allergies suck.

to all the people who suffer from allergies my hats are off to you. it's a challenge to face a whole season filled with floating pollen and medication. i'm a rookie compared to most of you. i've only been suffering for a few years. i miss enjoying the scent of spring and not having a sneeze fit. i miss the days when i didn't need to go outside and be drugged-up on reactine. i miss the days when the bubble-boy costume didn't appeal to me in the spring time.

it doesn't help that i live in a country and province that has a million trees and all of this nature crap floating around. don't get me wrong "nature crap" used to appeal to me but, honestly, i can do without it. i would personally live in a smog-filled, concrete jungle, zero plant life world where all the pollen has been zapped. bah humbug to plant life.

yes folks it's open! get your credit card ready.

amazon.com is evil. they have recomended books and all these things that they shove down your throat. wishlist, lists and 1-click. all the convinence of an online shopping experience all in one site. the only draw back for me was that all the prices were in US dollars. which meant that the prices were very high; never stopped me though. i was surfing around and discovered the long awaited amazon.ca is already open and all of the prices are in canadian dollars!

what does this mean? it means that ritchie will not have money for his vacation because he's already clicking away with the 1-click. evil i tell you! evil!

a starship full of trekkie geeks.

this scares me because the thought of a few thousand people huddled around wil wheaton pretending to scan him for life signs with fake tricorders just boggles my mind. if this ship sank to the bottom of the ocean like the titanic, i bet, the first thing people are going to be reaching for are they're fake communicator screaming for "scotty to beam them up." how about pretending to be captain picard of the enterprise-d as they poorly execute the lines to inssurection.

why do i know this? because i was once a trekkie: collecting cards, books and the starship schematics. i had a few episodes memorized by heart and, yes, even in my 24 year old age: i would still like to have wil wheaton's autograph. wonder if he'd send it to me as a jpg?

i'm alive. sleepy but i'm alive!

i honestly didn't think that i would be surviving this weekend. it was my best friends wedding. ha! ha! have your laughs now. done? ok. well, it all started friday evening while we all attempted to get the bridal car and every entourage's car decorated with purple and white flowers. i stayed up really late finishing up a video for the reception. woke up too early on saturday to get last minute stuff done. note to self: no matter how hungry you are. don't order the ihop t-bone steak and eggs, especially when you haven't gotten any sleep because that'll make you sleepy for the rest of the day.

the wedding went good. i really didn't have a big role in it besides: walk (and not trip), stand, look pretty and sign my name on the registry.

at the reception my nerves were haywire. i was really tired at this point and i still had my bestman speech to work on. did i mention that i hate public speaking? yes folks, someone who can write about their lives on the web for all to see gets very nervous when put infront of people to speak. the reception was fun except a few people were there that really didn't agree with me (kinda like a bad after taste to rotten food). aside from that, it seemed like everyone had fun.

sunday, bbq and stories. enough said! up till 4am playing text-twist. 8:30am i'm at work trying to wake myself up without the help of caffine products and failing badly.

update: i have given up and am currently chugging away at a caffinated drink. i'm wired like a mofo! patience, pictures will come. pictures are posted.

aahhh the beauty of blogs.

over instant messenger...
me: dood, did you know ate lissa has a blog?
archie: yea? are you for real? hahahah thats funny!
[reading, reading reading]....*gasp!*
archie: dood my mom let her drive the car?
me: bwahahahahha yea! and she hit the pole infront of your house and apparently there's a greeeen scratch on the bumper!
archie: hahahah! we found out through her blog!
me: its soo over!
archie: it says something there about showing her new look tomorrow at the wedding.
me: yea, but i'm sure you'll see it tonight when she confesses that she drove your car into the pole!
archie and me: hahahahha! we found out through her blog!

now that's messed up!

a good friend wrote on my guestbook something that warrants a response from me.

if i told you God loves you, and has never lost faith in you, would you think i was trying to save you?

here are my responses:

if you were one of my closer friends then i would think that you were joking, pause and laugh after 10 seconds, because 9 times out of 10 it's all sarcasm.

if you were singles for christ, then i would think that you were someone over-stepping boundaries and trying to look like a hero to other people.

if you were my family, then i would be thinking "why are you even asking?" saving is a verb that doesn't require telling me useless pre-amble.

if you were someone i hate, i would think that maybe you should look in the mirror, reassess who needs saving before you annoy me with your useless hypocritical psycho-babble.

i'm not trying to attack anyone, trust me i'm not. this is my perception and how i would react to the above question. do i think that it's harsh? yes it is. but i'm claiming the 5th amendment. oh wait! i can't i'm canadian.

isn't it someone's birthday today? i know it is, but who could it be? humm.

happy birthday belle

see i didn't forget your birthday. unlike some people.

fathers day sappiness....

scene: eating sushi at a restaurant....
mom: (to dad) remember when you swore off video games?
dad: yea, it was that week when lode runner was popular.
ritchie: wasn't that the week when you didn't do anything but lode runner and you got an eye infection from playing too much?
dad: ... and that is why i never played another video game since then.

ahh memories.

banal... just banality at it's best.

i haven't posted any quality content here at macapinlac.com. it's primarily because i have 5 other projects going on at the same time and i'm in the middle of switching my operating system to linux. yes folks you heard that right. i'm switching to linux. windows xp can kiss my round shapely butt! i would've switched to a mac, but i don't think my parents would understand trying to justify spending a roll of cash on something that looks like the pixar lamp.

i will be back in a bit. leave a message *beeeeeep!*

look ma! content! let me present to you: the blogger pride survey! i've never found a survey that i wanted to answer until this one. actually i was compelled to answer it because the questions were so interesting and i thought it revealed a lot about how a site and it's maintainer (in this case: me) came to be. <via="dave">

the survey has 4 parts...

Ethics/Personal Life

Has a blog post ever got you into trouble?
i'd be lying if i said that it never has because it has many times. it hasn't gotten me fired from my job or anything but it has affected my relationships with people and sometimes my friends. let's just say that i'm a little bit more cautious now on who i mention on my weblog.

How many people do you know face-to-face who read your weblog?
i actually know a small percentage of my readers face-to-face. looking at my logs and statistics, there's a huge amount of people who read my site from the philippines and australia. i know only a handful of my relatives read my site from the philippines and i don't think i know anyone who lives in australia right now. maybe they think i look like a koala or something eerie like that.

Have you met any of your regional (or even remote) bloggers?
i've met many bloggers. my analogy goes like this. in my life there was a time when i was infatuated with the internet. chat mostly, i used to irc like there was no tomorrow. then they'd have eye balls and the such and i used to go to meet the people i was chatting with on the other end of the virtual phone line. it's the same today. there are so many people that seem so interesting in their weblog it's hard not to want to meet them and see if they are that interesting in real life. sadly, not a lot of people are as interesting as they are in their weblog. myself included.

Do you modify or delete posts? How often? Why?
i modify posts. just because i'm such a horrid speller and my grammar is so bad that i've been flagged by the grammar police (literally). as for deleting posts, i've never done it before. i strongly believe that when you write something, you shouldn't take it back. just retract it on the next post.

How much is your weblog a part of your personal identity? Do you feel like people who don't know about your blog don't really know you?
a good chunk of my personal identity is part of this site. i can't write under some pseudo-character that thinks that people should worship him because he's some sort of internet rockstar, i'm really like that. joking aside, a good chunk of who i am is on this website. i also don't feel that people who don't know about this site don't know me. if anything the people who know me outside of this site know me more because this site is only one part of the whole.

How has blogging changed your life?
it hasn't really besides my friends asking me if i'm going to publish the next stupid adventure on my site for all to see. sometimes when i don't have anything site-worthy to say i just don't publish but that rarely happens because i have an overactive imagination and an equally dimented way of thinking.

Technical/Design

Do you know how to code at all? Did you learn how to code by blogging?
yes, i do know how to code. i've been a programmer ever since i hacked nibbles in qbasic.

What weblogging tool do you use and why?
i use the almighty and powerful blogger pro. i believe in being brand loyal and it offers challenges to me as a programmer. yes i do publish my blog in xml and yes i am parsing it using asp.

Does the design seem like something that is just something that has to be dispensed with in order to be able to write publicly, or is your design an integral part of your writing and presentation?
my design is similar to those magic eye things. there's an underlying message and you should stare at it for hours on end to understand it. in all truth, i just believe that to claim that you own a site that you maintain, you should actually code the html in notepad while locked up in some sort of an insane asylum drinking pepsi through a bubble tea straw.

How many times have you changed your weblog design entirely (or nearly so)?
i think i've changed my actual site design less than 5 times. i'm not big on the design (as you all can see) and my user interface skills are on the negative side. when i cook up a mediocre design i tend to stick to it.

Readership/Motivation

How many people would you guess (educated guess based on hit counts/logfiles) read your weblog on a weekly basis at least?
this site has about 300 unique visitors a day on average.

What have you done to get more people to look at your site?
the better question would probably be. what haven't i done to get more people to look at my site?

What one or two characteristics make a blog really popular? Are there things that you could do to have more people read your weblog that you conciously do not do? Why?
i honestly think that it's the person's writing and the way they present themselves. their writing style and what they write about is what makes their blog stand out. it could be that those teenage asian girl blogs also have a niche.

What really popular weblog do you think most deserves it...and/or least deserves it?
i think ernie deserves it because he's really funny and honest in his weblog. trust me folks, this is a person that is interesting in both real life and on his weblog. in my humble opinion, some a-lister blogs are really boring. (i'm not going to mention who) they post things and try to sound profound and out to change the world. they might as well be writing about what they had for dinner, oops some of them already do.

How do you feel about your readership? What makes for a quality readership to you?
to me having a readership even how minute it is can be a double-edge sword. it makes you feel good that someone actually thinks that your opinion matters, on the other end you have to watch what you say. somehow you have to find a happy medium between censoring yourself and being happy about what you write.

Influence of other Bloggers

What other blogger is most responsible for you starting your own weblog?
well she isn't really a blogger. christine was one of the first in the web-journaling business and she writes very intelligently and with such imagery that it's so hard not to like her.

Who was the first other blogger (that you know of) who put you on thier sidebar, and how did you feel? How did it influence your blogging?
honestly i don't remember who it was. i'm sure it was quite the big ego boost to my already huge ego.

What other blogger do you most admire for her writing skills?
her? just girls? i am completely and in utter awe of min jung, coralie and christine.

What other blogger do you most admire for her design skills?
her? just girls again? is this survey a bit on the biased side? personally i admire anon. why? well, all her designs are w3c compliant and to a web developer like me that is a sexy thing.

Who is a blogger that you think is really good but doesn't get nearly the attention they are worthy of?
you mean i can't say me? ok fine, then i guess it will have to be ank aka papa bear.

Do you feel obligated to have people on your link lists/sidebars that you never read?
<sucking up>nope, i read all the people who are in my bookmarks list. keeping my bookmarks list upto date is a completely different story. there are a few in there that have gone on hiatus and might not come back but each and everyone of those links are quality content!</sucking up> i don't usually hand out links, i have to believe that a link has something to contribute to the world. i read every site on my bookmark list, actually, i believe that the whole internet consists of only these sites.

What one or two characteristics define a really quality blog (in your humble opinion, of course)?
in my humble opinion, my blog is the best. in all honesty, the two characteristics that define a good blog are: (1) it has to be ritchie that designed it, and (2) it has to be ritchie writing in it. honesty and it has to be a cute teenage asian girl.

the end

man! that's a long survey!

i wielded my guitar last night...

my goal? to learn a few new songs; i think people might be getting sick of me playing stairway to heaven, jewel and no doubt all the time. it's been a while since i've picked up my guitar and played with it. the first song that i've been curious about was craig david - walking away, ever since i've heard the accoustic version on some late night talkshow. i actually had it down because of a tablature that i found a few nights ago. of course, singing the songs are a completely different story. i like playing against the mp3 of the song and pretend that i'm part of the band. yes, i'm a sad rockstar wanna-be folks.

i was going to go learn some more songs but my guitar strings broke thus ending my rockstar dreams for the night.

to the person who's grubby hands are holding my phone:

ok, yea i probably left it lying around somewhere. ok, yea, i probably should've put it in my pocket instead of carelessly leaving it lying around. ok, yea, i probably should've listened to my mom and clean-up after myself and developed the habit of putting my "toys" away.

but if you even get the idea of putting you're grubby ears to my phone. don't! i will personally hunt you down and unleash hell on you the likes you haven't seen. trust me, i'm capable. that phone is precious to me. that phone is costing me a 2 year contract, and long distance charges galore. i know every phone call that's been called on that phone (i have the web-based, php, mysql set up to prove it) and i know the last call i made on it. so if the thought of making some long distance phone calls to uraguay comes to mind. don't! i will do unthink-able acts of mental and physical torture, the likes of which satan himself cringes just thinking about it.

lovingly yours,
ritchie

ps: by the way, i ran out of my medication too.

partial solar eclipse...

apparently there was some sort of phenomenon yesterday that caused the sun to be blocked by the moon. apparently, many people have said that the best place to see it in the world yesterday was here in the fair city of vancouver. apparently it happened when i took my walk yesterday too. yea, apparently you're not supposed to look up directly at it either. damn it! i think i need to get my eyes checked now.

my blog topics come from the radio...

in lieu of father's day geekiness, lets talk about dad's or to be more specific: television dad's. apparently in a recent survey cliff huxtable was chosen by the masses to be their ideal television dad. it was something about being funny, smart and caring. i guess that appeals to some people but i'm the type of person to consider many factors in my choice. personally, i think the overdose of jell-o pudding would drive me batty, along with the hippy-hoppin, flippty-flopping and rolling of the eyes with the slow motion epileptic-like dancing that he does on the start of each episode. i don't think he would be my number one choice. how about ozzy osborne? he's kinda cool with the swearing and the "you know i love you and care for you....but f*ck your stupid as f*ck" attitude. err... how about internet rockstar ben brown?

c'mon laugh damn it! it's funny! *sigh* bubble tea?

oh man, i'm soo sorry the comments system was a bit screwy. i'm not sure what happened but it should be fixed now. so comment away, gimme your snarky cynical comments.

listening to the radio!

the radio stations here are very targeted to their audience. for example: the urban hiphop station mainly attracts ghetto fabulous people like myself, the pop station attracts boy band and teen-idol sensation groupies... like myself and the classic station only attracts well wanna-be nerds like myself again. but do you notice that morning shows always have some sort of listener interaction? from calling in with the weather or games with tickets to concerts or free screening tickets as the prizes.

this morning i was flipping through the radio stations and caught the end of the morning contests...

dj: hi, you're caller [insert cheezy caller contest name], you've just won tickets to...

z95.3 dj: backstreet boys!
caller: *loud ear piercing scream* oh my gawd! oh my gawd! aj i love him! i can't believe it, i'm going to see AJ in concert!

the beat dj: nelly!
caller: yo! yea thats right, van-city represent! dats rite i'm gonna see my homeboy nelly live in concert... wonder how much i can get if i scalp these tickets?

classic rock dj: the eagles final tour!
caller: yes, thank you very much. i'm very happy cause i grew up listening to the eagles and now i'm a balding man in an insurance deskjob. wonder if they'll play hotel california.

classical music dj: yanni live!
caller: zzzZZZzzz
cm-dj: hello? hello?

how far from the truth am i? not too far.

corporate head office fun day.

we're celebrating our corporate goals today! not making them, breaking them or anything special like that. just plain ole' celebrating them. i think. our team made a display with music, boxes and other cool misc. things. i'm taking pictures. i won a frizbee playing that basketball game and a keychain playing some dart game. it's a regular circus here! i'm off to eat my free hamburger, chips, pop and cookie. too... much... organized... fun... must... control...myself!

pictures are here!

you might be asking yourself: self, what is a typical family bonding night at the macapinlac household?

funny you should ask. last night we, as a family, were all gathered around my dad's laptop and screamed at it. it's not as stupid as one might think. we were playing a game called text twist. the objective is to figure out a six letter word given six letters while trying to form other words to increase your points.

so imagine, if you will, a family screaming competitively into a laptop and then hi-five-ing each other when the little bell rings and the round ends. yes folks, the secret to a peaceful family existence? being complete nerds together.

i'm a self proclaimed attention link whore.

who doesn't like attention links? i have to admit that getting attention linked to is always nice. it's a nice boost to the ego, whether or not thats a good thing for me is a completely different story. especially when the person says that i am part of the elite "adored" list (god knows that i've been trying to get on that list for decades). but i'm not one to fish for links so i will just say: "thanks jerwin. i'll send you a cd". c'mon! link me! link me! pleeeeeese link me! that's <a href="http://www.macapinlac.com">macapinlac.com</a>!

watch as ritchie blatantly throws away his pride and begs for attention links.

the ultimate slowjam cd!

i'm known for my slowjams. people dread having to ride in the car with me because i play r&b sappy slow jams all day long. i can put people to sleep in my car just by playing my constant and unrelenting slow mix cd's. i figured i'd make another themed mix cd today for my playlist section and create: the ultimate slowjam cd! there is just one problem though. i can't seem on figuring out which songs are "worthy" enough to get put on the cd. there are soo many bump and grind, swivel your hips with a partner's until you dislocate them type of songs out there but none are really worthy to be called ultimate.

here's what i have so far (in no order whatsoever):

• lately - jodeci
• forever love - color me badd
• no one else comes close - joe
• one last cry - brian mcknight
• selfish - n'sync
• when can i see you again - babyface
• please don't go girl - new kids on the block
• just once - james ingram
• sweet november - troop
• on bended knee - boys to men
• i'm still in love with you - new edition
• especially for you - kylie minogue and jason donovan
• shower me with your love - surface
• say you'll stay - kai
• let's wait a while - janet jackson
• reminicing - aileen dela cruz
• me minus you equals blue - altlantic starr
• never find someone like you - keith martin
• by your side - sade

i'm looking to my readers to help me out on this one. help me compile this list, and i'll send out cd's to the people who contribute a song that gets put on. ha! hows that for incentive?

update: the list is complete! you guys all rock my world. i couldn't have come up with a better list of songs to the people who contributed. i will be in touch with you via email so i can send you a copy of this cd. to the special people who contributed: pam, kuya aj, lillian, dave, janice, la, colene and joy. expect an email from me in the near future (kuya aj, can you email me your aol/msn/icq contact info? i need to get some of these songs)

determined!

i am overweight. it might not show because i tend to wear baggy clothing but i am. it's all directly related to the eating phenomenon called: all-you-can-eat-sushi. to lose weight i either have to stay active or starve myself into anorexia. the latter isn't an option because i'm too inlove with food and eating is where i'm a viking!

for the next 2 months i've outlined my plan of attack. i will post my progress here to allow myself to be publicly humiliated and/or keep myself on track. instead of writing down what i'm going to be eating, i've decided to plan out activities too keep myself active. i also plan to stay away from the computer as much as possible unless it's for work or to keep my finances in check. other than that, i will not be chatting until 2am and i will not be sending out email at god-awful hours. i'm determined!

so today i woke up extra early to conduct an experiement.

i was going to get my hair highlighted professionally. yes folks i'm about as high maintenance as richie rich's pet dog dollar. i made the appointment on a dare because i wanted to see if i would survive the apparently horrifying ordeal.

so i enter the salon, nothing special there. the stylist helps me pick a color that fitted my criteria. a color that isn't to flashy, and a color that won't make me look like every asian kid in richmond, bc (we later see that both of the criteria were broken the moment i said: "hey!! that color looks good"). she decided that "the cap" would be the easiest way to proceed. to those who don't know "the cap" is a cross between a thick rubber condom and a collander. the procedure called for her to pull strands of my hair through the tiny holes through "the cap" using a small hook. sensitive scalps like mine should not be put through this ordeal, i shed a few tears (cue: awwww). next was applying the hair dye, easy enough. after was sitting in the hot hair dryer for 30+ minutes and feel my head bake as i read star magazine and read how mrs. osborne had stomach surgery to lose wieght. that was probably the hardest part because (1) the rubber condom on my head made it 30 times hotter and (2) you get paranoid that everyone is talking about how you're the only guy sitting in the dryer along with 3 other old ladies. end result, ritchie looks like every asian in richmond, bc!