuff

Oh yes. I can be fun and trivial too. My way of relaxing on a Friday night, after a lonnggggg and exhausting, demanding week at work.

I found this cool site through my wicked sister Lai, who's now back to blogging after a long hiatus. Welcome back, Evil K.

So, you want to find out who my celebrity look-alikes are?

I don't have to convince anyone about my being weird. My wicked sisters are totally convinced that their Ate is one of the weirdest persons on the planet. Read on to know why they thought so.

 

Lest I forget, this is in response to SexyMom's tag (also known as a meme): write 6 weird things about yourself.

A few photos taken at our Christmas lunch at Cafe Elegance in Ninomiya.

Found this on the web. Just cute. "A Visit from St. Nicholas," with a twist. I'm dedicating this poem to the super-programmer in the house, ol' Baggy dudes.

 

Twas the night before implementation and all through the house,
not a program was working, not even a browse.
The programmers hung by their tubes in despair,
with hopes that a miracle soon would be there.

Happy Easter Sunday!

I'm really into shooting flowers nowadays. Maybe I'm just happy with spring finally being here and all. I am really getting hooked. Everywhere you look there are so many flowers, from the lowly dandelions to the regal-like tulips. I really need a better camera - but in the meantime, here's what I am getting from our Canon Powershot S45.

Sobrang daming flowers, nakakagigil. Rarr. Indulge me while I fill this page with flowers. Just for now, ne?

Well, Baggy has almost finished playing FFX. I wanted him to finish the game ASAP so that we can resume playing FFXII. As it turns out, finishing Jecht off is not so easy. It hadn't been easy the first time, but at least back then we spent many hours building up our characters' strengths and powers. This time around I think Baggy rushed things a bit too much. His characters still lacked the powers to finish off the last and most crucial battle of all.

Sigh. By the looks of it, it seems that I may have to wait far longer than I expected.

The last game I've ever played on PS2 was Final Fantasy X (FFX), about four years ago. That was about the time when Aya was born. Since we had to spend many a night wide awake tending to her, we were able to finish the game spending a lot of time up to the wee hours of the morning. As a newborn baby Aya would just sleep clutched in our arms (of course we had to take turns). It was as much fun to watch the game as playing it.

After that, well, we just became too busy to play anymore. Baggy went back to Osaka to resume work, and he brought the PS2 with him. That was one of the reasons why I didn't get to play anything else since then. When he finally joined us in Tsukuba, of course he brought the PS2 back with him. But since then the PS2 had been tucked inside the AV board, hidden from sight. It was only when we had our cable upgraded to digital did we finally take it out of its hiding place, and only because the digital tuner set top box was too big to place on top of our tv. The only place to put it is inside the AV board. So the PS2 had to be displaced outside.

Since Baggy joined us in Tsukuba, he had been quite busy with FAST affairs. Now that he has already passed on the responsibilities to somebody else, we can have our weekends back. Yay!

Anyway, to make a long story short, the temptation proved too much to resist. Pretty soon Baggy and I were twiddling the controllers again. At ang kunsintidor na tatay, tinuruan pa ang anak na si Aya. Kaya ayun, marunong nang maggalaw-galaw ng controller. In fact for the past week Baggy has been playing FFX all over again. I've lost interest in FFX and really wanted to play something else. Coincidentally, Final Fantaxy XII was just released last March 16. We saw the full motion video being played at the electronics shop nearby, and oh boy, it was damn gorgeous. It was all we could do to keep from buying it. Suckers. Hehehe. But the graphics are really awesome. That's about four years of improvement from the last FF we played. We skipped the online game FFXI, so I can't tell if there was something extra we missed between FFX and FFXII.

I found a cool website made by a gamer already playing FFXII. You can find his review of the game here. We have completed as much as he (the gamer) had already, actually up to fighting the T-Rex. In my play, I got too cocky as well and tried to take on the T-Rex. Big mistake! Anyway, since everything is in Japanese, progress is a bit slow, because I had to take a lot of time trying to understand the dialogues and all. Playing the game is easy enough, but we'd really like to follow the story line because that's part of enjoying the game, too.

Signout na ko para makapaglaro ulit...hahahaa.

Enough of the serious side for now. I have the wackiest sisters on earth; whenever I'm with them I can let down my guard and just be plain old me. We still sneeze at each other's faces whenever we could. We still dry our wet hands on each other's unsuspecting backs. We still observe other people and laugh about their appearances. We still communicate in our special language and sisters-only words. Baggy sometimes couldn't understand what in the world we are talking about. We are all Daddy's girls.

Miss you both, you wicked sisters.

Golden Week, at least for those who love going out of town, is a rare opportunity in Japan to travel, either within the country or abroad, with a full week's long vacation at disposal. When we were "young and full of hope," (as Dr. Manlapaz used to say), we used to travel during GW, reaching farflung places such as Amanohashidate and Miyajima in Hiroshima. But that was before, when we could just pack our things into one tote bag and just go at the spur of the moment. Since Aya was born, our GW holidays are spent mostly at home, or going to nearby places. Children change everything, don't they?

This year we didn't go anywhere at all, except to Mt. Tsukuba, which is practically within the neighborhood. But to our surprise, even the trip to Mt. Tsukuba took all of two hours going to the top, as there were actually many cars going up the mountain, all moving at a snail's pace! We took the cable car (of course), and waiting for the next car to arrive took only five minutes or so. We were surprised, though, when we got to the top - there was a long queue of people waiting to get on the cable car going down. It was probably the crowdest time on Mt. Tsukuba that I ever saw, among the times that I went up there. It took us 30 minutes of waiting on that line before we got on the next "kudari" car!

Years ago, GW was a perfect opportunity to catch up on some reading, to do some extra work on research and the like. But that was before, when time was something we can dispose of at our own leisure. I brought home some materials I had hoped to work on during the holidays - but no dice. I have two papers, a patent proposal, and a book chapter to write, on top of that two conferences in July (one in Singapore and one in Kyoto). If I had my way, I would be working full time on those holidays so I could get some tasks finished. Well, as it turned out, I was delusional to think that I would ever get some work done during GW.

We bought Aya a Pooh Bear cake on Kodomo no hi (Children's Day, May 5), and just to perk up things also poked three candles into it for Aya to blow. Her birthday isn't until next month, but what does it matter. She was all smiles. She would probably remember it for all the GWs to come.

It's frozen week at work, but GW resonates true to its name when spent with the family. That's time well spent.

This picture dispels any further arguments as to whom Aya took after.
Of course, now we have to deal with the argument regarding who is trying to "outcute" whom.