Current NaNoWriMo Word count: 44,784 words. This is it ladies and gentlemen - this weekend is going to be do or die for me in terms of my bid to finish NaNoWriMo this year. If you had asked me to write a 50.000 word novel a year ago, I probably would have said that you're insane and that I could never manage that given how I had been struggling with getting back into writing over the past few years. But here I am, roughly 5,000 words away from that goal and I've never felt this energized towards writing in years. I'm sure the novel in itself probably sucks and it's hardly anywhere near something that I'd think of as being one of my better works, but it's there and it exists and I'm doing to finish this bastard this weekend.

Of course this translates into not going out tonight or even tomorrow and pretty much just dedicating as much time as possible to getting it done, which I'm prepared to do. It also helps that Tobie is also writing a NaNoWriMo novel and thus we're both going to try and cross that 50,000 word mark together. We have barely 2 days left to get it done - we can do this!

Oh, but I have more news than just my NaNoWriMo target.

Today Tobie and I stepped out to pick up a few supplies from SM Cubao, which inevitably means going around the mall to look at stuff. I picked up two more Transformers today - the Animated versions of Jazz and Swoop, to help beef up my Autobot bench. They mark my 13th and 14th Transformers purchases for the year, which pretty much outweighs my total toy purchases within the previous 5 years or more. Of course I now actually earn enough money to buy toys like this as a major factor to this purchasing change, but in general I just seem to be at a better place in terms of my comfort with buying toys again. Plus they were only P300 each, so why not, right?

The major purchase this weekend was one of my tech goals for the year - getting a netbook. After much deliberation over the past few months, I finally went out to buy an Asus EEE PC 1005HA. I got the Windows 7 version with 2GB DDR RAM and the slightly larger 250GB hard drive to boot. I'm pretty excited about getting this fully set up, but of course with the need to accomplish NaNoWriMo, I'm sticking to using the desktop for now. Typing on that small keyboard is going to take a lot of getting used to and I can't afford to deal with a learning curve just yet. Maybe later.

Tobie helped me pick up a decent back for it as well - it's one of those single strap slings that don't really look like laptop bags given the number of pockets and compartments. I'm really happy with this purchase and I can't wait to get it fully configured for my needs.

Now if only I could get my hands on a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 before next Saturday's company Christmas party...

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Scratch Fury! Calvin and Hobbes reference! Squee!

No NaNoWriMo progress since my last LJ entry. Damn. I totally hibernated all day. But then I guess that was inevitable.

Work last night was pretty bad, but not necessarily because I was at the office. It was more driven by the fact that I had slept wrong and so I ended up getting really sleepy fairly early into my shift. I made it to the end without totally collapsing on my keyboard or something, but it definitely could have gone better.

But the lack of sleep was generally worth it, mind you. I had a great weekend where I got to see a lot of movies with Tobie (both in the theater and at the Sietch), got loads of new Transformers and got started on my NaNoWriMo novel attempt! Plus the Halloween celebrations, spending time with my family and lots of other good stuff. So yeah, the lack of sleep was more than worth it, in hindsight, even if it meant me feeling like a zombie at the office.

The actual work itself wasn't too bad considering I was coming back from two days out of the office given my leave last week and the holiday last Monday. There's still loads to do especially with my new team and I can definitely see majority of my workload shifting to that side of my plate as opposed to the training end. There's just so much going on with a fairly small team working on it, and so I pretty much have to figure out ways to work with what I have for now without burning out the girls. Oh yeah - I never mentioned that my entire Audit & Compliance team is composed of members of the female species. Odd coincidence, but it's not an issue or anything. I just found it interesting.

This morning was relatively light. I picked up some ensaymadas on the way home so Tobie and I could immediately have breakfast before dashing off to Shopwise for the weekly grocery run. Together with some coffee, we watched this week's Big Bang Theory together (Raj and Howard are so cute together! LOL), then it was Shopwise time. Thankfully, there weren't too many people despite this being the first Wednesday of the month and we made our rounds pretty quickly. Their stocks of Transformers changed again and I ended up picking up the Animated versions of Soundwave and Slag before they disappeared on me again. Given the on-going sale of Transformers Animated figures, I just might end up picking up most of the more decent figures before year's end.

After grocery I barely had enough strength to put the perishables in the fridge before Tobie forced me to rest a bit. Given my state of physical exhaustion, that little rest break quickly led to me just falling asleep before Tobie left for work today, which kinda sucked. I had been hoping to get some writing in before hitting the hay, but clearly my body had other plans for me.

So with luck, I'll find time to make up for the lost writing session and still keep focused on my NaNoWriMo goal! Yeah, and of course get some work done as well.

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Everyone should be true to themselves, whether or not you're a pig. =D

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 can hear the rain beating on the windows here at Mom's house right now as I compose this entry. Despite a rather pleasant, sunny day, the storm has finally hit, it seems. **crosses fingers**

I'm on leave tonight and I'm spending this time with the family. It's been an interesting day of eating, arcade gaming and a rather significant number of new Transformers added to my collection. Um.

The Transformers part of things comes in two parts. The first part happened right after Tobie and I got haircuts at the Going Straight salon attached to SM Cubao. In the interests of scoping out last-minute Halloween costumes, we passed by the toy department to check out what they had. While we didn't find make-up, my regular scan of the Transformers section had me locating some toys once again in stock - the Transformers Animated versions of Shockwave and Ultra Magnus.

I've wanted Shockwave for some time because he's a double agent robot with four transformation modes: an Autobot, a Decepticon, a tank and a crane. It's not the greatest-looking robot, but he's still generally cool and I had regretted not picking up the first time I had seen him. Now he was back and even cheaper than before, so I grabbed him. I was toying with getting an Animated version of Skywarp when Tobie and I noticed the massive talking Ultra Magnus. Arguing that I needed more Autobots in my collection, Tobie convinced me to get Ultra Magnus, who did look rather cool. All this burned another hole in my wallet (or at least my credit card), but Transformers are always worth it. Besides, I'll deal with the charges next month, hehe.

Oh, oh, oh! And we found these two dragon stuffed toys for just P200 each! Tobie picked up the best-looking versions of each. Better if you just read his side of the story when it comes to the dragons...

Since I was already late, I rushed to Eastwood to meet up with the siblings and we waited for mom so we could have lunch. Lunch was amazingly filling, and of course it tasted good too, but then Mom had to rush back to work so the rest of the day we were on our own. We split up into sibling teams and thus Mico and I were left to scout out the Eastwood Mall on our own.

We passed by the only toy store in the mall and I found many of the same Transformers that I had just seen at SM Cubao on display with the same prices. However, I saw some additional toys that weren't at SM and that got me pretty vexed. Given they were relatively cheaper (P150 - P400), I picked up a few of them to boost my Autobot numbers. Thus I now have these tiny Transformers Universe editions of Beachcomber and Brawl and an Animated version of Blurr. Wheee! Totally massive unboxing tomorrow once I get them all together again - Shockwave and Ultra Magnus are back at the Sietch.

The rest of they day was spent playing various games with Mico at Timezone and Power Station, including embarrassing myself by playing Dance Dance Revolution after the LONGEST time, coffee to keep me awake, waiting for Mom to finish her work day and random photo opportunities.

Oh, have I mentioned that I haven't slept since before my Thursday night shift? Mwahaha! Hello being awake for more than 24 hours!

I'm beat, but overall pretty happy. It's been a great start to the weekend, despite the weather.

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Let's start with the geeky Halloween comics!

Today was another of those falling-asleep-right-after-work days. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but of course it throws my schedule just that much out of whack and makes things a tad more complicated. Sure, I technically get enough sleep needed for the day. However at the same time, the window of my sleeping ends up being somewhat wrong - displaced it you will. And thus I know that I'm going to start getting sleep towards the tail end of my shift. It helps to nap a bit once more right before work but that's never a guarantee.

And of course I can't nap until I've finished my blog entry for today. Somehow between this entry and the prospects of cooking dinner, I doubt I'm going to have time for a pre-shift nap. =P

It's funny how "quick" trips to the supermarket with Tobie will inevitably lead to side diversions that will extend our stay to an hour or so. Trying to get to SM Supermarket is the worst since we end up parking on the third floor, and thus we need to get through the department store before getting to the supermarket in the basement.

One of our usual areas of interest remain to be ACE Hardware, where we check out potential home improvement stuff and hope against hope that these particular EZ Shelves are finally available in black. I used to have these shelves back at Vella and naturally my OCD mind can't think of any other shelving solution other than this one. Sure, it's going to be rather expensive to set up but it's modular, easy to customize and it doesn't require us to drill any holes in the walls. They're pretty solid and were able to support my books before and I have no doubt they'll prove effective now...especially if we use three support rods instead of just two.

Then the next time space warp area is the toy department. Tobie always indulges me (which is bad for my wallet) by letting me take extensive side trips to check out if there are any new Transformers. The chances of this are very, very unlikely and yet we still go, look at the same robots every time since I just might get past that huge wall of guilt in my head and actually buy something. The last time this happened was the week of my birthday and I ended up saying goodbye to about P3,000. Yeah I know, I have issues, haha.

The recent death of Patrick Swayze has me wanting to download a bunch of his movies. Seriously, what gay man doesn't have a copy of Dirty Dancing, Too Wong Foo and Road House yet? Gah, I so need to fix this! LOL

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Cheesy, but still funny.

First, Happy Birthday to one of our trainers, Pam! Hope you had a great birthday!

The VA Anniversary party last night was pretty fun. A lot of geeks showed up and there was certainly more than enough food to go around. There was a fair amount of alcohol too, although I choose not to overindulge. It was mostly a lot of stories being told, group Word Challenge being played and lots and lots of geekery. It was a good night and I certainly enjoyed things well enough.

Tobie and I woke up just a little before lunch and I set about this week's cooking project: chicken tinola. As much as I've learned a lot of staple meals that I can now replicate over and over again, it's nice to continually try and expand our eating options one dish at a time. Today's meal was not without mishaps. I burned my first batch of garlic (a first!) since I was busy preparing other ingredients after I had already turned on the fire. It was a good lesson in terms of properly timing my cooking versus my preparatory activities like chopping onions. Plus when all was said and done, it turned out that I had not sufficiently checked the pechay - a caterpillar had managed to smuggle itself into my soup!

All that aside, the tinola turned out surprisingly well. In the end I had managed to capture the taste that I was aiming for and Tobie remarked that for once he didn't need to add patis when eating tinola, which really made me feel good. The chicken was tender and tasty and the ginger was cut sufficiently small enough not to be overly invasive and not too strong when bitten. Plus the added greens really made it a rather substantial dish.

Since we were still watching an illegal recording of In the Heights beyond having our late lunch, I finally opened the boxes of my new Transformers and got busy playing with them. They're all pretty cool and highly poseable, which is something I'm not used to when it comes to Transformers or robots in general. The Transformers Animated robots as especially flexible, which is definitely a plus. Of the four Transformers we bought yesterday, I'm definitely most happy with Grimlock because of how kickass he looks but I also love Powerglide because of the cool sound effects he makes - the best being the transforming sound from the original cartoon series. Sweet!

Now the night is pleasantly lazy and I'll probably start frying some pork chops shortly. We're about to cross midnight into my birthday. Yay for me.

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I think I'm giving of giving this feedback, too! LMAO

I'm on leave tonight and tomorrow night, which is pretty cool. Sure, my original leave was better planned out for Thursday and Friday, but since it was next to impossible to get out of work for Friday, I just had to make the most of things as they were. And things have certainly started out really amazing!

So I ended up giving in to the meds again and just falling asleep the moment I got home, which wasn't so bad. Given I wasn't going to work, it was a "risk" I could afford in terms of my normal sleeping patterns. Tobie ended up not going to Tahanan today, which really worked well with my plans for the day - stepping out after lunch to catch District 9! We did manage to wake up early enough to ensure we had time to watch the movie with everything that needed to get done while late enough to ensure we both got enough rest.

We just opted to catch the movie at Ali Mall given the theaters there are still relatively new and not many people seem to watch there. Plus the showings at Gateway were just a tad too close for comfort and we wanted to be able to catch trailers to some extent. We ended up getting to Ali Mall about an hour earlier than the actual movie due to mis-reading of the schedules, so we ended up catching a late lunch at Tokyo Tokyo. It had been a while since we had last eaten there and so it was a bit of a surprise to us that they no longer offered unlimited rice, which was a major downer. While the sumo meal that we ordered did come with a sizable amount of rice, it wasn't of ideal quality and thus not worth paying an extra P5 for in case we wanted more. Damn you Tokyo Tokyo. We're probably not going to eat there anymore given the only real draw was the affordable nature of the meals given the unlimited rice. As far as Japanese food goes, it's not really all that great after all.

Thankfully District 9 totally changed that.

The movie was just AMAZING. I mean seriously, this is probably the first bit of really original science fiction storytelling in a long time and despite some confusion in the use of the shaky-camera effect so much, it was still a great movie. It's probably not smart enough for the average movie goer around here (and yes, I know this is meant to be offensive), but then we shouldn't compromise and continue to focus on better quality storytelling and not just what Hollywood thinks we want.

Ugh, this reminds me of how scared I am of the adaptation of The Surrogates comic. They've changed so much already based on the trailer!

Afterward we swung by the grocery to pick up a few veggies I needed for my tinola and Mexican relish plans later in the week and ended up passing by the toy section. I had been eying the Transformers Universe Voyager class Powerglide for some time now since it seems to be the most decent of the Universe line-up that SM tends to have stocked. After much consideration and the fact that they had been on sale in recent weeks, Tobie finally convinced me to get it and that led to me also picking up the Transformers Animated versions of Grimlock, Blitzwing and Swindle. Argh! I know it was a lot of money but I guess it was timely enough that I still had leftover cash from my performance bonus so it sort of softened the blow for me.

So now I have new Transformers as soft of an early birthday present, the Via-Astris anniversary party tonight and about 48 hours worth of vacation time to enjoy. Huzzah, hurrah and all that!

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Geek pick-up lines and strategies simply ROCK! LMAO