SIMPLY COMPLICATED

Singapore Second Time Around

2009-10-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

Last September 21 to 26, 2009, I went back to Singapore for the second time around, of course, for business. I attended a VMware training. Unfortunately, because I already visited most of the tourists sites in Singapore when I was there last year, I didn't have the urge to go around and visit these places again. Luckily, it was F1-Race week where the race was held on a street, forgot the name, near the Esplanade Theatre. Before I left for Manila for my connecting flight to Cebu, Aloha and her partner-in-crime, Bryan, accompanied me to Suntec City, Marina Mall and Mustafa Mall for a last minute laag and a little shopping for pasalubong.

If you noticed, I finally got my EHEADS concert t-shirt. Thanks to one of my officemates who went to Manila couple of months after their concert, I was able to get a hold of one. Luckily, this design is still available since all of the other shirt designs were not printed anymore. :D

Anyway, this is the lovely couple who were my guides at Singapore. Thanks guys.

But before I arrived at Singapore, I got to visit my younger brother at the Navy training camp in Fort Bonifacio. Yes, he is trying his luck to be a Navy officer. Thanks to my Manila contact, of course, the ever reliable Epoy, we got there and we had huge pizza at Market, Market Taguig. I admit, I miss my bugalbugalon na igsoon.

When I arrived in Manila on Sept 26, 2009, it was already raining cats and dogs. I guess, even mice and rats were included. I was told that most of the flights, mostly domestic, were already cancelled. Luckily, our flight for Cebu wasn't included but we still waited until 12 midnight! It was already Sunday. My flight was supposedly at 6 PM. But considering all the other flights for CDO, Davao and other provinces which got cancelled, I was still very lucky. We were. Those who's flights were cancelled were force to sleep in the Airport since the flood was already waist deep near the Airport. I was told by my GF back at Cebu that the news reported that some areas in Manila were already up the 2nd floor of the houses.
Anyway, I got home at around 3 AM, on Sept. 27, 2009 and was dead tired due to the flights. I have no idea the people in Marikina, Rizal and areas near Manila were really devasted by the typhoon. Nevertheless, I know that we will be back on our feet before we know it. Pinoy gud ta!

I'm Back

2009-09-05T01:30:00.000-07:00

Wheww! After a couple of months not being able to blog about anything, I'm back and hopefully, for good. I was just so busy with some urgent IT projects and personal matters which I will write about later on, that took me off the air. :(

Anyway, I'll try to make it a point to write about something at least twice a month so that I could also try to improve my writing skills. :D

That's it, I'm back!

Here we go again!

2009-05-29T05:26:00.000-07:00

Since last week, the internet has been the source of most if not all of the Katrina Halili-Hayden Kho sex video including an erotic dance clip where both enjoyed being on cam. Well, knowing these folks are celebrities, people got into a frenzy and tried to download and get a copy of the videos including other "sex videos" from Hayden's "secret" collection of home-made videos.

Things were just starting to heat up. Katrina then appeared on news and tried to sue Hayden for spreading the videos. She was telling everybody that she didn't know that they're supposedly intimate moment was campured on film, hmmmm... file to be exact. Then senators, managers, PRC and other personalities rush to her aid to help her, etc...

I just don't get it. I mean, these "scandals" have been around since the 90's and it is just now that the government is realizing that we need LAWS to protect our women. The main point is why NOW?! Why not BEFORE?!

For me, these government officials are just showing off for the public and trying to gain popularity since this time, the scandal involves high profile people and this is a hot issue. In our terms, nagpaka-HERO!!! nagpapalapad ng papil!

Don't get me wrong, it is not wrong to help but why are they just helping these celebrities when in fact there were several, hundreds of video scandals out there that involves ordinary people. In fact, we regularly hear news about women being black mailed by their perverted boyfriends for videos they took while having sex. tsk3x.

I just hope people see through all these bullsh*t and realize the real intentions of these public officials.

First Ever Live Gig

2009-04-30T05:18:00.000-07:00

I just got back from our usual band practice and our lead vocals said we got a gig on THE OUTPOST this coming May 7 Thursday. Holy Crap! I got nervous and kinda got the feeling that I just embarrass myself on stage. We'll, it's not totally a gig. Its more of like an audition. :D But that would still be an on stage performance none the less. My God, I really got be good with the my drums skills. The guys are just dead serious with this and for me it is just a hobby. Tsk3x. I got to practice some more. My band mate said we are going to play 3-4 songs. We'll, we've been practicing our original songs for almost a year now, so it might be just ok but knowing myself, the stage fright might consume me and I'll lose my concentration and the song goes bad and the crowd would boo us. AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Just wish me luck. Hopefully, we'll do just fine. Cross my fingers. :D

By the way, I'm sorry I wasn't able to successfully load the MP3 copy our song. I'll try to find another way later.

Till here!

Holy Week Escapade

2009-04-15T05:07:00.000-07:00

Here in the Philippines, as we all know, religiously observes the Holy Week. Well, most of the folks here does bisita iglesia, stations of the cross and "sugat" while others spent the time off going to beaches and relaxing. I did both.

I spent most of my time with my family on Maundy Thursday til Good Friday. I did fasting to the extent that I already had headaches for not eating anything and sleeping almost 10-12 hours a day. I wouldn't advise anyone to do that. This is because, I'm not really the type of person who wants to do nothing and sleep all day because when that happens, 80% of the time, I get headaches and I would feel very very tired the rest of the day. So, instead, I'd rather do other stuffs like cleaning the house than just be a couch potato.

Anyway, on Black Saturday, I went to Iligan to meet up with my GF and it was my first cross-province boat ride since I was a kid. I think my last was when I was 2 or 3 years old. Can you imagine that?! Well, the boat ride didn't really went smoothly. My ride, a Cokaliong ship going to Iligan was cancelled at the last minute! Well, actually 2 days before the scheduled trip but since I was not able to place my contact number on the ticket, they, the shipping folks, were not able to inform me days before the supposedly scheduled trip. So I never had the chance to booked another trip to Iligan and I was just shocked and kinda amused of what was happening. I was readlly disappointed because I was really excited about my first ever boat ride in years to just be informed that the captain and crew stayed in the province until the holy week was over! Good thing though, Gothong Southern and Cebu Ferries had trips to Cagayan de Oro and I quickly bought a ticket after knowing it. We set sailed at 8 PM and we arrived in CDO the next day but I had problems sleeping while on the trip. You know, sea sickness, but good thing though, I manage an hour or so of sleep! Tsk3x. My GF told me there were buses in Cagayan going to Iligan every 10 minutes so I took one going to Iligan immediately after landing in CDO.

After the 1 and half hour bus ride, we met up in Iligan and she toured me around her home town. Too bad thought we didn't have much time to go the scenic places in Iligan like the Maria Cristina falls. Well, the next day, we went back to Cagayan because we got tickets on a flight back to Cebu. We really had a hard time looking for a place to stay in CDO since there really few hotels near their national high way. Even near Gaisano and Limkitkai malls were supposedly on a very busy part of the city. After asking a Chowking waiter, we were told that hotels are abundant in the Divisoria area. Sure enough, we found a good place to stay but unfortunately, we wasted most of our day (AGAIN!!!) looking for a good hotel. tsk3x :(. Wala nami mahems. tsk3x.

Anyway, the next day, we already took our PAL express filght back to Cebu and I was really surprised that the flight back to Cebu took only 20-25 minutes!!! I was expecting 50 minutes to 1 hour but 25 minutes! Wow! The boat ride even lasted for 10 hours but 25 minutes on air?! Wow! Well, of course, those trips can't be compared because sea, air, I know, I know. :D

Anyway, that was my wacky Cebu-CDO-Iligan-CDO-Cebu trip over the Holy Week and I really learned a very very valuable lesson on going on vacations. PLAN, PLAN, PLAN!!! Never underestimate WIKIMAPIA!

2nd Studio Recording

2009-04-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Me and my band just completed recording one of our songs last March 28, 2009 at The Backyard recording studio in Lahug and it was good, at least for us. The song was titled "Coming back to you"

For those who didn't know, I'm in a band with some of my colleagues in the office and we've been jamming for a little over 2 years now. We've started jamming last 2006 for our Christmas party presentation and we've been having sessions ever since. Though we presented a more mainstream / pop songs at our party, we are more inclined to grunge / alternative rock type of music.

Regarding the song we recorded, it was heavily inspired by Nirvana. Very simple notes but very heavy. The technician even over-dubbed the guitars and vocals to make it "heavier". It was not the first song we recorded though. We also had a song recorded last year but it was not really clean so to speak. I had miscues and the whole recording didn't go smoothly as we expected. At least now, we were able to improve and learned from our mistakes from our first recording. I'll try to post a portion or even a copy of the song later on. I still have to rip it from the CD.

If you're going to ask me for what is the name of our band, unfortunately, we've been debating over it for almost a year now and we still haven't come up with a final decision. I guess, that's the most common problem with bands that are starting up, everybody has his own list of names for his band, tsk3x.

Anyway, that's all for now. Till next time :D

Philippine's FAB FOUR

2009-04-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

I did most of my work today listening to the Eraserheads' songs from their 2008 reunion concert . This was the 1st part of their much awaited concert where in Ely had a mild heart attack and the gig was cut short because of this. Hopefully, I can get a hold of the "Final Set" songs and also, an Eheads shirt. Wow, I can't wait to have one of those shirts especially the same one Raimund wore on stage.

While listening to the songs, I thought, it is such a pity the "Philippine's Fab Four" had to go their seperate ways. They just make really good music together that it is even inappropriate to call it "just songs". How'd I wish they're still the Eheads. I know deep inside every Eheads fan like me wishes that their reunion concert wouldn't be the last and the reunion won't just be a "concert".

But as the old saying goes, everything has an end. It was bound to happen. At least they left us with unforgetable OPM classics like "Toyang", "Overdrive","Pare Ko","Trip to Jerusalem" to name a few and my favorite "Alapaap". I know the Eheads will live forever in every Filipino heart. EHEADS FOREVER!!!

Now, to get a hold of that shirt :D

April Fool's Day

2009-04-01T04:28:00.000-07:00

April 1. April Fool's day. hmmm...I was wasn't tricked by anybody this day but anyway, everybody was really busy in the office because of the Conficker virus that was set to activate today, April 1. The net is so full of reports about what is conficker and what are it's effects to our systems.

For those who are not into security or who are just "computer users" per say, Conficker is worm that caused a major outbreak November of 2008 and was really pesky in a way that it tries to login to other network resources using the usernames it learned from infected machines. This caused so many users, especially those using Active Directory, lock-outs because the worm brutally tries to access shares and servers using wrong passwords. The unique part though is that the worm evolves and kinda mutated to a smarter, peskier virus. It took weeks for the likes of Symantec and Trendmicro to catch and kill the worm.

Now, the said new version of it goes beyond damaging your system but it is said that it would also collect information from your desktop such as passwords, pins and credit card numbers. It is said that a central server will be sending instructions to the passive worm on your computer to activate it and start collecting information and of course, wrecking havoc.

People, especially IT, got crazy since last week trying to improve firewalls, anti-virus, malware removers to prepare for this "invasion". I myself, spent most of my time last week trying to patch all the Windows servers we have as well as our desktops.

Though there were reports that the author of this conficker virus may not exactly do what we and the whole IT world expects him to do, we were still on our toes. Come to think of it, if the entire planet knows that you're going to rob their accounts and ruin their desktops, and probably even, has an entire squadron of anti-hacking team waiting eagerly to trace you out for that $250,000.00 bounty on your head, would you still stick to the plan? Or would you rather wait for a day or so until the heat cools down?

I'm just thinking, he might just be fooling everybody. Hey, it's April Fools day. :D

Hello World!

2009-03-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

There's that funny feeling that I'm going to regret this to later on but what the heck, I now have a blog and I might as well make the best of it. :D

Actually, I just finished reading my bestpals (ressie's and jesslee's) blogs and I was kinda impress bout all their posts and things they've shouted out to everyone. I got kinda "envy" of what they were doing and poof! here I am, making my first post on my blog. I had a blog before on multiply but I haven't visited the site for a long time and it was one of my very, hmmm...how do I describe it....hmmm....,"dark" moments of my life, so I don't want to go back and clean it up.

Anyway, this site is still very bare and raw and I'll probably make improvements later on. Just like what my first program had before while I was in college, "HELLO WORLD" and welcome to my world. :D