For those people whom I have links in their blogs… please point it to http://www.pinoymousepotato.com. 

Maraming maraming salamat po!

For the mean time, I'm trying out my free server I got from Frihost. I wonder how 10GB of Internet traffic would last.

My new blog is here.  http://www.pinoymousepotato.com 

Happy browsing! 

Well after two weeks of not blogging, I'll just say the geek stuff am working on is not yet finished. I'm back on my third drawing board coz am not yet satisfied with the results of the previous two. Yes, it's a web page. I'm actually hacking some code libraries to create my desired effects for the site. Oh well, that part is easy, the hard part is when it comes to the design and layout of the site. It gives me a lot of headache thinking of the general look and feel. So back to the drawing board and browsing some sites to have some ideas. I'm giving myself two more weeks to finish it. Ciao for now! 

I'll be busy doing some geek stuffs for a while… I'll post it soon… somethings cookin'.

Photos were taken by my friend Cracklypork, during our visit to the Wawa Dam in Montalban, Rizal last February. Here are the photos.

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Photo above : This is the actual "nag uumpugang bato" that was mentioned in the myth of Bernardo Carpio.

One of my rare picture taken last saturday at the Mapalad-PodCentral Joint Meet up.

That's Badaboom (Top Left), Glenn (Top Right), Me (Bottom Left) and Dr. Rosea (Bottom Right).

Thanks paulm_drive for the very nice pic.

Got this article from Click-The-City website regarding the screening of the scripts for the Metro Manila Film Festival-Philippines 2006.

18. Zsa Zsa Zaturna (fantasy/comedy/adventure) starring Rufa Mae Quinto, Ogie Alcasid, Allan K and Alfred Vargas and directed by Mark Meily for Regal Entertainment Inc.

Yehey!

As I said, the day isn't over and I still have to go back to SM Mall of Asia but this time to watch the next awaited movie after The DaVinci Code… X-Men 3 : The Last Stand . I received the invitation to watch the Press Screening of the movie last Thursday, got so excited coz it will be shown in SM Mall of Asia cinemas… too bad it wasn't in the IMax theater… but I guess that's asking for too much. Beggars can't be choosers.

Although I'd really like to post some spoilers here, it won't be appropriate coz I don't want to burst the bubbles of those who are awaiting for the regular showing of the movie. Just post a comment if you want some spoilers, I'd gladly tell it to you… I won't write here that… bleep bleep bleep… hehehe

Up to now I'd still can't believe to what happened in that movie. The story has the elements of the usual comic facts we know and stitched it together to create a new storyline that you would not imagine nor predict that would even happen in the movie. It actually bested the two previous X-Men in terms of the story line. In this final chapter of the "X-Men" trilogy, you'd see more mutants and mutant powers used at its best… action packed mutant fight scenes that you have never seen in the previous X-Men movies. The only short coming is that you have to know a few about Marvel comics to find out which mutants are which. But if you are not an X-Men fanatic… it would not be a problem.

So for the risk they have taken for the X-Men story they did for this movie, I'd give them a 4 thumbs up! (2 hands thumbs… and two toe thumbs)… I know not everybody would agree so sue me!

There isn't so much improvements to the special effects but it is still great and kinda suffice the needs of the movie.

If there will be a fourth installment of X-Men we can only speculate. I won't spoil… I did promise. Hehehe…

——————–

Next press screening would be that movie of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Then of course the next much awaited movie for this year… Superman! (Sana sa IMax na ito!)

It's Sunday and it's my day off so I'll go malling (hehehe… sounds familiar?)

Next to watching korean/chinese/filipino telenovelas the next favorite Filipino pasttime is malling. It's actually a national sport that should be introduced into the next Olympics, we'll snatch a gold for sure if it will be included… nyahahaha. Besides the usual historical sites, boring art galleries and night life, malls are actually the new tourist destinations. You just have to realize how many malls we have now just in Metro Manila.

Ok, so back to my malling adventure. So for family day we decided to visit this new mall as a short activity, mom has to buy some gift for a golden anniversary wedding which they will be attending at 4pm. This sunday has an unusual bad sunday traffic so we got there around 230pm (so we've got only about 1hour of malling left). Once you get to the vicinity of the mall you'd see lot of cars anywhere… along side the roads, parking lots, parking spaces and literally anywhere surrounding the mall. So if you have that many cars… expect the number of people who are in that place… and I'd say literally swarming in that place. It's like suddenly the Mall of Asia is the most dense place in the country for the day. But the mall is like this giant behemoth… ready to take in as many people as it can. It's big and spacious.

According to Wiki (key: SM Mall Of Asia), SM Mall of Asia is now considered as the third largest mall in the world behind the Edmonton Mall of Canada and Golden Resource Mall of China. It boasts of an Olympic size skating rink and the much awaited IMax Theater which is one of the biggest cinema in the world… take that!

After buying the wedding gift, we have to scram out of the place so mom and my sis could go to their wedding itinerary. I went to the gym in Robinson's Place Manila and will have to go back again to Mall Of Asia for another itinerary… hehehe… see my next blog entry for this.

To be continued…

It's G-Day again (as in G for GEEK!). This time it's a joint meeting between the tappers (Palm users) and the click wheelers (Ipod users). The meeting of course is a mayhem of all sorts… well in a geek sort of way of course.

Wearing the whites were the Podders and those in blacks were the Palmers. Since I am a member of both groups (yeah… geek… so geek… rub it in!) and I can't find a zebra shirt to wear for that occasion, I wore blue instead. The meeting was held 4pm at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at Greenbelt 3. I arrived at 5 pm… Filipino time.

I arrived just in time for the Ques-tune game, a name-that-song game. I joined the group of some Mapalad oldies (meaning not newbies… and … uhmmm.. nevermind), it turns out we were too old for some new songs and we are too forgetful-old in guessing the titles of the old songs. They played some Polish Polka and German Love songs for us to guess the titles… kidding! Hey we did good in the OPM Oldies… ayt!

The joint meetings aim is to extend camaraderie with other tech user groups. We did it once with the Windows Mobile Users group (yup Palm and Windows Mobile users can co-exist in one place), and now with Ipod users community.

What's next? Hmm… we'll wait what is in store for the June meeting… but for now am interested in the GEEK IN THE PINK song of Jason Mraz.

The movie ended without anyone making an attempt to show appreciation, a gesture of clap and not even a form of appreciative smile was given. Everyone was with their serious hats even when the movie ended. Was it because the movie didn’t fulfill its expectations? Or maybe because the movie’s theme is something that should not be taken lightly? Was it because everybody knows what the movie is all about?

In the last two days, almost everyone I know was excited to see the movie on the first day showing. Though most of them have already read the book, it was more of the curiosity of how the novel would be turned into a movie that keeps them (and me) keep guarding the Sureseats website, to keep an eye on the movie’s online reservation availability. Though the movies schedule was shown, reservations were suspended because the movie hasn’t been rated yet by the MTRCB. The delay was probably due to some influential religious groups, moralists and conservative Christian groups that keeps on making noise to ban the public screening of the movie.

Bad publicity is good publicity. As more and more people who cries and whines to stop the movie from being shown, the more and more the public becomes curious in watching the movie, and as for that, the accumulated curiosity becomes a hype.

The curiosity and then the hype. If you’ve ever been in Glorietta and Greenbelt ticketing lobby you’ll get to know how everybody is trying to get schedules on the first day of showing. The online ticket reservations via Sureseats were no good (TG! I got my tickets reserved midnight when reservations was opened). It seems their system couldn’t handle large simultaneous connections and their system choked. So everybody was piling up on ticket booths to buy tickets one day in advance. The last time this same circumstance happened was a few days prior to the previous Harry Potter movie.

Rated-18. Besides the limiting of the movie’s audience to mature audience, the next major effect was concentration these audience to a limited number of cinemas. SM Cinemas who holds the 50% market share of the movie audience has to decline the showing of the movie, simply because they don’t show “R” movies in their cinemas. As a result, remaining non-SM cinemas like Ayala Cinemas are forced to use almost all of their theaters show the movie and give chance to the madding crowd.

What’s the Fuss? It’s the current hype. The controversy of the moment. Nobody wants to be left out when you and your friends starts to discuss the movie or the book during lunch or during a water cooler conversation.

I guess this hype is every body’s fault. Who wants to be “out” anyway.

This has actually been around from sometime. It was only recently that I got to know this when I borrowed my sister's company laptop when my home desktop computer was in a comma. Having a need to talk immediately to some online friends, I immediately searched for YM (Yahoo Messenger). It turns out they aren't allowed to use it in their office, YM ports are blocked by their network.

Of course, there's a workaround and that's what Meebo is all about.

Meebo is an online IM service (I think its an AJAX-ian messenger to be exact) which allows you to emulate Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Jabber/Gtalk and AIM/ICQ right on your browser (meaning passing messages on the regular port your browser is using (bypassing of course the usual IM ports that in most networks are blocked).

www.meebo.com

Let's see… hmm… we've had a typhoon last weekend… showers almost every afternoon… cold breezes at night … and laundries that wouldn't easily dry up… it only means its rainy season again (or at least we are in the transition) and summer is soon to be over.

Rainy season means that for the next 10 months I'll be busy again with school, gym, work, parties and just the usual stuffs. I usually hibernate during some months meaning I sleep a lot, doing less shenanigans, less escapades but I do a lot of reading (especially when you have no choice but to read tons of school papers… it's still reading but not leisure reading).

The weather usually spoils the long planned trips during these days. A good example is our supposed to be escapade to the north (Sagada) this weekend, but since the rains has started they are opting to go in a less hassle place like Tagaytay which is only 1 and a half hours away from Manila. Oh well… you can complain all you want but you couldn't change the weather by doing so.

I couldn't think of a sure activity to do during these season. Perhaps the rains brings uncertainties with it.

Oh yeah… there's school again. I am not really excited with it, not 'coz I don't have new shoes, new set of Mongols or new automatic pencil case to bring on the first school day, but 'coz I have to change my schedules again. Thursday and Fridays for school, two consecutive days, two times a week. It means I have to squeeze my regular workout hours somewhere in the remaining days of the week, including the weekends.

Nothing much really to look forward to, I guess. I'll just be sleeping around most of the time and that is something I'd love to do.

… or technically, I am not that muscular yet. Read on…

As I was doing my ball crunches in the gym a while ago, a friend approached me and told me that he had just splurged big time on buying body enhancing supplements 'coz he wants a body that would really show that he really is doing some heavy workouts… in short a defined muscular body. It hit me like he was fishing for comments about his looks… well he isn't really that muscular but you can tell that his workouts have paid off. In fact he has an above average physique than most people in the gym, just enough to be called muscular and to be admired.

Supplementing and/or drugging is one way of doing a shortcut to having a desired physique. Supplements are not really that bad 'coz they have their purpose… they supplement your body with nutrients you are not capable to provide because of some reasons. I, myself, use supplements primarily because I don't have time to prepare the recommended daily dosage of nutrients I need. It's just like your daily dosage of vitamins. But for some, they surrender their dependence on these supplements, they have these psyche that they won't reach their desired physique without these supplements.

Men are as vain as women… and sometimes even more. Men are also as susceptible to depression as women, as we are also victims of societal stereotypes and mental models. Muscle Dysmorphia or Bigorexia is an equivalent disorder to that of bolemia and anorexia with women. It is a disorder, an obsession in attaining a muscular physique and not being contented to just being big… and wants to be bigger…

In the book The Adonis Complex, a Harvard psychiatrist asserted the role of media in fueling the minds of the society and in influencing the young minds of having a musculature physique. He argues that the portrayal of overly fit and unattainable physique on cartoons such as G.I. Joe or Batman has an effect on the society especially with the young ones. Add to that, the tri-media including the internet has bombarded us with ideas of what is "beautiful" and what is "in".

I don't wanna sound like this kind of vanity is bad. In fact being fit and healthy is a good vanity. There is nothing wrong with having a good physique as long as the primary goal and way of achieving it is healthy. A person can have a good physique but not healthy… fit and not healthy. As long as you are doing it right, eating and exercising right, taking supplements in moderation and providing ample time for working out, for social life or for as long as working out does not interfere with your daily functions and "life", that's healthy.

_____________

I once read a comment on an a health article that Men's magazine suck! 'coz they only provide readers with something to be depressed about. IMHO, it is the negative way of looking at it, if you are an optimist you'd look at is as an inspiration, something you'd look forward of having… something to motivate.

What has become of Smart Wifi? You've guess it, it was renamed Smart Bro. Now 7x faster than dial up and I guess more improvements were made (I don't have the usual I-lost-my-connection-for-a-long-time-again episodes).

Although improved and rebranded there are still customers who still rants about their services.

Here is an article about Smart Bro.

Here is a blogsite created for Smart Wifi / Smart Bro customers. 

Wipppieeee!!! Finally Force is alive again (now I named him Force Phoenix)!

Despite the typhoon yesterday, I single handedly carried my CPU at the nearest PCX for diagnostics (yes… that is what those muscles are really meant for). Of course since I already have the idea that it would be a motherboard problem I braced myself for the price I have to pay to keep my Force alive.

After a few diagnostic tests, I was right, it was the main board and my power supply was causing the problem. Right that instant I bought a new MSI motherboard which is compatible with my old processor and memory modules and a new 350W power supply. I let the technician do the trouble of assembling my CPU, of course for a fee.

In less than 2 hours I shaved of exactly P4000 bucks… darn… I am poor again…

Anyways, I've spent literally the whole stormy saturday in my room, reinstalling my new system. I lost my windows My Document folder where most my picture albums are. I guess I just have to find my backup cd's to restore them. Thank god my MP3 collection is intact. I don't want to loose 2500++ collected songs.

Oh well at least It was worth it I guess. Some people can't leave without some things, and mine is my computer.

As of this writing, I am now declaring Force as dead… R.I.P. … I couldn't get to boot his BIOS anymore, so I guess that's it.

I still believe that I can still save the worthless soul. First thing in the morning I'll contact PC Exchange branch here in Caloocan and try to ask if they have an available Socket 478 available and ask if they can service my PC to transfer the processor and other stuffs to it. Of course, I should ask first if my processor is still compatible with their motherboards (crossing fingers!)… please let it be compatible…

It seems that I am being more paranoid now… my mind is playing what ifs… what if it's my hard drives which are defective… or what if it is my processor which is defective… (keep your calm Marc!).. hopefully the kind people of PC Exchange can make some miracle and reincarnate my FORCE (hallelujiah!). I just hope its only the motherboard which is defective.

Let's see what tomorrow can bring.

**** I'm using my sister's laptop right now.

I just realized how fuzzy I became when I started ordering lunch in Jollibee just this afternoon :

Jollibee Staff : Can I take your order sir?

Me : Can I have a veggie salad?

Jollibee Staff : Ceasar or Fresh Garden Salad?

Me : Is your Fresh Garden Salad vinegar based?

Jollibee Staff : Yes sir.

Me : Ok, one of that. Bigyan mo din ako ng 1 pc chicken.

Jollibee Staff : Original or spicy sir?

Me : Uhmm… spicy na lang… can I ask for a breast part?

Jollibee Staff : Sa counter na lang sir…

Me : Ok… ay…pwede palang instead of rice eh give me a roll na lang…

Jollibee Staff : Sige po sir. How about drinks?

Me : Coke… oops.. do you have Coke light?

Jollibee Staff : Meron po sir.

Me : Ok… sige Coke Light. Yun lang.

I guessed you’ve already gotten the idea that I’m on a diet… again. After the junk food diet I’ve had in my last trip, I’ve finally mustered enough determination to go on a no-rice-always-veggie-fruit-diet, of course am still continuing my high-protein diet to complement my workouts. I am not dreaming of a full 6 pack abs, its just that my waist needs a little attention and my diet needs more discipline (oh yeah… call me vain baby!).

It’s my 5th day of feeding on grass now. Rice cravings are hard to fight especially when healthy veggie food is hard to find in fast foods. Temptations are everywhere. Food temperament is not an easy discipline.

**** Mama asked me to buy 3 dozen Gonuts Donuts for them to bring as “pasalubong” on their trip to Aklan tomorrow. Placed it under my desk but the sweet sugary smell of the donuts makes me crazy. My sweet tooth is out of control, but I have to control… or else am gonna finish one box of these donuts. Oh man!

Went home late and tired last night and tried to boot FORCE (the name of my home PC… the dying computer). Bad news again, like everyday unusual things happen when I try to boot this soon-to-become-a-piece-of-junk computer. If last time I saw a garbled BIOS startup screen, now it won’t go to the BIOS startup at all… this is bad… I tried a couple of times to push the power switch but still getting the same results. Didn’t try to make a successful boot, was to tired and needed to retire early.

I tried early again this morning and after a few frustrating attempts i finally saw the garbled BIOS startup screen… at least I know there is still hope to boot him up… between the two errors… the later is the lesser error.

Funny how sometimes you'll get a text message from a number you do not know. Of course, the initial reaction would be to text back and verify if it is just a mistaken identity, and it if it is a mistaken identity… this is where the funny stuff starts.

+63918*****14 : Dong ito number ko 0918*****14. Txtbck.

Me (Confused) : Cno ito?

+63918*****14 : C syckie dong nandto c tina. Txtbck.

Me (Still Confused) : Sori wrong numbr.

+63918*****14 : Gago kb cge gnyn ka ha…….. Hnd na kta ittxt.

Me (somehow flamed up after being cursed) : Di talga kita kilala sori. Mali yata talga numbr na tinetextan mo.

+63918*****14 : Cge gnyn ka tlaga.

Me (Confused again!) : Cnu k b talga? At cnu ang tinetext mo?

+63918*****14 : C syckie ako n hnd m ako klla.

Me (WTF!) : Wala nga akong kilalang syckie. Kung kilala mo ako, cno ako?

+63918*****14 : C ddong ka diba?

Me (Am I Dodong?) : Nde ako c dodong at nde kita kilala.

+63918*****14 : C tina klala m.

Me (Very Irritated) : Nde rin.

+63918*****14 :Tangina m hnd m pla kmi klala ha.

Me (Raged) : Tangina mo rin. TC! =P

Well… one thing is clear, I AM NOT DODONG! or else this blog would be questiondodong.wordpress.com… nyahahaha…

If your computer would not boot up, gives you a garbled BIOS opening screen and screams an error message like :

MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC

something is definitely wrong… RIght!?!

Oh dear…

I woke up early this morning and saw this Yahoo! Ad on their site. I grabbed the opportunity of buying my own domain name (it is like having an address in the cyberspace). I bought my own domain name for  a cheap price of $3 (Php 150) via credit card. Yehey! … I mean… Yahoo!

Now you can also access this blog thru http://www.marcmgeronimo.com

Hmmm… I need a free web hosting now… nuninu…

I've tried countless times to fully utilize Ubuntu as my main OS at home, with Windows as a secondary boot choice, but what happened was it was the other way around. Most of my devices/hardware wouldn't integrate with linux (either there is no driver available or it has a very tricky configuration). For a guy whose only electric appliance in his room is an electric fan and his all around.. er!..over used… desktop PC (used for TV, AM/FM tuner, music box, audio/visual component etc. and other usual computer use), device integration is necessary or else i'll bore myself to death.

But that is not all the source of frustration, if you are gadget freak like me, you will have to go into a lot of trouble of integrating your gadget with linux (that is if ever you can integrate it at all!)… you know how working with linux goes… read lots of documentations, get lost, read documentations (again!), read forums, mess up with the system by trying to edit configuration files… then either you shout EUREKA! or start bangin' your computer.

Last night, I was forced to boot Ubuntu. Since last month, I was having trouble booting up Windows because of some motherboard problem with my 4 year old pc. Last night, I couldn't boot Windows no more. I am saving the weekends to fix it. For the mean time I'll content myself with Ubuntu… get my self used to basic GAIM than a fully featured Y!IM … use XMMS rather than ITunes … no TV for a while …

I'll get used to it… I have to…

I've just finished setting up the configuration to connect my Palm Tungsten T3 to my SE K700i mobile phone to use GPRS (see my previous post regarding new rates imposed by Smart for their GPRS and 3G services). I'm using my Palm T3 in making this blog via the open source blogging software – Plogit.

With my Palm as a blogging tool and also as an internet connection device, I can now publish my blogs from almost anywhere! No need to use my desktop or finding Wifi hotspots when I am mobile.

Galing noh!

Got this message when I tried to use GPRS on my handset :

Notice:

Starting May 1, you can do unlimited browsing via Smart GPRS and Smart 3G for only P10 per 30 minutes, no more kilobyte charges. P10 charge starts when you brows sites outside of the Smart WAP site and is running time-based similar to internet cafes. This means you will only be charged P10 within the first 30 minutes regardless of how many times you log in. Additional P10 shall be charged for every 30 minutes thereafter or every fraction thereof. Browsing within the Smart WAP site is free of charge. Content download rates still apply.

I am still trying to analyze whether this is a good news or a bad news for someone who uses GPRS quite frequently. In the old charging system, it would take you 40Kb of bytage to be charged the amount of P10. In the new system, even if you use more than 40Kb or less you still have to pay P10 as long as you use the connection for 30 minutes. Quite interesting! Makes me wanna activate my Verichat in my Palm T3 to do some YM chatting when I'm not at home or at work.

I'll see how this new charging system for GPRS and 3G goes.

Right back at yah!

Sigh! I couldn't post Flickr's slideshow here in my blog so I made a short movie of pictures taken in Singapore.

Here's another taken in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Our worries of last night faded eventually as we summed up all our strengths to move out of our hostel at 3am in the morning. We followed my ex-officemates advice on how to get to the Airport and to cut the story short, we got to the airport in no time and with the least expense. We saved up more than 50RM enough to buy us breakfast for that morning and some chocolates for "pasalubong".

We met a new friend in the airport, he's a chinese-malaysian guy who used to work for a call center in Cebu for the last two years. We hang out together shared some interesting stories and become seatmates on the plane and eventually said our good byes as we reached the Diosdado Macapagal Airport.

Around 12pm we got ourselves off the immigration and readied ourselves to the bus trip on the way to Manila. So we got into the Philtranco bus just outside the airport. We seated ourselves on the last row of seats and placed our packs on the back of the bus. Unfortunately, the bus was already fully booked and we have to alight the bus and find an alternative way out of Clark Airport. Thus we got into an airport taxi and sped our way to the nearest bus station where we can get a bus going to any point in Manila.

In the taxi I just realized that we left one plastic bag containing Cyril's digicam, Toblerone chocolates and other souvenir we bought in Singapore. The bad thing was, the bus already left the airport just as we rode our taxi. We have no choice but to get to the other terminal as fast as we could before the other bus reaches its terminal in Pasay which is a two hours away drive.

So the chase was on! If you think it's like being in the Amazing Race game… yes it was… we have to make decisions fast and fight our aching tired bodies due to the long walks and lack of sleep in the previous days.

When we got to the bus station we immediately rode on the first available bus going to any point in Manila. The plan was to get a bus going to EDSA then we'll take the MRT off to Pasay Rotonda where the Philtranco terminal is. So off we go! The Philtranco bus already has a great lead on us. Though, we expect them to have a drop off point somewhere in MegaMall and that would cut their lead. After about an hour of bus ride we dropped ourselves in Camachille a mile short of EDSA where we planned to take a taxi to bring us to the MRT. Since there were no taxi's in Camachile area we rode off a jeep to Monumento, dropped ourselves to the nearest footbridge and rode an ordinary bus to MRT. Imagine doing this in the scorching heat of the sun at around past 1pm in the afternoon, and this is not a game… it real!

When we reached the MRT North EDSA station we immediately rode on the first train as possible. Praying that the bus we are chasing was slowed down by the city traffic. After around 30 minutes of cooling down in the train, we are nearing the Taft Avenue station I pointed to Cyril where the Philtranco bus station is located and WHOA! just as the train passed by the bus station, there was a bus opposite our direction just about to enter the station. BUS 887! The bus that we are chasing! So as soon that we alighted the train and passengers doesn't really want to move fast at all, me with my big backpack on my bag squeezed through the multitude as if I was in a race for my life. So instead of riding a jeep towards the bus station I decided to walk towards it which is quite a walking distance from MRT station. When I got there (Cy was still walking his way out of the MRT station) I immediately asked the guard to where the bus was parked and I immediately went there. No sign of the plastic bag! Darn! Where could it be?

The driver told me to talk to the dispatcher officer to see the bus stewardess. We entered their office and WHOA! there it was in one of the seats. I immediately recognized the package and the stewardess didn't think twice to allow me to take it. It was a sigh of relief for me and Cy. Instead of going home early and catch our needed rest we are forced to catch a bus.

In the end, me and Cy just laughed about it. We rewarded ourselves with Jollibee snacks to recover.

No more adventures for me this day!

Drowsing off!

ZzzzzZZZZZzzzZZZ!

I am in Kuala Lumpur right now, we arrived about 7:30 pm this evening. The good thing is that our only itenerary here is to workout in the nearest Fitness First branch and take some pictures in the Petronas towers. We were lucky that the final destination of the bus we took from Singapore is just right beside Petronas towers and the other good news is that there is a Fitness First branch right beside the towers. So in less than an hour we finished our itenerary. The only thing that is left was to find a cheap hotel that we can stay for the night and leave as early as 4:30 am for our 7:30 am flight.

We got to a cheap hostel in Bukit Bintang area. Our problem now is how do we get to the airport as early as 4:30 am. Bad thing about Malaysia is that taxi drivers don't usually use the taxi meter (or maybe it is obvious that we are tourist… but hey I do look like a Malaysian… only I don't speak Bahasa Malaysian… bisaya pa siguro!). So for a 10 minute ride from Petronas to Bukit Bintang we were charged 10 RM (around 130 Pesos). If we do that to go to the airport… how much would a 45 minute ride would cost? Second thing is that we only have around 100 RM left in our pool. We didn't buy a lot of Ringgit coz we don't want to over budget our trip here to KL for just a few hours of stay. Good thing that I chatted with my friend Carlo, who is now here in Malaysia on how can we get to Kuala Lumpur International Airport the fastest, the cheapest and safest way.

No need to panic now. Sigh! Thank goodness!

Singapore I miss you! Manila I miss you a lot!

Need to pack my things again. I'll be in Manila tomorrow afternoon. Bye for now!

It's about 9:30 am here and am still in Singpore. It's our last day here and we are off to a 4 to 5 hour trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We booked the bus late yesterday so we got a 2pm bus trip instead of the 6am bus trip. Sad to say our supposed to be one day escapade to Malaysia was cut to half.

Am off to breakfast and have to prepare my things again… we'll be checking out from our hotel this 12 noon. See you tomorrow guys… I'll be back to Manila. Bags! I already miss Singapore.

Am back to home base here in Chinatown… very tiring day… our legs are sore of walking around Singapore. I'll be resting in a little while so I just posted new pictures in my flicker account. Click here.

Zzzzzz…

I have downloaded some of the pictures we've taken yesterday and early this morning… check my Flickr account. Click here.

Am here in Singapore's Chinatown, still alive… lolz… tomorrow will be a busy day for us… will stroll a lot of places and will take lots and lots of pictures… it's our last day of staying here in Singapura and we'll be embarking in new adventure in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur… It has been a very adventuruos two days for me and my friends… talk about getting lost all the time… walking 'til we sore our feet… and miraculously finding the places where we want to go… Oh! There are a lot of Filipinos here too! But more on that when I get to sit down and post a new blog entry for these adventures! That is all I can tell for now… my friend is bugging me that he want to use the sole computer here in the backpackers (yes we are backpackers!) hotel. Bye for now!

Forgive me for the title. I was chatting with an old friend who's in vacation from Spain and speaks fluent espangol… contagious. Anyways, back to what I am saying … am off to an early flight to Singapore tomorrow… for VACATION! YAHOOOOOO!!!

No am not excited… I'm ECSTATIC actually!

Hopefully I'll get to blog some when I get there… we have a pretty loose itenerary so I hope I'll get online to post some updates.

Oh… we also have a one day side-trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia… remember my I-am-beside-the-Petronas-Towers picture itinerary I hope to fulfill it there…

I'll be back afternoon of May 3.

I found this in Digg.com. If you are the ones like me who doesn't believe in buying computer books coz they are easily outdated by new versions (all I really want to say is "for cheapskates like me!"), try these online computer books (some are PDF downloadables) for your reference… here is the direct link to TechToolBlog.

I just wish this summer vacation won't end. Half the summer is already gone! I need to plan again my schedules for the incoming school year. Am taking two core subjects again that would complete my needed core units so I can take my comprehensive exams and 299.x subjects (research subjects). Because of this, graduation is delayed for a about 1 and a half years. Hopefully they'll be offering the 299.1 subject in the second sem and my delay would be cut to a year.

Here is my tentative sched from CRS. No Thank God It's Friday for me next semester. Sigh!

I should be posting this in the "I Have No Life" Category. LOLS!

WHAPPACK! KAPOW!

After a few straight jabs, left hooks and confusing footwork, I realized just how much stamina professional boxers have just to survive one round of a match. And I am just beginning to learn the basics of the sport. Oh well, I am not really into it to become a professional boxer. I just want to learn a few moves and experience boxing as close to the sport boxing itself against the Body Combat cardio class I attend in my gym or the Taebo class we all know. Going to gym has become boring for me and I like to try other perspiring activities to complement my so called healthy lifestyle.

Yesterday, we went to Boxeo Elorde located along Maceda St. just in between Chinese General Hospital and University of Santo Tomas. Me, my sister and my cousin went to learn a few boxing moves as we were trained by a few inactive boxers from the gym. For 200 pesos an hour, your trainor will teach you the basic punching moves (jabs, straights and hooks) some basic footworks and learn how to punch the speed bag and double end bag (which looks easy when boxers do it but really hard to do for a beginner).

One hour session is really tiring. Beside the basic boxing training, you'll also be doing some abs workouts that boxers usually do. Some relieving body stretches that would somehow give relief to the aching muscles after those forceful punches you've thrown.

Stepping into the boxing ring gives me the feeling of being in the stage. I have stage fright, ang being watched by people there as I release my amateur-ish boxing moves gives me the impression that they are laughing at me… paranoid isn't it!?! At least,I've experienced being in the ring.

The best thing about the boxing experience is that every forceful punches you throw gives you an outlet to throw your anger without hurting anyone. It helps a lot in distressing anger. With every punch you throw just remember those frustrating moments, those people you hate or those things that make you angry and just release it punch after punch and you'll see how relieving it is after the session. Trust me it is worth it!

I just found this in one of the forums I usually visit. Enjoy!

The FORCE is strong with this small guy! Go Yoda! Go Yoda!  

Yikes! Visiting PowerBooks and going out empty handed is a very hard lesson to learn. Books, as always, are great in tempting me to spend. This time got to shell out some for a comic book – Ang Kagila-gilalas Na Pakikipagsapalaran ni ZsaZsa Zaturnnah : Collected Edition by Carlo Vergara.

Don’t be deceived by the beautiful lady with large bumpers and almost wearing nothing. She is not a she… but a HE. The story’s protagonist is Ada a homosexual male who was granted the ability to transform into a superhuman warrior having remarkable strength and outstanding beauty by a stone that fell from the heavens. He… err… she ( it? ), and together with her sidekick Didi and his object of love (lust?) – Dodong, is forced to defend a small town from extraterrestrial Amazon bimbos.

If you think it is a spoof of DARNA, yes it is almost like it but with a humor far greater than the original. The humor … well as the front of the books says “BABALA: Para sa mga Mature Readers Ever!” (Warning: For Mature Readers Ever!), will make you really laugh hard on your seats with a little imagination of course. The humor is injected with gay themes that anyone can relate. I mean any mature reader can relate.

I’m looking forward to seeing this played on the stage next month. I missed it the first time it was staged in CCP, but hell I won’t miss it this time!

Hey Tserri! When are you watching this?

What I love about WordPress is that continually adds more plug-ins and features for WordPress bloggers use for free. Two features I love viewing are the Blog Stats and the recently added Feed Stats.

So who's reading my blog?

My Blog Stats actually shows the number of times my page was accessed during the day and the access history for the last 30 days. It also shows from what url my link was clicked. From the snapshot above my page was clicked from two blogs sites, one from my friend Cherry (sakuramindspeak.blogspot.com) and from my Australian friend Eden (completetosh.blogspot.com).

How are they accessing my blog?

Since there are many ways of accessing blogs (examples are browsers and RSS aggregators), the Feed Stat of WordPress shows these statistics. The contents of the page are self explanatory. =)

I am using Flock browser btw.

WordPress has been updating its features recently. Twice already they've shutdown their site for maintenance. My wordpress theme was also updated causing a new look of my blog. I still have problems with some of the settings of the updated theme but am working on it to customize the theme to my liking.

I am having trouble with configuring the Flickr widget of wordpress. Hopefully this will be addressed by the WordPress people asap.

I am also planning to create my own blog header, my new theme now supports that. I am excited!

Good Friday. Another family day. We went to Sta. Teresita Hospital to visit my grandma who just had a knee operation a few days back. We had lunch and lots of chit-chat with my Ninong and Ninang and two of my cousins. My elder cousin invited my to try basic boxing training set weekend next week. Hmm… boxing anyone? When we got home we watched Tristan and Isolde in DVD, malls are closed and almost no establishments are open. Bored to death of course and have to stay home because of the very very hot summer.

Black Saturday. Have to wake up early again (by my definition this is not counted as a vacation!), we are off to Tagaytay to catch a cooler weather. It's the first time that me and my sis got to have chit chat over coffee with my parents in Starbucks. Weather is great here sunny but not hot, plus has a great view of Taal Lake.

Easter Sunday. Got to watch a DVD of Cassanova just before lunch. Great movie! The movie was funny and full of twists. Heath Ledger rocks! Got disappointed again with Smart Wifi service, I've got no connection from Saturday afternoon 'til Sunday night. I panicked when I tried visiting my wordpress blog and didn't see any of my posts. Was my account hacked? Nope! WordPress was actually doing some maintenance works during this day. Phew! I thought I lost my blog entries!

I woke up about 5:30 am this morning due to the loud banging on my door, it was the wake up call (the whole sleeping plans for the holy week is ruined). As a family holy week tradition, we always go to the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Bulacan for the usual Via Dolorosa. The place isn't that jam packed with people anymore, though the place is still busy with city dwellers doing their devotee duties for the week. Slept mostly during the drives. I miss my bed!

I arrived home around 12 noon and it was so damn hot as hell! I regretted turning down my friends invitation of going to a beach house in Batangas to spend the rest of the holy week. With a sun and temp like that I just wished I was lying half naked in the sand giving myself a sunburn rather than like being inside the convection roaster like my room.

Just bored myself and tried to get some decent sleep. Malls are closed like any other establishment around Metro Manila. I just wish I had work this day!

P.S. The plans of going to Pagudpod were cancelled. Plan B was sleeping through the rest of the Holy Week. Plan B was also forcedly cancelled.

Maylin – my elder sister just recently signed up for her third employer for this year. Though she is now serving here 30 days notice in his present job, in a few weeks we’ll both be working for the same company. She got tired of being exiled to China from her previous job, She applied to a European banking company but got bored because of routinary job. She resigned again. Now in her new work she’ll be working in IT implementations and support, the headaches of IT. lolz!. This cheapskate family member now enjoys a great salary, a promising career in IT (?), and enjoying her newly acquired second hand red LXi Honda.

Yzza (or Balleriza) – she was actually my high school classmate’s younger sister whom we got to interact a lot during our high school days in Notre Dame. Last week, I got a friend request from her in Friendster, and when I checked her profile… whoa! I was surprised that she and her family had recently moved to New Zealand.

Howie – got a chance to have a little chit chat with this doctor turned virgin-coconut-oil-tv-commercial-model in the gym yesterday. He wasn’t the snobbish guy (so snobbish that you’ll think he’s autistic) I usually see doing his cardios, but yesterday he was extra cheerful and radiant. He said that he’s leaving the 1st of next month for San Francisco… for good. He’ll be going there to pursue his medicine career and citizenship.

Cyril – he’s my best friend. Just recently, he has been working on his migration requirements and papers for migration to Canada. Pressured by his mom and frustrations from being here in this country, he finally decided to apply for migration and look for greener pastures in other places.

Marc – well that’s me! I’ve been doing some lot of thinking and planning about my future recently. I have plans of going (migrating?) to other countries too… there’s Australia and there is Singapore. But…I have to postpone some of my bigger plans due to my schooling. I’ve recently found out that I might stay for another one and a half years to finish my post grad degree. So I guess I’d be stagnant for the next two years, but of course it would depend on the opportunities that would knock.

Gawd! I hate this QLC!

I semi-retired playing badminton more than seven months ago. Brought about by choice and circumstances that made me to choose not push myself in playing competitive badminton.

Time – post grad classes eating up my Saturday schedule and Sunday being only my rest day. Friends – the Sunday morning badminton guys I usually go with already broke up, I resting on Sundays and most of them now making a living outside the country. Finance – active lifestyle is an expensive lifestyle, am making small steps in making a hiatus from this lifestyle.

But just recently, a friend of mine invited me to play for the Engineering and Architecture cluster for the 1st All-UP Alumni Badminton Cup. It was then that my passion for badminton was rekindled. Playing badminton and playing for my college just made me decide to go playing again instantly.

So I've got my Yonex racket re-stringed again, bought a few shuttlecocks for stock, and attended the group's last minute practice. But darn! It only made me so frustrated. I couldn't get my old play back. The footwork was gone. The smashing needs great tuning. The drops needs a little lowering. Sigh! It was very frustrating for someone who have played the sport since high school even before everyone was bitten by the hype. Oh well, I guess it's the price I have to pay for concentrating on my workouts and other priorities, plus my semi-retirement in playing. How frustrating? Let's just say… QLC just recurred.

Fortunately, we made it through the elimination rounds, we were one of the 4 teams out of the 8 teams to compete for the semi-finals and final rounds. Other teams are composed of alumni of other colleges not only from Diliman, but also from other UP chapters. No one in the team really expected it. We thought that we'll get the needed rest last Sunday, but we qualified. Thus, with a heavy heart, cramping legs and aching shoulders we managed to give the best we can with our remaining strength. We didn't make it to the third place though, but it was kinda achievement for us who were assembled last minute before the tournament.

Amongst those who competed are from the alumni of College of Science UP Diliman, College of Dentistry of UP Manila, College of Human Kinetics of UP Diliman and etc.But more than all of this is reliving the atmosphere of being in UP again. It wasn't held in UP though, but being with fellow alumni made the atmosphere the familiar UP that we are used to. We share two passion, passion for the Alma matter and passion for badminton.

Kudos to the organizers and participant of the 1st All-UP Alumni Badminton Cup!

TODO : Post team picture.

P.S. : The finals event will be televised (I forgot the name of the Asuncion's show about badminton). I'll be somewhere along with the crowd. Hehehe.

Finally, after a few months of waiting, Rent : The Movie was shown here in Manila, but only in a few chosen cinemas. I was informed by my friend Rico that the movie was currently being shown in Greenbelt 3 since the start of the week. Since I have a busy schedule for the rest of the weekdays, I've decided to watch it last Saturday with two of my friends. I had our seats reserved so that we wouldn't go in to the trouble of lining up just to get our tickets.

We got to the cinema 20 minutes earlier than the scheduled screening so that we could catch some movie trailers (yes aside from watching the movie itself, I love watching trailers of up coming movies). It turns out…there was none. Why? I don't know. When the cinema dimmed to darkness, the music of the Rent's famous song Season's of Love began. Oh! I forgot… Rent's movie poster outside the cinema says, "SINGING IS ALLOWED". So I asked, "WHERE'S THE MIC?"… lols…

The movie is about friendship, love and death incorporated with the ideals of bohemian lifestyle. It tries to show a snapshot of the taboo lives concerning gay and lesbian relationships as well as the issue of AIDS of 5 people who lives in a tent city who couldn't even pay for their rent.

The movie ran for about two hours, I have to be honest that even though I find the move as a good movie (or play) there are some dragging scenes or too melodramatic instances in the movie that made me yawn (and a lot more yawning for my other friend… the other seemed to be enjoying it a lot).

After the movie, my friend asked me how come there are people who can live like those people in the movie, living with almost nothing, being slaves of their arts and having a carefree life of sex, drugs and alcohol. I just said that it was the ideals of the bohemian lifestyle, a choice of life that not everybody can agree with, but I also said, we can always choose a carefree life no matter what lifestyle we choose, bohemian or not.

"There's only us, there's only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss… No other road, no other way…no day but today. " – Rent

I am blogging again… but this time I am tapping endlessly on the screen of my more than a year old Palm Tungsten T3 as I walk through the sidewalks of Ayala Avenue in Makati. Off to gym… but blogging along the way. Comin' thru! Comin' thru!

[This section has been edited using my home PC... and yes, my Smart WIFI connection has been restored... but that is a different story]

Plogit ver 0.2

In a few weeks I'll be going to my first trip outside the country and as excited as I am of coure I'd like to blog the things that will happen during my trip. I don't know if I'll have a chance to get connected during my trip, I have no laptop… but I have my ever reliable and handy Palm T3. I did some googling again and found a couple of blogging clients for palm mostly commercials and only one Open source – Plogit.

Plogit is an open source PalmOs blogging client. It directly transfers the blog entries you wrote in your Palm directly to your website via Palm connection capabilities (either by Bluetooth LAN Connection or PPP Lan Connection). It can also download some of the blog entries already publised in your blogsite and view or edit it in your Palm. If you have accounts in Blogger, MetaWeblog and MovableType (and a Palm powered PDA of course!) then this is for you… and I'd like to add that it can also be used in WordPress but of course with some limitations.

Plogit's last stable version was released last February 2004 which is quite like centuries ago. It has never been updated again. WordPress came in late and is never meant to be supported by Plogit, but I tried it anyways and it sync-ed seamlessly. It doesn't support other new features of blogging like uploading photos, categories etc. but for plain text blogging functionality it works great, besides you can always edit/format your blog once you have uploaded it to your site.

If you are using a WordPress type of blog just configure it this way :

Blog Type : MovableType

Username : your-username

Password : your-password

Hostname : url of your website without the "http://" (i.e. questionmarc.wordpress.com)

Path to RPC : /xmlrpc.php

Happy blogging!

P.S. : Don't blog while you are walking, besides the weird looks that you will be getting, you might stumble into some inanimate objects along the way i.e. lamp posts! Ouch!

Here are the technosexuals, the living manifestations of "techie"-ness and geekness. Kidding! These are actually some  camera shy members of the Philippine Palm Users Group or a.k.a. MaPalad.Org, taken last night during the group's "Wala Lang" meet in Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Greenbelt 3.

This time we had visitors from the dark side, luring us with their new toys and gadgets which was led by the Philippine Windows Mobile group's president Carlo. Up for grabs (yes… but only in our dreams!) were the BlueSpoon bluetooth headset, I-mate JASJAR (which will be released here in the Phils as Dopod), Carlo's Windows Media Center and other PPC phones which I forgot to take note of (sorry!).

The meeting was a blast! Oldies and newbies alike gathered to exchange contacts, plan future gimmicks, meet new friends and share anything about Palm handhelds… and er… PPC handhelds also.

Thanks guys for the great time! See you next time in our next future gimmicks!

-o0o-

Got my hands on this very tempting piece of device, the I-mate JasJar PDA-Phone during dinner with the same group. It's a Windows Mobile based PDA phone which costs around P60k, it will be sold here in the Philippines under the Dopod brand. Here are the specs.

I am here at school taking advantage of of the broadband connection they offer for free for students like me. I usually do my blogging at home, but for the past three nights I was having problems connecting to my broadband subscription via Smart Wifi.

Well it is not the first time that I have been having problems with their service. The most significant happened last January when they were doing "system upgrade and maintenance works" that left me to have no connection for one whole month. Talk about great and reliable service!

Oh, I won't forget mentioning that they also have their own call center which I called for I-forgot-how-many-times and all they can say is they don't have the idea as to when the maintenance works will be finished. A lot of times they couldn't even check your account coz their customer interface system is inaccessible and they'll ask you to call them back after an hour or after a few hours. That is customer service!

I've read in the internet that I was not alone in my problem, there were a few people who are ranting (same as to what I am doing now) about Smart Wifi's poor and unreliable service. They even suggested to email NTC (National Telecommunications Commision) regarding this poor service, which I did, but not only that, I've tried to post my woes to what is supposed to be the Department of Trade and Industries' online consumer support — http://www.i-reklamo.ph, but I was only getting 404's (Page cannot be found). So I tried to email DTI regarding my woes on their website together with my woes on Smart WIFI service. Sad to say, I've never heard from them.

February 13, they sent the contractors to "fix" my connection at home.

A few weeks later I called their call center again regarding my rebate which they gave after a few more calls. They keep asking me as to when the problem started and when was it fixed. I argued that they should have a record of those calls coz it has been more that a month since I've made first call to them. I've also argued that they should have started counting the rebated days when they have started with their systems upgrade which is a few days earlier than my first call to them, which unfortunately they don't have a record of.

A few more weeks after they've fixed my problem, I received a call from them confirming if my problem was already solved. They reason they called me really is beause NTC has forwarded my email to them. NTC has kept a very close eye on them due to the numerous complaints they are receiving regarding their poor service. But still NTC is still a too-late-the-hero. Moreover, I still haven't heard anything from DTI.

Last sunday night while downloading some Tiesto music I got disconnected again, I called up their call center twice and gave me the basic troubleshooting procedure and it didn't work. Now, am waiting for their higher technicals to call me and give me the advance troubleshooting procedures. If it still doesn't work, they might send the contractors again to fix the problem.

It's a waiting game again. Another cycle of complaint. Darn!

I came across the word "TECHNOSEXUAL" when I was browsing a not so popular local IT magazine early this morning, which was published last October 2005.

According to Wiki :

Technosexual (a portmanteau word combining "technological" and "metrosexual"), previously used to refer to an individual with a sexual attraction to machinery, is a term recently redefined to describe a person (usually a male) with a strong aesthetic sense and a love of gadgets.

So it is basically a combination of vanity and technology. Me, being a gadget freak, a little dandy-ish and vain qualifies me to be one. Well, who isn't?

Hmm… everything is getting sexual these days. People are started to get more and more jaded and will usually "sexuallize" everything they can put their hands on. At first, I thought the word was referring to a type of perversion where a person is sexually stimulized, aroused or gets sexual satisfaction from gadgets… lolz, I guess I know too much.

Rejoice! Summer is here!!!

Well it’s not really officially summer for me. Got one more week to dig before I call it summer. School is almost over and requirements are one by one being completed (hardly!).

So what’s in store for two months of SUN! SUN! SUN! and FUN! FUN! FUN!? (with Beach Boys’ music on the background).

Beach! Yes like everyone else am planning to go to the beach. Tentatively planning going to Pagudpod, Ilocos this time. White sand again but a lot cheaper than a trip to Boracay. The only set back is to survive the 10 hour bus ride. Better get myself some things for my buns, a book to read and lotsa’ food to eat. We are setting this for the Holy Week vacation when almost everyone is getting south… we are going north!

Back-packin’! I am indulging myself to travel this year and in the coming years. I’ve been so trapped in my own birdcage that I haven’t had time to see other things and different places. So where to? Singapore! The land of the merlion and … uhmm… see! I don’t really know anything about this place… that is why I am going there! Then to Malaysia! The land of the Petronas twin towers! Don’t you just envy those shots where your friends pose under the twin towers and they were like saying “I AM IN MALAYSIA!”… Let’s see, I’ll be putting that activity on my itenerary. I’ll be posing my own i-am-under-the-petronas-tower-picture in this blog.

I’ll be blogging (and bragging) these trips if ever they push through. I’ll be needing a thick wallet for these activities so I’ll bring out the cheapskate in me for the mean time. Which reminds me, I need to contact my friends in those places so we can get rid of boarding and lodging expenses. Any volunteers?

Have a great summer!