Ratatouille

christmas day, the 25th, me, my wife and my mom decided to have dinner out. we found ourselves walking the area of greenbelt 3. there were not a lot of people around so it was really easy to go around. we decided to have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in greenbelt 3: cascada. they have really great food; pasta, salads (not that i enjoy salads), steak and ribs too. we ordered vongole pasta and baby back ribs for me and my wife while mom had vegetable salad (she was getting tired of eating meat almost all throughout the holidays).

as we were enjoying our meal, at a table across us, a mouse came taking a stroll underneath it. it almost freaked out my wife. mom didn't see it right away since her eyesight wasn't that good. it didn't even seem afraid to walk around as there were not too many diners during the time. the mouse continued to move from under one table to another for a few seconds. finally when i couldn't stand it anymore, i motioned to the waiter and as he approached, i used my lips to point out to him the location of our friendly rodent. when the waiter saw it, he bowed to me in apology and made his way toward remy (that was the name of the lead mouse character in pixar's recent film "ratatouille"). as soon as remy saw the waiter coming toward him, he scampered away and disappeared.

after what happened, i realized, if cascada had a mouse running around the dining area, what more inside the kitchen? they did have good food but was their kitchen sanitary enough? after all, there was a mouse and who knows how many more there were inside. this was going to be the last time we were dining there at cascada. ratatouille anyone?

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Christmas Won't Be The Same Without You

it's been eight months since my dad passed on (i say passed on and not passed away because he's in a better place now).  it still feels like an uneasy dream for me.  i feel like saying, "ok, can we quit this scenario now?"  but then i realize that my dad's not with us anymore. it's really difficult for me considering that i never had any brothers or sisters to grow up with.  all i had was my dad (and my mom) to tell of my day's stories. he was my best friend at home, we shared a lot of good laughs together. i got most of my sarcastic character from him. he rarely liked being around other people and he'd always rather be at home with me and my mom. i got that attitude from him too. he always stood up for what was right no matter what others would say.

we had our share of disagreements along the way too but he never failed to let me know that he loved me. it was because of that that i respected the way he raised me. firm but loving. he never spoiled me even if i was his only child. i got spanked when needed then he would always hug me and reassure me that he did that because he cared for me. we talked a lot, played video games, went places, laughed, cried, grew up and grew old together. and all this time, he was struggling with a heart condition that doctors advised him, required surgery. he never had it because he worked in the biomedical field and he knew that this procedure was not an absolute cure. he was a strong survivor of three heart attacks, laughing at death in the face after each one. the fourth was the first attack in which his heart stopped. though he was revived, it left him with damage on most of his vital systems. three days later, he had another heart failure, this time, he lost the fight. the sight of him on the hospital bed still is etched on my memory. his name written on a death certificate never seemed right to me.

eight months, missing my dad. sometimes i forget that he's not with us anymore. whenever something happens to me during the day, a part of me says, "hey! i'm gonna tell dad about this." then i realize again, he's not here anymore. my getting a new job, my wedding, my married life are just some of the things that i wish i could tell him about. it's sad and it has hit me and my mom hardest since this will be the first christmas without him. hearing the christmas songs he used to play at home just makes it more painful. it would be around this time each year when i would tell him, "you should cut down on your fatty food intake, pop!" he would just laugh and give me that face of someone enjoying his christmas meal.

though he may not be with us anymore, his life and memory lives on in our hearts. when the time comes that it's my time to go home to heaven, he's the first person that i want to see, without the suffering of his heart condition here on earth, without his allergies (i got that from him too), and a big smile like he always had. they say time heals all wounds, for me, i wouldn't want to stop missing him, my best friend, brother, spiritual mentor, my dad.

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Holiday Rush

don't you just love the holiday season? imagine the happiness and excitement of going through heavy traffic, long lines at the toy shop counter, people bouncing at you from all sides as they run ahead to beat you to whatever item you wanted to get your hands on.

ah.. and the gentleness of the people around you, just feel the warmth of the tempers rising on the streets as you move in and out of near-miss collisions. car modifications anyone?

feel the cold as well, as icy glares is what you receive from individuals like yourself at automatic tellering machines as you take your time and try your hardest to withdraw and empty it of all of its contents.

and so this is christmas, the time of year when you just have to go outside and count yourself included in the ocean of shoppers needing to get rid of their christmas money on shoes, clothes, toys, electronics, gadgets, watches, bravias, bags, ipods, psps, ps3s, xboxes, nikes, reeboks, crocs, hps, dells, neos, techno marines, nintendos, nokias, motorolas, samsungs, iphones, treos, toshibas, havaianas, oakleys, rudy projects, and ones, girbauds, levises, tribals, casios, and jvcs. at once. now. pronto. no tomorrow. go for broke. who needs money on christmas? if you have it, get rid of it. that is the modern-day spirit of christmas. did i mention bravias?

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PS3 For Christmas

i know someone who probably wrote this song.. check out this link..

http://www.youtube.com/?v=Yi2RLLHG5T0

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There's Someone On My Workstation...

as i write this entry, i am currently on a different workstation. you might ask why is that. it's because, by a friendly request, my workstation is being used as a guinea pig for a new program at work. i feel really uncomfortable with all of those "useless" applications being installed on my pc and i really hope that the guy doing all this will uninstall these said applications before i am courteously given back my pc. don't get me wrong, i like letting them use my resources for the "betterment" of the company. i just can't work with a cluttered-up pc with stuff i don't really need.

Law and Disorder

i was walking out for lunch with my work mates when we were about to cross the street. we stopped in our tracks because right across, four traffic enforcers flagged down a taxi cab. the driver of the cab stopped and there seemed to have been a discussion of some sort that got heated on the side of the traffic enforcers. one of them just lost it and landed a punch on the cab driver's face. and he hit him again. the enforcers tried to drag the driver out by opening the door but fortunate for the cab driver, he was able to speed away from the out-of-control mob of "public servants".

i honestly don't know what happened, the cab driver could have been in the wrong, but that was no way to treat him. they did not have the right. that's called police brutality in action. the "finest" of makati's public servants threw a punch at a citizen who pays taxes that make sure this traffic enforcer is able to bring home food to his family (if he even has a family). this just makes me so mad! arrogant fool! if anyone from makati reads this, the number on his jersey of disgrace is 037. if i were the taxi driver, i'd wait for him one of these days and run him down with my cab. let's see how he likes force! he should lose his job. this, dear readers, is just a fraction of how rotten the system is.

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it has been a long week away from the internet. our workspace has been under renovation for quite some time now during which i can't even check my emails. now we've put up a temporary area where we can work and most importantly, get back on the web as you can see. it's a bit crowded and we're not sure how long it's going to be before we move to our all-new area but as long as you have an internet connection, that's all that matters. viva la internet!

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Ceragem Beds

i was just reading this article below. it's about a treatment bed called ceragem.

Believers say company's bed can heal their bodies

the reason why i was curious is because my mother has been going to treatment sessions with this bed and she claims that she's feeling better and stronger than before she began. she has diabetes and weak eyesight. now she claims that she can see better than before.

if anyone has any article or findings about this, do feel free to drop me a comment. i just want to make sure that my mom is not getting any adverse effects from this treatment.

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Work! Work! Work!

it's 6:51 in the morning and guess where i am? i'm at work! that's really great! today is a saturday and i'm supposed to be at home at this time - asleep, catching up on rest. but no! i have to be at work to move some servers to a newly renovated area. it's a good thing that i'll be with really good buddies of mine to help. why do i have this strong feeling that someone has to be here too during this task... it's time for breakfast. i haven't eaten anything before leaving the house so i'll need to eat. unless i want to find myself underneath a 400 pound server rack.

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i'm so sleepy.. we had another bout last night of 24 season 4.. we ended it last night and started the first episode of season 5.. now, i'm paying for it..

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In 'N Out

me and my wife were on the way home last night and we were so hungry. we couldn't decide on what to get ourselves until we passed by a restaurant called in 'n out located within the greenhills area. they served really good steak there, at least that's what some of our friends told us. so we decided to give it a try since we really couldn't even think of getting home and cooking our dinner for another hour or so. their t-bone steak was priced really reasonably, Php99 only. of course when it was time to pay up we didn't know that tax was not included (great). it was finally served to us after 20 minutes. it was pretty good! it was just a bit hard on some parts but the tender parts were really juicy. i recommend it if you find one of their branches.

It's here...

PS3 Hardware Specs

CPU: Cell Processor
* PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
* 1 VMX vector unit per core
* 512KB L2 cache
* 7 x SPE @3.2GHz
* 7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
* 7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* * 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU: RSX @550MHz
* 1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
* Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
* Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound: Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-base processing)

Memory:
* 256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
* 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth:
* Main RAM: 25.6GB/s
* VRAM: 22.4GB/s
* RSX: 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
* SB: 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance: 2 TFLOPS

Storage:
* HDD
* Detachable 2.5” HDD slot x 1

I/O:
* USB: Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
* Memory Stick: standard/Duo, PRO x 1
* SD: standard/mini x 1
* CompactFlash: (Type I, II) x 1

Communication: Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x3 (input x 1 + output x 2) Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller:
* Bluetooth (up to 7)
* USB2.0 (wired)
* Wi-Fi (PSP®)
* Network (over IP)

AV Output:
* Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
* HDMI: HDMI out x 2
* Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
* Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

CD Disc media (read only):
* PlayStation CD-ROM
* PlayStation 2 CD-ROM
* CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW
* SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD
* DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)

DVD Disc media (read only):
* PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM
* PLAYSTATION 3 DVD-ROM
* DVD-Video: DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW

Blu-ray Disc media (read only):
* PLAYSTATION 3 BD-ROM
* BD-Video: BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

a new gamestop shop has opened at park square 1. i'm not sure when but i think they're kinda new, there isn't even much on display yet. but as far as i was concerned, they had all that they needed to display: a brand new playstation 3 with a 60gig hard drive for only Php25,000! i want one! i found myself staring at the display box for about 5 minutes and i haven't even noticed. sheesh! the xbox 360 looks cool too but i'm still more inclined to getting the ps3. if only they would break the ps3 a bit faster..

Sleepy...

i am so sleepy today.. i can't even think straight.. it's all jack bauer of the 24 series' fault (we finished another season last night after a long marathon of episodes).. i already went downstairs to get a swig of cobra (an energy drink) to try and wake me up but to no avail.. i feel the floor pulling me down.. i'll be starting a new season later tonight.. good luck to me getting up tomorrow morning..

security guards have a funny way of not knowing anything about what they are actually doing. they're just blindly following the instructions given them without really understanding the reasons behind why they are doing it. a classic example was during this past weekend. i had to accompany my wife to a video editing at a dumb little office named tape. it was located inside a cheap looking condo. upon arriving there, it was raining hard and we asked the guards for a place for me to park. they asked, "where are you going?" i answered, "tape office." "sorry, the parking lot is full. you just have to turn around and park outside on the street." so that's what i did. upon reaching the parking lot to drive through it, lo and behold, the parking lot was huge and had more than enough room to accomodate my car. having seen it that way, i parked on an empty spot alongside the run area. i took my wife to the elevator and the guard asked again for the nth time, "what unit are you going to?" man, we were really annoyed by now and we said that the unit we were visiting had a parking space that we could use. and even if it didn't, the vacant area of the lot was big enough to park a plane. but mr. know-it-all here said that it was full and i couln't remain where i was parked because other cars would not be able to get through. so i asked in a most sarcastic way, "how big exactly are the cars that park here? or do your tennants land their airplanes here? do you understand that we can park here because the office we are going to has its own parking space that visitors can use?" to save my own sanity and to bring this nonsensical conversation to an end, i finally told the guard, "forget it! i'll park on the street! that way you'll be able to sleep tonight since your bothered so much about my parking here!" sorry, i just really dislike guards that can never give me a logical explanation to anything. so as i write this, i'm parked on the street with squishy crocs due to the rain and waiting for my wife, thanks to mr. guard who i feel really needs to drink more eq developing milk.

Stupid Cop!

i was on my way to quezon city from my place at makati. i drove down kalayaan avenue as i always do and as i made my usual left turn at makati avenue i was greeted by a horde of oncoming vehicles and a police car that was stopped in the middle of my lane. take note that where i had made my left was never officially a one way street. i had to stop eventually due to the oncoming traffic. it was never against the law to make a left there except if there was some incompetent "traffic enforcer" at the intersection. then one of the cops started walking towards me. take note that he was a police officer NOT a traffic enforcer. he said that i had violated a no left turn sign and was asking for my license. since he wasn't a traffic cop, i never showed him my license. so i asked him where the sign was and he couldn't show me. you know why? because there wasn't any, that's why! then he asked me where i was from so i answered, "makati". finally he showed me a one way sign at the corner of where i came from so i explained it to him that that wasn't a no-left-turn sign, it was a one way sign that would prevent motorists from entering the street where i came from. surely he would know the difference right? buthe was out to see if i would fall prey to his pathetic ploy. finding no other way to nail me, he finally said he'd let me off the hook in the meantime and warned me not to do it again. then he threatened me saying, "don't go acting cocky just because you're from makati.." "what?!" i asked him. "i wasn't bragging that i was from makati or acting cocky. you asked me where i was from and i simply answered your question." (don't go thinking that all the people you threaten are as stupid as you, i said to myself). how low can these jerks get?! it was obvious all he wanted was a quick buck from me to get a snack! if he wasn't a "law enforcer" (ooh i'm soo scared!) and he didn't have a gun, he would have eaten knuckle sandwich, that scum bucket!

this song is dedicated to my wife.. the love of my life..

love of my life
by: jim brickman
sung by: michael w. smith

I am amazed when I look at you
I see you smiling back at me
It's like all my dreams come true

I am afraid if I lost you girl
I'd fall through the cracks
And lose my track in this crazy lonely world

Sometimes it's so hard to believe
When the nights can be so long
And faith gave me the strength
And kept me going on

You are the love of my life
And I'm so glad you found me
You are the love of my life
Baby put your arms around me
I guess this is how it feels
When you finally find something real
My angel in the night
You are the love
The love of my life

Now here you are with midnight closing in
You take my hand as our shadows dance
With moonlite on your skin

I look in your eyes, I'm lost inside your kiss
I think if I'd never met you
about all the things I'd missed

Sometimes it's so hard to believe
When a love can be so strong
And faith give me the strength
And keep me holding on

You are the love of my life
And I'm so glad you found me
You are the love of my life
Baby put your arms around me
I guess this is how it feels
When you finally find something real
My angel in the night
You are the love
The love of my life

yup, it's finally gotten to me, the time to make a crucial choice: should i get a playstation 3 or an xbox 360? and believe me, this is one TOUGH decision!

first of all, i am a sony fan. i owned an original playstation, i own a playstation 2 and a playstation portable and i must say that the sony system does have a well rounded list of games ranging from rpgs to adventure games to puzzlers. sony does have something for every kind of gamer there is. for someone like me, the next step would be obvious,get a playstation 3! it's not that simple though. the playstation 3 does have a rather steep price as compared to (here it comes!) the xbox 360 from microsoft. i would normally not even think of shelling out money for an xbox 360 over a ps3 but the 360 is much cheaper.

i don't have an issue with power, both machines have displayed jaw-dropping graphics and sounds with their current roster of games. what?! did i just hear roster of games? this is where it all boils down to, what games does each system have to offer the millions of eyeball hungry gamers out there? here is what i found out.

the ps3 (which i would really like to get) does not have a killer app. none. zilch. nada. at least not at the moment. the xbox 360 does have a killer app in the form of halo 3 which really made gaming history according to numerous review sites. my problem is, i don't particularly like first person shooters (which the halo series actually is). first person shooters make me dizzy for the lenght of time that i play them until about an hour after. on the xbox it has always been halo this and halo that. i'm more of an rpg, adventure, survival horror, and action gamer. i also noticed that a lot of the xbox 360's line up consists of games that you would find on the pc platform like elder scrolls, command and conquer, not to mention a horde of, you guessed it - first person shooters! based on these, the xbox does not sound that appealing to me.

the ps3 however, promises a lot of upcoming games along the genres that i like. titles like devil may cry 4, silent hill 5 and final fantasy XIII are really going to make this a clear choice for me. however, these titles have not been released yet. and my biggest questions cometh: is it possible to modify the ps3? are there modified ps3 blu-ray games that are out? if the answer is "no" on both questions, the ps3 would be useless to me. what a bummer! this would be enough to drive me to buy an xbox 360 instead. but what if, after i buy an xbox 360, a modded ps3 shows up with matching blu-ray games to go with it? that would be really, really painful.. choices, choices, choices..

Dinner Date

i had dinner with my wife last friday. it has been a while since we have had a date. we decided to go to one of our favorite dining spots: cascada. when we got there, it was just as always, a lot of people and the waiters were almost running all over the place. we were even able to get our favorite table, the one in the middle in line with the side.

usually, when we eat there, 99.999% of the time especially when i'm really hungry, i order my favorite steak and eggs. if you're wondering what this is, it's really just a glorified serving of beef "tapa", "sinangag" and scrambled eggs. i think the word "tapsilog" would be more accurate. but that night, my wife was able to convince me to order something different. so i had something like pork tenderloin "something" (i couldn't remember what it was called!) while my wife had chicken fillet with red wine pasta. we also had our favorite cream of spinach soup (and now who says that i don't eat vegetables?) and we topped it off with the best tasting sans rival i have ever tasted! yum yum! just writing all this down is making me hungry.

after our wonderful dinner, we got home and watched a few episodes of 24 as usual. there weren't any good movies out at the time so watching 24 was the best thing to do. maybe the next time we go on a date, we can catch a film to make it complete.

Another Example of a Disrespectful Person

I was parked at the neighborhood general store the other day. My wife had to pick up cleaning supplies and I decided to just wait in the car. Parking was full so I had to park with my hazzards on behind some parked cars. After a few minutes, a black honda jazz with a media sticker pulled up behind me. Afterwards, one of the cars that I was blocking signalled to me that he had to go so I moved forward to give way since I couldn't go backwards because of the jazz. After the car was able to move out and leave, this dumb driver in the jazz hurriedly took the spot without even being courteous enough to ask me whether I would take the now vacant spot or not. Talk about respect for others! I got here first in case he hasn't noticed. He should have at least asked but no! Who the hell does he think he is?! Just because he had a "media" sticker on his filthy car (one that he probably asked for from one of his more decent and professional relatives) doesn't mean that he can act like a jerk! One of these days, he's gonna get a bullet in his head because of his stupidity, that no good media wannabe. What goes around, comes around pal, most of the time, it comes back harder because of the momentum. I hate disrespectful people. There's a place where people like that go when they die, it's called hell.

It's The End of the Week!

i am so happy that it's a friday today! i've just been so out of shape this past week that all i can think of is sleeping through the entire morning tomorrow. i told you that those long sessions of watching 24 were going to catch up on me. at least it was fun.

me and my wife are also planning on having a good dinner tonight, someplace special. ever since we got married, we seldom go out for dinner on weekends so technically it's a date. maybe we'll have our favorite: chinese food. we both love chinese food. you can never go wrong with chinese food. then again, maybe something a bit more sophisticated, whatever that may be. i usually don't get my fill with "sophisticated" though. it just looks good but they seldom satisfy my appetite as i really like stuffing my face when i eat.

still, it's the "going-to-sleep-and-waking-up-really-late-in-the-morning" part that i'm looking forward to. thank GOD for weekends.

Hey! You In The Big Truck!

personally, i dislike big vehicles. most that we have around here are the ford expeditions, pajeros and other similarly bus-like monsters. to me they represent the country's corrupt, authority abusers, the "untouchables". i'm not saying all of them are, but most, maybe 99.9% of these individuals that go around in these vehicles are bullies, they cut you out of your lane. if you don't get out of their way, they harass you some more by sounding off their lame "wang wangs" or sirens just because they can't get through. that's against the law you know! oh wait, i forgot, i'm in a place that has its laws found in the garbage dump. for those individuals that are as i described: there's a day coming for you.. just you wait..

as i am writing this blog, i am having a really difficult struggle with drowsiness.. it seems to be winning.. i feel like my whole body is going to collapse under the weight of something that is ever pushing me closer toward the ground.. stretch a bit.. slump even more.. i knew that these long late night sessions of 24 were going to catch up with me sooner or later.. in this case sooner.. regret always comes the day after.. oh well.. i guess i'll just have to do that again tonight.. (consciousness drifts.. returns.. drifts farther..)

another day is done
my strength fades out like the setting sun
i want to go on home
to call it a day and rest my bones
something i need to say
video games are here to stay

Where Has the Time Gone...

i'm back after three years of inactivity from my blog site. a lot of things have happened since..i've gotten married..i've gotten a new job..i lost my dad to his long fight against heart disease.. bitter/sweet moments, marks of a lifetime. i've changed the way my blogspot looks to my coming back in the process. new times calls for a new look.. and a new outlook.. check back soon.