It’s been a while…
Hey, it truly has been (what the title says…). I’ve been meaning to get off my ass and post some updates but I keep finding ways to not do it. After all, creative people can come up with some very creative excuses. Bottom line is I’m just really lazy… and now, I’m just lazy enough to NOT come up with another excuse.
Well.. The site just had its first major milestone—first time to be hacked (or in more technical terms, H4xx0r3dz)! (ding!) I’m not sure whether to be pissed or be amused. The site hasn’t been updated since early this year and somebody even bothered to wreck it. It’s been so long that I had problems remembering my admin password!
Good thing Kat, aka donya longganisa, still looks at this page once in a while. Otherwise, It’ll take me a couple of months to find out that my site has been housing funky middle eastern graphics. Thanks Kat! and thanks to the DreamCodeDesign team for their world class support.
Now that the site’s up and running, I can now go back to my semi-annual update schedule.
Nah.. 
-Nats
in review: animo and the new mario!
Animo Run
Two official 5k runs in the bag! I ran in the 7th Animo Run at MOA last Sunday but unlike the “race for life,” this event was full of flaws. I just want to mention some of the stuff that kinda ticked me off:
- There were participants that cut the race short (or didn’t even run) but still lined up for an official time at finish line. These were the ones who looked like they were forced to participate by some professor for additional credit.
- There were more “walkers” than runners. This caused a lot of bottlenecks, which in turn, caused me to exert more effort weaving in and out of these moving obstacles.
- For 10k runners, water stations disappeared by the second lap. My bro-in-law was the one who experienced this. He probably almost passed out when he discovered this lapse in judgment.
- People that finished the race at 40 minutes had to line up for 5+ minutes to have an official time logged. I’m not really sure how the race organizers will come up with an accurate time for this race.
Overall, I still had a great run because I spent some quality time with my family and the queen; and I improved my lap time by 2+ minutes (finished at 33 mins by my watch). However! I would definitely think twice about joining this event next year.
Special thanks: To the Queen for the pics below; and to the Animo Band for providing a festive atmosphere throughout the event.
Animo Band and flying girl
Starting Line
DS: New Mario and Luigi RPG
I got a new DS to replace my stolen one (a side note to the gamer hoodlums: die you burglars! and may your brain be melted by the simple puzzles in Scribblenauts; also the the adapter you stole is 110v, so be careful not to burn your house down). Anyhoo, yep, I’m back to my usual handheld gaming mode and I’ve got the game to help me forget my recent misfortunes — the latest plumber RPG, Mario and Luigi – Bowser’s Inside Story. It’s pure genius.
The game starts out with the plumber duo getting stuck inside Bowser, aka “King Koopa”. Obviously you’ll have to find a way to get them out but this time you’ll also have to control Bowser. Controls switch bottom screen (Mario and Luigi) to the top screen (Bowser) flawlessly. At some points of the game you have to strategize your attacks using all three of them to kill an enemy.
The gameplay is a fusion of traditional turn-based console RPG and a 2D platformer. This allows you to dodge and counterattack while in battle mode. It’s a must have for any DS owner or Mario fan.
Bowser!
Mario and Luigi
race (to die) for life…
A couple of days ago I joined the “Race for Life” which was a fund raiser conducted by the Real Life Foundation. I never would have thought of joining one of these events because I have a lung capacity of a preschooler. Anyways, two of my sisters forcibly signed me (and the queen) up for it and so I thought: “it’s the new badminton…”, “I’m all for supporting life…”, and also “I’m in a weight loss bet at work”; so what the hell.., Let’s run this thing!
Here’s what happened:
- Woke up at 4am
- Picked the queen up at 4:45am
- Arrived at the British International School at 5:30am
- Met my sisters, niece, and bros-in-law at 5:45am
- Huddled on the starting line at 6:00am
- Race starter gun went off at 6:11am
- Finished the race at 6:47am (WOOT!)
- Lined up for the finisher shirts and goodies at 7:00 am
Yep, I have pushed my limits and finished the 5K race well under an hour (36:17)… but moments after, my achievement was quickly muted by the arrival of some old men in their 70s who finished the 10K. Suddenly, the red straw around my neck has lost it’s coolness.
All in all, It was a great experience even though I had to sleep through most of the weekend to recover my energy. It’ll be a while before I run another one of these… maybe next year’s race for life… see you then.
better than Moleskines?..
Heyo!! Ever heard of Moleskines? Yep! Those over-priced notebooks that Picasso, Van Gogh, Hemingway (et al.) “supposedly” used. Well, I’ve found an alternative.. Pageone!! Ok, it doesn’t sound as cool as “Moleskine”… Nor does it have the romance that you’re using something that might have inspired legends… but it does have paper, and lots of it. So if you aren’t crapping gold like the old names I’ve mentioned, might as well try this one.
It has a hardbound cover and an elastic that goes around the front to lock the pages in place. Leather would have been nice, but that just adds unnecessary bulk… to the price tag.
Pages are smooth but are textured enough to take pencils really well — Perfect for doodles on the go. My lazy estimates: it’s around 5×6 inches, 100 pages, and 200 bucks..
good grief!!..
Comic strips. Storytelling through a few boxes and word balloons. It’s just genius.
If it isn’t obvious yet, I’m very much into this simple art. My fondness for comics go way back to when I started reading local newspaper strips (e.g., Baltic & Co., the works of Larry Alcala) and the Pilipino Funny Komiks (Home of Nik-nok, Superdog, Matsutsu and Bardagol).
This brings me to my recent acquisition of used books. I stumbled upon a couple of great finds, well, for a comic strip aficionado like me — Good Ol’ Charlie Brown and The Joy of a Peanuts Christmas.
comic loot
The first of my comic strip loot is an old, actually… a really old Charlie Brown compilation. It was printed in 1967 and was previously owned by a kid named Eric Severud. How do I know? — He penciled his name on the book cover. He also wrote down the page numbers throughout the book which I found very convenient whenever I stopped reading the thing.
since 1967
Erik’s scribble on Charlie’s shirt
ingenious page numbers
Just out of curiousity, I googled up Erik Severud and apparently, if this is him, he’s an orthopedic surgeon now. Good job Doc! and thanks for the page numbers. Now this just proves that if you read comics, you eventually wind up being successful. Read on kids, read on!
The other book, The Joy of A Peanuts Christmas, doesn’t have an underlying real life story. But! It does have 50 years worth of Peanuts Christmas strips (from 1950s to 1990s) so I think it evens out. Charles Schulz has passed away in 2000, so this book contains all Peanuts christmas-themed strips created while Charles was still around.
50 years of Christmas funnies
At under a hundred bucks for each book, I couldn’t find a better bargain. I’m an old school guy so even though there’s an online Peanuts archive at snoopy.com, I really prefer reading them on paper. I just hope i can find more of these classic Peanuts books because now I’m hooked.
all apologies…
hello-hello! Had time to create an update and hopefully I’ll have more time to do this stuff. Before anything else, thanks to jobzilla for posting from time to time– but three posts in a span of seven weeks?!? what a lazy oaf! 
.
Anyhoo, during my off time, I have gotten some cool ideas to write about but I’ll just start with posting the greatest thing that has been given to me recently (thanks again to the Queen). See below.
It looks like a regular sized Mead notebook (from the makers of the once popular Trapper Keeper binders) but it’s actually a paperback edition of Journals by Kurt Cobain. I’ve been trying to get a copy of this ever since its hardback release in 2002. It contains the thoughts of Kurt from the time he was starting trying to start a band to his days in Nirvana. The pages are actual scans from his notebooks so you get to read his lyrics, letters and random thoughts in his own handwriting (errors and all). I have yet to finish the book but so far it has been insightful.
light reading..
Two weeks ago, we (the Queen and I) came across a book — Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It’s about a kid named Greg and his life in middle school (which should be around grade 6 here in the Philippines). The book is a combination of a comic book and a novel. It has comic strips in between the text which was a cool concept. I’ve pasted a sample of the comics below.
It’s a short read and I’m not sure if its worth my 500 bucks but I guess I can pass it on to my niece when she’s about 11 years old (apparently the book is targeted to tweens ). Anyhoo, it’s a step-up to my usual reading materials which contain random stories about Archie and the gang.
This is the first book in the Wimpy Boy series and I recommend checking the whole series out when you happen to pass by any bookstore (NB, Powerbooks, Fully Booked, etc.) Better yet, if you have a couple of hours to burn, just read it there 
. Yep, I’m a cheapo.
fluffering…
Got a nice surprise over the weekend.. fluves! Yep, it’s the plural form of “fluff”. A couple bottles and a cookbook — surprise goodies from the Onin (the Queen’s bro) which will prolly last a month or so. Yea-yeah! It’s going to be a nice break from my good ol’ PB and J sandwiches. I might even try a couple of recipes and I’m looking at Lora Brody’s Classic Hot Chocolate as my first disaster-in-the-making. See below for details:
Serves 6
1 cup heavy whipping cream
8 ounces bitter chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 cups whole milk
3/4 cup Marshmallow Fluff
Heat the heavy cream in a medium saucepan set over medium heat until tiny bubbles form around the edges of the pan. Remove the pan from the heat and add the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate melts. Divide this mixture amoung 6 mugs. Heat the milk in the same saucepan until small bubbles appear around the edges but before a skin starts to form on top. Divide the milk among the mugs. Stir the hot chocolate and serve immediately wih a generous dollop of Marshmallow Fluff.
Hmm.. I just noticed this recipe says requires cooking skills which I do NOT have. I will have to defer this task to the Queen or my sister Kendong. Please, please make this for me.. even Oprah recommends it.
finals ho-hmm..
mvpuppets
(insert random stuff) of the week..
heyhey! To ensure that this website doesn’t go un-updated for more than two months again, I’ve asked my good ol’ friend/guildie/ex-colleague to create a weekly random post on this site. He usually IMs me these things but to cut all the red tape, I’ve decided to let him post here (instead of me, woohoo! less work).
I hereby introduce to you jobzilla. He’s pictured below in the City of Orgrimmar (a horde territory in the World of Warcraft). I loaned him my rogue shoulder armor for this pic because all his characters are girls and he can’t fit in their gear (lol).
He’ll be posting shortly after this. Good luck to us all.
- Nats
Season Deux
Woohoohoot! I finally mustered up the drive to start updating the site again. And no, I did not have a college-like summer that’s all tv, malls and beaches. Immediately after the last update, I started a new job where my schedule is crap-o-ratoric (heard this technical term from one of our foreign counterparts).
Well, at least I got lots to write about… But! in keeping with the goal of this site, which is to attract the attention-span-challenged, I will withhold posting a litany of boring event after boring event (yeah, nobody wants that, please refrain from doing it also). What I just want to do right now is post a collage of pictures and scenes of my summer.
Clockwise from top-lefthand corner to center:
- Jatujak. A thai resto where I had my first dinner out with my new team. This place kicked off our weekly or daily resto hunting in the area. Why was this so memorable?–Ah.. one slurp of the red piping hot Tom Yum soup = 10 minutes of trying to stop choking in front of new colleagues. Priceless.
- The blue strip. A strip of restos by the bay, lined with a blue psychedelic light. This is our view from the office at night which always saves me from mind-numbing meetings and trainings. Stop <your mind> and stare.
- Marshmallow Fluff. Look it up. Insta-smores. It took me 2 months to get this from my friend from the north, and 2 weeks to end up with an empty bottle. Perfect for fluffernutters. Thanks Jobzilla!
- Night time drive time. 30 mins and I’m home! woohoo! Problem is, at 2 AM you just want to sleep.
- Midnight rush. For that needed sugar rush up to 3 AM. The lack of normal KK donuts might turn you off though. To the KK management that decides this crap, nobody wants your caramel kreme crunch that’s why it’s always available at the end of mall hours! Just double up on the original glazed please. A couple of my teammates are in the pic.
- Sunset boulevard. Getting an almost daily (sans rainy days) glimpse of this scene makes you really think–If you’re in Boracay looking at this, you probably wouldn’t mind your retinas burning.
- New Office Gear. Things I got from my previous colleagues. Thanks all y’all!!
* Black SB Tumbler (a.k.a the “yep, I’m elite too” liquid container): from BigBaybayJames, Raignebow, DoMariemon, DZ Dobol Jay, MC Hammer and Tontorontonton
* Red Plastic Monster: from Mr/Mrs. Egis
* 2009 WB Calendar: from Madam M - Back-a-day Passes. Sneaked in the concert grounds of the Cook-David-Archuleta show the night before the event. It was not a pretty sight–Us I mean, four guys and one girl. But seeing Kat running around like a hamster in the gold section was worth all the trouble.
- Friday night lights. Fireworks show every 7 PM-fridays. It never gets old. On the other hand, my humming/singing of the Enchanted Kingdom fireworks display theme during the show probably will. Or will it? I’ll just keep on doing it until one of my teammates pop a vein. Ah.. that is the plan.
These pictures were all taken using my trusty Nokia 2630. Photographers always say “you don’t need a pro camera to take great pictures.” This IS NOT a testament to that.
legendary..
Still have the eheads hangover.. I keep playing last Saturday’s events over and over in my head. The fireworks.. the couch rising up from the stage floor.. Raimund on vocals for Alkohol.. Marcus’ Hello Kitty Stratocaster.. the reggae version of Wag Mo Ng Itanong sung by Marcus.. the crowd egging Buddy to sing, then finally singing a couple of lines.. tributes to the MasterRapper.. confetti blasting thru our faces during Ang Huling El Bimbo.. Roadies were already dismantling the gear, then Raimund showed up, then Buddy, then Marcus and then Ely says “ok, three for the road”…
Words just can’t describe the awesomeness of it all.
Thanks to The Queen!!
BTW: Kulet, no updates from you. Even though RJA’s cool, hopefully you guys still decided to go to The Final Set.
“nothing ever ends”..
Woot! I’m finally ready for the Watchmen movie. It took me three months to finish the 12 issue comic book series because of my stupid schedule. The story’s a little heavy and i don’t think young kids should see it because I don’t see how you can tone it down to a PG level without sacrificing a lot of important elements.
Based on the trailer, they’ve updated the characters a bit and rightfully so. I don’t think you could fight in curtain-like costumes worn by some of the comic book heroes. Personally, I’m thankful that Dr. Manhattan (weird blue guy in the picture) isn’t showing brain like his comic book counterpart. C’mon man! just wear some pants! Being blue doesn’t make your private parts more acceptable to the public eye.
The comic has a ton of elements – mulitple characters, background stories each of the characters and a second storyline, Tales of the Black Freighter, – that’s intertwined with the main story . I’m just hoping that at least 75% of comic’s content is included in the final cut. In hindsight, maybe I should’ve just watched the movie first, then read the comic.
a public service..
Just a reminder… Valentine’s is on Saturday. If your girlfriend or wife works in an office, you need to send her flowers tomorrow (Friday). Aaannd.. If she told you it’s ok not to give her something on valentines — she’s probably just reminding you that it’s coming up.
Makati guys without foresight can checkout the flower shops at Market! Market!. Prices will be through the roof, but what do you expect..
first for 2k9..
Ok.. aside from the eratic updating of Call Center Boy comics, I haven’t posted a single word the past month. Well, it’s all because of this game (and WoW of course).. NBA2K9! –Checkout my screenie! Even KB23+1 is astounded by the seemingly infinite number of pixels on the big ticket. All this was made possible by the Queen. She gave me an awesome video card for Christmas. I, in turn, gave her my old 8500GT (woot woot!) which I have yet to install in her system. Yes. I will do that, and fix the DSL, this weekend or the next.. promise… after KG and the green team mows down the rest of the league .
And now.. my post holiday season thoughts:
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I can’t shop for gifts anymore. The queen did most of our christmas shopping by herself or with her sister. Thanks again for that. Shopping for anything, besides toys, bores the hell out of me.. By the way, nostalgic GI Joes are back but they look more plasticky than the original.
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If you’re out of shape like me.. Wii = Pain. I know.. there is a price to be paid for being the “Mii” version of Manny. Thanks for the Wii Auntie Lea!
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My magic sing rendition of “living on a prayer” must be performed ONLY in case of emergencies.. But I promise to do it again if we don’t have fireworks on the next New Year’s Eve.
CallCenterBoy.com update: Friends!
Finally… I know this is long overdue but I was able to create a page for all my friends who’s been spreading the word about Call Center Boy in their sites. Visit the “Friends“ link on the top of the page. Thanks to you all!
bright lights.. big city..
Sparkling lights fill up the major cities in the metro once again… I used to hate this scene when I was in night shift. It just served as a reminder that I still have to work for nine hours while everyone else was partying.
I live in Las Pinas and this year’s street lanterns (four small star lanterns with spiral lights) are much better than scary santas, angels and skinny snowmen of past years. But… it doesn’t even compare to the lights in Makati’s main street. Onion and turnip shaped lanterns with intricate designs currently line up Ayala Avenue. Combine that with the Christmas displays in Rustan’s, Tower 1, SGV.. It’s a great way to amuse yourself while you’re stuck in traffic.