Just a quick post to let you guys know I’m still alive and kickin’. Been very busy beating that graduate school paper deadline (crammed everything in two weeks and submitted it while mentally making the sign of the cross), panic-buying for and wrapping Christmas gifts for people who might cringe when they get their presents (I’m unemployed, heh!), dancing awkwardly to the tune of ‘Conga’ (Body Jam in Fitness First, finally got to enroll!), watching films (Wall-E and Twilight), reading books (Twilight and Snowball), nursing back to health the one and only plant inside our bedroom that’s just about to mysteriously die, reading financial reports (channeling Warren Buffett) and trying to beat the market, helping Boo practice for the Christmas school program by singing “Feliz Navidad” while he dances (stage mom in the making), doing website designs and business plans in between. A million and one things to do but I’m always happy whenever I’m busy. Call me cuckoo but my measure of “hectic” is when my eyebrows go unplucked (Bernard Madoff, isdatchu?). And they’re virtually all over my face. Ok, gotta go and save mother earth now! Tata! (P.S. That Yoda backpack is Maidapaypay’s Christmas gift for Boo which we already opened and which scared the living daylight out of Boo hahaha. Every year there’s that one gift that tops all the gifts and this one is IT).

This lola from Okinawa, Japan is 90 and climbing trees!

Secret of Okinawans

(okinawa has the highest percentage of centenarians anywhere else in the world)

I’m amazed. I’ll go buy citrus fruits later.

The drug-in-trial is called tasimelteon and could help travelers deal with jet lag.

In two clinical trials, the drug tasimelteon helped volunteers whose sleep pattern had been delayed by five hours to fall asleep quicker and to sleep for longer.

The drug mimics the effects of melatonin. Melatonin is a naturally-occurring hormone in humans that regulates the circadian rhythm, or the natural human clock, that is partly controlled by daylight.

Melatonin products are already available over the counter in the USA, the researchers pointed out in The Lancet. But they are not recommended because their potency, purity, and safety are not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The study was funded by Vanda Pharmaceuticals which makes tasimelteon. If approved, the drug could be on the market within three years. (source: cnn.com)

My cure for jet lag?

Melatonin pills from Healthy O. to help me sleep:

well, based on my research, melatonin, which is a naturally-occurring hormone and is also an antioxidant, is safer than most “approved” sleeping drugs out there. i read somewhere that melatonin production in humans is usually at its highest level at 12 midnight (this hormone is what makes you sleepy). melatonin has protective effects against breast cancer, in particular. i read in a magazine that people who work the graveyard shift do not enjoy the same benefit from melatonin production as people who are able to get quality sleep at night (hence, incidence of breast cancer is very high among those who have jobs that keep them awake at night).

and a cup of strong java to keep me awake:

Garando sent me a link to this youtube video of a customer frustratingly trying to cancel his AOL account (nakakatawa na nakakainis):

On a related note, I cancelled my LinkedIn account, after (horror of horrors!) I discovered that my entire (past) career is viewable just by typing my name in Google’s searchbox and hitting ’search.’

Today, I checked Google and my LinkedIn profile no longer exists, no hassles at all. Thank goodness hindi ako na-AOL. Lol.

Can I just make a rant? After months of deliberation and soul-searching (to be or not to be, I dunno if you get me), I recently decided to enroll as a Fitness First member in a branch near where we live. So I called them up to inquire regarding the membership rates just so I’m ready when I finally visit them to pay. The phone operator picks up the call and transfers me to one of their sales agents who I shall call Em. I tell Em outright that I have already decided to enroll and that I just need to know how much. Em asks for my name (I give my real one instead of my usual Starbucks fake name ‘Shania’, which I like because it sounds so gay hehehe, since I figured this call is just a formality before sealing the deal) and for my phone number which I refused to divulge because 1. I value my privacy (feeling A-list celebrity kasi ako), 2. I don’t want unsolicited phone calls from them and 3. I was going to give the information after I enroll anyway. But Em is adamant, insisting that this is mandatory (’Ma’am policy po kasi’) and that nobody’s going to call me anyway. So I put my foot down and tell her that magunaw na ang mundo earlier than the Mayan Prophecy of 2012, I will not give her my phone number (or words to that effect). I mean, what’s the biggie? I just wanna know THE RATES and I am definitely enrolling (afterwhich, I am willing to give them all my contact numbers pati na phone number ng kapitbahay namin just in case our landline goes bust, ano ba).

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(This is an installment post on our trip to Europe last November).

Grasse and Monaco were just a short drive from Nice. We could not not visit.

grasse is known for its perfume-making industry so we visited fragonard, one of the oldest perfume factories in france.

inside fragonard - perfume heaven!

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Nice was great! Made me wish we had stayed there longer.

bee and boo, looking out unto the french riviera

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Tadaaaaaaa!:

Okay, now I really have to finish that paper.

Let’s take a breather from the horrific terrorist attack on Mumbai and also the pepper spray attack that happened in Embassy (to get the juicy pepper spray account, read when chic hits the fan). Photo-essays from Europe continues…

After visiting Prague, we went to Freising in Germany for an overnight stay because we had to rest for the long drive to Austria the following day and switch vans (apparently, our rental car which had an Italian license plate wasn’t allowed in the Czech Republic and vice versa). So we had time to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich.

Dachau

the gate outside the dachau concentration camp, which was built in the early 1930s. dachau was the first nazi concentration camp to be constructed in germany and became a model for all other concentration camps built by the nazi germans, including the one in auschwitz.

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I watched Old Boy, a South Korean film (the 2nd in a trilogy), at 12 midnight and had trouble sleeping after. Maidapaypay warned me but I didn’t take her seriously. Sick and disturbing? Bring it on!!! Turns out, I don’t have the stomach for watching films about evil people, incest and tales of revenge (is your stomach churning yet?). But curiosity got the better of me and for some twisted reason, I couldn’t stop myself from finishing the film and mentally piecing the puzzles together. I just had to know, dissect and figure it all out.

This is the Wiki summary, “The movie follows the story of Dae-Su who is locked in a hotel room for 15 years without knowing his captor’s motives. When he is finally released, Dae Su finds himself still trapped in a web of conspiracy and strangeness. His own quest for vengeance becomes tied in with romance when he falls for an attractive sushi chef.

The film won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and high praise from the President of the Jury, director Quentin Tarantino, who could not persuade the members of the jury to give it the Palme d’Or. Critically, the movie has been well received in the United States, with an 82% “Certified Fresh” rating at Rottentomatoes.com. Film critic Roger Ebert has claimed Oldboy to be a ‘…powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare.’”

Now doesn’t that say something? 1. It should have won over Fahrenheit 9/11 and 2. Twisted people rule the world.

I hear negotiations are under way for a potential Hollywood remake.