Well, welcome to the end of June. This day becomes significant since it's the last day of my first full month here at Sietch Creare. Sure, I know that technically speaking, Archer and I have been here for more than 30 days but there's still something to be said about completing an actual calendar month from start to finish. We've spent all this time as a race trying to define time and break it down into distinct markers that it's inevitable for the mind to associate the completion of such a passage with some significance or sense of fulfillment. So what do I have to show for things?

Life in Cubao hasn't been that drastically different for the most part. I still blog every day and spend unhealthy amounts of time in front of the computers. I watch DVDs and downloaded TV shows. Yes, that much is pretty much the same. The difference really is in the quality of the experience - the fact that I don't necessarily watch my geeky shows alone anymore. I don't just read some obscure comic book and have no one to talk to in order to share opinions. No matter how weird or crazy some of the stuff that I get into can be, I know that to some extent Archer will appreciate why but more often than not he'll find it interesting too.

A lot of my online collaborative stuff feels more useful now. Archer takes the time to encode expenses on Google Docs too and he enjoys the ridiculous amounts of items I share via Google Reader. We share bookmarks across Firefox installations via Xmarks and we download different shows, movies, music and comic books and end up sharing those too. We notice similar things when we watch geeky shows together and we react in similar ways to certain films.

I come home to find little notes and random things like roses on the dining table. We try to be the first to wash the dishes before the other does them. I think I've gotten infected with the need to do little things that are stereotypically sweet that my rational mind would prefer to dismiss as just being corny or cheesy. But that's how it is these days - you just find yourself all giddy when you find Flat Tops in your bag or you feel a thrill when you surprise the other with donuts even if you bought them from the MRT station. Chores get done randomly but without the excessive need for prompting. Things get rearranged and he doesn't mind my need to organize things in complicated, time-consuming systems. Heck, we're both trying to learn to cook now and our experiments have certainly been exciting and thankfully edible for the most part.

Don't get me wrong - it hasn't all been perfect. There are still those moments of slipping into old habits and behaviors, moments of insecurity and the inevitable misunderstandings. Many people would say that it's way too early to be living together but I still don't regret that decision at all. Things have worked thus far and we're wiling to talk when we need to iron out the kinks and clear out the snags that form along the way. It's certainly an experience, one that I'm definitely excited to continue on.

We still have loads to do. The Sietch is in need of shelving for the books and my toys. I need to get around to start bagging and tagging the comic books and the music CDs. We need more cases for the DVDs so we can collapse them into something a lot more manageable in terms of occupied space. There's furniture to be bought (like a couch) and other essential appliance type stuff we need too (like a gas range) and all those other million things you end up thinking of as you try to constantly work to improving your home.

And that's what the Sietch is. Home.

PS

I really want to play Katamari. Would you believe I never got to even try the game when it was major on the PS2? Tobie says he'll try to get his old copies of the games back - apparently he lent them out and they have yet to return. I can't wait!

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And here's yet another game that has me curious! Fat Princess!!!

I never seem to have enough time to do everything that I want to do, but I can get pretty determined at making sure I make as much time free as possible. It's never easy given work, chores and all the usual day-to-day things that make up the grind that is life, but I always hold firm to the belief that "you always have time for the things you want to do" and thus it acts as a reminder for being more organized, prioritizing things as needed and possibly sleeping a little less than what is idea, haha!

The task that I really wish I had more time for but always seem to run a bit short is blogging for the Geeky Guide. This is not about turning my "professional" blog into a revenue-earning machine or anything like that - it's just about how strongly I feel about the blog, what it means to me and the importance of getting entries out and keeping the site relevant is what drives me. I can't quite explain it but the Geeky Guide and my persona blog serve very different purposes and it pains me ever so slightly whenever I'm unable to update the Geeky Guide for significant stretches of time.

Speaking of - my formal review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will have to wait for tomorrow. It's a good thing I have a scheduled vacation leave for the night - more time to blog!

Then again, why wouldn't I be running out of time - geeks like us just get into so many things! Case in point - my current thon project, Dollhouse, since I still haven't finished watching the entire first season. Then I have to catch up on the second half of the first season of True Blood in order for me to start watching the second season, which has already started broadcasting in the US. Then there's all the games I play on Facebook (argh), a little Travian on the side and then the usual stuff like work, chores and the like. Life is so amazing in terms of the range of things that we can get involved in and that fact never ceases to amaze me.

One little side project that I'm becoming more and more proud of involves my struggling attempts at cooking. Sure, what I've managed thus far are ridiculously simple and probably all more on the "safe" side, but it's still a lot better than nothing. It's really fun rushing home to try and come up with something new and to watch Tobie's reaction whenever he first tries something I've come up with. We're both learning to cook and trying to figure out what we like and don't like and so the eating of anything created is an inevitable mandate that we're happy to indulge in, regardless of the actual results of our experiments, haha.

As I type this, I'm waiting for him to get home so we can eat - I have reverted back to the usual tuna over rice concept with the addition of diced tomatoes and onions, some shredded lettuce and some steamed okra. These rice toppings of sorts have become our staples in times of need and I'm definitely not complaining - it's a fun experience. Our range of cooking is limited by the use of the rice cooker as the primary cooking tool and I now want to venture into experimenting with various soups and such and see what comes out.

Yes, yes, we'll eventually graduate to having an actual stove.

He's home! Time to eat!

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A pre-movie comic - it's not that far from the truth, haha.

I slept really well today, and thus now I have to rush this entry. You can't have everything, huh?

My mom let me borrow her older coffeemaker over the weekend, and that was definitely a good thing. It's just a basic American Home model that can support up to 12 cups and frankly it's better than not having one. I'm still kind of holding out for a nice Krups model, but I know that's going to set me back around 4k so that'll have to wait for now. I took the time to buy the stuff I needed for the coffeemaker yesterday - filters, coffee grinds and sugar - and finally got to try things out last night.

Every coffeemaker is slightly different from the other and it takes some time to sort of calibrate your ratios with the machine. Heck, the actual coffee you use is a major factor along with the brand / type of filters you buy, whether or not the machine comes with its own filter basket and what not. My first batch of coffee was pretty bad but of course I've been getting better at things over time. I've now settled on a pretty decent formula of sorts, the key to which was taking out the basket that came with the machine and just using paper filters. I'm pretty satisfied with the results so far, although I definitely need to find a better source of coffee. SM Supermarket has always been deficient in terms of brewing coffee options and the BC Coffee Club brand I picked up remains to be decent but not exactly what I'm looking for. The search continues.

It totally psyches me out that the new Transformers movie is coming out next week. I've already started to discuss preliminary plans with Tobie about when we can go see it and for now I'm pretty much set on catching the first screening next Wednesday after work, probably at Gateway, then a second time at the SM Mall of Asia IMAX theater on Sunday after the weekly Fandom Live! shooting. You have to understand just how important the Transformers are to me (this I type as my new Soundwave figure is sitting right in front of me here at the computer table), and so yes, this merits at last two theater screenings in order to be satisfied.

One week to go!

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Seriously, I wonder if the petty hoodlums and major villains have noticed he's different.

First, Happy Birthday to a fellow geek with whom I interact with the most (it seems) on Plurk and Google Talk, mainly because we share the same work hours. Happy Birthday, Marge!

The weather has been rather weird today. We had some pretty rains last night which were pretty much lessening but would return with a vengeance for brief bouts here and there. Today in total contrast to yesterday is rather sunny and the excess moisture deposited by the rain is now becoming the muggy mush that is tropical humidity. While that seems decent enough - we could use some sun after all - the weather still turns on us for 5-10 minutes here and there by banishing the sun and bringing back the rain as strong as ever. Then it disappears again and the that just gives the whole evaporation process more water to play around with. Like I said, it's rather weird, but at least it's been consistently cool and breezy.

Today I got home to find that Tobie had managed to liberate a microwave from his family home, and thus we now had something more to experiment with in terms of cooking beyond just a rice cooker. This was more familiar territory to me since for most of my young life, I was denied the use of the stove since it was dangerous to "play with fire" so to speak, but in time I was allowed to use the microwave to prepare little meals here and there. My sister and I soon got into a variety of experiments and that knowledge came in handy today.

Given the addition of the microwave and some ingredients Tobie has also brought home, the menu rapidly evolved into a strange yet rather filling mix. First up was scrambled eggs via the microwave and I added salt, Parmesan cheese and a diced tomato into the microwavable. I knew it was going to end up as a sort of egg cake, but I didn't really mind. Then we cooked up a batch of rice and like in recent days we added something to flavor it a bit more - today it was chorizo! And to wrap things up we had some luncheon meat that we just heated up in the microwave, too. The resulting breakfast was a lot larger than projected (we had readied some bread to have on the side, but it was no longer needed) and pretty good. I know, it's nothing we can necessarily serve to guests, but it's definitely a start. I'm now going to run Google searches on microwave cooking recipes, haha.

A last note - I am overwhelmed by the number of DVDs that Tobie has. At the same time, we don't necessarily have that many duplicates when I compare our collections. Good grief. I'm probably going to spend the rest of the weekend trying to get them tagged in my online catalog. That doesn't even factor in needing to buy more efficient DVD storage for all these titles. The things we slightly OCD people get into...

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This was too funny! I wonder what they'll think of collectible card games!

Lots of birthdays today! Greetings need to go out to my dear friend from my grade school / high school days, Dave, a fellow geeky friend Mika and a friend at work Joie! A very Happy Birthday to all of you - here's coping you have a great day!

On the train ride home today, it just hit me that I can't quite remember when I started to like the music of Donna Summer. Seriously. I know it seems stereotypically gay of me (and it pretty much is, I accept that), but I have no regrets, I just really like her. It all started with one of the dance remixes of Last Dance that really hooked me, I think. Sure, there was Charlie's Angels and all that but it really struck me when I heard it on the dance floor for the first time. The same holds true for a number of her other songs like I Will Go with You (Con te partirò) - there's something about hearing it on the dance floor that makes it all the more uplifting and therefore memorable. I didn't quite understand why my brain decided to think about that today, but it was significant enough to merit a place in today's entry.

I'm getting more and more comfortable with my MRT commute to work, despite the rains as of late. I'm still experimenting with the optimal time for me to leave for work and things have been slightly complicated by the recent experiments in terms of the MRT's operation hours and like I said, the weather. Still, it seems safe enough to conclude for now that I'm better off aiming for a 10:00pm - 07:00am shift at work given the volume of people around the earlier rides. I tried aiming for 09:00pm in recent days but the number of people who ride around those hours is just nuts and I don't see myself battling for a spot on the train every day just yet. By adjusting a few minutes later, it makes a significant improvement in terms of human traffic, although I won't go as far as saying that it means I'm already comfortable during my daily rides to work.

The Sietch is looking a lot better now. Tobie has managed to bring over more chairs so we have decent seating now along with a few more plates and such. We really just need to get a gas range and start experimenting with cooking for things to really get into full swing...that and for me to organize the DVDs into something more meaningful and a lot less cluttered. I've started to update my online video collection file with Tobie's DVDs and VCDs to help me with somehow putting things in some semblance of order. At the same time, we still need to address the shelving situation since all my books remain to be in three separate boxes that I won't even open for now. Once we get the shelves, then I start getting them out of there.

Speaking of which, I probably should try to encode a few more titles before I head to bed. Go, go, Google Docs online spreadsheet! LOL

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Yup, that definitely sounds like the Sales world indeed.

First (as always), time for birthday greetings. A very Happy birthday needs to go out to my high school classmate, Sonny! Have a good one dude!

I'm currently online thanks to the good graces of Fandom Cafe. This is a temporary arrangement until our internet connection gets established - this should happen anytime this weekend. I finally got to submit the required documents to Bayantel today (they sent a courier to pick them up) along with the initial payment and from there I just have to wait, I suppose. They're rather attentive to potential customers - one can only hope this same level of care and dedication continues on to when I become an actual customer.

So that settles the internet concern and SkyCable is coming over later this week, so I should be okay there. The last bit involves actually trying out the in-building laundry service and to establish a grocery routine, and then I should be okay from there. That's always the first challenge of moving - trying to establish a new routine. For someone like me who tends to be rather borderline OC, routine is very, very important.

It's a good thing I'm on leave tonight - I ended up staying up pretty late waiting for that messenger to arrive that it pretty much threw off my sleep schedules. Had I needed to go to work, I probably would have missed the train.

Today marked the first time I actually took the MRT home - in recent days Tobie has managed to find excuses to take me to work or pick me up on the way home. The morning crowd isn't as bad as I thought - I guess it helps I'm on the south-to-north route and it's after the Ayala station, where I assume more people get down. The train ride is about 20 minutes while the walk from the station to the condo is about 10 minutes at a decent clip. The area seems safe enough in the day - I guess the real test will be my first few walks at night. At least the area appears well-lit, for as long as all those lights I passed by are turned on.

This doesn't mean the Sietch is fully ready - that leaves us with organizing everything, finding places for stuff and fully realizing exactly what we need for Sietch Creare to become fully independent. For now we're at the whims of local food establishments and delivery hotlines, haha. Don't worry, we're getting there.

And yes, we'll figure out how to have housewarming parties.

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Man, I know exactly how he feels!

One of the first rules of programming talks about "Garbage In, Garbage Out" - if you're coding is bad or you don't plan things properly, you will get lousy results. If feed bad data into a computer program, you'll get bad results. Computers are simple in that manner - they can only work with the materials you give them. They cannot magically make things better than what you started with.

Logic has always been my best friend ever since I was young. I learned about logic by watching the original Star Trek and naturally Mr. Spock (not doctor you ignorant fuddy-duddies!) and I embraced the concept whole-heartedly. My love of robots, machines and computers grew alongside my passion for logic and I always tried to see myself as having a partly machine mind - amazingly powerful computational abilities will always be appealing. It also meant I could avoid the distractions of emotions and always try to think clearly and see things fairly. I didn't do this because I hated emotions or wanted to deny them outright for now reason - I felt this was necessary since I know I feel so deeply, so intensely that it inevitably colors my thinking. I could relate to the Vulcans in that way - their natural tendency towards violence and intense feelings that needed to be controlled through logic. I didn't want to become a Romulan. I still don't.

I always try to think things through - this can take a lot time or can happen very quickly. It's not about the time that passes - it's about the amount of thinking and the organization involved there. Not to sound arrogant, but I believe what everyone has always been telling me - that I'm a very intelligent person. I feel it to be true. I know it to be true. The way my mind races with ideas and how quickly I can think around corners, project potential paths into the future and analyze everything that has come before somehow supports this belief. I don't claim to be some sort of super genius - I just know I'm smarter than average and I've always tried to take advantage of this fact in life.

But the machine-like mind has its limitations, as I've been sorely reminded in the past few days. Garbage In, Garbage Out. When you have inaccurate data, your computations go all awry. They followed the process and came out as they should - assuming the data was correct. But now that I know it was wrong, how can I trust my conclusions? How can I respect my projections? The same goes for the Mentats of Dune fame - give them bad data and you end up with bad results. It's the worst thing you can do to a Mentat - it's like toying with him to see what comes out. The Mentats represent order and the supreme power of the human mind - if you don't want to respect their output, then don't bother dealing with them at all.

Everything feels so cloudy right now, towards the end. I stand on the brink, trying to understand the paths before me. There are so many factors involved that it's difficult to see the Prime Projection - the best outcome to aim for in all this. I do not trust myself fully right now. I do not trust the way my mind works. And yet it's all I have to work with and thus I need to make the most of it. I can't dwell on the potentially incorrect assumptions and conclusions derived from all the data given to me and can only hope that I'll be able to reorganize things, determine a way out of all this and ultimately understand what is true. Once I have "scrubbed" the data given to me, thrown out the bad parts and the tainted projections and results, perhaps then I'll know enough in terms of how to find a way out. How to find the path home.

I feel so heavy now. I know all this thinking is going to overwhelm me soon - this is not bad in itself. It's part of the natural process, when my mind starts to race and I sort of "freeze" or "lock up" in terms of physical activity and I just end up racing through the infinite corridors of my mind, following the various projected paths to try and determine where they lead. I will race and run and try to weigh each possibility and test and re-test each. I thought I was already done with this, but then now there's new information that changes the whole "game," so to speak. I need time and perhaps a little space. Hopefully that'll be enough.

It feels almost too late in the game for all this, so I know I need to act quickly, decisively and yet I should not rush either. It's a difficult balance that needs to be achieved and I can only trust in everything I've learned in life thus far to guide me. As human beings, we are the sum total result of everything that has come before - everything we have experienced, seen, learned, done, said, thought, felt, believed and more. This may or may not be enough, but it's all we have to work with. And we will always make the best of it. That's the joy and the pain of the human experience. I need to clear my mind of the emotions brought to the surface once more this week and try to think clearly, logically and fairly. I need to do the best that I can since everyone involved deserves no less.

Good hunting to me, I suppose.

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I miss Mathnet.

It's one thing to say it's over and another to actually end things. In these last few days before I fully move out of Vella, Brian |kitchengod| and I have achieved an odd sense of calm. The previous weeks had been difficult for both of us - words had been exchanged that cut too deep and things had been done to the detriment of the other. Many say breaking up is hard to do, and as cliche as it is the statement is horribly true. When you've been with someone for any significant period of time, defenses no longer exist and it becomes far too easy to hurt one another without even trying. As much as I always say that I do my best to life my life without regrets, I certainly reflect some of the events of the past few weeks. Breaking up doesn't have to mean completely severing ties as quickly and painfully as possible.

Many years ago when Brian and I were just starting out, beyond the promises of a life together we also promised that should things end, we would end them well. We wouldn't turn into those we had seen snarling and bitter, fighting over every last shred of their former life together. We had been on that path prior to this, willfully or otherwise it doesn't matter. We were on the brink of making even larger mistakes, possibly erasing one another from our lives even if only for the immediate future and neither of us deserved that. At the end of the day we still love each other and that has to count for something. That deserves a lot more than what had been happening.

Now things are better, more bittersweet than anything else. The separating of things is still painful but the haze of deep emotion is gone and it's easier to discuss things more calmly, more rationally. Naturally every discussion brings up memories, little anecdotes of happier times. It hurts to talk about such things but it's also warming and pleasant. Such things will always be like that, I suppose - one cannot celebrate the past without feeling bad about ending this particular part in our lives. It weighs very heavily in my thoughts given I chose to end it, but as many people hate to hear me say it - it is what it is. It's a lot easier to see things for what they really are when you clear out the disruptive cloud of emotion that has been hanging over our heads and blinding our vision i recent weeks. It's easier to see one another for who he is and remember all that has come before and hope for the best in terms of what may still yet to be.

Now the struggle is not about hoping to patch things up so we can be together again - it's a bit too late for that and both of us have some healing and rebuilding to do. No, the challenge now is learning how to be friends and not become the bitter rivals that many couples become after things go wrong. He's as important to me as I am to him. I want him to be okay and live a good life and I know he wants me to be happy too. That's certainly a strong foundation to become perhaps the best of friends and I know we want to maintain that. It's still a challenge in itself - it's hard to redefine the borders of intimacy and what is now too much or perhaps ironically too little. It's all very, very tricky but we're both investing time and effort into it.

I still feel sad about all this. It's never easy to start anew and to embrace change. Even now as I write this entry, my chest swells with emotion and my eyes are watering again - as they have been on and off all week. Brian and I have been talking every chance we get - time is sadly running out and soon we'll really be over. There's something about the move that makes it truly final, truly real. Packing the memories of my life into those boxes means taking a part of what was us, what we were together. I find myself sifting through years of memories, randomly experiencing the bittersweet joy of past laughs and great moments together. Every item I put away has a story of its own, a rich history of memories and the part it played in our life.

We still love one another - that cannot change, I think (or I hope?) Of course we cannot act on that love in the same way we did before - too much has happened and too many mistakes make that unrealistic for now. But that doesn't mean that love cannot be put to good use. It doesn't mean we won't stop caring for one another. It doesn't mean we should stop talking about what's going on in our lives and wanting to help the others. We don't have to be bitter and we don't and shouldn't become strangers. If anything, this is just another product of our love - it's what the past 8-9 years deserve. It's what we deserve and what we should give to one another. That's what people who love one another do - not out of obligation, but out of choice.

It just doesn't make anything easier.

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That I am.