the more hi-tech we become, the lesser the lifespan of the gadgets that we have.

i wanted to upgrade my 3-year old (celeron M, 1.6 Ghz) toshiba satellite’s memory (yes, i survived 3 years without doing so) from 512 mb to at least 1g. went to toshiba at megamall this morning and thought it would only take me 15 mins. to accomplish this.

i was wrong.

it turned out that my old laptop only accepts 533 Mhz ram sticks and they’re being phased out already. all vendors there were selling 667 Mhz sticks. tried the 667 twice in two different stores but my laptop still wouldn’t boot. something with wrong with my bios or the bus is really for 533s.

i jumped from one store to another, trying to find that rare 533 Mhz ram stick. luckily, i was able to find that store (halleluiah!) without leaving megamall. after 45 minutes. the catch here is they don’t have 1G. only limited to another 512 mb. so i had no choice but to use my existing ram stick so that i would be able to bump it to 1G. so i am stuck with 1G forever (or until my toshiba dies out on me).

the point of this entry is that as much as i want my old laptop to last me more than three years, hardware manufacturers keep me from extending my laptop’s life. i want to save money so i thought of bumping my ram to 2G so i would be able to run windows 7 when microsoft finally ends the life of the decade-old XP.

as much as i love linux (specifically ubuntu), i still have to run a windows box because the rest of humanity still uses windows, ergo, i always run into compatibility issues (esp. when it comes to peripherals).

i think our 6-year old desktop (running on ancient 1.3 Ghz AMD duron, 640 ram) may not be able to run Windows 7 so i would have to convert it to linux instead when bill gates — err, correction, steve ballmer — decides to kill XP anytime soon [third party applications i.e. antivirus programmers/companies and manufacturers would stop supporting it eventually].

the problem with this desktop is that it’s so tough that it refuses to die but its components are not sold/manufactured anymore. so i’m stuck with 640 ram and the existing IDE hard disk.

and i am one of the few people here on the planet that has not yet jumped on the 2-core (or quad core) PCs.

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tsk tsk. my boss just texted me. the 2 side mirrors of his toyota vios got stolen. at our office’s own parking lot.

i really really wish we would transfer to makati. but nooooh, management said we will just transfer to a nearby building. well, i guess i’m still stuck in chaotic manila.

just discovered this new service by Air21.

since magdedeliver din naman ang air21 sa bahay nung sabado, might as well pa-pick up na namin yung item na ishiship namin to cebu that we just sold on friday.

galing! it only cost us P112 for the large packet bound for cebu. well, it’s neat that they’re offering this service!

at kahit na wala talaga silang sasadyaing delivery sa amin dito sa bahay, they would still pick up our ebay item at no extra charge. ayus no?

the great thing about this is our customer is gonna buy more stuff (i.e. rubbish) from us. hehehe. buhayin ang negosyo!

a gay friend is going to have a birthday party. theme: gossip girl.

what the — and here i am, having a hate-hate relationship with my fetish for electronics and other reading materials. i don’t have clothes that wouldn’t make me feel like a rag. and to think that i only buy clothes because they’re necessary. last week i was forced to buy underwear because i suddenly realized that i didn’t have any that was not falling apart in my hands.

and now this friend is forcing me to dress up a la gossip girl for the party…!

dang. it’s so frustrating.

i can’t buy good clothes because it’s either i spend money on electronics or books or magazines or i am just too poor to indulge in such things.

which led me to more depressing thoughts. junior management or not, i am still penniless. and i have to find another job that is as intellectually stimulating or satisfying to get out of this thankless, oh-jezuz-why-am-i-slaving-for-this-crappy-pay situation.

problem is, as a good friend from the industry and i were discussing, this profession is addicting. once you got a taste of newspaper life, you can’t get out of it. only the strong-willed can get out of this perpetual poverty.

at the rate i’m getting, i couldn’t imagine raising a kid. i have to have another job if i want to stick to media work.

oh…choices, choices…

” How many people does it take to break the Internet? On June 25, we found out it’s just one — if that one is Michael Jackson…” — CNN

Other Half woke me yesterday with, “patay na si michael jackson”

the weird thing was i didn’t, for a second, think it was a joke. i just wondered how it happened. as if i knew he would go early, die young or self-destruct sooner.

and he probably knew it too. as lisa marie presley wrote in her blog, MJ knew his fate.

“Jackson talked with her about his death during ‘a deep conversation’ 14 years ago about ‘the circumstances of my father’s death.’

‘At some point he paused, he stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty, ‘I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did,’ Presley wrote…”

it’s just so sad.

i grew up with MJ’s songs. i was creeped out with the thriller video but at the same time i was transfixed by the the dancing and the singing. my friends and i watched out for MJ’s videos because he often cast models (off the wall, etc) and MJ always made his video into a spectacle.

it’s just…well he had just a sad life at the end.

and wonders never cease.

just when they’re ready to let go, my aunt has opened her eyes.

according to another cousin’s text message, mama M is already awake but couldn’t speak yet.

God works in mysterious ways.

today, my cousin will pull the plug that has kept my aunt — whom we call mama M — alive for a few days. yesterday was mama M’s birthday. my cousin asked the doctors to wait until her mama’s birthday before they let her go (well, they’re in the US; i just don’t know if it is legal in nevada).

i don’t know how my cousin feels right now that inadvertently she had to decide when to end her mom’s life. i don’t want to know, ever.

mama M suffered multiple strokes and a massive heart attack last week. details are sketchy so i don’t know if these things happened all at the same time. upon learning about it, i knew somewhere deep inside of me that she would not survive. and i knew mama M would rather die than suffer some more. they said if ever she miraculously lived, she would be a vegetable.

despite her faults and all, i feel terrible about what happened. she has been a part of our lives at some point, especially during the times when my cousins and i spent our vacations in our ancestral home in batangas. i always call the master bedroom mama M’s bedroom. it has always been that way, i guess, even when she returned to the US after my grandparents died.

when she comes home from the US, it has always been me — in some way or another — who ends up accompanying her. almost 10 years ago, i stayed with her in century park hotel for a week to accompany her to her various social calls and shopping. she gave me a golden ring before she left for the US again. that ring is now with my sister.

her last vacation here, she stayed with my mom and i was on leave at that time so i took her to the hot springs and some places.

plus her siblings owe a lot to her. she was the one who went home here to take care of my grandparents in their twilight years. what made the situation more difficult was that my grandmother was suffering from alzheimer’s disease plus parkinson’s at that time.

and that was the ultimate demonstration of how one should look after one’s parents.

i just feel sad for mama M because it seemed like she wasn’t able to achieve real happiness. i mean, happiness eluded her most of her life and she admitted that she resorted to anti-depressants as refuge from all the craziness in her life. she told us once that my cousin (her daughter) decided not to have kids so that the child would not turn into her (my cousin) — full of hang-ups and whatnot. i just have a vague idea of how muddled their lives are but i guess it’s better that way.

when my father died, mama M immediately called up my mother and cried with her. mama M was so taken by my nephews that she bought them toys. and to think that she’s not like that to all grandkids.

and now my cousin has to pull the plug and let mama M go. i just hope and pray to God that she’s now happy and at peace.

a good friend from the industry and i went to shangri-la edsa mall (less people compared with megamall), had milk shakes and chatted for — like hours? then we window-shopped. and talked some more. then ate at some resto outside, near CPK. then talked.

been a long time since i’ve spent some leisure time in a mall. for me, malls are places where i buy stuff and NOT places for hanging out. for me, malls were built to house all the stores you need but not as places that can substitute for a park. “malling” for me is not a hobby. shopping may be, but not malling. these are two different things if you’re talking about pinoys.

but there i was, spending a free evening with a friend. doing a very filipino thing that i sometimes loathe because malls don’t really agree with my wallet and patience.

i remember an expat/foreign visitor asking me why are there so many people in malls? why are they smiling? why are the malls here that big? why, why, why?

i cannot really explain this “malling” habit of filipinos really well. as one SM executive told us, even lower middle class families who cannot afford to shop still have to spend a little while “malling”, like eating at food courts or buying ice cream –> that’s why henry sy is the richest man in the country. pinoys just love malls!

and i was flabbergasted to learn that SM North is already the biggest mall in the country and the second(?) biggest in the world. then the Sys are planning to trump this feat by expanding megamall (extending the mall to the parking area in front, facing EDSA).

malls are also mushrooming all over the place –> in areas that seemed unlikely to hold a population (or just enough humans) who would want to shop/have enough disposable income to buy unnecessary items (and even necessities) from big boxes you call malls. well, as some analysts/economists/executives said, the OFW remittances are really driving the mall business…even in unlikely places like ilocos (land of the thrifty pinoys).

i bet you can name at least two malls within 20 km radius of your house (here in manila).

*UPDATED (with proper edits, mejo bangag ako kahapon)

i’m itching to write/finish that novel i started in 2000, when i got bored with my first job as a research assistant. honestly, i’m more interested to start and finish this thing than my thesis. i realized that my thesis is *blah* and it would not contribute much to the body of knowledge.

as if i would be able to publish my effing neil gaiman-esque novel. mmm…being a novelist sounds more romantic than being a journalist…

but could one could make a living by writing alone in this country? besides, i don’t know if i am good at writing literary pieces.

i just bought a new novel (actually, they’re two-in-one) last week and i finished the first book in one sitting — err, lying in bed — the other night. And i am now on my last pages of the second book. at the rate i’m consuming my books, i would become more destitute since i have to buy more books a month to satisfy my thirst.

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this got me thinking… could a journalist still have his/her credibility intact after releasing a novel, particularly a fictional one? what if the novel turned out to be really good? would the public still trust that journalist  whatever news story that he/she writes would not be misconstrued as fiction (i.e. ala Stephen Glass)?

sometimes the desire to be irrelevant and mediocre strikes me…siguro that’s the way i can relax and have a life outside work.

i should try it some time.

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AND TO ALL THE FACEBOOKERS OUT THERE guilty of making their status more interesting than real-life…

loving too much of one’s self leads to eternal loneliness. loving someone too much without regard for one’s self leads to self-destruction.

balance.

i know someone who loves herself too much that it already hurts the people around her, especially the one who is loving her to the point of losing himself already (that it might kill him).

tsk. tsk.

here’s to all the self-centered bitches in this universe. may we learn the lessons of life before it’s too late.