Archive for April, 2008
Sunday. Boredom struck me. I was in the verge of depression - I may as well have been. I tried to sleep it off, but I can’t. My eyes are being pulled inside, yet I can’t keep them closed. Thoughts are empty, yet I feel tireless. I wanted to get out and watch a movie, but nothing is worth watching these past few weeks. Rented movies are too depressing and mind boggling. My mind’s not in the mood to think. Nothing on TV worth watching. Nobody worth talking to. I can’t write. Paranoid. I felt like ending.
My day didn’t start that way. When I woke up, I watched “Shoot ‘Em Up” on DVD which is action-packed. Then I had a light lunch and went to a car dealer with my father. The car was there, but nobody was available to appraise the van for trade-in. I’ll be back Wednesday morning and hopefully get it done quick. When we got back, I went grocery shopping because supply was low. Only it was after I got back from grocery shopping that time went so very slow I was actually wishing it was Monday the next hour. If everyone doesn’t want a Monday morning to arrive, I wished for it. What caused this? I very much know the cause. For anyone out there, if you can, avoid long distance relationship. It’s not healthy for you. I can fully control my emotions that’s why I’m still alive and breathing. If I was weak and have no self control, I would be messier now.
April 14th, 2008
With the Yankees on a losing streak and I wanted to get back on my movie woes, I went to Blockbuster last night at around 10PM to rent a couple of films. This time, I didn’t go with romance or comedy. I tried my luck on thrills, so I rented Guy Richie’s “Revolver” and “Shoot ‘Em Up“. I started with a Richie flick and I wasn’t disappointed.
“Revolver” has all the formula for a Guy Richie flick plus a psychological touch. As a matter of fact, it really is a psychological film on ego. A man’s battle against himself. Jake Green (Jason Statham) planned a revenge against the person who brought him into prison for seven years. However, at the dawn of his vengeance, he was interrupted by two loan sharks who were actually guiding him to know his real enemy. These two men happened also to be the ones who taught him everything he knows about conning and playing “the game” of chess. Eventually he realized that his real enemy is his ego.
I have long believed that living is a game and it is ourselves as the opponent. I did not know about ego other than it is the self. At the credits of the film, experts on ego commented or rather stated what they know of ego. Dr. Chopra said that there never is an external enemy, rather it is the real enemy’s projection that we have an external enemy so that we won’t suspect the ego to be the enemy. Our ego is manipulating our mind to believe that another human being is the enemy. We spend a lifetime trying to defeat that enemy. What we don’t know is that it is ourselves that opposes us. It is my perception that gives me the idea to hate and try to overcome something; the external entity is only a medium to whom I exert my frustration because I am made to believe by the ego. I always say that life is not precious because it has a known ending. We are nothing but pawns in this game called life. However, like any game, we shouldn’t cheat so that we can end the game.
“Revolver” will definitely be part of my top list. I wouldn’t think twice a Guy Richie film.
April 10th, 2008
The last weekend, I wasn’t lucky with the movies I picked. Saturday morning I went to Blockbuster to exchange my two-month-due rental with a couple of “the latest.” I rented “Death At A Funeral” and “Across The Universe” and watched them accordingly. I was disappointed with my choices.
“Death At A Funeral” looks familiar to me, but I can’t remember what this film reminded me of. The whole movie happened at a funeral service in the family house of the deceased located in some countryside in England. There, different characters collided. There’s the insecure son, the cocky son, the widow, and a bunch of relatives and friends with their own problems. I can’t even call most of these people names because their characters are too shallow, underdeveloped and useless to the story. The only thing good that came out of this movie is that the events were perfectly timed to compliment each other. I was even disgusted at one point when Howard tried to pull Uncle Alfie’s trousers and put him on the toilet and he got all the shit all over his hands and face. That was disgusting!
“Across The Universe” is a musical. I’m never fond of musical and I always think that musicals should just stay in theaters and not the motion pictures. I only rented this movie because “Across The Universe” is my all-time favorite Beatles song. The movie is terrible and they even messed up the scene when Jude was singing “Across The Universe” because they mixed it with “Helter Skelter”. I love “Helter Skelter” but don’t mix it with the title track. The characters were terribly developed and the story didn’t have enough conflict to be made into a movie. Again, this movie is too shallow.
I expected more comedy from “Funeral” - British comedy that is. The story was concentrated on how to piece the puzzle of events without thinking about how the characters are doing. “Universe” is the second movie featuring Beatles music. I did not expect anything from it other than the music. They were all good vocalists, especially the lead. Well, I’m biased because I’ll pick British singers over American singers anytime. Good luck to me in the next weekend. I hope to pick good ones this time.
April 9th, 2008
Many portable gadgets in the past few years have been coming out that are multi-purpose. Everyone seems to want everything in their cellphones now. While I was with my girlfriend, she remarked that she won’t buy a digital camera because her cellphone already has enough mega pixels to capture the moments. I have no comment on that remark, but it did inspire this entry.
I admit I have a Treo, but that was because of a necessity when my sister offered it to me. I was addicted then and still is to internet radio and with that device only can I listen while away from my high-speed internet. I regret the two-year contract because now I just want a simple phone. As a matter of fact, I have an LG KG320 for my roaming Smart Buddy and I’m loving it. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it doesn’t have memory expansion. I’d love to save more messages, y’know.
I have nothing against iPhones or Nokia N-Series. Personally and professionally speaking, by throwing everything in one hood, compromises were definitely made and they aren’t pretty I’m sure. I have a fixation for quality and the compromises in these devices are definitely not quality, but quantity of functionalities. I won’t rely on a cellphone to capture a moment in my life. It can capture, but not at a better quality that let’s say a Nikon digital camera can. All my digital pictures are kept in their original format and I only edit copies. If you have been around this web site, you’d realize that I have a habit of backing up everything. Later on, I want to get back on these photographs and scan every pixel of it. Especially if I’m taking a photograph of my love one. I will visit every corner of that snapshot and discover many things about her. It’s an obsession,I know.
I hate listening to music from my Treo. For one, you can’t find a decent headset. Second, the phone function would sometimes not work and it’s obvious why – because everything is in a series circuit; you just wouldn’t know what’s going to happen. I’m pretty sure these shortcomings applies also to other multi-purpose cellphones. Also I hate it every time my phone rings, my music stops and it’s worst if I’m in the mood with the music.
I know that these devices serve a single purpose, and that’s to carry only one while having everything. I guess it all depends on the person. I’d rather carry a cellphone, an mp3 player, a camera, and a laptop. At least if one malfunctions, I still can use the others. If I run out of battery for my cellphone, I can still listen to my music and take pictures. If my laptop crashes, I still have my pictures from my camera, my music in my mp3 player, and my contacts in my cellphone memory. Call my primitive, but think about it.
April 8th, 2008
I haven’t even got my feet wet with Windows Vista and now the fuss about the next year release of Windows 7 is getting hot. Technology is either too fast or I’m too primitive. Working as a technical support in the office and our agents outside, I firmly stayed away from upgrading to Vista. The first time I saw Vista, I automatically pushed it away. I don’t want to learn any more tricks to troubleshoot a misused functionality, slow processing or a blue screen. Our software will definitely have problems with Vista and I either have no time or energy to find solutions to install the software in the platform.
I wonder what the point of this entry?
Well, we have one Vista machine at home and I had the time to strip it down to minimum and I must say, I’m liking it. I won’t swap XP with it, but it’s not bad. It can do pretty cool stuff, that Vista. As expected, software installation problem is prevalent in Vista and it’s really the main reason why I won’t be using it as my production platform in the future. I will only use Vista if it’s totally stripped out to a bare minimum for basic processing such as word processing, presentation, video, and audio.
April 6th, 2008
What’s so good about a long distance relationship that I’m always caught up in it? Honestly speaking, it’s not at all fabulous. There’s too much tension between partner, expensive and longing is at maximum. What’s worst is if you meet for a few days or a few weeks, by the time you separate again, the longing reaches a new maximum.
Missing someone special in your life is easily forgotten if you keep yourself busy. If I’m working, I forget that lonely feeling, but of course she’s still on my mind. However, it is at my idle that is tormenting. On weekends waking up with only the thought of her is not enough because I know I have to fill the rest of my day alone. The torment becomes more serious especially if a thought that in the near future I still won’t be with her. Over and over again, I feel or rather I think like I would leave everything and fly back to her and start life anew there. It’s my realistic side that’s stopping me. I know time will come that Mai & I will be together as one, close as ever. It’s just a matter of time and a whole lot of patience from the both of us.
Long live to the both of us, Mai! Hold on tight… All the thoughts on you and the future. This charade will soon end and a true beginning shall start.
April 6th, 2008
I’m not a UNIX guru, so I can’t really memorize all commands. When upgrading my Wordpress version, I only run four lines of commands, but I can’t remember the parameters. Today, I was in the mood to write a simple bash shell script so that next time all I have to do to upgrade my site are: backup, run the script, relax… The script does not backup data and design files. If you are to use the code, make sure to backup before running the script. Check out Wordpress for backup solutions.
#!/bin/bash
#
# Wordpress Upgrade Script
# Author: Alfonso Varon
#
# PRECONDITION: Data & design backup should have been done.
#
echo “Warning!!! Backup design files and data before proceeding…”
echo -e “\n”
echo -e “Let’s begin…\n”
echo -n “Which site would you like to update ([1]=arot, [2]=sol): ”
read -e SITE
setterm -background $SITE
if [ $SITE -eq 1 ] # upgrade ARoT
then
echo “Changing to A Record of Thoughts directory…”
cd ~/public_html
elif [ $SITE -eq 2 ] # upgrade SoL
then echo “Changing to Sapian Online’s directory…”
cd ~/public_html/xxx
fi
echo -e “We are currently in directory:”
pwd
echo -e “\n”
echo -e “Downloading the latest version of Wordpress…”
wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
echo -e “Done.”
echo -e “Unzipping the package…”
tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz
echo -e “Done.”
echo -e “Upgrading…”
cp -rpf –-reply=yes wordpress/* ./
echo -e “Done.”
echo -e “Cleaning…”
rm -rf ./wordpress
rm latest.tar.gz
echo -e “Done.\n”
echo -e “Wordpress files have been upgraded. Go to the administration
panel for further upgrade instructions.”
April 5th, 2008
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