LefthandedLayup.com

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  • A Note About My Health

    It’s probably the death knell of a blog to discuss stuff such as one’s health, but hell that’s what’s on my mind these days so that’s what I’m gonna talk about.

    Suffice to say I had not been taking very good care of myself for the past few months, the highlight and reason of which is my addiction to caffeine. Well about a week ago today, I decided to do something about that, and quit this evil substance entirely after an approximate 3 to 4 cup a day habit.

    First I’d like to put a good word in about quitting cold turkey. I figure this really is the best method if not the only effective method there is, to my mind. Over the years I’d been addicted to smoking and – of all things – working out, and I call it addiction because it had reached unhealthy levels, as all such activity done in excess turns out. Quitting, or rather, just absolutely quitting cold turkey, is really the best because you really can’t negotiate against addiction. And that is essentially what ‘quitting in moderation’ or merely ‘slowing down’ means. It’s like trying to negotiate against an enemy who knows you better than you do. It (addiction. And I’m speaking metaphorically here of course), will say yeah yeah sure sure we’ll slow down the next time, and then turn around and snigger at your naivete. It just won’t go away until you make an absolute decision to just give it up, and you can give it up only by just giving it up right there and then.

    At any rate, now I’ll put in a bad word about caffeine, which from wikipedia is described as ‘the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance, but unlike most other psychoactive substances, it is legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions.‘, which to my mind, is like saying Starbucks is a drug pusher, but it’s ok.

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  • Thoughts on The Green Cross Saga, the Past, and Applying it to the Future.

    Last month I finished up reading Gonzalo Co It’s The Green Cross Saga. Its funny how I thought it’d probably be somewhat controversial to write about the book, and it turns out it was, well, to a few circles at least, but certainly not specifically to me.

    The reason being, Mr. Co It is a fairly well – known business personality hereabouts primarily because of his success, and this being the Philippines, whose populace I sometimes liken to being in a big town in terms of news and gossip getting around, anyone saying anything about him is bound to get written about and judged themselves.

    The problem is, I had no such intention of involving myself in any form of controversy when I bought the book and writing about it as I am now especially given the light I wasn’t aware it was controversial to begin with, only finding out later after I wrote about buying it. Believe it or not, I only had genuine interest in learning about his story, maybe a little bit about himself (particularly him and why his generation migrated out of China in the 50s), and of course, how he made his millions. I had already read a few other Chinese family patriarch’s stories, and that, aside from the fact it seemed like light reading (I’m a lazy reader) made me decide to buy it.

    Suffice it to say most of those questions I had were fairly answered. My interest started after picking up a book called China Hands, which was a recount of experiences by the first American Diplomat to China, who happened to grow up there in his early years and even at one time served as the first CIA operative, trying to find out what was going on behind China’s thick walls. Apparently when they refer to China being cut off from the rest of the world, they weren’t kidding. In the pre – satellite decades of the 60s and 70s, absolutely no one in the West knew what was happening inside China, and first hand recollections from people coming from there were either diluted or planted, and even then could not be relied on to reflect what was happening in such a vast country.

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  • VMWare Shows The Way

    I love it that VMWare stock is doing well in the U.S. stock market right now. I’ve often wished I could play in that market if I had the chance, particularly during Apple new product situations and occasionally, a few web services in the past that I thought would do well (although I’m not gonna say I pick em all great because most did ok but some didn’t).

    I’ve never wished I could buy stock at no better time than now, with VMWare going public. Not necessarily because its done as well as it had – I was sure it’d do well but certainly not this well – but also because of the clear message this sends to bad ol’ Microsoft.

    VMWare simply put is software that gives the ability to run services on a computer regardless of operating system by allowing several operating systems to run alongside one another in one machine. In effect it brings sanity in a world where choices aren’t necessarily made in favor of the best.

    I don’t really wanna get in the intricacies of what virtualization is about right here. I was about to start a paragraph explaining it a bit, but I realized I was quickly getting much too techie and was losing focus on what I was trying to say.

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  • Not An Email Person

    There’s a feature on Kikay Exchange about this girl’s products which are gaining its fair share of attention. Consequently, people have started leaving comments and asking questions that naturally, only the girl can answer properly, given the fact she makes them. Unfortunately, she doesn’t reply to emails promptly, if at all, making the whole exercise pretty much a shot in the dark. Jill told me her website has also mysteriously gone down, making info about her and her products even harder to get – what more those inquiring to buy.

    Today, there’s a request for me to assist someone to set up his email account. Which is perfectly reasonable if not for the fact that this same person has pretty much been using the same computer, the same operating system, the same email client, and the same email account, username and password and all, for the past five years. In fact, to add perspective to this, in the same period my nephew has grown up from grade school to high school, and now knows how to set up an email account with the ease of, well, a grade schooler. During which time, person requiring assistance has apparently learned nothing.

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  • I just wanted to say that..

    .. the house of mini’s porterhouse steak has got to be one of the better reasons not to migrate.

    pict0109.JPG

    yun lang.

  • I was about to start writing about this tragic PBA event

    at Ballex (Noli Eala’s disbarment), when I happened to speak (YM) with Ruby Gan, one of our faaahbulous sponsors at Kikay Exchange, and owner of the Schu line of women’s shoes. Of course while talking to her, I do what most people normally do, and that’s check out her blog.

    And lo and behold, I chanced upon the results of our contest with her – an online contest where she asks schu owners to send in pictures with the theme ‘Are you wearing your today‘,(ongoing with still a month to go) and I was absolutely floored with the results so far. In particular, this one:

    aug022007_schu_2.jpg

    by Aggie, taken at the very recognizable Bulwagang Pilipino steps, and this one:

    aug022007_schu_1.jpg

    by Leah, showing how she uses her shoes for work.

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  • Kikay’s Nav Issue Fixed. My Biggest Annoyance Resolved.

    Ok the long story is a few weeks ago, I blindly upgraded Kikay Ex to WP version 2.1.1 without really thinking, and before I knew it, my Previous Entries and Next Entries links at the bottom of the index (front) page disappeared, to my great horror and frustration. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, and it was a big issue with most other folks who did the same. Fortunately I had only upgraded Kikay at the time, but unfortunately, Kikay is the biggest draw of all the sites, so the fact that people couldn’t go through each and every page and post was a big issue.

    To those who understand WordPress (and here’s the techie part), 2.1.1 deprecates (a fancy word for retires), the next_post_link and previous_posts_link, essentially keeping you, the viewer, from moving away from the first batch of post on the index page. I have been pulling my hair out trying to find a decent fix, but no go.

    Enter Lester Chan’s WP-PageNavi 2.11 Plugin, and my prayers were answered. The truth is, I didn’t wanna use a plugin as I wanted to exhaust all efforts trying to find the ‘legal’ way first. But after two or so weeks searching (ok well maybe a total of 3 – 4 hours, which is already a lot still), I considered myself exhausted, and the fact that IT LOOKS GREAT, I decided to go for it.

    So here’s how it looks like at the start:

    jul302007_wp_pagenavi_1.jpg

    and after tweaking it’s CSS, here’s how it looks like now:

    jul302007_wp_pagenavi_2.jpg

    doesn’t it look GREAAAAAT?!?!?! I added it on both the top and bottom areas.

    Ok, now here’s the SEO explanation. (I have decided to include my SEO opinions to help people out who wanna learn these things):

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  • Here’s a short long list of things I
    need / want to do at this very moment.

  • Write a pulsating, heart rending blogpost about DLSU getting ripped by ADMU the other night for Ballex.
  • *NEW – Write a pulsating, heart rending blogpost about RP’s win against China last night.
  • Fix Kikay’s navigation issues.
  • Make a graphic for Kikay re Sale Alerts.
  • Contact a manufacturer of a cool product I like for feature on Kikay.
  • Make a feature article for Kikay on a new product I checked out last night (secret)
  • Make the Nike Post for Momex.
  • Make a (camera manufacturer) post for Ballex.
  • Prepare Sales Kit for Kikay.
  • Make a graphic for Mom for MomEx Forum.
  • Ask parent – friends to sell their used stuff on MomEx Forum.
  • Deal with a person who wants to sell items on MomEx.
  • Make a movie review of any of the last 3-5 movies I’ve watched recently for MovieEx.
  • Make a new graphic for MomEx Parents Ponder.
  • Add RSS feeds to my phone whose GPRS I’m starting to enjoy.
  • Write Start on SME article.
  • Make a new poll for Ballex.
  • Investigate the forum mod John Knight and Cola requested for BallEx forum.
  • Work for an hour a day for a week on client’s site.

    okidokey. off to work.

  • Announcing: The Mom Exchange Garage Sale!

    What is the MomEx Garage Sale?

    The MomEx Garage Sale was created to address two nagging questions every parent eventually realizes: The first being: “What am I going to do with my baby’s old stuff?“, and the second: “Where can I buy a pre-owned but functional baby car seat, toys or educational material?“. Enter MomEx’s Garage Sale, which allows parents to get rid of old toys cluttering up their garage while at the same time, helping those who need them save money.

    How Does It Work?

    First, you signup, and make sure you enter the Location (City or Municipality) where you live. Second, click the category where your item falls under, and enter as much details as possible re your item. Items are segregated into Toys, Clothes, Books, Shoes, Strollers, Car Seats, etc. (we will add new categories as needed). You can also post pictures by uploading them in photo sharing sites such as Flickr or Photobucket, and just paste them onto your post. If you are selling numerous items, click the “By Lot” category, and enumerate the items you are selling. We also have a special “We are having a garage sale” category, where you can post the dates and times of your garage sale. We also have a “Looking To Buy” forum for those who are doing the the reverse of this process.

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  • Announcing The Ballex Sim League,
    and the formation of my Dream Team (Armchair) Basketball Analysts

    Albeit somewhat late, I’d like to formally announce Exchange.ph’s latest project, The Ballex Sim League. Here’s the clickable graphic:

    In a nutshell, a Basketball Sim (simulation) league allows you the chance to run an NBA team as its General Manager (GM). As such, you are in control of your team’s destiny for a period of months similar to the NBA’s. You can make player trades with other virtual GMs like yourself, adjust your player rotations, and even do such things as increase and decrease specific skillsets for your player(s). Factors such as salaries, salary caps, team schedules and a player’s ‘greed’ (or his desire to play for money / loyalty) are additional things to think about which add to it’s realism.

    There are two areas a virtual GM need to keep track of, namely the page where the game results are shown here, and the forum above. After you make adjustments to your team and perform trade after trade at the forum, you observe the game results to see how things go and make further adjustments / trades as needed. A virtual Commissioner, in the person of Gil Moreno (forum id: Cola), runs the simulations via a software he runs on his computer, uploads these results, and confirms / allows / supervises over all aspects of trading and adjustments on the virtual league – just like a real commissioner.

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