I'm on leave tonight. Hooray hurrah!

Despite being on leave last Friday as well, this week has taken a lot out of me. There's just so much going on in the office and it's been an interesting challenge to juggle everything around. I'm pretty happy with how the team has been generally performing, but as always there's been room for improvement here and there. That's work life for you - the fun just never ends.

I'm cooking again - yet another culinary adventure. I'm trying to mix my sister's Rice Pilaf recipe with the addition of some frozen veggies Tobie and I had picked up on one of our trips to the supermarket. We don't have some nice steak or stroganoff to go on the side, so we'll just have to settle for some fried giniling extended with potatoes. Tobie plans on mixing a salad as well which will round out the meal.

I forgot to mention that Tom is here - he crashed after he and Tobie went out. So yeah, we're cooking for three today and it's not just because we're feeling excessively hungry. At the same time, there's pressure to cook instead of ordering out since the little fridge we have is a bit overloaded and it could really use some relief, hehe. I really need to add a larger refrigerator to the planned shopping list - almost forgot.

Tonight we plan on hitting Metrowalk to get some DVD cases and naturally a number (more like a LOT) of DVDs to add to the collection. Exciting! I just hope we make it in time, hehe.

In the middle of composing this entry I ended up needing to devote more time to the actual cooking and once done we ate. It turned out pretty good, albeit rather heavy, haha. Now we're all pretty full and finishing Legally Blonde: the Musical. Hooray for cooking success! Level up!

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Oh poor Death, he was just doing his job. =P

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?

I'm already at the office, so I don't have much time to blog right now. I'll have for a more proper entry probably after tonight's shift.

I got to watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen today before work. It was pretty good, but nothing amazing and yet another reminder that Michael Bay really gets his rocks off on large explosions in his movies.

It was great that they had so many robots involved in the movie. It was a shame we didn't know who most of them were. Ah well, that's Hollywood for you. At least we finally got Soundwave performing his usual coordination role and to some extent we got Devastator (balls and all) in the movie, too.

I'm not so sure if I want to see it in IMAX now - that's something I'll have to figure out during the next few days. I'll probably wait for reviews of the IMAX version of the film to come out so I can make a more informed decision.

Now on to some applicant interviews and later I'm going to enjoy the Taco Bell burrito I ended up bringing to work as lunch. Mexican food - oh boy! =D

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Wow - I guess the casting could have been even worse than it is now!

Today's the birthday of far-flung Adrienne |papermoon623| on the other side of the world (sort of) Happy Birthday! Hope the boys are are having fun over there!

Work was decent - I'll just leave it at that. Or I could mention that despite having awoken at 03:00pm in the afternoon, I managed to get through most of the day without falling asleep...too much. Better yet I could hit at yet another dose of office political controversy, but I won't. Honest. Seriously. Really. Not a word. =P

I've been talking about cooking a lot these days and today appears to be no exception. After spending some time waking up Tobie, I set about trying to prepare a quick yet (hopefully) yummy breakfast. Initially I was planning to do my usual messy scrambled eggs with veggies and whatnot mixed in but as I was preparing things, I changed my mind. I had started with some corned beef, a diced tomato (we were out of onions) frying in the, um, rice cooker (our primary cooking apparatus at the moment) and was already beating the eggs that I'd be adding into the mix in just a bit when I opted to stop right there and just work on the corned beef separately. This led to some hastily added potatoes to stretch things a bit more that I wish I cooked first, but then beggars with fickle minds really can't be choosers.

So I continued working on getting the corned beef as cooked as I wanted it to be then proceeded to replace the rice cooker's contents with the scrambled eggs (naturally with some milk and Parmesan cheese added in) and then started thinking about trying for an omelet. I was nervous about not having enough heat to do it well or even just enough maneuvering room to get the egg flipped into place but then it was worth the risk, I felt. so I let the egg cook as I pulled whipped out the last dregs of Cheese Whiz in the jar and fished out some of the mushroom slices left over from yesterday's tuna concoction. I set them in place, let them cook a bit then went for broke by trying to fold the egg over in order to upgrade it into an omelet. It took some maneuvering and careful manipulation with the spatula thingy and a fork but in the end I got it to where I wanted it to be. Hurrah! I still didn't have enough heat to get the omelet to where I wanted it to be but it was decent and not too gooey inside afterward.

Throw in some freshly brewed coffee and some foccasia bread on the side and we had ourselves a pretty hearty breakfast. Tobie experimented with adding in some maple syrup (don't ask - it just works) all as we watched an episode of Dollhouse, our current slow-thon series of the week. Seriously, we never got around to finishing it after the first few episodes, but I did download them all, haha.

I started this whole move with very little cooking knowledge and even less cooking confidence and now I seem to be building up both. I don't claim to be making amazing dishes that I'd serve to friends and family alike, but at least I am managing to come up with more than just heated stuff out of a can or instant soup and from there the willingness to experiment is taking over. I'm glad that we've yet to end up with something overly horrible that it's not fit for eating - I just think of all this as training before we get a proper stove and start some REAL cooking, haha.

On a final note - Bel Ami and Corbin Fisher are now working together? Now that's a dangerous paring indeed, hahaha.

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Wahaha! I'm guilty of turning my Twitter profile green! LMAO!

I feel tired.

It's not the same as feeling sleepy (you know what I mean, right?), but there's definitely a physical component to things. I guess this week was a lot busier than I had though and perhaps everything that I've been involved with is really taking its toll.

Case in point - today I was supposed to meet the family for lunch since my sister was heading back to Singapore today. I got home early enough and made sure to go straight to sleep (translation: staying away from the computer) so I'd be a bit more rested and thus able to function in the daytime come lunchtime. I set alarms that would either wake me or alert Tobie to the fact that I needed to wake up then promptly drifted off to sleep before I realized it. Fast forward to around 01:00pm and Tobie's trying to wake me up and I finally emerge from the haze of sleep. It turns out he had tried to wake me up earlier but I was too deep into it that he just couldn't wake me.

I hate it when that happens - sleeping a bit too deeply can be scary in itself, but what bothers me more is the fact that it tends to act as an indicator that maybe I'm more tired that I realize. Unfortunately the "message" from my body came at the expense of my sister and I know I'm going to have to devote some efforts into making it up to her somehow in the weeks and months to come.

Even now I still feel a general sense of fatigue. My feet have been a bit sore this week from a lot of walking around the office, and thankfully Tobie has above average massage skills and he's help address the worst of the pain and soreness. I'm not all that rip-roaring to run out and do stuff even though in my head I want to make the most of the weekend by enjoying outside the apartment somehow. Not that staying home is such a bad thing - I just don't want to be some sort of a stick in the mud, unable to go out and thus spoiling plans or something just because I feel this way. Lying down will probably help, but not necessarily sleeping. It's a weird feeling to describe but I hope I've more or less gotten the general image across.

I guess I'll need to play it cool for the rest of the weekend - nothing too strenuous or anything like that and making sure I take advantage of the extra time for rest and relaxation. Today's alternative gaming night certainly fits the bill nicely and given we're starting another game apart from the pre-existing Vampire thread, this promises to be a pretty enjoyable evening.

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Twitter makes you gay! LMAO

It's official - our QC site has a confirmed case of the infamous AH1N1 "swine flu". Despite assurances that most cases thus far have turned out to be rather mild, just knowing of the infection naturally gets one nervous no matter what and you find yourself trying to somehow "breathe less" when walking the hallways or developing even more OCD tendencies such as rubbing down my desk and my PC desktop with alcohol. Oh, and don't get me started on how fussy I've gotten about washing my hands - I bet the guards must think I have a bladder problem considering how often I end up in the bathroom. Better safe than sorry, that's what I say.

The company has their own set of precautions of course such as having anyone with flu-like symptoms immediately report to the clinic and some department heads have started to advise folks to wear masks at the office (my director included). One the stranger ideas has been to check everyone's temperature as they enter the building with a laser scanner. While theoretically this sounds like a great idea, I'd rather they use a slightly more invasive ear thermometer as opposed to the laser gun-style reader they're using now, which is the same one they use to check if the building air conditioning is at the right level. Seriously, those things aren't exactly properly calibrated for reading human body temperature, right?

At least they mean well.

Tobie and I seem to have pretty much started to establish a pretty decent routine by now. Given our opposing schedules and his need to go back to Parañaque every other day, we're pretty much figured out how to align our schedules such that we're actually awake for certain periods of time while we're both at the Sietch and we get to be more cost-effective by having meals together as opposed to eating independently. It may not seem like much, but it certainly goes a long way.

This weekend promises to be less busy than the last one, so I wonder what geeky adventures we'll be getting ourselves into. For Saturday I'm going to pay another trip home to the folks - I live near enough for it to become more cost-effective to visit - also given the fact that Tobie has work on Saturdays, and that means going South. Sunday is generally free, so that's a good day for watching more movies, perhaps finishing some of the TV shows we've started watching in recent weeks or maybe attack those comic books that are in dire need of organizing. That means buying cases for all those DVDs, which means possibly visiting a place where DVDs are sold, which more likely means buying even more DVDs. The dangers of piracy, haha. Oh the temptations indeed...

Oh, and we're finished the first 9 episodes of Lie to Me with only 3 to go. It's a pretty interesting series even though I don't necessarily believe in everything the present as part of Dr. Lightman's amazing micro-expression interpretation method for lie detection, but it does make for good entertainment. He's a House-like personality placed into a more crime / mystery solving genre. Yes, he's just as obnoxious at times and it helps that he's played by Tim Roth, who is really, really good at looking like a mad man.

I should probably bring the laundry down today before bed. That would be prudent.

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Oh yes, the Sims just gives one too much control over...things. =P

First, birthday greetings to two friends who live on US time. First greetings go out to a former schoolmate, Rec, and to a dear sort of work-related friend, Lyd! Happy Birthday you two!

On a different note, today also marks the birthday and the death anniversary of my gran. She was a major fan of telenovellas towards the end of her time and so it seemed rather fitting she died in a telenovella way, so to speak.

It's Sunday, and thus pretty much the end of the long weekend. Given everything that I've been busy with in the last 48 hours, I can't help but feel that I actually lost time and could have spend the days doing a lot more or something.

In yesterday's entry I briefly summarized my trip home to the folks and given the time I have left before midnight, I still can't get into as much detail as I'd like to just yet - perhaps next time. For now, let's go over the basics.

Today was the team building outing for the company support teams and being in the Training Department, naturally we were part of this set. The event was held at the Balai Isabel resort at Batangas. Unlike previous outings, this trip was no longer an overnight activity and was pretty much just a day trip with half the day allotted for the usual team-building games companies get into in order to justify the expense. The games were okay although made a lot more challenging because of the scorching heat in the morning that was only more strange by the strong rain in the afternoon. Since I really wasn't quite a swimming kind of person, I was happy with a beer then hanging out with Recruitment since they had rented an air conditioned villa for the weekend.

Going home was a pain since we didn't leave at the scheduled time and ended up getting back to the city past 08:00pm. Thankfully Tobie was nice enough to pick me up from the office given I was in no state to commute home on my own. We made it back to the condo in time to shoot another episode of Fandom Live and to show me his surprise - a new wardrobe setup so we can finally hang our clothes decently. It was an amazing deal and I'm really thankful Tobie found it and decided to get it.

Now I'm in that weird place of feeling tired enough to sleep but cognizant of the fact that if I do sleep, it means I disrupt my sleeping schedules, thus making work for Monday night all the more difficult. Thus the questions remains - try to only "nap" and wake up again to minimize sleep schedule disruption or force myself to stay awake until morning, thus putting significant strain on my body but at least not ruining my planned schedules.

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Oh Criminy, you animal you!

No birthdays today, but it is a major holiday in the Philippines - Independence Day. Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky to actually have this kind of a holiday since not everyone was conquered by colonizers repeatedly and thus in need of form a rebellion and overthrow a foreign government. But seriously, it's a big day to commemorate heroism and all those who gave so much for the save of us being an independent country and not just some remote annex of Spain. Happy Independence Day!

I'm taking the holiday in lieu of shift tonight since my sister, Mina, is in town. I'll be heading home to the family home later tonight in order to spend some family time. Yay for that.

Either way, it'll be a short trip since I have a company outing / team-building event on Sunday, thus the weekend is both long and yet not so long. As much as I enjoy going out of town every now and then, company-sponsored events will have that need for structure in order to somehow achieve objectives in order to justify the expense of carting everyone out of the city. Hopefully the weather will hold up and we'll actually have a sunny Sunday and more importantly perhaps some folks can sneak in some serious alcohol so we can have a decent amount of drinking despite the event meant to be a day of "well-mannered frivolity" - reference! LOL

So despite this being a long weekend, it means I'll actually be spending less time with my Archer. Sad. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to make the most of the time I have left.

There's going to be a Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2? Crap! I can't afford a PS3 yet!

Anyway, guess I should rest for now. Not much to blog really. I just want to kill more time on Facebook or get around to writing more reviews for the Geeky Guide - the site is sorely in need of content.

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It's the guy with a hat! And he has a great idea to boot LOL