kimi@dreamwidth

this made me smile. XD

( i'm not in the picture, why?! T.T )

so i was reading this article entitled "Pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter shakes up McCain campaign" (link from pabell, thanks). i was reading the article with my mind on politics, and then i read this on the comments:

..Why put any pregnant mother through the hyper stress of a national election first hand. Or is this just a ploy to get the boy to marry the girl. Obviously nobdy in the republican party is focussed on the family. Getting married as a teenager does not solve all your problems, it just magnifies the disparity of maturity to maintain healthy relationships. I know this by my own expeiriance, as a person who married young, under parental pressures.
Submitted by: Sean Bascom

WORD.

as it happens, i didn't choose either of the Toshiba or HP. XD

a series of (unfortunate?) events led me to the Dell Inspiron 1525. it was first suggested to me by edvardian. (thanks again! ^^)

at that time, i was pretty bummed because after looking at the HP and Toshiba models, my mother informed me that those models were not available either at BestBuy or CostCo, since those stores were near their place and convenient to go to.

but the Inspiron was available at the BestBuy website for $499.00 with better specs! the Inspiron already has 2GB RAM / 160GB HDD, while both the Toshiba and HP each had 1GB RAM / 120GB HDD.

i was psyched, and immediately asked ina about it, but it wasn't available at the BestBuy store near them. i tried to convince ina to use her credit card on the BestBuy website, but she's currently netophobic due to the breakdown of my brother's laptop. i think Vista is my brother's problem, but my mom is convinced it's a virus from the net. (would you believe i am the least technologically-challenged member of my family? O.O they're pretty helpless over there.. i even had to call ina overseas and walk her through installing YM on her new desktop pc. O.O she was demanding to be reassured that it's okay to download from Yahoo, of all freakin' websites.)

in any case, to sum it up, my mother told me to wait instead for availability of the Inspiron in a store near them.

then it went out of stock at the BestBuy website. ;_;

then the price soared from US$499.00 to US$649.00 at the BestBuy website, while still being out of stock. ;__;

i really was losing all hope of getting it for a good price, since all these limited time offer discounts were quickly disappearing, and if you will look at the price at Dell.com, the model i wanted starts at $599.00, but it had a lesser HDD capacity of 120 GB only.

then two days ago, a feed from Engagdet showed up in my Gmail. it seemed mildly interesting so i clicked on it. then my eyes were riveted to the right hand side, and this was the sight that met my eyes..

( ..a ray of light bursting from an otherwise stormy sky.. XD )

ganked from bathala:

Your Astrological Sign May Not Be What You Think It Is!

i'm a virgo FTW! XD

according to the article, kaida is a scorpio and not a sagittarius, and aru falls under a new constellation named ophiuchus.. and now he's asking, "where do i read my horoscope now then?" LOL.

a friend of my parents' made music videos for two songs by their band, ang grupong pendong.

ang grupong pendong - dito sa lupa

ang grupong pendong - sanlibutan


would appreciate you guys watching and/or commenting. ^^

personally, i think the videos need a bit more work. from what i understand, though, these aren't the final versions of both vids.

but really, all the while i was watching i was really just amazed at how my parents can still be at it at their age. XD ang galing talaga nila, i'm so proud! ^^; they make really good songs.

speaking of which, ang grupong pendong will be on a 3-month US tour around late may of this year, and my parents are bringing aru along with them as session guitarist. i'm dying with envy. D: i miss both my parents and aru's the one who gets to be with them, on real gigs no less. =_=

kaida's second birthday last november 25 was great! thanks to all who came. ^__^v

will try to post pics/vids (mostly vids though as i tried out our new vidcam that day) as soon as i get things together.

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the ame gakuensai event was v.grand. i can only be amazed at how accomplished the org has become. kudos. ^^

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went to the ppc christmas get-together last sunday with kaida. she went swimming at the pool, but got cold and didn't want to stay long. >__< it's only the third time she's gone swimming, the first one at a hot spring and the second time at the beach, so i guess she's not used to cold pool water yet.

the party was fun, aru and i won original discs for war of the ring and ground control 2. ^^v

aru didn't win the call of duty 4 tourney though, he got owned by aggroelf during the prelims. XD

after swimming, playing with nadia (her new ~*friend*~!) and gobbling up dinner, kaida fell asleep in an upstairs room so we took the opportunity to drink socialise. ^__^

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i admit it. i have a complex love/hate relationship with lineage2. =.=

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have been damn busy! will catch up with replies and memes soon.

so aru and i went to the First Academy of Computer Arts to attend an orientation/workshop for the courses they are offering.

they have pretty good facilities, i must say. air-con rooms and good computers.. and each of their classes only accommodate a maximum of 8 people, which means the instructor can really focus on each student.

their web master/web design program looks promising, as well:


The Webmaster Training Program
(174 Total Number of Hours)

The Webmaster Training Program is designed to train students to design, develop, maintain, and manage web sites using current and upcoming web technologies. The aim of the program is to enable students to specialize in web design and layout.

Each student, at the end of the course, is given the task of designing and creating a fully functional website using the various skills and technologies learned throughout the program.

Subjects:
1. HTML
2. Basic Web Interface Creation
3. Advance Web Interface Creation
4. Web Animation
5. Flash MX 2004 Interactivity
6. Web Integration and Authoring


when i asked questions, they said that the program not only teaches designing a website, but maintaining, developing, and troubleshooting. i'm not sure how far that goes, though. i forgot to ask about php and all that jazz, because i guess that's more on programming. the few samples of sites designed by their graduates look pretty, though.

they have sunday classes, which is really convenient for me. with the sunday schedule, the program lasts for 6 months.

aru got hooked with the digital arts program, and to be honest, since that course is the main focus of the school, their program is very extensive. it's really tempting to take that instead. XD they cover advanced photo editing and vector graphics, page layouting, character illustration, and 2D animation. this course lasts for 8 months.

both of us really really want to enroll, me in web and him in digital arts - but it's pretty expensive. the web master program in monthly payments add up to a total of php40k, while the digital arts program is php50k.

some people might say it's better (and definitely cheaper) to self-study, as there are a lot of tutorials out on the net, but i fear i lack the discipline to study these concepts on a when-the-mood-strikes or when-i-have-time basis. i'm all for the schedule, the structured step-by-step classes, the quizzes, the homework (or maybe not the homework, i hate homework), the projects, the "miss may i go out?" excuses.

also, i feel i will be able to build a network, because the people at that school said they get calls from companies asking for graduates' portfolios, etc.

with all these things considered, the question that still remains in my mind is: is it worth it?

picked up a couple of interesting reads from my multiply network. XD

( children, love, hatred. )

( a '300' movie review. ahlavet!! )

this is almost reminiscent of thingsmyboyfriendsays.com, but a bit milder i think. XD

i always wake up earlier than aru to attend to my work. he's a light sleeper, so he would wake up often and then immediately go back to sleep. this morning, when i saw him open his eyes, i smiled at him, and he blinked and went back to sleep. i didn't realize i'd done this twice more until, when he finally fully woke up:

aru: anong meron?
kimi: huh?
aru: bakit ka ngiti nang ngiti?
kimi: ai sorry. may rason ba dapat? good morning lang naman. 'yaan mo, sisimangutan na kita lagi sa umaga. o_O

and this, thus far, is the best compliment i've ever gotten from him:

kimi: *wakes up too early and grouchily climbs back to bed to get more sleep*
aru: *snuggles then pauses* di ka pa naliligo?
kimi: yescauseitstooearlyineedmoresleepgrowlleavemeinpeace.
aru: pero bakit ang bango ng pagkabaho mo?

true love nga naman.. ._.

why is it that i've heard of yahoo 360 only now? ._.

ok, so maybe it's played at the fringes of my consciousness for a while now via little messages at the bottom of my YM window, but it seems it got through only last night. finally made a page today, so yeah, there we go.

..but damn.. another blog/personal webpage. ~_~

*glances at neglected friendster page*

~____~

i noted yahoo 360 can add up to 3 rss feeds. now, i don't know a thing about rss feeds, but from what i understand of yahoo's explanation, i can integrate livejournal (entries?) into the 360 page. thing is, i believe livejournal allows rss only in sponsored and paid accounts - and so we are back to my primary hate for ads in sponsored accounts.

gah. need more info on this.

..i'm really bad at maintaining pages like these. so yeah, why do i create them in the first place? *gets bricked*

i'd like info on rss and such because i'd like to have more or less a single page wherein i can basically dump my stuff, blogs and all. i like that multiply has unlimited storage for photos and videos and the interface is nice, but it's kinda ram-hungry. with my current pc, my browser sometimes hangs when i access it. and i don't know if multiply allows rss. on the other hand, i like the basic simplicity of livejournal, which is why i link all of my personal sites to this one, but a free account pretty much limits features that one can have.

..i'm also iffy about spending money over upgraded accounts and such, because i'd really rather spend on more important stuff. besides, if i ever spend money on this kind of thing, why not just get a goddam domain of my own so that i won't be limited by site protocol? o_O