A lot of things have been happening lately, but nothing quite magical yet. Less than two months to go and I doubt anything else would be happening.
Missed out promotion for the first quarter due to mediocre scores in Customer Satisfaction. It is so mediocre that I did not meet the passing mark even though the target was reduced. Take note though, as this refers to the satisfaction of customers who actually bothered replying to email surveys not the satisfaction of each and every customer which goes through me.
Sure, my PA (performance appraisal) for the quarter passed which means more money, but I would prefer the promotion rather than the money.
This is not such a big deal as the review period could be moved by a month or two, as long as everything is passing. Which was the case when the months of February through April are used. Passing every metric they throw at me. Sadly, I am once again a victim of certain clauses.
During the 3rd quarter of last year, I did not meet promotion due to a clause that each month needs to meet the targets, even if your roll up score for the month is more than what is required. Oh, and this is just for only one metric (say subject in school).
Now, they say that despite lowering the target (which makes my score in one metric pass), it's roll up score still needs to meet the original target. Bollocks!
I was coached about my performance at work two days ago by my Team Leader. The scores were shown and they were amazingly good but I was expecting a big "but" in all of that. I was feeling it due to tone of his voice that something was up. Also, being the pessimistic chap that I am, I expected there would be one as good things rarely happen to me.
It is not over though as the scores could be moved another month but fuck, two months were wasted due to this baloney. There is a good chance I would finally score with this one but I think it's a little too late.
I got promoted twice in the beginning of 2005, you were still around back then. After this gift unraveling experience and you leaving, everything went down hill from there. So it seems that I cannot get myself promoted without you. Not without my lucky charm. Successful twice when you were around. Failed twice without you. How foolish of me to think that I could.
Yeah, coincidence it may be, but Fuck!
The coaching session was not all bad news though. I am possibly next in line for the next LDP (Leadership Development Program) run coming in the next few months. This is an actually career (Right!) movement thing as this is the stepping stone for leadership positions.
Right. Confidence-wise I am at zero to be a bit fair. To be real blunt, I'd put it at several notches below zero. I guess I could but I doubt it. Yes, I live and breathe pessimism.
I could give this a chance (why the hell not) but once again I think it is a little two late. The 3 years spent in this company is almost up with only two months to go. Unless something magical would happen relationship-wise, I don't know. Let's not just say it right now as I have already mentioned it so many times in the past yet I am still here.
A condo near work would also help, but this will never happen. Not soon anyway.
X3: The Last Stand [Wednesday, May 24, 2006 @ 9:18 pm]
Wow!
X3: The Last Stand was definitely not a disappointment despite Bryan Singer leaving to work on Superman Returns.
The movie is bloody intense and the action scenes simply blew me away. I love it. Phoenix is totally wicked. Angel's wings are majestic. Magneto and Pyro combo. Wolverine and Colossus with the Cannonball Rush. And let us not forget Iceman, who was so bloody cool (pun not intended). Oh, and Kitty is so darn pretty.
Only gripe about the movie was that it was a little short and characters like Angel were quite a disappointment due to the time on screen. Some of the lines were also hit or miss.
It's an awesome movie and I am definitely watching it again.
Work seems to be having a movie day featuring X3 and we do get free tickets and food, but this is not until the weekend. The movie geek in me simply could not resist not watching the movie on opening day and I have no freaking regrets.
One more thing, be sure to stay until the credits finish rolling up as there is a tiny surprise at the end.
Arrgghh! 3 more days of bloody work.
Nothing beats nostalgia than the ever popular Konami Code. More popularly known as the Contra Code which gives 30 lives to each player and allows you to easily finish an otherwise difficult game.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. Oh, the memories. I wonder what ever happened to my Famicom.
Anyway, we attempted to go to church last Sunday. One of my cousins is staying over this summer and wanted to hear mass. I got dragged along.
The mass in this town previously starts at around 7 in the evening. We left around quarter to 7 and was surprised to find out that the mass was already at the Communion part. It actually just finished once we got in. Apparently, they started at 6 in the evening. I will probably never know why this is the case.
My cousin really wanted to hear mass and mentioned about checking it out in the next town. With nothing else to do and with us already dressed up, we decided to hop on a tricycle and commute to the neighboring town. The trip usually takes less than 5-8 minutes.
Halfway through, the tricycle run out of gasoline. The driver tried to get the tricycle working but sadly to no avail. It was too drained up. After waiting for 30 minutes, we hopped on another tricycle which also pulled the other chap's tricycle to the nearest gas station. Eventually, we got to the church and again, Communion. This time, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist was just about to start.
Before going home, I had this awesome idea of dining out. Sadly, we had no
plans of going out of town for mass, so I did not bring any money save for 50
pesos. Left my ATM at home as well as I do not use a wallet anyway. Shucks. We
wasted spent more than an hour out doing nothing.
Talk about luck, fate, destiny, whatever.
Saw Over The Hedge last Saturday over at Eastwood Cinemas, it was pretty full as it was a weekend and there were a lot of kids watching. Plus, people who were not able to buy any tickets for The Da Vinci Code watched this instead, I assume.
Thing is, when I bought my tickets for Over The Hedge at around 3 in the afternoon, all the seats for The Da Vinci Code were already sold out even down to the last full show. They only had two theaters playing the said movie out of the 4 available theaters. The other movie being shown was last weeks release, Poseidon.
When I checked out the theaters after dinner, I noticed that they opened one extra screening at 11:30 just to accommodate the crowd. The church flaming the movie really fanned the flames for this movie, which is actually just an average movie at best.
The kids watching Over The Hedge were not as unruly as the kids I had the chance of watching Ice Age 2 with. They were relatively calm and actually watched the movie instead of throwing bloody tantrums or jumping all over the seats.
For what it's worth, Over The Hedge was an entertaining movie. Liked it better than Shark's Tale and Madagascar, which also happen to be other Dreamworks' animated flicks. A few genuine laughs here and there. Now that I think back about the movie, I would have to say that it is quite violent. Oh well, it's still a kid's tale and would delight the kid at heart, lest one would be so damn critical about it.
X3: The Last Stand opens on Wednesday and I am quite excited about it but I have not purchased my tickets yet. The reason behind this is that the team at work may have some plans of dining out and drinking right after work and it would be too silly and anti-social of me not to join them just because of a movie which I could watch the following day anyway. Here's hoping that those plans would be pushed back to Thursday.
Watched X2 last night in preparation for X3 and I am sincerely hoping Brett Ratner does a decent job with the movie, just like what Bryan Singer did for X2. I have yet to buy the official video game tie-in for X3. This video game tie-in explains a few details which happened in between X2 and X3, most importantly why Nightcrawler is missing from the latest movie. Sadly, the reviews of the game are mediocre.
After wasting more than 30 minutes trying to get connected with a decent Internet connection, I was finally able to get tone. Silly PLDT VIBE. It's just so bloody annoying especially after a very depressing 2-hour ride home. I just expect these freaking things to have some kind of reliability. Oh, I forgot. I am referring to PLDT.
First absence at work yesterday because the alarm clock did not go off. I woke at 5 in the morning when I am supposed to be logged in at that time. Pffft. I was staring at the clock for several minutes thinking I was just sleepy and mistook the 5 for a 2, but such was not the case.
It's no big deal anyway, except that I was not able to watch The Da Vinci Code on opening day.
Caught the 2:50 pm screening at Eastwood right after my shift. The cinema was packed and the seats were scattered individually all over the place. There was one seat in the center isle left, in the E section which is five rows from the front which is how I like it. This is one of the conveniences of watching movies alone, you can grab seats easier than say a couple on a date.
Personally, I felt that there was nothing tremendously special about the film except for the cast, which can almost be called an ensemble of class A actors. Sadly, Jean Reno and Alfred Molina had too little screen time. Same can almost be said about Paul Bethany.
Again, there is nothing special about the movie but that does not translate into a bad movie.
Maybe it's because I've read the book. Maybe because it has been more than two years since I read the book. Maybe because it was directed by Ron Howard who is not really a master of suspense thrillers.
The movie hardly kept me on the edge of my seat not because I knew what was going to happen but mainly because there was simply no need to. No sense of suspense which really tickled your brain. M:I:3 had more things going for it and was a more exhilarating experience.
The other thing aside from the cast which I liked about the movie is the art presented, from the paintings to the sculptures and churches. It really makes you want to travel and see these places for yourself.
Like I said, this not make it a bad movie, it's still a pretty decent adaptation of the book and one worth seeing whether you have read the book or not. It's a typical summer blockbuster movie as it would surely rake in the moolah, but don't expect any Oscar nods from this movie. Well, not that much anyway and if it ever did, I would not expect it to win any.
Trailer tidbit. If you are lucky and get in early, they may show the trailer for the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale with an all-new actor as Agent 007 Daniel Craig. He may not be as suave as Pierce Brosnan but that may just work for him. The trailer was pretty intense.
Stupid dial up connection has wasted my bloody afternoon. What was supposed to be a quick check for new webcomics resulted in so much more. It's so slow it's so bloody annoying. Thank whatever I have not smashed anything yet.
I am so tired and worn out, and the situation at work is not helping at all. I want to go on leave as I haven't used any since December, but this would mean waiting for them to be approved and plotted which would not happen until July, at the very least. Wonderful. Anyway, there are just 2 more months remaining until my 3rd year with the company and I am seriously thinking about one thing, and if nothing spectacular happens by then, Am off. Like spectacular even happens in my life. Boo-hoo.
The Da Vinci Code opens tomorrow with a R-18 rating from the MTRCB. Nice, they almost gave it an X rating but said "it does not constitute a clear, express or direct attack on the Catholic church or religion." Got this from CNN.
Ok, so why slap it with a R-18 rating? I bet a number of people would be surprised by this tomorrow and since they are all dressed up and all would watch the other movie opening tomorrow which is Over The Hedge.
Oh, and it quite amazing how countries like India, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand are having protests/hunger strikes against the showing of the movie when they are not predominantly Christian to begin with as compared to the Philippines. We just talk about how blasphemous it is on TV. I bet these are the same people you'd see in theaters tomorrow. Nice show of faith guys.
Love Thy Playstation, Love Thyself
Normal life resumes tomorrow with work starting at 5 in the morning which again translates to waking up at 2 and leaving by 3. No big deal as I've had a pretty satisfying weekend.
Right after work finished on Saturday, I had the chance to watch Poseidon with a friend from work. The movie was paced pretty well and kept you on your seat, awake, the whole time. I'd say Wolfgang Petersen did a pretty decent job with this remake. My dad recorded a copy of the original The Poseidon Adventure on Betamax and along with King Kong and Star Wars: A New Hope where favorites of mine among the ton of tapes he had recorded before we came home to the Philippines. I vaguely remember the original movie though as it has been years since we got the Betamax and the tapes working.
After the movie, I decided to go home not before having my head shaved again. Everything is nice and cool now.
Then it was time to catch up on sleep. With the current schedule I have, the most hours of sleep I'd get in a night would be 4, the least being 2. So yesterday, I slept for more than 12 hours and felt really refreshed after. Same could have been said about today, but I decided to get up around 8 in the morning so I'd be able to sleep later. I hope.
What weekend would be complete without video games. This week, I finally completed Kingdom Hearts II clocking in at around 40 hours of game time. There are actually two endings, the other being acquired by completing 100% of the game which means filing up every item in Jiminy Cricket's Journal which is quite a monumental task. The normal ending for the game was pretty satisfactory and closed all loose ends so there is no immediate need for getting the other ending. Not just yet anyway. Probably when I would have the time.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles has finished and it has been announced that the Playstation 3 will cost 600 dollars and would be released by November. I doubt I'd be lucky enough to grab the console around launch day, not that I intend to as there doesn't seem to be a decent launch game. In time, I will especially when MGS 4 and FFXIII comes around.
With my lack of success in real life relationships, a relationship with a PS3 does not seem far from happening. I am halfway there with my PS2. The PS3 would be a more satisfying experience.
"We submit that a relationship with a PlayStation 3 is worth at least $100,000 a year in happiness for all individuals. Unlike a nagging spouse, the PS3 doesn't care about your income or your level of education—it loves you just the way you are. It is true that you will eventually become accustomed to your sleek new PS3, but this will take an extremely long time. The PS3, after all, has been built expressly to keep mind-blowing novelty coming and coming and coming. Periodic infusions of novelty—new games—will keep the endorphins flowing.
Even if you assume that a good marriage is worth $100,000, you can't discount the vast amount of money it takes to woo a spouse. The costs of daily grooming—calculated at the minimum wage—run into the tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime, not counting the costs of soap, water, Gillette Fusion cartridges, and Old Spice. Then there are the birthday presents, the anniversary presents, and the occasional meals at popular chain restaurants, not to mention the incalculably expensive psychic toll of accommodating your schedule to the increasingly unreasonable demands of your "partner." Compare with the PS3, which does not demand that you bathe or slather yourself in cologne and is available for guilt-free sensual pleasures 24 hours a day. Admittedly, you will have to purchase new games to keep the romance alive with your PS3. This, however, is vastly less expensive than renewing your nuptials, the tack taken by human couples such as Kevin Federline and Britney Spears." --- from Love Thy PlayStation, Love Thyself
A long work week was capped off by the craziest call I have ever had.
This customer called in and said he installed a flux capacitor in his computer by suggestion of some other guy and now it is slowing his computer down. He said it was a 1.21 GW (gigawatts) and seems to speed up the fans on the computer to 88 mph. The numbers did not mean anything yet, but I definitely knew what a flux capacitor is.
A flux capacitor is the integral device used on the Dr. Brown's De Lorean so it would achieve time-travel in the Back To The Future movie trilogy and is a purely fictional item.
Now, in the back of mind I was thinking whether or not this was just a prank call but the customer sounded so serious about it so I just played along. He even asked what the difference is between gigawatts and gigahertz, and I just exclaimed that they are mostly the same thing.
After the call, I burst out in laughter. Then I decided to check Wikipedia (the online source for anything) for it's entry about the flux capacitor.
Imagine my excitement and wonder when I checked it out. The numbers the customer gave out, 1.21 GW and 88 mph are facts of the fictional flux capacitor. Apparently, 1.21 GW is the amount of electricity the flux capacitor needs to achieve time-travel. This is achieved by the De Lorean once it reaches 88 mph. How silly of me to forget those numbers during the call.
Now, I don't know if the guy was pulling ,a prank call on me as he was real serious about what he was talking about no sign what so ever of any joy from the call or giggles from the other line. Maybe he was being professional about it, and so was I. Or it could be that whomever these guys are that he is talking to whom suggested installing the flux capacitor on his computer, are the ones that are ripping him off.
Oh well, here's looking forward to hearing my call once it is uploaded on the Interwebs if it was indeed a prank call. It would be a mighty boring one though.
I am not sure if I should be happy that it is my day-off yesterday and today after only 3 straight days of work. The reason am saying this is because of a mix up at work. I was supposed to be retained in the team, but for some reason the change was still made and the schedule I have for this week is from 5:30 in the afternoon to 2:30 in the morning with Tuesday and Wednesday off. No thank you.
Anyway, my TL told me not to worry as he would take care of things and simply follow the schedule he sent out a few days ago. In this schedule, I have Sunday-Monday off and start work at 5 in the morning.
Hakuna Matata.
Kingdom Hearts II is just rolling out as being a very nice game. Lots of surprises. I wonder how far I am in it. Hmmmm.
I begun downloading this game online titled Silkroad Online. It's the first time I downloaded one file which is 700+ MB in size on dial-up. I have no idea when I started downloading it but it finally finished yesterday and tested it out right away.
With the limited exposure I have with MMORPGs, I'd have to say that the game blew me away. So far, I've only played Ragnarok (when it was free) and Maple Story. There are a ton of these games out right now but most of them require a monthly subscription or loading the account with prepaid credits every month. Another thing which is preventing me from playing more (aside from time constraints) is the fact that I am using a measly dial-up connection which sucks big time.
So I was a little skeptical about this game, but I went ahead and downloaded it.
The graphics are quite remarkable and pretty. No 2-dimensional sprites here, just 3-D characters akin to those in western MMORPGs. The action is more exciting than games I have played before. Instantly, I was hooked. The best part about this is that the game is totally FREE.
Being an online game requires a fast Internet connection, but as long as I stay out of the crowds in towns, my dial-up connection seems to be able to handle it.
I am actually online right now because I was supposed to be playing it more. When I first logged in, the servers where full. On my third try, I was lucky enough to get in. Sadly, I made a wrong decision and ran in an area wherein monsters do attack.
Most monsters in the game would just watch you and will not attack unless you strike them first, but there are these so called "champions" which would chase you no matter how far you run. I did not notice it right away, but there was one chipping my life away and by the time I realized it, my life was chopped in half and my character was poisoned.
Quickly decided to just log off and restart. Upon doing so I realized how lucky I was to be able to connect earlier and that I would never have the luck strike twice. Truth be told, I could never get back in. Sadly, the game has this stupid way of closing out of everything after a couple of tries. You cannot simply allow the computer to keep on trying until it eventually connects. Once it reports that the server is full, it just closes the game.
Anyway, am off to try once again.
It's that time of the year again when summer movies start rolling out and rake in millions of dollars in the box office. Movies that are expected to sell like pancakes just because they are advertised so much and there is a ton of buzz, be it negative or positive around it.
The time of the year when I rush out of the office and catch the latest movie on opening day at the lovely Eastwood Cinemas.
This year, they kicked off with Mission: Impossible III and sure it had Tom Cruise in it with all of his Scientology hoo-hum and media exposure, relationship with Katie Holmes and recently born daughter. Let's not forget about his crazy antics on camera such as jumping on the couch and screaming when he was on Oprah. (This is the Sith induced version, the original one does not have the lightning, but am too lazy to look for it.) That scene was disturbing. Scary Movie 4 has a mock up of this scene.
Tom Cruise aside, the movie has a number of things going for it. The director, J.J. Abrams, is the creator of Alias and Lost so it's interesting to see what he could pull off especially after all the flash John Woo poured in Mission: Impossible 2. Also, there's Keri Russell who we haven't seen in ages. We should also not forget Capote, I mean, Philip Seymour Hoffman.
I suck at this.
Anyway, I was able to watch the movie yesterday and was pretty much satisfied with it, action wise that is. It's quite a visual threat and the action scenes are quite interesting. The story though is okay but hmmmm. Urk. Am gonna stop right now. I want to rant about one particular thing in the story which just makes no sense and makes them simply lazy to think of anything new, but I'll save you from any spoilers. Let's simply say that the story was quite emotional, which is unusual for spy movies. Come to think of it, the emotion in this movie feels quite genuine and makes the movie better and separates it from the crop of spy movies.
Other than that, it contains the standard Mission: Impossible twists and thankfully they did not overuse the mask changing like they did in Mission: Impossible 2.
Oh, and Simon Pegg played a part in the movie much to my delight, a nice small role for a little Hollywood exposure. If you do not know him, he is the guy from Shaun of the Dead and also happens to be a co-writer for it. If you haven't seen Shaun of the Dead then shame on you.
One more thing, is it only me but does Michelle Monaghan bare some resemblance to Katie Holmes? Or did they do her make up so she would? Nah, maybe that's just me having too much of this Tom-Katie fun fare.
Also got to see two more movies earlier last week which I have not mentioned before, Silent Hill and Slither. Let's make this quick.
Silent Hill. Pyramid Head. If you played the game, you should watch this movie. Unlike other video game based movies out there, this one follows the game quite closely. At least in the visual and aural aspects. The story is a bit off. Or maybe I just forgot how the game ended as it has been more than 5 -6 years. Actually, people who have no idea what Silent Hill is would also be entertained.
Slither. Would be classified with b-movie horror ones but a damn good and entertaining one. The dialogue in this movie would just keep you giggling through out. It's a gross out horror movie with intestines and all, so be warned if it ain't your thing. Just give it a try. It's a shame Eastwood Cinemas skipped this movie for another more advertised and marketed movie.
For a better review of both movies check Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Slither. Silent Hill.