sometimes i wish i had a sideblog

sometimes, i'll be surfing around the web and i'll find an interesting link. i'll usually say to myself, "hey that would be pretty funny!" and i'll open up blogger to come up with some sort of funky blog entry for that link.

sometimes it works, most times it doesn't and other times i just sit there spending hours and hours of work time minutes seconds trying to figure out an equally interesting post to accompany the link. most times, i end up trashing the post and sending an email to friends with the link attached.

most bloggers have started a side blog, but knowing me, i'd probably just get excited about it for a few days and totally neglect it after a few weeks run by. gee, where have i seen that pattern before?

anyway, until i come to some sort of decision on making/maintaining a sideblog. here's a link that will make you want to gouge your eyes out and put flaming matches into your ears.

need to get back into shape

it boggles my mind how easy it was to get out of shape. a year or two ago, i was in prime condition for tennis. i was training for a tennis tournament and was playing 3-5 times a week. i was in damn good shape.

these days, i've managed to let the overeating and the binging (food is love) to take over my life. i've compltely gained tonnage and i can feel the flab bounce around when i try to run. its not a pretty picture folks.

i'm completely envious of people who manage to train while still managing a very full work schedule. so what to do? i've been reading a lot of little articles here and there; they all pretty much say the same thing: eat less while increasing physical activity. i guess coding on the computer isn't exactly considered intense activity at least in most circles.

so here's the plan. try to get a 20 minute walk in everyday and try to plan 1 intense activity in every week. note to self: window shopping in downtown is not intense activity. any other suggestions?

..no need for hateration

so apparently some guy (at least i'm hoping that its a guy) thinks my website is bland. he also thinks my tagline is well...boring.

of course, i would be totally open to suggestions when it comes to this site. let me see if i can anticipate what he would suggest to me.

• i suspect that he'll probably want me to go through some redesign since he thinks that the website is bland. maybe i'll just go with the default xanga template like he did.
• i guess his tagline is way better than mine since it eludes to some self-pleasuring act and dancing. forget the fact that people always misspell, mispronounce my poor old last name... yea his is definitely way better... lets go with his. NOT!
• i'm sure he'll want me to put up some picture of me as a kid similar to the one on his website. dood, you're like 4 years old and you're punching who ever is taking your picture (probably your parents)? you might have some mental problems.

anyway, i really have better things to do than listen to the rants of some psycotic distant relative about my website like play the new yeti and penguin game.

loud talkers

what should we do about loud talkers? you know what i'm talking about? those people who have no regard for the other people in their immediate environment. cubicle jungles are notorious for this. loud people who doesn't seem to understand the concept of whispering (and microwaving a can of tuna but that's a whole different entry in itself). déjà vu? i've blogged about this before.

it's not that i eavesdrop on the conversation happening 5 meters away from me. you just can't help knowing how much this person is willing to pay on their mortgage, how many hotdogs are needed for hotdog day or even what he'll be having for dinner tonight. this is information that i really don't want to know. i know that his co-workers have told him about his inability to lower the volume of his voice.

so what should i do? i've contemplated medival torture to get my point accross. i've thought about throwing things over the cube partition. trust me, zapping him with a stun gun has crossed my mind multiple times. it's really getting quite annoying. maybe i'll just play hitman contracts to get some ideas.

i noticed! really, i did.

so blogger redesigned and the first question i usually get from my friends are... what do i think of it?

well, last night i tried to write a post about how usable it is and how they managed to keep their branding throughout while still giving off that new website smell (which has long worn out on my redesign). the only problem was the post was too long and i couldn't really make any claims to how great it was on a technical scale (blah blah xhtml strict, css, standards blah blah). besides, ernie and zeldman already posted something like that and they're my usability gurus (all hail ernie and jeffrey zeldman!). so if you need to find an opinion on how technically great it is and how the w3c board are wetting their pants looking at the new sites and templates, go read them.

so i deleted the post and started over. i started writing about their new information architecture and how their pages seem to reflect a more user-focused presentation. then blogger/google came out with a press-release that basically explained everything.

so i started writing about how the blogger dashboard analogy seems too familiar because microsoft had a similar dashboard product, then i gave up. i mean what else could you write about a product that never even dented the market?

i tried to compare movable type, typepad, xanga and blogger but that's pretty useless since i believe its always the right tool for the right job. if you're technical and have access to a server with php and mysql hosting: movable type. technical, geeky but don't own your own domain: typepad. asian, late teens-early twenties or a 28 year old guy that likes young asian girls: xanga. blogger fits somewhere between movable type and typepad, i think.

so really, i can't say much about it since most things have already been said. so i'll just post my blogger profile page with my one concern: what happens when the blog_id (that number that uniquely identifies a blog post) gets so large that the browser address bar can't accomodate it?

to the archives!

i love the open source community, they hooked me up and i'm in roxorz mode right now. i've managed to resurrect my old archos mp3 player because of a firmware upgrade which makes it do anything. yes, even make me coffee (i'm kidding of course).

but... thats not the only thing that i've managed to resurrect. i found a 2 year old copy of macapinlac.com inside it (it doubles as an external 6 gig hard drive). yes, complete with old albums and images. i started looking through the directories while listening to 2 year old music and reminiscing about past events and lost memories.

oh you think i'd keep it all to myself? of course not! trust me, no one is safe!

• so lets start off with a baby picture of me, not that exciting. i really wanted to put that picture up
• here's mr full-time mission worker (john) posing with his sister. trying to act all hard core (ahh i miss those days), except, for the nice hole in his pants
• here is paulo. i'm pretty sure that he thinks that i've taken this picture down and it's been lost forever. well i guess not! he submitted this photo to amihotornot.com or so i'm told
• ok, lets bring back some memories for 2 of my friends. this is going to get me so much hate mail
• this was when i went to seattle with some of the boys to bring cedric's cousin jacquie to the seatac airport. i just woke up, and i was still a bit groggy and disoriented. yes folks from this to this in 25 years.
• it's hard to believe that mr ladies man aka cedric suave used to look like this. cedric, please don't kill me
• here is my other good friend archie (and cedric, but we already made fun of him) during geocaching. i think he's in the middle of saying "i'm soo tired/hungry/lazy"
• the old followers of this website would remember the old zine that i used to run, grew tired off and then killed after a few years of inactivity. well i still love the crew to death. this was the graphic we used to put on the t-shirts
• last but not the least, a picture from when ritchie first stepped off the boat in canada. my first birthday celebration in canada put together by a few family friends. that would be me in the boeing 747 shirt, LA (my bestfriend) would be the guy with the big head hair with the light blue shirt. don't ask me what his brother is doing beside me. (sorry for the bmp)

well thats all i'm going to be posting here. i don't want to put out too many back online, i did take them down for a reason, ya know.

remember me?

well, i'm kinda joining in to this meme at the last minute.

leave a comment with any memory that you have of me (and censor yourselves people, no swearing even if the memory might be that traumatic).

you're welcome to post this on your own journal and i'll try to do the same for you.

<stolen via="colene">

and yes, this is a bit of filler while i'm croping pictures of the bbq.

its a hot day! perfect for a bbq!

its an incredibly hot day in vancouver today. all the windows are open, the electric fans have been assembled and are running to full capacity.

perfect bbq'ing weather. a few friends are coming over to spend a lazy saturday afternoon. i have my camera back from my parents, pictures will be taken and posted (hopefully).

in other l33t news: i'm almost finished configuring my personal mail server. i just have to configure spamassasin to kill my email spam then its walkthrough time!