Very quickly now...
I know it's a tad late, but here was the wishlist for Christmas 2005:
- Anything from the Goodies post, except Haring (which I already have) and the Starbury toy (who just plain sucks). Of course the list is by no means complete. Feel free to extrapolate other books and comics.
- A new car
- A new personality
- Realized talent
That wasn't so hard, was it? And as I promised, no iPod Nano.
Resolutions I won't even bother with. Except maybe be more outgoing and nice. And based on last night's topic while stuck in traffic, be at bit edgier. YEAH RIGHT! Might as well resolve to lose weight and stop drinking!
It's disconcerting to realize that last year's New Year's Eve celebration is still vivid in my mind. It's like time hardly passed. Arrrggghhhh did nothing at all happen this year?
Happy New Year, everyone! I'm too sick to make the year-end special like I promised. Maybe next year.
They sold my car, a 1994 Toyota Corona. The car I wanted to drive as soon as I learned how to. In its place, coming next year, a second-hand Nissan Sentra. I don't mean to sound like a brat but...I miss my car!
I'm reading a gift I got for Christmas, Douglas Coupland's Microserfs, a semi-accurate look at living life in the software industry. Semi-accurate because I've seen people who work at Microsoft, and they're all happy.
Happy Rizal Day, everyone. During one of my darker periods (sometime in 2000, I think), I got so bored I read an old book on the life of the hero. The kind of book that perpetuated the many myths about Rizal. The only thing I can remember thinking after finishing the book? Man probably got mad tail.
I learned today that the song Brick was not about Christmas.
Today feels like a Tuesday. Well, it is a Tuesday, but it's only the first day of work for the week so it should feel like a Monday, despite it being Tuesday. But it feels like a Tuesday.
Anyway, going back. A couple of weekends back the company I work for was supposed to go to White Beach in Puerto Galera, but since apparently no one in IT bothers to read the news we didn't know that the island was in a state of calamity. Parts of the island was underwater, and there were no boats going in or out.
So we ended up in Laguna, some 90 minutes from Makati, where it was raining almost all that weekend, and we checked in some lucky ass resort who probably wouldn't have guests arrive otherwise. Having nothing to do I just downed the requisite seven (nine) beers and let the time pass. The following photograph perfectly captures the perfect mix of annoyance, boredom, depression and uh, annoyance:
Of course, I didn't know anyone there being new and all. Okay, maybe I did know a few people, but its not like I can hang with all the geekspeak. A two-hour conversation between them contained terms and acronyms such as : AJAX, POE, AOE, POJO, XML-RPC or some such, Scrum, ActionScript, SOAP, RMI-IIOP and whatnot. They also hold Javascript in high regard. It's times like these when I question being where I am, both literally and figuratively. I mean, sometimes I feel so far behind in this programming game it seems like it will always feel this...mediocre. And I've maintained there's nothing worse than that. Why push if not to win?
I did eventually figure out what some of those acronyms meant, but it's one thing to say them out loud and another to actually have worked with them and understand what it does. Case in point, in a thankfully no-bearing interview, my answer to the question: "Why is it important to know Design Patterns?" was "Because it keeps coming up in interviews."
Oh, Merry Christmas, everybody.
We have a lot to cover.
There's a lot of stuff to blog about, but unfortunately, as is almost always the case, I had all the words just perfect in my head just before I sat down at the PC, and now it's all gone. So while I search for them again (if they're still around), I'll just remind myself here what I was supposed to talk about:
The trio of Christmas parties I had to attend (and the reason why it took me so long to find time to write in the first place). One of which was the trip to White Beach...in Pansol, Laguna. My car being sold. The Christmas season, and the yearly wishlist that will amazingly not contain an iPod Nano. My inadequacies as a Java programmer (God, that just invited a comment). How Naomi Watts dress unrealistically stays on all throughout the middle part of King Kong.
5...golden ringggggs.
Getting shipped off to Asmira (pun way intended). One of the dumbest scenes ever filmed belonging to a 5-minute stretch of Street Fighter the Movie. Someone from the past is pregnant, and anyone who can guess who it is gets a mommy-to-be discount from the College of Culinary Arts. Chocolate Cake with Liquid Center with Donut Girl. And of course, my random fits of depression during and in between.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
I still have what I am quickly realizing is an incurable disease: I am in love with the fantasy. That which seems to only be a brush stroke away but in reality is, by definition, unattainable. And it is for this reason I always seem to want to be someplace...other. It is incurable, and from what I can see, it is terminal.
Where was I?
Stupid DSL (SDSL, for you non-techies) finally went back up today, after 5 days of being out of commission. Best-Managed-Company my a$$. Okay, so its not technically their fault, but they could've acted sooner. Apparently the phone cables around the corner were stolen. Stolen! There's a market for phone cables? I guess whoever did it got bored with stealing, oh I don't know, actual cellphones.
Not that there's anything to report in the last week. Attended the homecoming where we got to ogle Silk. Bought 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' and got through half of it while passing the time at the office building's smoker area. Ogled some more at the gym, and lost my gym shorts (though not in the hot way).
Oh, and I turned down a chance to go to Chicago for six weeks to spearhead another project. I was supposed to fly next week and they were ready to fast-track my visa. I'd have to spend Christmas, New Year's and my birthday in the Windy City. Yes yes I know its such a waste, but the timing was less than stellar. Besides, I doubt I've heard the last of this crazy 'working abroad' talk.
After playing basketball again (I use the term 'playing' loosely; in fact I use the term 'basketball' loosely as well), I realize what is missing from my game: actual game.
