Bababa ba?

Aya passed by the house this morning.

I saw Caloy by the church this evening.

Oh gulay, I miss my UP friends.

(nasaan na kayo? :p)

It feels like I’m on dial-up all over again. :p

Taiwan quake disrupts RP Internet, telephone connections.

The recent earthquake in Taiwan destroyed major submarine cables linking the Philippines to the Net, resulting in Internet downtime and lag.

AAAAAARGGGHHH.

My sister, Mox, was rushed to St. Luke’s Medical Center at 1am this morning. They brought her to the operating room at around 5:30am.

By 7am she gave birth…
Read the rest of this entry »

Onti na lang, Pasko na!

Oo, hindi nga naman talaga kaarawan ni Kuya Jess ang December 25, pero, at least diba, kahit papaano may ginugunita tayo. At least ina-alaala natin ang fact na ipinanganak Siya.

Pero yun nga, sana hindi malimutan ang tunay na diwa ng Pasko. Ang Pasko ay hindi puro regalo, puro punong pampasko (Christmas tree), ilaw pampasko, o Santa Clause. Ang Pasko ay ang pag-gunita na ipinanganak si Hesus, ang ating tagapag-ligtas. ^_^

MALIGAYANG PASKO SA INYONG LAHAT!

Guess what I picked up when I was in Makati this morning…
Read the rest of this entry »

People in the house have been becoming anti-social due to their respective mp3 players. With earphones plugged in their ears, Mom, Dad, and my siblings weren’t speaking to each other. It’s as if they had their own worlds. :p

My initial plan to end this anti-social behavior was to buy a set of small speakers for our players. But, yesterday, when I checked in some appliance stores in the mall, I saw that these speakers’ costs ranged from P500-P20,000! Due to the lack of funds, I scrapped the idea of buying some.

What I thought of next is to buy an audio cable with a baby jack on one end (you know, them cables you use to connect your DVD players to your TV but has a baby jack on the other end instead). Our DVD component at home was rotting away in our living room ever since we discovered the existence of mp3 players, so I thought that plugging them into our component there would be nice.

I found one of them cable thingies in SM North’s Department store’s hardware section. It only cost me P42.75. Hahaha.

So right now, my iPod’s plugged in our component at home, and everyone’s enjoying the music while at the same time, bonding and speaking to each other (FINALLY! No more Mom and Dad with earphones shouting at the top of their lungs.). Hehehe. ^_^

Christmas is just around the corner, and a lot of people are making their Christmas wish-lists. One morning, Mom asked me and my siblings what we wanted for Christmas. She told us we could wish from the simplest gifts, to the downright impossible ones.

Turns out she was compiling our answers for her to blog about it.

Here’s the final product. (hehehehe) Enjoy!

Oo, Jingo, ikaw. Hahaha.

We all know that he’s weird, abnormal even, but yes, he can be very kuya-like when he feels like it.

The night before getting my license, I asked Jingo if he would let me drive his car for a while around the village, so I could “review” before the actual LTO practical test. Well, after having read/heard what happened to Vince, I felt that I would need to get some practice before the practical exam. He thought about it for a while, and with a worried look on his face (and after the deal that if I scratch his car, Mom would buy him a new one :p), he agreed.

We dropped off his mother-in-law in her house in a village along Congressional Avenue. After dropping her off, he put me behind the wheel. He gave me a lecture on how to start the car, how to get it moving, and how to keep it moving.

Since I was new to driving a gasoline powered car (I drove a diesel powered car in driving school) I was very nervous. I started the car, shifted to gear 1, and alas, the car stalled. :p

He gave me another lecture on how to get the car moving. He explained that driving a gasoline powered car would be very different compared to driving a diesel powered car.

So I started the car, got it going, and was able to keep it going. ^_^

He took over the wheel when we reached the gates. :p

After doing some errands in Philcoa, Jingo brought the car to CP Garcia Avenue and we exchanged seats. He made me drive from the lengths of CP Garcia, up to Maginhawa Street, giving me lectures and tips on the way.

The next day, Mom and I went to Jingo’s house, because we needed his car for the actual driving practical examination (the LTO people won’t let us use their sedan!!! Grr.). He drove us to LTO. By the second gate in LTO, we exchanged seats, and I started to drive.

With him in the passenger seat, I was less nervous. Even if I was already taking the practical examination, he was giving me tips and lectures. Actually if he wasn’t there I could’ve flunked the exam. :p Thanks to him, I passed the exam! ^_^

That evening, after the anticipated Simbang Gabi, he let me drive again. He kept on giving me tips and making kulit as we drove along Mayaman and Maginhawa Streets.

If it wasn’t for him, the succeeding photo would be non-existent.

So what’s next for us, dear big brother? Ano susunod mong ituturo sa akin? Sayang hindi ko nagasgas kotse mo, hindi ka tuloy bibilhan ng bago.

Statistically, if given the right amount of time, things are bound to happen.

Just give me an infinite amount of time, and I will win the P29,000,000 in the lottery. ^_^

Stat majors talaga oh, hahaha.

(asa BA, asa…)

Mom and I went to LTO at around 9 this morning to finally get my Non-Professional Driver’s License. We got out at around 4pm. Bleh. Ang tagal.

When we got to LTO’s gates, around 4 or 5 men rushe towards us and started telling us “where to go.”

Man 1: Student’s po? Dun po!
Man 2: Non-pro? Sa kabila po!
Man 3: Drug test? Tawid po muna tayo.
Man 4: Renewal po sa kabilang building!

Rather than being helpful, they were the cause of stress. We felt very harassed by their pagmamarunong. We knew where to go, pero nagmamarunong yung mga manong na akala nila alam nila kung saan kami pupunta, so, ayun, nainis kami.

People inside LTO were relatively friendly. Well, except for the examiners (both the written and practical examiners). Ang susungit!

Examiner: (In a very very loud voice) KUNG HINDI PA KAYO CONFIDENT NA PAPASA KAYO SA TEST NA ITO LUMABAS LANG MUNA KAYO AT MAGREVIEW! KUNG BUMAGSAK KAYO ONE MONTH KAYONG HINDI BIBIGYAN NG LISENSYA. KAYA LUMABAS NA KAYO, NGAYON NA!

And for the practical examiner…

Ako:(points to the red-plated blue sedan in the area)Boss, baka naman pwedeng yung kotseng yun na lang yung ipangtest niyo. Hindi rin naman po kasi ako magmamaneho ng owner-type. Mukhang matatagalan pa kasi yung kotse namin eh.

Si Manong:HINDI PWEDE! Yung kotseng ‘yan, PRIVATE yan, hindi pinangtetest. Yung owner kasi, GOVERNMENT-owned, kaya yun yung pinapagamit namin.

Hindi na ako umalma, kasi darating din naman yung kotse, so, pinabayaan ko na siya.

I chose not to drive the owner-type jeep dahil nabasa ko yung nangyari kay Vince.

Pero, ang bobo eh. Sabi niya yung sedan daw ay PRIVATE car. But red plates are GOVERNMENT cars!!! And the sedan was red plated! And yung jeep daw, GOVERNMENT-owned. Eh green plate siya eh!

So I texted Angelo, my brother, for help since he is the one who was to bring a car for me to drive. Sabi niya sa akin na mali raw yung sinasabi nung manong sa LTO. Ang dapat daw pinangte-test ay GOVERNMENT car, hindi yung PRIVATE. May kakilala raw siya sa LTO na nagsabi ng ganun. Kaya ayun nga, ang stupid.

So Mom and I went up to the examiner again to ask if I could just drive the sedan. Again he said NO, but this time giving a different reason.

Si Manong:HINDI PO TALAGA PWEDE! Kasi sa boss namin yung kotseng iyan, at wala sa akin yung susi.

Well that was weird. Kanino ba talaga yung kotse? Kaya ba niya tinawag na PRIVATE yung kotse dahil “privately” used ng boss niya? Parang last week lang pinange-exam nila ng mga magmamaneho yung kotseng yun ah (read Vince’s entry).

So we went to Jingo’s house to get the car. He drove us to LTO, and when we arrived by the second gate, the Manong said that I could start driving from there for my test.

I nailed it. Hahaha. That was, very very easy. :p

I passed the written and practical exam with flying colors. The next thing to do was to pay up and wait for my license.

It took like forever for them to call me to pay. It took them a longer time to “release” my license.

Babae sa bintana labing-apat: Balikan niyo na lang po bukas yung lisensya niyo. Magfo-four o clock na po kasi eh, patapos na ang office hours.

(Sa loob-loob ko: Patience, BA, patience.)

Pero… HASSLE!!! Nakakapagod din ang pabalik-balik. Una dahil naabutan namin yung lunch break nila, pinaalis muna kami tapos balik ng 1pm. Tapos ngayon pinaalis kami tapos ipapabalik pa sa susunod na araw. Oh well.

The experience was err, ewan. Nakakainis yung mga manong sa labas. The pilahan was bonding between me and Mom. :p The written exam was fun (I got to stand up and look at the symboooooools and siiiiiiigns). The practical examiner was nuts. The license release was… grrr. Oh well. Bahala na. At least pumasa talaga ako ng legal at walang daya.

Wow. Lumabas na pala ang ikalawang album ng Sound. Nahuhuli na ako sa music scene. XD

It’s just weird that Sound is one of the most under-appreciated bands in this era. Hahaha. Pero yung nga, as Ade has written, some people just can’t listen to jazz.

I stumbled upon this blog that reviews different albums. He gave Sound’s Di na Natuto an effin C+!

Dodo Bird Wrote: I still prefer the Gary V version. Sometimes, in making a cover, and trying too much to make a cover sound your own, you lose what made the song so good in the first place. Kamikazee and Sugarfree did their covers in their style and made it work. Sound didn’t.

Gusto ko sana tumanggi, kasi talaga, para sa akin, it worked. Pero, yun nga, pabayaan na lang natin. Bawat tao may sariling taste. Wag nang magpatayan na sinasabing, “my choice of music is more superior compared to yours!”

Last night was Lauan’s Christmas party (with heavily subsidized food! YEA!). Had fun. Enjoyed the Yankee swap (aka exchange gift na kumplikado). I got the book that I was planning to buy. ^_^

Fourteen Love Stories
Edited by Jose Dalisay Jr and Angelo R. Lacuesta.

“It’s a steal,” Paul, the giver of the gift said. Been meaning to buy this book for a long time now. Three out of the fourteen stories we took up in CW10 class.

We had somekindofan after-party afterwards (teka, tama ba yun? Basta ganun! Hahaha). Drinks were barely touched. It was more of a getting-to-know-your-lovestories-and-other-stuff bonding rather than get-drunk-and-pass-out-on-the-floor bonding. Hehehe. It was even somekindofa professional bonding session as Nikko and Jaime were talking to me about career options in the statistical path. :p

We didn’t sleep, hahaha. When 4:30 came, we went straight to the nearest church for the Simbang Gabi. We then had breakfast at McDonald’s Katipunan, and then we all went home. So wala talagang tulog except dun sa homily nung pari. ;p

The night was very remniscent of the late night Farm Camp bondings. Kung nandun ka lang talaga, gets mo ako. The love stories, the chismis, etsetera, etsetera.

Robby: (galit na galit) Wag mong iisipin na every year ganito KAPANGIT ang lantern parade ng UP ha.

That was what greeted me nung papunta ako sa Stat booth sa tapat ng Malcolm Hall. Nang marinig ko yun, naramdaman kong magiging mali ang gabing ito.

Still in a state of shock.

Kung nandun lang kayo kanina sa tapat ng Malcolm…

Akala ko talaga may nagbabarilan na sa mga putok at mga wang-wang na naririnig ko. Winasak daw ng mga rallyista yung pinto ng Malcolm, kaya may putok na tunog. Na-approve na daw kasi yung ToFI, kaya sumugod na sila.

Natakot kami nung una. Kasi magulo na. Eh sakto pang tapat ng Malcolm yung Stat booth. Wah.

Hindi pa talaga nila tinuloy ang lantern parade. BADTRIP.

UPDATE: Wala raw sa Malcolm Hall kanina yung BOR. So nasaan sila?

Bukas

Takbuhan ng mga hubad
Picket against ToFI
Lantern Parade

Seeya!

Dad wanted an mp3 player for Christmas (and for his birthday too!), so last week he granted his own wish.

He told me that an iPod was too expensive, so he bought himself an Onida Japan 256mb mp3 player at around P2000++ ($40++)

The Cheapo Onida Japan mp3 Player.
It was remniscent of my old mp3 player. The menu felt very very familiar (ROOT, FOLDER, etc, hehehe). It felt like a first-generation iPod nano due to it’s shape and screen (although it felt heavier, and, err, solid-er).

Besides playing mp1, mp2, mp3, wma music files, the player actually played/showed mp4, wmv, gif and jpeg files! Although such a feature was not a big plus due to it’s memory. I mean, how can you stick a decent video in such a small space? Another thing, the picture viewer was very very very slow in showing the pictures (more especially the large ones.) So, yeah, you wouldn’t want to stick your pictures in there.

Transferring music/video/picture files were just like the first flash based mp3 players: drag and drop. So, no problem here. ;)

Here comes the weird part: it’s battery. We charged the unit for around 4 hours (initial charge and everyday charging was to be around 3-4 hours, said the manual), and Dad immediately plugged it to his ears. :p The next day, Dad told me that although the sound quality was wonderful, battery life wasn’t. Turned out it conked out in the morning. Dad was holding a battery-less, powerless mp3 player. :p So we charged it again. After 4 hours, we unplugged the unit. The battery-bar on the upper right hand corner indicated a battery-level at around 80%. Well, that’s after hours of charging… :p

So Dad decided to send the player back to the store.

So this evening, he went to SM North’s The Block to get his player replaced. When he got back home, I saw him bearing a different box. Dad didn’t just get his Onida Japan unit replaced, he got a totally different mp3 player. He bought an T20 256 MB Deep red unit (excuse the link, hahaha. Same difference.)

Red and Black Goodness
It’s small, and rectangular, and small! And it’s red and black too! Hahaha. It connects to the computer to the computers USB drive (and charges there too!) A nice feature, that I noticed is that it’s handy-dandy USB plug is can be tucked away, so there’s no need to worry about bent/broken USB connectors (hey, it happens! Happened to me… :p)

Sound quality, at first, wasn’t very good. The earphones that came with the unit were crap. Dad exclaimed that it sounded very poor. But when I plugged in my iPod’s earphones to his iRiver, he said that there was a significant improvement in the sound. :p

It came with an iRiver software (very much like iPod’s iTunes). It works with the same concept as iTunes: it recognizes your unit, and then you can go drag and drop your files. Actually it feels very much like iTunes! Try it! Hehe.

My only big problem with this player is it’s interface and buttons. Both the interface and buttons can be very confusing (because they’re so small!). But once you get it playing, you can leave it hanging on your neck, while you’re enjoying your music.

Choose One
You really do need to take your time in buying these kinds of stuff. I admit, it was my fault that Dad hastily bought the Onida Japan unit. He asked for my opinion and I immediately said yes (because he was happy, and I found no other alternative, and the sales person was pushy). I totally forgot what I said about brand and convenience (but hey, the player was convenient enough in uploading your files, hehehe.) I’m glad that Dad had it replaced with an iRiver, a more trusted brand. If this screws up, I’m gonna force him to buy an iPod. But he’s happy with his new player, and that’s what matters. ;)

Although, barok yung manual ng iRiver. Hehehehehe