This is me amused with little things.

On a side-note, I think it’s about time to get a new laptop. It’s not that my current laptop needs more juice. It works just fine for my needs and brought me great fortune in the past 4 years from college requirements to enterprise software.

Fedora 7 just reached its end of life and I get this OCD that I have outdated software. With the urge to upgrade but no place to backup my files (strange, all of my drives are full), I think a new laptop is the answer.

An extra hard disk would be a lot cheaper but I’m weighing the extra convenience that I’ll get with a more modern laptop. For instance, if I had a newer wireless card with 802.11g (yes, my laptop is 802.11b!), I’ll be using drivers with WPA support and higher transfer rates. With a DVD combo drive (vs a CD-ROM drive), better RAM, graphics card, and processor, makes me convinced that it’s, err, about time.

I’ll be getting an HP/Compaq because all of our laptops at home that carry the same brand are still alive. Also, it won’t be anything fancy. Just a boring normal laptop and it won’t be a tablet like I wished before. The TX2000 and TX2500 are available locally though.

There will be one busy weekend soon.

I’m subbing as bassist for The Kagaws tonight. I’m prepared to lose whatever dignity I have left (my apologies to the band). Admission is free (Of course. I is no rockstar.).

3 S.O.M.E.

Maru Bar
G/F Strata 2000 (Yes, the one that caught fire last week)
Emerald Ave., Ortigas Center
Pasig City

Featuring performances by:
Duster
Electro Momma
Flicker
Freefish
Fusion
Hija
Kampai
Kaze
Mobster Manila
The Kagaws
Rubber Pool
Valve 8

I haven’t played in, err, six months. My hands are probably rusty already.

Found a new comic today. I still don’t know what it’s about but I find most of it amusing.

Well, we’re two humans who call ourselves Mikael Wulff and Anders Morgenthaler - and yes we both own a computer - wow!?

On Juin 15, 2007 is the Fifth Philippine Jazz Festival at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza (Westin Philippine Plaza Hotel). This event, part of French Spring in Manila, is sponsored by Alliance Française de Manille and the French Embassy.

I don’t have the whole list but to name a few, Saxophoro, Brass Munkeys, the UP Jazz Ensemble and a Jazz trio from France will be playing.

Thomas Enhco & the Jazz Angels. Thomas Cohen (whose stage name Encho is backwards slang for Cohen) is a multi-talented 18 year-old prodigy who is equally at home playing the violin and the piano. Together with friends Zacharie Abraham on double bass and Nicolas Charlier on drums

Mark your calendars! Admission is free and the music starts at 6PM.

I downloaded and watched Taxi 3 last night. The Hollywood version stole the idea and makes all Taxi movies look bad (except for the VS angels). I found English subtitles but it wasn’t synced with the film. I watched it while I manually scrolled through the subtitles in a text editor.

Bai Ling is also on this film, playing the role of the evil seductress. She’s the one playing the new character that played the tattoo artist on Lost (the girl that speaks Spanish, Russian and Chinese) (the episode where Jack was in Thailand).

I hate watching films with subtitles. This is one of the films that makes me want to learn another language. It’s either Spanish, Portuguese or French. Italian sounds nice too. So far, the only ones I know are English, Filipino, some Mandarin numbers …and PHP.

I remember when I was in high school, I hung out with this big French guy. He was very quiet. Just like me. We just sat on the bench and enjoyed the wind whisper in your ears. It was like meditation with telepathy.

Anyway, let me share this dialogue from Taxi 3 where Daniel goes to the convenience store to check what two lines on a pregnancy test mean. The scene starts with the clerk and Daniel who just walked in the store.

Daniel: Hi!
Store Owner: Hi!
Daniel: Do you have the box that this comes in? (pointing to the pregnancy test thing)
Store Owner: Let’s see. (Daniel hands the thing then the store owner goes to the back of the store) Isn’t it some kind of pregnancy test?
Daniel: Precisely! Can we hurry?
Store Owner: Don’t move. It’s next to the condoms.
Store Owner: (returns from the back) I’m out of stock. We had a rush on them. Women Iike to give a little baby for Christmas.
Daniel: That’s what I’m thinking.
Store Owner: I understand. I’ll ask my daughter. Angele! She helps out. she knows it all by heart. It’s impressive.
Store Owner: (Angele enters from the back) Angele. what’s this? (pointing to the test thing)
Angele: Sorry. I try to be careful but I was drunk.
Store Owner: I told you to help yourself to condoms.
Angele: There were none his size!
Store Owner: Whose?
Angele: I dunno.
Store Owner: You don’t know his name?
Angele: I was drunk. I forgot their names.
Daniel: Merry Christmas! This is serious. (Daniel leaves; end of scene)

It’s not new but it never gets old. In another scene, he puts the thing in his mouth in attempt to hide it from his girlfriend’s father (a general) saying it was a thermometer.

So yesterday I attended PHPUGPH’s Meetup at The Mob (Market! Market!). Roy of Computer Professionals’ Union (CPU) and I won a camping chair from the raffle courtesy of TXTDomain. Congratulations to Clod (aka r00t) and his team for organizing the event.

After that, I checked out Pakshirts at Habi House. I usually don’t spend for shirts. The last time I bought one was when I was in high school. You probably won’t believe that the FILA, Converse and No Fear shirts that I wear are from my sixth grade.

When I found the shirt that I liked, the lady told me she didn’t have change. I was trying to kill time since it was still rush hour so I did the trouble of looking for change. I never bothered this much for one shirt. I discovered that Serendra is the kind of place where you’re meant to spend four to five digits. I had trouble looking for a place where I only had to spend less than a hundred Pesos to get change.

This is what you’d call a real plaza. There were lots of nice sculptures and fountains. There’s this one fountain that had a boulder mounted on a huge tripod and it had water falling down (so it’s actually a waterfall?). I’m too lazy to look for a picture, so it’s best that you check it out for yourself.

Habi House is an art gallery that features paintings by a certain artist every two weeks. Yes, I did a mini-interview on the Habi House lady. At least there’s a story for the trouble of getting one shirt and the last for this design. All for the sake of local art (…and fashion).

I really liked the one-liners but I’m the type of person that prefers cotton shirts. The shirt is made of a very elastic material. I’ll just give this as a gift.

As requested by Rick of Project Manila and for Sir Pat, here’s a picture of the shirt enjoying the camping chair that I got for free.

Many thanks to Joyz for sharing the info.

Skarlet is the former vocalist of the Ska Band, Put3ska, who eventually came out of the closet and pursued a career in hardcore Jazz Standards. She’s one of the newest recording artists of Candid Records (yes, she already has an album out now, Skarlet:The Powder Room Stories, go grab a copy!) and her band is just so great.

Skarlet plays at Chakiks every Thursday night. Chakiks is at CityGolf Plaza, Julia Vargas Ave., Ortigas Center, Pasig City (beside Home Depot).

He’s right. Every bass player has to know Jaco.

That’s part two. Here are the other parts.

• Part 1
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7

Sony did the same thing with their Vaio. Now, Novel is riding the bandwagon too.

Honestly, there are more chicks that are hotter out there. They should’ve done the XGL cube on the chick’s head. That would sooooo kick ass! Anyway, I like this one better.

Novel is a sponsor of SuSE, a Linux distribution, and made a deal with Microsoft a few months ago. You can watch the original Get-A-Mac ads here.

Source: PLUG Technical Mailing List

I found a nice remix of Blow Up. A song by my favorite Japanese sax player, Shinji Takeda. I got it off of BitTorrent but due to the fact that the RIAA are assholes that sues poor college kids like me, I can’t give the link. Do your own homework and look for Abstract Jazz Lounge.

Here we have an acid jazz style sampler I grabbed primarily because I tend to buy anything with the Masters At Work involved.

I’ve been playing it alot lately and I figure here’s a good a place to post it as any other.

Its a solid CD with a nice array of styles that I think will appeal to many of you.

I’ve enjoyed it over the years and hopefully you will too.

Unfortunately, the dude that posted this torrent didn’t get to include the DJ/s that did the masterpieces on this sampler.

How did I find out about Shinji Takeda? I took random CDs from my uncle’s flat to listen to at work (when I was at HK). I found “Love Time” and ripped it the moment I heard the first track. If he did more records, I’d definitely buy them.