da tomāto

Ate my fair share of homemade cookies and brownies, pastas, soups, ham, and chicken roast this past week. Looking forward to New Year's. Apart from liking the slight drop in temp, there's nothing much to say except that my second year of blogging is almost at its end, and hopefully, the third year will be inspired so there'll be more to tell! dinner this evening

Nice and cool tonight. Shame it's spoiled by bites... mosquitoes attack and I'm not wearing pajamas. And no, I don't own pajamas. People bite too. And it only takes one to ruin a happy mood. What a Scrooge! Dear Santa, can I have thick skin?

Frequent network timeouts messed up how fast I worked, was causing a headache - big time! It started last week and I did not want to bear it anymore! Finally decided to tweak router settings in hopes that the problem is stemming from there. I took a screen shot of the original mtu setting - for future reference - and went with lowering its value. After a few ping tests, I put in the value that's slightly higher (the amount plus 28, in fact) of what did not show up as fragmented. After restarting the machine, I braced myself. Decided to cool down so I left, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and came back. It's been over an hour since the "restart" and so far, so good. A couple of network timeouts on mturk but refreshing quickly fixed it. So it isn't totally fixed but it's drastically minimized and refreshing works fast. Unfortunately, some damage has been done since time-constrained hits on mturk that I've accepted were rendered "abandoned" becaus

Our town is bustling - and cramped. But for some reason, a decent computer shop is nowhere to be found. Somebody would have to go to the mall for good office equipment and supplies. Since that is something I cannot do without proper arrangements and asking for favors isn't something I particularly enjoy, I try to shop online. But looking for good shops is a chore 'cause I haven't seen any Philippine online store that has a good-quality, well-stocked inventory - to date. This item, I bought at PC Bodega, shipped yesterday and arrived this morning. Their website still needs some work so I had to make the order by calling them. After exchanging emails and text messages with a salesperson (who was very nice and helpful), I finally paid for it by depositing the money in one of their banks which happens to have a branch nearby. I feel cheated by the amount they charged me for shipping but I figure it would not have been such a loss if I ordered more than one little thing. Unfortu

My darling nieces' Christmas gift is on its way! I think it's uncanny that it's easy and convenient for me to give my darlings gifts -- just because they're living in a country where online shopping and shipping is a breeze. It is fantastic and sad that my present circumstances allow me this, which otherwise, I believe, would not be so easy if they were here. But I wish they were here because I miss them, but it's unlikely that I'd be able to do what I want for them if they were.

Some work that I do call for complete silence for me to function. No music, door shut to keep the outside noises out. There's a foresight of boredom prior to starting them that, more often than not, has been proven wrong when I get into it. I could call it refreshing - discovering that you don't get bored with what you're doing like you anticipated you would be. Still, the brewing idea of boredom still come up - even though I know that I won't really be bored - making it tasking to begin. It's just a little cuckoo, I think.

Where's the "yum", Yumpanada? Your empanadas are closer to a sweet dessert than a savory snack. The crust is neither flaky nor crispy - it's sweet and greasy, and the shell reminds me of pandesal or tasty bread. Should I even call what you serve "empanada"? Yours are like compressed, fried siopao ! Sadly, they're not very good. Your small empanadas are just OK, I suppose. But I know to keep away from the big ones. This pictured Yumpanada empanada was from a kiosk at our plaza. I think I read a newspaper naming it one of the best, cheap snacks on-the-go and that there are kiosks of it everywhere. I seriously disagree with it being "one of the best" but it is certainly cheap!

Colloquial speech aside, I'd rather be eager than anxious. Sadly, tonight, I'm suffering the latter. I set myself up for something that, I assume, will come tomorrow. I want to sleep right away when I lie down and not think about this "something" that's out of my hands - until it comes, I think, tomorrow. But what if it doesn't come tomorrow? The thought of that is making me more anxious. My brilliant idea at the moment is to remember how "Kung Fu Panda" made me laugh yesterday or what I read earlier that was so funny! Alright, here it is, and I'll paraphrase: A woman was teaching her son how to cross the street. She held his hand, looked both ways, and asked, "OK, what is the first rule?" Her son replied, "We do not talk about fight club?"

Been streaming "In Between Moments" on grooveshark these past few weeks. It's a Better than Ezra iTunes-only bonus track on their latest record. Seriously, on the first listen, I thought, WTH?!? BTE came up with this?!? They did. It was super soft, so light that it was tinkling (if that makes sense), and on the brink of sounding boy-band-ish. Was expecting something crazy and playful towards the end like they did in the amazing "Rosealia" but no, no playful ending here. It was straight up serious. I laughed so hard. It was a mix of disbelief, shock and amusement. It was like that for a while and it was very fun - laughing so hard. But I got to stop laughing at it lately 'cause the novelty and newness is gone (a natural result of overplaying, I suppose). Yes, I listened to it many times - still do when I want to. Without a doubt, listening to it is... A guilty pleasure.

French toast, pancakes, cereal - breakfast food. Here, they're midafternoon snacks. I prefer savory over sweet for breakfast (or in my case, brunch - my first meal of the day) anyway. Take today's brunch... Tomato slices, tocino , last night's left-over pork adobo , and fried rice. Nom, nom, nom. I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortably closed in in my little work area here. Things are starting to pile up so we'll be putting things back the way they were soon... but not this machine, no. I like it where it is.

For lack of a better title, I "thought" I'd be clever which is (obviously) going to lead to unnecessarily explaining myself but stopping since this has nothing to do with introspection but more about how grateful I am with how wonderfully thoughtful people can be. And yes, it has something to do with this plate of "spaghetti", naturally. Thoughtful guests brought spaghetti over last night 'cause they just came from a children's birthday party. I must say, "Thanks!" and "Nom, nom, nom!" Thoughtful people are the best!

... temporarily. My glasses have irritated the bridge of my nose - again. I'm back to wearing contact lenses for the meantime till the redness disappears. I have to put my face close to the monitor now 'cause the lenses don't correct my astigmatism, sadly. Woes of the poor-sighted. Obviously, I've nothing interesting to say. Well, I will mention how the weather is today (dull much?) and it is very warm.

Holy signal, Batman! There it is! Lost Pldt dsl earlier so I tried my wireless modem again (globe tattoo). Since we moved furniture around a few days ago, the computer is in a different spot - not so far from where it was before but I thought I'd give this backup another try. Hallelujah! It detected the gprs signal at full bar initially which was still sucky in terms of speed. So I disconnected, changed network preferences to "wcdma only" and voila! It worked and caught the better signal! It's not as fast as our dsl but its speed was tolerable. I am sure it would've been faster if it caught bars of the hsdpa/wcdma but what the heck -- it's not useless anymore! Thank goodness our dsl came back after a half an hour since I had a lot to do. Nice to know that my backup's useful now, for peace of mind and all that. Now, what about when electricity's out? The solution's obvious but impractical as of now. Oh well, will deal with that when I

These bloomed overnight. Lovely to see. Happy Sunday!

Today's brunch: garlic fried rice, tocino, and itlog na maalat with tomatoes. For some reason, looking at this picture still whets my appetite. Maybe because the combination was really yummy. It was nice to see kids get all excited for trick or treating last Saturday. Seeing them in costume, toting their plastic pumpkin buckets, parents with fancy cameras leading them from house to house, and seeing a house with a life-size "white lady" with its own spotlight to boot! Now, this wasn't in my neighborhood, it was at the one over. Since we lost power on Halloween and me, on a deadline to submit a transcript, I headed over to a friend's house who graciously let me work there for a few hours. We drove through "that" subdivision so I got to see the wonderful muss of decorated houses and trick or treaters. And it was kind of poetic too that the neighborhood didn't have power either and since it was dusk, it added to that Halloween mood. Electricity at our

... on an insurance form: Signature Over Printer Name OK, not as funny as if I had put up a picture instead but seriously, made me wonder if it was a fake. But it wasn't so... that's embarrassing (for them). Maybe they knew about it but it would take a board ruling to correct that "official" form so they decided to save thousands of pesos and keep that one with its "printer" flub -- just a thought.

How sad is this? Needless to say, my backup is a sad excuse for a backup. Really, those kbps transfer speeds that you see there, most of the 51 minutes in, they were zero. And I waited (patiently, I might add) for any activity to take a picture which horribly showed a fraction kb per second - not even KB per second! I'm not going to state more of what's obvious, looking at those stats, but I am somewhat relieved to discover that I do not have a faulty device. This is the second time that I've tried this backup wireless modem that I bought weeks ago (globe tattoo). Both times, it was directly plugged in to the pc since I still don't have a usb extension cable. Back then, I wasn't able to get connected. This time, it did catch the lousy gprs one (with hardly any bars - actually, no bars at all) and this was in the middle of the night, at a half past 3 to be exact. Given the circumstances, nothing was achieved online with this product. Until I can get a cable and

"If you've ever had to double click the Windows system tray clock in order to get a quick calendar, then this is the extension for you!" J Cook, developer. With an intro that sells and more importantly, a product that works (judging by its reviews, of course), I had to try it. Because like he said -- I am one of them system-tray-clock-clickers! And now that I have it, I say, "Oh yes you are (the extension for me), you wonderful Firefox add-on, you!" And if there is still some confusion about what's going on, I'm raving about the Date Picker/Calendar extension. Visit the mozilla add-ons page, look for it, and you'll know what I mean. It's so simple and obvious, and I'm kicking myself for not discovering this earlier. It's so useful, I like it.

Documenting the progress of my bruised my chin last year would prove how much of a curious klutz I am. Wanting to know how long a scab clears up and bruises fade. Was hoping that accidents like that do not happen at all but clumsy-me rendered otherwise -- so much for an injury-free 2009! Unfortunately, my chin (again) met a blunt foe (this time, with a table). Fortunately, it's not as horrid as last year's 'cause you can't see it but boy, do I feel it. I must have a hard face, then -- literally. Had a fiesta feast this weekend. Everyone was hustling about so I confined myself to eating the food and not being in anyone's way. I should've at least took shots of the buffet, shame.

Happy. Happy. Happy. This time, it arrived just 8 days with amazon's expedited shipping. And yes, that's it for this year's amazon buys and sending it here. Will build up my GC balance for my darlings' Christmas gifts from now on. Better Than Ezra's Friction, Baby is amazing. I highly recommend it. And I'm off to music bliss...

Last night's dinner... I still think that Yellow Cab pizzas lean toward the greasy side. But they are tasty -- except the one with shrimp... blech! Hopefully, they don't have that shrimp pizza on the menu anymore.

Vienna sausages leave much to be desired but when fried up, some improvement in the texture make them OK to eat - not great, but OK. But I also dollop about half a teaspoon of UFC banana ketchup on it with each bite so... I don't know what these sausages are good for except when you're in a rush to eat. Oh, wait - they're good for tomato sauce for spaghetti! Or is it... hmmm. Anyway, having a hard time looking for a usb cable online (local shops that deliver, of course). The places I know don't sell anything less than 5 meters. See, at that length or longer than that, the extension would have to have a signal booster or accelerator or repeater to sustain proper transfer speed (a.k.a. active usb extension). I figure that I can make do with a usb port hub with a cable that's 3 feet/1 meter long 'cause that's what they have, mostly. But I can't find anything that looks safe to use, sadly. I just have to keep looking.

Laswa lunch today. It's basically boiled vegetables in a semi-clear(?) soup. Liked how this turned out - notice the dotted shine from the flash? The soup was "sappy" 'cause of the okra. This was flavored with salt and dried fish that you don't see but they're there, on the bottom of the bowl.

I started to seriously think about acquiring a back-up Internet connection for when pldt dsl is on the fritz a few months ago . Finally decided to get one this week and it's a prepaid wireless broadband thing that uses a USB dongle (globe tattoo). Since it will only be used during what I would consider (it's subjective!) desperate situations, the cost of its use should be justified in spite the fact that the connection would be so slow compared to dsl. Besides, they shouldn't happen so often anyway. Well, that is what I keep telling myself. But my anticipation for "peace of mind" was quickly shut down when I discovered that it did not receive much network signal from where it is positioned on the machine. For what it's worth, my cellphone's modem caught some signal around that area when I used it and they're on the same network!!! Yes, it was an urgent work situation and dsl was acting up so I hooked up my phone to the computer and used it as a mod

Here's brunch... Our pldt dsl connection went back to its should-be state just yesterday. It was terribly unstable since the 24th, Thursday and I reported it straight away - okay, not quite. I waited a few hours before phoning customer service thinking that it was one of those hour-long "no traffic for you" situations that we've been having since June. After waiting three hours, I realized that it wasn't. Then, typhoon Ondoy hit. We only suffered service interruptions and street flood that went up to just below the knee, or so I've been told since I did not go out to look. In other cities (Marikina, Pasig, etc.), it was considerably serious with people having to go up to their roofs 'cause of high waters in the streets, waiting for rescue. And cars were being carried off by strong currents. We had the radio on constantly. The rains stopped later in the day on Sunday. Was able to watch the news on Monday when our cable was restored. Oh, the images! PAGASA

I mentioned being stuck on a page for a project last time. Turns out, I needed to sleep and to let it "marinate" overnight 'cause looking at it with fresh eyes helped things move along. Very excited about this one. Notice when veins in your head plump up a bit and they hurt? Gives you a localized headache, just above an eye? My particular throbbing vein is on the right side of my forehead -- always has been on that side. Curiously, the left-side vein throbbed yesterday. But then, it went away quickly. Must've been jealous 'cause the other vein has been getting all the action.

I have a project. It is exciting. It started off shaky with bumps and holes along the way. There is a learning curve - though I don't know where I am on my "curve". In fact, I've forgotten how to read a learning curve. Maybe I should look that up later. I just finished the first page draft and now, looking at a blank and margin-ed page two on my screen, I am stuck. I look over the printout of the first page draft and discover that it came out with an extra quarter of an inch space from my intended margins. Hmmm... I already adjusted it once when I made a new front page with 300 ppi because the first one I did was 150 that may not print so well. Should I go back to tweaking the front page again? Nah, I'll keep this one. No point in delaying work on page two... Oh right, I'm stuck.

... whole wheat bread + blueberry jam. 'Twas good even if one toast was slightly burnt. Have to like the finger indentation from when this sandwich was cut, made me think that people do care -- I'm not being sarcastic. Could have raisin-dotted whole wheat bread and blueberry jam a lot and I wouldn't get tired of it.

Hello. Went outside and was welcomed by this sight. Neighbors did some gardening, I assume. I wonder when the garbage truck will come by to pick that mess up. Obviously, it rained before I took this. Was expecting to see a bit of flood out there but I suppose the gutters aren't clogged up even if it has been raining for a couple of weeks already. Well if that mess outside isn't sorted out before the heavy rains start again I would see some flood, surely.

Looking over my amazon GC balance, I'm considering the possibility of purchasing "friction, baby" by BTE before the year ends and yes, have it sent here to the Philippines. It is tempting but the $17.98 international expedited, shipping+handling charge does (and should) hold me back. Nonetheless, I don't have to worry about it not arriving here safe and sound because I know that it will arrive safe and sound -- based on first-hand experience . It's just that I don't think I'd have enough for Christmas this year if I do go ahead with it since I am only "mturking" on the side. Unfortunately, other mturkers on the third-party mturk forum have confirmed the same observations that I've been noticing that there is a growing number of iffy requesters there as of late. Thus, the call for further restraint and having a healthy dose of suspicion come into play. And as a result, there is lesser earnings for amazon gift certificates - in my case. On the

It's a few minutes past 7pm now. - Watched basketball on TV -- my team lost. - Ate a burger from jollibee, a "jolly yum?" but I may have eaten it too fast 'cause my head hurts and my gut feels uncomfortably full. - We ran out of decaf and the corner store doesn't have it in stock - and I want a hot cup of it now. - Weather's cool which is nice. That's all.

No more Deezer for the world, I suppose, and it makes me wish I were in France 'cause it seems to only work for users there now. Namechecking the music-streaming site over several months on this blog, I think it has finally succumbed to labels and lawyers which bullied it into observing their imposed territory limitations that snub every other country on the planet. Such a shame. I will miss using its wonderful, classy interface. It is a fact that most music that I've listened to on Deezer eventually led to proper purchases of digital downloads and CDs. These are music that I would not have discovered and enjoyed and wanted to buy if not for Deezer. For what it's worth, it was wonderful having a beautiful on-demand music streaming site for anyone, anywhere in the world - even if it's just a short while. But I hope that in the future, I'd be talking about "deezer resurrected" or something like it after this eulogy of sorts. Sayang talaga .

Sick but will soldier on 'cause it's not too bad, really. Very happy that I don't share toilets with a room-full of people -- a WAH perk, obviously. There's not a lot of "work from home perks" to speak of but this one is arguably the best part about it. Nothing much I can do but to let it run its course, unfortunately. And if I could just keep my head still, it should stop spinning.

... and dinuguan were served tonight. They're leftovers from last night's dinner party somewhere (out there). Yummy Pinoy fare. These taste better reheated the day after and the day after that. Notice the plastic serving spoons? They give off a carinderia vibe, I think. The days are hot and the nights are cool. It's what I've noticed for a couple of days now which is encouraging. Leaves a little less to complain about, weather-wise. Makes it easier to work without fussing too much about sweating hands and wiping sweat off the face... at least during the night. Work-wise, it's been OK. Work on sites is ongoing and I'm faring well on that front. Earned a small amount for a short transcription assignment last week. A few published articles are earning royalties by the penny and at this rate, I'd reach payout from it in, hmmm... a year or so? HAHA! Honestly, I've written there for the sake of writing and not for the money -- shouldn't even have conside

Do not care to complain about the harsh, hot, mucky weather we've been having. But I am concerned about our machines overheating because of it - particularly, the modem and router. They've been on for more than 48 hours already and any other time, it would've been just fine but this humid air is worrying. Having the air conditioner on for a little while provided a short relief. I'd keep in on too except that it got too cold for comfort - my comfort, that is. Found myself clenching my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. Will turn it down to "low cool" next time then. And wait... I think it's raining now. Well, thanks for that.

Apologies... no photos. Had ribs and California rolls for lunch. Very nice. Ate the ribs with my fingers - as should be - but had to use a tissue to pick one up. I know... lame. It was a necessity, unfortunately, 'cause I had to get up and use my rollator afterwards. And I can't very well grab the handles with sticky, smelly fingers, can I? Nope. I can't and I won't. I'm quite skillful with a fork and spoon, all to keep from having to use my fingers to eat. I can peel shrimps, open a crab up and get its meat, de-bone milkfish ( bangus ), what else? Can't think of anything else. That's it then. Have a good week!

I have over an hour of BTE music in my library (too short but there'll be more, oh yes, there'll be more), I am quite content - to date. With Better Than Ezra playing and my headset on, I sing along and it's fun... "sincerely, me", "good", "cars crash" (tricky learning the words to this one), to name a few. Truth be told, I must sound terrible but I don't care because I have the headset on. I think I should spare people here from hearing me wail away and shut the door too but I don't. They'll suffer me a little longer, they're not complaining (yet). Then the music stops. "Awww..."

This is going to be a good, happy entry. And find news about our crippled Internet connection from the day before yesterday, below. So to keep this short and sweet, circumstances of this order were: Seller - Amazon (dotcom, obviously -- the country isn't included in the international "marketplace payments by amazon" so we can't order from other sellers on the site. Hopefully, the Philippines would be on that list soon.) Item - one music CD ("Closer" by Better Than Ezra, as you can see. It's enhanced too - with extras, nice.) Shipping - international expedited (shipping and handling is $17.98). I chose it even if the standard route just became available 'cause I did not want to wait very long and be anxious if it will even arrive and when. Reference: horror stories of pinoys who've waited months for deliveries. It's a potential "I told you so" so I didn't risk standard shipping. Delivery Time - shipped on July 31st and arrived

If there was fried rice instead of boiled rice on this plate, could I call it a fry-up? A pinoy fry-up? It would be longsilog in Tagalog if I had fried rice, definitely.

Woke up to lovely news -- my goodies are here! Of course, thanks to the gracious person who came back from his holiday and brought these with him. Bought "the diary..." (obviously, a used book) and keane's UTIS from amazon with my mturk earnings. But H&F, I'm not sure where it's from (no, I did not buy it but seeing it was a happy surprise indeed!) because I was expecting another record that I did buy. Short story about it is that the should-be cd broke and that ate would replace it. Apparently, ate bought the wrong record. Quite funny that I'm not upset about the mistake, really. Was planning to get H&F soon anyway so it's all good. So happy. [couldn't stop smiling, oh dear]

Nip in the bud Must've nipped too much So for two to three weeks Just left, if you please Since right is plainly marred! -- my skin

UAAP basketball is on and my team is falling behind. Not good. Second half is about to start. Nervous time. Have a good Sunday. [update 7:30pm: We won! Hurrah!]

You'd think that it's a slow day when you're looking for just the right font for your files -- I'd disagree. It's refreshing, in my case, since I've no strict format to follow when it comes to my files. And it's nice to have good-looking text when you have to work on them everyday especially if they are character-sensitive text that are not at all literary in nature. It's like wanting and having just the right pen for longhand on a journal so you can write better. Choices are few 'cause not all fonts (that I like) show a difference between l, I and 1. Obviously, this blog's font does the job but it looks too crowded if I use it on a worksheet. I used Minion Pro but got tired of it. Before that was Courier something that did not work at all. Sylfaen should work but spaces between characters aren't consistent. Besides, someone playfully teased me about using Sylfaen a lot years before. Back then, I didn't really think that anyone would noti

I assume it's the 3rd version... it has a new look. Doesn't look as good as the old deezer, in my opinion, but it's working fine now so I'll shut up about it - except that I have to log in every time now which is kind of a slight turn off. Couldn't learn much about the new deezer from neither its blog nor forum 'cause they're in French (edit: the English thread is lacking, to say the least)... most English-speaking users must've jumped ship when it had problems before. Come back, come back!

Is it time to get a spare Internet provider - for when pldt dsl acts up? I don't get upset when it does (act up) anymore 'cause it seems to happen more frequently nowadays -- 15 minutes to 30 minutes here or 45 minutes there, once or twice a day or once a week. I think I'm getting used to their recent unpleasant service. That's not acceptable, is it? Now, they're selling thousands of their dsl modems on TV too. That's sure to negatively affect it further, I assume. A friend told me that when Globe started an all-night something for just 20 pesos, her line started to get crappy at night. I am on Globe prepaid but have never used any of their promos 'cause I'm (admittedly) strait-laced about how I use my phone, so I haven't really noticed it. But I do take her word for it. It is strange that her story pops into my head when I think about pldt dsl now. It's just an issue that comes up when working from home and all. It's just a thought. Anyway,

the story starts: was wanting more of better than ezra. had more songs from them on deezer before but deleted "hollow" from the playlist when the site was mucked up 'cause i mal-clicked during that crazy time. i couldn't get it back after that. after listening to what i had of bte tonight, i wanted "hollow" (or just something else). was window-shopping for old bte music to get my ezralite fix when i saw a nice surprise -- they have a new official website and they're giving away (as of tonight, still are) the first track off their new record for free. well, the fact that they have new music after four(?) years was enough of a nice surprise but getting a new free song from them was even better. the song is called "absolutely still". finally, i'm getting my fix of new bte and "absolutely still" should tide me over until i get what it means and learn the lyrics - which is quite wishful since i still couldn't be bothered to learn a

I put my glasses down to brush my teeth and wash my face. When I pick them up, I see red ants crawling along the frame. Apparently, I have sweet specs. Just shopped on amazon last month. Sent presents to my darlings who had their birthdays then. Bought an early present for myself too so I got to use their free-super-saver shipping on those purchases. I read rumors that amazon may pull the free shipping out... hopefully, it's all nonesense. I'm taking it slow on mturk now since I think that I won't be buying anything on amazon until Christmas - gifts for my darlings and what-not (maybe something for myself too). Quite excited to get what I've bought for moi next month though - that's when someone comes home from their holiday in the US. Been reading/lurking the mturk forum here nowadays. Such a good resource. I like that you see other turkers weed out bad/iffy requesters from the good ones, share experiences, etc.

I spy with my little eye... (will get back to this later) Here's one of those brownies unlimited boxes that I talked about a while ago. This six-brownie pack costs 62 pesos now. I think they became popular 'cause their prices dropped (I remember the same number of brownies at a little less than 100 pesos years ago) or it could be the other way around in that they became a hit so they lowered prices - I don't really know. For some reason, I think the quality dropped as well. A piece from this box was flaky, particularly, the one topped with mini marshmallows. They're still a treat in this house, though. OK, back to "I spy". I spy with my little eye something that starts with an "s" in our bathroom... that doesn't sound right. Alright, there was a spider in the bath today. It was a big brown spider. I left it alone 'cause then, it would leave me alone and it did. I got through my bath (with a lot of hushed cussing and one eye on the spider) and

I think it's called sarsiyado but I'm not sure about that. This was left-over fried fish from last night and it was recycled for lunch today. Saute a shallot and tomatoes, add sweet and sour dip from a bottle, and you've made a sauce. I'm still confused about which is left and which is right. It surprises me that I get them wrong sometimes. Take today, for instance. Was trying to work with the number keys on the main board (not the ten key, obviously) and I kept saying "right five" in my head. What I really meant was to use my left index finger to press 5 so the correct thought should've been "left five". Still, I was moving my left finger even when I thought "right". That's plain cuckoo right there. But admitting it is the first step...

Good title for a song/band, eh? OK, maybe not. We've no light in our bathroom. The bulb died out and nobody has replaced it. Obviously, I've nothing interesting to say. Intended to post food photos tonight but I forgot all about it. It would've been nice too 'cause we had quite a pinoy spread earlier - barbecue, dinuguan , puto , sprouts. The dinuguan left much to be desired but the pork barbecue was yummy. Answered a lovely wake-up call this morning from my darlings. I am feeling a bit sleep-deprived at the moment but I'll get over it. I should have a nice, deep sleep tonight too. I do miss them very much.