Tid Bits - July '09

Movies and DVDs

When we were in California, I've been seeing previews of the movie Drag Me To Hell and I thought it's a cool movie to watch. So when it got shown here at the SM theaters, I went to see it while Donna was having her hair done. It's not a chic movie so she didn't care for it. On a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the greatest, I give it less than three which is not bad in my book.

Pareng James sent me a bunch of previously viewed videos and I think at least two of which I watched recently; 3:10 to Yuma with Russel Crowe playing a cool bad guy in a remake of a 1957 Western starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin and a couple of slasher movies Texas Chainsaw Massacre another remake, this time with a luscious Jessica Biel and Hostel, this one is similar to the Saw series.

Feliciano (Boy) Dizon's mom and my mother-in-law were sisters. That's how Donna is related to him. He was also our high school classmate. Their daughter MaryJo is our god daughter. They came last July 7 on vacation from California. We treated them for lunch at Bale Capampangan and took them to check out our house afterwards. Indo recognized MaryJo right away. Of course, per routine, Donna gave them a tour of the house and I showed them the battle scene of Narnia in my home theater and Boy and I sang a couple of songs in the Karaoke.


Tomorrow, we'll be taking them to visit Monasterio de Tarlac.

Magic Jack

The first time I heard about Magic Jack was when friend Art Yap and his wife visited us from New Orleans. He can't stop talking about this new gadget which when hooked up to a PC enables anyone to call the US for FREE! I sort of forgot about it afterwards. But when we visited California last winter, I saw it on TV commercials and Donna was talking to some nursing classmates and they were talking about another classmate from the Philippines who've been calling them in the US non-stop and talking with them for hours on end and saying he has the Magic Jack.

One of the many gifts Pareng James gave us when they came here on vacation from Hawaii was a Magic Jack. So finally, we hooked it up this morning and it was pretty easy to install, literally a 1-2-3 step direction and we were good to go. Right off the bat, we called Eph (voice mail), Dan with another voice mail and Emy and Nido - got an answering machine. So we called our benefactor Pareng James and Mareng Celia in Hawaii and voila, we got through! When we were done talking, Dan called back and was pretty amazed when he called back the number we called from, which was a 562 number - assigned by Magic Jack upon registration. So I guess from now on it's bye-bye PLDT Budget Card. We'll have to send Reg a Magic Jack.

Ari ning Parnaso

Vedasto Ocampo, the Ari ning Parnaso (King of Parnassus) passed away recently. Ari ning Parnaso is a title bestowed upon a Capampangan literary renaissance man, well versed in all genres; poetry, literature, prose, etc. Robby Tantingco, of the Center of Kapampangan Studies (CKS) at the Holy Angel University in Angeles City, convened a meeting today of poet laureates with a proposal on how to choose the next Ari Ning Parnaso. The meeting was chaired by CKS's Erlinda Cruz. Poet Laureat Rene Alzadon requested for me to be his representative in the meeting. So I went over at 2 pm today to attend. Cong Paing, who've also been crowned as a poet laureat (PL) last year, didn't make it because of a meeting he had to go to at the Provincial Capitol.

In attendance were 12 PLs:
PL Frank Guinto
PL Virgilio (Bilyung) Calilung
PL Ernie Turla (represented by Maritess Mercado Magtuloy Evangelista)
PL Jaspe Dula
PL Renato (RBA) Alzadon (represented by Rey Maniago)
PL Romy Rodriguez
PL Florencia Turla
PL Ofrecinia Dela Pena
PL Antonio Galang
PL Amado Gigante
PL Felix Garcia (represented by Hernan Saban)
PL Policarpio (Pol) Batac


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My nephew Jason (Cong Naring's youngest son) celebrated a birthday recently and I took Cong Paing and Atching Let with me to join the party. When we got there, the Videoke was in full swing. The cough that I was nursing in the US through Japan finally went away so I was able to let go and clean out the pipes with Open Arms and Sweet Child of Mine (first time).
Cool!

Dad is 84 and going strong..

I think he was a bit surprised with the turnout. I know Leda and I were!

A few weeks ago, Leda came over to plan with Donna and their nieces, a celebration of my father-in-law's 84th birthday. His actual birthday was July 15 but the closest they can do it was yesterday, Sunday July 19 because a) Leda had a catering gig the day before and b) niece Paulet and her family are coming on vacation from Dubai the same day. So Sunday it is.

As usual, we borrowed extra chairs from friend and neighbor Bong Naguit to complement the few we have here and we still have Leda's round tables that she brought over from Muntinglupa for a previous celebration. They assigned dishes to be prepared by everyone and it all came through Sunday morning in a big bang. There was actually a lot more food that shown below. I took these pictures as an afterthought.


Donna and I took advantage of the rain water brought over by the typhoon and scrubbed and cleaned out our driveway of accumulated bird poo last Saturday. After lunch Cindy and sister Gay came over to help us clean up some more and they also brought out all the chairs and tables from our utility room. We went to church at the 6 pm mass so we'll have more time to prepare for the lunch party Sunday.

At close to twelve, guests literally came in droves. First to arrive were Donna's 'school' mates and Ate Pie's walking buddies. And it was chaos after that!


Atching Alice (Daddy's niece) of Partyland and group also came along with her son Jon and wife of Bale Capampangan as well as Cong Eddie and Malou of Fisherman's Grill.



Our walking buddies also came; Jojo Naguit and wife My-My, Bong Naguit, Doret Tombo, Ferdie Angeles and wife Rona, Bong Dungao and wife Recy, Marny Castro, Connie Guiang, her son and his wife, as well as soon to be neighbor who's house across the street is almost finished, Joe Esguerra and wife Odette along with their two boys.


A few friends and classmates were also in attendance; Myrna and husband Vir, Alice (Puno) and husband and a oh-so-cute grand daughter, Nita Tiomico along with daughter and son-in-law, Dan Asuncion, with wife and daughter and of course Boy with wife Remy and daughter MaryJo who're in town on vacation. Speaking of vacation, Amanda and Tan happened to be here as well and made it to the party.


Our friend and Donna's nursing classmate and Eph's Ninang Didi and family came also. We invited Mergine as well but she left for Germany last Friday.


Of course, the event was capped with a session of kwaho! There's no room for Donna here so she had to wait until later to play one on one with Leda.


The music room was so busy the whole time with hours of Karaoke and two DVDs - Beauty and the Beast for Jay's kids and The X-Men 2 afterwards.