my longest mobile fone call ever: 38min 42secs! this came from my friend who i met way back in my college sophomore years. i'm really saddened to find out that 1.) she's currently residing in Hong Kong, where SARS has become a huge health risk; and 2.) she has a tumor in her brain, or at least that's what i understood of her condition. please join me in praying for her...

i have one more link on SARS, or atypical pneumonia - check this out.

*whew* the weather's getting so warm here these days, with summer coming 'round and all...

for the past two days, the room where our workstation and server resides were powerless (as in without electricity), owing to a grounded outlet (this is assumed at most right now - we only isolated this today). so i've been a little late on my posts.

a very happy graduation to my friend Sacha Chua - if you do get to read this before my email, i just want to say that, even if we don't know each other much, you have been one heck of a student (and teaching assistant) thus far. looking forward to many more emails and (hopefully, in the near future) talkies with yah. n_n

i saw a link that might be of interest to graphic artists - this site has a streaming video link to teach people how to convert a raster image to a vector one (for use with Flash, for example). my sister was actually asking me this very question last night over dinner. for the bandwidth-deprived, i'll put up a textual explanation the whole video as soon as i get around to watching it.

dang, our internet connection seems to be going on and off every now and then. speaking of which, i have a huge rant about their service that i'd like to talk about, but i'll reserve that on another post... that issue deserves more "limelight" than the others...

anyway, in the meantime, i'm off for a haircut...

Christmas comes early! (sort of)

my cousin has come back from a Japan trip a little unexpectedly - primarily because of the war in Iraq (which i will not comment on). the company that he's working for is ferreting people back home as soon as possible, and it's a good thing - i had a couple of camera filters bought, and boy, am i ever so pleased with them. i just realised now, however, that my current setup (using 58mm filters) is preventing me from using my flash effectively. hopefully i wouldn't need to use my flash as much with these filters - some close-up filters, a circular polariser and a cross screen filter...

my brother, on the other hand, got a copy of Final Fantasy X-2, and Guilty Gear XX from Japan. had this all been what he had bought, it would have made for a plain evening. but my brother also ordered a Panasonic LF-D521, and while we haven't started using it, i can really see it being put to use later on...

i wonder if i tend to be a little too altruistic at times... on my ride home today, i offered to carry the items of a mother. she had her own kids, but no, i had to step in and offer a hand. it's no problem to me though. but on that same ride, about 15 minutes after she and her children alighted from the ride, i noticed that they left a pair of prescription eyeglasses on the seat. now i'm tempted to try to look for the family tomorrow, to return the spectacles if possible. i wonder if that's a good idea altogether... anyway, i like it that way, so i have no real problems with it.

speaking of my ride, he got flagged down by the local police for taking passengers for pay without a franchise (otherwise commonly known as "colorum"). we must have spent quite a bit (at least 15 minutes) waiting... he mentioned to me that for that particular offense, he'll be fined P5k. (he's been caught before.)

i'm still continually losing sleep, though i hope to correct that starting tonight - i take a nappy right after posting this blog. g'nite world.

Go to Jail. Do Not Pass "GO". Do Not Collect $200

i talked with a friend over the phone for the past hour or so, and basically all i got was a talk on "change your attitude since it isn't very attractive to people".

i see her point, and the logic as well as the motive behind the action. what i don't see is the methodology by which to approach it.

for starters, i am a rather technical and bulleted sort of person. give me a list of step-by-step instructions, and i'll probably get to the right answer. give me a bunch of actions and i'll more likely than not ask around for ways to piece them together cohesively.

not that i hate my friend - in fact, i appreciate her move. it just hurts to be told that you've been a bit of an ass for some people.

but at least a friend told me that.

in the same thought, an old choir mate of ours was robbed by two males on her commute ride home. when will there be proper police surveillance of high-risk areas for such incidents?

by the way sacha, however did you find out that i had linked you to my blog already? and a correction to your own post - i'm an MIS graduate, not CS... =)

okay, fatigue has completely set in now - my head wishes to lay itself parallel to the ground now... better get a nice cushion for that task.

task list
- i really need to start sleeping earlier

case in point: i wake up every weekday morning @ 5a, and i get back home @ 9p. with an average sleep time of 5-6 hrs, my body is beginning to find the stress too much to take.

if my weekends were more free, i'd be able to sleep that stress off - but no, i still have to wake up early during Sundays - Church duty.

not that i don't like the stress - all i have to do is manage it more efficiently.

task list:
- rip and burn audio CDs for office mates
- bring CDs of Diablo II + Lord of Destruction
- plan content for www.crosswinds.net/~glasstower

this morning an office mate of mine opened up with me her two main problems at work - both involve a possible chargeback, one involving a huge amount of money on her for "negligence". it was more out of a presumption from a past experience rather than negligence that she found herself in that predicament, and she told me that it seems that she will get off the hook for this one. it had better been the case, otherwise i would have reacted very negatively to it.

i feel like i'm getting shot from all around - a change i've made for a critical application has just gone terribly wrong. i simply reused a function module i had used before, but apparently it refused to behave the way i had expected it to. this would be perfectly acceptable for a first time, but with the recent string of programming issues i've been having, i'm beginning to think that confidence on my activities is rapidly eroding away. all this for someone who still has 2+ years of a contract to work off. this is going to be so much fun...

i also got to talk with my ex-girlfriend last night, and so far, things are okay - hopefully we'll get to talk much more in the days to come.

i finally had a good opportunity to talk with a good friend of mine at work - it really feels wonderful connecting and relating with her again. today she made me realize that yesterday's homily - that the intention of what is done is more important than what is actually done - pretty much applies to everything in life, regardless of how people respond to it.

i will always remember that thought.

ahh... my first post on my first blog.

(only after spending practically half of today thinking did i finally manage to come up with a valid and likeable name for this blog. talk about finicky.)

unless i find a better way to do my posts, i'll be forced to compose them during the day on my PDA, then posting them all in at night, copy-pasting my text from my PDA into my blog. it'll be nuts, but at least i'll be able to make posts...

many thanks to sacha for pointing out this site to me - hopefully you'll have as much fun reading my blog as much as i have reading your wiki.