43 posts tagged “train of thought”

It's nights like these that come all too often for me - I'm sleepy, I'm tired, yet I lay in bed for hours, unable to sleep. I eventually turn the lights back on, pick up a book, check my blogs, or just watch late-night movies. Without knowing it, I'll glance up at the clock and it's already six in the morning the next day.

I've been like this for more than a decade now, and frankly, it sucks.

And no, it's not the coffee, since I've only been seriously drinking for two years (if anything, it even makes me sleepy).

My dad and most of the doctors I've talked to have advised against sleeping pills, arguing that they can be habit-forming (in other words, addicting). I think it's time to seriously reconsider. It's been more than 10 freakin' years, after all. And frankly, I'd rather be addicted-but-asleep rather than clean-but-up-all-night.

Friends and Indifference Don't Mix

May 18, 2008
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Pins from Hong Kong Disneyland

I was cleaning up a bit in my room when I came across these pins I had bought over two years ago from Hong Kong Disneyland. I had meant to give these to the people I deemed my closest friends at the time, but things kept getting in the way... now I don't know what to do with them. At the time I was really thinking hard what to get my friends back home, and I settled on these (they were expensive, as is everything in any tourist destination).

Some time after I got back from Hong Kong in 2006, our clique suddenly imploded. People got cheated on, broke up, the group got crazy, tried to calm things down... it was a mess. Eventually everyone just started to go their own way.

The sad thing about all of this is how much indifference has grown and settled in. I'd really like to hang out with these guys, but it's been really hard to even just set a date for a movie or to chill out at the mall nowadays, I don't know why. I've known these guys for more than a decade now, and frankly, I'd like to see more of them. Like we used to, if possible.

We all live less than an hour away from each other! This has got to be some kind of joke.

The Work Shell

May 7, 2008
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I tend to just disappear when I really put myself into something. I don't answer emails, I barely take phone calls, and I just plain disappear when I really get on something that I want done. I focus and I eliminate distractions.

So to the people who've... you know who you are... It's not you.

Anyway, I've spent the past few weeks just trying to get the new CoffeeRev website done. I've been trying to squeeze every last ounce of creative juice out of my head just to get the right balance of aesthetics, readability, and usability in coming up with a design. I've gone through eight designs, and today I finally rolled it out: The new CoffeeRev v2.0.

Coffeerev-v2beta-screenshot

I've always been intrigued by the one-column layout. It makes everything look so clean and simple. Granted, the reader doesn't have immediate access to some of the deeper branches of the website, but on the other hand, it also allows the reader to focus on the featured content and facilitates a distraction-free reading experience. Once he's done with the main stuff, the footer provides the connections that the sidebar in a two or three-column layout normally would.

Coffeerev-v2beta-draft7-screenshot

Initially, I wanted to do this grungy, collage-styled blog layout that looked really cool (which was the 7th draft), but when I stepped back to look at it, it was distracting. So I thrashed it. It kinda sucked more since I had already spliced the images and finished the CSS layout (I think I wore out my "D", "I", and "V" keys the most). Oh well... learning experience pa rin yun, haha!

What a pain.

Over the course of the past few weeks, I've been collecting fonts, stock photos, relearning CSS and PHP, and just plain trying to shake the rust off. At the same time, I've been forced to do more coffee reviews as opposed to a balance of that along with checking out coffee shops all over the metro, just so I could give more time to the website.

I think I've produced something decent.

Anyway, there are still a lot of kinks to work out... The site seems to work best with Firefox 2, but FF 3 beta 5 produces some hiccups. So does Internet Explorer. I'll just get back to it tomorrow... gots 'ta sleep now.

We Are Losing The Ability To Entertain and Enrich Ourselves

Apr 22, 2008
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The way people de-stress and spend their leisure time nowadays is markedly different from the way people did just a few decades ago. This could be due to more choices, thanks to the television, the Internet, and various forms of new media that have become the new operating paradigms of entertainment and the exchanges of ideas. That said, in a few ways, I think we would be better off with the way things were before than we are today.

Today, most of us are gradually losing our creative and imaginative abilities due to constantly being force-fed entertainment through video games and television. Today, while we have more choices, it's getting harder to find the really good stuff be it in games or other forms of visual entertainment; most programs being shown in the mainstream media simply pander to the masses. Pabulum. Back then, people were forced to imagine and visualize the thoughts and ideas that were being conveyed through poetry and prose that the literature of the day provided. They exerted their minds.

I came to this realization when I was looking through a bookstore and came across this book:

Catching Life By the Throat: Poems from Eight Great Poets (with CD)

Josephine Hart

The subtitle especially caught my eye: How to Read A Poem and Why.

I realized the irony of the situation: Now we need an instruction manual on how to read a poem? Wow. Are we really getting to the point that we become that inept when it comes to imagine and visualize ideas from words presented as poetry and prose that we lack the imagination and creative faculties to not only write, but even appreciate or read such? And that we need instruction manuals on how to do it? And then it hit me: YES.

The collective level of intellect of the masses today is fast deteriorating. We are paying more attention to things that are next to devoid of benefit to us and significantly less to things that would actually make us better and smarter people. Think about it: how much time d'you spend watching Big Brother or playing video games everyday in one month? What if you dedicated that time to learning a new skill through taking up new hobbies, or even a new language? We could accomplish so much!

It doesn't have to be a chore, either. There are a great many ways outside of convention that both serve to enrich and entertain you. Some examples from my personal experiences:

I learned a lot about basic economics and fascinating social trends through Stephen J. Dubner's book "Freakonomics". Did you know swimming pools kill more kids than guns kept at home do? Or that an abortion law approved two decades ago had a significant impact and decreased crime rates today in New York (and thus in another way saying that Rudy Guliani really is a douchebag)? It's a fun read.

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Steven D. Levitt
I significantly increased my Spanish speaking and comprehension by reading Spanish comics and listening to rock band Mana and the comedy troupe Les Luthiers. Mana makes some beautiful music (check out their MTV unplugged album), and Les Luthiers are just plain hilarious. A few years back, I also began to really get into learning Japanese by reading manga and listening to and translating the lyrics of L'Arc~en~Ciel, but I stopped... Oh well.

MTV Unplugged

Maná

I even learn a lot about American Politics, Policies, Government, and Contemporary Issues by watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In fact, I know more about American Politics than I do about Philippine Politics! I can tell you about the differences between Republican and Democratic Ideologies, how they affect the people in America, and tell you that John McCain can't lift his arms above his shoulders because he was tortured as a P.O.W. in the Vietnam War. By the way, SkyCable? I still hate you.

There's some great stuff out there that's seriously entertaining but really serve as means for self-improvement as well.

Anyway, I purchased the above book and resolved to redevelop my interest and poetry, and eventually branch out into some more non-fiction. I want to really cut back on playing video games and try to learn more stuff that'll do me good. It'll be hard, but I think I'll be better off.

It takes great effort, patience, and even a bit of humility in order to significantly change the way one does things for the better in day-to-day life, but I believe it can be worth it.

Never Give Up! Never Surrender! (Unless you're seriously out of cash or getting threats and stuff)

Apr 18, 2008
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Well, nearly 2 months in, I'm midway through my self-imposed probationary period. After getting the extremely bright idea (since all the ideas I get are awesome and any and all possible failures are never mine but are due to everybody else's faults, naturally) of quitting my job to become a professional blogger online writer-slash-reviewer (sounds nicer than blogger, but it's the essentially same thing really), I'm at the halfway point of the period that I've marked to help me decide whether CoffeeRev was a fruitless endeavor or not.

At the end of it all, I'm going to take stock of (1) what I did right, all of (2) the mistakes I made, the (3) total effort I put into it, and the (4) returns on my investment. Then I'll decide if it's worth continuing down this path, or just junking it and trying something else.

As it stands right now, I expected to at least be posting 2-3 quality articles a week, but have been only able to post 1-2. I am not getting the results I expected. I expected to start earning at least a decent enough amount of ad revenue, but I am not (so now, I'm basically draining my funds while getting next to zilch in return). Those are the two most glaring discrepancies between my expectations and what's happened after enacting my plans.

This is my first attempt to write professionally. I started out armed with knowledge of my craft and my field, and extreme awe at the potential of earning a living through the interwebtubes (SEO, SEM, Copywriting, plus the fact that I'm a genius and my farts smell like roses). I said to myself, "okay, content is king; if I write good content and market it the right way, people will like it, find it useful, and my audience can grow from there". Being an avid zenhabits reader and simplicity-and-productivity guy, I went out and designed an über simple website and make people focus on the articles, I've got it made.

Wrong. There are many more factors to consider other than those.

I failed to consider the fact that I needed to catch the attention of the reader first, in order to get my message across. A plain design isn't going to do it effectively. People will find it unremarkable and boring (especially in my case; one way to put what I do is that I drink coffee and write about it). My articles aren't clipped on the landing page, so as a result, that whole page is really long and people who want to scroll down to scan the other headlines will get irritated that whole articles are there and leave.

Oh, the first few steps are painful indeed. Now the question is, will the next few steps I take be in the right direction, thus producing results that show a more positive trend and therefore reducing the growing pains?

I believe I have taken a step in the right direction now. I've come up with a new design for the CoffeeRev website that I am extremely proud of. I think it'll catch the eye of anyone who passes by, and they'll think "hey, this looks like a quality site, lemme see what they got here". I seriously cannot wait until I get it up online. Also, since this is my second design, I've gotten a way better handle on the technical nuances of WordPress. That should make it faster for me to completely implement this.

So yeah, my budget is still there, but of course, I'm practically not earning anything; yet I remain optimistic. I've identified the mistakes I've made during the first few weeks and I've come up with some solutions to them. I remain optimistic and I'm still licking my lips because of the enormous potential that this little project of mine has. We'll see what happens.

Off To Spain (and a short diatribe on how much I hate Windows Vista)

Mar 29, 2008
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Not me. Them.

Mom

Me mum and grandma.

Abuela

This past week has been really stressful for me, since my mom's basically dumping a lot of stuff on [firstly] my aunt, then me. Stuff (read: work) that she inherited from my Grandpop when he was so rudely run over and killed by a dumbass driver employed by Jell Transport (a bus bompany with crappy busses run by weasels who couldn't care less about people dying) while he was crossing the street (on the crosswalk, three lanes away on the opposite side of the road, no less). Stocks, Debt Collections, mostly paperwork.

So now that my mom's heading off to live and work in Spain, she's left all of that to us here. Ugh.

After lunch with Lace, Kim, and Norman yesterday at the Mozu Cafe, I met up with mom and the others at Starbucks Bluewave to have some coffee and go over some things before they checked in at the airport. I briefed her a bit on how to use her notebook computer (she and technology go together like a freshly squeezed four-seasons cocktail and regurgitated bile).

Seriously. I had to rename a bunch of icons, like say Microsoft Word to "Type a Document"... Mozilla Firefox to "Browse the Internet" ... and then Internet Explorer to "Kill Me Now" just to help her understand what they were used for. If I know her, in just about two days, she'll have loaded her browsers with toolbars and spyware (Firefox is not idiot-proof, and Spybot can only do so much).

Then, there's Windows Vista.

Below is the instruction manual that Microsoft apparently failed to include with Vista:

Vista is the worst OS in the history of the known world and I would rather scrape rocks on a chalkboard than install that pile of crap on any PC I'd come into contact with.

The last picture is from Doug Ward.

Cleaning up and Decluttering

Mar 26, 2008
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I decided a month ago that Wednesdays would be dedicated solely to cleaning up and decluttering. It's only today that I actually got around to implementing it.

I spent a good part of my morning cleaning and decluttering my room. I got rid of scribbles, sketches, unnecessary documents, and even a whole bunch of floppy disks (I know, who uses them anymore?) that were literally just lying around my room gathering dust!

This corner of the room is where all the action happens (is it sad this is my definition of action?)

All in all, I got rid of two big grocery bagfuls of unused garbage and clutter.

A shelfload of crap.

I still have a whole shelf with two years worth of magazines (M&F, Men's Health, GQ, Manual) to plow through and get rid of. Then there's my old sketchpads and loose sketches to get rid of... some of which date back to my high school years. I probably won't have any trouble disposing of old drawings (as they're prolly horrid compared to my current work), but it's the later ones I'm worried about - I'm usually very attached to my artwork.

Then, there are seldom used articles of clothing, bags, music equipment, tools... I can't believe I've accumulated this much crap and that most of it I don't really use.

Anyway, if I can just get rid of my magazines, that'll be great. I wonder if I can sell them to Booksale for a little bit of cash? Most of them are still in very good condition.

Man... my digicam is total crap in poor lighting conditions... tsk tsk

Kai Munoz Perona

Mar 24, 2008
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Went to ate Kai Perona's wake and funeral discourse today. It's so surprising that she just died last week. The cause is still unknown (some say heart attack, some say Makati Med screwed up), the relatives are squabbling over what to do with the body... it's a mess. She wasn't even in her mid-30's yet!

Her husband Rowwy is a one of the nicest guys I've known, always calm and collected, and this just really seemed to put him down real bad. And their two little kids too... This totally sucks for their family; they're my friends, and I hate seeing that happen to good people.

Anyway, touched base with more of my friends from the old Santa Cruz area of Manila. Geez, why is it that the only time we ever get back together is when some of our friends or relatives die? Isn't that sad? That sucks! Make time for those you care about, people!

On Broadsheets, Culture, and Politics

Mar 2, 2008
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I often skip reading the first section of most broadsheets today; they usually contain mostly news on politics and political scandals and in-depth analysis on the twain. Greed, Corruption, Falsities, Lies. It's all so redundant and tiring.

Just like Jon Stewart said in his interview with Larry King just before the Oscars - the media today is like a bunch of kids playing around and piling up in the dirt, and all of a sudden a ball pops out and they all go, "gasp, ball!", and they all scurry over to the ball and pile up on it until it's run down ragged, dead, and destroyed.

It would be refreshing to see more tasteful articles on art and culture in today's broadsheets; it's severely lacking. Knowledge of current events is a definite necessity, I'm not against it at all. But too much of it is just stressful and pointless. It's all just noise. What about knowledge and information that can actually enrich the minds and lives of readers? Newspapers today do publish good articles every now and then, but they're few and too far in between.

Of the broadsheets I've read such articles in, so far, the Business Mirror manages to churn out ones of the highest quality, followed by the Inquirer, and then Philippine Star and the Manila Bulletin manage to tie for a miserable third. They all need to write articles on arts and culture more often. Delving too deeply in political noise whilst ignoring what could possibly enrich readers makes for greatly unbalanced reading material.

Credits: the above photo is from louder and is licensed under a creative commons license.