watch.the.sunset

Future, present, past

2010-10-31T03:26:00.003+08:00

I wrote this for you.

The various things attributable to immaturity make up both the best and worst memories of my high school life. My blogs, including this one, are witnesses to that. I don't want to delete any of them, however, because they're memories, and memories are very valuable to me. You know that. Never mind if they make me cringe; as long as they help me relive those blissful days, I wouldn't want to forget them.

I've long since restrained myself from posting most personal thoughts on the Internet, thinking that by doing so I'll totally eliminate the possibility of eventually being ashamed of or regretting something. It took me a while to realize that, even though that's what you've been thinking all this time.

Forgive me, therefore, for this sentimental outburst. I'm writing this because I'm pretty sure I won't regret it.

I do cringe when I back-read my blogposts. A lot. I cringe at the immaturity, the adolescent ramblings, and the annoying self-critical writing style. (Which I'm probably still guilty of.) But what makes it all bearable is the idea that at the time when I wrote those, I was sure somebody cared. You cared. Well, yes, other people cared too, but you were all that I wanted.

You're all that I still want. I wish you still care as much.

A long time may have passed, but I still feel the same way about you. I still want to share my deepest secrets only to you. I would look up to the sky, see the beautiful sunset and wish you were there with me.

But who am I to wish that? I can say that I'll do a lot of things for you, I'll be there when you need me, I'll listen to your stories and understand your views.

But I had my chance, and I failed miserably. Now I can't even make promises, because I've broken so many. I'll say that I've learned a lot, and I've changed, but I know it'll be hard for you to believe. In the end it's all up to you. I know you'll never really need me, in the same way you'll tell me I don't need you. You have good friends, and I know that there are better people out there.

Remember when you asked me what love is, and I answered that it's a choice? I wasn't kidding then. I live by that belief now. I will understand whatever choice you will eventually make. I just want you to know.

Meta-note

2009-10-28T20:04:00.003+08:00

The Internet is a two-sided place. Boring, old, traditional websites exist on the older side. The exciting and dynamic world of blogging forms the frontier.

There goes a hint of what I'm planning to do when I finish the stuff I'm making now.

OMG! A new post!

2009-08-07T20:24:00.003+08:00

Last time I posted, I was an incredibly, unbelievably lazy high school student who took education for granted, whose early submission of school requirements was as frequent as birthdays, and who was at one point genuinely scared of not being able to graduate because of all the low grades I was getting. Now I'm in college, and I'm already doing things I should have started doing a long, long time ago. Things like studying genuinely and waking up at morning on my own.

UP awakened the student in me (and the geek for you). I've always dreamed of high grades, but I have never translated the dreams into concrete actions. I hope that whatever's been pushing me these days will continue to do so in the years to come. The long years I'll be spending at the city of reason and intelligence that is the Unibersidad ng Pilipinas.

I'm not a Spartan because I went to a Retreat

2009-01-19T18:47:00.000+08:00

More than a week ago, on January 9-11, we had our retreat, held at Angels' Hills in Tagaytay again. (Not that it was a bad thing; it's a very beautiful place.) The retreat actually had a theme: time. No other subject could've been more appropriate, now that we're nearing the end of our high school journey.

I'm too lazy to go into detailed storymode, so I'll just say that it was loads of fun. I particularly loved the 'super-secret activity' held at the gym before we went off to Tagaytay, the great talks, the games on the second day, and the really cold weather. Most of all, I loved being able to refresh my spiritual side.

Thanks a lot to those who gave me palanca letters, to those who loved receiving one from me, to the Beryllium guys who gladly welcomed a stranger to their room, to my new emofriends (hehe), and of course to all those who organized and took part in the retreat. I won't forget those days.

That Last Post Before The New Year

2008-12-30T23:45:00.001+08:00

Here's a copycat of the half-empty, half-full argument: you can consider the coming holiday as either the end of the year or the start of a new one. Because I'm an optimist, or at least because I like think so, it's the beginning of 2009 for me.

Anyway, it's been a long time again since I last posted. I'm sorry I have to go into storymode again, dear reader, but you can always skip reading.

Before I begin to bore you, happy new year, everyone! May the coming year be fruitful and fun for you, despite all the crises crippling the world today.

***

On the week after my last post, the periodical exams were pushed through, and this time nobody was able to burn down yet another faculty to postpone the exams. (That's what the worst conspiracy theories would suggest.) Happily for most people, the sembreak was moved to the week after perio, and I really had no idea what to do with that much free time, because I just lost internet connection again.

As it turned out, the sembreak helped further prove my theory that the internet is counterproductive for me, because I was able to use the free time to learn a lot more about my favorite toy, Blender.

When classes resumed and the third quarter of the academic year commenced, I found myself pitying the pathetic state of the school. The classroom re-assignments really hampered our proper education, which we gravely need. (Hehe.) If someone really did burn the faculty center, I guess he would have been incredibly happy with the results; he'd be amazed at how much the destruction of a corner of the Science and Humanities Building could affect the entire school. Fortunately, the SHB was eventually reopened, and we were able to return to our normal classrooms, and for that matter, our normal school life.

A few weeks later, I found myself with lots of free time again, with three days of classes in November being called off to give way to the PSHS national exam. I more or less wasted it by going to a gimmick and staying over at Jiggs' house for a weekend with Migs. Yes, one whole weekend, three whole days of fun. We spent most of the second day, however, as volunteers at Ernesto Rondon High School in Project 6, Quezon City, helping teachers out with the PSHS national competitive examinations. It was fun too; it's fun seeing how yourself looked like four years ago.

On the next Friday, November 21, I watched the Pisay movie for the second time with some classmates. The movie's really good anyway, and the ticket was sort of free.

The next weekend was fair weekend. I have three things to say about Road Block. First, I believe we had a good enough fair, and one that's way better than last year's. (Wait, what fair?) Second, I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I would've wanted to because I had to do a lot of things for Samapi, my club, which was organizing two of the main events of the fair. Lastly, even though I missed a lot of the fair, I think that the great battle of the bands and fair gig more than made up for it. The only thing that saddens me is that only very few people attended the fair concert.

The week after the fair was a very tragic and sad one, and that's all I'm gonna say about it.

Two weeks later, or two weeks ago, was the last school week of the solar year. The last day of school before Christmas break has always been special for me, and it has always been so happy. I cannot say the same for this year's, however. Anyway, I still had lots of fun during Muon's Christmas party/sleepover. I just miss second year, I guess.

***

You may want to see my shiny new Multiply, lightbluecity.multiply.com.

The Archers' Home

2008-10-03T16:50:00.003+08:00

I got a bit of a problem last Tuesday as I submitted my application form to De La Salle University - Manila. Due to my ignorance, I came unprepared and lacked several requirements, so I wasn't given the test permit that day. I'm still blaming them for not placing a list of requirements where it can easily be seen among the forms and brochures that came with the application form.

I don't feel bad at all about La Salle, however. If I had to pick between La Salle and Ateneo, I'd definitely pick La Salle. In fact, when I was in first year I had set my mind to going to La Salle for college. But that was back then.

What happened? I fell in love with UP. (I heard you say "yuck!" and "corny!") Seriously though, it's that I came to believe that UP is really the best school for me. It's debatable which university offers the best education (in my opinion, it depends on which academic field you are pursuing), but only UP's culture matches my personality, or at least how I would like my personality to be.

Not all hope is lost though, and if by the unbelievably small chance that I pass as a Star Scholar, I'd definitely think about studying at La Salle. Which means I'll probably not go to La Salle.

What attracted me to La Salle in the first place? I've got this impression (probably inaccurate) that La Salle, of all the top universities, offers the best education in technological fields. Ateneo is good at the humanities and some sciences, while UP takes care of the rest. That's bad stereotyping, but we can't deny the fact that La Salle pioneered computer education in the Philippines, and you know that computer-related technology is one of my passions.

That brings us to another, and more important, reason as to why I'll probably go to La Salle. Though I do have great interest in computer-related stuff, I've chosen not to take a computer-related college course.

Why, and what is the career path that I chose? That's another topic for another time.

***

I did get my La Salle test permit yesterday, although as a consequence of being late, I'll have to take the test a week after everyone else have taken the test. Nothing wrong with that, really.

And thanks a lot to Sir Martin Perez for recommending me to La Salle.

Web Designer-Poser: Minor Updates to Layout

2008-10-03T03:53:00.003+08:00

(This post is probably useless to you, even more pointless than the rest of this blog, but at least I feel I can earn money as a web designer when all else fails.)

I made some small changes to the custom template I created and am using for this blog.

1. "Item Pages" with comments are back.

If you click the timestamp at the byline of each post (the one that says, "posted by ... at ..."), you will be brought to the post's own selfish page. There you can see the comments, if any, after the post proper and complete with formatting that's consistent with the rest of the blog.

By the way, I'd love it if the few people reading this blog would drop a comment every now and then.

2. The bar at the end of posts and at the end of the sidebar are now proper horizontal rules, and no longer kludgy underlines.

I did that so that this page would render a little better on different browsers or platforms, and so that I can be one step closer to having standards-conforming code.

3. Cleaner template code, at least for the main part.

In case you love this template and would like to use it for your own Blogger-powered blog, you can just drop me a tag or email or IM and I will send you the clean, proper template so that you won't have to reverse-engineer it from this page's source code. Everything, especially the sunset picture, is quite easy to change, and I can guide you if you want. Not that this template has much to be proud of. (Except for being effective. Hehe.)

***

I was able to make these changes because of a not-so-secret project I worked on recently. The changes may not matter to you, but it matters to me, because I learned a lot. I got a taste again of how fun coding is.

A Very Long Narrative

2008-10-02T02:00:00.000+08:00

(That was a warning.)

September has ended without a lot of posts. It's time to give this blog some love again.

I missed writing about a lot of things these past few weeks, including the Humanities Week, the weekend that followed, and several other things. I decided to make up for it (sort of), and here starts a long narrative:

On August 22, my Math 7 elective class went on a field trip (a good excuse for skipping CAT), and we went to that place in Riverbanks where they have a science museum, sort of. The field trip happened to take place on the same day as Theater Arts' first showing of their first season plays. (Our field trip ended late enough for us to miss CAT, but early enough for us to catch the opening of the play.) Of the three plays, I liked the first one best, the one adapted from Nick Joaquin's May Day Eve. TA performed the same plays for a second time two Fridays back, on the 19th of September, and I got to watch that one, too.

(If you watched, I highly suggest you read the short story.)

August 29-30 was Muon's overnight practice for the sayaw interpretasyon, but I've already written about that. The most important thing to know is that you shouldn't watch a movie called The Hills Have Eyes if you really can't stand watching horror. Trust me, it really can traumatize.

August 30 was also the date for Eraserhead's reunion concert (everyone knows how it turned out). I wasn't there, but merely watching vids of the concert in Youtube lets you feel the powerful, overwhelming emotions. The Eheads certainly still has their magic.

September 1 to 5 was Humanities Week. On the first day, a bit disappointingly, the freshies didn't dance the infamous Conan (or Konan?). It was also my first time to take part in a serious tug-of-war, and only then did I discover how fun it was. I loved how I felt the unity of the team, how each one gave his or her best effort.

The next day, Alternative Classroom Learning Experience finally returned to Humanities Week; I missed this part of the annual celebration. The format for this year was a bit different: there are still two 'classes', but you have no choice for the first one but attend the assigned forum for your batch. For the seniors and juniors, it was a seminar called "I Keep Love Real", obviously about true love, and I learned pretty much nothing new from it. For the second, and perhaps more fun class, we had the liberty again to choose our own workshop, and I attended Computer Animation. (You know my interest in 3D.) It turned out nothing like a workshop, and more like a showcase of the speaker's achievements in the field of, what else, computer animation. I felt a bit uneasy with how much he showed off his connections with the international animation industry, and how much he loved Macs. (That's his website, complete with a Mas OS X-like theme.) I don't really regret going there, however, as the talk for some reason has rekindled my interest in graphics and arts.

Later in the afternoon of the second day of Humanities, there was the KKKwiz. I didn't make it again as contestant, but I didn't really mind. After all, Alvin Burgos, our class's bet, along with his teammates got the first prize.

Wednesday was presentation day, and as you probably already know, Muon won. There are some problems about that, however, and that's all I can say about it.

Thursday was speech contest and Fashion Show day. For the speech contest, Mike Serquina, again one of my classmates, got first place. In all honesty though, I can say it was a close fight. Everyone's speeches were pretty interesting. The fashion show was like, well, a fashion show. Most interesting part was Paeng's (Rafael Perea's) role as a Spartan. I took some time and found a pic here. It speaks for itself. (Thanks to, uh, Luis Estrada and his Multiply. I think he's a Batch 2010 guy.)

Friday was Foundation and Recognition Day. It was a bit embarrassing, really, to see so few Director's Listers in Batch 09 compared to other batches. (But I'm happy that she was one of those who went up the stage.) Anyway, the ceremonies carried on with the usual things you would expect from a Pisay recognition day celebration. Of course, things got interesting as the afternoon began, as there was a (*gasp*) talent show! At least we really saw some talent. (The teachers had presentations too, but I leave that to others.)

The day after Humanities Week was Family Day, and it was even more embarrassing to lose the batch games as seniors. Heck, we never even placed better than last for all our four years of stay here in Pisay. Batch-spirit bitterness aside, as seniors, we had the (not-so) privilege of having the (oh-so-clean) poolside as the venue for our batch salu-salo. That part of family day has always been a tense one for me, but I don't think I'd like to share that one to everyone. Anyway, when I got my report card afterwards, fortunately enough my grades were better than expected. Not that I expected much.

The next day, or Sunday, September 7, was the first and last Dorm Open House I ever attended. (Unless I go there as an alumni, but what's the point.) As a consequence, it was also the first and last time I ever entered the Pisay dormitories. (I never entered the dorms even when it was still 'allowed' when I was a freshie.) I explored some rooms, investigated some people's desks, and got free lunch. You should know whose room I spent the most time studying.

September 13 was Ateneo College Entrance Test day, and there was nothing unexpected. I anticipated the harder-than-UPCAT test, and the heavy road traffic due to most of the applicants being rich enough to have cars. (I know I'm stereotyping, forgive me.) Most of Batch 2009 got the same test schedule by the way, so there were some mini-get-togethers after the test.

And lastly, on the morning of September 30, disaster striked Pisay's Humanities faculty room. Sir Joey tells us what happened. I feel bad for the affected teachers, and I hope they can recover from what they've lost, somehow. I'm not really happy to have no classes for the rest of the week. If anything, at least I had time to write this long post.

Pieces of Cake

2008-09-08T23:10:00.003+08:00

I ate four slices of cake today. All for free. Not that they're expensive, but it's not everyday that I get to devour multiple slices of cake for free. I decided to blog about it because it is an easy topic to write about, and it would help keep this blog look active. (Yeah, you really didn't have to know that.)

I got the first one from my ever-generous class adviser, Sir Vlad. It was part of what we ate in Muon's victory party, which we celebrated earlier today in homeroom period for winning the Pinoy interpretative dance last Humanities Week. (Not that you don't know, if you're in Pisay and you know me and you're reading this blog because you know me.)

The second slice was from a little salo-salo prepared in celebration of Mama Mary's birthday, served after a little Mass at the dorm chapel this afternoon. Enough said.

The last two were freebies; free dessert that was served to us when we ate in an unknown restaurant on our way home. I got two because my parents didn't feel like eating cake.

By the way, the first two slices were chocolate, and the last two were mocha with chocolate icing and a chocolate chip on top. When I got home I munched on several packs of tiny candy-coated chocolates. I'm just beginning to realize I'm taking in too much chocolate. Hey, at least I avoid eating potato chips most of the time.

Lessons

2008-09-06T23:45:00.000+08:00

Learning Mathematics

I recently realized how far we've come with math. I was pondering then, what's so interesting with calculus? Yes, I've heard it's a really practical branch of math that plays very important roles in real life. They've said that calculus is algebra, only glorified. I've also heard that one of the things it does is to determine the point where a portion of a polynomial graph peaks (*nosebleed*), but I haven't heard much else, and it still doesn't make sense. (I am beginning to understand, really.)

Suddenly I remembered a scene from freshman year, when we were discussing the solutions to a Math 1 homework. This math wizard of a classmate I have was doing voodoo on the blackboard and making us all stare blankly into space with the way she solved the problem. She was using quadratic equations. Our teacher kindly explained that we were not supposed to understand quadratic equations until second year math.

A person's view of mathematics is radically changed when he learns algebra. The world of math changes from 2 minus 4 is cannot be to equations without any numbers at all. It seems the complexity of things increase exponentially as you go further down the curriculum. How I wish I knew this much in mathematics back when we were still being taught what negative numbers are.

iHateThoseThingsFromApple

Muon had a sleepover last weekend to practice (?) our interpretative dance which we presented this Humanities Week. To do us both a favor and save us from a dull, lengthy post narrating and detailing everything that happened, I'm just gonna tell about some of the more interesting things we did (or used).

There's this thing Apple sells (called an iPod Touch) that is apparently both overrated and overpriced. Thanks to Steve Jobs' legendary Reality Distortion Field, however, people value this thing as an amazing feat of technology, and one of those few really cool gadgets you should have.

Understanding the misery of that, it's still hard not to feel the charm of these things. I had a chance to use this thing, and it is admittedly beautiful. Everything that Apple sells is beautiful, to be honest. (They should be; Apple employs some of the best industrial designers around.) There are some features that are simply nice, like the wi-fi connectivity and built-in browser that is, thanks to the touch interface, quite easy to use. The touchscreen feels nice. The whole thing is quite fast too. However, that's just about it. It is apparently overpriced. Its storage capacity is small by today's standard. I believe that the battery life is short too, compared to other iPods. Typing produces more typos than you'll ever do in a keyboard.

But who cares? It's an iPod, anyway.

The Hills Have Binoculars

Of course, no sleepover can end without some late night and early morning movie watching, and this time we had The Hills Have Eyes.

In the movie, a family on their way to vacation was ambushed by mutants and was almost completely massacred. By sheer luck, however, they were able to fight back and kill all the mutants. That's about it for the plot. All those events, however, were accompanied by liters of blood spilled (literally) and only one of the characters died a relatively 'decent' death. Everyone else had to go through bizarre methods of killing. It's easily the goriest film I've seen.

I have just one comment for the movie: it can hardly get more disturbing and more pointless than this. And as a tip for those considering to watch the movie, never forget the existence of the fast forward button.

Trials

2008-08-24T00:53:00.001+08:00

They say that the first 10,000 pages of stuff you write in your life is nothing but crap. I guess it's double-spaced for other people and I have to stick with single-space, font size 8.

(UP)CAT

A lesson in cause and effect:

Pressure to pass (and excel) the UPCAT forces you to study hard for it. Studying hard for the UPCAT leads to less sleep. Less sleep means you will be sleepy when doing boring stuff the next day. A five-hour exam with a long and dull reading comprehension part is boring, so it causes you to be sleepy. Becoming sleepy during the exam slows you down so that you won't finish it. Not finishing an exam means you might not pass (or excel) it.

Conclusion? People shouldn't take the UPCAT so that they wouldn't lose sleep.

That Other CAT

Counting the leaves of plants.
Multiplying three-digit numbers, mentally.
Counting the number of cars that pass by on Agham Road.
Trying to entertain yourself with anything that moves.

Just another day at the office for an MP.

Book 16

If everyone is fine with it, everyone would've talked about it the next day, but since no one did, I'd have to conclude everyone is quite disappointed. Hey, it's not the end of the world. Come on, it's not that low really. Don't mind the grade, we had fun anyway.

The Greatest Sporting Event in the World

It's quite dramatic, really, this whole Olympics thing. There's something really interesting for me with China racing neck and neck with America.

I'm rooting for China to win in terms of medal count. (But I think they've lost.) They're already way ahead of everyone with their golds, but they need a bit more effort to overcome U.S. in the total tally. It's not just about proving that the U.S. is not the best in everything. East is the new West. If China wins, for all we know it's just a preview of things to come.

Work of Art

2008-08-01T15:07:00.001+08:00

Why so serious?

Beyond Adaptations: A Review of The Dark Knight

2008-07-20T12:19:00.000+08:00

Why do people watch superhero movies? More often than not, it is because they want to see all of the big-budget action and special effects that always accompany such Hollywood movies. Look, people watched Iron Man because of the titular character's cool suit and all his technology. People watched Spider Man because they wanted to know how a web-hurling guy in red and blue costume defeat bad guys who look a lot more decent than Spider Man himself. And of course, people watched Superman because they loved seeing him perform some of the most incredible feats of strength ever seen in movies.

But why would people want to watch Batman? He's nowhere near as strong as Superman, he can't swing from skyscraper to skyscraper like Spider Man and his technology is undoubtedly inferior to Iron Man's.

I don't know about other people, but I watched The Dark Knight precisely because it is nothing like a superhero movie.

Sure, there are action scenes. But if I was looking just for action, I'd rather wait for the sequels of Iron Man or Superman, or better, Transformers. Don't get me wrong; the action in The Dark Knight is excellent. But considering the film's other qualities, it feels only like a bonus actually.

As for Batman or Bruce Wayne himself, he's far less friendly than, say, Tony Stark or Peter Parker. While Stark amuses equally with both his suit and his fun personality, kids will surely have a hard time appreciating Batman without his suit. Then what's good about Wayne? It's his maturity. In The Dark Knight, Batman is not your typical "I fight bad guys because I can and I should" superhero. This movie explores the deeper aspects of heroism and responsibility in a way that makes Iron Man feel like children's stories.

If not in action or special effects, where does this Batman Begins sequel's "wow factor" lie? In three things: excellent cinematography, excellent story and excellent portrayal of The Joker.

I really like the way they edited The Dark Knight. The entire movie has a really fast yet balanced pacing, and it feels like the movie is in climax from a few minutes in and until the end. Some may complain that this makes the movie feel crammed, but I think this makes it all the more entertaining and exciting. Scenes are quick and end abruptly, but the timing is perfect. In some thrilling sequences, the movie gradually shows details of a scene that eventually makes it obvious what will happen, but it unfolds so rapidly that the events are shown just as you realize that that's what's going to happen. The movie also omits some scenes so that what you eventually see gains more impact. You'll be surprised to learn that someone is already in this situation without the movie showing how he/she got into it. It makes the tense atmosphere of the film even more stressed.

The plot has a good dosage of twists and turns. The story and underlying themes are even darker than in Batman Begins, but overall the plot is satisfying. Although the movie ends in a way that hints of a sequel, you don't really think about it.

After all, however, what really got me into watching this movie despite the Batman tag is Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker. This character is the first one that I really, really wanted to see since Pirates of the Carribean's Jack Sparrow. The difference is that while Jack Sparrow is pure fun, Joker in The Dark Knight actually deserves acting awards. It's that kind of serious acting that Ledger displayed here. Too bad he's gone.

There's nothing to say about The Dark Knight but good things. It is not just a comic book superhero adaptation; it's a great work of cinema in its own right. I hope the next superhero movies will at least try to attain the standards set by this simply excellent movie. At least, it got me into thinking that superhero movies can actually do much even without flashy feats of CG.

Unrest

2008-07-15T22:29:00.003+08:00

When only the most interesting things keep you focused, when you try to do your homeworks but you just can't think, and when it becomes so hard to get out of bed, there's only one thing you need to know. You need sleep. Lots of it. That's something I've known for a long, long time, and yet I still can't apply it all the time. Something is always stopping me; self-control (or the lack of it) is a usual suspect.

*clicks on "Publish Post" and hits the power button*

Dead Ends Here and There

2008-07-12T02:56:00.002+08:00

I visited a few blogs, and there were only three things that I saw:

1.) Barely breathing blogs that are updated every few months or so.
2.) Abandoned or murdered blogs.
3.) Links to either one of the above.

That's a manifestation of teenage impatience with something permanent. We never seem to be able to stay with one thing, one preference or one decision for a long time.

That's one of the things I can do well, however. Long live this city.

Field Trip! Ye-hey!

2008-07-08T21:23:00.002+08:00

Today we went to the National Science and Technology Week Exhibit at the World Trade Center and spent some hours going through the booths. As with any other field trip, we learned absolutely nothing useful.

Some interesting things:
- I saw a girl shake her head to fix her hair when she volunteered to touch the Van de Graaff generator (a device that causes your hair to stand up when touched). Stupid.
- there was absolutely nothing on the Myanmar booth besides a man reading a newspaper. What does that mean?
- the International Open Source booth had a lot of things on display but no one to present those stuff. They're really open about it, I guess.
- it's an exhibit for science and technology-related companies/institutions, so what is Ayala Land doing there? Same goes for the booths that sell paper crafts.
- I met Sir Rage and Sir Eman at the Advanced Science and Technology Institute booth. But that's not interesting to you. Maybe it's the fact that ASTI is the reason you can't access Friendster or Multiply from Pisay.

Sentiment

2008-07-04T23:23:00.002+08:00

Thinking about being a senior student makes me feel like an elf stranded in Middle-Earth, waiting for his turn to get on a ship sailing to the West. Whatever that feels like.

Hey, I'm not emo. At least, not anymore. I've quit.

Few people know that I'm a sentimental person. (No, not emo. Please try and learn the difference. And no, I don't hate emo people unless they're just trying hard to be one.) I love memories. I love remembering all those happy moments. (I've been having lots of those for the past year and three months.) I love my friends, and I love her. I've long learned the universal truth that people are ultimately more important and more interesting than anything material. I don't want to be popular; I just want to feel that some people care. Just like everyone else.

(That was a bit ironic for me.)

People Used to Surf on Seas and Not on Webs

2008-06-27T20:14:00.003+08:00

I just came across Blogger Buzz and found out about some of Blogger's newer features. Scheduled (future) posting is really interesting, though it appears to me as a kind of cheating. Cheating because you can write 20 posts in one day then schedule them to be published one by one daily so that it appears you're posting daily even though you wrote them all in one sitting. But hey, that's what computers are about, cheating.

***

Have you watched Minesweeper the Movie?

"Why are you here soldier?"
"I'm here 'cause I'm bored!"

That's so true.

***

Have you heard of/read the term Web 2.0? I initially thought it has something to do with super-fast internet, but after doing some research I found that it actually refers to the newer parts of the internet that we're already familiar with. To make it easy for everyone, let's use two analogies. Britannica Online is the old web, Wikipedia is Web 2.0. Home pages are obsolete and social networking is the new face of the internet.

***

On my last day at DOST ASTI (I worked there for the Summer Science Internship Program), the people I've been working with gave me a nice present: The Power of Thinking Big by John Maxwell, an inspirational book. Now to tell the truth, I never had much faith in the power of these so-called motivational books. There's so much in every decent bookstore I've ever visited even though the writers who can really motivate are very few. That's why I've never thought of buying one of those. In any case, now that I've got one in my hands, I can finally find out whether these things actually work.

So far, apparently, it does not. Well, that was expected.

The funny thing is that there's actually a part of the book that works: the title page. Because that's where the ASTI team put their dedications for me.

Sweet.

The Dual Nature of the Internet

2008-06-24T22:47:00.003+08:00

The internet is both an evil and a savior. Evil because it's a constant temptation that leads to procrastination, and savior because it's there to help you when you actually feel like doing school work.

Look, I'm posting again, when I should be hunting for research topics.

I've long realized that this part is the hardest and most crucial one. No matter how well you execute your project, if the subject is just boring, it won't get you anywhere past an acceptable STR 2 grade. Of course you can have a good topic but slack off when it comes to doing the actual work, but it's far easier to motivate yourself to do well at experimenting than to look for a competition-quality topic.

Ma'am said the "in" topics are the ones that are green. As in the ones that will save as from global warming.

*goes off and looks for the Ultimate Solution*

A Disorganized Post

2008-06-21T21:27:00.005+08:00

Great, five months without any update and all we get is a post teaching about solstices?! Where have you been? What have you been doing?

Here and there, lurking everywhere. Contemplating on the meaning of life.

As usual, I've been learning, reading, and doing things no one else would ever know or even encounter, much less do. But I've been doing conventional things too. For instance, I've been actually watching movies. Cloverfield, Jumper, Iron Man and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are all awesome films. Big Buck Bunny is even better.

I'd like to actually write about things that I missed sharing through this blog, but before that let's see what I missed (or what I remember of those):

January - impressions or review of the (misunderstood) movie Cloverfield
February - my birthday and the prom, the film Jumper (no, not that thing people use to steal electricity)
March - the (non-existent?) fair and the concert, something special about the 15th of March and the eleventh day after that, end of third-year high school
April - my stint at DOST's Advanced Science and Technology Institute (for the Summer Science Internship Program)
May - UPCAT review at LSC, Iron Man, Indiana Jones
June - Big Buck Bunny, beginning of classes

I think I missed a lot. Anyway, now what? Am I going to make an excruciatingly long post about all of those? Knowing me, I may or may not. (That was a statement heavily biased on the 'may not' part)

I've also been thinking about making yet another layout, but good blogskins are pointless without good (or at least existent) content.

I shouldn't be typing this right now. Look at my to-do list:
[ ] look for an STR topic
[ ] prepare an English reviewer
[ ] fix my stuff
[ ] other academic stuff
[X] unimportant things

Until my next post.

Summer Solstice

2008-06-20T23:19:00.002+08:00

Taking place today is this year's summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Interestingly, Wikipedia (if that site could be trusted) says that it will take place at exactly a minute before midnight. Yeah, the solstice more properly refers to the exact point in time that the earth's axis is tilted the most towards the sun than referring to the day when it takes place. As if it interests you and it matters.

In any case, today's time of sunset didn't seem at all to be earlier or later than yesterday's, and it would be the same case for tomorrow.

Who cares?

People who love light blue and notice that the sky and everything under it is tinted with a shade of peaceful blue during sunset.

Lighting Up the City (Again)

2008-06-19T22:29:00.005+08:00

After spectacularly failing to write a shock-and-awe-style comeback post, I'm now giving up. In place of that awesome and imaginary blog post designed to revive this blog is a simple message that should get me back on track and give me some momentum. This should make it easier for me to start 'regularly' posting again.

Nearly five months after my last post and more than eight months since I was last connected to the internet from home, I have regained regular connection. The lights are on again in this beautiful city of light blue.

(Two things lead me to this post. One is Gian's abandonment of inkblotter. It's not too hard to guess the other one.)

The Tale of the Past Weekend

2008-01-26T14:40:00.000+08:00

(read as: a long post you probably won't finish or even dare to read)

Last week Friday, or last January 18, Cyd and I went to Jiggs' place, officially to practice for the then upcoming Physics Olympics, but actually just for fun. We arrived there at almost 10 PM, of course too late to bike around the place's dark, dangerous and hilly roads. So we played with the PS2 and the PC (Valkyrie, of course) until we were wasted, just pausing to eat 10 packs of instant noodles and eventually sleeping at past four in the morning. Talk about guys' sleep-overs.

The next day, we awoke before 2 PM, ate lunch, watched Cyd play God of War again before Jiggs and I went out at around four to bike, leaving Cyd to play all alone. Now here's the most interesting part of the sleep-over. We biked for around two hours, riding all the way from Jiggs' place in Valley Golf, Antipolo, to Mike Cruz's house in Taytay, climbing steep slopes, weaving through traffic and speeding through long stretches of highway. We originally planned to reach only Kevin Crissy's house in Ortigas, but when we got there the housekeeper told us he's not home. I did see their dog named Google, at least.

Somewhat eager for more adventure, we decided to go all the way to Mike's place. We arrived there to find Mike playing, more of watching the bot play, Valkyrie. We were surprised to learn it was already five, and I convinced Jiggs that we should immediately set out back home though he feels like sleeping first there. Back on the road, I watched the slanting rays of the sun, fearing that we'll not reach Jiggs' house before dark, and we'll be stranded in a completely dark stretch of road in Valley Golf.

Though getting to Mike's place was an adventure, the ride back was an ordeal. Our legs had used up all its reserves of energy, and I gave up twice when biking up the slopes, dismounting the bike halfway up and walking the rest of the inclination. Anything that goes up must come down, and there was a long part of the highway that was going down, where Jiggs and I just enjoyed the speed and wind, not pedaling for what seemed like an hour.

The light was already failing and it was raining when we got back to Jiggs' home. Cyd and I originally planned to go home on Saturday, but since it was already dark when I got back and I can only commute, we decided to stay there for one more night. Jiggs and Cyd slept earlier that evening than the last time, but I stayed up for some more, watching though not finishing Gladiator and playing Valkyrie for a bit. I've not played that for a month already then, anyway.

Next day, we woke up earlier, of course. We left before noon, and Jiggs' family dropped me and Cyd at the LRT-2 Santolan station before going on to wherever they were going, for their Sunday excursion, I guess.

Before going home, we watched D-War at Gateway, which is an incredibly stupid movie, I tell you. It's so stupid that I recommend watching it, if you want to waste money. The rest is history.

Blend On

2008-01-02T17:32:00.000+08:00

So after a week of using Blender, that excellent free and open-source 3D modeling program, I learned so much and made far better stuff.

First off, after doing just a few tutorials, I made these. I just wanted to have a nice wallpaper I made myself, so I made a 3D model of the first good thing that came to my mind: a PC. Well, an old PC. Look at the CRT monitor. Later I tried to turn it to an LCD, but I had difficulties. Anyway, I also made that cool 3D 'Pisay 09' just for fun, and used some cool effects. After learning how to make things smooth in Blender, I made that rounded version, and it looks even more cooler. Blender's so cool.

I worked on a tutorial that teaches how to do transparency and glass effects in Blender, then I made this one. It took an awful 15 minutes to render, but I'm not gonna explain anything technical here now, so let's just say it is a very complex model though it looks simple. It is easy to make, but it is hard to process.

These were the results of some more beginner tutorials. The dice and goblet were what was taught; I made the green glasses on my own, of course based on what I learned. Learning can be fun.

Those glass objects have realistic shadows, reflections and all, but they're missing caustic spots. Oh nevermind.

I combined the two models above and put in the Blender logo for no reason at all. This one's rendered at my monitor's resolution (like the PC model above). By the way, the two dices are identical but there's something about their position that's special.

A simple landscape model that's actually very easy to make. I learned the landscape technique from a tutorial too. I have no idea how to make this one more interesting, or more realistic.

This one's a lot different from the tutorial I based it from, changing things to suit my taste.

Just for fun, I turned my 'strikethrough crescent' logo 3D. I made one in my favorite blue-and-white color combo, another one in blue glass, and yet another one in a communist/industrialist red-and-black.

I made some more stuff, but those are not for everyone to see. No, it's not porn.

I actually did something somewhat worthwhile this vacation. I'm amazed. Have a merry 2008, everyone.

[The Word] 'Pisay' in 3D

2007-12-22T17:34:00.000+08:00

Every vacation, partly to make sense of it and partly to do fight boredom, I always try to become productive. It's a goal I never achieved, until now. Hopefully.

Look at what I did.

A little background first. I've always wanted to do 3D modeling, ever since getting interested in game mods (modifications; literally changing a game to your taste). Game modding, particularly for those then-new 3D games like Command and Conquer Generals, heavily depended on creating your own 3D models to change the look of the game (to your taste, of course). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a reliable and accessible enough program for 3D modeling, and I lost my interest.

It didn't help that I was put in science streaming last year and not in tech, although I really deserved tech.

Anyway, recently I found an excellent, lightweight but very powerful 3D modeling/rendering/animating program, and after less than a day of tinkering around plus three hours of work, I finished this 3D model of the word 'Pisay'. I know, it's simple, but still, from knowing nothing at all I came up with this in less than a day.

The program I used is called Blender. It's free and open source software (FOSS), like Linux. In fact the program was originally for Linux, it was just ported to Windows to attract more users (and of course to follow/promote FOSS ideals of universal accessibility). Just another proof that free doesn't necessarily mean inferior quality.

Phoenix!

2007-12-13T20:45:00.000+08:00

Yeah, I changed the blogskin's pic. Thanks goes to Jejo for that wonderful sunset pic (with a phoenix-like cloud), taken on the first day of RoRe.

Looks so nice and serene, eh?

Tomorrow has been Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest

2007-12-13T20:31:00.000+08:00

I'm back to blogging! I think.

The past months, I mean the time that has passed since my last post, has been very happy for me. Academically I'm improving, getting higher grades almost everywhere and passing nearly all requirements. I missed, so far, only one requirement this quarter - what an achievement! Of course, if you know me, you should be astounded. The dude who fails because of missed requirements is submitting stuff now. I'm almost completely sure I'll be in the DL by the end of the school year. Yay.

There was the also the retreat, then two new albums. One from Pupil, which quite surprised me with their new sound, and of course Urbandub, whose music also grew. More on that later. Hopefully.

Why did I post so late? The usual reason. I envy you guys who can connect all the time to the oh-so-important internet.

So these days it's really boring in my house.

RoRe!
Part 1

I missed Rosal so much!

Last Saturday, I got early to McDo Commonwealth, the meeting place for Rosal's Reunion. I arrived at nine though the meeting time was ten, and that was in Filipino time so people started arriving much later than that. That's fine, she was with me.

While waiting for King, who was the last to arrive at some time after noon, we talked a lot about things you normally wouldn't talk of, like asking the store's manager what food Grimace represented (he said kamote, which Jenny fervently debunked in her blog), and planning to educate the public about global warming. Normal stuff for Haha.

We left nearly three hours after the planned departure time and there were 11 of us. Me, Mara, Theia, Benj, Erv, Haha, Karen, Vince, Jejo, Shayne, King. Chesca almost came with us, though when she went back to Pisay to get her stuff she was kidnapped or something.

The ride to Taytay took longer than expected. We did notice that for several times we went around in loops, like doing two u-turns in the same road. I don't know, maybe the driver was sleepy.

We played a game, that one where for a given topic you give names that start from all the letters of the alphabet. First, they played countries, then roads, then for more fun we asked Jejo to name restaurants. Knowing him, we thought he could do it real fast, but we ended up helping him all the time. Fun.

Arriving at King's aunt's subdivision, we sat in a shed overlooking Manila. We ate lunch, and then slacked around for a long time. They were doing something with yarn or threads, I don't know the exact term. But I got some light blue and white thread and 'decorated' my new Heartstrings bag (her gift to me!). I tied short pieces of thread to the zippers' heart designs, which really matches with the bag's light blue and white color.

Anyway, later, we climbed the mountain, or whatever you call that big mound of earth. Maybe it's just a hill. We explored, or rather just followed the road snaking up the slope. We saw on the way the other big mound of earth ('mountain') burning, I mean just part of it. But still, it's burning. ("Damn you! Save the earth!")

Beyond the last and highest-placed house in the subdivision, the big mound of earth leveled out but we're not sure if we reached the top. Anyway, it was really high already, and what a beautiful sight. We saw the whole of Metro Manila and part of Laguna de Bay (the usual view from Antipolo and surrounding areas).

We came back down to eat merienda. While resting, we watched Benj and Vince play basketball. The basketball ring was weird; we were really convinced it favored Benj. After some time Vince got hurt, and he had to stop playing. Then King's young cousins went and 'played' with Benj. They don't really know how to play, they just bothered Benj. They even bullied Benj. Yes, they did.

Just before sunset we climbed again. This time it was much more beautiful. We watched the sunset, and the city was light blue. Due to smog I think. But still, it's light blue.

We stayed around there, took a lot of pictures then made a lot more noise. We waited for the city's lights to show up, and the city was really beautiful too that way. It's like the starry sky, only starrier and it's on the ground. Duh.

We waited a bit in the shed to be picked up, then on the way to King's place we dropped by his aunt's house. It was a big, beautiful house, with windows on the ceiling. They call it design.

Benj and Erv played chess with that Star Wars chess board, which was weird because the human pieces there were bigger than the vehicles. (Wait, are the people in Star Wars humans?)

We were rewarded for a a bit of singing ("Merry Christmas to You!" in the tune of Happy Birthday) with brand new 20 peso bills, which was really nice of King's aunt. We decided to keep those bills as remembrance, although we had some problem because one of the bills found its way to Kenzo's hands (King's younger brother who is really mischievous). In the end, we retrieved the bill in exchange for 50 pesos (we had to convince him that a worn 50 peso bill is more valuable than a crispy new 20 peso bill).

At King's house we ate then washed then sang our hearts out. I'm glad nobody recorded that. When they decided to watch a movie, everyone fell asleep - the film was boring.

To be continued.

RoRe pics in Jejo's multiply. I told you, there were windows on the ceiling.

The Government. Rhyme and Meter. Southern Lights.

2007-09-30T11:09:00.000+08:00

Before I start working on a long essay/treatise (but I prefer essay because treatise makes it sound professional while it's not), I'll write here first to get me into the mood.

I'm going to write an essay about the government. Yeah, the government. It may sound ordinary to you, but it's a massive topic, in case you don't know.

It's so massive it took me a whole day to research and get a rough idea of what I'm going to write about. To help you imagine it: direct democracy, transparency, demagoguery, socialism, voter apathy, scalability, social mobility, origins of the government. Just a fraction of what I had to learn.

Anyway, when I finish it I'll post it here.

***

Another thing I have to write is the Pinoy major requirement for the second quarter: seven poems. It doesn't sound as easy as it may seem (in case you're not required to do the same project). I'm not going to write elementary poems; I'm going to write poems with proper rhyme and meter, something I never liked working with. I'd always preferred prose anyway.

***

Under Southern Lights - the title of Urbandub's upcoming album, featuring the carrier single "Guillotine".

" We've been recording for three weeks now and we're scheduled to record three songs this week... We also met up with our label last week to discuss the album cover, what's gonna be the first single, what's the concept of the video, etc. The title of our first single is "GUILLOTINE" and it might be released on radio any day this week... We already have come up with an album title; we call this one "UNDER SOUTHERN LIGHTS"... We're very stressed out at this point and the band's main goal right now is to finish this album."
- Lalay Lim, bassist/Urbandub

Standards

2007-09-19T22:37:00.000+08:00

I was already halfway through typing an entry when I realized how much it sucks and decided to delete it all and type this sentence. I guess I never finish a lot of things because I want so much to produce nothing but good, neat, perhaps outstanding stuff.

I love this band. I can't wait for their next album which is, unfortunately, at least a month away from release. The moment I see it on music store shelves, I'm gonna buy it.

By the way, that career fair, uh, weeks ago is somehow enlightening. I already have a clear idea as to what course I'll take, but I'm still open to whatever 'better' course I may know of.

If Only We Hadn't Made Mistakes, We'd Have Won

2007-09-14T21:23:00.000+08:00

Don't you think too?

Anyway, I took part in the 2007 KKKwiz, in case you don't know. I got lucky when I took the elimination round's objective test, I guess. I'm just a point ahead of the second top scorer in class.

I confess I didn't prepare for it. I, actually we, referring to my teammates, all thought that stock knowledge would do it. That the goal of the elimination round's impossible-to-perfect objective test is to find the dude with the best stock knowledge in class, who will do well in a quiz bee-type contest that draws heavily on the participant's stock knowledge. We were all wrong.

Good thing that we had Ate Jarelle. She did her job well as team leader (that's how I thought of her), motivating, talking, laughing and literally nudging her way into our reserves, bringing and squeezing out whatever stock knowledge she could get out.

In short she broke up the barriers of being strangers to each other in our team, and united us.

By the way, she was the last in the team to arrive at the contest, telling us that she's late because she slept at the cozy new gazebos, after reading and studying economics. I assume that made her sleepy. Anyway, as we weren't too surprised to know, she's the only one who did any studying. Which became obvious after we got our first four points from economics questions.

Francis, our freshman member, and Joker, his sophomore counterpart, both still did good, answering questions correctly and giving us points from time to time, to the delight of the rest of the team and sometimes unexpectedly. Though not part of the team, our team facilitator (read: illustration board raiser), Christian, gave valuable help through moral support. Yes, I do believe in such.

How about me? I don't wanna judge myself. But I did made some points, mostly during the second and third rounds.

We came in fourth, in a contest of eight teams. Not bad, considering that the first placer is only eight points ahead, and the last team's 28 points behind us. The point here, however, is that we could have won. Seriously. We could've won if we just gave the correct answer 1978 instead of 1976 in a difficult round question, worth four points, and answered 1937 instead of 1935 in a six-point impossible round question. Notice that in both cases, our answers were both just the correct answer minus two. But it didn't make us feel so bad. It's funny, actually. We laughed all the way through the rest of the contest.

We also answered Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative instead of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, misspelled Peloponnese, answered Sakay instead of Bonifacio as I told them (they didn't write my answer because I also said I'm not sure), and got the PSHS establishment laws' names right but had no idea as to what their Republic Act numbers are.

But we were also lucky a lot of times. We had some last-second changes of mind that got us points, and one or two correct guesses.

In the end, however, it is the excitement and extreme fun of the competition that makes it memorable, to my team at least. Once, when we were laughing hard, I looked around and saw that we were, indeed, the happiest of them all.

***

The KKKwiz 2007 results, from Sir Martin Perez's blog, AKOMISMO.

I Actually Use Linux and OpenOffice.org

2007-09-12T22:15:00.000+08:00

Yeah. I really do. Look.

And, woah! I used OpenOffice.org Calc to graph sine!

Apparently it works!

The Internet Came Before The Telephone

2007-09-10T21:15:00.000+08:00

Honestly. In Batanes.

Bridging the Digital Divide through Wireless Connection

Talking about technology, (in)famous Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs' salary is just one *gasp* dollar.

Harry Potter and the Stick, Stone and Cloak

2007-08-18T03:34:00.000+08:00

Before I knew anything about the book's content, I'd always thought the title referred to a place. I was already more than halfway through the novel, reading the chapter about the Deathly Hallows, when I realized that I've been thinking of the "Hallows" as "gallows". That it is described as deathly didn't help at all at making me think of the right thing.

Anyway, so there, I just finished the book. Took me more than a week, could've been two weeks. I'm such a slow reader nowadays. I remember reading the Goblet of Fire in four days, and both Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban in two. Yeah, I've only read three other HP novels.

I was spoiled pretty much before reading the book, though I didn't search for spoilers. I just didn't avoid them. So I already know before reading that Snape had always been working for the good side and that he had always loved Lily. That's the only thing they've been waiting for in Deathly Hallows, right?

I rather like how Snape turns out to be a good guy after all. How he had been so in love and loyal to Lily. It's sweet, even touching, you know.

Moving on, I've read a spoiler-free review of the book before I read it. It says there that lots of people do meet their end in the book. So this pretty dark, bloody image of the book formed in my mind, and throughout the book I expected someone pretty important die any moment. However, in the first chapters, when I was a bit excited to know who was the first familiar character to die, I was sort of disappointed. I almost chuckled or did something similar when Hedwig died. I'm sorry to those who loved that owl and hated her death - I knows there's lots - but hey, I even expected one of the more prominent Weasleys to die. ( of course I didn't count the death of that former Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts at the end of chapter 1; I wouldn't have known her at all if not for Wiki )

What I didn't like is the pacing of the search for Horcruxes. It seemed that the book spent so much time just in the search for Slytherin's locket, only to give just a few chapters for the finding and destruction of half the Horcruxes. I also think the battle against Voldemort's Death Eaters should have been given more attention, but I think it's just the Lord of the Rings fan in me.

I don't understand why Lupin and Tonks had to die. I liked them.

On the other hand, Rowling did a very good job with the climax, how she made it so unique and satisfying yet not redundant. She built up the Deathly Hallows and Dumbledore-Snape conspiracy sub-story so well that when those finally became instrumental to and explained Harry's victory, we're really left content. I guess that's the magic of the Harry Potter series - so much history and background story is given to things that we really feel those stuff are wonderful, magical, and real.

Contrary to what some people say, I don't think the book is too crammed. Yes, it's, well, packed, but that also makes it satisfying. More magic stuff to think and talk and muse about. I think we just can't get enough of fantasy.

As for the fate of the characters, uh, I'm fine with that. I never really liked Ginny though, so I have no comment to that marriage. Ron and Hermione - their pair have always worked. Lupin and Tonks - as I said, I don't like that, but well, some characters have to die, seemingly for the sake of it. We can only assume happy endings for everyone good who lived.

The book is satisfying overall. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows lives up to its expectations as the last part of the legendary series. Though it lacks a lot of the charm and magic ( in a sense different from you know what ) that made the series so popular in the first place, we can forgive it given the story it had to deal with, the dark plot it had always been destined to have.

***

You gotta watch this. Really cool. In this case, it's even on-topic.

Potter Puppet Pals in "The Mysterious Ticking Noise"

Section Icons

2007-08-10T00:20:00.002+08:00

I don't remember why I made it for the first time. Last year, if I remember correctly, I did it again for the Yahoo! Group. This year I made because I've done it twice and it's weird if I didn't do it for the third time. Uh. Ya.

We Hold The Future, The Movie

2007-08-10T00:07:00.001+08:00

I just thought it would be cool.

By the way, We Hold The Future is a video, not a movie. There's a difference, of course. If it's a movie, it should have a full-fledged story with fully depicted characters. We Hold The Future is just a video with a message.

But if it is indeed turned into a movie.. it would mostly be about us fighting PSHS's policy in career options.

I imagine myself being the only good boy in the movie. Hehehe. Before you start hating me, look, I'm the engineer, I'm the one who's going to abide perfectly with the school policy.

Felize too, perhaps. We all know how often Pisay teachers are Pisay graduates.

Brian would be the one celebrating the new change in policy that allows Pisay students to pursue careers in medicine.

Paolo would fight the policy by being the first ever Philippine Air Force fighter pilot to, I dunno, use polynomial functions or something to determine heat-seeking missile trajectory by using the x, y and z coordinates as a function of time in three different dimensions, with natural factors such as wind speed, temperature and pressure taken into the equation, besides using biological theories to prove how lethal those missiles are and chemistry to show that heat seeking missile explosions are combustion with a bit of redox blah blah blah..

Benj, the cool guy in the Pisay Meets World video, would be forced to pay back all his stipends and tuition fees. Ya. Fortunately he became popular enough and sold enough albums to make the money for this. Perhaps.

Just wonderin'.

Cloud Racing

2007-08-04T23:50:00.000+08:00

In case you don't know.

Cloud racing started when one of three bored people sitting on the Pisay field looked up at the sky and said, "Hey, that's you're cloud and that's mine. First to get to horizon wins."

I won.

After like, half an hour.

Anyway, cloud racing is the sport for bored people on an open area. Things you need are: company, moderately clouded sky, and lots of patience. You may want a guitar and an audience, but that's optional. The game may last from a few minutes in a windy day to never-ending in case of a windless day or an overcast sky. It's an outdoor game, avoid playing on rainy days. Playing cloud racing during thunderstorms is lethal, and should be played only by those who want more grandstands in Pisay.

Procedure: sit or lie on the field. Determine wind direction. Each player picks a cloud at the horizon, where the wind comes from. Player whose cloud reaches other end of the sky first wins. Race is kinda slow so you can chat or play a song on the guitar or sing during the game. Just don't forget to occasionally look up to check your clouds.

Several difficulties can be encountered. Clouds are unstable things, so in the middle of races big clouds have a tendency to split up and small ones often just vanish. Or worse, clouds develop into rainclouds or thunderclouds. Avoid the sport in some places in America where thunderclouds have a tendency to form into tornadoes.

Have fun.

The Fourth Album

2007-08-04T23:04:00.000+08:00

Gabby Alipe speaks.

"Hopefully by August we can start recording [the fourth album] already and we hope for an October release."
- Gabby Alipe, at the Urbandub official mailing list

Oh shoot. I though they've been recording since March. Turns out they spent the summer composing, not recording, stuff.

Anyway. He also gave the tentative track list.

1. An Invitation
2. The Fight Is Over
3. Cebuana
4. Guillotine
5. She Keeps Me Warm
6. A Lonely Time In The World
7. Prayer
8. Life Is Easy
9. Inside The Mind Of A Killer
10. I Heard You Sing And It's Beautiful

At first, frankly, I didn't like it. I miss Embrace's coherent, war-themed titles and lyrics ( yeah, if you haven't noticed, Embrace uses war as a metaphor ). Then after staring it for minutes I began to appreciate it. I still don't like "Cebuana" and "Guillotine" though. And "She Keeps Me Warm" rather sounds bad.

About the sound of the album, Alipe says they tried to make it "sound like a good mix of both 'Influence' and 'Embrace'". Hmm. I'm fine with that.

As for the lyrics, it's going to be Urbandub's most personal yet. In Alipe's own words, "lyrically it's gonna be definitely 100% me, I've been writing lyrics that are definitely, directly, related to what I've been going through since the 'Embrace' album. No metaphors, no artsy fartsy bullshit, just straight-up lyrics about experiences I've been going through. Lyrically, it's the most honest I've ever written."

Wow.

I just wish it lives up to Embrace's challenge. "First of Summer" part 2? I hope for something new, something better, but still truly Urbandub. Long live Dubistas!

Contemplating Again

2007-08-03T01:31:00.000+08:00

My monitor coughed, sputtered and died. It took several weeks to replace. May it rest in peace.

( Yeah, that's my lame excuse for late posting. It's just that I'm telling the entire truth this time around. )

Uh. So what happened to me? I'm supposed to answer that question, right? That's what blogs are for. Sharing memories, sharing feelings, sharing stuff, letting the whole wide world know what you want them to know. At least, if they believe you. Most of the time they do. I think. Now I feel like I just contradicted myself and what I said a long time ago in another blog. Oh well. At least indirectly I told you I'm not thinking that coherently now.

It was a long day you know. Which reminds me. It's perio day. Or week. Or whatever. There are still two exams left to take. Chem and English. Sounds like failure and book notes to me.

Earlier, I spent something like eight hours sitting around in Pisay. It's the most exciting thing to do, really. In all honesty.

Funny how they tried their best to hide signs of 2007 in a movie set in the 1980's. It's like, the whole movie they took special care in shooting so that new stuff in Pisay don't get seen, and then they'll suddenly show all the glory of the ASTB in that scene at the creek. Oh, I was talking about Pisay the Movie.

Speaking of which, I just learned that Aureus Solito also directed the video of Ang Huling El Bimbo by the Eraserheads. Ya, that's so 1996, but hey, that's the first Philippine music vid that won the Best Asian Music Video something award from MTV, if I'm not mistaken.

Pisay the Movie will be shown at SM The Block on August 25 or something. Just go check the official website at www.pisaythemovie.com.ph. I know you've seen it, but they're gonna sell that cool Pisay shirt there. That cool black shirt with white stars on the neckline and a big white "Pisay" written across the front.

I'm hungry, but I still can't see cellulose as yummy. Be it Best Buy or Cattleya.

Math Lesson on YouTube

2007-07-15T21:25:00.000+08:00

YouTube is a cool site full of (supposedly) cool videos made by (supposedly) cool people for bored humans. So when you see a video featured on YouTube about the latest technique in multiplying large numbers, which is pretty not cool, you can't help but *click*.

"Cool Multiplication Technique for Large Numbers"

12.29 AM

2007-07-13T00:29:00.000+08:00

It's the first time I met Mr. Sleepless Night in months. You know, your only friend against Mr. Pisay Requirements.

I miss second year. Being a sophomore. (Are we growing up, or just going down?) At least Art and ValEd and some other subjects are opinion-based. You don't have to cite sources in the requirements, most of the time. You don't have to trouble yourself finding a real-life problem.

***

Student: "Sir, bakit late kayo?"
Teacher: "***** ka talaga!"

Aren't they supposed to be role models? I'm so fearless. And, hey, do I sound emo? It's just that I can't use smilies here.

When You Love Light Blue..

2007-06-30T22:24:00.000+08:00

It becomes the color of your monitor. Perhaps.

My screen is all bluish. All white stuff turn light blue. Of course I love the color, but it hurts. Oh well. All monitors have to fail someday. No exceptions, not even my trusted, almost 5 year-old CRT.

***

United 300 - I've just recently started watching funny films on YouTube, and so far this is the funniest I've seen. What do you get when you cross 300 and United Flight 93? A Spartan army fighting on a hijacked 757 jumbo jet.

Why Blog(ger)

2007-06-28T22:01:00.000+08:00

Everyone who uses WordPress will hate me starting today.

I prefer Blogger over WordPress, and any other blog service for that matter. It's all about simplicity and customizability.

At first, I was impressed with WordPress. The templates look good, the features at first seemed really nice. But over time, I realized that most of those stuff that fill up WordPress blogs are unnecessary for me. I don't need a calender in my blog. Those post summaries are more irritating than convenient. And more. I never used tags or labels to search for something in a blog.

It's not that WordPress is bad and ugly and evil and has plans to take over the world. You can use WordPress. Or LiveJournal. Go ahead. Maybe you need that calender. Or you think post tags are useful.

The reason I am still in Blogger is because I want simplicity in my blog. I don't need post labels and tags and other things I consider unnecessary cluttering up my page. I want it to look clean. There's just the text, the things you want to see, the occasional image and video, no elaborate separate post pages.

And no blog service allows you to customize your blog's look as much as Blogger can. Only Blogger lets me do what I want with my blog - I want it to look simple. In the age of individualism and unique identities, this is important. It's personalization. It's my own.

***

Ever heard the term power user? Basically, there are two types of people who use technology. The first type is the ordinary type. They use technology because everyone does, they don't know anything more about what they use than others do. They don't go and take pains to learn more about the technology they use and how they can use it better. The second type is the power user. They are the ones who take advantage of all the technology they have, they are the ones who make the most out of it, they are the ones who can do more. However, there's nothing really wrong in being an ordinary user.

To illustrate, most people use Internet Explorer. Power users get Firefox. Ordinary people search for blog skins at such sites as BlogSkins.com. Power users would want to create their own layouts. No kind is better - whichever you are, it's how you want to be, and you should be happy with it.

People use WordPress because it's user-friendly ( it really is ). Some people use Blogger because it's power user-friendly.

Initialize

2007-06-26T20:44:00.000+08:00

Five days after the summer solstice.

The Reason

( Boring part first. )

"Why do people, like me, like to start new blogs? There are several reasons.

For me, I'd like to start anew to reflect some big changes in my life recently. Yes, huge. I'm not going to go senti with a new blog. Well. At least I'll try my best. But I no longer go senti for long periods of time these days anyway."
- Cuivielindale, "Contemplating on Why People Blog", 11 June 2007

( Isn't it cool that I'm quoting my previous blog? Especially that it's called Cuivielindale. Makes it sound like some ancient book. And I'm quoting it. )

There's another reason I started a new blog, which I forgot to write in that post. I want a blog with a consistent style. If you read my first few and last few posts in my previous blog, you'd notice that the style differs greatly. ( The biggest difference is that I used Filipino as much as English when I started out with Cuivielindale. I ended it with pure English posts. ) Of course, all writers, especially the young ones, change their style over time. But I believe my style has 'stabilized' - that is, I believe my style would no longer change as drastically as my previous blog demonstrates.

Why do I want a blog with a consistent style? For the sake of it. I think it's cool.

( See, you could have skipped that whole paragraph up there and you wouldn't have missed anything. )

The Layout

So where's the cool aura behind the translucent plates and all the buttons and the switch-it-on-and-off tagboard?

Gone. You see, I went minimalist. Simplistic.

Riiiiight. You're just too lazy to make another cool, detailed skin that would be better than Cuivielindale's.

No. Really. I just went for the minimalist look.

No excuses!

No.. I just.. uh.. I just.. just.. *murmurs*

*evil grin*

The URL

Light blue's my fave color. That's it. The city part? I just like the word. Sounds cool. Especially after "lightblue".

The Title

watch.the.sunset

I love doing that.

The Tagboard

See, I have a new tagboard. Of course, I could've just copied the code of the one in Cuivielindale and paste it here, so we'd ( I believe tagboards belong to the people. Hehe. ) have one tagboard for two blogs. But I didn't. Two reasons.

First, no color scheme of the tagboard would fit the layout of the two blogs. If I put the Cuivielindale tagboard here, it would be too colorful. If I put that black and white tagboard in Cuivielindale, it would be too colorless. ( The excuse.)

Second, I forgot my cbox username. ( Real reason. )

The Plan

Update regularly. ( I can get away with this - I never defined "regularly". )

Possibly, make more changes and tweaks to the layout. To make it a bit less minimalist.

Write reviews for albums and movies released ages ago. Yes, I'd like to review the film 300.

--

ltbluecity. The beginning.