Anything and everything. En español también.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

No te laves las manos

Curiosa expresión que supongo viene de Poncio Pilato lavándose las manos de la condena a Jesús por la crucificción.

En el día a día yo nunca uso esta frase, ni se de gente que la use, pero algo curioso sucedió la primera vez que fui al baño en CANTV Los Cortijos. Vean por ustedes mismos.

La parte importante es lo que dice al final:

Los baños Sí son nuestra responsabilidad. No te laves las manos.

¿Soy yo o es esta frase no adecuada para un baño? Es decir, hay gente que no se lava las manos, pero y si alguien quiere lavárselas, ¡no debe! ¡El cartel dice que no te laves las manos!

Obviamente no hay que tomarlo literalmente, pero ¿Cuánta gente puede entender eso? Sabemos que existen muchas personas poco astutas, es un hecho de la vida, pero ahora con la situación actual (nacionalización) puede que entre gente menos astuta aún :) Voy a tener que evitar dar la mano de ahora en adelante.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

No more Pandora

Once upon a time (a couple of years back) there was a site that someone at work (can't remember who) told me about. It was Pandora by the Music Genome Project. It was the first thing of its kind. You could name an artist or song and the subsequent songs where played depending on that first choice. It took a lot of info for that like genre, tonalities, voice pitch, influences, etc. You get the point.

I'm writing in past tense because now, if you're not from the U.S., you'll get to this restricted notice from Pandora. Well, that sucks greatly.

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for most listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

What are these licensing constraints? It's so damn vague so as not to tell who the hell is restricting them (that is if it's true that someone's restricting them).

I'm getting tired of this kind of site behavior. It happens everywhere. Where else have you seen this crippled site behavior outside the U.S.? (I've seen it in plenty of Google sites BTW)

Friday, April 20, 2007

Jon's phrase on Dilbert

Jon, Scott somehow heard your phrase and used it. Now that I think of it, you could easily be Catbert or another Dilbert's character.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Anonymous Cowards

Qué chevere es hacer comentarios anónimos en contra de alguien en un blog. La anonimidad te da un edge, puedes decir lo que te de la gana sólo por ofender, y probablemente a la persona le afecte. Le da aún más anonimidad a la anonimidad de Internet.

En el último post de Anastasia, yo hice un comentario totalmente con un fin gracioso, y un pana (que asumo es la persona a la que alude el comentario) de ella se sintió ofendido. Si la persona como tal (identificándose) hubiese comentado, simplemente le hubiese dicho que era un chiste, y que se tome la vida (y sobre todo, Internet) con más calma, que no sea tan uptight. Pero no, la persona comenta como anónimo.

¡Felicitaciones! ¡Eres un Anonymous Coward!

Update: según estaba leyendo en Wikipedia, en algunos sitios en español utilizan Pobre Pendejo o Pobrecito Hablador para denominar a este tipo de persona.

La maldición del 'formateo'

Yo siempre he sido un carajo bastante minucioso. Tan minucioso que podría pasar como un maniático. Esto no es sin razón, ya que muchas veces me he salvado de cosas malas que me han podido suceder de no haber sido como soy.

Ahora, en el caso de un formateo de disco, siempre de alguna forma termino jodido. Si es en la casa hay algunos saved games que por alguna razón se me olvidaron pasar al backup, o cierta música, en fin, siempre es algo. Pero hoy en el trabajo, cuando tuve que pasar todo de mi laptop vieja a mi laptop nueva [esto ya es tema para otro post que se pudiera resumir con Toshiba Vs. HP...], algo se me olvidaba. Revisé incansablemente (un par de veces todas las carpetas) pero estaba confiado que ya estaba todo. Como efectivamente lo había pasado todo decidí formatear...

Iba a dejar la computadora tal cual me la dieron con el DVD de restauración de Toshiba, pero hice algo que quería hacer desde hace mucho tiempo. Instalarle Windows Vista a la laptop. Siempre había querido porque la laptop es arrecha, tiene una pantalla impresionante, widescreen y con tarjeta de video ATI capaz de soportar WDDM.

Unos minutos más tarde me daría cuenta de que algo no andaría bien, pero sólo en el momento de empezar a instalar el sistema operativo. Mientras trabajaba en mi nueva laptop y leía mis correos me di cuenta de algo cuando fui a archivar uno de los correos que me había llegado. El PST con TODOS mis correos viejos (léase 2 años de correos de trabajo) no lo había respaldado y lo había perdido para siempre, ya que la instalación de Vista había formateado el disco.

12:18 PM me: la cague
Anastasia: que paso?
me: se me olvido pasar el pst... la cague horriblemente
Anastasia: y que pasa
formateaste?
12:19 PM me: si
que horrible.. es una pesadilla
sabia que me faltaba algo
pero no sabia que
12:21 PM Anastasia: pero amigo
no tenias el pst en la pen drive
?
o en tu ogtra maquina
me: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo en la otra tengo el pst, pero no completo... hasta que empece a usar la nueva
12:22 PM ya vengo, voy a suicidarme

Un poco extremista, pero en verdad no pude escapar de la maldición del formateo. En verdad me pareció extraño que Anastasia no se cagara de la risa en el momento (seguramente Jon si lo hubiese hecho).

Ahora, es interesante que en la instalación de Windows Vista no hay una ventana de formatear el disco como en la instalación de Windows XP, y luego de ver la siguiente imagen, recordé unas palabras que salieron en la instalación.

¡En la instalación había dicho algo de Windows.old que no le paré ni media bola! Los directorios Windows.old y Windows.old.000 (*) los grabó el proceso de instalación automáticamente. Dentro de ellos están las carpetas 'Windows' y (mi salvación) 'Documents and Settings'.

La maldición del formateo no pudo conmigo esta vez... Por ahora...


* El segundo backup hecho por la instalación. La primera fue interrumpida por mí con el botón de shutdown a ver si todavía podía loguearme en Windows XP y recuperar el PST, pero eso fracasó.

Monday, April 09, 2007

La intriga de los quesos y el whisky

Esta Semana Santa me fui con mi novia y unos amigos a Punto Fijo, en el Estado Falcón. El viaje en sí fue bien de pinga, y como salimos (y nos regresamos) a las 4 am, fue bastante rápido (quizás también tenga que ver con el cómo manejo). Nos tardamos 7 horas de ida y 6 horas de regreso. Una vez allá estuvimos en playa, piscina, centro comercial (sorta :P), prácticamente hicimos lo que se puede hacer allá (comprar caña a precio de puerto libre, beber caña, comer y sol). Además como nos quedamos en casa de mi novia, comimos buena comida (valga la redundancia) peruana.

En verdad este post no tiene nada que ver con el viaje, pero ya que estaba hablando de él podía escribir alguna guevonada. La razón de este post es una situación que nos sucedió en la vía.

En la carretera en Falcón, no se exactamente en que punto, en uno de los tantos miles de puntos de control de la policía regional nos entregaron un papelito. En seguida Yogi que venía de copiloto dijo 'Burundanga!' y rápidamente se lo pasé a él. Como vio que no me pasó nada, lo leyó y decía:

No compre ni Whisky ni queso que venden en la carretera. Estos son productos de contrabando. Bla bla bla.

En seguida dijimos, que extraño, no hemos visto a... Espera, ahí están... Los carajos estaban vendiendo los productos de contrabando a escasos 100 metros de donde estaba el punto de control.

Ahora, a mi me intriga si es que a los policías les da flojera ir hacia donde están los carajos, o simplemente saben que no van a poder hacer nada para evitar que vendan y lo mejor que pueden hacer es repartir papelitos a los carros que pasan. Que desperdicio de 'oficiales de la ley'.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Apple loses

Why? Because Maddox says so. End of discussion.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Google Talk Gadget

There's going to be a Google Talk Gadget for the Personalized Homepage. I'm using future tense, because as of now, I can't add it, nor find it. Here's the proof from the Official Google Channel on YouTube.

Update: The Google Talk Page has been updated with the info. I have to say that I'm very impressed with the gadget, especially the ability to send YouTube videos; very well integrated.

Friday, March 09, 2007

My HP scanner and Windows Vista

A few days ago I installed Windows Vista without activating, just to take a look at it, and to see if it worked fine in my PC. I must say that it is really amazing, and Aero is absolutely elegant.

So I went on to configure all the peripherals, and the ones that worried me the most were my HP Scanjet 2200c scanner and my EPSON Stylus Color 660 printer. I started with the printer, and I found that on the EPSON site it says this about my printer.

Drivers are included with Windows Vista. Just connect your Epson product to your computer and follow the on-screen instructions that Windows Vista displays to guide you through driver installation.

Now that is amazing. I proceeded to turn the printer on and it recognized it in a second, installed the drivers and everything was fine. Now onto the scanner. I found this jewel on HP's site.

We are sorry to inform you that there will be no Windows Vista support available for your HP product. Therefore your product will not work with Windows Vista.
The majority of HP products not supported in Windows Vista are beyond seven years old.
If you are using the Windows Vista operating system on your computer, please consider upgrading to a newer HP product that is supported on Windows Vista.
HP has numerous products on the market that support Windows Vista

Wow, what a polite way to tell me fuck you cheap bastard, buy a new scanner from us that will only work for a few years because we want more money from you. Even my EPSON printer, which is older, works perfectly on Vista. You know what? I'm gonna go with their suggestion, but I'm going to modify a bit their wording. I'm going to consider upgrading to a newer NOT HP product that is supported on Windows Vista.

/end rant

Monday, March 05, 2007

Quake 3 Defrag

Defrag is an excellent mod for Quake 3. I installed it a while ago, and I've used it sometimes. The thing is that it is based on moving skills, as well as doing rocket jumps, plasma climbing and other tricks that can be performed. Because of this, it is an extremely hard mod, but one that can help you improve your moving skills for CTF captures :) Read more about it at its article at Wikipedia

The purpose of this post is that given the nature of the mod, it is the best for creating movies of amazing tricks. Here my personal top 2 movies. Enjoy.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Ciberatletas.com Q3 Club

Recientemente se creó un club venezolano de Quake 3. Gracias a JimiJaz me enteré y nos dijo para que algunos en la oficina formemos un clan online para jugar ahí. Ya ese clan tiene nombre y es el Sid Vicious Clan (sVc). Se van a realizar torneos de vez en cuando y es una buena opción para obtener mi fix de Quake en la casa.

Ya el primer torneo comienza el jueves. De la página:

Estructura del torneo: Primero es la Etapa de grupos, donde los 16 jugadores son divididos aleatoriamente en 4 grupos de 4 jugadores. Luego, cada jugador deberá jugar un mapa (durante 15min) vs. cada jugador del grupo. Lo que se traduce a 45min de juego. (El mapa a jugar en la etapa de grupos será: pro-q3tourney4). Luego los 2 mejores de cada grupo pasarán a la siguiente fase de eliminacion directa. Para este punto solo quedan 8 jugadores, y jugarán en brackets, 4tos de Final, semi final y Final. A diferencia de la etapa de grupos, en esta fase se jugará a 3 mapas de 15min cada uno. Siendo “Best of 3″, o sea, el que gane 2 de 3 mapas pasa a la siguiente fase, así hasta la final.

Se ve bastante interesante, lo único malo es que me tocó el viernes en la noche (10:30 - 12:10). Bueno ya veremos como va la cuestión.

Por cierto Jon, deberías entrar al club, no es igual que jugar en LAN pero uno hace los ajustes y es de pinga. Aunque ahora recuerdo que tu tienes NetUno, y esa vaina tiene como que 64Kbps (o algo bastante basura) de upstream .

Friday, February 16, 2007

¿La niña prodigio?

Hoy el pana Yogi me mandó un correo con una noticia de El Universal que dice "Estaba en mi casa estudiando y me vino a la cabeza el algoritmo".

Al leerla me pareció muy extraño que algo como la multiplicación tenga un método nunca descubierto durante todos estos miles de años. He aquí la foto del artículo del método perla. Bautizado así por el nombre de la chama. Lo más gracioso es que supuestamente está patentado.

Una transcripción de lo que aparece en la foto con algunas cosas completadas por mi es la siguiente:

Algoritmo Perla
Construcción de la tabla del 27752
27752 x 1 = 27752
27752 x 2 = 27752 + 27752 = 055504
27752 x 3 = 27752 + 55504 = 083256
27752 x 4 = 27752 + 83256 = 111008

Yo no se si ese es el algoritmo perla como tal, pero si es, lo que en él se indica es completamente OBVIO. Yo espero que eso no sea, porque el pana que lo escribió sería un total y completo TONTO.

Actualización: Leyendo el periódico impreso noté que el artículo estaba en primera plana, y junto a la misma foto está el método como tal. He aquí la imagen escaneada.

Esto si tiene más sentido. Que sea práctico es otra cuestión. No entiendo por qué no podían poner eso en el artículo de El Universal Digital.

Monday, January 29, 2007

4th Quake III Tournament

In the office, as usual, we play Quake III at noon. But these three weeks we're having a one on one tournament. Here are the standings. This is just an excuse to use the Google Docs & Spreadsheets option to embed any document to a website. I'm hoping to win this championship. I already defeated fogon and I haven't played with the toughest two: JimiJaz and El Inspector. I remember when this guy (El Insp) wasn't all that good, but now he's my nemesis. I hate the guy and his railgun!

Video LOL

Siempre que exista un Indio cantando y además involucre baile, es un video LOL. Por ahí hay uno del 'primo de Aravind', pero no lo encontré. Este es bueno también.

Via Damn Cool Pics

¿Recuerdan cual era el video del 'primo de Aravind'?

Monday, January 22, 2007

Google Personalized Home Page Feeds Gadgets

I just noticed that the Feeds Gadget on Google Personalized Home Page has changed. Before this, it used to be just a link to the most recent posts (You could edit how many to show). But that wasn't a really good thing. Microsoft's Live.com has had a really great feeds gadget from the start (A la Google Reader gadget). So finally, Google has done something for it, they added a little +/- button to expand the items. You can see both gadgets in the following images. (I've always thought Google designs are ugly, and this confirms it even more).

Of course, if you're serious about reading feeds, you should go for a full fledged feed reader.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Recordando

El pana Jon en su más reciente post recordando un poco a ciertas actrices niñas y viendo si en la actualidad están para darles.

Gracias a eso me puse a buscar una foto más reciente de la pequeña maravilla, pero no encontré sino la misma que tenía Jon. Pero sí conseguí un blog que me llamó la atención, además que tiene un nombre al estilo de del.icio.us. Se llama ¿Te acuerdas de...? y su dirección es te.acuerdas.de

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

El famoso token

Anastasia tiene un excelente post sobre usos alternativos del token.

Para los que no tienen idea, este es un aparato que muestra seis dígitos que cambian pseudo-aleatoriamente cada minuto. La idea es obtener mayor seguridad para el acceso a las aplicaciones corporativas, pero siempre nos hemos preguntado si valía la pena entregar tokens a toda la corporación, ya que probablemente no todos tendrían acceso a estas herramientas, y por ende no lo utilizarían, a menos que sea como llavero "fachón".

Quizás salieron a precio de gallina flaca.

Curiosidades de este realm

Jugando con Google Analytics estaba revisando una sección que se llama Keyword Conversion. En esta sección aparece un gráfico con una lista de búsquedas desde donde las cuáles se ha llegado a la página que está siendo analizada. En este caso, este blog.

Siempre me han parecido curiosas las estadísticas y en este caso son incluso hasta divertidas.

Si se fijan en la imagen, hay un elemento que dice: movil eres un hijo de puta identificacion llamada. ¿Cómo es que alguien entra en mi blog buscando eso en Google. Es más, ¿Cómo es que alguien escribe eso en Google?

Existen misterios en el universo que no están para ser descubiertos.

Technorati tags: ,

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Stephen Colbert on CES and the iPhone

Stephen Colbert is absolutely brilliant :)

Check it out.

Via Kam VedBrat

Friday, January 12, 2007

Internet addiction

You Are 50% Addicted to the Internet
You're somewhat addicted to the internet - but who isn't? You can keep it under check, and you're by no means a hermit.

 

I thought I was going to get a higher score, but I guess there are sicker people than me. How addicted are you?

Technorati tags:

¡Denegado!

Siempre me he imaginado cómo sería trabajar en aquellos departamentos que están encargados de realizar el bloqueo del acceso a Internet, monitoreo de las conexiones o trabajos similares.

Esos carajos están todo el tiempo gozando una bola. El otro día desbloquearon el Messenger, y juro que fue a propósito, es decir, para su entretenimiento personal. Seguro los carajos dijeron: 'vamos a ver cuanta gente desilusionamos cuando lo volvamos a quitar'. Dicho y hecho. Dos días con el messenger, me había acostumbrado y luego ¡PUFF! Lo quitaron. ¡Que ladilla! Ahí estan los carajos cagados de la risa.

Otros que se deben estar riendo son los de Jantesa. Recientemente bloquearon una de las páginas más visitadas de Internet: YouTube. Esos carajos hicieron una fiesta, se reunieron con la gente de seguridad para poder ver a la gente en el momento que bloquean la página y se hicieron sus cotufas para poder cagarse de la risa un buen rato.

Otra cuestión bastante extraña es que en las páginas que CANTV bloqueaba (últimamente no lo he podido reproducir) salía una página por defecto en donde la voz de Quake 3 decía DENIED. Ahora que lo escribo no estoy tan seguro de que fuera así, o que quizás en mi mente la voz decía eso pero no existía ningún sonido. No importa, el hecho es que había un gran DENIED en la pantalla.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Vista's Test Drive sucks (well, I wouldn't know)

I wrote about Test Driving Windows Vista Business, but don't bother if you are 'currently located outside of the available area'. What the hell? I hate it when that happens, but at least they should tell me this before I install the ActiveX control and get all excited about it.

I predict that in the future people outside the US won't be able to do anything. It is the same on some other pages like Google Books, where outside the US you can't the entire content on a lot of the books, or that the product is worthless because of the lack of content (Google Maps).

Cyanide and Happiness

While reading my RSS feeds a while ago, I stumbled on a funny web comic. It has an acid style, which fits perfectly with the type of drawings. I can't remember right now from where I read it, I'll update later with it (or not :P).

Here's the first comic I saw and made me laugh for a while.

Cyanide and Happiness, a daily webcomic
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Monday, January 08, 2007

Test Drive Windows Vista Business

Microsoft has a page for you to test drive Windows Vista without having to install it. It is really bandwidth intensive, so it won't be the same as using the operating system. Oh, and you have to enter with IE6 or later. Go check it out here.

(Via InsideMicrosoft)

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Problems with Google Talk's show current music track and WMP11

Recently, I had some problems showing what I was listening in Windows Media Player 11 with Google Talk. I thought it was the preview version 1.0.0.103, but when I downloaded the new version 1.0.0.104, it wasn't still working. So I went to Google Talk Help Discuss and found a post that had the answer I was looking for, so if you have had this problem, this is what you have to do:

When Windows Media Player or your Windows desktop crashes, Windows Media Player is designed to disable all plug-ins (including the Google Talk music status plug-in). If this happens, the current music track you're playing on Windows Media Player won't show up as your Google Talk's status message.

I know many of you have found the solution to this problem, but for those who haven't found this fix before, all you need to do is re-enable the Google Talk plug-in. Just follow these steps:

1. Open Windows Media Player.

2. From the View menu, select 'Plug-ins' > 'Options...'

3. From the Category section of the Plug-ins tab, select 'Background.'

4. Select the 'Google Talk Music Plugin' checkbox.

5. Click 'OK.'

You'll have to close and restart Windows Media Player for your change to take effect. Happy music status sharing!

Bueno, eso es todo. Si les pasa lo mismo, ya saben qué hacer.

Friday, January 05, 2007

La increíble y triste historia del Pen Drive de Anastasia

Érase una vez una compañera de trabajo (Anastasia) que le prestó su pen drive a otra compañera de trabajo (Ana). Ana se quedó con su pen drive durante mucho tiempo. Uno de los días que se lo fue a devolver, no la encontró en la oficina, así que tuvo que dárselo a otra persona que la viera lo suficiente y en quien pudiera confiar para que fuera devuelto sano y salvo.

Es ahí donde entro yo.

Ana me dio el pen drive de Anastasia, así que lo puse en el bolsillo de mi camisa, con la intención de dárselo al día siguiente. ¿Por qué no lo dejé en la oficina y se lo daba al día siguiente? No se. Esas son cosas que uno se pregunta luego de que sucede un evento importante. El hecho es que tenía el pen drive en mi camisa y me lo llevé a la casa.

Al día siguiente, cuando llegué a la oficina, obviamente vi a Anastasia y me acordé que el pen drive estaba en mi casa. Lo había dejado en el bolsillo de la camisa. Lo primero que pensé fue en llamar a la casa por si acaso les daba por lavar hoy, pero como no había nadie en la casa y generalmente lavan el fin de semana, no me preocupé. Además, Anastasia me había dicho que el pen drive era contra agua.

Obviamente, cuando llego ese día a la casa y voy a la cocina, mi mamá está lavando. Busco entre las cosas que todavía no han sido lavadas, pero no está la camisa. Así que voy hacia la secadora, esperando lo peor, y ahí está la camisa. El problema es que el pen drive no estaba ahí, y tampoco en la secadora. Pregunto: 'Mamá, ¿tu sacaste un pen drive de una camisa?'. Por supuesto su respuesta es 'yo nunca saco nada'. ¡AGH! Voy hacia la lavadora y hurgando entre la ropa encuentro el pen drive en el fondo. Ahí estaba. Desupés de quien sabe cuanto tiempo de lavado con agua y jabón.

Pues esta historia termina feliz, ya que el pen drive termina estando sano y salvo. Pudiera decir que lo hice a propósito para ver si en verdad era contra agua.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

My current desktop

Recently I've been bored with my desktop. I was using Pgase's Luna Royale visual style for Windows, which is really excellent. It will be the default visual style for the next version of XPize, which is also a great program (and a must IMO). If you want to install non-Microsoft visual styles, you have to patch a certain file, but with XPize it's done automatically, so no extra effort needed.

Well, as I was saying, I was browsing Deviantart and stumbled with some great visual styles with the Vista look, so I downloaded them. In my opinion, the best of the ones I tried is YAFVC3 1.5 Update by ~RoTKiv. It includes some very nice stuff, but too bad the program that makes the Taskbar & Start Menu transparent doesn't work in non-English Windows.

Here are some screenshots of it. By the way, the wallpaper is one of the VistaC Wallpaper Pack v1.0 by ~sahtel08

Plain desktop. Google Desktop Sidebar.

The Explorer window is themed with Styler. And it also has the Explorer Breadcrumbs Toolbar.

IE7 in the background and Firefox with a theme that resembles (a bit) IE7. I think I'll change it later, but I thought it'd look cool for the screenshot.

Windows Vista style Start Menu in Windows XP :) (some edits needed in explorer.exe). That search doesn't work, it's just an image :(

Friday, December 15, 2006

Murga Uruguaya con Chávez como personaje

El grupo Agárrate Catalina de Murga Uruguaya canta sobre Chávez. Me pareció bastante divertido, véanlo.

Para todos los que se acaban de enterar que la palabra Murga existe (como yo :)) pueden ver su significado en Wikipedia

La murga uruguaya es un género teatral-musical que consiste en un coro de unas 13 a 15 personas, que, acompañados por una "batería de murga" integrada por: bombo, platillos y redoblante; entona canciones y realiza cuadros musicales (con personajes y línea argumental) donde la temática principal ronda alrededor de los acontecimientos salientes del año, con crítica política y social.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Intercable y su limitación

Así como lo había notado yo hace unos meses, otras personas también lo han notado.

Intercable ofrece un plan de acceso a Internet ilimitado de una velocidad de 1024 Kbps (con 128 Kbps de subida). Esta publicidad es engañosa, ya que resulta que ellos te limitan la velocidad en ciertos puertos que no son los utilizados por HTTP, por ejemplo, los puertos utilizados por aplicaciones P2P. Si bien muchos de los archivos que los usuarios comparten no son legales, esta limitación no está en el contrato.

Quizás la limitación no me molestara tanto si fuera poca, pero es que no hay punto de comparación entre 100KB/s y 4KB/s. Esta segunda es prácticamente la velocidad que había en 1999 cuando la gente bajaba canciones en Napster.

El pana Yogi me mandó una página bien-llamada Interestafa que me parece es de interés para todos los usuarios de Intercable. Hay que hacerse escuchar, no puede ser que esto suceda impunemente. Ya mismo voy a llamar a quejarme en Intercable.

El otro punto que quería hacer con este post es que lo más probable será que me cambie a ABA de CANTV. En verdad la desición es bastante sencilla. Estoy harto de quejarme con Intercable en cuanto a las velocidades de P2P y que me peloteen de aquí para allá, que me digan que ellos sólo aseguran la velocidad de navegación, etc. etc. Son unos carajos poco serios, o bien vivos.

La otra razón por la que me cambiaré es que CANTV está realizando un plan de migración donde la velocidad más baja será 1024 Kbps (¡con 512 Kbps de subida!).

Thursday, December 07, 2006

How to act Smarter than you are

I just read an excellent post by Scott Adams about how to act smarter than you are. First you have to wear glasses (Anastasia already seems smarter than a few months back), then you have to stop talking too much, or people will notice that you don't know as much as you appear. Also, you have to agree with everyone, that way you seem to be as smart as the guy that you are talking with, but smarter because you said a brainy word. And that is another point. You have to know a few brainy words that only appear in respected publications.

Read the whole thing here.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Meebo Me

I had heard about this a while ago, but I never got into trying it out. And I have to say that I'm very amazed.

It is a widget you can embed on any Webpage, and if you're logged in at Meebo you can chat with any user that logs into your page, and they can chat back with you.

When a user logs into the page, he can set the username they want and then chat with you. This is what you would see in Meebo's page.


By the way, if you haven't tried Meebo, you should do it right now. You can log into your Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN/Windows Live Messenger and AIM accounts in the same page and at the same time.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

New Ayreon album coming!

Well, a friend and a fellow Ayreon fan just gave me a link to Arjen Lucassen's site, where the most recent headline says that there's a new Ayreon album in the works!

He has been in his studio nearly every day (and night) since then, getting the ideas translated into songs. The musical ideas are so extremely varied that only one project could possibly hold them all: Ayreon.
Well, the least I can say is that I'm very excited, given the fact that The Human Equation was an incredible album with one of my favorite singers: Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth. I'm looking forward for the next singers!

Check out Ayreon if you have the chance. It rocks!

Friday, November 24, 2006

La flojera y la indiferencia... Y la estupidez

En CANTV Los Cortijos 1 existen unas escaleras de emergencia que se les puede acceder desde adentro de las oficinas. ¿Que quiero decir con esto? Cuando uno quiere usar las escaleras no es necesario pasar por las puertas de vidrio que se activan con el carnet.

Ejemplos de uso de estas escaleras

  1. Se me quedó el carnet y quiero movilizarme por el edificio fácilmente.
  2. Voy al baño y lo están limpiando. Como las escaleras quedan al lado de éste, sencillamente me voy para otro piso por ellas.
  3. Los ascensores tardan en llegar y quiero entrar directamente a las oficinas.
  4. Soy un espía y quiero entrar directamente a las oficinas.

En todo caso, resulta que esas escaleras sólo deberían usarse para emergencias (la estomacal no incluída) al estilo de incendio, terremoto, ataque terrorista, etc. Por lo que se instaló un dispositivo de seguridad o 'alarma' que molestará a todas las personas del edificio con un tono agudo repetitivo por unos cuantos segundos cada vez que se abra la puerta de la escalera de seguridad. ¡Ah! También será avisado el personal de seguridad que podrán revisar las cámaras si no hay nada mejor que ver. Eso es diversión para ellos, por lo que está encouraged.

Como pudiera predecir cualquier animal, el día que colocaron el dispositivo (y se avisó que se iba a colocar desde hacía unas semanas) comenzaron a abrir la puerta. Todo el día sonando el pito, y si las personas son como Homero o Bart no iban a aprender sólo por el pito, habría que decirles y enseñarles y entrenarlos (con influencias no sonoras) sobre el correcto no uso de la puerta de emergencia.

Es por esto que se decidió hacer lo que se haría cualquier otro lugar. Colocar un papelito que te diga no abrir la puerta. Este papelito era una hoja rayada escrita a lapiz con una letra más fea que la de Nanu (chiste interno), y eso es decir bastante. Pero no teman, eso pronto se sustituyó por esto.


Igual no crean que eso detuvo a la gente. Si piensan lo contrario es que no conocen a la flojera, la indiferencia y la estupidez. La gente siguió abriendo la puerta sea la razón que fuera.

La razón de escribir esto no fue todo lo antes mencionado (aunque debería haber sido suficiente). Mi razón es algo que sucedió hoy. Resulta que un par de personas que iban pasando por ahí iban a ir a otro piso, pero la puerta de vidrio que está al lado de las escaleras de emergencia la estaban arreglando (no podían pasar por esa puerta). Lo que me inagino dijeron fue lo siguiente:
  • Individuo 1: ¡Uy que fastidio! Vamos a tener que caminar 15 metros hacia la puerta más cercana.
  • Individuo 2: Queeeeee... ¡Ah! Pero si aquí al lado está la puerta de la escalera que suena a cada rato con un mensaje que no se use sino para emergencias... ¡Esto es una emergencia!
  • Individuo 1: ¡Excelente!

No hace falta tener 5 dedos de frente para saber que la alarma sonó. El razonamiento de estos índividuos probablemente les llevó a pensar que sólo sonaría por 10 segundos y ya... Pero resulta que nunca dejó de sonar. Estuvo la alarma sonando por lo menos 15 minutos (que pareció una eternidad). Y eso me llevó a escribir esto. La gente es sencillamente estúpida. Les dicen que no hagan algo, les muestran razones por lo cuál no deben hacerlo, les dan señales visibles y audibles de que algo está mal, y siguen haciéndolo. Fuck the people.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Skype joins the Google Pack?


Yep. It's strange. I have no idea since when this is happening, but Google is promoting the use of Skype when you download the Google Pack (A free collection of essential software).

Bearing in mind that Google has its own voice communication product (Google Talk) it seems like an odd strategy to promote your main competitor's product. But they have hinted this behaviour. Check out a post from the Google Talk Official Blog that is called Talking with Skype

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Microsoft Virtual Earth goes 3D

A view from Seattle


A view from the famous Space Needle in Seattle


If you visit Microsoft Virtual Earth in IE you will see a new option. 3D view. Well, this view is enabled in some US cities. More info at Inside Microsoft.

I just noticed I have the same post title...

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Windows Media Player 11 Released


Now these guys do know how to make a release. While IE7 was made available only in English at launch day, WMP11 is available in several languages (including Spanish). What they did mess up is the big banner you follow for the download to start. The text is in German (I'm assuming) and it should be in Spanish.

You should get it (Spanish). Awesome media player.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Spazio Digitel from HELL

El sábado fui con mi papá a el Spazio Digitel del C.C.C.T. para hacer un traspaso de la cuenta para que esté a mi nombre y poder realizar los pagos con mi tarjeta de crédito en vez de con la suya. Poco sabía yo lo que iba a suceder.

Primero llegamos como a las 11:15 am para el Spaizo. Ahí haces una pequeña cola para agarrar un ticket. Decía 13 clientes en espera (era el 433) y la chama me dice que en dos horas aproximadamente. Le digo que no hay problema y nos vamos a pasear por ahí. Estuvimos un raaaato largo en Tecni-Ciencia leyendo guevonadas, caminando, lo usual. Fui a las maquinitas un rato pero me dio ladilla gastar dinero y luego como a la 1:15 voy a ver como está la cola. Iban por el 427.

Ahora déjenme explicarles el maravilloso sistema de Digitel. Existen 14 'ventanas' para atender a los clientes. De estas 14 ventanas sólo hay 7 con personal atendiendo. Ahora, aproximadamente la mitad de estas personas está aprendiendo, por lo que sólo 2 o 3 son expertos en el soporte, y siempre están ayudando al resto (a cada rato les preguntan, por lo que tienen que parar lo que hacen y responderle a los nuevos). Estas ventanas atienden a 3 distintas series de casos (del 200 al 299, del 300 al 399 y del 400 al 599) y generalmente se realizan pagos. Ahora, los pagos no se pueden hacer en estas ventanas, existen 2 ventanas para pagar, llamémoslas taquillas. De estas taquillas sólo funciona 1. Claro, estas taquillas no sólo están para las personas del 200 al 599, sino que existe otra serie del 600 al 699 que utiliza estas taquillas, mas no las ventanas de soporte. Ahora viene la parte 'graciosa'. Cuando a un cliente lo mandan para la taquilla, la ventana queda inhabilitada, es decir, no atienden a más nadie hasta que el cliente regrese de la taquilla. Si mandan a varias personas a la vez a las taquillas ¿qué creen que sucede? ... LA ESPERA SE HACE MALDITAMENTE ETERNA. Pero eso no es todo, los carajos como a la 1:30 se empiezan a ir en cambote a almorzar, por lo que sólo quedan 4 taquillas de 14. 4/14.

Bueno, ya después de esto se imaginan la hora que me vinieron a atender. Supuestamente deberían haberme atendido a la 1:30 y me terminaron atendiendo a las 2:30. Y para más colmo me toca una chama que NO SABE NADA, TIENE QUE PREGUNTARLE A OTRA CHAMA TODO LO QUE HACE. Y por supuesto esto no termina aquí. Resulta ser que para completar la operación que fui a hacer necesita hacer algo un departamento ahí de Digitel que NO TRABAJA LOS SÁBADOS. Ah por cierto, salí de ahí a las 3:30 (4 horas de mi vida perdidas).

¡Qué maravilla! Tengo que volver a ir a ese INFIERNO de lugar llamado Spazio Digitel para terminar lo que fui a hacer.

MALDITA SEA LA ATENCIÓN AL CLIENTE DE DIGITEL

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Virus en la red de CANTV

Se identificó el Virus que atacó a un montón de máquinas en CANTV como el W32.XTC y supuestamente se previene con la Actualización de seguridad para Windows XP KB921883. Esta se instaló en mi máquina el 9 de Agosto de 2006. ¿Cómo es posible que esta actualización tan antigua no haya sido instalada automáticamente en las máquinas de la red Corporativa?

*Sigh*

Menos mal que yo estoy al día con las actualizaciones.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Internet Explorer 7 has finally arrived... in English


I'll wait for the Spanish version to come out to upgrade to it.

I've used the RC versions and I have to say it is a very much needed update. It probably won't make me switch back (Get Firefox!) but it is nice to have some competition again.

You should give IE7 a try. It will also be available through Windows automatic updates.

Oh, and I forgot, it is only for Windows XP and Server 2003.

Update: from the IE7 Worlwide Site: 'Internet Explorer 7 is now available in Finnish, German, Japanese, and Spanish. To download Internet Explorer 7 in one of these languages, visit a worldwide download page'. The funny thing is that in the Spanish IE7 site I can only download RC1 version.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Bubble 2.0?

For those of you wondering what Bubble means, check it out on wikipedia: Bubble (economics)

It happened with the 'dot coms' and there could by signs of happening again in all the Web 2.0 hype. Check these:

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Obnoxious error message


Well, I have the new testing version of Google Talk (1.0.0.98) and whenever I turn on my laptop without a connection I get that MessageBox. I hope it stays on the testing versions and doesn't get released for final versions.

Monday, October 02, 2006

You should read these!

Recently, a friend from work started her blog (in Spanish). She's really fun, and a bit strange ;) You should check it out (Vanessita en la Luna). While you're at it, you should also check out a mutual friend's blog (Si no queda otro remedio). Have fun!

(What a crappy blog this is in comparison :D)

Monday, July 10, 2006

Apple ads

I'm guessing that you hace seen the Apple ads by now. If not, go here then. I'm no fan of Apple, and I'm less fan of their attitude. I agree that the ads are very well targeted to the normal user and could fool a lot of people, but what I think of them is very well put by two sources. Tim Buckley with his excellent Ctrl-Alt-Delete comic has strip about them. And today I saw another excellent parody at Nathan Weinberg's Inside Microsoft Blog. It's an embedded video. If embedding doesn't work, go here.

Cheers.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Lots of new places!


I recently saw that there was a new version for Google Earth, so I wanted to check it out if new places had arrived. My surprise is that now I can see the building I live on, and there are plenty of other places inside Venezuela. Puerto La Cruz, Barcelona, Margarita, Punto Fijo, Valencia, and a lot of others. On top there is a screenshot of the Dunes resort in Margarita Island. It's nice.

Oh, and I installed Ubuntu Dapper at home, just to get the hang of Linux. It's nice, but I'm definitely not convinced. More on that later... Or not...

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Testing the new Office 2007

I decided to download the Microsoft Office 2007 Beta 2. Let me tell you that it is incredibly elegant and way, way more superior tan the previous products. How I hope I could have the Money to spend on an Office product (for home use).

If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a shot. It’s definitely worth it.

Actually, this post was created with Word 2007 and uploaded into the blog. It’s a new feature, and very Handy. I’ll even add a screenshot.

Edit: the image didn't upload itself, so I had to do it manually. I still have to figure that out.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Angra & The Rudess Morgenstein Project

I just got home from Angra's concert tonight. As always (in concerts in Venezuela), the sound isn't perfect, and usually sucks in the first songs, but later it recovers. Angra gave a great performance of near two hours, and I enjoyed it a lot. But as a prog-head that I am, I enjoyed Rudess a hell lot more.

Jordan is simply God among all keyboard players, and he performed flawlessly (that I could hear) tonight. Some great music he played with Rod Morgenstein, who was dripping wet at the end. Here's a song they played. Enjoy!

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Gmail Chat belongs to All Mail?

Certainly not.

Let's be clear, I love Gmail Chat... BUT... I just clicked All Mail and I see all my chats there... That's not cool... That's not even a nice feature... It's 'All Mail', it doesn't say chat there... Damn it...

Friday, March 17, 2006

Sending big files

I had been using YouSendIt to send big files over the internet (RAR'ed albums mostly), and I was happy for a while. But then I noticed it was crap. You had no way of knowing how much you had uploaded and usually the transfer ended in an error, so I had to start all over again.

The best thing that happened to me was finding out about SendSpace which is a sort of clone of yousendit, but way better than it (not sure which one is which's clone). You have a meter to know how the transfer is going, complete with transfer rate and estimated time (besides %)

So there you go... Use SendSpace if you need to transfer something bigger for email. Up to 1.3GB!

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Bored at home

Well, without computer at home it would have been worse, thank God my dad brought his computer over the (long) weekend.

First let me tell you about the long weekend. In my country we celebrate Carnival. Not like in Brazil, but still we celebrate that we don't go to school or work. One way people celebrate it over here is throwing eggs, water balloons and other stuff to passerbies, cars or whatever it seems like fun. So don't try to walk on an empty street and if you're in your car, be sure to keep your windows up. This is the most fun when you're a kid of course, when you're an adult you become a lot less fun and bitter, or maybe that's just me.

About the computer... Well, I'm still not sure what's wrong with it, if it's the power supply or the processor. I left it with someone to check it out, but I guess I'll have to wait until Wednesday when everyone gets back to work. One thing I know from sure is that I'm not going to put the PC on the same spot it was, because it's way too small and gathers a lot of heat.

I wanted to talk about my day a little, I am too bored to not talk about it. I woke up and searched for my dad's laptop. Good thing he brought it, and when I wanted to log on Valheru, the site was down... What a surprise, when I have nothing better to do, it's always down. So I'm way too bored to make me some food and I just ate bread with nothing else. I went to the barber shop and when I got back I was hoping Valheru to be back up, but it seems that the destiny is not on my side today, so I just went to the fridge and got onto drinking beer. My count is 3 beers until now, and I've been chatting on MSN, playing Sudoku and just having a boring time in Hot Or Not.

I think I'm going out to Burger King before I die or something. Later.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Crap

As a friend well put it: 'Your computer had a fever and you told it STFU!'.

That's what happened to me last night. So now I have to find out what burnt. My best hope is the Power Supply. I hope everything else is fine.

Sigh.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

FIFA World Cup 2006

Today I got an email from a friend about a nifty program made in MS Excel. It's basically a 'multi-language automatized scheduler' for the World Cup.

It's a very nice program made by a Salvadorean. Visit his site in English or Spanish.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Birthday

Today's my birthday. Nothing much has happened, other than I went to eat on a fancy restaurant with my parents. The food was awesome, and I got to stay some time off work :)

Later I guess the usual suspects will go to my house and we'll just talk and drink and stuff. If you're one of the usual suspects (which I doubt), and see this before we get together (which I doubt) then I'll see you there.

Later...

Monday, January 16, 2006

The Dilbert Blog

My friend Guille just made me aware of a really cool blog to read. It's called The Dilbert Blog, and it's written by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert (surprise!). I recommend it for a funny read, especially if you like intelligent humour. Go have a read!

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Constant change

I've been away from blogging for a while now, because I really didn't feel like writing anything. The holidays passed, good and bad things happened, and the year is over. And I didn't have any vacation because I still don't have a full year working with the company.

But mainly, the reason I'm writing this post is to get the hang of it again. It's a good habit to write in a foreign language also (even if noone reads it).

I recently got pushed to create a MySpace account (you can check it here) and started looking into HTML and CSS. So I changed the look of this page, and it will probably undergo a few more changes (Blogger is easy to customize through CSS compared to MySpace... and MySpace's layout is horrible).

Well, that's it for now. I'll write later.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Tomorrow @ 8...

...is the Dream Theater concert!

I've been listening to the whole discography... I'll probably write a short review after the concert :)

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

I have a new cell phone!


When I wrote about the ringtones I did it on purpose, because I knew I was close on getting another cell phone. I got a Nokia 2600, and I think it's very good, and one of the reasons I bought it was that it has a ringtone composer. When I first started trying the phone (after buying it and at home) I couldn't find the composer, and begun to panic. I even desisted from trying to find it and I was a bit left down, but I guessed that the rest of the phone was good enough for me. Lucky me, while I was at Diego's house trying the phone, I found the best feature.... the composer!

I'll write a small comparison between the 2600 and the 3310. I'll only write about the stuff I care.

    Things the 2600 has and the 3310 doesn't:
  • Smaller and lighter (but not way too much).
  • Polyphonic ringtones.
  • Color display (only 4096 colors).
  • The battery runs for longer periods of time.
  • It has a memory of 200 phones apart from the SIM card memory.
  • SMS counter. This way I can control myself.
    Things that they have in common:
  • Single button navigation (no SEND or END buttons).
  • Ringtone composer (yeah!).
  • Navigation very much alike.
    Things I preferred from the 3310
  • The buttons were separate and easier to use. On the 2600 they are too close from each other, thus easier to mistouch them.
  • As with every color display, they can't be seen too well on the sun when lit up, and when they turn off, you can barely see the date and time that's displayed; most of the time you can't see anything.
  • It had the best game ever. Snake 2. Actually I liked the first version more, but Snake still rules.
I'm sure there are other things (better and worse) that I will discover, but these are the basics from 2 day using it. A ringtone composer is almost all I need. I don't need GPRS, EDGE, data transfer, Internet, mp3 (but it would be nice to have an mp3 ringtone), digital camera... Just give me a basic phone with a ringtone composer, and not the shitty composer on some Motorola's, on which you 'create' a ringtone by combining different already made rythms and melodies.


My cell phone history is like this (I'm almost sure of the years):
Nokia 2110 (1999 - 2000), Nokia 5110 (2000 - 2002), Motorola Talkabout T2288 (piece of shit, I'm never buying a Motorola ever again) (2002 - 2003), Nokia 3310 (2003 - 2005), Nokia 2600 (just bought it). I was going to post a picture of it, but the sizes wouldn't be accurate next to each other.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Dream Theater Ringtones


As the date for the concert keeps coming closer and closer I get more anxious with every passing moment, so I'm posting some self made Dream Theater ringtones.

I own a Nokia 3310, and it has a ringtone composer (which is one of the reasons I bought the cellphone, being a musician and all) included. I created some nice tunes, not full songs because there's a limit of 50 notes, but they're good enough to make a catchy part of a song.

I have ringtones of different bands including Dream Theater, Pain Of Salvation, Transatlantic, Opeth and John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess. I'm gonna post the Dream Theater ones because I have a lot of those, and they're the best (In my opinion).

If you own a Nokia cell phone with a ringtone composer you should know what to press to obtain what I'm writing. If you don't know, then let me know and I'll add the keypresses. If you own a cellphone that's not Nokia let me know and I'll help if you need. Not that anyone will be reading this, but still, you never know.

  1. The Dance Of Eternity (1)
  2. 16e3 16b2 16e2 16#d3 16g2 16e2 16- 16d3 16#c3 16e2 16c3 16b2 16e2 16#a2 16a2 16#f2 16g2 16#d2 16e2 16#f2 16g2 16b2 16#f3 16g3 16e3 16#a2 16e3 16#a2 16a2 16e3 16g2 16#f2 16e3 16b2 16e2 16#d3 16b2 16e2 16- 16d3 16#c3 16e2 16c3 16b2 16e2 16#a2 16g2 16#f2 8e2

  3. The Dance Of Eternity (2)
  4. 16g1 16#g1 16#a1 16c2 16d2 16#d2 16d2 16c2 16d2 16g1 16b1 16d2 16f2 16g2 16g1 16d2 16f2 16g1 16#g1 16d2 16#d2 16f2 16#d2 16d2 16#d2 16g1 16#d2 16d2 16c2 16g1 16f1 16d1

  5. The Dance Of Eternity (3)
  6. 8a1 16g1 16f1 8e1 16a1 8b1 16g1 8e1 16e1 16g1 16f1 16e1 8a1 16g1 16f1 8e1 16b1 8c2 16f1 8e1 16d2 16e2 16d2 16e2 8a1 16g1 16f1 8e1 16a1 8b1 16g1 8e1 16e1 16g1 16f1 16e1 16- 16a1 8b1 16f1 8e1 16d2 8e2 16f2 8e2

  7. About To Crash
  8. 8#g1 8a1 8b1 4d2 8#c2 8b1 4a1 16b1 16#c2 2b1 8e1 8#f1 8#g1 4a1 4#g1 4#f1 8e1 2e1 8#g1 8a1 8b1 4d2 8e2 8#f2 4e2 16#c2 16a1 2b1 8e1 8#f1 8#g1 4a1 8d2 8#c2 8b1 8a1 8#g1 8#f1 8#g1 2e1

  9. A Change Of Seasons
  10. 8b1 8#c2 8b1 8#f1 8d2 8#c2 8b1 8#f1 8#g1 8b1 8e2 8b1 8f1 8b1 8f2 8#c2 8b1 8#c2 8b1 8#f1 8d2 8#c2 8b1 8#f1 4#g1 4d2 4g1 4d2

  11. Honor Thy Father
  12. 8#f1 8f1 8#d1 8#a1 8#d1 8f1 8#f1 8#g1 8#a1 32.#f1 32.#g1 32#f1 8f1 8#d1 8#f1 8f1 8#d1 8a1 8#d1 8f1 8#f1 8#g1 8#d1 8f1 8a1 8#g1 8#f1 8#c2 8#f1 8#g1 8a1 8b1 8#c2 32.a1 32.b1 32a1 8#g1 8#f1 8a1 8#g1 8#f1 8c2 8#f1 8#g1 8a1 8#g1 8a1 4#f1 4#d1
Perhaps I'll post the others some other time.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Domino

I went to play domino with my co-workers. Jon and I won 4 times and left unbeaten. In the first game we beat Wilson and Ronald, and the game was 93 - 37 to their favour at one point. In all the games we caught up in the score coming from behind, it was a great night. Funny thing is that Wilson was saying "I don't want any crying", but I guess he was referring to himself, because we didn't lose :)

It was a great night, and a lot of fun. I'm gonna search for some rules on dominoes to post them here. Or at least the rules of the game we play here in Venezuela using the dominoes.

Monday, October 31, 2005

Weekend in the middle of the week

I'm gonna cheat in this post and pretend I did it on Monday and then pretend that I updated it on Wednesday.

So I was working today just like I always do (playing Kung Fu Chess with my coworkers) and suddenly a turmoil starts to happen. Rumors that the Seniat (a sort of IRS over here) is closing the company for the next 48 hours started to come and go throughout the office. So I went to my boss and asked him what was happening, and finally after half an hour of finding out, I was told that I didn't have to come to work on Tuesday and Wednesday. So, I had a special weekend in the middle of the week!

That alone made my day in a selfish kind of way (it's bad for the company, but not bad for me). So I'm going to go and enjoy these days playing F.E.A.R., Kung Fu Chess and Sumo Volleyball, and of course, watching TV. And maybe a little Valheru here and there, I always like to go and talk to friends.

Update:

It's Wednesday, and my boss called me and said that we didn't have to work tomorrow. The Seniat added 24 hours because some people infringed the order and went to work (yeah I know, who would do that?). But well, I'm happy again for the same selfish reasons.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Home alone

Last Friday my parents went on vacation for a week. In fact, this update took me so long that my parents are already here, and I'm doing it in a different way. I planned to make a review of each day, but I'm starting to forget what I did some days, so I'll go with the highlights.

  • Friday 14th: First day without my parents. I went to work, and afterwards went home. Cusi arrived with a couple of movies (The Cube 2 and another one that we didn't watch). The guys at the office had planned something for the night because one of our Colombian friends' (Carlos) contract with the company finished.
    We went to the San Ignacio Mall to a place called Gusanos & Ranas (Worms & Frogs). It was a group of about 20 people; we occupied like 5 tables and the place was full. The Indian friends from the office tried the Tequila and of course they liked it! I didn't drink a shot myself, and afterwards I was thankful I didn't: each shot cost Bs. 10.000, which is very expensive, trust me. That's the price of a full bottle of Rum. Aftwerwards we went home, and I drove like a maniac (I was almost pissing on my pants because the bathrooms at the mall were closed). Cusi stayed over for the whole week, so that was fun. Plus she cooked a few times and I took some food to work, so I didn't have to spend money on food.

  • Saturday 15th: I planned to fix my left rear view mirror, cut my hair, go and get my graduation photos and wash my car. I did nothing. At night I got together with the guys and just drank beer and talked.

  • All the other days (except for the last one) I went to work and then go home and wait for Cusi to watch TV... We're currently following Nip/Tuck season 2 and Prison Break. Very good TV. Still waiting for 24 season 5 and Lost season 2 to arrive over here (Venezuela), but my guess is that they will come some time in March.

  • Friday 21st: We went to a party at the Cubo Negro (Black Cube). It was a party commemorating the 200 years of Johny Walker Red Label, it was really good, I'll see if I can post a link to some photos.

  • Saturday 22nd: Last day. I did almost everything I intended to do last Saturday but getting a hair cut and washing my car. I also bought a mouse for Cusi's laptop and a fan cooler for my PC (it's on a closed space and it gets really hot when I play).
    Yogi came to help me change my rear view mirror... It was an Odissey. First we didn't have the necessary tool to get the screws off, so we went to buy one. One of the stores was closed and the other one didn't have any of the size needed. So we went to Yogi's place to see if he had one, which he didn't. So we decided to buy some beers and go home, but on the way back Yogi suggested we go to my grandmother's house (there's a workshop there) to see if we could find the tool. There was one that worked, but not too well, but we decided to take our chances. At the end almost everything went ok except for the last screw which we couldn't finish putting because the tool was being damaged by the head. But it was good enough... Better than nothing.
    Later that night I invited the guys over and Nanu, Diego, Yogi and me played Civilization the Board Game until 3:30 am. Very entertaining, we can't wait to play again!
That was it. On Sunday my parents arrived late at night, and I went to Francisco's house to play Risk: Lord of the Rings. Very good and different from Risk. Evil won this time (Francisco & Cusi), but we'll see next time what happens. Now there are two games I want to play again!

I think some of this post may feel uninspired, because I didn't have the fresh memories of the days... Oh well, until next time.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Updating soon

I've been busy this week, and haven't had the chance to update you with my life. Not like you care or anything.
I'm working on a post called home alone. I wasn't exactly alone this week, but my parents weren't there.

Monday, October 10, 2005

My sister in Belgium

She's been there since August. I really miss her, but lately we've been seeing each other through webcams, and a friend over there posts pictures frequently. So as a reminder of the site, I'll link through here, and you can check it out if you want.

http://helebelgique.skyblog.com/

Río Chico

Well, I had a nice weekend at the beach. On Friday after work I went out with my colleagues (I won't say where to avoid problems, I may erase this parenthesis later :P). We were all drinking whiskey, and I had to go to my girlfriend's (Cusi) sister (Maribel) house at 5 am. So we drank a Buchanan's 12 between 5 people, and I arrived home at 2:20 am. I put everything I was going to take into my suitcase, put the alarm clock at 4:40 am and went to sleep.

I woke up from a familiar sound, it was my cellphone ringing. I desperately get up and see that Cusi is calling me, and I check the time... It's 5:20 am... I had overslept. So I get the call and she asks me what happened, I tell her that I was sleeping and didn't know what happened to the alarm clock (I still don't know). So I woke up, get everything and go out, but before I brush my teeth, to disguise my firebreath from the night before.

The minute I arrive at Maribel's house the first thing Cusi tells me is: "You smell like drunk!". Yeah, it's impossible to disguise it. I felt bad... not for her, but because I was going with Cusi, Maribel and her husband (Francisco). Well, I just apologized for my stench and we left. It was no problem that I had overslept, because they had also. And we parted in Francisco's SUV.

So we arrived. I slept through the whole one and a half hours. We got to Francisco's uncle's apartment at Rio Chico - a beach town. It has one bedroom, air conditioner, and DirecTV. You could almost stay inside the whole day. Then we went to have a breakfast by the pool. We had some arepas and afterwards to the pool! Cusi and Maribel where sun tanning, and I went inside the pool. It was really great, a long time since I went inside one. And it's great to forget all about work.

Maribel and Francisco went to get some beers and after they arrived they came inside the pool. After we got bored (and the sun was too hot) we played Rummikub and drank some beers. And that was basically what we did every day. Eat chips and doritos, swim in the pool, play Rummikub and Citadel, watch TV, eat food and drink lots of beers.

The only bad thing is that I got sunburnt on my shoulders. But taking that aside it was a great trip. Yogi, I hope you get good grades on your oncoming tests, because if not, you could have come :P

That's all for now...

Monday, October 03, 2005

First personal post

Copying from my friend Yogi, I'm gonna write my first personal post. What I have been writing before are my interests, now I'm actually writing what has happened to me.

Yesterday was the 'end of the world' movies day. I saw in order: Armageddon, Independence Day, The Core and at night there was a film in a venezuelan channel called End Of The World, or something like that. It was really strange, it seemed like an Brit movie. It starts with a TV program about the end of the world, and then the credits appear and a clock turns to 7:00 and a guy wakes up... When he gets out of the building you can see the name of the movie going on outside a theater... Groundhog Day... So the thing is that this guy wakes up every day and the world is ending in different ways, the guy doesn't even notice and I got bored and went to sleep, so can't tell you how it ends.

Today is my girlfriend's birthday. I'll probably take her to eat somewhere and I'll buy some jewelry to her.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Happy Birthday Google

Picture taken from the Google front page.

Seven years now. Now everyone is watching them closely to see what innovation they bring next. Congratulations Google.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Dolphins are evil

As my friend Yogi said, Dolphins are evil, and imagine them with weapons!
The story found in Slashdot says 'Armed Dolphins Released into Gulf of Mexico'. To quote some of the article.

Military trained dolphins may have been released into the wild by the Hurricane's devastation. (...) Experts who have studied the U.S. navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns
Scary eh?

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Amazing

Advent Children was amazing.
The animation is incredible, flawless. The characters move in a very real way, and the textures, lighting, and the rest of the effects are very well done.
The fight scenes are jawdropping, and very well directed as well.
The music is also great, I loved the part when Tifa fights, and the music starts... It's the one from Piano Collections CD! I play that same tune in piano! (well, part of it). And the rest of the music is very metal, so I loved it.
Oh, and I'm in love with Tifa!
Yeah, to wrap this up, you gotta check that movie out. It is mostly action, but the story is deep (you gotta have some background on the game to fully understand it). 100 minutes of great animation.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

FFVII Advent Children

I just watched the first 6 minutes of the movie and it looks incredible! The animations are just superb! I'll watch it at Yogi or Guille's house with a big monitor (or TV). Can't wait guys!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Caracas on Google Earth

The quality on Google Earth is not very good (as I expected), but it was put online before than I thought. In the picture above you can see at the center a large green area. That's the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, the biggest university in the country. It has also a pair of stadiums, one of baseball and one of football. North west from the university you can see a black area called Parque Central, or Central Park. These two buildings are the tallest buildings in South America since 1979, you can see a picture of one of them below.

That was the glorious past of the building. Last year there was a fire that lasted for more than 19 hours and destroyed a lot of the building. A sad view is left on Caracas. Watch for yourself.


Monday, September 19, 2005

GameFAQs Character Battle over

<sarcasm>
Wow, I'm in shock, Mario won...
</sarcasm>

I'm tired of all the Nintendo characters winning over at the GameFAQs character battles. Let's give an example on this year's competition. Kirby vs. Tidus. How the hell is that pink ball going to beat Tidus? Zelda vs. Vivi. Come on! Zelda is always being kidnapped! She can't do anything on her own, let alone kill Master Vivi! And finally Mario vs. Crono. Crono is one of the coolest characters ever in a videogame. He can definitely kick some plumber ass. Maybe I'm just more inclined at Squaresoft's chars...

Well, take a look at the bracket here, and see for yourself how Nintendo's characters impossibly win some fights.

To be fair, Mario hasn't won yet, but he will, trust me. Now let's hope that either Cloud or Sephiroth can kick Link and Mario's asses in the Champion's Bracket.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

I have it!


Well, finally I have the ticket for the concert. Actually it's a voucher to collect the ticket later in December. But it's definitive!

The previous big concert (and the only one) was seeing Roger Waters live a few years ago, so I'm quite eager to see Dream Theater live. The only thing that won't be that good is listening to LaBrie's shrieks, but it's worth the pain.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Dream Theater in Venezuela

Well, a lot of you may already know this, but as the ticket sales start this week (on Thursday actually) it's worth noting.
A friend (Guille) will be there buying the ticket. Thanks man.
Although their latest album (Octavarium) wasn't as good (IMO) as the last three of them, it will be a great show without a doubt.
It will be the last date of their South American tour which will pass through Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Venezuela. They will play on December 13th at El Poliedro in Caracas.

Visit the Dream Theater official site. For more info on the concert go to the Profit Producciones site.

Edit: I added a counter at the sidebar for the concert, so I can be even more eager of time passing fast!

Monday, September 12, 2005

Cats versus dogs

I got this one from another blog. Credit to whoever wrote it. This one's for you Guille.


Cats versus dogs....

Dogs get the newspaper for you.
Cats look at you like you can't read.

Dogs are happy to see you when you come home.
Cats say "Where the hell you been?"

Dogs run to the food dish and eat whatever is there.
Cats look at you and say "You want me to eat THAT?"

Dogs get your slippers for you.
Cats sleep on your slippers.

Dogs rescue people from burning buildings.
Cats get stuck in trees.

Dogs can track people through the woods days after
they ran through.
Cats refuse to wear a leash.

Dogs can be trained to help blind people.
Cats refuse to help anybody.

Dogs can be used to sniff out drugs in airports, cars,
houses, etc.
Cats are good at smelling out things they want to EAT.

Dogs are man's best friend.
Cats MIGHT let you be their friend.

Dogs will protect your house from burglers.
Cats will watch the burgler... "Hey... you forgot the
jewlery, stupid..."

Dogs love you.
Cats love themselves.

Dogs come running when you call their name.
Cats look at you like... "You know... we need to talk
about this dumb name you gave me..."

Dogs are always there when you need them.
Cats are busy doing something more important.

Dogs are servants.
Cats are arrogant snobs.

So... which to I prefer?

Cats or dogs?

Cats, of course.

Why, you ask?

Cats poop in a box.

Leave your dog alone at home for a couple days,
sometime, pal....

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Fucking spam

I hate spam.

And now spam comes here. Do you hear me spam? I'm not gonna let you!

I'm sorry if this is an inconvenience, but I'm going to use word verification, just in case the spam is not human.

Hijo e' puta

Muy buen chiste que encontré en ChevereCambur.org
Visiten la página, es excelente.

Estaba sentado en mi escritorio cuando efectué una llamada telefónica. Me contesto un tipo malhumorado diciendo: ¡Alo!, le dije: "Buenas, ¿podría hablar con Luís González?..." "No aquí no vive ese huevón". Y me colgó el teléfono de la manera más grosera. Resulta ser que había marcado un número incorrecto por lo que procedí a llamar al teléfono indicado. Después de colgar, observe el número de teléfono errado en mi escritorio; decidí llamar a ese número y contesto la misma persona que me tranco. Le dije: - "Eres un hijo e' puta". Y colgué.

Inmediatamente anote ese numero en mi agenda y le puse al lado la palabra HIJO E' PUTA. Cada semana, cuando tenía una arrechera llamaba a ese tipo y cuando contestaba le decía: "Eres un hijo e' puta". Esto me hacia sentir mucho mejor; pero al tiempo me entere del servicio CANTV de identificación de llamadas por lo cual me limite a dejar de llamar por unos días al hijo e' puta. Pues se me ocurrió lo siguiente: marque su numero telefónico y en lo que me contesto diciendo: ¿Alo? Le respondí: "- Buenas tardes, le llamo del Dpto. de ventas de CANTV Servicios para saber sí conoce el servicio de identificación de llamadas. El tipo contesto: "NO” y le dije: "Eso es porque eres un hijo e' puta".

Un día estaba en Makro esperando que saliera una señora para pararme en ese puesto de estacionamiento de carro. Pues, resulta que cuando la señora salió vino un tipo manejando un Camaro Negro y se metió; le toque corneta, pero nada, el tipo simplemente se bajo del carro y se fue para el centro comercial ignorándome por completo. Ante su actitud pensé "ese es un hijo e puta" y fue cuando note que en su carro había un letrero que decía: SE VENDE INTERESADOS FAVOR LLAMAR AL TELÉFONO 942.07.40. Después llame al tipo del Camaro: ¿Hablo, con el señor del Camaro negro que esta a la venta? - Sí, habla con el. ¿Podría decirme donde lo puedo ver? Sí, vivo en la carretera del Junquito con calle 34 Km.17, es una casa amarilla y el carro está parado frente a la casa. Mi nombre es Eduardo Pérez y me puede encontrar en la casa después de las 6 PM Okey, gracias. Le dije. ¿Le puedo decir algo Eduardo? Sí, como no. Eduardo, eres un Hijo e' puta. Y le colgué.

Bueno, a partir de ese día tenía a dos hijos e puta a quien llamar. Después de un tiempo llamando al par de hijo e' putas, la cosa se puso ladilla, por lo cual decidí hacerla más divertida y se me ocurrió lo siguiente: Llame al hijo e puta No. 1. Y el tipo grosero me contesto: ¿Sí? Y entonces le dije: "¿Eres el hijo e' puta?", pero no tranqué. El me dijo: ¿Estás ahí? a ver si dejas de llamarme. Yo le dije: -No. El tipo me pregunto con tono suave: ¿Cómo te llamas? Eduardo Pérez, le dije ¿Dónde vives?En la Carretera del Junquito con calle 34 Km.17, en una casa amarilla donde esta un Camaro negro al frente.¡En menos de una hora estoy allá a meterte unos coñazos, maldito! Yo le dije:- ¡Ay sí, estoy cagaoo! ¡Hijo e' puta!, ¡hijo eeeee putaaaAAAAA!, y le tranqué. Después de eso llame al hijo e puta No. 2, y cuando contesto le dije: Hola hijo e' puta. ¡Coño, sí te llego a encontrar, te voy a romper la cara y las piernas!, ¿Así es la vaina?, le dije, pues hoy es tu oportunidad porque en menos de una hora estoy en tu casa para volarte la jeta, hijo e' puta, a ver que me vas a hacer. Enseguida llame a la Policía Metropolitana y les dije que iba para la carretera del Junquito con calle 34 Km.17 a matar a mi novio marica porque lo encontré con otro hombre. Después llame a Globovision para reportar que la PM había encontrado un arsenal de armas de los Tupamaros. Enseguida me fui para la dirección antes descrita a ver el espectáculo: Unas 6 patrullas rodeando la casa, dos carajos dándose coñazos en plena calle, la policía tratando de separarlos y un consejero haciéndolos recapacitar y las cámaras de TV reportando una disputa pasional entre dos gays subversivos.

¿Qué les parece? Eso SI es ser un HIJO E' PUTA!!!

Friday, September 09, 2005

Saint Seiya Hades OVA continues!

I was talking to a co-worker yesterday and I found out that he liked anime, so it was natural that we started talking about it. Eventually we started talking about Saint Seiya and he told me his brother saw on a webpage that the Hades OVA will be continued (they were stopped after 13 episodes). So of course I was happy to hear that. This is where I saw it [spanish]
Ahh yes, I forgot to say it's due in December! Can hardly wait!

Monday, September 05, 2005

Google to destroy information it can't index

A year ago, Google offered to scan every book on the planet for its Google Print project. Now, they are promising to burn the rest.
The joke news site The Onion has the full article. Funny stuff.
If you didn't get it, it's a joke.

¿Concretada la compra de Digitel TIM?

Leyendo el blog de tecnología móvil 'Concafé', me enteré que en el semanario Quinto Día apareció una noticia diciendo que el nuevo dueño de la operadora es el Sr. Oswaldo Cisneros.
Las especulaciones de la compra han estado rodando por bastante tiempo ya, y a Concafé le encanta lanzar rumores (que a veces resultan ciertos). Veamos si es verdad, ya que la fuente de noticia no es Concafé, sino el semanario.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Secuestro Express

I saw this movie on thursday, and it's definitely a must see. The characters are a bit extreme (e.g. the woman works on a Free Hospital, but consumes insanely amounts of drugs), but it works out, and it could very well be true. Go see it if you have the chance.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

*Yawn*

Yawning is a great mistery, and very interesting. And, as you may have noticed, it's contagious!
Try to read this page without yawning.