A Patriotic Music Collection For $1.99

Hey there friends. July 4th is coming up and aside from it being my little one's birthday, it is also America's Independence Day. The day that America declared their independence. Grills will be burning, fireworks will be blazing and music will be blasting from millions of homes come July 4th. To honor the great American holiday, Amazon.com is offering the album, A Salute To America , by the 101 String Orchestra, for only $1.99 on July 3rd during Amazon's Deal of Day special. A collection of over 30 songs, that is bought individually, would total close to $30. This true blood American collection includes classics such as God Bless America, Stars and Stripes Forever, Battle Hymn of the Republic, America the Beautiful, The Star Spangled Banner, and many more. The album went on sale today and it retails for approx. $10 so if you get the album during Amazon's Deal of the Day, you'll be getting the album for at least 80% off.

On a personal note, history teachers should pick this album up as a means to display some music, dedicated to America, to their students . Especially during the week or so leading up to Independence Day. I remember as a child how my teacher would play the music during our history lesson as a way to make the lesson more interactive. I must say that it was fairly effective since I remember walking home humming some of the songs or remembering a certain lesson each time the song was played. For $2, you really can't go wrong with A Salute To America, a collection of 30 of America's greatest hits. Later.

3 Extremes Film and Asian Horror

Hey there. We tried to take it easy this weekend. Didn't go to many places and didn't over exert ourselves at home. We put up the swimming pool this weekend for the kids to jump and we did some house cleaning while they were in there. We also caught many movies this weekend.

First off, I finally made the jump from Direct TV. I know... I know... blasphemy. But you know what, it was the better. Verizon was offering us this bundle package that included FiOS TV so we took it. So now we have FiOS TV, FiOS Internet, and FiOS phone line. I can't complain with the services. Haven't screwed up on me once so I'm fairly happy with it. We still need some time to get used to the TV though. The remote is kinda weird and the channels have not yet been programmed into our brains. I don't know where half the channels are but I know where they may be. lol Like Cartoon Network is somewhere in the 250s area and movies start at 340 or so. lol

Anyways, we spent a fair amount of time watching movies. Anything from WALL-E, to Dark Knight, to 27 Dresses, to Wanted. I also caught this Asian horror film called 3 Extremes.

I'm a horror fan. I try to catch the latest in fright but quite frankly, they go for cheap scares like something jumping out of a dark corner or something like that. I tend to enjoy the foreign films a lot more since they go for that "mindfuck" route to not only get you trippin' out over the film, but have you thinking about it afterward. 3 Extremes is one such film.

The film is a collection of 3 short stories, each filmed by a famed horror director from the East (Korean, Chinese, and Japanese). Each has their style and each one was beautifully done. The first short was called "The Dumplings". It's basically a "how far would you go to stay young" story. A woman offers her special dumplings as a means of getting younger. As the story unfolds, you see how the dumplings are manufactured and to what lengths are taken to secure the ingredients. Definitely a chilling tale.

The second short is called "Cut". I enjoyed this short mainly because it was written in "Saw-esque" mode, where as a person is pitted against himself, and the outcome of his predicament depend on his actions. It did half some low points such as trying to force some comedy in unnecessary places, which irked me some, but otherwise, enjoyable.

The last short is called "Box" which tells the tale of sisters. I really can't say much without killing the story but I can say that this one was beautifully done. I loved the camera work and the way the story is told flows gracefully.

I loved it. Not a gruesome film, but definitely gets you wondering as to how you would react in the characters situations. I've a got a few more that I have lined up under movies I need to see. I can't wait to catch Battle Royal. From my understanding, a film of teens that are stranded on some island in a no holds barred kinda of death match. I don't know if they were forced or they being there by choice. I'll find out when I see it. Another one I want to see is Tale of Two Sisters. I'll confess, the movie poster intrigued me enough to look into this film and I've found out that the film "The Uninvited" is a remake of this film. I haven't seen The Uninvited, but that may be on my list next, only to compare to the original. Until then, later.

The King of Informercials,Billy Mays,is dead.Celebs are dropping like flies this week.Like a good friend of mine pointed out,celebs may have pissed off death...

Its going to be pizza and movie night tonight. Kids spashed thepo mstar of the day so now its time to sit back and catch a few good movies.

Is Banking Your Baby's Cord Blood Right For You

Hey there friends. My wife and I are now well into our second half of our pregnancy. We are in what I like to call, full baby mode. We've gone out to buy some clothes, check out some strollers, look into cribs and fancied a few bassinets. We've also received a few pamphlets and coupons in the mail. It's almost as if the world knows we're expecting since we're receiving all sorts of baby stuff in the mail. One particular pamphlet got us talking. It was concerning the baby's cord blood.

I know that it's a touchy subject to some and I don't know the full details of what or how banking your baby's cord blood can help, but it is something that we decided to look into and inform ourselves on. One such company that offers banking is Cryo-Cell .

Cryo-Cell offers a very user friendly interface and we were able to get all the information that we need to better inform ourselves. Cord blood is proven to help aid in over 70 diseases, that's good. But it's only been performed about 12,000 times, that's not too good. Could it be because it's still a relatively new process? I can't say. It's also a little pricey, but what price can be put on your child's health? They also have financing which is as low as $57 a month. Not too bad, I think. The cord blood collected is 100% effective on the donor and 25% chance that it will be effective on a sibling. It's proven to be helpful against Leukemia, Hodgkin's Disease, Hunter's Syndrome, among many others. That list itself is pretty impressive.

This is something that is not for everyone, but it is something that surely deserves some consideration. Especially since Cryo-Cell is offering $750 discount if you sign up by 06.28.09 and using the promo code HOT during check out. This is definitely a life changing decision for our family and is something that should be discussed in detail. Check it out. It may be something that you are definitely interested in. Later.

The End of an Era

Hey there. Earlier today, Farrah Fawcett passed away. Many articles across the web deemed it the end of an era with such an iconic woman passing away. Word on the street is that now, Michael Jackson has just passed from cardiac arrest (heart attack). If the reports on Michael are true, then today, June 25th 2009, is the day an era came to an end.

Update: 3.26 PM MSN.com has confirmed Michael's death. RIP Farrah & Michael.