Sid Meier’s Civilization – one of the most highly-acclaimed strategy game series in existence. Any serious gamer worth his salt knows about it – whether he plays turn-based strategy games or not. And the fourth installment was eagerly awaited in our home – two out of four brothers were eager to play the latest update.
And Civ4 is in many ways the same game all over again. The basic premise is still there – explore, build cities, research technologies, kick other civivlizations while they’re down, race to space, etc.
Archive for 2005
Posts (104) :: Photos (0)Posts
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As I watched my brother playing the latest incarnation of EA’s FIFA game, I can’t help but consider that there must be a staff of developers over at EA dedicated solely to the task of churning away to release updates to EA’s flagship lines of sports games year after year. I wonder how fulfilling that kind of job actually is…
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Not that it’s a bad game mind you. From the ten or so hours I’ve played it’s definitely a lot better than the previous game in the series. And the voice acting is really great this time, with a bunch of British people doing the over-the-top voices. The battle system is still a bit simplistic, and the main quest seems very straightforward. From what I’ve seen, it’s probably an above average game.
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I was getting a bit bored with the place, so I spruced it up a bit, switched some colors, moved stuff around. You know, just to pretend something’s happening. And to showcase my sorely lacking UI design skills. :p Screenshot captured for posterity: (Click to view full-size) 11 Dec 2005 4:08pmClose I also cleaned up some of the global files that were being accessed from fateback, since I will eventually drop that host completely.
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I’m no music critic; often I can’t even carry my own tune. But I do know what I like, and I know I like the Eraserheads’ music. If you don’t know who the ‘heads are, they’re basically the Beatles of the Philippines, galvanizing the local music industry and serving as an example and inspiration to numerous other bands that followed after them. It’s only fitting then that many of the current crop of Filipino performers pay tribute to them in the form of Ultraelectromagnetic Jam.
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I had three teeth taken out today, all of them deep in the bottom-left part of mouth. One of them was apparently a wisdom tooth that had lodged itself in a peculiar angle. That one required surgery (and was not covered by my health card). When you’re there, even when your mouth is numb, even if you’re not really scared or anything, once you start to feel that pressure on your jaw, you can’t help but be at least a little bit anxious.
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So, my brother needed to present 20 java programs for school. He didn’t have to make them himself, he said. Just to print them out and submit them. (What kind of ridiculous compsci teacher asks for hardcopies of source instead of softcopies?) Anyway, I said, sure. I’ll make some, it’ll be easy. After all, trivial programs shouldn’t take me more than 5 minutes each right? It was true, each one didn’t take long.
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Cassandra Cain was raised as an assassin. Growing up, her father never taught her to read or write, only to fight. She grew up knowing only one language – body language. Her mind processes human motions as fluently as ordinary people speak their native tongue. She can see moves before they happen or read a person’s intentions simply by following their movement patterns. She was an experiment to create the ultimate human fighting machine.
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(Cross-post from here.) (Click to view full-size) 27 Nov 2005 2:30pmClose I think I would’ve had a good chance to make it if I had started on time though. :( I’m not gonna stop though, I think I’ll finish this novel. An excerpt: “I really should organize my stuff more. You’d think someone living alone deep in the woods would have a lot of time to organize, but no, there’s always one thing or another.
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One of the panels from Marvel’s House of M (second issue) made me think so… (Click to view full-size) 20 Nov 2005 5:03pmClose I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Context: Mutant scientist Hank McCoy and human scientist Henry Pym were discussing the moral issuess surrounding Henry’s isolation of the mutant gene.
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Sometimes I can’t help but look back on the story so far and wonder where the hell I’m going. I’m in a pretty good place right now I guess, compared to a majority of people in this country. I’ve got a good job with a more than decent salary that lets me consume the mythical three-square-meals-a-day and pile on a bit of luxury on top of that. But sometimes you stop and think to yourself, is this all there is to life?
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Temporarily shifted to one after someone reported some javascript redirecting to a porn site. Doesn’t happen on my machine though. Sheesh, now I have to debug a non-replicable bug on my blog. And I didn’t even get any porn :p Update: Moved now to roywantsmeat.blogspot.com
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girl from work (10:19:57 AM): may blog ka ba roy? zroytang (10:20:18 AM): haha bakit mo natanong? girl from work (10:21:04 AM): nagbabasa kasi ako ngayon blogs ng high school friends ko e girl from work (10:21:11 AM): e ikli lang :D zroytang (10:21:28 AM): I have one with entries dating back to 2002 :p girl from work (10:21:49 AM): tlga... updated? zroytang (10:22:01 AM): minsan girl from work (10:22:24 AM): may icky luv stuff dun?
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At least, that’s what I was thinking when I was listening to today’s Gospel regarding the parable of the talents. Bsically, I think the gist of it is: God gives us talents, we should do the best we can; if we don’t, how can we complain when others do better? Yeah, I pay attention in Church. Go me!
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Apparently, I am worth $1,758,066 on HumanForSale.com Also, I don’t why but My blog is worth $1,693.62. How much is your blog worth? I wish someone would send me that cash, I could use it.
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I was introduced to nano a few years back when some fanfiction writers I knew online told me about it. I’ve attempted it every year, and failed each time. I just don’t have the drive. I figured I wouldn’t start this year. After all, here I am, it’s the ninth of November, and I don’t have anything, prepared or otherwise, why fight a losing battle right? If you think I don’t fight losing battles, you don’t know me very well.
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For it’s 10-year anniversary, GameFAQs has released the top 100 games as chosen by its’ users during their anniversary contest. To give you an idea of the general composition of the GameFAQs populace, 15 of the top 100 are Squaresoft games (including every single US-released main-series Final Fantasy), 17 are Nintendo games (5 Zelda, 7 Mario, 3 Metroid plus a couple more). Only 11 are PC games, 4 of which are from Blizzard.
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Filipinos traditionally take the weekend of All Saints/All Souls Day off, to rest and to visit their dearly departed. Westerners, particularly Americans, treat this time, specifically All Hallow’s Eve, as a children’s holiday. Given GMA’s penchant for holiday economics, it was evident we would get at least Monday and Tuesday off, and they were indeed declared as holidays, so Filipinos got a respite shortly before the much-dreaded EVAT implementation. Not me, though.
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I have to work today :( And probably tomorrow and the day after as well, although both are local holidays. On what may very well become one of the company’s biggest projects I might add, if we get the contract. On an unrelated note, these filler Naruto episodes are just silly. It doesn’t make sense that Raiga, one of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen, can be defeated by Naruto and Lee (no matter how drunk Lee is); Raiga is supposedly on par with his former comrade Kisame, who was easily able to take on two of Konoha’s jounins.
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Voting for the Walk of Game is up. My votes were: Starcraft, Civilization, Final Fantasy and Street Fighter II. Also Sid Meier and the Pac-man guy. Edit: After some thought, it’s kind of silly to have a poll where you could vote everyday. There’s no chance for Pac-man to beat Final Fantasy here, as FF has an army of fanboys willing to vote everyday, and Pac-man… well, a lot of his fans might vote once buy many won’t even realize or care that they can vote again.
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Here Update: Sold for the low, low price of P1500!
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A post I made today had a 23-Oct timestamp. After some investigation, I determined it was because I had left the create post screen open in a firefox tab last 23-Oct, then closed my browser. On my next launch of firefox, the SessionSaver extension automatically reloaded my previous session, but the create post screen still had the 23-Oct date. I had to manually change the date. Note to self: Refresh the create post screen always.
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I’m never really sure. I woke up this morning with a slight headache, compounding my annoying cough and colds. I’m sure I would have been able to make it to work and put on a whole day’s work, albeit probably at a less productive level. But then again, if I rest today, I may be able to put in a 110% productive day tomorrow, whereas not resting might cause me to be unproductive for more than one day.
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After seemingly being the last man in the Philippines without a cellphone for so long, I broke down and bought one a couple of weeks ago. I’d post a picture, but I can’t find the digicam, and the phone can’t take a picture of itself. The 6020 itself seems pretty okay, although as a phone newbie I really have not much of a basis for comparison. The camera is nifty, but it took me a while to find a data cable for the phone.
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It nevers fails, every week, around 1-2pm on a Sunday. For some unexplainable reason, an overpowering drowsiness steps in, and I must sacrifice 2-3 hours of my time to sleep. it’s not a normal sleep either, it’s the kind of sleepm that’s very hard to break. You wake up it’s 4pm, and think “There’s some stuff I have to do,” but by 5pm you’re still happily sleeping. Only happens when I’m at home though (which is most Sundays), and not just to me.
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In my line of work, which is to say “large-scale database systems”, there’s always the idea of “journalling” or the “audit trail.” Basically, it means that for every transaction of significance, a record is kept of that transaction, stored in a log somewhere, so that should something malefic happen, the logs can be parsed and the trail can be followed, blame can be assigned and countermeasures can be taken. Okay, that’s not really limited to large-scale database systems.
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A friend of mine said, “It’s for die-hard fans only.” He’s right. Luckily, there are roughly seventy trillion die-hard FF7 fans. And I doubt they will be disappointed. Advent Children is a DVD-movie about the events that happen two years after the events of the game. Some of the story-related parts might get you a bit sleepy, especially if you weren’t particularly fond of the whole Reunion/Jenova/planet thing from Final Fantasy VII, but that’s okay because…
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I’ve never really read much Neil Gaiman before — I’m not a particular fan of the Sandman series, for which he is most known. But I know some people who are big fans, so I respect his work at least. Neverwhere is only the second Gaiman book I’ve read (well, third maybe, I think I read that thing he co-wrote about the apocalypse), and I’m pretty much satisfied so far.
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I saw an interview with Manny Pacquiao on Rated K, apparently after his celebrated win last Sunday. Korina referred to him as a millionaire because of his share from the match, but Manny said he’s going to be giving a lot of it away. People told him to donate to Katrina, but he says there are also a lot of needy people in his own country so he’s giving to them first.
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Sorry about the title. I couldn’t find any succinct way to put it. Anyway, yeah. I’m supposed to be trying to get a phone. People have been harassing me for years about the fact that I don’t have a phone. Since my vacation is already half-wasted already, I figure I’d go online and get some info on what phone I’d buy. Now, bear with me a bit, I’m really stupid when it comes to phones, since I’ve practically never owned one.
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It may very well have been a mistake. Buying and installing World of Warcraft on the first day of my leave, that is. Now I spend some 3-4 hours daily on the addictive beast. It’s hard to stop! In case you haven’t heard, World of Warcraft is Blizzard’s MMORPG take on it’s famous RTS series, and it’s one helluva good game. It looks excellent, the gameplay is terrific, people don’t seem to be assholes, etc.
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One of the things I’ve been wanting to do during this hiatus was to watch more movies — we’ve got a ton of DVDs downstairs I haven’t seen yet. Since I had just finished the fifth book of Stephen King’s western fantasy, I started this task with Sergio Leone’s western opus, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I haven’t watched many westerns before. This is probably the first one I completed.
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“There will be water if ka wills it.” – Roland of Gilead I had a Powerbooks gift certificate the other week, and the Powerbooks at Megamall happened to have a sale, so I took a look around. And lo, I was lucky enough to find a copy of the fifth book of Stephen King’s epic western fantasy, The Dark Tower. It was a huge book, larger than my copies of the first four, but with the same cover style and by the same publisher, so it was the copy I wanted.
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My hiatus involves quite a bit of TV of course, especially since I get some idle time while waiting for installations/formatting/downloads to finish. Today, for the first time in maybe twenty years, I saw an exciting action-packed episode of the A-Team! For those not in the know, the A-Team was a bunch of rogue ex-commandos who usually acted as mercs, fighting for good, beating bad guys and saving the day. In the parlance of Roland of Gilead, gunslingers.
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Bought a brand-spankin’ new 160GB hard drive yesterday. Seagate Barracuda 7200. Yessir, ups the total hard drive capacity at home to 240 gigs, I hope we don’t fill it up too fast. Moved the 40GB hard drive on the primary computer to the secondary (for a total of 80 on the secondary), and installed the new one on the primary. My brother Alvin was working with me on this, and it took us a better part of three hours to get the connection right (one of the casings wasn’t very agreeable)
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Freedom from work at least. I’ve been meaning to take a two-week leave since late last year, but never found a chance. Now is the perfect time, just before I jump full-swing into the next large project (which may or may not be confidential in nature) So, no thinking about work for two weeks, unless they call me in for an emergency :( What stuff do I have planned? I’m not skipping town or anything.
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As you may have heard, Google Talk is up. The client looks neat and all, but there’s not much reason for most people to start using it. Sure, the voice chat thing is neat, but I know that Yahoo Messenger supports it, and probably some of the others do? Otherwise, the client seems awfully thin. Simple, like Google, but it needs to be a lot more than that to make a difference.
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I’m thinking of getting some webhosting. Not that I’m unsatisfied with my free webhosting and Blogger mind you, but sometimes I just get the urge to do some server-side chicanery. Mandatory: PHP/mySQL Good service, tech support, fast response time No-hassle payments (which means I prefer local, I don’t want to have to pay through credit cards or anything) Of course, a good deal on space, bandwidth, reliability, etc. Optional:
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I’ve known of Markku Seguerra’s rebelpixel website for a while, having enjoyed his constant stream of OPM-friendly lyrics section. Today, I came upon his blog post about his band with some Pisay 96 batchmates. Their band is Pop Ratio, and he’s made available some original tracks and also some covers on his website. They’re pretty okay, you might want to listen to a few. I know some of my own batchmates are active in bands, I wonder if I can get any (free) samples of their music?
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My brother estimates we have at least a hundred pirated copies of PS2 games. (Please don’t lecture me in any way on piracy, I’ve said my piece before.) In any case, we have spent at least ten thousand pesos (roughly two hundred american) on pirated PS2 games. And out of those hundred copies, some games we have two or three copies of (due to the problems generally associated with illegal copies); Out of all those pirated games, I’d make a conservative estimate that at least 20 games were actually playably good.
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The whole web developer thing was boring me for a while. But last week I got to help on some preliminary webpage design for one of the projects, so my interest in HTML/CSS/Javascript is a bit tweaked. (Hence the slightly updated stylesheet — try changing font sizes now.) Anyway, here’s some HTML/CSS trickery. I’ll add stuff here as I try them out. If you’re using IE, you wouldn’t appreciate it much.
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Yeah, so there. It was an impromptu hiatus anyway. Unplanned and whatever. Work has been hell lately. Not a tedious kind of hell though. Just the sort that sucks up a lot of time. I spent more than 15 hours in the office on my birthday. Twenty-seven huh? I wish I had more to say, but birthdays seem to matter less and less as I get older. I’m in a good place right now, but I’m still not where I ultimately want to be.
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Or so the paper says. The Philippine Daily Inquirer had an article today about Oracle targetting local SMEs. Apparently they have an advantage because they use “the Linux shareware.” Too bad I can’t find the article online.
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I remember the atmosphere at UP around the time of the infamous second evelope at Erap’s trial. Even the normally apathetic Engineering students were being woken out of their political stupor by outrage at the turn of events by the Estrada-friendly senators. Everywhere you go in UP, people would be asking you if you were coming to the big rally on EDSA. Today? Today, the conversations are like this: “Mag-gimik dapat kami bukas sa Makati eh… "
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Should I get a Hipster PDA? I’m thinking about it. Or something similar. Not really for organizing tasks and stuff. Only for jotting down temporary things when away from a computer. So I can remember them later. I often think up incredibly clever world-shaking ideas while commuting, it would be nice to remember all of them. I still largely prefer the advantages of electronic storage: cut/paste functionality, easy to make backups/copies, distribution, easily searchable etc.
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One word: Suxxor. Well, not really. It’s okay I guess. When I first heard they were making a Fantastic Four movie, my first reaction was, “Uh… that can’t be good.” The plot is barely servicable… the thing that really made me think “suxxor” was how Victor von Doom’s role was handled. I mean, in the comics, Doom was a monarch, ruler of Latveria. He wasn’t a madman bent on revenge. He was a madman bent on world domination!
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I was going to ahead and break my blog silence on the whole Gloriagate thing, but I realized I should read the whole transcript at PCIJ first, boring as it is. That way, I can at least say I’m basing my opinions on known facts unlike roughly 90% of the rest of the participants in this debacle. I went through it in about thirty minutes, skimming most and picking out only the parts that seemed most interesting, and skipping anything that was too vague or that I didn’t strictly understand the mechanics of.
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Radio is so primitive. You can’t skip songs, you can’t get to listen to a single track repeatedly, you can’t jump to random tracks, you can’t listen to only artists that have songs about Superman. Listening to random music some random guy thinks you will like, with no guarantee of whether he actually knows your taste or not. Granted, you can increase that likelihood by listening to the right station, but unless we had one station for every person, it’s impossible for the radio station to fully satisfy your tastes.
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Awesome. Definitely better than the all the other Batman movies. This movie is no kids’ movie either. The movie is less about Batman’s crimefighting adventures and more about Bruce Wayne’s journey from being a angry, confused rich orphan to the billionaire playboy/costumed vigilante popularized by the earlier films. The movie captures the essence of Batman’s character perfectly. It’s all about fear — Bruce overcoming his fear of bats and eventually turning that fear into a symbol to strike terror into the hearts of criminals.
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Some comments on the Yahoo webapps. The next/previous links on top of Yahoo mail messages are confusing. I’m not sure if they take me up or down the mail-list. Gmail is better, since it explicitly says “older” and “newer”; With Yahoo, I’m always wrong when I guess. After some experimenting, I figure it out. “Next” and “Previous” are based on the sort order in the list of messages. Since the default is sorted by date descending (newest first), “Next” corresponds to Yahoo’s “older” by default.
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I’m bored. What do the following have in common? – Three Doors Down – Five For Fighting – Spin Doctors – Rey Valera Easy enough.
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[18:06]<friend> anong ibig sabihin ng <okularnik>? [18:06]<friend> alam mo? [18:12]<friend> sabi lang ng shoti mo [18:12]<Roy> naku [18:13]<Roy> lagot ka [18:13]<friend> bakit? [18:13]<Roy> salitang bicol yun [18:13]<Roy> ibig sabihin habambuhay na kayong magka-away [18:13]<friend> anong ibig sabihin nun? [18:13]<Roy> iwasan mo na lang na sabayan sya sa hallway [18:13]<Roy> delikado
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Bitty Browser Holy crap, that’s cool. del.icio.us links Open "del.icio.us links" in a new window About Bitty Browser About Turnstyle ... but this one doesn't seem to work on Firefox though, all I get are Google ads? Am I doing something wrong? Let's try the launch link: Hey both work now! 😀
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Download recordings of alleged destabilization tape – INQ7.net Transcript at PCIJ blog I don’t do much politics, but for those out of the loop, the government has recently released some tapes of conversations allegedly edited to make it look like the President has been participating in electoral fraud. I’m actually more interested in the tech part of this – these are supposedly mobile phone taps, so I guess they should have come from the mobile service provider?
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When I’m alone in the elevator, I make kung-fu stances against the mirrors on the walls. Unless of course I have an umbrella, in which case I do lightsaber stances.
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I should’ve thought of this as soon as I got DSL: I went ahead and downloaded Transformers the Movie. Transformers was of course, the epitome of my youth. Unlike most other guy kids, I preferred the Transformers to G.I. Joe. I guess I preferred high-tech fantasy over soliders back then, with the war of the heroic Autobots and the Evil Decepticons appealing more to my young mind than soldiers trying to fight terrorists.
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We saw Revenge of the Sith at the Gateway mall in Cubao. It’s less than a year old, and it’s target audience is a higher class than the usual malls. It’s like it’s trying to be something like the Podium, which makes it a bit out of place in Cubao. The mall is good anyway, as you’d expect. Not my type of place to hang out, but has the comforts you’d expect of such a mall… clean, not much of a crowd, and people greeting you when you get off the taxi.
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The circle is now complete. The whole tale has been told. Revenge of the Sith completes Lucas’ space opera. And the Force is strong in this one. Highly enjoyable movie, if you take the time to push away your inner critic and look past the spotty acting, the so-so dialogue, and all the little flaws and inconsistencies you spot throughout the movie. Get past all of that, and it’s a decent enough ride, and a fitting conclusion to the Star Wars epic.
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Yeah, so I guess I’m hypertensive. I get dizzy occasionally, and today I decided to pass by the Clinic to consult about it. My BP reading was a 150/110! The highest reading I’ve had, ever. I hope it’s not too serious though. Will find out soon. I don’t really mind not being 100% healthy, and taking maintenance medicine could hurt a bit in the pocket (although I don’t care much for money) What I don’t like about not being healthy is the diet.
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Just saw a segment on Oprah where Oprah helped a 15-year old girl realize her wildest dream – to meet Ashton Kutcher. Is must be nice to have a lifetime dream so easy to achieve. Oprah’s job is nice too. She finds some poor little girl whose dream is to meet a B-list Hollywood celebrity. Wow, how hard was it for her to fulfill that? Seriously, I’m sure it’s great, it’s sweet that Oprah’s doing this for the kid, who has some sort of vision-related medical problem.
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One of my officemates is now a proud father-to-be! I’d be extremly happy for him, if not for the fact that he has to take a week off to attend to his family matters, and now I have to take up his workload. And just one day after I had finally managed to catch up to my own schedule! I expect to be in crunch mode for a week at least.
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The metro has been suffering from sweltering heat the past few days. That’s why this sudden heavy rainshower is severely welcome. My mother says all the people in the metro must have been praying for rain — the shower is rather fierce. Sweet glorious rain.
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A while back, inspired by the CSS Zen Garden, I modified my Blogger template to use entirely CSS-based design. That is, I can know update the layout instantly simply by replacing the stylesheet file used by template (like now!) The new layout uses up a wider screen space, but I think it’s neat. The lighter colors are easier on my tired, computer-strained eyes. Hopefully, this new CSS-based design allows me to do more experimentation and improve my ability to design web UIs.
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Haven’t read Robert Jordan in a while. Someone gave me Crossroads of Twilight as a gift, so I read it and hope that his pacing has improved. It has not. He writes well enough, dialogue is nice, descriptions are more than adequate, but I expect some things to happen in his books! He has so many plots running at once, he should at least resolve two or three per book. Perrin, Mat and Elayne get a lot of chapters, but they barely get anything done.
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Pimp My Rig is a hardware review side associated with a friend of mine from high school. Yes, I was asked to help promote it. 😀 I haven’t worried about hardware issues in a while, since I usually ask my kid brother to handle most hardware purchases/setup at home. So, I don’t really know much about the latest and greatest hardware but this site looks helpful enough to be given a try, especially if you’re the sort who enjoys putting together his own PC.
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I only had three tasks laid out for me this weekend: Watch season 4 of X-men Evolution. I realize that X-men Evo was not as popular as some of the other superhero series such as Justice League and Teen Titans, but I mostly like it anyway. It’s more of a light-hearted version of the X-men universe , really. (Presidential hopeful Senator Kelly of canon is merely Mayoral hopeful Principal Kelly here!
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One thing about spending a free day at home. The temperature in my room gets really high during the afternoon, it’s quite uncomfortable. Especially since I’m used to wasting away most of my daylight hours in an airconditioned office. It’s good to spend a couple of days away from the office though – God only knows I’ve been so damn uninspired with work lately. For the past two weeks or so, I haven’t had much heart for my work.
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The Thinker You are analytical and logical – and on a quest to learn everything you can. Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge. Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat. A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it. You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor. What's Your Personality Type?
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SegaFantasyVI I was about 20 seconds away from being late for work this morning. And this flash video is why. (Click “New Game” to view the whole thing.)
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Some weirdness today. Around 4PM, word spread through the office that some sort of psychic nun had predicted an intensity nine earthquake today at 5PM. (This fantastic prediction came through SMS of course. Despite my not having a cellphone, I am not outside its’ influence.) Since we work on a rather high floor, an earthquake would be very bad ™ from us. Of course, nobody took it seriously, although I suspect some wanted to take the opportunity to dodge some work.
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Well, I thought I’d write about Suikoden IV before I forgot all about it. I finished it around Holy Week, but haven’t bothered to go through again, even though I promised myself I would try since I did not get the magic number of a hundred and eight stars of destiny this time around. Curse my pride for not reading any FAQs while playing! Time is short, with work and all, so I should make the most of my games so I don’t need to re-play them.
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Wordpress host – free blog I’ve wanted to try WordPress for a while now, but not having easy access to a PHP-enabled server of my own, I haven’t had the chance. Blogsome is a new, free service that provides WordPress for blogging. I signed up, and roy.blogsome.com was still available (nothing there, don’t bother looking) Am I going to leave blogger? I don’t know, really, I’m already pretty comfortable with it already, and moving to WordPress means learning a while new templating language (I know it would take all of an hour to get it down, but still… inertia).
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I’m not much into FPS titles, but over the past couple of weeks, my bro Alvin and I have been playing the occasional game of CTF or Zones in Timesplitters III (via split screen on one TV of course.) The last time I got into an FPS game multiplayer was when Mon, Dave, Paul and I would do a four-way splitscreen on a single TV with the PS port of Quake 2.
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Speaking of my high school batchmates’ earth-shaking accomplishments, props to Neil Simon Silva for getting 9th place in the recent bar exams. Congrats as well to new attorneys Chris Bolastig and Ly-an Carlos. Jeesh. It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with my batchmates. When will I accomplish something that will land me in the papers? Or maybe I should stop being so competitive? =p
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The Gender Genie Apparently, according to this handy web tool, I write like a girl, or at least I do when my posts exceed 500 words. How embarassing! Apparently I should be using more masculine words like “the”, “good” and “something” rather than feminine words like “but” and “actually”! Noted!
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I was back in Pisay today, to attend my brother’s graduation. He’s the last of us, three brothers who all went through Pisay. I’ve never seen the pool up close before today. It doesn’t look very deep. I’m incoherent. It might be because I’ve been reading the Sluggy Freelance archives since I got home. The graduation ceremony was mostly boring. I think most are, unless you’re one of the graduates. Or one of the graduates’ parents.
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[Originally posted to the GameFAQs message boards] Now, there are rude and annoying people everywhere, especially on the internet. And normally, I don’t care, I just ignore them. On battle.net, I just let them be, and keep on playing. Every so often however, some guy comes along who just pisses me off completely. So I play random 3v3, right? It’s not the most “skillful” type of battles, but it’s fun and I enjoy it.
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As it may mention in the page title, I’m currently screwing around with the blogger template, so this blog may look a bit… um… screwy for a while. I’ve been wanting to toy around with Javascript hacks to extend the Blogger template functionality. The first thing I did was add some Javascript that allows you to show/hide individual posts on the page. But actually, I don’t really like it, I’ll remove it later.
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“I do not aim with my hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my Eye. I do not shoot with my hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my Mind. I do not kill with my gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.
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Ooo… DSL is fast! Now I need something to do with it…
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An actual conversation I had this morning, as my brother Alvin and I were on our way back home (by foot) from somewhere. (Paraphrased somewhat, mostly because we don’t really speak in English all the time.) Alvin: Shall we take the shortcut through the seminary? Do you think the gate is open? Roy: I don’t think so, let’s just take the direct route. Alvin: Oh come on, I think it’s still open, we can take the risk.
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Boing Boing: Movie-ID puzzle: name the films in these disembodied scenes Hint: One of them is “Trading Places” That’s the hardest one I got so far, after about ten minutes of answering. 😀
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To the Tale, and Other Such Concerns: The Hunt is On Check the link for the puzzle, then highlight the box below for the answers. (Answers found with the help of Switch) Metapuzzle answer: Michael JacksonGeller Building Puzzle: Answer is Daughter of Elvis -- Jacko's ex-wife Apollo Street: Answer is "John Jay Smith" -- One of Jacko's screen names Club Bubbles: Answer is Men In Black 2 -- Jacko had a cameo in this movie Edit: Looks like we didn’t answer in time, the solutions are already posted on his blog.
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I seem to be slightly more alert in the morning and a bit more agressive throughout the day with less sleep (around 6 hours). Taking eight or more hours of sleep seems to leave me slightly laid-back for the rest of the day. I’m trying to be more aware of my sleep dependencies, as I’m probably going to have to work 12-hour days for a while (maybe up to the end of April) :(
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A while back I blogged about Bob Ong’s first book. A short while after, I also picked up his next two books, Bakit Baliktad Magbasa ng Libro Ang Mga Pilipino? (Why Do Filipinos Read Backwards?) and Ang Paboritong Libro ni Hudas (Judas’ Favorite Book). “Bakit Baligtad” focuses on the Philippines, its people, its quirks and its problems. “Paboritong Libro” is a lot harder to classify, as it jumps across several topics, with the unifying theme being the chapters named after anagrams of the seven deadly sins.
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No seriously, I don’t remember having received any before. Edit: Okay, it’s the first one that I actually received in my inbox. I don’t actually know if Yahoo or Gmail’s filters killed one before i saw it.
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Currently listening to “Boulevard of Broken Songs”, a neat mashup mainly of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and Oasis’ “Wonderwall”. This and some other mashups here. (haven’t listened to the others though… ) Another interesting mashup that came out quite a while back was “This Is How You Remind Me Someday” , where Nickelback is caught basically reusing the same chords for two songs. Great stuff. Other songs/bands I’ve been listening to lately:
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The last Zelda game I played (as in, to the end) was Link To The Past, and I think it was on David’s old SNES. Or it may have been on ZSNES, I’m not entirely sure anymore. Before that was the first Zelda, which I actually finished on its original console! Seems that the years have been kind to the Zelda formula: Octoroks and Tektites on the world map, Bats, Skeletons and Wizrobes underground, Boomerangs and Arrows to throw about, Pieces of Heart to collect, Swords, Bottles, hidden passages, name it, it’s all here.
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sometimes i just feel so out of my world an ordinary guy in love with an extraordinary girl i don't always know the right words to say, i don't always know the right thing to do, there's just one thing i'm sure of, i only want to be with you i'll be here waiting, standing by you every day hoping your heart will take notice
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Bomb blasts rock Davao, General Santos, Makati – INQ7.net Makati City, three people were killed while at least 20 others were injured after an explosion rocked a bus plying EDSA as it passed underneath the Metro Rail Transit’s Ayala Station, Metro Manila police chief Director Avelino Razon Jr. said. What a way to celebrate Valentine’s day. And here I was just blogging about security issues. (Although looks like this incident wasn’t actually in the MRT.
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Optical media and the MRT/LRT I’m pretty sure what is described in the above blog post (confiscation of unlabelled optical media from LRT/MRT commuters) is obviously stupid, though probably not illegal. The rail authorities can probably refuse entry to anyone for any reason they consider valid. It’s probably legal, but I doubt it’s enforceable though. Anyone who’s ridden the MRT during rush hours knows what I’m talking about. Security inspections last roughly half a second for every three passengers; the security personnel will simply make a quick pass through your bags with their stick.
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GearLive: Why Sony’s PSP will suck I’m not actually particularly interested in the PSP, but this article is interesting and has quickly convinced me that the PSP will in fact, suck. As a handheld platform, I think it’s pretty hard to beat the GBA. I’m already thinking of buying one, as it would give me access to all those great Nintendo franchises [1] in their pure 2D forms, without me having to buy a different console.
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I tried to play two PS2 games today: Spiderman 2 and Naruto – Narutimate Hero 2. I knew we had pirated copies of both. Spiderman 2 – failed. The PS2 wouldn’t even play the disc. Instead it made a wonderful churning noise that made me quickly hit the eject button. This is Sony’s best form of copy protection: In my experience, our PS2 can only play somewhere between 30% – 50% of all pirated discs out there.
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eBay – Xbox Millennium Falcon (Click to view full-size) 2 Feb 2005 1:23pmClose It’s a heavily modified X-box made to look like the Millenium Falcon! I’d buy it, but it’s a PAL version =p via BoingBoing via izreloaded
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Ctrl Alt Del – Tragically l337 Never actually read Ctrl-Alt-Del before, although I have heard of it. The webcomic is somewhat Penny-Arcade like, except with more continuity and only one of the two guys on the couch is insane. The comic linked to above is my favorite so far. =)
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Picked it up as an impulse buy from National Bookstore a couple of weeks ago. Anyone who grew up in the 80s will appreciate Bob Ong’s trip back to his elementary/high school/college days. His tales of school will ring true to anyone from around the same era; younger folk may not appreciate it so much. (My younger brother seems to have no idea what Spin-a-win is/was, although he is aware of SOS, Flames, etc.
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Khan-fusion and a cabbie tale – INQ7.net Cool story on INQ7 about a 40-year old cab driver who plays popular MMORPGs here in the Philippines. Goes to show how well MMORPGs like Ragnarok, MU, etc. are doing locally. Even though they’re not considered “big” compared to American giants like Everquest and World of Warcraft, they’ve definitely captured the Pinoy market quite well.
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RPGamer – News Bulletin – Namco, Capcom Combine Forces to Create Sim-RPG Wow. I mean, wow. The game will feature playable Namco and Capcom characters apparently, and not just from RPGs. Street Fighter RPG! I’d play it. :p Note: This is the first time I’m using Blogger’s BlogThis! feature. It’s neat. Edit: They’ve got screens ! Morrigan finally gets a new sprite!
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(Click to view full-size) 24 Jan 2005 1:20pmClose We have a giant hammer prop at home. Made out of a stick and some cardboard (I think). Naturally, we bash each other with it. There are only four things I think of when I see this hammer: Those carnival things where you need to use the giant hammer to ring the bell Triple H The Paladin in Warcraft III Thor That is all.
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This game is the third and last installment of Tri-Ace’s venerable space opera science fiction RPG, spanning across three consoles [1] , and it’s a good finish. I finished the main story just before the year’s end [2] . But I’ve still been actively playing it, going through the bonus dungeons [3] The fact that I finished it, and the fact that I am still playing it, and the fact that I am still planning to finish it on both of the higher difficulty levels, all of these facts speak volumes about how good this game is, given that I don’t have nearly as much time to play as I did before I was working.
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Someone asked for this on the GameFAQs forums. w3chart is a program to analyze Warcraft III replays. I don’t know if my copy is old though, it doesn’t seem to have a version number.
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If you’ve been paying attention to this blog (yeah, you, both of you), you’ll notice that the archives now go all the way back to January of 2002. That’s when I started the site on topcities some time back. I moved some of the “journal” posts I had from there into blogger, using a very detailed process I shall refer to as “manual copy-and-paste and editing of links”. I still had some backup copies of most of the old site around, and archive.
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“So, what’s your New Year’s resolution?"_ “I resolve to live life on purpose, to take control of my fate, to sieze each day as if it were my last. I will be reckless. I will be daring. I will be strong. I will challenge fate. I will defy the gods. Or I will die trying.” “… Why can’t you just quit smoking or go on a diet like ordinary people?