woah

if you've been following my posts (asa!), then you would remember me complaining about my internet's download speed.

But just a few minutes ago when I started to download Heroes season 3 episode 8, I was taken by surprise at how the download speed changed from sucky to super!


As you can see the download speed reached 46 kb/s!!!! Usually the speed doesn't even reach 20!!!! right now it peaked at around 52 kB/s, and I'm not complaining! Obviously this is the work of the revamped PLDT connection. I have no idea when this will last (since all good things come to an end and almost all new connections start out this way), but I'm just going to make the most of it and download download download!!!!

a crappy connection

I just had my internet connection fixed. I thought i wouldn't dial 173 anymore around 3 years ago, when i thought heard the last of pldt dsl's crappy connection. Obviously the scheme of things dictates that every earth-bound thing is flawed, so a crappy connection was bound to rear it's head sooner or later. Apparently Vis-Min experienced server downtime last week, and even if the problem was fixed, a handful were still left with almost-absolute detachment from the internet. It was a good thing that we called, according the the PLDT guy, because they had no way of determining which connections were still defective and PLDT Manila won't entertain the problem.

It took me three days of calling the service rep in order for the problem to be forwarded, reforwarded, rereforwarded and resolved. By the second day I was pretty fed up with the agent asking me the same questions from the status modem to the spelling of my family name. Patience is something I have problems juggling with, but at least the time i would've devoted to facebook was spent exercising with the Bean. I wouldn't call it catharsis, but at the most, a friendly respite. It's not that I don't need the net, but sometimes I get too attached that some things that are worth doing take the back seat.

drooling for HP 6

Friends from youtube released Harry Potter and the half-blood prince's 5th trailer and i gotta say, the trailer gave me chills and overall, the scenes looked incredible! the trailer showed more action than what i imagined after reading the book. Was that the Burrow being hit by fire spells? i really didn't see that one coming!!! cinematography at it's best! the movie will be released july 17 and i can't tell how many weeks more until it'll hit Zamboanga's shores. but i have a feeling it'll be worth the wait.

an idol saved and Paula being Paula

ooook. so the pregnant silence has finally been broken and the judges' save has been used on Matt Giraud. the problem with his performance wasn't that it lacked charisma but the song wasn't really vote-worthy. i still think it was pitchy at some parts and well, from his track record, he's no stranger to the bottom three so there's definitely something he's not doing right.

Lil on the other hand, could be spared but i don't think she deserves it since clearly she makes stupid song choices and she has a skewed perspective of the concept of injecting her R&B style into songs. 'nuff said

Paula definitely took some notes from the sketches and cartoons made to satirize her lack of, um, substance. she is the best example of faking sobriety at times., and she probably did something about it. BUT NOW, she puts in too much substance that we could replace her with a fortune cookie or a Hallmark card.

i mean, who else says something like "dares to dance in the path of greatness"? or "true genius doesn't meet expectations, it shatters it"? in a cosmic sort of way it obviously makes sense and is complimentary, but a simple, "I loved it!!!!!" would suffice. Simon doesn't understand her most of the time. but of course, she's Paula. one time she judged a performance that hasn't been performed yet, need i say more?

having said that, she reminds me of my health economics teacher right now - lack of substance, unintelligible at parts, and an overall negligible entity.

food styling

i tried my hand at food styling yesterday. my mom made this shrimp and bacon pasta, with a cream base. basically another entry in my "what i wanna do before i die" list involves myself food styling for a magazine. i am obviously an amateur but i was pleased with the results:



the olives and the basil were my personal touch and not part of the original recipe.

the green base is actually a chopping board! the only place where i could find good natural light, was along the steps of our dirty kitchen. yes, i nestled the dish on a chopping board, on concrete! you could actually catch a hint of it in the bottom-middle part of the photo above.





is this something i'm passionate about? not quite. but i see it right now as a definitely a promising and enjoyable hobby done at a leisurely pace. oh, and if you're wondering, this was shot using a sony cybershot. color reproduction isn't as good as canon (biased! haha) but it's wide-angle lens and good image stabilizer compensates for every miniscule flaw. :)

how was the pasta? it gave me flatulence that night. i have to ask my mom where she put the recipe so i can post it here. the recipe was sent to my mom via email, so i couldn't hack, er, ask her to send it to me or at least take it down :)

sacrifice

the Holy Week is about to end with tomorrow being Easter Sunday. the whole celebration holds a sense of wonder in the sense that the devout show just how devout they are. what makes the RP so distinct in its practice is well, the graphic nature of some people's devotion. question: is their practice a personal choice or did they acquire the idea of flagellation from their parents and so on? is this faith or taboo? what do they hope to gain from self-inflicted pain?



obviously i'm not well-versed with this kind of Christian devotion and i'm approaching this with an outsider's point of view. and i would look at this kind of practice in the same way i look at the hordes of people during the Black Nazarene. Is this their penance for their years of sin? do they hope to gain forgiveness through nailing themselves on the cross? basically if the devotees do find God in a personal way through, well, pain, then we should just let it be. any other intention would besmirch the already controversial practice.

I'm ending this post with more questions than answers. many say practices like these are taboo, but for the one nailed on the cross, the one with a bleeding back due to flagellation and the one carrying a cross made of an electric post, its an annual display of faith that is deeply cultural as it is spiritual. nothing wrong with that.

***********
what's my sacrifice for the Lenten season? i'm afraid i didn't cut down on my SMS and internet usage. i broke my fasts. i did do the Visita Iglesia and i did deprive myself of some good things. maybe next year then.

Happy Easter everybody!

catharsis again

i just realized that catharsis can mean many things for different people. it may mean watching a theater play for one and eating ice cream for another.

while i'd prefer deleting my phone's messages every single time i'm angry or melancholic. but this time, i'm deleting it for the sake of slowly ridding myself of excess baggage which includes: anxieties brought about by people who love to whine, anger let loose by those who feel cheated, happiness that should be fleeting, because all good things come to an end, and most of all, the weight of the world succintly expressed by the simple sad face.

yes, one small step towards catharsis. (although, the much needed trip to Davao can't hurt.)

******

i watched "The Reader" yesterday. i bought it along with "Rachel getting married" for a reasonably cheap price. it was a good thing the group left while we could. the dvd joint was raided by police a few minutes after. Tal had to run inside to get a very confused Rea.haha