Bought: TARGET
Price: $9.99
Website: www.babygenius.com

I guess for ten dollars, it wasn’t such a bad purchase but here are some bad stuff about it:

-the songs are sung by a man and a woman, no children and their voices are pretty boring.
-the arrangements are very simple, with minimal instruments
-pretty boring, very simple, traditional, with no surprises, no bang
-no variety in music style

this really is for infants-3 yrs. old so it won’t really grow with your child, esp. if you have an extremely musical child.  emma likes to listen to it for 2-3 songs, then gets pretty bored with it.  it doesn’t do much to hold the attention of your toddler, even though people may like to argue that a toddler already doesn’t have enough attention span…well, for emma, if she likes the music, she’ll stay with it; she’ll dance to it and respond physically and positively. 

so my review? not so much baby-genius, more like baby-average.

When I started using facebook in 2006, the one thing that really fascinated me about it is its ability to map a social timeline. There’s a whole lot more that can be done about it but it would have been better if they created a mashup of sorts with their services and applications.

In 10 years, I’d like to know what I’ve been up to 10 years back. Did I watch a movie? If I did, who did I watch it with, and What did we think about the movie? So many possibilites, from movies to restaurants and the things you’ve worked on. Heck, I should be able to build my resume based on work related status updates. Remind myself of how much time I spent doing unimportant things or really important ones.

We have all these information at hand and all we need is a good way to extract and present this information in a way where it would be ‘useful’ to us in any way or form.

I found this little note in the history wall in our local Shoprite. The wall pretty much contains the historical background of the town and Shoprite. Apprently someone stole one of the pictures, and something else. Read the lovely note left by one of the employees.

Click on the image in order to view the maximum resolution.

Description:  just two days ago, emma came into the room carrying our family devotion Bible. She opened it up and started singing “Read Your Bible, Pray Everyday.” I’ve never tried teaching her the words, although we’ve sung it many times. I was just so amazed that it came out, all of it in the song, with a melody too. perze and i were sooo proud of her. Her vocabulary has just shot up dramatically over the past few days, and even shows up in songs…she’s even started singing w/ the songs of the Christmas Cantata i continuously replay in the car. maybe she should join the choir this year since she knows some songs…

but it’s a great thing she learned this song first…because of her fascination to sing it many times a day, it’s a great reminder to perze and i to really “read our bibles and pray everyday, so we’ll grow, grow, grow.”

When we went home to the Philippines, we had the chance to spend time with my Dad at his farm. This might sound normal to most people since Filipinos have been in one way or another, have been farming to sustain themselves. My Grandfather was a farmer and so was his father before him and so was my Great-Great-Grand Father. Its just that my dad has a Ph.D. in Physics and spent most of his life teaching at the most prestigious university in the southern philippines. When he retired 3 years ago he became president of the corporate arm of Arise Christian Ministries, a local non profit that supports outreach programs to a nearby tribe.

I think it was 2 years ago when he decided to follow his dad’s footsteps and live off the land. There were a lot of challenges. He didn’t have transportation to move his harvest from the farm to the city, no electricity to help preserve the harvest, among other things.

When we went home to the Philippines last october, I tried getting him some things that he can use for his farm. A self crank lamp/radio, a handheld GPS device and a swiss knife. He was teary eyed when I gave him the swiss knife because he remembered that at one point in time, my Grandfather wanted one but he couldn’t afford to give him one. That brought back memories for him and I guess he was thankful for it.

In reality my dad also has another type of swiss knife that he wanted. The kind that I can’t really give him at that point in time at least. He wanted the kind that had 4 wheels and could transport half a ton of his harvest to the city. I felt remorse, I didn’t want to be in that position where I’d be helpless in seeing that he wanted something that I can’t afford to give him.

Before we left, Marchesa’s family gave us extra spending money. We were able to budget our trip so that we would have enough to spend and some to give to my parents. My parents used that money to give as a downpayment for a multi-cab, 12 cylinder, half ton hauling, 4 wheel drive vehicle. The kind of swiss knife that my Dad always wanted.

Lately, i’ve been sleeping very late, due to bad tv habits but that’s going to be a blog for another time. Today I slept around 1:30am, four hours later I got a call from my very grateful father. He was with my mom and that they just picked up the vehicle.

He got his wish, and that makes it two swiss knives.

one thing that ticks me off is when any particular issue is promoted into production and people forget about it. what’s even worse is when it is acknowledged as a valid baseline when the next iteration of the project comes along.

in every iteration of a project, a set of core requirements should be defined. The definitions should all be based on the three basic components of a website, content, look & feel, and user experience. aLIl three should go hand in hand. though one may stand above the rest but the degree of separation shouldn’t be that far.i
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Disney’s 100 Children’s Favourite Songs: $25

Gift Certs:
Target, Baby GAP, Old Navy

Clothes:
Baby GAP, Old Navy
 

The Praise Baby 3 DVD Collection: $34.99
 or   (comes in one dvd)

Combining popular praise and worship music with image of children playing, colorful animation and real world objects, The Praise Baby…

Praise Baby CD’s Collection: