On July 1st, 2006, The Edge Radio, Metro Manila’s first all-Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) radio station, goes live from 6PM to 6AM. With music coming in from many of the world’s foremost Christian artists, including American CCM artists Switchfoot, MercyMe, and Casting Crowns, and local CCM artists Kitchie Nadal and Barbie Almalbis, The Edge Radio will broadcast 12 glorious hours of CCM daily.

LIVEtheLIFE Magazine salutes The Edge Radio and its vision of broadcasting CCM in all its formats - Christian rap, R&B, hip hop and gospel, among them.

Please help spread the word about The Edge Radio by posting similar announcements on your blog, Friendster, MySpace, or Multiply pages. Tell your friends in your small groups, discipleship groups, and churches. Be part of Filipino-Christian history in the making, with God-glorifying music on local airwaves.

Visit The Edge Radio’s official website at http://www.theedgeradio.net.

Email The Edge Radio at info at theedgeradio dot net.

Text The Edge Radio at 0918-795-8665.

Make friends with The Edge Radio on Friendster by looking for “edge radio.”

Join The Edge Radio’s mailing list: ontheedgeradio@yahoogroups.com

Toni of Wifely Steps challenges her readers, in an Iron Chef -type manner, to come up with recipes for fruit cocktail. Most of the folks who’ve posted thus far have suggested dessert recipes, so I decided to submit a recipe that picks up on an original recipe from my mother.

By the way, did you notice, in my trying to be classy and picture-perfect, one of Nathan’s toy blocks in the flower vase?! LOL I only saw that now!

GANNS’ EAT-SOME SWEET HUM

Ingredients:
5 slices of CDO Cooked Ham
2 small cans of Del Monte Fruit Cocktail (Lychee Flavor, mmm)
1 teaspoon of sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Bring the syrup of the two cans of Del Monte to a boil in a medium saucepan.
2. Put the ham in, and cook until almost all syrup is gone.
3. Empty the fruits into the saucepan. Place one teaspoon of sugar in one of the empty cans of fruit cocktail and half-fill it with water.
4. Empty the can into the saucepan and cook for five minutes or until syrup thickens slightly.
5. Plate the ham. Spoon the fruits onto the ham or on the side.
6. Drizzle the syrup onto the ham and fruits and serve immediately.

We celebrated my mother’s 60th birthday last Saturday (photos due for uploading within the next few days). Cathy, Nathan and I were joined by her mother and three brothers for this celebration at my mother’s home in South Green Park.

During the celebration, an old family friend of my mother’s showed up with his wife. He apparently hadn’t seen me since I was just a lad - I couldn’t place him for the life of me - and was tickled pink by the sight of me “all grown up.”

“What smooth skin!” he crowed before he reached up and pinched my cheeks.

Now I praise God for my “smooth skin,” and I praise God that I’ve managed to somehow avoid looking my age, but how many 30-year-old’s out there are still cheek-pinched by well-meaning family friends?

I did some Wikipedia research this afternoon on the statistics of the Iron Chef America television series on the Food Network, which then led me to this website, SuperChefBlog.

In a word, awesome. Juliette Rossant oversees SuperChefBlog.com, an online magazine that follow careers, empires, trends, and brands of super chefs in America and abroad. A lot of great reads, and certainly a lot of great food features. It’s enjoyable, it’s exciting, it’s inspiring… you really should visit.

Yesterday morning, I decided to clean out Nathan's toy chest, getting rid of the old and busted toys (yes, it's very Toy Story). My son has quite a variety, from toy cars to squeeze toys, from alphabet boxes to bubble blowers.

In the course of the cleaning, I found a tool kit that Nate received as a gift, with hammer, ruler, plane, you get the idea. That tool kit came with a plastic cutter that I found at the bottom of that chest.

Looking at the cutter, I marveled at how legit it looked. Wow, I thought to myself, that plastic looks real.

At this point, all neurons to my brain may have shut down, because I ran the cutter along the tip of my finger. To my surprise, blood began to spurt out. It was a real cutter, and I had just cut myself!

In between the self-berating and Cathy's why did you DO that tirade that immediately followed, all I could think of what how I was so glad that I didn't feel like humoring myself and running that blade across my wrist.

Lessons learned:

1) No matter how well you think you can hide your dangerous materials, there's no real way to hide them unless you do it lock-and-key. That cutter is now safely out of Nathan's reach.

2) Fake cutters have no place in a toy tool kit. A 30-year-old kid like me can't tell the difference, what makes me think a 3-year-old can?

3) I want the Fairly Oddparents band-aids. My boo-boo's covered with a band-aid that matches my skin tone, and I don't feel cool at all.

Dude, none of this is cool.

It feels like virtual Net suicide, but the past few days have found me setting up blogs left and right. Maintaining them can be a real pain, but each appeals to a different part of me and I'm glad I have them.

Please feel free to add one, two, or all of these blogs, whichever are relevant, to your blog roll. I would be very grateful.

GannsDeen.com. Ganns Deen Online, my official online home.

TheDeensOnline.com. The online family home for Cathy, Nathan, and myself. Mostly family-related material for friends and family.

Just Caths. Cathy's official online home.

PerfectProposalsOnline.com. The home of Perfect Proposals, the only wedding proposal coordination service in the Philippines today.

LIVEtheLIFE Magazine Online. The official blog of LIVEtheLIFE Magazine, a print magazine for Filipino-Christian teenagers started in 2004 that didn't last in print but will hopefully be reborn online. Relevant reading for the lifestyle with purpose.

Faith Factor. The blog of Faith Factor, my online store that sells Christian gift items like Christian t-shirts, Christian bags, Christian mugs… most things one can use to proudly declare one's faith in Christ.

The Husband Chronicles. Helps husbands and single men with helpful household, car, office, and romantic tips, ideas and advice.

Top 20 Singles and Tracks. My personal Top 20 chart. Not really for public consumption, but it's fun to maintain, since I've been doing it since 1990.

And of course, Superblessed, which I've tried to kill but can't seem to do so.

If you do decide to link up, please let me know which blogs you've linked to so I can add you to that website's particular blogroll as well. God superbless!

Update: The townhouse is now occupied.

Our six-month-old townhouse in Las Pinas is available for rent for only P8,000/month starting May 1, 2007.

Cathy and I are renting out our townhouse in Las Pinas City. If you’re looking to rent a house in Las Pinas City, please take a look at our Las Pinas townhouse, situated in private, safe Las Pinas subdivision Royal South Subdivision, only ten minutes away from SM Southmall and other exciting places along the Zapote area.

Our non-negotiable price for the Las Pinas City townhouse for rent is P8,000/month. The house has been lived in for only six months since its completion in October 2006. Email us at superblessed at gmail dot com, or call 0920-9073962.

Photos available here.