lazy sunday afternoon? fo' sho!

i have logged on to irc and found out that i actually know of another blogger here in vancouver. it was quite a trip out. i also updated my counterstrike mod, which i've been trying to get into. i just don't want to embarass myself when i actually play with people. i also opened up my archives and saw duke nukem 3d! talk about nostalgia. i loved this game a few years back.

i turned on the tv and i see the new old new startrek series. today is just a lazy sunday.

so did i tell you guys that i'm heading to san francisco?

no i'm not talking about belle coming down here. i'm talking about going up down there. i actually get there on october 12th and party all the way until the 14th. i don't think i'll be getting any sleep. it's not a big deal, just planning to chill out. actually i'm planning on making everyone take me to every tourist spot down there. oh! did i mention that i have all the "tourist" gear too? the skimpy shorts, straw hat/visor, 2 (digital and normal) cameras, 1 video, an ipaq, and maps. tonnes and tonnes of maps!

yes folks, belle doesn't think that i'm serious but i am. if anyone wants too hook up when i'm there let me know.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

you heard it here folks. maybe killing isn't such a good idea after all.

hey i don't look like zeldman, i think. then why am i twinned with him?

maybe it's cause we both run zines? or maybe we're both cool? or maybe it's because our last names are both stemming from a weird nature.

if anyone reads archie's blog, then you probably know all about dec 15th!

see, let me explain. on december 15th of this year, we're all going out to dinner. a nice formal christmas dinner, it'll be a real nice change of pace from the normal fast food and drinking that we're all used to in lieu of the holidays. last year? everyone got drunk. year before that one? everyone got drunk, ritchie stayed home. this year it's going to be different. everyone is going to be celebrating early and we're all going to be together as friends. since in terms of uber sophisticated we as friends fall a bit short; not this year though!

this year it's going to be a big event. with one rule: you can't bring anyone in the 10. so who exactly is the 10 people? john, archie, cedric, paulo, jojie, gerard, me and the girls: andrea, emily and silvia. so everyone basically has to find dates and save up for the expensive dinner that we're looking forward to. actually it's an excuse to use that suit that i bought a while back. for a while, i've completely given up on finding a date and resort to doing what john was planning on doing.

but i found a date! and not just any date either!

veggie burgers?! what the heck is up with that?

we as a people have the ability to create computer animated characters who look and act like real humans, we could go and clone a sheep, we have the ability to launch a nuclear bomb straight into someone's window from space but we can't make a veggie burger that comes close to the real thing. what the heck is up with that? last night, i grilled up 2 patties of veggie burger on the george foreman grill. it looked normal, except that veggie burgers look like colorful hamburgers. wow the colors! it looked like a really bad acid trip! and all for the illusion of eating a real burger.

anyway, i started to eat it and a few questions came up. is it really supposed to crumble like that in your mouth? what is the consistency supposed to be? nuts?! why the heck would you put nuts in a burger?! being asian i was able to remedy the situation with one approach. soak the "meat" with soy sauce! must....lose....weight!

i used to work for mcdonalds. i admit it!

overworked and underpaid, the cliche still stands. i was getting paid minimum wage for doing the work of 3 people. cooking, cleaning and ... does burning myself count? i worked there for about 2 years. thats a long time to be stuck in a job where cleaning toilets were the highlight of the night. needless to say that we used to create our own twists to the food, to (1) mask the original tastes and (2) to make it seem like theres something new on the menu because you get sick of the food really quickly.

i used to mix, sweet and sour sauce with the mc chicken sauce and put it in a burger. gross? yea i know. how about ketchup and honey mustard sauce on a fish fillet? yup, did that too. i really doubt that the mcdonalds new product department would've gone to us for any ideas except for one! ever try putting an apple pie into a sunday? no? make it a strawberry sunday! the only hard part about getting this is ordering it and avoiding the weird stares that people give you and we all know the pain that i have to go through when ordering in mcdonalds. but trust me, this little creation is very worth it!

ritchie: hi, can i get an apple pie and a strawberry sunday, but could you put the apple pie into the cup before you put the sunday in it?
lady behind the counter: *blank stare*

then it's another 5 minutes of trying to explain why i want the apple pie in the cup.

update: maybe eating a whole sunday when you're lactose intolerant isn't such a good idea.... wheres my lactaid?!

can your guestbook do this?

one of the advantages of being as "geeked-out" as i am is that you know your way around scripts. let me explain. when i first made this homepage, i looked at different options about my guestbook. seeing that there were many third party providers out there i wanted to have the easiest way to maintain a guestbook. meaning, i could delete, edit and add entries with relative ease. plus customize it as needed: colors, layout and other cool display properties.

nothing really came up. so what else to do?

i wrote my own, using a simple access database and a few asp scripts. i wrote my own and now i'm able to customize it anyway i want. plus, when i get an idea at 3am i can implement it without worrying that the provider might be doing maintenance or something like that. i'm pretty geeked out, i know! (hit refresh a few times and watch it randomly rearrange the entries)

in relation to having phobophobia...

dan: I think you would go insane if you realized you were afraid of being afraid, and that made you more afraid.
ritchie: but then you'd probably develop a fear of being afraid on top of that. now that would be messed up.

uumm yea, don't worry dave we're getting work done. really! enjoy your vacation.

yes! i actually made it into the bus this morning on time!

it was quite the struggle to get up. i had to fight my will to stay in bed and knock my alarm into the 5th dimention. i actually got up and made my way into the shower. i think i even fell asleep while hot water was running because by the time i got out everything was steamed up. honestly i don't really remember how i made it to work with my clothes on because getting ready was a real blur, everything was so automatic.

so i'm sitting on the bus, and i'm trying to get the rest of my sleep in but i can't because the guy beside me is snoring. everyone was staring at this person, mouth-open, head back and snoring louder than a new-year firecracker in the philippines. it was amazing! here was this guy disturbing everyone on the bus, and my sleep! so since this person was sitting next to me, everyone was expecting me to do something, but what to do? so i got prepared, and when the bus turned left, i'd lean into him hard. hopefully jolting him enough so he gets the message. the funny thing was, he didn't even wake up when i did it. but thank god that he stopped snoring. the cute girl sitting across from me smiled at me cause she thought that it was amusing.

the things i do to for recognition.

so who's the bigger geek?!

today, i woke up at 7:00am, but theres nothing wrong with that. except that it's the weekend and, weekends are for sleeping in! i've finished all my chores before 10am and i've managed to fix some broken links (mind you, not all of them) and because of ev, i'm able to publish my blog in xml! geek? yes i know. and yes, i've managed to watch some jackie chan cartoon and come to the conclusion that i don't watch enough tv. there are shows about sumo wrestlers, some urban superhero and... did i mention jackie chan has his own cartoon?

what is saturday morning coming to? i want my daffy duck and bugs bunny back!

and yes, as promised! some pictures from the dreamcast party last wednesday. isn't gatesy cute?!



we're a bunch of over-worked geeks that need our own party to play video games!

for as long as i've known i've always been the type to get star struck.

obsessive over screen personalities? yes! stalker? maybe border-line. i remember i used to think that all these actors and actresses in the philippines were god! i wished that i was. i remember even praying that i had some acting ability so i could hobknob with the stars. i even remember having an autograph book that was full! now it's craig david. i want to be the next craig david. i am craig david!

who can even remember tom cruise?! oh you mean i'm not tom crooze either?

new obsession? yes folks! craig david!

the new object of my head bobbin, pretend club-dancing and lip-syncing is no other than mr. "fill-me-in" craig david! have you ever seen this dude? he talks with a cool accent, he can wear a beenie and not look like tweedle-dee and he's pretty smooth. he's also has that "i wanna take the first model-like lady" to bed voice, and he has a legion of girls after him. i bet that he gets mobbed in the streets a lot. secondly, he can dance. i'm not sure if it's because of his genes or he's really just talented. did i mention that he has an accent? an english accent? can we say "double the cool"?

i'm going to be the next craid david, only without the voice, the dancing or the smooth fashion sense. damn it, ok maybe not!

last night was the pinnacle of geekyness in my life.

it was the long awaited dreamcast/video game party. my officemates have been planning this for a while but just couldn't get schedules to coincide. last night was the closest we were going to get. so my contribution? i brought the dance dance revolution pads and my 2nd mix. i've forgotten how much fun i have playing that game. i've forgotten how much fun it was hitting those arrows and trying to look coordinated. but it was still fun.

it was also the long awaited duel between myself and dave in virtual tennis. but it wasn't about winners. we all had a chance to play, nintendo emulators, calico visions, gameboy advances, dreamcast, nintendo 64; and of course who can forget snake on the cellphone? it was no doubt geeky!

i keep meeting all these little internet celebrities in my life. first it was the whole sxsw thing and meeting some a-list webloggers. then it was ernie, mj (i'm happy that you're back safe from europe) and kevin. they rock my world. last night i got to meet gates the budgie! hey, the only budgie to be featured on usa today!

it was fun, but no doubt geeky! pictures coming.

i know they're probably going to be the last things living on earth and they're species will probably survive a nuclear war but this is crazy.

does it make sense to use the nastiest looking insect for spying on enemy territory? how would you feel when the cockroach that you just stepped on had a 1000 dollars worth of equiptment on it's back? remote controlled roaches are just wrong!

"They are not very nice insects," Holzer confesses. "They are a little bit smelly, and there's something about the way they move their antennae. But they look nicer when you put a little circuit on their backs and remove their wings." [link via=jish]

wrong! wrong! wrong!

trust me i'm not going on haitus; i'm not taking a break from weblogging either.

just the network guys here at work thinking that the best protection against a virus is to cut off the internet access of all 6000+ employees. funny? heck no! today, i actually did *cringe* work! no internet access to research insanely boring questions and completly stupid trivia. oh i love it! how could i survive without thee? it's not that i'm bitter that i didn't have internet access for a day.... ok fine i am! i've been an internet addict since i was in high school. granted that wasn't too long ago (6 year), i'm still surfing the net like theres no tomorrow, cause you never know when that day will come that we reach the end of the net.

i can now trully attest that the mcdonalds close to my work has a language barrier problem.

attempt number 1

ritchie: hi can i get a fish fillet meal?
lady over the counter: sure no problem.
takes the money, assembles order to-go while i talk to my co-workers.

i walk upstairs and quickly discovers that she has given me a double quarter pounder meal instead of the vegetarian fish fillet meal that i wanted. so naturally i walk downstairs and attempt to get my meal replaced.

attempt number 2

ritchie: hi, i ordered a fish fillet meal and i think that there might have been confusion because i got this double quarter pounder meal.
lady: don't you want a double quarter? it's more.
ritchie: uum it's ok, i think i'll have my fish fillet cause i'm a vegetarian.
lady: oh i'm sorry, i'll replace it right away.
so she replaces the quarter pounder with a fish fillet meal.
lady: and here's an extra mc chicken just for your troubles.
ritchie: oh *confused* uummm ... thanks.

so i took the extra mcchicken up for my co-worker instead of making a fuss about it. hey, free food right? too bad i can't eat it.

i'm officially making that declaration that people who take the bus are weird (except for me)!

today, i missed my usual bus but made it just in time to catch the bus from the twilight zone. remember that show? the one where theres always a messed up reality from the normal one that you call yours? as soon as i got in, the bus driver was very friendly: huge smile, twinkling eyes, super enthusiastic greet and even reached his hand for a hand shake. me being in a total daze just didn't even clue in and i was a bit surprised. the bus was full so there were only very few seats. so i grabbed on beside the business man who was reading his newspaper.

normal trip so far? i think not! that normal looking business man had the worst case of "i-want-to-faint-just-drop-me-off-beside-that-pile-of-garbage" body odor. to make things worse, he kept on talking to me. about what? about his b.o. problem. apparently mr business man just came from the gym where the showers were out of order. eventually i tried to close my eyes and drift of to sleepy land where no phycotic person with a funky smell can bug me. so there i was enjoying a dream where i develop the killer web-app of 2002, single-handedly eliminating world-hunger and world renowned for my acting skills; as you can see i was enjoying my little nap. i guess it was then that the bus driver saw that the looser who was too dazed to shake his hand fell asleep and decided to hit the brakes. can you guess what happened next?! see busses don't have seat belts, and being secure in your seat isn't exactly what i'd call sitting down inside a bus. yes folks, ritchie slams his head into the next bus seat. did i mention that the bus was full too? headbutting a hairy looking construction worker wasn't exactly part of my todo list either. great!

next time, when my alarm goes off i'm getting up!

have you ever wondered whats on my playlist?

i know my friends complain about being in my car and not having a cd that isn't pumped full of slow, sentimental songs. i know they all wonder how i haven't fallen a sleep driving and crashed my car into a million parked cars. i do listen to a lot of sad, slow music. the "i love you, why did you leave" or the "we love each other but we can't be together" music. i know it's sad, i'd probably start bringing myself into depression listening to all these sad sappy lyrics and slow moving music.

and being the teen-bopper that i am. it's all about backstreet boys, nsync and o-town.

not that weird enough? well, i haven't even finished yet. i like country too and i mean, i love country. almost to the point that i'm obsessed with: dixie chicks, faith hill, and allison kraus. so while i'm listening; it would jump from "i love you girl, please don't leave me" to "my tractor was stuck in the mud and i pump gas for a living, while i killed my abusive husband" songs and then back to s club 7 smoking pot (, their part time job as being the anti-christ) and singing in the snow. yes, this is probably why i'm as messed up as i am.

and melo, i'm sorry. i guess i'm not as good as i claim.

this has been a bad weekend.

work? yes, i did work. sleep? nope, what's sleep? i got up at 5:30am yesterday and today! how messed up is that people? gym? stag party? paintball? did i go? nope! things that i wanted to do this weekend just kept getting knocked off by client meetings and procrastination. i even took friday off just to rest up. i think i'm getting burnt out. especially with this whole bin laden crap going around.

last night was a shred of hope though. the levites (singing and rapping priests) were really good at delivering their message. it really hit home. they talked about hope, having an open heart and being human. it's too bad, that i didn't get to meet them because they left right after the show to drive down to california. it was as always an amazing show. i know i could make so many jokes about singing and rapping priests but i'm scared that lightning bolts might fly through my window.

one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

i couldn't believe it when i saw the celebration on the streets in palestine. i asked myself why would anyone celebrate the loss of human life? to me it just doesn't make sense. human life is precious, and even if a person's beliefs do not coincide with yours, would you dance in the streets because they're dead? be ashamed! trust that i wouldn't be celebrating if your family jumped 70+ floors from a burning building. even if you do come from a different country, belong in a different culture or worship a different god.

this is probably my last post for a while. i do have friends that are still unaccounted for. my love and prayers go out to each and everyone of their families. please help in anyway you can.

...

please offer your prayers to theresa and her family. we have.

the whole day i've been in a state of shock and disbelief as i've watched over the net as events unfolded. i've worried about friends and family the whole day. i've worried about the retributions of violence in answer to this act. i think about the many people who's lives were taken away and the loved ones that care for them sitting somewhere else. i think about how many people died to support a cause or a belief. are they martyrs for a cause that they might have not even heard of? is that fair?

in the past few hours, i've seen people celebrate in the streets for the same tragic event that sent many families in tears. i went through many emotions but none as overpowering as this sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach when i think that there is someone who is capable and has the (lack of) concience to undergo the planning and execution of this day.

i admit that i haven't been a prayerful person but this morning i found myself on my knees.

it sickens me to my stomach that there are people capable of planning an executing such an act. retaliate? i'm not sure where that will get the states. lockdown on security? wouldn't that sacrifice the "free country" philosophy that we all hold so dear? i feel sick and numb.

i'm glad bertie is ok. apparently she was on her way to work when it all came down. i'm worried about erna, i'm not quite sure where she is, but i hope her and b are ok. my prayers go out with theresa and her family.

i just don't get how uncaring and how unemotional people are. i was driving in to work and there was a school teacher from the manhattan area that called in saying that all the children who's parents work at the world trade center are in hysteria because they don't know if their parents are ok. that gave me goosebumps. i wouldn't even know the first thing to do if i were those kids. nothing; no movement, government, religion disputes, or belief is worth the lifes of all the people that passed away! nothing!

• more photos here.
• metafilter thread! it's actually a bit surreal that the posts were when it was happening. so it's almost like getting a post-comentary on the whole thing.
• blogger has created a custom interface for searching this event.
• the towers are gone. here's timelapse proof.
• i hate to admit it, but a large part of me agrees with will!
• death-toll is near 50,000 ... then the casualties exceed those of the entire vietnam conflict. all in a couple hours, and all civilians.
• ironic? yea, i think so
• it looks like the national guard is coming in, remember the seige? i hope that people don't get hoarded into stadiums just because of their nationality
• it's sickening to know that people out there are actually celebrating the loss of human life. i don't care what your religion is, or what your political stand is. human life is human life.
• now people are bombing afghanistan, why does this feel like the start of world war 3? go and hug the person next to you.
• it was all agreed that we take down icemag to show our support for theresa and her family

this is a dark dark day for the world.

hair extensions, are they for me?

i don't even know the first thing about getting your hair extended. what are they made off? i'm not quite sure how i'd react if i get it done and i find out that they get the hair from the graves of dead people. that would be a bit too freaky! or maybe they get it from horses or some other animal who's crap doesn't stick to it's fur; can you imagine wearing animal hair on your head?

i just have to research a bit on what it is and how they actually "extend" your own hair. but i am curious. i've always been facinated with long hair, remember the whole tom cruise mission impossible bit? i think i'm worst off than rosie when it comes to obsessing about him. just call me tom crooze!

now i'm leaning towards the mark wahlberg rockstar look. see i know for a fact that he did get hair extensions in that movie. (i can just see all my friend's faces cringe while they all read this)

obsessed? yes i know, i am i'll be the first one to admit it. but let me know what i should do.

now just add salt?! pasta making was never my forte.

alright! is tortellini supposed to smell like a wet dog who's been rolling in garbage? two days ago i went to the grocery store to get some pasta and some pesto sauce. the instructions on the pasta was to bring 12 cups of water to a boil, add salt and boil the pasta. does anyone else see what's wrong with these instructions? why does pasta require 12 cups of water to soften? how much salt do i add? so there i was measuring and dumping 12 cups of water into a boiling pan. figuring out which type of salt i should add (table, pickling, garlic (?)...etc). eventually i did get the ingredients together and i was stirring the pasta making sure that none of them stuck to each other.

after a few minutes stirring and being happy that the day was over (because it was a looong day), i started smelling dog; let me rephrase that wet dog. the pasta smelled like a wet dog that had been rolling in a puddle of toilet water (and not the fresh kind either). to make matters worse, i don't think that the pasta sauce was supposed to be refrigerated, but it was.

loong story short, i had wet dog smelling pasta that had some cold pesto sauce on it. hummm yummy! the things i do to stay a vegetarian!

uumm yea, i think i broke blogger...

so last night i was working on my blog because my comments system didn't work in my archives because of how the template was set up. being the geek-boy that i am, i said to myself "hey, this would be a perfect xml opportunity", and since i already had an xml template working on my other site it wouldn't be a problem. just adapt the code and everything would be hunkydory (do people still use that word?).

well, lets see how the night went. at first my template wouldn't save. being the geek that i am refused to believe that it was something wrong with my template because it was straight copy and paste from my other site. so i surf the blogger site around for a bit of help and find out that a few people were having trouble publishing their templates. still being a bit arogant, i kept on trying to use the xml template. to make a long story short, i figured out that the "save template" function was dying because of "]]>" in my xml template.

so what do i do? i try to get help by posting on discuss. i type up my message and format it nice (cause they don't allow for html tags). hit preview and then, boom! error. i hit the back button, copy and paste my message into a notepad window and try to preview again. error! ok now i'm getting scared, a few hundred thousand people use this blogger discuss and i broke it. so i close my browser, send an email off to evan and i walk away from the computer. hoping that the problem will go away and a few hundred thousand million angry blogger users won't want to kill me.

who knew that you were supposed to boil pasta?

i know that i'm probably giving away how inadequate i am in the kitchen but the story needs to be told. if you haven't heard yet, i've decided to quit meat and turn plant lover eater. this means, that normal filipino food won't suit my new eating habits (why? because there isn't one entree dish in the philippines that doesn't involve slaughtering a small animal, draining the fat and/or boiling it's blood). so i made a quick trip to the grocery store yesterday and picked up some pasta and sauce. now tortellini looks like it's cooked right off the box, the sauce had directions to boil. i figured, put the pasta and sauce in tupperware and then microwave it when lunch time comes.

fast-forward to this morning...

i had the tupperware in my hand and i was ready to cut the container of pasta, but then i noticed the "boil until soft" directions. great! now i have no lunch and i have to either settle for the gross "we-leave-all-our-food-outside-with-all-the-mosquitos" saladbar or settling for a few pieces of sushi. at least i didn't end up with raw pasta with pesto sauce sitting in a tupperware on my desk, that would be nasty.

and just incase you didn't notice... i redesigned!

of all the geekiest things to be doing is planning your itenerary online.

see, i've been planning to take this vacation for a while now. but i've never known where to go or how much money i'm going to be spending. personally i know i'm going to be spending at least 2 thousand on a good vacation (including spending money and hotels and stuff). there were basically 4 places that i want to go to. one is toronto to visit friends, new york is another one but right now it's too expensive to go there. then there's las vegas and other west coast cities down at the states. it's funny how you spend a significant amount of stress planning for a stressfree vacation and end up trying to run around getting to tourist spots and hanging out with friends when you actually get there.

but this planning has been very good. i'm actually enjoying the planning. notice i said planning? cause right now money is scarce and i still can't pay for it. so plan all i want, i still have to find a way to pay for all this.

it's not that i jumped or anything, i just wanted to get out of the way.... really really quickly.

ok before rumours fly around let me clarify that yes, i was at odyssey and yes it was for ernie's visit. so we were all hanging out and after a night at the all-you-can-eat sushi place, we decided to hit the club. no big deal, except this club had gyrating men with no shirts dancing like they're on speed to jungle music. and right smack in the middle of the dance floor was ernie, sylvia, andrea and myself. honestly i was actually having fun having to avoid the stares and smiles because i was wearing a "i want to get in your pants.com" shirt (which was totally by coincidence).

so i was dancing dancing dancing, trying to make sure that all the men around me knew that i was dancing with andrea. then it happened. creepy guy with the david blaine eyes decided to walk right up to me and just stand there. and who wouldn't get freaked out? uummm... yea.... exit only exit only! so i jumped! yealped... screamed, pulled one of those road runner escapes.....err.... checking for the availability of the exits in case of a fire? really!

oh yea, i have great friends, wouldn't you agree?

yes folks, ernie has left the building and should be on his way back to the u.s.a.

everything is back to normal? i think. august was a very hectic month for everyone here in vancouver. people visiting and taking them out, it was a fun fun job though.

but let me tell you about a decision that i've made. for a week i'm turning vegetarian to try it out. so for this whole week i'm turning into the vegetarian, which isn't easy when you grew up in a culture where eating meat is as normal as drinking water or breathing. i'm soo screwed! when i woke up today i was so hungry first reaction was to look for some filling food to eat. what did i find? meat galore! slabs-o-meat! everything that could be seen was meat! this week is going to be quite the challenge.