8x8 :: cause google said "Your search for santa clause near north pole did not match any locations."

Merry Christmas! seems santa is really hard to find even for google. bah, maybe next year. here is not one, not two, but three editions all wrapped up in one gigantic edition. believe me, it was a pain to to trim it down to 24 entries from the 46 it started from. that means goodbye to a lot of sufjan stevens. how's your holidays so far??

and while telling your story, here's christmas playlist(get everything here):
denotes recommended, of course it being here means its already recommended but its more of more recommended.

1. Lee Ann Womack- I Hope You Dance :: get me!
   while not exactly a holiday tune, delilah, the penultimate queen of sappy love songs, played this one time for a listener despite the fact that she has already switched to the all holiday tunes format. so my wish for you this coming new year is, i hope you dance...
2. Bob Carlisle- Christmas Shoes :: get me!
   last year's holiday tune returns to us without losing its bite. seriously. i was listening to this while i was cleaning out my closet and i cried... again. i think the children's singing in this song is overkill. if you still haven't heard this one, i pity you. you owe it as a wonderful part of the human race to subject yourself to such heart-wrenching every once in a while.
3. Glen Hasnard, Marketa Irglova- Falling :: get me!
   here i am again trying to pass off a non-holiday tune as a holiday tune. well what can i say, the movie this was taken from came out on dvd this christmas. the movie, Once, is a musical. not the type where everyone just suddenly happens to dance and sing about how the hills are alive with the sound of music. nope, this is a more natural musical, the singing are done in natural settings like recording studios or while playing for alms on the sidewalk.
4. Jose Feliciano- Feliz Navidad :: get me!
   now the last three song's purpose was to loosen up your heartstrings. if it was successful, then the rest here would be easier to listen at. and what better way to start it than with feliz navidad? i wanna wish you a merry christmas from the bottom of my heart!!!!
5. Pearl Jam- Someday at Christmas :: get me!
   this is a truely classic rendition of the song. its just so wonderfully easy to listen to. and that hint of the late james-brown-disco-king really helps this song a lot. now if you're not into that, you can listen to this more modern version by the equally wonderful Mary J. Blige.
6. Damien Rice- Happy Christmas :: get me!
   here's a tune which traditionally is a quite a heartbreaker. but damien's version here isn't. its unexpectedly very light, something which you'd probably find yourself singing around a fireplace, or a campfire, or a candle.
7. Jack Johnson- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer :: get me!
   and here is a song which grew up from being a children's favorite. this sounds more like for those drunkards who are really into the holiday spirit(ie, drunk). if you're one of that, this song is perfect, sing out loud with it.
8. Feist- Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming :: get me!
   what can we expect from the awesome feist? nothing short of fantabulous of course. and for once, it doesn't have her characteristic eccentric beats. she knew tradition calls for tradition, and i respect her for that. kudos ms new artist(i hate it how they pass her off as that).
9. Dolly Parton- Hard Candy Christmas :: get me!
   country star heavyweight ms dolly parton brings us this solemnly familiar song be it the first time you've ever heard it in your life. its just so dang familiar you feel like you know the lyrics but you don't of course. anyway, this song really evokes that curl-up-in-a-chair gene, especially for those of you who's having a rough time, emotionally. its christmas, this is your song. you'll be fine.
10. Linda Ronstadt- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas :: get me!
    a not so sad treatment of the song. this has to be one of the trickiest holiday songs to sing. how do you sing it without making people sad? ms linda did it pretty good. and yeah, her voice is quite awesome.
11. Aimee Mann- I'll Be Home for Christmas :: get me!
    in my arrogant opinion, this is a lot better than josh groban's version. for some reason, i've grown an intense disliking for that guy. i don't know, seems i'm just annoyed with his voice. this song, on the other hand, is unlike josh's... its got soul. its got that homy, welcoming feeling which is what christmas is all about.
12. Melissa McClelland- O Holy Night :: get me!
    this is a really good rendition. i love their voices. i simply cant describe enough how much i likes it. all i know is i love it and its hypnotic. its like their voices have hands and they pierce right through your heart and massage it. weirdo.
13. Medieval Baebes- The Holly & The Ivy :: get me!
    perhaps the only song which has a little bit of celtic twang in it. and its kinda weird especially since i love celtic music. unlike the one before, its not hypnotic, its downright leprechaunic.
14. Jason Mraz- Winter Wonderland :: get me!
    there are days when i like sir jason, there are days when i wanna throw up all over him. but in the wonderful spirit of christmas, i like him today. here is his version of winter wonderland, featuring his trademark "rapping" wordplay.
15. Leigh Nash- The First Noel :: get me!
    ms nash's voice is angelic. its a very traditional version, and for her, it works! what's more is she sounds natural in it, not like she's trying hard to make it work. and thats what christmas is, hanging up your masks being yourself around families and friends. so to everyone, me loves you all!!
16. Rob Thomas- A New York Christmas :: get me!
    so you have to clean up after your guests left huh? well put this right in and put your stereo in max. sing with it, dance with it, makes your chores go like a breeze. come on now, get on your feet and moooooove.
17. The Go! Team- The Ice Storm :: get me!
    after moving around, you may wanna sit down for a bit and think what you're gonna do next. may this track's simple tune clear your head and make you think anything's possible. i wanna go to mars.
18. Sufjan Stevens- Angels We Have Heard on High :: get me!
    i don't like him at all. the only reason he made it here is cause a) the track is only 45 seconds long; and b) he doesn't sing. and cause of that, this song is quite happy, not the usual gloomy ones songs turn into when touched by him.
19. Rascal Flatts- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen :: get me!
    i love this song. i don't know why but i just do. probably because its real easy to sing along with it. no matter how bad your voice may be or how off-key you can get. now if you don't like the merry treatment those rascals did, then try this jazzy one from barenaked ladies.
20. Jimmy Eat World- 12/23/95 :: get me!
    yeah, odd choice for a title ya? well, story behind the song is... well there's no story. its only got like two lines in it repeated over and over. and that's what's pretty awesome with the song, you can make it out to mean anything you want. about leaving someone, leaving for work, leaving this world... its about anything personal for someone dear to you.
21. Something Corporate- Forget December :: get me!
    i'd recommend this song to anyone who's trying their best to climb out of a whole. like getting over someone, saying no to something... things like that. this doesn't tell you everything's going to be all right. its telling you yeah it sucks but i'll find a way to get through this.
22. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone- Cold White Christmas :: get me!
    this is my song.
23. Matt Wertz- What Child is This :: get me!
    before the list ends, here is another traditional one for you, make you remember its Christmas we are celebrating. keep Christ in Christmas, will ya?
24. Bishop Allen- Calendar :: get me!
    well, the last in the list. and since its the end of the year, lets burn calendar, burn. have a wonderful year ahead, its a new start, make the most out of it. years go by quickly, don't waste it, reinvent yourself, try something new, but most of all, take chances and i hope you dance.

i must be such a loser since i'm writing this on christmas day. on the contrary, i actually... well, i am a loser. a sick loser at that. i've been sick since the weekend and i've been popping pills every two hours or so just to keep the energy level up and keep the fever from rising. advil is my bestest friend. seems my tonsils missed me after a year of absence. i sure hope my stomach doesn't bleed with the overdose on ibuprofens i'm currently in. don't got amoxcicillins cause i'm deathly afraid of getting a prescription from a doctor.

personal rant aside, well i hope this tunes keep you company for the rest of the season, though its late i know. but hey, its still christmas here right now while i'm still writing it.

-- put in a cd, get a thick blanket, a mug of hot chocolate, play, curl up in your favorite chair. Merry Christmas.

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8x7 :: life's a bitch

got slammed this past few weeks. trying to hold on to youthful sensibilities is hard when the world itself is pushing you to change. therein lies the internal battle. that's what many young men lost their lives for with. sadly, the world always wins to some degree. you can never outwit, outsmart, outplay and outlast the world. at the end of the day, you only reach some sort of compromise, and settle. survivor? ha-ha. its a joke. its like playing deal or no deal. no matter which briefcase you pick, death will be in it. the trick is pushing the "banker" to give you a high enough settlement. life is merciless. death is its reward to those who stick to their guts and go all the way. and to everyone else who saw the battle, the foolish young man will always be remembered as... foolish.

so here are some tracks from bitchin' awesome ladies.

1. Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse- Valerie :: get me!
   don't let the artist tag fool you, this is all winehouse. this song is originally from The Zutons. ms. winehouse came in, did her magic, and poof! another hit. she's amazing. i'm all ga-ga over her. and yeah, today's news say she got busted for marijuana possession. woohoo, go rehab girl!
2. KT Tunstall- Other Side of the World :: get me!
   this one sounds so familiar but i can't quite put my finger on it. it must have been used in an ad somewhere. anyways, ms. tunstall here is also the womyn behind the black horse and the cherry tree. if cat power or feist had gone country, this is probably how she'd sound like.
3. Sheryl Crow- Sweet Child O' Mine :: get me!
   speaking of country, sheryl crow is a lady who's just brimming with confidence. there's something about her aura(and songs, or maybe just how she sings) that just says i'm a womyn, i'm proud of it, and i'm kicking your ass. more tracks include a strong enough picture.
4. Reba McEntire with Kelly Clarkson- Because of You :: get me!
   omg, i LOVE reba! especially her tv sitcom. she's got this awesome look in her eyes which emanates some form of her motherly love. couple that up with her witty tongue, you've got a deadly combo which no young one can ever possibly get away from. even justin t was smitten by her. story goes he's always wanted to write a song for her and when he found out she was doing a duets album, he barged in and almost forced her to listen to him.
5. The Cranberries- Linger :: get me!
   there's a confusing identity crisis raging within the cranberries. are they rock or pop? emo or balladeers? grape or cherry? but one thing stands clear, her voice is distinct. you'd know immediately it was them. add to that their unique, confused sound, their sound is truly one of a kind. and if you don't want to linger, maybe a zombie will come close to you. and if you don't like their zombie, then this zombie will almost certainly not change that.
6. Zero 7- Destiny(acoustic) :: get me!
   the music video for this is still one of the best out there. but the acoustic version here showcases the power of her voice... and it almost borders on being emo. the svelte guitar work rocks your ribcage, while her voice is the sword which repeatedly slice the heart. and on the other hand, in the waiting line, is a penny.
7. India Arie feat. Akon- I Am Not My Hair :: get me!
   well, i just like the title of this song. ~ang gandaaaaaa, ng buhok kooooooo~ that aside, the song is ok, not half-bad, not half-good. the sort which feels like there's a missing piece which the big O has yet to talk to. on the other hand is a sad, sad heart, ready for love.
8. Samantha James- Rise :: get me!
   here's a song that comes across as a womyn dancing alone, but she's definitely enjoying it alone. the picture of independence and i-don't-need-you-i-can-make-it-on-my-own-and-if-i'm-with-you-right-now-its-cause-you-just-happened-to-be-here-and-i-can-definitely-leave-you type of gals. yeah, i'm dashing-with-dashes. but whether people rise or not, the beats here are enough to make me stand up for her and pay homage.

guys, respect your ladies.

-- put in a mix cd and give to your girlfriend(s)

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8x6 :: mayan chocolate is h-o-t hot!

there's this gelato place somewhere in the southern part of the phoenix metro which i absolutely love. whenever i'm in the vicinity, i make it a point to drop by and try something new. i remember sampling the mayan chocolate flavor, and i told the guy behind the counter that it was too sweet for me. he gave me an odd, surprised look and steered me to their sugar-free selections. it was only a lot later when i was asking him how kahlua chocolate compares to their mayan chocolate in terms of sweetness that he told me mayan chocolate was spicy... and all of a sudden there was "chili blossom" in my tongue and i realized that what i originally thought as shockingly sweet was actually mildly spicy. its amazing how our mind can make a thing be something else. in my case, i wasn't expecting spicy or hot in an ice cream, so my mind filed it under sweeeeeeeeeeet. and for the record, they had another flavor which was even spicier.. i forgot what's it called though.

so this edition comes to you as a warning, don't let first impressions fool you. and these songs might turn you off at first either because you don't like how it sounds or you don't like the artist or you think the title is crap. listen to it, give it time to grow on you, if it doesn't... well, crap.

1. Michelle Tumes- Lovely (remix) :: get me!
   my brother was the one who stumbled across this song from youtube. watch the video here, its a fan video for one tree hill, though he's not a fan nor has he actually watched even just a single episode. so the video alone sold me to this song. unfortunately i can't find the exact remix that she used, even tried messaging her for it. and no, its not the original here either. and for the clueless, its actually a gospel song... on a completely unrelated note, i found this really, really funny video(if you're only going to click on one thing in this page, click this), its even funnier than this one and a little more funnier than this, in the related videos section for that one, thanks youtube!
2. Maria Taylor- A Good Start :: get me!
   her deep voice is oddly soothing and not creepy. though yeah, i sure wish i got a better version of this but its passable, maybe because of her deep voice? anyways, here's another one, though its a lot sadder... but there's just this weird feeling of her songs not being complete.
3. Owen- Bad News :: get me!
   there's an elton-john-turns-hopeless-romantic air in this song. also has one of the best uses of low-key guitar strumming(or whatever that's called)-- in modern times. and yeah, i love hyphens-- and its not going to die anytime soon for me, unlike the bad news mr webster brought-
4. Ryan Adams- I Taught Myself How to Grow Old :: get me!
   for all you who feel you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders, or those who think you're living in a mental institute surrounded by immature freaks, or those who life just reated unfairly- this is your song. and be warned that it is a sad song. its got that nasty effect of giving you that feeling of having cried for an hour-- and that's just in the first 20 seconds of the song and without the tears. frontal lobe headache abounds. and his cover of wonderwall is almost as sad, but not quite.
5. Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright- Set the Fire to the Third Bar :: get me!
   collaborations/duets are always fine in my book. and this one is awesome. it compliments both artists strengths while making it sure it doesn't fall apart. though the result is something which you'll either like or not(no in between), its still refreshing to hear challenging tracks like this. as for snow patrol, one qualm i have with their Eyes Open album is it seems that their song Hands Open pretty much sums up the beat of the album. all the songs are nice but- everything feels so damn close to that song.
6. Sufjan Stevens- That was the Worst Christmas Ever :: get me!
   if you listened hard to Hands Open, you would've heard their reference to the undisputed king of indie- Sufjan Stevens. i personally don't like him that much but for some reason, yuppies zooming around in beavers say so. and in case you share my (dis)taste, here's two more: The Avalanche and The Man of Metropolis Steals our Hearts- the latter is the only one which i like, but just a tad.
7. Coldplay- Swallowed in the Sea :: get me!
   from the guys who throw really awesome light shows in their concerts, here's a track which is uplifting. and that's a big surprise when you consider the fact that most of their songs are tragically sad-- you can call this one a happy tragedy. i guess the rainbow sun really does shine for everyone.
8. Bishop Allen- Rain :: get me!
   genuinely hope-filled happiness-- that's the one word that can describe this song. there's just this golden sunshine that emanates from this song, its infectious! and i can relate to this song on so many levels- like i do know that in my life, i have to stumble, fall flat on my face before i can rise and fly. and if you can't relate, well here's the (gasp!) lyrics:
   
   bed clothes, why am i in bed clothes?
   watching out the window
   watching what i don't know
   on the fire escape now
   hands they start to shake now
   ready for the rail to break now
   and i'm awake at last awake
   
   cursing, rattling and cursing
   go ahead and do your worst then
   your worst that i can take
   
   oh let the rain fall down
   and wash this world away
   oh let the sky be grey
   cause if its ever gonna get any better
   its gotta get worse for a day
   
   morning, where am i this morning?
   now its really pouring,
   crawling up this shore
   and i walk the neighborhood
   and umbrella does no good
   and i guess its in my blood
   couldn't stop the flood
   
   drowning, everything is drowning
   go ahead and take the town
   the town is yours to take
   
   oh let the rain fall down
   and wash this world away
   oh let the sky be grey
   cause if its ever gonna get any better
   its gotta get worse for a day
   
   calling, calling, falling, falling
   grab on my guitar
   and paddle with both my arms
   headed where the voices are
   i'll end up far so far away
   
   oh let the rain fall down
   and wash this world away
   or let the sky be grey
   cause if its ever gonna get any better
   its gotta get worse for a day
   
   its gotta get worse for a day
   its gotta get worse for a day
   its gotta get worse for a day
   i know
   its gotta get worse for a day

listen to them in order, if you don't, you're going to end up sad for the next 7 years.

-- goes well with a nice long walk with your mp3 player of choice.

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8x5 :: the ununderstood will always be mysteriously liked

there's always something about songs which you can't understand. i mean really can't understand, not unless you know all the languages in the world, in which case i pity you cause you're missing out on the thrill of helplessly being ridiculed and insulted in front of you. so this really late edition is for you people who love not knowing what a song is about. and yes, you won't find much asian influence here, if you're into that, move along...

1. O-Zone- Dragostea Din Tei :: get me!
   what? you don't know this?!?! you should know this you know... its like not knowing who abe vigoda is. ok, that was lame...
2. Sergio Mendes feat. Stevie Wonder- Berimbau :: get me!
   its by the great Sergio Mendes. that doesn't need explaining. its interesting to note though that he doesn't actually sing. he's like santa clause in that santa doesn't make the actual toys, santa just delivers it. in his case, he doesn't sing it, but he pretty much wrote the entire song.
3. Josh Groban feat. Joshua Bell- Mi Mancheria :: get me!
   i'm not exactly a josh groban fan, yes he can sing but somehow its hard to make a name when you're in the shadow of established heavyweights like pavarotti(no pun intended, the guy is dead, i wouldn't want to disrespect the dead). so for me he's this jack of all trades, master of none type of guy. and this song proves that. its ok, but... i wouldn't say i'm absolutely raving about it.
4. Renato Vargas- Travessia :: get me!
   unlike sergio mendes, renato vargas sings. he's great, but sergio is just plain better and a lot more popular. renato is a little bit more traditional... he sits in the gray area of world music. while being filed under world does bring fame, it also brings with it the common misconception that only 50 year olds and up should listen to him.
5. Xavier Naidoo- Was Wir Alleine Nicht Schaffen :: get me!
   i really have no idea what this is about but singing along with it... its quite liberating. the words are really "crrrrrrrispilicous". but on a meaner note, this scene comes to mind whenever i hear this song.
6. Claudette Soares- Parte de Seu Mundo :: get me!
   there's something soothing with hearing disney classics belted out by bossa nova artists. its like a statement to the world that mickey mouse had a direct hand in forming me as a person. uhhh, yeah, no wonder the world is going to the dogs... or in this case pluto. oh and in case you haven't heard, pluto is no longer a planet... sad, but that's the circle of life...
7. Zucchero feat. Miles Davis- Dune Mosse :: get me!
   i stumbled across this lovely song through musicovery.com. Zucchero "sugar" Fornaciari is an italian superstar, and that is an understatement. he's like a cross between sergio and renato, only he's not in the industry as old as them(he made it in the 90's), though he's definitely not young. there's something familiar in his songs, like there's a feeling of deja vu when you hear them. and he's definitely not afraid of collaborating with other superstars, like with the fabulous country superstar Sheryl Crow here or the fantastically polarizing Macy Gray(either you like her or you don't).
8. Tinariwen- Matadjem Yinmaxen :: get me!
   Tinariwen is a music clan comprised of former freedom fighters from Mali. they are revered as real rebels in the music industry, not just rebels without a cause, and they almost always talk about their past. if you're not into real life emo, then maybe another sung-in-french song about love is what floats your boat. both of them maybe in french but they are both filed under world, so don't expect it to sound like larusso. thanks to suckapants for being a constant source of "enlightenment"-- from an anonymous fan.

and there you go, something for those who are tired of being on top of things/able to understand everything. being in the unknown, now that's an adventure.

-- goes well with a mug of hot chocolate

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8x4 :: in memoriam

because some things need to be remembered. this *late* edition may be considered a playlist for an intimate memorial concert; something put together by your community social butterflies for a good cause(for a change). not exactly to make you feel better, neither does it attempt to put you down. it aims to tap at you inner humanity, let you remember that you got a heart underneath everything, and that in the end, that's what's important anyway. let some things never be forgotten.

1. Explosions in the Sky- Yasmin the Light :: get me!
   any track from these guys could easily be considered as a potential candidate for this playlist, so no surprise here. be prepared to get hooled from the slow start, to the awesome high, and down to the middle. its an invitation, you know?
2. Jamie Cullum- In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning :: get me!
   a lone trumpet belching out a slow melodic tune- this screams 'respect' louder than an airplane taking off. thankfully, that's just the start... though admittedly the cool vocals which follow doesn't help that much either. but it does help if you're an alcoholic- makes you want to go pop open a bottle of wine.
3. Moby- Temptation :: get me!
   "up, down, turn around/please don't let me hit the ground/tonight i think i'll walk alone/find myself as i go home" now doesn't this tug at your heartstrings? do reach out will ya?
4. Isablle- Flying Away :: get me!
   i don't exactly know how i found isabelle, what i do know is her voice is a little like barbie's... that said, don't hold that against her. she does belt out songs which are more appropriate for her sound. she's got that coffee house/bookstore jammer appeal to her, complete with a long skirt and a guitar.
5. Hootie & the Blowfish- Time :: get me!
   amongst all the songs here, this one is the easiest for me to visualize. whenever i hear this, i come up with a riverside stage platform, those portable ones made out of steel which can be assembled and dismantled overnight, dusk, there's still light but all the lights are on anyways, and the crowd's not really doing anything, just standing there, trying to be there.
6. Verve Pipe- The Freshman :: get me!
   this is an awesome song. too bad they were a little bit of a one-hit wonder. still, the chorus does get to me every now and then...
7. Think About Cosmos- Miss You So :: get me!
   the reason this is here is simple, it doesn't leave you heartbroken or downtrodden. it makes you feel like its possible to be sad while ploughing through the fast-paced intricacies of day to day life. a break is alright, but if you can't that'll work too. and here are more fast-paced versions: one, two, next!
8. Puff Daddy & Faith feat. 112- I'll be Missing You :: get me!
   indeed, in the end, everybody's bound to miss somebody...

i'm actually a little dazed right now, so yeah, i'm quite aware that this didn't really make much sense.

--- goes well with a heaping serving of sleeping pills.

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8x2 :: telling the tale of unrequited love

today i'll try to tell the story of john. john fell heads over heels for this particular girl who didn't really like him but made him think she does anyway cause she, apparently, didn't have the heart to break his. indeed, this has already been used as a backdrop for years and years of emo tracks, the only difference now is i partly mangled the original songs' meanings.. =p

i was going to post something which is semi-related to my recent brush with supposed hard drive failures, but i couldn't come up with 8 songs. so sucks for you i guess.

1. Ben Lee- Birthday Song :: get me!
   john met this girl jane. he fell so madly in love with her, declared to the world that she is all he needs and wants in this world. and that he wish they'd be together forever and ever. if only he knew birthday wishes don't really come true...
2. Billie Myer- Kiss the Rain (acoustic) :: get me!
   so jane says something along the lines of sorry i can't be with you always but i'm missing you in more ways than there are stars in the sky. too bad she didn't say it was day sky and not night sky. so she tells him whenever he misses her, just go outside, kiss the rain and think that it was her. silly boi.
3. Strays Don't Sleep- For Blue Skies :: get me!
   john probably felt there was something wrong with the whole setup. so what does he do? he takes the blame for himself. typical emo guy you could say. so he keeps telling her he forgives her for all those things she missed with him, for all those dates she stood up, for all those times she just wasn't there: he forgives her and he looks at the blue skies and look to hope that one day, she will become free like the birds flying to the horizon and come to him and spend the rest of their days together. awww, ain't he such a sweetie.
4. The Replacements- Here Comes a Regular :: get me!
   after some time('some' meaning a decently long amount of time), he finally realizes that she's got nothing for him. he takes to drinking and skulking and spending more time alone on familiar places. places where guys like him can be found, but they don't really there together nor do they know each other. they're just there, passing the days(and nights), hoping someone would knock them out cold and that when they awake, there will be under blue skies.
5. The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers- Concerning Lessons Learned from the Aliens :: get me!
   after some time skulking, john, partly mental, declares to the world that he knew what he was doing all along and that it was all planned and that he wasn't affected at all. yeah, convince yourself that john.
   and yes dear readers, those are really long names. it comes from the album "the mother of love emulates the shapes of cynthia". and you thought Panic! At the Disco was long?
6. The Postal Service- Suddenly Everything Has Changed (The Flaming Lips Cover) :: get me!
   one day, he wakes up and it was like a moment of epiphany for him. all of a sudden he realized he was free. or in the words of a pinoy telenovela: "alam ko ayaw mo pa akong mamatay dahil makulay ang mundo". ok maybe not those words but its such a lame line that i had to put it in here somewhere.
   the guys from the postal service actually works at fedex, not the post office. ok no, that a fib. "Such Great Heights" was what really kicked it off for these guys, it was, and still is, used by ad agencies for a ton of commercials. after getting catapulted to the spotlight, the released other songs which instantly became hit to the yuppie crowd. though their sound is still too non-mainstream for them to become a mainstream artist.
7. The Whitest Boy Alive- Done With You :: get me!
   ohhhh, vengeance. i'm done with you jane. its over. don't got nothing for you now. yeah, double negative. so what? i still got nothing for you.
8. Joni Mitchell- Both Sides, Now :: get me!
   after everything, john now brags and flaunts his newfound wisdom about love and the whole she-bang theory.
   this song was used in one of my fave movies: Love Actually. the scene where the mom realized his husband gave that gold-heart-shaped-neclkace to somebody else...

so where are they now? well, jane became a dough... and john fashioned for himself a nickname after finding out that he really wants to be a superhero. he now goes by the name batman, and he won't some to your rescue if you don't call him by that name(john-john-john-john-john-john-john-john-john-john-john-john-john-john-batman!).

** john batman & jane doe are fictitious characters, any likeliness to real live people, living, dead or unborn, can be blamed on the crop circles.

-- goes well with a bottle of light beer.

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8x1:: cause introductions are almost mandatory

today i'm kicking off a series of posts: my form of support for artists. dubbed the 8x series, cause i am going to be posting 8 different songs(that is the plan at least), it aims to give you some idea why blog-hopping can be so worth it sometimes. most of these came from blogs, i dare not say all cause i have no idea where half my collection comes from anyways.

the kick-off edition is partly inspired by the fact that the current theme i'm working on for my multiply site is putting up a helluva fight. so, lets get on with the list shall we:

1. Just Jack- Writer's Block :: get me!
   in my case, i have a coder's block. cross-compat is a bitch. listening to the catchy tune of this song does help a bit... yeah, don't stop your head from bobbing side to side, keeps those creative juices properly dilluted all the time.
2. Peter Bjorn & John/Victoria Bergsman- Young Folks :: get me!
   this is semi-related to the first... this is taken from the album "Writers Block". if you know "The Postal Service", there's a good chance you'll semi-like this. even if you don't, well, it'll still probably be on your playlist a good couple of times.
3. Flunk- True Faith :: get me!
   like the theme for this playlist so far, this is another case of identity spill-over. for the longest time i thought this was a "True Faith" song. i didn't even bother to question why it sounded so different... stupid.
4. Bobby Martini- Raining Red Clocks :: get me!
   this guy is an artist in his own right. he does a lot of mashups and this is one of his tracks that i like. this is a mashup of Coldplay's Clocks and Peter Gabriel's Red Rain. drop him a visit here.
   and if you think that Clocks doesn't have a lighter side, then you haven't heard this cuban version from the guys themselves. its actually part of a compilation: Rhythms Del Mundo.
5. Avril Lavigne- The Scientist :: get me!
   whereas Coldplay proved they have a lighter side, this girl proved with this Coldplay cover that she's got a really tragic voice. Chris Martin's voice has emotion like feelings of suffering but there's still a glint of hope somewhere, Avril's is just... plain tragic. not that she sounds horrible, but the overall feeling is just so... emo. sad.
6. Amy Winehouse- Love is a Losing Game (acoustic) :: get me!
   after listening to Avril, you might think she's got a sad voice as well. but listen closely and you just might hear the original King Kong roaring in the background. there's just an old world appeal/quality to her voice. her fist single already had that in it albeit only a little bit(get here if you still haven't gone to rehab), but this... this reminds me of cobwebs. wicked awesome cobwebs that is.
7. Late Night Alumni- Empty Streets (Aurora Mix) :: get me!
   after a trip down memory lane, here's a jolt to bring you back to the future. remixes for this song abound, but this particular one is one of the few which really gets it in the world of mixing. the original here is categorically filed under ambient/chillout, hence, the tons of mixes available as they usually make excellent "base"s.
8. Port O'Brien- The Whiskey Song :: get me!
   so after making your rounds in the hottest party scenes, here is something which you'll probably be singing(but will have no memory of) right before you pass out...

and that wraps up this first edition. the challenge for me now is to come up with more songs to put here. i would have posted it here as a playlist but multiply thought it would be a good idea to not post any file i try to upload to their servers...

--- goes well with a hot mug of coffee in your favorite cafe on rainy days.

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some things go away expectedly...

like this blog, for example.

i'm going to stop blogging and multiplying(to a certain extent), to give enough time for me to work on my other site which is still under wraps as of right now. once i have a working site, expect to see me there... only. =p

...and i hope it doesn't take me more than a year to get it up... =D

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some things you just don't expect to go away...

...but they do, that's the harsh reality.

it kind of blindsides you to find out that something which you've so gotten used to having around suddenly taken away. its like, waking up one day and finding out you don't have a head anymore. its sad, but at the same time on some level you do know that these things happen sooner or later. its inevitable, unavoidable and definitely not unforeseeable... but it still hurts just the same.

7th Heaven's run has ended. i wish they had a cast reunion or something before they went...

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just my luck, i had a blind date

two movie reviews today, one old and one new: Just My Luck/Blind Dating.

incidentally, both movies have Chris Pine as the leading man. i wasn't a fan before the two movies, nor have i heard of the name either.

first on the chopping block is just my luck, starred in by none other than party girl Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine. i found it while channel surfing the hbo network. i actually wanted to see this in the theater, but i never got around to seeing it. and i'm sort of glad and at the same time regret not seeing it in the theater. bittersweet.

critics hated it, it is lindsay's lowest grossing movie to date. and i'm going to run to her defense, after all, i do have some affinity for the lovely little girl who starred in The Parent Trap. to say that the movie was bad because of her is not fair. true, she may have amplified its "baddity" but she just amplified what's bad, she did not create it. since she is the star of the movie, her role could make or break the production. in this case, her character was the weakest link. poor judgement calls by the director, producers, and the casting editor.

the first and main reason why a lot of people have problems with this movie is lindsay portraying her character. d-uh. the problem with that is seeing her in this movie confounds people as to who the character really is? i mean, she looks like a teenager, high-school type of gal in the movie. and you expect people to believe she's already working in a bustling public relations firm and is a high-powered, castrated, manhattan bitch?! come on now. her image is party-girl! she's young, she's not someone whom you'd put in that character. what were you thinking?? you'd probably have done better to cast Julia Stiles instead. and for that alone, i do not blame lindsay. she acted her age, her image, the image the studio bought, and that, obviously resulted into a hodge-podge plot and script, clearly trying to adapt to party girl's image and at the same time trying to keep the plot.

chris pine however, was better at his role. though admittedly, he is also a bit too young for the character. in fact, the whole cast is like that. but he showed that he can act, and he is good at that. in fact, he does get into his character so much that it feels like what you see on-screen is what the really is in real life.

but the absolute jewel of the movie was Samaire Armstrong. i just loved her in this movie. loved her, loved her, loved her! ok, i like girls who lets everything hang loose(nothing malicious guys[read: no offense, but there's pretty much nothing to let loose with her]), carefree but serious types. living for the moment but thinks about the future. and she's just so that! right, back to her acting. she was the one with the most personality in the whole movie, that's why she's the jewel, and that's why i absolutely loved her.

she's the one in the middle

plot wise, it could have been a lot better if they played up the conflict a whole lot more rather than "cheese"-ifying the whole deal. the one i'm talking about is the part where she want to kiss him but can't. a lot of fairy-tales use that formula liberally, so why they didn't do so here is a big misstep for me.

all in all, i'd give it 2.5 stars out of 5. watch it! ...as long as you don't have to pay for it.

---

the next movie to take centerstage is Blind Dating.

this is a movie where you have the right cast, but its got a not good storyline. the script was wonderful, full of wit, though admittedly most lines aren't original and have been used here and there. i was laughing at pretty much every other scene.but seriously, how many jokes could you crack around a blind guy? at some point you realize that this is more comedy than romance. that means that there's more joke-cracking than actual plot. that sucks.

what's really off here is the pacing of the movie. at times it gets slow, even repetitive. sometimes its just right. its ridiculous. heck, for the most part you can't figure out where the story is meant to go. there's no clear and defined line as to what the conflict or resolution is. and because of this, some characters were more developed than others. some were only developed much later into the film when they should have been built-up at the beginning. the result is a film which doesn't stick with you when you walk out the theater.

but still, i loved it. there's only one lead role, which was filled-in amazingly by the guy i keep mentioning in the previous lines, and an wonderful collection of supporting roles, each a colorful and vibrant character. they are all just so lovable, so built-up(those who were at least), so natural. that's kind of what's nice with the movie. though i really wish it had a better storyline, one which doesn't zigzag around.

watch this movie, i think chris pine will be here for a long time and his next movies are to watch out for. i give this a 4 out of 5. go watch it! nice feel good movie.

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pigmatize!

i did a google search on the word pigmatize, see if mr. webster already included it in their dictionary... i came up with this site here. featuring the story of how the word pigmatize came into being. hilarious read. and no, its not yet in the dictionary, same with sourgrape/ing. =D

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sourgraping?

i got into looking up the exact definition for the word sourgraping. being that i'm best friends with google, i asked him for the definition of the word.

what's surprising is i didn't get any search result from a word definition website or even wikipedia. what i did get were blog posts from noypi bloggers.

so, is sourgraping a genuinely filipino-created word? much like pigmatizing? hmmm, i wonder...

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importing excellence in my sequel

i talked to a good friend of mine over the weekend. he wrote a program way back in the day to handle transforming of databases like, in particular it can handle converting excel files to sql statements.

lost already? well, this post is mainly for programmers and the curious.

while his script was wonderful and really graphical, i found that it was limitting. limitting because, and he knows about this too, the size of the file you are trying to convert is limited. it gobbles up resources quickly so trying to process a 10mb file will result in a 'fatal error'.

it has actually been a long time since i last used his script. why? well i found things to make my life easier.

<the easiest way to import an excel file to a mysql database is to use phpmyadmin. all you have to do is save the excel file as a CSV file or a Comma Separated Values file. from there, login to phpmyadmin, go to the table you want to import the data into, click import, and there it is!

if you don't have phpmyadmin or if the file is too big the browser might timeout uploading it, i wouldn't recommend using the command-line version built into mysql(mysqlimport thingy). too many things can go wrong. what you can do is download this little app i found in the internet which took care of that. its called the csv to sql converter. neat, huh? you can download it from here.

i had to import a 35mb csv file to a table recently. it's the zipcode database for the entire US. its huge. phpmyadmin didn't allow me to import it because it was too big, there's a 2mb limit in phpmyadmin. this app came to the rescue.

here are the steps:
1.) in excel, save the data as CSV. d-oh.
2.) run csv2sqlconverter.exe. it doesn't install into your computer, so don't worry.
3.) in the input file, browse for the CSV file.
4.) create a dummy sql file to store the result in, and browse for that in the output file.
5.) fill in the table name.
6.) fill in the field names you want your data to be inserted into(the column names/heading in excel). this is especially useful if you want to use mysql's autoincrement feature for the primary id.
7.) select whether or not you want to split the result file into smaller files. especially useful for big files, that way you can upload them safely without worry.
8.) press convert!
9.) locate the files and upload them or transfer them to the remote directory or working directory where you can access mysql via command line.
10.) open your command-line client.
11.) type in: mysql db_name < ouput_file.sql assuming no user is required, if required, adjust syntax accordingly(mysql -u user -p db_name < output_file.sql
12.) repeat step 11 for each of the output file.

there ya go! looks like a lot of stepes, but trust me, it shouldn't take more than two minutes(not counting upload time).

since we're in the topic of mysql, let me share with you a recent... encounter. i had a script which needed to pull data from 3 related tables(each having about 5k rows each). naturally, i used joins. when i deployed it in the real world, it didn't even last 5 minutes. it clogged up the database, and brought down the site. the reason? joins, by nature, are highly inefficient. in this particular case, my query, since there were additional criteria for each table being queried, pushed it to the very limit of its theoretical programming complexity: n*n*n.

the solution? there is no clear-cut solution for any situation. one very good and useful advice i can offer, like in this case, is to break down the query to smaller single table queries. the aim is to distribute the load between the database and the script. you can do that by nested loops, each loop level translating to a table in the database, with the innermost loop containing the least dependent table(in a situation where a.id = b.a_id and b.id = c.b_id and a.field_1 = something and b.field_1 = something and c.field_1 = something order by c.field_2, this is absolutely useful).

what's the difference? the difference is more likely than not, you will not need the entire result set. you'll probably just need the first 10 or 20. with a database query, the database would process all the rows and come up with the entire result set before truncating the result set to the first 10 or 20 you need. whereas in a nested loop, you can issue a break once you get the first 10! that, my friends, is the big difference, especially in the real world of shared hosting environment.

well, i hope tonight's post was of some help!

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blogger and multiply, not the perfect marriage

i was surprised this nifty little feature called cross-posting that multply is offering. so i tried importing one of my blog posts from my blogger.

bluntly: it worked. but it felt like it worked just for the sake of having the said feature.

sure, it got my post, but when it came to editing it to adapt to my multiply page's look... that's where it crumbles. i find multiply's textarea replacement a little too-limitting to the point that it takes over and tries to "clean" it up for you. but of course any person would know that the "cleaned-up" version sucks. there is a view source feature! great. but it doesn't make sense why multiply treats a carriage return as another paragraph when in "view source" mode. say, you forgive that and continue working on the underlying code. what's annoying is that perfectly logical, valid, non-malicious tags get stripped/modified while inserting some more of multiply's own tags. multply, please get rid of the "view source" tickbox if you're not serious about it.

perhaps, on last quirk is the fact that once an entry is made(imported), it is automatically treated as a blog post. big thumbs down. i imported a movie review and it's treated as a blog post. ok fine, you might argue that blogger only has blog posts so multiply imports blogger posts as blog posts. but the thing is, that's how blogger users are used to posting reviews, galleries, or what have you; as blog posts. but still, that is not reason enough to not be able to import directly into a different category.

but i guess i may be asking too much with that. thanks for the effort anyway multiply. i'll still continue using my blogger.

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what's in the mail today?

wierdness.

definitely.

about a week ago, i notced something different in my main yahoo mail account. the delete button moved. i paid little attention it until now, after a a week of clicking the wrong button.

i checked my secondary account, and since it doesn't get much mail, hence less deleting, and noticed that it still has the old toolbar set. what gives yahoo? is it because my main account receives an absurd amount of spam everyday(i receive at least 200 spams each day, if they were the real spam, i'd probably weigh a ton by now. thank God for yahoo's potent spam filter. though most of the penis enlargement stuff gets through to my inbox(i get about at least 10 a day), sometimes with pictures.)??

so i studied the differences and concluded that the move wasn't just cosmetic, new features were actually added...
well, the flag as spam was dropped. i never used that one, i've always used the not spam button when marking spam. good call on this one.
there's actually a functional and funky move button now!
checkboxes were added in the message list!

lastly, but certainly one feature which defines an ajax app, it now uses modal windows over pop-up windows. cool.

good work yahoo, keep it up... and keep up! it feel wierd to have two different ymail layout. ;-)

absolute boo-boo: i'm too lazy to correct this in photoshop, i got the old and new label for the modal window screen mixed up. d-oh!

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its black!

yep, spidey is black!

direct to the point: 3.5/5 stars.

i loved it! it was soo good, i think it was kind of perfect! then why didn't i give it 5 stars, you ask. good question.

thing is, it is a perfect example of a perfect commercial hollywood movie. you've got the hype, it delivers, you've got the actors, the characters, and the brand. it delivers in every aspect. and that's the thing, it delivers in every aspect. and we all know that if you try to be eveything, you sometimes end up as nothing.

you see, while watching this latest iteration of spidey, i found it hard to place it. is it comedy? is it drama? action? or even... horror? [yeah, some girls at the back of the theater were actually screaming] i now realized that the previous movie in the franchise did a terrific dance in balancing comedy, action and drama. forgive me, but this last movie had parts in them that were just too intense, too serious. you could say that there was too much story and that the movie got lost in the story. but don't worry, its still nothing like the harry potter movies.

it would probably have been better if they maintained the monotony[gad, such a word] of a particular genre, spiked by a little of the others. personally, it felt like a roller coaster, and not the van helsing type roller coaster sort of movie, its more like a.... comedy, then drama, then action, then drama, i mean heck! its not bad really, like a roller coaster, you do enjoy the twists and turns, its just that it makes it too... hollywood. commercial. like i said, its a great movie, really. it will make big bucks, but its not an instant classic. its too nice, its in danger of being forgotten tomorrow.

on an unexpected note, i do have to give credit to James Franco and his portrayal of Harry Osborn. he's one of the most lovable villains ever. he played his part well and he showed just how dynamic he can be. the part where he jut bumped his head and was back to his "old" self was, in my opinion, was one of the parts where he really shined. in fact, he felt like he was indeed a co-star in the movie this time around. heck, there were parts where he was the lead, and his name is not the one in the title. i think one reason is he showed that he's got the smile which could light up a room[ugh, that sounded so gay].

lastly, we saw the harry potter trailer before the movie and i'm going to make a prediction. the most unpopular book in the harry potter series[though personally, i loved that book] will have the best movie adaptation.

go watch spidey, its good. may it not be a forgotten movie.

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know what sucks...?

...what sucks is there's no option to export blog posts to something downloadable like a pdf or word or rtf or even simple plain text for backing up my blog. i guess that's one way to discourage users from leaving them. but you know what, i'll let you in on a secret, the best way to stop users from leaving you is to constantly making yourself better. same deal with relationships. you do not put shackles on your partner. its just wrong...

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i never thought the opportunistic world of commercial capitalism can be so inspiring at times

these commercials from well-known brand names are just so sophisticated and inspired. they have truly mastered the art of sugar-coating products.

here's the "it's for you" commercial from coke... gotta love it!


and if that ain't enough, i found the asian version...


the next ones are from GE and their ecomagination commercials:


i love the innocence in this one...


i don't really like this commercial but i just couldn't resist saying this: man! i never knew coal could be this hot!!

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and I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket...

ugh, i'm absolutely crazy over this song!!!

Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry Lyrics

Da Da Da Da
The smell of your skin lingers on me now
Your probably on your flight back to your home town
I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself instead of calamity
Peace, Serenity

[CHORUS]
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal, Myself and I
We've got some straightenin' out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But Ive got to get a move on with my life
Its time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry

The path that I'm walking
I must go alone
I must take the baby steps until I'm full grown
Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they
And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay

[CHORUS]
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to with you
It's personal, Myself and I
We've got some straightenin' out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
Its time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry

Like the little school mate in the school yard
We'll play jacks and uno cards
Ill be your best friend and you'll be mine
Valentine
Yes you can hold my hand if u want to
Cause I want to hold yours too
We'll be playmates and lovers and share our secret worlds
But its time for me to go home
Its getting late, dark outside
I need to be with myself instead of calamity
Peace, Serenity

[CHORUS]
I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It's personal, Myself and I
We've got some straightenin' out to do
And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I've got to get a move on with my life
Its time to be a big girl now
And big girls don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry
Don't cry

La Da Da Da Da Da

anyway, when i typed in the song at google to search for lyrics, i was surprised to find a site in the results page. its rogepost.com. i haven't heard of them before, so i clicked it. i was more surprised to find that it was a file hosting website! and woot, that's where i got my mp3! and very clean page if i might add as well. so now, search for mp3s in google by simply putting in rogepost as a search keyword, or do the domain searching thing of google, though i personally don't use it. if you don't want to use google, use this site:
http://www.emp3world.com/
you're going to get the mp3s you want... but you'll also get popups and a lot of ads.

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big boys don't cry...

ohhh, these past few days, i just had a taste of what my life was like before i moved here: going to sleep properly worn out after long, fulfilling days.

one could argue that before i moved here, i claimed to be looking forward to living a quiet, home-office-home life. whilst its true that that indeed was what i was looking forward to. and as you may have expected, i am going to say it: be careful what you wish for, you might actually get it.

anyway, i plan to go back to my boring days soon. lol.

a couple of posts back, i said i liked fergie. especially the new single, Big Girls Don't Cry, she performed in american idol. it got me into thinking that she actually looks like a friend of mine... hi faye! amishu! please don't kill me...

anyway, here's an amazingly cool fan video of the single... somehow, i can't seem to remember sims 2 being that graphic...

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a digicam in the middle of vegas

last weekend, we went to vegas. it was an impromptu trip, meaning we all woke up that saturday morning without any thought of spending that night in the strip.

it started out like any saturday in our house. that menas i get up, brew a pot of coffee, drive out and get a baker's dozen of einstein bro's bagels[they have the best bagels and spreads!]. only difference is today, i dropped my bro off at the local budget rental car service cause he was going to rent out a truck[aka pickup in the phils] for the day cause he planned to buy bags of cements for some backyard work he was planning to do.

when he pulled up the driveway with a ford f-150 double cab, with only a little under 3k miles on it, we were all oggling. honestly, it was an absolute be-a-u-t! then ideas started flying. at first it was just to drive up to sedona, until finally the destination became las vegas. woohoo, i love road trips! i love driving!

but before we went on our way, i first went to the local best buy and bought a digicam for my sis. i figured vegas would probably be the best place to test it out. i was looking for something inexpensive, but with decent quality, so i settled on the $150 class of digicams. there was a sony cybershot, a kodak, nikon, olympus, canon and an hp. with those heavyweights, you'd think that i'd get one of them. nope, i got a panasonic lumix, also in the same class as the others. specifically, its the Panasonic DMC-LS70.

it was a tough choice, all of them had pretty much the same specs. all of them were in the 6-7MP range. what won me over was it had the highest ISO setting at ISO 1250 and it had the most decent picture quality when i tried shooting while moving sideways. ISO is basically the light sensitivity of the camera. the higher it is, the more light sensitive the camera is. the more sensitive it is, the lesser number of times the flash will go off and therefore be able to capture more real ambient lighting.

to be honest, i wasn't expecting much from it. but after the vegas trip, i was all WOW! amazing digicam! the blurs while taking photos from a moving car are forgivable. and night shots are decent, and in vegas, that's saying a lot! vegas poses a difficult challenge for digicams in that its got a lot of lights. its like trying to take a picture of fireworks. if you leave the flash on, the fireworks will be really small. without the flash, everything is a blur. same with vegas, with the flash, all you can see are tiny lights. without it, you're going to have a mess of lights. but this camera performed well for a digicam. with the flash on, the lights just seemed a little darker. without the flash, there was a little blurring, but nothing a steady hand could fix.

oh, did i mention that i didn't change batteries the entire trip? i did snap 227 pictures, 3/4 of them were 7MP and the other quarter in 3MP. amazing battery life.

overall, i'd give this digicam a perfect 5. that's how good it is.

so, for some pictures from the digicam and the continuation of my story on our vegas trip, head on over to my multiply site[ugh! nooooo!]. i'm sorry, i didn't want to put it there but its just a lot easier to upload pics there, not to mention a lot safer from magically disappearing...
Click here to go to my multiply site!

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decrypting processors

my box[computer] is a fairly decent one. decent for simple stuff anyway. i don't play high-end, uber-gobbler-graphics-cruncher type of games[read: fps] anyway. so i don't really need a blazing fast machine, for now at least. but i still poke around, keeping an eye out for an outstanding deal.

i'm currently running on a 5 year old amd athlon processor. its frankenstein. it underwent surgery countless time already. hard drives being swapped in and out, incremental upgrades of the video card, and a lot of mixing and mismatching peripheral cards. so yeah, i'm craving for a new box i guess. but i vowed not to go with an amd core, i'd like to taste the power[and silence] of intel cores once again.

now when you check out intel's processors and their descriptions, it can be quite overwhelming. there's just a lot of them. so, here's your guide to solve intel's puzzle, arranged from poorest to best performer. but first, a little processor history...

in the realm of computers, there's this law which says processor power will double every two years(yes, two years and not 18 months. that's from the horse's mouth himself). i am talking about Moore's Law of course. if that is so, then why oh why don't we still have pentium 5?! why are the "fastest" processors still running at somewhere around 3GHz?!

to answer that question, well they did try making processors run faster. however, there's this fundamental roadblock which prevented them from succeeding feasibly. to make a processor run faster, you have to put in more electricity. the more electricity, the more heat the processor generates. and therein lay the problem. a "faster" processor didn't become feasible because they became too hot and melted. so could they still be law-abiding processor manufacturers?

well, they figured that perhaps a "faster" processor is not the key. and so intel adopted the 40/40 mantra. that meant 40% more [processor]power for 40% less [electrical]power. you see, moore's law stated doubling of processor power, not processor speed, and processor power is determined by millions of instructions per second[MIPS] a chip can execute. so they did this by improving the architecture, and optimizing the instruction set. but of course, the major revision is that it uses the 65nm manufacturing process, whereas pentium 4[except the cedar mill and pentium d 900 series] uses 90nm.

this breakthroughs lead to the itanium class processors, or more commonly known as the "core" processors, the grandchild of the centrino. well, they did get the idea from centrino so it could be said that centrino was the very first core processor. actually, it is the first core processor. they were released sometime in 2003, with itanium 2[read: core 2] sometime late 2005. that means the next iteration is right about due by the end of the year. indeed, intel says that its next generation chips are on schedule for release by the end of the year, codenamed "penryn". so anyway, here goes...

note: a 'd' at the end means duo or dual-core. by default, 'core' comes as core duo, its hard to find a core solo because they're usually labelled as centrino[centrino and core is almost the same]. and its always core 2 duo, its almost impossible to find a core 2 solo.
pentium 4: try to stay away from this one. really. by the end of the year, its going to be four generations old.

celeron d: a celeron is a celeron, even if its dual-core.

pentium d: provides decent performance for the buck. however, it is still plagued by memory leaks[windows related of course] when multi-tasking heavily.

core: if you're thinking about buying core duo, you might as well as buy a pentium d and slap in more memory with the extra money. they don't offer that much additional oomph than the pentium d. but, you should go core duo over the pentium d if you're buying a laptop. that should stretch your battery life.

core 2: the entry-level core 2 duo e4300 will outstrip pentium d 3.2GHz in every possible way. mind you, each core of the e4300 runs at just 1.66GHz. that is how much more efficient it is. in fact, core 2 duo is oftenr referred to as the real dual core processor. also, intel migrated from its naming traditional convention of basing from the processor speed. the name is now based off the power consumption at peak usage, much like what amd has been using all-along. so if you have the money, go with core 2 duo for a lag-less computing experience.

and lastly of course, make sure that the rest of your computer can keep up to the speed of your processor.

so the next time you're out in the market for a computer, remember that by the end of the year, intel will release their next-generation chips[which, by the way, will be manufactured using the 45nm process] which means slashed prices on core 2 duos and a better deal on black friday. ;-)

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rambling collage

i'm sorry my title for this post is lacking in the "creative" department today. a lot of things i want to talk about, and i hope i'll get to type in all of them in their own paragraphs.

if you haven't noticed, the images here are down. my only guess is i exceeded bloggers daily[or monthly] bandwidth limit. i guess it is a good idea to use a 3rd party image hoster like photobucket. so i apologize for the inconvenience[or convenience for those on dial-up]. this gives me more reason to...

...really pursue developing my own blogging engine. or maybe just an article management system. i don't want to use wordpress. i like reinventing the wheel, so leave me be. well, i want to invent the flying wheel. and that's my hope for the system's i want to work on. i will be coding it from scratch, and i'm going to be using old faithful, php. cause quite frankly, its still way better than...

...asp. i'm trying to learn asp.net in the office today. a simple script which i could do in a couple of hours tops in php. i need to create the admin tool for a flash-based photo gallery which uses an xml file for its data store. i originally planned a php/mysql backend with the xml file being generated on-the-fly, but i found out the server its going to be deployed on is a windows box without php/mysql. so now, i'm just trying to code in asp.net and use its built-in xml parsers. the lack of good tutorials in the web is the biggest obstacle for me. seriously, there's not much room for "your own thing" in asp.net. i think the best metaphor for the two programming languages would be: php is like math, asp.net is like language[or english]. with php, you could arrive at an answer using basic concepts like the MDAS in math and complex methods revolve around those basics. whereas in asp.net, to be able to arrive at an answer, you have to use different things. the most glaring of all is these things are very much alike, very similar to the concept of synonyms in language. you'd think that would be easier? nah, each synonym could only be used in a particular situation in a particular way. its up to you to find out which would fit snugly in your code. good riddance. there's no way i'm going to use asp.net in my...

...site. last week, i signed up for a hosting account with hostmonster. why? cause a web developer without a personal website is like a swimming pool contractor without a swimming pool. oh wait, we do not have a swimming pool back home. i have yet to put anything in it, so until then, the website will be a secret. what you can be sure of is that this blog will move to its new home soon and be full of pcitures of...

...sanjaya getting the boot in american idol. i actually liked the guy during the early days, but i must admit that after awhile, it does get tiring to listen to him. he should work on his voice, at least spend more time vocalizing than combing his hair. i just have to say kudos to fergie for a brilliant performance in today's american idol. you've won me over girl, ++fan. now if only they played you...

...on the radio station i listen to nightly. who do i listen to? delilah of course! "hi good evening, welcome to the delilah show, what can i do for you sweetie?" there's just something nice about her show which is soothing after a long day, but not too soothing to make you fall asleep. indeed, she was our companion when we entered phoenix after an impromptu overnight trip from...

...sin city last weekend. man, i love that place. las vegas is a city where there's no limit on dreams. nowadays, people don't really go there to gamble anymore. i mean that's no longer the only thing people do there. others, like me, go there for the attractions. my most favorite is Bellagio's dancing fountains. i love them. well, i think the las vegas trip deserves another post, when i have power over my...

...images back again.

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300 did me a month ago

...and it wasn't painful at all. in fact, i actually enjoyed it.

i am, of course, talking about the movie. and though i'm posting it just now, i still feel like posting it cause believe i have to do it justice and give it a brimming review.

hands down, i loved the cinematography. absolutely amazing visuals, although there was a little bit too much dudity for comfort. in the first hour its ok, but after a while, i did feel a little insecure. i don't know, after being showed frame after frame of, dare i say it, utterly sexy and sculpted men, it made me feel like those gazillion-packs are the norm and that made me feel uncomfortable. really. sorry, i still couldn't get over that. way too creepy. now i understand what girls lacking in bumpers feel when they see girls with built-in life vests. sorry, no offense meant. move on, shall we?

the down side of the movie was that it felt like they dragged a short amount of time to fill up a couple of hours. in reality, they could've included some more events before or after the event to make it feel a little less lacking[ohhh, that girl's line from the quiznos sub commercial just echoed in mind, argh, move on with the dudity!].

thing is, before i got to watch the movie, i caught national geographic's documentary on the 300. i thought the documentary was amazing, with the story of the 300 even more amazing. if you want to look up the story of the 300, go look up google, or better yet, look for the torrent of documentary. and based on the documentary, hollywood lived up to its reputation of seriously mangling history. damn. that's probably the other qualm i have for the movie, aside from it feeling a little lacking[ugh, quiznos girl again. damn, she looks like a filipina.] that is.

but overall, i'd give it a 4 out of 5.

ps. and for those of you who's not yet acquainted with the quiznos girl, here's the edited commercial to emphasize her part... enjoy!

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news that make the news

i was going to update my blog with news of what happened over the past weeks. that's what i was going to do. that's a was now.

and this morning, thirty-three souls crossed over to the other side and became a was...

officers, running.
screams rip the air.
guns drawn, the officers keep coming.

though the wind is cold,
and with each falling speck of snow,
bullets keep flying by.

and all i can hear are sobbing,
of people in the halls and rooms,
...and of my own.
now when did i start sobbing?
- 'faceless virginiatech student'

i'll update my blog tomorrow.

in remembrance.

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don't you just hate it...

when you know you're doing something wrong but you keep doing it anyway cause you just don't have the willingness to take a risk and the associated sacrifice to turn away from it...

anyway, last night, holy thursday, we brought over to here a very filipino tradition... bisita iglesia, or quite literally, church visitations.

i don't know how exactly this came about, my only guess is its some sort of a small pilgrimage... or maybe just to support the kropek vendors outside churches back home.

anyway, its not an event here, only a handful of people are in the churches for the exposition, and out of that, i'm guessing only a handful of them were practicing what we ourselves were doing.

here's the map, and the list of churches is:
-> St. Joan of Arc, our parish
-> St. Joseph
-> Most Holy Trinity
-> St. Francis of Assisi, though it was closed
-> Our Lady of Perpetual Help, clased as well
-> St. Maria Goretti
-> Blessed Sacrament

let me also take a moment to endorse maps by yahoo. though yes, google maps is the de facto pioneer with a lot of user-contributed input through google earth and 3d-buildings(through google sketchup in google earth), and yes, msn live maps has that cool brid's eye view, none of them have the one feature in yahoo maps that i find dead useful(maybe they have them as well... buried in a deep navigation tree). that is, stackable destinations, useful for plotting out multiple destinations in one trip, from point a to point b, to point c... to poink.

here's a link to the map i used, don't know if the link will work for you or for how long it will work(i have yet to get down and dirty with yahoo maps' api).

> http://maps.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTExNmIycG51BF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEc2VjA2ZwLWJ1dHRvbgRzbGsDbGluaw--#mvt=m&q7=11300%20North%2064th%20Street%20Scottsdale,%20AZ%2085254&gid6=20033674&q6=6261%20North%20Granite%20Reef%20Road%20Scottsdale,%20Arizona%2085250&gid5=20029609&q5=7655%20East%20Main%20Street%20Scottsdale,%20AZ%2085251&q4=4715%20North%20Central%20Avenue%20Phoenix,%20AZ%2085012-1796&q3=8620%20North%207th%20Street%20Phoenix,%20AZ%2085020-3197&gid2=19999223&q2=11001%20N.%2040th%20Street%20Phoenix,%20AZ%2085028&q1=3801%20East%20Greenway%20Road%20Phoenix,%20AZ%2085032-4698&trf=0&lon=-111.985874&lat=33.558419&mag=6 <

imho, this is a specially useful feature for those who do a lot of adventure traveling. the only thing missing here now is the ability to opt for a public commute route(like bus routes and trains, and a bit of walking of course).

well, that's it for now. i do have a lot of things to write about, but i'm holding it off until i decide where i'm going to take this site.

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i am twenty one years old

last sunday, we went to ikea and bought a bed. i got one which allows you to lift your mattress to reveal a hidden storage space. new mattress as well. and i moved up from full/double to queen, so now i takes up about 60% of my room i think.

last thursday, i bought sheets, beddings, pillows, more sheets, and then some more.

then last friday, we got around to painting my room white. while buying more paint at the home depot, i dropped by best buy and i walked out of it with a new tv and a micro component system.

i only got to assemble the bed last friday night, and it was freakin hard to assemble using the allen wrench they threw in with the allen screws(read: too tiny for my big hands). it took me all night to set it up.

then, i only realized afterwards, i took part in one of the most american traditions ever... spring cleaning. i cleaned out my room and rearranged my stuff, threw out junk and put in the new.

that aside, you're probably wondering why i'm posting about the things i bought and spent my time on. well, i'm not here to brag or whine to you, seriously...

thing is, how many of you actually thought about buying the stuff i bought. and i'm not talking about "ohh, i like that!" and then forget about it the day after. i'm talking about "ohh, i like that, i am so gonna save up for it".

uh-huh, i figured not that many of you. and those who said yes, exactly how old are you?

uh-huh.

buying a tv or a bed is something which i feel something that which proves that a person is old. seriously, when you were young all you ever dreamt about was buying a car or a house or taking a vacation. you never thought about television, beds, linens and sheets cause frankly, why should you? you have parents which are willing to buy them for you, provided, of course, that you don't stay out late for the next two weeks.

i'm happy i was able to buy those stuff and at the same time sad for having been able to buy them.

in a nutshell, its like opening presents on christmas day in front of the tree. you're happy you're finally opening the presents, and a the same time sad knowing that you'll have to wait a full year before it happens again. only this time, there's no more next year.

and i'm fuckin 21! i shouldn't be going about buying a car or a tv or having a portfolio or having a tooth extraction!

i know i shouldn't be complaining, i know a lot of you have your eyebrows raised, but i beg you to look at it from my eyes... i hope that you'll see that what i'm really complaining about is the fact that i can rant about these things... and perhaps you'll understand that its cause there's this gaping hole in my heart... and by virtue of the last two sentences, i'm an "emo person".

i hope having a look at my new "prayer" room will not be enough to make up for the time you wasted here.

oops, take a peek at my just cleaned-out closet. its pathetic.

find my tumbler...

hobbes is eating my speaker!

...and that's the opening sequence of...?

this is what someone who stayed up all night looks like... so get plenty of sleep people!

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