a twitty account of the world

8xd :: special desert mix edition

2008-06-20T05:19:00.000-07:00

this is not a real 8x entry. no mp3s up for grabs, no individual song reviews peppered with inside jokes, no shameless plugs, no downloading of zips and zahs.

this playlist, generously hosted on imeem, is the desert soundtrack. no, it doesn't sound like rattlers or crickets or dust storms. its sound is what you'd generally hear in the valley's airwaves. this strays away from the hard core sounds(think smooth jazz... so smooth and slick, think a coyote hosts it, trust me, coyotes are the slickest hosts out there). you'll only find the more... errr, "familiar" tracks here.

just a word of advice, the desert mix is a lot like living in the valley: its an acquired taste. you will learn to like it because you have no choice. as long as you have a choice(honestly, who in their right mind, except those with scaly skin, would want to live in 110+ weather), you probably won't like it. but it will grown on you.

and pretty much all these songs sound best from dusk to dawn. yeah, i didn't know some songs sound better on certain parts of the day either.

8xdmix

the first song off the track list is the only hint a coyote is on the list. yes, thats what the hard core stuff sounds like. and it made it here because its familiar enough. but the rest are a lot like that, less the familiarity.

third song down is a desert anthem. seriously. but take note, we're not all on crack...

fifth song down is another desert anthem. apparently the desert night brings out the young one in us all.

seventh song down is one of the more popular... "in memory of" songs. yes, its cheesy.

ninth song down(and onwards) can only be heard in my room. (hey this playlist is my radio! so forgive the intrusion!) =D

8x13 :: when did you lose your wings?

2008-04-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

there's something to be said about misleading words. some real world examples include:
- synopsis written on the back cover of fiction books. like "a 300 year old secret, known only by our nation's leaders", but the story is actually about 3 wanna-be turncoats and the so-called secret is only mentioned in passing.
- 0g of trans fat per serving! legally, 499mg is still still 0g so eating 3 of those cookies may actually mean you just had 1497mg of trans fat. glad they're not using kg/serving. i can just imagine: "0kg fat! 0kg carbs! 0kg sugars! the perfect health food has arrived!"
- "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard the maiden flight of Hill-Force One. My name is Hillary and I am so pleased to have most of you on board. FAA regulations prohibit the use of any cell phones, Blackberries, or wireless devices that may be used to transmit a negative story about me." -playing flight attendant aboard her campaign plane. its not a sense of humor, its egotism.

the first half of the tracks below come from my most beloved series of all-time: One Tree Hill. despite being classified as teen drama, it has long proved itself to be more than just a 90210 clone. and now in its 5th season, the cast has undoubtedly grown older, lost a lot of their young-ish appeal(i'm looking at you chad michael murray), but at the same time gained a tad more mature bitch with a vulnerable heart(i <3 you sophia bush). the other appeal of OTH is they tend to feature a lot tracks in each episode, some of which are classics(when was the last time a led zeppelin song was used on tv? huh? huh?!), and most are unheard of until then.

the second half features songs with some of the loveliest titles or artist names or just plain unexpected. zipped it up!

Michelle Featherstone- Coffee & Cigarettes :: get me!
"but it's true, i'm still blue, but i finally know what to do, i must quit, i must quit you"
if you still haven't moved on over someone, this song might suit you perfectly. and no, its not a brokeback reference. i believe this was composed even before that came out. its one of the saddee songs here, so knick it if thats your thing right now.
Jimmy Eat World- 23 :: get me!
"don't give away the end, the one thing that stays mine"
and if you don't want to move one, then this is the song for you. and i have to admit, this has a special place in my heart(heck, i had a hard time choosing which line to put up). though it clocks in at a hefty 7:15, whats amazing is it doesn't seem like that long. its like thinking 12 days is long enough but actually, it just goes by in a blink. and soon enough, i'll be 23, and i'll start feeling old when i listen to the song.
Jack's Mannequin- The Mixed Tape :: get me!
"this mix could burn a hole in anyone, but it was you i was thinking of"
if you haven't made a mix tape for someone before, shame on you. you should make one, even if you don't give it to that someone you made it for. if only to make it a bottle for the feelings you have for that someone you were thinking of that you can go back to years later.
Hot Hot Heat- Middle of Nowhere :: get me!
"she said, 'maybe there's a bit of me waiting for a bit of you. baby.'"
strikes me as a wee bit cruel, but hey, that's life. there are people who just wants you to keep on chasing after them. never quite letting you catch up, never quite letting you go. and once they have you chasing, the only way to stop is if somebody else trips you and you fall over that somebody else.
Nada Surf- Always Love :: get me!
"always love, even when you wanna fight"
haha, nobility...
Shout Out Louds- Please Please Please :: get me!
"it's getting darker and i know this tiem wasn't meant for us"
please please please come back to me! people change, and sometimes, we lose them forever...
Feeder- Feeling A Moment :: get me!
"don't ever feel that you're alone, i'll never let you down, i'll never leave you dry"
its almost a feel good song. if you feel alone, then remember that you have people[to do your taxes]. you are not alone...
Fall Out Boy- I've Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea that Says You Should Shut Your Mouth :: get me!
"joke me something awful just like kisses on the necks of bestfriends"
i love this song, if only because it brings down the tempo of fall out boy for me. also because its a struggle against everyone else.
Get Up Kids- The Most Depressing Song :: get me!
"i've smuggled myself into new nationalities, to think you'd be proud of me"
no, not by a long shot is this the most depressing song. you can find more depressing songs from eeewi. they're just preppy kids with a saddish sounding voice and not enough sense to craft a tearjerker. but i do love the line above.
G. G. Allin- I Kill Everything I Fuck :: get me!
"drenched in my fluids, you'll never know, i plant the seeds of death untold"
gotta love the open and uncensored hate...
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness- When You Go Out :: get me!
"we don't want each other, we don't want our love"
to a lot of people i know, this song is for all of you. and it delivers the message in a really catchy tune too, so you never really feel like being hit at. the message? well its about two friends. they both know that being a couple won't last and to save the friendship, they convince themselves that they don't like each other[on their own], and they keep repeating that mantra. were they successful? who knows, were you?
Daft Punk- Digital Love :: get me!
"ooh, i don't know what to do, about this dream and you, i wish this dream comes true"
the 3rd song in their legendary movie: Interstella 5555: the 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. i <3 it so much i still play the movie on loop every now and then, especially on cram nights.
Yael Naim- New Soul :: get me!
"but since i came here, felt the joy and the fear, finding myself making every possible mistake"
gotta love apple and their absolute hold on pop culture. they're reeking so much influence, they're practically like the paris of the corporate world. and this song was used in their macbook air commercial. and boom, this becomes the new anthem of yuppies everywhere. and i love them because they're giving breakout artists a biting chance against mainstream ones. seriously, after feist was featured in their ad, she won most, if not all, of the "best new artist" category she was unceremoniously dropped in. never mind the fact that she's beein in the business for years.
Pink Nasty feat. Will Oldham- Don't Ever Change :: get me!
"please don't shower, deodorant stains on your back"
the first time i heard this, that was the line that stuck with me. well, the whole song feels like they were on crack. oh no wait, they were in love.
Intwine- Happy (String Version) :: get me!
"fuck, i hope you feel much worse than me"
this is one of the funnest songs ever! so he wishes her to be happy throughout the song. he wishes that she's doing well not like him. then i guess he got fed up, turns around and hope she feels much worse than him at the very last part. take that! ka-pow!
Iron & Wine- Boy With a Coin :: get me!
"a boy with a coin he crammed in his jeans, then making a wish he tossed in the sea"
there's something simple yet profound in this song. that much, i have to give it credit for. and everytime it comes on, i stop and think about it.
New Order- Subculture (DJ Ming Mix) :: get me!
"a view without a room, unveils the truth so soon"
one of those songs which i never can quite figure out for sure what's going on. but hey, i love the the line above. and you can't possibly miss it in the song.
Dishwalla- Counting Blue Cars :: get me!
"tell me all your thoughts on God? 'cause i would really like to meet Her"
this has a good chance at being a robert frost poem turned into a song. there's a simple message or meaning to it, but at the same time, you can go deeper on a personal level. and i hated robert frost for that. i respect the guy, but he made literature a pain in the...

there goes the 13th edition. i won't be posting any for awhile, i have to take care of some other stuff for a bit. that i do. in a sense i guess these picks are about moving on, and not just the romantic kind, but just moving on. like telling life you're ready for the next round, bring it on! not! these songs are for simply your listening (dis)pleasure.

-- goes well with you.

8x12 :: come, let's paint the sky and explode in each other's arms

2008-03-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

this entry is devoted entirely to the infinitely wonderful explosions in the sky. no, i'm not talking about fireworks of course------------>

they're songs are the most moving and understated masterpieces you'll ever have the pleasure of hearing. do your ears a favor and get your hands on their songs and listen to it full blast(preferably through a spanking good stereo set, it would be an insult to them otherwise).

there's this insanely strange throbbing that pulsates through you in every track, like the whole world is running through you.

and never mind that there are no words, its the feeling that matters. do you know what qualifies as a great song(on a personal level that is)? its that song where upon hearing it years later, it instantly makes makes you remember the things that you were doing, the things that were around you when you first heard it. whether it was in a record bar, wearing your favorite red shirt while trying to find who's wearing the scent that you love so much; or while trudging down the street [you always have to walk on everyday] in your flip-flops while worrying about having had too little sleep and the awfully big pimple on your neck. for me, thats what these guys' songs are.

though i wish my first times were as remotely grandiose as my examples, i'm ashamed to admit that all my tracks of them... i first heard in front of the computer, wearing a shirt [and picking my nose].

and for the internet-challenged, here's something to annoy you even more: its an all or nothing deal. get the entire zip, or none at all. spare me the horror and embarassment of having to put words where words are unwelcome.

Track Listing for this zip-

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
A Song for Our Fathers
Yasmin the Light
Your Hand in Mine
What Do You Go Home To
A Poor Man's Memory
Look into the Air
So Long, Lonesome
Memorial
The Birth and Death of the Day
The Long Spring
Welcome, Ghosts
First Breath After Coma
Magic Hours

support them, get their album(s) if you find one.

-- goes well with pretty much everything.

8x11 :: i say marco, you say polo

2008-03-04T18:55:00.000-08:00

do you know that game?

when you're trying to find your way in this world, it helps big time if you google up your destination first. for those of us who are unfortunate enough who don't know the link to Google Life, i find its best to look... errr, grope for your destination blindfolded. you don't know where you're going anyway, so might as well be completely surprised by it.

and this collection is basically that. its what i feel right now. i have no solid idea what's going to happen over the next few months, so i'm forcing myself to just get by and live it out, day by day. my only comfort is i know that no matter how harsh the world may treat us, innocence still abounds. that to the right is my feel good picture.

its only six links, work your fingers, click five more times than you would with a zip.

Girl Talk- Bounce That :: get me!
"let me see you bounce that, bounce that"
gad, i wanna live in new york, if only for the awesome indie music scene going about there. now that the unstoppable arterial pulse of life. mr. girl talk serves up well-polished remixes of popular songs. but the key difference is he uses anywhere from 10 to 50 in a 3 minute track. wow.
Imogen Heap- Hide and Seek(Unofficial Strings Mix) :: get me!
"spin me around again and rub my eyes, this can't be happening"
from The O.C. to a fan video on youtube, this song has been used around alot, most descecrated the tragic but sweet melodies. here is a "strings remix", note that the strings were used real subtly. now that is respect.
Augustana- Boston :: get me!
"i think i'll start it over, where no one knows my name"
this is quite a sad song. tells a sad tale of his special someone breaking it off and telling him she's moving away. why? because he's an a-hole. that's why.
Emerson Hart- Friend to a Stranger :: get me!
"from a friend to a stranger how's your life, in your current situation? did they held you hostage, did they tell you lies? just to add to your frustration: oh... my heart."
i love this guy! i love him so much there's another entry for him two items down. this is probably the track to nick in this list(except for tidsey, seriously). talks about how going about separate ways end up. usually ends up nasty. bah.
Six by Seven- Candlelight :: get me!
"something stopped beating blood in my chest"
hey its upbeat! enough said. (dont get me wrong, i don't have anything against "good-feeling" songs)
Emerson Hart- Green Hills Race for California :: get me!
"oh my friends, what a long trip it's been"
this song is really close to my heart. of course, a song about someone who moves away and is contemplating on how to go back to where he was from is bound to be in my playlist. and please spare me the sarcastic answers to that(like "get on a plane" or "swim the ocean" or "tell your palm 'beam me up scotty'" or "hitch a ride with santa"). what i love about this song is even though the lyrics are simplistic, the message its trying to get across is heard quite clear(or maybe its just me and my position... y'know, lying on the floor[kidding]).

its worth noting that it looks like my picks here have something to do with places and/or moving. and with the nature of my opener, here goes the disclaimer: moving is definitely not in my sights in any of the near future. trust me, i can look through alternate earths(thanks to the power of booze that is, guiness ftw!).

-- goes well with vicodin and gin.

8x9 :: a hastily put together collage of sun shining songs

2008-01-19T03:49:00.000-08:00

wow, i broke the through 8th issue, i'm free! haha, some changes around here, mainly i might break the 8 main songs rule. so far, i haven't really kept it, just made it look like they are 8 but there are like about 3 more songs filed under an item so that's technically like cheating. so yeah, out it goes i guess. that also means i can post 1 song editions! haha, well that's really the reason why. kinda hard to come up with material nowadays, not in any part, due to a lack of good talent, but more for the fact that i'm having a hard time getting hold of them.

another change is now there will be snippets of them songs. my fave lines i guess. =D

anyway, this compilation reflects that of those who needs a pick-me-up. well, no actually. i just threw these guys together in a playlist. hence, the picture: senseless. get all of them here.

Colbie Caillat- Bubbly :: get me!
"just take your time now, holding me tight"
this is such a feel good song. if it doesn't work for you, then i don't know what will. hearing it is like eating a pure dose of concentrated sunshining rainbow. it like... makes you feel bubbly! perfect song to wake up to!
Bell X1- Bad Skin Day :: get me!
"feels like we're always waiting, feels like we're never leading"
right, this already has a separate post here. but i so <3 this song right now so you gotta live with it. here is the original version. its a great song from an irish band who used to have damien rice on board. no irish band can make it big without being compared to U2 of course, which, i guess, is the reason why its kinda hard for irish bands to make it big. i noticed that there's an "epiphany" part in this song, like the climactic high point, like the same technique coldplay used in fix you when he let go of the light thingy. might be the reason why i find it good. but this has some of the same feel that coldplay's fix you has, only much lighter. it also sings from your heart, like the song is something you know inherently.
Morning Runner- Burning Bencher :: get me!
"we're not overly good friends, but its not heaven without you"
bam! a sad one! a dramatic sad one! note of caution, this is the type of song that grows on you with each press of the play button, specially when you let the words wash over and engulf you completely. starts out sad, ends rocking and embarassed.
Sheryl Crow- The First Cut is the Deepest :: get me!
"i still want you by my side just to help me dry the tears that i've cried"
out of the many variations and covers of this song, i like her's the best. for some reason, her voice fits it perfectly. her voice doesn't make it sound dramatic, nor emo, but its still able to convey the song perfectly. it doesn't twist any of your heartstrings, maybe your vocal chords but definitely not your heartstrings.
Liz Phair- Why Can't I :: get me!
"why can't i breathe whenever i think about you"
unlike sheryl crow's, i cant say this is not dramatic. but i love the way how she sings the chorus, like its so natural for her.
Jonatha Brooke- I'll Try :: get me!
"i am not a child now i can take care of myself, i mustn't let them down now- mustn't let them see me cry"
i dedicate this song for all you who are simply finding their you're way in this world. for all of you who feel overwhelmed, saddled by responsibilities, bit off too much than you can handle. this one's for you. keep on beliving in pixie dust.
Grandaddy- Jed's Other Poem(Beautiful Ground) :: get me!
"you said i'd wake up dead drunk alon in the park, i called you a liar but how right you were"
simple. poetic. simple. i guess when you hit rock bottom, you can only go under now.
A Fine Frenzy- Almost Lover :: get me!
"goodbye my almost lover, goodbye my hopeless dream"
haha, so easy to relate to this song. heck, its so easy to get that line stuck on your head, especially with the tune. if you do listen to it, don't say i didn't warn you! its just so dramatic! and that's what makes a keeper. and i just love the lyrics, its such a tearjerker! not to mention it also sounds like the theme song of masochists... i should know.
Massive Attack- Teardrop :: get me!
"love, love is a verb, love is a doing word"
what's the differential? time for the big LP.. Lumbar Puncture. but the blood work is negative for everything! then what are you standing around there for?! go do some more tests! and chase, go to his house, check out what pills he's popping.
Alicia Keys- No One :: get me!
"when the rain is pouring down and my heart is hurtin, you will always be around this i know for certain"
i love her. and i love the all out performance she gave last new year's eve. i love how she can radiate energy and strength. i always fall for that trick. yeah, and my other weaknesses are chocolates and chinito guys. haha! classic ad. anyway, this song of her makes me feel good. this is testament that shouting out lines, when mashed with a set interval of looping thumps, works. that and you'd have to have the name alicia keys.

gad, i'm getting older!

-- goes well with a broken heart. haha!

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

2007-12-25T10:03:00.000-08:00

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.

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...
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.
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.
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!!!!
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone- Cold White Christmas :: get me!
this is my song.
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?
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.

8x7 :: life's a bitch

2007-10-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

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.

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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)

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

2007-09-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

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.

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!
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.
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-
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

8x5 :: the ununderstood will always be mysteriously liked

2007-09-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

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...

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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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).
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

8x4 :: in memoriam

2007-09-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

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.

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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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...
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!
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.

8x2 :: telling the tale of unrequited love

2007-08-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

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.

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...
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.

8x1:: cause introductions are almost mandatory

2007-08-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

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:

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

some things go away expectedly...

2007-05-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

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

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

2007-05-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

...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...

just my luck, i had a blind date

2007-05-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

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.

pigmatize!

2007-05-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

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

sourgraping?

2007-05-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

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...

importing excellence in my sequel

2007-05-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

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!

blogger and multiply, not the perfect marriage

2007-05-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

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.

what's in the mail today?

2007-05-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

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!

its black!

2007-05-06T23:57:00.000-07:00

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.

know what sucks...?

2007-05-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

...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...

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

2007-04-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

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!!

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

2007-04-23T22:59:00.001-07:00

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.

big boys don't cry...

2007-04-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

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...

a digicam in the middle of vegas

2007-04-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

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!

decrypting processors

2007-04-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

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. ;-)

rambling collage

2007-04-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

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.

300 did me a month ago

2007-04-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

...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!

news that make the news

2007-04-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

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.

don't you just hate it...

2007-04-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

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.

i am twenty one years old

2007-03-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

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!

sandwiched and sticky

2007-03-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

there are times, which i now realize is more like an epoch and not isolated packets of days, when you just wanna get days over with to get to another day which you hope is something out of the norm and is therefore worth waiting for, and in a lot of cases, fast-forwarding-for(a-la click).

you know you're in a rut when you're in that "time" of your life. it could get so bad that sometimes even the simplest things are blown out of proportion just so it could qualify for that slowly-deteriorating criterion of highly-special days; which in turn would lead to a gradual deterioration of the quality of "special" but which, conversely, would lead to a sharp, even exponential, increase in fake, and for the most part almost always passes off as genuine(but upon closer inspection is still, in all actuality, fake), laughter and smiles. i didn't mean to pass off the previous sentence as a complex mathematical equation plucked from one of the charts of life.

and what's sad is some people think that that is normal, that that is all life has to offer, that that is the point of being, and that that is simply that; and what's scary is its alot easier to accept that and join in on the growing ranks of those, than to escape the seeming quicksand of despair; and perhaps the most horrifying of all is that this rabid thinking is an unremovable part of the human psyche, meaning at some point or another you and me and the pope wil experience it, whether or not you realize that you are or have been through it is entirely dependent on how well you are immersed into the dipping pools of the empathy of which the world is full of and a fool of.

and if you have been reading closely, or not even reading closely but rather if you are even just about ankle-deep into the afore-mentioned body of metaphoric liquid, you should come to the realization that the author of this post full of over-used cliches is in that "rut" which he affectionately described.

so yes, please kill him now and end his misery and pitiful existence.

trial by ache

2007-03-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

i always thought my teeth were invincible ripping machines... until about a week ago.

i felt my right, lower molar aching about midday last saturday. i shrugged it off thinking it'll just go away, as what does usually happens anyway. but it didn't go away completely, it subsided a little sporadically over the next few days.

by monday, right about before i left the office, the ache came back in full glory. my golly-gosh-gash! it was so freakin' painful(and i do have a high tolerance for pain, bordering on becoming a masochist in fact. but i'm not saying masochists have a high tolerance for pain...). the kind which makes your legs cringe and your head float and your tears swell. its like eating through your very soul. uh, well, no. that's a little bit too melodramatically exaggerated for a toothache, but you get the picture. i took two advils and still nothing. the drive home was a nightmare. i got my bro to look-up an emergency dentist nearby but it i'm uninsured and its waaaaaay too expensive. he's going to charge me 900 bucks for the root canal, 400 to plug it up, and an additional ??? amount for the crown(which could come in silver, gold or ivory or any bling-bling metal). so i got a bottle of tylenol instead.

but tuesday was worse, the ache was there since i woke up. it didn't let up even with three tylenols(don't do that guys, it could potentially cause stomach bleeding). so by midday, i had to leave the office and went on to search for a dentist who accepts walk-ins who won't charge emergency fees. the only one i found(well, more like the only one i went to) couldn't see me til the morning after. so i went home to just sleep it off and hope tomorrow comes soon enough.

but my aunt found this dentist, a filipina, who was willing to see me. only thing was, she was all the way across town. made it to her clinic, and upon examining my tooth, concluded that she can't do anything yet cause it already had an infection(read: abscess). so it had to be dried out first. so that means it'll be a week before she could pull it the tooth out(by this point, i was all for tooth extraction, root canals are just waaay to expensive. not to mention there's no guarantee that its not gonna cause me anymore problems). so, to help with the pain, she also prescribed me narcotics aside from the antibiotics for the bacteria.

for the normal person, that would've worked. but i'm a-b-normal, so it didn't work quite as well(that's why i'm not abnormal, there are still some lines to be crossed/removed before i become one). the antibiotics prescribed to me were literally old hat for my bacteria. it weak for me cause since i was young, i have been bombarded again and again with progressively more and more powerful antibiotics, thanks to my super easy to infect tonsils. the last culture test for back in manila about three years ago showed about only three types of antibiotics which would still work great for me, the others are already too weak for my bacteria and therefore may not be able to get rid of them.

so basically, i spent wednesday, thursday and friday at home nursing the throbbing pain in my mouth when i'm awake. oh, did i mention that my gums developed a sore as well? perfect. the narcotics they gave me wasn't that strong(or i guess the pain was really that strong), but it did put me to sleep whenever i take it. so the only time i was able to work was on the hour when the narcotics wear off which means its time for the next pill and the next wait till it kicks in.

now, i realized that it hasn't been my tooth that's been aching for a long time now but my gums. oh well, same difference. anyway, since by friday the pain was still there, it was time to change the antibiotics that as given to me because it was indeed to weak for me. so the dentist gave me pennicillin instead. erm, to tell you the truth, this is the first time i've ever taken pennicillin. and that's good cause that means my bacteria doesn't know pennicillin yet and so it has a better chance to get rid of them.

and yes, finally, saturday, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most painful, its now a stable 1! i'm finally able to eat again. i still feel it, though, but its not really aching anymore, its like a reminder now that i have a toothache.

so, my message to all of you is... no amount of money can ever pay for the pain a toothache can cause. so tooth fairy, don't insult what i went through with a quarter.

Giveaway of the Day

2007-03-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

i keep watch on a lot of websites, see if they're worth any good. today, one of them stood out from the rest.

> GIVEAWAY OF THE DAY <

though i've been watching it for weeks now, i thought that the programs they were featuring were so-so until today. they are giving away aston, a desktop replacement program. i'm a bit weary of installing stuff on my newly-reformatted box but what the heck.

so i installed it and i was blown away at the fact that it didn't just replace my desktop, it also made load times even faster! woot!

so, thank you GOTD. you just won me over.

and they also giveaway a game each day, if that's your cup of tea.

hurry, last time i looked, today's giveaway will expire 6 hours from now.

reformat, the lessons learned.

2007-02-27T21:05:00.000-08:00

i reformatted my pc again. and looking back, i've actually learned a lot of lessons from tinkering with the computer:

1.) if it ain't broke, don't fix it. so true, my device drivers were all working fine but then i dropped by the windows update site which listed it had a newer version for my driver(my mouse in particular, i know, who slaps in a driver for his mouse? i do...). so i installed it and the next thing i know, i couldn't get past the loading screen.
solution: safe mode+system restore

2.) who guard the guards? i'm a security freak. i have a firewall, an antivirus program and an anti-spyware up all the time. but aside from that, i've got tons of other anti-spyware/system mechanics/registry editors/optimizers/root kit detectors that they have become the spyware and slowed down my system considerably when i run all of them.
solution: trust in the holy trinity(firewall, antivirus, antispyware)+safe web habits

3.) beauty is high-maintenance. in an effort to tweak my desktop and UI to the fullest, and at the same time easiest, extent, i have gone a little bit too far. far enough that system's overall performance has taken a hit. i have a 256mb graphics card and a full gig of RAM, both of which should be more than enough to run daily tasks smoothly, but it didn't, it lagged consistently especially when opening and closing windows, not to mention it would bring focus to other windows unexpectedly.
solution: stick to the basics(gah, dare i say it?)+trust microsoft's own "enhancers"

4.) too much is too much. let's face it, we want our machines to be all-in-ones. gad, i just realized that wanting that is like being a parent who wants an athletic, smart, popular, good-looking and over-acheiving kid. geez. i slapped on a lot of cards and components on my computer and it got unstable, caused by sometimes incompatible devices.
solution: give your kid a break... errr, disable unneeded and deprecated devices.

5.) one is more than enough. i used to have a lot of browsers. but then, i only really use ie.
solution: just ones.

6.) cherishing keepsakes pays off. i still have files which dates back to about 7 years ago... and its fun to look through them every once in a while. papers dating back to my 3rd year in high school is a source of laughs for me on those boring days.
solution: invest on hard drives

7.) reanimation is no easy feat. i backed up my hard main hard drives, which have all my programs, to the big one which i use as a file repository. now that i've got a clean disk, i want to restore some of those programs(mainly games, hehe) back so i can run them. i don't have the installer discs with me so that means i have to track down each program's files(and temporary files) and registry key entries(i can't just import my old registry, that'll just be a disaster), and copy those to my newly installed os. so far, one program has been reanimated. T_T
solution: have installer discs/have lots of patience

as a reward for reading through my list of reformatting woes, i present you with themes for your pc. i'm sticking to basics this time around so i won't be doing the thing i posted here. anyway, i found these two themes in the internet, they are from microsoft so all you gotta do is download then double-click them to install! enjoy!

Royal Theme- this is the media center's default glossy theme. when asked where to install it, just leave it at windows to install it in the default themes directory.
Black Royale Theme- black version of the media center theme. its actually a promo theme for zune but it just looks way cool.

and if those aren't enough, somehwere in the bowels of microsoft.com are hundreds of files which you can actually download for free and use! you just have to find the right way and be patient in navigating it. i got an egyptian and a dog theme there which are absolutely wonderful. i'd post the link but i forgot which page they came from. T_T

aja!

2007-02-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

ajax shmajax! here, i will discuss how to create the ajax effect(close to) without the x(xml). ajax stans for Asynchronous Javascript And XML. so... it should technically be just aj, but aja sounds better. =p

why use aja, or ajax for that matter? the answer is, to enhance the user experience and to relieve the server of some load. by using aja[x], you can actually put in more data into a page that has already been served. that way, you don't have to serve the whole page again just to change a single word. and if you are an expert on DOM(Document Object Model), you can, theoretically, just serve a single page and hand it off to aja[x] to get the data then modify the page elements by following the DOM.

i will get to the limitations later on, but for now let's start rolling...

first, lets make the page that's going to be served...

<html>
<head>
<title>AJA!</title>
</head>

those are the mandatory things, here's where you start paying attention...

<body>
<p>This is a demo of aja:<br>
<input id="add" type="button" value="Show lines!" onclick="aja_do('add')">
<input type="button" value="Clear" onclick="aja_do('clear')">

here we have two buttons, what you should take note of is the onclick attribute. once you click on the button, it will execute the code inside the onclick attribute, in this case its a call to a function named "aja_do", passing to it a parameter, either "add" or "clear" depending on what you click.

<div style="border: solid 1px black">
<span id="container">This is where all the magic will happen.</span>
</div>

then we have a div tag, its just to have a pretty box(sort of). inside it, we have a span tag and we gave it an id of "container" and some text in it. the span tag is important (cause of the id attribute) and it must have the id attribute if you want to make your life easier.

<script type="text/javascript">
function aja_do(action) {
var jsel = document.createElement('script');
jsel.type = 'text/javascript';
jsel.src = 'get_text.php?action='+action;
document.body.appendChild(jsel);
}
</script>
</body>
</html>

finally, just before we close the body tag and the document, we sneak in a bit of javascript. yes, you can put script tags outside of the head. but let's concentrate on the script tag and what it holds.

the script tag declares a function. this is the function which the buttons above call when you click them. let's take a look at it line by line:

var jsel = document.createElement('script');

this creates a script tag, DOM style, and assigns the variable jsel to hold it so we can poke it, otherwise, its as good as lost.

jsel.type = 'text/javascript';

then we tell the browser that the script tag we created is text/javascript type, of course, we're using javascript after all.

jsel.src = 'get_text.php?action='+action;

then we tell the browser that the script tag will be loaded from a file and the file can be found there. what's different here is that the source is not the traditional "script.js", as what you'd expect from loading a javascript file. we tell it to load "get_text.php". its been known for a long time that you can load php(or asp, or whatever file you want) files as javascript files or css files(loading a php-fied css file is a quick and easy way to make customizable skin colors for websites), so thats what we're doing now. but the we add to the source some more parameters, namely the "action", which is the parameter which the buttons passed on to aja_do. so we're telling it to load either get_text.php?action=add or get_text.php?action=clear.

document.body.appendChild(jsel);

then we have this final bit which basically "executes" the code inside get_text.php. if you notice i used document.body. that is the reason why i put the script inside the body and not the head. some browsers only append to the body if the script instructing it to append something to it is a direct child. so placing it in the head means its not a direct child anymore, likewise with placing it inside a div tag inside the body. it has to be a direct child of the body, so its convenient to place it just before the closing body tag or right after the opening body tag. though personally, i put my scripts in the head tag and then append the code to a dummy placeholder like a span tag.

so that's your static page, you can save it as aja_test.html. now lets take a look at get_text.php

<?php
$action = trim($_GET['action']);
if(!empty($action)) {
$output_string = '';
?>

the opening section. if you remember we passed what we're going to do, either add or clear, so here we take what we passed and make sure that it is there. we also initialize the variable output_string which will hold what we're going to display.

var con = document.getElementById('container');

then we leave php for a bit to put in a bit of javascript. the only thing you have to remember is that instead of formatting your data in php for html output, your doing it for javascript output, that's why proficiency in DOM is a huge advantage. in this case, we make a variable and use it as something like a pointer to the "container". if you remember, the "container" is in the static page and its a span tag. this allows us to easily to poke that tag whichever way we want.

<?php
if($action == 'add') {
$output_string = "Server time is: ".date("h:i:sa");
?>
var newline = document.createElement('br');
con.appendChild(newline);
var append_text = document.createTextNode('<?php echo $output_string; ?>');
con.appendChild(append_text);
<?php
}

ok, if what we got is add, we put in what we're going to display in output_string, then leave the realm of php and get into javascript. first, we create a newline,so we create a "br" tag DOM style. then we add it inside the container. next we create in javascript the text that we made earlier, and then add it inside the container. and that's it, we have successfully added stuff in the other page! yay!

elseif($action == 'clear') {
$output_string = "Server time when box was reset: ".date("h:i:sa");
?>
while(con.firstChild) con.removeChild(con.firstChild);
var new_text = document.createTextNode('<?php echo $output_string; ?>');
con.appendChild(new_text);
<?php
}

but if we're going to clear, the next block handles it. again, we create the text in php, then enter javascript land. what the first line does is it clears everything inside "container" DOM-style. while container still has a "child" or content, it will remove it. then like the one up there, we create the text in javascript and insert it in the "container". if you take a look at the page, the contents of the box was cleared and just has a single line.

}
?>

then we close the page.

and there you have it, a crash-course in aja and a little DOM. now my example above, if you check it out, absolutely makes no sense. ideally, the php file would do more complicated stuff(read: access database) and return more sensible material. but that will have to do cause i don't have anymore database hosting. if you want to really see it in action, take a look at the gallery from my previous post, thats where my database hosting went.

if you check out my example, you'd notice something is off... namely the time is the same for each line everytime you click a button. is this a bug? nope! well, technically no. this is the effect of your browser caching pages! if you examine the code carefully and take a look at the process from the browser's eye, it looks like we are loading two javascript files: get_text.php?action=add and get_text.php?action=clear. the browser doesn't know its just a single file with different parameters, for the browser, it looks its two different files cause they don't look the same. so, the first time it loads the two files, it makes two different copies in its cache. so the next time you click a button again, it serves the one in its cache, so the time in the line that's added doesn't get updated. and that makes sense cause that is the expected behaviour of a browser.

so you're screaming at me asking why use this at all? the answer is simple, when you do use it, what you're going to use it for will not be anything like my example. in reality, what you will load will be more like file.php?id=1 ... file.php?id=890345 cause you are most likely going to query a database or something. get the picture? although yeah, ajax will not have this problem... =D but this is definitely a lot simpler and easier to implement than ajax(have you met JSON? no? well, he's usually the guy with a SOAP in hand.).

and as a closer, there is this quirk in ie6... it doesn't like loading javascript files dynamically. so sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. it depends. if someone could provide more details on this problem and a possible fix, please share it to the world! one odd thing, if you put an alert anywhere inside aja_do, ie6 will execute the code. i'm not sure why, but that's what it does. i've made some headway into this problem, was able to fix it for the avant browser, which is based on the ie6, but it still doesn't seem to work with earlier versions of ie6(either that or my test ie6 is seriously screwed).

see it in action here:
http://fapri.ifastnet.com/aja_test.html
get the files here:
http://fapri.ifastnet.com/aja.zip

what do you think? got a better idea? let the world know! and yeah, one reason i'm writing this is to contribute my little thoughts to the world(erm, google...) which has taught me a lot over the past few months.

gallery 0.3

2007-02-21T22:04:00.000-08:00

in my work, i have to install a photo gallery for some clients. now there are a lot of open source solutions out there and leading the pack, at least for me and what i've encountered as a php developer, is menalto's gallery or simply gallery 2.

now, gallery 2 is a feature-rich solution with a ton of bling-blings and a kicking support/development team. its a great solution. however, as with the nature of my job, i'm asked to deploy a photo gallery in an already built-up website. if you're not already seeing the problem, well the problem is.. gallery 2 puts the photo gallery in the middle of the spotlight. what i need to deploy is somewhere near the balconies.. in short, gallery 2 is nice if you need a website which shows off a ton of photos. otherwise, its an absolute pain to edit to make it fit your needs.. and don't even get me started on trying to edit the templates to the current website's template.

other solutions rely on purely php and file manipulation. while i have nothing against that, the programmer in me just can't swallow the fact that there's no database used. though these solutions tend to look purr-ty...

so for the past projects where i needed to slap in a photo gallery, i built my own photo gallery system. this system is php-based and stores the relevant information in a mysql database, since the websites i work on always have a mysql database anyway and if they don't i create one for them.. hehe, and stores the images in a directory. upon upload, three images are created, a thumbnail-sized image, a default-sized image and the original-sized image. it may take up some more space but your server will definitely thank you when your user uploads 10MP pictures.

over the projects, i got tired of manually editing each line of code to fit the new website i'm going to slap it on. so, i worked on a more generalized version. the result is... gallery 0.3

when you take a look at it, it may not look like much. but if you login as the owner/admin, then you'll see its true capabilities. and developers out there who have to "skin" a lot sites will find that the one page that matters in the gallery is so easy to customize. tags are easy to move around the page and just about everything, from the image sizes to the number of thumbnails to the image used for overlaying some thumbnails can all be customized from the admin page.

however, i'm still not making it available for public release cause there's still work to be done like user groups and permissions. as it is right now, it will work well to serve as a photo gallery for a specific website(or blog... as long as there's only one(or one group) owner). as a photo gallery for the planet? not yet...

and probably the main reason i'm releasing a "preview" is this bug has gotten me stumped... if you're using IE6, head on to the site and you'll find out... i have half a mind to take away "seamless reloading" feature(oh yeah, for most browsers, clicking on a thumbnail won't reload the page) for IE6.

it seems to be caused IE6 not liking loading an additional javascript file dynamically... i use aja, if you're asking why. its ajax without the xml part. more about this in a future post, its a totally awesome way of doing ajax without the additional burden of coding xml.

if you have any idea on a possible workaround for that, PLEASE let me know!

check out the site here:

http://fapri.ifastnet.com/gallery/gallery.php

if you'd like a copy of the gallery, send me a note and i'll send you one. if you're interested in helping me out or just want to check out the code, send me a note as well.

there's a grey in e.r.

2007-02-16T22:15:00.000-08:00

its official, i'm hooked on grey's anatomy... and i don't care if you say its just a rehashed E.R., there's just something different about it. different in the sense that its almost not like a medical drama...

in fact, its feels a lot like one tree hill, though they might not share the same storyline, plot, character dynamics... i guess what made me say that was how each episode is told. there's something about it which reminds me of OTH, might be because both shows usually start and end with a voice-over from the lead character which speaks undeniable truths. yeah, maybe that's it...

...or maybe the television has finally gotten to me after all those years of having been able to resist its hypnotic, glassy stare. maybe...

...

...or maybe because i just love ellen pompeo...
...maybe...

will you keep me?

2007-02-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

this ranks high in my playlist of always played songs...

The World is our Playground and We Will Always be Home
Up Dharma Down

You're my sunshine, and my occasional rain
We become divine after every pain
So won't you please sit this through?
Because everyday we find a reason to stay
If words are too few to keep horizons in view
Will you go or stay and grow?

Standing on the edge between crazy and sense
Remember what I said
Nothing has to end
Won't you think it over?
I'm not so good with words
I don't think you heard me
If words are too few to keep horizons in view
Will you go or stay and grow?

Will you stay?
Will you go
Will you grow with me?

Now that you've found me
Where are we gonna go from here?

I swear I belong, this is where I belong
I swear I belong, this is where I belong
I swear I belong, this is where I belong
I swear I belong, this is where I belong
I swear I belong

Now that you've found me
Where do we go from here?
Now that you've found me

Will you keep me?

ps. thanks to my second-cousin iwi's friend, elyu, at http://elyu.multiply.com/ for posting the lyrics here.

i'd like you to meet my...

2007-02-03T23:09:00.000-08:00

...boyfriend.

for the record, he's my first and only so far.

his name is Race. lol, weird huh? named like that bodyguard guy from johnny quest, if you still remember that cartoon, let's see, i think that guy's name was... race bannon. well, anyway i've got my own race who's gonna look after me now. *kilig*

before we got acquainted, i've been seeing him around a lot of times. here and there, i dunno, i guess it was just a matter of time. fro mthe looks of it, he's pretty popular, a head-turner even, but he just didn't appeal to me back then. i mean he looked like he was a nice guy and everything, a gentlemen, but there just wasn't that oomph-ness which made me go ga-ga over him at first.

it was a cold night when i saw him in an outdoor shop in downtown. i thought to myself, heck why not approach this guy, who i can't seem to shake off, and get to know him. as i got closer, i found myself liking him, more so when we got past after the mandatory exchange of 'how ya doin' and comments on the weather. its like being hit in the head with a bottle, you know? like, why didn't you walk up to him sooner?! after just about a half hour, i was madly hooked on him.

like me, he wasn't born here in america. he is originally from japan but he came here a long time ago. so he's very americanized. i'm still a wee bit taller, but for the most part, we're almost the same height, though he's definitely leaner. we just look perfect together. he's sophisticated, no-nonsense type of guy but absolutely knows how to have fun, and did i mention good-looking? lol...

so after about an hour of hooking up, we became an us. everything was so mutual, like those lines in the movies. 'where have you been all my life?' yeah, everything suddenly had a place in the universe. and i was in heaven.

we went home past midnight, i snuck him into the house, but unfortunately my aunt was still up. long story short, they accepted him. what a surprise, i guess if it really is meant to be, everything will give way. so that night, he moved in with me. hihi. all i can say is, whether you want it fast or slow, he's absolutely awesome to ride. haha. especially in the ups and downs... so positively... uh, next paragraph please... haha

i'm just glad that i took the risk that night and bared my whole heart out for the world to mock. i'm thankful that i did. =)

though he gets a little jealous when i tell him about my other guys, even though there never really was an "us" with those other guys. he's especially jealous of Revs...

and if you're wondering how we look together, here's a pic for the curious: (and yea, i'm putting on pounds... not the currency)

...and if you're disappointed that it wasn't what you thought it was, well... i'm gonna be single for life, remember?! haha... or maybe until thirty, whichever comes first. haha. =p

his full name, by the way, is honda accord. ;-) and yes, we do name our cars, my first was revs(toyota revo) of course, then for about a couple of months here i used neville(pontiac bonneville). my bro has tanya(nissan xterra), and the other cars in our family have names which don't depart that much from their real names. we had a car before, a tamaraw fx, which we named darna, cause they used her in the car's commercials way back in the day, lol. why name your car? apart from its easier to reference, it sort of gives you a certain level of comfort in that you make yourself believe that you understand each other. plus, they're great converstationists(read: listeners) during long drives. race is the first i can truly call my own, and with getting him, i am now a member of the american working class(people who are in debt up to their eyeballs, lol. technically defined as those with a credit report[and score]... lol.).

SCARY epic movie

2007-02-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

yeah, you read that right. epic movie is the SCARIEST scary movie. and i mean that in a bad way.

there's this trend in the whole scary movie franchise wherein they try to outdo the previous film's shortness, while i'm not sure if this if rom the same guys who brought us scary movie, epic movie definitely took up the challenge. it probably just clocks in at an hour. and that is probably the longest hour you'll ever spend in a movie theater. its like, you want the hour to be over just to get out.

the humor is way too over the top, its too lame that its not making people laugh anymore. and in a theater packed with americans, that's saying a lot(no offense to americans, but really, chicken-cross-road really is your sort of humor. and i enjoy that type of humor, though i like british humor more).

perhaps the only people who will enjoy this are the movie buffs(who call themselves that but in reality have only watched a couple of films in their life and read about the rest of what they know in the internet) who loves testing their movie trivia. but for me, it falls waaay short of it being a challenge. its like a big chunk of narnia held together by a lot of pieces from other movies.

the only way you'd get to enjoy this movie is if you download it over the internet, and have a couple of beers before hitting the play button. heck, if i did that, then this review might have turned out a little better.

anyway, i've got a really special post coming up... =D

a tsunami of laughs

2007-01-26T19:18:00.000-08:00

...because everybody could use a laugh.

and i got the idea of using the word tsunami from dwrt 99.5 hit fm from back there. its the radio station i listen too in the office, only because its the clearest one i could get. anyway, they just underwent a station reformat, so no, they're no longer the magic 89.9 copycat with british/aussie acents. and they have this morning radio show which tries to be what the morning zoo crew was before they got busted by the mtrcb... and they're not that bold and daring yet. but that may change, if king dj logan's infectious laughter rubs off on them somehow. anyway, i think its that time of the year back in the philippines where listeners vote for their fave radio stations. so hit fm has been running shameless commercials, which might make you think they're still trying to be magic, by spoofing other radio programs. i love their spoof of monster's chico & delamar(?? did i get her name right?), those two are just laughin on air whenever i tune into their show, its like their living in this so, so perfect world where everyone wears pink. they also spoofed dr. love's wave, though its not as good as their other spoof. hehe.

anyway, may the following videos bring much joy to you.

..and a musical comedian, great!

you are just going to love this, watch the shades!

and an even earlier music video from my "idol".

another episode??

2007-01-24T20:04:00.000-08:00

it was about this time last night when we got a call from my aunt in the hospital. my grandma was rushed to the hospital, again. the second time in less than a month.

she's stable now, but twice within two weeks is not good. my aunt back home is flying in this friday, a month earlier than planned.

well, your prayers will be geatly appreciated, thanks. c",)

bituing walang ningning

2007-01-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

may mga bituing walang ningning.
andun lamang sila,
sa kalawakan.
nananahimik, hindi umiimik.
hindi nagpaparamdam,
ngunit nagmamatiyag.

sila'y mga bituing walang ningning,
nagtatago sa likod ng liwanag ng iba.
nagpupumilit na mangitim sa kadiliman.
at ayaw magpapansin, ayaw magpakita,
ayaw, magningning.

may mga bituing walang ningning,
na nanood lamang.
hindi nakikibahagi, hindi nakikiisa,
hindi nagbibigay init.
sila'y malamig, at walang pakialam.

pero minsan may mga dumarating,
at sa kanilang pagdating,
ang mga bituing walang ningning
ay biglang naguumapaw ng liwanag,
sobra-sobrang ningning,
na sobra-sobrang init,
at sobra-sobrang kislap.

at ang mga bituing ito,
na minsa'y walang ningning,
ngayo'y nag-uumapaw,
at nagsasaya,
at nagungungutitap,
at higit sa lahat,
nagniningning,
doon sa kalawakan na puno ng mga bituin.

sorry, had to get this out, wouldn't let me rest...

maybe life is a month too long

2007-01-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

its been almost a month since my last post.

that was deliberate.

i wanted to see how much things, how different today is, how much life has progressed: after a month's time. of course its not a good idea to do it within the interval where christmas and new year and my birthday is all in, but what the heck, if you leave those out, its still surprising, what you're left with.

the biggest surprise which eclipsed everything else in that one month period happened one early january 5 friday morning. my grandma called was calling out my bro from her bathroom. i heard her call but when i heard my bro getting up from bed, i went back to a semi-sleeping state. when i finally got up, a fire truck had just pulled over our driveway. my grandma suffered a blood clot in her brain. it wasnt a stroke, although another 20 minutes of not being attended to would have turned that clot into a stroke. she was rushed to the mayo clinic hospital(i had to include the name, i thank them for their splendid service... and don't you guys think that the name is a bit contradictory? clinic then hospital? lol. kinda cute though) and stayed there for the weekend. so she's fine now but she lost her confidence in herself. she doesn't want to be left alone, which is understandable of course. we're not complaining but i'd like her to be less afraid and a little more confident of herself. in due time sure she'll gain it back. she's a resilient one, and i'm proud of her.

over the holidays, me and my bro found ourselves reigniting one of our oldest passions in our relatively young life. remote control cars. we both gave each other one last christmas. both tamiya's. and no, tamiya isn't that small thing which you put in circuits that can't turn on its own but rather have this spinner-like things at the edges to make it turn. please, tamiya wasn't originally known for that. in simple terms, tamiya is like the honda of rc's. they make great rc's and they're known for it. well, we got each other the lowest type of rc they offer, the qd or quick drives. they're like toys really, they're not customizable and you can't do much with them aside from making the dog go nuts. oh and rc's are not toys. to say so is like saying the mona lisa is a photograph. so my bro wasn't satisfied with the performance of the qd's so he got another one, a real rc. the one he got is from traxxas, the american counterpart of tamiya. its beautiful. it tops out at 35mph(about 55kmh). its fast, and it loves rolling over my rc. T_T mind you at that speed, its definitely not for kids. in fact, some rc's could go as fast as 70mph(or about 110kmh). so yeah, you could theoretically take it to the free way with you under its own power and control it from your car.

last new year officially marked my 2nd year since i awoke the wonderful world of healthy living. it was on new year's two years ago when i started my very first diet... the no rice diet. i did it for about a month and a half, and after that, its been a whatever goes home-concocted diet scheme. frap diet anyone? lol. i'll probably write about it sometime. so yeah, happy second anniversary to me!

as for "me". i've been and i still am in an emotional roller coaster. "i" and "emotional" shouldn't be used in the same sentence. heh. right now, i "centered" my life on my work. cause thats all i have here, apart from family. so when a day in work doesn't go too well, i'm a wreck, if all goes well, i'm happy. i guess this is the hardest part in moving, how do you re-establish your life?

yes, 2006 was a particularly tough year for everyone. it was a year of change, massive changes at that, and a year of looking for hope. 2007 is gonna be a year of more changes, changes for hope. and its gonna be good.

the henges are complete

2006-12-23T16:24:00.000-08:00

the short story i've been working on has now been uploaded. took me a while to finalize the ending. anyway, click here to read. its in my deviant, i decided against posting it here as well cause of its sheer length(12 pages, T_T).

anyway, new template, not the end of my tweaking.

new playlist, so kristmasy, my playlist for the holidays.

and with that, i bid everyone a joyous holiday season. may you find what you're looking for over the next couple of weeks.

life is life & we're goin to die, trust me on that.

2006-12-12T17:53:00.000-08:00

two shows i follow thought it would be nice to have episodes which talked about life. there's one tree hill where lucas' heart stopped and he was met by a guide in the form of his uncle, and there's 7th heaven where eric camden found himself in heaven and was met by her mother-in-law. these two episodes had the uncanny ability to sort of put life under an electron microscope.

what is life anyway? that question, one of the oldest perhaps, still doesn't have a defeinitive answer. and it will never have one for as long as each of us has the ability to think for our own; each of us will always come up with a different answer. but what are we supposed to make of life? well dear reader, welcome to the world. that's what we are here for. hold on, that's the answer to the first question! what is life? to find out what we're supposed to make of it and do it! there! now, i can die...

in our search for that elusive answer, we fall back to basing our definition of life with the world. well, we live in this world after all. but no matter which way you look at it, our life is bigger than this world. its for the simple reason that if you take away your life, then there is no world for you. so to describe or compare life in terms of the world would be useless. what people do is they compare life with life. but once you do that, you find that you will be bombarded by conscience and moralty. or in simpler terms, what's right and what's wrong. and that perhaps may be the key, to answering the first question. so, what is right and what is wrong.

if you are going to fall back to basing your definition of what's right and what's wrong with the world, then your definition of what's right and wrong is 'its nonexistent'. that there is no right and no wrong in this world. there is only what's (socially) acceptable and (socially) unacceptable. this definition is passable, since that is the reality in this world. but you'll never find your answers if you keep on falling back to the world to answer your questions.

lucas kept asking his uncle what difference does being nice meant. he felt that no matter how good people may be, bad things keep happening to them. so what difference does being good in this world possibly have? why does the world seem so unfair? then, his uncle showed him how the world would have been had he not done this or done that. ok, its a tv show, but its a close enough imitation of life.

eric camden, the reverend, was greeted by people, most of whom he didn't know, upon getting into heaven. and each detailed how it is that his actions had affected them or their loved ones who were still living. some even offered glimpses into the future of good things that'll come to pass just because of his living his life. ok its another tv show, but two tv shows? my, its becoming a more accurate imitation of life.

the things we do have a profoundly great effect on our life and in this world. imagine this, as you were preparing to leave one morning, you remembered that your wallet was still in your room so you went back for it. cause of that, you missed the bus and you muttered out loud your exasperation. the girl standing next to you heard you and couldn't resist smiling. the guy across the street thought the girl was smiling at him. she is pretty cute so he decided to cross the street and approach the girl. but at the very moment he stepped off the curb, a car came around the corner and ran over him. traffic stopped on the street, thereby making you even more late than you originally were. more importantly, the president's convoy became one of the gridlock's casualties. a terrorist took the opportunity and assasinated the president. the country was thrown into chaos, and the a terrorist group took over. ten years later, the country became a powerful terrorist stronghold and thus forced the leader of a powerful nation to nuke the country. its amazing how all of us are intricately woven together, how no matter how far a person might be from another, there is a string of events which could be traced back to that person. and that, my friends, is the real internet.

we do not know for sure whether what we do is right or wrong. there is no standard definition for it is something which is defined in terms of life. so with that in mind, how do we do what's right or wrong? we don't. we just do. we just do AND hope that what we do is right. the world doesn't know hope. we know hope. that's why it can't define right or wrong, cause right and wrong is something that's not worldly. right and wrong is something which is related to our butt cheeks. its guts. you do what your right butt cheek tells you to do.

we must always remember to present our best self forward no matter what. no matter what, we are not living this world just for ourselves. with everything we do, someone else is definitely relying on us. even if you think your an unreachable island in the middle of an ocean. but consciously putting your best self forward is one of the hardest things to do. its like holding your breath, your gonna fail to do so every so often. and thats alright, you're supposed to fail doing it for yourself and as a reminder. but what's important is that you're gonna go back and do it again anyway.

persistence. the persistence to do, and the persistence to hope that what you're doing is right. its essential to have faith in ourselves, once we lose that, everything starts to fail one by one. and with each failure, we become less and less alive, til we become machines- just doing- doing without conviction, and acting without belief.

and perhaps thats what i want to share to you my dear reader. in this world, to strive on doing is what keeps us going, but the insistence upon ouselves to do what we feel to our bones is right is what keeps us living- that despite the seeming fruitlesness of putting our best self forward, despite that raging feeling of being unappreciated just keeps on swelling, despite that all the good you muster within you to share around you and yet bad things still happen to those undeserving of such, and that despite sadness, anxiety and selfishness fill this world to the brim, you are still there- doing good, never wavering, still hoping.

and if you are succesful in doing so, i congratulate you. you have acheived what most of us down here, finding our way, could only dream of doing. your help is appreciated, but it will only be in vain. we can't be shown the way, we have to find it for ourselves. but please believe in us, believe in each and everyone of us, that one day we will also find our way, then one day, we will find our way, hopefully before we die.

we too wanna live forever.

people from the web that i admire

2006-12-09T22:25:00.000-08:00

here are a couple of people i admire right now. ohhhh, before i go on, this isn't the next post i promised in my previous post. think of this as a prelude. haha.

here is a norweigan guy who's got wickedly good video editing skills. he's in animation school, or maybe used to be one, i dunno. hindi kami close. so, this is the video which basically catapulted him to "web-dom".

so he's great with video-editing. so what? well, in this next video, he basically used his skill and became an expert with the piano and the drums.

ok you must think i'm a pretty shallow person for declaring to the world that i admire who's great in patching together video. but his next video, which ain't like the previous two, wowed me. not because of his skill, though its still amazing here, but more because of his being a person here...

...and here is a person who is living. and he is living cause he exudes life in a way that a lot of us can't. here is a person who you can feel goodness somehow radiate off him. and here is a person who hasn't lost life to the world. here is a person who's not clouded enough by this world, that he remains a person who is like a vanguard of humanity. everyday, mankind degrades into nonhumanity. becoming more and more mechanical and robotic. where every "life" is just a template we got from those who came before us and which we will pass on to those who will come after us. and yet every now and then there are still some here and there like him. those who understand it AND adapt to it. they're not stupid enough to rebel against it and get crushed. sure, those guys are heroic, but they didn't even make a slight dent to the current world full of unhumanity. you see we all start out in life wanting to do something to make our mark in this world, but at some point we realize that making a mark in this world isnt as easy as we used to think, and so we back off. we lose that confidence in ourselves cause we fell into the template that was handed down to us and we didn't realize it for what it was. template? what template? uh gee, lemme see. you probably had some education. maybe a college degree. you might have a job. the very fact that you're reading this says you are using a computer which you is paid for by a source of income like a job or a business which you got into with some sort of education. now im not saying we shouldn't follow templates. what im saying is we should when we're being already controlled by a template and we should seek to reverse the situation. with this guy, he understood that we need to work, study, eat, sleep, cause thats the way this world is right now. but he didn't let those things rule his life and become his life. instead, he chose to rule over them. and for that, i admire him greatly. its hard enough to realize that we're in that situation, much less reverse it.. now the question remains, how the heck am i so sure that he really is that? im not sure. but thats the aura which i feel emanating from him.

now here is another guy you could visit by clicking here. you might have heard of him before, he's the guy who dances all over the world and uploads the videos to his site. do i have a philosophical reason for admiring him? well, none in particular. maybe same as with the guy above. oh wait, here's one: i admire him cause he actually had the guts to drop everything and pursue his... uh... ok, fine, dream. i was trying to recall the term used in the alchemist, no luck. i guess you could say that some of us do put off chasing after our dreams for later cause we might not have something to fall back on if it fails or because we might feel useless after acheiving it. well here's a guy who went after his dreams. after his first trip, he was broke. but he didn't care. and what do you know, fate indeed sided him(just as what's said in the alchemist) and made a company sponsor his second trip. so now, maybe he's not traveling anymore but hey, im sure he's enjoying being an "internet celebrity", or as being an inspiration to others. so yes, he took the risk. so this guy went after his dreams leaving the familiar. and after acheiving it, life still goes on. it didn't stop for him. now ain't that just nice?

so i better end this post now and pack bags. i just convinced myself to go on a trip. haha. nah. that's why i admire these two guys. i cant do what they did right now, cause if i can then i wouldn't be admiring them, right? sucks... off to bed for me again and prepare myself for the coming work week. T_T

let me tell you about...

2006-12-08T20:10:00.000-08:00

...my job.

all my colleagues are pretty much whites, those that i see everydayy. i cannot be absolutely sure, there might be someone other than thats hiding somewhere. also, i saw a non-white some day back, dunno if he's part of the office or was just droppin by. anyway, i dont mean to sound discriminatory. im not white, and im proud of it.

my desk is in front of my boss' door and the second floor landing, next to the humongously-sized bean bag, under an open air conditioner vent and behind the balcony which overlooks the welcome desk below and the over-sized inflatable snowman. on top of the desk is the only 19" CRT monitor you'll find in the whole office(i think), everyone else's using and LCD. after about 10 hours of staring at the screen, my eyes begin to hurt. i sure am glad i got an LCD screen here at home, that way i can stay up all night without hurting my eyes.

this past week i have been going into overtime. though we don't have overtime pay(i think) since im not in a human-labor service position. its taking me a while to get into the flow of things(programming whole day). and its partly caused by my my brain which is still in "short-attention-span" mode. months of idle living means the brain has to come up with something to keep it from being bored.

so basically a day in the office goes like this:
i come in around 8am. i'm one of the first 5 people to come in. i can't be the first, i don't have a key. colleagues come in around 9, boss around 10.
lunch? working lunch! working lunch time? when you get hungry! workmates usually leave around 12:30 to get some take-out, they'll be back in about 10mins. when you're caught up in work you sometimes forget to eat, which was what happened to one of our project managers who had lunch at 3pm. me? i prepare a sandwich or two, faster and easier to eat=more productivity!
people start leaving around 6. i leave, on average, around 7. i'm not a workaholic. its just that, IM A FILIPINO!!! and filipinos, generally, dont feel satisfied if they leave unfinished work behind. filipinos dont drop everything when the clock hits 5. filipinos... ok stop with the patronizing. ive been going into overtime cause im not yet anywhere near finished with my project which, by the way, was supposed to be due today. still is. i dont know what will happen. gad, its so frustrating!

---start geeky stuff---
i'm the new php guy. im their 2nd php developer. the senior php developer has been into php for like, i dunno, 10 years? the brought me on-board to basically handle whatever tasks my senior has no time to handle, that means pretty much everything php that comes their way cause he's working on a pretty amazing program right now which i'll share later. so my project for now is to expand on an existing website of a client. the website is that of an online shop. the client basically used an open source solution, namely OS Commerce(or open source commerce). its a full-featured website which does a ton of things. all a user has to do is download, install, then put in your settings and products, then you've got an online shop! easy to deploy. a real pain to expand or customize.

editing, expanding or customizing softwares or applications will always be a bummer. its not enough that you know the language its written in, you have to have tons of patience and the ability to connect seemingly unrelated things. you see, when modifying programs, you not only have to know by heart what it is that you want to modify so that you won't lose your focus, you also have to be able to think like the its original programmers. if you fail to make your mind work like theirs, you will most likely fail. each programmer has his own style of programming, and i'm not just talking about indentations and spacing here.

the programmers of oscommerce opted for an object-oriented approach. cool. throw in stored definitions, functions and procedures, you could end up with a nose-bleed if you don't keep your head. its very different from how we used to code in php back in school. you'd find little to no operations in the mixed php-html pages. in fact, it think it was trying to be a java-jsp emulation. of course, it cant do that, java-jsp is much more amazing when it comes to that. anyway, i finally got the hang of it and i'm picking up pace. and did i mention i was working with a live site? i have to make immediate backup restores each time something goes wrong. thats the other thing with modifying program. more often than not, porting it to a development machine won't always work. i tried to, but i had to give up cause it was going to take too much of my time just to set it up.

i also worked on fixing a bug for one of our designers. he was having trouble with the underlying php code cause it messes up the template he was working on. same case as with my project, the client got gallery, an open open source photo album and organizer. only this is much worse! i've never seen php code so unlike php! i had to add a line of code which went like: {if $user.isRegisteredUser} {/if} does that look anything like php to you??

so a plea to programmers out there, just because you're the one building it up from scratch doesn't mean you can program away with no regard to future mods and DOCUMENTATION!
---end geeky stuff---

but im not complaining about my work. i like it there, though i haven't gotten the chance to get up from my desk and get to know most of the guys. by the way, its a woman's world in our office. our bosses are guys, but our project managers are a couple of ladies. they're in charge of pretty much running everything internally(like hiring people and assigning projects). apart from them, the only other woman is our receptionist. the rest are guys. that's why we've got the football table thingy in the middle of the workplace. and that's also why the ladies get to redesign the whole place whenever they want(and as well as place scents in the restrooms and play an ambient background music).

as i said, i like the workplace. its fast-paced and everyone's doing something. its not a workplace where there's always somebody breathing down your neck. and i get to be a part of the office where dizzler was born! i think it was launched last monday, the day before my first day. they're still monitoring it closely cause they've been getting a lot of hits and a lot of emails(some bugs, some suggestions, a lot of stupid 'how come this doesn't work with me?'). so for the past week, whichever is set to autoplay on the dizzler's webpage would play out loud from one of the development team's speakers while they're debugging it. and i(well as everyone else in the office) am glad that its no longer sexyback! and by the way, it was coded using php! my senior is part of the development team and this is top priority, thats why im handling his overflows. probably when my my plates empty i'll go over and study it. its pretty slick, looks like its xml-ized. so, visit dizzler.com here!

lastly, about work...
somehow everytime i leave the office for home at night, i have a bigger-smile-than-last-nights' smile on my face, even though im not yet done with the project. i guess i somehow feel that finally, i feel like i'm doing something which i know is directly affecting someone else(alleviating the headache of the clent, hopefully). which brings me to the topic of my next post...

til my next post tomorrow!

ps. pardon my english, well, pardon my writing, here. if you've noticed, everything are like just phrases separated with '.'s and joined by ','s. i've been sleep-deprived(not really, not just used to it yet) lately and my fingers have a life of their own again.

the surfer has finally washed ashore

2006-12-05T19:57:00.000-08:00

i finally landed a job.

it was my first day today.

i have to readjust my body clock and sleep early, i've been so used to staying up until the wee hours of the morning. that simply won't do anymore.

so, if you see me online in ym, i'm probably in work and busy. though i can't put in a 'busy' status cause that's what we use in the office.

about my work? about 12 minutes away from my place, less time than it used to take me to get to the nearest starbucks back in manila. i'm under evaluation for 90 days so i better not mess up if i wanna keep the job and have good compensation. casual work environment, way too casual in terms of wheeling and dealing.

right now, i have my own project. i need to expand a website which uses OSC(Open Source Commerce). reminds me of my EAZIX days. i have to learn the overall structure and how each action is processed. so far so good. but i have a tight deadline. its due on friday. so, good luck to me!

anyway, i'll probably expound on this sometime in the near future, not now, i'm in hurry to get this over with and sleep.

oh, i'm one paragraph shy of finishing the short story i was writing which i mentioned in an earlier post. i probably won't mirror-post it here cause its way too long, longer than what i anticipated. so you'd have to hit my deviant if you wanna catch it. interesting read i think, i started with a story then it sort of kept on branching off.. hehe

go hoff into the bitch!

2006-12-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

david hasselhoff recently won the Big Comeback award in vh1's Big in '06. i couldn't agree with them more. i'm not a fan, but you gotta love the guy. he's a pervert, he knows it, he likes it, he flaunts it, he makes gazillions out of it and you just hafta love him for that. and 2006 was great for him, a movie(Click), a reality tv show(America's Got Talent), a single(Jump in My Car) and a musical(David Hasselhoff: The Musical, d-oh!).

i saw him guest in 'Whose Line is it Anyway' and they did a skit with a woman volunteer from the audience towards the end of the show. now i can't remember what they did, what i remember though is that at the end of the show, while they(including the volunteer) were waving their goodbyes and thank yous, the hoff had his arm around the woman and his fingers were inside her blouse. in front of the camera. and the girl wasn't enjoying it, you could see it in her face.

so before i close this post hoff, here's his music video(i used to like his car way back in the day, and i still do).

how-to: download mp3s in web 2.0

2006-12-03T00:40:00.000-08:00

the internet is a humongous resource. to say that mp3s could only be found in file sharing networks is a gross underestimation of the collective rectum's capacity.

first was the era of IRC. it was a great resource. but the danger of being infected or nuked was just too high. also, it takes forever to be served especially during high-traffic hours where those waiting in queue could easily reach to a hundred. furthermore, there are also a lot of arrogant operators. so great resource, but annoying to use.

then the file sharing networks took over. napster, then kazaa, then now limewire. i'll admit that these programs were great. but as time wore on and the music industry began to fight back, these programs started failing to deliver. it started with the quality of the downloads not being good. then the music industry, led by the RIAA, started cracking down on the users. So, less resource coming from the US. Then they went further as to flood the network with fakes and dummy copies. again, it became annoying as well.

then came rapidshare. with rapidshare, sharing became a centralized thing again, from being uncentralized with the p2p networks, with file hosters being the central server. of course these central servers didn't allow posting of copyrighted materials, but by the time they take it down, a lot of people would have already been able to download it. sounds great, but the downside is, its hard to come across the links to download the files. a query of '%song's name%.mp3 site:rapidshare.de' in google would usually yield nothing since the filenames of the mp3s are usually incoherent text. so you have to query '%song's name%' mp3 rapidshare' to be able to view pages where those appear. that means digging through pages upon pages of search results, usually forum posts. furthermore, after a month of inactivity, file hosters would usually delete the file making searching for mp3s a race against time. however, some sites still provides a great resource like cameron's blog here.

now with web 2.0, blogs have taken over. and i can assure you, you'll find a lot. this is a lot like the rapidshare thing except that the mp3s are hosted by the blog owners. you can find these by simply googling '%song's name% mp3 blogspot'. you will be treated to a list of a lot of blogs. now, not all of them have mp3s in it, but a lot of them do. thing is, bloggers would always claim that the mp3s they post are for previewing purposes only and that they would gladly take down the mp3s if the artist asks them to take it down. some bloggers also take down the mp3s after a week, but there are a gazillion other bloggers there anyway. so, what's nice with doing it this way? well the quality is often top-notch, you'd also come across a lot of other mp3s from artists you probably haven't heard of,and its absolutely of no danger of being tracked by RIAA. and once you find a blog full of mp3s, check out where that blog links to, chances are, they are music blogs as well. to help you get pointed in the right direction, here are a couple of blogs:
Bow plus Arrows- one of the "central blogs"
My Old Kentucky Blog- one of the oldest blogs
some blogs would also have a nifty flash-based music player like what i'm using in this page. you can also rip off music from there if you like something that's playing. just follow these steps:
1. Right-click 'View Source'.
2. Search for the string "*.swf?playlist_url=http://*.xspf*". for this site, this is an example "http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/xspf_player_slim.swf?playlist_url=http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/how_can_i_tell_you.xspf&autoplay=true&repeat_playlist=true" the italicized part points to where the flash player is located, you have no need for that. it will be followed by a '?' to denote a parameter. look for the 'playlist_url' parameter. all like players will have this for this contains the links to the actual mp3 files. the value of 'playlist_url' will always be an absolute path.
3. Copy the value of 'playlist_url', http://www.freewebtown.com/fapri/how_can_i_tell_you.xspf in the example above, and paste it in the address bar of your browser.
4. Your browser would know that the xspf file is actually an XML file and so all it will contain is data and thereby display it in a friendly way. If your browser won't display it properly, download it then open using notepad.
5. Since its XML, you will be looking at the values inside the tags, and all playlists for this type of player would follow the same format. the 'annotation' tag would usually contain the song's name. then the 'location' tag will contain the absolute location of the mp3. Copy that then paste to your web browser's address bar to download it.
this will not work with myspace's player. this also won't work if the player is integrated into a bigger flash animation since it would effectively hide the parameters.

now, if you didn't like either of the two ways to nick mp3s from the web, there is of course another easier way. but that's not the point, you're gonna miss out on the fun of discovering unknown people's blogs which may contain a lot of other info and even more mp3s and resources. to take a leaf out of Forrest Gump's page, "Life is like googling blogspot for mp3s, you'll never know what you're gonna get". ok, ok i'm being melodramatic. the easiest way to nick mp3s from blogs is, of course, to go to the site which indexes mp3s from blogs! d-oh! its located here:
SONICX- for all you lazy people out there who's gonna miss out on seeing all those porn pics from bloggers all the world over. oops, now i said too much. haha, nah, just kiddin. ;-)
i'd recommend that you drop by the sites which sonic indexed cause if you liked what you're nicking from that site, then you'd probably find other more fun and exciting stuff there.

and this concludes my how-to. remember, i posted this guide for previewing purposes only.

i'm a bloody british...

2006-11-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

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

how-to: add built-in widgets

2006-11-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

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! ;-)

the whole thanking and buying ordeal

2006-11-25T08:16:00.000-08:00

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.

recipe: mike's potato salad

2006-11-22T23:23:00.000-08:00

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.

i just wanna die from Pills, Actually.

2006-11-19T19:35:00.000-08:00

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. ;-)

harry potter and the hostel of the phoenix

2006-11-18T15:36:00.000-08:00

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!

how-to: customize your desktop

2006-11-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

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

#403 Good News for People who Love Bad News

2006-11-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

"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

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

2006-11-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

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.

templates shmemplates, widgets shmidgets

2006-11-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

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!

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

2006-11-10T20:02:00.000-08:00

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.

Elephant vs Donkey

2006-11-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

...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.

LA vs Phoenix

2006-11-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

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.

LA getaway

2006-11-06T22:27:00.000-08:00

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.

top 10

2006-11-06T00:35:00.000-08:00

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.

come, let's join us for a drive!

2006-11-03T00:26:00.000-08:00

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.

forever i'll love you, forever i'll stand

2006-10-29T19:39:00.000-08:00

i walked into church today and the choir was singing "Shout to the Lord". it was quite unnerving in a way. the big church was filled to about a fourth of its capacity so you could just imagine how overwhelming the choir was. but thats not the reason why it unnerved me. the song they were singing has a special place in my memory and in my heart.

during our Religion classes back in our last year in high school, we used to sing that song after saying our prayer. we, the integeeks, loved that song. so when i heard that in the church, i felt dismayed and a little lonely at the same time. has it really been four years already?

integeek's class picture with mama luz

i remember how young and naive we were. we believed in forever, that nothing will change and that everything will be the same. i guess it would've worked. but college came and shook us up and the bridges between each of us which we thought could survive anything crumbled as soon as we stepped off the stage during our graduation. i guess thats how it always is with high school. after getting out, you feel like your on top of your game, that you can do anything, that you're the king of the world. you rush head on into college, face it with all you've got, focusing on your goals, and never looking back. and before you know it, college has gone past and high school is nothing but a memory. no matter how much you try to bring back the spark, the most it can do is just give you flickers of what could have beens.

winners, no entry!

its amazing how much i cherish my last year in high school. being an integeek was something. with 23 girls and 4 boys, its not exactly the to-die-for spot as a lot of guys would think cause a few days with them and you'll become the protective big brother. actually being a big brother to 23 hot girls ain't so bad.

my little sisters.

i miss integeeks. i miss being a big brother, listening to the lament of young girls' broken hearts, fretting over assignments, participating in class, being part of a dominating underdog. it was simply amazing.

tired and all smiles

so 4 years after, how come we're here. we don't see each other anymore, we don't talk that much, its as if nothing happened. but i understand, we're all busy on our own paths now, making our own futures. sigh, i guess the loss is hardest on a big brother. i love you gals, in spite of the nothingness, i will always remember how you you gals were during our last year in high school.

let's freeze this in time

tracy, our class president, wrote this as a message to all integeeks out there. it was supposed to be part of something else, but i got too lazy to finish the something else. so, here it is.

integrity : an eyesore

why do people say that highschool is the best moment of a person's early life - that it will always be remarkable? they say that no memory can be as sumptuous as one's highschool experiences. it is a world of revelations, a place where curiosity is wrestled with facts and features, and a fellowship tighter than any of tolkien's imaginations. it is one's starting point toward self-discovery and self-realization. all these and more - in just four years.

in the few years of my existence, i have felt truly blessed for being a part of the one section that has made a significant turning point in my life. it is no other than the home of the CHAMPS - INTEGRITY. it is a world where one's soberness can be questionable, where inhibitions are left at home, and where physics can be deemed as fun. it is a place of fellowship, where women and men had her/his own share of sacrifices for the benefit of the whole. Most importantly, it is a place of paradox, irony, and metaphor - all rolled up like a candy.

PARADOX, a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.
as you know, integ is a pilot section meaning all of the students here are (supposed to be) comprised of the batch's (only) candidates for honors. naturally, tight competition, intense rivalry, and devious schemes are expected. however, they forget that when God is with someone, even common sense becomes uncommon. instead of all the harsh things assumed to happen, we have emerged as the most united section in the whole cluster. we found a family in each other. we despised the competition, feeling both happy and sad during the announcement of class standings. teachers say we aren't united, but we don't give a damn because we know the truth...

IRONY, incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.
isn't it ironic that the section of conduct-conscious students is the section that can make the most noise and have the most fun? just think: photo-ops evey now and then, billards and bowling galore, chismisan as often as the sun rises, creative presentations prepared at the blink of an eye; add to that the usual coming up the stage to receive awards and recognitions. our high-pitched laughs and exaggerated gestures seem to get on the nerves of the teachers. and, despite our nerve-wrecking "nerdy" lessons, we manage to make them seem fun by including them in our daily conversations.

METAPHOR, a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.
do the words bionic, mutant, physicist, and the like, ring a bell? i'm sure it does. we have bola, baliw, viva diva, best actress, hyper, mandy moore, etc. Each person is an embodiment of something. when we say everyone is special, we mean it. this is why we have heard of terms na-g-givi, na-de-dennis, etc., and even used the terms for non-integeeks (i will not elaborate ). you might think that integrity is a perfect section, but it is not. we also have our share of disagreements due to stress. however, it does not become personal, and we are more mature than what our degraders think. Still, if there is one section i'd deem as almost perfect, then it would be this.

truly, highschool will never drift away from my mind. it will always be the memento of my adolescent freedom. i will always cherish the lessons ive learned and the camaraderie ive had in an eyesore of a section such as this. it is in this memory that i will part with you readers.

carpe diem integeeks! and to my beloved posse, i'm so glad we're still posse!

resurrecting fofooli

2006-10-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

i posted my resume, as well as sent out job applications, online. the job title i'm after is web developer, or more specifically PHP/MySQL Web Developer. hey, its something i can do with my eyes closed so might as well use that as the launching pad of a career. besides, looks like there is a demand for it right now with all these new dotcom businesses coming up. but its a really good entry-point cause companies aren't looking for people with so and so numbers of experience in the IT industry under their belt. they're just looking for people with the know-how and the passion to work. that's why it seems like they're really targetting the position for fresh graduates... all eager and ready to work.

being a Java Developer would be nice as well but Java is way too broad for me. i mean i'm ok with the general stuff like making a calculator or something maybe but if you talk to me about beans then i'll fix you with a glazed stare. besides, to get in to a job with that title, they require you to have a gazillion amount of experience! and now just with Java and JSP, but with VB and ASP as well. i mean, make up your mind! Sun or Microsoft?! geez...

as i said, i've been applying online. for those of you who'd like to try doing so, i'd recommend setting up an account with Carrer Builder. don't get discouraged with the lengthy process of setting up your resume cause once you've done so, it'll be just click, click, click, click everywhere to submit an application. really, it's worth setting up you're resume there. i'd also recommend checking out the job posting at Craigslist, you'd be surprised that a lot of companies actually post there! probably because they think only the most serious job seeker would take the time to poke around craigslist's very very minimalistically mundane website. you can also post your resume there! the great thing about craigslist is that unlike careerbuilder, which basically limits to what your resume contains to your work experiences and educational background, it allows you to post your resume whichever way you want! so you can tell your whole life's story there and see if any employer would be willing to give you a chance. lastly, if you're into digging through lists upon lists of job postings, try Simply Hired. its like the google of all job posts, able to search through a wide array of job posting websites. by the way, if you wish to work in the US(assuming you're in the Philippines or some other country), try your luck with these websites. job posts would usually indicate anyway if the position is available to US residents only so if it does not say so, then go ahead! why not, right?
visit careerbuilder here.
visit cragislist here. make sure you select to the right which city you wish to search in(manila is included! hurray!).
visit simplyhired here.

anyway, some employers require you to email your portfolios or links to some of your works. in my case, i was asked if i could provide a link for them to a website i made. since, my system wasn't deployed by upm, and the virtual classroom(which isn't really mine, hehe, just a small part of it), was taken down, and the job portal(which again isn't wholly mine, haha!) lost deployment rights to another job portal made by another group(though i have to admit that their's is really better), i basically had no link to provide! so, i got around to searching for free webhosters with php and mysql AND without ads. found one! great service, though their servers are kinda slow and they didn't give me my own domain. but it'll work, after all, it's free! so, i got to upload my thesis there! yay! fofooli is now online!
visit fofooli here. have fun, poke around, do whatever. but please, don't "pigmatize" it. i'm using it to look for a job.
click here to visit my webhoster.

wish me luck in finding a job i like!

ps, check out this page from craigslist, interesting read!

thank you for your patients

2006-10-23T18:05:00.001-07:00

this morning, i got dissed for putting in 'leaving' instead of 'living': clearly caused by a miscommunication between my hands and my keyboard. heh. so imagine my surprise when i walked in on the local albertson's two miles north our place and found a notice put up in their counter explaining why their movie rental section is closed, cause they're expecting a new system to be installed anytime soon, and then ends it with a note of gratitude which explains the title of this post. there must be something in the air here.

saw ass a tree butte two although miss pillars awww dare, aim righting day wrest off diss lie diss. hub fan end gull ack!

aye stem balled a crews diss rushin gay(this word replacement might also work as the actual word, watch the video above to find out why) hues gut diss a maze in lee hi peached boys! doe dare seams two bee sum thin say tan eek inn hiss bid yews, oar may bee eats joust hiss pace. hehe. butt yew hub two ad meet hey east juicing width car is ma. yow! clique hear two bee seat hiss sight.

aye went won! whey two aspen sieve dough. T_T

diss east on a maze in menthol exorcise.

ps. took me an hour to write this, cheeeeeez!

confessions of a soon-to-be uncle

2006-10-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

"hey tito mike!"

that's kinda creepy.

...not in a bad way, but rather in a more unnerving way.

i'm not ready! though i don't have a right to complain, i'm not the one giving birth after all. but still... i'm not a big fan of babies! ok, sure they're cute and adorable but please leave me alone. lol. guess i'll have to get over that soon.

gad, i don't even have a job yet! i wanna be the cool and single uncle who basically spoils his nephews and nieces! ok, so maybe i wanna be like kate hudson in raising helen but so what? at least i'm at the top of my game! lol.

anyway, i'm kinda forcing myself not to think about it for now. maybe in eight months and one week i'll think about it, or when i've settled in on a job, but not now. i'm not yet amenable to the idea of being a twenty year old uncle.

nyarg.

ps. my cousin(uncle #2) keeps calling me "tito mike". not helping. T_T

rediscovering fapri

2006-10-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

ok, for those of you who are unacquainted with fapri, he would be my "artistic" side. well, try hard "artistic" side anyway. hey, i've got lots of sides, not just left and right, though most are not worth knowing or are probably already "dead" or something.

i checked up on deviantart today... and i was wowed. i haven't dropped by the site for quite a while and the new interface is really slick. even before i was already amazed with their extensive use of javascript for formatting their layout, this time they took it a step further by merging some functionalities into a single page. kudos to the peeps there at DA.

because of that, i finally got around to updating it! hooray! but wait, no new deviations yet! awww... i'll probably stick to uploading literature first cause i dont have a decent camera around here for my photography and my photoshop skill still sucks. sigh, wish me luck i guess. but things look good, i my enthusiasm got me through to making a deviantid/an emblem of some kind.

in case you're wondering where fapri came from, it started back in my second year in college i think. me and some of my friends came up with this idea to make a common blog sort of thing where we can post our writings under our pen names. at that time, i was really into fraps(those overpriced high-calorie drinks you can get from a college dude who pigmatizes english perfectly with their rolling r's and 'sh'-s in every other syllable accent), and a really, really, really big guy. some would say i look like hagrid even, in tagalog? a capri. haha. so i came up with fapri! frap+capri=fapri! there you have it, the etymology of fapri! yey! on a side note, fapri officialy means Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. hrmmm...

visit my deviant site by clicking here or by finding the link at the right side of the page.

the usual first post

2006-10-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

there must be something in my morning cup of coffee which brought me here to blogging. i must be crazy. anyway, here i am, claiming another tiny corner of "the" net.

i must be even crazier for choosing blogspot to host this. its slow. i only realized that now. oh well... i like the templates here anyway so i guess its ok.

as for my other sort of blog in deviantart, which you can visit here, well... its been a real long time since i last updated that. and i'm not sure when i'll get around to updating it either. i hope the same thing doesn't happen here. good luck to this!

-hurty flurty schnipp schnipp!