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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Sometimes I wish

I could just spend my days writing movie reviews or expounding on my thoughts about Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, or whomever is making the news in the NBA these days, on my laptop at some coffee shop (with free or as free as possible wifi), and just live off of that.

There was a time I thought it could be done, but the fact that almost all the blogs I sent writing applications to rejected me, I think, was a sign that was not meant to be :P . Which is good, if you think about it, because it helped me to decide to make my own movie review and basketball blogs, and heck if I’d rather enjoy the fruits (what fruits?!?) of my own writing rather than someone else.

At any rate, all is good. I still get to write in coffee shops alongside my honey, and we talk about the sites and any such thing we might find relevant at the time, and I tell you, it’s hard to find a better more complete peace in the world than at that very moment, when all you hold dear is near you, and everything you value in your life is accounted for and in good shape. People with hate in their hearts should feel how that feels, if only to know that such things are attainable.

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Top Eleven Requirements for Becoming Pam’s Boyfriend

Ok so Pam has let it out. I am the person who knows everything relevant (and irrelevant) there is to know about her, hence I know her best, and therefore I feel I am the one most qualified to find her a mate.

Yes that’s right. And I’m serious too. Let’s go through that one more time. I know everything there is to know about her, in fact one can say too much – and for quite a long time as well. In fact, I’m so good at it, I actually know when she’s wrong. Cases in point, her statement from her blog:

Gary thinks he should be the one to find me a new guy because he says he knows me better than most people but he hasn’t come up with a single name – save for a missionary. A missionary. I am seriously not going down that road.

There are two things wrong here obviously. One, she says I ‘think’ I should be the one to find her a guy. WRONG. I AM the one to find her a guy. We’ve established this already. Two, the missionary is an upfront guy. I haven’t heard from him since, but when I do, I’ll set it up. And yeah of course we’re gonna make jokes about his favorite sexual position. How the hell can we not make jokes about his favorite sexual position?? He’s a missionary for crying out loud! The name speaks for itself.

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Once again I am here to expound on my lack of DSL woes.

But worry not dear reader. I am in high spirits regardless. Basically because, well, there’s no other recourse but to be. I have been spending my time trying to do as much as I can outside of the Internet, and so far it’s been ok except for the fact that I cannot further plans revolving around those that do involve the Internet because basically, PLDT will not give me a solid date with which to assume that all will once again be well.

This is alarming because basically, almost all my financial activities revolve around access to such, and immediate as in immediate (as in should have been yesterday) plans were in the works for me to up the ante even more, resolving to go tentatively at first, but full blast as quickly as possible, into the business of hosting. Hosting in the level of involvement I was planning to go into requires at the very least a fast connection, and at best one backup should things go awry, a situation aptly describing that of today.

Internet access had already been at a high level of importance to me that I would sacrifice living in less than ideal conditions if only to satiate my need for such. Venturing into said activity obviously further emphasizes this requirement tenfold, requiring me not only to have double the access (if so possible) but even surgically attach a device to my person and find suitable connectivity in whichever way possible should I venture outside it’s reach (the resulting inconvenience which, incidentally, was the primary reason I had pushed this idea aside for the longest time, only doing so now because the Exchanges have reached a stage of growth and traffic, making it practical).

Continue reading Once again I am here to expound on my lack of DSL woes.

Legends Never Die.

I still cannot really come to believe that the great Dennis Johnson has passed away.

Not that I’ve lost grip on reality, it’s just that the Great DJ is such a larger than life character to me. He is my idol of all idols. He is the reason I’ve always worn jersey #33, (somebody already beat me to DJ’s #3 when I first started playing organized ball, so I settled for the next best thing).

I hated the Celtics, but I loved DJ. His stats: NBA champion (1979, ’84, ’86); NBA Finals MVP (1979); All-NBA First Team (1981); All-NBA Second Team (1980); All-Defensive First Team (1979-83, ’87); All-Defensive Second Team (1984-86); Five-time NBA All-Star 1979-82, ’85).

He wasn’t the tallest, quickest or strongest, but he made – no, worked, disciplined and forced himself to be the best. And that, to me, makes him my Greatest.

DJ will forever be my hero.

I do not want to be busy anymore

I just dont. I want to go back to the days when we would just traipse to the mall to watch a movie at a moment’s notice. When we would roam the shops and the stores and the ruins (as in bf) of this world, and cause ourselves to get hungry and eat burritos and sip coffee and schedule trips out of town and change them as we saw fit at that moment to do.

Far, far too much to do. Much, much easier way there must be.

It’s all good.

i just spent almost 15 hours straight dealing with php, mysql, drupal, wordpress, iis, windows services, the mysql configurator, phpmyadmin, and googling topics like ‘mysql can’t find any matching role in the user table’, ‘#2003 – The server is not responding’, ‘Client does not support authentication protocol’, and the intricacies of ‘create table’, ‘create user’, ‘grant’ and ‘old passwords’, and i’ve finally gotten the goddam project running, but certainly not finished.

Ive got 2 articles to finish, 1 or 2 editors texting, another large project breathing down my neck, interviews to transcribe, videos to upload rip and burn, quotations and projects to quote and layout, clients to bill, receivables to receive, and a goddam water bill that’s threatening to cut us off tomorrow so that means I have to take a trip down to get money to pay it, pay it, then get back here hopefully with enough energy to resume what i’m doing before I left off.

Before that, i spent hours trying to figure out why kikay ex’s sidebar takes up more space when looking at individual posts than during the index, and before that, firing emails at a mailing list trying to fix my problem with the eventcal plugin, which is currently screwing up four of my blogs, all of which remain unresolved, at this moment eating away at my html / php / wordpress / mysql obsessive compulsive disorders.

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Minor Panic

Deciding to take advantage of the morning – only bursts of speed ye PLDT DSL Gods allow us, I upgraded most of my blogs to the all – new, bright and shiny WordPress 2.1, after which I was jolted by a multiple post issue, where a post comes out in several instances depending on how many categories it was marked under.

I immediately posted it to the wordpress support area, which has now become a sort of archive for a blow by blow account of my experience, here.

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The Complete and Absolute Mayhem of A Manila New Year

I surveyed most of the damage of last night on the way home an hour ago, around 630AM from Jill’s house in BF Homes P’que to finally here in Cainta (yes we live that far apart. It’s ok, we adjust). Some people were already awake, sweeping the streets, the rest most likely conked out in bed or in a dazed stupor.

The air is completely thick with smoke from pyrotechnics all over the city. It had already been pretty windy last night but apparently that wasn’t enough to blow all this smoke away. Here in my room where the windows were closed all night, the smoke is creeping in and I can smell that familiar smell of a Manila New Year.

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horses horses horses horses..

… were the words Meg Ryan was singing in Sleepless in Seattle. Remember that? When she was driving? And she had to make a stop at a diner and two waitresses were listening in on the same radio show that she was listening to in the car that was interviewing Tom Hanks? I think it was Dr. Marsha Fieldstone or something.

Anyway, I’m starting to think about that right now and getting all Christmasy, which is either a product of my good natured happy happy forever optimist Santa Claus Ho Ho Ho self – or – Indomethacin, a non-steroidal anti inflammatory drug (NSAID) I just took to finally relieve me of the pain brought about by my now – very – boring – to – read – about (as in OMG he’s writing about how it hurts again?!?), gout.

I felt kind of funny saying Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug at Mercury earlier, but fortunately when I said Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug, the pharmacist got it, disappeared behind a few shelves and delivered said Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug. And now to end this paragraph about Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs, which is good as I do not have to type anymore Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug.

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