do i really look like a guy with a plan?

i want a simple life. a simple, solitary life. free from worries and hassles. keep a few friends that i can visit when i want to take a break from all the travelling i intend to do. this was my high school plan.

my grade school plan was marry an intelligent woman, preferably a scientist or someone very knowledgeable in the natural sciences and mathematics, have a kid, have a simple house in a nice subdivision. i saw life differently then. this was a plan.

college sort of made me revise the high school plan a bit. i thought, given my "position in the order of things", why not dream big. why not aim much higher than a mere simple life. i compared myself to other people and saw myself having the potential to go farther than most of them. all i had to do was exert more effort and make life a little more complicated.

i have the capacity, i have the potential, i have the ability to become someone great, someone who can do something, someone who can change things. all i have to do is try. i rarely believe in things that arent facts but i believe in this one. i believe than i can take a lead role in something and perform very well in doing it. problem is, i dont want a lead role in anything. i still want a simple life. thats why i never give "100%" in anything i do because i dont have a passion for it. i wonder if someone can be passionate in striving to live a simple life. i think passion is for instances where someone wants to go beyond the limits. and going beyond the limit isnt something simple.

my highschool plan was nice. i shouldnt have deviated. i did try to restore it in 2008 but someone in 2009 disrupted it. she managed to persuade me to make her an exception and try to revise the plan again. well, it wont work. revising it to accommodate exceptions wont work. its either i stick to the plan or discard it entirely. i think i was much wiser back in high school. unfortunately, my current state isnt conditioned for that plan. i will have to rid myself of the college plan blueprints.

ive been taking a break for more than half a decade

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things and small people talk about other people.

Greatness was something i desired. that's why when college friends said they're taking a break from greatness (to explain why they talk about other people), i said to myself that there's no such thing as taking a break from greatness. a great person never takes a break from greatness.

Old fashioned espionage

Pigeon held in India on suspicion of spying for Pakistan - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

i miss being a morning person

its 11am and im eating my breakfast in front of the laptop. 11am! usually i wake up at 8am. that was when i had work. before that, i woke up around 7am. that was when i had review classes in arellano. before that, i woke up around 5am or 6am. that was when i was a morning person and happy to start a brand new day. before i was a morning person, i was just this grouchy guy who wakes up somewhere between 9am to 11am, depending on whether i need to go to school or not.

im really not a morning person. i hate waking up. if it were possible to just sleep all day and all night, i probably would. but i have to admit, in that short time that i was a morning person, mornings were great.  

impaired sensory function

the way im using my mp3 player, it wont be a surprise if i lose my sense of hearing. the way im worrying about my eyes, its possible that i lose my sense of sight one day. i wonder what its like to be deaf and blind? not that i would want to be deaf and blind but i just wonder how one can get by with no sense of sight and no sense of hearing at the same time.

i remember waking up blind. i woke up in a dream where i was blind. it was just a very short dream. i woke up and everything was black. i tried to figure out where i was and after a few minutes i realized i was blind. after the realization, i woke up a second time and this time i really woke up. i probably had the dream because ive been worrying about my eyes lately (lately means months, almost a year). for some unexplained reason, im worrying that one day, the light will suddenly disappear from my eyes, leaving it to succumb to darkness. my eyes feel tired. it is as if ive used it to its limit or its about to reach its limit.

as for my ears, i have tinnitus. i hear this high pitch sound, usually in my left ear, ever since i was in grade school. not sure if its leading to hearing loss. one problem with my sense of hearing is that if im in a noisy environment, i easily get disoriented. i remember last year i was in a room with four people and two of them were talking loudly and the room somehow magnifies the sound of their voice. one person was trying to talk to me while the two were talking and the sound of three people talking appeared to me as the same as the sound of a crowd of people talking. it was as if there were more than three people in the room and i cant focus on what the person talking to me was saying. its like i absorb all the sounds in a given environment, the way a recorder does.

i think i overuse my sense of hearing and my sense of sight. in a public place, i easily get distracted by the sight and sounds because i keep looking around, trying to have a good sense of my surroundings, trying to know whats on my peripheral vision and what's behind me.

as for my other senses, well, as for my sense of touch, i dont like the sticky feeling. no one does but it really bothers me. thats why i hate this weather. i hate the oily feeling. i wake up in the middle of the night caused by the discomfort caused by the heat, the sticky feeling it creates on one's skin. as regards my sense of smell, i have a poor sense of smell. but someone once said i always smell good. i hope she's telling the truth because i really cant tell. i have no comments regarding my sense of taste.

post election reflection

automation seemed to have made a lot of difference. i thought it was going to be a three way fight between Villar, Aquino and Teodoro. and my basis for coming up with such a prediction is based from what i know about Philippine elections. the automated elections seemed to have changed the way elections are conducted. im starting to doubt what i know. im starting to think that i need to do something about myself. it seems im making more wrong answers than right ones, more prone to erroneous calculations. there might be something wrong with the way i see things at the moment.

will i experience virtual reality technology in my lifetime?

back in 02 July 2007, in a blog entry, i wondered whether 3D is the future of the movie industry. i thought it was the next logical step. from silent films to black and white films with audio to colored movies to 3D movies. it seems thats where the movie industry is heading. ive seen Avatar in 3D and Alice in Wonderland in 3D. and one can see the difference with a movie shot in digital 3D and a movie that was converted into 3D. for the latter, i would rather watch the 2D version since there isnt much difference except a slight pop-up effect. i wouldnt pay more for that. the point is, right now, 3D is what's generating money for movie makers. this is something foreseeable and i stated this back in 2007. what i didnt foresee is 3D television emerging this soon. i thought 3D television will be available once 3D movies become the norm. were still in the CRT era (when i say "we" i mean our household) and havent switched to LCD/plasma and 3D HDTV is already available? do we get tired of new technology that fast? the digital entertainment industry is moving too fast for me (only porn can adjust as fast as technology moves forward). or im just getting old. if i were to believe Douglas Adams, anything that will be invented after im thirty five i will start to see as against the natural order of things.

i miss playing video games

i grew up playing in the streets, having other human kids to interact with to have fun. when someone says "games", i think of hide and seek, tumbang preso, langit-lupa, patintero, a game of tag, etc. i think nowadays, when someone says "games", what comes to mind are video games (anong games meron sa cellphone mo? anong games meron ka dyan?). nowadays, i rarely see kids playing outside. thats understandable with the intense heat were having. i see kids playing with PSPs instead. when i was at there age, i was busy climbing trees or the neigbor's fence or being chased by the neighbor's dog. the first time we finally owned a video game console was when i was in first year college (my cousin who's more or less 10 years older finally had his own video game console was when he was already married and had one kid). the only kids i see playing games that arent video games are toddlers and those kids slightly older. and i see them playing inside the "kiddie corners" of fast food restaurants. i never played in one of those "kiddie corners". i never celebrated a birthday in mcdonalds or jollibee. a college friend said everyone spends at least one birthday in mcdonalds or jollibee. well, i never did and i never wanted to since my idea of a birthday party was inviting everyone over to my place and play some party games. and get gifts of course. anyway, im just wondering how the kids of today will be like when they grow up. educated by TV programs and the internet and entertained by video games. i wonder if they can fall in line, wait patiently without playing a PSP. whatever happened to waiting in line with a good book? well, there's the iPad and other tablets so thats one way of reintroducing books to the younger generation. and then there's the state of environment they will inherit. scarce resources. i wonder if they can effectively utilize the information that they will have by then and whether they will be physically fit to endure the external changes that are happening. by then, im planning to be sitting in  room inside a place of my own, playing video games. i think thats the best contribution they can give to the outgoing generation. digital entertainment.

gadgets galore

my cousin's iPAQ is back (rx 1950)! i havent used it since October 2009 because its charger suddenly exploded (the night before the National Conference i was handling). all i had to do was buy a new charger but it took me months to do so. what compelled me to buy the charger was the need to fix my schedule and i need an organizer. an electronic organizer. my schedule is stored in a laptop which my sister owns but i exercise possession over it. since its very inconvenient to have my schedule stored in the laptop, i was compelled to revive my cousin's PDA (she already gave it to me, so i own it and possess it but i still prefer to refer to it as hers).

my MP3 player is back! after bringing it to Automatic Center, Gateway branch last March 2010 to have the defective mp3 player fixed, i finally got it back 2 weeks ago. the manufacturer replaced it with a new unit. i think they had a batch of defective units and i was one of the unfortunate ones who bought one of the defective units. what made me choose this mp3 player (RCA Opal m420) is because its not only cheaper compared to the Philips mp3 players but it can play .aac files. a file format i prefer because its smaller than the mp3 file format. so far, the mp3 player is doing ok.

my digicam is back! ha! i wish! it still hasnt returned to me ever since it was stolen from my back pack last January 2010. its a sony cybershot DSC-L1. its the only sony cybershot camera in the L series. its no longer in production. i never saw it being displayed or being sold actually. i dont want a DSLR. i want a simple digicam like the one i lost. i want the one i lost actually (damn you thief!). it has scratches on its front so i can easily identify it. and its LCD screen has its edges slightly damaged due to exposure to the damaging heat of the sun. its got bits of sand coming out of its power switch and its memory card is a fake Sony MS Pro Duo. Sony Cybershot DSC-L1, or Karma police, or great Jupiter, or anyone that could do something, if youre reading this, please return to me Sony Cybershot DSC-L1.

i should get some nokia loyalty reward or something

i remember my first cellphone, a nokia 3210. how could i forget. it was 1999 and the nokia 3210 was being marketed as the cellphone with an internal antenna and changeable cover. something really remarkable at that time. the popular unit then was the nokia 5110. comparing the 5110 with a 3210 is like comparing an average girl with a supermodel. it wasnt about the features. if these phones were women, both have breasts, both have vaginas, both could have the same personality. only difference was the way they look. the nokia 5110 is just plain boring (yes, plain and boring) to look at compared to the nokia 3210. and that made a lot of difference to consumers like me. how much was the nokia 3210 back in 1999? P10,000, sim locked to a network. imagine what cellphones can be bought today at that price.

my second cellphone was a nokia 3660. i bought it because after almost 5 years, my nokia 3210 finally gave up on me (it stopped charging even with the battery replaced). for P10,000, it was really worth my money. well, my parent's money. why a nokia 3660? well, because it looks different (and its the corrected version of the nokia 3650), it's a camera phone (something that was new at the time and this was 2004) and it has a memory card. i remember the very first time it was dropped because it was my college blockmate who dropped it, not me. what i liked about it is that i can store a lot of SMS with it and have personalized mp3 ringtones (i always make my own ringtones. that's why i found it weird that a girl in a cafe had the same ringtone as mine. i immediately changed my ringtone after hearing it). how much was the nokia 3660 back in 2004? P16,000, open line.

my third cellphone (and strictly speaking, my fourth) was and is a nokia 3110 classic. after three years of service, my nokia 3660 died (it unexplainably shut itself down) in a jeepney while attempting to contact a korean girl i just met. so with a help from a college friend who recommended a website (gsmarena.com), i tried to look for a phone with similar specs. and the closest i could find, and the cheapest too, was the nokia 3110 classic. it costs around P6000. P10,000 cheaper. what i noticed is that its not as sturdy as the nokia 3210 and it seems to be more fragile than the nokia 3660. but its still a good enough phone. good enough to be stolen by a pick pocket in the vicinity of the EDSA-Taft MRT station. since i really need a phone (since i was working at that time) and im happy with the nokia 3110c, i bought another one to replace the one that was stolen. i bought my first nokia 3110c back in 2007 for around P6000. i bought my second nokia 3110c last August of 2009 for P4,650 (and now the unit is no longer available. i guess i bought it in time before they stopped producing it). what i like about this phone is that it can be backed up with the nokia PC suite. this version of the Nokia PC suite is better than the one compatible with the nokia 3660. when i bought the replacement nokia 3110c, all i had to do was get the back up i made from my previous nokia 3110c and it was as if my phone was never stolen in the first place (except for some missing contacts since its been months from my last back up). what i dont like about it is the camera. its camera sucks.

my fourth (or fifth) cellphone is a nokia 2730 classic. i bought it last week. why did i buy one if my nokia 3110c is still working fine? well, ive been using 2 phones since i started OLA (2008). the other phone was my brother's spare phone, a nokia 1100 (his first cellphone. my sister's first cellphone was a nokia 3310. in a way, all of us started with a phone somewhat like the nokia 3210). recently, my brother's phone keeps losing signal so i thought it was time to return it since it might "die" any time soon and i dont want it to "die" with me as its user. and i didnt want to stop using my other number since its also being constantly used. so i bought a new one. and it only costs P4,400. the cheapest phone ive ever owned and ironically, the most advanced. it has 3G and a 2megapixel camera (still sucks but much better than the 1.3 megapixel camera of the nokia 3110c). what i like about it is that i can synchronize the 2 phones via bluetooth (so i didnt have problems transferring contacts and calendar entries) and both are supported by the Nokia Ovi Suite (the replacement of the Nokia PC suite) so i dont need two separate nokia softwares. besides, gadgets make me happy so thats another reason to buy a new phone.

i was thinking of buying the samsung C5212 or samsung B2100 but i opted to stick with nokia. ive been using nokia phones for more than a decade now and so far, im satisfied with their products. so satisfied that i developed some kind of attachment to my cellphones. since nokia 3660, i never switch off my cellphone. never (unless i need to remove the battery or sim card). its always on and it never runs out of battery because i always charge it. an empty cellphone battery is something foreign to me. my cellphones are always within arms reach. well, most of the time since i cant take wherever i go (except my nokia 3660 where i developed an attachment to the point that i take with me even if im in the shower and i noticed that people contact me frequently when im in the shower). even in my half asleep and half awake moments, i know where my cellphones are located. its the first things i look at every morning and the last thing i look at every night. i think ever since i owned a cellphone back in 1999, i never lasted more than a week not owning a cellphone. i am attached to my cellphones.

holy heat!

the summer heat is unbearable!

i would have to say that i consider myself lucky to have experienced playing under the sun when i was a kid (under tolerable heat conditions). i think that's the reason for my dark skin since only my exposed limbs and my face are dark. every summer i would play outside, roam the streets of Lagro and not complain about the heat. i remember my PE teacher back in grade school saying that the dangerous rays of the sun come around 10am. anytime before 10am, its ok to be exposed to the sun. nowadays, i think the moment the sun comes up, its going to cause some kind of damage to your skin at the very least. i wonder how hot things will be by next year? i wonder how we will adapt to this change in the climate? its weird that the discomfort caused by climate change was due to the stuff man introduced for his comfort and convenience.