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‎ Monday, ‎December ‎28, ‎2015 2:25:31 AM While waiting for our PLDT DSL to connect, I folded these small origami boxes after I finished what work I could do offline. Our connection is intermittent. It connected approximately 3x, only for a few minutes each time within the last 6 hours that I have been sitting here. I am tired of staring at pldt's baudtec modem. The sequence is the same: The DSL light blinks as it tries to connect, and when the INTERNET light is supposed to turn on, it doesn't. The cycle repeats. 2:35:30 AM It's back. 2:38:45 AM And it's gone again. Like I said -  it lasts just a few minutes. So, this has happened recently too. I don't remember exactly when, maybe it was less than 2 weeks ago. That night, I remember folding origami envelopes while I waited. I also remember that I went to bed without it connecting, hoping that it returns to normal soon. Looks like I'll do that again. GOOD NIGHT. ‎ Monday, ‎December ‎28, ‎2015 ...

So, I applied and received my PWD national ID early this month from the mayor's office. It's supposed to grant 20% off on prescription meds and basic commodities like rice. But I have to present the ID card with the corresponding booklet (there are two). Three years ago, I bought a slightly pricey black nail polish (pricey for just a simple nail polish). 'Twas bought on impulse which I surprisingly don't regret now. I expected it to be dried out but it wasn't. Cool. I don't have acetone so I only painted one nail.

Someone's lunchbox for tomorrow. I enjoy making these. Lunchboxes, I mean. Someone tries to stop me from adding more rice most of time. I tell them I add more to make it look neat and compact, and they don't have to eat all of it if they don't want to... but they always do! So, please stop telling me how to make your baon! LOL. A co-worker of theirs saw one of these once and said it was cute.

turon merienda I'm mastering a couple of my favorite songs on the acoustic guitar and I'm liking what I'm hearing so far. Truth is, I would've stopped if I didn't and I would've been sad. I do accept that my playing is not very good 'cause I can't press the strings well enough but with what strength I have... I'm happy. And I'm playing for me. Picked up the guitar again after almost 20 years. I wanted an electric guitar so I can produce a cleaner sound (easier to press) but the new, good ones were out of my budget. So, I settled for a smaller acoustic guitar that the salesman called the "classic." It's smaller than a full-size acoustic guitar. It has nylon strings (easier to press). When he showed me the "classic," he said, " Pero di ka makaka-rock dito. " I don't know why he mentioned that to me, like he knew what I wanted. Imagine a small-ish woman in a wheelchair with a nice blue dress and white cotto...

This is someone's lunchbox for tomorrow. My tummy rumbled this morning. It woke me up. After going to the toilet, I went back to bed. It rumbled again this afternoon. By dinnertime, I felt OK. I feel OK as I'm writing this. Something lingers though: a taste in my mouth or a hollow feeling in my belly. I ate well tonight so I know it's not hunger. We toasted bread that I munched on too, if just to "absorb" anything oily in there, if there's any.

Dessert earlier was a Graham crackers float filled with cream, condensed milk and peaches and topped with powdered dark chocolate. Guests left a big box of Graham honey crackers that we can't seem to finish off quick enough. We just keep making Graham floats now. I started playing the guitar again.

I knew this was going to happen . Last weekend, I turned the desktop pc on. After several long beeps, it did not boot and the fan was on so, I powered it down. When I turned it on again after an hour, the fan ran but no post and no boot. I gave up. Good thing that I already bought a laptop and my files are backed up. I opened the tower today to remove the hard drive. I already unplugged the data and power cables from the hdd in this picture. I'm going to sell the rest so I can at least get something out of it now. I already spent so much money fixing it these last 3 years. One thing that I'm thinking about is my Win 8.1 license - what if I want to use it on a new machine? A solution from the MS forums so far was that if you were to get the "not genuine" prompt after installing it on the new machine, you then call Support (call from the new computer, I believe), try to get a human being on the other line, convince them that the old machine is dead, that it...

Ate lunch at Classic Savory in Festival Mall Alabang a few weeks ago.

Oct. 13, 2015, Tuesday What now? Did i press the power button the wrong way? My Win 8.1 desktop was on a "repairing," bsod ("...a problem...), restart loop tonight with "bios update... creating bios image..." and error descriptions on the bsod occasionally showing up. Must say though, the bsod on 8.1 is not so scary. *bsod (blue screen of death) Of course, I tried to boot from my usb media but it wouldn't go through from 1-time boot, not even when I put it first on bios. Is my mobo faulty? Dunno but something is. Just waited for it to hang a 3rd time so I can power down for a fresh try in an hour or so. 4th Round. Somehow, it managed to repair itself and I was able to work until a bsod/restart came on. Twice, I had a 15-minute window to work. But before another bsod could come on again, I shut it down properly. Will see if it will be better (or worse) tomorrow. When it rains, it pours. Been having one tech problem after another. It's wo...

the replacement pldt baudtec October 7, 2015, Wednesday I was asleep. They said we lost our Internet connection. They power-cycled. The modem did not turn on. The modem is dead. I called PLDT 172 this afternoon. They will send a technician to check and replace the modem. The price for the new modem will be added to our bill. I also told them that our DSL connection has not be steady. They said they'll check that. The rep said he's hearing some static in the background while we're talking. They will check that too. October 8, 2015, Thursday The pldt tech arrived this morning before 10 a.m. He replaced the dead red-orange zyxel with this white BaudTec modem/router. He made sure it connected and then he left. I do not know if he checked our line. I gave up on setting it up with our linksys router. It would not give an IP to the wireless devices. I figured the linksys would have to be reset but I was tired and couldn't be bothered to make it work anymore. The lin...

when there are issues on your website... and it's the vendor's fault... and all you can do is wait till they get it back to normal

100 days of nice. 100 days care-free. Then Aunt Flo came back for a visit. My face hurts. My pores are huge.

Malunggay pandesal and pansit. Scary, loud thunder. It happened twice within the last few days. Too close. No warning. The first one was the loudest. One big boom. If it wasn't for the rain that immediately followed, we would've assumed something exploded.

I can't make my blog look the way I want it to. Maybe I change my mind too often. Dinner was ginisang ampalaya (with onion and egg). We paired it with fried fish. I ate it with our home-made pickled ampalaya . I liked it all. It gets hot here at noon and it wakes me up. But it is nice in the evenings so I work comfortably. I'm surprised that I am not bald yet. The amount of hair that fall off in the shower is ridiculous. They fall with the roots too.

Sudden blackouts -- Another reason to use a laptop instead of a desktop pc - and I am considering it. While working last night, I heard a loud boom(!) from the street and the power went out! Waah, the machine! Electricity returned 5 minutes later, maybe less. I was too scared to turn the computer on again right away (and frying something inside ) so I turned the AVR off and waited 15 minutes. It booted up OK, no errors or anything. I did not want to keep it on any longer in fear of another blackout so I just shut it down properly and went away. I did what work I could do on my phone (which was not a lot - last night was not a productive night). What was that noise? It sounded like something blew up.

I prep'd for it so I'm going to do it, dammit! I prepared on and off for a week: researched, went through the steps and what to expect in my head, learned possible snags and their fixes (from other people's first-hand accounts), prep'd what I needed to use, backed up drivers and my files, wrote down my key and printed out my step-by-step notes. It took a while but I was ready (and pumped). August 5, 2015: Clean install of Win 8.1 via bootable USB. Success! There were only 2 things that my notes didn't cover: There were multiple one-time boot options on my mobo (press F12 to get to this boot menu on GA-A75M-UD2H). There were 4 choices for USB. Obviously, USB-Zip and USB-CDROM were out. I thought, "Oh, USB-HDD but what is this USB-FDD?" [Six minutes later...] Ok, not FDD. Should've went with my gut and picked HDD the first time but no harm done and lesson learned. Uhm, yeah, pick USB-HDD. NOTE: The bootable USB was easily created with Window...

Mango online sale at Zalora PH. Bought a nice Mango dress at 60% off. Purchased Saturday night and delivered Monday morning. Awesome.

7/6/15, Monday A desktop PC user with Win 8.1 will eventually come across an issue when shutting down the machine. That issue is the hybrid shutdown. Apparently, this default setting keeps the power on long enough as it preps for a "fast startup." I only discovered this last night. Two weeks into upgrading the system, I already noticed that when I shut down, the monitor powers off first but the tower will run for more than 10 secs before it then completely powers off. I was OK with that, I could wait. But at last night's shutdown, 5 minutes after the monitor went blank, the power led light and fan were still on. The processing indicator light already stopped blinking and was off. Hesitantly, I had to hold the power button down so it will turn off completely. Now, given my recent computer problem , that was done with a sense of pending anxiety. I looked it up and saw that "shutdown but power still on" was an old issue for desktop PC users with Win 8 (an...

Someone took a baking class at the Heny Sison school and came back with these pastries that they (their teacher, actually) made. Thanks and Yum! I liked the biscotti with one end dipped in white and the other in dark chocolate. The lady fingers in the tiramisu were made from scratch and were too sweet. I was not able to taste the madeleines and the pastry on the upper left (I forget what it is called).

June 19, 2015, Friday Short story: Hard shutdown. Overclocking error. Messed up display. Restarts by itself. Bluescreens. Then, PC fan turns on but no beep and no post. No joy. Long story: It was on. I just turned the monitor off and forgot about it. I pressed the power button (quick press) thinking I was turning it on which actually shut it down. I realized my mistake. The power light on the tower was still on so I had to do a hard shutdown/shut-off (hold down the power button) so I can start again. On bootup, It showed the "boot failure because of overclocking" screen. I continued as normal. Related: The only other time I had this "overclocking" screen was last month. I remember that the machine took longer than normal to boot. I did a hard shutdown, powered on, saw the overclocking screen which I took a picture of (see image above), continued as normal and was able to work without a glitch. Back to the long story... PART 1: While working, the displ...

I have a new accent pillow. It is a gift. It matches my sheets. I believe it is hand-made. It is so pretty.

I like the coffee with condensed milk at Ya Kun Kaya Toast (NAIA terminal 2, departure area). They did not collect a passenger terminal fee at NAIA Terminal 2, finally! The wheelchairs at the airport are still old with breaks that do not work though. We had to put a bag behind the rear wheels of the wheelchair they gave me so it would not roll away. We went on a mini-vacation last week. We visited Bacolod City. We stayed at a Go Hotel . It was a breezy, scenic 30-minute drive to the hotel from the Bacolod-Silay airport via the airport access road. We stopped at Talisay from the airport to visit family too. I tried to buy a Go Hotel toiletry kit but they were out. The lady at the desk was quick to explain that their current stock was past expiration date and they were waiting for new stock but they do not know when it will be delivered. There used to be a Cafe 21 at the lobby up until last year ( sayang ). There is still a "corner shop" where you can buy coffee -- ...

Well then... Goodbye, Grooveshark.

Went to bed the usual time but could not fall asleep. I might have been hungry. It was like yesterday but not quite when I got up at 10 a.m. to eat. After that, I slept until 4:45 p.m. and had coffee. But yesterday turned out to be a good day. It was 32 light, easy steps to the bathroom with the rollator and someone guarding from the rear. I forgot to count steps after that. The temperature was nice yesterday. I got up to eat at 9 a.m. today when I smelled breakfast cooking. I have been looking at the clock periodically. 5:34 a.m., 7:48 a.m. I have not slept at all. I ate and then read for a while, until maybe 11 a.m. That was when my eyes felt dry. I lied down and fell asleep but a loud, "Whatever!" from outside the window woke me up with a jerk. My body felt heavy. Someone was on their cellphone talking, no, more like yelling enthusiastically. I lied awake for a while until I lost patience and asked them to please talk somewhere else, that I was trying to sleep. They did....

The eggplant/tomato salad was chilled and so good for today's weather. On the right is pininyahang manok from a nearby carinderia . Muggy days are here again. I think my phone captured a nice picture this time.

Waah! Had to install the big G's Chrome browser for quality checks and it ate up a chunk of what little system space I had left. I am seriously thinking about adjusting the sizes of my partitions. Hmmm... most of the mobile visitors are on iOS. Should I get one? It will be for... quality checks.

Late-night snack. Corned beef and orange slices for breakfast. Left-over lettuce wrap filling with fried egg makes a nom-nom meal. That is ground chicken meat. Garbage truck came so it was bye-bye to the bag of trash that occupied this space, at last. You can see my transport wheelchair and rollator over there. Hmmm... my mobility aids need dusting. This reminds me, important things like these must match the person using them. A couple of years ago, I bought a rollator to use abroad, online. Like my trusty one, it was three-wheeled and lightweight but by a different maker called Drive Medical. It looked nice but I could not squeeze the brakes properly -- it was useless to me. We tried adjusting the thing but nothing worked. Such a waste but lesson learned. If I will ever need another rollator, I will stick with Invacare. I will tell the "why we chose a transport wheelchair" story on another post. Holy Week so there was fish. We eat dinner together at the tab...

I will make a series. I will call it "Dada's Days in Pictures #" or whatever clever title I'll come up with then. It will be a series of pictures that I will take with my point-and-shoot camera (not phone) for a consecutive number of days or until the battery is drained. I expect it will be dull because I am not able to get up and move (sucks but have to deal { childhood-onset myositis }). There will be food, mostly of my meals which I can comfortably take pictures of sitting down. Let's see what happens.

Broke the day's fast with grilled pork and Worcestershire sauce. My phone is old (Nokia on Symbian) and cannot handle current tech. To add to its usual display problem (which body contact in the time it takes me to sing one song resolves, so far), it is falling apart. Yesterday, the volume button fell off. It is now secured in place with a piece of masking tape.

We swept behind my work desk and the dust bunnies were... HUGE! Gross. I forgot to take out the big trash bag when the garbage collector came earlier. It's full from when I cleaned out folders from college and what-nots from the cabinets. I'm purging. There are still things to go over and sort (keep, throw away or donate) but I want to get rid of this big trash bag first before I can restart my "cleanup." We can't leave it outside because it will just be messed with.

For a while there, I couldn't decide if I wanted to get Third Eye Blind's first CD or the "A Collection" CD or pick out individual songs. I re-listened to 3eb a month or so ago. Memories from college came flooding back and it was great. The band just came out at the time. A buddy handed me a tape of their first album and said, "You have to listen to this." I did and synapses in my brain rippled in a good way, it was amazing. Thanks, man. Anyway, I ended up choosing individual tracks because I might have outgrown most of the other songs. Bought "Wounded" and the last 3 tracks on the first album as well as "Jumper" which is just... no explanation needed. Happy days are here again. Dipped into my darlings' gifts fund for this. Their birthdays aren't for a few months yet so I can mturk a little harder until then to bring the balance back up.

Q: For websites with responsive designs/templates, how do you keep small images from being distorted (in other words, enlarged and pixelated = ugly) on smartphone screens? A: The simple solution is to set the width within the IMG style tag. For example: Your image is 150px-wide. To lock it at 150px (the upper limit should be the image's actual width so it will still look nice), use: <img alt="#" src="#" style="width: 150px;"> Up Next: How to center (awkward... verb) an image when the <div> or <p> elements don't work. These alignment tips from w3.org clearly explains it all. It says CSS but we can use the style code within the body's html source which sort of trumps the CSS (if you're using a template) so we can still make style changes per page. OK, here's the fix: <img src="#" alt="#" style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; width:#px;"> On a responsiv...

There is a shortage of Great Taste 3-in-1 sugar-free coffee around here! It rained today. The envelope fund/budget system + my origami envelopes from used paper = XD

Have been posting less frequently over the years. There are no new experiences to write about - good or bad (though I prefer the good). I did get extremely annoyed that someone went through a cartridge of printer ink in one week. The ink is not cheap and I would rather they economize and go outside to make photocopies instead of printing several copies in one go. When it was my turn to print something, the output was horrible and the low ink levels sign was in my face. I only print one two-page document a month, I expect everything is fine when I do.

2/18/2015 takeout food from red kimono (glorietta, makati). salmon, tofu, sauce, sesame seeds and rice. hindi japanese rice ang ginamit. tuyo yung kanin, nahirapan tuloy akong i-chopsticks. kumakalat. :/ salmon and tofu bowl take-out from red kimono

Upset that the mobile web version of Evernote stopped working for me this week. After signing in, it does not adjust to my screen properly. And to log-out, I have to manually type "/Logout.action" pa. Hay, sayang.

It started a few days ago. Folded me an origami box or "origami garbage bin." Before you puff it open, it's a pretty sturdy pouch. Still hooked. Moved on to envelopes. From today... Creative way to recycle paper. Potentially addictive.

the body can't decide if it will cough or sneeze, or both. 25°C temp right now. lovely... if we're in bed. seriously thinking about an easy diy cape or poncho , but where to get the material? wool-type? how about that cloth picnic blanket? feels warm enough. too thick to sew by hand though. my legs are cold stiff and, i think, swollen. i would appreciate a pair of gloves right now.

Situation We have our domain and email on GoDaddy. We will change nameservers from custom to standard (park the domain). Question Will our email (mx records) be affected? Will our email stop working? Answer Not at all. Email will work as if nothing's changed. Source Personal experience. You're welcome.

Last night (squints at phone) Why don't you wear your eyeglasses? I'm wearing contacts. Why are you squinting then? They're the wrong grade, too low. What?! Hihi. We have a box that no one uses. I thought I might as well... Argh! Take them off and put your glasses on. Don't wanna. I'm wearing make-up. Buzzed from flat champagne. It popped but no fizz. We drank it anyway.

First day of the new year and it is cold! I ate too much new year's eve. I slept too long and my back hurts a little. I don't think I moved in bed at all. It is cold. It rained. To health, happiness and prosperity in 2015!