Andie Summerkiss

As per today, 8/8/8, AndieSummerkiss.com will be moving to Unorbit.com. I would like to apologize for the inconvenience of keep on moving for the past year. But, I have grander intention for AndieSummerkiss.com. 

Unorbit will be updated as regularly as possible, and please drop me a line at the new place so I can update your link. 

Peace! 

Heroes might be heart-robs, but it takes extra mile to be great villains. Such roles are often reserved for veteran in the business. We love to hate them. We hate to love them. It is an intricate relationship.

The evil roles contribute to the success of the show. Story lines and scripts are crafted to sustain their prominence until the end.

And Movie villains always get the best lines. Here are my most favorite lines.

• I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner. Bye.  Hannibal Lecter “Silence of the Lambs”
• You can’t handle the truth. Colonel Jessup “A Few Good Men” 
• There is nothing as pathetic as an aging hipster. Dr Evil “Austin Powers” 
• This is your brain. This is my brain. Does anybody else feel like a fried egg? The Riddler “Batman Forever” 
• Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, sotres everywhere. There is no escape. I’m God’s lonely man. Travis Bickle “Taxi Driver”

Contains no spoiler.

Wanted is the movie about bullets. Nothing more and nothing less. With the lead act like McAvoy, Freeman and Jolie, I had expected more. 

The movie doled out a reasonable dose of computer game fantasy in big screen. Freeman was on his average performance. McAvoy looked nothing like the “so-called” father. Jolie, as usual, put the three billion women now breathing in planet earth on shame.

Sleek, stylish and dull. It is what it is. A comic book metamorphosis with bad screen writing. Life is harsh. Live with it. 

Christmas, Hannukah, Eu Dil Fitri, Chinese New Year and all major holidays are approaching. If you are thinking of buying something other than the same-old Harry Winston’s wreath, here is something to consider. Buy your love one an island! 

Tips to buy an island

1. Decide whether it is for investment or private use, which will dictate the size of the property you are buying. Sizes vary from 6 ha to over a hundred.
2. Triple check ownership of properties and titles. Check also if it’s a tax declaration. A tax declaration property is as good as ownership as long as annual taxes are paid. A property with cadaster is ready for titling
3. Make sure there is a water supply
4. If you can, buy other properties surrounding your land. This saves you from becoming a “there goes the neighbourhood” victim. You can eventually sell the surrounding properties for a profit to chosen friends, or even to an international hotel chain
5. Every island has on one side a sandy area and a back side that’s the opposite. And all islands, coves and peninsulas have their own advantages and disadvantages. Do not waste time looking for a perfect one.
6. Prices differ depending on the width of beachfront, how many beaches the property has, the terrain of the island, the distance of the property to the mainland and other important factors. Consult professional before forking over money.
7. Use a reliable realtor from the city, who deals directly with the locals. They have been in the island property business long enough. They do all the legal paperwork down to the last detail, such as supplying a permanent watchman to guard and protect your acquired property and submitting monthly reports, and they are very thorough in double-checking legal documents. They also have the best and exclusive listings of properties for sale.
8. When investing, inquire about future development in the mainland like plans for an airport, the expansion of the existing one, road developments, perhaps a future marina or port and other planned infrastructure.
9. After having found one, don’t sleep over it. It could be sold to someone else the next day

This article is taken from Philippine Daily Enquirer. Ironically, with the rising prices of basic goods, millions in the country are barely surviving. But of course, there is always time to learn about island shopping.

Sensitive journalism, I’d say. 

Eighty plus years after its first bi plane took off on May 1928, the Royal Flying Doctor Service is much more technology-advanced. The patients, however, are still the same obscure character off the beaten path in the vast Aussie outback.

These peculiar bushmen are mostly opal miners who are driven by the love of the stunning multi-colored stone. They are very appreciative of the visit by these specialists who come all the way there to help the sick. It makes an incredible different for any small towns which have no specialists phycisians.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service is an iconic image of Australia internationally, provides both emergency medical aid and a comprehensive health care service to people in the outback.

It is a non profit service depends on donations and government grants. The world’s first aerial medical organization and remains unique for its range of services and the huge area covered. During 2007, the 47 aircraft flew an average of more than 59,000 km a day over an area of more than 70 million sq km and attended nearly a quarter of a million patients. 

Image credit from FlyingDoctor.net

The western series by HBO set in 1878 had been a great entertainment piece. David Milch has once again proved to be a great creator. The setting, costumes, props, cinematography, everything is extraordinary, gaining the series wide critical acclaim and winning eight Emmy Awards and one Golden Globe.

The consistent quality of writing, acting and directing has made it one of the best television series ever made. The villain, Ian McShane, had given out such a stellar performance as Al Swearengen, that it demonstrated yet another way how Deadwood blurs the lines between black and white, good and evil. Grays do exist and the area could be the best solution of all situations. Deadwood has its raw points, such as feeding the pig with dead bodies and flaunting decapitated head around, but the human motivation is understandable and certainly well developed. It gives people some insights and ideas about places where the law is failing or even in non existence.

I had been successful in avoiding sitting through Deadwood until recently. We had the first season on DVD and I sat through the whole thing in three days. At first I was startled by the language, but as soon as I began to grasp the story line, I could not stop watching. I had become so engrossed with the show that I started using the “f” word and the “d” word. Nothing more can stop me from using the “c” word. In short, Deadwood has achieved the impossible. Turning me into a western fan.

The bad news is that HBO has backed off from its promise to wrap up the series with a couple of made-for-T movies, something that the fans had been waiting for a couple of years. The fans went on to picketing, swarming HBO’s inbox with hate letters and bugging the casts.

Photo essay on Bicol Resettlement Project in helping rebuilding communities devastated by Typhoon Reming. International efforts, backed by local governmental sector, have helped ease the pain endured by the victims.

A crazy week in Philippines. Church and sex have been making headlines. The church is denying “pro-reproductive health lawmakers” Holy Communion. The politicians called it “blackmail”. 

The Church has been refusing the idea to promote artificial contraception, it stood by its centuries’ old “natural methods”. They also fight over bills to make sex education mandatory in schools. 

The purpose of the government in working on these bills are to curtail the booming population, especially among the young and poor. It is typical sight to see young mothers under 25 with three toddlers hanging around the arms and neck - they are some sort of fashion accessories in the urban area. The whole point is to give the population enough information so they can make informed decision on whether to pursue natural birth planning, or artificial ones. The Church sees this prevention act in the same level as abortion. I think it prevent abortion in some cases. 

As The Church is the holiest institution in the world, they claimed that they are aware of the situation. People can live with leavened bread and watery wine once a week, can’t they?

But the sex will be church-approved activity. So I guess all ends well. 

For me, English has always been a language of inspiration. There are so many “good” words that are complimentary in nature. It is easy to express my feelings in English, compared to other language that I know (as Malay Indonesian and Chinese, the first one is because of the limited vocabulary - that I know off - and the latter one is because I simply don’t know it more beyond day-to-day conversation with my parents).

English picks up new words almost daily as more and more people from different culture and backgrounds using it, and unconsciously they integrate words from their mother tongues into the already rich language. It is so versatile that we need to consult the “latest” dictionary now and then to keep up.

As soon as we see the word used without explanation or translation or gloss, we consider it a naturalized citizen of the English language. If somebody is using it to convey a specific idea and that idea is successfully conveyed in that word, it’s ready to go in the dictionary.

Peter Sokolowski, Editor at Large, Merriam Webster

With the widespread of globalization, world culinary art is the one field that managed to spread its arm around the sphere without any controversy. Understandably, many of the new entries reflect the world’s interest in foreign food context. The others are technology terms and current events.

And surprisingly, blogs are the upcoming birthplace for web-related terms. They are easy, ready to grasp hence give them staying power.

So, welcome Edamame, Prescatarian, Prosecco, Netroots and Webinar! 

People who are bicultural and speak two languages may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a recent study. Language is seen as a cue that activates different culture-specific frames. Those who are bicultural switched their personality more quickly and easily than people who are bilingual but living in one culture. 

REUTER.COM

I guess this can explain these symptoms:

• If you are Indonesian, you speak English and Indonesian. You are less likely to litter in the shiny Orchard Road side walk. Of course, you will switch back to your Indo personality when you go to Jakarta, the whole city is one big giant trash can.
• If you are a Filipino, you speak Tagalog and English. While in your English speaking personality, you will make an utmost effort to be on time for lunch appointment with your colleagues in San Fransisco downtown. When you are in your own environment, when anybody says “Please wait five minutes” you will be interpreted that as “You are a fool if you believe me - you are lucky to get out of here in the next 30 minutes”.

If you have any other dual-personality syndrome relating to culture and language, please drop a line in the comment box.

I grew up in a neighborhood where it is considered rude to rant on neighbors. It is normal to hold tons of grudges against my neighbors. Vice versa – I guess.

For one, our right side neighbor is a family of 5, or now 10 I think, with the daughters in law and grandchildren now staying with them. The youngest son was a spoilt brat who would never fail to press horn for three minutes at times until the domestic helper came running to open the gate for him. That happened for years till the hot blooded Mr. Andie got so mad one day (our bedroom is right next to their main gate), he threw a bottle of nail polish at his car, hit it right on the hood. It was a great throw, he didn’t know what hit him.

We are not the award-winning neighbor either. More than once the family complained to our housekeeper that our dog gave out unpleasant smelt. Mushu’s kennel is right next to their front gate. Ha!

Our front neighbor is a house of sin, literally. One of the local club owners bought the property years ago to hold his “working girls” from mainland China. It accomodates about 20 of them at times. We spent hours on boring evening on binocs standing at my bathroom window with Mr Andie to spy on them. They leave for work at 8pm and coming back around 3am. Sometimes they have “guests” over, quite noticeably with fancy cars hiding under car covers. Although we get the kick out of checking out the “latest stocks” when they off-load themselves from airport taxis, we do not enjoy the ugly moments when wives of certain reputation came and trash-talked on their gate. That kinda ruined the lovely neighbourhood, don’t you think?

All that being said, never once we confront each other on what is bothering us, for the whole 20+ years. That is driving Mr. Andie crazy, of course. But it is not very acceptable in our culture to complain about your neighbors. I have heard many stories from our acquaintances how their neighbors drove them literally insane. We handled our problems the same way. By not saying anything.

I am absolutely awed by people who can be so opened and they could rant on others, especially their neighbours. I later found that it is not always the case, when I spotted www.RottenNeighbor.com. Online website where you can rant on your neighbours, categorized by area, counties, zipcode and whole bing-a-bong. You can even post videos and photos to support your claim! Loving it! Too bad it only covers US.

I am so ready to expose my neighbors, and waiting somebody to post Mushu’s mugshot.