Spotted.

Over at my mother's first death anniversary party, certain guests clamored to have "sing along" segment, so as host, I quickly set up the Magic Sing. Years ago when Magic Sing was non existent, I had the regular karaoke machine and lots of VCD karaokes by various artists.

But it came to pass that these machines were over ran by the microphone-karaoke, called WOW at its introduction. I bought the first generation Magic Sing at Virra Mall for 26,000 pesos. Now, you can purchase a small karaoke with two regular microphones and a free wireless for 9 plus K, with about 3,000 songs.

And so the singing started. But despite the large selection of songs contained in the mike-karaoke, it became apparent later that I needed more song-chips to satisfy a more varied guest list, including the young people and even myself.

So I went to Odyssey to buy chips. Sooner than I stood by the demo karaoke, the sales clerk started to push the store's latest karaoke machine - the 9,999 peso-contraption. He said "it has the equivalent of 7 song chips." I figured if I buy one chip, I would be paying 3,200 pesos and for 6 or 7, another 20,000 peso outlay. So this small karaoke comes out a lot cheaper!

I was ready to buy it. Then I started to look for my "favorite song," in the song list. I flipped the book, from cover to cover, but my song was not there. Finally, I queried the boy clerk. "Does this karaoke carry all the songs from the 7 chips?" "Yes, sir."

I moved to ACE, then to SM, and finally a female singing- clerk told me, " Sir, your song is not in any of the song chips." I protested, "but my sister's got it." She said, " it's built into one of the newer Magic Sing."

I hung my shoulder after that. So, I cannot sing one of my favorite songs in the comfort of my house. Either, I go to my sister's house or to any of the rental karaoke clubs, like Red Box or Music Match.

Segue to some days ago. We took our Ohio-born, San Jose-based nephew to Music Match at Morato for some shouting match. The place is new, and for 3,500 pesos, you get to choose from 3 set menu selection, including drinks, and three hours of singing. The song selection was huge and the three young people in our group plus the oldies had a good time.

It was in the middle of this good time that I heard my bro-in-law say, "please key in I'll Be Seeing You." He beat me. He sang my song.