Daddy, you have a tummy like Kung Fu Panda

I was minding my own business watching basketball on TV last Sunday night when my 6-year old son butted in, "Daddy, you have a tummy like Kung Fu Panda."

Charles must have been watching me caressing my just-had-dinner stomach while lying in bed.  I just smiled at my little boy and asked him to play outside the room with his cousins instead of staring at my belly.

How could this boy be that insensitive after bringing him to the special advance screening of Kung Fu Panda 3 at SM Megamall Imax Theater courtesy of the generous people from 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, Dream Play and WWF Philippines (I just have to thank them this way because we really had a great time last weekend).

That's my son (nope, not the Panda) with his newly-met friends during the advance screening of Kung Fu Panda 3 in 3D.

Just in case you don't know, Kung Fu Panda is one of the most successful animated film of all-time featuring the voice of ace comedian Jack Black as the clumsy yet heroic Panda named Po. For the third installment of the series, other Hollywood heavyweights were included in the cast namely Dustin Hoffman as Shifu; Angelina Jolie as Tigress; Jackie Chan as Monkey; Seth Rogen  as Mantis; Lucy Liu as Viper; Kate Hudson as Mei Mei; and a lot more.

Now, I'm starting to think the what my son said s actually a compliment. Imagine how many big stars were assembled just for a Panda film. Now here's one trivia you might want to know (no matter how useless it may sound): In the movie, Po is known as the Dragon Warrior. But did you know that Panda's has a list of aliases?  The Chinese call giant pandas daxiongmao or “large bear cat.” Pandas have also been known as “beast of prey,” “white leopard,” “iron eating beast,” and “bamboo bear.

Now, if you still have a few minute to spend reading, here are three more interesting Panda trivia that you can pass on to your child:

1. A panda mother is 900 times bigger than her newborn cub, which weighs less than 5 oz. In comparison, an 8-pound human baby would have a mother that weighed 7,200 pounds.

2. On average, a panda eats 25-30 pounds of bamboo in one day. In the spring, a panda may eat 100 pounds in a day.

3. Under its fur, the skin of a giant panda is black where its fur is black, and pink where its fur is white.

Coo, right? Anyways, just in case you want to catch Kung Fu Panda 3 in your favorite movie house, regular screening nationwide starts on March 9.

Panda trivia source: facts.randomhistory.com.

Useless Bossy Facts

After the long holiday break, most of us are either raring or inert to go back to work because of different reasons: backlogs, unfinished year-end report, pending projects and your first meeting with your boss for the year.

To some, their first encounter with the company’s head honcho at the start of a year is a make or break thing. Well it all depends on one’s performance in the previous 12 months. Whether he smiles at you or wears a blank face every time you meet him in the hallway, your boss is someone you’ll be working with all year round, or for as long you intend to stay in his group.    

So before you go to his office anytime soon, why not read some bossy facts that you might want to share to him during your meeting. These will not guarantee a salary raise but they can sure help start a good conversation.      

·         There is such a thing as National Boss Day created in 1958 by Patricia Haroski, a secretary at State Farm Insurance Company. It was said to have started to pay tribute to managers in the company. Its official date (October 16) is Patricia’s father’s birthday.

• There are 6.7 million managers in the US (5% of the US workforce) and 1.6 million managers in Canada (10% of the Canadian workforce)

• “Boss” is the #3714 most common last name in the U.S. with an estimated 7500 persons using it.

• The word “boss” is from the Dutch word “baas” (meaning "a master"), a standard title for a ship’s captain. It was in 1625 that the word was used in English. The popularity of “boss” in American English may be an egalitarian avoidance of master

• In the dictionaries, “boss” was defined as (1) Slang - in the 50’s, ‘boss’ meant great, first-rate or topnotch; (2) Barnyard - 'boss' is another name for a cow or calf; and (3) Medicine - a ‘boss’ is a name for a rounded swelling, protuberance or humpback … so, this sentence is technically feasible: Your boss did a boss job healing the boss’s itchy boss.

• Other boss facts: Bossiest town: Boss, Missouri (population 609); Boss Nicknames: 'The Boss’ – Bruce Springsteen, singer / songwriter; ‘Boss Tweed’ - William Marcy Tweed, infamous corrupt New York politician and ‘The Big Bossman – American pro wrestler; Boss Songs: Big Boss Man (Elvis Priestly) ; I Love My Boss (Moxy Fruvous).

Reference: www.happyworker.com