asleep
Uploaded by mcwont.

This is how I feel at the moment, but I’m at the *pun alert* tail end of a little photo project I embarked upon tonight. We arrived home late from seeing a local production of the ballet Giselle — lovely, by the way — after a scrummy Japanese hibachi dinner.

(This isn’t Hugh, nor is it our iMac. Mcwont was kind enough to share his photo. Click on the pic for more info.)

Breigh pretty much summed up my thoughts about this week’s American Idol:

Barbie Meets the Stepford Wives

Go have a look, she’s been Photoshopping!

You know, out of all the modern dance styles one can see in a club, 70’s disco has to be my favourite. (My absolute favourite is breakdancing, but you don’t see it in clubs.) On MuchMusic, the Canadian version of MTV, I used to enjoy seeing the re-runs of this old 70’s dance show — I can’t remember the name! — and aside from hooting at the polyester fashions, I loved to see them boogie on down. Even the BeeGees had a bit of a revival a while back. When they sang “Staying Alive”, well, LIVE during a music awards show, they had everyone on their feet, grooving away happily. Say what you will about John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever, but cheesy can be infectiously FUN.

When I saw the first bits of goofy dancing pre-performance on American Idol, it seemed promising. But there was barely any dancing this week at all! Makes me wish people like Nikko and Travis Tucker stayed alive on the show so we’d have something a bit more entertaining to watch. Instead, we had Carrie wearing an awful dress with Dolly Parton hair, singing “McArthur Park” (made famous by Donna Summer, Frank Sinatra, et al) — this bizarre song about a CAKE, of all things. She was drowned out on all the low notes by the band and the song was zero on the danceable scale. more…

Spa Advertisement by Allan & Cheryl

While in the Philippines, my brother Allan took a photo of a spa advertisement that shocked him:

If you can zoom in you’ll see the ad reads “Skintimate Summer Promo: 50% off skin WHITENING.”

What!?

I can imagine they must use some nasty skin bleaching agent that does just as much damage as UV rays for certain fair people who work on their tans at every given opportunity.

statement by gailontheweb

I took this photo in Barcelona exactly one year ago, yesterday:

There’s something very fitting about this: “Real White Chocolate”.

(I stumbled upon a little Filipino grocery around the corner from the Museum of Contemporary Art.)

I bought it to take a picture of it, because I found it curious. Many Filipinos still desire a “Real White” appearance, which hearkens back to the days of colonialism.

magnolia canopy

tree of allergy

The magnolia tree beside the house looks great, but it’s stirring up David’s allergies.

carpet of petals

It’s been in full bloom this week, but a blustery, rainy evening blew petals down to the ground last night.

Infinity - 7/8

Sculpture by Jose de Rivera, 1967, for the National Museum of American History, Washington, DC.

One of eight angles I posted as a set. I was fascinated by this sculpture, which looks different from any position underneath.

View the 8 photos as a slideshow (uses Flash).

On the sidewalk in front of Grandpa’s apt by Allan & Cheryl

I love this photo of Melissa, Michael, and Madeleine. I want to crop and frame it.

The gang’s all back safe and sound from the Philippines, with loot for the rest of the kidlets and lots of stories, I’m sure.

Allan’s last blog entry on their way home: The Road Home: The Long Good-bye

I don’t think Allan’s finished uploading yet, but here’s a link to his trip set on Flickr:

Philippines Trip

So, there’s this weekly radio show on NPR called “Car Talk” with these two brothers, Tom and Ray Magliozzi. I’d never heard of them before moving to PA, but according to their website they’ve been on the air since the ’70s, with 4.4 million listeners on 588 stations. Anyway, David mentioned them once, and I tuned in for about half a show during dinner.

When we went to the Museum of American History last Saturday, I recognised them on one of the monitors in the transportation exhibit. Being a bit of a typo Nazi, what did I notice right away?

Click on the photo and see…

It’s the SMITHSONIAN, for the love of mary! I’m not the first person to notice this, am I?? I e-mailed Car Talk’s producer, Doug Berman, to see if anyone’s told them. Maybe he’ll get the radio guys to mention it on the show.

Michael’s new barong by Allan & Cheryl

My parents, Allan, and Michael are flying home now from the Philippines, where they attended a large family reunion. Allan wrote a big post about this the other day, which is the closest any of us has come to an historical account for the size of the clan.

DATI Clan Reunion

By the way, if you look up ‘barong’ in the English dictionary, it is a long, broad, leaf-shaped knife used as both a weapon and tool by the Moros of the Philippines. But it’s also a traditional garment worn by Filipinos at formal events. From what I remember, it’s transparent, usually made out of pineapple fibre and worn over a white undershirt. From what I’ve read, it apparently dates back to Spanish colonial rule:

“From the beginning of the Spanish rule in the Philippine archipelago, the Spanish rulers demanded the Filipino men to wear the barong tagalog. The Spaniards wanted to make the differences between themselves and the ‘natives’ visible by the dress. Therefore they prohibited to tuck the barong under the waistband. That was the mark of the inferior status of the natives.

Next to that, the cloth material should be transparent. That should make it impossible to hide any weapon that could be used against the Spanish rulers. Furthermore, it was forbidden to have any pockets in the barong. This had to prevent any thievery.

Even at the time that some Filipinos became successful business men or successful in agricultural activities, these lucky and more important middle class men had to wear the barong tagalog just as the Spanish rulers demanded.

In th[is] Spanish period, the new middle class started to put more attention to the design of the barong. The front of the barong showed more and more a hand-work design. It was the beginning of becoming a symbol of resistance to colonization.”

Source: http://www.philippines.hvu.nl/clothes2.htm (more photos shown here)

Edwin Bugnay by Allan & Cheryl

Bugnay is our family name, but some of my relatives, including my father, took ‘Edwin’ as their surname instead.

I’m still uploading pictures to Flickr — there are that many…

Here are some faves, thus far.

Arrived back from Washington, DC late last night, so I just decided to upload these four pics to Flickr that I rescued in Photoshop on the car ride home and hit the sack. I took these photos one year ago, visiting friends around France. The blog entries are here (or, just scroll up from the first post):

Paris!
Paris, avec Claire
Paris, avec Manu, then…?
Tour de France

We took TONS of photos in DC, and I have yet to upload them to Flickr. The process, at least for me, is usually as follows:

1. Upload photos to Flickr
2. Write descriptions, tag photos with keywords, add to groups
3. Blog photos to Flickr
4. Write text, arrange photos around text.