With all the iPhone hype invading the internet, I was wondering how f*cked up our telecommunications service here in the Philippines is. First off, we always get these intermittent DSL connections, considering they shouldn’t be taking up more than a few days. I had an experience before with Bayantel when we had a storm. It was 1 week when all of our webside tasks were stalled, and we were losing credibility or money just because of that. Another one was last January. We had this major DSL problem with PLDT and they were claiming it was Metro-wide. We didn’t believe them because in Marikina, there’s internet connection. That took more than a week, at least. In addition to these failures for service, I recently had a bundled Bayantel package application (DSL with phone installed) which lasted for more than two weeks. Two freakin’ weeks, and their lame excuse was that they don’t have modems in their warehouses. I mean come on! Didn’t they pre-ordered for more? Do they just order by batches and wait until the last modem is deployed until they ship new modems? Still, I don’t think shipping would take more than two weeks! I should be saying this is hilarious, but this is more insulting than hilarious! We pre-paid 2k for the connection, and what we got within those two and a half weeks were silly alibis and loss of sanity.

And then lately, we had SPAM calls from our phone provider here in PiKicthen. Imagine, you’re short of sleep, and you work in the night and dawn. You would want some good sleep while your boss is also sleeping (during the day). Then suddenly, the phone rings endlessly, like it felt forever until you pick up the handset, talk to the person on the opposite line, and put the handset back to its cradle. And when you’re in the moment of picking the handset up, you’ll hear Tessie Tomas, Mickey Ferriols, or some random girl promoting PLDT products. Like what the hell!?! Our boss doesn’t pay phone and internet bills just to receive this crap! Don’t they get their messages sent to us over Inquirer.net, billboards, or even comfort room stickers? I mean not taking into account our bad sleeping habits, don’t these messed up heads think that by just ringing our phone wastes our time talking with colleagues or customers, sanity for hearing the annoying phone ring, and concentration over work? This is way more than insulting!

PLDT is the worst company ever built here in the Philippines when it comes to giving service to their customers. Their long lines for simply paying bills is a classic. The way their agents / cashiers / customer relations people talk with their customers felt like insulting (think they are smarter than us and we are wasting their time). Customer complaint response takes eons before getting satisfaction. “Satisfaction guaranteed!” was never in their mottoes. Don’t we pay them not only for the lines but for the good approach we all expect from them? What good can a business do if they do no good to their customers? Worse than that, what good can a company / monopoly do if they do harm to customers?

It’s like paying the bully just to prevent them from hitting you.

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Just saw this article this morning, and it quite surprised me: Firm allows local job hunters to post video resumes.

OK, first off, the name is sooooper[sic] lame. Vidres? It would’ve been a good name for a “video address” site (I don’t exactly know how such a thing might exist, though). But… (chuckles), anyway.

Second, according to the article, it’s supposed to cut the time for interviews and all the shebang done for recruiting. Hmm… Counter-arguments would be: (1) which boss will spend his night looking at the internet just to hire some pleasantly rehearsed video? If I were a boss, I would rather see the applicant in action, and tested against the randomness of his / her nature of work. Well, this could work for VJ’s or artists, but that’s it. (2) If I were a boss, being attentive, interactive, prompt, and resourceful would be key features of the people I should be hiring. I won’t be basing my judgment from some random video which scratches the applicant’s capability from a nutshell. Besides, time spent interviewing applicants would be better than the same time spent downloading the videos, watching them, and then doing a re-interview. (3) If I were an applicant, wouldn’t it be better if I’d get the service for free? I was thinking, why not create a social networking site for possible applicants, and then have their resumes available in the net, and if a sample video is an ultimate requirement, why not use youtube for that and link through the domain. I’d rather do fast youtube than some random service that does just that for a price (100 pesos for three months isn’t justifiable, still).

I’m not saying doing interviews should evolve but not be involved in Web 2.0 traffic. It’s just that some old stuff are pretty tested and even more useful than some “useless” invention. Normal webdevs could even make out a concept that does this, for free, without forgetting that the site should make money.

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Terence once suggested me a book by Paolo Coelho, and it’s entitled “The Alchemist”. This is not the first time I’ve heard about the book. Back in college, Gabby (Gabriel Israel David), a friend of mine, was reading the book while we were doing thesis / enrollment chores. He told me it was a very good book, and if not for me being busy during that time (I was participating in our thesis, Halalan, and a side job), I could’ve taken the time reading it.

Anyways, even though I’m busy at work, I still find time to watch TV shows, and, since it’s the series break in the US this month, read articles and books. And so I read the book, and it really felt like reading “The Little Prince” for the first time. It got me hooked, and I really liked the philosophies behind it. You’ve got to read it yourself. I won’t even mention anything inside the book (which makes this post kinda pointless). And like what Terence said, it somehow hardened our principles in life, about being passionate and focused in following our dreams.

Though I don’t like the ending. It was a bit cliche.

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I dunno if I’m going to review last week’s episode of “Kyle”. It was too “un-reviewable”. Still, I find last week’s episode “essential” for character buildup in preparation of what should happen next, but I missed the whole “powerful script” thing last week. I should’ve rated it a 6 or a 7 (out of 10), but it was just un-postable.

Which leads me to this post. Aside rom having no posts for the past few days, I wanted to write this post to show you how good this episode is. I mean, Smallville-ish plot aside, I love the episode because Lori shined in this one, together with the whole Charlie-cheats-on-Amanda thing. I thought it won’t be finalized until, say, episode 11 of season 2, but I was cheering here at home how the “revelation” went on.

First off, I was laughing my heart out with the “revirginization” thing introduced in this episode. All in this episode is about “Mind over Matter” and “being labeled” (which I totally disagree with how it was explained on the Kyle-ism at the episode’s end), and the “revirginization” concept was the funniest but most straightforward situation you could come up for a teen / family series. It wasn’t funny because of the “girl shebang” idea, but because how they (with Hillary) tried being virgins (having Amanda as their primary consultant) was really hilarious, but totally entertaining. Again, the power of “Kyle” is in the script, and Lori, being one of the contributors of good dialogues in the series, had her shining moment (acting-wise and script-wise) with this episode. Though I find the middle part a bit dragging with all these cliches of two-timer heartthrob wannabees, and being extraordinary.

Though I can’t say anything more for this episode, I still believe this is one of the strongest chapters of “Kyle”, aside from the fact that there were three big events / turning points happening for the entire season (the “break up”, the “other break up” which I was cheering on, and the whole “I’m Superman” or “I’m supernatural” crap). I have to say, this one has set me free (at least for an hour) from backaches and stresses of this week’s Bandwagon showstoppers.

I also have to disagree about the whole concept of being labeled. The episode’s events were even contradicting. People are being labeled at some point, and may live up for that branding, but never will that label stay for the rest of their lives. Things and shit happen in people’s lives, and whatever we should be, I’m sure we’re not one big ass permanent brand of paint or tweezers, but a whole grocery of goods and “spoiled goods”.

All in all, this episiode gets my 8 stars.

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For those who can’t afford to pay for S3 storage bills every month, here’s our answer: Bandwagon iTunes Backup client for FTP. All you need to have is:

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4. iTunes library (massive data from iTunes!)
5. Mac OS X Tiger

If you guys would like to test it out, we have a 30-day trial for both S3 and FTP clients.

Buy Bandwagon!

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I’ve heard about America’s Got Talent last year, and I said to myself it just seemed as if it was a “30 seconds of fame” ripoff. Considering the judges weren’t that “credible”.

But latey, YouTube has been infested with its sister show, Britain’s Got Talent. With the three judges having very credible backgrounds for judging talent (Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, and Piers Morgan), I’d say it’d be tough judging for the wannabes. And they really were tough, straightforward, and prevents to beat around the bush (not the likes of Paula Abdul). The show has also proven that from people from normal walks of life lives great talent that’s just so hidden, because, well, they were too normal.

Take for example, its winner: Paul Potts (reminded me of the Cambodian leader Pol Pot).

If you saw the first episode, most likely, upon seeing him staring blankly in front of a massive audience, you’ll burst into laughing, as if saying “What the hell is this guy doing?”, until you hear him singing.I tell you guys, everytime I hear him sing, and rewind his piece over and over again, I get goosebumps and hair-raising moments. I just can’t take away the thought that he was just a normal guy.

What’s good with this talent competition is it has very raw talent (raw like, why the hell these guys didn’t get a contract or something?), very real people, coy judges, and a lot of humor that comes out naturally (I even find myself clapping my hands in front of the laptop by just hearing the boy comedian talk with the judges). Not to mention its very fast pacing, for it only lasted for a week (which leaves me craving for more). Forget about the prizes, the semifinalists might even get offers for showbiz! I would love to see talent in TV or stage other than singing and dancing (got to love those acrobalance and metal grinding act).

I forgot to mention that the judges were the best assembled ever for a talent competition. No ifs, no buts. They just simply sound credible free from having stupid judgments. It just makes me wait craving for next season.

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A few shots of people I know. They really are great posers, if you know what I mean.

Greg Bautista, now part of the PiKitchen Family

Jayson Gallardo, My Brother

My Mom

Muninggay (moon-eeng-guy), Our Dirty, Slutty Cat

Gabeii, My Second Cousin

Tito Ronnie, My Uncle’s Friend (and yes, it’s a pan on his head)

More shots in my Picasa Album.

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These are products of my third and fourth days using the very first camera I’ve ever owned, shooting interesting sites in Makati City. You’ll notice that most of them are still a bit shaky (in Tagalog, that’s being pasmado). Also, if you go to my Picasa Album, I have three shots with the “walking man” being my subject. I guess it’s my way of saying I want to go forward, always in the sidewalk, and alone, which is kinda sad. The “walking man” in the pictures is Jolorence Santos (pronounced as Holorens). It just happens that he always walks in front of me.

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Recently, Terence suggested to me to do a quick Applescript to transfer all his images / photos from Desktop (where Firefox or Safari places its download stuff) to iPhoto. Here is the script:

Desktop to iPhoto Applescript

Enjoy!

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For the past few weeks, I was planning to buy either a DivX player, a DivX Hard Drive, a camera phone, or a digital camera (emphasis on or). This will be the first time I’m going to buy something big solely for myself. Well, I bought computers before, but they weren’t really solely for me (my brothers share it with me). I never bought a cellphone (always provided by the company).

Anyway, the first thing that I really want to buy is a digital camera. Ever since college, I really wanted to have one. I like “stealing souls” from each shots, if you know what I mean.

But saving for such gadgets was really hard for me (if you know me, you don’t need to ask why ), considering I owe a very wonderful person as much as a full tuition fee (Hi *******. I haven’t forgotten, but I’m still struggling with family matters. But this year, please do wait for it). Then I told myself, why not the cheaper DivX player? Surely that could be a good one to invest on…

Until I saw our 1-year old DVD player.

A 1cm x 3 mm logo became the biggest surprise of the week. Our 1-year old Sony DVD Player bought by our Dad in Saudi is also a DivX player! How I failed to notice it is still a mystery, but I always had this impression that it was just an expensive excuse for playing “Titanic” 5 times for the “first time”.

Lesson learned: Don’t judge the DVD Player. It’s not a book (a rewording of Melanie Marquez’ famous quote).

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