It's not updated and I haven't had any will to write anything since July. I've been procrastinating about updating my blog but I just find myself not doing anything about it.

Over November, the following happened:

• the Balikbayan box containing Bret Harts arrived late October (thank you once again, Enad and Virgil!)
  
• I've arranged a wholesome bachelor party for Bit in a week's time. I told Bit it's not only my girlfriend and ex-girlfriend who was a victim of my cramming, the list included him as well. Dorm style.
  
• The bachelor party was held back in November 8 at Bosay Resort in Antipolo. I paid for the rent of our space while the cooperative boys brought food, TV, PS2, Poker set, and liquor. No strippers. Thank you G, Eums, Topher, Mic, Mik, Ed, Jeff for making your presence felt for Bit. :D
  
• Two days before the wedding, Rocky and I had dinner with Bit and Gots at Mom and Tina's. One of our few double dates, and I'm hoping that's not the last. :-)
  
• On the night before Bit's wedding on the 15th, I prepared my best man speech which was 5 pages long but 1.5 spacing and size 20 font so I can easily read it.
  
• And Bit tied the knot with Gots on the 15th. :-) I'm happy for the bears. I actually made it by waking myself up at 5AM!
  
• I've slowly prepared for my MS certification plans, but I'm 1/4 done with my readings in a month.
  
• I finished the entire TMNT Season 4 and Season 5 in three days, I think. I'm now in TMNT Season 6 (Fast Forward).
  
• Rocky is still busy with her work but we're pulling it through so far. Even I am making adjustments like fetching her at night and driving her car so she can rest a little.
  
• Virgil and I got our hands into customizing toys, and have learned a lot with decaling. He was able to finish his version of "Unstoppable" Astonishing X-Men Cyclops and I have yet to post it. We didn't finish the "Rocky III" Training gear on Rocky Balboa's first fight with Cubber Lang.
  
• Been reunited with my 4B classmates Edzel and Mark over a series of pick-up basketball games with their present company. Funny, my head doesn't hurt after a night of basketball. It really must be the weather and atmosphere that's causing my tension headache.
  
• Another new toy: Funko X-Men Cyclops Bobblehead. Thank you Virgil for the advanced Christmas gift :D
  
• I've started taking pictures of my toys again just to update my collection threads in the toy forums. Last time I did that was more than a year ago.
  
• We had our town fiesta back in November 22-23, but our family doesn't celebrate fiestas. I think I grew up not giving a big deal out of it, or any celebrations for that matter.
  
• Once again, I biked going to Rocky's place back in November 23. It was a fun and unique experience and a great way to spend Sunday afternoons.
  
• I finished my Starbucks planner within one month. Thanks Virgil and Rocky for the coffee company.
  
• Rocky and I went to Potipot Island in Zambales last weekend with Potipot bums Mic, Popo, BL, Ralph and their plus-ones. Great, funny company. :D
  
• The night before we set for Potipot Island, Rocky and I watched Seabiscuit on DVD. Great way to recall my track days at Ateneo as we watched that for inspiration. Yeah, I've been a sucker for inspirational films.
  
• A month without a single Ginebra live game :-|. Man, I've truly changed. :-( I actually miss those guys in red and white, but it's a different Ginebra out there without Mark Caguioa.
  
• Not much with work. Or no comment about it.

There. While I have been riding with the flow of life lately, I listed my November 2008 experiences just to remind me that I should be thankful for the past month. :-)

And wow, it's now December, and days away from my birthday :D Man, I'm feeling older and older as each year passes by.

I earned myself some Singapore dollars more than a month ago from my PHP project that I've been doing the almost the whole year.

Normally, I'll have it changed immediately through money changers, but the volatile economic situation that's happening lately have forced me to keep my hard-earned money safely in my cabinet. I figured I'd earn "more" if the exchange rate between the Philippine peso and the Singapore dollar is higher, instead of exchanging them at a lower conversion rate and earn a measly 1% out of it in my bank account. One rise or fall between the Singapore dollar and the Philippine peso can make a lot of difference, so I have religiously watched the conversion rate in online sites such as Exchange-Rates.org and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

I've been banging my head on the wall lately since I had the chance to have it exchanged on a good conversion rate last week. It was just greed on my part that I took the risk in the hope that there's a steady rise in the exchange rates, but this week was a bit depressing. Check out the chart and you'll see what I mean.

I don't know what's causing the value of Singapore dollars to dip, considering that the US Economy is on a dip too. It's quite ironic that exchange rates between the US dollar and the Philippine peso is higher on a US economy dip, when I think that it should be the other way around. I'm not an economist anyway. It just sucks that the global economic crisis has affected me as well. Heck, I haven't even received a salary increase for more than a year now (and chances are, it really won't happen any time soon). It's not helping that I'm working for a US based company too. *sigh again*

I really should have exchanged my dollars before November. I'm in need of cash anyway now that the smell of the Christmas season is upon us.

I should blog more often. Haha.

There's so much to tell about what's going on in my life lately, I just didn't have enough motivation to write about them. I tried coming up with a comprehensive tribute to my favorite team Ginebra who won the 2008 PBA Fiesta Conference crown, but I stopped midway and never had any motivation and momentum to finish it. I would have wanted to finish writing that before writing another blog but I just became too lazy. Ahh human nature. :P I guess I'll never be able to publish it, though it would be nice to relive the games that I watched in the PBA Fiesta Conference playoffs until the finals -- all of them are very memorable.

As of late:
- I installed my TMNT PC game (which I bought back in 2006) based on the 2003 TMNT Series. Now it was easier to get past Area 2 unlike when I first installed the game way back early 2006. It helps that I have my cheap but cool USB gamepad I bought from CD-R King.

- Balikbayan box is arriving anytime soon with all my vintage Bret Hart action figures (plus two Rocky Balboa figures and a Cyclops bust).

- It's downtime in work as we're nearing the end of a software release cycle, so I'm planning to get a Microsoft certification on web development. I know it's just Microsoft making a profit out of me but it wouldn't hurt to see a "Certified Microsoft web developer" on my resume when I finally plan to move on (which is early next year). Yeah, I'm a pawn of Microsoft's plan to dominate earth but it's my career anyway. I'm just some poor soul trying to find his way in the IT industry. :P

- Virgil and I are learning how to do decals/decoupaging! Haha, it's fun seeing the way Jakks Pacific has been doing those decals in my Bret Hart figures. The flood gates have opened and there's now a lot of possibilities for customized Bret Hart action figures to commemorate important highlights of his wrestling career.

- After 9 years as an Adobe Photoshop user, I never bothered learning how to use the pen tool. So I'm starting just now. HAHA.

- PHP coding has been on-and-off due to "distractions" above. hahaha!

- Virgil is helping me look for some generous souls who can repair my KB-100 Sony Clie keyboard. Sayang kasi.

- Virgil is on a roll with his Classic Marvel Figurine collection, he's missing 10 regular figures and maybe about 5 special figures (variants not included). He got Havok, Falcon, Ms. Marvel, Iron Man Mark 1, She Hulk, Black Widow, Kang, Rhino, and Leader for the past month. A $100 spree is at hand.

- My 25 year old girl Rocky is busy with work but we try to find and make time to meet and hang out. Just today we visited our 61st Starbucks (Ali Mall doesn't count) in "A Different Bookstore" branch at Serendra in Fort Bonifacio. Good times :-) Hopefully we can still push through with visiting all Starbucks branches in the Philippines.

- I think I'm doing well with driving Rocky around. Last week I drove her to Power Plant Mall in Rockwell and yesterday night I drove again from Bonifacio High Street to her house. Yay.

- PBA Replay is the best thing that happened to cable TV. Now I can catch up with PBA games. Back in high school, I followed PBA and MBA even if my favorite teams didn't play. But then Ginebra sucks this conference, just like the story in the PBA Philippine Cup last year.

- Bit and Gots. *tears of joy*

- Buenafriends Mic, G, and Eumir were pwnd last Saturday. hahaha!

Hopefully when I find the right motivation, I'll edit the source code of this blog to finally enable commenting again and try to integrate RSS feeds (which Ealden has been asking for 2 years now).

So there, I'm still alive. It actually feels good to write another entry again. haha.

August has been a very busy month, work-wise. Early this year I asked for a more challenging work, and now I got what I wanted: a big task with a choking tight deadline. I haven't been my usual self over the past three weeks, again not to mention my awkward sleeping habits getting more awkward, my body clock very twisted, and I've been coding like a workhorse who's running on high gear momentum.

The past three weeks have been really crazy. I was tasked to work on a module which I underestimated to take 7 working days but spawned to twice the estimate. Since August 11, 2008 (man, has it been that long?) I have been working double time to finish that module, even to the point of spending the first of two three-day weekends in the office. It's like college days all over again, with only sleep, eat, code as my three body functions (yes, bath not included). Trying to beat the August 19 start-of-business-day deadline, I worked alone at the office over the weekend. Only the scheduled pesticide fumigation stopped me from working but I was back in the office again on Sunday night right after the PBA Ginebra-Air21 Game 6 finals game. Working on the wee hours of the morning, I got the scare of my life when I thought I was hearing sounds but actually the security phone was ringing, and a security guard has been trying to knock on the office door! I know they were just doing their jobs but man, that was scary!







Needless to say, I didn't beat the August 19 deadline as we came to a consensus to give my module as a patch, but I still had to do come up with an installer for our product. I felt I was working too hard on the past days that's why I decided to reward myself with a little toy. I tried to take a bath in our office toilet (with a dipper, that little hole on the floor, and a little ingenuity/creativity! HAHA!) Virgil and I went out for an hour to Shopwise in Libis to buy this one:




Work didn't stop there as I still pushed myself to work on the agreed patch deadline which we're supposed to give to QA by August 26, or the day after the three day weekend. I had a trip to Puerto Princesa, Palawan with Rocky and our friends and that's why I really pushed hard to beat the deadline. Fortunately I did, although in a buzzer beater Carlo fashion as I was able to finish the patch by August 22, 11:30PM. By the time I went over to Rocky's place, I couldn't catch enough sleep for our early morning flight the next day.

I always believe in work-life balance but in our company, there's no such thing as work is fluctuating with high and low points. Right now we're in the stage where work is at an all time high, lots of demands but there's a few coders to answer to features and bugs. While I have suffered from vacation hang-over and I have obviously left my brain in Palawan for 2 days at work, I made up for it by working again overnight from Friday to Saturday. Here I am now, typing these lines away on a Sunday night which I declared a no-work day (work and PHP coding). Things will be busy again, especially we have our hands full of work this September so I'm savoring and taking this time off to update this blog and announce that I'm still alive. Rocky and I are turning three this third, by the way :). We have no big plans, we could have come up with one but due to our work lately, I guess we're celebrating it simply.

Here's a glimpse of my life over the past three weeks. Some of them are blog materials but I don't know if and when will I ever write about them:

* (12) I celebrated my blog's fourth year of existence in the web. I already wrote a draft about it, but unfortunately I never got to finish it.
* (13) I got a Caguioa All Star 2008 Jersey from the Accel stall in Araneta during Game 4 of the PBA Finals (thanks Eric!)
* (14) Skipped the Ateneo vs. UST game
* (15) Virgil and I watched the heartbreaking loss of Ginebra in Game 5 in Bar One over at Holiday Inn. Bad thing is, I still had to go back to work after.
* (16) Our family celebrated our Mommy Nikki's death anniversary. I drove Rocky home to our extended family in here. Went to Starbucks in SM Taytay (our 60th), before a series of unfortunate events happened to me on the way home.
* (17) Skipped the Ateneo vs. Adamson game to work at home in Sunday afternoon. Watched Ginebra vs. Air 21 Game 6 live with Rocky and 19,000 fans at Upper Box B, almost near the Gen Ad.
* (17) My collection thread in the local toy forums turned one year already (at least in PTK). I would have wanted to write a history of my toy collection but I never had the time to do so.
* (18) Bought that TMNT Leo Toy
* (20) Ginebra vs. Air21 Game 7! Oh my God, how sweet it is!
* (21) Skipped the Ateneo vs. UE game and relied on live updates while coding. Chris Tiu and Ryan Buenafe pwns the entire UE squad. Shopped with Rocky too before going back to work again. Joel broke the bad news to me: I have to report to work at 1030AM the next day for a tele-conference.
* (22) With four hours of sleep, I was able to beat the deadline by submitting version 1.0.1 of my work before heading to Rocky's pad to spend the night and catch our morning flight to Palawan the next day. Too bad, I couldn't sleep on their house.
* (23-25) Spent three days vacationing at Puerto Princesa Palawan. I uploaded the pictures over at my Multiply account, but it's open to contacts only. Yeah, we skipped the Ateneo game but it's just against UP anyway.
* (26-27) Tried to work but I guess I left my brain in Palawan. I bit the Eraserheads fad too and was able to snare my share of tickets although after going through a lot of hassle.
* (28-30) Woke up from the Palawan dream and felt the pressure and sense of urgency for this upcoming September 5 deadline. I decided to take a sleepover again at the office to finish my task for module 1.0.2. It still has a few bugs but it's working.
* (30) Skipped the Ateneo vs. NU (Ateneo clinches number 1 seed!), ERASERHEADS REUNION CONCERT! OMG. ERASERHEADS FOREVER! (Will blog about it if I find time)

Yeah, it's been that long since my last blog post. Disabling comments aren't fun either but there are only two loyal readers of this blog. I have to admit it's a bit discouraging to see two comments everytime, and I wish there were more readers. I guess I have to rework on my blog to make it more visible to more readers. For the meantime, posting comments is still disabled. Virgil, don't give me that baduy sign or else I'll hit "Buy Now" buttonS in eBay. I swear. :P

Anyway, here's an announcement that I am still alive. I couldn't update my blog regularly, I hope I can soon when work eases.

Jino: Go Air21!
Jino :P
Carlo: bakit lahat kayong CS kampi sa Air21? o masarap lang talaga ako asarin kasi die-hard ako? :P
Jino: Minsan lang kasi malakas ang Air21 e, kaya ko sila gusto. Rooting for the underdogs
Carlo: haha underdogs naman ginebra ngayon ah! :))
Carlo: wala si jayjay, wala rin si caguioa, strained hamstring si artadi at dislocated ankle si tubid
Carlo: :))
Carlo: (pinaglaban ba daw :)) )

*forwards conversation to Bit and G*

Bit: Huli mo pre.
Bit: :))
Carlo: pare kampihan mo naman ako
Bit: Sorry pero kahit noong hindi pa kita kilala ayoko sa Ginebra.
Carlo: hahaha
Carlo: wala na. FO na pare.
Bit: :))

Gerald: Kung hindi mananabro ang air21 durog yang ginebra mamyaa.
Gerald: :D
Carlo: 3rd CS person ka na today na kampi sa air21
Gerald: :D
Gerald: Sino sino? Eums, Bit, ako?
Carlo: Bit, Jino, you
Carlo: ang sarap i-blog nito
Carlo: pati tong conversations natin
Gerald: Oo pare. Haha
Gerald: Icopy paste mo na
Carlo: mas masarap pag nanalo Ginebra
Carlo: pag nanalo na Ginebra para mas vindicated ako
Gerald: Pag nanalo ba ginebra papainom ka?
Carlo: sige libre 1 hour ng basket
Carlo: deal? :))
Gerald: Tangna 1 hour lang? :))

*forwards conversation about free basketball to Bit*

Bit: Para sa ating lahat?
Carlo: oo
Bit: Ayown!
Bit: Go Ginebra!
Carlo: ayown!
Carlo: friendship back
Bit: Gawin mong dalawang oras.
Bit: Air21 pa rin ako.

*forwards Bit's reaction to G*

Gerald: Puta si Bit bayaran!

YM Status for tonight: Lord, salamat po at champion ang Ginebra. nabawi na yung pago-overtime ko lagi. :D [work]

*forwards blog entry to G* :D