When the songbird sings

Red by c.a.muller

First, it was leaded toys. And now this?

An independent laboratory conducted the lead tests in September 2007 on red lipsticks bought in Boston, Hartford, Conn., San Francisco and Minneapolis. Among the findings:

• More than half of 33 brand‐name lipsticks tested (61 percent) contained detectable levels of lead, with levels ranging from .03 to .65 parts per million (ppm). None of these lipsticks listed lead as an ingredient.
• One‐third of the tested lipsticks exceeded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 0.1 ppm limit for lead in candy – a standard established to protect people from directly ingesting lead. Lipstick, like candy, is ingested directly. Nevertheless, the FDA has not set a limit for lead in lipstick – which fits with the disturbing absence of FDA regulatory oversight and enforcement capacity for the $50 billion personal care products industry.

Among the highest lead‐containing samples were:

• L’Oreal Colour Riche “True Red” – 0.65 ppm
• L’Oreal Colour Riche “Classic Wine” – 0.58 ppm
• Cover Girl Incredifull Lipcolor “Maximum Red” – 0.56 ppm
• Christian Dior Addict “Positive Red” – 0.21 ppm

Read the full report (PDF).

I don’t understand a single syllable, but what the heck–Peter Gade’s gams look awesome in them short shorts. OK, these are instructional videos, so learn from the pro.

Backhand defense

Forehand cross-court drop

Moving to backhand net

Forehand net shot

If you are a regular player, footwork takes about half of your game. It’s one thing to hit the bird and send it where you want to, but if you can’t bring yourself to that side of the court from where you will send the shuttle back to the opponent, then you’d better have a lot of luck or tricks up your sleeve. Or at least you should know how not to look silly; that’s what I seem most of the time, but I can muster a few excuses.

Yet another Dane, Peter Rasmussen, shows how to glide all over the court. Yeah–he does look like he’s only gliding. I guess it helps to have legs to go way up there. This one’s in English.

Denmark is this year’s happiest country in the world, and I’m guessing that there are reasons aside from “democracy, social equality and peaceful atmosphere” that explain the Danes’ satisfaction with the state of their being. When I grow up, I want to go to Denmark.

I never paid much attention to the lecture that got the rounds of blogs, press, and video-sharing sites featuring inspirational anecdotes by its lecturer, Randy Pausch, who announced at the event itself that he was dying of pancreatic cancer. Probably I was too cynical to even watch a video that was supposed to cheer me up, or that I had had enough of stuff like Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet In Heaven, or Paulo Coelho’s overrated The Alchemist. I still think Alchemist is overrated, the others are too pa-senti, and I don’t deal well with sentiments.

Carnegie Mellon University spearheaded a lecture series which it used to refer to as “The Last Lecture.” Professors were asked to give lectures as if these were their last. Pausch, who had less than a year to live at the time of his lecture, shared valuable wisdom on how to “really achieve childhood dreams.” He passed away last July 25, five months later than the deadline doctors gave on his lease on life, and after co-authoring a book that reached the New York Times best seller list and having a cameo appearance in a Star Trek film.

Sit through the lecture for it could be one of the most inspiring, feel-good 76 minutes of your life. The video received more than 4 million views on Youtube alone.

Some random lessons learned:

* We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
* Respect authority while questioning it.
* Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
* Never lose the child-like wonder.
* Decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore
* Help others.
* Loyalty is a two-way street.
* Never give up.
* Brick walls let us show our dedication.
* When you do the right thing, good stuff has a way of happening.
* Get a feedback loop and listen to it.
* Show gratitude.
* Don’t complain; just work harder.
* Be good at something; it makes you valuable.
* Find the best in everybody, no matter how long you have to wait for them to show it.
* Be prepared; luck is when preparation meets opportunity
* Most of what we learn, we learn indirectly (or by “head fake”).
* It’s not how you achieve your dreams; it’s how you lived your life. If you live your life the right way, karma will take care of itself.
* You can’t get there alone.
* Tell the truth.
* Be earnest.
* Apologize when you screw up.
* Focus on others, not yourself.

Check out Wordle, which creates a–tag cloud–or jumble words–from RSS links or delicious accounts. You can also paste or type a bunch of words in the text box and click Go. While Wordle results may not look like they have any use, wordles are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, so you can create screen caps and make money out of printing them on T-shirts, posters, or book covers. Java applet is required.

Here is a wordle of this blog…

…and one of my Del.icio.us page.

(I should add more tags and new links to reduce the prominence of web 2.0 in my del.icio.us account. The Kool-Aid pitcher isn’t full anymore, but by any measure, the wave isn’t over yet. )

“…finding my faith” by wiseacre photo

“The separation of Church and State, of course, does not mean that religion has no role in our democratic society. It only means that no religion can enjoy preferential treatment to the disadvantage of others….

“If our secular state treads carefully so as to ensure that religious freedom (and freedom of conscience) is respected, particularly in the case of religious practices by minorities, it is less careful about the religion practiced by the majority of Filipinos. This is what sets the question of the separation of Church and State with regard to the Catholic hierarchy apart. The faith and morals of Catholics happen to be the articles of faith of the majority – and we are a nation that subscribes to the principle that questions of policy and leadership are best solved by invoking majority rule.

“Any serious Catholic is under the same obligation as any decent Filipino to defend his principles, to the death, if need be. To demand of Catholics that they restrict the application of their faith and morals to the confines of their homes and churches is essentially to ask them to commit apostasy. But it is fair and just to remind the hierarchy and the rest of the Catholic citizenry that our Republic does not exist for Catholics alone, and this means that their faith and morals cannot be made the exclusive basis for state policy.”

MLQ3 on the separation of church and state.

I’m actually wondering where the other religions stand on the population control debate.

So true.

So it has been over six weeks since my last post, and even that wasn’t my own. As with most bloggers, there are things that are better left said through other people’s (dead or alive) words or music or poems…whatever. I wanted to put lots of reviews or regurgitate some nice finds other than the Youtube videos, songs, or poems, but it has not been easy to put my thoughts together and turn them even into quasi-intelligent compositions. The juicy bits are in my Multiply which allows for posting of FYEO blog entries. At this point, feel free to run shrieking for your sanity as I make a run-down of what has been done/have happened in the past two months, and it could take you two months to finish reading the long and winding entry.

A post-Philippine summer of sometimes great and oft-times overhyped movies.

Thanks to the Hollywood summer extravaganza of big films and the not-so-unfounded paranoia that movie pirates will spread illegal copies via torrent networks and dibidi bazaars, major films are released on this part of the globe almost always nearly two days head of US weekend showings. When our schedules allowed, one would easily find my sister and I at Greenbelt cinemas on Wednesday or Thursday nights catching late screenings of whatever is a must-see movie of the week.

Iron Man was cool, and half the reason for its success was Robert Downey Jr. Indy IV was so-so. Sex and the City was, just as expected, a blown-up version of the series. It didn’t provide fresh content or ideas even as the story took off from where the series ended four years ago, and for all that it was worth, fashion was the only thing that…sort of…saved the flick if only one could actually wear the clothes. I didn’t notice anyone in NYC wearing anything that resembled the ensemble that the cast strutted in in the movie. Ponders. I love Ed Norton, so no matter how lame the CGI and the fight scenes were whenever he turned into the green giant in Incredible Hulk, I liked the movie. I liked hims so that I always wished he wouldn’t lose it at all.

Hancock was ok. It offers a different twist on the superhero genre, but in the end still fell flat on its backside because no one has an idea of what he really is (okay, an alien, but seriously!), what the we-can’t-be-together-although-we’re-meant-for-each-other complication is about, or the flimsy excuse for the bad ‘tude and poor hygiene. But maybe because it’s just difficult to hate Will Smith and Charlize Theron did better as superhero in this flick than in that MTV-produced flop she starred in a few years ago, so the film’s got some saving grace. Still, thanks to Keiichi, for the movie treat, and I’m still embarrassed about the popcorn-flavored butter.

I missed Narnia-2, so that means I’ll have to wait until the DVD or a decent dibidi copy comes out. I still have to catch Mama Mia and The Dark Knight this week. It’s quite difficult to pass on the chance to see Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan exchange musical notes. Did Colin Firth sing too? That would be like Mr. Darcy serenading…well, Lizzie Bennet’s mom. And don’t start about Heath Ledger’s creepy Joker. I know. He could be creepy with or without Joker’s mask. And Wanted? I don’t want it.

Books!

Good Lord, there’s just no end to my love affair with books, that I kept buying titles even when I have half a dozen others waiting to be read. I’ve read the first three of Twilight saga, and have to say that the first one is the best if you hate the complications of lost love and found again, or of love triangles and feisty suitors who don’t understand the meaning of the word NO. And contrary to what others say, Twilight, the first book, is more Pride and Prejudice than Rome and Juliet. The third one channels parts of Wuthering Heights, and Bella actually read a passage from the book to explain her actions to Edward. If only things would always be solved by quoting from books, maybe this world would be a better place. (But then, there are some books that just do.not.solve.problems.) The fourth title, Breaking Dawn, is coming out on August 2, and at this stage, I don’t care much anymore about what other powers the unconventional vampires in Meyer’s universe have, but what I want to know is whether Bella ends up being “turned” or walks down the aisle with Edward. I’m on Team Edward, by the way.

Sometimes, that’s the beauty of YA fiction–you could just skip to the end. Or wait for the last installment and skip to the last chapter before bothering with the rest of the story.

I also got myself suckered into buying The Host, which is Meyer’s attempt at sci-fi romance. I’m halfway through the book, and I can say that there’s a lot of Pavlovian and Skinner(ian?) conditioning going on in the story which mostly happens in a jazzed up cave somewhere in the middle of an Arizona desert. I’m starting to think that religion also has something to do with the story, although the concept of God is not mentioned anywhere…yet? On the outset, it’s as if humans should be thankful for getting its entire population used as hosts by aliens (as souls) because they’re bad anyway.

Others on the shelf: A Biographer’s Tale by AS Bayatt, Microtrends by Mark J. Penn, The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl, The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield, The Physician’s Tale by Ann Benson, and Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. I’m still halfway through Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Sussanna Clarke’s one-thousand-plus pager Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norris, Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, and Jeffrey Euginides’ Middlesex. And then there are other tomes on project management, writing, communication, and how to navigate the corporate jungle which I am too embarrassed to say I’m reading, but because I have to take some refresher.

By the way, I chanced upon a Star Movies showing of the film based on Patrick Suskind’s Perfume some three weeks ago. I remember having major creeps when I read the most “interesting” novel way back in college, and the film wasn’t any different. Ben Whishaw’s Jean Baptiste Grenuouille should be up there with Andy Serkis’ Gollum, and possibly, Heath Ledger’s Joker in the creepiest movie psychos Hall of Fame.

Series and great digital finds

Thanks to the networked world, I have watched the 2008 remake of Sense and Sensibility and the 2006 Jane Eyre miniseries. After watching the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie, the 1995 miniseries was a bit of a disappointment, except for Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy. If you’re a fangirl of historical romance genre like me, then I highly recommend that you get copies of these series. The orig DVDs are pricey, so be creative in getting copies.

Badminton

I didn’t play badminton for over 8 weeks, thanks to the sudden downpours in the last weeks of May. Instead of hitting birds, I took much comfort instead in flipping through pages of the books I mentioned above. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the break from this sport and even considered hanging up my rackets for good. Maybe tennis would be a better alternative because at least on TV it’s so posh. Or get into some other physical activities, like yoga, boxing, or just sweating out at a gym (eww..dullsville!) But now that the rains had so far abated, I figured it was time to get busy again, pick up my racket and push myself to just try running around the courts like I was pretending to catch a flying something. I joined the BR queueing since the venue was the most convenient place to go to right after work.

What can I say, on the day I started playing, the BR organizers invited me to a dual meet with Prima, and like most not-so-smart decisions I made, I agreed to wear their jersey. I used to join Prima back in summer, but for some reason I just couldn’t warm up to the idea of playing with them regularly. They’re ok, of course, and the people are mostly nice. Also, if you have joined their games for 40 times, you’d get a free badminton bag, and if I remember correctly, a shirt; both have the team’s logo.

As luck would have it, I busted my already creaky shoulder on the first day of practice. I was sluggish, gasping for breath, and had only met my partner on the last practice day before the meet, so predictably, we were slaughtered.

Retail therapy

Geek glasses, shoes, jeans, shirts, bags, grocery…

Tennis

Holy mother of anything grassy! I nearly had a heart attack watching the epic Fed-Rafa showdown. Too bad, Rafa outmuscled and outplayed the Fed. Shit.

So, is the problem that’s been plaguing Fed this year mental? Is he truly human after all? What is mononucleosis? Should I watch Fed’s exhibition games with Borg, JMac, and a yet to be identified but hopefully not Rafa fourth party in Kuala Lumpur in November? (And can I afford it? Why isn’t there a link from the ruddy Axcess home page for the event?) And what’s with Rafa’s tugging at his trousers pedal pushers anyway?

Tennis v. stressful.

(I try not to write about work specifics. Most employers past, present and future have non-disclosure clauses, and I’d rather not ruin my chances. )