License to Drive

Took a day off from work today to get my driver's license renewed. I expected it to take some time considering the poor government processes.

I arrived at the East Avenue office at around 8:30 am. It was my first time getting a license there since we had moved in the three years that my last license was valid, so I asked around for instructions. Apparently I had to cross the street to what supposedly was a medical lab to get a medical certificate and a drug test. Heh.

I exited the LTO and was immediately approached by a guy who said he's point the way to where I needed to go. Since there were hordes of people and it was broad daylight I followed his lead. We crossed the street (no crosswalk!) and entered an area of ramshackle stalls. Among the stalls was a little wooden "office" where I sat down and filled out a few forms. I pissed into a cup, and in five minutes I got my clean drug test. Cost: P250.

My guide then reappeared and pointed the way to the "medical lab." It was nothing more than a room with a lady who sat you down and made you read from a standard optometrist's wall chart. I read just fine with my corrected sight, so I got my "medical clearance" in under five minutes. Cost: P50. (Incidentally, the guy opposite me was only able to read row 4 of the chart. He was given "medical clearance" as well. I hope I never meet him on the street.)

Back to the LTO. Filled up a form, turned in the papers along with my old license. Wait ten minutes. Have digital photo taken, and sign digital signature capture thingy. Wait another 20 minutes. Pay the cashier. Cost: Just under P300. Wait another 20 minutes. Get license card and receipt and I'm done.

Hop in a cab and I'm home before 10am. That was relatively painless, I must say. All I have to do next time is drink a bit more before going to facilitate the peeing into the cup. See them in three years!

Time to Recommit, and Kuala Lumpur

I'm overthinking this. All I have to do is write a couple of lines a day. Not much more than that. It's not like I have an audience here right?

I just arrived from a business trip to Kuala Lumpur. The city isn't much different from any Asian city. It's greener than Manila, cleaner than Jakarta, but less shiny than Singapore. It's got its share of nice malls.

I got to hook up with an old high school buddy who work with Shell in Malaysia. We had dinner and a couple of beers and talked about how life turns out for each of us. Neither of us was on the "most likely to succeed" list in high school, but having lived expat lives and having advanced a bit up the corporate ladder, we're not doing too bad. He's getting married soon, and I wish him all the best.

The Petronas Twin Towers looked very nice lighted up at night, but hey, they're just a couple of phallic buildings. The two sites I wanted to visit, the National Museum of Malaysia and the Royal Selangor Pewter Plant, I had no time for this trip. I'm still not sure I missed much, and the 10-hour trip via Singapore is more than enough to make the trip less that attractive next time around.

Work

Another day, 14 hours more, and another trip on the calendar. At least this time it's to Kuala Lumpur and not Singapore.

Who am I kidding? I would probably have preferred Singapore for its convenience. It's not like the distance changed.

At least I might get to hook up with Taga for a drink or three.

Nag nag nag nag Virus

This Zotob virus is really annoying. VirusShield is parrying it but it won't give up. I must have over a hundred messages saying that the virus was blocked.

Virus authors are morons.

Yet another trip

Wow, back to Singapore again next week. That's five times in just over three months.

I used to be happy to visit Singapore. It's a great city/country and it's got great people and great places to see and shop. But these short visits are quickly becoming murder. This time I fly in, work for one day, then fly out.

Why do I feel this won't be the last time this year?

If I annualize that's 20 foreign trips a year. Staggering.

Back in Flight

Well I'm back in Manila's crappy airport waiting for my flight. The same
flight as last time - and similarly late. Dunno why SQ's unable to get this
plane in on time.

The bad news - I'm coming off a touch of the flu over the weekend so the
recirculated cabin air is going to wreak holy havoc on my respiration. Gak.

Also, the film lineup is going to be the same as last time around (ditto for
the food) so I'm going to have to spend my time working. Not so bad,
there're some numbers I'm pretty interested in getting at.

Airport post

I'm standing here in Changi Airport in Singapore at a free internet terminal and making this post. I wish every airport would have something like this. I was able to make my moves on www.boiteajeux.net so my Torres games wouldn't be held up (best PBEM implementation around) and I got to check my webmail. Really nice. And of course I got to make this post.

I'm dead tired fromthis trip, but I'm going to be back here next week for more conferencing work - argh. I like Sing, but not so much that I'd voluntarily fly back here three times in five weeks. Oh well, it comes with the job. So, off to Times Newslink to see if they have anything new.

The Neil Gaiman Signing

The Big Event for fantasy lit fans hereabouts is Neil Gaiman's visit. My
buddy Frog just told me that our buddy Nix stood in line for ten hours
yesterday and didn't get to Neil. Apparently he showed up at Rockwell at
10am and found 500 people in front of him. The organizers capped the line at
700 people. The people Neil didn't get to will have the first shot today in
Greenhills. All reports say that Neil was living up to his rep - tireless,
friendly and attracts hordes of cute girls. I hope someone took pix.

Life in an Airport

The thing I hate most about travelling is the time you have to spend in
airports. In this new world of copious security measures, two to three hours
in an airport per flight is about the minimum you can expect. If your
destination is the United States, expect more time in security lines. So I
suppose I should be happy that I mostly fly around lower-security Southeast
Asia.

The Manila airport is pathetic. The food is awful, there's nowhere to jack
into the internet, and there are no decent bookstores. Even the seats are
uncomfortable. The Simgapore airport is far better. The HK airport is also
pretty nice, except that it's so big you need a rail to get to some parts of
it.

Oops we're doing it again

It's bizarrely appropriate that I'm using the title of a Britney Spears song to title this post about our ludicrous politicians and government. Yet again, this crazy country of morons (presently company sadly included) is thisclose to ejecting a President, threatening to turn our "democratic process" into one big fat joke. You know, with this kind of track record let's forget elections. Let's just agree that we install a President via one of our trademarked "People Power" (blech) movements, let that President keep going until we're tired of him, and then People Power him out of office and install a replacement. It'll save us a bundle of cash that can go to education and fighting corruption.

I'm no fan of Gloria, whose worst traits are that she's an influence peddler and she has a family that rivals Cory's in greed and dirt. However, she was "elected" in the last polls. Did she cheat? Probably. Did anyone else cheat? Probably, but that's irrelevant. Gloria was proclaimed the winner by Congress. That can only be undone by another act of Congress - impeachment. Unless Gloria steps down a-la Nixon, but that's not going to happen.

So, the economy kicks back into the dark ages, we have the specter of Noli freaking de Castro becoming President, and this country is almost all the way to shitsville. Whoopee.

Mobile nirvana?

This is a test post from a Blackberry mobile phone/email device. Remember when I was pining for a mobile electronic writing tool? It may have found its way to me. Now here's hoping that this post publishes correctly. Fingers crossed!

Away

I'm writing this with the final shreds of my purchased internet time here at the hotel. I'm in Singapore for a couple of corporate meetings. I never realized how much I missed being this involved with this kind of operation. It's so much more empowering than my last stop in Cubesville. Discussing strategy, mission, vision and values and then moving to translate them from strategy into tactics is the meat of what I do in the workplace. It's fun, it's interesting and best of all I'm damned good at it.

Once I'm able to absorb all the things about this business, it'll be that much more of a rush.

Yes, nothing yet on the hobbies, even if I did get to play Euphrat & Tigris and Bluff last Saturday. Actually, that was the previous Saturday. Last Saturday the group played Taj Mahal while I just hung around, wasted from the new job.

Lot sof movies to write up as well. I hope my memory holds out long enough for me to put text to white space.

A Stab from the Dark

Yes, yes, the truancy will all be explained. For now, I just wanted to capture this:

Top 10 Reasons Why Geeks Make the Best Mates

Amusingly, it's on a Geek matchmaking site. What a concept.

Be back soon. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. (Did I get that right?)

Vewy vewy quiet

Lots happening... and yeah no blogging. Can't really tell why.. maybe later.

Anyway, great link here from Matthew Monin.

Acts of Gord has stories of a video game store owner who has to deal with really stupid people. It's hilarious.

Back soon, hopefully with a lot more than I've had in the past two weeks.

Are you a Geek?

I've always identified with being a "Geek" due to association of interests. I'd object to the "social ineptness" factor in the definition, as that can be overcome. That doesn't prevent me from liking sci-fi and fantasy, or doing interesting stuff. Funny how this kind of label was applied to the kind of knowledge that everyday people don't subscribe to. Does that mean your normal person has a lack of imagination and/or intellect?

Anyway.

Take the Geek Test!

My score:

30.96647% - Total Geek

Lots of checks for sci-fi and fantasy interest and knowledge, doing well in science and math, enjoying tech and the web and being interested in "academic interests" in spare time.

Whoever made that test clearly wasn't a game geek though - not enough RPG or boardgame content. I scored no points since I have no love for Risk, Chess, Trivial Pursuit or the like. Scabble and other word games, yeah.

Jessica

Sometimes this is all you need to bring a smile to your face. :)

Boardgameblog Update: Game night and a review

Updated Boardgameblog with Saturday night gaming on 2 April, plus a review of Dragon Delta, which is in the running for worst game we've inflicted on ourselves this year.

Karol May 18,1920 - April 2, 2005

Dying Lights

Karol Wojtyla, John Paul II, the Pope in Rome for most of my life, lies on his deathbed. I've never been a devout Catholic, but there's always been a certain mystique around JPII. I saw him in person twice when he came to visit this country, the only predominantly Catholic one in Asia. He had the same aura that great leaders tend to have. He was a kindly man, who did far more for the Roman Catholic Church in terms of finding the line between keeping its traditions and changing to face the future than many will realize or admit. He also transcended his role as the leader of Catholicism, and was one world leader about whom no one had a negative thing to say. He was a good man. I think history will find him to be a great man. JP2 had one tough job. I think he did it well.

Thanks, Karol. Say hello to the Big G for all of us down here.

On Writing

I'll post this here because I keep referring back to it whenever I think that writing is just something I do when there's nothing better to do, or when I think that I should give it up and just do something regular and productive and common.

Neil Gaiman's "On Writing"

My favorite quote from the piece:

"Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins. It has no job security of any kind, and depends mostly on whether or not you can, like Scheherazade, tell the stories each night that'll keep you alive until tomorrow. There are undoubtedly hundreds of easier, less stressful, more straightforward jobs in the world."