[Blog Entry] Death!!!

Death!!!

My own personal death really. Unfortunately, this brief post only extends my Internet hiatus.

There are few things which can screw my life over. One is burning my book collection, for example. Another is depriving me of computer and Internet access. The latter goes hand in hand with the former. And in my case, my four-year-old computer just died, just in time for the Chinese New Year (Happy Chinese New Year by the way!). My Windows folder got corrupted, and I'm lucky if my computer even loads Windows. Still have to wait and see whether it's merely a software problem (reformatting the entire drive), or it's expanded to the hardware (replacing my hard drive). In the mean time, all my computer's giving me is beep code errors (there's are several long beeps when I turn on the thing, and technicians should decode it much like the would SOS signals).

So I'm sayin goodbye to four year's worth of documents, mp3s, mangas, anime, homework, and projects (sorry, computer is porn free). Some things have been backed up, and some haven't. But that's life. My monitor was dying out on me a few months ago, but apparently its death throes would last longer than my hard drive apparently.

In the meantime, I have a writing deadline in a day or two, and I have no idea how I'll get it done.

So, uh, I'll be signing off, and hopefully the technology gods will bless me. (And no, getting a Mac wouldn't have helped. The Macs at the office are just as worse. And as much as I'm drooling over the new G5, even if I didn't spend a single cent of my annual salary, I still wouldn't be able to afford it. As for Linux, sorry. Third-party software (especially games!) becomes an issue. And I believe you only get what you pay for.)

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[Blog Entry] Public Service Announcement

Public Service Announcement

We interrupt your regular blog programming for this special announcement.

Powerbooks? Sale. Until the end of the month.

A Different Bookstore Glorietta? Sale. Until the end of February.

Goodwill Bookstore? Has 2 different sales going on that I really don't know which is which. You might also want to check out their Legarda branch.

And for those joining the Neil Gaiman/Fully Booked contest, here's some updates:

To repeat: THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO FEB. 28. PLEASE INFORM FRIENDS OF YOURS WHO YOU KNOW ARE INTERESTED IN JOINING. BETTER YET, INVITE THEM TO GET ON THIS MAILING LIST TOO.

- Submissions may be delivered in brown paper envelopes, but should still be sealed.

- Stories need not be set in the Philippines or involve Filipino characters.

- Students need not submit a resume.

- We would prefer if, for the hard copies, you don't print pages back to back. This goes especially for the comics submissions, as some art bleeds or can be seen through to the other side. But if you've already sent in your submission, it's no biggie.

- Enough people have asked if they can submit a short story that is part of a longer work. This is a tricky one. It really is up to you. We are not disallowing it, but it is a risk you take, as with other things. In the best instance, the work, when read, should not be obviously part of something larger. You don't want the judges feeling like they've wasted their time reading something incomplete, right? So try looking at it through a new reader's eyes.

- You may use the same plot/story for both categories (comics and prose), if you wish (and you feel it's that good). :)

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[Blog Entry] Indefinite Hiatus

Indefinite Hiatus

Which, is on other words, means that I won't be updating my blog in the next few weeks. Or at the very least, less frequently (so don't hold your breath). Of course this is for the benefit of all two readers. =) I'll still be around, uh, stalking and commenting and the like.

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[Blog Entry] Book Club Pimping, 19 Years Ago, Manny Pacquiao

Book Club Pimping

Read or Die. 'nuff said. And tell them I sent you. =)

19 Years Ago

Another news article that my boss showed me, one of the concealed news article today is "Survivors, kin of victims still await justice 19 years after Mendiola massacre
By Katherine Adraneda." To make a long story short, agrarian reform, dissatisfied farmers, and a rally gone wrong (and you thought getting hosed down during a rally was bad).

Manny Pacquiao

If there's one thing which unified the Philippines yesterday more than EDSA 2 or EDSA 3 ever could, it was Filipinos cheering for the victory of Manny Pacquiao. Whether you were rich or poor, Catholic or Muslim, natural-born or naturalized, Filipinos were on the side of this great boxer.

Of course it was interesting to note that the malls were virtually deserted. Even Mega Mall and Robinsons Galleria were having telecasts of the fight.

Personally, I grew up not being a sports buff, but more recently, thanks to huge servings of manga (more specificially Hajime no Ippo), I had no problems imbibing the commentary of the fight (I knew what a Southpaw was, as well as what it really means to be a counter puncher). Taped the fight, and it was actually a one-sided battle as Manny was dominating, including two almost-K.O.'s in the early rounds (but of course, Erik Morales won [in points] during some of the rounds).

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[Meme] Five Weird Habits

Five Weird Habits

The fool Banzai Cat tagged me with one of his meme's!

The Rules: The first player of this game starts with the topic "five weird habits" and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says "You have been tagged" (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

1) I don't like memes. They're like chain letters. And quizzes. While admittedly I like the filling out part, it's forcing other people to participate that I don't like. When I get "tagged" by someone, there's a small sparkle of joy in me that says "Hey, someone remembered me!" but another part goes damn... that's a meme I'm forced to fill out and I have to force it to other people as well.

2) People complain that I have long fingernails. Which is true, because I'm usually too lazy to cut them. Actually, the only time I cut my fingernails is when I'm bored. Of course the strange part about this is I do it manually. I've been asked "Is there any other way to do it?" Errr, what I mean manually is that I cut my nails using my other nails, much like the way Hercules skinned the Nemean Lion.

3) I'm a thief at heart. In our post-Glorietta bombing era (unfortunately, we've had bombings for the past 2 decades... it was only after the Glorietta mall bombing that security in such places started becoming tight), I usually think of ways to smuggle a bomb inside the mall. Same goes for stealing the stuff of other people. In high school, when I was with familiar company, I'd steal pencil boxes, wallets, and books, only to return it (or hint at my classmates that I've gotten something from them) just as quickly. In college, in front of my other blockmates, I even sneaked up on a classmate, got his cellphone, showed it to the blockmates who were watching, snuck up again, returned the phone, and then said hi. Obviously, I do this with people who at the very least knows that I bear no malice, lest I be mistaken for a thief.

4) My formula for stalking is to get two out of the three: knowledge, conjecture, or psychic flashes. On the last one, yes, I have ESP, and I am capable of predicting the future; it's just not a power that I can summon on command. So I have actually made several successful predictions in my lifetime (such as Nissie's potential new employer last year), and not all of them based on knowledge I had on them at the time (I once predicted an acquaintances grades on her report card without seeing it or being a classmate in any of her classes... and it freaked her out and never spoke to me for that year).

5) I dwell on both sides of the picture. What that means is that to every experience/event/story, I look at it from as many perspectives as possible: the good and the bad, the pros and the cons. Unfortunately, I also have a tendency to impart to others my "impartial" view of the world. That means when someone praises person A, I'll say something to counter the praise to person A. If someone says something negative about person A, I'll say something positive about person A. So you know, that gets me in trouble more often than not, and usually with both camps (since I'm not exactly siding with anyone and it seems like I'm bashing both sides... so this is what it feels like to be an NBA referee). I'm like the anti-thesis to your thesis, whatever it may be, all for the sake of revealing the silver lining in every cloud, or the flaw in every tapestry.

Tagging Nissie, Vern, Kathy, Allan, and Bryan. But you know, you're under no obligation to spread this misery unto others. =)

P.S. What part of "stalker" did you miss and didn't consider weird?

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