So far, I’ve entered and joined up in these sites (yes, you can enter in all fifty, if you’re that desperate):

• BleepingComputer.com
• GearLive (They actually had a TouchSmart PC giveaway a couple of months ago, but I didn’t win, so I’ll try my luck again on this one :P)
• Neowin.net (I’m doing something cool; watch this space!)

To be honest, of all the prizes in there, all I want is the netbook (which is an HP Mini 1000). Come on, I’ve been longing for one since forever, so why not take the chance? I’m terribly unlucky with big contests like this, but if you think you aren’t, you better check those sites. Who knows, maybe you’ll get a TouchSmart and be the envy of your friends and colleagues!

Blogging has been too boring for me nowadays. I mean, I like blogging, and I really want to see myself blogging about a lot of stuff, but that’s just not happening right now. Life has been too much of a routine. Sleep, wake up, take a bath, go to school, study, eat, go home, use the computer, then sleep again. It’s so tiring; I really want to get out of it as soon as possible.

I think I’m beginning to see the boring side of me — the person doing barely nothing in front of a computer. That’s probably why I’m getting bored in using it. I don’t do much in this computer. Every time I wake up, I take a look at it and update my instant messaging status to whatever I’ll be doing today. Depending on the day, I’d be watching episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, then view some random websites. In the evening, I’d look at Twitter then find updates for other blogs and Multiply sites, especially people on the school domain (or near it), like Gwen’s, Janine’s, and Gian’s (you can see their corresponding links at the main page, well except for Gian’s Multiply page). Recently, I have two web-design related tasks so I had to take off the random-website lurking, but that’s basically it. And to think that I’m doing this all day, everyday, even during class.

My parents are always playing a role in keeping me behind that by-the-rules line. I’ll give this as an example: I don’t get what I want because my parents don’t want me to, so what do I do? Earn it, right? But then they don’t even want me to earn anything, so what do I do? Nothing, right? So they go with that, and they’ll stick to it until I probably reach the age of 27. So, get this: I’m already in college, and I’m almost a year shy of graduating, but I still can’t get a taste of opportunity?

Well, I know these series of topics aren’t going anywhere anyway so I’ll end it here for a while.

So while I’m sleeping, please recommend me to other people who are in need of a web designer/developer so I can get my Samsung NC10 and make my life a little peaceful, okay? I’m currently doing a design for a dedicated game-server provider, thanks to my online friend and partner (and also the person hosting my sites), Jay. But even then, after I’m done, I’ll be jobless all over again, so make me otherwise. I’ll say pretty please if I have to.

Some things to take note: First, there’s no hypothesis to be made, because the things to be discussed here are already known to the reader; and second, this study might be completely inaccurate, since the variables shown are only based on observation.

Okay, so let’s start, with this graph:

The X axis in the graph refers to the number of months in time, while the Y axis refers to an arbitrary abstract metric. There are three levels in the graph: 1 through 99 (level 0), 100 through 199 (level 1), and 200 through 210 (level 2). According to my observations, there are a total of five classifications of people with events occurring throughout these levels, and thus, we call them S0, S1, S1-, S2, and S2-. (-) is composed of all the negative classes S1- and S2-.

Let’s start with the S2 family, consisting of S2 and S2-. These two classifications have the characteristics of being able to surpass all three levels. S2- only differs to S2 by its outcome; it reverts back to level 0 after an unidentified period of time. On the other hand, S2 stays above the level 2 boundary, and sticks to 210, the highest metric, indefinitely.

The S1 family, which consists of S1 and S1-, has the characteristic of being able to surpass both level 0 and level 1, but whether it approaches level 2 is unknown. S1- is similar to S2- by its outcome. (That’s why they’re called the negatives, right?) S1 has a very unique characteristic, though: It is able to approach level one, stays there, and continues to have a constant rate of increase, albeit small.

The last classification is called S0. It is also called the basic class, because this classification goes within level 0 only. (Level 0 can be considered as the basic level range.) Its characteristic is more like its limitation — this class cannot go beyond level 0 for unknown reasons.

It doesn’t stop there, though. There are age brackets, so I’m showing you the demographic-by-age chart here (might not be accurate):

It seems we can make some additional observations already, just by looking at the first graph. We can say that the negatives S1- and S2- might be considered as such because they started attempting too early in a specific period of time, compared to the normal S1 and S2. We can also say that S0 might be considered as such because they were way too late in attempting. 

So anyway, here are my conclusions:

First, I am in the S0 class. Second, I have been constantly experiencing the same class in the past eighty-four months, but I don’t want to be in the same class forever. And third, we do not want to be in the S1- class, much less in the S2- class.

More notes: It works in most abstract concepts, and class N0 was not included in the study. N0 is simply the class where it stays at zero (it’s not on any level).

So, my official code for this is S[0,0,0,0,0,0,0]. (This code is interpreted as: This person is in the S0 class since seven years ago, until present.) What’s yours? Oh, and don’t forget to put your own observations through posting comments.

There was this CATCH2T10 (that’s Computer Batch 2010) Night going on a couple of hours ago in the university. As my initial mindset, I would’ve chosen not to attend the event since I’m the kind of guy who leaves the premises early. But alas, I was there. I registered to get my COMPARC (Computer Architecture, a course) incentive, which is yet to be known, and I sat at the back of the little theater with my blockmates.

This event has a talent competition (it’s still called PasiCATCHan, right? Paulo said that event is yet to be held) as the first agenda for the evening, and so I silently watched as they perform, sometimes shouting Justin’s (another blockmate) name as he performs with his fellow group members, but I quickly got interested on this group playing for the acoustic category. I actually knew that they were going to perform there, but to all honesty, I haven’t seen or heard them doing it. And for a guy like Paulo, the infamous passive-aggressive joker of their block, it’ll be the first to see or hear him sing (he’s the lead singer of their “band”).

Okay, so he started to sing Everything You Want by Vertical Horizon. The band’s guitar timings were off at times, but all went well. And then he started with One And Only You by Parokya ni Edgar. The first thing he did was to stand up and get a couple of feet worth of microphone cable, so I thought he’ll be going somewhere, probably off the stage.

Few minutes later, he did. He got the flowers, leapt off the stage, and gave it to someone at the front row.

Now, I didn’t know who he gave it to, but then I thought that (a) the person is a girl, and; (b) Paulo apparently likes this person. And then I realized — they named their band The Sneaky Band for a reason. And this was it; very sneaky indeed.

I salute you, Paulo, for this mesmerizing performance, and the rest of the band for going along with your flow. Good luck on putting your efforts further.

Now, what’s the off-topic? First, I think I’ve just felt inverse schadenfreude. If schadenfreude is “being delightful for yourself over someone’s misfortune,” then its inverse would mean “being saddened and frustrasted for yourself over someone’s accomplishment.” Get the point there?

Second, I’ve finally posted some pictures on the Portfolio page. Have a look at them by clicking the thumbnails. So far, I have three of those thumbnails containing images, and I will continue this productivity streak until I am tired of it.

Third, I think I’ve nearly fixed my keyboard (read: piano, except electronic). Of course, with Dad’s help.

And so we entered in that restaurant. It was fun basically. Oh, and being the tech-savvy guy that I am, I got my phone out to take some pics. A lot of my blockmates were there, then people from other blocks too, then high school friends. And then… I think she got almost everyone to attend. Nice. Yeah, everyone was happy, talking, laughing, holding hands (sorry, couldn’t stop observing) and stuff. The food was great — I’m a sucker for Chinese food, so I got a second helping, and a full dessert. I didn’t drink champagne, though; it’s not my doing to be an alcoholic at an occasion such as this. There was even a magician! No, not the David Blaine-ish type of magicians, just the simple casual one. It was pretty nice, though. The magician’s got a great audience. Hahaha.

Gwen’s got lots of presents on her birthday. The penguin-shaped cake is the definite attention-grabber, in my opinion. And she’s got a Canon EOS camera! That’ll be my object of materialistic envy for a while, until I see another gadget as cool as that one.

We also got to watch Max Payne after that. It’s been almost a year since I’ve watched a movie in an actual cinema. Quick review: It’s great as an action movie, but it’s not great as a port from a video game. I’ve played the two games, and it’s pretty obvious that they’ve changed some parts, but there’s just something wrong with it. But I love the bullet-speed scenes — I love how the scene becomes silent, and suddenly everything’s in super-slow motion.

So that’s that with my first-time-since-last-year birthday party experience. While I’m fully aware that I skipped three or four crucial debuts and birthday parties this year, but this one was the easiest to attend to because the venue was at the right place at the right time. I mean, with a place I can literally walk to and a time when I can get my ass off the chair, it’s the perfect combination. So thanks, Gwen, for letting myself get off my busy self and watch Max Payne.

A blockmate was spot on when he said that I was a rare entity in such occasions. To be honest, I don’t usually attend to occasions simply because I’m too busy (or lazy, depends on the kind of day). If you want me in a party, it better be near our home, and exactly when every member of the family is outside. So, ’til next year again, I guess.

And the new logo. It’s in pseudo-3D, and it looks cool, at least for me. And did you know that it took me several iterations of sketches until I got into the sort of final thing? On your right is the full paper of logo sketching I’ve had a couple days before starting the design. Well, you can see that the idea I’ve had is already there, I just needed the perfect one. Also, you can see that I suck at drawing stuff, let alone sketching stuff with straight lines, so excessive laughing isn’t necessary at this time (although you can smirk if you want to). Heck, I even went as far as doing actual 3D stuff, which turned out to suck more. No miraculous stuff or actual matrix calculus going on there, just pure randomness. And while speaking of randomness…

I learned this once in high school; that the freedom that you think it is, is not the “real” freedom. Freedom is not free will. It’s not about doing what you want to do. Freedom means you are doing what you ought to do — your deeds, your responsibilities, things like that. People often complain that they don’t have freedom, but the kind of freedom they’re looking for is erroneous. So guys, don’t do things that erroneous. At least for me, I can really say that I don’t have freedom, the deeds that I ought to do, simply because life doesn’t permit to. It permits me to do the complete opposite.

Most people (especially myself) don’t appreciate the stuff life has given all of us, and what other people has given to lighten our loads. Well, for example, a lot of people I know mostly ignore all the efforts that I’ve made through the years, which makes me think, “To hell with this; nothing’s happening.” And sometimes, they are ones being angry while I am the one who deserves to be angry at them (although I don’t provoke my anger anymore, especially recently, when it’s useless being angry).

So what do you think? Is your life leading to an erroneous dead end? Are you being under-appreciated by your peers? Does the new Derivatrix logo kick ass?

Edit: As for the Portfolio, I’m lazy. Period.

Kinda off the topic here, but why do some people put ellipses as their status messages. No text, just the pure three dots. I find them quite irritating to say the least. If I were to figure out what the ellipsis would mean in a status message, I’d say that it’s kinda like the “Buffering” or “Loading” things you get in videos. But look, humans are capable of thinking with a snap of a finger; it doesn’t take three freaking dots to think about what your status is. If it does for you, then you sir, are too damn slow. I’m already mentally slow, and that only means you are even slower, which is about insane.

Next time, use a dash instead, or ever better, don’t use the status message as your loading indicator.

Priorities that are, sad to say, as vague as shadows on pure darkness. (See? That’s even ambiguous in itself.) I hope it’ll be clear by next week though, so don’t worry.

I’ll see you guys on October. I think it’s time for that “Wake Me Up When September Ends” song again. *Plays Caramelldansen instead.* xP

For a beta software such as this, it works well, honestly. Wait, so that’s why they say it “shines for them!”

It’s been my default browser for Windows, and it’s like a new experience all over again. Most visited webpages (just like Opera’s, except more practical for me), Gears integrated (great for doing WordPress posts and pages while your Internet connection craps out on you), Incognito windows, and more things that you would likely see in other browsers are in here.

It’s fast too. I’m not going all scientific here, but it definitely feels faster than the Firefox I have in OS X. Even if Chrome has its tabs as separate processes, and that would probably mean more required memory, it’s still smooth as silk. Maybe it’s because of their new Javascript engine — yes, I’m a sucker for Web 2.0 apps.

Okay, so if you are open to other perspectives of web browser religion, or if you’re just curious, then give it a try.

Oh, some fun facts:

• For some reason, it always crashes when I opt to shutdown while Chrome is open. No biggie, though; you can just ignore it.
• There are fun “about” pages in Chrome. Try about:internets and admire the view.
• There was a controversy concerning the EULA of Chrome. A part of that agreement says that they will own everything that you create using that browser — blog posts, forum replies, documents, everything. Fortunately, they’ve fixed that part hours after the discovery.

What you are looking at right now is not a mosaic of a blue-green-colored watermelon, nor is it a large pit of death of words. This is simply a word cloud, kinda similar to the tag/category cloud you see at the very bottom of this page, and its purpose is to highlight the words that are frequently used in a selection. The selection is - you’ve guessed it - everything in this site. I’m feeling narcissistic already. (Not the disease, but I really wouldn’t mind if I had one.)

This graphic is made on Wordle. (I’ve attributed you and your service now, so don’t cry - or run to your lawyers - about it anymore, okay? So we’re good?) It’s quite easy to manipulate the colors, text, things like that, so thank them for having the blue-green text of awesome right in front of your faces. Oh, and have you noticed the most frequently used word I’m using? Yeah. Now I can prove to others that I can sound like an L.A. dude, without being an L.A. dude! Like, it’s not obvious that I’m doing this for, like, a lot of times already. So interesting.

Going off topic here - but I’m doing this in the middle of a final examinations week. Who in the right mind, or with the [rare] common sense, would do such nonsense? That’s right - me. I’m born to do things with perfect timing. Or lack thereof.

And I’m taking back my first statement. It does look like a blue-green-colored watermelon.