LefthandedLayup.com

Author: Gabriel

  • 2010 Day 1: Not Much To Report

    I would’ve uploaded a few pics if I could find the USB cable. Anyway that reminds me that Jill got a free USB card reader when she bought Tilde, her new S90, so I better ask for that instead.

    I finally got to watch My Sassy Girl and it was terrific, or at least the ending was. Quite likely some of the scenes gist’ were lost in translation so they came out long and pointless, but it came all together in the end. The Wikipedia page says ‘it became a mega blockbluster hit in the entire region from Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, as well as South East Asia, to the point where it was drawing comparisons to Titanic‘. That’s very impressive and I finally got to see why. It might not necessarily have the best of any given particular detail, but at the end it leaves you happy and that’s more than enough for me.

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  • Peekchurs and the Monster

    So here’s basically where I live. I couldn’t place pegs on the notoriously difficult to use Google Maps, but its all good. DLSU Canlubang is this big area a 10min walk away, where I walk / run (mostly walk) in the mornings like today. Like I said in my last post the very long driveway + the roundabout at the end and back is exactly 2km., so that, plus a stopwatch (I use my phone) is a good way to measure progress.


    View Larger Map

    And here’s a few pics of ‘The Monster’, which is what I’ve decided to call the long driveway – the better to aspire to beat it I suppose.

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  • Ok I finally have DSL.

    The PLDT guys came over around 3 in the afternoon and hooked me up. This is the plan 990 they harp on about all the time and so far it’s been ok. My main barometers don’t use numbers. I just play internet radio on iTunes while doing some regular webmaster work and it hasn’t hiccupped once.

    Speaking about internet radio, I think it’s what I missed most about not having any ‘net. There’s a station on iTunes that’s called Jazzradio.com – Vocal Jazz, ftg. the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holiday, etc. and listening to it after I work on stuff in the evenings is surely on my top 3 fave things of all time.

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  • why I’m here

    the very fact I have to remind myself occasionally why I decided to
    live here is reason enough to suspect, and rightly so, that I’m not
    enjoying myself. and sadly I’ve to face the fact that yes, after
    nearly a month, Ive started to wonder the wisdom of my move.

    then again I’m not completely healed yet, and there’s also the fact
    I’ve yet to have full dsl yet ( the damn pldt guys installed the cable
    and left the landline and dsl modem a full week ago but they don’t
    work yet. I’m stealing wifi off my consenting neighbor and am writing
    this on an iPod). But still. Being alone can be lonely, and the quiet
    irks me. it’s not that I’ve gone lunAtic, at least not yet, but the
    boredom gets to me, and again I have to remind myself.

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  • Blogging Per Se, Safe Villages and Obama’s Book

    There was once upon at time when I was teh personal
    blogger     and I think one of the primary reasons why I am starting
    to write on lefthandedlayup again is because of the
    excitement it gave me to post something up. I’ve way matured
    that feeling from the various (mostly self – serving) emotions
    conjured while at it, many of which prevented me from enjoying it for
    what it really is.

    To publish something is an exciting series of events. The topic
    might come first or the motivation, but the idea of putting it all
    together to produce something of note can make anyone giddy. As we
    progress later on our careers as writers, editors and publishers, we
    may extend these actions onto situations that serve other purposes.
    The newspapers do it to shape public opinion. Movie writers do it to
    get people to go / not go to their showbiz alaga’s productions and so
    forth. Who’s to say that we haven’t written an article on KE, MomEx or
    BallEx that wasn’t to curry some action? It’s just the way things
    are.

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  • San Jose Realizations and Whatnot

    According to my phone’s sent box, I finally arrived with my last batch of stuff on the 6th then promptly fell sick that afternoon. I remember sitting down in my living room (and when I say ‘living room’ I mean a Uratex seat on the bare floor), dripping in sweat and feeling completely exhausted while looking at the ton of other boxes and bags I had to sort through and arrange. I took a break, and even took Jill to dinner that night at one of those fast food places at Paseo, which is a great find. Day after though I felt sick to the bone.

    This went on for 2 or 3 days until I could get back on my feet. Acclimatizing while dealing with a terrible cold and fever didn’t help of course, but at least the drugs kept me sleeping for the most part of it.

    Jump to the next week, when it turns out the oatmeal that had comprised my breakfast during the time I was sick was near on top of the list of bad things for my gout, so guess what? By the time my fever was starting to subside my foot, in turn, reached a pain level constantly in the 8 to 9 range (where 10 is worst). It felt like glass splinters shooting up and down my leg and to top it off I could barely crawl let alone stand, so I had to make adjustments for doing simple things like crapping and taking a leak.

    Once again Jill saved my ass for the 2nd time, taking care of me during the weekend until she had to attend to work. Ezel and Gerald however, were worried about me, and by the time Monday came along Ezel was having Ge text me to tell me if that I was just being shy, to knock it off, as they insisted on having me stay at their place. Maybe it was the Tramadol, but I never really thought I needed help. But I gladly accepted their generous offer anyway, noting the burn marks on my arm from trying to cook food and the unhampered availability of DSL and Cable TV.

    I spent one full night and day there and by the time they took me back the next day I felt way better. Merely hobbling mind you, and can’t get very far that way either (it hurts after 20 meters or so), but quite on my way just the same, obviously thankful for a great many things.

    I am obviously rich in friends. As I write this, the mere idea astounds me, and I am not a little taken aback.

    I’ve taken a completely new opinion on what friendships are altogether. First off, there are people who exist who do not ask anything off me, and yet extend themselves in my favor generously. Obviously that’s not to say that I would offer anything of value, but I do not even have, to my belief, the ability of providing quality companionship, or a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen with. Many times I feel I’m just a grumpy old guy far too self important and engrossed in himself to provide anything of value to the world.

    Anyway, its 12:11pm, and I’m the world of opportunity (for a hobbling and scrimping man that is), for the rest of my afternoon. Until proper internet comes (still using my phone), I’m as useless as a gay man in a harem.

    I’ve finished with my daily reminders to PLDT to hurry their ass up and connect me, and am considering checking the NBS at Nuvali to see what’s there. I suspect the developers shoulder some of their cost just so as to have a bookstore (and some other fancy shops and places) get set up and situated in the middle of nowhere, and I’m feeling half inquisitive enough today to find out.

  • Writing, TechEx, Cebu and Cranberry Juice

    I was trying to finish a strong opinion re Michael Jordan’s speech at the Hall of Fame for BallEx but I lost my train of thought due to a funny situation at Tech Exchange. Someone probably close to the person who wrote a badly worded press release which I wrote about started making personal attacks, and some other person decided that my opinion re the press release was a slant towards the topic of the release itself. Which would’ve been fine if it weren’t for the fact that it’s a locally released Linux Distro (aka distribution, or a flavor or different version of a Linux operating system). And since developers / followers of local distributions are usually a patriotic lot, I got on the wrong end of that a little bit. All’s well however, given I don’t respond to personal attacks, and at the same time there’s no questioning really what my intentions are and how far from the truth it is what I am accused of. If anything though, my whole emotion re it is that I’m happy the site is getting hits, and if it continues to gather opinion I can only be happier.

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  • Sick Ayuc, Groceries, A Kid’s Fight Against Cancer, and other things.

    I had been itching to blog these past days but unfortunately, Ayuc has acted up. It freezes right in the middle of things, which indicate either 2 things broken: the motherboard or RAM. Since it manages to boot up to a certain point, I’m blaming RAM. I have a source where I can buy 1gb. RAM for it, which I was planning to buy anyway, and I’ll bring her (I think it’s a ‘her’), to the guy soon when I get the moolah and some free time (it’s in Pasay). If it turns out the thing is completely busted (notice how it had been demoted as a mere ‘thing’), I just threw away xxxxx buckos, so I’m keeping my toes crossed.

    Drupal’s Mollom, the service which checks for spam, is acting up. I’ve had one report of people having difficulty making comments while Jen at MomEx had some problems trying to post a new blog entry. I know this is a really minor thing to be talking about whilst there are more pressing issues, one supposes, at hand, but it’s just the first thing that got in my head as I wrote this new paragraph. I think it’s because I switched my eyes for a sec and saw Jen online on Google Chat, which may have helped me come to that thought.

    When I write on this blog, I write mostly the first thing that comes to my head. I like doing that, it’s therapeutic to say the least.

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  • Needless Rambling Post

    Tomorrow I’m finally gonna have that meeting I was supposed to go to last week. A lot of annoying things happened which kept me from having to go to it, and even to the last minute, Ayuc had to suddenly crash, necessitating a need to borrow my sis’ computer (she fortunately said yes). For some odd reason I’m excited and nervous about tomorrow, inspite of the fact I’ve had to do this many times before. Perhaps it’s because with Jill having found work and me having found, more or less, a new place to stay, things are about to change drastically in the near future.

    I’ve always been an optimist and for the most part it’s served me well. I suppose however, that the tendency to relax and settle has made me soft, hence my apprehensions. It’d be great to say I shall ‘nevertheless forge on’ or say something brave like that, but if anything recent events have forced me to accept that many things are outside what I can control but have impact on me anyway.

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  • Updates

    I’ve done this before and I’ll probably do it many times again. Here’s what’s going on in my life, in bullet points!

    • Ayuc (my ‘as yet unnamed computer, an iBook g4), is horribly underpowered with only 256mb. I’ve checked around and a Kingston 1gb. pc2100 ddr266 sodimm stick of ram will burn a php4,500+ hole in my wallet, so an upgrade has been shelved at the moment. Sadly, the issue is telling especially when I try to host local copies of my websites for presentation purposes (c/o the excellent MAMP, a terrific utility that lets you do exactly that.

      As a result I spent most of the day today setting up mock versions of KE and BallEx on ayuc. It’s not perfect but it’ll do.

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