quaint little rutted bucket



Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Revisiting an old, furtive fant'sy...

... on that social-networking site found here. It was actually the first time I've had the guts to muster enough courage to actually take a gander at her profile once again, and sort of rediscover the things I found worthwhile about her. While you might say that this is no way of forgetting about my mistake and her, I still believe that our past is what comprises who we are right now, so in my rulebook, there's actually nothing bad about what I did.

There's actually a strange, almost old, familiar feeling in reading the things you had admired so much about a person; essentially the things you built fanciful wishes and daydreams on. I'd rather not elaborate, but in all honestly, there's actually some sense of gratification in knowing that she found somebody. While some part of me still wishes if i could be that one guy she said 'yes' to, I'm pretty comfy with the status quo. I dunno, really. Maybe nasanay na lang on making such mistakes that it seems pretty much the norm to me already. (Of course, any sane individual would tell you that this is not the way things should happen, but really, I'm a happy camper at the other side of the fence. ;)

I've also changed my primary Friendster.com pic to a trio of tulip blossoms I once featured here from shutterline. Not that I'm gay, you insensitive clod. :) Aside for the not-so-obvious symbolism, I just have this strange thing for flowers, as they make for interesting conversation and photography subjects. And they're just beautifully astounding. :D

Anyway, have to go for now. I still have to make some nice, complex, mind-wracking data model E/ERDs on Visio. Ciao!

currently on my playlist: u turn's "its you" (go figure. mush song na naman to! bwahaha.)


Saturday, June 26, 2004

Here we go again.

I'm brooding more anxiety now, perhaps even anguish. I don't know what to think, let alone feel, anymore. A gnashing rush of emotions runs through the back of my head as I try to distance myself from everything around me. This is perhaps the first time in such a long time that I see the world not as a place of hope, but rather, a world of hopelessness and cruelty... something that I had strongly tried to avoid doing ever since I did a realigning of my world+view.

Oh ralph, why oh why? :(

Why did you fall for the wrong person yet again? Have I been so cruel to other people that I have such bad karma, or is it just a sorry twist of fate playing its tricks on me?

"Damned indecision and cursed pride
Kept my love for her locked deep inside
And it cuts like a knife
She's out of my life..."


Never mind. I was never for her anyway. To think of it as such would be foolish; arrogant, even. It was a dream; a fanciful dream i just wish I never had. Reality bites. Painfully. All over again.

"So I've learned that love's not possession
And I've learned that love won't wait
Now I've learned that love needs expression
But I learned too late..."


I guess I'll be keeping the "Lonely" thingy on the right for the meantime. ::starts to sob::

Until then,

ralph


Friday, June 25, 2004

Updatage 0604252049

(If you've been in wonder over my silly updatage numbering scheme, let me explain. The first two digits, "06" stands for the month, the next pair (04) is the year, the third pair is the date, followed by the time in 24h/military format.)

Anyway, let's get on with things.


It's Official. I'm ComSci no more.

I had my appointment with the Department of English and Applied Linguistics (DEAL) vice-chair just this afternoon about my shifting application. An impromptu interview ensued, and afterwards, she informally welcomed me to the College of Education and to the English academic program. Wonderful. I'm going to be a teacher. :)

As much as I was enthralled by the news, at the same time, butterflies started to flutter within my tummy. I knew there and then that I was anxious about all this; that all the major courses I took in ComSci did not matter anymore. Gone is the reasoning that I chose ComSci only because people *expected* me to do so. This is my life, and I have control over it. I was taking a path that I know I had personally reflected, decided and thought upon, and there's simply no going back. This is a decision I made, after carefully thinking and deliberating it with myself over for the past five months. It is a decision that will certainly have repercussions over the course of my lifetime. I've taken my first step towards becoming Ralph the Educator.

Oh. Make that "Ralph the Lasallian Educator." :)



The Halloween Documents

I've been doing a thorough reading of the entire Halloween Documents, a series of controversial internal Microsoft memos and commentaries on the threat open-source software, such as GNU/Linux, poses to their business model. If you're been keen on what Microsoft has done during the late 90s, you might have been aware of the unfair tactics they had used against competitors in major markets like browsers. These articles gives even more insight on what goes on at Microsoft.

The Halloween Documents are here.



Spotlight Song of the Moment: John Mayer's "New Deep"


Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Updatage 0604151832

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 is finally out! Get yours while they're hot! Here.

At 0.9, Mozilla Firefox is shaping up to be *the* Internet Explorer killer it was meant to be. Free, lean, fast and mean, it's by far the best alternative option out there. Powered by Mozilla.org's getting-faster-by-the-second Gecko rendering engine, all W3C-compliant pages work perfectly and have the assurance that you're getting what the developer intended you to have. Web browsing bliss? Almost. Just as long as the page you're viewing more or less follows the W3C standard specs for HTML 4 and other related web technologies. (There are still a good number of pages out the great Intarweb 'optimized' for IE, which really sux0rs. :)

A caveat, though: As always, not all themes and extensions you've had previously will work perfectly with this release. Firefox's theme and extension management components still need work and a finalized spec before heading off to 1.0, thus the incompatibility issues. But then again, we can always wait for the third-party devs to get their hands dirty and do some compatibility fixes. :)



And it bites. Again.

Regrets. Sigh. I hate when I have brushes with it, especially things concerning relationships.

The last time I had one, it was serious. But then, so is the entire world around me: She was off to UP for Biology, and with her dreams to become a doctor, I had to let her go. It was perhaps the most painful decision I had to make at that time, but it was between her happiness and me. I couldn't be selfish. She has her own life; own set of dreams to pursue, let alone fulfill. That perhaps the only consolation I have is that maybe, maybe she'll be better off without me. That maybe, she'll be able to find herself in what she wants to do.

She confronted me when I told her about the nasty word that starts with 'b'. That *I* was the one being selfish. The truth is, after she said that, I thought about. Maybe I'm just reluctant over the thought of intimacy. Or of getting closer. Or the fear of more commitment.

I figured no. I stuck with my decision. I saw things in her that, I felt, can be molded to greater things, given her personality and zest for living and doing good to others. I never wanted to hold her down; to limit her potential. She was a wonderful girl, but she has her own life, and that at this point in time, the only thing she doesn't need is somebody to take her time.

Now, she's a happy camper at Diliman. We still occasionally talk about stuff. I'll perhaps be the living testament that making friends with an ex is still hard. (I don't know about her. :) But then, we both figured that what we had wasn't that serious to be affecting us up to now. So with that resolved, everyone's happy. (She's dating somebody. And even joked about me getting jealous. No, I'm serious. I said no. Hahah. She asked me about my own lovelife, and I said I saw a few women who _might_ be worth my while, but never had the courage to stand up to them. Her reply? "Hay ralph, torpe ka pa rin. Hahah."

I nary talk about things concerning this side of my life, but as it occured almost two years ago, I figured people ought to know. Or so the people who read this digital rag.

But silly me, this isn't about her. It's about me. The thing is, I had gotten over her. This one, not.

There's still a part of me who sees her in every young woman who sports long hair, that waifish build, and an almost-morena complexion. Ack. Obsession? Infatuation? I dunno. The only thing I have is regret. Regret that I'd never gotten to know her. Regret that I didn't even had the courage to try. That I hid behind a veil of anxiety, fear, uncertainty and doubt, saying that I'm content to just admire her from afar. The truth is, I'm not content with that. Ack Ralph, you can't even try. Sigh.

Spotlight song of the moment: Side A's "So Many Questions".

Monday, June 14, 2004

Yellow, folks. (Part II)
A week has passed and no updates. Darn. I should put blogging on my todo list again.

Anyway, I got myself a couple of CDs a couple of weeks ago. Was thinking of posting mini-as-donuts reviews of those nifty little things, but I figure time was cracking me up. Fortunately, I relented. :)

First up, a duo of Michael Bolton CDs. (Yes. Michael Bolton. :)



I picked up 'Love Songs' after hearing it play on Cable Cafe, that ad-cum-pseudomessageboard-cum-whatever channel on Sky Cable's Channel 34. (I'd actually tune in to that channel for the music, and the occasional postings that might turn out to be interesting. One of my stranger viewing habits. :)

Love Songs differs from many older Michael Bolton greatest-hits compiles simply because of how Michael leverages his powerful, raspy-yet-strangely enchanting voice to render songs in a lovely, almost timeless fashion. In this album, Michael drops his wannabe-rockstar image in favor of something more mature, more flavorful and more interesting in terms of music. In addition, the album has an obvious sprinkling of pop/mainstream jazz, as exemplified by a good number of the songs in the album. Of particular note was the opening trio tracks from "Soul Provider" to "Once in a Lifetime". Kenny G, one of my favorite mainstream instrumentalists, also makes a cameo appearance and lends his art in "Missing You Now". Halfway through the album, other equally-good and appreciable gems makes their presence heard too: "When a Man Loves a Woman", "Now That I Found You", "The Best of Love" (which reminds me of Eric Clapton's "Change the World") and one of my favorites, "How am I Supposed to Live Without You".

Towards the homestretch, the album's pace slows down quite noticeably, as if to wrap up something truly worthwhile. (There's another reason I love this CD. Read on to find out :) Of particular note were "Stand Up for Love", "A Love so Beautiful" and "New Love".

Frankly, this is the Michael Bolton I first heard, encountered, and noticed; not his earlier works. For what its worth, Michael definitely shines brighter doing romance-inspired, melting-in-mush, love-themed ballads like these.

A plus: it's perhaps the first album I stuck on the car CD player without turning off mum and pop when they're around. If parents approve of it, surely, it must be cool. Hahah.

Another thing cool about this entire thing: It just cost me a cool PhP 280 from Music One at Greenbelt 3. (It's a relatively old release actually: circa 2001.) Bargain bin, you say? Hardly: Clearly, this is Michael Bolton's zenith... and it's not one album I'm about to leave to layaway anytime soon.



Album Mini-Review: Michael Bolton's 'Vintage'



When I first picked this thing up, I could not help but exclaim, "WTF? Yet Another Great American Songbook-inspired album? What's up with these guys anyway?" (I did pick up Aaron Neville's 'Nature Boy' last term which featured a considerable number of songs from ye olde America.)

Little did I know that I was in for a treat. Michael Bolton's balladeering, combined with more jazz-flavored tracks, I was literally being brought one closer to nirvana with these playing through my wondrous pair of Sennheisers.

The album is starts off warm, with an almost-homey feel one could easy grow fond of. Michael's voice certainly lends more flair and dimension to the old, rustic charm of the songs in the album.

Being a recent release overseas (and was just recently released locally), this one's not that cheep. Think usual prices. With less tracks. If there's one major gripe I have over this, this may be it.

Overall, the album quality is excellent. While some of the tracks may be unfamiliar to many of today's younger tots, the songs, rendered in Michael's unfailingly unique voice, have the potential to attract more listeners and fans.

For the Bolton fan, this is a must. Even to those who haven't really liked his music and or his voice, "Vintage" has a shot at changing a lot of misimpressions about him. Highly recommended.



If I still have the time, I'll try to post another review or two, plus some updatage. Stay tuned. :)

Until next time!

Sunday, June 06, 2004

Yellow, folks.

I'm sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been pretty busy and swept up lately by schoolwork, so to put it frankly, I haven't got much time to think and do other things, apart from my studies. (ack. :)

I'm at another dilemma right now: Here I am, in the fourth term of my CS degree program, contemplating whether to shift or not. My plan has its skeptics, me included. You see, my plan back in summer was something like this: Try to shift, if accepted, all the better. If not, then good enough, at least I tried, but I'd still take DLSU-CoEd's certification program to get me started on teaching. I'd really like to teach. :) It would be really fulfulling and nice if I made a darned good teacher or educator, breaking new grounds on the field I had decided to enter. Or whatever. Teeheeh.

The thing is this: My courses for this term are so interesting (read: geeky) that I'm having second thoughts all over again. Sigh. (Why can't I just make the decision with conviction, you might ask. Well, I just can't make one. :)) Sir Joey, my counselor, was right: maybe I was indeed genuinely interested in computers, that's why I went the ComSci route. Ack.

Anyway, my plan is still following through. I'll be trying to get the necessary signatures this week on my shifting form and submitting it. Fate, meet luck. :)

I'll be posting updates later this week. I still have an examination set for tomorrow, so I gotta prepare for that.

Until next time! :)