letter to me...

dear ritchie,

i know its not my business to stick my finger into your life but i noticed that you've been drinking a lot of coffee. by a lot, i mean that you've consumed enough coffee to dry out the reserve supply of columbia and make juan valdez a millionaire. that's a lot!

i'm sure that the people around you must be annoyed out of their minds with your incessant finger tapping and knee bouncing. just stop it. i think you're eyeballs are about to pop out of your socket by the looks of things. you even bought a new coffee cup from starbucks justifying (in your head) that you're saving the environment by not using the paper cups. even though i must acknowledge that it is a nice looking cup, capable of sharing the table with other geeks coffee cups.

so just to let you know that you might have a coffee addiction problem.

regards,
ritchie

dressed up and ready to go...

today, i'm wearing a dress shirt and slacks. last night i read my project management book to get some industry buzz words. today i'm off to a meeting where people wear ties and sport jackets and ooze industry buzz words in their sleep. i have to look equally impressive and capable of throwing industry terms like xsl and xml without even looking. yes, i'm ready baby!

damn rss feedin', bandwagon jumpin' hippies!

i tend to jump on the bandwagon a lot. (as if you didn't know that already) i started a blog, i write web applications and now i have the craving for purchasing an ibook. lately, the trend for bloggers is rss feeds.

i had a friend in high school that called me a hippie because i used to jump on the bandwagon a lot. i remember buying cross-color baggy jeans when they were cool; you know the bright orange pair of pants that was so large you could fit an elephant into one pant leg? he called me a hippie for that. i was researching how to create an rss feed for this website and the whole time i'm hearing him calling me a hippie in my head. i think i suffered some brain damage in high school or something.

wrinkled vintage clothing...

what is up with wrinkled vintage clothing?! designers seem to have a flare for the old these days. first it was bell bottoms jeans. now its making new things seem old.

i shouldn't be the one to talk since i own a couple of those over-washed looking jeans. i know i'm showing how off i am with todays fashion but have you seen those super wrinkled shirts? the ones that looked like you put yourself through the dryer ? what is up with those?! i was at the local mall a few days ago and it looked like there was a global outage of irons.

my next fashion prediction: jeans that look like you just urinated on yourself. it'll be the next big thing!

and on a totally different note. i think shawn desmond is really ricky j.

the fanny pack, a fashion no-no

when i took the elevator this morning i noticed that all the people headed to the 6th floor were wearing fanny packs. now the 6th floor is where we have our servers and all the important computers that are needed to run our little monopoly of an insurance company. so most people on the 6th floor are mostly computer geeks.

i would never wear a fanny pack. its a fashion no-no people. no matter how easy they make your life or how it has an extra pocket for that scientific graphing calculator, just say no to fanny packs. it honestly went out with cindy lauper back in the 1980's. so please, when you look over your bedroom closet and you see that fanny pack carrying your keys, caffinated pills, pocket protector and calculator. don't.

hummmm minty!

what the heck is up with mint? it seems to be everywhere these days. manufacturers are mixing mint in with every product imaginable. it was cool when it was just toothpaste and the occasional alcoholic drink.

let me explain. I just bought new face wash. It has some sort of mint after-effect. After you rinse it off, you feel like you just rubbed your face with the frozen meat section of the local supermarket. my shampoo has mint in it with the same after-effect. i rinsed and my head feels like i've been showering with liquid nitrogen. its a surprise i don't come out with a cold from a hot shower.

apparently, the new sprite is quite sweet and minty. i dare not try it today. i might get a pneumonia and die.

reality television, the best thing that ever happened to filipinos

reality television is the best thing that ever happened to the filipino community. i'm not sure if a lot of people know this but filipino's tend to be quite the gossip kings and queens. i know, i'm very guilty of this. i know, its quite a large generalization but it's a character trait like white people have lighter skin. can't change it, filipinos like to gossip.

so back to my point about reality television. there isn't a better way to spy into someone's life than watching it on television. no need to call up your local contact through the grapevine just listen to jeff probst ramble about it. what better way to stick a finger into someones personal affairs? in reality tv show, you can make someone's career or even pick their spouse. i'm sure the way things are going. people are going to have some blogging reality show. oh wait, there already are.

my weird friends: professional movie script memorizers

if you haven't heard about the hype around the 8mile dvd, you've probably been hiding under a rock for the past few months. (i know i'm a bit late posting about this) an extra feature that it has are freestyle sessions held by everyone's most hated rapper. <tangent>what i found amusing was the director trying to explain to the camera what exactly it is that they did. i don't think the phrase, "verbal dexterity" fits in when the background scene is an inner city nightclub. it was almost like watching a poor old school nerd trying to fit in a sea of football jocks. it was one of those moments where i just covered my eyes and shook my head being embarrassed for him.</tangent>

so this is my friends favorite movie right now. when a movie becomes the group favorite, everyone memorizes the lines from the movie and a constant repetition followed by a lot of laughing ensues. the last movie that they embraced was fast and the furious. i can't tell you guys how many times i heard the street racing scene in the beginning re-enacted: "you never had me! you never had your car! oooooohhhhh"

now when i hang out with them is all i hear is: "this man's a choke artist..." and "ward, i think you were too hard on the beaver..." it's funny. i love my friends; they're just a bit on the (really) weird side.

i've contemplated about not posting this but since it's become unbearable for me and my other co-workers.

i work in a cubicle jungle. my department doesn't own the whole floor but we own a small portion shared with another group. normally, it's quiet and everyone just minds their own business. until this one person decided that the noise level was uncomfortably low and started talking loud enough that any can hear him and all of his conversations within 50 feet away from the building. this is something that i wouldn't normally take notice of but (1) the guy loves the sound of his voice and (2) he has an incredible amount of conversations throughout the day about buying insurance for his boat.

i'm sure this is a regular occurrence in the land of the cubicle jungle. i'm open to any suggestions from anyone. i mean besides coming up behind him wearing a ski mask and fiber-wiring him to death, throwing my chair over the cubicle partition hoping that i knock him unconscious posting about him on my blog.

just like me to miss out on the whole background pattern meme. apparently the trends with weblogs these days are putting background patterns in their designs and converting to movable type. even the great and almighty ernie has been assimilated into the collective.

i still personally enjoy the whole zen minimalistic design path. i like the clean look; background patterns will pass just like the canucks' chances of beating the minnesota wild. i mean, i also just redesigned. as for switching to movable type, i like blogger. especially when i've paid money to use blogger pro. it gives me all the good features that i want. plus i've already invested in building a comments system that integrates into my xml blogger feed.

just to summarize the post: ritchie isn't following the trend because he's lazy and cheap.

the reason why i've been so busy lately. well, i've been re-learning java for the past few weeks. usually the first thing that a programmer typically writes in a new language is a "hello world" program. something that gets the program to display "hello world" to the screen. don't ask why, its just a mind-numbing process that all developers go through to get a sense of security with the new programming language.

so being the lazy guy that i am. i look through the company's cvs repository and see "HelloWorld" in there somewhere. i think my lunch conversation with dan would better explain why my situation is a bit frustrating.

dan: so did you go through the hello world app in there?
me: yea, i checked it out.... 192 files
dan: 192 files? to do what?
me: i dunno.
dan: did you try compiling it?
me: yea, i got a few thousand errors saying that i'm missing a whole bunch of transactional and database objects.

so i really didn't get anywhere with it. i really don't believe that showing "Hello World" is that hard to do. but apparently in java it requires 192 files to do that.

being sick sucks! i hate being sick. the coughing, rough throat and those nasty nasty things that get coughed up are all things that i could do without.

this whole weekend was a write-off. i was quite sick with the flu and it was a struggle to even get out of bed. i started feeling better last night at 10:30pm and i actually had something to eat. tip 1: the first thing that you eat after a 48 hour break should not be greasy chinese food. it gives your stomach a run for its money. trust me.

tip 2: appreciate the person taking care of you. especially when you unknowingly manage to pass on your sickness to her. its not fun having a house full of sick people.

the entertainment for last night? karaoke! my aunt is visiting from the philippines and my parents invited a few of her friends over to have dinner. naturally the portable karaoke machine complete with scoring capabilities was brought out for the night's entertainment.

a few examples of the songs sung were: top of the world, my way, tie a yellow ribbon and mambo number 5. of course, this was only a small selection. yes definitely entertainment. a bunch of tone-deaf filipinos singing (very) loudly from 9pm to 11pm. it didn't help that they were watching american idol previously.