The RubeTube

Links for 2009-05-13 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-14T00:00:00-07:00

The Biology of B-Movie Monsters

Links for 2009-02-06 [del.icio.us]

2009-02-07T00:00:00-08:00

5 Real Life Soldiers Who Make Rambo Look Like a Pussy | Cracked.com

Links for 2008-10-24 [del.icio.us]

2008-10-25T00:00:00-07:00

Make Your Own Ringtones - Free Ringtone Maker
Splice your own MP3 ringtone

Links for 2008-10-05 [del.icio.us]

2008-10-06T00:00:00-07:00

How to Buy a House: The Basics

Links for 2008-09-10 [del.icio.us]

2008-09-11T00:00:00-07:00

Flip
Flip unicode characters upside down

Links for 2008-07-30 [del.icio.us]

2008-07-31T00:00:00-07:00

Athlists » Blog Archive » 20 Ways to Die Trying to Dunk a Basketball

Links for 2008-07-11 [del.icio.us]

2008-07-12T00:00:00-07:00

Death by toilet bowl cleaner

2008-04-29T12:27:00.006+08:00

Our bathtub had gone uncleaned for nearly 6 months and it had become pretty darn disgusting. The drain was clogged with hair (mostly not mine, I'd say) and all sorts of nasty stuff. Islands of grime had started sprouting from the tub floor. Sentient life forms were evolving and threatening to take over the world. So I felt obligated to do something about it. (Unfortunately I do not have any "before and after" photos.)

Step 1: Unscrew and remove the drain thingie, behold the giant blob of hair and sticky stuff (don't ask), and use up a whole roll of tissue getting all the crap out. Test that drain is now unclogged by opening the tap. Celebrate!

Step 2: Put back drain thingie, stop up the drain, partially fill tub with hot water, step into the tub, and manually try to scrub off all the grime with feet. Open up the drain and flush down grimy water.

Step 3: Think about how to remove the rest of the grime clinging to tub surface for dear life. Have eureka moment and use toilet bowl cleaner and brush! Partially fill tub with hot water, empty half a bottle of toilet cleaner into tub, and scrub with brush like crazy until original white tub floor is fully revealed. To finish off, unplug the drain, step into tub, and rinse off any remaining bits of grime with bare feet.

I was too caught up on my cleaning frenzy to realize that maybe toilet cleaner was not meant to be in contact with human skin... it was diluted, but these chemicals they use nowadays in toilet cleaner are probably strong enough to bring a beluga whale to its knees (if it had any). So yes, friends, I'm still alive... but who knows how long I can hold out before I succumb to toilet-bowl-cleaner-poisoning?

I'm here!

2007-09-27T17:45:00.000+08:00

I'm here...

...still here, in the Philippines, at home, writing this blog entry.

I wasn't able to fly away because apparently, I didn't have exit clearance from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). Of course, I had no idea whatsoever that every Filipino working abroad (immigrants are excluded) has to pass by the POEA office first to get cleared to leave the country. If you are a Filipino and you are going to work abroad soon, please make sure to go to the POEA office (the main branch is in Ortigas) and get your exit clearance ASAP; here's how.

There I was, having exhausted all my tearful farewells, all ready to check-in, only to be told I couldn't leave. Talk about anti-climactic. My family had to fetch me from the airport, already a balikbayan. We just laughed at the whole episode. Thanks to our contact at the POEA, I was able to secure my exit clearance in record time; 6 hours, as opposed to days! My flight has been re-booked and I'm leaving (again) tomorrow morning at 8 am.

There's a reason things like this happen. I've been able to spend another day with my family, make some last minute purchases and printouts, and even watch the Ateneo-La Salle game (hahaha, talo La Salle, 1 point!). I bet tomorrow's farewell won't be as heart-wrenching.

(P.S. I am now officially an OFW, and proud of it! Mabuhay ang mga Bagong Bayani!)

Bon voyage!

2007-09-27T04:45:00.001+08:00

Microsoft/Seattle/Redmond/world, here I come!

Rubik's Cube Philippines Open 2007

2007-09-21T17:30:00.000+08:00

Last August 25 (geez that was a loooong time ago), I joined the first-ever Rubik's Cube Philippines Open (RCPO 2007). It was the first Rubik's cube tournament held in the Philippines that was officially sanctioned by the World Cube Association (WCA), and I felt tremendously honored to have been part of history in the making! The event was organized by the Philippine Cubers Association (PCA), of which I am a very active member lately.

See the official RCPO 2007 results here... in a nutshell, Mat Almeida (Fil-Portuguese guy, and also the WCA delegate) and JB Canares (who flew all the way from Cebu) dominated most of the events. My results: 17th (out of 28) in the 3x3x3 event, and 8th (out of 17) in the 2x2x2 event. I also have some photos and a couple of videos from the event.

The RCPO 2007 was held at Robinsons Metro East, from 10 AM lasting into the night. I went with Akie and Allan, who unfortunately (for them?) chose not to compete in the event, but they still accompanied me and I was very glad for their company even if they both had to leave early. It's a really good thing I went with them because I didn't know anyone and I was worried about embarrassing myself with my relatively slow times, but because I had my friends with me I could just laugh and just enjoy the day no matter what.

There were a couple of events in the RCPO 2007: 3x3x3, 3x3x3 one-handed, 3x3x3 blindfolded, 4x4x4, 5x5x5, and 2x2x2. Among those events, only the 3x3x3 had a 3-round structure: only the top 20 from round 1 would make it into round 2, and only the top 8 from round 2 would compete in the final round. For every event/round, each person has 5 tries to solve the puzzle. The puzzle is scrambled (by people designated as "scramblers" who also act as timekeepers) according to a computer-generated random sequence of moves. The best and worst among the 5 times are dropped (to account for good/bad luck) and the remaining 3 middle times are averaged to comprise your official average time for that event/round, and contestants are ranked according to their averages.

I only chose to join the 2x2x2 and 3x3x3 events. The 3x3x3 was the first event of the day. I was really nervous going up to the stage in front and I didn't even have any idea how to use the Stackmat timers! Fortunately, the Stackmats were a breeze to use and I didn't encounter any problems.

In round 1, I posted an average of 44.56 seconds, which was good for 19th place and barely made it to round 2! In round 2, I fared even better: an average of 38.31 seconds (my personal best average at the time!), good for 17th place, which unfortunately was far from the cut-off for the final round. So all in all, I ranked 17th out of 28 competitors... definitely better than I expected! My "X method" (corners-first) was not a very fast method, not ideal at all for speedcubing so I think I got a bit lucky here and there. Here is a video of my first-ever official solve (first try in round 1), with a time of 45.08 seconds:

Here is a photo of the Stackmat of my best time in round 2, 30.81 seconds, which was also my personal best at the time:

The 2x2x2 event was one of the final events of the day, just before the final round of the 3x3x3. I was pondering whether to even participate in the event because I had a ticket to a film-showing in the evening of Pisay the Movie (directed by Aureus Solito), set in my high school alma mater. I'd miss the film-showing if I chose to stay for the 2x2x2 event. It was a chance to meet up with some of my high school buddies but I decided that the RCPO was more important to me at the time; it would later turn out to be a very good decision and I'm very glad that I stayed...

...I managed 8th place (out of 17), with an average time of 14.21 seconds (the photo below is my official timesheet; yes it's just an index card):

...all this despite only having bought a 2x2x2 cube earlier in the day! So I didn't have a lot of time to practice solving the 2x2x2 cube. Luckily, my corners-first method was well-suited to solving the 2x2x2 (which is only made of corners, essentially) so the learning curve was not so steep. (Later on, after a few days of practice, my average dropped down to less than 12 seconds so I could've done better had I practiced earlier.) Here's a video of my best 2x2x2 solve (10.50 seconds):

All in all, my experience at the RCPO 2007 was a very memorable one. Not only did I come in the company of friends, I also made a couple of new speedcuber acquaintances: Victor, Benjo, Jerome, Vernon, and Mat! It also rekindled my passion for speedcubing and now I'm more determined than ever to reach new heights in speedcubing (i.e., beat my personal records), and hopefully win an event or two someday.

(I have an official record page with the WCA now... woohoo! Watch out for me in the future!)

The Boracay getaway

2007-09-18T16:44:00.000+08:00

As I mentioned in my not-so-recent update, Andreé and I went on a 3-day, 2-night vacation in Boracay. Here is a selection of photos from the trip, which some of you have already seen and commented on. Took a lot of nice shots, thanks to my new camera! It was both our first trips (in recent memory) to Boracay so we were both very, very excited to visit one of our country's premier tourist destinations.

Day 1, August 12, Sunday. Our flight departed from Manila at around 9 AM. It was Andreé's first airplane trip, and understandably she had some flight jitters. But it was no big deal (it helped that I was there with her) and soon we were on our way. After a 30-minute flight to Aklan airport, a lengthy ride by land to the port, and a boat trip to Boracay island, we were soon at our hotel, the Boracay Tropics. It wasn't a beach-front hotel (around 5 minutes walk to the beach), but the room was absolutely fantastic!

We arrived sometime past noon so we took a walk along the beachfront, looking for a place to eat. We ended up eating at Mang Inasal, which wasn't the most "Boracay-ish" of restaurants, but the food was good. Neither of us expected that there'd be so many shops! Quite sad that Boracay has become so commercialized. There were so many vendors hawking their wares and we got so many offers of "Ser, ayland-haping, parasiling, dyetski." At first it was annoying but after a while we got so many offers it became something to laugh about.

In the afternoon, we dressed up in our beach attire and went for a dip in the ocean. The sand was clean and white, and the water clear and blue, probably better than we imagined! The waves were quite strong at this time of year but nothing that we couldn't handle. In the evening, we went for a dip in the hotel pool, and just had dinner at the hotel, too tired to go looking around for a place to eat.

Day 2, August 13, Monday. August 13 was the day of our second anniversary and it indeed turned out to be a memorable day! In the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel (good enough) and we dressed up, prepared to go island-hopping. Yes, we gave in to the guy who named the lowest price. We didn't go island-hopping just the two of us (that wouldn't be much fun, really); we went with three others: Flor, Malis (Andreé's officemates), and Malis' sister (sorry, forgot her name!), who just so happened to be in Boracay at the same time. There were some dark clouds which worried us a bit but the weather turned out fine.

Our first stop was a location near the boat station where we went snorkeling. I'm proud to say that I was able to overcome my fear and jump in the water! It was the first time for Andreé and I to go snorkeling. The view of the corals underwater was breathtaking and the tiny fish eagerly jumped at the Skyflakes crackers we were feeding them. It was an amazing experience.

After snorkeling, our boat took us to an privately-owned island called "Crystal Cove". As you can guess, there were a bunch of caves where we could go swimming. The island itself had a lot of trails where you could just walk around and take a look at the fantastic scenery; there were also a bunch of weird statues and animals in captivity. The first cave (aptly named Cave 1) was quite disappointing. The water wasn't very good and the "crystal" was actually artificially transplanted in the cave. Cave 2 was much better. The water was nicer and the girls had fun dipping in the water and looking for curious rocks.

We had to pass through a dark and cramped tunnel to get to Cave 2 and I had a tiny accident in the tunnel; watch out for it at 0:24 in the video below:

After Cave 2 we walked around the island some more and then headed back to our boat. Crystal Cove was the last stop and after that we went back "home" and bade farewell to our friends. Back on Boracay island, Andreé and I stuck around at the beach for a brief photo-shoot before heading back to the hotel.

Upon Borgy's suggestion, we went for dinner at Hawaiian BBQ. It was much farther from our hotel than we expected, but it was well worth the walk! We had baby back ribs, pork barbecue, and fresh mango juice. The food was delicious and affordable! Without a doubt it has to be one of the best restaurants in Boracay; you must try it if ever you're in Boracay!

After dinner, we had a photo taken of us showing off our beach figures (this is the only photo with me in it in this blog entry):

Day 3, August 14, Tuesday. Our last day in Boracay was fairly uneventful. We had to check out of the hotel at around noon and we spent the morning shopping for shirts and trinkets to take home. After that, we headed back to the hotel, packed up our bags, and waited for our ride back to the port and the rest of our journey home.

Best. Vacation. Ever.

Every shot is a PowerShot (with the A710IS)

2007-09-10T15:35:00.000+08:00

I've got a new camera, a Canon PowerShot A710IS. (Picture from Amazon.com, also see an in-depth review here.) This is the first digital camera I've ever bought for myself. It was heartily recommended to me by Andreé and I bought it through Andreé's officemate JC (thanks JC!) who came from Japan, where electronics are much cheaper than here in the Philippines. It set me back "only" 12,500 pesos; in most stores here, it sells for 24,500 so I definitely got a very good deal!

So far my experience with the A710IS has been absolutely fantastic... I love it! Why? Because it just works. Most of the shots I take with it turn out great straight out of the camera. Of course, some of that is my doing (hehehe) but still, this camera gives good results much more often than not. The image stabilization works like a charm and I never thought the 6x optical zoom would come in handy in so many situations. These two features make it possible to capture some shots which other cameras wouldn't be able to, like this shot below, which was taken from inside a moving vehicle. The 6x zoom helped me capture the entire scene through a tinted window which had just a small circular untinted part. The image-stabilization helped neutralize the bumps during the ride. (And it's amazing how I was able to keep the horizon straight!)

Also, I quite appreciate the A710IS' full manual controls (ISO, white balance, aperture, shutter speed, focus) since I'm trying to learn the ropes of digital photography. As an added bonus, it's still reasonably light and compact (it'll fit in your pocket) but not too small that it becomes difficult it to grip. It also runs on 2 AA batteries, so getting extra juice is never a problem.

On the minus side, like most non-DSLRs, it doesn't work too well in low-light conditions (especially indoors) but the image-stabilization helps out a bit here. It also has some trouble with high-contrast scenes, but again, this problem isn't specific to the A710IS. I also would've liked a vari-angle LCD like the A640, which can come in handy at times. But despite these shortcomings, the A710IS is a fantastic camera which really lets you just "point and shoot". If you want to look at some shots I took with my A710IS, check out my photos from our Boracay getaway (the camera arrived just two days before the trip!).

Since this was my first camera, I was very willing to burn some cash for accessories and whatnot. So I went and got myself a Sanyo Refresh Quick Charger Max (2700 mAh maximum, comes with two Sanyo 2700 mAh batteries) which I bought from Luey via TipidPC for only 1,400 pesos (thanks Luey!). I also bought an extra pair of Sanyo 2700 batteries (175 each), plus four Sanyo Eneloop batteries (99.50 each); I'll use the 2700s is my primary batteries and keep the Eneloops charged as backups. For storage, I bought a pqi 2 GB SD card (920 pesos from CD-R King) and for a case, I bought a Case Logic TBC-3 with lots of room for batteries for 580 pesos.

So all in all, I spent 15,228 pesos for the camera and extras. Still a bargain! What's next for me? A tripod!

(Addendum: Damn, maybe I should've waited for the A650 IS? 12.1 megapixels with a larger sensor than the A710, the newer DIGIC III processor with face-detection, a vari-angle, higher-resolution LCD, 6x optical zoom with image stabilization, and even a dedicated ISO button, it seems! Well worth it despite being heavier with 4 AA batteries. Oh well, such is the world of digital camera... there's a newer model every month!)

An eventful month

2007-09-06T18:40:00.000+08:00

This past month has been the busiest and most eventful one in recent memory (for me). It's rather ironic, therefore, that I have not posted a single meaningful update about my personal life in nearly two months. (With the lone exception of my birthday post, which was even one day overdue!)

Perhaps it's because this past month has been so overwhelming that I've lost the time and energy (but not the interest) to blog. So I'm planning to make up for it since I have quite a bit of free time on my hands now. Here's a brief rundown of what's been going on in my life:

I went on a Boracay vacation with Andreé. Just a 3-day, 2-night getaway, which also coincided with our second anniversary last August 13. We both had a blast! Everything was perfect!
I joined the 2007 Rubik's Cube Philippines Open (RCPO 2007). This was the first-ever official Rubik's Cube competition held in the Philippines, held last August 25, and I felt tremendously honored to be part of history. I did well for myself, I think: 17th (out of 28) in the 3x3x3 category, and 8th (out of 17) in the 2x2x2 category. Not bad at all! And now I have my own personal records page with the World Cube Association. Cool, huh?
I've resigned from HP. Yes, I'm no longer an HP employee. My last working day was last Friday, August 31. I lasted exactly one year at HP; quite interesting, doncha think? My last few weeks at HP were also very eventful and memorable (and busy).
I'll be joining Microsoft. Some of you already know this, but for the benefit of those who don't, yes, I'm joining Microsoft. I'll be working at their headquarters in Redmond, WA as a Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) starting October 1. I'm very busy with my preparations (with my move and all) and I'll be flying to the U.S. on September 27.

A lot of shocking and surprising developments, huh? I'll write more about those events in the next few posts. It should be much easier to write now that I've regained some of my momentum again.

It's official: EVERYBODY hates Malu Fernandez

2007-08-24T23:11:00.000+08:00

Just how big is the Filipino outrage towards Malu Fernandez? My not-so-substantial post about her has been solely responsible for a huge spike in my blog's traffic, currently at over 400 visits just for today! I have never had this many people (people that I don't know!) visit my blog. And I've never had so many anonymous (and venomous) comments on a single post before!

Just goes to show how much hate there is going around, directed at Malu Fernandez. Pinoys and OFWs all around the world are getting the word, reading the article, and determining for themselves just what exactly is the fuss all about.

22 on 22!

2007-08-23T18:46:00.000+08:00

So it was my 22nd birthday yesterday, August 22... And you're never too late to drop a greeting, you know!

Thanks to everyone who sent their greetings. I think I received more greetings this year than last year, and I'm really happy that I even got some from unexpected sources. But the strangest greeting I got this year was from my past self! Imagine my surprise when I checked my email and found this message with subject "You're 22":

Dear FuturePunzki,

You have just turned too old to be considered "cool."

So sad.

Cheers,
PastPunzki

This surreal birthday greeting came courtesy of FutureMe.org, sent on August 1, 2006. I swear, I have no recollection of ever writing to my future self!

Seriously though, now that I'm a year wiser, I think 22 is a pretty darn cool age.

Everybody hates Malu Fernandez

2007-08-19T23:30:00.000+08:00

If you are a Filipino, then I guarantee that your day is sure to be ruined after reading this. Even if you're not a Pinoy I'm pretty sure you'll at least lose your appetite. Read the comments and follow the links and you will find out why everybody hates Malu Fernandez nowadays.

However I forgot that the hub was in Dubai and the majority of the OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) were stationed there. The duty-free shop was overrun with Filipino workers selling cell phones and perfume. Meanwhile, I wanted to slash my wrist at the thought of being trapped in a plane with all of them.

On my way back, I had to bravely take the economy flight once more. This time I had already resigned myself to being trapped like a sardine in a sardine can with all these OFWs smelling of AXE and Charlie cologne while Jo Malone evaporated into thin air.

All in all, it’s been a pretty good summer. Jetting from the Aegean Sea to the Pacific may sound a bit pretentious until you wake up in economy class smelling like air freshener.

I wasn't planning on blogging tonight or even for the next few days but people like Malu Fernandez can make anyone's blood boil. As if the Philippines wasn't experiencing enough hardship right now without this bitch's derisive attitude towards her own countrymen. Is it possible for a country to disown one of its own citizens? If not, can we make an exception just for her? Punyeta.

After some thought, I've finally figured out why the article was so offensive for me. Sa lahat ba naman kasi ng lalaitin niyang mga tao, mga OFW pa. It's like going to America and making fun of the soldiers stationed in Iraq. Malu, make fun of politicians and celebrities if you like, I might even laugh with you, but at least have some respect for our tireless workers who give us pride and hope and help keep our economy afloat. They make such sacrifices out of need, yet what have you done for our country lately, aside from giving us shame?

(A less venomous commentary can be found here.)

Update: Not sure if this is 100% official/confirmed, but this article reports that Malu has succumbed to the public outrage demanding her resignation! I hope this is the end of this emotionally-charged episode. There are lessons here for all of us, not just Malu (and I have no desire to expound on them at this time).

From Fukuda, with love

2007-07-19T16:30:00.000+08:00

The contents of my Fukuda "gift pack", a.k.a. definitive proof that God exists:

I thought it only contained "24 cartons each of Fukuda Potato Stixz (sour cream and onion flavor) and Fukuda Twister Pea Chips (creamy onion and garlic)" (quoted from my last entry)". Boy, I was wrong. But I was never so glad to be so wrong:

30 boxes of Fukuda Chipz - 5 flavors: Original, Wasabi Lobster, Sour Cream and Onion, Barbecue, Cheese. 2 sizes: one big, one small. 3 boxes per size per flavor. 5 x 2 x 3 = 30.
18 boxes of Fukuda Twister Pea Chips - 3 flavors: Original, Wasabi Lobster, Creamy Onion and Garlic. 2 sizes: one big, one small. 3 boxes per size per flavor. 3 x 2 x 3 = 18.
15 boxes of Fukuda Potato Stixz - 5 flavors: Original, Wasabi Lobster, Sour Cream and Onion, Barbecue, Cheese. Only 1 size. 3 boxes per size per flavor. 5 x 1 x 3 = 15.
Grand total: 63 boxes of Fukuda snacks. There goes my diet!

I was left in shock and awe after opening both boxes. I simply could not believe my good fortune. Their contents exceeded all expectations, and then some. If this story of mine does not inspire you to go out there and blog about whatever it is you are passionate about, then I do not know what will.

...or at the very least, you should at least think that my whole Fukuda experience was pretty darn cool! Here is one happy kid:

And this is me with Mr. Fukuda, Fukuda-san, or whatever the mascot's name is:

And even better: defying all logic, I actually lost 2 pounds this past week (from excitement?), despite my new hoard of snaxz. Fukuda product reviews to come in the next few posts.

(For more pictures, please visit this album on Multiply. I highly recommend reading the captions, starting from the first photo. Many thanks to Andreé and my brother to )

Fukuda was here!

2007-07-14T11:50:00.000+08:00

My Fukuda gift pack has arrived! It took a few weeks, but I was pleasantly surprised when a truck actually arrived to deliver it at our doorstep! I was stunned!

Holy lords of junk food! The "gift pack" turned out to be two whole boxes of snacks. That's 24 cartons each of Fukuda Potato Stixz (sour cream and onion flavor) and Fukuda Twister Pea Chips (creamy onion and garlic). It's not a lifetime supply of Fukuda Chipz as I had secretly hoped, but at the very least I'll have a lot of ammunition for "merienda treat" at the office.

My thoughts of these products will come some time later, when I've actually given them the taste test. The entire review process will be well documented, of course.

Thanks for pulling through, Gilbert!

R.I.P. Beef Teriyaki

2007-07-04T14:00:00.000+08:00

After 12 years of selling affordable food to cash-strapped AdMU students, Beef Teriyaki in the Gonzaga caf has shut down (yes, the name of the stall is "Beef Teriyaki"). The cause? A student got hospitalized after drinking orange juice spiked with a mothball. It was completely unintentional, of course, unless the concessionaire in the next stall slipped the mothball into the juice in a fit of envy over BT's broad customer base. But in any case, the administration simply had no choice but to close them down for sanitation violations. Look at all the notices plastered all over the place:

With the way they were written, the news article and its accompanying piece (where they ask students their opinion about the whole incident) would actually be quite humorous, if it weren't for the fact that someone almost died and a couple of people lost their jobs. For example, the following paragraph about the victim:

Even if his health was put at risk, the student said that he does not hold a grudge against Beef Teriyaki. He will even write a letter to the administration to have the store re-opened.

The thought of someone holding a grudge against a food stand is absolutely hilarious! And also, it's interesting how he even feels remorse over closing down a store that almost got him killed. Maybe he's afraid of retaliation from the hundreds of BT patrons on campus? And also, this quote from Ate Alma (the friendly photocopying lady at Colayco) is just pure, unintentional comedy gold:

Okay lang para sa akin kaya lang naaawa rin ako kasi nawalan sila ng hanapbuhay, pero hindi kasi sila nag-iingat. Alam naman nilang pagkain ang tinitinda nila at mayaman 'yung mga estudyante kaya maselan 'yung mga tiyan nila. Sa ganyang negosyo kasi, dapat doble ang pag-iingat.

For those who don't read Tagalog, the translation is:

For me, it's okay although I pity those who lost their livelihoods, but they weren't being careful. They know that it's food they're selling and that the students are rich so their stomachs are very sensitive. In that line of business, you have to be doubly careful.

Those poor, poor rich kids with fickle tummies! And here is another opinion from one of the students:

I think it's a shame that an institution, a very critical organ in Ateneo's culture and tradition, must come to an end because of a mistake made by an unwitting and unwilling somebody.

BT was a great boon for the community, but that doesn't make it an "institution" or a "critical organ in Ateneo's culture and tradition". WTF.

As for me, I was saddened that they had to close down. I was a fan of their "breakfast sandwich" (ham, egg, and coleslaw), and at times, I craved for their spicy chicken strips (never liked their signature beef teriyaki though). And if they hadn't closed down, I'm sure their regular customers would still keep coming back; there just aren't a whole lot of affordable places to buy food on campus. But the rules are rules. And I don't think they're making a comeback either; the last concessionaire that was shut down was Paotsin, and they were no slouch either.

Rest in peace, Beef Teriyaki. I'm sure you will be missed. Where oh where will your loyal customers eat lunch now?

A one-time food critic

2007-06-26T19:40:00.000+08:00

Back in September 2006, I wrote about Fukuda Potato Crisps (now being sold in stores as Fukuda Chipz) the one-of-a-kind, no-frills Pringles clone with a wonderful wasabi flavor and a price that won't hurt your pocket. Although I have managed to convince some of my friends to try it out (and most of them liked it as well), I didn't think that my aforementioned blog entry in particular caught the attention of a lot of people.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a Friendster message (of all places) yesterday from Gilbert, VP of Sales and Marketing of Richburg Corporation, the local importer and distributor of the Fukuda chips. Here is the meat of the message:

Hi Mark,

I chanced upon reading The Rube Tube, and found out you have tried our products Fukuda Potato Crisp.

We appreciate the comments you have made about the product not because its all positive but its simply the way you constructively explain what you liked about it.

In appreciation of your support to our products, we would like to send you a simple gift pack and samples of our other products.

You may comment on it, good or bad, because we believe that consumers like you are the ones who let us strive harder to make sure that what we put in the market are to the satisfactory of the majority.

You know what, that really, really, really, really, really made my day. How many times do you get a message like that in your inbox? I appreciate their effort to reach out to a single consumer like me, despite the fact that I don't review products for a living and I'm not even pretending to be one. The gesture made me feel important and it also made me feel empowered as a consumer.

Thanks, Gilbert! I'm looking forward to receiving the gift pack soon.

(If you do a search for "fukuda potato crisps", you will find that The RubeTube is first on the list. In fact, if you search with the quotes, then The RubeTube is the only source on the list. Am I the first person to have ever written about Fukuda?)

Still a loser, just not the biggest

2007-06-10T18:55:00.000+08:00

Our Biggest Loser contest is over and I'm not the biggest loser. Aside from the 500-peso ante, all I lost were a couple of pounds, and around 3 percentage points off of my body fat index. That was far from being competitive. But at least I achieved a few of my goals:

Lose a couple of pounds. Doesn't matter how many as long as my weight doesn't creep back up.
Look noticeably thinner. My friends and officemates will attest to this; too bad "audience impact" doesn't count.
Be conscious of my diet. Never would've thought it'd happen, but I am actually making an effort to understand those "Nutrition Facts".
Get into the exercise habit. Gold's Gym really helped out here. In fact, I feel awful whenever I miss out on my regular M-W-F gym days.

I am winner!

TopCoder: $32.0

2007-05-31T10:35:00.000+08:00

Got this interesting email from TopCoder a few days back:

Hello punzki,

Congratulations! The results of TopCoder SRM 350 are official. You have
won $32.0 (sic).

Sweet! This was after I'd dropped to Division 2 (again) and placed 1st in my room and 5th overall in SRM 350. I was excited about finally winning some TopCoder cash, until I found out about all the paperwork I need to accomplish within 60 days, and that TopCoder will withhold 30% in taxes from my winnings. Still, $22.40 is money well-earned and I plan on using it to celebrate a bit.

After the match, I moved back up to Division 1. Part of me wishes I hadn't, because I've had success in Division 2 before, and staying in Division 2 gives me my best chance of winning more prizes. But there's no way I'm tanking intentionally; I've still got coder's pride after all.

Broaderband

2007-05-22T12:05:00.000+08:00

We had PLDT myDSL installed here at home yesterday. It's the usual 999 pesos-per-month promo for 512 kbps bandwidth that they've been floating around aggressively lately. It also bundles in our residential landline (no more monthly charges), plus free IDD calls for a year!

I must say that the speed is impressive, and it sometimes even exceeds the advertised bandwidth. Results from online speed tests aren't consistent (depending on the latency to the test server), but here's the best result I've had so far:

Not bad! And PLDT gives us a public IP address as well, just in case I ever want to access my home computers remotely.

What happens to our Smart BRO subscription now? myDSL trumps Smart BRO's 384 kbps by far. Unfortunately, we're locked into their service until July, so until then, we basically have dual broadband. It's too bad that we don't have a router capable of taking advantage of both (i.e., a load-balancing router), so Smart BRO will just act as a backup until we can officially drop it.

Under the 200-pound hump

2007-05-18T07:25:00.000+08:00

Two weeks after getting into the gym habit, I decided to take some measurements again. After all, I was feeling a bit lighter and healthier, and had some extra spring to my step, so I figured that meant that I'd lost a few pounds.

I measured my weight with the same machine used in our "Biggest Loser" contest, and I was elated to find my weight at a "mere" 196 pounds, even with my shoes on! You may think that this isn't such a big deal, but for me it was huge (or the opposite, actually, har har). For the longest time, I've always weighed in it over 200 pounds, and it's always been bothering me that I was that much overweight. Of course, 196 pounds is still overweight, but that 200-pound barrier was this hump that I've always wanted to get over... or under, rather. This is a great achievement for me, and it sure does a lot for me mentally as well. It gave me a huge psychological boost and it indicated that I was finally doing things right.

I've already accomplished what I wanted to achieve in our contest: to get into the habit of exercising and to start living a healthier lifestyle. Of course, actually winning the contest would be a very nice reward, so I'm definitely not slacking off!

And guess what? I've also lost an inch off my waistline! As a "consequence", I now have to tighten my belt by one notch.

To tell you the truth though, finding out I'd lost weight wasn't very surprising. I've somehow managed to maintain my weight in the 200 to 210-pound range with my regular eating habits; my weight was already very "stable". So if you just add a dash of exercise and combine that with lessened food intake, I was sure to lose some weight. All this simply proves the age old formula for weight-loss: Higher energy consumption + lower energy intake = lost pounds.

No vote

2007-05-14T17:45:00.001+08:00

I didn't vote in today's senatorial and local elections. Not that I didn't want to; I'm just not a registered voter.

It's tempting to justify my actions (or rather, inactions) by saying "I didn't have time to register" or "My vote won't count for much anyway", but I did have time and everyone's vote does count. I have no excuse and I will deeply regret this...

For a while, anyway.

TechBits #3: Where are those missing/invisible files that are still taking up space? (after running Chkdsk)

2007-05-13T17:20:00.000+08:00

(Skip ahead three paragraphs down if you don't care about the back-story.)

This edition of TechBits involves a very scary episode with the backups that I made from my dead office laptop's hard disk. I couldn't open one of the backup folders so I decided to run Chkdsk to check for errors on the external drive; it found a number of errors, but nothing that couldn't be fixed.

After running Chkdsk, I could finally access the inaccessible backup folder, but I ran into a bigger problem: the entire folder of videos I had stored on my external hard disk was gone! 100+ GB of downloaded animé and TV episodes, gone in a flash! (I also lost entire folders of work-related files, but strangely enough, I was more concerned about the "Videos" folder.)

I found out some time later by checking the properties window that the missing files were still taking up space on the hard disk; I just couldn't find them! I did my research and it turns out that Chkdsk was the culprit; it had hidden the recovered file fragments somewhere. Here's how to find them:

From any Explorer window, go to the Tools menu and select Folder Options.
From the Folder Options window, go to the View tab.
Under Advanced settings, make sure that the Hide protected operating system files option is unchecked:
Go to the root folder of the hard drive, (e.g., G:\). There you will find a previously-hidden folder or a series of folders named found.NNN, where NNN is some three-digit number. You might have many of these folders if you've run Chkdsk multiple times before. In my case, since I only had one Chkdsk recovery operation, I only had a found.000 folder.
Under the found.NNN folder, you'll find a series of folders named dirNNNN.chk, where NNNN is some four-digit number. You might also find a similar series of files called fileNNNN.chk. These are the files and folders that Chkdsk has recovered:
The files in the dirNNNN.chk folders should still be intact and properly named. You should be able to figure out from its contents what the dirNNNN.chk folder originally was and where it was originally located. Copy/move the folder back to where it should belong.
As for the fileNNNN.chk files, you'll just have to figure out on your own what they originally were. A free tool called CHK-Mate can examine the content of these files and determine what type of file it originally was (e.g., .doc Word document) so that you can open the file in the appropriate program and put it where it's supposed to belong. (Unfortunately, CHK-Mate wasn't able to identify what my file0000.chk was, but it's okay since it probably wasn't important.)

I still shudder at the thought of downloading all those videos again. Fortunately, I didn't have to. I wish Chkdsk was a bit more informative about where it hid my files though.

TopCoder: Success, at last!

2007-05-10T23:11:00.000+08:00

I'm very proud of my performance on today's TopCoder Single Round Match 348. First place in my room, and 7th overall in Division 2! How I wish today's match had cash at stake...

I would've ranked higher (at least 3rd overall, in fact!) if I hadn't resubmitted for the 1000-point problem, which got me a huge deduction. I had to recheck my solution because I noticed that the return type was long and my code only counted ints. And it later turns out that none of the system tests had a return value that exceeded int's capacity...

After dipping down to Division 2 for the past three matches, I'm now back to Division 1 with a blue rating! The competition is going to be tougher but at least I can really feel that I'm improving and that I'm more prepared for the harder problems.

TechBits #2: Creating global keyboard shortcuts for iTunes (in Windows)

2007-05-08T18:30:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since the last edition of TechBits, so I promise that this one is really good. If you use iTunes, here's how to control iTunes (play/pause, previous/next track) without having to up the iTunes window! Yes, even if you don't have a multimedia keyboard!

Download and install AutoHotkey. AutoHotkey is a handy-dandy free utility for programming keyboard hotkeys. Don't worry; it takes up very few resources and it's safe!
Fire up the text editor of your choice and create a text file called AutoHotkey.ahk in My Documents, with the following contents:

DetectHiddenWindows, On
#/::
IfWinExist, ahk_class iTunes
ControlSend, ahk_parent, {SPACE}  ; Pause/Play
return
#,::
IfWinExist, ahk_class iTunes
ControlSend, ahk_parent, ^{LEFT}  ; Previous
return
#.::
IfWinExist, ahk_class iTunes
ControlSend, ahk_parent, ^{RIGHT}  ; Next
return

Run/double-click on AutoHotkey.ahk. This will start up AutoHotkey with the script running.
Copy the Start Menu shortcut to AutoHotkey to the Startup folder in the Start Menu so that AutoHotkey automatically runs on startup. AutoHotkey will automatically open and run AutoHotkey.ahk in My Documents when it runs.
If you don't want the AutoHotkey system tray icon to be shown, add a new line to the start of AutoHotkey.ahk containing "#NoTrayIcon" (without the quotes).

The AutoHotkey script configures the following global shortcut keys (note that iTunes must be running first!):

Play/Pause: Win + / (slash)
Previous Track: Win + , (comma)
Next Track: Win + . (period)

Feel free to tweak the script yourself to configure your own keys. AutoHotkey is really fun and easy to learn and the documentation contains everything you need to know. Also, if you use a different media player for your music, feel free to contact me or leave a comment so we can come up with an AutoHotkey hack for you!

Review: Spider-Man 3 (a.k.a. But what about Firehouse Dog???)

2007-05-06T14:30:00.000+08:00

With Spider-Man 3 being shown in roughly 99 percent of all cinemas throughout the Philippines (not an exaggeration; take a look!), you are left with little choice if you want to catch a movie in these here parts. I mean, what about all those people who want to watch Pan's Labyrinth (great movie, by the way)? Or--God forbid--what about Firehouse Dog (no plans of watching)???

Even if you've been itching to watch Firehouse Dog ever since you saw the trailer, I still think you ought to take time to watch Spider-Man 3. I thought it was a fantastic movie, for a number of reasons:

The action is just plain awesome. 'Nuff said.
It becomes hilarious at the right times. This keeps the movie from becoming too dragging.
The dialogue is downright cheesy, especially in the dramatic parts... and I love it!
And it ends the trilogy like it should. But I bet they'll still make a Spider-Man 4 just to see how much more money they can milk out of the franchise.

With regards to its place in the Spider-Man movie trilogy, I thought it was on par with the first one. Some people thought there was too much drama, but Spider-Man is really all about the extraordinary superhuman guy with very ordinary human emotions and problems. (Of course, not a lot of us have had our girlfriends hanging from a hundred-story building in a web, but it could happen to you, you know.)

Can someone explain to me the whole point of Spider-Man 2?

P.S. I also think that everyone should watch Toei's 1978 classic Supaidaman. Think Spider-Man meets Shaider, but minus all the plot of Spider-Man, plus Spider-Man has his own transforming giant robot and new giant monsters in every episode! If you haven't yet, catch the first episode on YouTube now!

Gym neophyte

2007-05-04T19:40:00.001+08:00

With just four weeks remaining in our "Biggest Loser" office-edition contest, I decided to try to get into our limited-slots, first-come-first-served fitness program (free one-month's access to Gold's Gym). As you can probably guess, a lot of people attempt to enroll in this program and very few make it, so I was very surprised when I found out that I made it in.

I marked off Friday morning (earlier today) as gym work out time. It was the first time I had ever worked out at a gym, and I was very confused at first with all the machinery and things that I could do. So I made an arrangement to have officemates/gym buddies with me on my first work out: GM and Ryann. I probably wouldn't have survived without them, and I would've been discouraged from working out in the future. They acted as my trainers and tour guides. I never knew there were so many ways to exercise and muscle groups to target. Thanks so much, guys!

I had a lot of fun even though I hadn't pushed my body to its limit in such a long time. I'm feeling fine, except that my legs are killing me after doing squats. Tomorrow I will probably have the worst time trying to get out of bed.

How to be unproductive at the office (a.k.a. my laptop died)

2007-05-03T20:50:00.001+08:00

(This will be a long story, I promise.)

My work laptop died last night. Well, not completely. It could only boot Windows part of the way; it goes up to the black boot-up screen with the Windows XP logo and the animating bars, but then the hard disk just stops reading all of a sudden while the bars just keep scrolling along. None of the three supposedly-safe modes worked either; at some point I get in the boot-up process, a BSOD flashes briefly and causes my laptop to restart.

After all that, I gave up on trying to get Windows to boot and focused instead on getting my important files (work-related files, downloads, Outlook data, and some personal stuff) to a safe location, and repairing my Windows installation. I had hunch that my Windows installation just got corrupted but the rest of my files were still intact; this hunch would later prove to be correct. The easiest way would've been to call the help desk and get my laptop repaired, but that's for wimps. I figured I could solve this on my own.

Step 1 was to backup my files to my external hard disk; I needed to do this just in case everything is wiped out in the process of reinstalling Windows. I had to find a way to get my files directly to the external hard disk because my personal laptop didn't have enough space. As you can probably imagine, I tried many methods to get this done:

I already had a burned CD of Ubuntu Linux 6.06 (Dapper Drake). From the Live CD, it could read from my laptop's hard disk (the files were still intact). Although writing to NTFS (my external hard disk's file system) from Linux was still risky, I didn't have much of a choice. I did some research and found NTFS-3G, a stable read/write driver for NTFS partitions. However, I couldn't get it installed properly even if I added the proper apt-get repository.
I installed Samba on Ubuntu so I could set up a file share on my mounted laptop hard disk. I tried the best I could, but I wasn't able to find the file share from my personal laptop, even if my work laptop could be seen in the Windows workgroup.
I set up the IIS default FTP web site on my personal laptop to have a home directory directly on the external hard disk. After disabling the firewalls (and unplugging the Internet connection), it worked! But only for a while. I got some weird write-speed issues after a few gigs were copied over.
Finally, I decided to download the latest version of Ubuntu, 7.04 Feisty Fawn, which had NTFS-3G in it's Ubuntu universal repository. I had to download it overnight and burn the image to disk, but it worked! I got it installed properly and both drives were mounted successfully. All of my important files were safely copied over to the external hard disk.

After I felt confident that my files were safe, I went about reinstalling Windows. I had a Windows XP Pro with SP2 CD lying around at home. But as you can guess, it wasn't so simple:

I put the CD in the tray and restarted my laptop. My heart stopped for a few moments when I got to the part where I'm supposed to pick an installation to repair, but Windows told me it couldn't find any hard disks! W. T. F. I soon realized that my laptop had a SATA hard disk and the Windows CD didn't have any SATA drivers for it.
I downloaded the SATA driver from the HP website but for some stupid reason, it would only extract to a floppy disk! Last time I checked, most laptops don't have floppy drives anymore so I had to extract to a "virtual floppy disk"; I'd heard of virtual CD/DVDs before, but a virtual floppy disk???
At the start of Windows setup, you can press F6 to provide setup with third-party drivers for your hard disk. Unfortunately, it could only read those drivers from a floppy disk. W. T. F.
Using the instructions detailed here, I used nLite to create an installation CD with the SATA driver included. But just when I thought there was light at the end of the tunnel, Windows still couldn't detect the hard disk.

In the end, I just decided to give up, while I still had my sanity (and my files!) intact. Even if I had somehow managed to repair Windows, I still couldn't know for sure if it would finally boot. I called the help desk, somehow managed to explain my situation to an Indian call center agent, and had someone get on my case. I still went to the office, but I spent the rest of my day extremely unproductive. I got very little sleep (two hours, while Feisty Fawn was downloading) and spent half a day acting like a hacker.

If you managed to read through this whole blog entry, then I'll have spared you some trouble if you ever experience this exact same problem. Two words: reformat, reinstall. (Or possibly: use Ubuntu.)