2 bz.

i'v been txting 2 mch. nw i'm 2 bz @ wrk. drinks & bday party 2nite. wrk 2morrow. gotta luv b-ing bz!

much to the surprise of anyone...

i find it hard to talk about myself. having a weblog completely negates that statement but humor me for a minute. the past few days, i've met some new friends and re-met old ones. of course, getting (re)acquainted requires answering questions... many questions... many questions about yourself. that's what i find hard to do.

it's not like i want to be secretive about myself because i don't. i'm quite open when it comes to my life. what i did find challenging was explaining to people why things are the way they are. they read my about page and my 100 random things about ritchie post but i was faced with more questions to find out who i was, why i do what i do, or even why i react the way i react.

i came to thinking. my experiences in life are a big part of who i am today. i believe that a person is a sum of their combined experiences in life and their dealings with people. a person wouldn't know how not to be an asshole unless that person had dealings with one or used to be one.

simply put, i am the way i am because i was seldom scared to experience life. as the old saying goes, "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!"

working late nights again!

it's been a while since i've had a chance to be a workaholic. i miss it. i haven't worked on little projects, a website, or a contract job since i started training for tennis. since the tournament is over and training has receded, i'm available to become my old work-all-the-time self. i've been working on a new web application. a new website and i just took on a contract job. this should keep me busy until next week.

the main problem is that i'm not used to it anymore. last night i stayed up until 2:30am listening to music, chatting and sketching some user interface ideas on paper. i didn't even realize that it was late until i looked into the clock. this morning i woke up late and i drove like a maniac on speed to work.

100 things from 100 bloggers!

001. i was born in the philippines
002. my nickname in grade school was the tagalog word for pig
003. i took my first programming class when i was 9 years old
004. i was in a boys choir
005. i embarrassed myself on national tv (many times, see 004)
006. i wish could sing
007. i wish i could act
008. i was once addicted to caffinated pills
009. i still can speak fluent tagalog
010. a good portion of my behavior i got from my mom
011. i was once religious
012. i only genuinely hate 2 people in the world
013. i hate wearing cologne, but i try to anyway
014. i moved to canada 1991
015. i had a very noticeable tagalog accent when i moved to canada
016. its hardly noticeable now
017. i prefer to date asian women
018. the smile is the first thing i notice about a person
019. I tend to embellish when telling and re-telling stories
020. i was sick once and had to stay in a bubble
021. i don't have my appendix anymore
022. i love to code
023. i also love to write
024. and play tennis
025. i have dreams of beating agassi in center court us open
026. i'm a momma's boy
027. i'm 24 but i still feel like i was 16
028. i'm more high maintenance than some girls i date
029. i value all my friendships
030. i cherish my singleness
031. but i crave companionship most of the time
032. apparently i'm the man-slut of the group
033. my favorite place to travel to is london
034. motivation is a lot of work for me
035. jealousy is sometimes the worst trait i have
036. i still carry around pains from old relationships
037. i almost got married once
038. obviously, that didn't pull through
039. music is the primary reason why i don't speak with an accent
040. i took piano lessons until i was grade 4
041. i have nothing to show for it
042. i always wonder about the girl that got away
043. i still wonder about the one girl that i loved
044. i'm a hopeless romantic
045. but incredibly jaded and bitter
046. i have 2 super deep dimples
047. mcdonalds played a huge part in forming my work habit
048. i think drugs and alcohol are bad
049. i've done both, on more than one occasion
050. i still love my first girlfriend
051. i covet tom cruise's hair in mission impossible 2
052. i've never picked up a girl ever
053. i'm forever addicted to spam and rice
054. i've attempted suicide a few times, but apparently tylenol can't kill you
055. i love the concept of courting a girl
056. i'm not at all sarcastic, really!
057. theres always a truth to my jokes
058. i have an unhealthy obsession with the george foreman grill
059. i change my "look" as much as the season changes
060. i crush very easy
061. there are many angels that watches over me
062. i met my bestfriend in the computer room of my old highschool
063. i once had a contest on how low i can sag my pants
064. i used to freestyle and won a freestyle competion at a club
065. i can't break dance to save my life
066. i've only been to one concert (toni braxton)
067. girls who can sing are very attractive to me
068. my ipaq pisses me off, i wish i had a palm
069. i'm a very impulsive buyer
070. i'm a pisces (which apparently explains a lot)
071. i only started wearing rings this year
072. ya know that movie shallow hal? i'm worse
073. i always have lotion handy
074. i did have an imaginary friend. wonder what happened to him
075. pizza hut, all-you-can-eat sushi, and pasta are my addictions
076. there are only a few people that i look up to
077. i lost my faith, can't find it anywhere
078. boxers and briefs
079. my bestfriend is from edmonton, he's married
080. i'm terrified at the idea of marriage
081. my favorite movie is sneakers
082. i hate rollercoasters
083. i hate carnival rides in general
084. i was taught how to shoot a rifle when i was 7 years old
085. i wish i was witty enough to do improv
086. i hate being the "guy friend"
087. i tend to lose interest really quickly
088. i love the idea of a traditional date (ie, movies. fancy dinner and talk under the stars)
089. cooking is a talent i don't show off that often
090. i play paintball so i can take out my frustrations
091. a normal relationship seems to elude me
092. i love to go grocery shopping
093. i've dated mostly older women
094. i love beer
095. there is embarrassing video of me floating around the internet
096. reading is my escape from reality
097. i have been in a gay club
098. breakfast is my favorite meal of the day
099. i once spent 100 dollars on mortal kombat
100. i will be forever addicted to the internet

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i'm soooo sore!

alright so i lost this weekend. it wasn't as bad as i thought. 6-4, 6-3 against a seasoned player isn't bad right? i've never played that much tennis in such a short time span. i feel like i dropped 10 lbs just on sweat alone. not to mention a raccoon tan courtesy of my oakley sunglasses. warning to all tennis players out there: wear sunscreen, listen to baz luhrmann kids!

i'm going to sink into my chair now and wait until the pain from my muscles goes away. oh yea, and attempt to do work.

last night was a night at the improv.

it never ceases to amaze me how quick witted and intelligent these people are. they can come up with things on the spot and actually be funny. which is a hard enough task for me because i know that for me to be funny takes some effort. so to see 6 people on stage consistently being funny on the spot with unusual suggestions was amazing.

the audience members were funny too. if you're familiar with who's line is it anyway, the audience gets to yell out suggestions on the scene that the players will be playing. one called for an embarrassing problem. people were yelling out stuttering, ear wax build up and many many other things but one person at the top of his lungs yelled out "erectile difficulties!" now that was funny.

i'm officially protesting tennis tournaments. well, this one at least.

well the draw is up and it's official. i'm playing 3 definite matches on saturday and 1 on sunday. if i win my singles match i play another match which would make a total of 4. this isn't good. 1 3-set match is usually already a handful but now i'm playing 3 at least. now, i'm nervous and i think i need to sleep now to get enough rest for saturday.

update: one of the doubles team cowered from seeing my name in the draw caught some eastern sickness that involves rats had more important things to do than play tennis on a saturday evening and withdrew. which means that i only have to play 2 matches with the possibility of another one (if i win).

last night i saw blue crush!

oh wow, i've never seen acting soo bad. it was absolutely horrible acting! although, if you put 3 cute girls 2 cute girls and one butch one in a movie and throw in a lot of bikinis. you would've caught my interest for the rest of the film. yes folks, eye candy is what it's all about. forget about the fact that i said "she can't act to save her drowning self" during the first 5 minutes. if you have a fear of hitting your head and/or drowning, don't go see this film. yes, multiple flashbacks on the main character hitting her head and many many underwater sequences. 2 fears that i have.

i want to learn how to surf. yes folks you heard me. i want to learn how to surf. isn't it like snowboarding without the snow?

how sad is that?

yea, see i've been too busy this week with tennis, friends and just plain old hanging out. at work, i'm not even online. at home, i'm usually too tired to even touch a computer. redesigns and new web applications will probably have to wait until after this weekend.

you know it's sad when you attempt to wake up earlier to check and answer email blog.

this week was supposed to be my relax week. aka my week in a nutshell.

i ended up straining my back on friday playing tennis and spent a good deal of the weekend recuperating. i was at home staring at the computer screen for most of the saturday trying to get some work done. in a matter of 5 emails, i managed to book everyday this week to meet up with old friends and hang out with out of town visitors. i haven't seen these people for quite some time. i'm also getting my picture taken for work to get put on the "big giant head" wall cause i go the extra mile to follow the corporate goals and objectives i bribed a co-worker to nominate me. i also have my tennis tournament this weekend and a friend of mine is singing at a restaurant.

if this was my rest weekend, i keep wondering how my regular week must look like.

marriage is a fad!

its not question that this year is the year of getting married. i know of at least 5 people who are getting married or recently got engaged. i found out about a pretty recent one: an ex-girlfriend of mine. but before i got off the phone with her, she basically said, " so yea, when are you getting married?" which totally caught me off guard.

why do i have to get married? it's not like i've conformed to any previous fads before. why conform now? and plus last time i checked, to get married you have to be in a somewhat committed relationship first. a concept very foreign to me.

now heres the problem with going out the night before.

there were some friends last night from edmonton. we decided to take them clubbing. i have work today. the equation doesn't seem to fit that well. especially when your alarm clock doesn't seem to be as loud. i kinda vaguely remember my mom walking into my room this morning.

so you'd think i should be in a panic and completely running around my house looking for clean underwear to work. you only think that. thank god for understanding co-workers.

this building is slowly deteriorating!

3 out of the 4 elevators are dead. the escalators are constantly breaking down. and now the air-conditioning must be broke. which also means that i am roasting my butt on this seat as i speak. the sun is pounding its rays on the window, this is definitely one of those days where i wouldn't want to be in the window seat. that right is reserved for special people.

the funny thing is that, the elevator/escalator repair guys are standing on the first floor staring at the broken elevator. you'd think they'd be trying to fix it but in the last week that it's been broken, they've just been staring at it. i think that fixing an elevator requires carrying a tool of some sort? maybe a wrench?

i've been reading a lot lately. too much actually.

see with the stress of tennis training, i'm usually tired when i get home. either i'd only want to do 1 of three things. eat, watch tv and/or read a book. mostly it's the latter of the three which is good because most of my money is spent on buying books and shelves for my ever growing bookshelf. last night i got home and finished robot city, a book about robots and humans interacting together.

i've decided that for every book that i read, i'm going to write a mini review. i still don't know where i'm going to keep it, but for now i'll put it on amazon.ca. but of course you can read it here too!

to a person outside looking in, it seems like a typical robot book. humans and robots trying to co-exist, but things are thrown in the mix to make the overall journey a bit more interesting.

Isaac Asimov gave the authors a set of rules to live by when writing this book. certain behaviors that govern the behavior of the robots. which creates dilemma and affects certain behaviors of the main character, derek.

throw in amnesia, a few aliens and a girl, you got yourself robot city.

my rant of the day begins...

with my drive to the gym from work yesterday. i was driving over a bridge when an over constipated seagull decides that my car would be great for target practice. a few moments later picture ritchie screaming profanities because his windshield and hood are literally covered in over watery bird shit. (yes. i draw a pretty picture huh?)

fast forward to this morning, scene gas station. i was filling up on gas when i decided that a car wash might be in order. i pull to the back where i find a middle-aged snobby man in a suit soaping his mercedes down with the tire brush. now, folks this is usually an optional activity when it comes to the car wash because it says on the sign: soaping your car before hand is optional. a car pulls up behind me, and another and another. so total cars in the queue: 4. and this guy has the nerve to keep us all waiting as he scrubs his mid-life crisis crusher and keeps us waiting. i had bird poop all over the hood and the windshield of my car and i didn't bother to scrub it. consideration people! consideration!

spending money again?!

i think it's just guilt actually. blogger has never failed me. i hate to admit it. when everyone was having trouble with their publishing, i was able to. when everyone was having trouble with their archives, i wasn't. when everyone's template screwed up, well, mine did too. 1 out of 3 ain't bad. so basically, i've had relatively good service for free.

so, when they made blogger pro. i didn't hesitate and forked over 35 dollars. i basically forked over 35 dollars for a fileupload utility and a spell checker. i admit both have been very useful. especially when over paranoid data security people won't let you ftp outside this company. so now they're reselling their shirt. guess who bought one?

so yesterday, i had no internet access.

why? well shaw slapped our hands for going over the maximum bandwidth. they told us: "no internet for a week! go to your room!" so last night i was semi-productive without the distraction that is the internet. i rewrote an old bookmarklet and created a new one. i made a tub of fruit salad for the planning session today and i read my books. surprisingly enough, the book that i ordered from amazon came in yesterday as well.

Search Dictionary.Com (ie)
Search Google.Com (ie)

drag these links to the link bar. don't worry these are pretty harmless.

then i fell asleep.

the apocalypse is coming! run!

didn't they say something about having weird weather patterns signalling the coming of the apocalypse? 4 horsemen, hand of god swooping down, kinda deal, end of the world. its scary!

i left my house and it was a nice drizzle. i get to the highway and it was literally pouring buckets. you could barely see 10 feet ahead of you. i get into vancouver and the sun started to show itself only to hide back again once i got to mid vancouver. then it got hella cold, enough to warrant the car heater and it started drizzling again. gotta love vancouver weather.

ohh its back! its back!

i missed making a design for the last one. but its back! excuse me while i try to flex the minimal graphics skills i have in making something interesting.

long weekend? its a long weekend?

whoohoo, it didn't even click to me that it was a long weekend today. let me tell you when it did. i kicked back a little, sat infront of the tv and popped open the laptop with the wireless. i'm going to chill here for another 15 minutes before i actually get around to doing what i need to do.

oh yea, when you reformat your laptop. make sure that you don't lose the redesign you've been working on for a month, the mp3's that you've been collecting and the pictures that you've collected for months.

and to all you uncoordinated people...

learn how to c-walk in 4 easy steps. now, you too can look like lil bow wow and other "hardcore" rap stars or maybe it's just because you want to figure out how to do that 1 dance move in the britney spears game or maybe you just wanna play ddr? yes folks, complete with mpeg step by step video.

good lord what have i released into the world?!

surprise number 1 revealed. (aka. why this blog has sucked in the past month)

i know i said that i don't want to jinx it but victor gave me a different perspective on things. i've rejoined the tennis league. some of you might not know but i used to be a competitive tennis player in my mid-teens.

my dream back then? well, to "turn pro" and play in the davis cup as the only member of team philippines. my dreams were shattered when (1) i found out that i stopped growing at 5'8 and (2) smoking came into my life. in a few months i got discouraged and my ranking dropped from top 20's to 100+ in the province. it was a huge hit to my confidence and ever since i never touched a tennis racket to play competitively.

so fast forward to a few months ago.

i got convinced to make a comeback knowing full well that i wasn't in any shape or form to play plus i was rusty, very rusty. so i started my get-in-shape-desperately regiment. 3 days of gym, 2 days of tennis training and 1 day of tennis drills. plus, i started watching everything i eat. i re-registered for tennis bc and submitted my form to join a tournament. i got my confirmation for the tournament yesterday.