Valentine BLAST!

So i just mentioned that we had 4 valentine dates, yes?

The first one was really just a pre-valentine dinner, where we both craved for Jollibee float and had dinner at Starmall Alabang. It was a long day at work then, and we just wanted some simple quality time together. Pity we didn't get a photo, we were too busy enjoying our chicken joy. Hahah.

The second was valentines day itself, which was like a working valentine date because it was our first time to attend a bloggers event, the product launch of Line app, which I'm still using up to now by the way. :P We loved this experience because we were able to spend the day doing something new, and something we both get a kick out of. After the event, we had a mini-ice cream session over at Serendra.













The third, was my valentines gift for Papa Ray. I gave this while we were sitting at one of the benches in front of Gelatissimo at The Fort. heeheh! Tickets for two to the Midsummer Night's Dream at the CCP Theater! It was our first time to watch a stage play together, and I haven't done this for quite a long time already. It's a full ballet and I thought we'd get bored but it was REALLY GOOD. We totally enjoyed it. I was overflowing with excitement that I couldn't help but blog about it.I'm already exicted for the next play!

I just wish the prices would go down a little huhu. The key is to get more people to watch it so they'd cover the operating expenses better! Or, the government should provide better support.:)








The fourth, and the last, was a sweet sweet valentine date courtesy of Ray and Lloydie. I felt a little sad last Feb 14 because I didn't have flowers. Haha! Petty na kung petty. I've always liked flowers I really do. Because they're colorful and fragrant. And fragile. And beautiful. And yes because I'm a girl. Haha! Nevertheless I thought it was okay because we were gonna be attending an event that night and it would be a hassle to tag flowers along.

It was a Sunday and we had a double date with our engaged couple friends Lloydie and Meimei at the Megatrade hall to attend a Bridal fair. We learned about all the different prices, samples, and packages being offered for weddings. Afterwards, me and meimei thought we'd being having dinner at megamall before we go home, however the boys were insisting that we should have dinner at Alabang instead. And we were like, "why??". But being the good girls that we are (bwehehe), we simply followed.

We talked about meimei's brother working at Crimson Hotel Alabang. At first I didn't even know that it was already operational because it looked like it was still ongoing construction. Apparently though, a couple of floors are already open to the public. So we talked about visiting meimei's kuya TJ. Ang ganda pala sa loob!

AAAAND it turns out, there was a surprise waiting for us at the hotel restaurant! 

May beking paparating!

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Are You Ready for Line?

Last Thursday, while everyone else rushed to their valentine dates, we drove through the heavy C5 traffic to check out the product launch of the latest messaging craze to hit the Philippines: Line.

Interestingly, Line was launched last 2011 after the Japan earthquake. Communication systems have been severely damaged and kept people from contacting each other, and data service was found to be more effective. So they came up with a messaging service that allows for messaging and calls using data connection. And because it's Japanese, you can count that they'd do it with their own sense of fun and style (Japan-japan characters, colors and all). Only two years after their launching, they already have 231 million users around the globe and counting, so I guess it just makes a lot of sense for them to launch the product in the text-crazy land of Pinoys. :)

The basic services of Line are free calls, free messaging, photo/location sharing and group messaging among peers. Now this is quite already available for other messaging services like Viber and such, so what makes Line different? I downloaded the app to find out. App size is 15mb so it's good enough for the average smartphone, it's available for iOS, Android, and Blackberry OS, it's also being developed for Windows.

So basically this is the homepage. It looks very much like Facebook, and it even has its own timeline.

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Midsummer Night's Dream by Ballet Philippines : A Delicious Taste of Ballet

(This is the first post in a series of valentine dates that me and ray had. :) Not only did we have one, nor two dates, but we had FOUR. hahah amf! There's was a pre-valentine-simplejoys date, a valentine-working-date, a post-valentine-ballet-date, and a super date!)

For my valentines gift, I've been thinking of something new to give Ray, a new experience that we've never done before. I remembered our bucket list including a wish of watching a stage play together. Incidentally I dropped by my Ensogo notifications and voila! "A Midsummer Nights' Dream" vouchers were available for an incredible discount!

Official poster to A Midsummer Night's Dream

So I proceeded to buy for the two of us, then made a really nice envelop to hold it with. I handed it to him during our ice-cream-valentines-working date last Feb 14 and we were all set to go.

Tickets in exchange for the voucher :)

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Versions: The pre-Valentines post

Something i'm really enjoying is the fusion of interests between me and ray. I like to write, he likes to shoot. When we did the Jam article i did most of the customer-experience aspects while he provided the technical inputs regarding the bus. It's all really a team effort. :)

Just recently we played with something new: art and photo-fusions. Mixed media!

That's his photo and my watercolor version of it, hehe I now realize how crude the water color looks like heehee. But I'm still proud of it bleh! :P

Because its valentines tomorrow I'd like to dedicate this post to my teammate, partner and love of my life. I totally love how we are able to bring out the best in each other and how we find various ways to make something beautiful out of our differences. This blog and this work is a testament to that.

Funny tidbit: i got jealous of this photo once. We were only going steady for a few months that time! Hehehe.

Happy hearts day everyone! This day is not just for boyfriend-girlfriend relationships but for everyone who has loved and was loved in return by people in their lives. Celebrate love! :* :* 

How about some music? :)

It hasn't been very evident in this blog, but i actually love music.;)
I've always said that music is my gasoline. My loves range from rock to techno to funk to indigenous music. Okay lets add some pop heehee.

However for the past few months I've been running out of new material to listen to. The last upcoming OPM greats I've known are Franco and Tanya Markova. Everyone else seems to be sounding alike. Though I think Mr.Bones and the Boneyard Circus is promising too. But I'm yet to fulfill my dream of watching Taken by Cars perform live. I'm lucky to have caught Cynthia Alexander before she left though. I just still think that OPM has lost so much since NU 107.5 died. :( Jam 88.3 seems to be trying to replace it but ugh that's a different story. Ok I'm blabbing.

Back to my search, i hit a eureka moment when i stumbled upon this music blog obscuresound.com. It has got all the things that my playlist needs and it's really refreshing to hear awesome tracks from the other side of the world. I'm a new fan wee. I'm sharing a couple of them here every now and then. And maybe a song of the week from old classics. They won't always be radio-friendly and you may even find some of them weird, but to hell with it i'm sharing anyway. Just because I want to. :p

So heres my first find for 2013. "Sterling" from Spires. They're a progressive metal band based on Manchester, UK. (Yes i'm more inclined to Brit rock because the Americans have gotten a little too emo i dunno maybe thats just me heheh.)
Enjoy! :)

Photo-Stress-Busters

I think all sorts of careers get more stressful by the minute.

I used to think that what we do at work is more stressful than others, but sharing work-rants with roommates and meeting other people, made me realize that everyone else just leveled up. Expectations are higher because technology kept making a way to make everything easier and more convenient, thus more to do with lesser time. Or maybe it's the other way around: technology had to keep up with rising expectations. You see, easier doesn't always mean better (at least for us).

Stress knows no time, and doesn't give a damn. If you don't handle it then it handles you. Stress and work haunts us even until we get home. Fact is it has become a norm. And that's the sad part because it's the family that suffers the most. I'm fast realizing how much quality time with family and the people who matter, has become more precious nowadays, and making these moments count are just as important.

I came across Papa Ray's photos from his Christmas 2012 vacation and a much deserved break. What i have always loved about him is that he never fails to make his whole family feel loved and cared for even if he's miles away from them. And I just love how photographs are able to capture these precious moments that only happen once a year:

The queen of the clan: Lola Nita! :)

Baaaabiiiieees!! Super cute! :)

Pretty cousins, noh? :p

In spite of all this RH Bill brouhaha, who's to say that small families are better with wonderful smiles like that? :p

And below photo is from the birthday party of our dear friend's son. It was my first time to attend a Jollibee birthday party and indeed it was alot of fun! Baby Josh couldn't get enough of Jollibee! :)

Now I know why Jollibee is such a classic hit :)

I guess I can't blame the rising prices of cameras and other photo-gadgets. Pretty much like fashion, you don't really need high end designer clothes but you'd love to have the best quality anyway. And these photographs aren't merely images- they're frozen memories. A quick break and escape from the fast-paced environment that we have here in the city.

It doesn't really mean that we all need to burn money with those DSLR's. Almost all mobile phones already have their own camera and I'm still happy with the 5.0 megapixel snapper of my Samsung Wave. A photo may be pixelized and all but as long as it captures the memory of a moment well spent, then its worth much more than a high-end image of nothing but fake smiles.

So while we're all struggling to deal with stress levels at an all time high, let's keep counting those happy moments and just snap away. Yes? :)