My sister’s trying to bribe me to do the backend for their thesis. Too bad it’s working. The desktop is now back. Just in time for the performance tomorrow night and the TV tuner/capture card that I just bought. That’s why I’m broke.

Here’s today’s rehearsal. Boogs was absent. Shots courtesy of Anna.

There were supposed to be more shots but Anna said they were bad. So she only got to send 3 to me.

Today is one hella lucky day! I’m exempted at OOANALD (Object Oriented Analysis and Design) and there was no FILITWO class today (because I’m still not yet done with the assignment).

So I’m now settled in our “new” room. I don’t like it so much. The windows almost face the road, against the direction of the wind and there are still no curtains. This room smells like dogpiss too. Fuck.

I want to take a picture of my new home office now but I can’t find my camera. I also want to take a shot of what my dad did with the lights at the living room upstairs. He installed too many (six to be exact). I guess he was too bored (he meant busy) that he installed four more light fixtures.

Band practice was better in some parts. I thought that Anna wasn’t going with me so I left her. There’s tomorrow too anyway. Oh yeah, communicating with my cousin is way easier on MSN even if she’s just on the other room.

I have a copy of Marcus Miller’s latest album, “Silver Rain”. The album-titled-track, projects Marcus’ roots as a Jamaican. The song has a Reggae beat and he sings there (I think). It’s great, I’m going to buy it (if you’re a bassist, you should too). There’s one track, Bruce Lee, which sounds like most of his styles, almost overused or too Marcus Milleresque.

I forget the rest that I wanted to write. Maybe they’ll pop out tomorrow.

Our video is now live on Google. It took about a week to have it live (the process is so long). Another copy is also on YouTube, which is the best for now.

I’m keeping my email address at MyRealBox since GMail’s junk mail filter is working.

I’ll write more later. Promise.

This morning, around 9.00AM, a good man passed away. He will be remembered. Tito Egay gave me a great childhood. I remember back in the days when I was always at their place, playing with my cousins and the time I got lost in Nayong Pilipino. Although I don’t really remember the last one, I’m constantly reminded of that.

May he rest in peace.

I’m going to be busy in the coming days. Filled with meetings, homework, work and responsibilities. Anyway, I’m just taking a break.

For those who don’t know, I like to have music while I work. This morning, I was craving for more of Shinji Takeda’s music. He’s my favorite sax player now. I did a Google search to see if I could find other records by him. My first try, “Shinji Takeda”, results for VCDs and DVDs that include an actor with the same name. Second try, “Shinji Takeda Sax”, I found one helpful page. Unfortunately, Shinji is an actor. He only did an album once. Too bad.

To fulfill my craving, I had Save Ferris’ “It Means Everything” enqueue on my playlist. Ska was my next choice since it had a big brass section and great upbeat. Since I had no luck in finding more music of Shinji and more from the same genre, I searched for more ska bands.

I found two, both foreign tongues for me. SKA-P and The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. SKA-P is Spanish, I took “Planeta Eskoria” and “On Tour” by The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. Great music, only I can’t understand the lyrics. I can only blab out with it. Haha!

I used to laugh at those who loved to listen to anime soundtracks because they’re a big fan of the film/series they watch/ed. Now, I don’t know if they like it. Japanese music isn’t bad at all. Except that it feels a bit uncomfortable if you can’t understand it and you don’t know the lyrics when you want to sing along to it (even if I can’t sing for shit). TSPO (I had to abbreviate it, it’s too long!) sounds like GunBound’s soundtrack by the way.

I also searched for some more info about Marcus Miller, my favorite bassist. May it be electric bass, electric fretless bass, slap bass or bass sax, he’s still the best for me. I want to share some pictures, taken from his site.

We swapped rooms with my sisters last Friday. I’ll write more later. I’ve been slacking off too much lately.

I might stop checking my old email address jnptloh-asdf-at-myrealbox-dot-asdf-com (remove “asdf” and dashes, translate “at” and “dot” to their symbolic characters) because junk mail is sent to that address every 10 minutes. Even Thunderbird can’t learn that fast! Since it gets through my filters, it’s annoying that it gets mixed up with my clean mail. Heck, I even made a view to exclude messages from that E-Mail address. The only way to stop recieving messages from Julie inviting me to see naked pictures of her and ads for cheap software, viagra and cialis is to stop using that account. Besides, I barely get personal mail there anymore.

For now, I’m testing if I forward everything sent to that address to my GMail address and its filter will do the job. If it does, I’ll keep that address. If not, I’ll trash it.

I got GTA:SA working on my laptop but it’s as sluggish as hell. I think there are incompatibilities with the ATI GPU on my laptop. I can’t imagine the things I do just for a video game.

It’s a small world isn’t it? Sir Joel knows my uncle.

I’m selling some of my computer stuff, just contact me if you want to buy any of the following (all items are negotiable):
1. Fujitsu 20GB Mobile Hard Disk - PhP3,000.00
2. Toshiba 6.4GB Mobile Hard Disk - PhP1,000.00
3. Phoenix Laptop - PhP25,000.00
Specs:

• VIA Nehemiah 1000MHz x86 compatible processor
• VIA chipset based board (I forgot the brand)
• 512MB RAM (forgot the type)
• S3 Mobile Graphics Card Shared Memory with RAM up to 64MB (S-Video/CRT Output)
• 20GB HDD
• CD-ROM
• 56k Modem and 10/100 Ethernet NIC
• Phoenix is a software company specialized in hardware interface like BIOS. Their products can be found in most motherboards.

My dad’s planning on buying a new laptop because we’re going to upgrade the home network to WiFi. So if you’re going to be my neighbor and the walls permit, you can borrow bandwidth. Mine’s a Centrino so I have no worries. My dad’s current laptop will be handed down to my sister, we’ll just get a PCMCIA WiFi card for that.

By the way, here’s our January performance at last year’s Band Festival. Just click on the button labeled “Free” near the bottom of the page. It was rush video editing with Window’s friggin’ Video Maker so soften the volume when you open it, you might wreck your speakers. Google’s Video Upload Program is taking so long to verify it so I saw RapidShare.

Damn, GTA:SA won’t work on my laptop. It crashes just after the cutscene appears. I hope it’s not a hardware incapability.

I can’t miss out on this game! This has been my favorite game eversince the first one came out up to GTA:VC! I remember when HT&L came out when my older laptop’s video card didn’t have it. My laptop’s video card is at half of the requirement but it should still run. If it won’t work, I’ll have to save money to upgrade the desktop. I won’t rush it though, I still have 2 games installed in my PC, NFS:U2 and The Sims 2, which I have to finish and get sick of.

Besides, I have no time for should reduce my time on playing video games because I’m getting fatter already and I have a lot of things to catch up on.

More on video games, The Sims 2 Nightlife is out and Need for Speed: Most Wanted is coming this November. What I like about the new Sims 2 expansion is they own cars now! As for NFS:MW, the cops are back! Woohoo! Also, I heard these cops aren’t stupid anymore. EA finally got those screws working again, I hope they pull out NFS of the arcade genre. Back in the days of NFS(5): Porsche Unleashed, where good driving could result in a win, not some tank of nitrous oxide.

For those who don’t have broadband access right now but have SMART’s cellular coverage, they’re now offering [almost] high-speed wireless internet connection. It’s cheaper than PLDT myDSL, Globelines Broadband and definitely cable internet providers.

John’s story on his rumored Fête de la Musique gig according to Boogs:
Some dude: Dude, I read that you’re playing at the musicfest!
John: What?
Some dude: At the fête.
John: Fuck no!

I’m having doubts about my band, our credibility and their enthusiasm. I don’t even know if they want to play as much as I do. I just want to play. That’s it.

While searching for a free video sharing/hosting site today, I found Google’s Video Upload Program. I also tried other sites like StreamLoad which didn’t suit my needs and OurMedia which doesn’t work (maybe for me).

Just got back from Alabang. On the way back, my dad was giving this talk about managing money, the Chinese style. Come to think of it, I’m sort of like what he was saying but he didn’t know about it. Haha!

Anyway, if you didn’t go to Fête de la Musique last night, you missed a lot excluding urine-throwing-pricks. Motherfuckers. I’m eyeing for an album/EP of the Brass Monkeys and Brown Beat All-Stars. I missed Johnny Allegre, Kapatid and the bands that Boogs is bragging about right now. Too bad, we had to leave early.

Grand Theft Auto (GTA): San Andreas for PC. Is already out. I forgot to announce it [again].