Ginormous, Fluffy Pancakes With Your Rice Cooker

Get the trick here:

Bacon Pancakes

Bacon Pancakes via 9gag

The Fairy Pools (Hoax)

The Fairy Pools on the Isle of Skye, Scotland

          I have started consolidating my blog and found this totally surreal photo I posted way back September 2012. I’m a sucker for anything purple so the unique colors of the trees on this image caught my eye. However, as I'm reposting it here today, I wanted to add a little snippet at the bottom of the photo so I did a little research and found out that this is actually a hoax! Apparently, this photo is just a photoshopped image of the Shotover River in New Zealand. 

Red Hong Yi Art

I have mentioned from my previous post that I’m not an artistic person but I highly admire and appreciate those who are, and of all the artists of this generation, my most favorite is Red Hong Yi. She’s a Malaysian artist who has gained popularity through her style of using non-conventional, mundane objects as medium for her artworks such as coffee, sunflower seeds, flower petals, etc. This portrait of Jackie Chan using chopsticks is most probably her most popular piece so far.

You can see the makings of this beautiful piece of art in this Youtube video. 

Hyperrealism: Gustavo Silva Nuñez

I have long ago accepted that the Muses have neglected me and focused all their energies to my eldest sister, who has in turn hoarded all the artistic gene in the family. This is why I have always been fascinated by hyperrealism. Being a person who hasn’t the slightest idea how to make even one decent piece of artwork, hyperrealistic art is pretty much the only art genre that I can fully appreciate for all its visual glory. And also because I can't even come close to understand abstract art. Haha. I can just imagine the level of attention to detail required to perfect hyperreality—it’s overwhelming.

Kicking off my collection is Gustavo Silva Nuñez, a Venezuelan artist whose focus is on hyperrealistic depiction of people swimming in pools. I came across his work from this website as featured in Ashton Kutcher’s Facebook page.

Of all the elements, water is my personal favorite as it has a very calming, healing effect to my soul. I want to believe this is also what Nuñez sees and that’s why he holds the special place as the first in my hyperrealistic art compilation.

Check out more of Nuñez’s works on Instagram: http://instagram.com/gustavoinutero

Pet Peeve #1: Inconsiderate Use of Phone’s Speaker

Yesterday, I went to the dentist to have my braces adjusted. In the past I always made sure to visit in the morning but I had to go somewhere, and I couldn’t put it off til Monday because I would be quite busy, so I decided to fit it in on a Sunday afternoon. I called the clinic first to find out what time it closes and I was informed by the receptionist/dental assistant that it’s until 5:30PM. I requested to be scheduled for 4PM but she said they no longer accept over-the-phone appointment reservations for that day because there were a lot of patients and only two dentists. She assured me, though, that I could still be accommodated as long as I was willing to wait so I agreed and off I went to Quezon Ave.

I arrived at the clinic five minutes before 4PM and there were, indeed, many patients on queue. I was second to the last on the patient list so I found a seat near the door and tried to read a Sherlock ebook on my phone. However, I couldn’t concentrate because there was this very familiar music that’s filling the air even louder than The Buzz being shown on the TV screen in the reception area.  It was the music from the android game, Pou, specifically from the mini-game Jump Cliff.  I remember it quite clearly because Patrick’s cousin used to borrow my phone just to play that game and I always told him to put the phone on silent because the music, catchy as it is, can be very annoying when you hear it over and over again. Here, let me share the agony:

I have to admit, the music is fun. But try to listen to that for over an hour, over and over again, on full volume. It overpowered even the noise of a room-full of people, the sound from the TV, and the whirring of the AC and the dental equipment.

I remember another instance when a similar behavior bothered me. It was when I went to a job interview a few months ago. The recruitment lobby had a very serene ambience that compelled people to maintain silence or at least speak in hushed voices when they must do so. There was a flat-screen TV playing Hansel and Gretel but the sound was too low it was pretty much just there as gray noise. Then in came a guy who's obviously applying for tech support: casual attire of jeans and huge, branded hoodie - check; huge headphones - check; real maangas swag - check. This guy proceeds to wait in one corner of the lobby and listened to blaring music which I could still hear faintly three feet away from him through his headphones. Worse, he was tapping his feet along with the music on the tiled floor! That time I didn't bother controlling myself and told him to quit the tapping because it's distracting. I did it with as much control and courtesy as I could, though, so he stopped and even apologized. Peace restored. :)

I guess what I'm trying to point out here is that people should always be mindful of the things they do, no matter how petty it may seem. The littlest things such as music on loud speaker can be distracting to others and the same goes with phone calls. As a rule, NEVER PUT ANYTHING ON SPEAKER IN PUBLIC. Not everyone enjoys the music you listen to no matter how awesome it is, and certainly, nobody gives a rat's ass whomever you're talking to. Phone calls are meant to be private; keep it that way.

The Tree of Life

Shajarat-al-Hayat, more commonly known as The Tree of Life, is a lone tree on top of a sandy hill in the southern region of Bahrain. It is said to be more than 400 years old and gained popularity because it stands healthy over the years despite the fact that it stands in the middle of a dry dessert and no one can tell where it gets its water supply.  People believe it marks the location of the Garden of Eden.

Found this post on 9gag and thought of sharing it here because it reminded me of the movie Noah which I have watched a few weeks ago. 

More about the Tree of Life here.

How To Download Facebook video to PC (No third-party software/site required)

            Have you always wanted to download a video on Facebook but couldn't because it doesn't have an option to do so? Now you can with these quick and simple steps

1.    Access video via Facebook’s mobile version. Simply change the “www” on the video URL into “m”.

      It should look like this:

2.  Click on the video; make sure that it plays. Right click on video, then select “Save Video As” or “Save Link As”.

      

Confirmed working on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Video credit to my most favorite celebrity family, Team Kramer's Facebook page. I simply love this family, especially the very cute dollet Scarlet. 

Book Review: CD Reiss' Songs of Submission #1 – Beg

Summary: 

Monica is a struggling singer dreaming to make it big in Los Angeles with her friends and bandmates Darren and Gabby. In order to get by and support her dream, Monica works as a waitress in a bar but she loses that job when she meets her “boss’s boss”, wealthy businessman Jonathan Drazen. She finds herself deeply attracted to him and in her preoccupation, she accidentally spills drinks she was serving on him and got herself fired by her boss, Freddie. Before she leaves, Jonathan summons her, but not after Freddie sexually assaults her. She reports this to Jonathan who said that he planned to give her the severance pay but couldn’t do so now because it would seem like he’s paying her off so she wouldn’t sue. He couldn’t un-fire her, either, because it would look like she kept her job for that same reason so Jonathan referred her to work in another bar his friend owned.  

Monica meets Jonathan again in her new workplace and they share passionate moments but Jonathan likes to keep her hanging and begging. Her attraction to him overwhelms and scares her because she doesn’t want to make the same mistake she did with her ex-boyfriend who made her lose her focus on her passion for music. She tells herself that she won’t make a big deal out of it and keep their relationship purely primal. If anything, she intends to use him to her advantage by using Jonathan’s connections to boost her band’s career. However, one morning, Jonathan receives a phone call from his ex-wife—a woman who broke his heart and whom, apparently, Jonathan still harbors feelings for. Monica felt a pang of jealousy and realizes that she has done the very thing she forbid herself to do—she has started to fall for him. The book ends with her leaving as he answers his ex-wife’s phone call, intending to not complicate matters for them and leave him for good.

♠♠♠ 

I finally had the time to finish reading the first book in the Songs of Submission series, Beg, after someone ripped me away from my Elementary marathon and borrowed my laptop. L No regrets, though, because I’d already started the book and I am loathe to leave any book unfinished.

Like I said from one of my previous posts, the books in the series contain only a few pages so it was an easy read. Beg, for one, only had eight chapters. I believe the proper term for it is novella—longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.

I am not really a big fan of erotic and even romantic novels. I think it is, basically, to women what porn is to men, only that men are more visual and prefer to watch sex while women appreciates more what our imagination can conjure. I find that my interest in films, shows, or books is more on mystery fiction or crime procedural, especially of late. However, I do make exceptions for other genre if they are popular and/or interesting. Fifty Shades of Grey, for example, did consume a good one week of my life because everyone was talking about it. I can't say for sure if it was the first erotic novel to be mainstream but it did expose the genre and the concept of BDSM to public awareness. Since then many authors have followed suit, as did the author of this series if I'm not mistaken.

I rate Beg 3.5 out of 5. For me, it’s just “so-so”, but good enough to merit the additional half point. Then again, like I mentioned, I am not particular to this genre so my expectations may be different from avid erotica readers.

Beg is pretty graphic but even if it’s “vanilla sex” in Fifty Shades of Grey standards, CD Reiss wrote better. I didn’t like FSoG because it seemed as if E.L. James just cramped all of the BDSM style she could think of into the books and focused more on the sex rather than the story, sacrificing the quality of her writing. As a reader, Reiss was able to make me identify (or at least wish to do so) with Monica—strong, passionate, determined to reach her dreams. I was also made to feel her struggle in trying to resist Jonathan’s charms, although not powerful enough to my standards. However, the reason why I didn’t like it much is because it’s so predictable and even—for lack of a better term—cliché. How many times have we ever seen/read/heard of a poor-but-brave-girl-meets-handsome–and-rich-guy-and-she-tries-to-not-fall-in-love-with-him-but-he’s-too-irresistible story line? ALL. THE. FUCKING. TIME. It’s Cinderella and Prince Charming all over again. It’s Fifty Shades of Grey, and Pretty Woman, and Maid in Manhattan, and Indecent Proposal, and more or less 90% of all rom-com/chick flick ever created. Even Filipino dramas have it. (Cue the overly-extended-too-good-to-be-true Be Careful With My Heart.)

 I don’t blame authors, though, if they feel like they need to follow this cliché plot because this is what people want to see or read. I understand that it gives hope to the hopeless romantic and provide them an escape from reality. However, it would be so much better if we could see something more than what we’ve already seen from the others. Beg, sadly, made me want to beg for something new. Well, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and still read the other books. These are just my initial observations anyway judging from the first one I've read and who knows, CD Reiss might surprise me in the succeeding books. 

Multitasking Mode: Avatar, Elementary, Songs of Submission

            Going through my aligaga phase again and trying do multiple things simultaneously. Haha. I watched some episodes of Elementary with Patrick yesterday but I haven’t finished the entire season yet because I got a little bored. Sadly, it didn’t keep me on the edge of my seat and begging for more unlike Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock. And I don’t know if I have just watched too many crime police procedural drama, but if I remember it right, the plot of most of the episodes have already been used in other shows. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched that “Angel of Death” concept in Criminal Minds or Law and Order, as well as the child predator/victim who got acquainted with his kidnapper and ended up continuing the legacy of his captor. I can also swear that the missilistng-victim-found-in-the-panic-room is also seen in The Mentalist. (I’m just feeling lazy to do some research at the moment and look up those similar episodes but I might update this post in the future to add them).

I’m almost done with the first book of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’m also feeling a little bored watching this because it seems too kiddie for my taste. At least with Korra, the episodes are action-packed and the story doesn’t seem like the creators are dragging the story. Ironically, I found out that The Legend of Korra actually is the less-favorite between the two and this is why Nickelodeon had stopped showing episodes on TV due to low ratings and opted to webisodes instead.

During my moments of boredom (aka a break from watching Avatar and Elementary), I found a new book series while mindlessly browsing online: The Songs of Submission by C.D. Reiss. It’s an erotic romance novel series—pretty much just like Fifty Shades of Grey that features BDSM. It is composed of 9 books so far but I only got 5 of them at the moment.

I’ve been seeing the ads on Facebook for this book series but I noticed that it doesn’t have much online presence yet. Probably because the Fifty Shades of Grey movie is being prioritized and a series of the same genre won’t stand a chance.

I’m not really into erotic novels. I didn’t even like Fifty Shades of Grey. However, as a book person, I feel like it is my sworn duty to read as much as I can and criticize with all my might those which bring shame to the name of literature. Haha. I don’t have much expectation from this series, though. From the few chapters I’ve read, it felt like I was reading a Tagalog pocketbook—only, it’s in English, of course. The writing style is very simple. But then again, I haven't read all of them yet so I can't bring forth a final judgment. Will post reviews once I'm done. ☺

*originally posted from my other blog/s

No Volume Bar on iPhone

The Problem: No Volume Bar on iPhone

I have an iPhone 4 that suddenly decided to act out and wouldn't let me change its volume. There was no sound coming out when I play music on speaker, but I could hear it through earphones. Volume +/- would show the ringer bar all the way up, but when I tried to call my number using another phone, my iPhone didn’t ring. When playing music, pressing the Volume +/- buttons doesn’t show the volume bar (as shown on the screenshot below).