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Google site analytics
I run Google Analytics on my blog just out of curiosity and to monitor the kind of traffic and visitors I get.

Take a look at the Keywords section which lists the search keywords people have used to land on my blog:


I didn't even know there were slash pairings for Iron Chef America! But, I guess if you look hard enough, you can find slash anywhere >_<

Though I don't remember talking about any of that in my blog. Seems like that search landed on Saturday, April 25. Weird @_@

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Hotel Spa Ixtapan

I really wanted to check out Hotel Spa Ixtapan because I heard a lot about their all-inclusive spa program. I was eyeing the 7 Day Spa Classic which was US$1,390, which includes accommodations, spa programs and all meals!

Unfortunately, that whole swine flu epidemic and drug war put a damper on my plans :(

Here's a sample schedule from their website:

7:00 AM – Juice & Coffee, followed by Stretch and Morning Walk
8:00 AM – Yoga, or Low Impact Aerobics Class
9:00 AM – Breakfast in ‘Teocali’ (Spa cuisine)
10:00 AM – Water Aerobics
11:00 AM – Relax by the pool
1:00 PM – Pool Side Lunch at ‘Emperadores’ (spa cuisine)
2:00 PM – Golf Lesson
3:30 PM – Loofah and Herbal Wrap
4:30 PM – Facial
5:30 PM – Massage
7:00 PM – Live Piano Music in the Lobby
8:00 PM – Dinner in ‘Teocali’ (spa cuisine)
9:00 PM – Movie in the Theater

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Naturally Victoria's Secret
I'm not really a fan of Victoria's Secret. I just go there whenever they send me those free panty things in the mail :P During one of my trips there to claim my free underwear, my friend and I were each given a Secret Reward card to be claimed later that were worth either $10, $50, $100 or $500.

We joked that with our luck, we probably got the $10 one, but I was hoping for at least the $50. Ha! Of course, our luck didn't let us down and our cards were $10 each :P

My friend bought a Beauty Rush Coconut Craze Body Glimmer Swirl Cream, which smells really good on her.

I saw their new Naturally line and tried all the scents and settled on the Açai Berry & Magnolia Hydrating Body Lotion. VS describes the scent as:
Protects and brightens. Silky lotion is fortified with nourishing shea butter, vitamins C and E and 34 essential minerals for luxurious, all-day moisture and softness.

Naturally Victoria's Secret utilizes powerful pairings to unlock the potential in nature's most beneficial ingredients. Here, we marry skin-protective açai berry, known as the most potent antioxidant in nature, with magnolia, revered in Chinese medicine for its brightening properties. Domestic.
The scent is light, but it works. I like the subtle elegance of it :D Give it a try when you're in a VS store and let me know what you think :)

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Johnson's dead?
So I was looking at my friend's Facebook profile today — yes, occasionally, I turn into a creeper :P — and was concerned when people on his wall were asking if he was "OK" or "alive" x_x

I immediately became concerned and wondered what was going on. Apparently, someone with the same name and age as him was shot and killed in an attempted robbery in the city! What are the odds?! It's sad that someone so young was killed; but honestly, I'm glad that it wasn't my friend...

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anti-theft tags
After my exhaustive yet happy :D shopping day, I was looking through my clothing purchases and realized that one of the things I bought from Charlotte Russe still had the anti-theft tag pinned on it! I didn't wanna have to drive all the way back to the closest store about 40 minutes away just to get them to take it off for me x_x

So, Internet to the rescue! Saw some really interesting (albeit not really feasible) ways. Someone suggested burning the pin to release it from the tag. Right, with my luck, I'll burn the piece of clothing! x_x Another bright idea (read: sarcasm) was to use extremely strong magnets to detach the pin. Yes, let me pull out that super strong magnet I keep in my purse for emergencies. Ha!

But the winner was an advice I got from Youtube that involved just using 2 pliers to gently bend the tag to release the pin. It was definitely interesting (and a little shocking) to see how easy it is to remove the tag since they're supposed to help stop shoplifting :( If it was easy for me to do, I'm sure it's definitely a cakewalk for perpetual shoplifters or professional ones.

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my frozen yogurt craze
It seems like my frozen yogurt craze began after seeing the American Express Pinkberry commercial that aired about a year or so ago. I searched Pinkberry on Google and found that the closest one to me would be in New York City so my shopping trips to NYC would never be complete without a stop there :D

Unfortunately, the last time I had frozen yogurt was last year during my last day trip to NYC :(

Anyhoo, it seems that there are at least 2 frozen yogurt places that have opened up near (well, closer than NYC :P) me:
That makes me happy! :D

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yummy yummy Korean barbecue!
I've become quite a fan of this Korean barbecue restaurant about half an hour or so away from me. My first time there was about 2 weeks ago, and just couldn't stop thinking about it so my friend and I went again this week :)

Here's our "grill". We were very excited because the first time we went, we just got a regular grill, but the people next to us had the turtle one. (More pictures after the cut...)


Here are the yummy banchan that came with our orders. The rolled meat at the top right-hand corner is my friend's order. I ordered chicken.


My friend grilling her beef brisket. I was so hungry that I forgot to take a pic of me grilling my chicken. LOL :P


The oil and fat float away from the meat because of the ridges on the "turtle" back and make their way to the turtle's butt into a collection dish.


The end of the meal. As you can see, I pretty much devoured everything within my area :D *Nom nom nom*


It was another fun experience :D It got a little bit uncomfortable towards the end when they sat a couple in the table next to us. My friend and I think it was their first date because the conversation was so awkward and we could feel it! x_x Not fun!

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half-Filipino? ehh?
Matsumoto Jun (Hana Yori Dango's Domyouji Tsukasa) is on a new show called Smile, where he is playing a half-Filipino guy.

Take a look at DramaWiki's description of the show:
Hayakawa Bito has a Filipino father and a Japanese mother, but he was born and raised in Japan and has never visited the Philippines. The ever-smiling Bito works at Machimura Foods during the day, and at night, he works a part-time job trying to make his dreams come true. One day during an incident at a bookstore, he meets a girl named Mishima Hana, who lost her ability to speak due to an accident. But even though she can't speak, Bito is drawn to her beautiful smile. However, Bito becomes wrongly suspected by the police for a crime, and after meeting the lawyer Kazuma, the issue begins to grow... Together, Bito, Hana, and Kazuma will go through challenging times and have to overcome many obstacles.
I wonder just how much his being half-Filipino is gonna factor on the show... Too bad the main girl isn't Filipina... That would be some drama right there! I'm definitely intrigued enough to watch it :)

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donut holes are yummy
My friend and I were craving Dunkin Donuts munchkins so we hopped into her car and tried to navigate our way to the nearest one, which is quite a feat when the city streets are almost all one-way streets.

When we got back to her parking lot, I noticed this car parked in front of hers. Totally tacky but gave us a laugh, nevertheless.


On a side note, I'm getting tired of this layout so I'm working on a new food-inspired one :) I'm hoping the transition will be smoother than the last one!

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VAMPS U.S. Tour
My friend excitedly called me today at work to tell me that she's buying us tickets to a VAMPS show. I was a lil befuddled 'cuz I had never heard of them before. Turns out it's HYDE's side project... so YAY! :D This will probably be the first and only time I'll ever see HYDE in person, so I'm quite excited! Not a big fan of crowds though so the thought of sweaty, stinky people getting all close me is making me *gag* x_x

And, it coincides with Otakon 2009, which I missed last year so apparently I'm going this year. LOL. We'll see... I'm getting kinda tired of the whole crazy "otaku" scene...

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Happy Easter!
So I decided to run errands today instead of yesterday. Not really sure why. Obviously, I wasn't thinking :P A lot of the stores near me were closed so I couldn't get the things I needed. I ended up going to a grocery store to get some of the things I needed. Of course, since it was the only thing that was open nearby, there were A LOT of people there.

As I was going around looking for the shortest line, I saw these:


Totally made me giggle a little. There was a time in high school when I busted out with the Arthur theme song and some people actually sang along! Fun times :D

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friday night TV
So glad this week is almost over. It's been a rough week at work :( Kinda wishing our so-called “manager” gets fired x_x

Anyhoo, I hope that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn't get cancelled because tonight's season finale was WOW. It's such a shame that all of this season's episodes haven't been as good as tonight's. The "twist" at the end got me all giddy. I really hope FOX doesn't cancel the show... And that extended trailer for Terminator Salvation definitely makes me wanna watch it more! And not just because Christian Bale is in it ;)

Dollhouse was good tonight too. I feel like they're finally letting Joss Whedon slip into his groove. It's about time! Lots of surprises! :D

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fight me! you know you want to ^_~
When I was bored at work, my friend introduced me to this cute, casual "fighting" game. Check it out! Click the picture below to fight me :)

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Bromance at the movies
I told my coworker Mica that I wanted to see I Love You, Man and he got all excited and told me how awesome it was and how great Paul Rudd was in it.


I gotta say that I definitely enjoyed the movie. Paul Rudd has this great talent of just playing a regular guy, but being really funny while doing just regular things. Does that make sense? It made sense in my head. LOL :P

His character was so awkward; it was great! And, Jason Segel is just a crazy lovable goof. Oh, Marshall Eriksen :P

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all day MINI service
My MINI was due for its maintenance so I dropped by my closest MINI dealership to have it serviced. I was there around 10-10.30 in the morning and I didn't leave til around 4.30p! Crazy! x_x They close at 4p! Not really sure what happened, but I was not impressed >_<

I was hoping that the service advisor was going to give me something complimentary for my waiting for the whole day. But, I got nothing. When I get a survey call, I'm probably not gonna give them the perfect score (a 5) they're always trying to get.

It was pretty poor customer service x_x

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disqus & Gossip Girl
Wow, did not realize the extent of coding work just to manually integrate DISQUS into this blog. But I'm glad it worked out :)

Anyway, my friend was telling me about Gossip Girl, which I've seen promos of, but have never really watched. And, she's come to the conclusion that I could be one because I know everyone's drama and secrets. She's right! :D I could definitely write a book about people's dirt, drama, and secrets; but, of course, she knows I won't do it. There's a reason why my friends trust me with this stuff. They know that I can be trusted :)

Still, I imagine it would be fun to write a "scandalous" book :P

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East Village Bed & Coffee
Since my long-awaited trip to the Philippines was nixed, thanks to Target changing their vacation rules and thereby reducing my best friend's vacation time to 3 days :( I was looking around for another vacation spot that wasn't too much on the wallet.

Enter New York City!

I've never stayed there for more than one day. I usually just go up to NYC on day trips. Thanks to my Little Black Book of New York, I found the East Village Bed & Coffee. Check out some of the room rates below, which are per room!:

The place has great ratings from people who've stayed there from around the world! The place isn't right by Times Square or anything, but it's close enough to Chinatown and SoHo for me to be happy :) I'm excited! :D

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ta-da!
My first post for the new layout! WoOt! :D There's still little tweaks I need to make, but I'm just really excited that I was able to do it. Took me a little longer, but I got it done! Yay! :)

My commenting system doesn't work with Blogger Classic so I have to use the Blogger system for now. I'm just so excited right now! :P

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