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Google Earth


I’ve been knocking myself out with Google Earth recently. I found the activity of looking for some location from a generally “uncharted” map of the Philippines (it only goes as far as showing major cities) very engaging.

Still, there are some misgivings I have with it. First is the free version doesn’t allow you to draw polygons. I could understand why the Plus and Pro versions give you better network access, which is fair enough. But drawing custom shapes/polygons can be done locally in a machine, I wish they just enable it on the free version as well. Having the ability to input custom shapes to draw area perimeters is very useful especially in the Philippine context – because we have lousy Civil Engineers who make me wish there was some kind of SIM City feature in real life to just obliterate a chunk of area and replace it with properly distributed structures and roads. But I digress. Read More

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Temptation

I WANT THIS DAMNIT!


Frontier Design Group’s AlphaTrack compact DAW surface controller

Assignable motorized fader, touch-sensitive parameter controls, LCD screen, transport controls, touch-sensitive jog/shuttle control… it’s like a swiss army knife for MIDI control/automation.

More info here (Be sure to check the demo page) I hear it’s only about 200USD, if only I wasn’t getting a new laptop, I’d buy this in a heartbeat. I guess it’s racket time!

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The good and the bad

The Bad

My girlfriend got mugged… again. This is the second time it’s happened (we weren’t together the first time around) 1 When I say “weren’t together,” I mean we weren’t in a relationship then, but this is the first time she got hurt. Cut to be precise. There’s really nothing much else to do but wish very bad mojo on those who did the deed: if I were allowed to put a curse on them, I’d curse them to remain the sorry POOR PEASANTS they are for the rest of their miserable lives. As an added bonus, I hope they get into an accident, and not be able to treat their injuries because of their poverty. Should I be allowed to strip all morality aside, then I’d wish the same on everyone they hold dear for good measure.

The Good

The wounds were superficial, but I picked her up and took her to the nearest hospital to get some Tetanos shots to be on the safe side. Her friends also seemed to be doing a good job in cheering her up while I was on my way. I loved what one of them said:

mugger (after taking cellphone): Ngayon akin na buhok mo!

She just had her hair cut (shorter than my hair) during the weekend, so everyone was surprised to see her with short hair. That joke cracked me up.

Thanks to her resistance, only her cellphone was taken – but she was cut because of it. I’m still undecided wether or not it was worth being cut over. Should she have just given them everything and walked away unscathed?

Notes

Notes
⇡1 When I say “weren’t together,” I mean we weren’t in a relationship then
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Milenyo

We’ve finally recovered yesterday from the region-wide blackout from super-typhoon Milenyo. I was only able to blog about it now since I was out almost the whole time – probably one of the rare occasions that I’ve been out almost everyday.

THURSDAY – The Storm Strikes

The cancellation of classes were announced the day before, and a lot of people were surprised, because there were no indications of a storm coming whatsoever. I heard PAG-ASA (that’s the country’s weather authority) acquired some new equipment – which apparently just paid for itself on its debut.

I was actually out driving when the storm was at its strongest. I went to Galleria to get some blank DVDs, the car was literally rocking whenever I was idling on the road. I really thought the wind would just flip me over. When leaving the mall, exiting through the ramp was like headed for your doom, as it looked like there was a sandstorm out there – only with wind and water.

The sick thing about the whole thing was that I was literally giddy the whole time, I was actually enjoying myself when on the road, dodging flying yeros (corrugated iron roof material) on ortigas avenue like a video game. Amusing myself with the damage the storm was causing. I really regretted not bringing my camera along during that time as you could literally see the winds because of the rain – it was awesome!

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