a meme lands on my lap

i don’t normally do memes, but i got one from the Atelier anyway, so here goes. 

The rules are posted at the beginning. At the end of the post, the player tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leave a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What were you doing ten years ago?
working in a huge office and wondered where the rest of my life is going. sometimes i would speculate about what would have happened if i had chosen a different direction.

2. What are 5 things on your to-do list today?
hear mass, do some shopping, complete some chores, check my emails, and resume my review.

3. Snacks I enjoy
soda, halo-halo, blueberry cheesecake (yummy), paella (just the way my mother cooks it)

4. Places I’ve lived
manila, iloilo, baguio, short trips to some parts of Asia

5. Things I’d do if I were a billionaire
take care of my obligations, help other people, do charity work, buy clothes, travel, maybe put up my own business

6. People I want to know more about
people who can inspire me to turn into a better person.

if you’re reading this, you can consider yourself tagged

our singapore trek

after some hasty preparation, we finally managed to fly to singapore last weekend.

sightseeing was the main priority so it didn’t really leave us enough time to do some shopping (which is a marginal relief to my pockets). as usual, orchard road was an irresistible magnet so i spent a few hours there and snapped a few pictures while browsing through the malls.

i’m not much of a photographer — i’m definitely one of those point-and-shoot snappers — so i’m posting some of the more decent ones that i’d been able to take here.

sadly though we weren’t able to visit Sentosa sland this time around (i still remember the last time we were there. i expect there has been a lot of changes since then so it’s a pity for me to miss it). we did manage to go on a midnight safari though. and that trip to the National Orchid Garden (the orchids were gorgeous!).

the night safari was a singular experience, but the real downer was that it was too dark for us to take good pictures of the creatures in there. the guides kept on admonishing us not to use our cameras because the flash would bother the animals. i was able to snap a few images, but the results (the images were simply too smudged or murky) leave a lot to be desired. oh well.

after 4 days, we’re finally back here in manila.

Grammar and speakers of English

here’s another incisive observation from Lynne Truss — she of the Eats, Shoots & Leaves fame (i’m fast becoming a devout convert).

The trouble with grammar books is that they are read principally by keen foreigners; meanwhile, native english-speakers who require their help are the last people who will make the effort to buy and read them.

Hmm… i really don’t want to presume too much based on this statement – lest some irate, axe-wielding native English-speaking soul would suddenly decide to take it upon himself to disprove any point i make – but as globalization continues to make English increasingly ubiquitous, i think that author’s comment about the non-natives’ keen desire to check grammar books every now and then works clearly works in their favor.

a cat & a comma

The comma was first used by Greek dramatists 2,000 years ago to guide actors between breathing points — thus leading to the modern explanation of why a cat is not a comma:

A CAT has claws at the end of its paws;
A COMMA’s a pause at the end of a clause.

–Lynne Truss

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

How to Train Your Dragon II

this is a quick follow-up to my most recent entry (about 30 minutes ago). after checking things over at Wikipedia, i realized that How to Train Your Dragon is actually the first of a 6-book series (for now) by British author Cressida Cowell.

The other 5 books are:

1. How to Be a Pirate

2. How to Speak Dragonese

3. How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse

4. How to Twist a Dragon's Tale

5. A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

the hero of this series, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, continues to find interesting adventures in subsequent books, along with his dragon Toothless and his best friend Fishlegs. Hiccup is a bit unusual for a Viking in that he is more inclined to use his brains than his brawn to solve his problems. He's not really a wimp mind you, he just doesn't believe in the usual rough-and-tumble stuff that every self-respecting Viking berserker seems to delight in. This of course does not necessarily endear him to his muscle-bound and brawling peers, but he eventually gets things done.

at any rate, here are a few Dragonese phrases that might come in handy should you ever stumble into a dragon one of these days.

Nee-ahh crappa inna di hoosus, pishyu. (No poo-ing inside the house, please)

Mi Mama no likeit yum-yum on di bum. (My mother doesn't like to be bitten on the bottom.) 

Pishyu keendlee gobba oot mi freeundlee? (Please would you be so kind as to spit my friend out?)

Doit a wummertime. (Let's try that again.)

have fun.

by the way, DreamWorks Animation has bought the adaptation rights to How to Train Your Dragon, which will be released on november 20, 2009.