A Gorilla Blog

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Guess What...

Yup, you heard me... Guess what... Last night another minivan
blocked our driveway! Jeez, what is it with our driveway and minivans
that they like blocking it. It's a different minivan, a silver
single-cab, pick-up type Suzuki Carry-all, similar to Meowok's
old ride. But this time I heard them park and I immediately went out of
the house. I was cleaning my room, heck seems half of my room is junk
so I moved them out to make room for incoming new junk, so I was
half-naked (shirtless, of course... I don't think the world is prepared
for a Gorilla Au Naturelle) when I burst out of the house. Nothing scares the hell out of people than a shirtless Gorilla (ask Cherry).
I asked them politely to move their van as it was in the way and I
wouldn't be able to go out in case of an emergency. They were
apologetic and moved their vehicle.

Problem was that there was a real chance of an emergency last night.

My pamangkinaanak (nephew and godson) has had high fever
for the past week and had tests done. I was actually on my way to the
Saturday funeral of Lee's brother when my sister texted me that Enzo
was to be brought to the hospital. I had to turn back, the decision
wasn't hard because the traffic was bad going to Montalban anyway. When
the tests came back his white cell count was a bit high indicating
infection. A battery of tests, days of no appetite and vomiting up
medicine was cause for alarm and his pediatrician asked that he be
confined at the nearest hospital which is LPDH (Las Pinas Doctor's Hospital).

Being an uncle isn't all that bad. In fact it's great. But being an uncle (and a godfather, I'm referred to as tito-ninong)
has responsibilities attached to it. In times like these I'm the supply
line between home and hospital as well as house guard-dog. (Woof!) With
my sister stuck at home to due to her delicate next pregnancy, I'm also
an ambulance driver just in case. :D I don't think my own uncle-ninong
Oben for putting him through hell when I was born. I never get tired of
hearing how he had to wade through Espana and UST hospital flood waters
to bring supplies to dad, mom and me. (Thanks ninong. :D)

Enzo's one tough patient, they had a hard time putting in the
dextrose needle since he's such an active baby. He also bawls a lot
when he's in pain. If all goes well and when he responds to the
medicines, he's homeward-bound by Tuesday.

I had some time to spare so I passed by the Asianic computer store to get these babies: ASUS V9400-X 128Mb DDR AGP graphics card and LifeView
FlyTV Prime full PCI TV card (FM radio, TV, camcorder). Now I can make
TV vidcaps and transfer the videos we have on tape. Plus, I can now
strike out some stuff from my wishlist.
I got the graphics card upgrade idea from Olan and Meowok who I visited
last Friday on a graphics business and personal call (burp, thanks for
the chocolate cake and soda). :D After some nightmarish installation
procedures, I was able to make it work with my two monitors. Seems my
onboard 64Mb won't work when there's an AGP card installed. Next stop,
a better PCI graphics card for the second monitor (it currently runs on
an ancient S3 Virge 4Mb).

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Darn! Inconsiderate Drivers and HDDs

Okay, so I'm a bit pissed. We live beside the village gate which closes to traffic at 10pm and reopens at 5am. In emergency situations like fire or ambulance access, the gate is opened by the village guards from the opposite gate. That has been the security procedure for the past 20 years. Some inconsiderate drivers who miss the 10pm closing just park their car in front of our driveway and leave their vehicles there and retrieve them the next morning. This night, a Daihatsu minivan (with plate number UFV322), similar make and model to our Daihatsu minivan, parked in front of our house and practically blocked access to the driveway. My brother-in-law arrived and couldn't park. We had no choice but to push together (we tried separately but it just won't budge because of the handbrake).

We were able to move the minivan about 8 feet, enough space to maneuver the wide Chevrolet Optra (GM) through into the driveway. We were so poofed we couldn't push it back so we just left it there. There's enough space for our cars from the driveway and cars from the gate to pass through in case of emergency. People should learn to be more considerate. Parking in front of driveways is a no-no, you're blocking access to both the road and the driveway. How'd you feel if I parked in front of your driveway and you suddenly had an emergency! This isn't the first time this happened, I've pushed tricycles, owner jeeps, Mitsubishi L300s and Space Gears when I arrive from work in the wee hours of the morning just so I could park in our driveway. ASSHOLES! One guy, in broad daylight, blocked our driveway once. When I called his attention he said "Konsehal ako!" To which I replied, "Hindi ko tinatanong kung konsehal ka. Alisin mo dyan ang kotse mo, hindi kami makakaalis kung may emergency!" He realized his mistake and moved the car. If you just say, "Hindi kami makakalabas," there's a chance that they'll ignore you. That's why we hit them with the reality of possible emergency situations to knock them to their senses.

Just bought a generic APEC USB 2.0 2.5-inch hard disk drive enclosure (PhP500 from Asianic computer store) for my salvaged Toshiba 1Gb laptop HDD (model MK1002 MAV). I knew the bulky HDD won't fit into the slim aluminum casing, but I bought it just the same because I needed the connector to test / use the hard disk. I was prepared for the possibility that the hard disk won't work and I'll be stuck with a brick. But I thought I could use the enclosure in the future and all I have to do is buy a laptop hard disk. The connector fits snuggly to the hard disk and I was able to connect it via USB 2.0 to the PC. Time for some testing. Hehehe.

When I connect it, the indicator lights up and the PC detects it. But it can't be recognized / identified. "Unknown Device" is what the error messages say. I even tried this hardware hack by Douglas Henke but to no avail. Sigh. I'll keep trying, and if nothing comes of it I'll go for the new hard disk option.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Samaritan UFO Catching and Laptop Salvage Job

Found my way to SM South Mall last Sunday, November 12. I was there for kitchen utensils and retro PC purposes but I just couldn't resist passing by the UFO Catchers again after my rounds.

There were two little girls and one little boy there with their yaya and they were trying their hand at the Hello Kitty-filled UFO Catcher which I frequent but with no luck at all. What drew my attention was they were talking to each other in English. Not colegiala English, they spoke in halting (but correct) English. I don't know, but I was so amused that I got these three kitten while they were making the rounds of the other UFO Catchers. They were exclaiming. "Look! He got one!" And then "He got another! And another!"

After I was finished with the machine they were already lined up behind me to try their luck. I just grabbed the three kittens from the top of the machine (that's where I put them when I'm on a roll) and handed it to the three of them saying "Merry Christmas." I think they were too shocked to reply because I just turned around and headed for the car. Sigh. I just felt so good after that, I always do... Putting smiles on other people's faces...

I made the trip to SM because we had this old, heavy, broken-down Compaq Presario 1070 (Series 900D) lying around the house. Its specs: Intel 266Mhz, 16Mb RAM, 1GB HDD, CD-ROM, FDD, 12-inch screen and touchpad. It's obsolete, no more spare parts anywhere except for other broken models which I can't seem to find.

My mother and sister used it for for their school papers when it was working. About two years ago it started to deteriorate. I've opened it up, had to have the floppy disk drive replaced as well as reformat a couple of times. Then the "102 - System Board Failure" error appeared. That meant the main board was dead, no bios tweaks, no Linux and rescue live-cd booting possible, only board replacement could save it.

All the shops I went to exhausted all their contacts (even Compaq and HP calls but no dice). Even asked my brother-in-law George to ask his brother-in-law Erwin who owns a computer business to look at it. No dice. Bye-bye Compaq Presario 1070.

There are some PhP12,000+ replacement boards out there, but I personally think it would be better to just buy a new laptop. So now we're left with a very big "brick" (useless piece of hardware). But it's salvageable for parts. Only thing I knew which could be salvaged was the Toshiba 1Gb hard disk. So after loosening a few screws I was able to open up the wrist rest to expose the hard disk at the lower left side of the bottom portion of the laptop.

A few more loosened screws later and I was able to remove the hard disk. All that was needed was to detach the ribbon connector. Done.

My "brilliant" plan was to encase the hard disk in a cheap 2.5-inch laptop hard disk enclosure, they cost only PhP500+. The HD enclosure connects via USB 2.0 to any computer, which means I could have a 1Gb portable HD (okay, so it's big and clunky and only 1GB, but PhP500 is way cheaper than a PhP1,000+ 1Gb or PhP2,000+ 2Gb USB flash disk).

To my dismay, after making the rounds of all the PC shops, the 2.5-inch Toshiba 1Gb laptop hard disk was so thick and obsolete that it won't fit into the newer 2.5-inch laptop hard disk enclosures. Sigh. I trodded home but not before buying kitchen spoons and forks my mom asked for and doing the UFO Catcher routine.

I think all I could do now is probably buy one of those enclosures and "mod" / modify it to fit (read that as wreck the casing or just use the connector and make a new casing). That would probably be my project for next week.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Which Voltes V Team Member Am I?

Which member of
Voltes V are you?

You
are Steve Armstrong!You were born to lead, but you're a bit of a hot
head when things don't work out the way you expected; and that's
because you are secretly a perfectionist. You try your best to be
optimistic when situations are bleak. You exude confidence and demand
respect from those who are much younger than you. You truly believe
that you make the best desicions for the people you work with. You are
fearless and always try to push yourself as far as you can
go.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla
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Join

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A Quiz | More
Quizzes | Grab
Code

Somehow, everyone else I know who has taken this quiz ended up with Steve. Weird... Just plain weird... I was reading the updates on my friends' blogs via Feed on Feeds when this quiz appeared on some of their entries. Got it via Francis and Bambi who found it on Nostalgia Manila.

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Non-Librarianship and Instant Noodles

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with Clair, Marj and Trebs on separate occasions about how we all ended up being sorta non-librarians at some point in our lives. I know a lot of LS grads who ventured out of libraries and information centers and somehow ended up in freelance work, web design, business processes outsourcing, graphics, writing and publishing. Just check the Gorilla Links section and you'll see what I mean... Well, we also ended up talking about how important computers, code and general IT are to our jobs. Clair, though, says she's not a programmer. :D Yet Trebs, Marj (who refers to me as a non-librarian), and I agree Clair's more of a codehead than all of us. Nature of her work siguro. BTW, speaking of tech, below are my most recent acquisitions: an 80Gb external hard drive for backups, a webcam and a headset. Maybe if you're lucky (or unlucky) you'll catch me on the webcam on the Stickam widget on the upper right sidebar. Next in line is a Video Capture Card. :D

Just to clarify, I actually get to use a lot of what I learned in college. Indexing and abstracting, yes, and often too. Cataloging and classification, not much, maybe for simple file organization but nothing hardcore. Sorry, Dean Faderon and Ma'am Picache, cataloging isn't really my strongest suit, but those abstracting exercises really help a lot when I write and especially when I edit. :D

I can't code from scratch, well, maybe I could but it will take a loooong time. My editorial job took on additional website content updating, basic maintenance and troubleshooting. Being able to make sense of PHP / MySQL and tweak HTML and CSS is a necessity. These weren't taught to me in college. Maybe it should be taught now (I'm serious, it's the edge). I tried teaching SQL back then but the absence of hardware and server permissions really hampers stuff, even I myself couldn't practice. Heck, I envy Clair and her SSH, now I'm very, very rusty. With today's capabilities, I believe they should really be taught in IT subjects in LS. Anyway, onto my forays into the world of instant mami / noodles / ramen.

Instant soups and noodles have always been a part of my life. After I learned to boil water and cook an egg either hard-boiled, soft boiled or sunny-side up, the next step for me was cook instant soups and noodles! It was a product of my childhood really. Lola and Mommy always cooked instant soups and noodles for me. When I was young I loved Knorr, Royco and Papa Piccolino. Knorr is still around, the others, I don't know what happened to them. Ever since I could walk home from school by myself and when no one else was around or was busy at the store or at work, I'd fire up the stove and cook myself instant soup or noodles. I still do that till this day, though every once in a while I treat myself to a bowl of noodles /mami / ramen from Ted's Old Timer La Paz Batchoy, Chow King, Luk Yuen, Tokyo Tokyo, Teriyaki Boy, Tempura, Karate Kid, Kowloon House, North Park or Joe Kuan whenever I pass by their restaurants.

When years pass you get tired of the taste. So as the decades turn I really thought of ways of making my instant noodles taste different. My usual set up would be to just add Knorr or liquid seasoning for taste and milk for the creamy feel to the stove-cooked or microwaved instant noodles (and soups). Recently I've started adding a dash of Dizon Farms Honey Mustard into the mix and a pinch of wasabi.

The milk and the liquid seasoning have always been in my set up. I realized while I was taking pics that I've put a lot of different stuff in my instant noodles through the years. These all radically change the taste of that drab instant soup or noodle pack on my stove. Adding is usually by feel and to taste.

Different Spices: Usually McCormick, I occasionally put a dash of marjoram, anise seeds, ginger, ground pepper, caraway seeds, black pepper, cumin, oregano, paprika, tarragon, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (no joke, though it does sound like Scarborough Fair). I add by feel and taste. :D Never the same taste twice.
Different Sauces: Oyster sauce, catsup, java sauce, worcestershire sauce, barbeque marinade, sweet and sour sauce, assorted sauces, Kikkoman (for that Japanese tang), and of course the indispensable Sarsa ni Mang Tomas. I've even used lemongrass extract once or twice.
Creamers: Makes the soup thicker and creamier, I've used powdered milk, skim milk, different sandwich spreads and mayonnaise. I used to add mayonnaise or Mayo Magic to the instant noodles before I discovered my current creaming favorite Dizon Farms Honey Mustard Sauce. :
At the office, my lunch would usually be the no-cook Lucky Me Supreme or Nissin's Yakisoba. To spice it up I add Knorr Soupy Snax for a thick soup with my flavorful noodles.:D
Soup Base: If available, I use meat broth or "pinaglagaan" as the soup base. That makes the flavor really stand out! If that's not available or when I feel the flavor lacking, I add other types of Knorr soup packets or broth cubes, eg. like a dash or teaspoonful of Sinigang sa Sampalok makes for a biting-sour soup and noodles combo.
Meat, Vegetables and Extenders: I add leftovers too, even spaghetti noodles for more stringy goodness. One of my faves is shredded chicken, but beef or pork tastes nice too. I like adding diced potatoes, and carrots. Yesterday I added hamburger patties, weird but makes for a hearty meal.
Canned: Heck, even canned meat makes for a different taste. Reno Potted Meat? A bit okay. Liver Spread? Just a little but in combination with somethuing else. I'm not crazy over pork and beans or tuna, especially sardines (it's really sort of off when you add it). But... adding Corner Beef really makes my day. :D

I really don't have a super-favorite brand of noodles, but my usual preference would be Nissins Ramen (whether the local or imported one, same by me). An acquired taste? For the adventurous? Maybe. But when I'm hungry and I need a quick food fix, instant noodles is what I reach for.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween 2006

Yes, Halloween has come to the Gorilla's household. Every year I set up halloween decor for the kids who go trick-or-treating. This year was no exception. Last year, my Four Horsemen were well received. They created a stir in the village because of their all-white, emotionless faces. So this year, I decided that they should come back for a return engagement. This time they brought two new friends: The Ghostly Mirror and The Grim Reaper.

This year I had a month's head start. Planning was months in advance so I knew what to do the whole October. The first weekend was for purchasing and the next three weekends were for down and dirty work.

The Four Horsemen... Now for some unknown reason, I couldn't find the white masks I used last year! So I just had to make new ones else the effect wouldn't be the same. I had to do with a lot of new materials as well as recycled ones. I started with lots of crumpled newspapers which I stuck into small plastic grocery bags. These would serve as bases for the human-sized heads. For shoulders and torso I made T-shapes using balloon sticks reinforced with thick wire inserted in the core. These are good for short term use but bad for the long term. The wire allows me to bend the sticks without breaking them while retaining the shape and form I made. A couple of rolled-up newspapers with duct tape made the necks, shoulders and chests.

Modified Paper Mache Masks... I didn't have time to make thick and sturdy paper mache masks like last year. The previous ones were about 15 layers thick, this time I had to settle for 7. I made a plaster cast mold of a mask years ago and that's what I use to make masks for theater productions and halloween decor. I always start off with a layer of aluminum foil so that the paper won't stick to the mold. I used to slather petroleum jelly on the mold before the aluminum foil layer but I don't do that anymore. The petroleum jelly is so hot when you use the paper mache quick-dry method via oven toaster and has burned me a couple of times.

After the aluminum foil, I placed layer upon layer of paper wet with glue or paste. I was prepared to use "gawgaw" (starch) paste but I saw an unused large bottle Elmer's Glue so I decided to use that instead. Paper layers go on, then I massage and pat the paper to make the fibers of the top paper layer bond with the fibers of the paper layer beneath it. After each layer I brush on a thin layer of glue. (Paul Mendoza and the other OAV guys over at FilCosplay taught me this thinned glue painted layer technique to add gloss to projects. I've put that to good use lots of times, guys. :D)

After trimming the sides of the mask, I fire them up in an oven toaster and dry them out in the sun. Each mask takes 15 to 30 minutes to make, and about a whole afternoon to dry.

Monster Mud... On the old masks and earlier projects I used a layer of white drywall compound mixed with some glue as a final coating for the chalky-white look. I didn't know back then but the technique I used turned out to be similar to the Monster Mud technique used by halloween decor enthusiasts. But this year I wanted to just spray paint them.

After the masks dried I placed them on the grass and spray-painted away! (Hey! Those spray cans can last for a couple of years as long as they don't lose the propellant inside. The ones I used seem to be 5-years-old already. O_o;;) I wanted a color different from last year's white so I started spraying them gold. But they didn't look that nice, the shadows and facial features weren't showing up very well on gold so I re-colored them silver and lightly sprayed gold on some sides where I wanted to emphasize the shadows, e.g. the sides of the nose, the sides of the mask and the brows.

The Horsemen Cometh... I draped medium-sized black garbage bags for that tight-fit torso. I then stuck the paper-ball heads on top and fastened the masks on them with double-sided tape. Then I fashioned Gregorian Monk-type cloaks with XL black garbage bags. I hung the horsemen from the roof with wire. :D (Note: Right after I finished the masks I stumbled on ready-made masks in SM and Watsons. Darn! I could've saved a lot of time and effort... *Groan*)

The Ghostly Mirror... This part of the whole project was kind of hard. I got the idea from The Ring but a lot of people have beaten me to it. But that didn't stop me. I was trying to acquire one-way privacy film similar to the ones used for car windows but they cost too much. I settled for ordinary rolled foil from the bookstore. This type of foil is not opaque like aluminum foil. Raise it up to a light source and you can see through it! The plan was to place a scary pic on the unseen side and it will be seen when a strong light is turned on.

I got an old picture frame and applied white glue to it. I then flattened the foil onto it. In the second pic above is the mistake I made. I layered the glue on too thick and it took forever to dry. Two weeks and it still wasn't dry! I was forced to scrape off the excess glue, re-wet it, spread it on very, very thinly and re-fasten the foil.

I used old styrofoam (I think it was from a DVD player) as the base for the mirror backing. With the use of double-sided tape, I was able to fasten a blown-up photo of Samara from the North American version of The Ring onto the finished backing assembly. Between the pic and the foil I fastened a halogen spotlight on the top of the mirror. The final touch was hooking up the halogen spotlight to a motion sensor (see middle pic above). The result was that the ghastly face would pop up every time someone was looking at the mirror from three feet away. I scared a lot of kids with that one. :D

The Grim Reaper... Meowok told me a couple of days ago that Reapers only eat apples. She said it was from the Death Note anime. I used the same wire core in balloon sticks and lots of almighty duct tape to fashion the shoulder, arms and hands of the Reaper. For the fingers I wrapped old foam and newspaper on the balloon stick fingers and clothed them in disposable plastic kitchen gloves. A scary touch was PhP25.00 skeleton fingers which fit snuggly.

The resulting assembly I tied (read: duct taped) to a 5'6" tall metal pipe which was cemented to a tire. The old pipe used to have rubber wrapped around it and served as a striking dummy during our kendo days five years ago. I bought a paper mache skull and drilled a hole so that it would fit on top of the metal pipe. (hey, I was tired already, I wanted to make my own but didn't have enough time). All that was needed was a plastic reaper sword (heck, everyone does scythes, I do swords) and layers upon layers of black cloth for the reaper feel. The sword was placed on Reaper's right, the mirror he held in his left skeletal fingers.

Lights and Sounds... I used another halogen spotlight to illuminate the whole scene. I also hooked up an old guitar amp to my PC's soundcard and cranked up some halloween tunes. The bystanders reacted to the music and were drawn even more to the display. Besides the usual halloween sounds and evil laughter specifically for the Reaper, I queued up some tunes I thought would fit the display. The bystanders really liked the feel of The Omen soundtrack. My personal fave was Jane Sibbery's It Can't Rain All the Time from The Crow soundtrack. But the real crowd-draw was WWE's The Undertaker theme called Graveyard Symphony. I also used One Winged Angel from the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children soundtrack but it proved to be too hard. But the church chorus parts really do lend well to the display. Another fave of mine was Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (best known for it's use by the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera). I cycled Enya and Gregorian chants during dead time (pun intended).

All in all it was a fun experience being able to scare and entertain trick or treaters during this day. I took the display down at 10pm since kids don't trick or treat at that time anymore. How much did I spend? Don't ask... But I'd do it again in a heartbeat. (Maybe I'll try the Monster Mud next year... :D)

Links that served as inspirations for the project: