Last week was Mike’s turn to visit back here in the Philippines (last January was Aldrin). Even if our barkada is seldom complete, we still manage to hang around and have a get-together gimmick. It’s hard for us to have a complete reunion because most of us are countries apart.

Anyway, our first stop (2008.03.09) since Mike arrived was at Gerry’s Grill (Trinoma). A heavy dinner with lots of meat and iced tea. The weather is good, the air is cool but not too cold.

Left to right. Suzette (Mike’s wife), Mike (our sponsor for the night), Me (just tagged along to enjoy the free food and drinks), Jerrue (same reason as me), and Marvin (our pilot for the day).

Last Thursday (2008.03.13), is guys night.

Increased food intake was one of the highlights of the day. Around 4pm, late lunch at KFC and immediately after that, dessert at Iceberg. By 8pm, dinner at SM North (forgot the name of the resto) foodcourt. Then the four of us (photo above) went to Grillas at Commonwealth. It’s unfortunate that Oli (another of our barkada) couldn’t join us because he has some “responsibilities” to attend to. It was another night for a round of beer and pulutan. It was a whole night (till 4am) of food and drinks.

It could have been longer, but I have a scheduled meeting in Ortigas at 6am. So after I got home around 4:30am. I immediately took a shower, changed my clothes, and got out. Yup, that was a whole day of no sleep. Hehe.

My apologies for the poor photo quality. None of us brought a digital camera, all we got is our mobile phones. It was a very long and eventful night. Although as much as I like to tell the detailed story, I can’t. Because like what they always say, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Another thing…

I saw the legendary car from the anime Initial D, parked at Trinoma. Good thing we have a digital camera at that time. I couldn’t get more shots because we’re already in the van and we were leaving the parking lot.

I’m not entirely sure if it is an exact replica of the Toyota Trueno AE86, the car that the protagonist of the series used.

Free time is an opportunity for me to have fun. In short, play games. I’ve already outgrown most games, and I seldom play anymore. I’ve un-installed, packed, and stored most of my game CDs. But still, on my free time, I manage to play a game or two.

Audition Online

The only ‘big’ game (1.4 GB) installed in my PC, until now, is Audition Online. Take note that it is a casual game, and no long hours of playing or quests is needed. It is an online dance battle, wherein you just dance to win. The game is very simple, you only have to follow the arrows with a key press, then make your move. It’s simple to play, but it’s not that easy.

Here is a sample screenshot of the game. This is choreography mode with 4 keys, meaning 4 directional arrows. Also this is not my main character, since I use a female avatar.

I took the screenie while on replay mode.

I usually spend an hour playing this game, and a max of up to 6-8 hours during weekend when I don’t do anything. And yes, after that long straight hours, my hands are shaking from exhaustion.

PMOG

If I calculate the most hours I spend in a day, or even a week, my top activity would be browsing the Internet. And while using my favorite browser, Firefox, I’m actively online on PMOG. Yep, the online game that uses your browser and the websites you visit as a game. If you don’t know what is PMOG, you can read my post at Tambayan.ph.

Ok, so my current status on the game:
After playing PMOG for 22 days, ryman, who is keeping his or her particulars a secret, is a level 2 Pathmaker with 2508 datapoints and 2308 datapoints earnt.

Right now, I only need 692 datapoints to reach level 3. That means I have to visit nearly 700 websites, or about half of that if the website I go to is a top level domain.

I’ve already have 6 badges, and by tomorrow I should get another 3 because this is my fourth week in visiting the required websites to get it. I’ve also made 1 mission, since it’s required to level up. I’m still trying to become a seer, since I want that affiliation. I don’t know why my association keeps changing.

If you want an invitation to PMOG, I can give you one, just post a comment here and leave your email.

Tongits

Another new game in my PC is Tongits. Read my post regarding Tongits at Tambayan.ph and how to get it.

If you like playing card games in your PC then try Tongits. The opponent’s AI is well-balanced. You won’t know if the cards you get will make you win, lose, or worse get burned (sunog). I have to warn you though, the game is addictive, and I can’t stress this enough. I mean, when I’m writing a blog post or just reading my RSS feeds, I keep alt-tabbing to the game. The longest time I’ve played it straight is almost 4 hours, without saving or quiting.

The game is fun and the outcome is sometimes surprising. Even if you have a good set of cards you can still lose, and vice-versa. The only draw-back about the game is, it uses a lot of memory. Although it’s not really a problem because I don’t notice any slow downs, the memory jumps from 1mb up to 70mb. I’m thinking maybe because it uses Adobe AIR.

I also gave my friend a copy of the free trial game. I know he too will get addicted. Haha.

Rubik’s cube, Quartet, puzzles

Besides computer games, I’m also into puzzle games. Two of my puzzles have already been solved. I’ve already mastered the 3×3 cube, no more notes and my hand is a little faster. But not as fast as those speedcubers. I have yet to beat my 3 minutes (that is using a hard to rotate cube).

I recently saw a 2×2 and a 5×5 version of the cube, and was thinking if I should get one. Another challenge eh?

That’s the games I spend most of my free time. Not to mention the 1,000+ Java games I have here waiting to be installed on my mobile phone.

I’m also waiting for (my most favorite game) Grand Theft Auto 4 to arrive. My trigger fingers are itching to kill, maim, and run over the peds.

It’s been a week since I last posted here. I’m doing a lot of stuff online and offline. Anyway, here are some thoughts and events that transpired within the week that passed.

• According to my PMOG page, I’ve been playing it for 8 days now. Last week, I’ve installed the PMOG toolbar on my Firefox and from that day, I’ve been busy jumping from one website to another. I need the Datapoints from websites all over the web to level up.
• Last Saturday, until Sunday, I tried to get the Indie badge from PMOG. The only condition is that I don’t go to any Google site, like Google reader or the Goole search page, within 24 hours online. I successfully completed that, but the badge still hasn’t appeared on my profile. I don’t know if that condition is affected by the Google analytics that is loading in the background from other websites aside from Google, like this blog for instance. I’m not sure if the PMOG toolbar monitors the URL at the address bar or the cache on my browser to determine if I haven’t visited any Google related site. If it is the latter, then I haven’t completed the 24 hours condition, since I visited this blog and my Tambayan.ph blog which contains Google analytics internally, thus loading a Google site in my Firefox cache.
• Last night my primary association at PMOG turned from Shoat to Bedouin. Then early this morning Bedouin became my secondary association, then Benefactor became my primary. I don’t know what is happening, or there are some internal changes in the game (since it is still in Beta), but I was aiming to become a Seer.
• As of this post, I still need 240 Datapoints to level up. I’m still at level 1 because I seldom go to websites externally, and most of them are already in my feed reader.
• I’m planning to add a whole new section in this blog. I’m thinking along the lines of games, videos, music, and babes. I was thinking of launching these new sections by March 1. If this idea pushes through, then expect more content here.
• When I encountered the Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe (Win32/Autoit.BD worm) virus from a friend’s USB flash drive, I was tempted to infect my PC with it, then create a removal process. Just like I did with the SSCVIHOST.exe worm. I scratched that idea, but I still want to create a guide to remove it.

That’s it for today, expect more posts by March.

BTW, the Japanese word konshu means “this week”.

It’s been a while since I wrote personal stuff here, and since this is still a personal blog (and is now turning into a repository of informations, technological ideas, random stuff, and all things geeky) I’ll squeeze in a few personal related posts. You can just skip this post if your not interested. Hehe.

To start off, today the 18th of February 2008 is the 7th anniversary of my girlfriend and me. That means we’ve known each other for more than 7 years. We usually celebrate our anniversary (and monthsarry) on the 17th of the month, but the official date is 18. Take note however, that we are not married yet, anyway I’ll give you a quick flashback.
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