Been a while since my last post here. So sorry about that. I've been updating Twitter and Facebook a bit more frequently these days. The thing about microblogging is that you don't have to say much and that's how I am most of the time. I'm not a very opinionated person, really. I usually just let things be unless I'm inconvenienced or if they annoy me. :)

So, yeah. Not a lot of updates on my life, but I'll try to list a few things here. Hmm...

Ok, so I still work in the same company. It would be my 2nd year anniversary on Monday. Sick leave conversion, ftw. ;) Not much interesting things happening except for the influx of visitors from Texas, India, and Krakow. Oh, and we changed seats again. So now I'm actually sitting with the rest of the platform team.

Mom and sis are in London right now so it's just Rocky and myself at home. Yes, I've been doing all the feeding, walking, bathing, and at times, worrying, for the little boy. I feel guilty for leaving him the entire day with some folks we know, but it's either that or leave him alone in the apartment for about 10 or so hours. He's been great - he rarely barks and he doesn't give me a hard time bathing him. He's been especially useful in the morning, too. We all know how hard it is to wake up, right? So in the morning at around 7:00, I already hear him walking along the side of my bed and wagging his tail because he wants to be let out. Of course, I have to get up and go with him to the roof deck where we could get a little dose of Vitamin D and him just walking around and sniffing stuff.

No work on Friday so I'm pretty psyched about that. My weekends have been really tiring because of all the extra house work I have to do. I'm just so glad to get an extra day to rest.

Oh, yeah. Pao and Mau are getting married this coming Sunday and I'll be doing the first reading and the responsorial psalm. I just received a copy of those today and I'm happy that there aren't any weird words that are hard to pronounce. :P

I guess that's it for now. Movie time!

Thanks to my ever-reliable concert buddy, dreamspinner_, I was able to go to the David Archuleta/Cook concert last night at the Mall of Asia.

I must say the most memorable songs for me were:

Archie:
- "Angels" - my all-time favorite Archie cover, along with "Imagine". :)
- "Crush"
- "A Thousand Miles" - piano love!
- "Stand By Me" - although I found it weird that he sang the "Beautiful Girls" part of the song with "in denial" instead of "suicidal". What's up with that?

Cook:
- "Always Be My Baby" - duh.
- "The World I Know" - much love for doing Collective Soul <3
- also liked a couple of his rock songs, but I forgot the titles :P

Anywho, I'm not gonna post photos here anymore 'cause Au already did it in this entry (there are mp3s in there, too!) and I believe I've already done enough by posting on Facebook and Multiply.

I will, however, repost my favorite Archie/Cook photo:

... to renting, I think. I knew it! LOL. Will have to talk to The Grinch soon.

... at the office a while ago. Asked Mum to pick me up. I might consider getting a pair of hungthemoon's rain boots. It keeps raining and it's only May!

... with another Maven 2 story. It's stalking me at work!

... with QA folks now! Haha. Just booked a flight to Bohol earlier this afternoon. July 2-5. :)

As of 5:52am yesterday I've officially entered my (hopefully awesome) late 20s...

Gah, I know I shouldn't be complaining, but I feel... old. I guess we all get that feeling from time to time. It'll pass, though. Soon enough, I'll be relishing the fact that I'm still under 30. That is, until I hit 30. :/

Anywho, my birthday was quite uneventful. Not only did it fall on one of the saddest days of the Gregorian calendar, but I also opted to not leave the apartment. It was okay, though. I spent most of the day with my mum, sister, and the dog. Mum made seafood marinara to preserve the noodles-for-long-life tradition and it turned out quite good, too. Pasta + seafood + red sauce = one of my favorite pasta combos. Well done, Mum! :)

Oh, and thanks to everyone who greeted! You guys certainly made my day. ;)

I gave Rocky a bath today. My sister usually does it, but I suppose I need the practice. Mum and sis are going on a trip to London near the end of May (yep, their turn now) and poor Rocky is gonna be left alone with me for almost an entire month. That means I'll have full responsibility for the little doggie -- bathing, walking, feeding, and giving him as much attention as I can. When I'm at work he's going to be left alone at home, unless I get someone to doggie-sit or something. Hmm. I'll figure it out.

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Work nearly killed me last week. So many things I had to take care of and I ended up going home late at night for a few days. Last Sunday (March 29th) turned out to be a work day because we had production problems with one of our clients. I actually feel bad for them because they're one of the nicest clients we have and online sales declined for a full day because of supposedly preventable issues. :(

In any case, I probably need to do some bit of reading on Web Services. I've never really dabbled into that stuff until recently and I've much to learn about SOAP and RESTful implementations. Heck, there's a lot of acronyms related to the technology that it would be like staring into a bowl of alphabet soup. I guess that's fine. It would be good to learn what happens behind all the Java code. It's not enough to know that my programs are doing what they're supposed to do. Honestly, I often feel guilty copying and pasting some pieces of code without knowing what they actually do aside from 'working'. It's also a bit embarrassing when I tell people (who expect me to know stuff), "I don't know". The only good thing about it is that if I tell them I don't know, they stop bothering me with more questions. Heheh, just kidding.

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I hope the bank girl wasn't kidding when she told me she's got someone scheduled to appraise the house on Tuesday cause Mum wants to go with and work her PR magic on the appraiser. I really do hope we're already set on finally getting this one. I'm already imagining Google colors for my room. :P

I hate summer in Manila. It's almost 8pm already and it's still blazing 28C outside. Ew.

I was sick for more than a week due to the weather craziness. It probably started with the Rubik's Cube (long story) and if I didn't constantly put a fan on my face, I'd probably be deathly sick on my bed right now.

Why oh why does it have to be this hoooooot?!?! I'd hate to imagine what April and May would be like. -.-

On the bright side, I get a valid reason to eat an ice pop every day for the next several weeks. :)

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I just finished watching Bolt about an hour ago. It's cute! Fanboy hamster was hilarious when he was all excited and almost imploded with giggles. And I didn't know there was such as thing as an American White Shepherd. Looks like a really cool breed of dog. I thought the cat was voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, but IMDB said no. :P

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I want to get another puppy before the year ends (yes I'm giving myself a bit of leeway here for budget purposes). I seriously wanted a corgi, but if that's not gonna happen, maybe I'll get me one of these:
- black lab
- golden retriever
- maltese
- husky

Mmm, yes.

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That's it for now. Ice cream awaits. :)

Just a few random stuff for today:

- I shouldn't let myself get too excited about moving.

- I hate those acai berry spam messages on Yahoo Messenger. If anyone comes across one of these things from random people, report as spam. If it supposedly came from one of your contacts, ask them to reinstall YM.

- Mum has a new haircut, finally. She doesn't look too haggard anymore. :P

- I'm liking this new show called Being Erica. It's been described as "My Name is Earl meets Pretty in Pink meets Back to the Future meets Sex and the City." For me, though, it's like a backwards 13 Going on 30. Oh -- like 17 Again. Hehe, there you go. Don't really want to get into the details, but I recommend it to anyone who's looking for new shows to watch.

- Dollhouse seems OK so far, but I'm afraid it may not be something that's made to last a long time. But, we'll see how they play it out. I remember Eliza Dushku being in Tru Calling and that didn't turn out well.

- Watch Lie to Me. You'll find yourself watching your friends' faces and gestures a lot more carefully after that.

- For some very nice action, I'd recommend Flashpoint. Pink Ranger is totally badass on this one. It's Canadian police drama that focuses on its Strategic Response Unit (SRU). Kinna like SWAT.

- Yay for Slumdog Millionaire. I watched the screener a few weeks before the Oscars just because it's been getting a lot of good reviews. And I'm happy to report that it didn't disappoint at all! <3 the end credits with the Bollywood dancing. :)

The first time I learned how to drive stick-shift was in high school. Aldwin taught me how with that red car he used to drive. (I forgot, but I think it was a Toyota.) I only had a go with the car a few times, though, so I never really "mastered" it. I just remember that there was a time I had to drive his car in the middle of the night after a party, with Ansoy in the backseat (!), because he was so hammered to drive it himself. But we survived (thank God), and made it home.

The next time I got to do some "serious" driving was with Sarah's Honda City -- automatic. Needless to say, it was pretty easy for me to learn it and I still compare it to a bumper car. I love those things. It's just stop-go and no worries about being in a slope or stalling in the middle of the road. ^_^

We had fun with it, too. At first, Sarah didn't want me to drive beyond the Ateneo campus, which is good since I was only trying to get a feel for the car. Eventually, the campus became Loyola Heights, then Ortigas-EDSA, then Makati. I remember we used to have those long-ass breaks back in college -- 4-hour breaks for her, 6 for me. And what do we do? Go to a mall in Ortigas, do a bit of window shopping and squeeze in a movie before going back to school.

That was years ago now. After we graduated, I rarely got behind the wheel. I don't own a car, but I do have my license still (mainly for identification purposes). I got to drive KC and Paulo's Ford Escape once, only because KC didn't know how to drive yet and Paulo had to drive the other (newer) car. And that was it.

Last year, my brother bought a car for us and put it under my name. And guess what? Yep, manual transmission. I left my stick-shifting days back in high school so, basically, I couldn't drive my own car. *flashes an L on her forehead*

I thought I should learn to drive it just in case, but I guess I was too lazy to go through with it up until today. I asked Erik to come along, since my mom didn't want to (she actually expected me to go and learn by myself -- hello?!?!) It was nice of him, really, to put up with my sudden bursts of panic and my tense left leg (darn that clutch). God, I wish I was as badass and confident as I was back in high school. I don't remember being this scared before. Anyway, going around the village went alright. Of course, the car felt like it was going to stall several times and it did stall a lot of times. Yep, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to shifting gears during a stupid three-point turn and when slowing down to a stop. :P

I'd probably go and practice again next week and then work on my parking skills. I don't want to end up on this website!

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Mmmm, I smell vanilla. Mom's baking something. Ta!

"Is this gonna be forever?!"

I know exactly how you feel, David...

LOL. Cute kid. :)