Jay Can Blog Too - Just Not Much Time

My Fuji Finepix S5000 digicam has finally reached the 50,000 mark in taking pictures.  yey !

The shoot button is showing signs of looseness from pressing.  Imagine someone pressing your skin 50,000 times.   Hmmm… that’s a nice thought… anyway back to my digicam.

The winning click was shot at the PARI OPM Crossroads Anti-piracy Campaign event over at Eastwood City.   It was a nice but tiring event.  Thanks to Chel & Jhamie for the company during the 3 day coverage and making it a much more enjoyable experience.  Check the Titik Pilipino Image Gallery soon for pictures from this event.

I’m looking forward to the 100,000 mark now. <click>

I had to make a quick trip to the office of Pump Magazine, a new magazine very similar in theme and nature to FHM.   I won free tickets to their magazine launch.  Since I was carless today, I decided to take the MRT going there.  But I was already at Shangrila and MRT Boni station (where I’m supposed to get off) is just 1 station from Shaw Blvd.  So I took the bus. 

It’s been a long time since I rode a bus along EDSA.  My usual preferences of transportation are the MRT, LRT and jeep… oh yeah and the tricycle going home.   The bus ride took a mere 2 minutes since it was a short distance.  There were only 6 people in the bus and 2 of them got off the moment I got on.  It seemed a sad place to get to where you’re going to.   I’m just glad the ride was short and there was no traffic.

On the other hand, I’m so happy that train transits exists in Metro Manila.  I heavily rely on the LRT and MRT when commuting.  I even detest riding the FX now unless it’s the only choice and necessary. 

Oh yeah, I love the LRT2.  I feel like I’m in an airport terminal every time I’m there.

.It always rains on my birthday.  Never fails to do so.  They say it’s a blessing, a good sign, "grasya" in short.  I say that if it rains to the point of flooding, I think it’s safe to call it "disgrasya".  Good thing the floods here only reached the lot 3 houses away.  Our street though was transformed into a huge parking lot as people waited for the flash floods to disappear.

Anyway, I celebrated my birthday the way I liked it.  Simple and under the radar… I’m not fond of throwing big parties and celebrating with lots of people.  I’d rather have a solemn celebration and spend my day slow and easy going.

I did spent my first half of the day working though as in my field, there is no day off, and when a customer purchases something, it’s a must to process it immediately.  But that’s okey.  I got to buy New York’s finest pizza (or at least that’s how Yellow Cab wants it to be known as) for a couple of friends and for home.   

A first I did on my birthday was watch a movie.  I have collected lots of movies on VCD which I’ve been buying everytime there’s a sale but haven’t even opened nor watch one.  And since cable was down due to the heavy rains, I had the difficult choice of selecting either Episode 4,5,6, I-robot, Bourne Identity or Staying Alive.  I must say, it boiled down to either Staying Alive or I-Robot…tough choice !  But since I don’t think I wanna be remembered by how old I am, I chose I-robot instead (Sorry John Travolta, I’ll see you on a regular day).

Anyway, to everybody who greeted me yesterday (friendster did play a big role this year in particular in exposing my birthday online which I’ve tried to keep secret ever since I’ve been an internet user way back in 1996), thanks for remembering me.  Wish me another year of blessings, success and good health ahead guys ! 

I love watching Seinfeld… the show about nothing, though critics say it’s something… but it’s about nothing.

I’m lucky to have my cable provider currently shoing season 4, one of the best seasons so far.  I have a habit of extending my experience even after watching an episode by going online and reading the synopsis,cast,bloopers,quotes and reviews.   My favorite site for this is TV Tome , but lately when you try to access it, it redirects you to TV.com. One of the features on this site that astonishes me is the quotes and bloopers section.  I can’t imagine how users can spot inconsistencies in each episode and references to real life situations, characters, objects etc… 

Episode 4 finale is about Jerry and George writing a show that is based on their daily real life situations.   You can clearly see an audition casting and acting for the parts.  What’s so amusing about this is that the show "Seinfeld" is actually based on the experience of their director/writer  Larry David and his real life experience when he used to live in a building with friends and neighbors. 

I’m glad I don’t have to buy Season 4 of Seinfeld on DVD online.  I may perhaps in the far future as a collection.

I love the fact that old IT and internet/web books have now been on a huge price drop on all bookstores.  Books from 2000-2004 are considered a bit old when it comes to topics on technology and internet…. but there are certain books which are timeless and still very useful despite being published a few years back…

I admit I don’t read fiction, fantasy, adventure or any kind of pocketbook.  Though I love to read instruction manuals, computer and web themed stories and the like.

Here’s what I’ve read so far (along with a brief description):

Heroes.com - Dot.com heroes in the early dot.com era
eCommerce (Foundation of Strategy)
The Internet Startup Bible - samples are those of websites in the UK
Business The Amazon.com Way - I love this book.  Secrets of the beginnings of Web giant Amazon.com
e-Brands - Marketing and promoting your website.
Customer-Effective Websites - how to make your website user-friendly

I’m currently reading "Hyperwars - 11 Essential Strategies For Survival and Profit in the Era of Online Business"  (Whew that was a long title!)  This is the book I bring when I know I’ll be having idle time waiting for someone, for a meeting or want to spend some time alone in a coffee shop.

My next book in line is "Doing E-business".  I bought this book on sale at Fully Booked for P200. from it’s regular price of P1,400.

I’ve only had 3 hours of sleep since yesterday.  I was determined to stay awake late to finish some work (a 4 day backlog actually).  But I didn’t expect to stay awake till 5am and wake up around 8am.  I was assuming I’d be sleepy by noontime but nope…. like the energizer bunny, I’m still going.  It’s nice cause I can finish lots of stuff with the extra hours… but right now I realize I need to sleep not because I’m tired nor sleepy but I need to sleep cause I’ll be attending and covering a major musical event tomorrow, the annual Fete dela Musique,  which lasts for 12 hours.  If you want to know more about the event, you can read about it here: Fete dela Musique 2005.  I’ll try reading a book later and keeping myself far away from the computer.  I can stay awake as long as I’m in front of the computer.  I can’t say the same when away.  Going back online when I wake up ! Goodnight.

Bottomless drinks have been introduced in just about every restaurant nowadays.  And for the thirst-quenching individual who may find one 12oz. or medium drink "bitin", this is great !

Iced tea is my favorite followed by Lemonade and then any other juice (I stay away from softdrinks when ordering bottomless).  A favorite as well but only offered at the Filipino restaurant Sentro in Greenbelt is the bottomless sago.

There have been some observations though I noticed with various restaurants when it comes to serving bottomless drinks:

1.  They fill up your glass even if it’s half-full.  So you don’t have an exact count of how many glasses you’ve actually consumed.  (I like to count them to bring about a sense of satisfaction for my money’s worth.)

2.  Some restaurants have a code or scheme for determining if the customer ordered a bottomless drink or not.  For Pizza Hut, they use a bigger glass for bottomless drinkers.  For Max’s restaurant, they give you a white flexible straw as opposed to a regular stiff red straw… oooohh ergonomic !  For Burger King, the cup will actually say "single serve" or not.  For TGIF and Don Henricos, I think they’ve almost eliminated single serve drinks in their menu cause it’s just about the same price as bottomless drinks, so no need to distinguish who ordered what.

3.  For some strange reason, if they feel you are a big gulper (translation: you can have your glass refilled in a minute after refill), they stop offering you for a refill after the 3rd or 4th one.  I have a feeling they are instructed to refill up to 3 times or else you’ll be getting more than what you paid for.  If you insist on getting refills, they won’t be giving you any more ice.  So you’ll be getting iced tea that’s not really that cold (ironic since that’s why they call it ICED TEA!).   

4.  You can’t go into a restaurant and just order bottomless drinks.  Now this is an unwritten rule.  You won’t find it in the menu but they’ll tell you that you need to order food.   Now that’s unfair.  It’s not like you won’t be paying for the bottomless drinks.  And there are those people like me who are happy with just drinking bottomless iced tea without eating anything.  So bummer… I did discover a place where you can order bottomless drinks without any need to order food: Nacho Fast.  Praise you !  Another tip:  for an limited time only, Karate Kid Japanese restaurant is serving bottomless Hawaian punch (or at least it’s very close to the actual Hawaian Punch taste) for P20. Wow !

5.  If you hang around the restaurant long after you’ve finished your meal just for the bottomless iced tea and try summoning a waiter for another refill, they suddenly seem all busy and far from your table. 

My personal records are 4 full tall glasses at Friday’s (if you know how big their glasses are, you’ll be impressed) and 6 small glasses at Max’s restaurant (and 2 trips to the restroom).

Oh and for those coffee lovers there is a coffee shop at Marikina Riverbanks that serves bottomless coffee for P40 !   Now that’s a good marketing strategy for them.  I doubt anyone going beyond the 3rd refill without getting a caffeine overdose.  I think anyone who can do 5 will be wide awake for the next 2 days.

Cheers to that. Bottoms up !

I must say that I haven’t eaten in McDonalds for over 3 months now.  I think I got grossed out by watching the infamous and revealing Supersize Me exposing what their fastfood may do to your precious body.  I know that you can’t make any exact conclusions from their experiment and it was conducted in a US-based setting. 

I can’t help though but scare the living hell out of myself enough to accept that I don’t want to include McDonalds as part of my foodchain.  Thus, I’m cutting it cold.  I guess the only thing I may even consider buying from McDonalds is an apple pie but even that is depressing knowing what their apple pies used to look like and taste 10 years ago.

So goodbye McDonalds. 

Now Wendy’s, that a different story.

I’ve attended 2 events last week where different kinds of maki was served.  I dunno why but over the weekend I voluntarily ordered 4 pcs. of california maki.  It’s not like I didn’t have a choice.  Uhoh, could this be an acquired taste or could I be getting used to eating sushi from events that I was subconsciously looking for it ?

And guess what ? Earlier this week, I passed by the supermarket 30 minutes before closing.  I was there to pick up some batteries for my radio and some drinks.  Suddenly the voice over in the supermarket announced "Greetings our dear shoppers, we are pleased to announce that all our items in the sushi section are now 50% off. Please visit our sushi section.  Thank you."

Hmmmm…. 50% off ? And I was hungry that time.  Oh well, the hell with being overexposed to sushi, this is 50% off !  To good a deal to pass by. 

So basically it seems I’ve been succumbed by the wonderful world of sushi. 

I can’t believe that my webcontent is overflowing now, both online and offline.  It’s getting a big harder to manage.  Years ago, all my website files used to fit in 1 CD and had much much space left for more.

Now it seems I need to backup my website files onto 4 CDs on a weekly basis.  Files are getting bigger.  Uhoh…  I really hope I’ll be able to make all these website updates.  Ang daming pending ko pa ! So so much to do and so less of me to do that so much to do.  heheheh ! You got that ?