If you’re a regular visitor to this blog, you’ll probably have noticed the significant changes to the layout of the sidebar. I’ve removed all almost all of the flashy widgets on the sidebar, especially all the widgets linked to affiliate programs. All those flashy stuff was making the loading of the site very slow, and the sidebar was starting to look cluttered. Besides, the affiliate links was not doing bringing in any sort of extra income anyway. I’ve since replaced those with a series of blog lists to reflect what I have on my Google Reader. I’ve also added a JavaScript widget which features what I’ve been sharing on my Google Reader, which I’ve aptly named “Neko Recommends“. If you have a blog/podcast which you’ll like to share with me and the readers of this blog, please let me know. You may end up on my recommendations feed!

I hope you all will like the new arrangements on the sidebar. Feedback and suggestions are most welcome!

Tonight is a special night because I’ve just received news that my secondary school friend has just given birth to a handsome baby boy a couple of days ago! She just posted the baby’s photos on Facebook, and oh my.. he’s GORGEOUS!!! I’m not sure if you’re reading this, but still, congratulations Deborah & her hubby Mark on the arrival of their first born son, Ethan!

You’ll probably notice by the number of exclamation marks in this paragraph, that I’m very excited. And I’ll proudly admit, “Yes! This is SOOOOO EXCITING!!!!!!!” (I’m always like that when I learn about good news like that regarding my closest pals). Debs is in Saudi Arabia with her hubby who was posted there. She told me about her pregnancy just before she left Singapore, so I’ve been concerned about both she and baby. I’m so glad to see that they’re doing well over there. Hope they come home soon so I can get to cuddle the little handsome guy.

Still on the topic of babies, my best friend, Marilyn’s baby girl will be due early next month. Thankfully, she’s in Singapore. So I probably will be able to catch up with both mother and daughter when she’s enjoying her maternity leave.

Thanks to the wonders of MSN Messenger, I also recently discovered that another ex-classmate of mine is also expecting his first baby. He’s been keeping us “up-to-date” with the baby’s progress via status messages on MSN. Judging from his latest contribution, “there’s something between the legs“, I’m gonna make a wild guess that it’s a boy. Congratulations Kit!

Going by how elated I get when I receive news of “up and coming” babies of my friends, there’s no denying each baby is a bundle of joy to their parents and to all around them.

Tags: Announcements, blogs, life, musings

Yes, your eyes are NOT deceiving you. I AM BACK with another series of podcast reviews (finally)! All thanks to the fact that I’m sick and don’t feel like lunching out. So while my colleagues pack lunch back for me, I make use of some idle time during lunch to do a quick post.

Before I begin with the reviews proper, I’ll like to thank Mary Soukup (a.k.a bear1) for awarding me the “Brilliante WebLog Award“!

Apparently, I’m supposed to tag 7 other blogs that are deserving of the award. But I’m ashamed to say, I’m not much of a blog reader. (I’m more of a podcast person) However, I do know of a couple of really good Catholic blogs to look out for:

• JimmyAkin.org
  If you don’t know of this amazing apologist from Catholic Answers, you must’ve been living under a rock. His blog offers insights (from Jimmy and other contributors) to all the latest happenings to the Catholic church and around the world.
• The Curt Jester
  Catholic insight, with a touch of humor, and a pinch of oh-so-good sarcasm
• What Does The Prayer Really Say
  The famous blog by the famous Father Z! Gotta love him!
• FatherRoderick.com
  From SQPN’s very own Pied Piper himself! What more could you want?

Ok, now on to the reviews.

If you had a blast at the CNMC, or if you simply can’t get enough of Catholic blogs/podcasts and other good stuff. You’ll have to check out the Catholic New Media Roundup (rss) by Sean McGaughey (a.k.a ductapeguy). Sean does something similar to what I’m doing, but in the form of a podcast. He interviews the people behind various up-and-coming Catholic podcasts/blogs (some of which will be reviewed in this blog). If you liked this blog, I’m sure you’ll love Sean’s podcast.

One of the podcasts I discovered via CNMR was Celebrating Saints (rss) hosted by Katie Orsborn (together with her parents Dave & Karol). Each week, a saint is featured on the podcast. Sorta like a junior version of the SaintCast by Dr Paul Camarata.

Another podcast which I discovered is Our Catholic Life Podcast (rss) by my Facebook friend, James Mazzuchi and family. The Mazzuchi family talk about their life as a Catholic family. There’s also a kids segment, much like the Monster Cookies podcast, and earlier episodes of the Catholic Family Podcast. If you’ve like those, you’ll also enjoy both the Celebrating Saints and Our Catholic Life podcasts.

I discovered the Saint Faustina Diary (rss) podcast by John C Curtis, while “surfing” on the iTunes podcast directory. This is a series of readings from Saint Faustina’s diary. I find it to be a great companion to the Divine Mercy Podcast.

This next podcast isn’t exactly Catholic in content. But it is produced by one of our favorite SQPN groupies, Louisa Pittman. In her Accidental Archaeologist Podcast (rss), Louisa talks about her days as a sailor, and how she ended up as an archaeologist. She also talks about some of the interesting stuff she comes across in her line of work. If you’ve always been curious about the life of an archaeologist, this is one podcast you’ll have to check out!

OK, I’ve got to get back to work now. Hope you’ve enjoyed what I’ve shared with you today. Take care!

Tags: blogs, Catholic, Podcasts, Reviews

Ah, so this lazy little procrastinator is back at last. I’m not going to repeat the same excuses again, as I’m sure you all know what they are. No podcast reviews today, just brief updates on what’s going on my life. I might throw in a couple of reviews of other kinds though.

I received a couple of good news this week. A distant cousin is getting married next month. We’ve lost touch over the years, but I’m happy to hear the good news. One of my best girl-friends is expecting her 2nd baby. Her hubby (also my good friend) proudly announced it on his MSN status.

The highlight of my week, had to be receiving news that my dear god-brother is getting married in November. After years of searching, he has finally found his Miss Right. I caught a glimpse of her photo on Facebook. Pretty, pretty, pretty!

I watched Wall-E with the bf this Tuesday. It was his birthday, so we both took a day off from work to spend some quality time together. The movie was FANTASTIC! Pixar has not failed to live up to expectations. I was a little worried at first, as I heard some negative reviews of Wall-E from a colleague who watched it with her kids over the weekend. She told me it was boring, and that the only conversations in the film was “Waaalll-Eee” and “Eeeeevah“. She said her husband and her almost dozed off in the cinema, but her kids enjoyed the film thoroughly though. Although it is true that the wasn’t much human conversation in the movie, there was still plenty of interaction between the robot characters in the form of clicks, engine purrs, and other sounds that robots make. I also liked the little cockroach friend which Wall-E made in the midst of cleaning up Earth. It’s probably the only time I actually found a cockroach to be cute.

This week also marks the beta launch of Google’s web browser, Chrome. I’ve downloaded it on both the office and home machines. As promised, Chrome is fast and light. But it lacks some of the plugins and extensions that I’m so used to with Firefox. However, I can see much potential with Chrome, so I’ll continue to try it out. In fact, it’s my default browser on my home laptop, since it’s lighter and significantly faster than Firefox when loading my social media sites. The major gripe I have with Chrome is that there seems to be some problems with downloading files, and that I can’t scroll up the page using my touch-pad. Hopefully, all these issues will be ironed out when Chrome is finally out of beta.

Well, that’s all for now. Until next time, take care and God bless!

Tags: life, movies, musings, Reviews, technology

No reviews this week, since I’ve not done my homework and preparation due to a crazily busy work schedule. I thought I’d just post an update about what’s going on in my life so you’ll know I’ve not “blog-faded”.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that this is the month of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. While USA and most of the world were amazed by the prowess of Michael Phelps, much of Singapore held our breath as we watched our table-tennis team smash into the finals of the Women’s Table-Tennis Team event. Although our team (Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and Feng Tianwei) lost to China’s team (Zhang Yining, Wang Nan and Guo Yue) in the end, we were still elated that the paddlers have earned a Silver medal. This is the nation’s first Olympic medal in 48 years. Way to go girls!

Thanks to my new toy, the Samsung SGH-P960 (you can read my brief product review there), I get to catch much of the action while on the commute through the trial mobile tv service that I’m participating in. The Samsung is a loan set from Singtel (the telco I’m subscribed to), and I get to play with it until the end of October. I might do a more lengthy product review of the phone on this blog at the end of the trial, so keep a lookout for it.

That’s all for now. I’m going to get some late lunch now. Bye!

Tags: life, musings, Olympics, technology

I know, I know.. this WAS suppose to be a weekly blog (ideally), but I’ve not written anything for almost a month. What can I say, I’m a procrastinator and a lazy bum, PLUS, I’ve been flooded with work. For those who don’t already know, I work as a senior software developer at a software house which sells payroll software. As a payroll software vendor, we have to keep up with the latest changes to tax forms, tax rules, etc. While the rest of the world generally wakes up to filing taxes by mid-April next year, we have to make sure our software is compliant to government requirements/specifications by October of this year. As the “main developer” involved in what we call “year-end” activities, that means I get the “privilege” of being “invited” to join ALL the meetings/discussions/debates/etc regarding such stuff. It so happens that there have been MAJOR changes this year (which we’ve sort of anticipated since there were, strangely enough, no changes last year). That means reading through heaps of technical specifications to “spot the differences”, and discuss with my product leader what actions we need to take. Thankfully, being a “senior” now means I get to delegate some of the work to my juniors, while me and my product leader sit down to do design and give consultation.

Ok, enough of my whining. Last Saturday (August 9th) was National Day in Singapore, and the company has credited each of us an extra day of leave. Since it’s a school holiday today (the kids have been credited an extra holiday too), many parents have taken the day off today to spend time with their little ones. So we only have half-attendance in the office today. Since I’ve cleared what’s on my plate, I thought I’d take the time to finally start work on my blog. So here I am.

Before I start on the reviews, I’ll like to give a BIG welcome to my Twitter/Plurk/Facebook/uStream buddy, Inge Loots (a.k.a taquoriaan), who was confirmed as a Catholic yesterday (August 10th)! She is living proof to the rest of us of the power of Father Roderick and his podcasts and new media ministry a.k.a. SQPN, because according to Inge herself, her iPod made her Catholic! WOOT!!!!

Now to the reviews proper. Today I’m going to introduce to you a couple of podcasts that are short and sweet. Most of these are below 5mins and are great for times when you just want to listen to something “bite-sized”.

If you like finding out about how stuff works, you’ll probably enjoy the series of podcasts produced by HowStuffWorks.com. The good people have produced 4 podcasts, each focusing on different subjects. Each episode is a brief explanation of the topic in question, that’ll surely feed curiosity while on the go.

• Stuff You Should Know (rss) deals with topics regarding society and culture
• BrainStuff (rss) delves in science and medicine
• TechStuff (rss) obviously talks about technology
• Fact or Fiction (rss) is excellent for history buffs

Movie geeks will surely enjoy the Movie Mantras podcast (rss) by Martyn Darkly. This podcast offers to help you “search for enlightenment through the wisdom of film“. Twice a week, a quote from a movie is given in the “meditation exercise”. Each episode is about a minute in length. That’s what I call short and sweet.

In this crazy world, we all tend to have a couple of crazy thoughts once in a while. If you thought you were the only one feeling that way all along, wait till you listen to Christiana’s Shallow Thoughts (rss) by Christiana Ellis. Christiana is a writer/podcaster. To keep up with her job, she naturally has to keep her mind constantly churning out fun and interesting ideas. She shares her thought process and offers listeners a “daily dose of serene surrealism“.

Can’t get enough of funny stories? Check out Short Cummings Audio (rss) by Kevin Cummings>. Every week Kevin shares a funny story inspired by his everyday life. Give him six minutes and he’ll share his life with you.

Well, that’s all for now. I managed to finish this entry just in time to pack up and leave the office and enjoy the rest of the afternoon relaxing in some corner of Singapore. I have more reviews lined up, so keep a lookout for my next entry. Until then, take care and God bless!

Tags: fiction, life, musings, Podcasts, rant, Reviews