Unlike last season’s finale, I kinda “liked” this one better. It’s not emotionally stressing, everything seems normal, and has fewer “shock whacks” in it. So far, next to Supernatural season 2 finale (which IMO is the best I’ve seen during the “Finale Fever”), it’s the best finale I’ve seen.

Warning: Spoilers ahead

At the beginning of the episode, we’re being introduced to a “The Guardian” scene, wherein a rescuer risks his life for a Cuban native. This scene was so cinematic, given the CG, very natural cinematography (got to love those camera movements), it’s very hard to compare it with other House MD intros. And guess what, at the end of this sequence, we find out that House is so popular his name has reached Cuba, and the man being rescued risked his life, crossed the Carribbean (the “ocean”, as Dr. Wilson suggested) just to see Dr. House. How’s that for an intro?

The middle part is very House-like. Differentials for a patient with no medical records (they were lost from the first scene), arguing with Wilson and Cuddy, all seems “normal” until you get to the point where Chase is being fired by House. For the entire episode we were waiting for a hint that House would “unfire” (as Dr. Cuddy suggested) Chase, but we didn’t come to that point. “Sayang”. I mean we’ve been used with Chase being the kiss-ass doctor, and the love interest for Dr. Cameron, so firing Chase really felt like a bad idea.

As for Dr. Foreman resigning, we actually don’t care. We hated Foreman from the beginning, which ironically, makes him an asset for the series. I really liked his jerk / ass-like acting from season 2 (the 2-part “Euphoria” episode, to be exact), but it kinda faded in season 3 because he’s been the normal jerk, and wasn’t that “visible” in the series for the entire season (more memorable this season was Tritter, I hate him so much I don’t want to talk about him here. He deserves a separate post). House was right, we, as the audience shouldn’t really expect the three of them to be intact for three years, given the fact that House is an ass.

Then we come to scenes that I really, somehow liked. Contrary to popular beliefs, House believes in God. He just doesn’t see Him the way we Christians do (am not a devout Catholic, BTW). He treats God as an arch-enemy, and in this episode, House somehow felt like being cheated by God. First, a woman’s heart stops, but was still able to talk. Second, the woman was declared dead, and was undergoing bypass just to keep her blood flowing, when suddenly, after letting go of the bypass machine, the woman’s heart is active again. I have to show this picture for me to tell you how cheated he felt at that time (House doesn’t believe in miracles).

Anyway, I didn’t like the ending, like I didn’t like it because I hate over-the-board endings. For starters, everyone was gone except for Cameron. We (the Pikitchen team) were still expecting House to bring Chase back, but to no avail, Cameron gave her resignation letter. Like, what the @!#!^?!? We might get hooked to wait for next season, but this is ridiculous, if not even realistic. Three doctors going out at the same time? C’mon!

Anyway. I still like House MD. The right formula for me, I guess. And for sure, I’ll be watching the first episode of season 4.

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I’m freakin’ balding. And I’m 23.

Could it be work? It shouldn’t be because I had less hair back when I was in college. I mean, look at my “tablecloth-clothed” picture. When I took that picture, I asked my adviser if I could just comb a bit (it was around 1AM, I think). I’m really camera shy. But my adviser said there won’t be any changes, and I didn’t ask why. It must be the thinning forehead or something. But when I saw this picture on our lab’s site, I promised to myself that if I go finish my degree and work, I’ll pamper my self, giving more attention to hair. I’ve had this look until I dropped college and found work. From that point on, I bought nice-looking clothes, St. Ives facial wash, a small bottle of Minoxidil, and ate a lot, realizing at that time I was very skinny.

 From this point on, I became more sociable. Always beaming a smile to everyone, and feeling younger. It felt like evolution at its finest and latest. I met girls, became more confident, and chatty. In reality, I talk a lot, and that potential took off when I saw this portrait of mine from my Macbook.

But my genes failed me once again. The more I engage myself to work, the more I see hairstrands blocking the bathroom’s drain. I just can’t accept it. WHY ME?!?!

My latest look somehow resembles my picture in the banner. Fat and balding. It’s like evolution reversing back to turtles. I hate to be vain, but I need to at least look presentable. I just don’t want the way I look right now. You may say to me, “Stop whining and start acting.” My alibi somehow has “work”, “no money”, and “busy” in it. Go figure.

Can you give me advice so I could catch up with Darwin? I feel very cro-magnon these days.

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(“Mapilit” means persuasive in Tagalog)

“Totoong tao” literally means “real person” in Tagalog, but recently (especially in Philippine showbiz), this phrase is being coined to people who are always helpful, supportive, and always there to give a helping hand.

I kinda asked myself lately (when I read a twitter status thanking the net for having “real people” in it) , is there a true-er meaning for this? If you’re a jerk or a relationships crasher, would you consider yourself a “real person”? If you tried to lie to people and make them unknowing of your bad traits, is that considered being “real”?

In my opinion, there’s no such thing as “unreal” as being a person. It’s just how people perceive a person is, if they want to accept the person as he / she is or not. Much like denying the truth about the people surrounding or close to them. Heck, I would even consider people rejecting the truth about some people as “unreal”, if I’m allowed to define the word’s context. It doesn’t really matter if you like or dislike a person, just don’t force them to go inside your reality. My principle is that if they don’t follow your rules, walk away, and consider their traits their reality (whether good or bad, but as I said, being naughty or nice is all relative).

So, am I a real person? Or am I a “real person”? Answer is: I don’t care. I live my life, with all the miseries attached, whatever nuisances or annoyances should block my way. I should start saying, “I don’t need your approval”, and that’s reality.

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For my IM buddies out there, in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been dodging /ignoring all your IMs because I’m super busy with finishing Bandwagon DIY, or maybe because I’m looking for an alibi for I haven’t been any friendlier these days. One person told me it’s really bad because it’s like not caring at all about my friend’s whereabouts or my own social life.

It’s pretty amazing that we’re launching Bandwagon for the second time on my second anniversary in Xackup. I still remember my first, ever, day of work (Xackup is my first job), and I used to call Terence with “sirs” and “po”. Back then, I had a bundle of close friends and co-hackers (if I could call myself a hacker, but it can’t be that way), and back then, I was so miserable I was in the brink of, well, getting into an early life’s climax. I’m not saying I’m better now, but I have to tell you guys, a lot has changed since those innocent, yet miserable days.

For starters, I’m pretty alone these days, except for the fact that I’m with my workmates here in Xackup, and I have my family to whom I get all motivations for life. I always find a way to pick up fights with people around me, reason enough for me to just walk away and not care if he / she was hurt or I was hurt. A previous friend of mine (boy, I have lots of “previous friends” these days) showed me that people can even sacrifice friendships just to prove their principle’s points. I tried doing it, but he must really have good connections and charisma to still end up with more people around him. It just doesn’t apply for me. At least it worked for me, on the work side of things. Less friends, “less annoyances”.

Anyway, I’m still miserable. It’s not work that’s making me miserable. I’m just a pessimistic guy. I don’t expect much from the world. I even expect less from it. I guess what keeps me going is my family, my dream, and my baby (Bandwagon). I guess my “friendly days” are over…

Due on Deux.

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Well, it’s not that I haven’t been technical for the past few weeks / days (trust me, I eat code for breakfast). It’s just that I can’t find anything worth posting here, unless I know that “something” from head to foot.

I haven’t been doing Linux development since January.  Though I’m doing mac programming for almost two years, I can’t say if I’m that worthy for posting Obj-C or Cocoa stuff. I’m losing confidence with the skills I’m having right now, unlike when I was in college. I brag about using JBoss and JPOX, configuring SVN repositories and Eclipse development environments, anything Java-Linux…

Am I losing my edge? Is this the curse of specializing? I don’t feel right now that god-like feeling that I had back then. Though, it must be a good thing because I am now aware of my limitations, my domain, and my territory.

Or it must be the “I’m a college dropout and I’m a big drama king because I failed college” kind of thing.

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I’ve been a fan of Heroes since episode 1. I love the way it uses CGI and special effects in the series, and the mystery behind the story is one of the factors that hooked me up a lot. But this time, I’ll say I’m sooo disappointed with the way the Finale has turned out to be.

Disclaimer: If you don’t want to read spoilers here, just ignore this post.

First of all, too much cheesy lines. I mean we’ve been over the “most powerful thing is love” line and other derivatives, like in movies and soap operas (Encantadia and Darna, whatever), and I don’t really get the way they wrote it. I mean they could always say it as is, as direct as rewording the entire idea. But at least the writers could’ve tried other techniques or dialogue for that.

Second is THE fight scene. Adrenaline rushed when Niki Saunders came in and helped Peter Petrelli, but that was like a few seconds until she stopped and her son told her to help him with DL. “Sayang”. Another thing was that Hiro Nakamura just spent a few seconds before “finishing off” Sylar. I was expecting a very good martial arts display, I mean that was the reason for the “dance number” in episode 22, right? Lastly, Peter was very pathetic considering he had the powers absorbed from almost everyone. Again, “sayang”.

Third is the flow of events. I mean, there was too much talking and babbling at the first part of the finale. Everyone was expecting a good fight but you should go through 75% of “we already know that” or “we already figured it out” scenes. So much waste of time. I mean, it’s OK for me to wait for 5 months for a finale so beautiful it would be worthy for every fans’ reviews.

Anyway. This must be too short, but at least it highlighted my disappointment because I was expecting something for the finale.

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For starters, I should be wearing glasses right now. Back then in college, my eyes were graded 250-275 (dunno which one’s for the left or the right eye). A friend told me it was high enough for me to be unable to read stuff, like pocketbooks, novels, even our local newspaper. I said to him, I still see the world, it’s just that I tend to wink or blink or be blinded by very bright colors.

And then comes the period when I spend more time in the internet (in front of a computer, of course) than even being at home or even spending time sleeping. Besides work, I go blog-hopping so I’m kinda annoyed with blogs having very neon or very fruity colors. “Wala lang”. Should those colors be my morning sunshine? Is it something to do with how happy they are (… they now have their own site)? Should I join their party?

Add to that the clutter. Most sites tend to distract readers because their posts’ fonts are so small, patched with gazillions of ads and buttons and badges, like the “Smokey Mountain Song Costume” we wore when I was in elementary. I mean I hope people could make simpler blogs, and more descriptive blogrolls (they just show names…). Most of all, NO BRIGHT COLORS. I mean imagine reading a white 8-pixel font with a bright pink background. Also, stop those cyclic moving stuff (marquee, flash, GIF animations). Give sentences space to breathe. The more the colors and “looks” are more relaxed, the more relaxed the mind will be when reading your blogs.

(Of course you may say, “Stop ranting and stop bitching about stuff”. You always have the close button somewhere…)

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Trust me, I was screaming my heart out when I found out that the hosting service for my previous site went loco. I mean, they closed the account (I have a “roommate” in the server) because of delayed payments. I mean, what the hell?!?

Anyway, I haven’t salvaged any article, image, not even a full sentence from my old site (except my novel chapters). I was really devastated, and I wasn’t able to use Google’s cached pages of my site. I can’t even recover my Ben-Demar jokes from archive.org! #$@#!

Add to that the pressure I had with my work these past few months (it started last March when we launched beta of our product), so I really missed a lot from possible sources for data recovery.

Lesson I learned from this: regular backups. I mean, I came from a backup company and it’s quite ironic that I don’t back stuff up that’s important to me (well, it’s been my prerogative to make backups of my source code for Bandwagon, but still, I tend to forget or become lazy to back my photos, documents, blog entries and sites up). Good thing Wordpress has a way to backup the database and automatically email or save the dump. I just have to zip my site up so I could preserve this customized layout I’m using here.

Anyway, I hope I could still have the courage and time to post my novel chapters here, and write more here. It seems that I am writing lits more often (in my “Bella“) lately than when I was in the lab writing code.

It must be the “Tropical Depression” days…

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(For those who don’t know, “Adik” is the Lingua Franca word for, well, “Addict”)

I’ve been a TV Addict, since, well, I was a kid. I’ve watched Baywatch since I was in kindergarten, watched Bev Hills while fantasizing Andrea and Brenda, savored good scenes in McGyver, and in the afternoon, got hooked with Garfield. And yeah, I first learned English by watching these shows, considering in our place, English is the “elite” language.

Anyway, I’m starting a series of “series reviews”, just for the fun of sharing the experience of watching them. Hope it helps and I’m really hoping for your responses. It’s kinda hard to review shows because I have to spend an hour or more every day just to really cover the entire season (Anyway, I can finish an entire season for one whole day, but it still sucks if you have nothing to do but watch episodes).

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English words that’ll split your mind into two…

• The process of adding mustard onto something: Mustardation.
• The philosophy for being passionate in an organization or a group: Orgism
• The cyclic movement of spinning a jack for lifting a car: Jackulation
• Underground work or profession, usually for hangmen or illegal syndicates: Low job

Can you give more?

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