Digital Nocturne

I woke up at 5:00 AM in order to have a big lead on passport renewal today because last month I was not able to renew my passport because I was too late to fall in line; I arrived by 7:00 AM and there were roughly one thousand people in the city hall already! Unfortunately, only 400 people were entertained in first-come-first-serve basis that day.

Anyway I’m very glad I had my passport renewed today even if it took more or less 10 hours before it was released. I’m thankful that my father took it this afternoon instead of me getting it.

So what’s the big deal with my passport renewal anyway? None so far… but if there’s an opportunity abroad most especially a chance to get a job in Singapore (I have a lot of connection there anyway), it won’t be difficult to complete the requirements to travel abroad. I don’t really want to get outside the country soon. It’s too early and I’m too “raw” for an IT professional. I’m sure there’s so much more to learn in IT industry. My new passport expires in 2011 so if I’d want to go elsewhere for vacation it will be convenient.

Days had passed and I didn’t blog anything for several days. I have a perfect excuse anyway. Guess what, I spent 4 days watching Maison Ikkoku, an anime originally created by Rumiko Takahashi. I’m so absorbed with it that I temporarily shut myself from the outside world in order to enjoy this series to the fullest. (It’s really great to have a very long vacation isn’t it?) It has 96 episodes, about 26 minutes each. That’s about 41 hours of continuous playback filled with bitter sweet romantic comedy. It’s an epitome of romantic-comedy genre in anime. Seriously, this is an anime that I wanted to watch as early as 2002 but I didn’t have any resource to get it. Even when I was studying in Singapore, I was not able to find this vintage anime. After all I’m only a year older than this series. It was produced in 1986 and was concluded in 1988.

I’m not going to discuss what Maison Ikkoku is all about. Even if you don’t watch anime, consider Maison Ikkoku as a drama and you’ll probably like it too. I can’t even call myself a die-hard fan of anime. I just love watching something Japanese and learn more about Japanese culture. Some background: I’ve been interested in Japanese culture since my father went in Japan for 6 months training when I was still 6 years old. Since then, I really wanted to read and write Japanese since most of my toys had Japanese symbols and writings on them.

So after a long intro, let’s get into business. I really want to express how this series endeared to me so much. I really enjoyed watching it. I’ve watched about 60-70 anime (I didn’t finish all) but Maison Ikkoku is the most I’ve enjoyed among them. First of all, Maison Ikkoku means “The House of One-Moment” where “Maison” (めぞん) is a French word meaning house and Ikkoku (一刻) which means one moment, one minute or an instant. It’s a shabby apartment where the romance of Yusaku Godai and Kyoko Otonashi developed. I must emphasize: I’m not really into anime romance or anything along that line. Actually I prefer action and science fiction like Ghost in the Shell or Gundam but Maison Ikkoku is one of those very few anime that captures true human emotions. It’s a very moving anime, IMHO.

I’ll quote one of the most memorable lines in Maison Ikkoku by Kyoko Otonashi: Please, even if it’s just one day, live longer than me… Because… I don’t think I could live alone again…. Kyoko is just a fictitious lead female character of Maison Ikkoku yet Rumiko Takahashi had developed her emotional depth that viewers can relate very well. There’s even a full-pledged website dedicated to Kyoko — Kyoko.org. Too bad she’s just a two dimensional character.

Rumiko Takahashi is also well-known for her other works like Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha.

Read for more info:
WARNING: A LOT OF SPOILERS
Kyoko.org
Maison Ikkoku fan site
Wikipedia: Maison Ikkoku

Java in Manila is finally set on Apri 25, 2006 at Rizal Ballroom, Makati Shangri-La Hotel from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

The event features Java™ EE, Java™ SE, strategy design and practices, Java™ IDEs, Java™ and .NET interoperability, Solaris, and more! For the complete agenda, visit this link.

Java enthusiasts can also join the coding challenge where participants can win prizes. And here’s more, all delegates will get discount vouchers on Java certification exams, More than 50% discount on Java & Solaris training through Sun’s accredited training centers, Java sport shirt and a change to win cool prizes such as Java 2-in-1 Jackets, iPod Shuffle, USB thumbdrives and more!

Links:
Java in Manila
Philippines, Manila, Java, J2SE, J2EE

Majority of my friends in UP tells me that problematic professor reflects a problematic grade. The reality struck me and now I know how true it is. It’s not that you can pass with flying colors because you are good in that subject; actually you’ll pass because of your professor no matter what circumstances there is. He decides if you’ll pass or not. Who cares if you’re the top in class. If you pissed him of, you’re done. What more if your class pushed him to the limit. He might consider failing the entire class. And what if your professor is just plain retarded…. who knows what will happen.

I viewed my grades an hour ago. Great, I didn’t expect that my grade in Java is quite high. It could have been higher if I had more time to study but I think I slacked more than I studied. I practically didn’t do well in most quizzes. Actually I didn’t study at all. I just read. I’m just interested in GUI design and most of the codes I learned was forgotten during exams. Thesis proposal just made the situation worse because my group’s thesis is focused on .NET, so I had less time learning Java. I’m just glad I enjoyed programming our final machine problem. I managed to get all the required features without much help. I just refered to Java API and I have eliminated all the bugs that I have encountered in the program. I’m glad that my grade in Java 2 is higher than my grade in Java 1. Cisco is a different story. I’m just glad that I didn’t hit the lowest grade I was expecting. I have a very low expectation from the beginning because my professor is very problematic. Oh God, here we go again… enough already!!!

My old Nvidia GF4 MX440SE 128MB has failed. It didn’t even last longer than my old Voodoo 3 graphics card and it happened last week when everything was so hectic. I wanted to trash my PC because I can’t really use it properly. Thanks God I have a dependable laptop, I managed to finish all my school work there.

My old GF4 MX440SE failed probably because of fan problem. There are several times when its fan stopped spinning and I tried to fix it with lubricants for the meantime. I didn’t bother buying a new fan for the heat sink and I didn’t check it regularly. I don’t know exactly when the fan stopped spinning so my old graphics card probably operated fanless for several days before I could fix the fan again. That may have caused the graphics processor unit to overheat from time to time. There are several incidents that my PC suddenly shuts down because of my old graphics card. Then I noticed one day that my PC resolution went down to 800 x 600 and the graphics card driver won’t work anymore. It was really inconvenient because even if I set the resolution higher, the refresh rate and frames per second is too low especially when updating text and graphics while scrolling down and scrolling up. It’s too frustrating so I bought a new graphics card last thursday; just a cheap graphics card good enough for work and some games.

I bought an ATI 9550 256MB, 128-bit. It has been around for some time but it is the best-buy for my budget. It’s actually positioned between 9600SE and 9600Pro. It’s really not designed for hardcore games but it can run most games at decent resolution and effects setting. I didn’t buy it for gaming so I don’t mind if I can’t run Doom 3 or Half Life 2. After all I’m going to buy a new 64-bit PC later this year; that would include a high-end graphics card for fragging.

I can’t remember when and where I filled out a form to get a free copy of “Visual Studio 2005 Professional 90-Day trial Edition and Partner Resource DVD 2006″ but it was delivered today anyway.

The package contains 2 DVDs. The first one is the 90-Day trial of Visual Studio Professional. Whatever. Then, the second DVD contains “best-of-breed” 3rd party tools. These components can be used in Visual Studio trial that comes with it. I thought it will contain freebies and other useful stuffs… Well, partly true because some components are provided in full version. However, most of them are either limited time trial or demo. It won’t be really useful unless you want to purchase these components if you want to get their full functionality.

I’m quite disappointed but it’s here already and it’s free. I might as well experiment with these components.

I have uploaded as much as 132 GB and downloaded 123 GB since I used µTorrent. If I remember correctly I have uploaded as much as 130 GB in Azureus and download 190 GB before my PC was wiped out. Then I have uploaded another 60 GB and downloaded 45 GB in Azureus again. In total I have seeded 322 GB and leeched 358 GB, which will easily fill up my hard drive. x_x Thanks to DVD-/+R doing backups is a relief.