First time

Another perk for staying here in the company. It's my first time in such a place. I got a wonderful Swedish massage, shower, sauna, steam sauna, and a jacuzzi. Yes, all for free.




I really could get used to this.

The Power is in the Consumer's hands

For Nokia and other units, more often than not, you have to go to a service center/tiangge service center to have the firmware upgraded to the latest version. If you want to do it at home, you have to buy accessories, cables, and find the correct firmware update somewhere in the internet. So usually, owners of such units have to stick with their firmware version with all its bugs, quirks, and what-nots.

This part is where Sony Ericsson phones shine. You can update its firmware in your very own house without an inkling of technological knowledge. All accessories needed are found in the box that comes with your phone purchase. You just have to download an updater software in the official Sony Ericsson website, and it will guide you every step of the way.

Bug killing
In my current firmware version, R1N035, there are quite a number of annoying bugs that need to be fixed. One of the major bugs was the USB transfer bug. This bug can misplace the files, or even go on as corrupting the files and/or the memory stick after transferring the files from the USB cable. Now I knew the reason why some of my files went missing even if I uploaded them to the memory stick several times.

Another bug was this firmware drains the battery more than the other versions by around 20%. This was very noticeable since I had to charge my phone almost every day and a half.

I decided that it is best to do a firmware upgrade on my phone. When I learned that the latest one fixes all of these, and even improves the overall performance of the phone, I said, "Heck, why not? What could possibly go wrong?"

Bomb Scare
Since my sister hogged the computer the entire night due to her ACLC work, I only had the time to do it in the morning. I've downloaded the updater software yesterday, so I just installed it, did the instructions and all. Unfortunately, it wasn't finished by the time I had to leave for the office so I requested my mom to watch over it, and text me for updates (luckily, I still have my old Nokia phone.)

While I was on the train, my mom texted me a disturbing message that the update failed. I asked my mom to try and turn on the phone, but when she tried, it wouldn't open. I've read stories and complaints about botched Ericsson firmware upgrades, so I feared for the worst. I even consulted the Sony Ericsson personnel in Glorietta if they could repair phones that have been damaged by firmware upgrades.

Bomb Hoax
When I got back home, I quickly tried the phone out. It was working fine. I checked the firmware on the phone, and it said that it had the latest version. I reupgraded again since it may have been a partial upgrade, and after less than twenty minutes, the update was completed without any problems. I tested the phone the entire evening, and I'm happy to say that all the bugs were gone, and I have a slightly faster and better phone performance-wise.

Perfect. Just in time for my company outing to Subic next weekend.

The One (One brain is better than six!)

Sometimes, speed and a boatload of luck are all that's needed.

Just by answering only two questions, and submitting the earliest, I managed to win this weekly quiz spanning three projects.

Oh yeah, what makes it more amazing is this was a team game, and my team, |<1|\|9D0/\/\ |-|34R75, is composed of three: me, myself and I.

And this would not be the last time they'll hear from me.

Another Starbucks first!

I now present to you the Venti Banana Caramel Coffee Jelly Frappucino!

V is for Valenciano

I am not a Gary Valenciano fan, but when I informed my sister about it, she requested me to take pictures. It was a partly-private event so I could not get close to take good shots. I don't have the best zoom camera in the world in my possession, so she'll have to make do with these photographs.

Holy Week with my Family

A few photographs of my holy week with my family. Of course, it's embarrassing to take pictures during mass and prayer so I have none of those types.

A beautiful statue of the risen Christ
Having breakfast
Waking up
A champion?
Nighty-night!

ACN Bowling Tourney Final Week: Call me Milokovic

This isn't the way to end a spirited run in the bowling tournament. Our team got booted out of the tournament in the first round.

Choke the chicken
I only managed to squeak in a 103 in this round. A far cry from my 120 average, and my 133 average for the tournament. We only lost by a measly 4 pins, and I totally blame myself for that loss. I was regarded as the second-best player in my squad, and I dragged them all down. In that round, I was the lowest among all the players we've fielded in. The pressure got to me so bad that I was missing all the easy shots that I used to make during the regular games.

And then they come
Since we were booted early, our team had four extra games which we can play around with. I only played in two games due to my disappointment with the earlier results, and I produced a 150 and a 173 in these "no-pressure" games that you wouldn't believe that I'm capable of throwing a 103 like what I did in the first round. Now that I've found my weakness, this is something I should work on for future bowling tournaments.

My secret weapon
The games had no bearing to our overall standing in the tournament, so I decided to play around and practice my secret weapon that I will unleash in the future. However, it is still inconsistent that I decided to not use this during the tournament. Yes, I made balls go down the gutter during the practice, but I've increased its success rate to about 50% now. When done correctly, it more or less produces a strike. My captain told me to develop that technique because it will be a very potent weapon if I master it.

Hopefully, I can throw it perfectly when another tournament comes my way. I'm aiming a 150 and up average from now on since my past games have proven that I can indeed do it with the straight ball. With the addition of this new technique, it maybe reachable sooner than I think.

Comfortable: Gone

It's almost six days already since they implemented the segregation scheme in MRT Line 3. While it has brought heaven to mainly women, it is slowly surpassing hell for the other people who take the train as well.

I'm sure the women who benefited a lot from this scheme couldn't relate because they have one, sometimes two or even three "cars" delegated to them. You could see the male populace turn green with envy as the first cars roll in and they see the wide-open space, then suddenly change to despair once the next cars roll by. This is heaven for women, heaven to the point that they could put up a disco ball in the middle and dance the night away due to the "emptiness" of these "cars" You would rarely see more than 15 women standing there inside.

A whole "car" can actually hold up to 70-90 passengers. But I just found out, that a car consists of three small "cars", so you can more or less triple that number. Since the first car is blocked off, these "lost" passengers now have to fight over the remaining ones. Since April 1, I've never gone home anymore where I could just walk in, have my bag checked, go down to the platform and ride the next train that comes by. Now, I have to wait 10-20 minutes just to get in the train (lines are snaking in the station), and wait another 20 minutes to luckily ride the train (yes, luckily). Before, this only happens during Mondays and Fridays as expected, but now, it happens everyday. I almost missed my meeting at home due to this last Tuesday, because I had to wait 5 trains after before I got a chance to ride one.

While I was riding the MRT earlier, one angrily commented that he'd rather take the bus now due to this change. It was hell earlier, with the aircon barely working, and the car crammed to its utmost capacity. If this trend continues, there could be a significant drop in the MRT ticket sales. Tempers were pretty high earlier, a lot of pushing and raised voices were said and done. And of course, there were quite a number of cases of missed stations because the door closed before the alighting passenger could make his way to the walls of people.

The other day, I heard about an angry passenger who had problems with his ticket. Apparently, he bought the ticket in the station he got in, had to line up for a long time and wait for a long time on the platform. Due to this, his ticket expired. MRT3 rules state that "Passengers must exit within 75 minutes (allowable stay) from the time of entry. Additional charge equivalent to the maximum fare shall be required for overstaying." I didn't know how it ended, but if a passenger is forced to pay this "violation fee" because of the effects of this new scheme, then that would not be right. It can be viewed as a scheme to extract more money from the passengers. It may be a rarity now, but who knows, there might be more cases like that in the future.

Use what is delegated.I believe that they are delegating too many cars for their consumption, but since they (MRT Peeps) do not want men mixing with women, maybe they should prevent women riding alone from riding in the other cars. That way, these women traveling alone do not waste the space delegated for them in the first car, and consume the space for the unlucky non-female, non-elderly, non-children, non-disabled passengers.

Rules differ from each station. The special cars are for the kids, elderly, disabled and women. Now, Homosexuals are debatable. Fathers with their kids sometimes can go in, sometimes cannot. Girlfriends with their boyfriends are sometimes allowed in, sometimes not. Will girls need to suffer because of their boyfriends, or will they need to separate for the duration of the train ride? Will families need to break up as well, or let women and their kids suffer the same crushing fate? And when are male elders old enough? Case in point, a man managed to ride in the women's car a station before him. When it arrived in Cubao, a police search was made in the first car, found him, and forced him out to the back of the long line.

Lack of flexibility A lot of times, the women car is so empty that you could play a game of Twister on the floor, and not hit anyone. Maybe, at certain hours, they should let some occupy even just one of the small cars out of the three.

One things for certain though, during these six days, as a frequent male passenger of the MRT 3, this entire segregation scheme has been one big pain in the behind. I arrive tired at work, and get beat up and pushed around while going home. Long lines feel like the death march, and waiting for the time I could ride a train seem to take forever.

In the near future, I wouldn't be surprised if the MRT officials decide to higher a pusher similar to Japan and India to pack the passengers in.