God only knows, God makes his plan.
The information's unavailable to the mortal man.
…Slip Slidin' Away
About a year ago, I mentioned how I was giving until it hurts by supporting one brother-in-law and his family here in the Philippines. Soon after that, I started supporting ANOTHER brother-in-law and his family. Charity never ends.
Do you want to see a movie that makes you wish you were a kid again? Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is the film to see if you do.
If I yell "Help me, Mr. Wizard!", I would love to hear the words "Drizzle, Drazzle, Drozzle, Drome, Time for this one to come home".
Well, it may have worked for Neo in The Matrix, but it doesn't work for me.
In only a couple of weeks, my vision has blurred slightly and my dandruff has returned, negating all the benefits of living in the Philippines on my health.
Not only that, but I'm slowly going insane. My four-year old inaanak (godchild, and one of many) is so hyperactive that she makes other hyperactive children look like they're moving in slow motion. I've been trying to get some other work done, and what should take about an hour takes about three! I'm stuck with her 2-3 hours per day (and I'm stuck as a pseudo babysitter). So… if I fail to write anything on a given day (until I return home), it isn't because I don't want to.
As I stated in an earlier article, there's no place like home!
(Image source: Toonopedia)
I'm incredibly tired right now, so I figured I'd mention this before I headed off to sleep. I spent most of the night on the instant messenger with my wife in the US and my son and his wife in Germany. I spent most of the morning running around town and taking care of business.
My daughter-in-law, Diann, announced that she's pregnant and that the baby's due in September. That means I'm going to be a grandfather! God, I suddenly feel really, really old (and I'm only 47).
I took a couple of screen shots of my wife (using MWSnap) while we were chatting on Yahoo IM a couple of days ago. Can you believe she's 46-years old? I'm not saying she's the most beautiful woman in the world just because she's my wife. I really mean it and I hereby claim bragging rights!
(This is a guest author article.)
In our busy lives, though we know it, but we don't find time to realize how much we love the ones closest to us; Our parents and siblings. The past Tuesday, I realized it pretty strongly!
I go to college from 9 AM to 5 PM daily. Tuesday is pretty hectic because of 4 continuous lectures of 'Engineering Drawings' right after the lunch break. I must confess, thinking about it alone, makes me dizzy. This time the home work sheets were incomplete with most of the class so we planned a mass bunk. I left the college just after the lunch break at 1.30 PM and was fast asleep at 2.15 PM, the time I found my bed. It wasn't before 7 PM that I woke up from a state of almost unconsciousness for I had never been so tired and had never slept that long during the day. I call this a state of unconsciousness for a reason that I'll bring out later in this post.
My brother, who is two years younger to me at 15, usually returns home (by the way, we stay alone in Chandigarh. He's here for taking coaching classes to prepare for engineering entrance exams two years later) after 8.30 PM from his classes, after leaving at 1 PM or so; the time when I am not home.
So… I woke up at 7 in the evening. The dim daylight was just as it is at 6-7 AM in the morning. With my half-opened eyes, I tried to find him in the bed. He was at the coaching center but I had not the slightest idea of it, thinking it was 7 in the morning. I opened my eyes wide to this nightmarish situation. I was sweating profusely, with my brain 'properly non-functional' and my heart beating hard and fast. I was more than worried and tensed that where might he be. My phone wasn't with me that day & I felt so helpless that I could not contact him. And such thoughts came to my mind; he might have come at his time and knocked madly at the door and I did not get up and open it to him. Maybe he left for some friend or anywhere else. I didn't know where. I never felt this miserable any moment, ever in my life.
I decided to go down (we live on the second floor) and ask from our landlord whether he had come or not or did he tell them where he was going for the night. As soon as I reached the ground floor, I saw the street crowded with people, children playing gully cricket, ladies gossiping and the landlord himself standing at the door with some local men discussing the trends in share market and dirty Indian politics. Ah! This couldn't be 7 AM i thought. I asked my landlord what the time was giving an excuse that my wrist watch had run out of battery. "Its 19:15 son."
And I had almost crashed down the staircase with relief holding my head. Phew! It felt lighter than before.
In 15 minutes I realized how much I loved and missed my brother!
Shrek is the animated feature that set a new standard for CGI-driven animated movies. It won an Oscar in 2002 for "Best Animated Feature", as well as other awards and a whole slew of nominations.
In this film, Shrek gets invaded by fairly tale creatures after Lord Farquaad banishes them from the kingdom of Duloc. To fix the problem, Shrek sets out to rescue Princess Fiona from a fiery dragon so that she can wed Lord Farquaad. Along the way, he picks up an unwanted companion (Donkey). On the way back, he falls in love with Princess Fiona, who turns into an ogre herself during the night. The rest of the story is animation history.
Shrek stars the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow and many, many more. Here's the trailer:
The "runt" stole the show in Chicken Little. I laughed so hard at some of the routines, I cant believe this didn't get better ratings. I'm not telling any more than "the sky is falling". You have to watch it to enjoy it as much as I did.
Chicken Little stars the voices of Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Don Knotts, Patrick Stewart, and many others. Here are a couple of teasers/trailers. Have fun!
I may have mentioned this before, but I have CRS disease and I don't want to dig through the archives to check. My son didn't start talking until he was five years old. When he entered the first grade of school, he was having problems so we had him checked out completely. We checked his vision, his hearing and other things I don't remember. We then had him mentally evaluated. He was diagnosed with a "learning disability". This used to be referred to as "retarded" but that was never an accurate description or reason for learning disabilities. All through his early years of school, he had special classes because it wasn't that he couldn't learn, it was that he learned differently. Gradually, the special classes were phased out as he caught up with his peers when he was in high school. Now, he's passing college courses. Special education wasn't the only contributing factor to his success. His loving parents had a lot to do with it.
Since Jonathan graduated from high school, he talks to me every single day, sometimes for hours. I think he's making up for all the years where he didn't talk at all or very much. So… we started out not being able to get him to talk and now I can't get him to shut up. If you wonder sometimes why my articles are delayed, this is one of the reasons. It's not a bad thing, of course, but it disrupts other things that I need to get done. If he wasn't going to college during the day now, I wouldn't have any time to think.
From one extreme to another, that's the story of my life so far.
The Karate Kid was released in 1984 and my son, Jon, was born in 1985, so he never saw the widescreen version. He told me he had never seen any version, even on television. I asked why he wanted to see it and he said "because of all the references to it" that he'd heard in other places.
You can know when a movie has made a cultural impact when it's quoted by later movies and when other entertainment venues use items originated by the story. Wikipedia has a section called "Impact" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Karate_Kid. The movie "Dogma" even has a character who quotes the line "Wax on, wax off" from this movie.
The Karate Kid stars a much younger Ralph Macchio, the late Pat Morita, and Elisabeth Shoe. Here's a video I selected for it:
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