Guns and Singing Architects

Last night we went to the gun show at Megamall. There were pistols and longarms of all sorts. The .50cal magnum revolvers were HUGE and bloody lethal even when unloaded. I got to handle a real AK-47. There's a 9mm pistol called 'Buddy', you can get for only P9,990. Dissappointingly I learned the HK Mk.23 costs above P120K, and near impossible to get registered as it's meant to be silenced. Dangit.

Off to Virgin Cafe T.Morato for a cousin's band anniversary. He was part of a second generation (playing 80-90s era music, their first batch was playing 70s to way-back era) of Arkiband, a band of architects. Oh yes, they're all architects. You can tell by the sponsors (Boysen and a whole bunch of construction material brands). Free entrance, free food, good music, what could go wrong? They even raffled off some appliances, too bad we missed it. Happy Anniversary Arkiband!

Name my baby contest

The hardest part of applying for a trade name has got to be naming it. So far, every acceptable one I've thought of has been taken: FastTrack, Big Cheese, G&P, even PPB.

Prizes will go to whoever thinks up the coolest name for a company. It doesn't have to be related to anything. Post your entries now!

Better donuts than Go-Nuts (IMHO)

If you're craving for another batch of crispy cream donuts, U-turn on over to Katipunan and down to a donut place called Cello's dips & doughnuts (make sure to enter the service road). They have the lightest, softest donuts with unusual but delightful flavors like cheese (mmm I liked it), M&M, or Oreo. You can get the sugar-glazed and dip it in dark chocolate, white chocolate-strawberry, or Toblerone (mmmmm I like it like it, but they were out).

All this online reading and e-books is giving me a headache. I think it'll be a justified investment to acquire a 17" LCD monitor (Samsung with black frame, P27K). Then I'll be needing to replace the video card (around P15K) since this one hasn't a DVI port. But then the motherboard will have to be upgraded with one that has PCI-X ports (P6K) to accept the newer video card models. The new motherboard will need more power from a new PSU (P3K), which will only fit the larger cases (P10K). The new mobo also uses SATA, ergo new HDDs (120Gb 8mb cache, P6K). I'll also need a new mouse and keyboard (Logitech of course, P4K), to match the black color of everything else.
Conclusion: I'll be needing a total of P71K to upgrade the radioactive (it emits harmful radiation, according to experts) CRT monitor to LCD. It beats laser eye-surgery (P150K) and migraine medication (P5K) by a mile! More than 50% savings!

A loaf of bread, a cup of milk, and a stick of RAM

Warning: the following is not recommended for non-computer enthusiasts (geeks) or the faint-hearted

My stock CPU fan's RPM dropped to half, and was necessarily replaced by a snazzy Coolermaster XDream II (8cm silent metal-finned fan, aluminum heatsink with copper insert). The CPU temp stays around 42 C idle, a big improvement from 52 C idle while using the stock fan that came with the processor.

The computer acted up shortly after, beeping and beeping and beeping and not booting up. The motherboard's debug display showed C1h, which meant memory problems. I tried installing the RAM (I only have one 512Mb stick) in each of the memory slots and altering the voltage, but alas, all efforts failed. Replacing it would cost me a little less than five thousand. We didn't want it to end this way, it was all too sudden. Losing hope I started scraping off the label and warranty stickers, cleaned it up real nice. I dressed it up in copper heat spreaders, if it's gonna go, at least it's gonna go looking cool. I tried putting it in for one last time, like the final ritual of checking for breath and pulse. But wait! Everything started working as it should be! It beeped once, went to Windows loading screen , to the logon screen, then to the desktop! Oh happy happy joy joy!

And in geek tradition I'd like to pay tribute to my specs: AthlonXP 2400+ with Coolermaster XDreamII, Epox 8KHA+, Kingston 512Mb DDR333, Gainward Geforce3 Ti500 64Mb, Seagate 20Gb 7200rpm HDD, Samsung CD-RW 52/24/52x 8Mb, Samsung 52x CD-ROM, Soundblaster Live 5.1, Logitech Z640 5.1 speakers, Exodus 350W dual-fan, 17" monitor

It started as this: Athlon 1.1 with Globalwin TAK68, Epox 8KHA+, 128Mb DDR266, 3dfx Voodoo3 16Mb, Maxtor 10Gb 5400rpm HDD, LG 52x CD-ROM, Soundblaster Vibra128, Labtec 2.1 speakers, Exodus 300W, 14" monitor

Market! Market!

Up-market, down-market, bull market, bear market, blah blah. Never heard it before as many times as I've been hearing and reading it lately.

Just signed up for an account on CBS.MarketWatch. Can I really go through with this? I have no idea what the blokes are saying. There are familiar words here and there; I get to say "Uy, alam ko 'to ah!" whenever I come across the words 'the Internet', or 'Microsoft'. It's like having a vivid dream, you wake up and remember the details but forget everything by the time you get out of bed. Or taking Accounting for two semesters, then one year after graduation the only thing you remember is that a P5,000-below annual income isn't taxed, and you're not even sure.

Oh yeah, a cousin got a K700i. It's as gorgeous as I imagined, but the first unit he got was faulty. If your unit has bugs or operates slowly, exchange it in for another one immediately. I think I'll get one when I need it, or just when it's being phased out and costs P10K (from the current price of a whopping P23K)