Author: Gabriel

Oh Lord, won’t you give me $30,000.00?*

I just read this article talking about an internet startup involving a girl and her boyfriend in New York. Of course, the word ‘internet startup’ interests me, but when I read it involved just two people, a girl and her boyfriend living and working out of an apartment in New York on a shoestring budget, the similarities between what Jill and myself are doing got me hooked.

Naturally the parts that I could relate to were interesting to read. The fact we have to maintain day jobs, the sleepless nights, the unusual working conditions that are par for the course for most internet plays (or most starting businesses for that matter). But then I read they started out with USD $30,000.00, then the interest turned to something akin to ‘sus!‘.

$30k is P1,290,000.00 even in these weak dollar times, and by God if I had that kind of money, I promise you now, and I’m not kidding you: I’d have a site that’d be pulling hits in the 5,000 or so a day – almost every retail fashion store in Manila would want to be doing business with us – and I’d have 3 to 6 other sites shaking up their specific industries, doing strong plays on their own.

Continue reading Oh Lord, won’t you give me $30,000.00?*

Kikay Exchange’s Breakthrough Day

Our baby had an important day yesterday, Nov. 9th, for the first time registering 617 unique hits, the most ever in one day.

So let me just say it: Our little baby is now a lady :). Urk.

Anyway, the most number of visitors was recorded at 58 concurrent at 10:00 in the morning, with the least at 6 people at 5AM. That’s an average of 25.7 visitors per hour.

Continue reading Kikay Exchange’s Breakthrough Day

aaand we’re back! (again)

Finally found a good enough host for this blog, and Movie Exchange as well, which we are now re-christening as (drumroll please…):

flickmaniac.com

awww yeah. I admit there was a point when I was wondering if I was even gonna resurrect either blog, but I decided, what the heck. The cost isn’t too steep and besides, I really don’t like the idea of stuff I’ve written in either blog to just disappear forever. Not that I’m necessarily the most read-worthy or sensible (or even consistent) blogger in the world but hey, I occasionally have my moments (at least I hope so) so I really don’t want it all to end up as some .tarball on my hard disk after all that work.

Having said that, I’d like to say I also miss PWIT (Philippine Week in Tech) too, which I was writing for a few months back but unfortunately was put to pasture by Adel. Truth is I have a lot of explaining to do as per the fact I missed out on writing duties on that blog when it was still around, but at the end of the day I kinda feel bad that stuff I wrote on it is gone forever. So Adel, if you read this, please holler if you’re interested in working to put it together again ok? I promise I’ll be more diligent in my writing duties.

Continue reading aaand we’re back! (again)

You gotta love Manong Masahista

I played a lot of ball most of the afternoon. As a result I’m completely bushed and aching all over, but overall I feel great. I outlasted a lot of guys mostly because, I think, I managed to get a good massage a few days ago. At this point you might think I’m about to recommend some ultra posh Thai or exotic place. Would you believe it was courtesy of your everyday typical manong barbershop around the village corner? And all of a pittance: P250.00 at that, with a haircut included.

I was having a haircut at said neighborhood barbershop when he started giving me a vigorous neck rub, a sign anyone who regularly goes to such places knows marks the end of the session. It felt great so I asked if he does massages, he said yes mentioned p200 and off we went. Now I’ve tried all sorts of ultra posh massages at so many places and even expensive home service types already, but this one made me feel like I wanted to knock my head for all that wasted money. Manong twisted, gripped and kneaded my back, arms and legs like so much pliant dough. He used his rough fingers (made smoother by some cheap lotion. Mental note: bring my own next time) to find knotted up veins jammed with toxins and proceeded to attack it with the force of a vise grip over and over until it softened and passed through. To the uninitiated it would have felt like complete torture, but I knew what he was doing. The last time I went through anything like that must have been more than a decade ago, when I was still playing for a team that had a guy like manong masahista slathering myself and my teammates with buckets of what seemed like ben gay, but was 10 times worse – and stung to high heavens, and then used the same tortuous procedure that makes you swear and spit in pain as if you were being knifed.

Continue reading You gotta love Manong Masahista

Tropa de Elite and other planned reviews

I just watched the highly controversial Tropa de Elite, which I was desperate to see after seeing just a few seconds of a report about it from BBC news and consequently Googling it up. The movie runs a narrative using the voice of Capitao Nascimiento (played by the amazing Wagner Moura), a fictional leader of the BOPE or Special Operations Battalion, and elite corp of highly trained soldiers that, if the accounts from the movie are true, operate above the law in what it perceives as an all – out war against drug trafficking in the poor sections of Rio, Brazil.

The movie is a stunning display of violence and real life in the drug dependent slums of Rio, where large sections called Favelas are controlled by drug lords with small armies armed to the teeth with high powered rifles they carry around with them like jewelry. The streets are dark and dirty, the poor wear tatters and live in sub human conditions, the local police are so crooked and desperately corrupt that they often end up in turf fights of their own, and the rich College kids are lazy, doped out brats whose insulated view of the world makes them just as guilty to the depravity around them. On one hand, they work in NGOs trying to help the poor and mouth slogans and sing songs against the police, but on the other they consume and even distribute drugs that helps fund the cartels. A pretty familiar world for the typical city dwelling low income Pinoy, if you ask me.

Continue reading Tropa de Elite and other planned reviews

How our brains work according to me

I worked on the car all day and thoroughly enjoyed it. If not for the fact that it didn’t turn out as well as I hoped (I fixed something but in the process, ‘broke’ something else :P), today was a pretty good day.

I think hobbies are important because it takes you away from what you’re doing long enough to at least give you a fresh perspective on what it is you normally do. In other words, I worked on my car because I didn’t wanna work on my projects or the sites – my solution to the fact that I am so up to my ears in work (and consequently, thinking about it), that if I spend any more time working on it I’m liable to go nuts.

The left and right turn switch doesn’t work for some odd reason, so my solution was to open and clean it up thoroughly using a rag and contact cleaner spray. I did so, and by golly who’d have known such a thing was so complex inside? It had bearings and tiny little springs that would fall over the place if you weren’t careful opening it up. At any rate, I got it to work in the end, but only after a hell of a time. I realized I was literally bent over in concentration for an hour or two, and when I finally got it together and working I felt like celebrating. Problem is, the switch for the windshield wipers suddenly doesn’t work now (it was working fine before I opened it up, and I never touched it when I did), so that’s egg in my face right there. I’ll get it to work though. I’m sure it’s just something loose somewhere.

Continue reading How our brains work according to me

About Drupal, The most annoying thing about moving blogs, and another project idea

The most annoying thing about moving blogs is that I’d have to do all my links, all the stuff in my about page, the categories and all that other stuff all over again.

It’s taken me a long time to decide which free blogging place to use and although wordpress.com has its limitations, it’s certainly less limited than blogspot and LJ. Or at least, as far as I know since the last time I checked, which has been awhile. Suffice it to say I’m not completely sold on staying here, and I do wanna check out the others, although it’s time consuming and besides, it’s just for a personal blog right?

Nah. You know what? Why don’t I just go flat out and just say I’m lazy. Yeah that hit the nail on the head right there.

Continue reading About Drupal, The most annoying thing about moving blogs, and another project idea

Re Comcast, AOL and MS buying into Facebook

There have been 3 alarming things re the internet on the news today. (btw yeah i’m gonna talk about tech again for once. Dont worry i’m not getting all political as per last few posts. I just write whatever gets in my head basically).

Anyway, these are that Comcast had apparently been blocking / delaying some Internet traffic, and that ‘Email forwarding’ is being looked into by the US’ FCC after someone there lost a lot of business when AOL closed her account without warning, cancelling her email account and damaging her business. And the 3rd and final one is that Microsoft has bought into Facebook.

Obviously these issues happened in the States and had affected Americans directly, but being on the Internet, the effect of these things are universal. If Comcast decides to limit Internet traffic on certain protocols, servers, or whatever, anyone on the Internet accessing them is gonna be affected, and yes that includes us here in the bush.

Continue reading Re Comcast, AOL and MS buying into Facebook

Looks like I’m gonna have to move this blog again.

My hosting costs are a bitch. Fortunately my previous problems with mysql and speed issues seem to have been resolved, but now my data transfer rates are through the roof, and I am making an inventory of everything in my server and deciding on whether to take them out (and most of the time it’s out).

So goodbye Movie Exchange?
Goodbye (gasp) Basketball Exchange?

Sigh. I dunno. It feels lousy that I’m stuck with the bill after projects didn’t push through. But what the hey, better they had failed now than in the future I guess. In the meantime, I’m sure this blog has to go too.

Oh well. Decisions have to be made. Nobody said it was gonna be easy.