quaint little rutted bucket



Thursday, May 27, 2004

And the leap of faith finally comes through... for real.

I got my external shifting form just this afternoon, shelling out 150 for it. This is it. If I make it, then Ralph the Educator comes true... but if not, maybe i'll still be an educator, albeit a computer-education one. :)

I'm got this stifling feeling that sir joey might be right all along: that maybe i was only disinterested and or discouraged last term because the subjects I took lacked the necessary "zing" for me to appreciate and work hard through them. Now that I'm taking real interesting, down-and-dirty comsci subjects like introdb and compasm, I'm having second doubts about all of this. Sigh. Decisions. Big ones. I hate going through the thought process and eventually making them.

Anyway, I'm filling this form up and submitting it, maybe on Munday. I still need to pray.



Okay, so ******* isn't in my filipi class. But really, do *I* really care? (Maybe a bit. ;) Seriously, I don't. At all. (But still, some part of me would love to have her around. :)) Ack. There it is again. Oh well. :D

Thankfully, she's still around, despite her own words of uncertainty last term when she flew off to the states. Saw her last Tuesday while adjusting (a part of me was wanting to just strike up a real conversation with her ;) she was wearing that yellow blouse that screams of Bayo or Kamiseta origin. (actually, it can even be of penshoppe or giordano origin... i just hate doing theguesswork. :) Long, flowing black hair. Those gleaming, almond set of eyes. Lovely. :sighs:

Too bad, insecurity/anxiety/uncertainty got the better part of this guy named ralph. :(



I've got a new number!

zero nine two seven seven twenty sixteen sixty seven.

on a sony ericsson z600 mobile.

just.
like.
this.



one can say that i am, indeed, a sony ericsson fan. :)

interesting though, that it's only now that i learned that recent se phones (T39 onwards) feature limited cut-copy-paste functionality. :D

Anyway, gotta go. It's midnight already. Gotta go get some shuteye. :)

Ciao!

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

First day's schmurzdaze.

This term is shaping out to be a S11/comtech2003 term. I've got lots of classes with them, most of them comsci courses. After getting my feet wet with 'touring' a greater part of la salle last term (a class in velasco, another in miguel, and the rest in gox), it feels strange to actually have most of my classes in this desolate corner of the campus. :))

Our NETALAB professor never showed up, leaving us with more than four hours[!] of free time yesterday. We've got no money, so we were just limited to scrounging around gox for something to do. And that pretty much sums it up: boredom galore. Gox isn't really a place for one to hang out, let alone find something worthwhile to do other than things related to study.

On the other hand, NETANAL is shaping up to be my focus this term. (Math! Ack.) Here's hoping that with proper attention and care, plus the attitude, this shouldn't turn out to be a relative disaster. Not just yet.

As pogz said yesterday, "Ralph, ano ba tong pinasok ko?" Yep, pogz, i'm also thinking the same thing. Sigh. I guess you can't have the free lunch part and eat it too: we have to work for the things we aspire. In this case, if i'm to do well in comsci, then I'd have to study lots. Oh well.

I still have to attend my two other classes this afternoon, INTRODB and FILIPI2.



Yahoo! Messenger 6 is officially out!
Yahoo!'s added tons of eyecandy and features to this release, making it pretty much on the same ground as other IM clients such as MSN's Messenger.

It's quite the memory hog too: early reports indicate that this thing (or monstrosity, whichever you might prefer) takes up up to 32MB of memory. Minimized: around 4.5MB, around 20MB when the main window is open and more than that if you use YM's other features. Cool enough, but might be a trouble for those with systems with 128MB of system memory or less.

Get it here: http://messenger.yahoo.com/



Cheaters cheated?

[H]ard|OCP has an interesting article here on their changing video card testing methodology. I'm inclined to agree: most users have been focusing on how video cards perform on canned benchmarks, all while tending to forget about the bigger picture of gameplay and image quality (IQ). All too often, many tend to focus on how much 3DMarks or AquaMarks or whatevermarks a video card produce, without taking into consideration IQ and other equally-important aspects of a video card. This has been the subject of a debacle surrounding Nvidia over the performance of their high-end FX parts that have been skimping on image quality. Personally, I prefer raising the bar of image quality, as many high-end parts can already produce tons of frames per second. This capacity for performance is, I feel, better suited to increasing image quality.

Just my two centavos worth.

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Adjustment Day tomorrow! Some w00tage in is order, I guess. :)

School days, here I come. Welcome, new academic year. New year of (pfft.) work, studies, and more college. Sigh. Good thing is, I've learned to accept all these already.

"Acceptance is key", my somewhat enlightened side said. I replied in turn, "What's that got to do with studying? (slightly puzzled, almost quizzical look)" Well, here's the gist: As soon as you accept that college is *indeed* a part of life if one is to progress further in his/her career, the sooner it all gets better. Gee, it took me a long time to make such relatively simple realizations, but after that, it all falls into place. Work is a part of life. Get used to it. As simple as that.

Anyways, I'll still be trying to shift even if I lack that nasty CGPA requirement. Who knows? Even then, I've already prepared myself if I don't make it: stay. Comsci is good in itself, and I can just take CoED's little education thingy to prepare me in becoming an educator. Pretty pure and simple. Sigh. Bahala na. :)

Oh. I'd still have to make a meeting with my counselor, Sir Joey, about things from the last term and the year ahead.

I'll also be adding a subject or two tomorrow, then visit Sam for the obligatory warez updates. :)

I also have to buy meself a new planner... and a new mobile phone. Maybe a (preferred!) Z600, a T610, Z200, or if worse-begets-worser, a trusty-crusty T68i. Just not Nokia. ;)

Ciao.

Monday, May 17, 2004

Up North

Howdy folks. We'll be leaving for Manila after dinner tonight, and I'm blogging from a place a good five or so hours away from the confines of home: San Isidro, Lupao, Nueva Ecija. (also known to older folks as 'Macanawed'.) The Mum's province. :)

And oh, I'm blogging from a GPRS internet connection mated with an IR connection to Tito Nap's swanky ThinkPad, together with dad's phone. The wonders of modern technology? Hardly. It's really a drag to use: it's even slower than my 56k connection at home, and the IBM's eraserhead pointer thingy is a drag to use too. Nevertheless, any semblance of tech outside Central Luzon's major cities is somewhat good, I guess.

I used to dislike it here when I was younger, but there are a number of things I appreciate and love now here in Lola Esther's old, rustic farmhouse. The cool, fresh breeze is the first thing anyone hailing from the metro will notice, along with the relatively slow pace of life here compared to how folks lead their lives back in Manila. Real lovely. Stretching back on those reclined seats, with the the cool evening breeze sweeping up your face, stars starting to break through the clouds set amidst the dark sky... Sigh. I wish this could last forever. The relative serenity broken only by the occassional vehicle plowing through the highway to the border with Pangasinan.

Perhaps the only thing that scared me when we went here was the numerous military encampments. I think I had counted five before arriving here, of course not counting camps in Manila. And military six wheelers drive through the highway periodically over the course of the day. My Lolo (which I discovered was a former intelligence officer at ISAFP) told me not to worry, as he personally know most of the NPA leaders that operate within the area. Ah. Sure, lo. :) One of the perks of having a mum connected with a large and somewhat influential (even sometimes infamous) clan.

Oh. Wait. Mum's calling me to dinner already. Pretty soon we'll be leaving. Sigh.

Goodbye all. Maybe I can get to post later on the way home, as Tito Nap's notebook is going to Manila in preparation for his flight back to cool Toronto.

Ciao!

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

New Look

Blogger relaunched yesterday, and I must admit, I liked a number of the newer features they offer.

You might also notice that the British Museum-inspired theme is gone, after being in service for almost a year now. I've been hacking through the index code just tonight, and I'll be getting my feet wet with the archive coding maybe tomorrow. (I'm finding web design/coding pretty interesting. Maybe I'll pick up a book or two.)

This new theme, Blueberry TicTac by Dan Cederholm looks best on any standards-compliant browser and on a resolution greater than 800 x 600.

I'll be posting more updates tomorrow, including my thoughts on the elections.

Ciao! :)

Thursday, May 06, 2004

Three weeks. Three weeks. Three more weeks.

I'm pretty surprised at how fast this 'vacation' is unravelling. Yes, I might be bored to death whenever I'm not doing anything away from home, but it still is plenty fast. Oh well.



Somebody came here looking for the lyrics to Steve Tyrell's "I've Got a Crush on You". Funny, I was doing exactly the same thing a few weeks back. The lyrics for Steve Tyrell's version is pretty hard-to-find, so I had to a bit of research. Anyway, I did save you the trouble of looking for it: here you go, derived from Sinatra's version. Check it out.

Steve Tyrell’s “I’ve Got a Crush on You”

Originally written by Cole Porter and performed by Frank Sinatra, Steve Tyrell’s crooning gives a lovingly-made, timeless, albeit short song a new twist and even more romantic flavor.

I’ve got a crush on you, sweetie pie
All the day and night-time hear me sigh
I never had the least notion
That I could fall with so much emotion

Could you coo, could you care
For a little cottage that we could share
The world will pardon my mush
’cause I have got a crush, my baby, on you

Could you coo, could you care
For a country cottage that we could share
The world will pardon my mush
’cause I have got a crush, my baby, on you



geekish ramblings

disclaimer: if you find the following segment of text strange and or seemingly alien language-sounding, you're not alone. you can always leave, though. :)

I'm beginning to hate nVidia. Really. My FX 5600 has given me a lot of problems recently, not to mention its lackluster performance. I mean, I have to stand gaming at 800 x 600 on a 17" display on a number of recently-released games. Without antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. Nasty. Really. I miss my GF4 Ti card.

And oh, how those new Series 50 ForceWare drivers sux0rs. Apparently, my 5600 doesn't want them; it behaves pretty weirdly, it experiences some sort of memory leak or something, where all those graphical information like textures doesn't get removed from the video card's memory. Anyway, that's my hypothesis. And to think the 50 Series was supposed to improve performance for NV3x parts. Anyway, to resolve the stability issues I've come to love Omega's modded drivers as they provide much better quality and a bit of a performance boost compared with nVidia's plain-vanilla ForceWare/Detonator releases. But even that poses a dilemma: Omega's 53.03 release is cool, but it still fux0rs up CMR4. So it's Omega's 45.23a, which is pretty slow, and a beta driver release intended for Nvidia's new, spanking GeForce 6 series. I went with the betas, which actually resolved most of the issues I have, while keeping performance and quality in line. Its not exactly Omega-esque in quality, but quite passes my taste.

I want a Radeon 9600XT card just to see how things are doing on the Canadian side of things. :)



DLSU has already claimed a casualty from Comtech. Sigh. I dunno if its the demanding nature of college, or perhaps his neglect, but either way, comsci is pretty challenging.

I've also decided to shift. If it goes well, then lucky me, but if not, then comsci it will be. Or I might try at later time.

Education, here I come. :)

Currently listening to: Michael Bublé's "Sway" (LOL anyone up for some chachacha? :))