i'm a bloody british...

well, no.

but i'll soon be if i keep on drinking tea at this rate. by my estimate, i'm 4,612 cups of tea away to becoming a bloody british. and why this newfound addiction to tea you might ask? well, the answer is simple really... its the bloody weather!!!

since this week started, the temperature's been droppin steadily. when i got home tonight, it was 48 outside. i mean 9 in celsius(gee, i gotta get used to using the metric system if i'm gonna become a briton). gad, of course its still gonna go down as the night wears on. last night i think we were in the 30s. below freezing. bloody friggin' cold! the only reason its still not snowing here is because this is the desert, and that means no humidity. thank God for that. i wonder how tj's able to survive the harsh winters in his end of the states...

anyway, i just wrote a short story. its not yet finished, about two thirds of the way. if you wanna check how its coming along, i posted it here in my deviant. i will mirror-post it here once i'm done so you can just wait for it here.

oh and lastly, i still don't have a job...

i heard folks back in my beloved homeland's gonna get pummeled by yet another supertyphoon. all i can say is, take care you guys! you're better off with typhoons than me with the cold here. ;-)

...and last of the last, i just wanna plug One Tree Hill. i followed it religiously back in the phils, and i am still following it religiously here. the episode last night was absolutely amazing. if you didn't get to watch it, go dig it up in youtube! it reminds me why i absoutely love the series. and from a guy who's known for his unenthusiastic relationship with the television, this is something which you should have followed and should be following. at the very least, you're gonna like whitey. =D

...:::more

less:::...

how-to: add built-in widgets

i talked about getting a tv tuner from my previous post. when i got to install the software to use it, i was horrified to see that it added a vertical toolbar on the right side of my desktop. it ruined the layout of my icons but at the same time i couldn't just get rid of it cause its dead useful. the solution? i had to come up with a new desktop layout fast. i tried moving around the icons to no avail. thats when i stumbled upon this little known and buggy "widgets" feature of the windows desktop. it doesn't, by any means, comes close to those which you'd find in a mac. nor is it as pretty or as animated as those offered by 3rd party vendors like yahoo. but you can't deny one thing, it isn't a resource-hogger as it is a built-in thing.

the "widget" i'm talking about is just a toolbar actually. it loads with your taskbar at the bottom. and i think it's more of an undocumented and unsupported feature which came about by the windows explorer's loose and open-ended coding. so, here's a step-by-step guide. this is really easy to implement, just watch out where your mouse points to.
1. Create a folder in your My Documents and give it any name.
2. Fill the folder with shortcuts to various programs you want to put in your widget. You can do this by tracking down the program's .exe file in your Program Files directory(or finding the program's icon in the start menu) then right-click> Send to> Desktop(Create Shortcut). You will find the newly-created shortcut in your desktop. Rename it(ie. remove 'Shortcut to'). Then drag it to the newly-created folder.
3. Right-click on your taksbar
4. Select Toolbars> New Toolbar. Locate the folder you created and click ok.
5. What will appear in your taskbar is the folder's name and a superscripted double arrow. Drag the double column of dots preceding the folder's name to your desktop. If you can't see the double column, uncheck the 'Lock the Taskbar' option in your taskbar's properties(right-clicking on the taskbar).
6. You will now see a small window in your desktop containing the programs' icons you chose earlier.
7. Drag it to the upper edge of your desktop until it becomes a toolbar-like thing. Once you release the mouse-button, the title-bar should disappear.
8. Now you have a toolbar at the top of your screen. If you like how it looks, you may stop here.
9. Right-click on it to view the other options available. To create a widget-like feel, unckeck the 'Show Text' and 'Show Title' options and select View> Large Icons. Re-adjust the height accordingly and voila, a widget!
you can also put it on either sides of your desktop. I put another on the left side and set it to 'Small Icons' and Auto-hide.
so now, my desktop only contains 3 icons. its super clean and super uncluttered.
like it? hate it? stuck in a step? lemme know! ;-)

...:::more

less:::...

the whole thanking and buying ordeal

after the rush of Black Friday is saturday, and for me its a sleepy saturday.

wednesday
we were to have a thankgsgiving dinner at my aunt's place so i figured i'd whip up a couple of dishes. first off, i made my potato salad. while the taters were boiling away, i worked on making a pasta dough for a ravioli dish which i just felt like making at that time. cause of that, i wasn't able to remove the water from the taters after they were cooked which resulted into them being a little mashed from too much water absorption. so, take note of that guys. anyway, kneading the dough was tough. and stuffing the filling was tougher. thinking about it makes me tired. the filling was a miixture of tomatoes, onions and bologna. the sauce was made from the chicken and potato stock from the potato salad, onions and cream cheese. too much work, kneading that is. next time, i'm gonna get those wanton sheets so i don't have to make my own dough. geez.

thursday
its my first real thanksgiving here. and as far as holidays and celebrations go, it is at par with major holidays like christmas here. and i have no problem celebrating it with the rest of united states.

thanksgiving may have hadits beginnings as that of a commemorative thing for the first feast which native americans and the settlers celebrated together, thanks giving for not killing each other. nowadays, its still that, plus some more. it has grown from a mere remambrance to that of a real thanks giving. we don't just celebrate that first feast but also the founding of a country, the world's bounty, the fellowship of men and the grace of God.

and so we say thank you to...
...the past, for giving us today.
...the world, for giving us itself.
...the people around us, for giving us their company.
...people everywhere, for giving us the collective force of life.
...life, for giving us its gift.
...God, for giving us His grace.
...ourselves, for giving us ourselves.

anyway, my potato salad won some more fans but the mashed nature worked against it in the sense that the mayonaisse wasn't absorbed as much. then the pepper i got had a hard time going against the taste of the un-absobed mayo. but i was surprised at how my raviolis turned out. it was great, this was my third attempt in making those little critters. the first one was purely tomato based with different kinds of mushrooms. it was nice but not that good. my second attempt was a disaster. made from black-eyed peas and bittermelon leaves. idon't want to elaborate. so this was a real surprise. i liked it, they loved it, i gotta write the recipe down somewhere before i forget about it. lol.

what i like about the thanksgiving feast, apart from the gobble-gobbling turkey, is the stuffing! gad, i just can't get anough of it. sigh. drool... i'd have to attempt making one soon. nyahahaha.

friday
the road to friday is littered with catalogs, ads and more ads. the friday after the fourth thursday of november is called black friday. and its the biggest sale event in america. so, what better way to devirinize a first timer than to partake in the whole conundrum of black friday.

around 5 in the morning, the time stores opened up their doors to let the hordes in, i was still bleary-eyed in bed. got up, then reviewed the catalogs sprawled on the coffe table in the family room. i decided to go for a tv a target, a laptop at best buy and a chair at officemax. so we got on or way around 6. here is the store-by-store account in chronoligcal order:

fry's electronics. our first stop, we got here around 20 past 6. i insisted on this first stop cause generally, this is where the cheapest stuff are, electronics-wise, usually. i couldn't believe that the 1 page ad they took out was all they were offering for their sale. they're the biggest electronics boutique here and their regular prices would pass off as marked-down prices in other stores, so there has to be more. and when we got there, seeing the parking lot full, and everyone coming out pushing a trolley with something big like an LCD tv, reinforced this idea. but sadly, a quick look around the store said that the 1 page ad was indeed exhaustive of their on-sale items. interestingly enough, it was full of people inside, and their really long row of checkout counters are full and with a line which snakes around four times. so we left, gotta keep focussed on what we were really after.

best buy besides fry's electronics. wasn't even 7 and the store was packed like megamall on a mega-sale. it was a little hot inside and you really get to smell the different aromas, you get the picture. the check out line wound its way around the store, attendants were shouting, everyone was rushing around the store. but, me? i went away bitter. the laptop i wanted turns out have been gone long before we got there, they gave out tickets to the stuff inside the store around 4 in the morning so the early bird really did get the fattest worm. the laptop i wanted was from hp featuring a centrino processor, 512mb ram, 80gigs hdd, DVD+-R and a 15inch widescreen, meager by today's standards, but at $380 that's a bargain. normally goes for $750.

target at Paradise Village. got there around 8, it wasn't full. normal crowd, seems everyone's priority was to get to the boutiques first before hitting the one-stop shops. however, the electronics section was still the most popular one. i saw two ladies with the tv i wanted so i had high hopes i'd also get one. of course i didn't, they just ran out. tough luck. it was a 19" LCD HDTV on sale for $180. normally its $400. now i'm really frustrated. on the up side, we were tipped by a guy who works there that a truck will arrive around 2 in the afternoon and it might have the tv. oh ok, our place is just two blocks away anyway so it wasnt a problem.

circuit city near Mayo Clinic. there around 9. same case with best buy. really full. by the time we got there, the gameboy sp my bro was eyeing for was out as well. it was goin for $50. they were also offering at a lot of games and dvds for $5. wow, but its not worth the line for the checkout.

target at Desert Ridge. this is the bigger target. same deal, the tv was out as well. oh well.

officemax at Desert Ridge. hurrah! no lines! fewer than 10 people customers inside! normal crowd! yay! best of all, the $50 chair, which normally goes $130, greeted me at the door! yay! my bro also got a corner desk, wonderful piece for $60 from $180. yay! we weren't bitter anymore!

paradise bakery at Desert Ridge. hungry, gotta have a bite.

best buy at Paradise Village. not the first best buy we went to, this one's near our place. got here around half past 11. we were tying to beat the 7-hour specials or "til noon only" most stores had. my laptop was still nowhere to be had. my bro were luckier than me. they just brought out this pile of desktop PCs which wasn't listed in their ads. we were just lucky to spot it. it was a $375 rig from emachines. P4HT 3.0GHz, 1gig ram, DVD+-R, 200gigs hdd, 15"LCD, canon printer. couldn't get any better. in 10 minutes, all that was left of the pile was the floor. sweet. i didn't walk away there empty handed, i got a 2gig flash disk from SanDisk for $30. a $65 savings.

target at Paradise Village part deux. substantially more people now. waited for 2, watched the attendants restock. still no tv. grunt.

compusa at Paradise Village. normal crowd. no great deals to speak of. boring. as usual.

walmart near scottsdale airpark. it seems they didn't have much stuff on sale. dang. a lot less people outside now. its now 3pm.

best buy near scottsdale airpark. hoping in vain for a laptop... still na-da.

staples near scottsdale airpark. uh, why were we here? oh right, we don't know as well. lol. just felt like droppin by.

home. around half past 3. unloaded cargo and me and my bro were off again.

target at bell towne center. i never give up. and no matter what ido, it still won't magically materialize in thir shelves. sigh.

fry's electronics part deux. much more pleasurable atmosphere now. no more checkout line, but the row of checkout counters were still busy. went around checking out items in more detail. anyway, my bro talked me into getting a tv tuner card for the pc instead of a tv since i already have a 17" LCD monitor anyway. and you know what, it actually made sense. so i got a HDtv tuner card from ati for $100. this way i get to extract the HD signals already being broadcast over the air, watch it, and save it. yay! my pc just became a dvr as well! lol! but, oops. my 3 hdds have a combined free space of about 20gigs. not a good idea if i want to snag videos from the air. and i can't put in anymore hdd cause the ide channels are already full(3 PATAS + dvd = 4 drives = breaking point). then i got this wierd idea to put in a SATA drive even though my motherboard doesn't natively support it. so i searched the aisles for a SATA controller PCI card. yay! it exists! and quite cheap at $30. so now i have to look for a great deal on a SATA hdd. back to the aisles again! lo and behold, a 500gig SATA drive was on sale for $150! yay! more storage! woot! i was ecstatic. and had to leave the store premises immediately for fear of finding another item which i won't be able to reist getting.

home again. after 13hrs(6am-7pm) of shopping, it was finally over. still no laptop though but i'm sure there's something out there. i got into assembling my chair so i'm enjoying sitting on it right now as i type this. no more aching butts from the hard wood chair for me! then i took on my pc again. it was probably as nervous as i was. another surgical operation. here's the technical story:

i opened the flap. i figured it would be safe to remove my highly buggy and unstable video capture card, which i only used for about three times anyway i think, and my modem card anymore since i slapped in a wireless usb adapter at the back when i got here in the states to access the wifi around here. so, with the two recently freed pci slots, my rig was substantially cleaner. those two cards were covered with dust. T_T

i slapped in the sata controller card where my modem used to be. i ran into a bit of problem installing it with the included driver so i went to their website and got the latest driver. that fixed the problem.

next was the hdtv tuner card. it was big, but it went in comfortably where my video capture card used to be. interestingly enough, this tuner card can also capture video from anything since its also got a s-video and the yellow, red, white, input plugs in it. yay! got it working right away, no snags in the installation. although the reception i get in my room from the included antenna is weak, but its ok, i'm working on a fix for it right now.

lastly, the sata hdd. i left this for last since this will be the trickiest to install. when i slapped in my 3rd hdd, i had to disable one of my chassis fans(which rides along the secondary ide channel power supply) for it causes my whole secondary ide line to disappear from the system or worse, a lock up. apparently the power supply is not enough with the fan. when i took out the fan, my rig worked fine. so with an additional drive, i figured i'd have to disable one of my current drives so that my supply won'te get overloaded. so i directed the supply for my 2nd hdd to the new drive using the included ide to sata power calbe included. it worked fine. but i wasn't hapy losing a hdd. sure its just an 80gig drive compared to the 500gigs im replacing it with.

so i was about to close the flap when i noticed a sata power cable sticking out from the tied up bundle of power cables. i stared at it and i couldn't believe it. did my power supply really supported a sata drive natively? how can it? can it handle the additional power requirement? well, only one way to find out. i put the plug back into my 2nd hdd and used the newly discovered power line for the drive. pushed the power and prayed it won't make the long beep which says inadequate power in bios terms. it didn't. it worked. so i guess my supply can hande it. so i guess the additional chassis fan really wasn't overloading the supply, just the line which makes sense i guess. so i now have a 4th hdd! and as this writing, i don't know how i will partition the too-much-space in it. i'm all ears for any suggestions.

i closed the flap and declared the operation a success. my rig is once again breathing without fear.

by the time i finished around 3 in the morning, i was just way too tired.

saturday
i'm going to stay home and rest. period. . . . .......!

appendix:
HD- High-Definition- a digital television broadcasting system which allows for significantly higher resolutions than what traditional formats would allow. from Wikipedia
PCI- Peripheral Component Inteconnect- a computer bus for attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard. from Wikipedia
PCI card- a device in the form of a silicon wafer or a card which adds functionality to your computer. pretty much any none-core functionality of a computer is based here. ex: modem, lan, wifi, tuner, etc.
PCI slot- these are the slots in your motherboard where you put in PCI cards. there will be removable flaps in your cpu's casing(usually at the back) that lines up with these slots which will allow cards to "peer" into the outside world.
RAID- Redundant Array of Inexpensive(or Independent) Disks- a data storage scheme using multiple drivs to replicate or share data among themselves. from Wikipedia
SATA- Serial ATA- the successor to PATA(Parallel ATA)s. faster communication speeds and dedicated lines. from Wikipedia
SATA Controller PCI card- PCI card which enables a system to use SATA disks. also features RAID functionalities to hooked up drives. some cards can host up to 4 disks. you can put as much of these as there are PCI slots making for immense scalability.
tech-savvy- glorified way of saying geek. ex: i'm tech-savvy. lol.
knowledge-enrichment- a glorified way of saying "i'm bored so i'll surf the net". ex: what you're doing right now.

...:::more

less:::...

recipe: mike's potato salad

POTATO SALAD
serves 4

ingerdients:
1 lb. chicken breast(bone-in)
5 lbs. potatoes
1 liter mayonnaise
3 tbsp. coarse-ground or crushed black pepper
1 tbsp. basil
salt to taste

directions:
1. peel potatoes.
2. place the chicken breasts, potatoes, and a pinch of salt in a pot of water. make sure the water covers everything. bring to a boil and wait until the potatoes can punctured halfway through with a fork.
3. remove from fire. remove potatoes. dice potatoes to bite-sized pieces. put into a large mixing bowl.
4. fish out the breasts. remove/eat the skin. hold a knife with your left hand and a fork with your right. use the flat side(sideways) of the knife to pin the breast down then with the fork, debone it by doing scraping it. add this to the mixing bowl.
5. add the mayonnaise. mix it with a large wooden spoon or spatula. add the blacck pepper by the tablespoon, mixing it between each addition. before adding the last tablespoon of black pepper, add the basil.
6. chill in refrigerator before serving.

notes:
1. adjust ingredient proportions to control serving size(scalable).
2. its best to age it for a day or so.
3. the leftover chicken&potato stock tastes great! use it for soups or anything else which needs stock like gravy.
4. i'm writing this from memory, proportions might be a little off. yes, it looks like there's a ton of pepper in it when it's done.

...:::more

less:::...

i just wanna die from Pills, Actually.

so yesterday tj, my life partner in multiply(lol), put up an old video in his page. so i got into "reminiscing mode" and i was able to dig up the dump files of our Pills Actually project from about 2 years ago.

for the unacquainted, Pills Actually is the title of the supposed movie adaptation of Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die. it was our final poject for our Humanities course back in our second year in college. we were just tasked to make the movie trailer for it and some other stuff but not the entire movie. it was a lot of fun, really. and bily, haha, birthday project mo to!

a lot of you probably have seen what it looked like, the finished project that is. but only bily, lianne and me have seen this. that i can assure you. mwahahaha. they are the different versions of the trailer. i included the original version(the first one), which is in english, the other two, well, that came about from staying up too late. i cleaned up the sound a bit, so you should hear the dialogues more clearly. see, i really do not delete stuff in my hard drive! hihihi.

in english


in "japanese"


in filipino

ps. you're gonna have to turn up the volume, uploaded video's sound quality is horrible.

pps. sorry bout that, should be working now. ;-)

...:::more

less:::...

harry potter and the hostel of the phoenix

for those of you who don't know, the teaser trailer for the next harry potter movie came out with happy feet(it will also come out in happy feet's website on monday). i didn't go with my bro and his wife to see happy feet so when i found out, well, frustrated is too weak a word to describe how i felt. so in my frustration, i dug up the following harry potter 5 videos. all i can say is, harry got older, fatter and uglier(the unholy triumverate), hermione looks like she's still the same(which means she's still hot), and ron... is... uh... i'd rather not talk about ron. enjoy! ;-)

LSS, woohoo!


"its pronounced harry, not scared!" woot!


must be nice to be queen eh?


omgomgomgomgomgOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOOOOOOMMMMGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!


the realest and clearest harry potter trailer here. enjoy!

...:::more

less:::...

how-to: customize your desktop

some posts back, i talked about posting a guide on how to customize your desktop's theme. that time has come my dear friends. come, join me in my dream to rid this world of plain coffee. customize!

the easiest way to radically change the over-all look of your desktop is to use XPize. the latest version is 4.6. its a one-click installer which wll replace your theme, your log-on screen, your boot-up and shutdown screen, your alt+tab screen, some icons, and other minor tweaks. its very stable and safe. it'll eat only 2megs of your memory for the alt+tab replacement. if you're comfortable with the current alt+tab setup, you can choose not to install it anyhow. but i'd recommend that you use it, it looks waaaay nicer. i would, however, recommend that you do not install the boot-up screen replacement. it looks horrible. but the over all package is really worth it. and its free!
click here to get it.

i would recomend that you use XPize. but, if after awhile the desktop theme begins to bore you, then you can easily replace the theme. in reality, its called msstyle. some would refer to it as visual styles. but i prefer themes. you an change your theme even if you're already using XPize. in fact, i'd recommend tweaking your themes manually in cojunction with using XPize. its to get as much customization as possible.

the first thing you should do when tweaking your desktop theme is to run UXTheme Multipatcher. you can get it here. this patches the uxtheme.dll in your windows directry. by default, windows doesn't allow you to change the theme to other than what they give you. and they won't give you any new themes anyway so in my opinion, that's really proprietorial. its a safe patch. click "ok, i don't care" when windows warns you about it causing a system crash in the future cause it won't. if you want to uninstall the patch, just run it again. if you're going to or plan on using XPize, i'd recommend that you run this patch first before installing XPize.

once you've patched and rebooted, head on to this corner of deviantart and take a look at the visual styles there. i'm sure you'll find something you'll like there. you will be overwhelmed with the the amount of "Vista Element" visual styles there. you have been warned. the following pics are examples. i won't give out the exact links for the following, go find your own!

now if you've noticed, the Menu Bar(the one which contains File... Edit... View... etc...), in my My Computer window in the screen captures above is missing. if you want to do that, get Styler toolbar! aside from making the menu bar disappear, it can also replace the Standard Buttons Bar(the one which contains the Back and Forward buttons) to something which you're more comfortable with. and it only takes up 2megs of your memory. click here to get it.

so there you have it, how to customize your desktop theme(or visual style). this is the free and most resource-efficient way. there are other ways to customize it but they use 3rd party software and runs another app on the background. it may not be as slick or as screen-shattering as those which requires you to cough up some moolah, but hey, at least your not stuck with what those guys at microsoft thought as the be-all and end-all design. have fun!

ps. my how-tos will always be long. get used to it. =p

...:::more

less:::...

#403 Good News for People who Love Bad News

"You ever look at a picture of yourself and see a stranger in the background? It makes you wonder how many strangers have pictures of you, how many moments of other peoples lives have we been in, were we a part of someone's life when their dreams came true, or were we there when their dreams died. Did we keep trying to get in, as if we were somehow destined to be there, or did the shot take us by surprise. Just think, you could be a big part of someone else's life, and not even know it."

-Lucas Scott

...:::more

less:::...

spider-man: once again it sees the light of day!

this is not a post about the upcoming or previously released spiderman movies. hit the next blog if you that's what you thought.

a friend of mine, francis, asked me for a copy of a piece which i wrote about a couple of years ago i think. and the piece doesn't really have a title, but it just became fondly referred to as "the spiderman thingy". so i looked for it everywhere in my computer. but, alas! i couldn't find it! that doesn't compute! i don't delete stuff in my computer! i was able to save everything which went in my computer since third year high school! the only item i lost were my logs in irc for i don't know how many years. it was an accident, i deleted the program, it took along the log files. and yes, i have logs. so now i can't blackmail some people out there anymore. huhuhuhu. anyway, i was lucky to find a copy in my mailbox. thank God for yahoo. the file is still probably somewhere in my messy but structured hard drives. so, here goes:

i wish i was spiderman.

i wish i could scale the tallest buildings in makati. i wish im able to lift tons of steel. i wish im able to swing from galleria to megamall to shangrila. i wish i could stop the mrt in its tracks. i wish i could sense when im being pickpocketed upon...

no, i dont need the rush. i dont need the thrill. i dont want the responsibility. what i want is just something simple.

what i want is the simple reason. THE reason.

i want peter parker's reason. i want his reason for denying his love for MJ. i want to be peter parker and you to be mary jane.

why? its cause i want my reason for not loving you to be something noble, not the coward one i have. i want the because to be followed by "i can't risk you getting hurt, im just protecting you", not "i cant risk myself getting hurt, im just protecting me..."

--- "Silent Cries & Silent Pleas to the Cold, Dark
Night", 2004 - Save the Earth

for anyone who wishes to know the story behind the piece, well there is a story behind the piece. really there is. it was supposed to be a part of a "novel" i began to write which i now abandoned. heck, the novel was supposed to be a trilogy! i was that ambitious. but i lost steam after the first chapter. this piece was supposed to be a piece written by Jake, the main character in the "novel", while in class. so there you have it, the story behind the piece. as a side note, Silent Cries & Silent Pleas to the Cold, Dark Night was the collection of pieces i wrote during that time. much of them i can't remember anymore. it was written back in 2004 on a notebook with Save the Earth emblazoned on the back. that notebook i left behind back in manila.

so, writing about the piece now made me hunt down the few pages i wrote of the "novel". amazing, i forgot the plot of the next few chapters which i didn't get to write. though i can still remember the over-all plot. anyway, you'll find the prologue here and the first chapter here. read on and tell me if you think it's still got hope.

...:::more

less:::...

templates shmemplates, widgets shmidgets

i just declared war on my blog. of course i won. now you'll find an ad to the right after all the links. yay! its to complete your internet surfing environment. admit it, you do feel as if something's missing in a page if you don't see an ad in it. you'll also find a tagboard above it. feel free to post anything you like, except an ascii picture of you naked. friends' blogs links are almost complete. if you don't find yourself there, leave a message in the tagboard. i was also finally able to add the MORE/less link on every post so you don't have to be treated to a very lengthy main page everytime you drop by. and for about 15 minutes back there, the sidebar switched from right to left. i decided against, obviously.

like it? hate it? let me know, ayt?

take care y'all!

...:::more

less:::...

little did he know that his 12th post will cause someone to lose his head

has it been 12 posts already? wow.

we just came from the movie house. we watched a movie over at Arizona Mills, big place. 24 theaters, an IMAX theater, factory outlet stores everywhere and a Gameworks. and a Fry's Electronics just across the street. but i'm not writing to rate the theater. we go to movie houses to watch a movie. so here goes.

we watched Stranger than Fiction. if, like me, you haven't heard of it, its probably because it doesn't have an all-star cast. the cast was solid. veterans with big names, like Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Will Ferell and Queen Latifah. why i haven't heard of it before is probably because i haven't been in a movie theater for over a month. this is my first movie since i got here(i haven't had my first starbucks drink yet as well. i took a vow not to have one til i land a job. T_T).

ok, hands down i'd give it a five out of five. the movie was great. the performance was amazing. the story is probing. the plot was easy enough to follow. really easy. though it could have been told via a more complicated and tricky way, the easy and tragic comedy(lol, such contrast. you'll understand when you get to watch the film) way they took was much more intense and questioning. probably up until half of the film you'd be laughing with the rest of audience. after that, its still quite funny, but it begins to make you think. and all of a sudden, it pushes you to make a choice, to side with just one choice while making you keep an open mind.

the question basically is, do you believe in fate or not? that single question blossoms to a gazillion more questions, depending on what you choose. come to think of it, that question defines how you view death as well. and life. and its mysteries. and the unknown.

and as a final caveat, it also shows a glimpse of what it is to control fate. this perhaps is something leaders should keep an eye out for in the film. in a position of power, the seemingly harmless actions of a person could be really bad for another. our leaders should think about that. a lot of them have forgotten they indirectly wield the power of the angel of death.

dont think its an intellectual film, cause its not. its a comedy. its a comedy which will make you think in some way. its like Click, just lessen the Adam Sandler humor, and put in a more life questioning plot.

its profound, that it is.

i recommend you watch it as soon as you can.

ps. click here to visit the official site.
pps. no spoilers there! i think. and i hope i didn't over analyze it for you as well. i was just so amazed by the film.

...:::more

less:::...

Elephant vs Donkey

...and the donkey won!

yeah, for the first time in about 12 years the Democrats will control the house. they also lead a very, very tiny majority in the senate(50-49, which could still change cause there's still an undecided case left), and the majority of governors just became democrats. the only republicans left are up in the two highest posts now.

so what does this basically mean? personally, i'm a little on the republican side. the ver main issue in aligning to a party around here deal with values and morality. democrats are abortionists, republicans are not. for me, thats the main point aganst democrats. they're also for stem cell research, republicans are not to keen on that. though its not that big a deal for me.

on the other hand, democrats are more or less more against the war in iraq. that's a major blow for bush's campaign actually. and i am more or less against it as well. in fact, a majority of americans now disapprove of the war cause hey, its their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons which get killed there. and, democrats are more liberal in terms of same sex marriage. and personally for me, if two people are meant for each, then they really are regardless of sex. but then if they are really for each other, then a small thing like a ban on same sex marriage won't be an issue.

but, the deomcrat's pro abortion stand really gets to me. whenever it does, i just think that hey, they are environmentalists anyway. and for me, the environment is the next biggest issue after life. i was disappointed with bush for pulling out of the kyoto protocol, so maybe, well hopefully this time, they'd take the environment more seriously. but kudos to shwarzenegger, newly reinstated cali governor, for really pushing for alternative fuel sources despite being a republican.

so to get my mind off abortion, here's a video which attempts to explain why global warming is not hitting as hard as previous estimates. the phenomenon is called global dimming, and up until the turn of the century, global warming and global dimming were at a status quo.

yesterday's election also included whether or not the people will approve the passage of diffrent propositions. its not a nationwide thing, only statewide. anyway, one of the propositions here in arizona is to award a random voter on the 2008 elections $1M to improve voter turn-out. it didn't get through though. hehe.

ps. the donkey is the symbold of the democrats though they never really officially adopted it. the elephant is the republican's official symbol.

...:::more

less:::...

LA vs Phoenix

my bro has been kidding me about staying in cali during our recent trip to LA. he kept telling me he'll live me behind cause he supposedly knows how much i miss manila. tempting, but no. not now at least.

LA is a really big center. its quite hard to discern up to where LA really is. and its cause of this that their freeways are clogged. even on weekends. sure they've got a lot of freeways but if its full, then commute time would climb to more than an hour. add to that the seeming lawlesness of the drivers, that makes for a really dangerous place to drive in. more dangerous than that in manila. back in manila, sure we don't really have laws in the road except for swerving, which is also debatable depending on who is enforcing it(i've encountered a croc in blue who defines swerving as traveling in a straight line), but its not that dangerous, nerve wracking but not life threatening. in LA, it hasn't come to the point where everyone is changing lanes all the time and variable number of lanes in a road. but they do change lanes without warning. while traveling at 60mph. and with their bumper to bumper(meaning close formation driving at 50mph) freeway traffic, using the horn is a must, especially to get the attention of those cars exiting to the right from the leftmost lane. my sister-in-law calls them crab drivers, cause they move sideways with little forward movement.

on the other hand, metro Phoenix is definitely smaller than LA. its got an efficient freeway system. you can virtually reach any part in under an hour. furthermore, the freeways in the city are well-lighted unlike in LA where it isn't lighted at all. the onramps and offramps are spacious, alowing for 40mph entries and exits, compared to the really cramp ones in LA which only allows 20mph. the traffic lights are synchronized so you'll almost always have a green light. but most of all, the drivers are corteous. horns aren't used here its almost illegal to use them. drivers signal when changing lanes. people respect your right of way. all in all a much pleasant experience.

whats also interesting to note in LA is that they go for the bling bling. on the road, you're more likely to be traveling alongside a bmw or a lexus or a chrysler rather than a civic, which is the norm here in phoenix. their malls are also more upscale, you'd find bebe, coach, lacoste, nordstram, neiman marcus and other like them than gap or old navy or wal-mart. everyone is more conscious of what they wear there, compared to the i-don't-mind-if-my-clothe's-got-creases-on-them attitude here in phoenix. i think its more of that being the way of life there and has less to do with bigger pay slips. when you look at salaries, the pay in LA is generally just about $5k more. plus, basic necessities there costs higher. i think people here can live like those over there but they don't cause there's no need to.

my golay, such bonggaciousness!

lastly, there are a lot of filipinos in LA. serously. you won't find a corner where there's not a filipino around. in fact, two filipinos are pitted against each other for the mayoralty position in today's election. chowking, jollibee, max's, red ribbon, goldilocks... all there! though they call the sago(or black pearls) boba. and of course, being the usual filipinos, pabonggahan nanaman pagdating sa trabaho, kotse, bahay at damit. thats probably why cali is a filipino magnet, cause the way of life is a snug fit to their churvaness. even those who were born here inherited the mapangmata attitude. golly gee, pinoy na pinoy! i have nothing against filipinos but if i wanted to experience manila, i'd fly to manila for a genuine experience.

phoenix has its own charm. streets are clean, places aren't crowded, people greet each other, everyone's generally more corteous... stuff like that. that's why i'm not in a rush to move to cali despite the weather and lack of activity. maybe someday i'll move to cali to join in on the chaotic madness, but not now. i'm more into the relaxed way of life at the moment.

...:::more

less:::...

LA getaway

me, my bro & his wife went to LA to visit her relatives this past weekend. left the house around 3pm last friday with my bro behind the wheel and me as the navigator. he got Microsoft Streets & Tips and a USB GPS Tracker for his laptop. so navigating was basically a no-brainer.

GPS doesn't work properly when under the cover of the smog of LA. there were times when the tiny red dot(our car) went off course and over houses.

took us a while to get out of the rush hour traffic in phoenix, but after we did, it was a smooth ride all the way til cali: the road became bumpy after crossing the state line. so we got to their place around 11 local time after some stopovers. we went out again for "dinner" upon the insistence of my uncle-in-law. amazing, the streets weren't empty! i got used to seeing the streets turn lifeless after 9 back in phenix. bottomline is we slept around 4 in the morning. got up around 9 and by a little after lunch we made it to hollywood boulevard and kodak theater.

my favorite cartoon... "tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok-tok"

...and my favorite star. T_T

................and... my idol.

oldest block i could find.

jim.

tom.

robin.

bruce.

adam.

this is for you mish!

does this mean i can lift 100 lb weights?

...or be able to swing around pirate ship masts?

LOTR, yay! million dollar baby, boo!

ze exit.

eh, eh... nasa greenbelt lang naman pala ako eh!

after awhile we felt hunger pangs, so we left hollywood and went to glendale to eat in... are you ready? Max's of Manila! haha, they're overprced if you ask me. but then again they're also overpriced back in manila. by the way, according to a friend of mine the secret of max's is they fry their chicken using oil made from pig's fat or something. after that, we went to the newly reoened Westfield Topanga mall near their place. nice upscale mall, would've been nicer if it was bigger(though its already big actually). then off to panorama city to get some more dose of manila.

...actually, nasa sucat lang.

after lunch on sunday, that would be around 4pm local time(5 pm in phoenix), we made our way back to phoenix with me behind the wheel. my mantra: "road so uniform, getting sleepy". got home around midnight.

my uncle-in-law's place. that's what i drove for almost 7 hours. the one on the left. the one on the right is a mirage

our hosts! thank you very much!

all i can say is, LA is very different from Phoenix. more on that in my next post, too sleepy right now.

ps. some more pics in my deviant.

...:::more

less:::...

top 10

so there's this 7 songs post goin around multiply when i dropped by my friends' accounts. since i'm not on multiply, here's my all-time top 10:

01. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
02. Such Great Heights - The Potal Service
03. Hands Down(acoustic)- Dashboard Confessional
04. Fix You- Coldplay
05. You'll be Safe Here- Rivermaya
06. For Blue Skies- Strays Don't Sleep
07. The Wold is our Playground and We will Always be Home- Up Dharma Down
08. Destiny(acoustic)- Zero 7
09. Lovers and Friends- Lil John & The Eastside Boys feat. Usher & Ludacris
10. Hear You Me- Jimmy Eat World

yes, tattooed on my mind isn't there.

...:::more

less:::...

come, let's join us for a drive!

i got my driver's license yesterday! yay!
the whole thing took me just a little over an hour. it was easy, the supposedly-30-item-exam-but-after-the-24th-item-stopped-and-told-me-to-proceed-to-the-next-step written exam was via a touch screen computer. multiple choice. breezed through it in 10 minutes. the road test was over in about 15 minutes. the guy didn't ask me to go to the freeway, just made some rounds around the neighborhood.

they put the wrong address in my license card! boo!
i didn't notice their boo-boo til the next morning. so i went back to the place. my first real solo flight mission. woohoo! i didn't get lost! haha. if you look at phoenix, you'll notice that the road network is basically a grid. and that's a problem for me. everything pretty much looks like the same. i'm used to the curving roads back home. you never know where you're gonna end up. too organized, that's what they are. plus they give directions using north, east, west, south! i'm more used to the "kung papunta kang alabang sa slex, lumabas ka ng sucat, kanan, tapos kaliwa sa mcdo tapos mejo bagalan mo na kasi malapit na. nasa kanan mo ung lola idangs" rather than "if you're headed west on 101, you'll have to exit at 40th and head north til you see the building at your side. its a just a little past bell rd." oh and they use numbers for their streets. there's 44th st, 44th pl, 44th ave, 44th way, 44th dr. make sense of that! hehe. i prefer pedro bukaneg ave or atis rd, sampaguita st, etc. one thing nice here is that they've got really powerful cars. period.

you're beautiful!
thanks to my prof for this one...



microsoft updates, like them or hate them?

i just upgraded to IE7. personally, i didn't find anything new. back in IE6, i had styler toolbar running which hid the menu bar from IE(cause i found no real practical use for it). so when they removed the menu bar from IE7, no surprise there. in fact, the topmost bar looks very much like the styler toolbar replacement. same with the tabs, i have been using yahoo toolbar so no surprise there as well. so would i recommend you to upgrade? if you don't like seeing the menu bar and you don't want to use styler toolbar, sure, go ahead, upgrade. but if you're happy with the tabs feature the yahoo toolbar provides, stick with IE6 for awhile. there are still some bugs here and there(like some toolbars disappear when switching between tabs).

i upgraded to WMP11 a couple of days back. i've been using WMP(Windows Media Player) ever since Winamp decided to crash after about 30mins of every load. surprisingly, i didn't feel its toll on the memory(when minimized, when restored to full size complete with visualizations, you're gonna feel it a bit)! so, with the latest update came the sleeker black design which i just love. matches my desktop, sorta:

aside from that, i can search for the missing info for my tags, including the album art, for each song! yay! you can also view the lyrics for the song, though its not a karaoke-type-complete-with-the-bouncing-ball display, its livable. so all in all, i'd recommend this upgrade. go get it!

techy stuff...

don't know styler toolbar? wondering what my theme is? check out deviantart for info, or just stick around here. i might post a guide to customizing your desktop sometime in the future.

speaking of guides, i stumbled across this really good walkthrough for installing Apache, MySQL, PHP, RoR, JSP, PHPMyAdmin, etc. for windows! yay! only thing is, i can't get Tomcat to run. its a problem specific to my box. google told me that i belong to 1x10^-15 % of the population who encountered this problem. thanks google. but for you guys, it'll probably work fine. it's probably just something simple, like a conflicting program or something.

visit deviantart here.
visit the WAMP-JR guide here.

...:::more

less:::...