Mother's Day Heroine - Linda LaBrecque

Most of the nations on earth celebrate Mother's Day today. Unfortunately, Nigeria is not even on that maternal map. It's either we are too busy grappling with poverty to remember a 'fad' called mother's day. The real poverty is our ignorance of the capacity of the womb and her amazing 'products'!

On this special day I am dedicating to one woman in obscurity. Many of us don't even know her name, we only know her as the mother of that teenage internet millionaire, Ashley Quails. She is Linda LaBrecque.

A single working-class parent who believed in the potential power of the internet and who lent her 14-year old daughter (Ashley Quails), EIGHT DOLLARS ($8), four years ago to register a domain name and start a website - Whatever Life dot Com, which today has grown more popular than Ophrah Winfrey's website, and is grossing over a million dollars annually.With over a million unique visitors per day and 6 million daily page views to her website, the money soon began rolling in, first, a Google check of $2,700 then $5,000 and then $10,000... then, the explosion started. He he hee..

The first victim of that breakthrough was the crammed one-bedroom rented apartment where Linda and her two daughters (Ashley and Selby) lived in. Ashley bought a brand new $250,000 four-bedroom apartment and waved goodbye to poverty. She compensated her mom by 'employing' her to manage her new busines of webdesign, blogging and internet entrepreneurship. (she was still under-aged [at 17], to manage it by herself).

What have I learned from this inspirational story of Linda and her daughter? I am a visionary mother and I should invest in my children's potential; which would definitely outshine mine. My first daughter would be 10 this week, and I would buy her a gift of desk top computer, to begin to prepare her for that inevitable future of a florishing web career.

I said this because, my children love computer. Their home work were done mostly from Wikipedia and Google searches. Even things assigned by their class teacher to them, which I am not sure of. I always ask them to 'hit the buttons'. My children have learned a precious lesson that the Computer is the totality of human wisdom packaged into a machine.

By the time they are fifteen, I want to see some web whizkids out of them. This is the inspiration I got from Linda LaBrecque, and that is why I am dedicating this mother's day to her and to all visionary mothers out there.

Happy Mother's Day to you all telenovela fans!

Who Is Ninel Conde? Help Me Out, Pls...

I got me worried when I was researching the Seven Sins of Telenovela this afternoon. I was more than a little confused when I struck 'Patricia' ... Patricia Who? Remember her? She was the best and closest friend of suicidal lover, Silvia, in "Catalina y Sebastian". Silvia was Eduardo's possessive girlfriend in that novela.

Look again at the picture above, the media called her real name as Ninel Conde. That picture above resembles 'Patricia', the best friend of 'Silvia' (Kenia Gascon) in 'Catalina y Sebastian'. She was the sober and rational lawyer friend and confidant who always applied the breaks of reason on her emotionally impulsive friend, Silvia, who was always paranoid of Eduardo abandoning her for young Catalina.

That is not where I am going, but follow me to look over the second pix below:
Internet media splashed this photograph all over the web, among Spanish bloggers, but I was surprised to learn that the first and the second pictures are one and the same person - NINEL CONDE!

This is what got me confused, and led me to voice out my ignorance, asking for your help, particularly those of you who watched 'Catalina and Sebastian' telenovela last year 2007. If it is true that the two pics above are same person, then, I would say that Ninel Conde has come a looong way from the obscurity of role which she played in 'Catalina y Sebastian', and into the fame and fortune that visited her afterwards.

She had steadily climbed from the obscured platform of 'Catalina' into prominent roles in 'La Revancha' (The Revenge). She later again crashed out on Day 43, of the third edition (2004) of the popular Mexican Reality TV Show called: BIG BROTHER VIP.

Undaunted by this set-back, she rose from the ruins and ashes of this defeat, and was further energized and propelled to play prime roles in the world's two most-acclaimed telenovelas: 'Rebelde' and 'Ugly Betty', rubbing shoulders with the calibers of award-winning America Ferriera. This Mexican actress moved on into singing, and released a successful album titled after her name: Ninel Conde.

Her meteoric rise to stardom is an inspiration to many of you out there in our Nigerian Nollywood, who are currently playing obscured roles in home videos. There is hope for a breakthrough for you. Who would have imagined a single-mother 10 years ago, during the filming of 'Catalina y Sebastian', would rise above her circumstantial set-backs, and march on into fame and matrimonial bliss ten years later.

She was like an emotional 'drop-out' in 1999 during the production of 'Catalina y Sebastian'. She had just suffered a heartbreak and was like, left stranded with a 1-year old daughter (Sofia) then. Perhaps that was why they did not give her any prominent role in that novela. She was written off. They wrote her off. She however did not write herself off.

At the height of stardom, she got hooked again and this time, there aint no breaking up. She walked to the altar with businessman Juan Zepeda (47), last December 9, 2007. Interestingly, Juan was not just a 'free bird', he abandoned the winner of Miss Ecuador beauty pageant, to walk to the altar with 37 year old Ninel.

This was not without its own scandalous furor by the press, but she weathered the storm to enjoy a beauty and bliss with her hubby and daughter today. She promised to soon join the celebrity baby boomers 'club' of Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and Gaby Espino... very 'soon'... he he he heee...

Don't forget to read the snippets of the full story of 'Second Chance' at El Cuerpo del Deseo site map. If you have not yet subscribed to keep up with daily updates for telenovela gists and opportunities from our Mega Telenovela Blog, Do so now with your email here.

Happy Novelatainment friends.