So slllooooowwww

This new internet speed we have now is such a pain, my gosh, I tried bloghopping today, but I've only managed to drop a few wee drops, it is so sllooowwww. I get antsy, waiting for every little thing to appear on a webpage one by one. My brothers are urging me to call smartbro again, but I told them I've been calling smartbro and it's still the same, they will just say, the connection is ok when it isn't. I asked my brother to check on other internet providers, cos he told me his classmate is using Pldt my DSL. So they probably have Pldt here now. We have been using a router here at home too but I'm not sure if that affects the speed cos we have been using the router since last year and it was ok before they had the internet connection in our area repaired. I have not done much on my paid posts for awhile now and I have not done a lot of active bids too. When the internet got cut off here, several of my assignments expired cos I didn't do them rightaway. I need to do a lot of things to my blogging now but the internet is not cooperating. But honestly I hate to transfer to another service provider, I just hope smartbro will get this fix.

Christmas Month!

Title: Holiday for Bells
By: Bert Kaempfert

Even if it took a loong time for youtube video to load on my computer, I waited on it so I can put the first christmas song for 2008 on my blog, the song here is "Holiday for Bells" by Bert Kaempfert. The songs that never fail to remind me of wonderful christmas celebrations is the "Christmas Wonderland" album by Bert Kaempfert. They are the classic christmas songs that relived those feelings of wonder as a child, putting on the christmas decorations, the christmas tree, twinkling lights, wrapping presents, exchanging gifts, the so nice smell of christmas wrappers! attending the midnight mass, the traditional noche buena at home, and the smell of my mother's cooking. The excitement of waking up on christmas morning, eager to see what the day brings, and chocolates (curly tops! hahaa...) and gifts and toys and playing and playing with my sisters and cousins and looking into the nativity scene or "the Belen" as we call it in filipino tradition. And believe it or not, after so many, many years, I still have the old Bert Kempfert album with me. Oh yeah, I kept it because I love it so much. It's from my parents album collection before and since I discovered that this was the album that played those ting-a-ling ding ding dong songs I kept it ever since and played it over and over again over the years. I love this "Christmas Wonderland" album, the songs performed by Bert Kaempfert in this album are: Winter Wonderland, Santa Claus is Coming to town, Holiday for Bells, Children's Christmas Dream, The Little Drummer Boy, Jingo Jango, Sleigh Ride, White Christmas, Toy Parade, I heard the bells on Christmas Day, Christmas Wonderland, and Jumpin' Jiminy Christmas. I tried looking for the other songs on youtube as performed by Bert Kaempfert, but the only one I can find is "Holiday for Bells." Listening to Bert Kaempfert's music is a joy, it definitely is very christmassy.

Yesterday, I also went to cdo, it was a fun but cold trip. It rained when I was travelling back home and despite me wearing a jacket, it's still very cold. I was so glad when I got home. The other day too, my mom-in-law sent me my first christmas gift for this year. Since I didn't say specifically what I want, she just sent me some shopping money. I feel so blessed to have a wonderful and kind mom-in-law, thank you Mom Julean!:). I also sent them my christmas gift in the mail. The hubby also showed me today what he got me this christmas, i'm very excited for that, yay! :) Happy Holidays! :)

Online Education with Nouveau University

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Nouveau University is founded by business leaders Jim and Mary Piccolo, and Bob Snyder who were known for their real estate investing seminar business. Although Nouveau University is basically a virtual institution, they have their main corporate headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona. Nouveau University offers a chance for professionals who are busy working and earning money to enroll again and improve their business skills by going back to school but at their own convenience and time. This opportunity is very helpful since it doesn't make life difficult for busy people, this opportunity instead integrates itself into the different lifestyles of each and everyone. So if you are thinking of enrolling in a Business Degree program or a Certification program, just check out Nouveau University's course offerings online.

Movie Marathon

Since the internet was down for a week, I decided to watched movies. I watched both old and new movies, some I have been meaning to watch for a long time now, and others I just watched because they are there. Here's the list:

1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - I'm still baffled how I had put off watching this movie trilogy for so long. I remembered the time this movie came out and it was such a BIG hit, my brothers at home were so crazy about this one. But I guess since they were so crazy and so noisy about it, I didn't want to watch it. It spoils the fun being told about the story, and if it's so good I want to watch it alone, in that way, no one's going to ruin the movie for me by telling me about it and talking in between scenes. All I can say about this movie now is, I love, LOVE this movie. Hobbiton is so peaceful and delightful and of course I love the character of King Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) hehe. I can't wait for the Hobbit movie that's going to come out in 2011, YES, there's another Hobbit movie being made by the amazing Director Peter Jackson. I love the cinematography of this movie which was shot in New Zealand. I asked the hubby if he had watched the movie, he had not seen it yet but he had read J.R.R. Tolkien's book "The Hobbit" almost 20 years ago. I am looking forward to reading the books too. These books by J.R.R. Tolkien was first published way back in 1937 for "The Hobbit" and in 1954-55 for "The Lord of the Rings" but only got popular worldwide when the book was made into a movie.

Here's the Movie time for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy extended version.

The Fellowship of the Ring : 208 minutes
The Two Towers: 223 minutes
The Return of the King: 251 minutes

2. Midnight Run : This is an old movie, starring Robert De Niro. I enjoyed the movie very much, now I know why this guy is a famous one. He had me laughing throughout the movie.

3. The Great Raid: This movie came out in 2005, it tells of brutal events during the war in 1945 , the painful effects of war and how 500 American prisoners of war from the Japanese were rescued during WWII in the Philippines. During WWII, Filipinos and Americans fought side by side against the Japanese.

4. Hero Wanted : Starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ray Liotta. It's good and not so good. Has a few violent scenes. It's a movie to watch if there's no other movies available to see. Not really the kind of film you would expect from Cuba Gooding.

5. Hidalgo: This is based on a true story and this is the second time I have watched this film. This is one of my favorite movies. It starred, no other than, Viggo Mortensen as Frank T. Hopkins. Mortensen did very good in this movie and so also with "Lord of the Rings." He certainly brings life and character to the roles he played in movies. I enjoyed watching this one.

6. 300 - This movie is based on the story of 300 Spartan soldiers under King Leonidas who fought thousands of Persians under King Xerxes of Persia to defend the passage of Thermopylae in Greece. King Leonidas and his men were betrayed and defeated. There is great fighting but the movie is made too intense for my liking. The storyline is already sad and dark and they made the movie dark and sombre too which is too much I think.

7. The Art of War: The Betrayal : Just a fairly passable action movie.

8. Death Race : A violent action film. It lived up to its title. A little crude but the ending is satisfying enough.

9. Conan The Barbarian: I saw this one so I decided to refresh my memory. I remembered watching this movie when I was like 10 years old. This used to be a big fantasy adventure movie during its time and quite popular but if you watch it now you have to keep in mind that it was made in the 1980's and it was very much different then with regards to technology, special effects and all that. Conan here is Arnold Schwarzenegger, I ended up fast-forwarding the movie but it would be interesting to see a remake of this one.

10. Red Sonja: This one stars Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A 1980's fantasy adventure movie like Conan the Barbarian. As a child this movie seems to be larger than life to me when it came out. It was quite popular then too. Although if you look at the movie now you will surely notice that the acting is bad and there is no good chemistry between Nielsen and Schwarzenegger but it was quite nice then to see the much loved fiction superheroes in marvel comic books come to life on the movie screen. A remake of this one will be quite interesting too, but I hope they don't make the movie too vicious.

11. Liberty Stands Still: Ugh, this movie is horrible, I don't like it and I couldn't wait to see it's ending. I fast forward almost all of it. This one stars Wesley Snipes.

That's my movie marathon for now. So far, I love "The Lord of the Rings" and I would watch it once again when I have the time, that's for sure.

James Allen Engagement Rings

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No Internet

We didn't have internet for a whole week and when it came back, it's very slow. I can't even open two or more webpages at the same time. It's very frustrating and I tried calling Smartbro customer service and they just said to call back if the internet was still very slow in the next 24 hours. But I didn't call them back anymore. I had been calling them for almost 2 weeks now. The first week, smartbro was off for a day. They said it will come back within 24 hours and it did. After 2 days, the internet went off again for like 2 days and they said the same thing again and the third time it happened the internet was off for a week! This has been the longest that the internet was off here and I called them again and they just said they were having problems on the base station here and they were repairing it. They didn't really say what the problems are. I asked the rep if I can have the days with no internet deducted on the next bill and they told me to call back once my internet came on again so I called them the day my internet went back. But the rep told me that I have to call them everyday for the whole duration that the internet was off before they can have it deducted on my bill. Wow, I didn't know that, the only thing the other rep told me was to call them again once it came back. They didn't tell me that I should call everyday for it to reflect on my next billing. It sure is very irritating. But for now, I will have to see if this current internet will improve. It's 10 times slower than what it was before so it is very slow. It takes almost half an hour for me to open a webpage. It's difficult opening blogs, video websites like youtube and singsnap, the websites I used to visit before doesn't display as easily now and picture websites like flickr, friendster takes a long time to display. I got so frustrated I didn't do anything much on the internet.

I hope Smartbro didn't change the internet's speed as what thay have promised on their advertisements. It will really be a bad thing if that happens.