I’m moving out on Sunday. After living here in Quezon City for the past decade, half of it spent alone, I’m going to be moving in with my sister in a new apartment she recently got.

I spent most of yesterday scouring through the house for things I need. I have a natural tendency to be a pack rat, so even if something is completely useless and I’ll be perfectly fine without it, I have this urge to want it around just in case. Packing up is one of the trickiest things you can ask a pack rat to do.

I have most of the clothes I think I’ll be using in a couple of large laundry hampers, the rest I’m leaving behind are remnants from a decade ago when we moved from Bulacan to Quezon City. Mostly things that don’t fit me anymore and things that are too tacky for me to ever wear.

I cleared my desks of all the CDs and miscellaneous computer-related trinkets and put them in a large plastic tub which I then stacked on the clothes hampers. I found some old computer hardware that I might be able to sell for a little scratch. Certainly someone will want the metals, chips and other materials on my 2 dead hard disks, my handheld scanner, an old external modem, a half-dead motherboard, and a blurry reconditioned 14″ monitor. Perhaps it would be enough to scrounge up some money for me to buy some additional memory or maybe a more up-to-date video card.

Three sneakers, three rubber shoes, and 2 pairs of slippers: this is all the usable footwear I own. I put them in another plastic tub and made a mental note to get myself some decent leather shoes.

I also cleaned out my drawers of my personal effects and stored them in several shoeboxes. I made sure not to leave behind any of Nicole’s stuff. I grabbed Wawa and sat him on top of pile of things I’ve packed. Going through my closet, I also found the throw pillow with a picture of Nicole’s face on it. I forgot all about that, I must’ve fell. A little dirty, I’ll have to get it washed.

I also found a rabbit ears antenna, hooked it up to my TV and I can watch all the local channels again. I have mixed feelings though about having it moved to my sister’s room. Apparently the room I’m getting is smaller, I may not even be able to fit a desk and my PC in it. At least there’s going to be a larger TV in the living room and she has plans to get broadband in the coming weeks. Smart WiFi, crappy broadband but broadband nonetheless. It’ll have to do for now.

I did a little raid on the closet in my brother’s room and found our old portable TV, the kind with a screen size just a little larger than my palm. Maybe I can have that in my room instead. Nothing else I could find in there, he and his family moved out years ago.

Even if I’ve gotten sick and tired of this house, I’m still going to miss it. I won’t be living alone anymore, but I’m definitely going to miss the privacy and the total freedom. I could always come back I guess, to pick up things I that wasn’t important enough to pack up now. But after Sunday, I’ll probably never live or sleep in this house again.

Pacquiao TKOs Morales in round 10 Got the info from #boxing on IRC, the stupid broadcast on channel 2 is delayed by like, at least half an hour. Damn commercials.

First of all, I would like to point out that I was totally forced into submission by Nicole into answering these. She said it best when she thought I’d say these things are a lame waste of time.

Seven things to do before I die:

1. Take over the world.
2. Curse my enemies with the flatulence of a thousand camels.
3. Read The Lord of the Rings in its entirety (I’ve only read The Hobbit).
4. Watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and all other geek cult movies.
5. Marry a brilliant and hot woman.
6. Learn a musical instrument, preferably the drums.
7. Get at least one evil-ish tattoo.

Seven things I cannot do:

1. Regain any kind of faith in any religion. I’m rock-solid on my atheism.
2. Start blogging Be totally open on my blog.
3. Develop any substance-dependent vice (i.e., smoking, drug use).
4. Become a trendwhore music groupie/scenester.
5. Grow back my hair longer than a couple of centimeters.
6. Give up my techie/internet/gaming habits entirely.
7. Lick my elbow.

More »

Since I’m moving out soon, there’s really no point in keeping our cable TV service. For the past week or so, I’ve been stuck with local TV stations, unfortunately my cable-ready TV doesn’t have an antenna and I’m stuck with channels 2, 4, 5, 7 and 11. I’ve always had the general impression that local programming was somewhat lacking, but now I’ve seen it for myself and have come to the conclusion that local TV just simply sucks.

I don’t get why everything now on local TV should be in Filipino (Tagalog, in my case). My childhood upbringing as an English-speaking Filipino bias aside, it’s a little counter-productive to undermine our advantage as a reasonably competent English-speaking Asian country when we’re already down in the dumps.

I’ve heard and read enough mangled English from real life, from forums, blogs, and Friendster profiles, so why the hell are we encouraging it? I know that some countries do well with enough understandable English and still have successful economies, but obviously ours isn’t successful and now we’re being downgraded from having decent English to having understandable English. Oh joy, now we won’t have either. Way to go, Philippines!

Just being patriotic in my own pessimistic way.

And don’t get me started on all those Asian telenovelas. Urrghh..

It will be necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a remedy for the benefit of those who require such a mode of treatment. -Eusebius, Constantine’s chief Christian scholar

According to a story posted on January 4 by Reuters, an Italian court is being asked to rule whether the Roman Catholic Church is breaking the law. The first criminal charge is Abuso di Credulita Popolare (Abuse of Popular Credulity) meant to protect people against being swindled or conned. The second criminal charge is Sostituzione di Persona, or false impersonation.

The case pits two elderly men, from the same Italian town who went to the same seminary in their teenage years, against each other. The plaintiff, Luigi Cascioli, after years of independent study became a religious skeptic and atheist. The defendant Enrico Righi is a Roman Catholic priest and writer for a local parish newspaper, but by extension the lawsuit includes the Roman Catholic Church. More »

In a previous post, I expressed how much fun it was to create characters in City of Heroes and City of Villains. Here’s a bunch of icons from my childhood that I decided to recreate:

- He-Man
- Skeletor
- Mask Rider Black
- Piccolo (DBZ)
- Mojo Jojo

I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be making more during the course of my free trial.

We laid off the maid. No wait, my siblings laid off the maid. I’m totally against the idea of a maid-less existence, or at least until I move out of this large old house.

I really really hate doing house chores, especially if I’ll be doing them everyday. Now I have more appreciation for whatever the maid did while I laid back in my room without a care in the world.

My laundry hamper is filled to the brim and I have yet to ask around for the phone number of the local village laundry service. Also, with advice from Nicole, I soaked my undies in soapy water overnight, then rinsed and hung them out to dry the next day. This really isn’t my thing, but a man just has to have clean underwear.

The dirty dishes are piling up, I’ll deal with that tomorrow. In the meantime, I had some fast food delivered just because I’m too hassled to wash pans, cook, then wash them again. This way I can just wrap up the cartons and plastics in a bag to throw them in the bin. That reminds me though, I have to take out the trash before it starts rotting in the yard.

I really really need to move out soon. Hopefully it’s goodbye Quezon City and hello Makati City by the end of January because I sure as hell can’t keep up with the house work.

Actually no, it’s more like dealing with people who are dealing with death. I have little problem with it, I accept death easily and so far with little to no resistance at all. When you run out of luck, that’s too bad. I look at it from the perspective that death is part of life, it may be the end of it but it’s still part of it nonetheless. More »

Yesterday, I was asked to come by the office of a company I yet cannot name to pickup game boxes of City of Heroes and City of Villains to do some playtesting. I’ve been really dying to try out this game. If I had money to burn I definitely would have bought and subscribed to this game long ago, and I think that’s the root of my problem right now.

After a long night of creation a hero and a villain, putting both of them through the tutorial and initial missions, I found that the game didn’t immerse me enough into it. The game itself is impressive, the world is large and believable, the character creation and customization is simply jaw dropping, but I think I’ve been too spoiled by Guild Wars where the combat is more interesting and involved than just attacking an enemy and waiting for it to die.

I found myself being sent into a mission with a somewhat lackluster dialogue and little motivation to do it. All I had to do was enter a warehouse and kill everything inside. Oh wow, whoopdeedoo. I might have found no problem with this before, but now it just seems a little… dull.

Nonetheless, I’ll make the most out of my corporately-sponsored superhero/supervillain romp through Paragon City and The Rogue Isles. I’ll go give it another whirl and create another character, which is hands-down one of the most fun things in the world.

01/05/06 Edit: I take back the dull part. I’ve met some friendly players who invited me to join a bunch missions and steamrolling through them with other superheroes has turned out to be quite fun. I’ve recently created a new villain who commands a small army of ninjas. Hell yeah!

Pangya is a new free-to-play localized MMOG being introduced by NetGames. Even though I think the name “PangYa” without a doubt sounds terrible, I was told about it by a friend who has similar gaming preferences, so I decided to give it a chance. Much to my surprise I found it very entertaining and relaxing.

I played golf as a young boy, my father sort of goaded me into playing it. I spent many weekends whacking around balls at driving ranges, I even joined a junior tournament once (which I lost, to no one’s surprise). I wasn’t very good and I didn’t really enjoy having sore hands, sore feet and unnecessarily darker skin.

I don’t really like the graphic style, I’m quite fed up of the whole cutesey anime cliche, but hey it’s free to play so I can’t really complain. The music sounds like elevator music, but thankfully I didn’t come across any bad voiceovers for the weird “magical” power swings. Made available are some consumable items to use that provide various effects for 1 turn, and what seems to be a cutesy game prerequisite nowadays: vanity equipment. There are clothes, accessories, even caddies for you to purchase.

The user interface is actually nice, it gives you a little desktop with shortcut icons to various game features and UI elements that would give you an idea of what would happen if Fisher-Price made it’s own operating system.

Needless to say that the very concept of golf with RPG elements nauseates me, the actual golf-playing portion of the game is very playable and easy-to-learn. The tutorial will guide you through the basics and there is a practice mode so you don’t embarass yourself when you make a great drive to the green, but spend 2 or 3 extra strokes putting the ball into the hole from 3 yards away.

From there, you go into Versus Mode and start going into head-to-head or team matches. There is a Quick Start button that will immediately find you a match or create a room that other people will join a few seconds after and just play a golf game like you normally would.

There isn’t much pressure or distraction aside from the usual morons who want you to hurry up your shot. Just ignore the fuckers, you have anywhere between 30 seconds or a full minute to make your shot depending on the room’s settings. It’s all very casual.

So far I have spent one afternoon playing this, and I think it’s safe to say I will continue playing it because at the end of the day, the fun factor is what matters the most… even if you’re ankle-deep in your own vomit.