Today, I tried to purchase three CDs – Mandisa’s new Christmas Joy EP and two autographed CDs, Matthew West’s 2005 opus Happy and Avalon’s upcoming Another Time, Another Place: Timeless Christian Classics - off MusiChristian.com, one of my favorite online retailers for Christian CDs. The collective total, when one factors in the shipping costs, is somewhere near US$30, a price I was more than willing to pay for two...

Early Achievers, Nathan’s preschool, is requiring the children to show up in costume for a Halloween party this Friday. Cathy and I talked about it, and the cheapskates in us settled on either: Jose Rizal, where we suit Nathan up in a barong tagalog and draw a moustache on his upper lip with eyeliner pencil. Accessories include an inkjar with matching feather, some rolled paper, and a lamp for him, to channel Rizal circa Ultimo...

According to this feature, singer-superstar Mariah Carey’s new signature fragrance, M, has some unusual aroma bases, including Moroccan incense, a flower called the Living Tahitian Tiare, and – get this – toasted marshmallows. “[The toasted marshmallows are] blended in there,” she says. “It’s not like you’re gonna walk around smelling like marshmallows.” I’m not exactly sure how the...

My favorite Contemporary Christian songwriter Matthew West is ready to launch Something to Say, his third studio album, and with it, he’s released the first single, You Are Everything, which you can stream on his official website. YOU ARE EVERYTHING IS SPECTACULAR! It’s got #1 written all over it! Call your local stations and request You Are Everything by Matthew West, you will not regret it. A power ballad in the same vein of...

By now, most of the Philippines is abuzz with news of the Glorietta explosion. Around eight people were killed and over 70 injured in one of the worst mall explosions in recent memory. I join those Filipinos calling for calm until more information is gathered from the scene of the crime. (If it is a bomb, then I believe I can call it a crime.) I, for one, am still in a state of shock, owing primarily to how closely I’d come to that blast....