It's the White Party tonight and already I feel sleepy and I'm not yet sure what to wear. I'm sure something will come to me - it's not like I have that many white shirts to choose from. Just sharing.

It's been an interesting series of rest days so far and I'm glad I took the leave for Friday night. I spent most of Friday sleeping after the little shopping trip, I have to admit, but that doesn't mean I didn't try to make use of the evening. Amidst everything else going on (including Tobie's workload for the day), we did somehow manage to struggle through Push, which was a horrible movie, and hang out with some of the geeks over at Fandom for a while. That didn't last too long since folks needed to get some sleep before the big Balasa / OGM later in the day and Tobie and I were determined to finish Push. We eventually managed to do this, but had to sleep right after since the movie definitely tested the limits of my ability t stay awake in the face of utter boringness.

We eventually woke up in the morning and found out Tobie had a pretty heavy workload for the day which pretty much imperiled our chances of hitting Balasa / OGM. I still hoped for the best and went about preparing a fun breakfast then spent the rest of the day blogging, watching TV or watching movies while Tobie waited for the rest of the work to come in. I also managed to clean the toilet (which is always a good thing) and start transferring the DVDs into those magazine-style cases (I've already used up two of the three new cases Tobie bought this week) and other tasks of general efficiency. We also had an rather interesting dinner in terms of some package hot and sour soup with lots of greens added and some tuna sashimi on the side. We may not have been able to go to Balasa / OGM, but at least we had a productive day.

Now I think I need a little power nap before the White Party - I've been awake for most of the day after all. I hope tonight turns out well - last year's event was rather disappointing after all.

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Instead of Chuck Norris, one can now use "Michael Bay" LOL

Ugh, I've been awake for more than 24 hours because of a computer game. Again. Why do I keep doing this?

I've been stuck in this pattern whenever I get too deeply interesting in something. Initially it was books at that would sometimes lead to very strained nights with me trying to finish a book via night light or just a flashlight when I felt I couldn't afford to put the book down. Something just clicks in my head and I find myself forgetting bodily functions (like food and sleep) and I just keep focused. It got worse when I started getting into computer games since those experiences are a lot more involving than book can be at times and I started to spend more and more time in front of the machine.

My "seasons" of computer gaming mania come and go with time and there's no real way to predict what will trigger things. Star Craft was one of the major ones and you can even go back as far as Dune 2, which remains of the first games I ever really got obsessed about. Truth be told, I only got into the books because of the game, hahaha. Now the bug has bit me again, and its name is Spore. It's a lot trickier than it seems and if you really want to maximize the experience, you'll find yourself playing the game over and over again as you try to get things precisely as you want them. There are just so many factors, it's hard to determine the "perfect" balance for you.

And thus the reason I've been awake this long. I tried playing through the game again in order to try to get different outcomes.

Not much else has happened between then and now. I played computer games all day. Brian |kitchengod| slept, since he's really not feeling well plus he had stayed up a bit too much yesterday. Now he's at work and I'm home alone. Ryan and John might invite me out to go clubbing, and given my present condition, it's hard to say if I'll be up for it, haha.

Oh well.

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Rat really shouldn't write fiction - strange things happen.

Things have been pretty blah so far. Nothing amazingly interesting nor anything terribly traumatic for that matter. I suppose I shouldn't complain, right? After all, it could be worse in one way or another, right?

On the PS2 front, I spent some time testing some of the games I bought over the holidays. I'm stuck in this quest to find a working copy of Final Fantasy X since I want to play it again and my latest acquisition works...but is in Japanese. Bugger. I also took the time to get our own copy of Rayman Raving Rabbids just because I find them disturbingly cute along with our own copy of Puzzle Quest. The gem of this set definitely has to be Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which is definitely kick ass. You can tell that Lucas Arts decided to borrow a page from the likes of God of War and Marvel Ultimate Alliance in coming up with the gaming dynamics. It's not necessarily my kind of game (I bet Brian |kitchengod| would do a lot better if he gave it a shot), but still it's worth the effort for sure, if only for the geek factor, haha.

On the download viewing front, I finally finished my acquisition of this year's Christmas special of Doctor Who entitled, "The Next Doctor" Of course I watched it today and was mildly amused by the steampunk-ish flavor to things. At the same time, I realized that I had not watched my copy of The Infinite Quest, an animated Doctor Who special during the Martha Jones period. It was a bit more enjoyable than the Christmas special except for the bad animation quality.

Beyond that, I've taken to trying to finish re-watching the second season of the original Transformers series and finally getting around to starting to watch the entire run of The Black Adder. Yeah, I guess I'm in the mood for lighter entertainment or something, nothing majorly heavy. Then again, I'll never endue slapstick and so British humor seems to hit the spot precisely. Considering I've purchased working copies of the the first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica and the all episodes of Season 4 up until this year, I'm not sure if I'm ready to get back into their struggles, trials and tribulations just yet, hehe. There'll be plenty of time for that next year or something.

I know, I know, it's that time of the year when it's stupidly fun to refer to "next year" as if it were so far way when it is in fact only a few days away. Oh simple joys.

I need a life, haha.

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Oh Duck is just too cute for words, hehe.

Today's the birthday of fellow Doctor Who fan Darlene |inklingfair|! Happy Birthday, Dar! I'm still keeping your Doctor Who DVDs safe, I promise!

As is the way of such things, today also marks the death of Majel Barrett Roddenberry - wife of the creator of the Star Trek franchise and former nurse on the show. Oh, and of course she was the voice of the ship's computer over the years. It's strange to think she's actually gone - I think I'm more affected by her death than I was Gene's given her role as the ship's computer has always been a more noticeable one.

Today was a pretty long work day...again. I seem to be spending more and more time at the office because of the on-going nesting class. There are just too many variables involved that I find myself increasingly needing to maneuver around things and eventually pull out a few trump cards. Today I had to play my connections to the client and thankfully the gamble paid off...this time. I'm practical enough to realize that such tactics won't necessarily work all the time and should be used sparingly. Still, I ended the day feeling pretty accomplished, which is always a good thing.

I'm trying to figure out my plans for next year, and naturally that's going to be even more work. This is a great opportunity for takings things in a new direction given my current Director, the team I have to work with and all the new initiatives that are bound to come our way. Plus there's the campaigns that we continue to strive to support and their individual idiosyncrasies and peculiarities that help make every working day interesting.

This weekend promises to be rather busy. There's the company Christmas party, for which I have nothing to wear yet, on Saturday and there's a little get-together of my high school classmates on Sunday. Given I missed last year's celebration, I'm determined to attend even though it's on the other side of the metro. Oh hello, Quezon City! Times like these, I wish we had already invented matter transporter systems.

The internet connection is being very difficult today. While we are in fact connected, it's a pretty slow connection this morning with significant moments of latency. This is precisely why I didn't want to go with a wireless solution, but then our options remain as limited as before. Oh well.

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Stephan Pastis comes up with the strangest ideas for characters.

In all my flurry about baking soda, I totally forgot to mention that yesterday was the birthday of a "Family" member, Monchu. While I did remember to leave him a more direct greeting via Facebook, it seems only proper given my blogging habits to at least document a greeting on this site as well. Happy Birthday, Monchu!

Last night was just great, so much so that words possibly fail me. Brian |kitchengod| had decided to set a date for one of possibly many housewarming parties for Vella given she couldn't possibly accommodate all our friends in one go. The first one was held yesterday and this was mainly for Brian's good work friends, which was still a sizable number of people. I had considered blogging individual thank-you messages to everyone who took time out of their busy schedules, but then I'm sure I'm going to forget some of the folks that came over so I'll err on the side of caution and just choose to be rather general about this. Seriously, I really do want to thank everyone who came over last night - the party was quite the success despite the limited food and amenities.

The menu for the night was strictly finger food in order to reduce the need for plates and in order to make the preparations a lot simpler. If I remember everything right, we had nachos with homemade salsa, a Waldorf salad, California maki from Kitaro and various dimsum that Brian ordered from someone at work. In addition we had some caramelized baby potatoes that Brian had baked in the oven and lots of wine and beer. Oh, and Will brought donuts from Gonuts Donuts - I officially like the coffee / mocha / caramel one. *squee*

To try and capture everything that happened in the course of the evening is tricky to say the least. I guess it's best said that a large number of friends got together, shared good food and had a fair amount of alcohol. Given those conditions, we all did what friends do when the alcohol is free-flowing - have a heck of a lot of fun, whether in the form of swapping funny stories or just recounting events of the past.

The option of having my own little get together with friends remains open, and yet I find myself unable to come up with a guest list. As much as I have friends I'd love to invite over, they don't necessarily know one another or share things in common other than having me as a friend. All that spells the makings for a very dull party and perhaps a very awkward situation for many. I guess I'll have to stick to my usual methods and resort to more personal meetings and individual invitations. It may not be as "fun" in the typical sense, but I guess it's the best way for things to work out considering my personality and the kinds of friendships I cultivate.

Would any of you feel like attending a housewarming event?

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While it may not be best for children, it would have made for a pretty realistic story, hehe.

Today's the birthday of Allan, a classmate from back in high school. Man, the last time I saw him in person was what? High school itself? Boo me. For what it's worth man, Happy Birthday, Allan!

Miraculously, the temporary internet connection at home is working right now - I hope it holds up.

Rather sleepy now since we got a lot done in terms of various domestic goals. First, we finally found a source for the bricks that Brian |kitchengod| wanted for his shelving ideas - you're just going to have to see it to fully appreciate it. The bricks are going to be delivered next week so once those get here, I'm pretty excited to see what exactly he's going to do with them.

We hit Cash & Carry again and scoped out a new electric fan since the one in the living room died. The majorly strong 3D industrial fan seems promising despite the higher price tag, but we deferred actually buying it given how heavy it was and that fact that we planned on buying groceries as well.

I'm still in a major fixation with cleaning right now and so I finally bought the Rubbermaid corner scrub brush that I plan to use on the bathroom and a few more items that I'm going to need for my other cleaning plans. For some reason, I'm pretty fixated on the idea of using baking soda for cleaning and deodorizing. I've gone as far as buying a fairly large box of Arm & Hammer baking soda (what other brand would I trust?), a bottle of cheap vinegar to use in combination with the baking soda and a little spray bottle to administer the vinegar. Seriously, this is my plan. I hope I find time to do more baking soda research on how to use the stuff for cleaning before I run out of time.

I formally paid the rent for the first time today, and it was a major ouchie. It's because of the increase expenses that I find myself trying to enjoy the house more and more. It's certainly something that's changing the way we live. I also got to fax out my application forms to get our Meralco bill and our SkyCable bill paid via auto-debit arrangements with my credit card. I had done the Meralco previously for our old house but the first time I tried SkyCable it got rejected for some reason. So finally I'm trying again and I hope this time it gets cleared out.

The last piece of the equation is getting our application for Globe Wireless Broadband processed. The area manager called up Brian via mobile phone while we were at Cash & Carry to confirm he was sending an agent over to process our application and so I had to rush reproducing the copies of various documents needed. Now that it's evening, it's either that the agent didn't come at all or we just didn't wake up when he did. Bugger.

I have two more work shifts left. Oh joy.

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Oh Duck, at least you tried.

Today's the birthday of fellow geek Benny. Sorry I can't make it to the VA Christmas Party - Happy Birthday all the same!

Well, it's back to work again for me tonight. I'm back on my "normal" hours of 09:00pm - 06:00am although for this week we're running a Tuesday to Saturday schedule as an offset for the holiday we took yesterday. Yeah, I know right? Anyway, this is also going to be the first time I'll officially be reporting to our new site at the corner of Jupiter and Zodiac (or Buendia and Zodiac if you prefer) since my training class is scheduled to be there. It's a shame my new office isn't ready yet - I'll just have to settle for bunking in with my trainers on a different campaign floor versus the one I'm actively managing now.

My night alone didn't go too bad, although it was nothing amazing either. I got a fair amount of tidying up done including putting the laundered clothes away, mostly clearing a particular box, sweeping the apartment and of course doing the dishes like I mentioned yesterday, but beyond that there wasn't much. Ironically enough, the internet connection we're sharing with John and Ryan decided to get really buggy all night and so I was hardly online. That left me to just kill time on the computer with things I had downloaded previously and shave off every last errant hair that I could find. Yeah, I get into weird obsessive moments like that when left alone.

I finished most of season 2 of Torchwood - and I say most since it was only towards the end that I realized I had forgotten to download the season ender. Bugger. So now I have to wait for that to finish up before I can truly finish the season and mark it off my checklist.

I just got my haircut today - there was a quaint barber shop over at Cash & Carry. It was a nice place that had a lot of 1920's music playing, which I enjoyed although found a tad weird. My barber seemed pretty obsessive about getting things precisely right and it turned out to be a fairly long haircut considering I just wanted a trim. As he would go over my head area by area, I couldn't help but notice that (a) the average age of the customers in the room seemed at least double my own and (b) a lot of people weren't just getting haircuts. Some guy had a head massage of sorts going on while another was getting a facial and his feet done. It seemed strange to me considering it was a barber shop and not a beauty salon, but then again who can question the desire to expand one's services to meet more needs, right? It was a rather good haircut, even if it was a tad short but the P150 price tag seemed a bit much to me and so I ended up not tipping. I know, that was bad of me.

Objectives for the week include (1) signing up for Globe Wireless Broadband Internet, (2) figuring out where to get bricks for Brian's |kitchengod| shelving project, (3) unpack more boxes and (4) perhaps get into another PS2 game. Oh, and finish reading our copy of the Coraline graphic novel.

Hello work week!

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You have to love Duck's rather extreme methodology - you know it'll work, hehe.

First, a very happy birthday greeting needs to go out to Joyce over at where Brian |kitchengod| works. Happy Birthday, Joyce!

Work was pretty tiring. I had to deal with a last set of agent interviews, which ate up a good three hours of my day, then the rest of it was filled with other activities. I'm busy with a lot of development work prior to the next class of agents that I'll start training on the 24th and the time remaining feels like drastically less that what it is in reality. I guess given how uncertain things are at times and all the new initiatives that keep coming along, a day that seems free of obligations can quickly fill up with unforecasted tasks and activities. The joys of work.

Ironically enough, the site is preparing to send off the first waves of agents that will be among the first agents to occupy our new building. Of course the entire movement is far from on-schedule and we're not going to be able to move based on our original time line. Still, it does mean several weeks of the joys of moving into a new building, hoping everything works and pestering the construction group to finish as soon as possible, which really means finishing based on their original schedule.

On the domestic front, we just paid the initial deposit today and so we're free to start moving our stuff over this weekend. apparently the first day of our move will be considered as the first day of our contract for the new apartment. Depending on the circumstances, that'll either be Saturday or Sunday as long as our luck holds out, hehe. Brian thinks it'll probably be more prudent to hire moves since (1) we don't have a large vehicle, (2) we don't have many friends who have large vehicles and (3) we'll probably need help getting the stuff up the stairs - the building does not have a service elevator.

We still haven't told our current landlady about the move and now there's really not delaying it with the move coming. We're going to start packing stuff as soon as we get the boxes that we need. Once that gets settled and we figure out the move completely then things will definitely be in full swing and there'll be little turning back from there.

I'm both excited and intimidated by the whole thing.

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Everyone learns martial arts for precisely this reason, I think. Hehehe