Beyond Dinobot Island

0078D: On The Road To Recovery

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:45:41 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 33,328 words. I've made some fairly tremendous progress in the course of the night (despite my lack of sleep) and perhaps more largely because of my sheer stubbornness and determination to get more done. I'm on the fifth "chapter" of the book and I need to start thinking about wrapping up the whole thing soon enough.

So yes, my hectic, tiring, stressful Saturday ended with a night of writing. Well that and cooking a nice big pot of Mexican Relish to make me feel better and to help me re-energize. Archer was amazingly supportive and he massaged my aching legs and feet (multiple times, I must guiltily admit) in order to help work out all the kinks I developed in my multiple train rides. But despite all the commuting, a little rain and an emotionally heavy day, I think things worked out well enough...for now. I think I mentioned this in yesterday's entry that it will still need a lot of work (albeit, in a highly cryptic manner) and I'm sticking by that assessment. I say this with no sense of regret or anything of that nature - just acknowledging what will be needed in the times to come.

So yes, a night of writing and Archer massages really helped me along and made me feel better and eventually more recharged. Eventually my body wasn't willing to work with me anymore given more than 28 hours of being awake and so I relented in slept.

I got up this morning to write some more and eventually Tobie and I had a fun leftovers lunch instead of cooking anything new. We got around to finally watching Doctor Who: Waters of Mars and it was quite the heavy piece. I was surprised at what direction they seemed to be taking for the Doctor, but then again things resolved themselves well enough in the end. Thus there remains the matter of his eventual death, which had been decided on ages ago and how the fans will ultimately react to the new Doctor just around the corner.

Today is gaming day - perhaps the final thing that I need to fully get out of the heaviness of yesterday. As always, the gaming group is gathered and we've just gorged ourselves on pizza, fortune cookies and buko pie. Ah yes, the night is young and I still have A jabberwocky to kill - or five. Argh.

A little something for all my diabetic friends, hehe.

0078C: The Haiku of the Blue Martyr (A Limerick)

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:48:21 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 28,890 words. I'm way under my daily quota which states I should have been past the 35,000 mark today but then given the circumstances of the last 48 hours, I think I can get a bit of a reprieve. Tobie and I have committed to making this night a writing night and we're going to really push ourselves to get as far as we can. The home stretch is just around the corner! We don't have much time but we're both so close to our goal!

I'm pretty drained on so many levels, this is not going to be one of my more coherent entries. Let's begin.

Work was tiring yet fulfilling. Pretty heavy meeting with the Compliance girls. The 2nd ever Best Practices Forum in the morning.

I traveled along the path of the asymptote to see how close to infinity I could get this time around. I got pretty darned close - close enough to scare me and shave off a few years of my life, but then the time dilation effect made up for that, I suppose. I know I'll pay for traveling so close to the speed of light light that, but such journeys are always worth it, not matter how scary. The risks are always worth it.

I realized something today. I paid a heavy price to come to this realization, but it was worth it. I feel a lot better, but the process took a lot out of me. My willpower bar is at zero and the only thing I have to look forward to is that I was able to stick to virtue instead of vice, and that means I'll get a full bar in return. I'm still waiting for that to happen. I couldn't done it without you, but then it again it is about you so that ultimately makes sense. Well duh.

LRT 1 to LRT 2 is a lot easier than MRT to LRT 1. Boo you MRT.

The trap has been set. The key log has been placed. Now what? Who knows. I've hit the timer so my turn is over. It's up to the other person now - although it always has been. I just changed the parameters a bit more, upped the ante and now...here we are.

It's not easy playing bait. Quack. Quack. Moo.

Why does self-sacrifice have to be so painful? Wait - don't even bother answering that. I was a rhetorical question of limited practical importance (but perhaps is a matter of consequence). Damnitdamnitdamnit.

Refrigerator.

As I kept saying, we all have our roles to play, not matter how we feel about them.

0078B: The Cup Runneth Over

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:27:02 GMT

First, a very Happy Birthday to the Julia Child of Gaming - Adrian! A very Happy Birthday, "James"! I look forward to the day that we meet again and I get to dismantle your evil domain! Nyahahaha!

I'm feeling pretty beat - this work week has felt somewhat longer than others. I guess one could say that it's been busy and just leave it at that. But perhaps its more about it being rather "heavy" in many aspects and that's what has really taken its toll on me. Then again, that's the working world for you and you just need to keep rolling with the punches as they say. To cap off my weekend, tomorrow morning we'll be hosting this quarter's Best Practices Forum. It's one of the bigger ticket items that's part of my area of responsibility and as much as I know it'll go well, I still get nervous.

I imagine yesterday's post was a bit confusing (and perhaps even unnerving to a limited degree) and I suppose it all is. It's a lot to handle but it's not something I can't deal with, don't worry. It's just fairly big and longer term readers of this blog will know that I've always used my writing as an output. Rather than go nuts with dealing with the gravity of things in my head, I've always found it to be helpful to try and take it out of my head, place it it on a space where I can allow letters and the dictates of language to help better define it and subject it to further thought and consideration. It's like creating a scale model of something for scientific purposes in order to give you something that can be better used for experimentation.

Okay, this is getting nerdier and geekier by the minute. So sue me.

The bottom line is don't worry, I'm okay. Or at least I will be. Besides, I have Archer in my life and as always he is being the amazingly awesome guy that he is and tells me all the right things that I need to hear. I'm serious when I say ALL of them, even the darker ones that hide in the recesses of my mind. That's just the way our life together is, I suppose. That's how things go when you more so completely in sync with another person in so many ways. Ah life.

Now it's time for a quick dinner before work. I cooked the usual buttered mixed veggies and pork chops while Tobie has prepared a rather hearty salad. Yes, yes, I'll be taking photos. =D

Now that's truly being smart about the, err, shall we say "Narnia Phenomenon"? =D

0078A: The Drums, The Drums, The Drums...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:46:18 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 26,952 words. I squeezed in a little writing during my breaks between all my meetings at work, but then given my overall state of tiredness, I really wasn't in the best of writing moods. Ack. Well, the day is young and perhaps after I get some sleep in, I'll be in a better position to catch up in the afternoon or something. I'm starting to feel the crunch with only 11 days left in the month, but I can't let that scare me away.

Work was a major drain given the number of things I had to do and of course the general tiredness that comes from lack of sleep. It's a small miracle that I made it to the end of the shift and was still relatively coherent during my 06:00am meeting. Small joys.

My mind is a bit of a mess right now. Recent revelations of things that have always been in plain sight to ponder have now been made very, very real and I guess it was inevitable. No, no guessing - I knew it was going to be inevitable for it to happen. What does deserve the "I guess" phrase is that I guess I was in a relative state of denial all these years. This whole train of thought reminds me about my often discussing Asymptotes, which isn't something isolated to 2009 LJ entries - it tends to happen for a specific reason I suppose.

And yes, I admit it's still that same reason.

I've definitely grown a lot since then and I'd like to think that I've matured as well. I've come to realize a great many things in the course of this year, especially given my break up and eventually finding Archer to complete my life. Still, last night's revelation gave me pause and a LOT to think about and that probably contributed the circumstances that resulted in me feeling so tired now and not being able to write as much.

What's interesting to note is that finally, I can safely say that my troubled thoughts aren't centered around me or even about other people and how they affect me. No, this time it's not about me, and knowing that is an amazing relief. It's a load lifted from my shoulders that helps to some degree in terms of personal comfort but it doesn't solve the "problem" that remains - or perhaps better stated as the current situation that needs to be...addressed. I'm trying to be the best person that I can possibly be given these circumstances but I'm only human - I do get to react and feel a little off-kilter given this news. Perhaps a LOT off-kilter, but who's to judge, really?

So here I am trying to blog about this almost immediately upon returning to the Sietch - our refuge. Our place of safety in times of danger. Yes, that is what the Sietch is. I do this not to generate gossip or make my life sound more interesting - I just do this to better organize my thoughts. Somehow, getting them onto "paper" or at least out there in a visual format has always helped me consider all angles, think things through and even come to realize new perspectives.

And I certainly need all the powers of logic and emotional reasoning combined. After all, what do you do when the asymptote "breaks"?

A classic work strategy and definitely a good one at that! Hehehe...

00789: Almost Botched The Mission...Again

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:27:06 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 26,726 words. I would have made more progress had I not gotten obsessed about recreating the Aeon Trinity character sheets in Google Docs for my other gaming group. We're preparing to start a new game using this system and I'm pretty excited - it's time for some science fiction gaming action! But yes, I will keep working on my story, too.

Work continues to be rather interesting and busy in its own way. I still haven't gotten back to the on-going physical exam proceedings - when I took mine, the optometrist wasn't present. I hate the fact that I still need to go back to finish things, but then it's just one more step then I'll be in the clear. The only thing more than undergoing a annual physical exam at the office is to get a memo a month later if I didn't get it done. Bleh.

Today was another FAIL in terms of trying to wake up Tobie after shift. I got home close to 09:00am and ended up falling asleep beside him while trying to read the Trinity source book. We fully woke up hours later at around 02:00pm, which meant (1) I had pretty much met my quota in terms of sleep for the day, (2) but I was doomed to getting sleepy in the middle of my shift later and (3) we scarcely had enough time to get our original errands done for the day. After some consideration, we opted to push through with things and made our way out for the weekly grocery run.

Originally, the first step was to pass by the bank to deposit money for our respective accounts but given how all of this was very outside our normal routine, I stupidly forgot to bring my money with us when we left the Sietch. So scratch the bank ran, at least for today. Then it was off to Shopwise to restock our rather sad-looking larder and we ended up getting a significant amount of meat for the day. Normally we get a lot more veggies, but then they didn't look too amazing plus it wasn't discount produce Tuesday. Given the contents of our cart though, it might have been a wee bit better to have gone on discount meat Thursdays, but too late for that now.

At least we got that major errand finally out of the way.

So now we're back to full operating capacity and I'm already in the process of cooking some pork afritada for our pre-shift dinner. See your cabinets and the fridge full of food again is rather comforting and it definitely ranks up there with the feeling of satisfaction after taking a shower in a bathroom you just cleaned yourself.

Yeah, I guess I get a little weird that way.

All of us geeks in the working world have probably felt this more than once in our careers by now. Meh.

00788: Forced Reboot Due To Lack Of System Resources

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:38:47 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 25,354 words - I'm finally past the halfway point! It certainly took me long enough and despite the fact that I have less than half the month to go, I'm still feeling pretty confident that I'll be able to push forward for the goal. Go, go, NaNoWriMo! =D

Work last night was pretty tiring. Of course given it was a Monday, a larger reason for that was me still adjusting to my work week sleep pattern despite having been awake prior to work since around 3 in the afternoon. However beyond that, it was a particularly busy work night, and that would drain anyone regardless of how much sleep they had the day before.

The first thing that strained my system was the fact that we're running the Annual Physical Examinations (APE) this week as part of our HMO requirements. Given my coverage level as a manager, I'm also required to go through 6-8 hours of fasting since they'll be taking a sample of my blood for testing. That means no food or water until the time of the exam. I know it doesn't seem like a long amount of time, but when you're also trying to remain productive at work without water or coffee, you can imagine me getting rather irritable. Then when the time for the APE came along, the nurse or whatever he was who first tried to draw my blood totally failed. I mean seriously, I may not be a medical professional, but even I knew his first insertion of the syringe was at the wrong angle and WAY too shallow! Plus it hurt! Thankfully another representative of the clinic contracted to run the APE for us realized what was going on and took over. She got it on her first try, but this still meant that I puncture holes on both arms near the part where your arm bends. It made doing the rest of the tests a bit awkward.

The doctor totally rushed through my medical history (which can get long, quite frankly) and was rather...impersonal in conducting his physical examination. Otherwise, the rest of par for the course for these things and I managed to get through the whole experience, especially with the testing set up in the cafeteria area. Yeah, total LOL, ROFL and LMAO moment.

There was an on-going concern from last week that was still making things "interesting" until today, a photo shoot for employees who had been with the company for more than 5 years, the usual employee concerns to deal with, a dearth of trainer applicants to screen, reports to finish and a new manager to help orient and get on board to boot! So yeah, it was a pretty full day.

So I guess it shouldn't have been so surprising that when I got home, I fell asleep in the process of trying to wake up Tobie. This was despite our usual Tuesday schedule of hitting the bank to get our financial concerns out of the way and to get the grocery shopping done. Ah well, I suppose we can survive on what limited stocks we have left for one more day.

God's bi-polar? That would explain so much about life! ROFL

00787: Writing To The Finish Line

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:26:02 GMT

Current NanoWriMo Word Count: 23,338 words! While I'm still under target (and I say this every day), I have to admit that I'm still overwhelmed with how much I've accomplished in just two weeks. It's practically amazing in itself - I never really expected that I would have gotten this far before trying it out and hopefully luck will be with me as I continue to press on to the end of the month and the end of my novel!

Of course I don't mind that I wasn't able to spend more of my Sunday writing given that at the very least we did get to push through with gaming! Despite other commitments on the same day, we opted to push through with Gaming Sunday. Mahar arrived at his usual times with a load of snacks to attack while Adrian and Nabs arrived much later and with Nina in tow! The action yesterday was pretty intense and there were a number of revelations all around. My character, Jack, is currently serving as king of the Seasonal Courts but is now trapped in Wonderland. I was trying to rescue Alice from the Red Monarch with Gil (Jill), Mr. Grin and the Mad Hatter assisting. I had some rather great rolls for the session, for which I am highly thankful for, but the worst is yet to come as I now need to kill around five jabberwockys and I can't figure out how to activate what I believe to be (but am not certain) the Vorpal Blade. Bugger it!

As is the way after the Sunday game, Tobie and I pretty much hibernated the day away although we got a little writing in before that along with an impromptu breakfast of hotdogs, Bicol express tuna and thymed potatoes. It was yummy, nicely filling and just enough to send us to bed rather fulfilled.

Today I made Filipino-style spaghetti, although not necessarily as sweet and definitely with more herbs and spices. In order to complete the desired taste, I did add olives, mushrooms and hotdogs and I'm glad Tobie enjoyed it, hehe. Yay for fun food!

This week is going to be busy for work, I expect. I'm also hoping to make more headway with my writing and to prepare for my new role as associate editor for TV for the New Worlds website. If there are people who want to write about science fiction or fantasy shows, feel free to get in touch with me and we'll see what we can do to include your articles or even links to your blog entries as part of the site!

Now it's time to squeeze in some more writing before I need to get ready for work in earnest.

OMG, this reminds me so much of how we played computer games together as kids!

00786: Old Friend, Good Night

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:53:55 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 21,602 words. Still short of goal, but it was a lot more than I expected to finish before heading out for Saturday night.

Last night was wicked awesome! What started out as simple dinner plans with a good friend turned into a really fun night! Naturally, alcohol was involved.

First, Tobie and I met up with Deo as scheduled at Gateway for dinner and conversation. Initial plans were to find a place where we could both eat and drink at Cubao, but given Deo was famished, we ended up at the Chicken Inasal at SM Cubao. We had a LOT of rice and jokes, banter and ridiculous conversation about school stereotypes, old friends and GLEE! Obviously episode 9, "Wheels," was just THAT good that it really impressed all of us so much. We topped off the dinner portion of the night with Blizzards from Dairy Queen and then it was off to Malate for some proper drinking.

We arrived at Malate REALLY early - like just before 12:00am early, and naturally the place was just starting to get busy. Nico was already there and so we he joined us for initial drinks as the rest of the crew eventually arrived. The night just continued on and Deo and I had fun, um, enjoying the performances of the "chorva" dancers (take note: male AND female dancers!), commenting on passers-by and of course the much needed OMG-I-know-that-guy moments. Of course there was even more drinking, dancing, playing iPhone games in the dark, photos and even dirty ice cream (good job, Fritz!)!

It had been AGES since I last went out drinking on a Saturday night outside of major event weekends and so it was quite a change of pace for me to get back into the Saturday night groove. The VIP area at O bar doesn't get as full as the main area and so I think as long as it remains open, Saturday nights at Malate might become a lot more reliable.

Oh, and just as we were going home, it turned out Jayson was at Malate too! We had a little time to catch up, exchange hugs and well wishes and of course the regrets that we didn't get to party together and the promises to make up for that some time in the future.

In other words, last night was just great! Perhaps we need to go out more...but not necessarily every weekend, haha. I might not be ready for that just yet.

Well, Mahar is here now and we're just chilling until Adrian and Nabs arrive for the weekly game. In the meantime, I'm going to try to get some NaNoWriMo writing done as I upload the photos from last night and perhaps a Geeky Guide entry to boot!

Oh, and I don't know why I decided to start using CAPITAL LETTERS in today's entry, haha. I guess this is part of my post-drinking behavior. =P

Now THAT's rocking it old school! LOL

00785: Shifting Into Weekend Mode

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:39:36 GMT

First up, a very Happy Birthday to one of my most engaged sales trainers, Mau! Now that I'm at home, I'm free to break your "secret" and greet you a very, very Happy Birthday!!! =D

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 20,486 words. I broke the 20,000 word count yesterday before heading off to bed but haven't made much progress since. Given I slept away today and dinner plans later, I get this feeling I won't be able to write as much as I wanted to today, but I'll keep trying.

The work week is finally over and I'm more than relieved, naturally. It's been pretty busy, stressful here and there, but that's pretty much par for the course. Next week isn't going to get any better, I'm sure, but we'll do what we need to do and keep at it. But I don't want to think about the work week anymore - it's time to enjoy the weekend!

Tobie and I will be meeting up with a friend of mine that I haven't seen in ages - Deo. We met a few years ago because of a mutual friend and have remained in contact since then. Because of a chance IM conversation this week, we ended up making dinner / drinking plans for tonight and we're looking to meet at around 09:00pm. I have no idea what to truly expect from the night, but it may involve lots of food, maybe drinking and dancing at Malate but ultimately lots of good fun and catch-up conversation. Yay for weekends!

I've also been asked by the geeks over at the New Worlds Alliance to sign up as an associate editor for TV news and features, which is a pretty fun task (take note - I didn't say job) that should complement my Geeky Guide blogging in its own way. Tobie and I were discussing possible titles for my web column and we narrowed it down to two main possibilities:

The Geeky TV Guide
The Geeky Guide to TV

So which one do you like better? Vote for your favorite in the comments and we'll see how this goes on!

For now, I'm cutting all this short so I can get some NaNoWriMo writing in before we leave for the night. Catch you geeks later!

I always wanted to do something like this...sorta. =D

00784: Technical Musings

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:00:12 GMT

A very Happy Birthday to my longtime online friend Ben! Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday Bendix! I should probably make you a photo with me holding a sign or something, LOL

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 18,389 words. I'm way behind my daily goal - I'm supposed to be past the 20,000 word count by now - but I'm going to keep pushing forward and trying to get to that level! You hear me NaNoWriMo? I'm gonna write like a mad man...once my work week officially ends. =P

Work was still pretty hectic, but manageable. I had back-to-back meetings today plus my boss Carlo came back from a three-day leave. Thus that meant a lot of updates, issues to address now that he was back and more of my usual work given the two titles that I hold now. Yeah, it's a busy work life, but I'm still enjoying the sense of challenge and I'm liking how things are flowing for the most part. This doesn't mean that things are entirely without unfortunate incident - but then it's the annoying fires that make life interesting, eh?

I got home from work rather tired, so I spent some time tinkering with Mozilla Labs Jetpack, which is an experimental way to implement simple HTML / CSS apps within Firefox. They're more lightweight than full-fledged extensions and they don't require you to restart Firefox to work after installing - you just need to refresh the page. It's VERY early in the product's development and so far I can't get all of the apps that interested me to work. However there are others which are working like a breeze plus they're really fast and not so heavy in terms of memory load. This is definitely an area I hope Mozilla invests more research time in - it's a quick, effective way of implementing applications without the potential bloat and conflicts we get from extensions.

I'm starting to get back into photography using Tobie's resurrected Pentax Optio M40. Like before, most of my pictures tend to be of food and I'm getting some pretty decent shots. I'm still hoping to get myself a better camera before the end of the year but that'll mean burning the credit card soon enough, hehe. My main goal is to get a mega zoom bridge camera since (1) I want a really powerful optical lens for close-up macro shots, (2) I don't like twiddling around too much with DSLR settings, (3) I believe in digital photo editing, and (4) I want the camera to be able to take decent video. I could go hunting down the same model camera as Shane was before, which was a Sony CyberShot H50. I loved that camera when I got it in LA, but it got stolen around this time last year. There's already an upgraded model called the Sony CyberShot HX1 and I'm still on the fence if I like this new version or if I want to save some money and get the H50.

Decisions, decisions! At least I'm trying to stick to my original plan of getting a new camera before I opt to get a netbook, which I admit is more of a novelty / luxury purchase. So sue me! I will get that Asus EEE 1005HA!

I love Pig! More so Duck!

00783: The Chop Suey Experiment

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:47:18 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 16,879 words. Given today's the 12th, I'm supposed to be at 20,000 words. Despite the more than 3,000 word gap, I'm not feeling all that pressured or daunted. I'm just letting the writing come as it will and trusting that as long as I don't give up and I keep at it, I'll catch up eventually. Of course this also means that I won't post a new Geeky Guide entry today. Or will I?

*launches Blogger*

ANYWAY, time to briefly yet vaguely talk about work. I had two applicants for the open trainer posts we have. The first one was pretty enthusiastic but not quite polished. He had a few grammar slips here and there, but he clearly liked the profession and I bet through sheer effort, he'll get decently far. I'm keeping him on the active file while I work through this batch of applicants - then I should have a better idea of where he stands. The second applicant was a decent facilitator but what really made him stand out was how well he spoke and how he seemed to be a decently intelligent guy. When I say the guy spoke well, I'm not talking call center English here. I mean he really spoke better than the average Filipino and that can only really come from a good English-speaking household or something along those lines. I really liked the guy but his skill set is quite what I need just now, so I he's also been relegated to the active file as I continue to screen this week.

Then there were a bunch of other incidents throughout the day that made things interesting, kept me busy and largely prevented me from working on my novel some more. Boo busy days. I went hope later than I had planned, but that just comes with the territory, so I guess it's okay.

What's more interesting to discuss was this morning's cooking attempt - chop suey! I had never made the dish before and so it was an adventure in its own right. Tobie and I had gone nuts on the veggies last Tuesday during the grocery run (fresh produce 10% off!) and I finally tried to put everything together this morning before waking him up. As I started to follow a Filipino version of he recipe I had found online, I started to realize that I may have made a few errors here and there as I tried to indulge in terms of what I wanted to add. The key lessons were:

I probably should have cooked the giblets more...
Heck, I should have used less giblets.
I also should have fried the tofu longer...
...and I should have followed the Chinese style of cooking tofu and not the Filipino style.
I forgot to add in the asparagus and the carrots...
...which was probably a good thing since I had used a bit too much of all the other ingredients.

Despite all those regrets and little considerations in my head, it turned out decently enough and was still edible. It still tasted like the Filipino version of chop suey, which meant it was a bit soupy and not really stir fry. I'll probably invest time in researching the Chinese recipe more and see how that goes.

And we should probably get a wok - the pot worked decently enough, but it still wasn't the same.

Ah, the joys of kitchen chemistry experiments!

Geek level up for a reference to "The Prisoner"!!!

00782: A Lot Of Writing, But Even More Is Needed!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:17:55 GMT

First up, a very Happy Birthday to dear friend of mine who goes all the way back to elementary school! A very Happy Birthday to you, David! Keep up the good fight and good luck in all of your endeavors!

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 16,233 words. I know I keep saying that it's a long way from my goal and the whole thing still needs work, but I have to admit there's still a significant sense of satisfaction one gets from achieving one goal or another, even the small personal ones. In truth, I need over 2,000 words before I can even just catch up to where I need to be in terms of my daily goal, but the true achievement is me finishing the second chapter of the story with a certain level of satisfaction. I know I'm not very good with the whole bulk writing as fast as one can and I still take some time to think about things and edit to some degree, but at least I'm still pushing forward! And it's a total wow for me - over 16,000 words is nothing to sneeze at, and we're not even at the half way point for the month!

Go, go, go NaNoWriMo!!! LOL

I'm trying to think of a slightly new direction for the Geeky Guide. While it's good that I've pretty much figured out my posting schedules and I'm able to continually read or watch things of geeky interest in order to generate content for the site, but beyond the reviews, there's not much else to it. I'm hoping to flesh out the Geeky Guide with feature articles and not just rebroadcasting news or something. I'm not quite sure to start so today I ended up posting a boring yet informative differentiation between Google AdWords, AdSense and Analytics. It's nothing new for people who know about Google or actually use these features / tools, but it's a decent start.

Overall, I'm still trying to think of other forms of content that I can come up with to keep things interesting. Plus the readers are simply out there for the taking and so I need to figure out how best to position the Geeky Guide in order to get a slice of the market just for me. It's a lofty goal, one that I don't necessarily have a time for this month because of NaNoWriMo on-going and eating up most of my creative time and energies. But it doesn't mean I can't think about it and try to conceptualize new article styles.

If any of you dear friends and other such readers have an idea, feel free to suggest possible alternatives!

In the meantime, I think I may need to lie down in order to wake up early enough later to prepare dinner AND get some writing done. Addict much? LOL

Damn, dirty evolutionists! ROFL

00781: 14,001 Reasons To Be Giddy

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:45:35 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 14,001 words exactly! I'm still about 2,600 words short of my daily target, but I'm still overwhelmed with how much I've accomplished thus far. I just need to tie up this chapter so I can move on to the next story segment. As always, the morbidly curious can check out my work-in-progress at The Gossamer Tower.

It's fun when work throws an interesting problem your way - the kind that really makes you think about how to solve it for practically the rest of your work shift. Last night was one of those days and I still find myself thinking about it. Call centers and other BPO companies are all about mass production - we aim to train agents to do the same job with relatively the same level of skill. If they fail to attain this, we try to coach and train them some more until there's no chances for improvement left. Then we let them go and hope they find a job that better suits their abilities. This particular challenge requires me to figure out a way to totally upgrade a particular group of agents to be totally different than how they started in terms of a job redefinition that we still need to come up with. When you decide to raise the bar, the trick is trying to define just what constitutes that higher level and what are the behaviors that will act as indicators that the desired change has happened. All that while still remaining profitable and working within what limited guidelines the client has provided.

Gods, I love working with really, really intelligent people. Even when they don't quite know how to express what they want.

Anyway, the training professional in me is joining forces with my tinker side and my problem solving side and my trying-to-think-outside-the-box-without-really-leaving-it side. The result is a LOT of interesting ideas and potential paths to take and I'll just have to figure out what to do in time.

Tobie and I did our weekly grocery run today and were shocked at how expensive shrimp is. I guess that just really goes to show what makes it such a special treat. We wanted to try something different this week and the dish that we have in mind is chop suey, or some other variation of stir fried vegetables. We bought a bunch of ingredients for it (thank you 10% off fresh produce Tuesdays!) and hopefully we'll get to run the experiment tonight or some other day this week. I also made sure to have ingredients of sinigang na bangus and of course the pork chops that have become our stable back-up food. Yay for food!

I've kinda forced Tobie to go through the Community episodes rather quickly. I say forced not because he doesn't like the show or anything, but more because he's still a bit shocked at the rate we're watching them. I tend to like finishing things in one go, especially when they come in 22 minute bite-sized chunks whereas he likes to take things a bit slower, giving time to savor whatever it is we're enjoying. Well, almost everything - ice cream melts and floats tend to bubble over, after all. We only started watching the show last Sunday and despite rationing, we're already finished with the 5th episode. Whee! Joel McHale is fun!

Don't underestimate cows!

00780: A Quick Post-Sunday Report

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:49:02 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo word count: 13,155 words. Still under the daily quota, but a lot better than expected. Tobie's challenging me to reach 20,000 words by the middle of the week and I haven't a clue how I might manage that. Still, this whole NaNoWriMo exercise is definitely invigorating and I'm glad that Tobie convinced me to try it this year.

Yesterday's game was pretty awesome. After not playing for two weeks, it was definitely a welcome return to geekery plus the story continues to get more and more complex. I narrowly escaped death while trying to negotiate the surrender of the Seasonal Courts, made Maleficent fall in love with me, which became a distraction for Captain Hook (who now has the powers of the Tooth Fairy) to go all red hulk on her and ate her. I escaped to Wonderland and made Peter Pan's crocodile fall in love with me in order for the Mad Hatter to prepare some tea. That's the best synopsis I can write, and that's just for my plot thread. That hardly factors in Adrian dealing with his new godhood, Nabs coping with her evil twin and Mahar trying to figure out what to do with his twins, one who is now human and totally forgets his character because he made her forget and the other who looks like Ian Somerhalder, but blond.

Yeah, just another typical gaming day because of Tobie. And don't get me started on Sora and Kairi making an appearance.

I spent the rest of the night managing my recently downloaded files, writing more of my novel for NaNoWriMo, enjoying a late night meal of friend giniling with potatoes, carrots, peas and some egg on the side and eventually sleeping earlier than I'd have liked. Today was getting the laundry done, making chicken tinola for dinner without the ginger (since I ran out), watching two more episodes of Community with Tobie and taking photos all the while. I'm definitely getting back into my photography groove but definitely aching for a much more powerful camera again. Ah well, I'm sure I'm bound to find a good camera sale in time for the holidays or something.

Current gadget wish list: a nice mega zoom bridge camera like the Sony Cybershot H50 or HX1 and a netbook like the Asus EEE 1005HA. Ah credit card, you'll get your chance soon enough...

It's strips like this one that really remind that (1) I'm such a geek and (2) I love xkcd.

0077F: NaNoWriMo Saturday, Gaming Sunday

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:09:24 GMT

A very Happy Birthday to fellow NWA geek, Mark! You better have fun - and comics books or something similar should be involved.

Current NaNoWriMo word count is a whopping 11,755 words! I'm still below the daily quota target, but I've definitely made good progress over the weekend, and that makes me feel better. Given that we're gaming today, I know that's going to get in the way of writing as much as I'd like to, but then gaming is a completely different level of geek fulfillment that can't be replaced by other activities.

Speaking of gaming, Mahar, Adrian and Nabs are all here getting settled prior to the resumption of our Changeling Promethean game. It's been two weeks since the last game and naturally everyone's feeling anxious to game again.

Yesterday was busy and not so busy. It was busy because we had a major Fandom Live! meeting with the rest of the geeks to discuss the future direction of our little web show. We're trying to get more organized and to make the entire production somewhat more professional in is creation and hopefully commercial interest (read: sponsorships) will come to follow. I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon, but one can dream.

The evening resulted in Dek hanging out at the Sietch to get some more editing work done. Since she was still around, she ended up joining us for dinner and I'm glad she liked my fried pork chops, garlic mushrooms and buttered vegetables on the side. Naturally Tobie cared for dessert and this manifested as individual cups of vanilla ice cream with Moby, Flat Tops, and Heshey's chocolate syrup. By Tobie's dessert standards, this was a very light dessert. We also watched Zombieland, which turned out to be more entertaining at expected. It was a nice light take on the whole zombie genre that I wouldn't mind seeing again.

The rest of the night was spent unboxing my new Transformers Animated Snarl and Soundwave, mucking about on Facebook and writing more of my NaNoWriMo novel attempt.

There are some potential developments in terms of Sietch Creare itself that will definitely complicate things in the future, but then I'll save that discussion for a future entry when more information becomes available.

Now it's time to game...and hopefully finish my current chapter in-between turns.

I was wondering how they were going to end this weird Dilbert angel arc. And there you go.

0077E: Weekend Plans For You And Me

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:02:19 GMT

First, a very Happy Birthday to fellow geek, mistress of New Worlds website and member of the 501st, Rej! When are we getting drunk? Where's the party? LOL

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 9,727 words. I was hoping to have broken the 10,000 word barrier before bed, but then I was more tired than I realized today and fell asleep a lot earlier than expected. The last thing I remember was having McDonald's for breakfast with Tobie while catching Tomb Raider on HBO, then a detour to the bedroom, then nothing. Argh. And now Tobie has surpassed me and the 10,000 word mark to boot! Insidious!

I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend. Tobie and I had been talking about a potential trip to the spa today since we've both been feeling minor aches and pains throughout the week and we could definitely use a good massage. This'll probably mean a trip to Wensha later tonight after Tobie's finished with his work for the day. Then tomorrow our gaming sessions are going to resume, and this marks the beginning the start of our second "season" of sorts since we've already finished some pretty major story arcs across 13 "episodes". Yes, we've been gaming for THAT long now, hehe.

Other than that, I have a LOT of writing to get done this weekend whether in order to queue more entries for the Geeky Guide or to get more writing done for my NaNoWriMo story, The Interrogation. I'm well into the second chapter, which has a completely different tone compared to the first. I chose to write a more action-driven story this time around compared to the first segment if only to make it more interesting and hopefully to drive me to write more. I definitely think it's helping and with luck I'll be done with this chapter before the day's over. Here's to hoping!

I'm hungry.

It's funny when one webcomic (for example xckd) inspires another webcomic (case in point, Bunny). Oh, and LEGO!!!

0077D: Inching Towards the Weekend

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:45:00 GMT

Current NaNoWriMo word count is 8,152 words! While I'm still behind on my target daily word count thus far, I'm happy with the progress of my story, The Interrogation and finally got to finished the first chapter. I expect future chapters will remain similarly long since they're meant to act as semi-autonomous stories that will only start to really connect to one another towards the end. At least that's the plan that I'm keeping in mind as I write all this - good luck to me if it actually pans out.

Work was worky and tiring in a workish way and that's all I'll say about the matter for now.

It's fun to cook after you've restocked on supplies through a grocery run. Last night I made sinigang na baboy again after a long time without and that turned out fairly well, I'd like to think. This morning was a lazier brunch consisting of some ready-to-eat pesto we bought at the supermarket eaten together with spaghetti noodles and fried sardines. The mix of flavors worked out well enough in the end but I'll continue to look for more precise pairings. Naturally Tobie topped this all off with a killer bowl of Magnolia vanilla ice cream topped with Malteasers, Wiggles, cashews and Hershey's chocolate syrup. I swear, the darn thing was huge and seemed almost menacing, but we managed to defeat it together, hehe.

Over breakfast we watched the 2009 remake of V, and based on the pilot it certainly seems promising. It also seems somewhat Firefly-ish, but I guess that sense of nostalgia is only going to last for the duration of this episode. Or will it? Anyway, it's clear that they're trying to turn this series into the next Battlestar Galactica given the strong play on the notion of the "enemy" hidden among us in human form and the increasing presence of drums in the supporting musical scoring. BSG totally mastered the use of drums to build tension and push emotional responses to action sequences. I guess it's only logical for other shows to try and learn from BSG somehow. Tobie keeps waiting for one of the Visitors to eat a mouse or something, but so far it hasn't happened, hehe.

NaNoWriMo is taking up more and more of my time and it's small wonder that I still manage to post updates for the Geeky Guide despite the shift in writing focus. I have found myself watching less TV shows or reading as much, but that's an understandable sacrifice. Heck, I'm left World of Goo behind for now given I'm stuck in that damn stage with the yellow spiked goo and it's driving me nuts. Better to focus my efforts into my novel and hope I manage to catch up with my writing over the weekend. Hopefully. **crosses fingers**

Oh yes, everyone needs a dog to not only carry your stuff, but sell it for profit as well!

0077C: Something Before I Get Back To Writing

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:36:40 GMT

Hey, it's Guy Fawkes Day! As in "Remember, remember the fifth of November..." and all that. Let's all throw a stuffy man on the fire!

I got a little writing in since my last update, and that has brought me up to 6,379 words. Given it's already November 5, I'm technically behind my daily target by almost 2,000 words, so I guess I better keep this update light.

It's a good thing I got more than enough rest yesterday since I pretty much burned through all of that today. My work shift starting last night was full of meetings, reports, short coaching sessions and a little NaNoWriMo writing when I was on break. It's a good thing I have something like NaNoWriMo to escape to when things get too stressful at the office - there's nothing quite like escaping to the worlds of imagination in your head to help de-stress for a while.

To top it all off, my day ended with back-to-back meetings, and you know how draining those can be. It's a small miracle that I was able to make it home in time without energy to remind Archer that I love him, then cook breakfast.

No new Glee this week. Bugger.

Breakfast was nothing fancy - I cooked one of those Pampanga's Best Fatless Tocino packs ("Tastes just like ham!") and decided to experiment a bit with the egg. Instead of my usual scrambled eggs with onions, salt, pepper, oregano, basil and thyme, I decided to try adding in some okra slices and was pretty impressed with the results. Tobie liked the food too so I guess it wasn't that weird. I'm learning to better proportion my use of spices as time passes by and despite the variety, I think I'm developing a taste for what works for me. I'm scared to have people other than Tobie try the food though - my cooking may not be as decent as Tobie makes me believe. Then again, we're both guys and we'll eat almost anything, right? =P

I'll end things here for now - I need to get some more writing done before I call it a "night" and head for bed. This cold, rainy weather is going to make it nice and cozy today...if I had Archer with me. Since I don't, I guess this means me waking up in the middle of my sleep to relieve myself because of the cold and spending the rest of the time making do with the blanket.

No worries. He'll be back soon enough.

Damn you idiot, narrow-minded voters of America!

0077B: Lots of Sleep, No Writing

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:29 GMT

No NaNoWriMo progress since my last LJ entry. Damn. I totally hibernated all day. But then I guess that was inevitable.

Work last night was pretty bad, but not necessarily because I was at the office. It was more driven by the fact that I had slept wrong and so I ended up getting really sleepy fairly early into my shift. I made it to the end without totally collapsing on my keyboard or something, but it definitely could have gone better.

But the lack of sleep was generally worth it, mind you. I had a great weekend where I got to see a lot of movies with Tobie (both in the theater and at the Sietch), got loads of new Transformers and got started on my NaNoWriMo novel attempt! Plus the Halloween celebrations, spending time with my family and lots of other good stuff. So yeah, the lack of sleep was more than worth it, in hindsight, even if it meant me feeling like a zombie at the office.

The actual work itself wasn't too bad considering I was coming back from two days out of the office given my leave last week and the holiday last Monday. There's still loads to do especially with my new team and I can definitely see majority of my workload shifting to that side of my plate as opposed to the training end. There's just so much going on with a fairly small team working on it, and so I pretty much have to figure out ways to work with what I have for now without burning out the girls. Oh yeah - I never mentioned that my entire Audit & Compliance team is composed of members of the female species. Odd coincidence, but it's not an issue or anything. I just found it interesting.

This morning was relatively light. I picked up some ensaymadas on the way home so Tobie and I could immediately have breakfast before dashing off to Shopwise for the weekly grocery run. Together with some coffee, we watched this week's Big Bang Theory together (Raj and Howard are so cute together! LOL), then it was Shopwise time. Thankfully, there weren't too many people despite this being the first Wednesday of the month and we made our rounds pretty quickly. Their stocks of Transformers changed again and I ended up picking up the Animated versions of Soundwave and Slag before they disappeared on me again. Given the on-going sale of Transformers Animated figures, I just might end up picking up most of the more decent figures before year's end.

After grocery I barely had enough strength to put the perishables in the fridge before Tobie forced me to rest a bit. Given my state of physical exhaustion, that little rest break quickly led to me just falling asleep before Tobie left for work today, which kinda sucked. I had been hoping to get some writing in before hitting the hay, but clearly my body had other plans for me.

So with luck, I'll find time to make up for the lost writing session and still keep focused on my NaNoWriMo goal! Yeah, and of course get some work done as well.

Everyone should be true to themselves, whether or not you're a pig. =D

0077A: NaNoWriMo Rivalry

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:50:02 GMT

I haven't made much NaNoWriMo progress since my last LJ entry, but at least I'm up to 5,369 words now. I'll be posting regular updates on my NaNoWriMo progress at the start of every LJ entry from here on, and I'll probably compose at least one entry a week about it on the Geeky Guide. All these little thing to keep me focused. If you're interested in reading the story in-progress, you can read it here: The Interrogation.

I'll be returning tonight after a timely vacation leave last week and my taking advantage of the holiday yesterday. I spent most of my night stressing out over work, however, given I didn't have all the data that I needed for my report due to delays from those who were supposed to send it along. Seriously, why can't people respect deadlines? Timeliness is extremely important, especially in an industry like call centers.

Otherwise, last night was light. I spent a fair amount of time working on my novel, along with taking time to write a few more Geeky Guide entries for this week. This whole NaNoWriMo effort is pretty interesting and I like how it's driving me to write. It's probably helping that my competitive nature is also coming out these days given that Tobie is also making a NaNoWriMo attempt this year. There's nothing like having someone to compare your progress against to push you further and that's pretty much what Tobie's doing for me. I mean come on, I turn around and I see him typing away, adding to his zombie story. How is that supposed to make me feel? But it's friendly competition so far. Naturally I want both of us to "win" NaNoWriMo this year and it's not an actual race.

Although I wouldn't mind finishing my novel first, hehe.

Tonight we're catching the local premiere of Inglorious Basterds right before I head off to work. I was lucky enough to win the tickets via Neworlds.ph. So now I have an official T-shirt (even the tag says Inglourious Basterds!) and a poster (which was slightly beat up, but still works) and of course the actual tickets. I'm hoping I get to juggle my schedule today well enough - I've been awake since around 12, which is a bad thing since it means I may pass out in the middle of my work shift tonight. Oh joy.

Then again, I can always try to stay away by working on my novel some more. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Them's fighting words! It's on! LOL

00779: NaNoWriMo On My Mind

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:40:57 GMT

Happy Wheelie Day!

After a day of working on it on and off, I only have 4,519 words and one Geeky Guide review to show for it. I guess I'm still getting distracted by other geekery plus it's taking me a while to get the writing juices flowing in my brain. The story, which I'm now calling The Interrogation, is starting to come along a little better and it's starting to make more sense in my head. I could probably do for going back and adding more descriptions or elaborating on certain scenes to flesh things out more, but for now I'm just focused on writing as much as possible and pushing the story forward. It's weird to be writing this determinedly again, but it's also quite invigorating. Blogging is one thing but fiction writing is a completely different ball game. I'm just glad to be back in the game.

I'm taking the holiday today in the hopes of getting as much writing done as possible and to spend quality time with Archer. Today is a Wheelie Day after all, and that's always a cause for celebration. Tonight we're thinking of staying in and sort of recreating our first in-person encounter. This means ordering Shakey's pizzas for dinner (which I just did before starting this entry) and playing a few rounds of NetRunner. Flirting and / or playing footsie may be involved in order to attain true historical accuracy, LOL

It's funny how we've come to celebrate this pretty much every month. It's sort of a monthsary celebration, but it's a lot more than that since technically Wheelie Day wasn't the day that we agreed to be together. That came like a month or so later, depending on how you interpret the complicated chain of events that led to me committing to Archer. Normally Archer finds ways to make Wheelie Days special, even if it's just dragging me off to lunch somewhere nice in case Wheelie Day falls on a work day or we think of nicer things to do in general.

I'll cut this short for now. I need to devote more writing time for my story and keeping the Geeky Guide updated. Here we go!

These are just totally AWESOME!

00778: Halloween Partying, Sunday Movies and Transformers!

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:10:28 GMT

A very Happy Birthday goes out today to a good friend, Karen! Hope you had a stellar birthday despite the interesting timing of your birth and the classic religious holiday, All Saint's Day! =D

I'm waiting for photos to upload as I compose this entry. Hurry up you fiends! I have so many other things to do!

Last night was simply awesome, and I'm glad I didn't give in to the temptation to stay home last night! Tobie and I along with Dek joined the rest of the group at O Bar to celebrate Halloween. We didn't have the most amazingly accurate "Bollywood" costumes given the amount of time left to us, but we did manage decently enough. There were only two wigs left at the department store but somehow we justified that pirate braids made one almost look like "The Guru" and a mohawk definitely counted for Sandjaya, so that was Indian enough for the night, LOL. We also had some interesting metallic masks to which we added sequin-ish gems to the forehead like the traditional bindi. Naturally the presence of props amongst so many queers became an instant hit as everyone wanted to take turns trying on the wigs and posing in various ways.

Next year, we are definitely working harder on actual costumes, haha!

Despite it being a major holiday weekend, which normally translates to way too many people at Malate and not enough room in the bars, we were pretty comfortable in the recently-launched VIP area of O Bar, located at the second floor where the Top and Bottom shop used to be. Thus despite the hordes of queers lining the streets trying to get some alcohol and probably some action for the night, we were sitting in relative comfort in the nicely air conditioned VIP area. Kudos to O Bar for making such an area and effectively managing the people such that there weren't too many gatecrashers sneaking into the area.

From there it was just lots of drinking, good music that wasn't too loud for actual conversations to happen and various costumes, drag queens and other antics. It was such a stellar night! I'm really, really, really glad that I went out. The Halloween photos compose the bulk of the photos that I'm trying to upload right now, if only Facebook and Multiply would stop behaving like total idiots.

Today after getting some much-needed sleep, Tobie and I hit up Gateway to watch Astro Boy and The Hurt Locker. Astro Boy was as disappointed as expected (haha!) but I guess it wasn't a total loss. The humor was pretty good but the whole thing didn't really feel like an actual Astro Boy movie. The Hurt Locker was a lot better and very, very intense / stressful. Still, it definitely made up for our first movie and it certainly drove the message home how harsh the situation in Iraq can be.

Oh, and I also managed to fully unbox and transform all my new Transformers! Let's welcome to the family the Transformers Universe Beachcomber and Brawn along with the Transformers Animated Blurr, Shockwave and Ultra Magnus! Yes, those photos are in queue after the Halloween photos, hehe.

Remind me never to go trick-or-treating in the Sinfest neighborhood, LOL

00777: A Dark And Stormy Night

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:31:23 GMT

So many birthdays on Halloween! Happy Birthday to fellow NWA geeks Carl and Hec, to one of the smartest young men I've ever encountered online, Haochi and to a work friend from LA, Jeff! Happy Birthday to all of you and a very Happy Halloween to the rest of the world!

We lost power at my mom's house sometime in the morning - I don't exactly know when since I pretty much collapsed after being awake for more than 30 hours of being awake. I was a tad sweaty but not too sweaty given at least it was relatively cool in the room where I bunked for the night. Oddly enough, I slept on a couch beside a wall full of airsoft guns. Seriously.

The rest of the day was light. Instead of leaving the house to cool off at the mall, which was probably what most people opted to do given the power outages, we ended up staying home playing board games. Yes, we're one of THOSE kinds of families. We started out with a parents vs kids round of Scrabble, which my siblings and I totally lost despite our best efforts. Then we tried this other game that's like modified Tic-Tac-Toe, but on different levels entirely. Then we ended up playing Word Factory / Boggle for the rest of the afternoon amidst four Shakey's pizzas. Family fun!

My lesson for today is that I'm really not that great at spatial reasoning. When it comes to positioning wooden pegs strategically or just trying to create words out of jumbled letters, I'm just not as quick or as good as I'd like to be. My head still hurts a bit after spending all those hours trying to come up with words. Oh well.

Now I'm trying to figure out if some of my original plans for the evening are pushing through, like meeting up with high school friends for drinks. Tobie and I are also stressing over what to wear tonight given we're attending Halloween event/s tonight as well. How does one deal with a Bollywood theme? LOL

Plus I still haven't unboxed my Transformers! Crazy!

Happy Geeky Halloween, Everyone!!!

00776: Transformers, Family And More Transformers

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:54:04 GMT

I can hear the rain beating on the windows here at Mom's house right now as I compose this entry. Despite a rather pleasant, sunny day, the storm has finally hit, it seems. **crosses fingers**

I'm on leave tonight and I'm spending this time with the family. It's been an interesting day of eating, arcade gaming and a rather significant number of new Transformers added to my collection. Um.

The Transformers part of things comes in two parts. The first part happened right after Tobie and I got haircuts at the Going Straight salon attached to SM Cubao. In the interests of scoping out last-minute Halloween costumes, we passed by the toy department to check out what they had. While we didn't find make-up, my regular scan of the Transformers section had me locating some toys once again in stock - the Transformers Animated versions of Shockwave and Ultra Magnus.

I've wanted Shockwave for some time because he's a double agent robot with four transformation modes: an Autobot, a Decepticon, a tank and a crane. It's not the greatest-looking robot, but he's still generally cool and I had regretted not picking up the first time I had seen him. Now he was back and even cheaper than before, so I grabbed him. I was toying with getting an Animated version of Skywarp when Tobie and I noticed the massive talking Ultra Magnus. Arguing that I needed more Autobots in my collection, Tobie convinced me to get Ultra Magnus, who did look rather cool. All this burned another hole in my wallet (or at least my credit card), but Transformers are always worth it. Besides, I'll deal with the charges next month, hehe.

Oh, oh, oh! And we found these two dragon stuffed toys for just P200 each! Tobie picked up the best-looking versions of each. Better if you just read his side of the story when it comes to the dragons...

Since I was already late, I rushed to Eastwood to meet up with the siblings and we waited for mom so we could have lunch. Lunch was amazingly filling, and of course it tasted good too, but then Mom had to rush back to work so the rest of the day we were on our own. We split up into sibling teams and thus Mico and I were left to scout out the Eastwood Mall on our own.

We passed by the only toy store in the mall and I found many of the same Transformers that I had just seen at SM Cubao on display with the same prices. However, I saw some additional toys that weren't at SM and that got me pretty vexed. Given they were relatively cheaper (P150 - P400), I picked up a few of them to boost my Autobot numbers. Thus I now have these tiny Transformers Universe editions of Beachcomber and Brawl and an Animated version of Blurr. Wheee! Totally massive unboxing tomorrow once I get them all together again - Shockwave and Ultra Magnus are back at the Sietch.

The rest of they day was spent playing various games with Mico at Timezone and Power Station, including embarrassing myself by playing Dance Dance Revolution after the LONGEST time, coffee to keep me awake, waiting for Mom to finish her work day and random photo opportunities.

Oh, have I mentioned that I haven't slept since before my Thursday night shift? Mwahaha! Hello being awake for more than 24 hours!

I'm beat, but overall pretty happy. It's been a great start to the weekend, despite the weather.

Let's start with the geeky Halloween comics!

00775: Cooking Through The Work Stuff

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:20:41 GMT

Happy Birthday greetings go out to my "LA friend" and co-worker, Cathy! Happy, Happy Birthday! I bet you got even better birthday greetings from LA, har har!

Work last night didn't involve a trip to QC, and yet I ended up feeling even more tired. I guess there was just so much going on, it was quite a pain. Agents that needed to be interviewed because they were being transferred to meet headcount requirements one way or another, items to transition, inherited follow-ups several months overdue and meetings up meetings (canceled and otherwise!) - ARGH!!! You can tell how busy / stressed I am at work based on the number of updates I manage to post via Ping.fm to Twitter, Plurk and Facebook. I think today I pretty much had one late update after my first few meetings and a few more towards the end of the day when I finally got to catch my breath. Seriously, my life has gotten a lot busier ever since I started my transition over to the Audit & Compliance Team. I'm not complaining (yet), just making an observation here.

So I got home with what I call MRT legs, which essentially describes the feelings of soreness I get in my feet and lower legs because of the effort of jockeying for a relatively comfortable position in the train along with just remaining upright despite the erratic movements of the MRT and the sheer volume of people crammed in with you that general tidal wave patterns of their own. Despite the feelings of fatigue (both mental and physical), I was determined to cook something nice for breakfast / dinner with Tobie. Plus I needed the cooking to de-stress somehow, beyond the normal de-stressing I manage when I compose these LJ entries.

During my most stressful days, things somehow align such that it coincides when I decide to cook munggo or happen to have the ingredients for it. I know, I know, I seem to be cooking a lot lately, but it's such nice yummy comfort food and not as difficult to make as I thought it would be. Sure, a lot of time is involved in terms of pre-soaking the beans and later on boiling them, but in terms of actual procedural steps, it's not that bad. It's a given that I'm probably not doing it as perfectly as other amazing cooks would, but I manage decently enough and seem to more or less get the taste I want. I just need to make sure I consistently get the right balance of ingredients whenever I do this - I ever have a little too much or a wee too little water. Ah, the wonderful imprecision of the cooking process, nyahaha!

For today's viewing session over breakfast, I loaded one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, The Girl in the Fireplace, which was actually nominated for a Nebula Award and it won a Hugo Award. Ah yes, definitely science fiction at its best. The story is deceptively simple enough but then the twists and turns reveal hidden complexities on so many levels. It's not necessarily an episode with a happy ending and it certainly carries with it a rather somber tone to things, but overall it was just a very good story told quite well. Episodes like this are the main reason I fell in love with the new Doctor Who series and it was nice to be able to share this side of geekery with Tobie.

Now I need to find time to write another Geeky Guide review, read the new Blackest Lantern comics that I've just downloaded and maybe squeeze in a little World of Goo time before bed. Pressure much? LOL

Sorry, but context is for the weak. I just thought this whole sequence rocked. And made Mike hotter. LOL