Welcome to the Year 2005

Wheeeeee ! Happy New Year Everybody !

well... actually there still an hour so so but I won't be here to post it since there's gonna be a pretty big fireworks display that I don't want to miss ^________^

May 2005 be more eventful, positively eventful that is. More Happiness for all and Peace for all and Food for all and new hi-tech gadgets and gifts and candy yeah, don't forget candy and oh!almostforgotgoodbooksandanimeandmangaandIwouldn'tminda
promotionandraiseandmaybethrowinanewpcandblahblahblah.....

Edit: As of posting its almost like war zone outside, I can hardly hear the tv from the noise Whoooohoooo!

Before you say Happy New Year

Time Check: approx. 3 and a half hours before New Years Eve

I'm sure almost everybody has heard or watched about it already. The earthquake and tsunami that devastated a big portion of South East Asia has really made this New Year into a big downer.

With nearly 200,000 people dead, definitely NOT the best way to end the year. One can only assume that 2005 will be better but no one really knows. I'm hoping this won't be a harbinger of things to come : (

If you're still feeling the Christmas spirit i'm sure Red Cross would be happy to accept any type of help you can give. American Red Cross website

That's it for now : )

- Wil-B counting the minutes till New Years ^___________^ -

I and Me but They

From: Me
To: They

Is it my fault that I am I and not they?
Ignored cause me I am is not me like they.
Unliked for I is different to they that they.

I ask for mercy but they give nay.
The me I am cannot be they say,
That I must be they, no other way.

And so I struggle to change my way.
To please them they, I hold my stay.
But in the end I just can’t be they.

And so it ends, my tale today.
It hurts me for I can’t be me and they.
So please accept me for I am, Okay?


***Edit: approx. 1 hour later***
To quote from Green Day's new song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" which by the way great.

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

Lyrics for the rest of the song here

The overhype of professional I.T certifications.

For the past few days, I've been studying or should I say trying to study for a certain exam. This exam, if passed, would accord me the the privilege and honor (actually it's not that exclusive or superbly honorific lol) of being called an MCP, short for Microsoft® Certified Professional.

It's kind of a requirement, so much as I like to pass on it, I can't, unless I want to be fired, which I don't.

Understand though that I'm not against these so called professional certifications. The exams are tough and you really need to be experienced in the areas that you'll be tested on. Passing in these tests means only two things:

A. You really took the time to study and devote yourself to understanding the intricacies of the darn stuff.
or
B. You really took the time to learn the shortcuts to pass these type of exams.

What the?!

You might be saying. There's a shortcut???

Yes. Well... this applies for most of the exams. Y'see there are these "reviewers" or "sample exams" that have questions which are eerily similar to what would come out in the cert. exams.

Long a ago, stuff like these would probably be called "crib notes", "leakage", "cheat sheets" but today they're called "preparatory materials".

Granted, they don't all come free (you need to pay for the really good ones). But, a real net-savvy person knows how to work around these things. *wink*
Who wouldn't want to take the shortcut that's readily accessible.

Back to the point, so generally, all a person really needs to do is study these sample tests and he should be able to easily pass a certification exam. To prove this, I relate a story about a co-worker who did it.

He was able to get the highest certification, called MCSD, in less than 2 months. MCSD stands for Microsoft® Certified Solutions Developer. This type of cert. requires you to take at least 5 exams of a really broad coverage. You need to be really familiar with the whole strategy, design and implementation of the .NET Framework of Microsoft to get this certification. That means hands on experience, probably more than 1 year working with everything . NET. And here he takes 1 exam per week and he even aces a few of the exams. He has only been with company for less than half a year, only 2 or so months before me. He has not previously worked with .NET until coming into the company and yet he had gotten the highest certification ahead of other employees who have been with the company from the start.

Long story short, aside from bragging rights, what's the point of getting any certification. It doesn't really prove anything. It only means that you passed an exam. Society today is obsessed with names and recognition. They don't really care how you got them as long as it looks good in the C.V.

Work's a bitch...

Work's a bitch when you have it 2 days after Christmas on a day which was made a non-working holiday which also happens to be a monday. Nuff said. : P

I'm so busy but finally an update : )

Would you believe, I haven't even posted in my own blog for a month already :(

But it's all for a very good reason y'know. It's just that i'm so busy these days.
Then again, "busy" rhymes with "lazy" so... its all in your own interpretation. :)

A new feature in my blog. LINKS

I know... I know... they should have been already there from the start.

Whooo! Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Official Release

Finally, the most awaited release ever. If you don't know what Firefox is, then by all means go to the Mozilla website and enlighten yourself once and for all.

So why is it so awaited for? Well, its finally the official release after a half dozen or so preview releases. And honestly, although its just my opinion, I do really feel that IT IS SO FAR MUCH BETTER THAN IE with good reason of course. Let me list my favorite features

1)Tabbed Browsing - It is oh so convenient. Simply put, you don't have to open a dozen windows to view a dozen websites. Only one. (Not that i actually open a dozen websites at a time)

2)Built in pop-up blocker - Yeah sure IE can do that too but its not built in, you have to install some prog to do it.

3)Built in Search Bars - I love having the Google search bar conveniently in the corner and you read that right, I said "bars" . Google,Yahoo,Amazon,Dictionary.com, and Ebay's are there by default and you can add even more if you want. You can even code your own search bars (it's true).

4)Faster than IE - My pc isn't the best that money can buy (i wish :P). So this is important to me. Plus, I'm only on dial-up connection and by experience I've found that Firefox loads pages faster than IE. So Firefox gets my nod on this.

5)Simple Set-up - It's just install and go. It even imports you settings/bookmarks. So you don't need to worry about losing any of your old bookmarks.

6)Simplicity - That is to say, its easy to learn how to use. Not to mention easier to use. It may be just me, but i've found Firefox much more easier to use than IE. And browser settings are much more visible and intuitive than IE's.

7)Skins - Heehee! Personalize! Personalize! Personalize!

8)Security - Welllll, So far I haven't heard about any news about "Firefox has a serious flaw that would severely compromise you system" unlike some other browser I know out there. You know those stuff that they call "vulnerabilities", It seems that its Microsoft's jargon for "serious bugs and security holes" *cough* IE5 *cough* IE6 *cough*

Well, I think that more than enough reasons :)

Take note that there are still some websites that are still "Written especially and only for Internet Explorer" . So you might still need "you know what" lying around. I hope that changes in the near future. :)

So .... why are you still reading this.... Go! Go! download Firefox now!

Eqqusive News!

Hmm, has anybody tried this Eqqu.com thingy yet? It's supposedly a free-mail service. Y'know like Yahoo! Mail and the ever-intruiging G!Mail (the one that starts with 'Hot' is not worth talking about Har!Har!) It gives you 100 MB like Yahoo!. It's online so you can acces it anywhere. But it's main selling point is that they will supposedly give you money just for using their service. What's more, they give you more money by recruiting other people and as long as they use it, you get a share of the profits as well. Are you getting hooked yet? If you are go here. Now some more information, if you go on that link, you'll come to a subscription page with me as referer. Just so it's clear, the service has not yet started(it's still on recruiting phase).

A word of warning though, It's just my opinion but the whole thing sounds and smells as fishy as a can of sardines. Why? Point 1 the subscription pages aren't even secure, remember subscribing on Yahoo! Mail and you'll see what I mean Point 2 at some point the website displays your newly chosen username and password in plain sight and again on a non-secure page. Give me a real website that does this? Even public messagebords send this thru e-mail (which at the least is encoded) Point 3 They will supposedly pay you your supposed earnings thru Pay-Ace.com. Nothing fishy there at least not until you go and create for yourself a pay-ace account. This site at least uses secure pages but again you will see a surprising coincidence as Pay-Ace.com like Eqqu is also still on some kind of recruting phase and will not really start operations until 2005. What's more, they also supposedly give you money, $150 in fact (you can't touch it yet though) and when you recruit more members, they give you more money supposedly, just like Eqqu. How about that? It's like your lucky day has come.

Coincidence or not, like I said (or if not I'm saying it now) take caution in joining these two great services or shams if you will. These are all my opinions only and I think it's all just a ploy to harvest your information/e-mail adresses. If you do have proof that somebody actually got paid for anything already tell me and I'll delete this whole entry. Cheers :)

Working stiff again...

Lessee, after working last year for 3 months or so. I took a break, reluctantly or otherwise :P Somehow, the break/vacation/time off kind of got a bit too long, about a year I reckon. Anyhoo, I kind of got to thinking and was prodded too to get another job. And so... After a few false starts and dead ends, I finally got a new job, by the grace of God I think LOL. It doesn't pay as much as the old one though (:/ Bummer) but I'm hoping this will be for the long term. It's not as if I'm that wanting for money though but I at least want to last until after the training period and we'll see what happens after that :P Anyway whoever gets to read this, Wish Me Luck :)

New Additions

Whee! New stuff in my blog. I'm actually getting to like tinkering with the site code which I wouldn't really give a damn before. Thanks to Blogger/BlogSpot or whatever other aliases there are for the cool new NavBar. I see that it actually replaces the banner ads. As a token of good faith, I placed some Google AdSense ads in the sidebar. After all Blogger is a free service.

Hmmm? Ads?
Now what to do with them? How about clicking them for fun.
Y'know *wink*wink*.

After all by cliking the ads, You might just actually be happy where they take you. For sure you'll be making Blogger and Google happy. You'll also be making me happy *wink*

Last addition, if you look below the Mosquito Eradication Updates Box. There's this little Google search bar for when anybody might need to search something : ) (FYI this is just for the people who are still stuck on using microsoft IE *har*har*)

Once again thanks to Blogger for their great service in giving people the power to blog!

^ ^ Sharing Your Idle Processor Time ^ ^

Is your PC running 24/7 and sometimes just doing nothing like when you are sleeping? Did you know that there's a way to let your PC do scientific research in its idle time. How would you like your PC to search for a cure for cancer or even find out if there aliens sending a message to us? Your idle computer/s can do this and more. All you gotta do is install a nearly unobtrusive program that will do these things.

Now, by itself the process of searching for a cancer cure is no easy task. Otherwise we would already have the cure. The work is a humongous matching of possible drug molecules and testing for favorable reactions. Here is where your idle PC comes in. You are given a certain molecule to test, afterwards the results are sent back to a central server and you get a new molecule to test and so on. The technology behind this is called distributed computing or grid computing wherein there is an infinitely huge amount of work that is chopped into itty-bitty pieces that can be distributed to available machines the does the work. In reality this means that a certain work that would have taken 1 super-computer 10 years to finish can be finished much more quickly when the work is distributed between 1000 small PC's like the one you are using right now.

The program I'm running right now is the one for the United Devices grid. Currently, I'm testing for drug candidates for a cancer cure but you can choose which type of work your computer will do. You can find more information on United Devices grid here: United Devices Website

If looking for E.T. is your cup of tea, you can instead install the SETI@Home client that analyzes radio signals from space for possible Extra-Terrestrial messages. Go here: Seti@Home Website

There are lots of other distributed computing programs out there. Go google them sometime : )

Who wants GMail? Me wants Gmail !!!

This is post goes to all those people who have this particular problem:

Too many GMail invites to give out and not enough people to give them to. (as it this is possible :P)

Nevertheless, if ever you have this problem, feel free to send one( or more if you want) to me at XXXwilbcATyahooDOTcomXXXX (sans the X's and replace AT and DOT)

I shall be very happy to alleviate said problem from your backs. Believe me when I say that handing me a spare GMail invite could be one of the best things you would ever have done o.O

Now the possibility of anyone actually giving me an invite because of this is close to nil but what the heck :P

Warning: This selfish Ad is paid for by the people of Blogger who are also the people of Google who are also the people of GMail which doesn't really have a connection to me or to anything I said which doesn't really make a that much of a sense and is really close to the delusional ramblings of a man who has been deprived of Gmail so give me one please : )

Pajeros Galore and Even More !

Wheee! I never saw so many Pajeros (Montero to some people) and all in one place. Not only those, there are also Landcruisers, Prados, Rav4s, CRVs,Troopers,Bighorns. Its 4x4 paradise. There had to be more than 40 pajeros in different shapes and models there. Granted , they weren't exactly new, they're second hand cars actually. That's because I went this morning to the display lot of a second hand car dealer who specialize in 4x4s from Japan. There are quite a lot of them in this country.

So, I was like wow... so many 4x4s... big wheels and chrome wherever I looked. I suppose the highlight of it all was the single lone Pajero Evolution there. It was white all over, edgy and radiated coolness. It was beautiful and it was just sitting there waiting for everybody to look at it, touch it... *drools*

After an hour, we had to leave. It was a nice experience being drowned in a sea of 4 wheel drive

Mosquito Eradication Updates

Oh yeah! I added a little section on my sidebar. I'll update as much as I can although it's a drag if I'm just gonna add one kill. Then again, it's also one way to push myself to surpass previous my records. lolz

ARRGH! I Hate Mosquitos !!

Look At It! Hate It! Fear It!
Mosquitos! They bite you and suck your blood! They make you itch! They transmit viruses and bacteria that can kill you! They buzz around your ear until you go crazy!

You can see here it's evil instrument of puncturing, gaze at its evilness

Gaze at it's EVIL serrated edges! Feel it's EVIL point puncturing your skin! Hear it EVILLY gulping your lifeblood away!

Just a few reasons to hate the little buggers. As of today, I formally document my hate for them. Why? because I've never been bitten by them so many times as I've been these past two months. And for some strange reason, I think they're following me around because it seems that everytime I go somewhere, I see another one of those vapiric devils flying around.

Honestly, long , long ago, those things never bit me which was just as fine with me. They never even came near me even if my brothers complain about being bitten by them all the time. It seems they were just biding their time for this. Well, I'm not going to take this lying down. I've been bitten far enough and it looks like they finally bit more than they could chew.

Hence, as of today, I pledge myself to the killing of as much of the blood-sucking creatures from hell. It's for the good of all humanity. My share of the kills today number to 9 of the biting bugs. I personally killed them with my hands( or feet , when possible). I'm against chemical warfare though, it has to be a manual extermination. That's 9 less mozzies that will bite a fellow person. That's 9 less buzzards that can transmit diseases.

Watch out mosquitos of the world. Whenever a child cries of being bitten by mosquitos in the darkness, there I shall be too. Total Eradication will be my motto against you, O Evil Biting One!

Angelo Dela Cruz this! Angelo Dela Cruz that!

If you watched recent news, CNN or whatever, I guess you heard about this guy from here ,the Philippines, named Angelo Dela Cruz who was taken as hostage by Iraqi militants. The story was that he was working as a driver there cause the pay was like twice the usual because Iraq was still practically at war. It was just his bad luck that he was the one captured by militant Iraqis at that time. So the militants used him as a hostage to force the Filipino peace? forces to leave, which succeeded since our great but small president(just newly re-elected at that) just recently ordered all troops to go home. In the end, Mr. Angelo was freed (just got home today in fact) to the rejoice of many.

Now there's no problem in all that, everybody lives happily ever after, right?

Wrong.

Let me tell you the events that happened in the background
1) News about Mr. Angelo is plastered in practically all newspapers, radios blared and TV's projected. The headline, "Iraqis to behead Mr. Angelo if Filipino contingent does not leave Iraq".
Practically everybody pleads for the president to follow their demands.

Fair or Not Fair: Mr. Angelo is not the only OFW(Overaseas Filipino Worker) who is currently in danger abroad. As of writing, there are about 3 OFWs in a Saudi Arabia jail who are scheduled to be beheaded also. OFWs in Hongkong and Singapore are abused by their masters, etc etc. Nobody cares? After all, Mr Angelo is about to be beheaded right?

2)Our Great but small President almost instantly announces for the retreat of the Filipino contingent (not really instantly, about a week or so after the announcements). People rejoice, Yahoo™, Mr. Angelo is saved, the President just solved the mysteries of life...(well not really :P) unlike the Korean, Bulgarian, and Americans before him who were beheaded.

Fair or Not Fair: Well, okay, it's not as if they really did anything there anyway. Its a good thing they weren't caught on tape abusing prisoners like some other people

3)Militants relent, Mr. Angelo is saved, ignorant people fawn over him as though he was God. Even more ignorant people fawn over the Great but small President as though she was also God. Big Whoop!!!, Yahoo™ again.

Fair or Not Fair: So Mr. Angelo is safe for now. Big Deal, so what happens next, nothing really, just that. In my opinion, our Great but small President is just milking the poor man for all the attention that he is worth and everybody is following that Good Example. A construction company donates a house and lot to Mr. Angelo and family(how nice, all this just for Mr. Angelo, how about the other OFW's?). Our government is giving scholarships to Mr. Angelo's children too.(Aren't Mr. Angelo's children lucky? How about other children?) . The government shelled out about 300,000 pesos to bring Mr. Angelo back here, thats about 5,300 dollars (Does it really cost that much to bring one person back?)

That's about it, the newspapers today had Mr. Angelo and Mrs. President's photos plastered on front. Samples of headlines today, "GMA(initials of the president),nation rejoice over Angelo's release","Euphoria sweeps town, grand welcome set","Daddy lost so much weight","President Arroyo, a time of trial and triumph", and all this came from just one newspaper. The same newspaper even had a photo of Mr. Angelo's dog sleeping in the front page (What's up with that?). I don't understand why everybody has to sensationalize this. Honestly, there are far more pressing issues than this. How about our budget deficit for one.

On a side note, its been one month since the last post. :(

Sleepy Raindrops

It rained this morning! ^^

I like how hard it is to wake up when its raining. Its like you couldn't care less that you have school or work or whatever and all you can think of is going back to sleep. There no sun to wake you up and all the sound you can hear is the silent unending drops of rain.

I like all the different sounds of rain ranging from silent *drip drip* to the thunderous roars of a storm.(you can get some here :)

I like how the rain cools everything down and everybody and everything starts moving slower and slower and slower...

I like how the droplets of rain collects on the windows. Sometimes one drop joins another and slowly starts falling down the glass, slowly joining with other droplets and it goes down... and down... and down...

I like going to sleep while its raining outside. I get to sleep much better than I usually do. I like how the rain hides all the different night time sounds and I get to listen to the rainfall as i go to sleep. And the rain falls down... and down... and down... and down... and down... and ....zZz

One more reason to conserve water o.0 ;;

We live on the top floor(3rd) of our building and as we all know, the water service in our country is like :P and the pressure can hardly even reach the second floor.

So like most people in buildings, we rely on a extra water cistern usually located on the rooftops. As fate would have it, our water pump (the ONE responsible for GETTING WATER UP to the cistern) broke recently. When the cistern went empty, we like had to practically haul water up to our floor :(

Even then, we had to save what water we hauled since we had to use it on a lot of different stuff i.e washing, bath, drinking etc..

I had to cut back on my bathing which is hard since I like taking a bath (especially since it's hot here in the philippines)

Imagine if this happened on some of the populated highrise apartments... (granted they have much bigger cisterns there, but eventually it will still go empty). We're lucky our building is only 3 floors high :)

This went on for three days (the pump was repaired finally). Honestly, I never missed water that hard before. Like most people, I just took it for granted that when I open a faucet, water comes out...

Now I know (partly) how hard it is for some people in Africa where they sometimes have to walk miles and miles to get water. I'm even more afraid now of the impending water crisis in my country.

Imagine yourself not being able to take a bath or wash hands or wash your face for even 2 days (or more if you like)*shudder*

Like I said, just one more reason to conserve water among other more important ones :)

WiL-B' S BooK NooK # 1

As promised, here's goes my book review for Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code".

Ok, my first thoughts about the book is that it was either painstakingly researched or painstakingly imagined. I'm not saying that either is bad though. The level of detailed historical discussions throughout the story, factual or otherwise, served not only to interest the reader more but also to clear up the previous ummm... mysteries/puzzles.

Speaking of mysteries, the novel is full of it, coupled with non-stop, fast paced action. Our protagonists hardly even stay in one place. Action thriller + mysterious treasure hunt that kind of makes you wish you were there too, if only for the puzzles, after all who wants to be man-hunted by the police :)

Concerning the identity of "The Teacher", Dan Brown, succesfully hid it by the damn french accent and the spying equipment. Otherwise, Sir Teabing would have been one of the more obvious suspect since he is one of the few people well versed in the Grail mystery.

I'd have wanted the story to be more longer(the more to read the better :) Maybe something like an "Around the World in Eigthy Days" adventure. Having Langdon and Sophie travel around the world solving a seemingly never-ending barrage of clues and puzzles, but oh well...

What I don't like is the profusion(well, not really profusion, not that much anyway, but still a lot) of french words, cypto terms and grail phraseology. Some are explained in the story but not all. I think the book needs a short glossary explaining the more obscure stuff in detail.

Overall, an entertaining mystery thriller. Certainly not a waste of time. The end game unexpectedly with the grail still a mystery, since nobody really got a look at it. The Priory is still a mystery, nobody really knew what happend afterwards to it. On a good note, everybody lived happily ever after, except for poor Silas, Sir Teabing and Bishop Aringarosa... Hee Hee

-Incidentally, a friend told me that i should have read "Angels and Demons" first, for the historical background on who is Vittoria, but since I dont have that book and since Vittoria isn't exactly a part of this story anyway... =P -

Ode to My Lost Privacy

Have you ever experienced a time when when you just want to be left alone? Well, I have but for some strange reason, it just never happens in my own house.
I mean, if you can't have privacy in your own house, where the heck else can you get it?

Picture this, you go to a room (seeing it empty) and think "finally some peace and quiet" and suddenly, everybody else in your house just happens to walk by and starts to colonize your privacy. Its like, you just want to start shouting at everybody to go away but of course... manners... courtesy... after all, its their house too. So all I can do is, silently glower at everybody. =P

Its not as if i want to hog the whole house for myself, but all i wanted to do was to find a nice quiet room, so that i can enjoy reading my book, but noooo...

Well, I wanted to quote something appropriate here, but i couldn't find a good one. =P

Speaking of books, i have started reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code". Better late than never =P .

I don't understand why there are a lot of people who don't find reading enjoyable, and IMHO a nice, thick fiction (fantasy preferably) novel is much more entertaining than the latest movies. Call me weird but it's either my brain is wired wrongly or their's are. Anyway, I'm almost halfway through (the book) and its really nice and intriguing. Maybe I can make a short review when I finish it. No, not maybe, I think I will :)

Hmm... My first one... i hope its good lol

Okay... lessee... i don't really know what to say... Actually i don't have anything to say, not that many people would be reading this anyway.

so much for the first post LOL