Today marked a rather sad news day for folks around the globe. Two fairly significant celebrities died - namely Farah Fawcett of Charlie's Angels fame and the King of Pop Michael Jackson. On the one hand, I feel bad that such well-loved artists have moved on and can no longer contribute to our continuing state of entertainment evolution. On the other hand, Michael got really creepy in his later years and it certainly makes it a lot more challenging to really sum up his life. Even further, there's just way more important things going on in the world and it's always a tad disappointing that the world seems to stop when the circumstances involves a major celebrity and yet barely pay heed when the situation involves something serious like political injustice of racial genocide. Ah well, that's life for you.

I'm on leave for work tonight - one of those pre-planned vacations of sorts for the sole purpose of burning through my leave credits before they go away forever. I chose this particular Friday since tomorrow's the annual White Party, which is sort of a Pride celebration (it is June after all) and yet not given the more activist side of things such as the parade was moved to December in order to avoid some of the reasons or whatever reason.

With that in mind, Tobie and I had the luxury of being able to stay up a little later this morning in order to get some errands done and some home improvement shopping. After getting my banking stuff done, we first went to Butter Diner for breakfast, which was pretty good and supposedly cheaper than it was before based on Tobie's memory. The place is sort of like a Pancake house with heavier pancakes and waffles - their blueberry pancakes were great and the addition of the flavored butter (either mocha or chocolate) was pretty good too. Given I was in a pretty good mood given the plans for the weekend, I also indulged by getting a chocolate milkshake, haha! Oh chocolate, you are my favorite sin.

We then made our way to SM to look for some storage solutions to thwart the evil ant empire that has been making advances into our cabinets. They have yet to be successful in gaining a foothold in our region but we're not about to relax our guard and give them any openings. Thus we ended up getting a pretty good airtight container, a new utensil holder, some great Rubbermaid cooking utensils and a dish drying rack. Moving on to the supermarket, we made the rounds and gathered enough supplies for a fair amount of the week in terms of salads, canned goods and a daring attempt at making sinigang. Wish us luck!

More and more I'm considering getting myself a netbook in order to take my blogging mobile. I'm always frustrated by the fact that I miss the mobility of having a laptop on me for blogging purposes, but now I'm not so sure if a full-powered one is the best solution for me. There's definitely to be said about the ease of transport for those tiny computers but of course I don't think I can survive the smaller size of the keyboard. I've been asking around (as you've seen on my various status updates or micro-blogging posts) and it seems the HP Mini line of netbooks seem like the best bet for me since they have designed the keyboard to be about 92% of the size of a full keyboard. The 2140 model is pretty robust but there's a new 5101 model coming in July that promises to be a better purchase and thus potentially worth the wait.

It's not like I have an urgent need to get one - it's definitely a luxury purchase since we do have this desktop for me to "work" on. Then again, my need to blog daily and my desire to update the Geeky Guide more despite everything I'm responsible for definitely limit some of our travel plans, and thus this purchase might make sense. I'm holding out a bit more to see what happens when the 5101 hits our shores and of course it'll make a lot more sense to get an actual gas range before continuing on along this purchase path, haha.

Now on to relaxing and general enjoyment for the night despite a 03:00am conference call that I still need to attend, hehe.

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I can so relate! Don't we all phase out of boring conversations to solve equations?

Work was annoying. So many meetings with half of them canceled by default since the other people involved never showed up or dialed in. I hate it when people end up missing their own meetings. But enough that.

After work I had a task set out for myself - a quick trip to SM Cubao to pick up some power strips to better secure our electronics along with the possibility of a few other items. Thankfully, I the mall was relatively empty despite me coming at 10:00am. I had assumed traditional mall hours when it turns out SM Cubao opens at 08:00am - I could have gone a LOT earlier. Oh well.

I wanted to find a bigger rice cooker with the steamer tray included in order to expand our cooking options along with possibly getting a coffee maker. I did manage to find a decent Kyowa rice cooker (all others seemed pretty hokey), but alas a coffee maker of suitable quality eluded me. There were a lot to choose from but none of them seemed to be precisely right. I'm even tempted to try one of those combination toaster / coffee machines, but that when I really consider it in my head, it never seems like a good idea. I'm still a big fan of specialization as opposed to excessive multi-tasking, especially when it comes to appliances. Plus the sales attendant on duty wasn't very good, so it wasn't very encouraging in terms of a possible sale. When I buy stuff, I really like a certain amount of attention from the staff and naturally a good demonstration of their knowledge of the product.

So went home with three heavy-duty power strips (10A rating with individual switches per device), a new bulb for the living room area, a 1.5L rice cooker and a little holder for the knives, spatulas and other cooking implements. It was a bit of a task walking home with all this stuff but it wasn't too bad - it was certainly a healthy walk and I'm never one to regret coincidental exercise, hehe.

I've got most of the power strips set up (save for the one needed for this computer setup) and I'll need to wait for Tobie (and his height) to install the bulb. I'm still pining for a good coffee maker - San Mig coffee is pretty decent as far as instant coffee is concerned, but nothing quite replaces the minor euphoria of a freshly brewed cup of coffee before work. Sigh. Baby steps until I get things set up.

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Damn it, damn it, damn it! I still don't know what the spell on the Raven was!
Oh, and Xykon's not dead either. Yeah, boo that too.

I think I have everything set up properly now. Last night it was a bit of a semi-obsessive scramble to get the Bayantel DSL connection working with my cute little Linksys WRT54GC router. Today it was making sure I configured port forwarding on the two computers correctly in order to maximize their torrent potential. Yes, this is the price of tech geekery - never being fully satisfied and always finding new ways of coaxing a few more bits of speed out of ones machines just because we can. =P

With that covered, it seems like there was so much that I haven't covered from last week. I'll probably stop being organized and just go with the flow of my brain as I try to remember things.

First, the only real event we managed to attend was the wedding anniversary party of sorts for Apple and Emman held at Circa at Eastwood. Straight bars are always such a radical change for me compared to our usual Malate haunts and it doesn't make things bad, I know - it just makes them different. The drinks were okay - I guess the safest thing to say is that I've had worse, but that didn't matter. The real fun was the company and celebrating with the happy couple. We eventually crashed at their place afterward for pizza and then that was that.

In the course of last week I was very geeky indeed while waiting for the internet to get installed. I read the first two volumes of the Sandman comics, which I have never read before (really, it's sadly true) and I'm currently on the third book. It's a really good thing that Tobie actually has the entire set in print and not just as collection of comic scans. I've also manged to watch the classic cartoon Flight of Dragons, the magical drama The Prestige and the mindless comedy Tropic Thunder, which are all part of Tobie's video collection. Don't worry - we did manage to leave the house from time and time and managed to see Terminator Salvation before the rains decided to pay the city a visit.

I've also been playing Puzzle Quest on the PS2 - darn that game never fails to hook me. More importantly, I got the computers networked wirelessly even before the internet came along so can now play the Defense of the Ancients and Moo Moo maps for WarCraft III. Our recent games just further remind me how much I've missed network games. Yeah, you know what I mean. I'm talking about the good old Compuworks days when StarCraft was king and Diablo I was still wicked cool, haha.

I'm still feeling pretty beat - didn't quite get enough sleep yesterday. I should be better for later tonight for as long as I force myself to realign my sleeping schedules with what is my "normal" - if you can call my graveyard working schedule that.

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Beware the fearsome might of Stephanie Meyer!!!

I forgot yesterday was Towel Day. Bugger. Belated greetings fellow hitchhikers!

We got a fair amount done today in terms of the apartment. Tobie picked me up from work since he had gone back to his parent's place to get more of his things. This time around he divided everything into smaller, individual bags filled with DVDs, RPG source books, comic books and other novels. Oh, and game boards! How could I forget those? So yeah, there's a huge pile of geekery growing along the wall that is in desperate need of organization yet we are still sorely lacking in terms of actual storage space and shelving. We'll fix that problem soon enough.

Today my mini-project was setting up the new TV along with my pre-existing home theater system. It took some time and some dedication from my microfiber cleaning mitt, but eventually I got it working in a decently aesthetic arrangement. For now the surround speakers are stuck in front until we can figure out an efficient way to mount them or secure them behind where a couch should be, but it's not so bad. Tobie had an extra mattress he got to bring over and it now functions as our pseudo couch.

What is it about moving that turns any new apartment into a pseudo Japanese arrangement with almost everything being very, very close to the ground? Seriously?

So now we have the computer set up (sans an internet connection), the TV and the DVD home theater system (with sad surround speakers in front), the small fridge running, the water dispenser now giving nice cool water all the time and the bathroom all nice and tidy. The bedroom has...a bed, and a little CD cabinet re-purposed into a pseudo bureau where I stash watches, personal effects and my one million contact lens cases. Pao also came by today to help us with the installation of our new door knob and we just need to wait for someone more professional to install our dead bolt as well.

Today Tobie's folks come home, so he'll have to spend the day in the South, more or less. That leaves me to settle the arrangements for other utilities, get my clothes organized and out of their bags and boxes and perhaps get some internet time at Fandom. Sadly, I really do miss Facebook and my other social network activities, haha. And coffee. Sigh.

One thing at a time - Sietch Creare (as we're now calling it) will become a fully-functioning geek condo soon enough.

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I would SOOO love to do this in a meeting sometime, haha.

Well folks, we did it. After quite a few trips and creative packing, carrying and guard negotiations, we've pretty much migrated the major stuff to the new place in Cubao. It doesn't mean we're all set up or anything - it just means that the things have been physically relocated to the new unit.

Most of Sunday was spent unpacking the boxes that were dominating the living room area like some strange cityscape. Eventually, areas started to become defined and we ended up with setting up key areas for the comic books, the toys, the DVDs and the various collectible card games. The second bedroom has been tagged as a sort of changing room / walk-in closet for now and the bathroom and main bedrooms are more or less set up.

Tobie's comics are in a sizeable collection of "polyboxes" as we keep calling them, which are pretty much modular plastic drawers that can be stacked and reconfigured in a variety of ways. They currently line the wall and are also a potential area to put some of my better-looking toys on display once I get them cleaned up. The cards are now all secured inside this octagonal coffee table Tobie brought from his place so you can look down and see the cards that you might want to play with.

My books are still going to stay in the boxes until we can figure out some shelving solutions. Plus there's the multitude of DVDs, VCDs and CDs that still need to be moved from Tobie's place, along with a few more furniture pieces like the poker table and some chairs. The place really has a long way to go - heck, it still needs a name. I'm really thinking it would be nice to have the name represent our respective fandoms somehow and my main suggestion placed on the table is to call the place a "sietch" and then have the proper name come from Tobie. We'll see.

Today we stepped out to get a few more essentials like a scrub brush for the toilet and a better mat for just outside the bathroom. I also got one of those steam brush thingies to act as my iron and more little touches here and there. The big thing was getting a water cooler / heater / dispenser and a TV that's compatible with my DVD home theater system, and we snagged a pretty good deal at SM Appliance Center. There's more of a story there in terms of the appliance selection process, but I'll get to that at another time, I guess, hehe.

Tomorrow I'll be mopping the whole place (since we only bought a mop today), assembling the TV table and getting the new TV hooked up with the home theater and perhaps get the last of my utilities scheduled for installation. I really miss internet at home - how else will I check Multiply and play my Facebook games? LOL

But yes, the move is largely finished and the place is pretty much habitable. This is where it all starts.

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You have to admit, cheer rallies can be pretty stupid.

First, Happy Birthday to Bunny |ancient_source|, darling mother of Kince |kince13|! Wishing you all the best from the other side of the world!

Once upon a time, there was Jotspot, an independent software company that tried to offer "wiki" services mainly to small and medium sized businesses. They had a pretty good product going so one day Google bought them. Now Google purchases can go either way - they can become very big parts of the Google Empire like YouTube or they can disappear into obscurity like...darn, I forget the name of that weird mobile company. Anyway, getting bought by Google always makes something more interesting (especially to a Google-watcher like me) and so I tried to get into the limited beta but it was too late - the transition to Google meant closing the door to sign-ups temporarily.

Fast forward a few months and Google Sites was born as part of the Google Apps family of products. I didn't own a domain at the time, so I didn't get to play around with it right away. When I did finally purchase a domain for the Geeky Guide, I really didn't have a need for a wiki just yet. Bugger - and I was still pretty excited about using it to.

Skip forward once more to recent months and now I'm involved with a side project with Tobie and a friend of his. They ask me for a good way of collaborating online through something like a web forum and suddenly it hits me - Google Sites! I start setting up a page for us and now we have a working wiki / knowledgebase of sorts that's tracking the development of the project. It's proving to be a very robust tool and it's really useful in this regard and I'm glad that I finally have a real reason to use it. So far the others seem to appreciate the benefits of the site although mostly they've just been viewing the content that Tobie and I have been creating, but it's all good. It's just me being a good Google fanboy by demonstrating the useful nature of the Google suite of web applications.

Today I found myself tapping Google Sites once more - this time to create an internal knowledge base for the program that I'm supporting now. It's weird to tell the client to use their own product, but it just made perfect sense as opposed to me constantly emailing all these documents back and forth every time an edit is required or is just in need of client approval. It was surprisingly quick to get all my documents loaded since Sites apparently is okay with me copying text directly from Word while still retaining all formatting and hyperlinks. So after an afternoon of work, I pretty much have the site set up with a few Google Docs-hosted web forms embedded into the wiki as well. I just may add a Google Calendar for good measure, but I guess I ought to limit myself to what is actually needed as opposed to me trying out everything all at once, hehe.

So now Google Sites is really part of my list of most-used Google applications, right up there with Google Reader, Google Docs and of course Gmail. Man I love Google.

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"Could not reproduce" = PUNTASTIC!!!

The weather at this precise moment in time is absolutely wonderful. It's cool without excessive rain. It's nicely overcast without being too dark. There's the smell of rain on the air without it feeling like you're walking through a fog of sticky humidity. I swear, this is amazing weather and one could only wish to not have to deal with work later on and just sleep until this weather dissipates. Considering how strange things have been in this department, that may just change in the span of a few hours. I certainly hope not.

I spent most of my working day studying. That seemed a tad unusual to me since normally my time has been spent caught in one annoying meeting after the other or some silly conference call or something else that seems to get in the way of one's productivity. This tie around, the meetings didn't all materialize and a number of conference calls were canceled too and so it left me with a lot of free time.

I made sure not to waste it by sitting down with our new client's training site and started going through all the CBT modules one after the other. While such diverse multimedia ventures are always an interesting learning medium, I just wish the voices of those going through the slides and explaining the concepts were a bit more dynamic. A lot of them adopted the boring monotone of a guy explaining boring concepts to an uninterested audience. No matter how much I was into the material, I had my share of moments when I didn't quite get things or I found myself drifting off to sleep. Still, I think I made good headway today and the more I know now, the more ahead of the curve I'll be before the campaign really starts full implementation activities. Exciting!

I'm trying to get the rest of my photos onto Facebook - I have a backlog dating back to September of last year, which sucks big time. In theory it should be an easy process, but that silly rule about only having 60 photos per album really gets to me. I take a LOT of photos that I want to group together since they're all part of a single event or occurrence and yet I find myself needing to manually group a photo set into smaller chunks so Facebook can handle it. They invest so much into playing around with the homepage interface and yet they have yet to bother improving their photo uploader. That's just great.

We so need a much faster internet connection.



Seer took up a defensive position at the main data center's one entrance while Seeker continued the download. It was hardly a defensible position given the door stood at the apex of a T-junction, with corridors extending to both his left and his right and straight ahead. His sensors could detect at least a dozen attacks making their way into this area with dozens more in the perimeter beyond. He devoted processor power to trying to determine how they had been discovered while he mapped out tactics. Shift had assumed communications silence as he made his way to the choke point in order to aid his comrades. Seeker chimed in that his sensors now detected almost 30 units converging on their position and they would be in range within the next 4 minutes.

Seer drove his staff into the ground hard and triggered the lasers that would draft his casting circle for him. A variety of spells presented themselves as options in his primary processor and he organized his plans given what limited resources they had. He was as ready as he ever would be given the circumstances.

The first of the defenders appeared at the end of the forward corridor - a strange bipedal creature that couldn't possibly sentient, save for the fact that it held a nasty looking energy weapon. Two more of the creatures appeared behind him and they started firing their weapons at the lone robot. The purple energy beams shot forth and dissipated harmless against the shield Seer had erected around himself. They howled in frustration and surged forward - the narrow hallway now filled with an even dozen of them now. Seer noted their significant speed and the potential strength afforded by their musculature. This would be interesting, to say the least.

Seer activated his audio ports and cast a series of spells that drew force creeping vines that broke through the concrete flooring to entangle the creatures. The vines continued to grow thanks to the magic and soon the cracking sound of breaking bones could clearly be heard. The vines grew faster than they had anticipated and soon minor explosions killed the last of them as the plants destroyed their weapons. There was no time to relax though - more of the alien warriors had appeared at both of the side corridors.

While Seer prepared his next spell, Shift appeared seemingly out of nowhere and surged through the attackers in the left wing. The creatures fired their weapons at him in vain as he altered his physical density in order to allow himself to flow through their ranks and easily dodge the energy blasts. The creatures inadvertently hit their own comrades in this manner as Shift continued to weave in and out of their tight formation, his body forming into lethal blades, spikes and cudgels as he literally sliced their their ranks.

With that side covered, Seer focused all of his abilities on the last corridor. Despite his significant processing power, he could not get past the limitations of the magical world - a spell once used somehow vanished from his memory and would not be available until he reconnected with the Marauder's main computer and refreshed his memory core. Thus the spells he had used thus far were tricks he could not attempt twice. There were certain magical skills that did not require elaborate spellcraft, and this seemed a good time to be a little...inefficient. He extended his staff in the direction of the oncoming hordes and channeled the available magical energies in the room through it and fire it like a massive energy cannon. The crimson beam slashed through the forward line of the attackers with ease and took out a good number of them. However more of them were coming.

Shift was running low of body material - the attackers had managed to get a few good shots in and it would take the Avatar some time to replenish his body mass. The nanites that made up his body were already digesting the fallen warriors and their weapons in order to synthesize replacement material as the robot continued to fight the attackers still surging through the opening. Seer fired a few more shots with his staff down the two corridors left to him - their enemies had grouped and were being a little smarter about just charging down the hallways to their deaths. It was regrettable that they had decided to adopt a semblance of tactics this late in the game.

Seer drove his staff into the ground again and prepared another casting circle as Seeker emerged from the data center, both arms configured as energy weapons. All three had been updated with the fact that they had successfully extracted the files they needed. The stealth aspect of the mission had failed but at least they had gotten what they had come for. It was time for extraction.

Seeker took up the defensive position and fired at the attackers so Seer could trigger a portal out of the hot spot. Shift had already recollected what parts of him were left and fought a sort of rearguard action as he made his way back to his companions. Seeker estimated he could maintain this position long enough for Seer to extract them. Shift was projected to lose more of himself in the escape, but not enough to sacrifice his core personality. It was an acceptable sacrifice. Seer triggered the interdimensional gateway and a bubble formed around the robots. The sphere became opaque and then winked out of existence, leaving a very loud sonic boom as the air in the corridor rushed to the space they had been occupying. Where the three intruders once stood, there was now a large sphere-shaped crated that cut into the walls and the floor below them.

The mission had been termed a success based on the initial parameters - as was expected.

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A VIOLENCE FIGHT IT SHALL BE!! LOL

I find myself going down internet meme memory lane. Oh yes, the days before YouTube dominated everything and Flash videos were the bomb.

In case you don't know of these wonderful gems: All Your Base Are Belong To Us, We Like The Moon, The Egg Song, Muffin Films, Badger Badger Badger and Banana Phone! Oh yes, the intarwebs are so fun. This is probably why I regularly visit the Viral Video Chart just to see what people are watching these days. Oh internet geekery indeed.

And Brian |kitchengod| wants me to add the Singing Horses, which is more of a game than just a video you watch, hehe.

I wonder if I should try vlogging. LOL

In other news, work was okay - nothing too stressful I guess. Potential clients were on-site, but it was no biggie. My learners started the day without chairs, but that eventually got fixed. Monday reports. Useless conference calls. So yeah, the usual. It was only the first day of the working week and yet I find myself already wishing for the weekend.



She loved this feeling - it seemed like omnipotence to her, or as best as she could ever achieve in her life. When she was fully connected into the global datanet, she had access to almost everything and anything. It was a rush that no stimulant could ever beat and she invested most of her earnings into constantly beefing up her neural implants, improving her code slicing skills and learning everything she could at become better at her craft.

Sometimes she's jack in for no particular reason. With no clear goal in mind and no mission to fulfill, she'd just let herself drift through cyberspace, feeling her way around and following her instincts. Sometimes she'd wander into new and interesting parts of the global net and the rewards were more than worth the effort. Other times she'd just wander into the darker, somewhat forgotten corners of cyberspace and then jack out feeling unfulfilled.

Today was one of those aimless, drifting runs, and she was digging pretty deep into the older sections of the network. She had already activated several sprite programs to help sort through the information, sifting through the datastreams for anything of value as she drifted through the network. She had already acquired massive amounts of personal information, but nothing really worth her skills and efforts. Anyone could manage basic identify theft for a quick cash run, but she was always after bigger prizes. It was the only way to really test her abilities and prove to herself that she continued to be the best.

Suddenly she slammed against a barrier of some sort, the impact causing minor neural feedback that stung a lot more than it should of. She had invested a lot in protection programs and firewalls against this sort of thing and yet here she was, reeling for a few precious seconds while she reoriented herself. She activated some basic diagnostics but the program was quickly corrupted by the wall before her. It seemed to be some sort of a complicated code wall yet with the ability to inflict major damage beyond what was allowed by the law. It was dangerous and naturally it was also impossible for her to ignore. Her avatar smiled as she considered this challenge.

She activated various slicer programs to get to work on the complex firewall before her but she was surprised to find her sprites unable to process the barrier before her. Even their complex subroutines and algorithms were unable to circumvent the preventive measures in place. She would not allow herself to be stopped by a mere wall.

She tried a more direct approach and brought into action more complex codebreaker programs, the kinds that needed manual operation. They manifested themselves as a variety of weapons ranging from broadswords to wicked looking blasters. She quickly set to work attacking the wall with savage ferocity, letting her slicing knowledge guide her hand as she hacked through the defensive subroutines, overwhelmed the security programs and tried to open the widening crack in its defense. No mere barrier would prevent her from getting to the prize beyond.

Suddenly, a new program rezzed into being nearby, thus posing a more direct threat to her. She must have triggered something during her assault on the wall and called into play more active Ice - this one definitely looked like a nasty one. It presented itself as a multi-armed monstrosity, each hand wielding a different weapon that appeared to be more fierce than the last. This was going to be a nasty fight indeed. She summoned up her strongest protection programs that formed into armor and a massive shield in the cyber realm. Oh yes, she was definitely going to enjoy this.

Sometimes you didn't even need to know what the prize was to be motivated to fight on. Sometimes the challenge was enough to spur on the most competitive of souls, warriors at the core. In these modern times of neural interfaces and extremely advanced automation, true warriors still existed even if the battlefield had changed significantly.

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Sadly, I have to admit that even a day is an achievement for many guys, haha.