My own monogram/logo

I've been trying to come up with my own monogram or logo for some years now. It has been quite complicated since I normally use the initials of all four of my names and couldn't quite put all four together in a satisfactory monogram. Most monograms I see after all incorporate just two or three letters. But I finally came up with an idea the other day and couldn't wait to actually put it down on paper so to speak. So I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning today (actually I fell asleep early and somehow woke up at 2am) working with Adobe Photoshop to make it. I initially came up with the first one shown below and later another one with the colors inverted which I believe looks better, don't you?

I decided to make one for my sister as well since all I had to do was switch the first two letters and modify the "C" to look more like an "E".
I'm hoping to turn these into stamps (or perhaps stickers?) that my sister and I can use to mark our books, etc.

Doughnuts for ten pesos

Dunkin Donuts and Mister Donuts seem to have stepped up the competition these past week by offering their doughnuts for a lower price.

Mister Donuts recently began selling their doughnuts for nine pesos apiece if you buy a dozen. Then yesterday, I noticed that they were offering the sugar-raised and the honey-dipped varieties for just ten pesos. So I bought one sugar-raised one to eat as dessert for my noon meal. I thought I'd come back to buy more to bring home for Mama and Papa. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a one-day promo and they were back to selling just their fancy doughnuts which are too rich for Mama and Papa.

I also spied an ad in the newspaper announcing that Dunkin Donuts was selling all their doughnut varieties for just ten pesos each as well. I managed to buy half a dozen (three chocolate glazed with nuts and three chocolate honey-dipped) to bring home today. I hope to be able to buy more next time.

[Hmm. I've just noticed that the Blogger editor doesn't recognize the word "doughnut" but recognizes the more informal spelling of "donut". Now, isn't that weird?]

New Themes for Personalized Google Page

I had just signed into Google to view my personalized home page when I noticed a link on the upper right hand corner next to the "Add Stuff" link: a link to select a theme! This can only mean that Google has just introduced themes for personalized Google pages! Woohoo! So I checked it out and found that currently there are six themes (aside from the Classic theme): Beach, Bus Stop, City Scape, Sweet Dreams, Tea House and Seasonal Scape. There are indications that the themes (except for the Classic one) will change throughout the day according to the current time or weather which is why one has to provide city/state or zip code. The only trouble is that the setting appears to accepts US locations and zip codes only. I hope they'll start including international time zones soon as the themes do look great. In the meantime, I'm trying out the Tea Room theme which seems to be the most interesting one (i.e. cute).

KFC menu changes

I often walk from my office to buy something at KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) for my lunch. Ever since KFC took over the Burger King spot here in town, they have been luring most people away from McDonald's right across the street. And I think I understand why. Not only do most of their meals come with rice (most people here can't get along without that), but they constantly update their menu to keep the people coming back to try the new items.

When they first arrived in town more than two years ago, they had just introduced their rice bowls, the chicken salad and go-go sandwiches. Then they had their chicken tempura meal, followed by a barbeque (on the stick) chicken meal and most recently orange chicken. The taco variety of the go-go sandwich (salad veggies with chicken on pita bread) was my favourite and whenever I had the appetite, I would order the chicken tempura meal with an add-on of coleslaw. Yum-yum. (By comparison, the only new item that McDonald's has introduced in the past year was practically their McRice burgers.)

Sadly, they slowly began taking away some items as well. Around the beginning of the year, I learned that they would stop serving the go-go taco. Then they took away their rice bowls (a la king, szechuan and mongolian varieties) and then--alas for me!--the tempura chicken. I've just also noticed that they're no longer serving the barbeque chicken. In place of the this and the tempura chicken, they apparently introduce their crispy strips served with either gravy, sweet and sour sauce or teriyaki sauce. I haven't tried it because when it first appeared on their display, I was told that it was going to be served with their gravy which I really find disgusting. Now that a big ad mentions the other options, I'm tempted to try it out.

Stormy day at the eagle cam

Like I said, I was viewing the eagle cam. And gee, is it really stormy out there. The poor thing. The wind's blowing really hard, the rain's coming down in sheets. And I can just see the branch with the nest rocking back and forth in the howling wind with the eagle crouched down low in the nest.

Windows XP stability

Ha ha. I've just had an experience with my laptop proving once again the stability of Windows XP.

I was viewing the eaglecam just earlier when that dialogue box about so-and-so-application-caused-an-error-and-has-to-quit popped up. This time it was Windows Explorer that caused the error. Yikes! As expected, my taskbar disappeared soon after I clicked on the button on dialogue box not to report the error. If this were Windows 98 or Windows ME, I'd be stuck with my running applications and no taskbar to manage them or let me shut down leaving me with no choice but to turn off the laptop by pressing on the power button. But lo and behold! After a several seconds of suspense during which my wallpaper disappeared as well, the taskbar was restored slowly with Quick Launch...then all the buttons to applications I was running when the crash occurred ... and then my wallpaper!

Even Linux OS running on my PC at work isn't this stable. I believe that crashed about once a month ever since I installed it two years ago. Sigh! Although I'd recommend going open source, at least it's good to see Windows stepping up to the competition. Now only if they could get rid of those viruses and improve on the interface. (Have been drooling over Apple's interfaces!)

More birthday greetings and celebrations

I received another series of small birthday greetings today. First there was the text message from my good friend Tina all the way from Singapore in the morning. Then this noon I treated the folks at the office to sotanghon and puto. Our director even bought me a cake with a "singing candle", one which played a tune after you blow out the flame. Hee-hee. It was cute.