CUTs, like a knife.

I am so poor right now! This is what I get for going on undertime...nothing!!! I think I may have just gotten my basic salary (or less even), without the bonuses, etc. Ayayay. I only have enough to pay my bills; I don't even think whatever little is left will float me for the next two weeks. OMG, this is hysterical. I was aware the downside of going on undertime is the salary deduction, but this is prolly my biggest CUT, literally & financially, almost 2k! Methinks so, I'll still have to get my payslip later. Oh well. It was either I go on undertime and save my sanity, or be "rich" and lose my mind.

But this past pay period, I only went on CUT for one (full) day. They're not offering undertimes as frequently as before; AUT isn't even offered anymore! Yeah, kinda looking forward to next payday because I'll prolly have my full bonus also -- the last time I got this was way back when I was still in the morning shift. I don't know what I'm doing, but my stats were pretty good this October.

As I've said, I may be financially rewarded this time around, but it was absolutely exhausting. I'm not used to working a full work week anymore! And it was nice to see Tanji again. He traded shifts with Jen so we were able to make kwento. See, if it wasn't hanging around with him for a bit, I wouldn't be able to relax a bit, because when they left already I was back to hostile operator mode. Haha.

And my getting the barest of my wages doesn't even stop me from shopping! Hey, I do need this after all. I've had this new PC for almost a year now but it was only the other day when I plugged in my flatbed scanner and find out it is not compatible with Windows XP!!! Que horror! It says right there on their website when I downloaded the driver. It's interesting because now AOC only specializes in monitors, at least that's all the product I saw there.

I've been scouting for a new printer anyway because mine is older than the scanner, and it's wonky because the ink gets stuck in the heads from non-use. Meaning, if I use it again I have to have it cleaned or repaired first, and the last time I had it done it cost as much as a new printer. So might as well get a new printer.

I almost had an HP printer, it was the promo with new subscriptions to Smart Bro. But that was a crappy deal because they prolly only had limited printers to give and a gazillion new subscribers.

Anyway, so I'm doing my own research and I know I wanted a printer with individual ink cartridges, so it would be cheaper to replace them and more efficient, too. And that's what the new Epson printers come equipped with. I was leaning towards the Epson Stylus T10, which is just a basic printer. In hindsight, I'm glad I was able to check my scanner before making any purchases, because now I needed a new scanner, too! And just a few clicks away I see the Epson Stylus TX100, which is an all-in-one printer, scanner and copier! More importantly, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg! (Only two weeks' salary! LOL!)

I just purchased it yesterday at Octagon Computer Superstore. Sometimes I'm glad I'm mildly OCD. I was planning to buy it at Asianic, but I looked at the other shops first to check if they had it in stock, and I see it costs P200 less in Octagon. Not too much of a bargain, but still. Plus the clerk was overly eager to help me, so that was nice. When I went to the other shop, they looked at me as if I couldn't afford it! Their loss, haha.

So now I want to go print all the stuff I want to print, but I'm on a tight budget right now so better keep a check on myself. But OMG the copier! Who needs their personal photocopying machine?!? I did a test and it was way better than the piso photocopies you get anywhere. That was where I was pretty impressed with my new gadget, hehe. Luv it!

Note this purchase was necessary. What I really want to get is a digital camera as a present to myself (again). I don't remember getting me a present on me birthday.... did I? Or did I conveniently forget? Anyway, I'm leaning towards a Casio Exifilm EX-77, because uh, that's the one I saw at the mall. It's almost within my budget, too (the ones I really like are in the 10k range). Plus it's in this dude's best camera list, and that's a good review, too. But I'll still have to check if the other cameras are available here and do more research and comparisons.

Tag away.

I didn't put tags in my entries before because I couldn't figure out why you need to tag entries. And I thought I was obsessive-compulsive?!? But now I've realized the logic behind it, so before my entries get out of control I've tagged my past entries. Neat.

Waiting for dinner.

I'm meeting friends tonight. Kristine is here with hubby Juan and baby Claudia! We're finally going to see her. Mary Anne and Charmaine are definitely going. Myra will likely be there, too, since Megamall is nearer to her residence than where we usually meet in Makati. Not sure about Kristina, though, but still hope she makes it. Iilan na lang nga kaming naiwan dito, minsan na lang magkita, tapos kami-kami lang parati nina Mary Anne at Charmaine ang nagkikita. Haaayyyy.

I really miss my friends. My stars, we'd known each other since high school!!! With Claire, I was aware of her since grade school, but we all officially became barkada in HS. It's like 20 years now! WOW!!! As Mary Anne says, we're more than sisters now ♥ (I wholeheartedly agree: the Magnolias are the few ppl I feel "comfortable" having bad moods around but they know me well enough that I'm just in a bad mood.)

In the meantime, I'm getting addicted to Facebook, especially the fun applications. It's so much neat-er (literally & figuratively) than Friendster! Now I kinda wish I joined sooner, but don't think it really matters since I'm still able to find friends from high school and college and work....

I really should be getting some rest before tonight -- I've come off from work and I haven't slept yet! -- pero eh, bahala na.

The earliest CUT.

Last Saturday morning, I went on CUT at 1.55am. Tee-hee, that was a first. Normally, I avail of the CUT around 6am onwards -- if it's still available. I already asked a favor from Ferdy the previous day to prioritize me on the list... et voila! I was number 2 for our shift :-D It was quite fun, like I had my day-off earlier.

I was able to talk to Bates and he says he didn't push through with my leave anymore because of what was happening on our floor. *Ahem* Oh boy. I can sum it up like this: operators are human beings, too. But he says I can still go on leave if I want to... and of course I want to!!! (Obviously, it would be soooo much better if I just leave.)

Anyway, I got home around 4am. The commute wasn't that bad or "scary." First off, there are a lot of call centers in the Buendia area, so that stretch from Makati Ave. to Pasong Tamo was quite alive. In Baclaran, it wasn't like before when it was completely deserted. Now there's a night market so again, there was a lot of people. I just didn't nod off to sleep, for safety reasons, of course.

...

This was my Project Runway Finale weekend. I had seen the first half of the current season some weeks ago, and I just forgot to watch the new episodes every week... until I started reading on online magazines that Christian won. Oopsies, spoiler. This is prolly the best season so far because the designers were really talented. I found it hard to chose among the final three who would win (if I didn't know who won already). Even if Chris was able to show his collection, I think he'd have a chance. Didn't Alexander McQueen or some other avant-garde designer use hair in his clothing, too?

Anyway, I can't wait for PR Season 5! Plus I heard there's going to be a local version.... hmmmm....

...

I found this flash game on one of the game blogs I read: The Asylum: Psychiatric Clinic for Abused Cuddly Toys. All I can say is WOW, this is a great game. I've managed to cure all the patients in around eight hours (not straight ha, I took breaks naman). Even though you're the doctor, you can't help empathizing with the toys, especially when you've reached a breakthrough and figured out what their problems are. Awwww.

I wish resolving my life's problems were as easy, too!

Oopsies & ouchies.

I was supposed to be on sick leave this week, but I dunno what happened, either my sup forgot to update me or it wasn't approved. I'm thinking it's the latter because my name is there on the log-in sheet, so....

This is really depressing me. As usual, hindsight is 20/20, maybe I shouldn't have revoked my resignation. I don't think I can last until April (pattern here, takes me two months before I want to leave again). Haaayyyy. Plus the callers today were unbelievably idiotic. Grrrr. I know I shouldn't say that because they're our customers, but come on, some of the things they ask us to do are so simple, it's insulting. Like dialing toll-free numbers?!? *rolls eyes* Ouch. I could go on & on, but I'll save my ranting for another day ;-)

My head really hurts today. Oh, the idiocy of it all!

PS. On a lighter note, Blogger now comes in Filipino. Nakakaaliw lang. Minsan kasi ang lalim ng pagsalin nila: View = Pagtanaw. Logout = Lumabas. Tags = Etiketa. Help Resources = Mga Gamit-yaman ukol sa Tulong. Teka, mali ata itong Moderate Comments, Mga Katamtamang Puna daw. Eng?? Sablay ata.

Kahit papaano magaling pa rin, sino kaya nag-translate para sa kanila? Pero parang hindi naman talaga Filipino eh, mas Taglish pa nga eh, haha.

Falling Slowly.

I first heard the song when it was played by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova on the Oscars. I immediately thought, this should win Best Song! I have to agree the three nominated songs from Enchanted were overkill; Once had better songs in it!

It was also so considerate of Jon Stewart to allow Marketa her moment at the Oscars (have you ever seen it done by a host before??) and I'm also grateful for it because she had one of the nicest acceptance speeches. Ever.

And with the power of the Internet and Google and my OCD, I quote Ms. Irglova:

“Hi everyone. I just want to thank you so much. This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we’re standing here tonight, the fact that we’re able to hold this, it’s just to prove no matter how far out your dreams are, it’s possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don’t give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along way. Thank you.”

(from Oscar.com and watch a clip here.)

The following day I was talking to Tanji how it was such a great song... and it turns out not only does he have the mp3s on his phone already, but he's also seen the film! Grrr. I also learn there's a version done by Glen Hansard's band, The Frames.

I realized in my excitement over DL'ing an mp3, I typed "Once" as the song title, so no wonder I didn't get any hits. Then just now I could've searched if there was a movie site, which there is and you can DL the song there, too! See, whatever is happening to my faculties?!?

Tanji lent me a copy of the movie, and also of Control, a biopic of Joy Division's Ian Curtis. (I didn't know he was only 23!)

And the verdict is... I ♥ both films. Once is such a simple but beautiful modern musical. Control is also a great film about a talented musician; no wonder the style of the movie was familiar to me -- it was directed by Anton Corbijn!

Naturally, it follows that I should covet the soundtrack for Once (hope it's available here) and I'm searching like mad for Joy Division songs online.

PS. I also ♥ Wikipedia. OMG, all that useful information!!! I feel my synapses coming to life!!!

Links.

Tolkien estate sues 'Lord of the Rings' studio over revenue. Haha.

Eastern Promises movie reviews on Team Sugar and on The New Yorker. Cool movie poster, cool illustration in the New Yorker article.

Viggo Mortensen bring 'Hidalgo' home. I definitely ♥ a man who love animals.

This I have to quote from Sweet P of 'Project Runway' Blogged Live From The Red Carpet

7:20 p.m.: Viggo Mortensen. Hey, his outfit looks different than the other guys'. I like it: wide lapels, striped tie and a red rose. Is he with his daughter? Cute. He is so handsome. WOW!

More on men's clothing from Diana Gabaldon on the enduring appeal of men in kilts. *wink wink*

And a Final goodbye for early web icon. :~(

A resolution I hope to keep. And why I ♥ my new PC.

To make up for all the time I've been "away," I'm thinking maybe I should write in my journal at least once every couple of days, if not every day. I've really been away too long, plus I miss writing...ranting and raving on whatever. I'll the be the first to admit I don't see myself as a good writer but it's cathartic. Free therapy. And I get to hone my creative skills, too.

...

I may have been whoring slaving over my "menial, meaningless" job for nearly two years now, but at least now I have something to show for it, which is my new PC. Yay! I really ♥ my new PC so much.

I still like my old PC, it did serve me well for how many years (uh, hello, its OS is still Windows98!) and has saved my sanity countless times (except for the two times it crashed and I nearly lost my "life"). But its time has come, and I had to upgrade.

I won't be boring by listing the specs, but I'm OC so I'm compelled to: 1.9GHz AMD Sempron, Gigabyte mobo, 512MB DDR2 memory, 256MB GeForce video card (should be higher because of my bro's video card), LAN, HP DVD writer...but what really is the best part for me is the HDD: 80GB!!! Yehey!!! I know that's 'standard' or may be small compared to others that can have up to 250GBs, but please take it in context: I was on my old PC for what felt like a million years on these specs: Pentium R, 32MB RAM, 8MB video, 56k modem and a 4GB HDD. No, I'm not kidding. When it was brand new, it was the fastest specs and largest HDD. Then factor in how quickly computer technology advances nowadays, and how cheaper everything becomes, too. I do wonder now I was able to exist with those specs, I guess it just shows how careful I am with the things that are dear to me :-)

Getting a PC upgrade was one of my priorities when I got employed. It took me this long because, hey, I have bills to pay, too. And it was tempting to just use the money I should set aside for my savings for shopping sprees. Actually, I just wanted to upgrade my old PC, get new hardware, etc. But since I needed a major (!) overhaul, might as well get a new one. It's just the CPU, not the entire package. I also had to get a new keyboard because these new CPUs have PS2 keyboard sockets, whereas my old keyboard had the big round socket.

I'm really grateful I was finally able to get a new CPU. It's given me new energy, at least when I'm here in the comforts of my room and my home. (Energy which should be put to use in writing and updating my websites, and not solely on arcade games. And I say "here" because if I talk about a different location, i.e., workplace, um, I have no energy there.)

"Protect my moon and shining sun."

I'm on wireless broadband, so there shouldn't be any problem...right?

Uh-oh, it's almost a week since my last post.

One of the reasons I couldn't frequently update my websites or diaries before was because I only had dial-up, and sometimes it took ages for me to connect to the Internet. Then my account was an off-peak subscription, meaning I could only login during 12mn to 1am. When I was working during the day shift, I was too tired to wait or wake up early so I could go online. Then obviously I couldn't use it anymore when I started working the graveyard shift.

Mary Anne had been persuading me to get broadband for the longest time. My excuse was I couldn't afford it, but it was only a few hundred pesos more than my dial-up subscription. So after seven loyal years with my ISP, I said goodbye and got Smart Bro installed last month.

OMG, so far I have no major problems here. I made the application on December 16, 2007 around 11am. It was our company's Christmas Party that night and I went home really late, or very early in the morning -- whichever way you look at it -- and good thing I went home right away, too, otherwise I would've arrived home at the same time the Smart technicians came to install my wireless broadband! I was probably just drifting off to a deeper sleep and my brother pounds on my door that the Smart technicians were here already...at 8am! Wow! Talk about Bilis Kabit.

There was no problem installing the outside antenna. Initially, my bro and I assumed they'd install it in our porch. But since the trees and the unfinished apartment buildings across the street were hindering our line-of-sight with the Smart antenna, they chose to install it right on our roof. So it looks kinda odd: we don't have a TV antenna but there's this other one right on top. I've looked it at it, and it does look odd if you didn't know if it was a wireless broadband antenna. It looks like an intercom on a pole, haha.

They did hit a snag installing it on my PC. The technician couldn't find the LAN installed even though I was told by the computer shop technicians it was included already. Well, to make things simpler, I just bought a wireless LAN card from the technicians at an additional price.

And I was connected to the Internet! It only took less than two hours, because they were out of here by 10am.

The major snag that day was when my bro hogged my PC. Since I was unable to clean my room, and fortunately my bro woke up early that day and had just finished cleaning his, I moved my PC to his room just for the installation. He has his own PC, too, but I'm really not quite sure why he can't use it right now.

So after the broadband installation, and after I had downloaded some of the programs I use -- instantaneously downloaded, mind you, because I was still in awe of how fast the connection was (gimme a break, I was on 56k dial-up for seven years ha! And it was usually just 33.6K connection), and after I had checked my email (i.e., deleted hundreds of spam) and browsed a bit, I let my bro use my PC. He had suggested on his own that he'd pay half of the monthly broadband bill as long he can get to play this online/LAN game he's addicted to. He also paid for an additional video card, because his game required a higher graphic resolution.

It took him the entire afternoon to download his game. And all that time I watched television because I was too excited to sleep some more. I'm not a big couch potato so I get bored if I don't see a good movie or program. Of course, I just wanted to use my PC...my PC!!!

The afternoon became evening and I couldn't wait anymore. I was in a bad mood already. So it was my turn to pound on my bro's door. It turns out he was sleeping (he works the night shift, too) so he was pissed I interrupted his sleep. Come on, if you were going to sleep, you could've at least returned my PC. I've told this to Mary Anne and she said I was quite mean. Well, in the first place, it's still my PC and I waited two long years to be able to upgrade my computer! And now I have both a good computer and a fast Internet connection, I'm yet again to have one of my selfish brothers have dibs at it?!? Please, give me a break!!!

(Yeah, in retrospect, it was a bit mean, but my reasons are valid, too.)

Anyway, I'm on wireless broadband for almost two months and I still haven't updated my websites or my diaries. At least I'm trying here!

The problem is I'm currently addicted to playing arcade games. Yep, again because I couldn't play games properly on my Jurassic but beloved old PC (slow, low specs) and I had a major blast playing them again here. Then I started trying all those arcade games on game websites... and coupled with my obsessive-compulsive nature, is it any wonder I don't do anything productive at all?

Here are the reasons why Mary Anne hasn't seen me on Skype (and because I'm OC I want to list all the games I've played so far): Diner Dash, SpongeBob SquarePants Diner Dash, Chocolatier, Wedding Dash, Cake Mania, Cake Mania 2, Little Shop Big City, Paradise Pet Salon, Sally's Salon, Turbo Subs, Build-a-lot, Dream Day Wedding, Fashion Fits, Fashion Craze, Granny in Paradise, Dress Shop Hop, Nanny Mania, Jane's Hotel, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Chicktionary. Whew!

I haven't finished ALL of them, only both Cake Mania's because I was nice enough to pay for them. But now I know better *wink wink*, I've also managed to finish Little Shop Big City (great memory game!), Turbo Subs, Sally's Salon, and Jane's Hotel. I didn't finish the others because it was either getting too difficult to play or too corny for me, haha.

Chicktionary and A Series of Unfortunate Events are not arcade games. Chicktionary is like Text Twist, only with chickens, and ASOUE is a puzzle game. Still both fun.

And right now, I'm downloading Turbo Pizzas, the precursor to Turbo Subs. Oh boy, here I go again.

PS. Finished DL'ing Season 1 of Miami Ink off BitTorrent at 6.34pm. Yay! Started this January 13, and again, I was "too lazy" to even open the program and too preoccupied with arcade games.

The second step is even harder.

No, I did not fall off the face off the planet. More like I let myself drift away again.

If the first step is always the hardest, I think for this instance the second step is even harder -- considering what had happened.

For the past several years, I've been hosting my online journal at Diary-x.com. As anyone who has an online diary will attest, it was very convenient. There was actually no problems whatsoever, the site was friendly and idiot-friendly. So there I go drifting away in contentment.

Until sometime two years ago, I was unable to access the site...at all. Initially, I thought they were having a major site upgrade...but it was just taking too long.

So as most things goes in my life: if something worse will happen, it will happen -- especially to me. Inevitable Doom.

Apparently the server had a major crash. As was explained, it skipped its tracks so most data was lost. And unless you backed-up your files or was on a special account with them, sorry, they don't have your diary anymore.

WTF. Almost three years of documenting my life, from the serious to mundane, online for everyone to read, wiped out just.like.that.

I had been thinking of my saving, or copy-pasting, my diary to diskettes ever since, but I never got around to it because, yeah, I'm kinda lazy. Plus if you had to deal with my jurassic (but beloved) PC before, it was just too much for me.

I know, that's a really lame excuse. I just should've backed-up since the first entry. But then when you're dealing with saving stuff online, I didn't really worry about that.

I did manage to salvage a few of my earlier entries from an archive website which I've now forgotten. I do remember my very last entry. It was entitled "Should I stay or should I go?" about my employment status.

Obviously, I haven't gotten around to creating a new online diary until now. Wouldn't you be bummed out after losing years off your "life"? To think I even prioritised writing in my online diary rather than in my actual diary. Haaaay.

Anyway, it's high time I made amends. I miss writing.

Let's just hope I don't let myself drift away again.