I have always been a card player. Lately, I am carefully discovering online poker. Don’t get me wrong, I am just one of those who likes to gamble every now and then. I am not the type to gamble away big amounts of money. Not that we have that much money to spare. It’s pretty amazing how intricate and simple at the same time online gambling can be. Any sports and gambling fanatic would find the online world such heaven. It lets them bet anytime, anywhere. Well, for as long as they have a computer and internet.

As for me, I love playing online poker. Of course, it’s not as exciting as going to a real casino and playing but it’s not like I can go to a casino anytime I want. With the internet, I can go online and play poker if I want to. Not to mention that there’s an enormous amount of resource online whether game rules, poker history, and any information on poker. It’s a bonus if I get to win a few dollars while playing. Since online betting facilities offer secure financial transactions, I don’t really have to worry about my personal and financial data. So anytime I feel like playing poker, I could just turn on my laptop.

I’ve always been partial to wooden furnitures. Actually, anything wood looks more appealing to me. Right now, Andrea and I settle for the least expensive wooden furnitures we can find. We plan to replace them with good, solid wooden furnitures once we start buying for our own house already. It’s such a shame that we can’t start buying our dream furnitures yet. We even found an old place near our house that sells old wooden furnitures. They sell really heavy furnitures with pressure treated wood. As expected, they don’t come with a cheap price but the value of these things actually go higher as they grow older for as long as they’re well-maintained. At least we know now where to look for our furnitures once we start buying.

I’ve been brushing up on some books and some series during the vacation - those that I’ve not visited for quite some time. And I was surprised to see several similar concepts that appeared on different stories.

Hallows, for example, is a concept I’ve encountered in the last installment of the Harry Potter series as well as in the anime series Bleach. According to J. K. Rowling’s book, Hallows are magical items that endow powers to their owners, items that when united by a single owner provides immortality to whoever yields it. (Sorry didn’t mean to spoil the story if you haven’t read the book yet.) In the anime series Bleach however, Hallows are spirits or souls that do not find peace after death, get consumed by grief or anger and turn into monsters.

There is another term I came across with, this time in two different anime series (Bleach and Death note) - the Shinigami. Also referred to as death gods, shinigamis are guardians of the afterlife and bringers of death. In Bleach, they are portrayed as proud, disciplined, and highly-skilled fighters that brandish swords called soul-slayers. They appear to look like humans except they’re only visible to spirits or to those living humans with high spiritual energies. In Death note, however, they’re more like monsters. Those that collect souls when humans are about to die. They’re more cunning and sinister.

I’m not criticizing or saying that any of the concepts have been misused or misrepresented. In fact, I’m actually fascinated to see similar terms appear in different stories. It makes me wanna read and watch more. Hehe! Just wish I could have more time to do so. Now if only there is a way to teach and do all these other things at the same time…

Andrea and I have been racking our brains for any good business idea. The business idea has to have a small start-up requirement and easy to manage so we don’t have that many options. We’re thinking of starting something online because that seems to be the easiest way to go in terms of management. We’ve been browsing several small businesses online. We were pleasantly surprised that anything can be sold on the web now. There are people who sell clothes, shoes, even food. I’m only talking about personal sites, don’t get me started on the number of possibilities in ebay. Her sister, who likes girly stuff, is actually thinking of getting some wholesale accessories and selling them online. Since she’ll be getting them at a lower price and she wouldn’t have a big operation cost, she just might find it profitable. Andrea and I are thinking of going into a small business with her. Hopefully, a lot of people learn about it and buy from us!