Remarkable

All pending members have been added, and I’ve updated all info changes on my side (though Pia has some updates to finish – she just snorted with laziness just now) but I desperately want to announce that Too-Manic is updated!

*passes around party favors*

And while I’m not given to bouts of squeeness I will take this opportunity to “SQUEEEEEEEEEEE” because Kim has given me her Ben Affleck fanlisting.

Once again, “SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”!

Current Obsessions

I’ve been listening to Frances, The Mute, the current album from The Mars Volta and I can’t put it down. I listen to all four songs everyday, especially L’Via L’Viaquez. Can’t get enough of it. It’s dark, it’s sexy, a real mind trip.

I applied for the fanlisting for the song and I got approved. Got the layout done and partially coded. Gotta make some buttons for it though.

Pia and I have been discussing what other CSI games we can play now that our “Doing The Horatio” has ended because RPN has disappeared off the face of the earth.

We’re thinking of “Songs for the Scene” where we try to think up of song titles that go with a particular scene. I’ve suggested “Grissom’s Quotables”. You know how Grissom has a quote for every occassion…yeah, that could work. Any other suggestions?

Technorati Beta

Technorati has launched their beta website and are welcoming all feedback.

First impressions…I love the new layout, the curves give a fresher feeling to the site and the use of green and the larger fonts to highlight important site functions really draws my eye. Everything is much more easier to find.

Breaking the site into three content elements: header/personal navigation, search and popular discussions really works for me. Plus the graphic of the guy on his soap box gives a playful feel to the site.

I like that there is more whitespace. Less busyness means I can quickly see what’s of interest to me.

The Technorati search has some additional options. You can specify how much relevance to give your keywords. As I was saying here my basic problem with the Technorati keyword search has been that posts were not always relevant to the topic I’m searching for. But with the additional search options, my search for amazing race gave me more than 10 relevant searches. That’s pretty good.

For news, aside from seeing the latest posts about a topic, there’s another feature, “Most Authority”. This gives you a list of posts that directly link to the news item. Even more relevance!

When's The Right Time For Dinner?

Jake’s invitation via text message read, “Dinner at my place. 7.30”

Pia and I decided that we would bring dessert so we left the office at 6 so we would have time to drop by the pastry shop to make our selection. We chose chocolate cake and headed for Jake’s place. Since it was early, not quite 7, we went to the shopping center nearby his house to do some book hunting. By that time it started to rain which was a relief neither Pia nor I wanted to be the first ones there because we’re always the first to arrive when we go out with friends.

Waiting for the rain to die down bought us about 15 minutes and we reached Jake’s house at the set time. We were at the gate and noticed that there were hardly any people around. “Are you sure it’s today?” I asked Pia. She looked at her text message and said that there was no day mentioned, so it was definately today.

It turns out we were early.

Yup, we were two days too early for Jake’s belated graduation dinner.

Jake had forgotten to mention in his text message that the dinner is going to be on Saturday!

When he came into the living room, he looked surprised.

“What are you doing here?”

“You invited us to dinner.”

“It’s on Saturday.”

“Your message didn’t say what day so we assumed (like any normal person) that it was tonight!”

Jake was worried for a bit that other people might show up because he couldn’t remember who else he had texted that message to!

Anyway, when Jake’s parents got home, they insisted we stay for dinner and so we did. And what a time we had! We started eating dinner at 8 and we left the dinner table at 11.30! Noooo of course we didn’t spend the whole time eating! We were all chatting away and Jake’s Mom, Tita Julie was regaling us with their horror stories of Jake’s graduation – 5 hour graduation rites, near food poisoning from spoilt pork…She said that 1 week there was like going somewhere for a year!

Tita Julie was also telling us about her mother’s funeral. Her mother was 98 when she passed away and because they have lots of family members, the whole crowd of mourners amounted to over 300 people. They post-funeral lunch catered to avoid hassle but imagine their surprise when they got back from the cemetary at 12 o’clock, tired from the noonday heat to find no tables. Yes, the catering company only provides chairs for funerals, with the tables only being provided for weddings. What was worse, the lunch was a full lunch with soup, rice and viand!

In spite of the invitation snafu we had a great time. Jake’s parents are fantastic, really funny, both together and separately they’re just hilarious people.

Just what I needed

Before I go home to dinner and the Survivor finale, I dropped by Julius’ other blog and came upon his entry on the taping of one of Hiram’s last episodes.

Why is it that unlike Korean telenovelas, ours is a continuous one-hour cryfest interjected with infinite permutations of scandal-inducing scenes like slapping, hair-pulling, and public shouting? It seems that we measure a celebrity’s talent by how much tears, sipon and laway he or she can produce in front of the camera. A very mature way measuring it up.

Wonderful entry, Juls!

Grave Danger

Pia texted me this morning “I don’t want to spoil it for you but Tarantino is the man! I was on the edge of my seat with excitement and I was crying”.

Since we’re both die-hard CSI fans, we’ve been waiting for the season finale for ages. For me doubly so since it was Quentin Tarantino who directed it. From the time news came out of what the plot line would involved we were both like “Hurry up! Get here! I wanna watch it now!”

And half an hour ago we finished it watching the season 5 finale of CSI and Pia’s words were so true.

A brief recap: While collective evidence from a crime scene, one of the CSI investigators gets kidnapped and is buried alive in a coffin. We watch as the rest of team work against time to find one of their own.

It was a thrill ride, captivating, enthralling, heart wrenching…Gil Grissom is my hero. As Pia says “I salute … William Petersen for having Grissom show more emotion in a sentence that he could ever do crying. Nuff said.

I’m so looking forward to Season 6.

Really. Nuff said.