TheFranciscos.Net

Updates to the site – more pics from Marj & Zoe’s birthday party, courtesy of Marj.

I’ve started reading “Home Buying for Dummies” by Eric Tyson, MBA and Ray Brown. I decided to get this book based on all the great reviews it has on Amazon.Com’s site. It’s very informative and fun to read at the same time. The authors speak in layman’s terms so it’s easy to understand the previously-alien terms like points, mortgage, and other real-estate mumbo-jumbo. It takes you through the complete process, from the process of saving up for the downpayment up to closing the deal, and gives several tips to be able to get good deals. At least we’ll be semi-knowledgeable once we start speaking with sellers, real-estate agents, and lendors. God knows we’re gonna need all the help we can get.

We’ll be meeting up with our agent tomorrow afternoon and officially get the ball rolling on the house-hunting. We’ve been pre-approved by a couple of lendors already so I’m pretty confident that we’ll be able to purchase the house we want if we find something we really like. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find something that will be a good home for us.

On my CD player – “Big Ones” by Aerosmith

Echo & The Bunnymen – “Live In Liverpool”

Echo and the Bunnymen, ever since it was reformed by Will Sergeant and Ian McCulloch, have been on a roll since their “comeback” heralded by 1997’s “Evergreen”. Last year’s “Flowers” was one of my favorite albums of the year and one of their best ever. Needless to say, I am a big Bunnymen fan and have had the privelege of seeing them live on three different occasions. Their live act is usually a great, energetic set of songs that ecompass hits from their career. This album, their first proper live album, effectively captures that act onto a recorded medium.

This album was recorded over 2 nights last year at the Liverpool Institue of the Performing Arts (LIPA) and includes their hits – The Killing Moon, Lips Like Sugar, Rescue as well as some newer songs – King Of Kings and Nothing Lasts Forever. Surprisingly, these songs mesh together well even though they span almost 15 years apart. Will Sergeant’s guitar-playing has never sounded better and Mac’s voice is almost enchanting as when it’s heard live. This album is effective in capturing the experience of a Bunnymen gig, minus the smoke from Mac’s cigarettes.

One thing that is noticeably absent here (for fans, at least) is the Bunnymen’s rendition of “Do It Clean”. This is always one of the highlights of their shows, doing a great rendition of their song, and adding in snippets from other songs, most notably “Riders On The Storm”, by the Doors. If you want to hear this live set on disc, you’ll have to hunt down a copy of the Japanese-only CD “New, Live, & Rare” or grab a copy of the superb “Crystal Days” boxed set.

Overall, I’d have no hesitation in recommending this to fans…. even newbies to EATB’s music might like this.

Du’s Rating: 4 out 5 stars

Zoe had a very happy birthday weekend! Her celebration started off with a daycare party at ACCA. The delicious menu consisted of baked macaroni, embutido, cake and others goodies (courtesy of Aileen). The caregivers were impressed by Aileen’s cooking, especially her great embutido! “It tastes kinda like meatloaf, but different!”, said one of the daycare people .

We then had a “quiet” dinner at Chuck E Cheese (where a kid can be a kid). Zoe had a great time especially when she rode on the Chuck E Cheese car and played skeeball.

Lastly, we had another great party for Marj & Zoe at Jon & Marj’s place in Harrisburg. Thanks to our good friends from Philly who made the long trip to go there. Extra-special thanks to Ninong Jon and Ninang Marj for hosting the event… thanks to all of you, our daughter had a great, great weekend!

On my CD player – Echo & The Bunnymen “Live In Liverpool”

PLATOON (Pioneer Spec. Ed. Widescreen Laserdisc)

I’ve always been a fan of Oliver Stone’s movies. One of my favorite movies is “JFK”. I loved his previous Vietnam movies “Born On The Fourth Of July” and “Heaven and Earth”, but I never liked his supposed magnum-opus, Platoon. The first and only time I ever watched it was at a rinky-dink cinema back home. I was around 12 or 13 back then. The only thing I really remember about it was that the movie was so dark (literally) and I hated it. Looking back, I probably didn’t like the movie because one, it was over my head and two, I couldn’t really relate to it. I never really liked war movies, not when I was a kid at least. Another reason maybe was that the cinema was just so ugly I couldn’t concentrate on the movie.

Anyway, whatever the reason was, I finally found a reason to come back and watch it via a laserdisc acquired from a fellow lister at the good ol’ HTF. And man, what a treat it was. I practically watched the film for the first time. The story was very deeply moving and characters so real that you felt like you were actually in the war with them. This is the film that put Oliver Stone on the map, and with good reason. Stone was a Vietnam War veteran and his attachment to this movie is so evident that it speaks to you beyond the film.

The cast was also finely chosen. This is one of Charlie Sheen’s most dramatic performances and is the reason that he became a household name (well, before all the sex scandals anyway). Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe are so effective as enemies that on the same side of the war. Now-superstar Johnny Depp also makes a small appearance in this film (this was one of his first movie roles after leaving the 21 Jumpstreet TV series).

Oh yeah, one other thing to note is that this movie was shot beautifully in the Philippines.

Platoon won well-deserved Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director in 1986 (personally I was rooting for Aliens to win that year), and now I understand why it did. I can name very few movies in the past 20 or so years that have been as memorable as this movie.

Platoon: 4 stars

Quote of the day – “Whenever things are coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane”

Our daughter Zoe is turning two tomorrow! It seems like only yesterday that she was still a small, fragile baby. I can still remember the day she was born like it was yesterday.

Aileen, Mommy Digna, and I spent the beginning of the day counting the minutes between contractions. Then, after remembering Dr. Williams’ advice on walking around to help the labor along, we decided to walk around in the mall. Thinking back, it was a very funny idea to do that… imagine a woman about to give birth walking around in a shopping mall! A manager at a shop we were walking around in was shocked when we told her that Aileen was feeling contractions and suggested that we go to the hospital. The manager was probably just afraid that Aileen’s water would burst in the store and they’d have to clean it up.

We finally got to the Bryn Mawr Hospital at around 2 PM. We had no difficulty getting there since I was practicing the route weeks before. The problem we had was making the turn to get into the driveway that leads to the delivery reception area! I missed that three times…. Aileen would probably be laughing then if she didn’t feel so much pain.

After another few hours of walking around in the delivery area, the doctor decided it was time to start pushing. We started this at around 6 PM and ended up doing it constantly until 11 PM or so. Dr. Williams finally decided it was time for our baby to be born. Aileen had a hard time pushing probably because our daughter was so big and she was a bit groggy from the epidurals she took for the pain. The OB brought out an instrument with a suction cup at the end. Imagine my surprise when I saw this… my baby was going to be sucked out of her mom by a plunger!

Anyway, the delivery turned out well, and we finally saw Zoe at around 11:45 PM on April 5, 2000. I remember that day to be one of our proudest moments as a couple. The nurses carefully took Zoe to be cradled in her mother’s arms. As I was looking at both mother and daughter, I remember feeling a lot of mixed emotions. Relief – that the ordeal was finally over (Aileen was probably more relieved than I was though). Happiness – because our daughter seemed to be a healthy, normal baby (our ultrasounds had indications that she might be underweight). Most of all though, I felt a lot of love for my wife and our newborn daughter.

Seems like I’m not the only one who has a bad case of insomnia, the article here says that only 30% of people in the US get the needed 8 hours of sleep at night. These are the recommended ways to get a better night’s sleep:

The National Sleep Foundation suggests the following tips.

• Consume less or no caffeine and avoid alcohol

• Drink less fluids before going to sleep

• Avoid heavy meals close to bedtime

• Avoid nicotine

• Exercise regularly, but do so in the daytime, preferably after noon

• Try a relaxing routine, like soaking in hot water (a hot tub or bath) before bedtime

• Establish a regular bedtime and waketime schedule

First of all, who the hell is the National Sleep Foundation? I guess the people who were surveyed all work there because I’m sure there’s nothing to do in that organization except sleep. Just what kind of advice is “Exercise regularly, but do so in the daytime, preferably after noon”? Don’t they know that actual people need to work? These people at the NSF are nutty.

Man, I need to get more sleep… I wouldn’t be so cranky if I did…

HOUSE-HUNTING

Aileen and I have decided to go house-hunting! We figured that since we’ll be staying here in the Pittsburgh area for at least a few years, we should at least live more comfortably than we are right now. Aileen has two more years to go in her residency program, and if I get accepted and go to business school, that will add another three years for me. In the meantime, our little daughter is growing up quickly and will soon need a lot more room. Our little apartment right now is just not going to cut it, so we decided to go ahead and look at possible places to move to. Hopefully, we find something to our liking and at the same time will fit our modest budget.

I’ll probably be calling some real estate agents in the next few weeks to figure some things out like what I can afford, how much downpayment we’ll need to save up, and other things. Since we’re new to Pittsburgh, we’ll also have to do some research on neighborhoods and school areas. North Huntingdon is supposed to be a good area, but we’re very open to other possibilities. The one constant factor here is that it needs to be close to Aileen’s hospital.

I’d love to give Zoe childhood memories of living in a nice house rather than a small apartment. She’s reaching that age where she needs more space to explore and a room that she can call her own. She’s accumulating so many toys that it’s practically overflowing. I’ve had to put some of her things in storage because of our lack of space. If and when we get a new home, I’d like her to have her very own play area.

Aileen wants a room that she can use as an office. I want an area where I can set-up my small home theater.

The thought of buying a home is scary. It’s just mind-boggling how much money you need to invest to buy one. Also, the thought of doing more chores and keeping the house tidy is another thing. And also, how in the world am I supposed to mow a lawn? On the other hand, it would be great to call some place “our home”. Somehow, the apartments we’ve been in never seemed very “homey” to me.

Hopefully, “our home” is somewhere in the real-estate market right now.

Current tune on my Grado headphones – Malibu by Hole

HAPPY EASTER!

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy easter! Hope everybody had a happy holiday. We didn’t really do much during the holidays, especially because Aileen had to do rounds every day during the weekend. For the most part, we spent it on planning Zoe’s party this coming weekend. I can’t believe our daughter is turning two in a few days. Time really flies when you’re having fun.

The weather finally got warmer and I was able to go to the driving range last Friday. After working out a few kinks I finally got a decent swing back. I’m all right with the irons, and also the 5 driver. But that 1 driver is really tricky… definitely need more practice on that one. Hopefully, the weather will stay warm this week so I can got some more swings in.

Since Aileen was in the hospital for a good part of the weekend, we pretty much stayed at home. I was able to watch 3 DVDs that I rented from RMD this weekend – Best In Show, The Last Starfighter, and Lost Souls. Just some quick thoughts on each:

Best In Show: The funniest movie ever about dog shows. I didn’t expect to enjoy this one given the subject matter (I’m really not a big dog show fan, although we did own a couple of purebred Mini Pinschers). It’s done in what I call a “mockumentary”-style presentation. It was very, very funny especially during the introduction of the dog show owners in the beginning of the movie. One other thing I enjoyed was seeing a lot of actors who are role-players in other films, for example the dad from “American Pie” and the mom from “Home Alone”. This is a must-see!

The Last Starfighter: A mid-80s campy movie about a guy who was selected to become the savior of an entire alien species by scoring the high score on a video game. In the same vein as Buckaroo Banzai and Tron, this is also a cult movie that has a fair amount of fans out there. It was probably the third time I’ve seen it, the last time being sometime in the early 90s. It’s still a decent sci-fi flick, but it’s showing its age. One of the highlights of the DVD was the making-of documentary. I didn’t realize how advanced for its time the CGI graphics on this movie were until I saw this short film. It gave me a depper appreciation of the film itself.

Lost Souls: Pretty run-of-the-mill horror-thriller about the coming of the anti-christ (that’s a lot of hyphenated words in one sentence). A lot better than those slasher teen flicks though. The ending felt a little too abrupt. Worth a watch if you really can’t find anything else of interest.

Oh by the way… Happy April Fool’s as well! Check this out for some April Fool’s trivia.

On my computer’s CD player – Size 14-Superbabe 2000

THE OSBOURNES

airs on MTV, Tuesdays at 10:30, starring Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly Osbourne

One of the best and original shows on TV ever has to be MTV’s “The Osbournes”. This show is the real-life drama (and comedy) of the life of a rock icon. It stars Ozzy Osbourne, wife Sharon and kids Jack and Kelly with a whole slew of supporting cast members. Ozzy’s family gave MTV pretty much free access to their lives during the taping of the show (almost six months long) so you get to see the family at its nitty-grittiest.

The show is essentially a reality series, a genre which I really dislike, but we’re talking about Ozzy Osbourne here! He wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t think it would be cool. Ozzy time and again has proven that he has a sense of humor that is like no other. He’s very witty and likes to say the word “f***” a lot. Great formula for a hiot show, don’t you think? Multiply it by 4 times and you have his family. It’s a blast to see what goes on in his house, the conversations he has with his wife and kids, and the preparations he goes through when he has a TV appearance or a gig coming up. One of the most memorable parts so far has been a scene in the first episode when Kelly was trying to say something to her dad and Ozzy couldn’t hear it. Kelly asks why her dad has a hard time understanding her. Ozz retorts by saying in his great British accent “Well you obviously haven’t spent the last 30 years of your f***ing life listening to 35,000 decibels on the f***ing stage”.

Move over, Cosby family, scoot over Simpsons – the first family of primetime sitcom has arrived. This show is 5 stars all the way!