New Zodiac Sign - Ophiuchus ... New Zodiac Dates

I read the article on Time.com about adding a new Zodiac sign and also, obviously, dates that each Zodiac spans also changed.

Here's the list for your reference (as for me, I was Cancerian before, now a Gemini...):

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.
Pisces: March 11-April 18.
Aries: April 18-May 13.
Taurus: May 13-June 21.
Gemini: June 21-July 20.
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17.
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.

I really have nothing against this change if ever it's binding and, you know, forever (or at least my whole lifetime).  I personally believe that your Zodiac sign doesn't really tell what type of personality you have, because, as a former Cancer, according to my sign, I am a family person, I rule with my heart and always what is good for my family, I prioritize my family in making decisions, and I want people to get along.  Well, I know that I am like that regardless of when I was born, and even if my Zodiac sign changes, I won't stop being like that.  Also, it doesn't mean that people who weren't born Cancer don't or can't prioritize their family and be all that I mentioned earlier on.

While there are people who believe in the connection between personalities and stars, which I respect, but even astrologists say that you hold your life in your hands and nothing, no amount of fortune-telling based on stars or anywhere else, is set in stone.  We create our own future, we decide our own actions, and our personalities or our identities, we develop them on our own.  Whatever your new Zodiac sign is, it's important to continue to live life to the fullest, continue to care for people, your family or not, and to always aim to become a better person each day, each month, each new year.

A reminder from Anne in Red.

Minute Maid Pulpy - Healthy Fruit in a Bottle

I just drank a bottle of Minute Maid Pulpy. They say it’s got ‘no preservatives added’. Aw, c’mon…It’s bottled juice. Is that even possible? So I thought maybe... we should check the label and put it to the test!

I didn’t believe it the first time I heard it’s got no preservatives added.  So I read the ingredients (even the fine print) and everything checked out! It really has NO PRESERVATIVES ADDED!  That means it doesn’t have ingredients that may turn out to be allergens, or worse...carcinogens!  Whew! Now that’s healthy goodness that tastes so good, I... never thought it can really be done, now that everything you buy anywhere has preservatives!  Amazing!

So okay, it’s got no preservatives added. That’s really good, right?  Not just because it doesn’t have those icky, harmful ingredients, but it also means... you stay healthy while enjoying the great taste of Minute Maid Pulpy!

So far anyone who still has a hard time believing that Minute Maid has got no preservatives added - meaning it's THAT natural, it's almost like it's plucked straight from the tree, it's just as Mother Nature wanted your orange juice to be, it's got nothing but the good stuff yes, none of those potentially toxic stuff that can harm your brain, kidneys, heart; cause tumors aargh- the list of preservatives' bad effects just go on!!! Anyway, just to prove a point on just how good Minute Maid Pulpy is 'cause it's got NO PRESERVATIVES ADDED, I'm gonna drink it everyday myself!

Feels good to know about the real pulpy deal, right? C’mon show me a smile on the comment box, and you might win yourself a Really Pulpy Deal! (That’s a chance to win a Minute Maid gift pack simply by commenting. Sweet! C'mon you just might be picked as the lucky 'commentor'!)

Love,

Anne in Red

MY CHRISTMAS WISH THIS YEAR: A NOKIA C7

If there’s anything that I would like to get this Christmas, it’s the Nokia C7, and the people who really know me would know why I want that phone.  2 things; camera and technology.

Being a food blogger, phone camera is a big deal to me and there’s nothing like HD video and 8MP camera for awesome clear pictures everywhere you go!  For my blog, I make it a point that I post crisp, clear and true to life photos so that my readers can have a good sense of what my experience was in a particular restaurant and how the food really looks like without misrepresenting anything.  Also, more often than not, I would find myself in a situation where I’m dining in a restaurant and I just decided I want to blog about it but didn’t have my digital camera with me.  Of course I have to settle with my current phone, which is not really that bad as it also takes wonderful pictures with its 5MP camera with auto-focus (a Nokia E72 – yes, I only choose the best ^_^), the 8MP camera of Nokia C7 which has full focus, would really take my blog pictures to the next level!  Night time photos (or romantic dining with dim lights ^_^) won’t be a problem with its powerful 3rd generation dual LED flash.  Oh, did I mention that it has 8GB internal memory!?!  *** cue in orchestra playing in the background…  clouds open up, Nokia C7 descends to earth from the heavens***  Seriously, I might never have a need for a digital camera ever!  Not to mention, the phone’s 3.5” display is an awesome bonus!  You get to take great pictures and also see them in a “viewer friendly” size.

Well, aside from the camera, I would of course be getting that state of the art finger gesture technology and the C7 would be my first touch screen phone!  I have been very cautious in deciding whether or not to get a touch screen phone just because I want the technology to develop even more, and now I think Nokia really pushed the envelope this time, with the Nokia C7, by combining touch screen capability of the usual phone and adding features you can only do on PC tablets and some notebooks.  I love customizing my phone’s homepage  and although that’s not really a new technology, the freedom that Nokia C7 gives the user to do that plus the real-time homepage update of your social network accounts and email just blows my mind away!  So if I customize my homepage so that it has everything I need, I can get to the applications that I usually use in, literally, just a touch of a screen!

I know you get the picture and you sense how badly I want this phone (I hope Santa is a big fan of blogs and internet surfing… please read this, Santa).  Nokia C7 is a really solid touch-screen phone with an amazing camera that would make it to the top of anyone’s wish list this Christmas just as it has made to my top 1, 2 and 3 thing/s I want this Christmas.  I just can’t wait to see how my food blog pictures would look like using that phone!  Santa, are you still reading this?  ^_^

I hope everyone gets what they want this Christmas! - From Anne in Red

Want To Sing Duet But Noone To Sing With?

I love to sing, and whether singing loves me doesn't really matter, I'll sing anyway.  I especially love singing with someone else, unfortunately, it's really hard to find people to sing a duet with me whenever I feel like singing.  It's not my husband's cup of tea.  He would sing, but he won't bother to learn or sing the way the male parts of the song should be sung.  I know there are a lot of people out there who, like me, want to sing a decent duet number with someone to sing the other part and not you having to sing all the parts alone... ^_^  Solution?  Or should I say, solutions?  Youtube and Keepvid!

How to get videos on Youtube with Male/Female parts only?

1st Step:  Search for Male Only/Female Only Youtube videos

Very simple, just type the title of the song you're looking for and add "Female Only" or "Male Only" after a comma.  One very good example is how I found this wonderful (one of my all time favorites) duet by Leah Salonga (my favorite local/international female singer/performer) and Brad Kane (who also sang "A Whole New World" with Leah for Disney's "Alladin").  My search terms were "we could be in love, male only" and sure enough, the first item on the search results is exactly what I was looking for.

By the way, it's always better to look for karaoke videos with lyrics on the video (on screen) so that you won't have to look for lyrics or read the lyrics out of a different screen or a printout.


2nd Step:  Download  Youtube Using KeepVid.com (so you can sing offline)

My brother introduced me to this.  Just copy the URL of the video (if it has the "&feature..." only copy the link upto before "&").

Open KeepVid.com and paste the link, hit on download and choose the format you want!  Click and Download!

Really easy thing!


Results!

Sure enough, I tried to learn the Leah-parts and "tried" is the keyword in this sentence, mind you... ^_^  And sang the song with the virtual partner....  Using Audacity, a headset microphone (yes, a very primitive tool ^_^;) and my PC's speaker, I recorded my voice singing with the Male-Only video.

Here's the result (Please please be kind... it's my first time ever posting anything on the internet of me singing anything!  And I'm not pro and definitely not a Leah Salonga, but this is purely a labor of love and fun so I hope you enjoy!):

*  By the way, let me be the first to say, I messed up big time in one part but I was too lazy to redo the audio...  I'm sure you'd be able to tell which part... ^_^;

Here's a video I made with the audio I recorded (my voice and youtube username firsttenor76):

* pictures are from our prenup session and wedding.  Against my better judgment, posted this on youtube!  Hahahha!

There you go!  You can start singing duets now over the internet!  There are a lot of videos on youtube from anime songs made minus 1, to nursery rhyms, without the annoying melody tune guide and a lot of Male-Only songs to sing with.

Happy Singing! - From Anne in Red

Global Warming - Real Threat to Polar Bears

 Taken from dailycasserole.com

I just finished watching an Animal Planet feature, following the lives of 2 Polar Bears (a brother and a sister) in the heart of the Arctic region.  The clip in the end really just enraged me and pushed me to write this article.

I can't find a clip of that documentary and even the photo above isn't the bear on the feature, but, the ending, which was really depressing, shows a very thin Polar Bear (can you even imagine seeing a thin Polar Bear?!), with her big bones depressingly clearly showing their raw shape against her skin.  The ice around her has melted, and the food was scarce.  Yes, sure it was the low season and Polar Bears are expected to have a difficult time hunting for food when the film was made but still, it was very alarming to see how some of them struggle to get by until the season of plenty.  That Polar Bear on the documentary was a female and she needed to fatten herself up to increase the success rate of bearing cubs, and with how she looked, it seemed that she wouldn't even last a month.

Now for people who would argue that Polar Bears have been growing steadily in numbers for the past 70 years due to conservation efforts and try to change the focus from saving endangered species to saying that all these stories about global warming and Polar Bears aren't as scary as the documentaries set them up to be, well, you may be right about some things.  These stories do get quite a number of viewers and any self respecting income generating broadcasting company want exactly that - lots of viewers and lots of money.  But it doesn't change the fact that the only reason why Polar Bear population has improved is because of human intervention - aggressive conservation efforts.  And the reason why they have been placed in the endangered species list is also greatly attributed to hunting and global warming.

And interestingly enough, there are people who argue that global warming has NOT BEEN PROVEN?  Hmmm...  I don't exactly know how to answer that technically but here are my personal observations....  Typhoons here in the Philippines have significantly grown in strength over the past 5 years.  There have been more signal storms marked 4 in the last 5 years than there are in the decade before.  Philippines has never had instances of hail but there have already been 2 in the past couple of years so far - Camaligan, Camarines Sur for example.  There are parts of Luzon that have never been flooded before, and now, there's not a lot of cities that are flood free anymore.  Our rainy season has become hot and almost an extension of Summer...  Seasons have been really hard to predict.  Dams are running out of water, and even with the ridiculously strong typhoons we have, they weren't enough to fill the the dams or they really didn't pass above the dams to fill them up.  Whether these are results of global warming is probably something debatable, but CO2 emissions have been proven to increase every year and pollution is a fact that needs no research as proof - just look where ever you go, there's all sorts of pollution.

Just that there are some people denying that there's global warming and that we are the primary contributors to this phenomenon is really upsetting.  We see one picture, one film, one clip and a lot of people rationalize it, or criticize it and refuse to see what is being shown.  The photo above, shows a Polar Bear on a small chunk of ice and he would probably have to swim to get to the next chunk and to the next... until he gets to a solid mass.  Whether it's global warming or not, can't we just be on the safe and proactive side and do our own part by minding our garbage, where we throw our cigarette butts, selling recyclable stuff to the junk shops, making sure to follow the labels in the trashcan, have your car checked when it's puffing black smoke, etc?  I love nature, I love all things that are living and refuse to be a part of the system that kills.  I am a nature lover and I will continue to be an advocate of change in the hopes that one will follow my lead, and others will too.

A passionate reminder - From Anne in Red