been neglecting my education and schooling (two different things, actually). now i have to get back to my books and finish my reading backlog. not kidding you, i have to finish these.

i have started already with some of these books but i ditch finishing them whenever i get my hands on new fantasy novels, which i finish in one or two sittings (or rather lying on bed).

i’m almost finished with the warren buffet way and sadly i failed in my investment strategies. the sage of omaha buys on the cheap whereas i bought when the market was still sliding further downwards, to the dark abyss of this global meltdown. excitement got the better of me.

i finished some of the robert kiyosaki books (of the rich dad, poor dad fame) and thankfully those books curbed my buying binge (and also my husband’s). some of the books that i received from my boss are so timely right now. if only i could fast-forward my reading.

i still have a backlog of newsweek and far eastern economic review to finish…and i only have until tomorrow to lol in bed. january 1 afternoon i’ll be starting desk duty. for a whole month.

goodbye freedom.

i spent almost an hour watching these, while locking myself up inside my home office, waiting for inspiration to come to me before my 3 pm deadline. aggh.

yey! i encountered a blog entry that expressed my sentiments exactly about Twilight. i couldn’t trash the book in the presence of my best friend since she’s sooo obsessed with it.

now i know i am not abnormal. it’s good to know that.

as i’ve said in my other post about the twilight books, the writing is really bad. that’s why i’m still stuck somewhere in the second book, i couldn’t bring myself to read these. good thing i didn’t spend a single centavo on the books or else i would be hitting myself with a sledgehammer. thank you for e-books.

since i was able to install my new fax machine, i decided to reboot my home office. if i would be working here a lot, i might as well make it more conducive for some heavy thinking.

that’s my beloved toshiba 15.2″ latop. it already fell on the floor twice but still running smoothly. but the 60G hard drive is already so dated.

i have to get rid of the cd old installers at the bottom of my secretary. i wonder how we can dispose of these things without harming the environment. you know any recycling center for tech rubbish?

i’m not really vain but i have that photo of myself there to remind me that i once had long hair. or rather i was able to grow it that long before i became irritated with it and chopped it off. never grew it back since. so the photo is sort of a reminder that i can do it.

calling cards, lots of calling cards. i am currently making electronic copies of these. but it’s taking me too long. masyadong marami!

i wonder how long will i be able to keep this neat…

i am moving on to my very messy book case. happy new year to me!

i read last night (probably in engadget) that the final nail to the coffin of VHS is that the last shipment of VHS tapes was already made. VHS tapes would be no more. thus the passing of the VHS format, which has served us very well and more successfully than laser discs.

this reminds me of the advantix film format introduced by kodak several years ago. Other Half bought his first and only advatntix camera and was able to use it for over a year only before we moved on to digital cameras. he hoarded advantix films since he figured it would be harder to buy these than the more com mon 135 mm film format. now we’re stuck with two advantix cameras and several advantix films.

i don’t know if any film processing centers/shops still accept advantix.

soon the production of 135 films will stop. like polaroid films/instant photos. goodbye lomo lovers.

for some reason, Other Half bought a DVD copy of the 1980s movie revenge of the nerds and watched it last night. yes on christmas eve.

funny how the nerds have already taken over the world. bill gates is a classic example. they used to be the kids who tinker with ugly contraptions you called computers back then but now earn revenues more than the GDP of some countries.

i wasn’t a nerd and was never considered one (i think so) but i would really really love to attend the computer electronics show (CES) in the US. hehe. i remember one korean classmate in my crash course something (in one of the premiere business schools around here) last year…he was sooo bummed out when he was shipped here to attend our class instead of covering CES, as promised to him by Korean Times. i would really be pissed off if i were in his shoes.

times have really changed.computers and electronic gadgets aren’t for nerds anymore.

and here i am, being contrarian again.

i just had a landline installed in our house (bundled with my DSL, upgrade) when most people are cutting off their landlines since they seldom use it nowadays. pinoys are seeing that landlines are an unnecessary expense especially since they are probably surgically attached to their cellphones already. at the same time wireless landlines already proliferating…at least in my business.

why did i do it? so i can have a fax machine. yes, it’s so jurassic but i deal with government offices that are left behind by the entire universe as they refuse to send reporters scanned documents. they still use fax! and diskettes!

anyway, since i’m working at home more often (and i am more productive that way) i figured i have to have a fax machine and save a lot of fare and lunch money. imagine, when i don’t have a coverage, i still have to go to some press office so i can have an access to a fax machine! worse, i go to our office just fo the fax  machine.

in addition, my wireless landline doesn’t work inside the house (this gaddam house is one big signal jammer) so i often do my work at our backyard where th signal is strongest. but really difficult for me since the sun always chases me.

why fax machine? why can’t i receive faxes through my computer? mmm…i can’t always leave my computer on especially when i’ m out of the house. at least with the fax machine i can leave it on auto-fax.

yes, landlines and fax machines should already be extinct but when you’re dealing with the philippine government…

true enough, yesterday’s traffic was really bad. i was in makati and i had an effing hard time hailing a taxi, getting a taxi that would ferry me from dusit hotel to makati ave. cor. buendia ave. taxis are hard to come by these days. really, really bad traffic.

–
last week, Other Half and i took the scenic route to laguna from our house. from cainta, we went to taytay and went up to antipolo and went through several rizal towns before reaching siniloan then on to paete, laguna to buy christmas gifts for colleagues (it’s cheaper there, really).

well-paved road of rizal going to laguuna

had lunch in paete’s gallery cum coffee shop.

and went from shop to shop. it took us around 2 hours to reach paete from our house in cainta. from paete we went to lumban to buy two office-barongs for Other Half. then to elbi.

i wasn’t able to take a lot of photos because i was minding the map lest we make the wrong turn and end up in hala-hala, rizal.

i don’t know why people have become like gremlins, mysteriously spawning more people at this time of the year. vehicles have spawned more vehicles thus causing major traffic snarls. i mean, where have they been hiding the rest of the year? has the nippy air triggered spawning more agents of vehicular and human traffic congestion?

i was stuck in traffic last night for a dinner meeting with a top exec. i spent the last 45 minutes twiddling my thumbs inside the FX that has been in the same place for eternity, burning fossil fuels without any progress in that stretch of Meralco Ave. Twiddling advanced to nail-biting as i hoped that my colleagues have not started fielding questions in the guise of personal interest/innocent conversation.

ah…the horrors of christmas holidays. that is why i avoid all malls at this time, which is the opposite of what my mother-in-law wants to do.

expect more gremlins by friday when all of the companies will hold their christmas parties.

one lopez company gave me a copy of the book The Power and the Glory: The Story of the Manila Chronicle this christmas. i started at the epilogue and at the last chapter (last days of manila chronicle…why it went downhill). Interesting read. I know some of the people mentioned there and some of those “oldies” are/were my bosses.

interesting were the stories of the paper when it was taken over by tonyboy cojuangco and robert coyiuto…oh god, the yuchengco-coyiuto war has spanned decades already.

i just wonder how hands-off the lopezes were (as claimed by the book in the latter part of its history; i still have to read the first part) when according to Anarchy of Families, the lopezes kept the paper — even though it’s not profitable — to wield power for political reasons.

have to finish the thick book.

“…Born twice, in 1945 after World War II and in 1986 after the first Edsa Revolution, The Manila Chronicle was once home to the country’s best journalists, including all four Filipino Ramon Magsaysay awardees for Journalism: Zac Sarian (1974), Raul Locsin (1999), Sheila Coronel (2003), and Eggie Apostol (2006).

Advance praise for the book calls it “a wonderful read, with lots of colorful and telling detail” (Sheila Coronel), “an insiders’ history of postwar Philippine journalism” (Johnny Gatbonton), and “a finely detailed account…(that captures) the drama within and beyond the newsroom, (and memorializes) the men and women whose years with the ‘Chronicle’ would be among the best of their lives” (Butch Dalisay).

“The Power and the Glory” is available at the Lopez Memorial Museum. Call Fanny at (+63-2) 631 2417 for orders and inquiries.

During its two incarnations under the aegis of the Lopez family (1945-72 and 1986-93), the Manila Chronicle was the finest newspaper in the country. It assembled the most journalistic talent ever gathered in a Filipino newsroom The Chronicle was once home to all four Filipino Ramon Magsaysay awardees for journalism and many of the biggest names in the industry. Certainly, other Philippine newspapers were more successful as businesses. But none were better written or edited.

This book weaves together the story of nation that with the story of the men and women who covered that nation and how they did it. The ‘Chronicle ‘saga contained great friendships and at times intense interpersonal conflict; its reporters shared moments of high drama as well as low comedy. They were bound together by hard work, a quest for excellence and the shared experience of recording a – and sometimes influencing – Philippine history in the making…”

read more here.