Monday, November 27, 2006
Sign That You're Getting Old #607
Sign That You're Getting Old #607
After my trip to my doctor, Dra. Esposo, I dropped by the local drug store and bought myself a box of Vascor 5mg tablets and several Claritin pills. I also got myself a Mercury Drug Suki Card since I've been buying from them regularly. Yes, I am getting old.
6:07 PM
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Finally!
Finally!
1. I am free of credit card debt finally! I paid it all in full using my bank's online banking facility, which I find really convenient.
2. After more than a month in the making, PLDT finally arrived at my door and installed the landline I applied for in the "office room". What's great is they gave me a landline number that's easy to memorize. Now I need to get a fax machine to go along with that.
3. It's hard coordinating between telcos and your technical team if you're not much of a technical person. So when I finally managed to have them talk to each other on the phone through a conference call, I was so relieved. Oh! And I now know where to download that CIMD2 thing!
4. Remember the five pounds I gained because of my eating spree in Singapore? It's gone! The secret - going back to my usual low-fat, low-salt, no-meat, no-fried diet. You like?
I know these are just small things, but I think we all have to learn to celebrate life's achievements no matter what size it may be.
Cheers!
7:24 PM
Monday, November 20, 2006
Discovery for the day
Discovery of the Day
In my quest to find a good signal to test Smart, as they have intermittent coverage in the area where I live, I discovered a good place where I can work - Starbucks Temple Drive.
It's in front of the Mormon church near White Plains and it offers a very relaxing view of the Marikina-Pasig Valley. While working, you can enjoy a cup of your favorite Toffee Nut Latte without the hassle of looking for parking. They have more than adequate space at the basement. Two levels, to be exact. The only downside is they don't have WiFi yet and there's no 3G signal (for Globe) to go online. Still, it's a good place to lounge around in the afternoon.
9:34 PM
Sunday, November 19, 2006
On Supermouse, Greetings and Transformers
SuperMouse
Thanks to Lawrence for getting me a Wireless Mighty Mouse. It's cheaper by P500! It could've been way cheaper if we told him earlier. Of course, in true Jovan tradition of naming properties, it is now called "Roborat" (Ilabas mo ang iyong lawit).
Mean It When You Say It
I dropped by Toy Kingdom in SM Megamall yesterday and I was surprised that they've expanded and took up the space of what used to be Surplus Shop. It's good. A lot of the nice Justice League and Batman toys are there along with other nice goodies.
The experience would have been great except for their pesky sales people, who just shout out "Hi Sir! Welcome to Toy Kingdom!" out of their noses. It was obviously fake - something that you know they were told to do and that's it. It was insulting in a way. I mean, I'd rather not be greeted if it was like that. I think top management failed to tell them the reason why they should greet people because it would've been different if they knew.
Transformers in Toy Kingdom
And also in the same Toy Kingdom incident, I was looking at the Transformers display and this sales person approached me and said "'Yan Transformers, sir!, points at the illustrations on the box and adds "nagta-transform."
Touche!
10:08 PM
Saturday, November 18, 2006
The Real DSL Score
The Real DSL Score
I just got hooked up to BayanTel's fastest SkyDSL service (advertised in their site at 2 MBPS) so I was excited to find out how it compares to PLDT DSL's 1.2 MBps service.
I used SpeedTest.net to test both accounts, and the country I chose was Singapore.
So want to know what the results are? Here it is:
Bayantel:
PLDT:
I tried pinging Yahoo using both connections and I was getting 350+ms latency on BayanTel compared to 250+ms on PLDT. The fact that my PLDT DSL connection is hooked up on a wireless router located in another room makes this data pretty interesting.
Hmmmmm. Maybe BayanTel's Satisfaction Guarantee will be put to the test.
1:40 PM
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Unang Bili
Unang Bili
 Birkenstocks Milano Black Leather ang una kong binili sa una kong sweldo sa ABS-CBN Interactive. Kaya't karapat-dapat na sa una kong sweldo sa Acme Mobile sandalyas din ang bilhin ko. Kung may lohika man 'yan, wala akong pakialam. Hehehehe!
Mga katoto, ikinaliligod kong ipakita sa inyo ang una kong binili sa unang sweldo ko sa kumpanya ko ngayon - ang aking Crocs.
May ilang linggo ko na ring hinahanap ang kulay na ito sa aking size. Tinahak ko na ang Rustan's Makati, Toby's Glorietta at Planet Sports pero nabigo ako sa kanila. Buti na lang at nakita naming nakadisplay ito sa Nothing But Water. Una, akala ko'y mga pambabaeng modelo lang ang binebenta nila. Laking tuwa ko noong nalaman kong meron silang item sa size ko!
In true shoe buying tradition, isinuot ko na pagkabili ko at totoo ngang malambot at kumportable. Sulit nga! Ngayon may bago na akong sapatos sandalyas pagpasok ko sa opisina (kahit naka-pajama pa ako)!
11:53 PM
Friday, November 10, 2006
The Last Check
The Last Check
With great power comes great responsibility. That's Peter Parker's wisdom and also the last line in the Spider-Man movie. You really have to hand it to these superheroes when they make something so complex in life seem so simple.
With that, I announce that I'll be finally getting my last check from my dear old ex-company next Wednesday. It's not in the six-figure range I was hoping it would be, but it's cool nonetheless.
Now what to do with it is the question. I can easily blow it all off in a bike shop with the 2007 Shimano XTR gruppo or a trip to Mickey's or Autoline, but surprisingly I don't want to do that. In my mind I'm thinking more of paying off my outstanding credit card debt, give some cash to support my family, buy some clothes so I can retire my old ones, and then keep the rest in my savings account.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I think this is a milestone in my life. It may not be full blown yet but I think I have matured.
This is how I welcome my thirties.
1:51 PM
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Blackie's Return
Blackie's Return
 I just got a text a few minutes ago from the guys at the Apple Store in the Power Plant, and they said that Blackie's ready for pick-up! Yeahbah! So tomorrow's definitely a trip to Rockwell to get it.
After a couple of weeks delay, I can finally set it up and use it for work. I think a weekday Tagaytay trip is in order with it being wireless and all. Hehehehe! Anyone want to join my pagliliwaliw?
9:45 PM
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Check! Check! Check!
Check! Check! Check!
I finally did all the chores that I was supposed to do yesterday and more. I was able to open a checking account, deposit the check from Rico to my ATM account, pay e-Census for the marriage and birth certificate requests at Equitable, pay the lawyers with a check from my new checkbook, pay the PLDT service connection fee, buy a Smart SIM and P500 prepaid credits, create the UKL forms for all our initial content offering, and create the functionality checklist document per keyword on our upcoming mobile service. Whew! And yes, I want fries with that.
9:20 PM
Monday, November 06, 2006
Retreat
Retreat
I'm back.
Now I realized that chores shouldn't be done on a Monday, especially if it's the first Monday of the month. Damn.
First was Metrobank. I figured it would just be an easy thing to open a checking account and deposit a check, but when I got there the parking was full.
OK, so I cancelled it. I moved it to another day. Tomorrow perhaps. It's near the house anyway.
Next was PLDT to pay for the service connection fee. I drove to the one in East Avenue at the back of the City Hall. When I got there, the parking was worse than Metrobank's. From the office at the corner, the cars were all lined up till Sulo Hotel.
So I took plan B - SM City North EDSA. I parked my car at the first level of the carpark, went down to the PLDT office at the ground floor, took a number from the guard and waited for my turn. Lo and behold! In true PLDT tradition, just when there were only seven people to go before my number is called, they went offline. Bummer.
I never bothered getting the Smart prepaid SIM card and credits for the testing. To hell with it! I'll just do that tomorrow, like everything else.
Licking my wounds, I blog.
1:20 PM
Chores Day
Chores Day
Today is chores day. The agenda includes a trip to a PLDT office (probably along East Avenue or SM City North EDSA) to pay for the phone line connection fee of about P500 and a trip to Metrobank in Katipunan to deposit the P288 check from Rico. I might also be opening a checking account while I'm there.
As for work, I am finished revising the SD based from the telco's comments and emailed it to our tech person for evaluation before I submit it for processing and routing. In the afternoon, I'm going to do my usual bugging them without being too annoying emails.
The integration process is taking slow, but according to the guys this has been the fastest it has ever been. I guess I should be thankful of that.
So this is it for now. Maybe I'll have something more to write later.
UPDATE: As soon as I posted this, an email from one of the telcos announced the pretty big news - the URL's have been defined and now we can start testing. Great!
11:00 AM
Friday, November 03, 2006
Missing Singapore
Although I have only been there for only five days, I miss Singapore. I miss the daily train adventures, the cleanliness of the streets, the orderliness of almost everything, and most especially the food.
In my quest to relive the memories which caused me to gain five pounds, I now crave for Kopiroti's Tea Tarik and Wan Chai's Chicken Rice. Although these pale in comparison to the ones in the hawker stalls (Mr. Teh Tarik in Telok Ayer Street and my suking Chicken Rice stall in Tekka Market), I'm thankful that at least they're available here. Now I'm thinking of taking a trip to Lolo Mao in The Podium and to Banana Leaf Curry House in the Power Plant for more Singaporean food.
I guess if I had stayed for a couple more days, I would've had my fill of the country. I wasn't able to go around that much and immerse myself entirely.
I know that was only a few weeks ago, but I'm looking forward to my next trip there in three or four months. And maybe they'd send me to Bangkok to check out the operations there. Cool!
2:09 PM
Thursday, November 02, 2006
longanisa v2.0
Yup, this is what I did over the holiday. It started this morning when I was just doodling with Photoshop. I figured I can probably do some coding.
Being an HTML illiterate that I am, I opened FrontPage instead of Notepad. My colleagues would cringe at the very idea of me doing this. What a big scandal! Someone who came from online is using FrontPage! Dreamweaver would've been acceptable. Well, who cares about the long complex codes this software generates? Everyone is running on broadband anyway! Hehehehe!
And so here it is. It's up - longanisa v2.0.
As you can see, it's a bit Mac-inspired. Probably my mind is preparing itself for the return of Blackie, my new white MacBook (which is now with Apple because of hardware problems).
So, what do you guys think?
1:22 AM
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