da tomāto

What a pain it was to have our street - yeah, just our street! - to have a blackout last Friday. See, it was raining and we heard a bang from somewhere and our power went out. The power went out everywhere but it came back up again after like two minutes but ours didn't. Turns out, the garage or the car wash down the street got hit by lightning. Anyway, Meralco got us up almost seven hours later. For me, that meant lost revenue. Yup, I passed up an audio that day. Oh well, at least I got to catch up on my friend's books. My goal is to finish my friend's first quarter accounting before we go on holiday. Oh, and my friend decided to have her BIR liasion to do the taxes this month. That was so brilliant of her! She thought that since they'd be doing it while I'm away, better start now so that I can see if it's okay and that if they had any questions, they could still call me at home. Well, no call and the report's done! Great! Oh, we had shrimps cooked in oil,

Like my goggle specs?!? lol! An optician (?) came over last Saturday and measured me for prescription glasses. It's sooo bad... but bad eyes run in the family, what can I say? That's the price of being nerdy. lol! When I saw this pair, I knew that I wanted them. They're so black and thick and round... haha! Anyway, it fits my face perfectly. These came this morning and my only complaint is that my lashes brush against the lens when I blink. Oohh.. long lashes. lol! It says, "I'm busy, don't bother me." It can also say, "I want to look nerdy eh!" Or it can say, "Okay, class....!"

This is a sample of what I'm not supposed to be eating - white bread with mayo and cold ham. Not that having cold ham's bad, it's just that the combination's not so great - it tastes great - but not "healthy" great. But froggy up there likes it... lol. I also bought something last Sunday... USD100 . What's unexpected was that at our meeting then - as we were wrapping things up - I asked one of the guys if they can come with me to buy USD. So, my other friend was like, "How much do you want?" I said, "I don't know, USD100?" And he's like, "I got a USD100." And he pulled it out of his wallet. He probably got more in it too. I was like, "Great. Why do you carry dollars around?" But the conversation after that was pretty long so... I'm going to skip it because it's VERY late and I got to sleep. I've this new medication that has an adverse effect - somnolence. Turns out, it meant sleepiness and drowsin

I had a merienda/dinner meeting last night and we had roast chicken (lechon manok) for dinner (merienda was spaghetti and toasted whole-grain bread slices, yum!). Turns out, they also bought like 2 kilos of lechon manok here at home. Obviously, there's a lot of leftovers. Looks like this is going to be a chicken week... cluck! cluck! I have a couple of presumptions why my friend still hasn't dropped off the accounting docs luggage here yet. One, that she's trying out to see if she can do the tax report herself and have me look at it later to make sure it's right. Or two, that they're still sorting it out - ergo - I'm going to have to cram again this weekend since it's due next week. The latter is probable while the former's just possible. Hmmm... Anyway, my gracious transcription affiliate declared a busy quarter starting this month. So true. Too bad that I couldn't cash in on any work that'd be given out next month (and very likely, two m

My client sent my pay to Moneybookers last Thursday and I withrew it to my bank on Friday. The transaction charge was $2.79, by the way. But $2.50 was shouldered by my client so it's okay. The pay showed up in my bank account on Tuesday -- three business days! Yay! So here I was... on my way home from the doctor's yesterday. I've been weighed and I was 90 lbs. Yay (again!) But still got to stick to the DASH diet though... sigh. What's interesting was that yesterday, my doc asked if my work was stressing me out... DING! DING! DING! I think he's right. Also, I've got to wrap things up before we go on holiday too so I think that's added stress right there. I've already told my clients about my plans... I had to let go of one client since the work that I do with him has daily deadlines. He thanked me for telling him in advance. Of course, I am a reliable WAH person (lol!) so I told everyone about our vacation in June last week pa. My transcription client t

Okay... it's more like, "it rained during the afternoon these past two days". lol! But the point is, it rained! Oh, glorious rain! Yesterday, the heat was almost unbearable at noon. In the afternoon, it rained! And it's not just any ordinary rain - there were thunder and lightning too! I was so happy that it dropped the temperature but I was also nervous that the power might go out -- it didn't. Thank goodness for that. Today, it was not that hot at noon. And this afternoon, it rained. And now, there's no more rain and it's still cool. Yay! I'm getting a feeling that all this talk I just did about the rain is going to bite me in the bum - that we'll have a typhoon soon... Oh-oh.

So happy - my latest client just sent my foreign currency pay (as agreed) thru Moneybookers (MB) yesterday. I am excited to see if I can successfully withdraw it to my bank... waiting... waiting... though I know it could take a few days, lol! I'm still excited though. [grinning] Well, the pay's not really remarkable and I think it's fair considering the work involved there. The peso seems to be appreciating - or not? Of course, it changes but hopefully, the exchange rate will be good when the transfer to my bank pushes through. [sigh] There's a lot to do this month - the merry month of May! I already talked to my friend and made arrangements for someone else to take over their monthly tax report while I'm away. Yup, from the look of things, our vacation this year is starting to take shape... the shape of Shamu, perhaps? lol! As for my other WAHJs, my transcription affiliate is willing to wait for me when I come back. Yay! I even wrote a lovely, pleading (lol!) emai

I've not been a very productive content writer for my first affiliate lately. I've said that the "idea barrel's" saturated. So here's my solution -- reading. During those "off" times, it's best to read stuff about your topic. It's because I found out that when I do get my writing mode "on", the words just start to come out. Take, for example, the article that I just submitted a little while ago. I have read about this topic before but during that time, I just couldn't get a unique idea about it. And now, I started to think about it and words just kept flowing. And I like how that makes me feel. The weather's nice too. It's fairly cool, looks like it's going to rain. I could've had a hotdog sandwich earlier but I didn't want to spoil my appetite. We have one of those pre-packed salads with fruit, chicken, seeds, greans and I hope it stays fresh for later. This one has sesami vinagrette on the side and it's

Yesterday... And now... it's gone! It wasn't there anymore when I woke up yesterday. Yay! The skin's pink though but that's normal. I just discovered that the headset inside my mobile's box - that I thought was just a headset for hands-free calls - was more than that. lol! After almost eight months, I started to go over the clutter that I have here. And I saw the box that my phone came with. I didn't throw it away because the warranty sticker's on it. Anyway, I was googling if my mobile can be used for international roaming. Turned out that its gsm's only at 900 and 1800 which are for Asia, not anywhere else. All right, so I looked over specs on the nokia site online and saw that one of the holes on my phone was for the headset. OK, I plugged it in. Nothing new there... Eureka! I went to the radio enhancement module and it said "Turn on radio?" Yey! It was a headset/antenna in one! That's so naive of me not to try it out when I actually bou

For 15 pesos, I get to keep my insides cool with halo-halo. I've said that I'm not a fan of most sweets but I bought it more so to drink it than to eat its ingredients. And it does the trick... my insides are cool. Oh, I ate bits of banana, pinipig, sago, and some of that green and red gelatin. I did not, however, eat the red beans and nata de coco. And here's an interesting find... chickpeas. I may not be a big halo-halo fan but halo-halo with chickpeas? But when I tried it, it was sweet. OK, it works. lol! By the way, the scab (yeck!) on my chin's starting to peel off. I'm not trying to hurry it but from the look of things, it may be totally gone in a few days. Yay! The skin under it is pink and I don't think it'll become a scar. Half has already pulled away from the skin and the other half's still attached to the skin. Oh, skin... skin... skin. lol!

This is what I had for lunch today. It's sauteed string beans. It's easy to make too. There's just four ingredients: string beans, one shallot, a clove of garlic and light soy sauce. I also had fish, enough said. I'm dreaming of steak right about now... [tummy grumbles] Anyhoo... I've been seeing a lot of new article topics up for grabs in my affiliate's site. I don't know, I'm not feeling them topics right now. I guess it has something to do with having a hard time collecting my pay -- not that they don't pay me, because they do (and promptly too!). It's just that so many things have come up these past few weeks that it's inconvenient to go out and get it. Yup, it's been sitting on the MLKP coffers for almost three weeks now. I have to get it ASAP -- that'll get me motivated, true that. I am getting back on track with my bookkeeping. I just realized that I've been so behind on doing it that, I guess, I'm going to make it my t

I just got up a few hours ago... Actually, we left at 4:00 this morning and got back at around 9:30 am. I had breakfast of fried egg and spicy sausage (sans the skin) and slept. It so hot and humid today!!! Anyway, I got out of bed around 3:30 pm to get some work done. There's nothing much to say except that I will be going away for a little while in June. Yup. So excited. Turns out, I'll get to see my darling niece then. Also, I hope to see my other niece (who's still a bun in the oven! lol!) too. My sister's due in July so I hope we'd still be with them for the birth. I haven't really written any articles for my first content-writing affiliate. Since you can submit articles anytime (but, of course, you won't get paid unless you reach the minimum quantity at the end of a pay period) I've been less than motivated to get some articles in there. I guess the "idea barrel" is still saturated at the moment. I am, however, working at writing short ar

My chin, 50 hours after the fact: See how dark it is? It's actually a big scab now... still tender though. Not yet cooked. lol! Didn't realize that that big an area of skin broke. Blech. Hope it doesn't turn into a scar. I'd have to be careful not to have anything scratch at it before it totally dries up. Having bruises and bumps over the years have taught me the value of cold compresses and warm compresses. As long as there's no broken bones (haven't had any, thank goodness!) we must immediately put a cold compress on the area to avoid too much swelling. Don't leave it on the skin for more than 20 minutes or you'll get frostbite and make it worse. After an hour or two, apply the cold compress again. That really saved this bump from growing than what it could've been -- I imagine, the size of a golf ball. Do the cold compress treatment many times a day for the first two days. Now, I'm doing warm compress treatment to break down the hematoma (is t

My chin at four hours after the fact: Almost nine hours after the fact: I'm right on sched with tax reports. I just have to call my friend to get all the other pieces of information. And after making sure everthing's all right, I can probably send this tonight. Yay. Unfortunately, there's been accident today and I got in to a fight -- with the floor! It was the chair's fault! Obviously, I lost. What's more, I'm going to take ID pictures tomorrow!!! ACK! It's a bad hematoma and bump with scrapes to top 'em all off. But no broken teeth, nothing... thank goodness. The other side of my jaw's sore now though. Possibly, a delayed reaction from the impact. Dang. OK, back to more ice packs... Turns out, there's something going on at my friend's house that she asked if she could call me later. All right, looks like these tax reports are going to be sent tomorrow then.

No, this is neither transcription nor content-writing because this week's work concerning those are done. I am, now, finishing the tax report for my bookkeeping client... You know what? They're more of a friend than a client so I'm going to keep this on a very informal note and tone. Ergo, she is my friend who's asked me to make their business' tax reports and in-house books for them. That's about right. I got a call yesterday morning and their tax people were asking when they'd pick up the report and the check for the BIR. I said, "Well, I just got the documents so you can get them on Monday." See, I checked the tax calendar and this particular due is due (lol!) on the 25th. Since they want to get things over with, way before the deadline (which I appreciate as I do the same), that gives me this weekend to wrap this up. But something came up that gave me the impression that I might be going out on Sunday so I've only got today and tomorrow to

Earlier this week, there were a couple of afternoon and morning drizzles. The news reported that there was a storm in the area. Nada, nil, zip... zero storm. But it was cool for a while then... but it was brief. I only wished that it would rain. I don't want a storm, of course, for the simple reason that the power might go out. And you know how that could affect my online WAHJ's -- very badly. But now, we're back to warm and humid weather again. And my hair clamp broke too so my long hair's covering the back of my neck now and the heat's giving me a headache. And I don't have anything to tie my hair back too... Oh, the misery. Right, I'd better stop complaining about that. lol! Yesterday - yes, I was able to submit my transcript in time (two minutes before the deadline!) - as I was going over my work, I discovered funny typos that would've been really embarrassing had I not corrected them before the editors got to them. Now, I forget... OK, I'm going

It's 2:34 am as of now. I can't believe how tired I was when I woke up... yesterday. I went to bed around 3:00 am - and I'm doing the same thing now, lol! - and I got up around noon. I sat down to eat and as I was blinking, I was starting to doze off. Yikes! My lids were heavy - I guess that's how most of us would describe it. And later, I got to get up early (earlier than noon, anyway) to edit a transcript. Yup, I got assigned to transcribe a 90-minute audio in two days -- and I accepted! Right now, I'm wished that I typed 70 WPM. See, I've read somewhere that if a transcriber typed 70 WPM, they'd get an hour-long audio done in... four hours!!! WHATDAFUDGE?!? I assume that it also meant that the person's got ten years of experience and all the amazing gadgets that definitely help speed up their work. But that was an interesting read... the publisher's got that down to a maths thing with formulas and all that. Oh well, in fairness to me, I've com

I've got different 'work at home' jobs (WAHJ's) and a few other Internet opps that I'm managing. And after seeing what's required in each of them, the next important question that I ask is - how do I receive my pay? There's no comparison to cold hard cash up front -- a couple of my clients provide that. Another one is direct deposit to the bank that my transcription client does. But what if your client only sends pays through electronic transfers and international checks? Ah, that's where I got stumped when I started using Internet for WAHJ's. Forums are good sources for finding out how payments of Internet jobs and opportunities are carried out -- and if they are actually received. It's great that people share their experiences with so-and-so transfers. That way, others learn from it and can decide if that's for them. As far as my own research goes, these are common details that I know and that are applicable as of this time. But before anyt

I haven't been playing backgammon for a while, I've noticed. So, today I connected to FIBS to see what's the up and up. I have a "friends" list on there... most of them are "bots" too since they're always available - except when they're playing a 15-pt match or something with someone else, of course. What's interesting though is that someone actually recommended me on FIBS. Cool. That must be the guy who was surprised that I came back to continue our match. That was, oh, a long time ago. lol! See, I got disconnected in the middle of our game so I had to sign back in. He was still there and I immediately invited him to continue our saved match. He accepted and I told him that I got disconnected and that I was sorry. He said that it was OK and that he got up to get coffee, assuming that I was a dropper. So he was really surprised to see me back on. I think I won that match too, by the way. He was nice. I should've added him to my friends

We know a dealer who comes by, at least, once a month to show us her product catalogs. And earlier this week, she brought her MSE book -- that stands for Marikina Shoe Exhange. And I found this amazing golden, shiny sandals there. That made me think about how I don't have dressy, formal shoes at all! "I might need one," I thought. "And this would be perfect," I thought. So I ordered it. Two days later... they're here! Yay! So pretty... And of course, it's proudly Philippine-made and from Marikina too! They're good-quality shoes and I can comfortably walk in them. Me likey MSE. So that's my latest purchase. If a formal thing comes up, I'd have the shoes for it. lol! But what about getting a dress? hmmm... Right, I'm not going to hold my breath for that. Most of my earnings go to buying more 'needed' stuff like -- medicine. I'm not on prescription meds ha! Though they are technically prescribed... well, I can get them OTC (over-

All right, so they didn't forget me after all. My transcription client just sent me new audios earlier. [sigh] Anyway, after I submitted the first finished transcript a few hours ago, I realized that I forgot to justify the page format. Nyee... So, I guess I was a little rusty with my editing there (careless is more like it). Anyway, there were no complaints. Meaning, they didn't return it to be changed. lol! Here's to another late night! Truth is it's better to work nights because it's much cooler and there's less distractions. During the day, it'd be so hot that you'd want to stay in the bath much longer than normal. And my kind of normal is already longer than what most people would consider normal too. I couldn't hog the bathroom all day, of course. lol! But the heat is still bad and I'm starting to feel sticky (because of the humidity) again. I said that I was going to turn the a/c on but... oh well. I guess the lamp's also giving off he

I went on holiday for four days and I'm already on the back burner? That is, of the transcription team, already! Let me just go back and feel dispensable again here... Oh well, I guess that's more writing time for me then. Truth be told, I get paid more for less time that's put in when I write articles. It's true. I noticed that I haven't been so toxic in content writing than I was in transcribing. That's a thought. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to give up on my client just yet -- they have paid me for the work that I've done and I'm not about to discount that fact. And I do enjoy transcribing for them. This is just new - being on the back burner and all. What's good about this is that I've managed to go over my target number of submitted articles today. When it seemed that I couldn't write anything more about this one topic, I get inspired and I've been writing with gusto. Now, wouldn't it be great if this actually happe

Oops! Again, I forgot to take a picture of our amazing pasta . Sorry. lol! But I did get my cup of coffee though. And there is that speck of pasta sauce stain on my accounting journal -- if you can see that. That won't come off too unless I ruin the page. It's right there, down at the bottom... see? lol! I get sort of "mechanical" when I do bookkeeping. And anyone who's worked with journals and ledgers would attest to what's called "transposition errors" in recording. I'm guilty of that sometimes when my eyes unintentionally wander and I write what I think I was supposed to write in stead of looking at what I'm jotting down. That's like writing 637 in stead of 673. lol! That sucks because you'd only find out as you're doing the totals already and you have to go back to see where the debits don't equal the credits. That's why being sleepy while doing bookkeeping can be very bad. I mean, who'd want to be inconvenienced w

There's no new audio to work on until next week. Yawn! I'm so sleepy. I already submitted a couple of articles yesterday and I'm catching up on my bookkeeping right now. Bookkeeping is making me sleepy... yawn! I've asked how long accounting documents should be kept on file before it can be thrown out. One person said it was five years and another one said it was three years so I'm not so sure which one to follow. I have bunch of documents stored here - check vouchers, cash vouchers, petty cash vouchers, purchase orders, expense reports - that are cluttering up my work space. There's a big paper bag of it in my closet, another one under my dresser and the recent ones are here on my bookshelf. I guess I'll throw out docs from 2003 and 2004 then - that's a paperbag-full of accounting documents right there. Oh, and I have to get my content-writing pay too. yay! I keep looking at my bed and thinking of how good it'd be to have a "siesta" (after

We just had a three-hour long blackout. I was working on my desktop when I heard an explosion from across the street. It sounded like it was from across the street so I assumed that that's where it came from. Right. lol! Anyway, then our electricity went out. And I was almost finished with an article too! Dang! So I went outside because there was still light out. It was 5 o'clock, I think. I worked on my bookkeeping until it got dark. I asked for a candle which kept blowing out because it was fairly windy too. Good thing the weather wasn't humid at all tonight. After two hours, I called our electric company to report this power outage - which affected just the houses on our street, it turns out - and they said that several reports were already made. Okay. So after dinner by candlelight, I decided to use this oil lamp that was a present from like, two Christmases ago. It was pretty and directions said that there's parafin oil inside the bottle. Cool. Anyway, we got the w

I went to see my doctor today for a long-overdue check-up. This is one of the few times that I've been out of the house this year. It's only April so I'm pretty glad to have gone out before half the year ended. The last time I was out was when I opened an account at a bank to receive my transcription pay. That was last month. Oh, and there was New Year's when we visited relatives. lol! See, that's one of the things that tend to get overlooked when you're working at home. You don't go out as much. That's cost-saving too -- no commute, no lunch-outs, no night-outs (except for really special occasions). No wonder telecommuting has been very popular nowadays. Employers don't pay as much for the rent/utilities and employees don't have to buy gas for their cars or pay a cab just to get to work. Yeah. Anyway, back to my doctor's visit. I have to say "tata!" to fried foods. Isn't this a lovely picture of fried dough with sugar and straw

Woah! I was looking at my older posts and decided to go on over to typingtest to see how fast my encoding speed has improved. And I scored 58 WPM (gross was 59 WPM), yay! Last month I was at 53 WPM so that's good. I guess I'm pretty comfy today so I typed faster. lol! My goal is to type 60 WPM. And now to the weather -- it's so HOT today! I'm getting a cough from the heat. I've recently received a request to adjust the tax report format (which I've been using for the past five years!) for my bookkeeping client. Their tax people wanted to have the column name "Expense" changed to "Net". All right. Oh, and they wanted to have the "Net" column moved beside the "Amount" column and the "Tax" column moved after the "Net" column. Okay. I suppose they'll want to have the "Amount" column changed to "Gross" too but they didn't say anything about that. Therefore, I'd take the liber

This was actually pork nilaga that was left over from lunch today. We got home at around 8 o'clock tonight so we were too hungry to cook something else. This turned out fine because heating it up again made it more... savory. Looking at this picture, you'd think that it would need soy sauce (toyo) or fish sauce (patis). On the contrary, it didn't need any of those because it tasted... well seasoned. Sometimes, reheated food tastes so much better than newly-cooked ones. Like this boiled pork over here and... lechon paksiw, adobo, menudo, morcon, lengua, et cetera. Wow, sounds like fiesta food! lol! Anyway, I saw like four Mini Stop stores in the city tonight. I've got to buy something good at a Mini Stop so that I can erase their bad fried dumplings from my head. It's just that each time I saw a Mini Stop tonight, I was remembering the bad-tasting fried siomai that I had yesterday. Blech!

We had dinner of fried chicken (again) tonight and some fried dumplings (siomai) they bought from a Mini-Stop that just opened around here. The siomai were... ewww. lol! I didn't like it one bit. Usually it'd take me two or three bites of whole siomai before I get sick of dumplings - it's just like maki where the first bites are always amazing but you get sick of it quite quickly - but these dumpling from the Mini-Stop tasted very much like uncooked flour and MSG (vetsin). Me not likey. We had fried tilapia and veggies for lunch today. That was a good combination though I mostly ate the sauted mackarel with shallots that was left over from this morning. Unfortunately, we didn't have an amazing cold radish salad that would've gone well with our fried tilapia. This amazing radish salad goes well with any fried or grilled fish kasi. This cold radish salad is a made with grated radish, thinly sliced small white onion and a thinly sliced tomato. What makes this cold sala

When you're doing online WAH jobs, a lot of challenges pop up. For one, you rely on your pc. Two, you rely on your ISP. Three, you've got to have reliable clients. Four, you can't afford blackouts (or brownouts, as it's popularly called in the Philippines). And five... I can't think of a fifth one right now... Oh, I'm going to call this fifth one "unpredictables". lol! That would cover it. The machine that I have now is working well. I've no complaints. Now, the ISP.... hmmm, there was this one time when some underwater cables or pipes were damaged during an earthquake last year. That was a really inconvenient. Now, you got to have dependable clients. As you can see here , not all 'big-time and they have a cool website' organizations are reliable. I am so lucky to have a dependable writing affiliate and transcribing affiliate right now. And I also have an accounting job that doesn't entirely rely on the Web except for sending emails and

Yup! Transcription does pay. I guess this is already answered. Yay! Today, my first transcription bill was paid and deposited to my account. I should've sent my bill sooner but I had to open an account with their bank first. I'm glad that this is working out well. I had fried chicken for lunch today. I eat my fried chix with soy sauce and vinegar (toyo at suka) in stead of gravy or ketchup. It just tastes good that way. Speaking of dipping sauces, I've never heard - much less, seen - anyone eat sausages (longanisa) with shrimp paste (bagoong) before. That is, until a few days ago. That was so weird to see! Anyway, I should've taken a bite of that weird combination in stead of talking about how weird it was. (I'm going to stop with the 'weird' now.) I just might be surprised that I'd like it -- or not! lol! OK, next time we have longanisa, I WILL eat it with bagoong just to shut myself up about how weird (aaarrgghh!) it is. lol! Hmm... this is getting me

For someone who's been writing online content (and being paid for it, lol!) for almost a year now, I've began to notice little things which make it very easy for me to produce these articles. And since I'm doing my freelance WAH jobs at different times (there's three of them, you know?) these little things help me go over them all and earn my pay. Of course, you have to do research on it since you can only write what you know -- that goes without saying. Well, let's say you've got the research covered. Here's how I easily write Web content: Let's say, I have to make a 500-word article on an assigned topic. I'd start off with a good title. That title should, obviously, be interesting or informative enough to show people what the article's about. Speaking of creating a title - depending on how the content goes as I'm writing it - there are times when I've gone back and rewritten my title so it'll serve its purpose. Take a look at the ti

Yum! Had amazing penne tonight. This is getting to be regular here at home. Good. I like it. I ate it with grilled pork on the side too for that added protein. Got to have that balanced meal, you know? It's raining a little tonight. It's somewhat cooler here too. This makes my work so much easier since I don't have to go cool myself every hour or so. Sigh. I hope it rains tomorrow too. I'm on a roll with writing articles now. I guess doing away with it for a few days really helps to refresh that writing skill of mine. I just composed a 500-word article in 30 minutes. I figure I'm typing a lot faster now thanks to my transcription job. I'm going to have to go back to http://www.typingtest.com/ to see how much I've improved. Oops. Got a message -- a new audio for transcription is coming tonight. It's due tomorrow. I got to redeem myself. Amen!

Alas! I couldn't climb my Mt. Everest podcast. I tried... I did try, so hard but I know my limits. If I didn't let go, I'd be so toxic in trying to work that out. I could see it already, a transcript full of 'inaudible' in brackets -- if I did go with it. So sad. Anyway, they were quick to give it to someone else. Wow, I feel so... dispensable. C'mon! I'm supposed to be a beginner remember?!? Hardly four hours of transcribed audio under my belt and they give me a difficult audio? Wow, they sorely overestimated my ability. lol! Of course, being the good, reliable WAH worker that I am, I asked to be replaced after spending two hours tonight trying to transcribe it. I've gotten as far as two minutes with a number (try 'a myriad'!) of 'inaudibles' until I called it quits. Truth be told, some people would've waited until the last minute to concede defeat or worse, hand over an unfinished transcript! And if I haven't emphasized it to be

While I was proofreading the transcript (the one that I was talking about in my previous post), I was asked if I was willing to take on a new podcast that's due on Tuesday. I asked how long it was and they said it was 20 minutes long. "Sure," I said "that's great." They said that they were going to send the email asap. Okeydokey. So, I got the transcript done and I submitted it WAY before the deadline. Yay! That's when I saw the new email assignment. I thought, "Wow, there's less people working on this batch." I started to download this new podcast that I thought was going to be fairly easy since I've had really clear audio to work with so far. That is, until this one! OMG! Yeah, it was just 20 minutes but speakers (there's more than three of them too!) with Scottish accents?!? WOW! This is my Mt. Everest, to date. Plus, it's not that clear either because it sounds like it's from inside an auditorium. Oh well... I got to do

I'm eyeing the home stretch for the podcast transcript that I have to turn in tomorrow. I'm at 00:58:49 into the 60 minute audio. I intend to finish the transcript tonight so tomorrow, all I have to do is proofread and edit it. Sigh. This is so satisfying. What's more, I can send my transcription bill after I submit this project. Call it counting eggs (before they're hatched and all that) but I'm very excited to see my first transcription pay. I really am. My bookkeeping work's piling up though. A lot of the documents are laying on my desk waiting to be organized and recorded. But I'm not too worried about that. I've been doing that for almost five years now and I know exactly where everything goes and what I need to do. Also, I've already sent in their annual financial statements (annual income taxes are due next month, you know) so that's settled. As for my content-writing, that is not looking too good either. I've only managed to submit on

It's past 2 o'clock in the afternoon and it's so hot here. I can't help but be distracted from transcribing the last podcast that I've been assigned to do this week -- it's due on Saturday. I guess there's no holiday for us WAH folks. My goal is to complete ten minutes of audio before 3 o'clock.That's 45 minutes from now. I'm currently at 00:09:58 so I figured that a short detour here would be okay. I had a good breakfast today. I gobbled it all up so quickly that I forgot to take a picture of it. I had sweet sausage, fried egg, garlic-fried rice, OJ, coffee and water. The water got warm very quickly so I had to pop the bottle back in the fridge again. Did I mention that it was hot here? We buy these three-in-one coffee packs where all you got to do is add hot water and stir. Of course, it had to have artificial sweeteners or it had to be "sugar-free", as we call them. When you try sugar-free coffee, you wouldn't want to go back to

I'm going to talk about the weather, all right? And more on Express Scribe (I'll call that 'ES') too. I didn't think it was possible but my glasses are fogging up from the humidity. I've decided to keep the a/c off since I figured it'd be worst if it was cold in here and when I'd step outside, it'd be too hot. That's how most people get sick in the Philippines -- they'd be working in a centralized air conditioned office or space then they'd go outside, the heat would hit them hard. They'd catch something inside (from a coughing or sneezing colleague) and then they'd feel worse from the heat outside. It's not like I'm going to catch a virus from anyone since I work alone. But I can't afford to get sick, just like everyone else. Sick 'of' the heat is more appropriate, I guess. I've mentioned before that I changed my f6 hotkey control on ES. It did help me transcribe a little faster. But after that, the f5 bug

I was up and about at noon after sleeping for 11 hours -- straight. Had lunch, had small talk at the dining table, then, back to my desktop. Too bad that I felt a pounding pressure at the back of my head... I couldn't comfortably do anything. Cutting paper wasn't relaxing, even drawing lines wasn't relaxing me at all. I decided to take a nap so it'd go away. But they were making their 'amazing pasta' again this afternoon so my nap was put on hold. After two servings of pasta, two slices of whole wheat buttered toast and coke, I lied down and was out for at least two hours. Woke up at 8:00pm, took a shower and I'm back here. Well... there's still some pressure going on back there (my head, that is) but it's better than before. So, work mode's on again... Earlier I was trying to figure out how to submit a sitemap on Google. I, of course, generated a sitemap from a random website and it said that I 'upload' that .xml to my server. What?!? I

I've set aside writing content (my other freelance job) for the past three days. As a result, I'm behind in reaching the minimum submissions that would make me eligible for pay on the 16th. That got me thinking. Should I intentionally hold off submitting any articles today? I could catch up and, in turn, submit more content than the minimum if I do. That means, the pay that I'll get on the 31st would be higher. I could... but should I? I do feel a headache coming on since I rushed to submit my podcast transcript this morning -- that's 2:00 am this morning, by the way. I even chatted with my friend who's in Canada (it was early afternoon there, at the time) while I was waiting for the confirmation of my submission. It was almost 3:00 am when I said goodbye. I still haven't received the confirmation at that time too so I figured that they were already asleep. I did submit the transcript twice just to be sure. This morning, at 8:00 am, I got a text message that the

I ate at my "workspace" this morning. The eggs don't look appetizing in this shot... they're actually more yellow and fluffier than that. I cut up my dogs so I could eat with one hand. I started with just using the fork but the fried rice kept falling off on its way to my mouth. So I shifted to using the fork and spoon interchangeably (phew! big word for just talking about eating. lol). Earlier, I discovered a very useful hotkey on Express Scribe (I'll call this ES). I found it after I got annoyed with the f6 key because it kept minimizing the ES window. I needed to record the timestamps kasi and they don't show when it's minimized. The three hotkeys that I used to use were f4 for pause, f7 for rewind and f9 for play. While I was working earlier, I kept accidentally pressing f6 -- it minimizes the screen by default. So I went to "properties" and changed what it does. That's when I found the "go back five" command. I didn't know

I got all three jobs on a deadline this week... ack! Accounting : Yesterday, I received documents and files for tax reports that I have to send by Saturday (or Sunday, at the latest). Content Writing : I have to write at least four articles and submit them by Friday to get my pay this month. Transcription : I was assigned an hour-long (plus a few minutes) podcast that I'm downloading at this very moment. I have to submit it before Saturday. Phew! I sure hope my computer can handle it since it's been very hot and humid here lately (I don't use air conditioning kasi -- oh, I do have an AC but I don't use it). It's so hot!!! My fingers are sweaty... they're sticking on the keys... maybe I should turn the AC on??? Okay, I'm thinking about it. I don't want to add on to our electric bill because since it's so expensive here especially with air conditioning. Okay, downloading successful... I'm going to load that podcast to express scribe now. Ciao!

Today, I received a confirmation email from amazon that the rubbermaid container I ordered was on its way. Yey. At last, I was able to actually purchase something online -- no credit cards, no cash-out's. Yey (again). See, I joined mturk (it's free) while I was researching way back on transcription. That took me to castingwords... and that took me mturk. What's funny is that I've never accepted a 'hit' (a.k.a. task) on transcription there. The hits that I've been accepting are those one-question surveys that pays a penny (and the occasional 'what's the best photo', 'rewrite this sentence' kind of hits). Yup... those pennies added up all right. Since amazon and mturk are related, you can opt to have your turker earnings transferred to your amazon gift certificate balance -- you've got to open an account there, of course. It's free too. Initially, I thought I can order a book once in a while (since used books are cheap there). But w

As of date, I can compose a 400+ word article in as little as 30 minutes to as long as a few hours. The former's great -- writing in so little a time; the latter's horrible -- in so many ways than one. The key to writing web content is to know your assigned topic well. And it's a lot better if you have set keywords that the client sends to work with. That's how I got hooked on playing backgammon in the first place. Now, I can easily (and breezily! lol!) whip up an article about the simple aspects of the game. The great thing about my current affiliation is that we can write as many articles as we want on a broad topic. I love that about their setup. However, after I finish an article in under 30 minutes, the magic sort of floats away. That's how those 'hours-long to finish an article' come about. I'd have a topic in mind but you can only say so much about it without sounding like you're writing in circles (like talking in circles? gets?). Case in poi

I can type 53 wpm (words per minute) according to http://www.typingtest.com/ but it seems that I can only transcribe a difficult ten minute audio in approximately three hours. By 'difficult', I mean, there's mumbling or the speaker's volume is too low. I guess I try too hard to figure out what's being said before I go on and continue listening and encoding the rest of the recording. What I found out about transcription is that the perspective's not on a per minute basis. It's because when you encode speech... it's on a per second basis! I guess that's why some clients prefer time stamps rather than speaker names on their transcripts. I use Express Scribe where you can adjust the audio by volume, speed, background noise, etc. It's a great software plus it's free! It's just that I have to pause and hit 'f9' to play or 'f7' to rewind the recording and that takes away from the comfy position I had before while I was typin

This is what fried rice with 'hibi' (see my previous post) looks like. Its taste is very distinct because it has a subtle saltiness -- from the sea or from drying, wherever. For me, fried rice should neither be sticky nor too moist. What we use is plain rice from the previous night. We wet one hand and work the rice to get the clumps unclumped (!). Then we heat a wok with a good amount of cooking oil. After that, we saute a few cloves of roughly chopped garlic, dump in the rice and sprinkle rock salt. We mix that up for a little bit to get the oil and garlic in there, press it with the back of the spoon and leave it to fry for a minute. It should make a crackling sound as the rice fries. After a minute or so, we mix it up and press down on it again. We usually do that over and over for about four to six times until the rice is... looks like fried rice! LOL! The 'hibi' here is mixed in right before the cooking/stir frying's done. The corned beef's brand that you

I had pork rib kaldereta (or is it mechado?) for lunch today. And in stead of eating it with plain rice, I partnered it with garlic fried rice with hibi (teeny tiny shrimps that are dried). Me likey! I started to think of how easy it is to make our version of kaldereta (or is it mechado?). As long as the meat's pork, you wouldn't need a pressure cooker to tenderize it. Just dump cubes of pork, potatoes, carrots, bell pepper, water, canned tomato sauce, small can of good quality liver spread into a pot and let it boil. Of course if the meat and taters aren't tender yet and it's starting to get dry, all you got to do is add a bit of water at a time. When everything's almost done, just add salt and pepper to taste. That's about it! Well, regardless of whether it's kaldereta or mechado... this dish is deelish!

If you want to play backgammon online for free, you have two ways to go about it. One, you can opt for the 'no-download' game where you'll need Java (usually) to run it. And two, you can download a free program (I think it's called 'shareware', I'm not sure). For the latter, I like FIBS the best and I've no complaints when I use it. On the other hand, if you want to get into the money games, you're going to need to deposit usually $25-$50 so that you can play for real money. I think the success of playing poker online has paved the way for backgammon tourneys with big prizes at stake. But without question, if you're thinking of playing backgammon online for real money, you're going to need to download that game site's program. My suggestion for anyone who wants to play backgammon online for money is to play for free first. You got to hone your clicking and doubling skills before you can bet on winning. Obviously, I haven't played for

I'd like to write about food. I'd really do. It's just that it's not as interesting without having pictures to accompany a post. Yeah... and I only got a lousy VGA camera on my mobile so that's no use. But that's a goal, I guess. Well, writing this is making me hungry. Now this is totally unproductive... lol! I should be working right now and I'm writing about - writing about food. Oh well, did I say I like food? Because I do. Oh wait! I've got one. My mom made this AMAZING pasta dish last week. Actually, that was the second time that she made it like that. The first was... maybe years ago with penne. Anyway, the trick to that amazing pasta dish is - NO HOTDOG, NO KETCHUP! Yeah... I'm not talking about the kiddie spaghetti here... I'm talking about scraping-that-last-bit-of-tomato-sauce-off-the-bottom-of-the-serving-dish-with-bread kind of pasta. My cousin brought some to work last week and it got all sorts of praises! That's how good it was.

Great opening moves are almost decided by now - especially after bots that analyzed optimal checker plays entered the picture. One of the most famous and well-justified openings is called the lover's leap in backgammon. That's when you have to play a 6/5 to start off the match. I don't really know why it's called that... maybe it's because it's the maximum number of spaces for which you can advance in an opening? Probably, but I don't really know why. Well, taking that into consideration, it's played by moving one of your checkers from the 24-point to the 13-point. That's about it. No need to count spaces (pips), no need for delay -- all you got to do is just move a piece all the way down to the other end when you play a 6/5 roll at the start of the game. Why is the lover's leap in backgammon the best for the 6/5 roll? Well... other than the obvious reason that you'll get a head start... beats me! Bots already figured that out so I just roll