(Adj.):  Excelling all others

To become the best that you can be, you sometimes have to be prepared to lose a part of yourself first.  Sometimes less is actually more, in the greater scheme of things.

I woke up today feeling invigorated, for I have finally achieved a certain level of content.  I guess this is the first time, since my life drastically changed, that I felt like I have finally equalized in all aspects.  So even before I put both feet on the floor from the bed this morning, I thanked the Universe for this feeling of peace.

Seen that ray of light
And it’s shining on my destiny
Shining all the time
And I wont be afraid
To follow everywhere it’s taking me
All I know is yesterday is gone
And right now I belong
To this moment to my dreams

It doesn’t matter what people say
And it doesn’t matter how long it takes
Believe in yourself and you’ll fly high
And it only matters how true you are
Be true to yourself and follow your heart

So I won’t give up
No I won’t break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And I will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When I’m standing in the dark I’ll still believe

I learned that (I guess) my Mother was right, not everything is meant to be easy.  Doing what makes you happy isn’t always the best, in the long run. 

Just as loss makes life important, so does suffering make perseverence essential.

After our company meeting last Friday, we went to Gilligan’s at Parksquare Drive for a despedida bash in honor of some friends who are leaving for Germany to work there for a couple of months.

Even some of the managers came to see them off.

One of the people leaving is my friend Abbey who’s also a bag enthusiast.  She’s the chica girl (if you’re a bag enthusiast then you’re also chica, it just goes together, no?!) in the middle of the pic below.  The one with a headband on… or hairband, but that sounds so 80’s. :-)

We’re gonna miss you guys!  Take care!

OMG!  Diablo 3 is in development!

I can’t wait for this to come out!

I’m so looking forward to playing the Witch Doctor, a new character, with his/her (yes, you can choose the gender now) new powers like the “Wall of zombies.”  How creepy is that?!

There’s no date yet though.  According to Blizzard, the game will be out “when it’s ready.” How diva is dut?!

I had time to kill after lunch at Greenbelt yesterday.  We were going to have our Firm’s next Knowledge Exchange Meeting at Glorietta.

Going straight to Datablitz, I checked out the new game called Age of Conan.  I already called them ahead of time to ask for the availability.

This game is special because it boasts a great Real Time Combat system.

(From Wikipedia) Funcom has said that their “Real Combat” system, a combat system designed to offer more real-time options than traditional Dungeons & Dragons-inspired “round-based” combat systems commonly used in RPGs, will be a prime attraction of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. This Real Combat system is a first-person melee approach in which every enemy starts with three different areas that players can swing at, with a possible increase at future levels depending on the class. Combos can be performed by stringing together consecutive successful attacks in particular directions. As players become better at using the system, they will find combinations of abilities, swing styles and target points that string together to make more devastating attack combos. Player stats and item bonuses will also play a role in this system. However, the idea of “Real Combat” is to eliminate the dullness of typical MMO fighting, which often consists of an auto-attack feature.

I decided not to buy it for now.  I need a faster computer.  I want.

Gotta get me more of these.

We are braving a dangerous world out there, every single day that we set our feet outside our manicured lawns, our walled subdivisions.  Yes, we put ourselves in harms way to some extent.

Imagine if you live in more dangerous cities like the ones in the Middle East.  I just cannot believe how people can ever think of hurting innocent people in horrific manners.  To a somewhat sheltered eyes like mine, even if I’ve been through a lot, I cannot fathom how and why such evil can exist.  Then I turned to Daily Nightly today, and started to understand.  Some of these people were pushed into doing it by no less than false prophets and false promises of paradise.  Yes, just like how it’s written in the Bible.  In Martin Fletcher’s article, he said

I’ve met a number of failed suicide bombers, in prisons around the world, and they mostly have the same kind of story: young men sold on paradise by radical Islamic fighters. The men who give the orders wouldn’t kill themselves; after all, they’re too critical for the struggle, but are happy to send naïve young people to their deaths.

If we open our eyes to the world wide enough, we can witness the extreme spectrums of right and wrong.  More importantly, we can understand why they exist.  We can ultimately learn from them.  It’s such an injustice to pass on while still an ignorant to such things.

We knew we made the wrong decision to choose Crocs over Coffee Bean when we saw replenished supplies in the Crocs Store at the Bonifacio High Street (or the right one, depending on your perspective).  That’s Manette’s, mine and Jeff’s lower extremities.

(This was taken about two weeks ago…)

She bought that (or the silver ones).  As for me, I’m not really fond of the brand.  I thought the classic ones bordered on ugly when they first came out.  I discovered Sanuks because I was avoiding them (the idea of buying Crocs) at Rustan’s.

But you, and even I, have to admit that this is a work of art.

Am I a convert?  Maybe… but afterwards Sanuk sent me a text giving me a 30% discount this June since I was supposedly part of “The Friends of Sanuk” campaign.  I already exercised that right when we, the same people, found ourselves lost (or not) at the 2nd floor of R.O.X. - still at Boni High. :-)

I passed by the Glorietta Activity Center one afternoon in early June and caught this on display.

Their own F1 (with people wondering if it’s legit). hehe

Anyway, it’s still cool.  I was still trying out my Samsung Slider’s camera that time.  I’m satisfied.

I had to call back the reception as soon as I got to the office yesterday.  Apparently this was waiting for me there

The girl said there was no return address.  So I was thinking like I hope this isn’t a bomb or something (Sorry, morbid :-))

I couldn’t wait until I got back to my floor.  I took a peek at the reception area and was pleasantly surprised.

Sweets!… and a nice, simple and sophisticated card (I once got a friendship card that had all the colours of the rainbow a few years back) with a sweet message inside.

(seekwet!)

Thanks R, you’re sweet.

Remember the scene from the movie The Craft where sharks were washed up the shoreline after the major ritual?  

(This major ritual)

That was one creepy sight, I reckon.  Well, imagine if it was people washing up your beach - just traumatic no?!  That must be the case with the people in these two towns in Masbate.  According to the Inquirer

Bodies recovered in the towns of Claveria and San Pascual on Burias Island, Masbate province have reached 55 although authorities were still identifying which among them were from the ferry that capsized at the height of typhoon Frank’s (international codename: Fengshen) fury last Saturday.

So much loss…  So many families in grief…  So tragic - that’s the word.

In my last entry Gohan1027 said,

Hey the CCP! Haven’t been there in a while. I always wanted to know how haunted it is =)

I actually believe this.  I once stumbled upon a book about the Spirit Questors at National Bookstore, and the last chapters talked about their experiences in CCP and the Manila Film Center.  Looking it up on the net today (I’d have to find the book later, might have lent it to someone.), Howie Severino’s blog has an article about these structures.  Here is an except of what he said

…On November 17, 1981, during the pouring of cement, an upper floor collapsed, sending an untold number of workers hurtling into fresh cement or onto upright steel bars where they hung like barbeque (this was a witness’s analogy, not mine) for hours until their bodies were retrieved.

The story all this time, or at least as I and countless others believed it, was that Imelda immediately ordered the bodies in the cement to be paved over so that work could resume and her looming deadline met. News about the tragedy was censored during the martial law era, so rumors and ghosts filled the vaccum.

Since then, as legend would have it, the Manila Film Center has become a haven for the supernatural, as spirits of the dead bodies encased in high-strength cement plead for recovery and a decent burial. So-called “spirit questors” have confirmed it, as well as various mediums (media?) and manghuhula.

In other words, that Parthenon-inspired white elephant in a dark, secluded spot next to Manila Bay is a fu****g scary place.

No kidding!  It’s really scary there.  Such mammoth structures looming over a dark, dark place.  Not to mention the horrific history it has, urban legend or not.

 I picked up this bright idea from our Firm’s Photography Club, and decided to tag my friend Hiram along for the ride.  I thought it would be cool to visit these sites sometime in the next few weeks.

The Cultural Center of the Philippines,

the Manila American Cemetery

and the Central Post Office 

(Thanks to Superpasyal for the pic)

The idea is quite common sense, I know, but I guess it’s triggered by my reading tons of nationalist and fashionista - fashionalista blogs.

My friend Hiram was the first one to bring this to my attention.  This very good news (Thanks to Inquirer) means that we get to take home more of our hard-earned moolah.

As soon as I read this on Pinoy Tech blog, I said “Whoa!  I didn’t know this happened?!”

When I discovered torrents last year, theirs was the first site I came upon.  Now this is all you see on their site.

Friends of TorrentSpy,

We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to bring the Torrentspy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008.

The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves.

Ultimately the Court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and International law; therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown.

It was a wild ride,
The TorrentSpy Team

I wonder if other torrent sites are next for the picking by these lawsuits.

I’m so excited!

I had some time to kill yesterday afternoon, the internal network being wonky and all… or non-existent is the word hehe.

I subscribed to a lot of featured sites on Google Reader.  Well, of course I wanna share my great finds - to share my blessings and stuff.

The first one is a site by Jayvee Fernandez - A Bugged Life.

A techie site… very very nice!

I got tons more where that came from…