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  • jbbuena 4:03 am on August 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Up Yours, Thesis! 

    I have some three months to churn out some sixty pages of emo gibberish before I can get myself a degree. Before that, I had an entire year but I never found myself in the proper mood to sit down and face the intimidating blank.

    Somehow it feels like the proper circumstances to get myself started never really happened. Everytime I picture myself writing away, it would always be on a wooden table by a window looking out over a street, a cup of coffee or tea at hand, and freshly showered with warm clothes on. There will also be an abundance of greens, every shade of it, outside.

    The problem with this aggrandized scenario, however, is it doesn’t exist. The denuding atmosphere that closes in on me in every corner of this apartment has never welcomed the possibility for its happening. Despite my best efforts to replicate this tableau, particular details just won’t blend together and contribute to the awesomeness of what I have in mind.

    The hardest thing about any task is getting started. Tonight, I managed to forge the first sentence for my creative non-fiction thesis more out of necessity than inspiration. It took me two hours to come up with the words and an hour after countless re-readings, it still comes across as a bit rusty. Why can’t I ever write like Chabon or Proust?

     

  • jbbuena 5:38 pm on December 16, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    I Can Haz Web Design for Krismaz? 

    I just realized how terribly hard it is to give even the smallest attention to building a personal website from the ground up when you’re interests run every which way. My interests in literature, World of Warcraft, blogging, and recently, minimalist web design, seems to be clashing against each other. How exactly does one prioritize interests when there’re other things calling your attention, say, getting a college degree?

    When I finished grade school, I thought that “Time is gold” could never have been more cliche. But where I’m right at, it can never be more true.

    Just to put everything in perspective, I’m going to have to state my predicament in a concise statement: I need a minimalist web layout. Or design. Or whatever web geeks call it. It’s Christmas so I guess it’s less shameless (eh?) if I just put it out there for everyone to know. I’ll be crossing my fingers hoping Santa might just get lost and somehow mistakenly land himself on my blog and grant this wish.

    I don’t want too many colors. Perhaps just a header with a logo relevant to the blog title. At the risk of sounding lol-funny, I see a vampire with sagging eye bags and without a lower jaw, baring his fangs. I’m nowhere near creative so that’s the least I can come up with whatever faulty artisty gene’s still in me. Also, I like my text space-saver small in size and kind of like the body-text for this website because I tend to write long entries. Courier New, is it? I wouldn’t mind Arial too. Two columns wouldn’t look too awkward, I hope. Also, a small space for my Flickr thumbnails and of course, the obligatory Google ads.

     

    • icezorg 11:40 pm on June 20, 2009 Permalink

      any updates? your wordpress theme look nice and clean. hehe

  • jbbuena 1:09 pm on October 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Resuscitating the Blog 

    To blog or not to blog?

    It’s quite weird how I was so much into blogging a couple of months back and a month later, the fuel for the fire kind of just ran out. It’s not about not wanting to write so much as running out of things to write about.

    I tend to spend an hour writing a single sentence because I have to keep reading it aloud in my head hoping ten minutes later it’ll sound right. Obviously, it isn’t working to my advantage if it’s keeping me from writing. So starting with this entry, I’m gonna do a little bit of good ol’ freewriting with a little bit of censorship.

    A college professor once told me that the only way to overcome writer’s block is obejctification. Turn it into a block of wood maybe, and write about it. Essentially, it’s about writing why you can’t.

    I stopped writing a couple of times before and each time I come back, the homecoming post borders somewhere along the lines of why I stopped writing and my good intentions of returning. I guess she isn’t wrong about it after all.

     

  • jbbuena 4:39 am on May 28, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: WordCamp, WordCamp Philippines   

    I’m Joining WordCamp Philippines! 

    IT’S official. WordCamp Philippines is slated for September 6 at the College of St. Benilde, Taft Ave., Manila. The event is being organized by the same team that made the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit possible last year.

    It’s quite hard to believe how just when I started fiddling with WordPress sometime during the first week of May, news came out a couple of days later as to the possibility of hosting the country’s first WordCamp. I’m giddy to go but perhaps it’s better if I douse my hopes a bit just in case it doesn’t live up to the hype I’m subconsciously building in my mind.

    What I had in mind was a bit of greens and outdoors just to make the place conducive enough for learning and writing (Ateneo would have been it *hint*). Then again, internet connection is more a priority than ambiance, of course. With the venue decided, I just hope the event will lean more towards end-users with just enough of a side dish to make your average developer happy.

    So if you’re interested at all in coming, gear up your laptops. 9/6 is a date!

    IN other news, happy 5th birthday WordPress! Too bad the San Francisco party is on the other side of the world and there’s no way to get this penniless ass over there.

    Update: The list of sponsors has been updated and from the looks of it, it’s going to be a big thing.

     

    • Blogie Robillo 6:13 am on May 28, 2008 Permalink

      Nice post! Thanks for the links.

      Hmmm… you want WordCamp to be held at the Ateneo although you’re from La Salle. And I’m from the Ateneo and yet I’m bringing the event to La Salle… :D

      Fear not, we’ll try to make WordCamp live up to everyone’s expectations! See you in September.

    • jbbuena 6:22 pm on June 1, 2008 Permalink

      @Blogie Hah! The reason I made this post was because I read on the Sponsorships page that only those who made I’m Joining WordCamp Philippines! entries will be given the camper’s badge.

      For the record though, that was my first comment from a non-bot. Cheers! And thanks for dropping by! :)

    • MiGs 10:55 am on July 23, 2008 Permalink

      Thank you for registering for WordCamp Philippines!

      You will be receiving your camper pass via email soon.

      For updates, please visit http://philippines.wordcamp.org
      and/or subscribe to its feeds: http://feeds.feedburner.com/wcphils

      See you in WordCamp!

      MiGs
      on behalf of WordCamp Philippines Organizers

  • jbbuena 5:10 am on May 26, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Getting Cozy with Disillusionment 

    I think I might just be turning into some Tim O’Reilly clone. A bold–even conceited–statement, but nevertheless not so far from the truth. That is, I’m getting a degree in literature and probably end up working with computers.

    I initially started college with a career in the field of electronics and communications in mind but I spent the entire first year reading trash novels so much that I managed to convince myself a year later that I was meant to be a literature/English/creative writing major. And I did. In retrospect, what I think really happened was a sort of rebellion against my parents whose plans, though well-meaning, were nevertheless theirs and not mine.

    Five years into the literature program, I realized most of these people are pretentious wankers who like having their egos stroked. It’s quite sad how they take so much pride in getting their works published yet fail to see how meaningless it actually is no matter how witty or educated.

    I’ve never been so disillusioned as when I have to deal with their academic elitism. They give so much praise to literary works critical of human condition when they can never be more out of touch with reality themselves. These hypocrites confine themselves within their walls with their pen and paper, avoiding any contact with the dirty, the perverse, and the uneducated. And by virtue of association, I feel like an accomplice to this unfortunate ignorance. It is a denial that nobody inside ever talks about in the same manner they keep their antagonisms against each other buried under their friendly faces. Fuck them!

    Last Friday, I told my parents how I want myself in again on their initial plan. I’m going right back into engineering when I get my degree. Too bad I have until then to say good riddance!

     

  • jbbuena 11:59 pm on May 14, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gallery, photos,   

    WordPress 2.5 Gallery Feature 

    I literally spent all of yesterday gushing over photos from various WordCamps Matt had been to these past few months so that my usual 8 a.m. bedtime somehow pushed itself all the way to 1 p.m. Yes, I’m nocturnal and I don’t have a life.

    The guy is living the life I want. Damn him. I’m green with envy. :(

    Anyways, I figured I’d give the gallery feature a shot. Looking at his photos made me want to own a Nikon D3, but seriously, who would spend $4,999 on a camera?

    The following photos are taken from when Carlos, Kim, Maui, and I went to see Cloverfield when it opened in theaters last January.

     

  • jbbuena 4:01 pm on May 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: World of Warcraft   

    Two Weeks After World of Warcraft 

    The crying peon

    When I impulsively decided to make a career out of blogging two weeks ago despite a tugging awareness that it’s not going to turn out the way I planned it in my mind, I quit my other addiction: World of Warcraft. I remember quitting twice before but in both instances, either the withdrawal was too strong or I was simply too weak not to yield to pitying the crying peon on the Cancel Subscription page.

    The first quit lasted for about two hours. Upon canceling my subscription, the next hundred and twenty minutes were spent thinking about the friends I have in the guild and how they’d fare in Karazhan without their top hunter to help with crowd control, and making elaborate entrepreneurial plans of monopolizing the adamantite market in the Auction House so I could get the 5000g I needed for my epic flying mount training. Fortunately, my second quit during the last week of October 2007 didn’t become quite a withdrawal disaster as the first. Only this time, I managed to protract all the same ideas for one week before I went back to renew my subscription.

    When I quit two weeks ago, it was partly because I wouldn’t be able to literally afford another miscellaneous expense after the web domain and the web host. Ergo, my credit card eating another $15 a month for WoW is gluttony.

    What really pushed me to leave the game, however, were the insensitive people in the guild. Hut & Spicy isn’t really accommodating to newcomers. I’m fairly new to the Kil’jaeden server to which I transferred, along with a couple of friends, upon invitation of HnS’s guildmaster for the reason that there is a much solid Filipino population there, Alliance-side, than the server I’m from.

    What he failed to emphasize was how most of the veterans in the guild are just plain immature and hard to deal with, and the guild officers are terribly apathetic. I could hardly believe this puerility comes from twenty-something professionals, some of whom are already married.

    I remember I was once told to shut up in /gchat for the reason (if you can call it that!) that I didn’t have a raiding spot and therefore, I earn no right to communicate. It was meant to be halfway somewhere between a joke and the gentle sarcasm you associate yourself with newbies to establish your authority but how the guy said it was nowhere near polite. He ended up getting a spot on my /ignore list, though not without us throwing shit at each other.

    I’m sober for a straight two weeks now after finally cutting it cold turkey. It’s hard getting clean and the prospect of going back to the game is always on the horizon each time I wake up but from the quitting WoW stories I’ve read online thus far, looks like I have a bumpy road ahead of me–for the next few months, at least.

     

  • jbbuena 5:01 pm on May 6, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Google Adsense   

    Blogging 101: The Downside of Starting from Scratch 

    This website is beginning to be a thorn on the side.

    My primary concern for leaving the confines of developer-hosted blogs is the enormous monetization potential of affiliate marketing, contextual advertising (Google AdSense comes to mind), and pay-per-click marketing–all of which I’m not the least familiar with until a week ago. In fact, I barely even thought it possible for me to single-handedly build a website from the ground up.

    Various informative articles scattered online managed to get me through all the preliminary obstacles of setting up a website but newbies seem to have a way of attracting new and difficult problems along the way. As I have mentioned before, I don’t have previous knowledge about any advanced programming languages except for the elementary HTML I gleaned from my Livejournal days (even that, is a bit shaky). It is quite understandable therefore why I find myself struggling with layout designs and feeding on free WordPress themes from generous designers online.

    The real problem, however, is not in the technical aspects of developing a blog so much as generating internet traffic your way. I’ve set up some trial ads from AdSense but of course, there isn’t anyone around to visit the site and do the clickity-clicks.

     

    • Mikko 12:05 am on October 6, 2008 Permalink

      Uh, emo. Sige, visit ako sa blog mo from time to time.

  • jbbuena 12:24 am on May 6, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Digg, Philippines   

    Gay Bigfoot & the 7 Weirdest Mythical Creatures in the World 

    I came across this post on Digg early this morning when I was randomly browsing for interesting headlines for a good coffee substitute. I didn’t know whether to feel proud that the Philippines snagged two out of the seven not-so-coveted spots for weirdest mythical creatures; but I guess it’s still good publicity.

    Strangely enough, the tikbalang is gaining popularity and has managed to amass a fair share of international audience. One minute they’re living deep in the forests, next thing you know they’re rocking cyberspace.

    Every country has its own version of Bigfoot. Some are terrifying, some are awesome, and some are just plain ridiculous. We’ve found the seven creatures that manage to be all three.

    read more | digg story

     

  • jbbuena 7:08 am on May 5, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: anti-virus, AVG, Windows Vista   

    Thoughts on AVG8 

    Last April 24, AVG released the 8.0 free version of their popular anti-virus so I was forced to update the ever-reliable 7.5 expecting that AVG found a way to top 7.5′s performance and efficiency. AVG8 promises both basic anti-virus and anti-spyware protection, combining two previously separate programs in a single interface.

    Just recently however, I upgraded my operating system from the stable XP to the not-so-stable Vista despite the generous caution against Vista people have been handing out to likely candidates who are willing to take the bait. Needless to say, the new AVG8 didn’t quite make an impression on me as I failed to try it out due to compatibility issues. I was getting an application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect error. The installation files said that it is compatible with Vista but it didn’t explicitly say Vista SP1. Makes me wonder if I’d ever encounter the same problem at all if I chose to hang on to XP.

    It could probably be a faulty version or installation of a Visual Studio update, though. I’ll try removing the Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable, revert back to the 2005 Redistributable, and see how it goes. Meanwhile, I’m using avast! and it’s doing really great I might consider sticking to it if I don’t get AVG to work.

     

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