I got tipped that rumors are spreading that I know who Mary Jane (the person behind the dancedroop Multiply account) is. Wow. I am flattered. People think that we, Pat and I, traced the real person behind all the scandalous blog entries.

Unfortunately, I am not like the computer hackers that you would see in the movies. During weekdays [and nights], I am nothing but a corporate slave where I am forced to randomly type gibberish on the keyboard.

Weekends are also spent in front of the computer but chatting with friends that I met on the Internet and waiting for content to be cached by Google. I have no real social life and no girlfriend.

I do not crack into servers during my free time. I can’t. I can’t because I do not know how. I am not even close to becoming a script kiddie. What more with tracing the person behind the content cached by Google?

I can’t see the world where Japanese characters stream down like Neo does in The Matrix but if the lights in your room start flickering while you read this, I may have found a way how to do it.

• a temporary image of my laptop’s drive (no space but need to clean up with a fresh install)

компютри втора употреба

• another storage media for my MP3s (my iPod is acting up)

On a side note, any comments on the “modern” Winamp version? I’m thinking of using its library features. Since my media “server” back at home was decommissioned, I’ve been having problems with my muzak itches.

Another side note, is there a portable music player out there that has a ≥60GB flash drive? I might’ve dropped my iPod too many times. A fancy UI is the least of my concerns.

For me, there are three elements for a good television show: geeks, a hot chick and sarcasm. Lahaina told me to check out The Big Bang Theory and I got hooked the minute I saw the first episode.

The show is set with two physicists and a hot chick who just moved in across their apartment. Given the poor socializing skills of most some geeks (you can count me in), you’d probably get the drift of the series.

Here’s a keeper to spoil you.

I like the chemistry shirts that Leonard wears on most episodes. This show is da sex! I can relate to it a lot. So much that I usually see myself in Leonard and Sheldon.

I’m trying to negate fugliness with popularity. The following are the results of my tests (for your Photoshopping pleasure).

With Jun Lozada

If you want to know my opinion (and others’) about Lozada, you can follow the thread started by Ms. D.

Embassy

I got invited to this party organized by Flash Manila last Friday. Photos courtesy of Jordana.

Yes, my blog is dead. I kinda lost the will to blog or something comes up when I want to write something. You can follow me at Tumblr for the meantime.

When I moved to Makati, I had to switch to Globe because they managed to have two antennas on every floor. My SMART number was my first number. I had it for about six years. It sucked that I had to tell everyone that I changed my phone number.

Not only that. Globe’s GPRS rates are horrible. I love SMART’s flat rate at P10 per half hour. Not to mention that SMART had a better quality of service (in the context of GPRS). “You won’t know what you’ll be missing until it’s gone” as they say.

On the bright side, most of my contacts are on Globe. It was a bit easier to call them. No more trunk congestion. Also, I sorta got into this exclusive circle of the txting craze. I got my daily barrage of sweet “quotes” with group messaging. Props to this unlitxt promo.

Last Thursday wasn’t my lucky day. I forgot that I placed my phone on top of the ATM. When I went back for it (just about 5 minutes), it was gone. Since there’s no way to turn off the XDA, I could call it and whoever took the phone couldn’t do anything about it unless they pulled out the battery and smashed it into smithereens. Unfortunately, my SMART sim was clipped inside the phone.

I kept calling my phone but no answer. I sent a message asking to return the phone and I’d reward them for their trouble. After thirty minutes, there was a reply. I was so thrilled that I wrote the wrong answer telling them to just leave it to the guards at the bank. They probably thought I was going to dupe them with the reward and didn’t show up.

Losing the phone didn’t have a big impact on me. I didn’t feel like I lost a limb. What sucks is that the important notes and contact numbers are in there. ActiveSync is shit. Microsoft misinforms by giving you an option to backup your mobile device everytime you sync it. Much to my luck, you can’t retrieve the database from the “backup” (or it’s not that easy). Yay Microsoft!

But since I love having the “power” to check my mail while on the go and the ability to read my eBooks, I’ll be getting an XDA again and maybe, just maybe, I could still load my phonebook there.

I’m not much of a Christmas person but Dennis cracked me up when he shared a link. It sucks that I can’t embed it so here’s the link.

Wow, my last post was more than a month ago. I’m still alive and very well.

I moved out of our house at Sta. Rosa, Laguna to the smelly streets of Makati. There are many reasons. Below is a list of answers that I randomly pick from when somebody asks me, “Why?”

• If I take public transportation, it’s fractional to how much I spend for gas, toll fees and parking.
• It’s hard to maintain a car and you have to bother about color coding.
• I don’t have to drive. Yes, sometimes it’s fun. But most of the time, it’s not. We all know how most Filipino drivers are (me included).
• I’m a hermit, introvert and I hate everyone. I enjoy living by myself and I miss it.
• It sucks that I drive by myself and contribute to the pollution. Carpooling would be great but I’m not an 8-5 person.
• Obviously, 90 Kilometers (round trip on a worst case scenario) is a long haul.
• I can walk to work.
• There’s a gym upstairs and I’m out of shape.
• Lots of girls in our building.
• I like the city life. Although Makati is not much of a decent city but I don’t have any choice, do I?

It took us a month to get an Internet connection to the unit. There was the paperwork, miscommunication and the breakneck neck-breaking processing of our high tech ISPs.

I could’ve blogged from work but I’m not really comfortable with writing a blog entry at work. I kinda feel anal when someone watches me write behind my shoulder. I’ve been busier too. So there.

I miss Hong Kong.

I was supposed to blog about this earlier but I was too busy the past few days to post it. Besides, that entry was a bit negative. For me, the thought of a programming contest is very lame. A member of a team that got in a previous world finals gave a talk and he pointed out that the contest does not promote efficient code (sorry, forgot his name). I agree with him.

But the contest is not that bad at all. It still challenges one’s capacity and performance when it comes to logic. Maybe someday the contest can also have another category for efficiency.

The contest was a success. It didn’t go smoothly though. I found it very ironic that, as people in the field of computer science, the organizers were announcing the computers assigned to the teams. They could’ve at least used the nearby computer that was connected to the projector. I think an hour was wasted just by doing that. Or they could’ve called all the team coaches and gave the assignments.

Also, the school wasn’t that prepared too. Some computers didn’t compile and most had hardware problems. It’s good that the school decided to make yabang and hosted the event. The students get new computers this school year, yay (I hope)!

Now that the contest is over, we now have a benchmark of l33t skillz from 24 schools with a total of 50 teams. The last time I saw the scoreboard, the top three are teams from UP Diliman, AdMU and UPLB. The first team I found from DLSU was at 6th. The team from DLS-C that scored the most was at 19th.

There you have it. If your kid wants to take computer science, send him to UP or the Ateneo. But coming from a La Sallian school, it makes me feel guilty not to be defensive about it <snicker snicker>. That doesn’t mean that most students in the respective schools are as good or as bad as those in the contest. Go UP! Op course, I have to side with the lesser of two evils.

It was also great to see Doc Mana in person (I’ve been following his blog). He does make a good point that contests like these should be treated with glamour and prestige like the varsity teams get in UAAP. It doesn’t have to be televised (us geeks are shy people), just better funding. This should also increase geek culture in the country. Healthy competition is good.

Good luck to the teams that will be going to the regionals! Here’s to hoping for better ICPCs in the next years.

By the way, it’s really De La Salle-Canlubang, not DLSU-Canlubang. I have to be anal about it.

If the doctors and nurses have shows targeted to them (Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs et al), we folks in the überkewl IT industry have a TV series dedicated to us too. I was LMAO at the jokes. Literally.

One of my favorite jokes is at this video clip (2:52).

Until Monday (October 8th), you can help organizations that are doing something about breast cancer. The Boobie-Thon is an annual event run at the first week of October.

There are two ways that you can help: 1) by submitting a picture of your boobies (no faces, just boobs) or, 2) by donating cash. You don’t have to submit bare boobs. Even manboobs are accepted. Then donate at least $50 and you’ll get access to bare boobs.

Remember Kitta, the cute Flickr chick that does HTML and CSS? She submitted a photo of her rack this week. Yay! No links to any of her pages. She might find this entry.

I also heard on the news that the Philippines has the most deaths by breast cancer in Asia. I forgot how much but it’s somewhere around 5 digits. I also forgot which politician was pushing for a bill to have at least one breast cancer center in every city or municipal.

Save the boobies before it’s too late!