EHEADS Reunion Part II

Yeah baby! You read that right!

See you there on March 7, 2009!!!!

...masdan mo aking mata, di mo ba nakikita...

Read here for more info.

The Goal & The Plan

January's a time for resolutions. They are often crafted but not carried out. In my continued quest to lose weight, I am going to concretize that goal by writing it on this blog.

So, here I go.

The Goal: To lose 20lbs by December 2009.

The Plan. This will entail following a set of rules that I must (MUST!) follow:

1. Get regular 30min or 3-4km workouts on my threadmill at least 4x a week
2. Weight-training should be followed by rule 1.
3. Play other sports whenever possible (basketball, badminton, football(?), etc.)
4. Reduce daily rice intake by 50-75%
5. Eat fish instead of meat whenever both are available
6. Stay away from softdrinks
7. Eat nuts for merienda instead of going down the mall to buy something else
8. Follow Paul Mckenna's 4 basic rules:
a. When you're hungry, go and eat!
b. Eat what you want!
c. Eat consciously!
d. When you're full, stop eating!

Let's see how this goes.

Applause naman dyan!

Nurse-ko-'day and Manong

A beautiful sunrise had greeted us as I wheeled the missus from our 10th floor room going to the elevator that led to the Huggery. A few minutes ago our sleep was awakened by the room phone signalling to us that Matteo is desperately hungry for milk, as heard in the background on the other line while the nurse told us if the missus can go down already.

The missus is inside the Huggery now, feeding our newborn Matteo. A few hours from now, we'll be on the road going home to have Lucas and Matteo together in the same room for the first time.

Let me just say that I'm grateful for all the staff here at Asian Hospital who've given us that trademark Filipino service-with-a-smile hospitality.

The missus is thankful as well to one of the nurses whom I've privately nicknamed "nurse-ko-'day."

Nurse-ko-'day was quite memorable since she was the one who gave the missus a spa-treatment-like bath on the hospital bed during the first day after the C-section. She was really great in the sense that she was very pro about shampooing and sponging the missus. It was at this moment of relaxation when we heard a faint knock on the door. It turned out to be a nun who was distributing communion to the patients. It was a Sunday so since the missus can't go down to the chapel yet, she agreed to have the communion then and there.

So imagine the missus, lying on the bed, being shampooed away by nurse-ko-'day and the nun saying the prayer before communion with the missus. Would it be wrong to call that moment a "spiritual relaxation?" Hehe.

Of course nurse-ko-'day realized a few seconds later that this was a divine moment so she had to stop the shampooing for a while. So, the missus, with Rejoice shampoo bubbles on her hair, opened her mouth to receive communion. Nurse-ko-'day immediately returned to her hair duties.

Another personality here is Manong. Manong is literally service-with-a-smile incarnate. He looks like a well-groomed, more handsome version of Apeng Daldal. He delivers the food trays to our room about 5 times a day. The food would always arrive with Manong's patented smile. "Heto na po lunch nyo mam," he would say, even if the lunch contained only bland soup and a gelatin since the missus was on liquid diet initially after the CS.

I was kidding the missus this morning when I was wrapping the paha around her waist. What if Manong suddenly comes in with the breakfast tray and sees her with her post-op belly?

"Mam heto na po yung breakfast nyo....ay taba!" Hehe.

All in all, the service here is excellent. Btw, I forgot to mention that last night we were given a romantic candlelit dinner at the doctors' lounge, with food from Makati Skyline. It was complete with red wine and a 4-meal course. It was great although I'm not sure if they will offer a steak-dinner for other types of post-ops like triple-bypass or angioplasty.

Kung Fu Panda

Great animation, this is a nice film for kids young and old.

A must-see film!

Horton Hears A Who

My 1st boy has a Dr. Seuss book entitled "Scrambled Eggs Super," given by his Tita. I find it a joy reading this book to him whenever he requests it. He had actually memorized the 1st page and the page involving a long-legger Kwong. Yeah, I find that amazing too.

So when I saw that another Dr. Seuss book has been adapted to film animation, I just had to watch it. The animation is great and the story was, well, signature Dr. Seuss.

A nice film to watch with your kids.

My 2nd boy's here!

As of 6:40pm earlier this evening, I am now a father of TWO boys. My 2nd boy is a heavy fella, coming in at 7lbs and an ounce. The missus' obgyn said he looks like my 1st boy but only of a whiter complexion (nice!).

His name's Matteo Alonso. Matteo to keep up with the tradition of my 1st boy being named after one of the 4 Gospels. Alonso from Fernando Alonso, one of the popular Formula-One drivers today.



Life's good! :)

Someone's joining the family tomorrow

After several months of being pregnant, the missus is finally relieved (and nervous at the same time) that my second boy is coming out tomorrow evening. We are currently preparing the stuff to bring in our two (or 3) night stay at the Asian Hospital so everything has to be checked. I'm responsible for all the eletronic gadgets, i.e. videocam, digicam, laptop, usb broadband, earphones, headphones, cellphone charger, and everything else that needs AC or DC power. Among the stuff being put into the bags and backpacks, the missus and I just light up with our "Oooaaahhh" smile as we prepare our second boy's things: a bunch of tie-up baby shirts and a pack of these cute cute (cute!) extra-small diapers. Haaay, I can't wait until I see him tomorrow evening. The missus is still praying for a miracle that she hopes that he will look like her. But, based from my first boy's (good) looks, she doesn't have a chance. Only heaven knows how he'll look like.

We're excited as well for our panganay since he'll soon have a playmate. He'll be a kuya, like me. I hope he'll grow up to be a good one. Tonight is his last night as our only boy, so he might be sleeping between us tonight.

So, we'll get back to our packing. My boy is right here beside me now repeatedly asking me to open the diaper package for his brother to see if it will be a good fit.

Chi's Brick Oven Kitchen

Chi's Brick Oven Kitchen is a quaint resto located inside BF Homes, Paranaque City. I found this place by accident while I was browsing clickthecity.com some weeks back. From the reviews there, it was definitely a must-eat place to be so we grabbed the chance last Sunday afternoon when my boy was staying at my parents' place in Paranaque.

The place is quite nice and quaint since it was considerate of having a smoking and non-smoking section and a small area for kids to play with which includes a small blackboard and a three-row open cabinet of toys.

At the very end of the Chi's is a brickstone oven which is slightly elevated from the patron tables.

And now for the food. We started off with the Clam Chowder (P100) which was housed inside a big pandesal. It had a cheesy flavor to it pero bitin, considering that the missus and I shared one soup. Nevertheless, it tasted good.

Since it was a late-lunch, early-merienda, we only ordered the Chicken Calzone. THIS was very delicious, with every molecule of the melted mozzarella cheese savored gently with the calzone crust.

We capped off our stay with White Chocolate Strawberry Madness. This was delectably sumptous as well.

Chi's is definitely a great find.

Sulit nga ba ang Red Mobile?

Well all the hype on Red Mobile has been aimed at putting down Sun Cellular's Unlimited Call and Text product. Personally, I think Red might go down the same way Addict Mobile went ---the garbage bin.

The downfall? Red Mobile requires a 3G phone. These phones are the high-end types which most of the B and C classes cannot afford. The B and C classes are what you need in order for your network to establish a "community" ---something which Globe/Smart/Sun already have. Further, the rates calling/texting outside the Red network is expensive (P6.50 for calls, P1.00 for text) so the P0.50 rate is Red-to-Red only. That's why it's really important to read the fine print first.

Need more proof? Here's a review from another blogger who got a replacement Red Mobile sim for his Cure sim.

So, sulit nga ba ang Red? :-)

What Happens In Vegas

Funny!

One Night Only

A great comedy focusing on different stories of couples running into a motel. Much of the laughter came from the scenes where Chokoleit was there.

Really funny!

LHM's New Look

Well I hope you like the new look of LHM. I wanted to utilize the wasted space of my old template by changing from 2 columns to a 3-column blog template.

Here are the new add-ins that you'll see to the right of this blog space:

1. Live Traffic Feed which gives me a clearer picture of where LHM visitors are coming from

2. The Bloglist has been updated to the new Blogger add-in wherein the latest post is listed and shows when it was last updated

3. News. You'll get updated news concerning the Philippines, NBA, EPL (English Premiere League), Dow Jones (stock market news), and Hollywood ---all of which are quite of interest to me. Do let me know if you have particular news keywords that you want added into the list.

Well that's about it at the moment. I'll search the 'net for more add-ins that would be appealing for me to put in this blog. Feel free to click around, especially on the Google Ads, hehehe. ;-)

Mr. Rockefeller

The missus and I were at GB5 to start the yearly MMFF tour. "One Night Only" was showing at 9.20pm so since it was still 8pm at the time, we opted to have dinner around the area.

We ended up at Mr.Rockefeller. We started off with the Boston Clam Chowder which was excellent. The missus ordered the Grandma Steak Recipe which was good but not as good as what we both agreed to as the best meal of the night: the Alaskan Sole Fillet.


Great food!

Burger Avenue

Since it's a slow office day today (yes, I have office today, Dec24 ---whole day), we all decided to have lunch-out originally at Soms(?) Thai Resto at Boni. Along the way, the first group arrived to find that the resto was closed so we had to go to another venue. We ended up at Burger Avenue in Makati.

The burgers are typical to that of Brothers, Hotshots, and JBJ. But what makes Burger Avenue unqiue is that it has its "Ridiculous Challenge."

The objective is to finish their Ridiculous Burger, a one-pounder, within 5 minutes. If you finish it in 5 minutes or less, you get to pay only the VAT. Otherwise, you have to pay P255.00.

Sounds easy right? But you have to see the burger first.

So two of my officemates tried it but, sadly, didn't win. But still, it's a great experience.

Me try? Naaah. That's too much for me.

UNO Restaurant

The missus and I had our BFGF anniv at Uno Restuarant located in Tomas Morato area last week. The ambience is quite alright since you'll find it intruiging to go in if you're eating at Amici from across the street.

The meal I had was ok. The missus' dish I could describe as terrible which is an understatement.

Below are my other observations which I think Uno has to improve on:

1. They don't have wine glasses. The white wine I ordered was put in a glass.

2. Service was poor in the sense that I had to call the waiter two times to correct the bill (which would've forced them to get the balance payable from the waiter)

3. Cash-only basis.

Needs improvement.

LHM Under Construction

I'm currently reconstructing my blogsite with a new template.

It should be all done by the end of the week (I hope).

Merry Christmas!

Di ka pa naman kilabutan

Probably my favorite song of all time.

Forgettable Gig

Well last night's gig at the company Christmas party sucked. We only had one practice a week ago and that was without drums. Further, the drummer was just informed of the gig last night. You can just imagine the disaster when we stepped on stage and performed two songs:

1. "Wherever you may go" by The Calling

2. "The man who can't be moved" by The Script

The guitar can't be heard, the drum playing was too fast (#2 song), and so on and so on. We were just all over the place that I wished the floor would open up and eat my alive. Song #1 was a last-minute change last night against what the guitarist and I wanted to play ("Stars" by Switchfoot which we played very well and tight last practice) but our new drummer didn't know the beat. Hence, the change.

Sigh, that's what you get when you don't have enough preparation. Hopefully we'll do better next year (if the organizing committee still wants us to play again).

Z, P, A. If you guys can read this, tayo na lang nga magjam.

Chateau 1771

The missus and I were at GB5 the other week and decided to have dinner at Chateau. The acoustic guitar player was inviting and since we've already eaten at Myron's previously, we decided to step into Chateau.

We were given the complementary bread and eggplant-pate, which was quite good. Then for starters we ordered the tomato soup, which was quite nice.

For the main course, the missus ordered Pork Scallopine (P420), one of the house specialties. It was a delightful dish.

In keeping with my tradition of ordering fish in fine-dining restos, I ordered the Salmon Rockefeller (P670). The cheese-topped salmon was delectably delicious, especially with the ratatouille and white wine.

Chateau 1771, all in all, was not bad. Finding a great fine-dining resto in the Greenbelt/Glorietta area is rare so Chateau should be a good place to check out if you want to try fine-dining if you're in the Makati area.

Let's Get Ready To Rumble!!!!

I was driving home late Friday evening when I noticed that there was a small traffic accumulated in the EDSA Santolan LRT area. It's 12:30am, it shouldn't be traffic, I said. It could've been another vehicular mishap or a DPWH construction, but it wasn't.


The small snarl of traffic was caused by a big 10x10m(?) Nike poster.






You just have to admire the effect of Pacquiao-mania. Once again, almost everyone will be glued to the TV and movie screens to watch Manny in his biggest (money) fight against Oscar Dela Hoya. The missus and I already have reserved seats at Robinsons Galleria to watch Sunday morning.


Hold on to your seats, for the next Pacman fight is about to start! Yeah!!!


Go Manny!!!!