Minding other's business

This morning while riding on a bus going to work, I seated in the rear end of the bus. Unknowingly I was seated behind a kabayan who was busy fondling his nokia phone. I thought he was just playing or something until I become curious and after few minutes, gave in and dunked over to peep what he was doing. He was reading one by one all the text messages stored on his phone. Guess from where all the messages came from? Yes from his girlfriend or someone registered in his phonebook as baby. I got curious and carried away so it’s like we were reading it together. What made me hooked reading with him was the way the text messages has been exchanged. Apparently his baby was nagging him on something that she was asking for, an assurance from him the things like ‘you are there and I am here’ scenarios. What struck me was the lady’s varied messages, some I find hilarious, well in my point of view but it was composed in serious monotone. What struck me more was that the guy seems enjoyed reading them, well so as I suspected. I can’t imagine that she can come up all those messages, because looking at the guy, he seems does not fit to his baby's insinuations.

One word come up to my mind: suspicion. In a long distance relationship, there suppose to be no room for suspicion. In order for you two to survive distance relationship, you must learn to trust your partner whole heartedly. A single suspicion will break the bond you have for each other and it is a beginning of the end if you start to suspect your partner at any point of your long distance relationship.

And what are these text messages which I find hilarious, you would ask? Better not.

My voyeurism caused me to miss the bus stop and a 10 minutes late time.

How did Michael Jackson die?

photo credit:sing365.com

Michael Jackson is dead at age 50.

On the day the news broke out, it was reported that he was found in presumed cardiac arrest after a 911 call was made from his rented home at Holmby Hills in Los Angeles. Before he was rushed to the UCLA Medical Center where he died, Jackson's personal physician was with him and tried to resuscitate him for more than one hour but were unsuccessful before he was rushed to the hospital where he died. He was declared dead at 2.26pm Los Angeles time.

There are reports that he was rehearsing for a new show, opening in London next month, and had undergone a thorough and complete physical exam. He apparently was given a clean bill of health. He was secretly rehearsing six hours a day and four days a week.

And how about reports that he is addicted to painkillers which develops after he was burned while filming a commercial in 1984.

Then this report that a family attorney mentioned about his concern for Jackson's use of prescription drugs for dancing-related injuries could eventually prove fatal and that the entertainer's inner circle has ignoring his warnings.

How about the pressures of emotional, physical, legal, financial, and spiritual dysfunction that has been with him ever since? Had this already caught up Mr. Jackson? Its a toxic mix that nobody can withstand.

There's no doubt that more information will be reported in the coming days to weeks, even illicit drugs might also come out no doubt. But keep in mind that sudden cardiac death can happen at any age, in seemingly healthy individuals.

Whatever the circumstances, there's no doubt that Michael Jackson will be greatly missed.

iPhone 3GS sales top 1 million

It has been reported that the newly released iPhone 3GS had sold more than 1 million in three days after it was launched. That was an impressive number considering the present state of the economy, and debut only in eight countries compared to 28 countries in last year's iPhone 3G launch. But how this new iPhone 3GS affect us 3G users?

The new iPhone 3GS where the S stands for speed, offers yes faster speeds, longer battery life and the ability to take videos. Features which, we will not enjoy, but can also benefit the other features of the new iPhone 3GS by simply upgrading to iPhone OS 3.0 which runs the new 3GS. These new features are; the spotlight search which searches all contents across the iPhone like contacts, email, calendars, notes, and iPod contents. This works well for people with lots of e-mail and media.

Now we can now cut, copy, and paste quickly by just tapping. We can copy content from the web, then paste it into an email or text message by simply tap and hold to select the word, drag it and paste. We can copy multiple photos either from the web or of our own photo and paste them into an email or an MMS. If we make a mistake, we will just shake the iPhone to undo!

Another feature is the intelligent keyboard. It accelerates typing as it tracks what you type, then suggests words, correct spelling, and inserts punctuation. This annoys me sometimes especially if I am keying in tagalog words or txts words ( wer u na) heheh, but iPhone learns the words we frequently use and tracks it so this feature will no longer becomes a problem after some time. And the best part is we can all do this in landscape mode, a big improvement.

There are a lot of improvements from the old iPhones, notable of these are the parental controls and the new Find My iPhone feature which helps track down if I misplaced phone and wipe its contents if necessary. So if we lose our iPhone we can initiate a remote wipe and restore the factory settings, and if we just misplace it or returned to me later which i think unlikely, we can restore back the data we had wiped.This is good because we can protect our privacy.

No wonder it sales well, but for me I still have to think twice to buy the new iPhone 3GS, all the features from the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade are more than enough for now.

photo credit:apple.com

Filipino made headline because of A H1N1

What a day! A Filipino made headline on the local broadsheet here today because of the A H1N1. One of the footballers from Team Philippines who are in the country for the inaugural Asian Youth Games has been confirmed with the virus after he developed symptoms a day after they arrived. As a result he was admitted to the Communicable Disease Center and in stable condition. Because of this the whole team including the coaches has been quarantined at a local resort and will stay there for 6 days.

It is really depressing to end this way for the whole team. After all those hard training and looking forward for a good fight will end up not playing. In the meantime all the scheduled games for the team has been postponed. What will happen by the time the quarantine period ended, are they still allowed to compete? It is mentioned in the news that the team has been vaccinated against seasonal flu two weeks ahead of their arrival but still the boy has been contracted by the virus.

There are total of 126 confirmed cases of A H1N1 victims here in Singapore. Most of these came from overseas, but there are cases were the victims have no travel history or known contact with the confirmed cases. Will this mean there will be community spread and will result to increase at a fast pace? I hope it will not, but nevertheless I believe the government is ready. All I can do now is to observe proper hygiene and might as will limit my movement to work and home routine. No malling for me for now and will try to avoid taking the mrt.

I just hope that the boy footballer is an isolated case and the Team Philippines will be able to compete and hopefully win.

Turning into Minima

Reading other blogs writing about their observations, often summarizing and categorizing it, of the blogs they read is quite intimidating for me learning they are my readers too. In their write up they will tell his readers unwittingly how he find bloggers writings not to far to their likings, the motives of having blogs, and so on. Knowing that they regularly read my blog too and consciously aware that my blog is one being pointed to not in a good way, I suddenly develop paranoia and unconsciously losing interest updating my blog. So you see, I don’t have degree to boost to be a good writer, Back in college if you are in engineering department, the arts and sciences department will often dismiss you as English morons. Our Arts and Sciences instructors treat us engineering students lightly and oftentimes will not test our limits capability on the subject; and yes we are trained to be technical writers. But that was during my time, I don’t know if it is still the same today.

No I am not making excuse here why I have few entries these past few weeks. But I can’t deny this observation I have stated has got to do with it. So, either I have to stop reading friends blogs so I can regularly update my own without hesitation, or keep reading them and eventually immunes myself of what they’re saying, then I can write whatever pleases me my own way.

Or maybe not. I am experiencing a mental block syndrome once again. No matter how anxious I am to write something, nothing comes up. Too bad that because of this I am slowly losing interest to blog. I was tempted to discontinue blogging for awhile and gone hiatus. Then suddenly it hit me. I am only bored. And when I am bored change is inevitable.

Have you seen my tumblr blog? And yes I have a new one in wordpress. Please visit them too.

The Beach experience

After spending 4 hours in Tanjung Pinang, I compelled not to stay overnight as there is not much to explore. I have noticed that there is no indication that there will be life comes night time. When I asked around how much will be the transportation cost going to Trikora beach I was surprised what I gathered, the fare's expensive considering the distance is just 40 kilometers from the town proper. So I proceeded to the tourist information center to confirm what I have learned. The local guy manning the center informed me that it is not advisable to just go there by taking the transportation on my own but instead contact a resort where I am going to stay and have the hotel pick me up from the center. I was hesitant at first since my plan was to explore the whole stretch of the beach and from there will I then decide where to stay, but he advised otherwise as according to him though there are few cheap resorts but in the end I still have to pay more for the transportation. I succumbed, so he recommended Bintan Agro Beach Resort and true enough in ten minutes time I was on the road to Trikora.

The highway that will lead us to Trikora. Still within the Tanjung Pinang area, this will lead to an old and narrower road soon as you leave Tanjung Pinang.

Outside the reception area.

Here's my room. It's clean, bed is comfy, the comfort room has complete toiletries and clean!

At the reception I was told my room has I breathtaking view of the sea, this is what I got. Does he know what breathtaking means?

Ahh I have to go out of my room, and stand on my door to experience it.

After I settled in, I ordered merienda. The fishball soup was okay, but the mee goreng was tasteless and greasy!

Then I went out to check the vicinity and gone swimming.

The beach looks dirty up close and too narrow from here, so I move towards the end part of the beach area. Its too shallow! I keep going further until I was 50 meters or so, still the water was knee high.

After an hour of just lying in the beach I decided to transfer to the pool. The moment I stepped on the steps I almost slipped as it was slimy. It seems that it was never cleaned in ages, but the water was clean.

Dinner at the seafood resto I end up ordering grilled chicken :) Gonggong was good with the peanut sauce.

I slept early that night and woke up just before the sun rises.

Breakfast here was breathtaking as the sun rises.

I planned to go snorkeling, but was told would not be possible because of this, and have to wait until 3pm for the water to rise.

Practically I slept the rest of the day as I have nothing to do, I intended not to extend my stay so at 12noon I woke up by a call informing me that my time was up and have to leave the room immediately.

In the end, its still awesome trip.

Destination: Tanjung Pinang, Bintan

Last weekend, I decided to spend my long weekend out of Singapore - in nearby island of Bintan in Indonesia. I applied friday as offset for the vesak day holiday weeks ago.

I woke up early last friday and managed to leave home before 6 in the morning but arrived at the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal at 9:00! The reason was that I dropped at a wrong bus stop. The lady I inquired on misunderstood my query, so I have to wait for the next bus which arrived 30 minutes later.

I took the ferry that will first to depart that day. The terminal is spankingly clean and yes there is a duty free shop too. It is the opposite of the terminal in Bintan and once you go out of the terminal it was chaotic more as there were plenty of touts from drivers to hotel personnel who will follow you around non-stop!

This is the ferry that will bring us to Bintan.

A view from afar of the Sri Bintan Pura ferry terminal at Tanjung Pinang. As Asean citizen, I don't need to secure visit visa, but the port is a visa-on-arrival port, so you any foreign visitor can still have one for a fee upon arrival.

Just outside the Port, noticed the motorcycle bikes? Called Ojek, it is the mode of transportation here aside from the white mini vans.

I did not make prior reservation for the trip as I planned it to be a free and easy tour. My plan was to explore the whole town first and proceed the next day to the beach which is around 40 kilometers from the town center.

After I arrived I immediately explore the town, and I was quite surprised to find out that is quite a progressive town. This one is their own version of the Baywalk and becomes busy from late afternoon until late in the evening as mobile food stalls were set up and become a huge hawkers center. I am not sure if this happening everyday or only on weekends.

On a typical day.

On late afternoon.

A typical street alley.

A government house I supposed.

The Raja Haji Fisabillah monument, named after a national hero.

I took my lunch in a local restaurant. The food display is arranged on top of each other forming a pyramid, a unique to the island

The food preparation is pretty much the same to any asian country yet has a very distinctive taste though a bit similar to malay food. The food cost me 31,000 rupiah! Around 4 singdollar or 135 pesos :). Take note it came with the local softdrink and a bottled water. I want to live in this island!

The malls. There are three of them, aside from the ones populated at main streets in the old commercial district. A store names are quite interesting. Armani Exchange, D & G, Fendi, you can find them there!

The one and the only one western fastfood you can find in the island, lol!

Next stop, the Trikora beach!