Instead of traditional birthday greetings, here's a comic for all you December 25 celebrants:



Today has been a pretty lazy Christmas. I'm not complaining, mind you. It's all good.

Today I have been busy with one of several activities. Mostly, I've been here at the dining table with Blacktron set up here, surfing the web and exchanging greetings with friends and family online. I've also been eating, as is traditional come Christmas I suppose, but then that's not a new thing. I just woke up now since I've also been sleeping, enjoying the lazy day. The only new activity this year has been helping Mom cook whether it's frying packaged tocino or chopping lots and lots of tomatoes for fresh salsa. It's been a good day.

I realized today that while we don't actually do the traditional noche buena concept, the non-stop eating is not unique to the holidays. It's just how things are at home - Mom always wants to make sure there's enough food for everyone and given our combined appetites, this means a LOT of food. She started yesterday with Mexican Relish and potato salad. Today she added a second batch of relish, I cooked tocino and Mom also made giniling. Oh, and don't forget the fresh salsa to go with her Tostitos. Plus there have been incidental items like bagels with cream cheese, coffee with chocolate covered biscuits or even some Camembert cheese (although Mom had wanted Brie).

Blacktron has been very helpful in the trip thus far. Beyond making sure that I still remain connected to the online world, it's also helped ensure that my sister is "with us" in a way since she wasn't able to come home for the holidays this year. This has resulted in Blacktron acting as our Skype hub so Mina could sort of be with us for the day. It's funny since we leave it on for hours at a time and we can all be doing our own thing while Mina occasionally joins the conversation. It's not the same as actually having her home, but it sort of helps.

So that's what my Christmas has been like thus far. Simple, yet good. I'm glad everyone liked their presents last night - I was primary gift giver this year, it seems. The real activity seems to be the weekend since we're trekking down to Laguna to celebrate with the rest of family in something akin to a reunion but not quite. There's a pool involved, but I'm sure that I'll be hiding behind Blacktron. It'll be a good first test of Blacktron, hahaha!

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Dogbert is so adorable handing out money, hahaha!

I somehow doubt my text options are going to be good as the Globe network will probably collapse later tonight, so let me get things out a tad early. Merry Christmas to all of my family, friends, co-workers and especially all you geeks out there! You know who you are!

I'm back at the family home in UP Village, still using my netbook Blacktron alongside my Mom's EEE 1005HA and my brother's Compaq Presario C700 (which is the same model laptop that got stolen from me last year). Yeah, it looks like we're having a LAN party or something, but that's just how things are in these tech-enabled times we're living in. My sister, Mina, was unable to come to home this year (which is indeed a major first) and so I've been running Skype for more than 2 hours now just so she can feel like she's just here with us, which is pretty cool. Hooray for internet telephony and all that.

Mom cooked up a batch of Mexican Relish (irony!), although her recipe is slightly different from the one I've been following from Mina. It's good too and I think I might try incorporating some of those techniques in my own version to see how that goes. She's also prepared a rather large batch of potato salad and she said she had plans of making fresh salsa. It seems we're having a Mexican Christmas menu this year, hehe. Oh, that and a fruit salad or something.

It looks like I'm the only one who actually bought presents this year so I guess that's a good thing. A Christmas totally devoid of presents other than cash would somehow be weird, I feel. It can't be helped - we've all been pretty busy and we're all a lot older than before so the time of Santa and more traditional gatherings around the tree are out of the question. But this is still Christmas for me and I still value the time I'll be spending with the family.

For other times, it's good that I have my netbook with me in a WiFi-enabled house, haha!

Again, Merry Christmas everyone!

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Well played team, well played. =D

First, a very Happy Birthday to one half of the Bunnies - Fire! Happy, Happy Birthday, Fire! Glad we got to bump into one another at the Pride March - hope I get to see you two again very soon.

Today was totally whoa. Tiring, fulfilling - in other words great.

The day started with me rushing home from work to wake up Tobie so we could get to SM Mall of Asia bright and early to get tickets for the 10:45am screening of Avatar at the IMAX theater. We had to go all the way South since SM North Edsa's IMAX theater is a LOT smaller than it should be plus I was hoping to get a little Christmas shopping in. We left around 09:00am and got there before the mall opened, so it was just a matter of bumming around for about 10 minutes before the ticket booth opened.

Of course our window shopping had us arriving at the ticket booth after a fair number of people had rushed into the IMAX theater upon opening. I was nervous about what tickets would be available since there were people buying tickets for the last 2 shows tonight, but then I guess I was just being paranoid. P800 later, Tobie and I had tickets with about 15 minutes spare. Given we both hadn't eaten anything that morning, we grabbed popcorn, hotdogs and those Mister Donut Smidgets and then we were all set. The movie was scheduled to start at 10:45am. Given the local theater administration and how late people arrive for such things, we started past 11:00am.

Avatar was a well-done movie for sure, but in terms of story plot it wasn't all that amazing to me. I mean seriously - this is clearly a rehash of Pocahontas and Ferngully and yet it also combines elements from Cameron's previous movies like those power loader style battle suits. Watching it in IMAX 3D was certainly worth it - it was a constant visual feast them teaches you that the purpose of plants, insects and floating seed pods is to remind you that this is a 3D movie by trying to pop out of the screen. Major kudos needs to go out to Sigourney Weaver for reminding us of how kick ass she really is. Tobie and I emerged from the theater a bit dizzy from the nearly 3-hour IMAX 3D bombardment, but it was still all good

After that we started scrambling around the mall to do some last-minute Christmas gift shopping. Given that once again we both had no idea what to buy as gifts for our families, I think we managed things well enough. We also picked up a few things for ourselves, one of the best being a limited edition version of Jason Mraz's We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things that consists of 2 CDs and a DVD! Whee! I was very tempted to get a Transformers ROTF Bludgeon but I decided against it given the crowds at Toy Kingdom at the time. I do have to go on record to say that OMG - Masterpiece Edition Skywarp is SOOO worth the P5,000 they're selling it for! *dies*

After all that got accomplished, we sat down for a very late lunch at TGI Friday's - a sort of early Christmas dinner since we're both going home to our respective families this week for the holidays. We had the Caesar salad and the Mushrooms, Chicken and Mushrooms, which still tasted as good as I remember it but it was clearly not as plentiful as it used to be.

I slept the rest of the day away so here I am, just about to start my day. Sweet, hahaha!

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With luck, I won't be perceived as some of the more extreme gift givers here, hehehe...

To all my friends in the US, a very Happy Thanksgiving to you! Enjoy the Thanksgiving feast and perhaps you can find a way to send me some freeze-dried leftovers! =D

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 40,172 words. I'm 80% of the way there with only 4 days left to get the rest of it done. You can certainly imagine my internal stress as I just think about this prospect right now. Seriously. This is a aggravating as thinking about leaving the volume at a notch not divisible by 3 or 5 added together with the stress of not having paired utensils and throwing in the stress of buying an odd number of pork chops when I plan on cooking for an even number of people. I know it all sounds weird, but that's the best I can describe how this feels to me right now. But I'm not at all giving up - I know that I'll be able to catch up over the weekend and hopefully I'll make it just in time.

I haven't done much cross-promotional stuff here so it wouldn't hurt to sneak that in for today's entry, right?

I was surprised to find that I now have 28 Google Wave invites to give away. To make things more interesting, I've started a very simple "contest" of sorts over at the Geeky Guide for those who want an invite. I'm not asking for much! I'm just asking for more support for my geeky blogging efforts, hehe.

Speaking of geeky blogging efforts, you all do realize that I now write articles for NewWorlds.ph, right? I'm supposedly Associate Editor for TV but I haven't quite gotten around to writing my regular column just yet - perhaps once I'm done with NaNoWriMo. For the curious, you can visit my "blog" on NewWorlds.ph here or you can just search for any entries tagged with "geekyguide" at the site.

Beyond that, I've decided to also blog about my desires for a new digital bridge camera and possibly a netbook. If any of you have recommendations for me for either gadget or even have contacts / deals I should check out, I'd love to hear from you!

Now I have to cut things short so I can get ready to head out. Tobie and I are catching the premiere of Amelia at the Podium tonight before I eventually have to head off to work. Smell you geeks later!

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Happy Thanksgiving you geeks! Always be thankful for cats!

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.

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Damn you idiot, narrow-minded voters of America!

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.

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

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 have an annoying sore along the side of my tongue, clearly caused by me biting down hard in my sleep. It happens from time to time and I usually relate such occurrences to increased stress at work. Given the external training class we were caring for this week, I guess it pretty much makes sense. Or one could relate it to the fact that I'm still somewhat sick and dealing with a cough and an occasionally runny nose. I've yet to run a major fever, although I bet my mouth is a bit warmer than it should be. Plus I'm already on antibiotics as prescribed by the company doctor given this cough has been around for more than a month now.

So in general, I'm not quite well and thus work last night was a bit more tiring that it could have been. My day started on the wrong foot to some degree given that Archer's embrace contributed to me sleeping very well - and thus I woke up late for woke. It was a bit of a mad dash to get ready despite how cold the water gets at night in this weather, but I made it the office in one piece, although a tad winded. The rest of the day went by in a blur given the usual weekly reports, escalations, phone calls, and mountains and mountains of email, of course. And of course there was the actual external training at the end, making sure the participants showed up on time, arranging for trainer support despite this event creeping into the morning and so on and so forth. No one could have been more relieved than me to finally squeeze onto the MRT car in order to get home.

I was pretty tired by the time I got home, but playing a little World of Goo along with sharing various videos and links with Tobie helped energize me just enough to get out of the Sietch to get around to a much-needed grocery run. The larders were practically bare before today and so this turned out to be a fairly "big" grocery shopping run. We have to get everything from meat to veggies to canned goods and even junk food, which is ultimately cheaper to buy at the grocery than on impulse at the convenience store downstairs. Of course it would be a lot better to avoid just food entirely, but given the number of movies that we like to watch at home, snack food is absolutely essential.

So now I'm feeling pretty good knowing we're fully stocked once more. I'm no longer limited to canned goods and the like but can now stretch my cooking appendages and make some serious meals again. And by serious, I mean with veggies since greens are absolutely important in a minimal rice environment.

It's Halloween this weekend and Tobie and I still don't have costumes! Yikes! I seriously want to dress up for a change (I've rarely gotten dressed up for Halloween in the last decade or so) but then that may not be entirely feasible in the time remaining. If it's any consolation, we already have fun costume concept for next year that we'll really put some effort into preparing for.

And now I need to settle down and start to wind down. Maybe I'll write a review for the Geeky Guide. Or perhaps go back to World of Goo, hehe.

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This project of making a new comic daily based on a trending topic on Twitter is another gem from Neil Cameron!