Masbate, here I come!
It’s not often that I get out of the cold confines of the Dev Room where I work. Last time I was out was to Cotabato, teaching the staff of an NGO how to use their high tech computer gear. That was in 2006.
This time it’s not going to be as far as Mindanao, but never the less adventurous. I’m heading off to Masbate for the introductory meetings leading to the two-week teaching stint that will start on the last week of November and will run into the first week of December.
I am going as Project Manager and Trainer for the Corporate Social Responsibility program of one of our clients at work. The startup project involves 13 computer systems to be spread out to four schools in the city of Masbate, and Municipalities of Baleno, Milagros and Balud. The packages each include a Lenovo K300 desktop system, an HP 5610 printer, an APC BackUPS E500 and a SmartBro USB Internet kit, complete with computer table and chair.
The package also includes Ate Vikki to teach the teachers how to use the system, and how to milk the internet for all its worth.
My first trip will consist of a plane ride from Manila to Legaspi, hired car from Legaspi to Pilar, a ferry ride from Pilar to Aroroy in Masbate, drive down to Baleno and then Masbate City to meet the two nearby schools representatives, determine who the training participants will be, and to help decide on the best places to position the computer sets. On the second day we will be heading off to the Municipalities of Milagros and Baleno to meet the representatives there, and then back to base in Aroroy, for the trip back home the next day.
On the 25th of November I will be back there with one of our tech guys to put in all 12 computers in the respective schools, and start the round of 2-day training sessions on the use of Windows Vista and basic MS Office.
The Bob and Al Show
Reviews from far and wide seem to agree that Righteous Kill was a right disappointment. I’m not about to disagree with them.
Indeed I was quite surprised to find a torrent of the movie online around the same time it opened in Manila. It takes around 3 to 6 months for a top rated movie to appear on the torrent sites. This is because the good uploaders wait for the DVD release of the movie to rip and upload. Finding Righteous Kill online so soon meant that my favorite movie critic, James Berardinelli, was right: “The script and direction are what one might expect from any of a number of similarly written productions that bypass theaters on the expressway to cable and/or DVD.”
I was grateful to have escaped making it the bi-monthly payday night out, Sam and I were about to catch it in one of the theaters at the Mall of Asia when it was first shown. We had visitors that night, and so we postponed our date. Later that night while browsing my suking torrent sites, there it was.
Less than twenty-four hours later I had burnt it on a home made DVD and Sam and I watched it that night. Like RollingStone Magazine said, Bob and Al were “like two Gullivers slumming with the Lilliputians”. It seemed like Donnie Whalberg and John Leguizamo and Carla Gugino and Brian Dennehy were all there because they thought working with de Niro and Pacino was an opportunity devoutly to be wished. The sad thing was even de Niro and Pacino made no effort at all to be larger than life the way the young Vito Corleone and his eventual son Michael Corleone had been. A large part of this can probably be blamed on the script that had fewer twists and turns than a tightrope.
I wanted Frank Slade and Max Cady but all I got were Bob and Al, hanging out with the kids. Not very encouraging, especially after having seen Al Pacino in 88 Minutes (another disappointment) and having had enough of Meet the Parents/Fockers where I’m sure Robert de Niro had a good time. I bet he had a better time playing Fearless Leader in Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Well, I guess my copy of Righteous Kill will be one of the DVD’s that will stay in the CD album undisturbed for a very long time.
MAMMA MIA!
There’s always something new to be learned, no matter how busy or hassled or plain pissed off I am. In the past week I’ve learned quite a few things professionally and personally, I feel I should write them down just so I won’t forget the next time I am busy or hassled or plain pissed off.
Good things. Microsoft Virtual PC. With Virtual PC 2007 SP1 I have managed to install Windows Vista Business Edition complete with Office 2007 as a virtual machine inside this laptop running on WinXp. This is in preparation for my two-week trip down to Masbate next month, to teach school teachers and a few select students how to use the desktops that they will be getting for free as part of our client’s corporate social responsibility project. I’m really looking forward to this trip: two weeks ago it was just a proposal, but now we’ve got the go-ahead and have started on the actual preparations.
I have also managed to setup Ubuntu 8.04 with Virtual PC on this same laptop, and after that the Xampp server so I can install my Joomla! test sites and have them working exactly the way they would be as on a live server. That is always useful for client presentations, tons faster than if I did it online. One thing I have discovered recently is most big companies have tons of restrictions when it comes to browsing. Having a few sample sites on the go can be quite useful when I need to make a presentation to such a company. Running Joomla! on Linux has the advantage of enabling SEF URLs, which is not possible on a Wamp Sever/Windows environment.
We’ve also found a replacement for the guy who left. While not a newbie to the game, this guy we found turned out to be a real fast learner and has managed to fit right into the group. Thank heavens for that. We’re looking into adding one more by the end of the year, on the assistant management side, because if my Masbate trip turns out to be a success other trips to other places may be in my schedule soon. I will need someone to mind the phone and answer fussy clients who wanted one thing yesterday and a completely different thing today.
Bad things. I just find it disappointing (for lack of a better word) that some people think it’s ok to ruin everyone else’s day just because theirs sucks. You probably know the type—guy who wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, maybe didn’t get to sleep on the bed at all, wakes up with a bad hair day and then proceeds to chop of everyone else’s head in the course of the day. I hear it actually makes them feel better to see people around them feeling more miserable than they do. Personally I don’t like miserable people around me. It makes one’s productivity suffer.
So when someone does something to eff up my day just because he effed up his own day, now that really pisses me off. I usually let out an expletive or two, usually in incoherent hanging clauses while I’m hidden behind my monitor. But these days I guess I’ve just grown too old to pick a fight. Instead of replying to a stupid email blaming me for inactivity, loss of business, the general traffic situation on EDSA and the deteriorating Philippine economy, I just take the last batch of instructions from this finicky clie
CSI: Miami: Resurrection
They’re BACK!
Calleigh, Delko, Wolfe and syempre the entire CSI: Miami team is back (and if you believe Horatio’s dead I got a bridge to sell you, says Kuya Maui).
EZTV’s got it on Mininova so if you know torrents, you know what to do. More about this later.
My favorite CSI team is back and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. They’re flashy they’re beautiful and their episodes go over the top and that’s just the way I like it. I don’t watch TV to learn stuff, I got Google for that. I watch TV to be entertained (and sometimes just to lull myself to sleep). So to those who say that CSI: Miami is so jologs (Tagalog street word meaning “tacky”) compared to Grissom’s team, here’s something for you.
For Miami fans like me, click here for a teaser. For a complete episode guide and reviews to this and other CSI: Miami shows since Season One, head on to CSI Files. For research on weight loss product offers in the U.S. click here.
YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
About Me
