Cel and I are pretty much occupied in preparation for our wedding this May.  We actually set up a wedding blog that you can visit here.  The site is not complete yet but there’s already a bunch that you can read.  Our wedding blog would even be more interesting to read than this forsaken blog.

Please do visit.

The premier state university in the Philippines is celebrating its centennial year. The kickoff of the year-long celebration was full blast with throngs of people- students and alumni alike, flooding the Diliman campus. Sadly, I wasn’t able to make it to the opening festivities but nevertheless, it feels good to know that I once hit the books as a student in UP.

Here’s the centennial theme song:

THE SWEAT FACTOR
After spending some hours on our new Nintendo Wii playing the packaged Wii Sports, I found myself breathing heavy, panting for air then running to the fridge to grab a drink. Yes, that’s how sports games should be played on a video game. You ought to sweat it out too! And all these years I’ve been so into sports game titles and tried various game consoles, this finally has been the only home game system that has got me off my seat swinging and flailing my arms to hit a homerun, an ace, a strike, an eagle, a knockout, etc, etc. To tell you honestly, after several weeks without exercise and then finally playing the Wii, my arms and shoulders ached the next day.

THE WII SHOULD BE PLAYED WITH OTHERS
This is one of the best reasons why we decided to get a Wii. It is an experience in itself that you share with others. I noticed that if you play the Wii alone, chances are you’ll easily get bored as some games are really simple and can get repetitive. But when you share the experience with others, ang sayaaaa!!!!! We got another extra wiimote. Sulit talaga. We plan to take our Wii to our reunion this weekend.

Wii GRAPHICS ARE CRAP
So what? Let the PS3 and XBOX 360 slug it out in the graphics arena. The Wii wasn’t designed to stand toe to toe against these powerhouse consoles. The Wii was designed for good, clean fun. Besides, I’d rather have my vert cute Mii (personal Wii avatar) on the games I play. It makes the game so personalized. It somehow gets you immersed in the game.

THE SKINNY
I’m still amped until now! Plus my brother and I are going into our 3rd fight in Wii Boxing and then Cel and I are eyeing to beat our record scores in Wii Bowling… can’t wait! This great console brings out a great experience. Ingat lang sa paligid at baka may matamaan na kung ano man after swinging the wiimote back and forth.

Well, what do you know? While the world’s most wanted game console, the Nintendo Wii, is running out of stock and the remaining units’ prices have skyrocketed to a ridiculous Php20,000++, VJ luckily had a classmate who wanted to sell his only-once-used Wii for just 8k so he can get a Nintendo DS instead. We wanted the Wii so badly since it could really help spice up social gatherings… we got it!

I’ll post my reviews on my next post. I’m planning to sweat it out some more with Wii Boxing

Just like many other novice Linux users, I found it difficult to view shared files in the Windows XP platform from my Ubuntu box because of password security. This sometimes becomes a hassle especially for people who just want to quickly share files within a home network. For those who want to share files without having to go through password security, here’s a helpful link.

So on my Ubuntu box, I have the lite but mighty Firefox, preinstalled, I have an office suite (OpenOffice) preinstalled, I got Gimp preinstalled (which is so far the best graphic design tool the open source world has to offer), and a funky little desktop gaining rep to rival OS X. But I need my YM!!!

Linux people would say outright “screw Yahoo! Messenger! Use Gaim (which is ‘Pidgin’ now)”

Pidgin is pretty good. It’s got this feature where you can login using your accounts from different IM profiles (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AOL, AIM, Jabber, etc). Cool huh? But it’s not exactly what my LAN shop customers would want. They wouldn’t want having their profiles saved, notably, we have customers who come to our shop needing Yahoo! Messenger with webcam and voice capabilities to communicate with their loved ones who are overseas. THIS, Pidgin cannot offer.

But there’s this thing called GYachi which is a Linux-based IM client that provides Yahoo webcam, voice and even chatroom feature. It’s still quite buggy but it’s going somewhere at least. It’s not very idiot-proof.  Upon login, you will be asked to select a Yahoo! server.  After you have logged in, you will notice that you are inside a chatroom! You’ll have to select the buddy tab to view your friends list.  Interface is not very friendly.  I checked the webcam capabilities though to see if it is working, and yes, it does work.

Pidgin has a better interface.  Gyachi has the features. Which one to choose?

So I have finally arrived after a long drive to and from Sta. Rosa.

I got the job and I’ll finally be back teaching on Monday next week. After a short meeting with my new employer, I drove this time to Biñan to meet Darryll so I can check out the place I’ll be staying for the duration of my teaching job at Laguna.  The room I’ll be renting is part of an unused house within a village owned by a Korean friend of Darryll’s boss. I just found out though that I can only stay there until the end of December because students will be flying in from Korea and I suppose this kids will be given priority. This means, during my first month of teaching, I’ll be simultaneously looking for another place to stay where I can settle in for the long term.

Unfortunately, there I don’t have a laptop- or a desktop at least. No Internet access too.

Bad.

I’m going to Sta. Rosa today to talk to potential employers for an ESL teaching job then take a look at a place I would be renting since I wouldn’t want to travel back and forth from Pasay to Sta. Rosa on daily basis.

Abangan.

For the past days I have been awake at graveyard shifts reformatting PCs. I’ve finished reformatting our PCs though but the sleepless nights ain’t over yet!  Our marathon planning for the Youth Ministries activities for 2008 was an overnight gathering. It was fun but really tiring! After the meeting ended at 3AM, I wasn’t able to get sleep. While some from the group slept (lucky few!), the rest of the gang stacked a DVD into a laptop to watch a movie!  And since I can’t get myself to sleep, I chose to watch with them.

When I got home at around 8AM, I still had work to do. I had to meet Pastor Jun for the hard disk containing episodes of the More 2 Life program for the Hope Channel.  I needed an equally large hard disk to transfer the converted b/rolls and I had to meet him at 10AM! After we met, I headed back home to grab lunch then watch Joan Guzman school Humberto Soto for the WBO junior lightweight belt. After that, I didn’t notice myself fall asleep. I just woke up when Cel arrived from her masteral class. Great.

Tonight, I’ll sleep like a log.

Please pardon me to ring this a bit.. I know this blog gets 0.01 views in a week but allow me to nudge my online portfolio into the limelight.

Without any further satsat from me,  you may view my design works (graphics, websites, layouts, etc.) at http://vinz.carbonmade.com