and like mtv, twitter will shutdown the world, but i think google will beat them all and will become self aware by 2015. just saying, get your google+ now.

a lot has changed with me. my friend @yayiebuenviaje accuse me of being a mac fanboy. i maintain to this day that i’m not, i am a mainstream loving windows guy. but i do love their products. for me the difference of me liking the products against being a fanboy is that, i don’t like everything apple. take for instance the iphone 3gs and prior. i hated the form factor, its aesthetics, which is a big basis for me buying and/or liking a product. what made it worse for me is that my mom gave me a 3gs before, and it only lasted me less than 4 hours on full charge. i have to say that this is not a hand me down, this is a brand new, unopened and sealed phone. and what cemented my “hate” for apple is its ceo coupled with the release of iphone 4. for right after its release, it was plagued with the death grip. and for the longest time apple denied it, it’s just a rumor. then by some soul searching and truth serum they admitted that there’s a problem, but dragged everybody else by pointing fingers to other handsets saying that they too have the same problem. the ceo made an appearance in a song and dance publicity event if you will, being brazen and in your face as he’s known, saying, as i wittingly surmise, ‘yes there’s a problem, here’s a free bumper”. what the fuck?!? you have people line, push and upgrade their plan, wait for eternity, shell out php30,000-php40,000 (in this neck of the woods) for a faulty handset? are you screwing with me? (not the kind i like, nor that you’re my type). then again i like my macbook pro. the color, feel, build, sheer power and awesomeness makes me forget that apple screwed me with just 2 usb ports and nonstandard display output.

my introduction to ipad2 was rather an unusual one. to start with, i hated the ipad. being a proud owner of a galaxy tab, i was preaching left and right how impractical ipad is and great the 7″ of wonder that the tab is, please note the present tense. first is that i have to say that it’s a gift to have an account manager at apple is, taking care of your every whim. secondly, it doesn’t hurt that the product is very visually appealing. my account manager called that i can pickup the accessory i ordered for my macbook; a connector to the projector for presentation. ever so “discretely” during the launch of the ipad2 in manila, i found my way to the mac store to find a long line of people trying either to get their hands on the device or gawk at it. skimmed pass the line, i found my account manager to get my connector. she handed me my order and a demo unit of the ipad2. clever bitch. not to seem rude or a prude, i played a little with the device with no intention of purchasing, but the bitch knew me. while i was toying with it, she grabbed a smartcover and demoed how it works. and right then i purchased the ipad so that i can use the cover, less the waiting and the queue.

you see, i get why yayie thinks that i am a mac fanboy. i am apple’s target market. the techy guy who’s all about aesthetics and cool factor. the guy who wants to see how it all works, put together things, upgrade to the latest version of software and hardware. were mobility and accessibility is a requirement rather than a nice to have, that needs to be plugged-in 24/7 and will die of slow internet access. i am all of those things. i am also the guy that can’t understand why a brand secludes itself from the world. why it doesn’t support popular applications outside its platform. this is why i am not a mac fanboy. i can’t and won’t accept that i’m locked (commitment issues?) to any one thing even if it’s a pretty little aluminum unibody shell.

and lastly, would it hurt if windows live writer and mac os be friends?

last september, i shifted to blackberry/android combo from my usual nokia, htc/android phone. i am one of those person who has 2 phones, attributed by my paranoia of people tracing who i am. and it did happened to me so there’s just cause. this shift came about by my change of employer. my new  employer is debatedly the largest IT company, and the most trusted IT brand (by 2010 brand ranking). because of my freakishly connected-neediness that i have learned, loved and grown accustomed, i require all my future employers to have this accessibility, mobility. however, employer does not own the #1 email and collaboration tooling that i have been using for the last 7 years of my career. not only that, it has imposed strict and at times over the top security to mobile accessibility. blackberry. really, over the top. i really don’t like blackberry, i find it pretentious and unnecessary, but i don’t have a choice. either join the bandwagon or no dice. halfheartedly i bought my first bb (short for blackberry), a pearly white bb bold 9700. it was beautiful. the way its pearl white cover glistens against the ray of the the sun giving off pinkish grey tones, the distinct white leather cover at the back with its silver logo, the soft yet sturdy portrait qwerty keyboard that allows me to type 60 words per minute. it wasn’t only beautiful, it was heavenly.

before i owned one, i don’t get why bb users, hang on to their bb even how busted and ruggedly deteriorated the case is. how can i understand, i’m not a bb user. but you see, once you own one, you’ll develop a love affair not to bb, but to your bb. you’ll get to know it intimately. every inch of it, the softness of the keys as you use it, the shortcuts you made and the applications you downloaded and the customization you did. even though at a distance that they may look all the same, they are not. they have their own kinks and persona. my white bb loves to show off and change its theme on a daily basis, but would stick to the theme of will and grace at its ringing tone, exactly 33 seconds, 3 seconds over the standard length of a ring tone. it loves to catch people’s attention by just being its pearly white self.

but alas, after a 7 month love affair, i lost my white bb bold. i left it in a cab in broad daylight. i was devasted. my contacts, text messages, my bb messenger! good thing i made a habbit of backing up my  macbook pro when it started going weird on me, so i made backups of my bb as well. bb messenger also syncs to your remote email.  i decide to get the new bb torch in black. it’s a good phone but fails in comparison to my white bb. i guess there’s no comparison to your first love. so much so that i lost this phone 6 days after i bought it, on holy wednesday. i lost it at the restroom near the coffee bean and tea leaf in 313 somerset at orchard road, singapore. i  almost cried. not because i lost it together with my credit cards, atms and almost us$2,000 in cash. i almost cried because i hate the feeling that i lost it because of how stupid i am. shit happens i know, but this shit happens a lot to me. by black saturday, i bought a red bb torch back in manila. i’m not worried with my contact list and what not, i know it’s safely in the cloud where my bb automatically syncs and backup. i just need to activate it. but i do worry about losing this one yet again. i have terrible luck with mobile phones…

i still miss my white bb bold. wherever you may be, i hope you miss me too.

ps. smart infinity changed my number. if you want to get in touch, send me a message though email.

since when did aliens carry man-purse? something is wrong here. i know aliens are far intelligent, are they now more fashion forward? pushing the envelope people…

but one burger i’d gladly pay a premium is mcdo’s angus burger. i love this burger just because it’s really good. the onions for one is really fresh and the bacon is just the way i wanted, extra crispy. i ordered it at a drive thru on our way home from tyson, got lost a couple of exits, got home after an hour, answered emails and after a total 2.5hours, the burger is still good! that’s good burger…

but sorry, it’s not available in manila.

listening to:
We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things. – Jason Mraz : The Dynamo Of Volition

and then this project pulled me back to reality that all that shines is not gold. i have put myself to a year and a half worth of pain and suffering. missed birthdays. missed weddings. and no holidays. i love my job. i love my job. i love my job…

gonna leave you guys for a while, just for 10 days. i need to be somewhere for work. will try to post pictures, but it’s cold there. nothing nice to take pictures of, except the fall fashion. hopefully this place i’m flying to dresses. they better, nothing better to do there…

no corporate card. this would be interesting… ]]> http://friedreich.com.ph/2009/10/20190/feed/ 4 http://friedreich.com.ph/2009/10/my-last-week/ http://friedreich.com.ph/2009/10/my-last-week/#comments Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:55:25 +0000 friedreich rommel delos santos http://friedreich.com.ph/2009/10/my-last-week/ i still am not a 100%.

this is my left hand at st. lukes. although i was really, really sick (registering 40  celsius), i instructed driver to bring me to st .lukes rather than ust hospital that is just across the street. they quickly helped me out, just when i opened the car door, a nurse was waiting with a wheelchair to wheel me inside the hospital. that’s what i call good service. stayed at the e.r. for a good 24 hours but the hospital is so full they still can’t move me to a room. how come everyone’s sick? i can’t have my moment, not even being sick. i decided to move to a different hospital…

to ust. the worst kind of hospital if you ask me. poor service and poor facilities. i wonder how they became an accredited hospital in the first place. the time i got in ust, i stayed in their er, no one was attending to me. no one took my temperature, blood pressure nor  a quick history. i was lying in their er bed for 3 hours, shriveled but no one even offered a blanket. just about the 4th hour, an attending physician showed up and admitted me at the hospital. just like that, no questions. well just one, if i want to be admitted.  ust doctors put the iv at my right hand since my left had been iv-ed at st lukes.

but my rounds of meds at the hospital fried my veins, very very strong and painful antibiotics 3x a day and liberal dosage of 3 kinds of meds for my fever, equally painful. all of which are cranked up my iv like a cocktail drink. by thursday my veins have turned in mush so they need to put another iv on my left hand. all the, my 3 doctors just show up, stethoscope here and here, breathe deep here, and off they go. i pay them 1,000.00 to poke me with a stethoscope. not even if i faint at the very steps of ust, i will never go back to that hospital. although it’s only my 2nd confinement but i know how a hospital and its staff should be.

now i’m discharged, and the funny and at the same time sad thing is that i don’t agree with their findings. according to them i have an enflamed strep throat, layman’s term-tonsillitis. and i paid a hospital, a fellow-consultant cardiologist, fellow –consultant surgeon and a fellow eent php55,000.00 for a freaking tonsillitis. whoever thought that you need 3 fellows  to cure strep throat?

stacked in the corner of my room, along with my many unread books, they were begging me to attend to them. i finally picked it up, scatter everything on my bed and quickly sort it. it took a while; i was conflicted on how to sort it. is it per city? per country?  the year i travelled? subjects? since i only have 5 albums, i’m limited to a select few. i settled with us, architecture, flora and fauna, euro and down under and a separate album for portraits, mine and that i took.

i have another album, made from oak  (yes, the wood) and brown leaves/pages. that one i bought at istanbul. i still have to fill up the pages. i need to sit down and do all these things. then again, work tends to creep up.

yes, it’s true. pride had driven hitler to eradicate millions of jews, a cleansing of the lesser race. his pride have led into war, and death and famine. greed, as we all know has a power that consumes the best of everyone. very few people can resist the power of power, let alone pass it up.

so… are you willing to give up your ability to feel for the greater good? to love, feel pain, laugh, dance, jump. will you abandon yourself?

listening to:  
Breakaway – Kelly Clarkson : Beautiful Disaster (Live)

i sold some of my stuff at the recent cubao expo flea market. 2 viktor skinny jeans and 5 office clothes. quite a difficult feat for me, i can’t seem to say goodbye to my clothes since i still wear them. i don’t really keep clothes i don’t wear. but it’s for a good cause; a friend’s friend is having  health issues with her recently born baby. if there’s a good enough reason to part with my clothes, it would be this one. but the experience alone was worth it. i have this imaginary scene in my mind that i would talk to buyers and give them some style tips and coordinate a rocking look. in reality it was mayhem. the customers we had were from all walks of life, the ones that don’t know viktor and jimmy key and… to the point that i was even embarrassed to say how much i was asking for them, even though it was marked so low that ino would kill me. from a sea of 20, 50 and 80 pesos shirts, blouses and office clothes, mine was seen as snobbish and pretentious.

after much complaining and almost throwing it out of the window, i have a new/old replacement office laptop. from a super business and formal nc6320 laptop to a uber chic tx1213 tablet. it’s from my manager, his ‘old’ one. he doesn’t like it and got a new one. it’s good that he doesn’t like it and that i have a somewhat man-of-few-words relationship with my manager. me? man of few words? yeah right. i rarely complain to him, rarely needs guidance and most of the time i just talk to him to give updates and asks support for projects and pursuits i do. i’m loving the tablet, so cool that i can twist the display and do my presentation. my only complaint to this is the display clarity, quite poor under bright light conditions.

i told myself that i will not care for small things. no sweating for the small stuff. no talks of this scandal, stupid miss usa contestants, no politics. unless it holds the answer for renewable source of energy, poverty and world peace, they will not occupy a space in my blog. kapish?

oh, before i go, please stop wearing brightly colored clothes. no neons unless you want to go to the clubs, at night, circa early 90s. it’s too bright outside, too hot and too damn uncomfortable to see a mistake with legs and a purse walking towards you. do it for the people that are looking at you. if not that, do it for yourselves, if you wanna get laid.

i spent us$88 for the whole american idol songs at itunes. though i could have opted for torrent/limewire like most people do, i chose to do what is right. if i advocate anti-piracy, i should do so in every way possible. piracy applies to all not just struggling artists and art films. on the upside of things, itunes gave me a 10 song coupon for free.

listening to:  
American Idol 8 – Matt Giraud: Let’s Get It On

by the way, have you seen adam’s jacket with the shoulder accessories? so en vogue don’t you think? the exaggerated shoulders, the crocodile jacket, the hair, the guy-liner, is he coming out to america? afterall, it’s all done and over with. personally, i like his fashion sense as oppose to everyone else’s; everyone is boring, allison comes a far second to his absolute and distinct style. i know for a fact that he does his own styling. loving the style…

but singing and singing alone? i like kris’s. i gotten over with adam’s wailing/high note halfway through the season. not taking away anything from adam, he’s a good singer but it’s bordering to being showoff and over the top. with or without the idol trophy (which they started giving out this season), adam will sure have a recording contract. he’s a popular choice by mainstream america and would do well in the at the pop market. hell, i’ll buy his album if ever he’ll make one. kris on the other hand is about the emotion of the song which i appreciate. no big bands, no complicated lighting and stage, just stools, a guitar and a mic. his version of ain’t no sunshine evokes the pain of a man longing for the lost of his love. he did mess up the song no boundaries during the performance night but did justice on the finale results show.

so there. no more whining. just wait till their albums releases. i’m guessing this would be similar to season 5. were chris daughtry outsold everyone. who would ever buy/bought mr. no-neck-bone’s cd?

jose cuervo. last saturday, together with 2 drunkards, we drank 2 3L beer towers and 2 1L cuervo. ended up in subic, slept along the coastline of zambales, almost naked. i guess i was still drunk that sunday that i bought reese’s pieces and a dozen of wooden hangers. really, i bought hangers and i still don’t know why. well the up side of it is that i didn’t throw up. maybe our cinco de mayo binge drinking session prepped me or i just learned to appreciate alcohol on a different level.

listening to: 
On How Life Is – Macy Gray : I Try

where i am living, the holy week starting from palm sunday till easter sunday is marked by a loud, out of tune, bad acoustics, cheap ass loud speakers, reading of the passion of Christ. i am not living in the province, actually in the provinces, they don’t do this anymore. but for some archaic belief and bad judgment, they do this every year without consideration from other non-catholic, non-believer, sinners and atheist. in the city. at the heart of manila. it’s not that they are preaching the catholic faith in loud speakers, it’s the loud speakers that annoys me. why the loud speakers? why? at least the mormons knocks door to door like the electrolux man, and they’re hot in their white short sleeved shirt and tie. by the way, unless you’re a mormon doing the rounds, please don’t wear short sleeved shirt and a tie. i remember one time when i was watching dvd in surround sound, the baranggay tanod came knocking at my door telling me to pipe it down. yet they are not doing anything about that annoying reading, it’s not even in 5.1 dts…

so until easter, i am calling shangrila edsa as my home. it’s cheaper than makati and they gave me a  free weekend stay for two. now i need to get back to work and my summer reading.

listening to:
Feels Like Home – Norah Jones : What Am I To You?

but… i have, lately, grown to appreciate the importance of the organizer/journal. not the dear diary type, the one you use professionally. i’ve been lugging around my planner/journal in all my meetings, jotting down notes and putting in my calendar for the month, including my personal schedules. although outlook is a wonderful tool and it really helps you to organize your calendar, there is still something extra special  when you scribble on a piece of paper. writing it down instead of typing makes it more important, more special. maybe it’s the human factor; it’s more personal, more relatable, that you see your notes and things to do in something more accessible and warm compared to a laptop or pda. and writing it on a paper helps me think. supposedly there’s no difference typing and writing it, but for some freaky reason i think more when i write it down. even in the middle of writing, i think and come up with something, it may not be a stroke of genius but you’ll never know.

it may look hypocritical, lobbying around to save mother earth while consuming paper equaling to a 20th of a full grown tree plus toxic dyes  (ink). the least that i can do is to consciously  choose recycled papers and non-toxic materials. and there are a lot of choices out there! recycling, specifically recycled paper, is so in right now. i hope it’s because we are becoming more environmentally conscious in how we live. but for whatever reasons, we are using these recyclables and we are helping to save mother earth. so no moleskin for me unless they make one using recycled paper.

visit http://wearewhatwedo.org to learn how you can do your share to help this piece of rock we call home. here, here for lesser carbon footprint!

listening to:
Drive – Incubus : Drive

1.)  my goal in life is to get fat. not obesely fat, simply fat.

2.) i make sure that my belt compliments my shoes.

3.) i don’t take a bath on sundays, unless i have to go out.

4.) my default tv station is channel 41, nat geo.

5.) frugal is an adjective you can’t use to describe me.

6.) to the surprise of some, i don’t have any night time ritual; at most, i wash my face.

7.) i just recently bought my first pair of white leather shoes.

8.)  big coke fan.

9.) i’m the most sociable antisocial.

10.) just developed an allergy to cotton polyester. i’m allergic to strawberries and carrots too.

11.) i am afraid of jollibee.

12.) the sound of waves crashing to a rocky shore calms me.

13.) i want to visit the ancient ruins of the incas before i die.

14.) given the choice, i want to live in melbourne, australia.

15.) i secretly love the color blue.

16.) big-time lactose intolerant.

17.) lucky me pancit canton addict.

18.) i own 45 pairs of leather shoes, 7 sneakers, 3 boots and 2 rubber shoes.

19.) the only time i cook is if you have a good and complete kitchen, with a counter top.

20.) i don’t eat veggies except green leafy ones.

21.) rocky is an experiment if i can raise a child on my own. so far, i’m failing.

22.) i am a bully growing up.

23.) i know how to drive, but don’t like to.

24.) most of my free time is spent at home, with rocky, ordering food online and watching tv.

25.) i am obsess with my hair.

i’m tagging pepe, giles, dahon and kat.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

the city is undergoing an overhaul even in the onset of winter chills; though technically there’s no winter in miami but it’s getting cold like tagaytay-december-cold. federal us is not yet a member of the kyoto protocol but cities/state have made the effort to join and the state of florida, city of miami is re-energizing its commitment to limit its carbon emission in accordance to the annex I and II of the protocol.  they are planting more trees , as if there aren’t enough palm trees in palm beach (redundant). sections of the downtown area is under construction, and the once paved road will be redone to include a tree in the midst of. i wanna hug it before i go.

i hope obama takes a look at the membership of the us in the protocol, it’s high time to federalize efforts in saving mother earth.

i’ve packed very light, just 1 big luggage. i was planning for just a hand carry, but it’s winter and i’ll pass by snow covered streets of new york. so it’s miami, new york, san francisco, vegas then los angeles. hopefully that 1 big luggage have enough space to last me for a month. i’m looking forward to walking rocky in the central park, snow and all; i’ve always loved central park and now i have more reasons to love it even more. next post, most probably in detroit, 5 hour layover. thank god for airport lounge.

listening to:
We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. – Jason Mraz: Butterfly