old school pics

Around a week ago, Lola Carol was kind enough to tag me on some of her Facebook pics. Turns out, they were old school pics from around Freshman days. Haha! ;p


The first two pics were from the class Christmas party held at Mark's house. The rest of the pics were from Carol's birthday at Fontana. Vintage! Taena, Kodak pa talaga uso nun! Haha!

outbidded!! outbidded!! goddamit!

I was eagerly watching an item on ebay for days. My game plan was wait until the final minutes before placing my bid so I can outbid the previous bidders at such a low price. That method is called "sniping". What got me were bidders using auction bots!!!

Turns out, those suckers are using bots that automatically places bids higher than what the a would be bidder would place! And so, I got out-bidded! Hahaha!

It was the perfect plan. In less than a minute, I placed a bid of 9.41 dollars.. higher than the current. Then right after I press 'submit', a bid is automatically higher than me! I bid a little higher again, then before I know it, there's automatically a bid higher than mine... by the same bidder! In less than 30 seconds, the bidding war gone through. Eventually, a third bidder bids at the last second.. 20 dollars. Yet he still didn't win. The bot bidded a few cents higher at the last nano-second!

Frustrating! I should have bidded 1k so the fool with the auto bot would end up paying more than 1k for the stupid item. Haha!

On a brighter note, Donna agreed to be my proxy in the States! Yay!!! ;p I will address all my purchases from stateside to her, and kung marami na, tsaka ko ibabalik-bayan box para sulit ang bayad! Hahaha! Thanks Donna!! ;p (and btw, ingat talaga sa pating.. narinig ko madalas raw ang shark attacks diyan! haha! ;p)

just popped my ebay cherry!

Finally, I had my very first ebay transaction! And it went smoothly! ;p

I am collecting a toy line of Go Nagai's Devilman when I chanced upon an online ebay store selling some for cheap. What also attracted me was the "Free shipping within the US". My first option was Che's offer: her parents are coming home from the US for a vacation, so kung gusto ko raw, ipabili ko nalang sa kanila para sila na rin mag-uwi.

It just so happened that after a while, tinaasan ng seller yung price. There was a "Best offer" option though, where you make an offer to the seller, then wait for the response if it its accepted or denied. Yun nalang ang balak ko para babaan yung selling offer. Nahiya na rin ako kay Che since mukhang busy yung parents niya, so sabi ko ako nalang ang bahala.

So my second option was my good friend Rix, who's on vacation in the US since June. I was able to get in touch with her 2 weeks ago, and buti pumayag na siya na mag-receive ng items ko! Hehe! ;p

So it was set, I already have a proxy in the US. Next step was get a Paypal account via my credit card. I thought it was gonna be complicated, but I was wrong. I LOVE Paypal! Easy to register, easy to use, and you're safe purchasing things in the net!

All angles set, I gave my "Best offer" to the seller. We exchanged quite a few offers until we get to settle a price. And by Sunday, I was able to pay him. He shipped the items 2 days ago, and by this morning, Rix messaged me telling me that she got the package! Yay! ;p

So finally, I'm no longer an Ebay virgin! Haha! By talking to the seller about stuff, using the ebay system first hand, and actually purchasing.. I'm now familiar with how it works. Ebay is no longer an uncharted territory for me. ;)

Michael Jackson 1958-2009

People are wondering why God took an extremely talented individual from the world so early in his life.

With all the hatred, criticisms, and ridicule that people threw at him while he was still alive, it was all clear:

God took him because he knew that the world doesn't deserve someone as special as Michael Jackson.

Rest in peace, Michael. May you moonwalk your way into heaven.

===

"I'm starting with the Man in
the mirror..
I'm asking Him to change
his ways..
And no message could have
been any clearer..

If you wanna make the world
a better place,
take a look at yourself and
then make a change."

-Michael Jackson, 'Man in the Mirror'

Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen

Cast: Shia Lebeouf, Megan Fox
Director: Michael Bay

Here it is, the sequel to the hit Transformers live action movie! I'm not really a big fan of Transformers when I was a kid, I was more of a GI Joe fan, so I wasn't really that excited when the first TF film came out. In fact, when I was to choose what movie to watch, Transformers 1 or Die Hard 4, I chose the latter! John McClane for the win! Haha! I ended up watching Transformers 1 on my friend's iPod a year later on a rainy night during a out of town trip! LOL.

So there, I ain't a fanboy so I can generally say that I can give you an unbiased review of TF2: Rise of the Fallen.

The sequel starts off where the first one ended. The Decepticons, seemingly defeated with their leader Megatron dead, goes into hiding and everything seems back to normal. The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, continues the hunt for Decepticons who went into hiding. Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky, is back to normal life--or so he thought. While preparing to leave for college, he stumbled upon a fragment of the destroyed AllSpark from the first film. This embedded valuable information into his mind. Information that is invaluable to the Decepticons. Upon learning the recent turn of events, the Decepticons are on the move for Witwicky as they need the information so they can herald in their supreme leader, a being called "The Fallen".

So what's new? This is basically just like the first Transformers movie, only longer and MORE EXPLOSIVE (AARRRRR Michael Bay! ARRRR!). It has more comedy injected in it as compared to the first one.

Like I've said, the movie was OK, but not great. It's definitely a graphical masterpiece with all those special effects catered on the robot transforming and all those explosions. Yes, I get that this is a POPCORN movie--you care little about the plot and just go along the ride. You don't care if the movie has dumb subplots or pointless scenes. I just wished that Michael Bay knew when enough is ENOUGH.

For me, the movie dragged too long. Two hours is too long for this kind of movie. The last half, which supposed to be the most exciting part with all the explosions and robot smashing, dragged on so much that I was almost asking myself when this is gonna stop. At least the first movie had more substance without resorting to almost an hour long battle in the desert just to showcase special effects, and again, EXPLOSIONS (damn Michael Bay).

The die-hard Transformers fans, and sci-fi geeks, will still probably like this film as much as the first one. To credit Michael Bay and the rest of the production stuff, they did justice to robots. For casual moviegoers, if they know what to expect (a popcorn movie), and if they can get past the unnecessary length of the movie, they'll still get their money's worth. But for the moviegoers who are expecting their Transformers movie to have intelligent sub-plots, or even something like a good conversation/argument about the movie's plot afterward, this will disappoint you. When you watch a Michael Bay movie, expect explosions... EXPLOSIONS! And nothing much else. But I guess you already knew that. Score: 6/10

Goodbye Myk; Che's Birthday

I've been busy, AND sickly, lately. Blame the lack of sleep thanks to the construction going through next door. Ahh, I can still hear those hammers pounding 'til now!!

Myk's Despedida; Che's Birthday

So another one gets to leave. First it was Ed, then Mark, then Donna left for the states indefinitely. This time, it was Myk leaving for work in Singapore. At this rate, I won't be surprised if Dale and/or Pilep will follow suit. Heck, even Che has offers from China!

And grabe, ang konti nalang namin. Kung mag-set ng gimik, you can probably count on one hand the "sure people" who would go. :(

Anyhoo, back to Myk. He got an offer from IBM Singapore so before he left the country, he held a despedida for us. He treated us to Dinner in Cyma! Then movies afterward--Transformers 2! And it was a double celebration too: it was also Che's birthday! She treated us to Starbucks much later that night (and a popcorn exclusively for me! thanks che!! hehe!). :D

Ang usapan, kitakita ng 8pm sa Trinoma. When I got there around 8:30pm, I was worried na baka ako nalang ang wala pa. Shet, si Pilep at si Oninz (buti nagpakita na! haha!) palang! Myk got delayed for having to wait for Dale (haha!); Che had a celebration with her tutees back at home; and Jem had a work related celebration earlier that night.

After a while, everyone got there in time for dinner. Myk's reservation in Cyma kasi was for 9pm. Medyo badtrip pa nga si Myk kasi ang labo ng arrangement ng Cyma--we had a reservation pero pagdating namin, there was no table available for us! Tsk.

Back at Cyma, the food was great. It was good, but was too expensive for quite a few servings (for the meat). The salad was great though. After dinner, the guys even ordered the complementary dessert off Jem's card. Parang tester siya of some sort. Itsura palang medyo masagwa na, so I didn't even dare try it! Hahahaha! ;p

When we're done with Cyma, we we're right in time for the movie. It was already 11pm but the people at the cinema were still buzzing. It was Transformers 2 night after all!

And popcorn! Che treated me to a bucket of popcorn! Busog na silang lahat kaya ako lang ang kumain! Wahahaha! ;p

Oninz was also maarte. Pabago-bago ng isip, tuloy hindi na nakasama manuod ng movie! Haha! Well at least nakasama namin siya ngayon after a long time. ;)

And the movie, it was OK but not great. This time, it had more laugh trips than the original--but I guess it was more shallow. Blame Michael Bay and his uber over the top use of explosions. Brr. I guess it would've been ok if it wasn't about 2 hours long. I'll do a review later.

After the movie, it was already around 2am. Starbucks daw muna. So Myk gave me a ride til the carpark so I can get my car. Jem rode with me while the others were with Myk.

Looking for an open Starbucks, we ended up near the Timog branch. There, Che treated us with Starbucks goodies! Before you know it, Myk and Pilep were already at it, playing Magic. Dale was eagerly watching on. All the while, I was chatting with Che and Jem. Hehe.

A while later, Starbucks was closing. It was already past 3am na. It's gonna be goodbye time na. This is probably the time that we'll have Myk in a "regular" gimik. The next time we'll see him, it would probably be a homecomings or special events. :(

I don't know Myk's plans, or if he's serious about it. He says that he has no intentions of going back to the Philippines for work. After SG daw, his primary target is the US where he likes to migrate.

Anyhoo, the goodbyes in that Starbucks parking called it a day. Che and Pilep went with Myk (NOOOO! there goes my CHELIPS points! hahaha), while Dale and Jem went with me. We gave Jem a ride home, while Dale slept over my house.

Thanks to Myk (by now, in SG na) and Che (happy happy birthday, antanda mo na!! hahaha!) for that wonderful evening! :)

*Pics to follow after I grab some from Che!