Is it a game or is it a sport?

Sacrifice?

2008-08-18T12:27:00.003+08:00

Found this post in www.peyups.com

... in a perfect world, we are initially attracted to people who possess attributes we admire - good looks, intelligence, eloquence, a money, expertise, endurance (lol), etc etc. By getting together with that person, there is a perception that there is going to be personal gain. And if everything goes well, that indeed happens.

But in a less than perfect world, it's not so easy.

Sometimes getting together with that person comes at a high price and sometimes comes at a terrible price. Sometimes the family or society may not agree. Sometimes, the other person might have serious problems that complicate the relationship. Sometimes, we might have problems and not the other person.

In today's capitalist society, personal self-centeredness reigns supreme and short term gain is pursued over long term gain. Our time horizons are very short. We want satisfaction now. Very few people I encounter have been taught patience, perseverance and self-sacrifice - especially the kind where you have to deliberately go into personal pain and hardship over many years in the pursuit of some common goal that would benefit that which you love.

And I think that's why a lot of people get disappointed so quickly because they quickly realize that it's an imperfect world and that it takes real sacrifice to sustain love.

I would dare say that love is measured by the degree of sacrifice.

But most people are unprepared to sacrifice anything. They are more comfortable with getting their satisfaction now and right away - which actually leads to more unhappiness.

When was the last time your heard somebody say to them -

'I love you, babe, I will sacrifice for you'.

This made sense really, but what if only 1 party is willing to make a sacrifice?

I have already sacrificed a lot for my girlfriend.

Time
Health
Resources

I seem to be always giving a lot... Sacrificing a lot... And sometimes in the back of my mind there's something knocking that im giving too much. I really love her, but she just always takes and takes and I always give and give...

I dunno, but if this keeps on then I think Im better off alone, a relationship is a 2-way street, not a 1-laner

How do you keep sane amidst all the "hurdles" and "tests" of life?

2007-09-04T02:32:00.001+08:00

I already went through a lot for the past 2 years. I was just a kid back then, i made mistake after mistake, fault after fault.. And i paid its toll for the last 2 years (with interest)... It almost took each and every bit of strength i have just to keep sane and live my life from day to day... Only lately i have found a way to keep myself together, think straight, and live normally... To dream again... To look forward again for tomorrow...

Then just like a snap of a finger, all of these came crumbling down on me... I cant think of any logical explanation on why these things should happen to me... Again... After all the sufferings i have gone through... After all the misery... After all the repentance... Havent i had enough? Havent i suffered enough? Another 2 years of suffering will be overkill...

Life sure is funny...

Lost but on-track

2007-03-25T02:07:00.000+08:00

It has ben some time already since i have last updated this personal blog of mine for much of time revolves around my work and my business. The past 2 years of my life was a roller coaster ride, a roller coaster ride that eventually derailed... I dunno, maybe i was just a kid back then, i made wrong decision after wrong decision, mistake after mistake, i was biting more than i can chew... My actions eventually made someone in my life walk out of me... Forever... At first i didnt seem to care, everyday was just like an ordinary day... Everyday... Everyweek... But then suddenly in the back of your mind something's amiss. As time goes by reality finally hits you, hits you so hard that it shakes your whole humanity, every aspect of yourself is shook up.

I dunno... I cant seem to forgive myself, and i cant seem to accept reality... I still feel guilty deep down inside... I am not the person used to be, i think i can never be the same again... But like they say, time heals everything, but i dunno when will time apply its first aid to me... I really dunno...

I have already tried quite a lot of things to make me forget things... Going to church, reading inspirational books, immersing myself to work, going into entrepreneurship, etc, but still... I still am very empty... Memories still haunt me, random toughts, events, places, promises... I am exhausted... Im tired of living me life's yesterdays... And funny thing is that while i cant seem to move on, she ssems to have already erased every memory of our past... Worse, she's with someone now... Far away... Never be back... And if she does return it wont be for me... It would be for someone else...

Why do i keep on clinging on false hopes? On memories that makes me a few minutes happy and a few days miserable... Im bitter... Im angry... But it is only myself who i should be blaming... Currently im paying big time for my sins...

But maybe...

Just maybe...

Someday...

I will be released from my cold cell and free again from these painful bonds...

Beat it by yours truly

2006-12-25T22:57:00.000+08:00

One super-horny dog

2006-12-03T11:42:00.000+08:00

>
The dog just got himself some pussy LOL

(UPDATED NOV 20, 2006) FOR SALE: Brand new Digicams with warranty and freebies at low, low prices!!!

2006-11-21T02:17:00.000+08:00

Christmas season is near, wondering what gift you'd give to your loved one(s)? Never fear, Brando's Digicams are here!!! READ ON!!!

Digicam Price Range as of Nov 20, 2006

Canon
[Powershot series]
A430 8,400.00* vs 9,950.00 18.45%
4MP, 4x Optical, 1.8" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a430.asp

A530 9,900.00* vs 13,500.00 36.36 %
5MP, 4x Optical, 1.8" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a530.asp

A540 12,000.00* vs 16,000.00 33.33%
6MP, 4x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a540.asp

A630 17,600.00* vs 22,000.00 25.00%
8MP, 4x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a630.asp

A640 21,100.00* vs 25,000.00 18.48%
10MP, 4x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a640.asp

A710 19,00.00* vs 23,500.00 23.68%
7MP, 6x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a710is.asp

G7 31,400.00* vs 36,000.00 14.29%
10MP, 6x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_g7.asp

S3 IS 22,000.00* vs 29,950.00 36.14%
6MP, 12x Optical, 2" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_s3is.asp

[IXUS series]
I7 zoom 19,900.00* vs 19,950.00 5.00% (NEW RELEASE)
7MP, 2.4x Optical, 1.8" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_sd40.asp

60 (sd600) 17,100.00* vs 21,000.00 27.27%
6MP, 3x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_sd600.asp

65 (sd630) 17,800.00* vs 21,500.00 20.79%
6MP, 3x Optical, 3.0" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_sd630.asp

800 IS (sd700IS) 22,000.00* vs 26,000.00 18.18%
6MP, 4x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_sd700is.asp

850 IS (sd800IS) 25,300.00* vs 27,500.00 8.70%
7MP, 3.8x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_sd800is.asp

900 Ti (sd900) 27,000.00* vs 30,000.00 14.07%
10MP, 3x Optical, 2.5" LCD, SD/ MMC
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_sd900.asp

Sony
[W series]
w30 15,000.00* vs 18,000.00 20.00%
6MP, 3x Optical, 2" LCD, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscw30.asp

w50 16,000.00* vs 21,000.00 31.25%
6MP, 3x Optical, 2.5" LCD, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscw50.asp

w70 18,500.00* vs 25,000.00 35.14%
7MP, 3x Optical, 2.5" LCD, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscw70.asp

w100 22,000.00* vs 29,000.00 31.82%
8MP, 3x Optical, 2.5" LCD, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscw100.asp

[T series]
T10 21,800.00* vs NA
7MP, 3x Optical, 2.5" LCD, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dsct10.asp

T30 22,000.00* vs 30,000.00 36.36%
7MP, 3x Optical, 3" LCD, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dsct30.asp

T50 25,500.00* vs 33,000.00 29.41%
7MP, 3x Optical, 3" LCD/Touch Screen, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dsct50.asp

[N series]
N1 22,000.00* vs 31,000.00 40.91%
8MP, 3x Optical, 3" LCD/Touch Screen, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscn1.asp

N2 25,000.00* vs 33,000.00 32%
10MP, 3x Optical, 3" LCD/Touch Screen, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscn2.asp

[H series]
H2 23,200.00* vs 32,000.00 37.93%
6MP, 12x Optical, 2" LCD, Memory Stick
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dsch2.asp

H5 28,000.00* vs 37,000.00 32.14%
7MP, 12x Optical, 3" LCD, Mem Stick Duo
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dsch5.asp

ACCESSORIES
Ridata 1GB SDCARD 150x read/write - 1,800*

NOTE(S):
- All cameras have 9 months service and parts warranty
- All cameras has a free BRAND NEW Ridata 512mb SD Card worth P1,000
- All items are subject to availability and price changes
- Inquire first to check for availability and quote for final price
- Prices above are compared versus mall prices, the ones with asterisks * are MY prices
- These are cash prices in Philippine Peso
- "NA" means no units are available from the stores canvassed
- Minimum of P2K deposit for sub 10,001 cameras non-refundable
- Minimum of P3.5K deposit for 10,001-20,000 cameras non-refundable
- Minimum of P5K deposit for 20,001-30,000 cameras non-refundable
- Full payment upon delivery, personally meet in Makati/ Alabang/ and in selected Laguna areas
- No full payment, no camera, i hope i made this clear
- Honest and hassle-free seller *wink*

Reputable Online digicam references:
http://www.dpreview.com/
http://www.dcresource.com/

JUST CONTACT ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED!!! ( I KNOW YOU ARE! )

YM: lord_brandxxx
Celfone: 0915-445-7808
Landline @ home: 02-869-2810
Friendster: Brando Losaria

Look for Brando

My Firefox 2 plugins

2006-11-06T02:02:00.000+08:00

My plugins

1. Stumbleupon - Stumbleupon is a brilliant downloadable toolbar that beds into your browser and gives you the chance to surf through thousands of excellent pages that have been stumbled upon by other web-users (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)
2. Errorzilla mod - implements a useful error page when a website cannot be reached
3. Fasterfox - performance and network tweaks for Firefox
4. Serverspy - indicates what type of HTTP server website uses, great for web developers like me!
5. Videodownloader - Download videos from Youtube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, Dailymotion, Pornotube... and other 60+ video sites ! And all embedded objects on a webpage (movies, mp3s, flash, quicktime, etc) ! Directly !
6. IE Tab - an extension from Taiwan, features: Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox. Another great tool for web developers!
7. Imageshack toolbar- for easy uploading of images into imageshack servers
8. FireFTP - FTP client for Firefox
9. Flashgot- Download one link, selected links or all the links of a page together at the maximum speed with a single click, using the most popular, lightweight and reliable external download managers.
10. PDF download- Allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it!
11. NoScript - NoScript provides extra protection for your Mozilla/Firefox or Flock browser: this extension allows JavaScript and Java execution only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site).
12. Performancing- Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox
13. Cutemenus- CuteMenus add icons to your Firefox menus to make it look... cute...

Just sharing my favorite plugins ^_^

Closing Cycles

2006-11-02T01:27:00.000+08:00

by Paulo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end.

If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters ?whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts ?and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment."Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person ?nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.

Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

"Hello world" in 296 programming languages

2006-11-01T04:08:00.000+08:00

Sample scripts

ABAP4

REPORT ZHB00001.
*Hello world in ABAP/4 *
WRITE: 'Hello world'.

Clipper

// Hello World in Clipper (Summer 87, 5.0, 5.01, 5.2, 5.3)

? "Hellp World"

QuickBASIC

REM Hello World in QuickBASIC PRINT "Hello World!" END

T-SQL

-- Hello World in T-SQL
PRINT 'Hello World'

Click here for the "Hello World" Collection

Honestly, i am only about to write around 10-12 Hello world scripts from the different languages/ scripts that i have used in my entire life, and yet here is a collection that has around 300 @_@

You think your job sucks? Read on and be relieved!

2006-10-29T21:02:00.000+08:00

Ok your boss is a slave-driver, your office stinks, and the prettiest female in your office looks like a missing link from the prehistoric era. Then you shout at the top of your lungs...

MY JOB SUCKS!!! IT'S THE WORST!

Before printing that resignation letter of yours let me say this to you, DONT DO THAT. You dont have the worst job, yet, it's nothing compared to these ones...

Orangutan-Pee Collector
Their work is noninvasive—for the apes, that is . . .

"Have I been pissed on? Yes," says anthropologist Cheryl Knott of Harvard University. Knott is a pioneer of "noninvasive monitoring of steroids through urine sampling." Translation: Look out below! For the past 11 years, Knott and her colleagues have trekked into Gunung Palung National Park in Borneo, Indonesia, in search of the endangered primates. Once a subject is spotted, they deploy plastic sheets like a firemen's rescue trampoline and wait for the tree-swinging apes to go see a man about a mule. For more pee-catching precision, they attach bags to poles and follow beneath the animals. "It's kind of gross when you get hit, but this is the best way to figure out what's going on in their bodies," Knott says.

Still not convinced that your job is still BETTER? how about this one?

Semen Washer
It's a job that separates the boys from the men
OK, OK, their real job title is usually something like "cryobiologist" or "laboratory technician," but at sperm banks around the country, they are known as semen washers. "Every time I interview someone I make sure I ask them, 'Do you know you'll be working with semen?' " says Diana Schillinger, the Los Angeles lab manager at the country's largest sperm bank, California Cryobank. Let's start at the beginning. Laboriously prescreened "donors" emerge from a so-called collection room that is stocked with girlie mags and triple-X DVDs. They hand over their deposit, get their $75, and leave. The semen washers take the seminal goo and place a sample under the microscope for a sperm count. Next comes the washing. The techs spin the sample in a centrifuge to separate the "plasma" from the motile cells. Then they add a preservative, and it's off to the freezer, where it can stay for 20 years. Or not. Thanks to semen washers (and in vitro fertilization), more than 250,000 babies have been delivered in the U.S. since 1995.
"The hardest part is explaining it to friends," Schillinger says. "But we do have stories." Like what? "Like the donor who was in the room for the longest time. We had a big discussion about who was going to check on him. Turns out he thought he had to fill up the entire specimen cup."

Read the whole article ntitled 10 worst jobs (in science)

Finished reading the whole article? Now breath in then out and say... I LOVE MY F*CKING JOB!!!

DotA Allstars v6.38 is out!

2006-10-28T02:04:00.000+08:00

Changelog

* 4 New Recipe items
* 1 New Hero
* Added -reverse (-rv) mode
* Every 6 waves, a glaive thrower/meat wagon comes out with the creeps

* Bottle with Rune now returns a Full Bottle after being used instead of an Empty Bottle
* Reduced mana cost on Earthshock
* Improved how Vendetta levels a little
* Increased str/level on Ogre Magi
* Slightly improved leveling of Eyes In The Forest
* Faceless Void base damage increased a bit
* Buffed maximum Watchers
* Desolator damage increased from 50 to 60
* Slightly improved the range on Shockwave
* Hyperstone from 2450 to 2300
* Weaver attack range from 400 to 425
* Wraith recipe from 150 to 125 gold
* Increased Shadow Word cooldown
* Increased mana cost on Dual Breath

* Added an ability to disassemble certain items in the circle of power
* Map preview is now colored
* Added new SA Perm Invis icon by Axidos
* Improved mana regen on Bottle
* Melee heroes get denied less xp than range heroes do
* WTF Mode no longer requires voting
* Fixed the -ar -random exploit (again!)
* Fixed Vendetta not listing the movement speed it gave before (10%)
* Fixed a bug with 2 daggers on disallowed heroes in order to keep 1
* Tower regeneration reduced
* Fixed a minor bug that would sometimes cause the level up animation to not play
* Improved the Wrath of Nature icon based on snork's suggestion
* Added disablehelp/enablehelp for Astral Imprisonment
* Roshan now drops Cheese!
* Added a set of single player only commands to help people in their hero tests
* Various tooltip fixes
* Replaced "Upkeep" text with the version number
* Tango buying cooldown set to the same as the rest of the items
* Fixed various other minor bugs and typos

download here

And watch this cool dota movie from youtube called
"DOTA ALLSTARS ENDLESS STORY"

Update: Meet Mr. Alchemist!

I tried the new item, Vladimir's Offering, which gives you a non-orb effect leech with additional bonuses such as a brilliance aura and a damage upgrade, the item was well worth it :D

Firefox 2 is out

2006-10-27T02:46:00.000+08:00

Download Firefox here

For Sale: Brand new Digicams with warranty at low, low prices!!!

2006-10-24T11:26:00.000+08:00

Digicam Price Range as of Oct 24, 2006

Canon
iZoom - 12,500
60 (sd600) - 16,000
65 (sd650) - 17,250
800 IS (sd700IS) - 18,500
850 IS (sd800IS) - 25,000
950 Ti (sd900) - 26,000

Powershot line:
A430 - 7,500
A530 - 10,000
A540 - 12,000
A630 - 17,250
A640 - 20,000
A710 - 18,000
S3is - 22,000 (highly recommended!)

Sony Line
W series
w30 - 14,000
w50 - 16,000
w70 - 17,250
w100 - 20,125

T series
T10 - 20,500
T30 - 20,500
T50 - 25,000

N1 - 21,000
H2 - 21,500
H5 - 26,000

* all cameras have 9 months service and parts warranty
** all items are subject to availability and price changes

For digicam reviews go to
Digital Photography Website

Interested? Email me at lord.brandxxx@gmail.com for more details and modes of payment! ^_^

My Canon S3 IS w/o-flash and with-flash pics

2006-10-13T01:42:00.000+08:00

EXIF DATA
Camera make: Canon
Camera model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Orientation: rotate 270
Flash used: No
Focal length: 72.0mm (35mm equivalent: 624mm)
Digital Zoom: 1.375x
CCD width: 4.16mm
Exposure time: 0.0025 s (1/400)
Aperture: f/4.0
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
ISO: 200

EXIF DATA
Camera make: Canon
Camera model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Orientation: rotate 270
Flash used: Yes
Focal length: 72.0mm (35mm equivalent: 624mm)
Digital Zoom: 1.375x
CCD width: 4.16mm
Exposure time: 0.0025 s (1/400)
Aperture: f/4.0
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix
ISO: 100

With flash nga! XD XD XD

Actual conversation between a disgruntled PLDT DSL subscriber and a PLDT CSR

2006-10-12T02:26:00.000+08:00

Story: A disgruntled PLDT subscriber calls up a tired(?) and emotional female PLDT CSR, listen as things go from bad to worse.

Lesson: Dont subscribe to PLDT XD

Download from the ff mirrors:
Mirror #1
Mirror #2
Mirror #3
Mirror #4
Mirror #5

We may have different opinions about this but the bottomline is PLDT should fix and/or upgrade its existing facilities to minimize the downtime(s) experienced by its subscribers. We're talking about people's hard-earned money here, paying for a service that you can't fully utilize is something that EVERYONE will not tolerate. I too am a PLDT DSL subscriber and with the quality of service i am getting from them it really gets into my nerves...

I believe the (disgruntled) subscriber has enough grounds to sue PLDT about this and I wonder how did such a confidential conversation leak into the internet...

Manny Pacquiao's 15M punches in 15 years

2006-10-07T14:01:00.000+08:00

"... piptin-milyun-punchis-aku-in-piptin-yirs!"

I was watching TV today with my lola and we were tuned to some noon time show on channel 2, then the show went into a commercial break and ran a batch of tv ads. Then there was this Manny Pacquiao tv ad where it says that he has thrown 15 MILLION punches in his 15 years in boxing, I said... WHAT THE FUCK?!?! So i did some computations...

60 seconds x 60 minutes x 24 hours x 365 days x 15 years = 473,040,000.00 seconds

473,040,000.00 seconds/ 15,000,000.00 punches = 31.536 seconds/punch

So there you have it, on the average Manny Pacquiao throws a punch every 31.536 seconds in the last 15 years. While eating, while sleeping, while having sex, while taking a dump, while picking his nose... EVERY 31.356 seconds...

What a croc-shit advertisement that was... Or maybe Manny Pacquiao is just inhuman... But who the fuck cares? The dumb assed "masses" will believe everything the media says about Manny Pacquiao, even if Karen Davila reports that Manny Paquiao travelled back in time and has slain 100 Velociraptors with his barehands while his balls clamped with 10-foot titanium-alligator clips with 10,000 volts they will surely treat Manny Pacquiao as a God...

MANNY PACQUIAO FOR PRESIDENT!!! WOOT!

update: while on a bus on my way to the office i have watched the Pacquiao ad again via the onboard TV (believe me, "kapuso" lahat ng mga bus) and instead of 15M punches, the commercial was saying that he had thrown 16M punches (OMG he's more awesome than i have previously thought!) for his 15 years in boxing, so we have to update the computation...

473,040,000 seconds/ 16,000,000 punches = 29.565 seconds/punch

MANNY PACQUIAO FOR SUPREME RULER OF THE GALAXY!

Sample S3 IS shots

2006-10-04T10:39:00.000+08:00

Im a total newbie here so bear with me, anyway i have been taking some shots at home to familiarize myself with the camera and its plethora of features that i feel dizzy whenever i read the 170 page'd manual.

My Lola Sleeping

Anton d' ant

Tebulats

I know, i know, these aint national-geographic-grade pics, but hey, we have to start from somewhere right? :D

My new toys

2006-10-04T02:01:00.000+08:00

New toy #1: Nokia 6233

Nokia 6233 full specs

New toy #2: Canon Powershot S3 IS

Canon Powershot S3 IS full specs

But im broke, tangna, asin at kanin nanaman for 2 weeks... XD

My 6800 GS' 3DMark benchmarks

2006-09-26T04:43:00.000+08:00

3dMark01 score

3dMark03 score

3dMark05 score

3dMark01 score: 16,268
3dMark03 score: 10,298
3dMark05 score: 4,141

My Specs
AMD 64 3000+ S754 @ stock
DFI Lanparty UT 250 GB
2x512 Geil Value DDR 400 @ stock
Palit 6800 GS/XT 128mb/ 128bit AGP @ stock
HEC 475w
Seagate 120gb 8mb cache 7200rpm HDD
Seagate 160gb 2mb cache 7200rpm HDD

Not bad for a 2 year old rig, my new VC gave life to my aging rig ^_^

Steve Irwin stingray video - Extreme

2006-09-24T14:58:00.000+08:00


Unpublished video of Steve Irwin getting stung by a stingray... Dies shortly after the incident... Too brutal IMHO...

PC enthusiast/ geek lingo

2006-09-23T08:22:00.000+08:00

Ever wondered what the hell are those four-eyes talking about?

Error ID:10T, Install geek-codec
first before communicating!

AGP? CPU? FSB? OMGWTFBBQ!?!?!? What the hell?!?!? Anyway, got quite a list of PC tech-terms which i got from tipidpc, read on!

Source: TPC Common Tech Acronyms

--- A ---
ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
AGP - Accelerated Graphics Port
ALI - Acer Labs, Incorporated
ALU - Arithmetic Logic Unit
AMD - Advanced Micro Devices
APC - American Power Conversion
APX - AirPort eXtreme
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASIC - Application Specific Integrated Circuit
ASPI - Advanced SCSI Programming Interface
AT - Advanced Technology
ATA - Advanced Technology Attachment
ATI - ATI Technologies Inc. (Array Technology Inc.)
ATX - Advanced Technology Extended
AVR - Automatic Voltage Regulator
--- B ---
BFG - BFG Technologies
BIOS - Basic Input Output System
BNC - Barrel Nut Connector
BSOD - Blue Screen of Death
BT - Bluetooth or BitTorrent
--- C ---
CAD - Computer Aided Design
CAS - Column Address Strobe
CCFL - Cold Cathode Flourescent Lamp
CD - Compact Disk
CDR - Compact Disk Recorder
CDRW - Compact Disk Re-Writer
CD-ROM - Compact Disk - Read Only Memory
CE - Consumer Electronics
CFM - Cubic Feet per Minute (ft³/min)
CGA - Color Graphics Adapter
CMOS - Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
COA - Certificate of Authenticity
CPU - Central Processing Unit
CTX - CTX Technology Corporation (Commited to Excellence)
--- D ---
DD - Dolby Digital
DDR - Double Data Rate
DDR-SDRAM - Double Data Rate - Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory
DFI - DFI Inc. (Design for Innovation)
DHCP- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DIMM - Dual Inline Memory Module
DMA - Direct Memory Access
DRAM - Dynamic Random Access Memory
DPI - Dots Per Inch
DTS - Digital Theater Systems
DSL - See ASDL
DVD - Digital Versatile Disc
DVD-RAM - Digital Versatile Disk - Random Access Memory
DVD-RW - Digital Versatile Disc Re-Writer
--- E ---
EAX - Environmental Audio Extensions
ECC - Error Correction Code
ECS - Elitegroup Computer Systems
EDO - Extended Data Out
EEPROM - Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory
EPROM - Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory
EVGA - EVGA Corporation
--- F ---
FC-PGA - Flip Chip Pin Grid Array
FCC - Federal Communications Commission
FDC - Floppy Disk Controller
FDD - Floppy Disk Drive
FPS - Frame Per Second
FPU - Floating Point Unit
FSAA - Full Screen Anti-Aliasing
FS - For Sale
FSB - Front Side Bus
--- G ---
GB - Gigabytes
GBps - Gigabytes per second or Gigabits per second
GDI - Graphical Device Interface
GHz - GigaHertz
GNU - Gnu's Not Unix
GPL - GNU Public License
GPU - Graphical Processing Unit
--- H ---
HDD - Hard Disk Drive
HIS - Hightech Information System Limited
HP - Hewlett-Packard Development Company
HSF - Heatsink-Fan
HT - Hyper-Threading
HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol
--- I ---
IBM - International Business Machines Corporation
IC - Integrated Circuit
IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics or Integrated Development Environment
IFS- Item for Sale
IP - Internet Protocol
IPOD - Internet Pod (Apple)
IrDA - Infrared Data Association
IRQ - Interrupt Request
ISA - Industry Standard Architecture
ISO - International Standards Organization
--- J ---
JBL - JBL (James B. Lansing) Speakers
JEDEC -Joint Electron Device Engineering Council
JVC - Japan's Victor Company
- K ---
Kbps - Kilobits Per Second
KBps - KiloBytes per second
KVM - Keyboard Video Mouse (Switch)
--- L ---
LG - LG (Life's Good) Electronics
LAN - Local Area Network
LCD - Liquid Crystal Display
LDT - Lightning Data Transport
LED - Light Emitting Diode
LF - Looking For
LGA - Land Grid Array
--- M ---
MAC - Media Access Control
MB – MotherBoard or Megabyte
MBps - Megabytes Per Second
Mbps - Megabits Per Second or Megabits Per Second
MHz - MegaHertz
MIPS - Million Instructions Per Second
MMX - Multi-Media Extensions
MoBo - MotherBoard
MORPG - Multiplayer online role-playing game
MSI - Micro Star International
--- N ---
NAS - Network Attached Storage
NAT - Network Address Translation
NEC - Nippon Electronics Corporation
NIC - Network Interface Card
--- O ---
OC - Overclock (Over Clock)
OCZ - OCZ Technology
OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer
--- P ---
PC - Personal Computer
PCB - Printed Circuit Board
PCI - Peripheral Component Interconnect
PDA - Personal Digital Assistant
PDF - Portable Document Format
PCMCIA - Personal Computer Memory Card International Association
PGA - Professional Graphics Array
PIB - Policy Information Base or Processor in a Box (AMD)
PING- packet Internet Grouper
PIO - Programmed Input/Output
PLD - Programmable Logic Device
PM - Private Message / Private Messaging
PnP - Plug 'n Play
PNY - PNY Technology
POST - Power On Self Test
PPPoA - Point-to-Point Protocol over ATM
PPPoE - Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet
PQI - PQI Corporation
PSU - Power Supply Unit
--- Q ---
QoS- quality of service
--- R ---
RAID - Redundant Array of Independent (or inexpensive) Disk
RAM - Random Access Memory
RAMDAC - Random Access Memory Digital Analog Convertor
RDRAM - Rambus Dynamic Random Access Memory
RMA - Returned Merchandise Authorization
ROM - Read Only Memory
RPG - Role Playing Game
RPM - Revolutions Per Minute
RSA - Rivest, Shamir, & Adleman (public key encryption technology)
RSS - Really Simple Syndication
RTS - Real Time Strategy
--- S ---
SATA - Serial ATA
SASID - Self-scanned Amorphous Silicon Integrated Display
SB - Sound Blaster
SCA - SCSI Configured Automatically
SCSI - Small Computer System Interface
SD - Secure Disk
SDRAM - Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory
SIMM - Single Inline Memory Module
SLI - Scalable Link Interface
SMT - Simultaneous Multi-Threading
SECC - Single Edge Contact Connector
SODIMM - Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module
SOHO - Small Office Home Office
SPARC - Scalable Processor ArChitecture
SRAM - Static Random Access Memory
SSE - Streaming SIMD Extensions
SVGA - Super Video Graphics Array
S/PDIF - Sony/Philips Digital Interface
--- T ---
TB - Terabytes
TBps - Terabytes per second
Tbps - Terabits per second
TDK - Tokyo Denkikagaku Kogyo Electronics
TEC - Thermoelectric Cooler
TPC - TipidPC
TWAIN - Technology Without An Important Name
--- U ---
UART - Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter
UPS - Uninterruptible Power Supply
URL - Uniform Resource Locator
USB - Universal Serial Bus
UTP - Unshieled Twisted Pair
--- V ---
VCD - Video CD
VGA - Video Graphics Adapter
VIRUS - Vital Information Resources Under Siege
VPN - Virtual Private Network
VoIP - Voice over IP
VT - Vanderpool Technology
--- W ---
WAN - Wide Area Network
WIFI - Wireless Fidelity
WIMAX - Worldwide Interoperability Microwave Access
WINE - Wine Is Not an Emulator
WTB - Want to Buy
WWW World Wide Web
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get
--- X ---
XGA - Extended Graphics Array
XFX - XFX (Crossfix) Graphics, a Division of Pine
XMS - Extended Memory Specification
XT - Extended Technology

Goodbye ATI, hello NVIDIA!

2006-09-23T02:28:00.000+08:00

Last Friday, Sep 22, my 2 year old GeCube 9800 pro 128mb 128-bit VC went to video card heaven, i was devastated... Really... Aside from the sky rocketing price tag it had at that time we really had good memories together. But hey, everything is temporary, and it's just his time already. I went VC (and soul) searching for a while, with the help of such websites like TPC and tomshardware i found the perfect replacement card...

Behold! My new 6800GS! ^_^

I got the card from Sir Charles (aka Techjunction) of TPC, which is also an officemate of mine, for a friendly price of P6600.00, here are the specs:

* Bus interface: AGP
* Memory Interface: 128/256 bit
* Memory Type: 128MB/256MB GDDR3
* RAMDACs: 400 MHz
* High-Speed GDDR3 Memory Interface
* Revolutionary Superscalar Architecture
* CineFX 3.0 Engine
* NVIDIA PureVideo Technology
* UltraShadow II Technology
* 64-Bit Floating Point Texture Filtering and Blending
* Intellisample 3.0 Technology
* NVIDIA® ForceWare™ Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
* NVIDIA® nView® Multi-Display Technology
* Digital Vibrance Control 3.0 Technology
* Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Optimizations and Support
* OpenGL® 2.0 Optimizations and Support
* Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 Support

I quickly went back home to install the said VC to my aging (but still capable) AMD 64 3000+ S754 rig.

Before installment

Successful Installation!

Ahhh.. that nostalgic feeling of having something new... I can now go back on pawning DOTA (noob) players playing in Lordaeron. ^_^

UPDATE

I tried to play DOTA a few hours ago and i encountered some alarming, graphics-related problem. My rig seem to freeze then black-out when there are a lot of 3d animation going on. What i did was to update to the latest DirectX version to (Aug 2006 as of this writing) and Forceware drivers (v.91.47). After updating, i again played DOTA, I can still see some artifacts but i dont experience the total screen blackouts anymore (YIPEEE!).

3DMark03 Benches

I also installed 3dmark03 to run some benches on my new card then compared it head to head with my old (and dead) card. You can see the results above! ^_^

Penis transplant reported in China

2006-09-20T02:45:00.000+08:00

From a Yahoo! article

Chinese doctors say they successfully transplanted a penis on a man who lost his own in an accident, but had to remove it two weeks later because of psychological problems experienced by the man and his wife.

Maybe he got jealous that his new "TOOL" pleased her wife more than his old one...

Behold! My new office cubicle!

2006-09-20T02:07:00.000+08:00

Click the pic to envy me more

Dun worry, eventually you will get yours in the (near) future...

Are dogs' mouths really cleaner than humans'?

2006-09-18T02:48:00.000+08:00

I can finally liplock lassie!

from an ask yahoo article which can be found here

All dogs lick themselves. Some eat their own feces. Humans (most of 'em, anyway) do not. So how in the world can the mouth of a canine be cleaner than that of a person? Simple -- it can't.

According to ABC News, this is basically an urban legend. However, unlike the one about the psycho killer with the hook, this story has a grain of truth. Although the mouth of a typical dog is full of bacteria, it's "species specific." So, if a dog were to lick a person, most of the germs wouldn't transfer. "Bottom line -- you're more likely to get a serious illness from kissing a person than kissing a dog."

The myth may have stemmed from the way pups lick their wounds. A dog's tongue gets rid of dead tissue so wounds heal faster. Perhaps folks concluded that dog saliva is "healthy." Hardly the case, but you shouldn't be afraid of licks. They might be gross, but they're not dangerous.

Cleaner or not Id pick any human to french kiss me than a dog... But if it's lassie... XD

additional resources:
Is a Dog's Mouth Cleaner than a Human's?
Dog mouth vs Human mouth
How clean is my dog's mouth?

R.I.P. My Radeon 9800 pro

2006-09-16T11:10:00.000+08:00

My VC died on me last night, after almost 2 years (bought it last nov 2004) of pawning DOTA noobs, programming, watching porn, etc together it finally bit the dust.

My dead 9800 pro

Not bad for a paper-weight

It was just like another ordinary day, when i came home from work i just powered on my PC, when the Windows XP progress bar appeared my PC suddenly freezed. It has been more than a year since i had my last "hang," my rig was a well maintained one, also, the parts were "HIGH-END." I took a peek inside and my heart skipped a heartbeat...

VideoCard.getGpuFan().getRpm();
//WOOT! I got zero! T_T

I quickly turned off the PC but it was too late... My GPU was fried to perfection... I only found out a few hours after that my father cleaned the area around my PC and he moved the rig around and the molex-connecter of the Zalman ZM-80D fan got loose... $%@!&#R%^@!#!@!

Farewell my dear Radeon 9800 pro with SN: 180441-0304089... You will be forever remembered in my heart... *sniff*

OMFGWTFBBQ?!?! New C2 Flavahs!?!?!?

2006-09-16T10:42:00.000+08:00

4 new flavors of C2... mmmmm...

I was buying some stuff at the ministop near our office when i suddenly noticed these little bundles of joy from the corner of my eye... I quickly bought one, 1st the strawberry flavored C2 which was really delicious! Then after gulping down the strawberry C2 in a matter of seconds i bought a kiwi flavored one which is also delicious... Im going to try the other 2 flavors when i come back to work.

Some people say that C2 contains carcinogens, but what the heck, id rather die from cancer brought by C2 than cancer brought by cigarettes ^_^

Philippine IT Salary benchmark of 2006

2006-09-12T19:16:00.000+08:00

From a ZDNet Asia article having Jobstreet as its source

PHILIPPINES

Average monthly salary (Peso)

Title Minimum
Maximum

Software Developer
26,874

39,747

Technical Support Specialist
9,900

14,972

System Administrator
7,750

11,000

Trainer
13,302

19,223

Network Specialist
25,211

44,474

Database Administrator
12,000

17,400

Project Manager
43,888

63,157

Consultant
31,250

40,000

Operations Manager
32,533

56,063

Supervisor
25,000

35,000

Skill Minimum Maximum

Programming
18,967

29,237

Analysis
26,947

35,846

Java
22,813

34,192

Structured Query Language (SQL)
37,025

53,173

Administration
14,694

22,393

Visual Basic
17,570

27,155

Oracle
21,423

38,003

C
22,580

37,695

C#
38,639

59,583

UNIX
28,875

46,812

BRANDO
60,000
STACK OVERFLOW

Wow... C# developers are the highest paid in the Philippine market ACCORDING TO JOBSTREET...

Hurray for .NET developers! Woot! *does the robot*

Note:
Ignore the last row in the table above... ^_^

My New Nokia N-98-Miev 4.1 MP digicam-fone

2006-09-10T13:28:00.000+08:00

Panis kayo lahat!

N-98 kasi 1998 pa lumabas ang 5110 at ang camera ay Miev ang tatak, ano? Laban ang mga fone niyo? XD

DotA Allstars v6.37 released!

2006-09-10T06:51:00.000+08:00

Changelog

DotA Allstars v6.37
* Fixed a big exploit with waveform
* Medusa's Purge now deals 600 damage to summoned units, instead of instantly killing them
* Rebalanced Alchemist
* Reduced the Kobold Endurance Aura from 17% ms to 15% ms
* Hand of Midas IAS from 35% to 30%
* Cyclone on creeps from 20 to 10 seconds
* Reduced Primal Roar cooldown and Call of the Wild manacost
* Treads from +60 to +65 ms and from +30% ias to +35%
* Land Mines can now be properly seen on minimap
* WTF mode now requires voting
* Added a better cancel icon for Pulse Nova
* Increased Enchantress's Intelligence per level
* Fixed a bug with -ar and -random that allowed you to get two heroes

Download map here

Huhuhuhuhu... No more alchemist goodness XD

UPDATE:
The Alchemist was still, like what he says, a chemical super-freak, only the ultimate spell changed but still you can farm like crazy with his imba greed and acid spray... A little tweak on his greed and acid spray should do the trick. ^_^

The New Numa Video

2006-09-10T01:00:00.000+08:00

Remember the famous Numa Video released some 2 years ago by a fat white kid name Gary Brolsma? If you remember him he has a new numa video and you can find it here.

Some screenshots.

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

IMHO, the original Numa video is exponentially better than this new one. But still quite a good watch anyway.

Woman in wheelchair on way to gun practice shoots mugger

2006-09-10T00:31:00.000+08:00

Asta lavista baby!

"... But when a mugger tried to grab a chain off her neck Friday, the wheelchair-bound 56-year-old pulled out her licensed .357 pistol and shot him, police said..."

read story @ CNN

LOL! Similar to my previous post grannies seem to be a little too brutal nowadays.

Nurse, 51, kills intruder with bare hands

2006-09-09T04:49:00.000+08:00

(I do not usually blog-post news items but this one is really worth posting)

Die biatch!

"... PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- A nurse returning from work discovered an intruder armed with a hammer in her home and strangled him with her bare hands, police said..."

read story @ CNN

Defending one's self (and loved ones) , especially in times of grave danger, from certain harm (or even death) brings the savage beast out of anyone. And strangling one to death is a wicked thing to do, but hey, she's defending herself and her loved ones from an even more wicked felon. But i doubt if she'll ever be the same person as she was before... Pity it has to end this way...

Pride OWGP Finals

2006-09-08T12:49:00.000+08:00

Clash of the MMA titans

This is, i believe, the MMA event of 2006. Four of the best (Pride) MMA fighters, Barnett, Wandy, Big Nog, and Cro-cop will fight it out on Sunday in Tokyo, Japan. The winner will be crowned the Pride Open Wight Grand Prix Champ and will face Fedor at Pride's New Year Eve Event for the Pride Heavy Weight belt.

*Sigh*

I wish i was in Japan so i can personally watch the said event, good thing there's YOUTUBE. ^_^

(fore more info go to sherdog's article on the Pride OWGP finals.)

UPDATE:
Cro-cop won the OWGP, he KO'd Wandy in the the semis with his patented missile-like-LHK (like what Bas said), then forced Barnett (which won a split decision over Big Nog) to tap out due to GnP in the OWGP Finals. Finally, a champoinship belt after 5 years in MMA. Congratulations Cro-cop!!!

OMG... Fedor Vs Cro-cop in Pride NYE!!! The most anticipated rematch!

4G Phones unveiled!

2006-09-06T02:56:00.000+08:00

OMFGWTFBBQ!!!

Microsoft's Voice Wreck-ognition Software

2006-09-06T01:59:00.000+08:00

From Break.com

I remember an almost identical incident quite some time ago where Bill Gates was demo'ing the Windows 98 OS, when they plugged a printer for the said OS to auto-detect (and install necessary drivers) the printer what the users saw, IN LIVE DEMO, was a B.S.O.D.

Lol! Good job M$!

6750

2006-09-05T01:46:00.000+08:00

Araw-araw akong dumadaan dito
Nagbabaka-sakali...
Nangangarap...
Umaasa na masilayan kita

Andyan ka lang sa loob
Labindalawang palapag mula sa kinakatayuan ko
Malapit ka ngunit malayo rin
Abot kamay ngunit di pa rin matanaw

Naglalakad ako ng marahan, mabagal
Baka may tumawag sa pangalan ko
Baka may humabol sa akin
Isang magandang binibini na labi ay nakangiti

Ngunit wala, walang tumatawag
Sa araw-araw ay di na ako nasanay
Bakit pa nga ba ako umaasa?
Baka pagputi ng uwak ay mauna pa!

Buntong hininga, ito na lang ang nagagawa ko
Habang ilang ulit patalikod na lumilingon
Palayo ng palayo imahe ng gusali
Hanggang ako na'y lumagpas, ito'y tuluyan nang maglaho

Job Opening in our company

2006-09-04T00:54:00.000+08:00

1. Tired of the mediocre company you have been working in with a pay of just a peso above the minimum wage?

2. Tired of being the one-man-IT-department??? Ala-Nick-Burns?

3. Boasting your CMMI x level'd company with a zillion ISO certifications at tuwing nakikipag inuman ka eh bidang-bida ang kumpanya mo sa kwentuhan yet encoder ka lang naman for life dun o kaya taga masahe ka lang ng Team Lead niyo?

4. Are you a programmer that has an unquenchable thirst in learning and earning more?

5. Tired of VB6 na kahit si Joe-d-mango at Jolina ay natuto nun sa STI/ AMA?

6. Ayaw mo na mag call center at nanghihinayang ka sa degree or advanced knowledge mo sa programming adn software development?

SAPUL NA SAPUL KA BA?!?!

O ano pa hinihintay mo? Tamang-tama at pinost ko ito dahil para sa ito sa iyo!!! READ ON!!!

Our Company is in need of experienced and highly-skilled (preferably at least 3-4 years hardcore exp) analyst/programmers with the ff qualifications:

Advanced knowledge in .NET and J2EE
strong grasp of OOP not just your memorized-by-the book-i-know-inheritance-encapsulation-interfaces-etc

Databases
Oracle (PLSQL), Sybase ASE, and SQL Server (TSQL)
SQL, stored procs, triggers, performance tuned scripts, not your bahala-na-si-batman-basta-gumana SQL scripts

Pa-pogi points ng kumpanya namin para ganahan kang i-email ako at magbigay ng resume

1. Pay is very, very good for the Philippine setting.

2. It is an American company which started here in 1997 (9 years already), it has been through the Philippines' tough times and is still going strong.

3. Majority of clients are in the Fortune 100/500 group of companies with long term projects meaning guaranteed permanent positions.

4. Upon regularization, transpo, clothing, rice, and meal allowances, aside from the other "SIKRET" perks

5. May OT and Night diff if ever mapunta ka sa night shift

6. Clients are in Europe and US, in fact 18 of my teammates are already in UK, 3 months minimum stay EACH of them.

7. Ambiance is very clean and people are very professional, the office emanates a strong aura of proffesionalism which (majority of) pinoy-owned and ran companies lacks.

8. Office is located in the heart of Makati, daming bebehs, daming kainan, malapit din sa makati med just-in-case. Safe ang location.

9. Guaranteed growth both career-wise and skill-wise. Tangna, di mo na kelangang mag-iodized salt (para iwas bosyo) at kanin lang ng isang buwan para lang mabili yung gusto mo na fone

10. Friendly people. The average age of programmers are around 25 years old.

INTERESTED? Just email me! This is valid until the year ends...

UUUUUY... Napaisip ka na ano? Wag ka na mag dalawang isip, ikaw rin...

*MALA PLDT COMMERCIAL NA SIGAW* EMAIL NA, NOW NA!!

Email: lord.brandxxx@gmail.com

New breed of dancers

2006-09-03T09:56:00.000+08:00

I dunno if people are just getting weirder and weirder by the minute or the genes of the fag kind are spreading like wildfire nowadays... T_T

But still funny nonetheless... XD

Ang tamis ng unang halik...

2006-09-02T19:05:00.000+08:00

Ng aking payslip that is... Hehehehe...

Fruits of success

Got myself a new Skechers sneakers which i bought from Glorietta, then i spent another hour searching for an LG H10N w/ lighstscribe tech (which was developed by HP) DVD/ CD writer. So what is lightscribe technology???

LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling is a new technology that offers consumers and businesses a simple, no-hassle way to burn professional, silkscreen-quality labels on their CDs and DVDs. Using the same laser that burns data in their disc drives, customers burn their data as always, flip the disc over, reinsert it into the drive and burn a precise, iridescent label.

After some time searching the whole Park Square-Glorietta-SM area, but I only found plain H10N's, I did find some light scribe enabled drives but they are H20L's and they cost P500 more compared to the stores in Festival Mall in Alabang, so to make the story short I went to Festival Mall after going to Makati and bought myself a black (ooohhhh the smell of brand new computer hardware!) LG H20L internal writer, i was aiming for the H10N but the H20L will do.

I really am excited for the next payday.

^_^

update:
Spent a few hours trying to get the lighscribe mechanism of my LG GSA-H20L writer to work, after browsing the web for possible solutions i stumbled upon a regedit tweak that finally fixed the problem.

Finally... Lightscribe rulez!

And i thought that i was given a defective unit, what a relief! ^_^

Lust for Bust

2006-09-02T04:33:00.000+08:00

Heaven...

Practice your voyeur skills here! But no need to worry even if you get caught! Have fun peeping!

Nowhere but up

2006-09-01T02:15:00.000+08:00

"The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win." - Roger Bannister

To Success

Last Tuesday night something that I have been really hoping for did not happen, i was really disappointed and saddened by the turn of events but I guess that this is a sign from above. With these things failing to materialize I guess there is no other thing for me to do but to dedicate the next 5 or so years of my life to reach the pinnacle of success...

To be the best i can be
To reach the highest that i can reach
To be successful

It's crystal clear now, before, even with these goals in mind the path was still hazy and there were a lot of possible paths that I could have taken. But now my goals have already been set and there is a silver lining pointing to only but one path. I know that I have no where else to go but up... Up the ladder...

I know that it wont be easy and i know it will (literally) take blood, sweat, and tears, but hey what's a success story without the hardships? This aint Pinoy TV...

The world's largest M$ error message

2006-08-29T02:56:00.000+08:00

From http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/4630

"...We went down to New York for the long weekend. Despite the 16-degree weather, we walked down to Times Square - all the bright lights lured us the ten blocks from our hotel. When we got there, we stood like, well, tourists, gaping at all the electronic billboards. And then, across the square, I saw it: the world's largest Windows error message - on a two-story high e-billboard (I guess everything really is bigger in New York). It was the only billboard in the entire square with absolutely no movement - since the PC running it had obviously frozen.

A clearer view of the message for you error-message geeks:.."

LOL!

The dream geek apparel

2006-08-29T00:40:00.000+08:00

The binary watch

How to read the binary watch here

The dev blanket

Reverse Engineer Shirt

Chixor Shirt- And for the lady (IT) geeks out there

And for the action shots of the chixor shirt go here

Try... Catch...

2006-08-28T05:21:00.000+08:00

try{
brando.sleep();
}catch(Exception e){
System.out.println("Error: " + e.message);
}

Output:
Error: Stop thinking and get some sleep dammit!

Agh! I tried to sleep some 5 hours ago and it is already 519am and not even a second's worth of sleep. This work of mine is causing this trouble on my bio-clock, losing weight and unable to sleep. Well aside from the effects of having a 3pm-1am shift taking its toll on this body of mine, there are also these things that keeps on running in my head. Things that I have no control on... Only time and the people involved can help me...

Im taking a bath in a few minutes time because i should be in the office at 7am...

I wish myself goodluck on not falling asleep at my cubicle.

@_@ Zombified again...

www.IE7.com

2006-08-27T23:57:00.000+08:00

Just try it... Type the said URL to your browser's address bar and you should see something like this...

Doesn't look IE-like to me! XD

IE7 is said to flare-up the (web) browser wars and some people in favor of Firefox are already taking initiatives to seal the victory for their "favorite" browser.

Not Another C# Versus VB Article

2006-08-27T22:14:00.000+08:00

I have been surfing the web then i stumbled upon this article about VB, C#, and .NET, a very, VERY good read IMHO...

80% of C# programmers are good, while 80% of VB programmers are not good. This is not to say that everyone who programs in VB is less skilled than everyone who programs in C#. This is to say that (a) the VB syntax and semantics is designed to attract less skilled programmers and, in combination with other factors examined above, this has created a culture that is populated with less skilled programmers and (b) because VB syntax and semantics make it more difficult to avoid common programming errors and hence to program well.
Hiring a good C# programmer is easier than hiring a good VB programmer. This is because of (1).
Hiring the average C# programmer costs more than hiring the average VB programmer. This is because the average C# programmer is a better programmer than the average VB programmer, and this is because of (1).
Hiring a good VB programmer costs the same as hiring a good C# programmer. There are many good VB progammers, and some of them are much better than some C# progammers. However this is the exception, not the rule.
A good programmer accomplishes two to ten times what an average programmer accomplishes, and causes 90% less bugs and headaches.
At the time of writing there are probably almost as many good VB programmers as there are C# programmers. This is because there are many more VB programmers than C# programmers. The 20% of VB programmers that are good is about same number as the 80% of C# programmers that are good.
In the near future, there will be less good VB programmers than C# programmers. This is because many of the good VB programmers are switching to C#. This is partly because they like the language better, but mostly because they like the culture better. As the cultural separation becomes more evident and self-reinforcing, it will accelerate until there are very few good VB programmers left.
VB programmers, on the average, know less about good object-oriented, distributed, loosely coupled application design and development than C# programmers, on average. This is because their language has not supported these notions, so their culture has grown without them. Although these notions are supported now in VB, they are more slowly being adopted than in the C# culture because of cultural inertia.

Read the complete article here

My high-performing Plan 1995 MyPldt DSL

2006-08-26T23:30:00.000+08:00

I left my computer running for almost a day and i have only downloaded 2.2GB out of the 6.16 GB'ed Rahxephon series.

2254.02MB x (1024 Kb / 1 MB) = 2,308,116.48 Kb
18 hours 23 minutes 17 seconds = 66,197 seconds

2,308,116.48 kb/ 66,197 seconds = 35.87 Kbps.

I have a 512/ 384 kilobits-per-second PLDT MyDSL Subscription, and of the 512 you have to divide it by 8 to get the maximum theoretical speed in terms of Kilobytes-per-second (1 Kbps= 8 kbps), so i get 64 Kbps, multiply it by around 0.70 because of external factors reducing your bandwidth so that will be around 44.8 Kbps x 66,197 seconds = 2.9GB.

35.87 Kbps/ 64 Kbps = only 56.04% of the maximum theoretical bandwidth... Sheeeesh...

If PLDT just gives its consumers the ACTUAL bandwidth allocated for each of its subscribers or try to improve their facilities, hardware, and services then people shouldnt be leaving their rigs powered-on for another few hours when downloading stuff like this... Computers consume electricity and more electricity means more numbers on your monthly electrical bill...

T_T

Update:
Suddenly without any warning i got DCed and can't reconnect for about 15 minutes, when i got reconnected the previous problems that were plaguing my DSL connection suddenly came back with a vengeance, selective browsing, unable to download files, etc, etc...

And worse, i cant continue my RahXephon download... Haiz... All the wasted electricity for naught... If it werent for the PLDT DSL monopoly here in our area i would have gotten myself another provider months ago... PLDT really sucks... They know it but hey, they also know that i have no other choice than them.

Zombified @_@

2006-08-26T20:10:00.000+08:00

In a short span of 3 weeks i have already lost around 10 lbs, my eye-bags are sagging, and my body clock is so messed-up that sometimes i sleep 24 hours straight because of stress, and sometimes I can stay up a whole day without even yawning.

Got to buy TONS of cucumbah! LOLZ!

Oh well, maybe this is the price of getting a new job. At least im losing weight... ^_^

YM users, dont be fooled

2006-08-24T02:10:00.000+08:00

Everytime i log into my YM account i receive offline messages from my friends saying to click some unknown URL where the GUI (Graphical User Interface) of the website that was being pm'ed to me is "IDENTICAL" to YAHOO!'s webmail login page. But if you are vigilant enough you will instantly notice that the URL of the website is of course a non-yahoo! url. So i finally i said "what the heck" and try to find out what this page really does.

The said YAHOO! mail login page

So using Firefox, i viewed the source code of the page which can be downloaded here , anyway ill go straight to the point, the action property of the form tag of the said "YAHOO! login page" calls this page/ servlet/ script

&# 104;&# 116;&# 116;&# 112;://&# 119;&# 119;&# 119;&# 050;&# 046;&# 102;&# 105;b&# 101;&# 114;&# 098;&# 105;&# 116;&# 046;&# 110;&# 101;&# 116;/&# 102;&# 111;&# 114;&# 109;/&# 109;&# 097;&# 105;&# 108;&# 116;&# 111;&# 046;&# 099;&# 103;&# 105;

Which are ASCII characters represented in decimal format, if you look at the ASCII chart "104" means "h," "116" means "t," so on and so forth, which simply submits to this page http://www2.fiberbit.net/form/mailto.cgi

This login page asks for your YAHOO! account's username and password, and the moment you log into this web page using your YAHOO! username and password then you have been had, and when worse comes to worst you'll get your account "HACKED."

So what does this mean? Simple... You just submitted your YAHOO! account's username and password to whoever owns this mailing script, for those who have been had by this trick better change your password soon, you never know what may happen...

Wow! Lots of "ELITE" programmers nowadays...

2006-08-22T03:31:00.002+08:00

"Nakiki-uso" that's what i call some of the people in my field, it's funny to read certain pinoy messageboards and forums where people just bang their keyboards using hearsays and unconfirmed truths (or half-truths) as facts. I can already hear my inner self's laughs. To the majority this is the truth, to them...

Any PL having a substring of "VB" automatically means a PL for newbs, unskilled, and dumb programmers.

Any PL having a "C-like syntax" automatically means a PL for the elite, the prodigies, the genius programmers.

Yup, you know it, i know it, we all know it. I wont dwell into the history of these programming languages, if you are reading as far as this point i believe that you too are a developer like me.

Anyway, it's funny to see and hear people diss VB, and usually these are their tirades.

1. VB sucks because it is not an object oriented PL
2. VB sucks because it is not using short-circuit logic
3. VB sucks because it is not case-sensitive
4. VB sucks because it is easy to learn and only low-skilled programmers use this
... yaddi-yadda...

Yup, you will usually see these things as the reasons why these ELITE programmers hate VB. They say that they love OOP and have already coded thousands of lines of code but when you view their respective codes it's funny to see that they are using procedural and non-OOP approaches, so what makes them not choose VB? If they're not taking advantage of the OOP approach? They didnt even know that VB6 and VB.Net are technically different PLs, they only share the "VB" substring in their names and VB.NET being a full-fledged OO PL.

You ask them what polymorphism is, well of course with the advent of the web and reading materials around they will surely of course be able to answer you, even recite the answer backwards, but ask them to implement a simple case of polymorphism with a workstation in front of them and majority of them wont even know what to do. You ask them to create a UML diagram of a simple system and yet they cant differentiate distinct objects from one another. ( Duh.... Singleton? Is that a thousand kilograms?)

Funny? Yup i know, it's funny because majority of the people saying they know ineritance, interfaces, polymorphism, static functions and classes, abstractions, and aggregations (or simply OOP) doesnt really know them, and these are the loud mouths in the forums hiding behind their virtual nicks copy-pasting what they see in google and acting like it is their own opinion. It's funny that the majority of the people dissing VB are even worse compared to the programmers that they are dissing, They say they love OOP yet they cant design a simple OOP system, worse, they dont really even know what OOP really is for.

But not all of the dissers are posers, wannabes, and pretenders, I have uttermost respect to the ones who can justify their posts using their own technical reasoning backed by solid facts, esp the hard-core C-programmers, unlike the majority of the buffoons riding the i-hate-VB-OOP-rules bandwagon. Personally, I prefer C# and Java over "VB" but not because of what i read over the internet alone, or what other people told me but because of my own personal experiences and preferences as a programmer. A skill of a programmer is based on his ability to learn things and create valid and efficient algorithms and solutions, not on the PL he using.

Petiks mode

2006-08-19T03:04:00.000+08:00

Just got home from work, having 3pm- 1am as your working hours sure seems to be tiring, i feel that i need to exert twice the effort to do things compared to the normal 9-or-so am working hours. But its ok, i can still manage to finish the tasks that i am assigned to, just like tonight (which is technically last night) i was given a task to retirve some records from a SQL Server 2000 db, after retrieving i would create an MS Access 2K mdb file locally on the machine on where the client-server app was running, dump the recorset (or resultset) there then ftp the file to some destination.

At first i said "EASY" i said that im just going to use a dataset here, retrieve the recorset from the SQL server DB then use the same dataset to insert the records into the access mdb file... i was wrong... First of all, datasets are like "DBlets" or should i say mini-databases, these cute little bundles of joy acts like a snap shot of a table (or database) that will be cached locally on your pc (disconnected). These things are also strongly-typed, meaning they hold the exact data and datatype with the source, adding to this problem MS Access doesnt have ALL the datatypes of the SQL Server DB's , you'd have to type-cast or convert them in some way and datasets, being strongly-typed, is of course not applicable.

So i decided to use datareader instead, this things are like the old ADO forward-only recordsets, small resource footprint and very fast, according to some websites that i have read, they used a datareader and a dataset to retrieve 1K records and it took at least 300x more time a dataset would loop over all of its contents compared to a datareader, the only drawback from the datareader is that it requires a connection to the object all through its lifetime, something that is also a no-no for me. After sometime of thinking and reading some articles in the web i finally decided on a solution that i have used while i was writing code in J2EE.

Simple, i created a (Java) bean based on the fields of the said table, and with a datareader i populated an arraylist with the bean, after looping i disposed the datareader object to free the connection. Hehehehehe, i am not saying that what i did was "THE" way and im sure that there are other ways out there, but i do believe that this solution is way better than the previous 2 (kind of mimicking a datareader), the down side is that i have to create an arraylist of beans, additional objects of course will mean additional resources to spend, but because u have put it in an arraylist there is of course no more need for a connection ^_^

After that the next hurdle i encountered it to how to create the mdb file, what i read is that ther e is no "pure .NET" way, and the only is to use the old ADOX.dll via the COM-interop bridge and OleDB. This part is of course almost no brainer. About the FTP part, the .NET 1.1 framework doesnt have a built-in FTP protocol, and you have to manually create one via socket programming in .NET unlike in .NET 2.0 that there is arelady a built in FTP client waiting for its masters' heeds. So i just searched the web and VOILA! A .NET 1.1 FTP client! ^_^

Oh well, if this was a normal-9am job i would have finished this on half the amount of time that it took me tonight, but oh well, at least i learned something new tonight ^_^

Sa mga masasamang loob...

2006-08-14T23:57:00.001+08:00

Mag-ingat kayo dahil andito na ang mga lilipol sa inyo!

Elmo-Won-kenobe at si Mega-Man-Brand-x

LOL!

I still rule

2006-08-13T21:29:00.000+08:00

I believe that the amount of self-studying on the VB.net and .NET framework that i have made during the last 4 weeks paid-off, and not just some half-hearted studying, i was dead-serious on my efforts which at the same time learning and reading something while implementing it in the process is the way to go. I really am a C# programmer but it's not much of an issue because all .Net PLs use the same foundation, so what can be done on 1 PL can be also done in another, it's just a matter of preference in syntax and some other language-specific differences, and besides, it's fun to learn something new every once in a while. But a month's worth of nothing but studying and serious work really is stressful, so what I did was to reinstall wc3 and play dota again.

I was surprised to see that there has already been 2 versions that was released during my month long absence from Lordaeron BNet. After installing and the moment i logged into Bnet i was flooded with PM's (personal messages) from my virtual pals asking where the hell i have been, some people are saying that it was good to have me back, yaddie-yadda. I downloaded the latest version (which is 6.35b) and hosted a dota game along with my pals against some anonymous players from pinoy channel. It didnt take long for me to pawn noobs, and after a game or 2 i am still disappointed by the skill level of of the majority of the pinoy players, sad to say but they still suck and i still rule, i guess i shouldnt have played for 6 months to feel the effects of not-playing-dota.

After playing dota for 2 days (it's a weekend of course) i again uninstalled it, nothing much has changed and the same old players that i have been playing with for the longest time are still the ones that are worth playing. Maybe another month or two w/o playing dota i guess...

So addicting game!!! @_@

2006-08-08T20:35:00.000+08:00

A nerdy-chinita friend of mine introduced this game to me and the instant o played it I got hooked! Well aside from that it was really a fun game i really want to beat every top score , and best of all the game has a global ranking system that records the tops N scores of the day and another for the whole month. The game is very challenging and my top score (around 235K+) is mediocre against the all-month-high score of 600K+

Enough of this blogging-crap! Gotta play more! :D

My Johari Window

2006-08-06T12:20:00.000+08:00

Arena

(known to self and others)

caring, energetic, friendly, sentimental

Blind Spot

(known only to others)

cheerful, clever, happy, knowledgeable, mature, nervous, patient, relaxed, silly, spontaneous, sympathetic, trustworthy, warm, witty

Façade

(known only to self)

extroverted, helpful

Unknown

(known to nobody)

able, accepting, adaptable, bold, brave, calm, complex, confident, dependable, dignified, giving, idealistic, independent, ingenious, intelligent, introverted, kind, logical, loving, modest, observant, organised, powerful, proud, quiet, reflective, religious, responsive, searching, self-assertive, self-conscious, sensible, shy, tense, wise

Dominant Traits

75% of people think that brandoWando is cheerful

All Percentages

able (0%) accepting (0%) adaptable (0%) bold (0%) brave (0%) calm (0%) caring (50%) cheerful (75%) clever (25%) complex (0%) confident (0%) dependable (0%) dignified (0%) energetic (25%) extroverted (0%) friendly (50%) giving (0%) happy (25%) helpful (0%) idealistic (0%) independent (0%) ingenious (0%) intelligent (0%) introverted (0%) kind (0%) knowledgeable (25%) logical (0%) loving (0%) mature (25%) modest (0%) nervous (25%) observant (0%) organised (0%) patient (25%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (0%) reflective (0%) relaxed (25%) religious (0%) responsive (0%) searching (0%) self-assertive (0%) self-conscious (0%) sensible (0%) sentimental (25%) shy (0%) silly (50%) spontaneoussympathetic (25%) (50%) tense (0%) trustworthy (25%) warm (25%) wise (0%) witty (25%)

Created by the Interactive Johari Window on 6.8.2006, using data from 4 respondents.
You can make your own Johari Window, or view brandoWando's full data.

What age do I act?

2006-08-06T12:19:00.000+08:00

You Are 20 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Goodbye DOTA

2006-08-06T11:56:00.000+08:00

Time flies by so fast and it has been a month already since i have uninstalled my WC3 and last played DOTA. The reasons why i finally stopped playing? Work related, my new work requires a lot of self-studying and programming, also, aside from this reason i have been playing the (custom) game for more than 2 years (starting since 5.28) and the number of players that has legit skills that are worth playing for now has like a ratio of 1:200 versus the noob population. Also, every LAN shop in the country nowadays plays DOTA that are of course just a bunch of arrogant noobs that only plays well when they are in groups and always resort to backdoorin and pooling when losing which of course is a "VALID-STRAT" to them, what do you expect from the noobs that doesnt know the international DOTA rules? I only have respect for the people playing DOTA in lanshops in Katipunan and Los Banos (specifically Area51), all the others are of course just a bunch of ex-Ragnarok-players that knows nothing but to acquire EXP till they are level 99.

Recently I heard that the latest version now is 6.35, i read the change logs and IMHO not much of a significant change both in balance and gameplay, also read that there are 2 items that will be added in the near future, maybe ill try re-installing my WC3 when the version with the new items (and hopefully heroes) is released.

Anyway, i still have my original wc3 CDs, so i can play again in @Bnet.Lordaeron gateway, but of course, work is my first priority ^_^

GAAAAAH!!!

2006-08-04T18:26:00.000+08:00

Brando brando = new Brando;
Regex regex = new
Regex(@"^[\w]*(vb)+[\w]*$",RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
string pl = brando.getNewCompanyStandardProgrammingLanguage();

if(regex.IsMatch()){
brando.puke();
brando.curse();
MessageBox.show(@"IM SICK AND TIRED OF ANY PL WITH A SUBSTRING OF
"VB"!!!! GRRRRR!!!");
}else{
brando.beHappyAndContent();
}

GAAAAAH!!!

I think i have again downgraded myself into another so-so programmer. I accepted the position that I was offered because like what we have discussed during my interview that Im going to use C#, but later i found out that VB.NET was the "STANDARD .NET PL" of the group.... GAAAAAAAH!!!

So i started coding today and I ran into some annoyances...

1. All methods are Virtual, so what does this mean? It simply means na pag nag iinherit ka ng mga objects at nagca-call ka ng mga functions, yung latest implementation ng method ang ma-ca-call. #
-update: this can be circumvented with the use of the MyClass keyword

2. VB.net Logic isnt based on short-circuit-logic, example may or statement ako
, sa short-circuit-logic basta may mag true ang left argument ay hindi na i-e-evaluate ang succeeding ones, sa VB.NET regardless kung nag true na yung very 1st argument talagang i-e-evaluate pa niya lahat ng arguments.
update: there is already a short-circuit "and" and "or" which is "andalso" and "oralso"

3. Explicitly declaring that you want to override or overload a function, unlike C# and Java na auto detect na lang ang compiler mo sa mga parameter signature ng mga asme-named functions.

4. Static functions should be declared with the keyword "shared," WTF?!?!?! Antagal kong na-stuck dito kakatry kung paano gumawa ng static functions, yun pala mali ang aking keyword.

5. Andaming keywords sobra, sobrang daming reserved words na kakabisaduhin, GAAAAH!!!! Merong virtual, override, shared, overload, etc, etc.

6. Ang constructor ng isang class ay hindi isang function with the same name as the class, ito ay ang New() function, ARGH!

7. No "++," "--", "+=", etc, etc

And lots more...

Tangna, and may binding contract ako dito ng 1 year

Vb.NET = Brain Drain for 1 year
update: well after sometime coding in VB.nET i can say that it aint that bad, it is still a full fledged OO PL, so it's just a matter of syntax and preference now

@_@

NOOOOOOO!!!

2006-08-03T22:12:00.000+08:00

Agh! As the saying goes... "Nothing is perfect" i thought everything was according to plan, but when everything seems to be so right already something just has to go wrong... As usual...

1. For the past 3 working days I have been studying nothing but .Net 2005's C#, i love C#, the syntax, the conventions, everything, another reason that i love C# is because of the almost-identical syntax with Java. Then after a meeting with our PM this afternoon i just learned that we're going to use VB.NET instead (AGH! CURSES!), even though VB.NET is now a full-pledged OOPL, any PL with a substring of "VB" makes me wanna puke. But come to think of it at least in the .NET framework anything that you can write and run properly on one .NET PL you can also port it into another .NET PL so it's ok, aside from that it is our company's "STANDARD" language agh!

2. When i am already trying to forget someone so hard that i try to bury her deep inside my mind it seems that the more she makes me not to forget... AGH! But when i try to think of her more things just become worse... AGH! It seems that the human brain stores some of your wanted-at-the-same-time-unwanted memories in write-once-never-can-be-deleted sectors that it seems that phsyically removing of the said sectors is the only way... LOL! I dont want to remove a chunk of the the total # brain cells that i am using (study says that normal human beings uses 5-10%, einstein used 40%)!

There you have it...

AGH! (LOL!)

First Day High!

2006-08-01T22:25:00.000+08:00

I believe i arrived a tad too early at my new office (7am), but hey, i didnt know that office hours starts @ 9am, but of course, better to arrive early than to arrive late. Actually, nothing much happened, we were just introduced to around 50-60 employees then we were led to our respective workstations to spend the next few hours staring at our newly formatted PCs. I was disappointed to hear that YM and mp3s are not allowed to be installed in our PCs, but these restrictions have their positive effects as well of course.

I was happy that I was assigned to the .NET developers team, and not only that but we're also going to write applications from scratch, not to support what previous developers chewed on then spat out, and Im going to use this as an opportunity for greener pastures someday.

A binding contract for a year ain't that long i guess...

XD

One REALLY angry german gamer kid

2006-07-31T22:50:00.000+08:00

Disturbing and very funny at the same time, A MUST SEE!!!

A dawn of a new beginning

2006-07-31T22:10:00.000+08:00

Im hours away from a new beginning... What beginning you may ask? Well, tomorrow I will be coming to my new work in Makati. A new set of faces to talk to everyday, another set of people to blend into, a new set of challenges and tasks to take on everyday... But as we all know, people are doesnt have contentment, they always try to reach the highest that they can possible reach, in my case i guess it can be measured by the amount you cash in every payday and the knowledge and skills you learn.

I believe Makati is where the pinnacle of success (for my field) lies, but of course as you move atop the ladder the amount and number of obstacles also increase, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, it is not a place for the weak-hearted, as you climb atop the ladder more and more people will try to pull you down when you are caught off you guard, so it would be best to vigilant and as much as possible stay away from people that may and will drag you down.

I am not sleepy at all, not that im excited for tomorrow, a lot of toughts are just flooding my head, i do have my fears and anxieties, but i am confident that i can get the work done. But people have expectations, and i will try my best to meet theirs, esp my superiors'.

Anyway, i'll try to sleep na, i have a long day ahead of me tomorrow =)

Wow! PLDT does care!

2006-07-29T00:39:00.000+08:00

I subscribed for PLDT 's MyDSL service last Sept 2005, it is almost a year already and I am still quite happy with my MyDSL's perofrmance even with all the DC's and downtimes, but lately the said service suddenly went from bad to worse which started around June 2006. The problem? Inaccessible websites. I always bump to these sites and at first i thought that the "inaccessible" websites were just undergoing routine maintenance, but seeing these websites to be "down" simultaneously in a regular basis seem to be fishy, i stumbled on some thread on tipidpc.com where PLD-C (DC kc ng DC) MyDSL subscribers were also having a hard time to access certain websites, everytime.

I started calling the PLDT helpdesk and try to raise my inquiries and frustrations of the performance of my PLDT MyDSL plan 1995 service, but to my horror everytime i call helpdesk what happens is in the end of the conversation is they will always try to "boomerang" the blame to the end user. There were multiple times where a supposed female PLDT helpdesk agent and I had heated arguments over the phone, what are we arguing about?

1. That a static LAN IP address does and will not affect the PLDT DNS servers.
2. That my firewall, that i have configured months ago, suddenly went haywire and OUT OF THE BLUE started to block certain websites in a random manner
3. That i suddenly installed a faulty network driver that causes this behavior of my PLDT MyDSL service
4. etc, etc

It kinda pisses you off that these mindless, by-the-book-word-for-word-trained "agents" suddenly try to lecture you on computer hardware and software concepts and terms, i just said this...

"... Kung nasanay ka na kumausap sa mga walang alam na mga tao at bola-bolahin ng mga ganyan ibahin mo ako kasi 5 taon na akong nagtratrabaho sa IT at mas marami pa akong alam sa iyo..."

I didnt mean to say that but i remember the 5-10 seconds of silence after saying those words, then suddenly she said that she will be requesting for a technician to come over my house and "check" my settings, i said "SURE" go ahead. That weekend the technician came and tinkered with my PC, and like i said, NOTHING IS WRONG WITH MY PC. I later learned that sometime around June 2006 PLDT did some major hardware and routing upgrades which also around that time these problems manifested. Suddenly i went to PLDT's official website and emailed this to them...

EMAIL TITLE: ANOTHER DISGRUNTLED PLDT MYDSL USER

I am unable to browse some websites that i regularly visit, and it seems that the problem just gotten worse today, July 18, 2006. I cant access the following websites

www.msdn2.microsoft.com
www.sherdog.com
www.godtower.com
www.oracle.com
www.peyups.com

when i call helpdesk they always blame the end user for this nuisance, kesyo mali raw setting ko ng firewall, kasyo nilagyan ko raw ng static ip address, kesyo nagupdate daw ako ng faulty driver, ALWAYS TRYING TO BLAME THE END USER FOR THE CRAPPY, WORTHLESS, ERRATIC BEHAVIOR OF MY PLAN 1995 MYDSL. Eh paano yan eh ang nakausap niya eh 5 years nang nagtratrabaho sa IT? May nalalaman pa na i-traceroute ko raw yung website, eh I can't ping it already! WOW! They assume that everybody that calls helpdesk are the dumb and non-technical gooks that once they blame the end-user the end user will take it as a FACT that it is his fault on why PLD-C MyDSL always DCs.

Your service sucks, PLDT MyDSL sucks, your technical support sucks. But anyway, that's why you gave me a 1 year binding contract that even if shit happens and i cant use this service that im paying P 2000/ month PLDT will still be able to leech money from me.

Nice tactic.

[real name and contact numbers here]

P.S.

you want to check if this is really me? Call me at the numbers above or email me at the email add.

I really am not expecting a reply from them, heck, i know that my email is just one of the thousand emails they receive in a regular basis on how the PLDT MyDSL sucks ass, but after a week i received a reply from them...

Dear Mr. ------- ------- ,

Thank you for notifying us of your concern.

May we request you to please provide us your PL number or telephone number for DSL so we could address your concern accordingly.

Sincerely,

Malou Molino
Customers@pldt.com.ph

I gave them my phone number, i thought nothing will happen again (as usual) because i havent heard from them for a while, then tonight as i checked my email i got another email from them...

Dear Mr. ------- -------,

We are truly sorry to learn of your unfortunate experience. Please be advised that we have already forwarded your concern to the Division in-charge for their immediate attention and appropriate action. We shall advise you accordingly as soon as we receive their reply.

Our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience. Thank you for bearing with us.

Sincerely,

Emmilou P. Flores
Customers@pldt.com.ph

I am surprised that PLDT does care! And I noticed that my PLDT MyDSL plan 1995 problems went away! OMGWTFBBQ! Is this for real? Only time will tell... A week's worth of testing will confirm things if PLDT really did something to fix my PLDT MyDSL problems. XD

Time to get old... er... More responisble i meant...

2006-07-11T03:41:00.000+08:00

I just uninstalled Warcraft 3 from my rig... OMGWTFBBQ!?!?! Yup, i finally uninstalled it, well it is easy to reinstall it but friggin D.O.T.A. just takes up too much of my free time that i should be allocating to more serious, money generating stuff (like programming, work, and socializing with people). To me, (pro-) gaming is like opium, hard to stop and easy to get "re-hooked."

My new job will be revolving around the usage of the .NET technology (VB.NET and C#), and i have around 2-3 weeks' time to devote to self-studying, have to study both languages in a short period of time because what i have heard is that the new company that i will be working on is strict in its working environment, no YM, no USB ports, no CD-ROM drives, and limited internet connectivity, so you really have to be a "ULTRA-PROGRAMMING-GEEK" to not need the web and programming e-books as references.

Well, a college friend of mind is inviting me to "co-habitate" (not "live with" because i know your dirty, filthy minds) with him in some apartment, well honestly i would like to get an apartment myself but the apartment he's currently living at is along Shaw Blvd, not a good choice because i will still be required to take 2-3 rides which defeats the purpose of getting an apartment in the first place because it SHOULD be close to where you are working from.

It's 3:xx am in the morning, and my mind is still like a locomotive engine that keeps on running and running, my mind is filled with stuff about entrepreneurship, career, programming, my sickly father (he just coughed out blood again... ~_~), my current work that i will be leaving in 2 weeks' time, and some girl that i have been fancying about (but i am not doing anything... Enough of this shit for the mean time). I just can't sleep... I wish that human beings doesnt need to sleep and rest so I can do all the stuff I want to do, to reach the goals that i have set in the past:

1. To learn J2ee (Jee) and/or .NET and to be really good at it
2. To work in SG in 2-3 years' time
3. To put up a business ( don't now yet)
4. To have at least P 1M worth of investments and savings on or before 30 years old

I hope that I achieve this things, this is just a "template," an outline of my plans, anything can change anytime and I am sure that i will be able to add or remove some plans/ goals, i just hope that a meteor wont land on me tomorrow or all my planning will be for naught...

Oh well... Guess my brain is going to rest now, just needed an outlet for the things that are running in my head...

Deal or no deal... DEAL!

2006-06-24T15:10:00.000+08:00

36 days to go...

But It should have been 30 days like what was stated in the contract. Yup, you guessed it ryt, i just submitted my resignation letter yesterday, i have been working there for a year already. Actually, i had no plans of moving into another company, but lady luck just shined on me and i just found myself yesterday morning printing another resignation letter.

My present job was ok, it was just 15 minutes away from home, aside from that, the pay was quite good for a single person like me. But we were using old technologies that is already in the period of its obsolosence, VB6, and classic ASP. Honestly I want to learn new technologies like J2EE or .NET (or both if possible), and the new job, aside from significantly incrasing my pay (and travel time as well... HAHAH!) will get me the chance to learn .NET (C# and VB.NET).

My PM, a 30+ year old woman, had to use almost all her strength to hold back her tears. Why you say? Out of the original 8 members of our team, 5 of us have left already within the last 3 months and me being the latest. I remember her words...

"... Brando, bata ka pa naman, di mo pa kelangan ng masyadong pera, wag ka muna magresign pls..."

Honestly, i can emphatize with her, i can feel her fears but life goes on and I cant turn this opportunity down, it's like once in a blue moon opportunity. Also, this will be one of my major stepping stones to the goals that i have set in the past, i just cant let this pass by. I just wish that they'd understand, and im sure that they will. They have been good friends during my stay in that company. I will just do my best to do the last batch of tasks that they will be giving me.

Onward to a new beginning, forward to a brighter future.

Where to now?

2006-05-25T02:10:00.000+08:00

These past 2 months was hectic for me, career-wise that is. The company where im working in just made a lot of significant changes in policies and technologies, in order to adapt to these changes our team underwent a crash course in J2EE and Struts, and some company-specific J2EE framework. At first i was reluctant, my previous jobs always primarily used Microsoft technologies, but in our field we should be able to adapt and study new technologies, failure to adapt to these newer (and should-be better) technologies will spell doom to any programmer out there unless of course if you're an assembly/ cobol programmer which will never fade no matter what. I also intend to get certified within the year, SCJP and Oracle Certifications are what im eyeing for, i also submitted some applications to Singapore and i do hope that i get hired.

I also made (FINALLY!) an investment on mutual funds, all the savings i made for the last 6 months went to Sunlife and bought some 29k+ units of shares, i plan to leave the money there for 7-10 years, based on my calculations it should garner 800% interest at the 7th year, hope im still alive at that time (LOL!)

I also bagged a "sideline" in some company where my former PM currently works. The task revolves around the debugging of exisintg modules and the creation of new modules on one of their existing systems. The system was implemented using ASP and SQL Server 2000 which are in my "stronger" technical skills that I have (im Bill's slave remember?). The pay is good, really, but it requires me to stay up till the wee hours, but good thing it is home based so i can quickly get some zzzzzz's once my body cant really continue anymore, unlike in my teenage years where i used to play computer games 20+ hours straight, now i cant even work for a mere 12 straight hours. I intend to use the money that im going to garner here to put up some sort of business, i do hope that i can raise enough money to that.

But with all these plans rolling and activities done, im still kinda lost... It's as if that im obsessed on making money, but to me it's ok as long as it is legal and you step on nobody while reaching your goal(s). I made some promises in the past, and even though the people that were with me when i made those promises arent around anymore it doesn't meant that im going to abandon them. If i abandon them then it just shows that i really am not serious about things. But assessing myself, i do believe that im dead serious.

People ask me, "TANGNA, WALA KA BANG SOCIAL LIFE?" Well, it depends on one's description of "social life," if one's description of social life is having a GF and going on a date every weekend well my answer is going to be a no, but if one's description of it means having a beer or two with pals every now and then well it will be a yes. The thing that bothers me most is that Im already 25 and in just a matter of 5 years i will already be 30, and reaching 30 years without any money scares me. As long as that i am still young i will try to earn as much as possible, make some investments, and save money for the rainy days. Some things are just harder to achieve (sometimes even impossible) when there are already shackles that are restraining you, and these additional factors are for you to consider when making decisions, it's like climbing Mt. Everest with excess baggage. It's a trade-off, everything has its own set of pros and cons and you can never have eveything, well of course except for a few lucky individuals that God favors and showers them with luck and resources everyday, life seems to be so easy for them unlike someone like me who's always required to exert thrice the effort and dedication just to be at par with of God's faves.

Anyway, i do hope that lady luck, would hear me pleas.

$$ KA-CHING $$

2006-04-24T00:16:00.000+08:00

Roughly another 8 hours to go till office time, just finished a few bottles of beer and again my mind is going nuts. Going nuts about what you may ask, simple...

How to be successful

Last Friday I was in talks with a company that is interestd in hiring me as a home based consultant for their VB6/ SQL Server 2000 projects, I gave them my rate and they agreed with it and asked for the terms and conditions. I really do hope that I bag the contract so i can start earning some extra money which I intend to use to set up some sort of business in our village.

Believe it or not money is the oil the greases the gears of almost everything in this planet, money gives you power, money gives you leverage, money is almost everything... ALMOST...

I wish myself luck!

Yes drill sergeant!

2006-03-29T09:38:00.000+08:00

Achtung!

The irony

2006-03-21T16:55:00.000+08:00

About the Javaworld.com forums

"...Excited about Java and the prospects it offers to you as a developer? JavaWorld is here to help you understand Java's full potential — and put it to effective use in your business and your development projects. To assist you in this regard, we offer Java Tips, our collection of tricks, tips, and other gems of advice that you can apply immediately..."

Wow... And the Javaworld forums was written using PHP! Lolz! I wait for the day Microsoft.com will be written in JSP and PHP.net in asp.net.

Chuck Norris simply rulez

2006-03-19T11:44:00.000+08:00

Kicking ass in the Ultimate Showdown

Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.

Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

Chuck Norris does not have AIDS but he gives it to people anyway.

Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axles, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.

To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer, Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and acquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

A man once asked Chuck Norris if his real name is "Charles". Chuck Norris did not respond, he simply stared at him until the man exploded.

Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "booya".

If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His reasoning? It was more "humane".

When Chuck Norris' wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said, "Don't worry about it honey," and went into his backyard. He came back five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, and when he threw it up a few seconds later it was fully cooked and came with cranberry sauce. When his wife asked him how he had done it, he gave her a roundhouse kick to the face and said, "Never question Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't understand why you should consult your doctor if your erection lasts for more than 4 hours. His erections have been known to last for up to 15 days

Chuck Norris punched a woman in the vagina when she didn't give him exact change.

Those aren't credits that roll after Walker Texas Ranger, it is actually a list of people that Chuck Norris round house kicked in the face that day.

Chuck Norris ruins the endings of Harry Potter books for children who just bought one for the hell of it. When they start crying Chuck Norris calmly says, "I'll give you something to cry about," and roundhouse kicks them in the face.

Chuck Norris appeared in the "Street Fighter II" video game, but was removed by Beta Testers because every button caused him to do a roundhouse kick. When asked bout this "glitch," Norris replied, "That's no glitch."

For more chuck norris jokes go here

And if you didnt laugh...

Bitch

Feed my dog "Bwubwu"

2006-03-18T12:31:00.000+08:00

Betsin not allowed! Lolz!

Test

2006-03-17T14:41:00.000+08:00

Para kay cheska

Dota 6.29 is out!

2006-03-16T20:04:00.000+08:00

Download Dota 6.29 here

6.29 Changelog:

===============

* Added -shuffleplayers(-sp, rearranges the players)
* Added -csboardon/-csboardoff to toggle a board that displays -cs stats
* Some improvements to the way Abaddon's abilities work.
* Fixed various voodoo restoration bugs
* Fixed a few phase bugs
* More Netherswap abuse fixes, can no longer swap from an unpathable area.
* Improved all randoming code (was very inefficient in -dm -ar and caused some
lag)
* Fixed a bug with Freezing Field and caster units.
* Fixed some issues with sprout sometimes pushing the hero out.
* Chaos Bolt does some random damage now.
* Fixed Tormented Soul's Lighting Storm lvl 4 mana cost.
* Fixed a typo on lvl 3 scepter death ward
* Restored original V hotkey for mana void.
* Fixed a bug with Crippling Fear that did not cause the target to miss.
* Fixed some counter helix bugs against song of the siren.
* Fixed a bug with neutral wolves requiring food (thx m-hehl)
* Fixed a few bugs with berserker call including moving cycloned units
* Brain Sap no longer has a short channel requirement/bug.
* Fixed a minor bug with VS base hp, adjusted str to make it same as usual.
* Lone Druid, Nevermore, Morphling and Mercurial Attribute Bonus now show up
as a +bonus
* Searing arrows mana cost increased by 3.
* Slight improvement to the Void's model movement animation on timewalk
* Fixed Berserker's Call exploit on roshan.
* Added buff icons to direct vengeance as well as Haunt.
* Changed how Death Ward works a bit. (This may not be a permanent change, itsstill under debate) FINALLY!
* Redid a lot of nightstalker code to fix some old perm night effect bugs.
* Fixed PA to properly autorefresh (hopefully!)

Thanks again to the beta testers who are active.

**This was released before the new sent heroes could be finished because of
the wide spread axe-roshan abuse. They will be included next version.

The A to Z of Programmer Predilections

2006-03-15T15:40:00.000+08:00

Got this from this website, quite funny. READ ON!

Arrogant Arthur

The three hardest words in any techie's vocabulary are "I don't know". Arthur never has to struggle with them, for he knows everything. Any technology you might name - he's an expert. Any problem you might have - he's solved it before. No matter what challenge he's assigned - he's sure it will be easy. Whenever Arthur appears to have made a mistake, closer investigation will reveal that the fault in fact lies with someone or something else. Arthur is a pretty handy conversationalist. Whenever you're having a technical discussion with someone and he is within earshot, Arthur will generally join in and quickly dominate the discussion with his displays of erudition. Uncertainty and self-doubt are states of mind that Arthur is entirely unfamiliar with. Arthur has a tendency to make big generalizations and sweeping statements, as if to imply that he has the certainty that only comes from vast experience.

Belligerent Brian

Nobody in the office is particularly fond of Brian. Sure, he's a smart guy and seems to be technically well informed, but he has such a strident and aggressive manner that it's difficult to talk with him for any length of time without feeling that you are under attack. Brian likes it that way and his hostile manner is entirely intentional. You see, Brian is a go-getter. Highly ambitious and energetic, he is determined to advance up the corporate ladder, no matter who he has to step on in the process. Whenever any action is undertaken or decision made, there is always a part of him thinking "How will this make me look to my manager?". It's not surprising then that not all of Brian's decisions are good ones. He has been known to select cutting edge technologies simply for their buzzword compliance, betting that cool acronyms and shiny new methodologies will make him appear progressive and forward-looking. Although he regularly makes mistakes, Brian never admits to any of them, and generally blames third parties, vendors and colleagues for errors that are actually his own.

C++ Colin

Colin is the local language bigot, whose language of preference is C++. He began programming in C, moved on to C++ when commercial forces threw the OO paradigm at him, and has been working in C++ ever since. Colin has watched the ascent of Java with a mixture of disdain and veiled jealousy. Initially, it was easy to defend C++ against criticisms from the Java camp, by pointing to C++'s superior performance. But with the growing speed of JVMs, this advantage has been lost. Now, most of the advantages that Colin claims for C++ are the same language features that Java enthusiasts see as disadvantages. Java developers (or, "Java weenies" as Colin is fond of calling them) point to automatic memory reclamation as an eliminator of a whole category of bugs that C++ developers must still contend with. Colin sees garbage collection as disempowering the programmer, referring to the random intrusion of garbage collection cycles as payback for those to lazy to free memory themselves. Java weenies consider the absence of multiple inheritence in Java an advantage because it avoids any confusion over the rules used to resolve inheritence of conflicting features; Colin sees it as an unforgivable limitation to effective and accurate domain modeling. Java weenies consider C++'s operator overloading to be an archaic syntax shortcut, rife with potential for error; Colin sees it as a concise and natural way to capture operations upon objects. Colin displays a certain bitterness, resulting from the dwindling variety of work available to him within the language domain he is comfortable with.

Distracted Daniel

Daniel's mind is only ever half on the job, or to put it another way, he doesn't have his head in the game. Daniel lives a very full life - indeed, so full that his private life overflows copiously into his professional one. He has several hobbies that he is passionate about, and he is always ready to regale a colleague with tales of his weekend exploits in one of them. It looks as if his job is just a way of funding his many (often expensive) hobbies. His work is strictly a nine to five endeavor, and it would be very rare to find him reading around a particular work-related topic in his own time, or putting in an extraordinary effort to meet a deadline or project milestone. He is constantly taking off at lunch times to take care of one task or another, and does not seem to be particularly productive even when he is in the office. Daniel refers to this as "leading a balanced life". He may be right.

Essential Eric

Eric knows that knowledge is power. Partly by happenstance but mostly by design, Eric has become irreplaceable to his employer. There just seems to be a vast amount of technical and procedural arcana that only Eric knows. If he should ever leave, the company would be in a mess, as he would take so much critical information with him. This gives him a good deal of bargaining power with management, and good job security. A few of the company's managers have recognized the unhealthy dependence that exists upon him, and have attempted to document some of the valuable knowledge about certain pieces of software central to the business, but Eric always finds a way to get out of it. There always seems to be something more pressing for him to do, and if he is forced to put pen to paper, what results tends to be incoherent nonsense. Sit seems that he just can't write things down - or rather, that he chooses to be so poor at it that no one even bothers to ask him to document things any more. Eric is not keen to help others in those domains that he is master of, as he doesn't want to dilute the power of his monopoly.

Feature Creep Fr*nk

Most of the trouble that Frank has got himself into over the years has been heralded by the phrase "Wouldn't if be cool if ... ". No matter how feature-laden his current project may be, Frank can always think of one more bell or whistle to tack onto it that will make it so much cooler. Having decided that a particular feature is critical to user acceptance of the application, it is a very difficult task to stop him adding it in. He has been known to work nights and weekends just to get his favorite feature incorporated into the code base - whether he has got permission to do so or not. Part of Frank's cavalier attitude to these "enhancements" comes from his unwillingness to consider the long term consequences of each addition. He tends to think of the work being over once the feature has been coded, but he fails to consider that this feature must now be tested, debugged and otherwise maintained in all future versions of the product. Once the users have seen it, they may grow accustomed to it, and so removing it from future versions may well be impossible. They may even like the feature so much that they begin requesting extensions and modifications to it, creating further burden on the development team. Frank justifies his actions to others in terms of providing value to users, and often professes a greater knowledge of the user demographic than what he actually possesses, so that he can claim how much the users will need a particular feature. But Frank's real motivations are not really about user satisfaction, but are about satisfying his own ego. Each new feature is an opportunity for him to demonstrate how clever he is, and how in touch with the user community.

Generic George

George delights in the design process. Pathologically incapable of solving just the immediate problem at hand, George always creates the most generic, flexible and adaptable solution possible, paying for the capabilities he thinks he will need in the future with extra complexity now. Sadly, George always seems to anticipate incorrectly. The castles in the air that he continually builds rarely end up with more than a single room occupied. Meanwhile, everyone must cope with the inordinate degree of time and effort that is needlessly invested in managing the complexity of an implementation whose flexibility is never required. It is a usual characteristic of George's work that it takes at least a dozen classes working together to accomplish even trivial functionality. He is generally the first to declare "Let's build a framework" whenever the opportunity presents itself, and the last to want to use the framework thus created.

Hacker Henry

Henry considers himself to be a true hacker - a code poet and geek guru. Still in the early stages of his career, he spends most of his life in front of a keyboard. Even when not at work, he is working on his own projects, participating in online discussion forums and learning about the latest languages and utilities. Software is his principal passion in life. This single-minded pursuit of technical knowledge has made him quite proficient in many areas, and has engendered a certain arrogance that generally manifests as a disdain directed towards those his colleagues whom he regards as not being "true hackers". For his managers, Henry is a bit of a problem. They know that they can really on him to overcome pretty much any technical challenge that might be presented to him, provided that the solution can be reached by doing nothing but coding. For unless it's coding, Henry's not interested. He won't document anything; certainly not his code, because he feels that good code is self-documenting. He is early enough into his career to have not yet been presented with the task of adopting a large code base from someone who subscribes to that same belief, and to have thereby seen the problems with it. Also, Henry can generally only be given "mind-size" tasks to do. His tasks have to be small and well defined enough for him to fit all their details in his head at once, as he simply refuses to write anything down. The architecture of enterprise-scale systems will likely forever be a mystery to him as he does not possess, and has no interest in developing, the facility with abstractions and modeling that is necessary to manage the design of large systems.

Incompetent Ian

Ian is a nice enough guy but is genuinely incapable of performing most of the job functions his position requires. It's not clear whether this is a result of inadequate education, limited experience or simply a lack of native ability. Either way, it is clear to anyone who works with Ian for any length of time that he is not really on the ball, and takes a very long time to complete even basic tasks. Worst of all, Ian seems to be blissfully unaware of his own incompetence. This can make for some embarrassing situations for everyone, as Ian's attempts to weigh in on technical discussions leave him looking naive and ignorant - which he also fails to notice. Ian tends to get work based upon his personable manner and the large number of friends he has working in the industry. Most of his employers have come to view him as a "retrospective hiring error".

Jailbird John

John has been working for his current employer a long time. A very long time. Longer than most of the senior management in fact. John has been working here so long that it is highly unlikely he will ever be able to work anywhere else. Over the years, his skill set has deteriorated so greatly and become so stale that he has become an entirely unmarketable commodity. He knows all there is to know about the company's legacy applications - after all, he wrote most of them. He has been keeping himself employed for the last decade just patching them up and making one piecemeal addition after another in order to try and keep them abreast of the business's changing function. Tired of chasing the latest and greatest technologies, he has not bothered learning new ones, sticking to the comfortable territory defined by the small stable of dodgy applications he has been shepherding for some years. John gets along with everyone, particularly those more senior to him. He can't afford the possibility of getting into conflict with anyone who might influence his employment status, as he knows that this will likely be the last good job he ever has. So he tries to stay under the radar, hoping that the progressive re-engineering of his pet applications with more modern technologies takes long enough for him to make it over the finish line.

Kludgy Kevin

Kevin is remarkably quick to fix bugs. It seems that he's no sooner started on a bug fix than he's checking in the solution. And then, as if by magic, the very same bug reappears. "I thought I fixed that", declares Kevin - and indeed he did - but not properly. In his rush to move on to something else, Kevin invariably forgets to check that his "fix" works correctly under some boundary condition or special case, and ends up having to go back and fix it again. Sometimes a third or even fourth attempt will be necessary. This is Kevin's version of "iterative development."

Loudmouth Lincoln

Terror of the cubicle farm, Lincoln incurs the ire of all those who sit anywhere near him, but remains blissfully unaware that he is so unpopular. His voice is louder than anyone else's by a least a factor of two, and he seems unable to converse at any volume other than full volume. When Lincoln is talking, everyone else is listening, whether they want to or not. People in his part of the office know a great deal more about Lincoln's personal life than they would like, as they have heard one end of the half dozen or so telephone calls that he seems to receive from his wife every day. Lincoln's favorite instrument of torture is the speakerphone. He always listens to his voicemail on speakerphone each morning, so that he can unpack his briefcase while doing so. He also likes to place calls on speakerphone so that his hands are free to type at his keyboard while conversing with someone else. He either doesn't realize or doesn't care that he is disturbing those nearby. Nobody seems to be game enough to tell him how inconsiderate he is being.

Martyr Morris

Morris is very conscious of the impression others form of him. Probably a little too concerned. He has observed that many of his colleagues associate long hours with hard work and dedication. The longer the hours, the harder you're working - and having a reputation as a hard worker can only be a good thing when it comes performance review time. So Morris makes sure he is at the office when his boss arrives of a morning, and that he is still working away when his boss leaves of an afternoon. Everyone agrees that Morris certainly puts in the hard yards, but are a little perplexed as to why his code is so often buggy and poorly structured. In fact, it seems like Morris has to put in extended hours in order to compensate for the poor quality of his work. The net result is that he gets almost as much achieved as his team mates who work more sensible hours. Morris hasn't yet twigged to the fact that his defect injection rate rises dramatically as he fatigues, meaning that the extra hours he works often have a negative effect on his productivity. Worse yet, his know-nothing manager rewards him for his dedication, thereby reinforcing the faulty behavior.

Not-Invented-Here Nick

Nick has a near pathological drive to write everything himself. Due to hubris and ambition, he is rarely satisfied with buying a third party utility or library to help in his development efforts. It seems to him that the rest of the industry must be incompetent, for every time he looks to buy rather than build, he finds so many shortcomings in the products on offer that he invariably concludes that there's nothing for it but to write the whole thing himself. It also seems that his particular requirements are always so unique that no generally available tool has just the functionality that he needs. Not wanting to work inefficiently, he insists on only using tools that do exactly what he wants - nothing more, nothing less. Little wonder then that he finds himself having to write such fundamental utilities as text editors, file transfer programs, string and math utility libraries. The real problem is not that Nick's requirements are so unique, but that he deliberately fabricates requirements so specific that he can find commercial offerings lacking, and thereby justify reinvention of those offerings himself. In short, he is looking for excuses to write what he considers to be the "fun stuff" - the development tools - rather than the "boring stuff" - the application code. He generally has little difficulty in finding such justifications. Most people who work with Nick note with interest that the tools that he writes himself are rarely of the quality of the equivalent commercial offerings.

Open Source Oliver

Oliver is very enthusiastic about open source software development. He contributes to several open source projects himself, and tries to incorporate open source products into his projects wherever possible - and it's always possible; mainly because Oliver begins a project for the principal purpose of providing himself with an opportunity to try out the latest and greatest CVS build from Apache, Jakarta or wherever. Oliver rarely has to justify his technology selections to his colleagues, as he is always sure to surround himself with other open source believers. On occasions when he needs to explain the failure or buggy nature of some open source package, he relies upon the old saw "we can always fix it ourselves". However there never seems to be enough time in the schedule for this to actually occur; so every release of his project bristles with the underlying warts of its open source components. If all else fails, it can at least be said that the price is right.

Process Peter

If you want to see Peter get worked up, just start a discussion with him about the poor state of software development today. He will hold forth at length, and with passion, on where it has all go wrong. And Peter has decided that all of software's woes have a common genesis - a lack of disciplined process. Peter's career history reads like a marketing brochure of process trends. BPR, Clean Room, Six Sigma, ISO - he's been a whole-hearted enthusiast of them all at one time or another. His dedication to strict process adherence as a panacea to a project's quality ills is absolute, and he will do almost anything to ensure that ticks appear in the relevant boxes. Unfortunately, this uncompromising approach is often self-defeating, as it denies him the flexibility to adapt quality levels on a case-by-case basis. It has also made him more than a few enemies over the years. He is prone to considering the people component of software development as a largely secondary consideration, and views programmers a little like assembly line production workers - interchangeable parts whose individual talents and proclivities are not so important as the procedures they follow to do their work. Those subject to such views tend to find it more than a little dehumanizing and impersonal.

Quiet Quincy

Quincy is one of those guys who has no need to brag about his technical skills or the depth of his technical knowledge. He's not much interested in being "alpha geek" at the office, he just wants to do a good job and then go home to his wife and children. Quietly spoken and unassuming, he looks on with amusement at Zealous Zack's ever-changing enthusiasms and shakes his head, knowing that in a few more years Zack will have gained enough experience to know that the computing industry is full of "next big things" that generally aren't. Given a task, he just sits down and does it. He doesn't succumb to heroic bug-fixing and late night coding efforts - his code is good enough to begin with that there are rarely any problems with it. He probably won't get many pats on the back from management, whose attention will largely be captured by the technical prima donnas that swan around the project space, dropping buzzwords and acronyms like they were the names of celebrities they knew personally. But without Quincy and those of his ilk, the project would fail - because someone has to get the work done.

Rank Rodger

Rodger is very good at what he does. He's a techie through and through, and delights in problem solving. The problem is that Rodger lives in his head. At times he feels like a brain on legs, so focused is he upon intellectual pursuits. His body is a much neglected container for cortical function that he generally pays little attention to, except to meet its basic functional requirements for food and clothing. As a result, there is a certain funk surrounding Rodger which nearby colleagues are all too aware of, but of which Rodger is olfactorily ignorant. Halitosis is his constant companion and dandruff a regular visitor. In general, he has unkempt appearance - his shirt often buttoned incorrectly, hair not combed and tie (which he wears only under the greatest duress) knotted irregularly. Rodger doesn't really care what others think of him and is largely unaware of the message his poor grooming and hygiene is sending to others. Rodger is likely to remain unaware for a long time, as nobody can think of a way of broaching the topic with him that wouldn't cause offense.

Skill Set Sam

Sam is just passing through. If he is a contractor, everyone will already be aware of this. If he is permanent staff, his colleagues might be a little surprised to know just how certain he is that he won't be working here in a year's time. Sam is committed to accumulating as much experience with as many technologies as he possibly can, in order to make himself more attractive to future employers. His career objective is simply that he remain continually employed, earning progressively higher salaries until he is ready to retire.

Toolsmith Trevor

Trevor loves to build development tools. He can whip you up a build script in a few minutes and automate just about any development task you might mention. In fact, Trevor can't be stopped from doing these things. He is actively looking for things to automate - whether they need it or not. For some reason, Trevor doesn't see the writing of development tools as a means to an end, but an end in itself. The living embodiment of the "Do It Yourself" ethic, Trev insists on writing common development tools himself, even if an off-the-shelf solution is readily available. Rather than chose one of the million commercially available bug tracking applications, you can rely on Trevor to come up with an argument as to why none of them are adequate for your purposes, and there is no solution but for him to write one. At the very least, he will have to take an open source tool and customize it extensively. So too with version management, document templates and editor configuration files. Trevor is right into metawork, with the emphasis on the meta.

Unintelligible Uri

English is not Uri's native tongue. This is blatantly obvious to anyone who attempts to communicate with him. He speaks with a thick accent and at such a rapid pace that listeners can go several minutes in conversation with him without having a clear idea of what he has said. Trying to work with Uri can be an excruciating experience. He cannot contribute to technical discussions effectively, regardless of how well informed he might be, because he is always shouted down by those with more rhetorical flair, regardless how uninformed they might be. Delegating work to him is a dangerous undertaking because you can never be certain that he has really understood the description of his assignment, as he tends to respond with affirmative cliches that can be easily said, but don't necessarily reflect that information has been successfully communicated. Very often, people choose simply not to bother communicating with Uri, because they find it both exhausting and frustrating. Whoever hired Uri has failed to appreciate that fluency in a natural language is worth ten times as much as fluency in a programming language.

VB Victor

Sometime in the nineties Victor underwent what is colloquially referred to as a "Visual Basic Lobotomy". He found himself a programmer on a misconceived and overly ambitious VB project, and fought to write a serious enterprise application for some years in a language that was never conceived for more than small scale usage. Visual Basic Land is a warm and soothing place, and Victor let his skill set atrophy while he slaved away at VB, until eventually VB was all he was good for. Now, dispirited and deskilled, he is a testament to the hazards of building your career upon a narrow technological basis. Victor will likely survive a few more years, pottering from one VB project to the next, until he loses the enthusiasm even for that.

Word Salad Warren

Unlike Uri, Warren's native tongue is English; but it does him little good. Listening to Warren explain something technical is like listening to Dr Seuss - all the words make sense when taken individually, but assembled together they seem to be mostly gibberish with no coherent message. Such is Warren's talent for obfuscation, he can take simple concepts and make them sound complex; take complex topics and make them sound entirely incomprehensible. This is big problem for everyone attempting to collaborate with Warren, for they generally find it impossible to understand the approach Warren is taking to solving his part of the problem, which virtually guarantees it won't work properly in conjunction with other's work. On those rare occasions when he tries to document his code, the comments aren't useful, as they make no more sense than Warren would if he were explaining the code verbally. Management has made the mistake of assuming that Warren's diatribes are inscrutable because he is so technically advanced and is describing something that is inherently complex. That's why he is in a senior technical position. But his pathetic communication skills are a major impediment to the duties he must perform as a senior developer, which routinely involve directing and coordinating the technical work of others by giving instructions and feedback. Warren is a source of great frustration to his colleagues, who would give anything for precise and concise communication.

X-Files Xavier

Xavier takes a little getting used to. Although his programming skills are decidedly mature, his personality seems to be lagging behind. He has an unhealthy fascination with Star Trek, Dr Who and Babylon 5. Graphic novels and Dungeons & Dragons rule books are littered about his cubicle, and he can often be found reading them during his lunch break, which he always spends in front of his computer, surfing various science fiction fan sites and overseas toy stores. Project meetings involving Xavier are generally ... interesting, but somewhat tiring. He regularly interjects quotations from Star Wars movies and episodes of Red Dwarf, laughing in an irritating way at his own humor, oblivious to the fact that others without his rich fantasy life are not amused by his obscure pop culture references. Xavier seems to spend most of his time by himself. No one has ever heard him mention a girl-friend. Those who have worked with him for any length of time know that he is best kept away from customers and other "normal people" who would not understand his eccentricities.

Young Yasmin

Yasmin has only been out of University for a few years. She is constantly surprised by the discrepancy between what she was taught in lectures and what actually appears to happen in industry. In fact, there seems to be a good deal that happens in practice that was not anticipated at all by her tertiary education. She concludes that the numerous shortcuts, reactive management and run-away bug count of her projects are just localized eccentricities, rather than a widespread phenomenon. Yasmin fits well into the startup company environment, with its prevailing attitude of "total dedication." Indeed, she is the target employee demographic of such firms. She is at that stage of life where she has the stamina to work 60 and 70 hour weeks on a regular basis. She is not distracted by family commitments, and is ambitious and eager enough to still be willing to do what is necessary to impress others. Lacking industry experience and the perspective that comes with maturity, she is not assertive enough to stand up to management when they make excessive demands of her.

Zealous Zack

Zack is a very enthusiastic guy. In fact, there seems to be very little going on in the world of computing that Zack is not enthusiastic about. Like a kid staring in the candy store window, Zack gazes longingly at every new buzzword, acronym and advertising campaign that crosses his path, immediately becoming a disciple of every new movement and technology craze that comes along. Sometimes these enthusiasms bring with them certain ideological conflicts, but Zack is too busy downloading the Beta version of the next big thing to be worried about such matters. He runs Linux on his home PC, has a Mac Mini in his living room, and worships at the church of Agile. Having Zack on your project can be challenging, particularly if he exercises any control over technology selection. He will invariably try and load down your project with whatever "cool" technologies he is presently over-enthused about, and delight in the interoperability problems that result as an opportunity to introduce even more technologies to save the day. Zack never quite learnt to distinguish work from play.

Ang hirap pala magbusiness

2006-03-14T09:43:00.000+08:00

Ang hirap pala magbusiness kahit simpleng sari-sari store lang sa opisina. Tubong lugaw ka na nga may mga hindi pa nagbabayad at nakakatawang isipin na lahat ng nagtratrabaho dito ay matataas ang mga pinagaralan. Meron din minsan na nagkakamali ka ng bilang sa imbentaryo mo, minsan na pag imbentaryo mo ay may bibili agad kaya ang nabilang mo ay iba na sa totoong bilang, ok lang yan eh pero kung mayroon ka na kapwa nagbebenta rin eh magkakagulo kayo at di malayong mag-away dahil dito. Sama mo pa yung ilang kilo ng paninda ang dinadala mo araw-araw pauwi ng bahay at papunta ng opisina. Hindi pa kasama dito ang stress at sama ng loob na nakukuha mo sa mismong trabaho mo...

Ewan ko ba, hindi ko alam kung gaano ako katagal sa paggaganito ko...

A Programmer's OPM mp3 play list

2006-03-13T10:23:00.000+08:00

1. Tulog Na by Sugarfree - tipong pag ilang araw ka nang hindi natutulog o mga ilang araw ka nang natutulog nag tig-iisang oras habang sasaksakan mo ng isang banig ng kape ang katawan mo pagka umaga.

2. Malayo Pa Ang Umaga by Rey Valera - connected to song #1, tipong ni-re-reverse psychology mo ang sarili mo na marami ka pang oras magdebug, magcode, o magbutingting ng module ng ibang programmer na habang sila ay tulo laway pa sa kanilang mga higaan ay andun ka sa opisina nagpapakamartyr... Or should it be "MALAPIT NA ANG UMAGA?"

3. McGyver by Kiko Machine - dapat tipong mala-McGyver (MakGayber) ka mag-isip ng paraan kung paano mo gagawin yung mga enhancements at change requests ng mga client niyo na may mga business rule tulad nito...

Text box should accept less than the minimum allowed characters

Believe me, i saw this in one of the test scripts that was given to me.

4. Taning by Imago - talagang magkakataning ang buhay mo kung araw-araw sa trabaho ay nagpapaligsahan ang mga end users sa katangahan. Nakakarinig ka na inirereklamo ang login page mo at may bug daw pero ang dahilan pala kaya ayaw gumana ay login nila sa Friendster ang ginagamit nila instead dun sa inemail mong username and password nila.

5. Luha by Aegis - mapapaluha ka talaga minsan sa sama ng loob at asar sa mga pinapagawa ng mga tao na may mga business rules na nag cocontradict sa isa't-isa. Ngayon pag yung PM mo ay nagtataka kung bakit nagkakaganun ang mga bagay-bagay ay sasabihin mo syempre kung bakit nagkaganun hindi ba? Ngayon sisisihin ka pa nung Business Analyst na bakit daw hindi mo, yung Programmer, sinabi sa kanya ang flaw na ito.

6. Posible by Rivermaya - ito na lang masasabi mo sa report na pinapagawa sa iyo na magququery sa 10 tables, with a million records each, at gusto nilang magenerate yung report sa loob ng isang segundo.

7. Pare Ko by Eraserheads - ... nag-resign na ako" ito na lang ang masasabi mo sa mga kaopisina mo dahil sa sobrang baba ng sweldo na nakukuha mo at mas mataas pa ata ang sweldo ng takatak boys na sumasabit sa mga bus at jeep

8. Sayang na sayang by Manilyn Reynes - ito na lang masasabi mo pagkatapos ka bigyan ng project na "rush daw" na 2 linggo kang nag-overtime gabi-gabi tapos at the last moment ay i-ca-cancel nila ang project. PUTA...

Lam ko marami pang kanta sa OPM playlist ng mga programmer, at sa sobrang dami ay alam kong makakarelate lahat, pero ganyan talaga, minsan parang gusto mo na Wakasan by Razorback ang buhay mo... LOLZ! JOKE LANG!

OPM nostalgia

2006-03-12T00:58:00.000+08:00

DL'ing OPM

So what's in my play list tonight?

Aegis
Richard Reynoso
Jerome balos
Rey Valera
Rodel Naval

JOLOGS POWAH!!!

*RAWR!!!!!*
`;..;`

How to kill depression

2006-03-11T22:52:00.000+08:00

Bnet + BBQ + SMB = Temporary relief

It has been a while since i last kissed San Mig's luscious lips. I made a promise to myself sometime ago that i will never use alcohol again to ease my anxieties, fears, and loneliness.

But hey, promises are made to be broken ayt?

Bottoms up!

For Sale: Brand New and Sealed IBM ThinkPad T43

2006-03-10T09:38:00.000+08:00

Thinkpad T43 Box

Front

Back

CPU:
P-M (Pentium M 740) Intel 915PM Chipset 1.73GHz / 533MHz FSB

Memory:
512MB [it was upgraded]

Hard Drive:
40GB

Floppy Disk Drive:
None

Optical Drive:
CDRW & DVD

Display Size:
14.1" XGA

Graphics:
INTEL GRAPHICS MEDIA ACCELERATOR 900

I/O Ports:
2 USB 2.0, AC adapter, Docking/Port Replicator, External Display, External microphone, Headphone/Line out, Infrared, Parallel, RJ-11, RJ-45, S-Video out

Communications:
MODEM & GIGABIT ETHERNET
INTEGRATED INTEL/PRO WIRELESS 802.11b/g
BLUETOOTH

Weight:
2.20KG

Brand new, sealed and unused. International 3 years warranty.

Brand New Price: $2,900.00 x 52 ~~ P150,000.00

My Price: P110,000.00 (still negotiable)

For interested individuals this is a very good buy for such a laptop!

Meeting place is Alabang or San Pedro Area, Makati on weekends only.

For interested individuals email me @ lord_brandxxx@yahoo.com for details.

Naghihirap ba talaga ang Pilipinas?

2006-03-09T09:47:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I was on my way home and because the following day was one of my sisters' birthday i decided to go to Alabang Town Center to buy her a gift, and instead of taking a jeepney ride i just walked all the way from our office to the said mall. When i was about a stone's throw away from BMW Alabang (same bldg. with Gold's Gym) I saw a weird looking 4x4 that caught my attention, as i get nearer with every step i take this is what i saw...

Spoiled Brats rule!

This brand new Ford Everest costs around P 1.X M and all of its sides were painted with these messages by its owner "LEMON." I wanted to take a photo of all 4 sides but employees from BMW were gathered on the left side of the vehicle so i just took a photo of the right side only.

Makes me ask the million-dollar (or should i say peso) question: "naghihirap ba talaga ang Pilipinas?" I am just an ordinary employee breaking my f*cking back in the office everyday just to have a decent life then i see some spoiled brat do this to his brand new Ford Everest??? Wow...

Makes me wonder...

Felony Fight

2006-03-09T01:21:00.000+08:00

I have been a very dedicated fan of MMA since the first UFC were shown here, after surfing the web for sometime tonight i cam across a link that says "HARDCORE MMA FIGHT (click here)" and what i have watched is indeed a hardcore fight but it made me cringe. The fight was a Felony Fight, here's the description of what it is from its official website...

Felons, gang-rivals, and girls-on-guy action!
See skulls cracked, eyes split, mouths busted and heads stomped in this felonious display of savagery! Felony Fights brings you the hardest convicted felons, gangsters and street thugs all ready to bash the shit out of each other. Some fight for respect, some fight for pain and some fight just for the hell of it

In this game, there are no rules...
Just like Ultimate Fighting Championship aside from a few small differences: no gloves, no rules, and absolutely no fucking mercy! These fighters are gang rivals, skinheads, essays, street thugs, convicts, all down to fight their hearts out. 100% uncensored, barbaric, and raw!

The vid shows an excon and a local thug slugging it out with no gloves, no rules, and no ref. The worst part of the vid was when the excon was already knocked unconscious but the other one still kept on throwing haymakers and raining down knees... on the back of the excon's head...

I love violence but in a controlled and professional way, this is just too sick to be even compared to UFC and posted in a MMA forum...

Brando the Programmer "slash" the Progamer "slash" the...

2006-03-08T20:26:00.000+08:00

E... n... t... r... e... p... r... e... n... e... u... r... ???

OMGWTFBBQ!

Yup, you read it right, just a few hours ago i bought the following items

20x 22g strawberry flavored Dewberry
5 x 500ml C2 Green Tea
10 x 32g lucky me supreme cup noodles

Im going to sell these at our office's pantry for some additional income. Yah, yah, it's not one of those lucrative businesses out there but we have to start from something right? An additional P100.00/ week extra income would be a huge thing for me, esp. for someone who aint born with rich parents owning a plantation of Suha or Onion in their respective provinces. I will definitely pursue any legal and practical additional source(s) of income using my present available resources. Just wish me luck

Yum... Dewberry... *slurp*

Must... Stop... Self...

i wish life is just as easy as...

BRANDO: GREEDISGOOD 99999

LOLZ!!!

Brokeback MMAountain

2006-03-07T23:42:00.000+08:00

Love is a force of nature

The bald guy is Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva current Pride FC MW champion, 30-5-1 in MMA, undefeated in Pride FC for 4 years (2000-2004). The other guy is Mauricio "Shogun" Rua Pride FC MW GP 2005 winner, 12-2-0 in MMA, both are Chuteboxe Members.

Terms
GP= Grand Prix
MMA= Mixed Martial Arts
MW = Middle Weight (186 lbs. -205 lbs.)
Chuteboxe = MMA school based in Brazil

Just to kill time

2006-03-06T16:44:00.000+08:00

I'm bored, ok let's get this over with...

three names i go by:
1. Leandro
2. Brando
3. Brutus

three screen names you have had:
1. Ace_Balasador
2. Lord_brandxxx
3. SundaeWidHotCUM

three physical things you like about yourself:
1. Physical Strength 18(00)
2. Nose (HAHAHA!)
3. Mesomorphic (used-to-be)

three physical things you don't like about yourself:
1. Hair
2. Endomorphic
3. Dead toe nails!

three parts of your heritage:
1. Bisaya
2. Chinese
3. Spañol

three things that scare you:
1. Dying alone
2. Growin old alone
3. A level 25 hero with Aegis and Divine

three of your everyday essentials:
1. TDs, DOTA
2. Computer
3. Work

three of your favorite musical artists:
1. Stonefree
2. Paramita
3. Hale

three of your favorite songs:
1. Listen (Scar)
2. Hiling (Paramita)
3. Kung Wala Ka(Hale)

three things you want in a relationship:
1. Love, true love.
2. Compatibility
3. Long term goals

three lies and truths in no particular order:
1. I'm a faggot and Sam Milby makes me hard whenever i see his face
2. I am terribly depressed
3. Im a 6-foot tall, tisoy
4. I am very happy with my life
5. My life has a direction
6. I want a better job

three physical things about the opposite sex that appeals to you:
1. Eyes, esp. with glasses
2. B(oYo)bs (HAHAHAHA!)
3. Complexion

three of your favorite hobbies:
1. WC3 bnet (TD, DOTA, Ladder)
2. MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)
3. Computers

three things you want to do really badly now:
1. Ladder
2. Getting rich
3. Current job

three careers you're considering/you've considered:
1. Pro-gaming
2. Game Beta-tester
3. Porn star (Brando-Braganza ginawa ng diyos pang-romansa)

three places you want to go on vacation:
1. japan - so i can watch PrideFC, see HS girls in school uniform
2. Mardi Gras - hehehehe...
3. Boracay - ahhh... white sand, girls, sea, good food...

three kid's names you like:
1. Fedor
2. Quinton
3. Takanori

three things you want to do before you die:
1. Beat a prime Gomi in Pride
2. Get married and have kids
3. See Philippines rise among its ashes

three ways that you are stereotypically a boy:
1. I act like one
2. I am a "balat-sibuyas"
3. I easily get angry

three ways that you are stereotypically a girl:
1. L
2. O
3. L

three celeb crushes:
1. Kate Beckinsale within that black leathersuit... YUM... *DROOLS*
2. Maria Ozuwa *DROOLS EVEN MORE*
3. Heart Evangelista

three people that i would like to see take this quiz:
1. Nen
2. Zara
3. Emil

Nagcontractual na lang sana ako

2006-03-06T13:45:00.000+08:00

Isa atang malaking pagkakamali ang nagpa-regular ako dito. Masyado kasi akong nasilaw sa mga benefits sa kumpanya na ito, pero maganda lang naman ito kung may mga dependents ka. Ako? Wala, single and no dependents... Ang masama pa diyan ay 14 months worth of taxes ang kinakaltas dito sa kumpanya namin, babawi naman daw kasi sa end of the year because of the tax refunds pero ano yun? Magugulpi ka ng 11 months para lang guminhawa ka ng 1 month? At anlaki pa ng tax ko...

Deductions:
Pag-ibig: 100.00 (first blood!)
Philhealth: 187.50 (double kill!)
SSS Premium: 500.00 (trrrrrriple kill!)
Withholding Tax: 3,277.30 (OVERKILL!)

Ngayon every kinsenas yan ang kinakaltas sa akin, multiply mo ng 24 yan at yan ang nahu-huthot ng gobyerno na ito sa akin kada taon. Naisip ko na sana nagcontractual na lang ako para kontrolado ko kung magbabayad ba ako ng mga taxes o hindi, tutal wala rin naman akong nakukuha sa walang kwenta na gobyerno na ito wala ring dahilan kung bakit ako magbabayad ng mga tax.

Ano naman ang advantage mo kung meron kang SSS, Philhealth, at Pag-ibig na mga benepisyo? Malabo rin naman na mapakinabangan mo yan balang araw at uso pa ang scam diyan na may nag-lo-loan under sa pangalan mo. At ang pagka-laki-laking withholding tax, ano naman kung nagbabayad ka ng tax? Maipagmamalaki mo ba yan? Sa mga anak mo? Sa sarili mo? Napapag-aral ba talaga niyan ang mga taga-UP? Nakakapagpaayos ba talaga ng mga sirang kalsada yan? Nabibigyang pondo ba ang kapulisan niyan para sa seguridad ko? Hindi di ba? Saan napupunta yan? Syempre sa mga bulsa ng mga ulupong na mga tao sa gobyerno na lahat ay nagpapataasan ng ihi laban sa isa't-isa. Ano naman kung nagsasakripisyo ka para sa bansa na ito? Wala ka rin naman na makukuha sa ibinibigay mo.

Kaya payo ko sa inyong mga makakabasa nitong blog-post ko na ito mag contractual na lang kayo at solohin niyo na lang ang lahat ng kita niyo. Your sacrifices means nothing to this country and this country is going down in flames. Im waiting for the day when John Lloyd Cruz and Sam Milby will run for the presidency at magkagulo ang tao dahil hindi nila alam kung sino ang iboboto.

Monday na naman...

2006-03-06T09:35:00.000+08:00

... life is so TAFT...

Itadakimasu!

2006-02-28T10:26:00.000+08:00

My officemates and I went to Slimmers' World along Zapote last night, twenty minutes of cycling, over an hour of lifting weights, 10 minutes of stretching, and 20 minutes of tread mill will surely make any person hungry. When i stepped out of the said gym i was craving for Japanese food and there was only one place that will certainly satisfy my hunger for Japanese food, so I hurriedly got in a jeep and went to Festival Supermall (near Alabang Exit).

It was already 9PM and time was running out, so using the last of my energy reserves I turned on hyper drive and got there just in time...

Behold! What a heavenly scene!

I quickly ordered a Katsudon (breaded pork chop) but the lady at the counter said that they have already ran out of rice (Bakero!). She told me to try their sushi instead but i am not fond of sushis, I almost ordered a Korokko (somewhat like a potato hash brown) but that wont satsify my hunger i said to myself. After spending another 2 minutes in deep meditation i finally decided to get myself an Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pizza), i also got myself a bowl of Miso Soup, and a glass of Iced Tea.

The Okonomiyaki took a while to prepare, so while waiting for the said dish i went outside and took some pictures (which you can obviously see in this blog post) of the place using my Nokia 6020 fone. After taking some shots i saw a beam of light coming from the heavens focusing on something that the chef just put on my table but it was it was so bright that i can barely see. After some time the beam slowly disappeared and there it was... My Okonomiyaki...

The okonomiyaki a few minutes before its demise

It was a sight to behold and the smell of Okonomiyaki was teasing me. I sat down in front of it and took some time to admire such a beautiful scene. I got myself a pair of choptsticks and the instant it touched the Okonomiyaki I heard chrubims singing "Allelujah! " around me. I took out a small chunk of it and slowly and carefully put it in my mouth... Tears were falling from my eyes because the taste was heavenly... It was one of those instances that makes you feel that your existence has been justified... It was like eternity lasting only a few minutes... But everything has come to an end, and after the heavenly eat-perience i packed my things and before leaving i bowed and said "DOMO" (a formal way of saying "Thank you" in japanese) to the chef.

It has been around 13 hours since i have been there, and im looking forward to eat there again...

Tonight???

Hmmm...

Why not...

The Filipino movie template

2006-02-27T16:09:00.000+08:00

May isang na na-inlab sa isang (check all that apply)
mayaman
maganda
model
amo

at may karibal na
mayamang spoiled-brat
childhood sweetheart na may tatay na pulitiko
gwapong lider ng sindikato

Pero dahil ang bida ay
mabait, gwapo at may ginintuang puso
gwapo, mabait at may ginintuang puso
may ginintuang puso, gwapo, at mabait

ay maiinlab dito ang babae. Ngunit oras na malaman ito ng karibal niya ay niya ang babae. Nang marinig ito ng bida ay sasagipin niya ang kanyang minamahal pero bago mailigtas ng bida ang babae ay makakapapatay muna ang bida ng na goons na

may arthritis at laging nauunahan
may katarata at di makita ang bida
kulang sa iodine dahil ambobobo

gamit ang isang . At bago matapos nag kaguluhan ay ay magtutuos muna sila ng pinaka-kontra bida at bago tuluyang magpatayan ay magdi-dialogue muna sabay banat ng title ng pelikula. Pag nasagip na ng bida ang babae ay pupunta sila sa kung saan sasayaw at kakanta sila kasama ng .

At sigurado na papatok na sa takilya ang palabas na ito dahil sobrang orihinal at walang dudang pinag-isipan ang plot at istorya ng pelikulang ito na kukuha ng di mabilang na awards sa
FAMAS
Metro Manila Film Awards
Oscars (astig!)

Argh! Monday again!?! O_o

2006-02-27T14:52:00.000+08:00

Tangna, lunes nanaman, i really hate Mondays... But whoever likes it? I believe no one does. Kakabato, may hangover pa ako ng pagtambay ko sa Elbi mula ng 2 araw, pag nasa Elbi kasi ako pawang bumabalik ako sa normal na sarili ko, no pesky PM's to call you every now and then, no annoying family members getting too nosy on your day to day activities, and i can sleep till i want to... in short *hinga ng malalim* Freeeeeeeeedoooooooooom!!!!

Sana araw-araw na lang ay weekend, OR, kung hindi man ay sana pwede mong i-set sa auto-pilot mode ang sarili mo at resume control ka na lang pag 5:30PM during Mon-Fri that way you have all the time to do whatever you want when you arrive at home.

Lubos-lubosin na rin, sana hindi na rin kelangang matulog at hindi rin napapagod ng tao , sayang ang tulog, kung ako papipiliin sana hindi na natutulog ang tao, imagine, you can have 2 (high-paying) jobs, or you can play games all you want until it's time to go to work again. Sana ma-bombard ako ng Gamma Rays para magkaroon ako ng super-human endurance or makainom ako ng Chemical-X na magseset to 25 and Constitution ko para mataas ang saves ko against exhaustion and pain.

Oh well, magdedeploy pa pala ako sa SG server mamaya ng ginagawa kong project...

*Bzzzt-zzzt*
Earth calling Brando!

Reality just set in

2006-02-26T11:29:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, Saturday, I went to my usual retreat house in Los Baños, Laguna to relax and take my mind off of work. I had 2 jeepney rides and it took me around 90 minutes to reach my destination which is the UPLB campus. My college and buddies and I usually get together during weekends, we usually play network games or have a bottle of beer or two while talking about life and stuff. Shortly after arriving a buddy of mine arrived with his brand new Toyota Fortuner that costs around P 1.xM, i was like...

"WHOAH!"

Wow, where the hell did he get all that money? After asking around he got it from working on some of his "sidelines" which usually revolves around offshore projects in the US-of-A. This guy is just as old as me, and both of us are working on the same field, but while im poor as a rat this one is filthy rich. I suddenly found myself asking this question...

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS I DOING DURING THE PAST 5 YEARS?"

The answer?

"GOOFING AROUND"

I wasn't serious in life for the past oh-so-how-many-years. I never strived to be better and always got contented with mediocrity, i never exerted extra effort that could have catapulted me into success, i always ranted and whined whenever i encounter adversary, i was never a fighter and always giving up in the middle of something. So after much reflection (with the help of 3 San Mig's) I vowed to myself that i should finally start striving for better things, i should start working for excellence now, I should set a definite goal now, I should start working my ass off and get rid off of my "rant now, work later" attitude. I can do this... The biggest adversary is just...

"ME, NOTHING BUT MYSELF"

Time for some serious change...

Dota v.6.28 is out!

2006-02-24T21:45:00.000+08:00

New game loading screen

Finally, after the long wait a new version is out!

You can find the changelog here

Pride "Unbreakable" Open weight GP fight card

2006-02-23T19:04:00.000+08:00

Fight Cards

Josh "Baby Face Assasin" Barnett vs Kazuhiro Nakamura

Quentin "Rampage" Jackson vs Dong Sik Yoon

Jon Olav Einemo vs Fabricio Werdum

Pedro "The Rock" Rizzo vs Roman Zentsov

Sergei Kharitonov vs Alistair "Demolition Man" Overeem

Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs Mark "The Hammer" Coleman

Mark Hunt vs Yosuke "Yosukezan" Nishijima

Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira vs Kiyoshi Tamura

Tsuyoshi "TK" Kosaka vs Mario Sperry

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! I wanna watch PrideFC!

Ano mas bakesh?

2006-02-21T21:52:00.000+08:00

Eto? (February 17 UPLB FEB FAIR)

Oh eto? (5-6 years ago ORG resort gimik)

This is what i also feel about (DOTA) leavers

2006-02-19T11:24:00.000+08:00

I host almost everynight on pinoy@Lordaeron BNet server since I got my PLDT DSL PLan 1995 last September 2005, but out of 10 games only about 3 to 4 go the distance, and out of these 3 to 4 games about 1 or 2 of these games gets finished. I downloaded the WC3 banlist from www.banlist.nl and only in a span of 2 months i already have around 150+ banned players all from the pinoy channnel. I remember my 5.28 (or was it 5.30, can't remember)days way back April 2004 (i was playing DOTA Chaos since Oct 2003, DOTA Allstars since April 2004, and wc3 bnet since 2002) where there were only a handful of pinoy DOTA players but of high skill and nobody leaves a game bcause of pride and of course everybody wants a GG*, but when the f@cking Ragnadork boys started to play DOTA sometime around v.5.84 the number of leavers exponentially increased.

Anyway, i saw these 2 flash movies from www.toonhaze.com and the author of these flash movies feels the same way i do, check em out by clicking the images or links below. YOU MUST WATCH MOVIE 1 FIRST TO UNDERSTAND THE WHOLE STORY.

DOTA Leavers movie I
(or you can DL it here DOTA Leavers I)

DOTA Leavers movie II
(or you can DL it here DOTA Leavers II)

DEATH TO DOTA LEAVERS!

LOLZ!

*GG = good game, for the (almost) complete dota lingo made by me click here

Ala lang...

2006-02-14T17:18:00.000+08:00

Valentines Day

2006-02-13T23:40:00.000+08:00

Seventeen minutes before V-day...

During the past few years i used to be with someone as early as the eve of Valentine's day. Now I am alone in front of my computer writing this blog entry, playing an online game or two, surfing a few websites about MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), PC software and hardware, and lurking on other people's blogsites.

Maybe im destined to be alone for a change, or maybe not, i dunno. But what's the big fuss anyway? Certainly im not sour-graping... Or am i? Nah... Im not, Im starting to appreciate being single. I have no choice but to get along with the fuck-ups in my life because I just got what i deserve.

There is a saying that "what comes around goes around," another saying that just popped in my mind a few milliseconds ago is "you can never have them all." Maybe you can't have a good career without sacrificing something in return, or you can't have a good relationship with someone unless you give something back, or you can't serve your purpose if something or someone keeps on pulling you from behind, etc, etc. To make it short life requires you to sacrifice something for something...

I guess i will just have to cross out Valentine's day on my calendar, not worth celebrating anyway... The one i want to celebrate V-day with "just got away..."

Anyway, I need to sleep before the clock strikes twelve...

Too late I guess...

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYBODY!!!

LOLZ!!!

Another case of extreme boredom at the office

2006-02-13T20:36:00.000+08:00

Another boring day...
Hmmm...
A pillow...

Weeeee!!!

A date with a beautiful woman

2006-02-13T10:24:00.000+08:00

My lola (Fely) and I went to Southmall last Saturday, February 11. We went there because she's off to the States in less than a month and of course she has to buy her "pasalubongs." I accompanied my lola to help her bring the things that she's going to buy because she'll be staying in the US for 6 months then she'll be off to Switzerland for another 6 months. There are a lot of reasons for her to have this vacation, her sister, Lola Meding, just had a bypass surgery in the US and she's going to visit her. Another thing is that she misses her children (2 are in Switzerland, and 2 are in the US) so much and it has been years since they have last seen each other. Also, she is a sponsor to one of my Titas' wedding that will be held in the US, and my sister, our eldest and our lola's favorite grandchild, is about 7 months pregnant and she wants to be with my sister when she gives birth.

Lunch @ Kenny Rodgers, Southmall

I accompanied my lola to the SM department store's infant wear section where we bought a ton of infant wear, mittens, panties, shirts, etc, etc (baby clothing sure is cute!) and she's always saying to the sales ladies that it is for MY baby (haha!)... My lola is about 4'10" in height, while I am around 5'7" and all the time that we were at the mall "nakaakbay ako sa kanya." She also takes these little baby-like steps, so travelling from one store to another REALLY takes some time, but it's ok because im really fond of my lola. She also told me a story that when she was young her pet name was "Twinkle" because she had twinkling eyes (haha)! Also, she told me that she used to have an American soldier as a suitor (she was 15 years old at that time she said) and when she turned him down this US Soldier angrily went back to the barracks ( a stone's throw away from her home) and emptied a magazine of bullets in the air.

On our way back home I was teasing my lola about her favorite telenovelas...

"Lola, paano na yung Gulong ng palad at Panday? Paano pag walang TFC (The Filipino Channel) hindi mo na mapapanuod yan!"

My lola laughingly said that she obliges me to watch the 2 telenovelas so when she comes back after a year i will be able to tell her what happened to Luisa and Carding, and Tristan and insert-Heart-Evangelista's-panday-name-here. Well, im planning to buy a PC TV tuner for my PC and because i have more than a hundred GBs of free space i'll be happy to record the said tv shows for her, but a TV tuner costs at least P5K (WAAAAH!).

Oh well, one thing's for sure, im going to miss my lola so much and hope she brings home A LOT of those world reknowned Swiss chocolates! YUM! YUM! YUM!

The Clan secretary...

2006-02-12T22:57:00.000+08:00

Last week I attended a family reunion on my father side, I had a chit-chat with some of my relatives and i volunteered to create a website/ blogsite dedicated for our clan (which i did). Now my father gave me a list of at least 200 people wanting me to create a family tree that spans at least 5 generations. WHAT THE FUCK!?!?! My father just doesn't know the magnitude of work that he wants me to do, he keeps on calling relatives from far flung places and everytime he puts the phone down another 50 or so people are added into the list. He said that if I didnt want to then i didnt have to volunteer in the first place, well i said that i volunteered for the website, not to make a stupid family tree that's going to make me feel SOOOO PROUD about myself and have butterflies flying around me while expecting my relatives to be ooooh sooooo happy with what i have done.

A 3-generation tree, now multiply this by 10 fold...

So now everytime a person is born to my Nth-degree cousin they'll expect that i should be so attentive and add it to the list ASAP?

HELL NO!

I-AM-NOT-A-CLAN-SECRETARY-!-!-!

	Average monthly salary (Peso)
Title	Minimum	Maximum

Software Developer	26,874	39,747
Technical Support Specialist	9,900	14,972
System Administrator	7,750	11,000
Trainer	13,302	19,223
Network Specialist	25,211	44,474
Database Administrator	12,000	17,400
Project Manager	43,888	63,157
Consultant	31,250	40,000
Operations Manager	32,533	56,063
Supervisor	25,000	35,000

Programming	18,967	29,237
Analysis	26,947	35,846
Java	22,813	34,192
Structured Query Language (SQL)	37,025	53,173
Administration	14,694	22,393
Visual Basic	17,570	27,155
Oracle	21,423	38,003
C	22,580	37,695
C#	38,639	59,583
UNIX	28,875	46,812
BRANDO	60,000	STACK OVERFLOW