I'm not a real bookworm. In fact, I sucked at my Reading and Literature classes back in school. When something that sparks my interest though, I can be glued to my books like I can't bring the book down.

Over the past week, I got an itch or obsession to buy myself a new book. Two weeks ago at Fully Booked in Bonifacio High Street, I browsed through a non-covered copy Sports Illustrated's "The Basketball Book" while waiting for Rocky to shop. Immediately I was sold to the book, but I was cautious of my budget. Rocky and I debated on whether getting the non-covered/sealed copy or not and I held on to the book like a kid for 30 minutes while she was browsing for her books. She asked me if it would bother me at home not getting a copy. I felt it would bother, yes, but I wouldn't be satisfied with the book's condition. Finally, I gave in and decided not to get the book, thinking there might be a better and sealed copy elsewhere.

Throughout the rest of the week, I ate dinner at malls with big bookstores. Dropped by Best Seller's in Galleria, Powerbooks in Shangri-La, and Fully Booked shops in Shangri-La and Promenade in Green Hills, but no luck in finding that basketball book. To satisfy the urge, I bought instead a sealed copy of WWE wrestler Edge's (Adam Copeland) autobiography. Edge's book is one in my to-buy list after reading Chris Jericho's autobiography, but I haven't seen any good and sealed copies in thebook shops. I thought about it over dinner while I was at GH, but finally relented to buying the book. What makes it special is it's written by him personally, and not from some WWE ghost writer.

Last Wednesday, riding high on Ginebra's victory over Rain or Shine PBA Fiesta Conference semi-finals game at Araneta Coliseum, Virgil and I dropped by Fully Booked in Gateway. I wasn't expecting anything at that point and it was an innocent visit to the book store, but lo and behold what unfolded in front of me: a sealed (covered) and mint copy of the Baskeball Book. My jaw dropped, I held the copy and I held on to it like a kid with a new Christmas present. Of course I had a little dilemma with the previous purchase I did a day ago (Edge's autobiography) but thank God for credit card. At least for the whole month of July, a significant part of my savings went to two books.




I instantly fell in love with the images inside the Sports Illustrated's Basketball book while browsing through the book in Fully Booked. Lots of pictures, stories, bits and trivia everywhere. I browse through it from time to time at home, in the meantime I'm still reading Edge's autobiography.




Meanwhile, Edge's autobiography is a light and good read. Written by Edge himself while recuperating from his major neck injury (two dislocated discs), the book discusses Edge's early days and his journey to learning to wrestle, his wrestling days and rock 'n roll adventures. The book is too light unlike Bret's autobiography which is a little too tragic and serious. It's like Edge speaking to the reader in a candid and humorous way. A major chunk of the book discusses Edge's heyday in the WWF back in the "Attitude" Era where he tagged up with longtime childhood friend Jay ("Christian") and those rivalry with the Hardys, etc. I must admit though that I didn't follow the Attitude Era that much because of too much sex and violence (I was a good kid, damn) and I lost interest in wrestling at that time (the wrestling era I knew was Bret's time). Hopefully I'll get hold of Edge's early matches when I get my copy of my WWE videos. The Edge I know of right now is the "Rated R" superstar who once did "live sex" with Lita (woohoo!), rivaled with John Cena a lot of times, and french kissed Vicky Guerrero for on live TV for the love of the wrestling gods out there.




Certainly great additions to my basketball/wrestling library. I don't know what next wrestling book pick-up will be as I don't intend to buy every wrestling book available (I go for honesty and not a bunch of cover-ups like the Shawn Michaels book). I hope to expand my basketball books with the NBA, as I have a head start too with the Magic Johnson autobiography (which I wrote about too in this blog's early days).
Two days, two books from two different shops for two thousand pesos. Now I have to save up. :-|

My Blue Eagles fanatic friends can't hold their excitement as college basketball season is just around the corner. I can't believe it myself how time flies so fast, it was just like yesterday when my college alma mater won the UAAP crown last year. I jokingly told Rocky that the upcoming UAAP wars is a reminder how old I am in my current job. hahaha. It's half meant actually, part of me wants to push the upcoming UAAP season away because it reminds me I'm old!

I was browsing through my pictures tonight as I saw my picture with Rocky back in the Ateneo-UST finals game 1. Kinda looked back a bit, but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm excited for UAAP. Had to search for videos in YouTube to remember memorable games that I watched. Searched some of the blog entries I wrote over the past four seasons (this blog is OLD too). My basketball infested mind (among other things) can't recall everything.

Teka! Ginebra's fighting off Rain or Shine in the PBA Fiesta Conference playoffs!




2005 was the year I introduced Rocky to basketball, but she fell in love with Ateneo rather than my PBA team Ginebra. Ateneo still had Japeth Aguilar and LA Tenorio and first-time coach Norman Black. However, Ateneo succumbed to DLSU with their drop-out and PEP-test players. FEU eventually won the crown after that Salgado "batok-sabay-takbo" incident.





DLSU served its suspension and Ateneo lorded over UAAP. Watched all but two games. The trio of Escalona-Kramer-and Intal pushed Ateneo to the top spot, but eventually succumbed to the heartbreaking loss against UST (tell me about it). I was raving the entire year because of Ateneo's winning ways, only to find myself disappointed in the end. Good thing Ginebra copped the Philippine cup months later :P





The "SUS" season. Still reeling from the loss the season before, Rocky and I followed the Blue Eagles as far as Rizal Coliseum in Manila. Ateneo had a good run (including cardiac games and buzzer beaters) but lost in that crucial game against NU. Meanwhile, UE swept the UAAP Elims, and Ateneo and La Salle met for a record 5 times, including three in the playoffs. Ford Arao and Chris Tiu carried the team, including Chris Tiu's end game magic. While Ateneo won 3 times against DLSU, however DLSU won in the game which mattered the most. DLSU went on to beat UE as they boasted "from suspensions to champions." (Funny how they feel vindicated -- they were guilty of fielding in ineligible players and in all aspects, they deserved to be suspended the season before. But they couldn't get over it. :P)





Chris Tiu's final year with Ateneo and Rabeh's dominating UAAP performance, with amazing rookie Ryan Buenafe leading the charge for Ateneo. Couldn't believe it myself that Ateneo almost swept the UAAP games. I wasn't able to follow the Blue Eagles by heart, as I was downed by big deadlines at work, and I was following Ginebra more than Ateneo in the PBA (if you ask me which victory is sweeter, I'd say it's Ginebra's win. Followed each game in the playoffs closely despite my busy schedule. Heck I weeped in the last game too bwahaha). Ateneo eventually won it against DLSU 4 > 0. That was for the losing streak Ateneo had against DLSU from 2004 to 2005! The Maierhofer finger gave a bad taste in my mouth as I thought "what the hell was the referee thinking." The game would have been more exciting had the referee let that mysterious finger go but what the heck. Ateneo finally won after 6 years! Yebah! Oh, a memorable roller-coaster season too for Bit and Gots! :D

***
No, I'm not yet excited about the UAAP season. :P I don't want to feel old yet. But signs of the times lead me to it. Must... fight... it! :P UAAP is 3 weeks away!

Because I needed a little space on my PC, I decided to do a marathon of sorts of the cartoon series stored in my PC. As of today, I'm done!

First up was TMNT: Fast Forward. Nothing much out of the cartoons except the turtles' adventures in 2105. Kinda stereotypical TMNT adventure, I definitely liked the previous seasons way better.

Next was I finished season 1 of "Wolverine and the X-Men." Time and again, I've ranted about this cartoon since it's adding up to the hype Wolverine is getting (plus all the attention that he's getting) when in fact the X-Men IS a team and Wolverine's part of the team -- it should have been plainly "X-Men." Also, I'm not comfortable with Wolverine and Cyclops seemingly exchanging personalities that Wolverine is the boy-scout team leader while Cyclops is the lonely rebel. And ugh, they brought back Cyclops' emo side that's so attached to Jean Grey. I did like the last few episodes when it was revealed that Emma has a liking for Cyclops, plus the throwback to the first five X-Men. Save for Wolverine leading the X-Men, I love the story. Can't wait for season 2 which will give a glimpse of the "Age of Apocalypse"

Lastly, I've spent almost two weeks to finish all episodes of "X-Men Evolution." This gives me a better appreciation for my X-Men Evolution Cyclops action figures! The setting is a bit weird and the constant clashes between the Brotherhood and the X-Men, but things turned out great at the start of Season 3 when mutants were finally unveiled to the public! At least this cartoon series has less focus on Wolverine, plus equal treatment among the X-Men members. I finished half of season 3 and all of season 4. Love the plot and the stories. Fanboy moments include: the original X-Men (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Angel, Iceman) in a mission in London, the "New Mutants" roster (Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot, Magma, etc.) a full Cyclops-centric episode in "Blind Alley" and no jealous Logan to spoil Cyclops-Jean Grey romance. haha. Professor X's visions of the future toward the end of Season 4 suggest X-Men-themed stories like Phoenix Saga, Ultimate X-Men, etc. There's just a lot of fan boy moments that makes me appreciate the entire cartoon series, yey. :D

Hooray for cartoons. :P

I'm catching up on my TMNT: Fast Forward episodes lately. The opening scenes in Episode 24 (The Cosmic Completist) were so funny, I heard myself laughing alone in the wee hours of the morning. Just means I can totally relate, hahaha! I even had to retype the whole conversation just to post it in here:

***


Mikey: *tells stories to Cody Jones using his action figures collection*

Raph: *grabs the action figure from Mikey*

Mikey: *screams* Are you busted in the brain? That's a serious one WebWire variant in near excellent condition!

Raph: I made you a burger so the two of you can fly off to geekland. And the tincan (Serling) can clean the penthouse.

Mikey: *talks to Cody* Ignore him Cody, he has no appreciation for a good sculpt, and 39 points of articulation!

Raph: Of all the things you can save from the lair, you have to save this junk?

Cody: I think it's cool

Raph: It's stupid. I mean look at this one. What's the point of buying a doll if you never take it out of the package. *Grabs Mikey's MOC Cosmic action figure*

Mikey: THAT'S MINT ON THE CARD! AND IT'S AN ACTION FIGURE! NOT A DOLL! GIMME!

***
You just gotta love those turtles. hahaha. By the way, Mikey's MOC figure got burned eventually when an Inuwashi Gunjin crashed Cody's place and asked for help. Nice.

I'm on leave due to stomach problems, that's why I took time to clean-up my PC files.

I'm cleaning my scattered desktop files stored in various folders on my desktop. While cleaning them up, I realized that it's just funny that my files have grown a bit significantly since I got into toy collecting. I have pictures of:

* custom references
* eBay finds
* customized figures finds from all over
* toys references
* toy hauls pictures (for forums posting)
* trial shots (in my pho-toy studio)
* "hauls" shots of toys that arrived in the office

Somehow, a mini-flashback occurred, and I recalled each moment of excitement and overwhelm when I got those figures.

Hooray for toy collecting :-)

I must admit that a big chunk of my teenage life was exposed online, so I've expressed myself through online means. Looking back, I have to admit sometimes I go overboard into expressing and it's a bit ironic I only learned to behave for the past few years.

Back in high school, I did my personal home pages (four of them), and I was active in the mIRC channels. When I got my first heartbreak, I let people know how I feel through my "quit" statuses (wherein you do a /quit and leave a message about you quitting). Then came the forums, where I'm guilty of being too much expressive. I was an angry kid back then, and my emotions got the better of me without realizing that what I'm putting online is for everyone to see.

When Yahoo Messenger came, I used to put my thoughts on my status. Back in college, it's common to see "DND. Thesis." or my todo stuff in my status (ex. CS 130 > CS 129.1 > Ph104 > Th104). Rocky recalls my funny status ("ngayon alam ko na kung bakit nakakaiyak ang "All my Life" ni Aga at Kristine"). I mean, Rocky and I knew each other as co-tutors but she saw a different side (and funny) of me then! I still did YM statuses when I was in the corporate world.

Statuses can reflect a personality of the person who posted it. From there, I can even deduce if someone had a bad day (and "investigate" what happened), or if someone has a love problem, etc. Some of my officemates' routine is to check the status of all the people in his/her YM and tell funny things about statuses. Heck, I even hated my ex-officemate's status as if bashing our company after he left us. I placed him in my "da who" list and collapsed the whole list so I wouldn't even see what's up with him (I couldn't simply remove him since I might lose my stealth setting on him if he's gone from my list and I'm still on his list).

That's when it hit me, maybe somewhere along the line I might have offended, or turned off people by putting noxious statuses. Or maybe someone laughed at my status (or put a wrong grammar somewhere). Maybe too I must have put a status somewhere that's related to work which shouldn't be in there. I must have been a target of judgemental people somewhere. That's why I started to put a blank status on my YM, just so I couldn't reveal a part of my personality. I guess the same goes with my blog. What you put online is for everyone to see, even if you intend to limit it to specific people. Or maybe it's me recognizing netiquette. It's one of Rocky's influences to me -- to protect my life online (from spying bosses or stalkers) but don't blame her for reducing the way I express myself online. :P Looking back though, I feel embarrassed with the way I expressed too much of myself online before.

Anyway, in came Facebook and not a day goes by without me putting my thoughts on my status bar. I notice people though who put too much status on Facebook that it floods my entire news feed. I made it a point too to remove the quizzes results in my news feed. If it were the careless me however, I'd put my status everytime since I'm online most of the time in my day. Of course it would be un-net-tical to flood news feeds with updates. Funny however when I put a status "couldn't wrestle ItemTemplates and data binding", in which I got a friendly reminder from my dev manager (hi Joel!) to leave what I'm doing and prioritize the mock-up screens I'm supposed to do :P

That's where micro-blogging sites come into place. I did sign up for Twitter, hoping it would satisfy the urge to express myself without really flooding walls or peeving people in YM. Twitter is designed and built for floods I guess, unlike Facebook where Facebook has everything (blog, wall, photos, etc). Heck, I see myself posting thoughts through text while commuting or in an out of town trip. One of my visions for this blog is to tie up twitter somewhere (maybe put my current status below my name in the header). But then, Twitter is another account to maintain along with my other personal accounts scattered everywhere. Online fatigue. Until now I still have no place for Twitter, but hopefully I will (when I probably integrate it in my blog).

I still dream of expressing myself without restrictions or without thinking about people judging me with my statuses too much :P I mean not too much expressive to the point of turning people off, nor too much "goodie-goodie" things in my status.

Hi Blog!

It's a bit weird that over the past three conferences, I've tried to taper down my fanaticism of the Brgy. Ginebra Gin Kings. I figured I'm growing old, maybe I should act like one. People change, why can't I?

But Ginebra kept on defying odds, starting each conference on a wrong foot and picked up its game with a good winning streak at the end. Then I started to watch only the post-elimination Ginebra games live. I did follow each Ginebra game in the PBA Fiesta Conference playoffs last year, only skipping games played in Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay. If it were the my old self, I'd watch Ginebra games to the farthest ends of Manila just to follow my team, but I guess I couldn't stand long roadtrips anymore only to watch Ginebra lose. Anyway, Ginebra won the Fiesta Conference crown last August 30, 2008 and it was the sweetest victory I experienced, with all that was happening with my work at that time, and you gotta love them -- they were a walking injured team but defied all the odds.

I can't say much about the Philippine Cup last conference. I only watched two elimination games (Ginebra vs. Air21 where Junjun Cabatu made a great debut in a Ginebra jersey, and Ginebra vs. San Miguel) and Ginebra vs. San Miguel in the quarterfinals. The other games, I watched on TV either late in the 3rd quarter or just the replay the next day (thank you BTV). Again, Ginebra started slow but amazingly finished third place at the end of the elims despite a decimated line-up. Perhaps the San Miguel Corp bosses thought that SMB is the better team to send in the Philippine Cup semis, so they'd probably chose San Miguel to win that decisive third game (coming from a 20+ point deficit entering the fourth). I refused to dwell in Ginebra's elimination, anyway I didn't watch them too much compared to the past years.

Then Ginebra suddenly have an infux of players that I don't know them anymore. Makes me wonder how they'll be able to manage egos and superstars in the team. In came ol' Ateneo favorites Intal and Kramer, plus Homer Se, Chico Lanete, and Cyrus Baguio! It's not the Ginebra team that I knew, but I shouldn't romanticize them anyway for being just the FFF (Fast-Furious-Fearless) team. Certainly, this is not Mark Caguioa's team anymore. I'm especially biased with the entry of Chico Lanete -- which relegated Macky Escalona further down the bench and eventually in the reserve list. Macky's certainly better off with another team since his style of play doesn't suit Ginebra (coming off from a Norman Black-half-court set offense). Cyrus' entry too can spell rotation problems especially when Caguioa comes back (or when will he, anyway?)

At the start of the conference I was glad an old familiar face was back -- Rod Nealy. Rod has a special place in my Ginebra thoughts coin bank since I watched almost all of the games in the PBA Fiesta Conference '07 (which I dubbed the "Ginebra boys of Summer"). I could only celebrate with his near-triple-double debut performance vs. Coke where he was shooting the lights out of the Coke Tigers while eating a delicious Gerry's Grill meal with Virgil. I also watched a Ginebra game in the Patron section live and free, thanks to my friend who works in the Burger King management (hi Pay!), only to witness Ginebra embarrassingly lose to Rain or Shine. With a disappointing 2-5 record, I was disappointed even more that the management decided to ship him away since his game is more of a slash-and-shoot player rather than a strong post presence. Perhaps the on-and-off PBA breaks contributed further to my disinterest of Ginebra and PBA. Heck I failed to watch the PBA All-Star games where Ginebra's new import David Noel dominated the slam-dunk contest. I didn't even watch the games live, even if they're playing the All-Star games back in Manila after stints in the provinces.

Lo and behold, apparently David Noel, did wonders to the Ginebra team following the All-Star break. I didn't follow Ginebra by heart so that I won't set myself up in eventual disappointment. But then, in Ginebra fashion, they picked up their game in the end with a good shot of making the semi-finals after a 2-5 record! Shades of the Fiesta Conference last year? I could only hope.

Last Friday out of nowhere, I asked Virgil if he would be interested in watching the last Ginebra elimination game vs. Alaska live. The game is important for both teams, especially for Ginebra gunning for a semifinals seat. Virgil immediately said yes, and we left work and rode the MRT packed liked sardines and got us good seats (thank you manong scalper). Got myself too a copy of the PBA Hardcourt Annual 2007-2008 (which is a great addition to my collection of PBA Hardcourt annuals). We came in with 5 minutes left before halftime. Ginebra was shooting blanks and was down by 16 points entering the fourth quarter. Good thing Ginebra uncorked a torrent of baskets and overhauled that big Alaska lead with three minutes left in the game. Willie Miller killed the game though with his end-game magic and David Noel compounded Ginebra's chances with an offensive foul. Ginebra lost, but still had a crack at the semi-finals seat.

Finally, this Sunday at Rocky's grandparents' place where we celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, good thing the TV was tuned in to PBA while Rocky's dad and uncles were drinking. If Ginebra was shooting blanks the other day, now they were shooting the lights out in Ynares Center -- of all the places! (Last time I watched a Ginebra game live in Ynares, it was in Game 2 of the Fiesta Conference championship where Air21 downed Ginebra by 36 points and lost Jayjay Helterbrand for the rest of the championship series). The game was practically over for Rain or Shine at the half, and lo -- the Ginebra team which I almost don't know anymore (following the different changes to the team) got a semi-finals stint. This coming from a 2-5 record to an 8-6 record at the second half of elims!

A part of me is guilty. Maybe I'm becoming the fairweather fan who roots for his team only in the playoffs. Or I just refused to "know" this team because of the big changes in their line-up. But anyway Ginebra made it to the semi-finals which will start in three weeks. Whatever you say, I'll make it a point to watch every game live until they win the championship :P Screw "growing old." I'm going to watch it with the multitude of kabaranggays even if I have to stand-up again along the Upper Box section. :P

GI-NEB-RA!

(Hello blog!)

"Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?" Big words coming from an older figure.

When I become a dad, I'll be my kid's number one fan.

My website's been compromised with random PHP scripts and javascript calls that were cleverly encoded, even the websites that I host under my domain such as our thesis site and other old school projects. I and my fellow geeks were discussing this problem and the only way this attack was possible was within the PinoyHosting servers itself and not some random SQL injection or something.

I cleaned-up and reuploaded my PHP files for the meantime as a temporary cure to this problem until people from PinoyHosting.net answer my ticket and do an investigation of their own.

Comments have been disabled for the meantime, and I'll continue to monitor my website's "health." Still waiting for a response from the PinoyHosting gurus and a permanent fix to this.

The losing streak continues.

***
Edit April 30, 2009

Just finished scanning and cleaning up my site. Found two potential viruses which I deleted. Hopefully my site can last long. Otherwise I might have to close down my site and totally move to WordPress. :-(

Lately, I've been joining younger brother Kirby on his way to UA&P for his summer NSTP classes as he drives the family car to go to his school. Mom's hitching with us too for her bank errands. Today, I thought I'd go to work earlier than usual, but Mom asked me if I could accompany her to three banks along Shaw Boulevard. I obliged, knowing that this is just a little favor that I can give to my Mom since she's singlehandedly working too hard to run the household. Personally though, I wanted to log-in at an earlier time in the office for a change but I wanted to look after my Mom too (bank visits aren't the safest these days).

It was dark at early afternoon, and by 2:30PM we were done with her bank errands -- the last one was at BDO in Pioneer Center. We tried to look for a cab to take us to our respective destinations (my work at F. Ortigas, Mom at some place in San Miguel Ave), but we couldn't find any. Suddenly the heavy rain poured on us, and we had to go to the nearby Jollibee restaurant to look for some shade. The heavy rain lasted for more than 10 minutes.

When the rain subsided, I asked Mom to walk a little where we can have better chances of getting a cab. We stopped at a nearby bakery along Kapitolyo and on a funny note -- we both stared at the fresh and newly baked bread available. Both of us laughed. Mom loves white, soft, tasty bread which she can eat in one sitting - something which I got from her. Mom probably wanted one for herself, but she said to me:

"Parang takam na takam ka sa pagtingin mo sa donuts ah. Halika pasok tayo, bili kita."

Those last words, she uttered in a very palambing voice. It struck a nerve on me, I felt I was a little child wanting some pastry and Mom willingly bought me one. Most of the time Mom has a tough heart, being a Mom and Dad to us at the same time, but today she was a very sweet mother who regained her motherly touch. I've been feeling a little lonely lately, and this definitely made my day (and I could cry). I told her to buy me a donut and that she go ahead into the store while I wait for a cab.

We got a cab a few minutes after and Mom told me to eat the donuts while they were hot. She got three donuts - two for me and one for herself which she eventually gave to me after she got a bite. I didn't finish all donuts though as the cab driver might feel a little hungry. Finally I got to work at 3:00PM (almost the same time as my log-in time after a late-morning workout), enjoyed the remaining donuts with a warm coffee (Nescafe Freeze had to take a backseat).

Mom and I haven't connected on a personal level and we've had our own issues before. Sometimes I refused to tell her some stories since she sometimes uses those stories on me when she's angry. But that simple gesture of buying me donuts like a hungry kid is one of the sweetest things that happened to me this week.

I love my Mommy. :-)