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!

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Happy Geeky Halloween, Everyone!!!

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.

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Let's start with the geeky Halloween comics!

First, Happy Birthday to our friend Fritz! When do we get to celebrate for real? LOL

After last night's Spring Awakening-related festivities, I settled down with Tobie to watch Superman / Batman: Public Enemies, which was adapted from the comics of the same name. It had really bad art and was always with such direct-to-video adaptations, a barely decent attempt at recapturing the original tale, although most of the key bits were there. Tobie fell asleep while we were watching while I on the other hand was wide awake. It's a good thing I managed to force myself to sleep after watching given how busy today was set to be.

I was set to meet up with my Mom for lunch and that was a nice affair. It's interesting how over the years I continue to "talk shop" with her - which refers to us talking about work. This may seem like an odd topic of conversation with one's mother, but she's been sharing here work stories ever since I was in late grade school / early high school and now it's nice that I have stories of my own to share. Naturally I was proud to share about winning Most Outstanding Participant at the recent company Leadership Conference along with some of the nice remarks some of the executives had for me, which really made my day.

Lunch was REALLY good and I snapped a few photos of what we had - will try to get around to posting the photos at a later time.

From there it was off to meet up with Jayson since we were planning to visit Brian as a post-birthday thing but given the traffic situation, I ended up getting the "secret ingredients" on my own and met up with Jase at Vella, the old apartment.

Things were generally the same except for some changes in terms of where things were situated, which was to be expected. However the biggest change was finding out that Mist had died about a week before after what is presumed to be a pretty heavy fight between her and Smoke. I was pretty much devastated and did my best not to cry or anything but it certainly left me a bit dumb-founded for some time and I just managed to stay on the couch or go visit Smoke out back to pet him, hug him and make sure he was okay. I went as far as cleaning his cage as well given care for the cats and maintenance of their cage used to be one of the things I put a lot of effort into.

I now kinda wish that I had moved to an apartment that allowed pets, but then given how bad my asthma gets when I'm together with cats in confined spaces, I guess it couldn't be helped. I love animals but I really need some sort of a yard or at least a balcony so they get aired out. One day I know we'll find a place that can support my love of pets and my asthma and I'll be happy as a clam again. Yes, even with those dreaded velociraptors with fur.

Well, I need to move on. I'll focus on my new books (including Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters), the prospects of saving up for a new megazoom camera and of course cooking tonight's dinner. Creamy chicken soup time!

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Just when you least expect it. That's life.

I just got back from spending a day with Mom, which was always nice. As expected, I was chided for my weight all the while she was offering me extra servings of spaghetti and a slice of Red Ribbon's Smores cake. I am now committed to trying to lose 20 pounds before my Mom's birthday in December. It's definitely time to repair my running shoes...or get new ones.

We spent the day pretty much talking about the call center industry in general and specific to our respective companies and sharing recipes. I was keen on finding out how she makes her spaghetti and at the same time I got a bonus recipe - fried chicken! Definitely something I want to try...although I don't know how this relates to my mom's desire for me to lose weight. Yes, milk-marinated fried chicken is the bomb.

We're about to start a shorter gaming session for this week since tomorrow is a pretty busy day for most of us and so we'll have to keep things tight tonight and not our usual 6-8 hour session. It'll be a bit sad since we really enjoy these games but we have to give way to other things in our lives, haha. Obligations get in the way of gaming and geekery!

I'm amused at how many people are into Glee right now. Hurrah for musical television!

Oh, and it looks like I'll be out of town next weekend for a company team building activity at Clark. Oh joy. That's so going to get in the way of my gaming, too!

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Don't talk in front of the down-sized! LOL

Today's the birthday of two pretty good friends and both certainly warrant greetings. Happy Birthday to both Ryan and Kerwyn! I hope you guys had fun last night, or perhaps tonight - whatever works best, hehe.

Despite potential weekend plans for last night that could have included a party or even a trip to the spa for a full body massage, Tobie and I ended up staying in since (1) it's never a bad thing to do so and (2) we still had to wake up early to bring my brother Mico to school again for some outreach activity.

Now that's been an interesting thing - helping out my brother for the weekend. For both Saturday and Sunday he had an activity at school that he needed to attend and with the folks in Singapore, it fell to me to make sure he got to school safely and at the same time find some bonus time to spend with my brother. While I have visited the folks since I moved here to Cubao, it only really dawned on me just how near we now live to the old house and pretty much my own haunts too. It took a few trips to really refine our route and figure out all the linkages between UP Village, Ateneo and Cubao. It was funny jogging my memory in terms of all the little shortcuts and back roads that one could take depending on where you wanted to go and it made for a great excuse to talk about the past on the way.

Both times we brought Mico out to late lunches - on Saturday it was Chocolate Kiss and today it was Sweet Inspirations for some Mongolian buffet, hehe. Both times we went home pretty stuffed and all the happier for it, I suppose. Good eating is such fun.

Over the course of this weekend we've also managed to watch the first three episodes of Torchwood: Children of Earth and are bound to finish sometime over the next few days along with the direct-to-video cartoon Green Lantern: First Flight, which was rather disappointing considering how they managed with the last Wonder Woman animated movie. I mean seriously, did the writers even consider what were some of the fundamental concepts of the original series? I can respect a little artistic creativity, but this? Come on! *sigh*

It's raining now and we keep hearing things falling down from higher apartments. There are the usual shafts that run down the middle of the building to provide ventilation and over the past few days, we keep getting debris ranging from discarded fish tails and ash all the way to glass raining down from above. Weird.

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Oh yes, bad style is a true cardinal sin! LMAO

I'm on leave tonight. To make a long story short, family obligations has become a good reason not to go to work tonight - the weekend should be interesting.

Work was tiring, but not overly stressful. I wasn't able to get to the office as early as I was aiming to, but I was there significantly earlier than normal. There was a lot to attend to throughout the shift but in the end things seemed pretty okay.

Things just got a heck of a lot better the moment I got home, hehe.

It's been awhile I've really written an "Archer Story" given how busy things have been, but he's always around, don't worry. Things are just fine - in fact a heck of a lot better than fine. They're perfectly...secure. This story begins with me getting home to find Archer asleep on the mattress that serves as a pseudo couch in the living room. He seemed very deeply asleep so I took the chance to get freshened up first and changed after my commute home and eventually I joined him in bed. I started sniff-kissing his arm and was surprised that he initially shrugged me off and grunted in a negative manner.

Oh yes, it seemed the Archer Defense System was armed and active. I knew I had to tread carefully beyond this point. I tried a few more sniff-kisses and got varying degrees of resistance, but Archer wasn't leaving any time soon. Since Archer was sleeping on his side, I decided to try to gently nudge him onto his back so I can wake him up more directly and see if I could disarm the defense system. Instead, the moment I had him facing the ceiling he exclaimed, "Rocky only!"

Yeah, I know what you're thinking and you're exactly right. I was amused beyond belief, flattered as heck and naturally laughing my head off by this point. I started calling out to him while shaking him and not more than 2 minutes later I was greeted with the goofy grin of Archer really waking up. I was still laughing pretty hard and so when he finally realized what was going on, he had to ask me what he did. And so I told him.

I swear, I probably need to have a camera active all the time whenever I try waking up Archer. There are all these occurrences that so deserve documentation just to prove to everyone that I'm not making this stuff up, which seriously I'm not. I mean come on, why should I even bother? The truth is so much more enjoyable than fiction at times, hehe. I wonder what the Archer Defense System will do next time!

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I never knew Satchel would be smart enough to say something like that.

First off, a Happy Father's Day greeting to all those who have sired children, those who have adopted kids, those who have married into families with Children and all those who play the father figure role to someone else. You all deserve this special day!

Last night was Gaming Night, and this time around we had a new set of players and a different game to run apart from the on-going Vampire game I joined in. We're playing Changeling, which really has the potential for some pretty twisted and confusing stories given the nature of the game plus factoring in having Tobie as a Storyteller, which means practically anything can happen, haha.

Character creation took a lot longer this time around and I feel lot prouder about my created character as compared to what I had made previously. That's understandable - my first character obviously showed my unfamiliarity with the game system and so I made it as balanced as possible. This time around I took a few more risks and decided to specialize more in order to really fit my character better - this time around a sort of Dixon Hill type of detective. I know, it's a bit of a stereotype, but cut me some slack since I'm still learning how this goes. The game itself was good although we were really rather tired and towards the end I was really nodding off between round and Tobie was yawning a lot. Thankfully we managed to end things decently and we have a good set up for the next few chapters.

Today I visited Mom again in order to give her stove a thorough cleaning since only 1 out of her 4 burners were working. It took a fair amount of time but with the help of lots of baking soda and some vinegar, I got things all cleaned up and managed to restore all burners to working capacity, at least for a while. The smallest one continues to give me trouble and another seems to have really diminished output for some reason.

I just hung out after that, swapped stories and got a few more recipes from my Mom that I'll try out here at the Sietch in the weeks to come. I also ended up helping my brother, Mico, with his homework. I never thought I would ever have to go back to El Filibuserismo, hehehe.

Now just having coffee with Carl |pirena_sangre| while waiting for Tobie to come home from his Father's Day dinner with the family.

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Delegation and appointing a POC is always tricky around key periods, hehe.

I feel tired.

It's not the same as feeling sleepy (you know what I mean, right?), but there's definitely a physical component to things. I guess this week was a lot busier than I had though and perhaps everything that I've been involved with is really taking its toll.

Case in point - today I was supposed to meet the family for lunch since my sister was heading back to Singapore today. I got home early enough and made sure to go straight to sleep (translation: staying away from the computer) so I'd be a bit more rested and thus able to function in the daytime come lunchtime. I set alarms that would either wake me or alert Tobie to the fact that I needed to wake up then promptly drifted off to sleep before I realized it. Fast forward to around 01:00pm and Tobie's trying to wake me up and I finally emerge from the haze of sleep. It turns out he had tried to wake me up earlier but I was too deep into it that he just couldn't wake me.

I hate it when that happens - sleeping a bit too deeply can be scary in itself, but what bothers me more is the fact that it tends to act as an indicator that maybe I'm more tired that I realize. Unfortunately the "message" from my body came at the expense of my sister and I know I'm going to have to devote some efforts into making it up to her somehow in the weeks and months to come.

Even now I still feel a general sense of fatigue. My feet have been a bit sore this week from a lot of walking around the office, and thankfully Tobie has above average massage skills and he's help address the worst of the pain and soreness. I'm not all that rip-roaring to run out and do stuff even though in my head I want to make the most of the weekend by enjoying outside the apartment somehow. Not that staying home is such a bad thing - I just don't want to be some sort of a stick in the mud, unable to go out and thus spoiling plans or something just because I feel this way. Lying down will probably help, but not necessarily sleeping. It's a weird feeling to describe but I hope I've more or less gotten the general image across.

I guess I'll need to play it cool for the rest of the weekend - nothing too strenuous or anything like that and making sure I take advantage of the extra time for rest and relaxation. Today's alternative gaming night certainly fits the bill nicely and given we're starting another game apart from the pre-existing Vampire thread, this promises to be a pretty enjoyable evening.

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Twitter makes you gay! LMAO