Know When Your Time Is Up

While scour-ing today for some random things, I came across this sort of calculator (or meter) that measures the approximate date when the Grim Reaper would have to ask you out. All you’ve got to do is head over to this site, provide answers to a few personal questions. When you’re done, the table gets turned, and the answer to your question (take note: you must ask yourself first before you ever try this!) will be provided.

If you want to know when my time is up, this was what I got:

6/22/2053. On a Sunday? Yikes! I’d die unhappy if I ever live long enough to reach that. I would be over 70 by then. I would never wanna see me with my skin all loosed up. I don’t know. Well at least the link made me wonder… and laugh.

How about you? When do you think the guy with the scythe would come to see you?

Search. Earn. Scour.

I’ve heard about Scour a long time ago from a pro-blogger friend. It’s only today that I decided I need to start working with Scour–dubbed “The Social Search Engine.” It’s easy. Just search, and you earn points. Earn 6500 of those and you get a $25 PayPal check. Now that’s easy.

Now I’m not saying you don’t have to use Google anymore, I am just letting you in on an option. It could be a better alternative. Who knows? So start scouring now! There’s lots more you could do with Scour. Scour this, scour that. So click THIS and start earning extra dough!

UPDATE: Globelines Issues, FIXED!

After calling Globelines’ tech support every single day over the last 7 days or so due to my connection issue (read: slow), two guys finally dropped by today, along with their Asus EeePC, to check and validate how real slow my connection really is/was since the day it got installed. Right… they fixed it! 

They didn’t stay long though BUT they figured the issue was with the Sphairon Turbolink modem. They started their troubleshooting by running speedtests (off speedtest.net) on the small black ultraportable. After failing to at least complete a single speedtest result, they both agreed to try a different modem. Bingo! With the new shiny black Prolink ADSL2+ modem, I got these speeds and it’s been pretty consistent eversince.

So thank you Globelines, especially to the two guys who came here earlier (sorry I didn’t catch your names) You can now close the third trouble ticket numbered 919792. I can forget about the past, and move on as all I ever wanted to begin with was what had I signed up for and what I will be paying for–broadband Internet. Thanks Globelines. Case closed. More power!!!

A Kagayanon’s Journey to Canada

While I was browsing the CDOCentral forums earlier today, I stumbled upon member name kicker and his blog about how he and his wife worked together to get to Canada, the legal way. The exodus story is just inspiring, at least for me. If you read it from the first post up, for sure you would re-realize (you already know this) that nothing in life ever comes easy.

You can go check out his blog at burlingtonjourney.blogspot.com. Learn more about migrating to Canada. And be inspired.

Online BUT Stuck!

If you examine the photo above, you should be able to tell that I’m online now. I’ve got my weather updates in (too bad there’s none for CDO) along with my WAN IP as well. The Globelines folks have finally hooked me up at the new apartment late yesterday afternoon. But that’s just the good news. News always comes in twos. Now the bad news is–the connection has been so slow ever since! To make matters worse, I only figured that out when the install crew had already left the area. 

So did you want to know how slow this thing is? Well, it’s way under the considerable speed even for dial-up! You may want to check the image ^^ again, click it. It’s really ADSL eh? Take a closer look at the download versus upload speeds, there you go. Now I got those values from Speedtest and from my #1 widget, iStat Pro (get the latest version here). The download speed, the most important, is not even in 3 digits!

I guess it’s just not my time these past few days BUT I’ve got to bounce back. With that said, I already gave the Globelines tech support guys a call early this morning and I got a reference number for the record. They said there could be something wrong with the facility or the main center where my line comes out from. At least he agreed there’s something wrong! I just hope they would act on this no sooner than a month! Remember “the wait” I had to burn candles for just for the installation? It now appears the pain wasn’t worth it at all.

Stay tuned…

Globelines suck!

The story: I submitted my application to get hooked up via Globelines (or Globe Broadband) last June 27th, a Friday. And up until now (running 3++ weeks), I am still Internet-less at the new apartment. I moved in June 25th and, like many other professionals out there, I cannot live without the Internet. Without it, I don’t think I feel confident enough to talk to people. I mean what would I talk to them about? News? Local news ain’t enough. I need to know what’s going on with the world! And I would need the Internet for that, don’t you think?

I think I’m gonna have to give them yet another call today and complain this time around. You know I’m the type of person who rarely complains about stuff and services BUT I think this is way over ridiculous right now that it’s not even funny. I will update you guys about this whole mess/ordeal. I NEED THE INTERNET!

I got mentioned in a newspaper…

I just found out I got mentioned in an article written by Jose “Butch” Dalisay on The Philippine Star. It came out last June 22nd in the Sunday Gadgets’ Section. The online version of the full article can be found here.

Here’s the paragraph where I was mentioned:

As a Web browser and mp3 player, the iPhone is “light years ahead” of the BlackBerry, as even local BB guru Ric Pacana acknowledges. The iPhone’s Safari browser is the only real usable phone browser out there that comes close to the desktop experience, and the iPhone’s ability to automatically reorient images (horizontal or vertical) and to resize them with a two-finger “curtain” effect is matchless. However, Ric prefers his BB for its strengths: push email, long battery life, better security, and multitasking.

Butch Dalisay’s blog > http://penmanila.net/

Rylee’s First Bday in 6hrs

I’m still internet-less here at the new house I rented so I might need to up my blog’s post count via BlackBerry for the time being. Nobody from Globelines dropped by today so that’s disappointing. Hopefully, someone will be here tomorrow so they can start surveying and would probably get me hooked up in no time. I’m crossing my fingers. I can’t wait until next week. I’d be losing a lot of time for sure… 

Rylee’s First Bday is almost here with just under six hours left. He’s on a late afternoon powernap right beside me on the king-sized airbed I bought as our temporary bed. He’s healthy, as always, and will transition to a “higher” formula beginning tomorrow. The milk brand or make is called Gain Plus. I just wonder why milk for 1 year olds are a lot cheaper than milk for 6-months and up. Any ideas?

Anyhow, as you can see on the right side, I haven’t been updating my Twitter a lot lately. Twitter via GTalk still doesn’t work for me. I think I really need to use the real GTalk client for it to sync. I should be able to use JiveTalk on my BlackBerry by then. We’ll see what happens later this week.

One cool thing I found out today was plurk over at plurk.com. Some people said it’s way better than Twitter so I gave it a shot… AND boy were they right! It just looks like fun over there! I will probably add a widget on here later so I could link my plurk updates. I love plurk’s timeline feature and the karma system, too.

More updates later…

Rylee’s First Bday Coming Up!

Baby boy Rylee’s first birthday is just around the corner! w00t! Can’t wait for it. He will be a happy 1-year old on Tuesday, July 1st. MJ and I are still trying to decide where we’re going to celebrate his birthday. It won’t be all about kids for now as he still doesn’t have any friends yet–although he enjoys watching and interacting with them whenever he sees some play around.

Above: photo taken during Rylee’s post-baptism photo session. He used to be small… but he’s all big now and can actually walk! He can only say a few words for now though especially the local translation for milk, “dede” and I think that’s cute. Babies are just awesome and they provide so much fun. They can help you de-stress but only sometimes.

There will be more updates as we progress towards his first big day!

Twittering via IM

It’s a rainy Friday out here. It’s been pouring down since early AM. I’m just too preoccupied right now updating this page’s layout, fixing widgets’ locations and how they appear plus there’s twitter. And I think it’s fun. The only issue I have right now is I can’t seem to get through twittering from my GTalk IM account just yet. GTalk on my iChat is still stuck at “waiting for authorization.” I guess I would have to use my brother’s PC later on today just so I could isolate if it’s a Mac thing that’s holding me back twittering via IM. I couldn’t wait as it’s pretty much like blogging on Blogger via email…