This is a simple blog from a simple blogger with EXTRAORDINARY TRANSFORMATIONS!!!

These are all ecompassing procedures that help redefined the whole me:

1.  Tattoo to Taboo

                  Before                                                                After

          Last February '09 I got myself tattooed to prove my loyalty to my (ex) girlfriend but whoosh, just a few months we ended up separate ways. Truly, when you're at the height of your emotions, your sanity is quite distorted. So be very careful about having a partner’s initials or name or any love's symbol tattooed on your body (especially if you'll not end marrying her/him). A tattoo artist can easily do this for you but if you split up you have to somehow get rid of the tattoo. A good example of this is Angelina Jolie. This famous beauty is well known for loving tattoos but when she split from Billy Bob she had a lasting problem. If you should ever change your mind about a tattoo then an artist can incorporate what you have into another design. This takes a lot of skill but it is possible. This is why you must choose tattoo designs that reflect you. Make sure you really like the design and if you aren’t sure chat to your tattooist. He or she will have the experience to show you designs that may appeal to you. When you go to a tattoo artist leave some room for sensible advice from an expert on the subject. Just remember this: "HUWAG GUMAYA SA AKIN!"

2. Long to Short

                   Before                                       After

          Have you ever been called a “black sheep” or thought of yourself as one? While some wear that title in shame, there is a group that I belong to that wears it with pride. Since moving to Cebu, I’ve became a member of Cross Durana band. Yes, I was a long-haired drummist back then! I’ve often felt like a black sheep in my family since I joined my group. "Vices" was the vocabulary of our band as we are enjoying it as if it was a necessity. I was very proud then because I felt everything that I do was fantabulously satisfying. But, when my family explained and felt to me what I'm losing, there was a significant change that made me what and where  I am now, a successful owner of a local restobar. So with this sudden paradigm shift, I cut my hair short and of course, withdrew from my band.

3. Tan to Fair

         Before                                       After

          I've always wished for a fairer complexion. Not that I don't adore tan-skinned babes, it's just that for me the whiter you are the more georgeous you become. A flawless, even and bright skin tone gives you a youthful and vibrant appearance. Having a fairer complexion also means that people around you presumes that you are handling yourself well.

(Note to readers before reading this: HINDI PO AKO SIPSIP! ^_^)

Seriously, what have driven me to do whitening regimens was the Glutamax Contest (long before it was revised). I thought to myself that my decision of spending a couple of bucks on these whitening products would surely be rewarding. Considering the promo period (November 11, 2009 to February 11, 2010) of the unrevised contest mechanics, not only my skin will be fairer but as well as win awesome prizes (if lady luck is on my side )! It was not though an ebony to ivory transformation but with just a span of weeks, my skin became fairer. The results were awesomely fast! Now that's what I call genuis!

4. Auditing to Customer Service

                                    Before                         

                                     After

          I'm currently enjoying the work that I have now. I have control of everything (except for irate customers). Being in a customer service field is way too far from auditing world. There are no restricitions and of course higher compensation and countless benefits! I really find it fun! There are somehow downside being a night owl, but hey, as long as you enjoy your job then work wouldn't be that hard, right? I sooo love this job!!!

If you wanna be a winner, then GLUTAMAX is the right one for you!

G iving up is never a last resort

L oving yourself more is a second to none option

U nderstanding one's mindset tantamounts to self-improvement

T rust and believe in yourself, except your ego

A lways seek guidance and protection from Above

M eet universal satisfaction not expectation

A spire something that's probable , not just possible

X -is the right action for vices!

             GlutaMAX, See the Results!

Wanna join the contest? CLICK HERE.

Wanna know more about Glutamax? CLICK HERE AND HERE.

Currently feeling: accomplished

I almost forgot to post this, so now here it is.

It should have been a holiday for us last Saturday.

I feel kinda guilty and here’s why: I’m quite pleased that I’m no longer on the receiving end of the smack downs every single time. I really prefer to share the love. Plus, she sort of deserves it. This animal uses our entire house as one big toilet. We bought her yesterday.

We were told she was twelve weeks old, but once we had her home, it became apparent that she probably wasn’t much older than eight weeks. My mom instructed me to find a pup on the internet, so with the help of Mystique and her fast connection, I was able to find one.

I feel badly even admitting this, but the reason she ended up with us is because we had to let our amazing dog Toni go just days earlier. It was a bad bad day for us.

Toni was only seven years old and was truly the neatest animal to walk the earth. She was a survivor for sure. She was born with a congenital lung defect that we of course weren’t aware of when we bought her.

However, even if I could have gone back and done things differently (like chosen a different dog) and saved Php 35,000.00 plus in vet bills over her seven years of hard-fought-for life, I would not have done it. She had an amazing spirit.

Putting her to sleep was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my adult life. I had to do it because my siblings couldn’t.  We have an amazing vet who came out to my parent’s house. She wasn’t scared; she was a little confused, but not at all scared.

She passed in my arms with her beloved yellow ball by her side after playing fetch for an hour (even though she was not well at all).  Anyhow, now that I’m bawling my eyes out… (f**k my emo!)

We brought Toni and Jango (Roy’s doggie) home within one week of each other and they spent all of their lives as “best friends.” Seriously. They spooned at night. I’m not being funny. They spooned. They cuddled.

They did other things, but I’m not going to talk about it here because it’s not appropriate. ^_^ They loved each other so much it was almost a little strange.

I loved Toni ‘coz she was nineteen pounds of solid Daschund muscle. That dog could run like nobody’s business, even with one lung full of fluid and an enlarged heart. She had amazing determination.

We had her de-barked (I know it sounds horrible, but it was that bad) twice and both times, she worked at it until her vocal cords grew back. She ended up with the bark of a very large dog, which was hilarious.  Nobody told Toni what to do, period.

But it didn’t matter because she always just knew what to do.  Every morning, she wanted to go outside and refused to come in until the sun went down, at which time she demanded excessive amounts of cuddling and human attention.

I didn’t want an identical dog because that just weirded me out, but my family and I both wanted another athletic Daschund that looked different. So we (it was actually them) decided to get one.

I used to love bitch-es, but now…well… Yeah, I still love bitch-es! (Dirty reader minds! ^_*)

Swoosh!

Hayah!

I have been spending some time thinking about the peculiar qualities of my anime fandom. This is a topic I explore again and again (again, bored at work), but it interests me.

As an anime fan, over the years, I’ve slowly developed into a rare sort of breed: what I will term a “holistic” fan of anime. That doesn’t mean I like everything–my “dropped” list on GIL says otherwise–but, rather, it means I am capable of liking anything.

It’s somewhat hard for me to express in words sometimes, but it works something like this: I like most anything, provided it’s good. It’s a tautology, of course, so I have to expand it: if something can be objectively determined to be good at some element of storytelling, there’s a good chance I’ll like it.

I think the reason I can do this is because I approach anime not as 24 minute fun entertainment, but as a kind of hobby, an object to study and experience. There’s nothing wrong with watching anime purely for entertainment face value, but I can’t watch it that way anymore.

It certainly entertains me to a great extent, but I think I and Mystique connect with it (even if Mystique tends to overheat) on a different level than others do. This doesn’t necessarily make me a “better” fan than you, but it does make me different.

Partially, I think the reason I ended up becoming so interested in anime (to the near-exclusion of my previous hobby of sorts, reading) is because I “grew up” with it in a way. When I first got into anime it was, of course, just another entertainment medium.

However, at the same time, I was starting to really search out and expand my horizons, try new things and all that jazz. I think what happened was that, as my taste in stories matured, I gravitated more and more towards anime, as it always had the stories I wanted to see. I really can’t tell you why this is so, just that it is.

The whole flipping out about directors and direction and things, that’s more of a recent addition, a new level of depth to the activity I’ve enjoyed for five and a half years.

It seems somewhat anomalous for me to be as into peripheral parts of the whole anime subculture: if one of you walked into my room, you’d think I was Jesse Holan, given my rather tasteless (or is it?) room decor of Naruto posters, but somehow I manage to straddle the line between being someone who’s into anime for the cute guys, and someone who’s into anime for anything but the cute guys.

I think what happened is that I’ve morphed into that most elusive of beasts: an anime lover who watches anime for a multitude of reasons, both legitimate and less so.

The experience of being an anime fan is what drives me currently, it’s strangely addicting especially on the internet and time-consuming and all those other words. It’s gotten to the point where it’s impossible to conceive that I might one day not like anime–it defines my life, so why stop it?

This is somewhat of me rambling at the mouth again, but if I don’t put my thoughts into words they disappear into thin air, never to be seen again.

Read this post from Frannywanny:

By this time, we most probably have already attended half a dozen Christmas dinners and have officially thrown our diet out of the window. Dining out is always fun to do! This is a perfect opportunity for us to try out the different delicious dishes out there and of course, this is the time for us to unwind and bond with our loved ones.

One thing that keeps us from enjoying such gastronomic feast is ALLERGY. The type that will leave your itching and scratching with ugly red blotches simply by just taking in a food that is not received well by your body.

According to Wikipedia, the most common food allergies are shellfish, peanuts, fish, and eggs. One's allergy can range from mild itching to shortness of breath or even death. This is definitely one thing that we all should give importance too particularly when preparing a meal for your guests.

DELeting the Allergy!

With more and more people having different types of skin allergies, home care brands such as Del Hypoallergenic Fabric Softener made sure that their product is safe for both kids and adults. Its skin-friendly formula has a mild scent and does not contain any artificial colorants which leaves the skin safe from allergies.

WIN THIS!!!

To make your Christmas a happy, allergy-free one, we're giving away THREE limited edition DEL Hypoallergenic Kit!

The rules are simple..
1) Leave a comment and tell me your never-fail hypoallergenic food tip. Taking soy milk instead of the regular kind to prevent milk allergies.

2) Include your name and email address so I can immediately inform you as soon as we have chosen the three lucky readers!

3) Enjoy!!!

This contest will run from December 23 - December 31, 2009!

Click here to join!

Good luck to everyone! ^_^

Naa…

… not referring to those Hallmarks or Heaven City bookmarks.

There is a surge of new sites and tools to manage your bookmarks. One thing that’s important to know is that bookmarks evolve. Rarely will bookmarks from 5 years ago still be good.

For this purpose, social book marking has evolved into a communal tool. It’s interesting to mark you favorite sites, tag them and then see other peoples favorites sites. Tags are also the most important difference from normal bookmarks on your computer.

They make navigating through your bookmarks a snap, and if you add tags correctly, you will always find relevant sites. To top that off, since you’re using social book marking, you can see what other sites fall into the tag that you used.

Navigating the web is like exploring the deep sea or an alien planet. What you will find depends on how you search for it. Different tools will give you different results.

You will find interesting things depending on the engines you use. I enjoy using technorati, google blog search, as well as elbo.ws for mp3 searches.

One of the most popular is del.icio.us, simple easy to use. De.lirio.us has also appeared, as well as simpy.com, ma.gnolia.com, and spurl.net are others.

Blummy is a small app that runs directly on most web pages to store some links. There is also google bookmarks available.

Personally, I use del.icio.us and simpy.com I tried out blummy and super.c.ilio.us, who is a tagger of tagging sites. These sites also combine discussions and some also have online notebooks.

I also use google notebook to note interesting things, like interesting pages that I found on wikipedia. I also tend to use Microsoft office one note to note things that I might need offline, a sure treat to Mystique.

One note is cool, since when you copy and paste things, it includes images and formatting, which can be useful or annoying.

I found Kathy’s blog on Tabulas an interesting read last night for programming and maintaining blogs. Though I find her other blog a bit of drag, visually especially. It looks like a 5 year old designed it.

Sorry, but you have to be frank in these sorts of things. I mean, I would love to design my own blog, instead of using a theme from Tabulas. It’s in the works when I work out a hosting service.

Oh shoot!

My computer is sick and dying. A slow and painful death. It hums. It moans.  It groans. It hisses. It gurgles at me. Apparently this is the sound of Trish’s motherboard and hard drive simultaneously giving up.

I’ve had Trish since May 03, the summer before I left for college.  It’s survived.  I used it for three and half years of school, during which I’m sure a few droplets of SMB here or there caressed its insides or not. ^_^

I ferried it back and forth to the city when my job demanded it of me. It survived countless moves from Cebu back to Leyte for vacations or residency changes. It was the little engine that could.

This computer has always been on the verge of death. I don’t know how many times Kiko has reformatted this thing and slowly brought it back from the grave.

I’ve had to send it back to a service center in the middle of the semester my junior year so they could tinker with, never mind how many papers I’ve lost because hey, maybe it will just turn off mid-sentence.

I’ve brought it to computer centers, and even those morons from iRepair geeks have had the pleasure of trying to resuscitate this thing.

Oh, how nice. As I type this with Mystique, I hear and feel Trish struggling with life. It’s as though a rumble pack is attached to it.

Trish’s CD drive is completely broken. It’s missing essential programs and system operations. The fans don’t work so I use a cooling pad underneath it.

The screen can’t seem to give at least a good image, and the mechanism that dims the monitor had to be turned off since it would blink and go to black. I’ve seen the blue screen of death numerous times in the past two years.

Some days the internet access slows down so much that everything constantly times out. I can’t access the button functions on the side even if I control the volume.

It’s eaten through a pair of speakers. Sometimes it decides to disable my security programs and all of my usb ports are loose.

Did I mention the gurgling?

My Trish as a brand of efficiency and in terms of durability isn’t totally worthless, but their customer service, troubleshooting and warranties all are.

However this PC has definitely prevailed where other better treated and maintained machines have crumbled. Seriously, I have never taken good care of it.

The advice that David has given me, that you should all follow as well, is back up what is precious to you.

I’ve put most of the things I care about on my external hard drive already, and will continue to do so until my Mystique officially expires (I hope that doesn’t come too soon).

Share with me the experience of my bro’s computer’s impending doom! If my brother’s computer had an iPhone (or was a sentient being for that matter..) it would totally have the iDie app on it.

But unlike the zombies I love so much, when this thing dies again, I don’t think it be able to rise from its own digital ashes.

Protect…

…to prolong.

I have been fixing computers ever since I was a little kid. I learned out of necessity because I would accidentally break my parent’s computer, and subsequently have to fix it before they found out.

When I started fixing computers professionally, most of the problems that I would fix were completely preventable. One way to avoid problems with your computer is to keep your software up-to-date.

Now, don’t lie, there have been times, probably many, where you were using your computer and saw Windows Updates, or Mac’s Software Updater pop up, and you thought to yourself, “This is stupid, useless, and annoying,” and then you promptly clicked the “X” in the corner and resumed what you were doing.

That’s bad! Don’t do that.

Software updates fix flaws with your system. Some of these flaws make your system run slower because of mismanaged resources, some make your computer crash, and some allow viruses to take hold of your computer.

Many viruses take advantage of vulnerabilities in software. If those vulnerabilities are eliminated by an update, then the virus cannot take hold and ruin your computer.

That is why it is critically important that you keep all of your software up-to-date like what I’m doing with Mystique right now, updating AVG softwares, I mean lots of updating.

If you must be lazy about this, then please, at the very least, run the updates on your operating system (Windows, or Mac OS), and your web browser (Internet Explorer, Fire Fox, Safari, or Chrome), as these are the most important and vulnerable pieces of software on your computer.

If you are too busy when the notification pops up, do it later. But make sure you actually do it.

Now, with that said, if you run Windows Updates, and you see that you need to install an update called a “Service Pack” (especially Service Pack 2), STOP!

At this point you need to make sure that your computer is virus, malware, and spyware free (I will be discussing virus, malware, and spyware in future posts). If you install a Service Pack on a contaminated computer, you will probably get a bad installation and your computer will not work very well at all.

If you are uncertain about the health of your computer, hire a professional to make sure your computer is running properly.

Also, back up regularly (I will be writing a lot about backing up in future posts). If you have your data backed up, then you have nothing to worry about, because resorting your computers software is fairly easy. Recovering data is rather difficult.

So, keep your computer up-to-date, and as my techie buddy always said, “Practice safe computing.”

(Yawn)

A li’l bit sleepy though but hey I’m used to this nocturnal life….. and one more thing:

Last Tuesday, Uncle Fred  came over to Leyte for business, and I managed to meet up with him on that day. Managed to go out and had some fun together with him and and my dad and with me of course, my ever reliable Mystique.

Back then, he gave me a task to make a five page proposal for his business partner which by the way, today is the deadline. And with glittering eyes and without hesitation, I agreed. Sounds pretty easy huh?

Suddenly, oopps! I forgot! Now my problem is how can I resolve this?! I’m into customer service but this is one hell different situation.

Well,  I can tell you that if you’re at the height of your emotions every decision you make will be more likely easier said than done.  Once we get too caught up with the excitement or the demands of one task, everything else sometimes just dissolve in the background.

By the time you had just realized that  you’ve neglected an important aspect of your life, you’d be running around like a headless chicken. It’s always handy to have those who are willing and ready to knock some sense into you. I was planning to leave from work for just a day, besides my absence is well justified. Very well justified. But work for me is very significant and comes second to none.

Why? ‘Coz it’s wonderful to be going to work where I give and receive all the time. This is the reason why I almost never fall sick. Work is never too good to miss! But the nice thing is I got home early, so now is the perfect time to abuse Mystique, oh yeah! Sounds good to you, me and my Uncle Fred. Music to my Uncle’s ears indeed.

Anyhow guys, I’ve got five papers to sit for tomorrow (assuming I’m on PST time). So I’ll end here. Good night to y’all… ^_^

(Grrrrr!)

Sometimes I’m misinterpreted.

I’m not a loner, or an introvert in that case. I can describe myself as the total opposite of those qualities, I have an astounding number of friends but few I considered genuine, I can make new ones in an instant, I talk a lot (or not), I laugh like crazy, I love to share my insights and be heard.

I’m not afraid to speak out my thoughts, until it reaches a point when I tend to hurt people or fuel their anger (that’s because their reception to these things……………*sigh*……… In times like these I just have to be calm, collected and relaxed otherwise the spirit of EDSA Revolution in me might be rekindled.

In this blog, i will write my everyday life journal so that i would not forget the year 2009 (unlike last year) that I had my baby gadget Mystique. So.. brief introduction here people. I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight so. Once again… Yay me!

Oh well, I thought I’d chill tomorrow ‘coz it’s my rest day (Note to me: Schedule is subject to change) and just blog…aimlessly with Mystique.