Alex @ June 24, 2008 | | News | Comments (2)
My old buddy from college were discussing a few things when the subject of getting a teaching license came up. Since these license exams are administered by one single office (the PRC) in the office, I tried getting some more information from their website. But lo and behold what popped up when I tried to visit http://prc.gov.ph?
Tada! Firefox 3 is flagging it as an attack site. Is it just Firefox 3 or this government website is malicious indeed?
Alex @ June 22, 2008 | | Lifestyle, Music | Comments (1)
One of the trade offs of working everyday and studying on the side is you miss out on a bit of culture. I’d have to admit that I haven’t listened to the radio in a long time (both AM and FM) so I know diddly-squat about who’s who in music industry. Sure I watch movies but hey, Incredible Hulk doesn’t really count for anything other than geek and pop culture.
So how about a bit of Broadway. Yup, risking another huge sum of money, me and Team Sugoi decided to pump some culture in our lives by watching the farewell run of Avenue Q in Makati last Friday. Uhm, so yeah, culture might be arguable since Avenue Q isn’t Les Miserables or Miss Saigon or even Cats for that matter. But hey, I’m going to take (and took) what’s there.
And oh boy, did I have a good time.
More…
Tags: Avenue Q, Broadway, Music, Musical
Alex @ June 20, 2008 | | News | Comments (2)
A lot of my friends are doing rakets here and there to augment almost barely-scraping-by salaries by consulting for clients abroad. Receiving payments has been one heck of a problem with the lack of a reliable payment service.
Western Union has always been the most reliable but it has proven to be a burden for the ones sending due to the high cost. The next best reliable service as many have attested to is Xoom. Almost the same scheme as Western Union (with added services like home delivery and direct-to-bank deposit) but with cheaper sending costs.
Me and my friends have never encountered any problem with Xoom but recent developments has forced them to take out that merchant payment button service. Meaning the process of having payment sent has become more cumbersome than just a few clicks, replaced by a messy and confusing process that clients loath going through.
There’s PayPal but as for my experience, using PayPal is like playing Russian roulette with five bullets in a six-shooter. You can get away with flawless transactions but you’re always threading that thin line of having their system flag your account for “suspicious activity” and they’ll give you a lot of pain to get your money back . I still haven’t forgotten them for robbing me of my honestly-earned Php 5000 in mixed deductions and fees all because their security and flagging system was too “strict” (flawed in my opinion).
Is there any other way to get money?
Alex @ June 17, 2008 | | News | Comments (3)
I went to the ToyCon last Saturday and had an epiphany - it was not my scene anymore. That meant a lot given that I was co-conspirator of the UP Anime Manga Enthusiasts anime fair and yes, I was president of that org too. I mean, I still maintain an interest for some areas in the local geek culture. Enough to fuel my drive to be still part of Sugoi Stuff. But to totally immerse myself and enjoy it like I did years ago? Not anymore.
Perhaps it’s the people. As many veterans in the scene would note, it’s all about piss and vinegar and nothing more. Kids just have a lot of money and a lot of easy access to these things. Gone is the rigor. Gone is the effort. In any case, I really don’t care about these kids anyway. They don’t know me and I don’t know them. I hate rich people in general and that’s that.
So if not that, perhaps it’s the question of quarter-life crisis. I feel that I do not want to be 30 and still be spending all of my earnings on some collectible, forcibly intellectualizing anime, games, and toys, and engaging kids half my age in “debates” regarding trivia. In a few years time, I’ll be starting a family. I would just want to avoid the scenario where I have to pawn my mint-condition limited edition collectible to buy baby formula for my kid since I lost my job socking my boss in the mouth just because he said that anime is for losers.
Well, this is just my take on the matter and perhaps I’m just really more into exploring a wider world now.
Alex @ June 17, 2008 | | Politics and Society | Comments (2)
I don’t get Bayani Fernando. I think that he should orient himself to the fields of semantics and pragmatics for the prime reason that there are things that he’s doing that just doesn’t make sense.
Juxtaposing his Metro Gwapo signs with those tarps of his featuring his smug mugshot isn’t all to coherent. I mean, let’s face it. 1) Blue and pink aren’t the best of color combinations and 2) he’s not one of the best looking people out there. These things just don’t quite justify the presence of “gwapo” there.
And related to those tarps with his mug on them, why did he ban billboards and yet post tarps of his own? I mean, I’d rather see billboards of Roxanne Guinoo in a bikini than stare at his deadpan face with some cheesy words about how he won’t cry for the poor.
Oh yes, and another thing about those tarps. How large are those? I mean why have your self-promotion tarps in gargantuan sizes and yet have warning and advisory signs the size of short bond paper. Like this one for example:
Just isn’t logical. And yet I have to deal with his nonsense in pink and blue everyday I’m out on the road. I could cite a lot of other things but paying attention to this drivel is giving me a migraine. And that isn’t worth the trouble.
Hey, you can always read Rolando Tolentino’s take.
Tags: MMDA, Politics and Society
