The Makiav3llian Enchantment…

This is the number one reason why I hate credit card companies specially this new one that I may get myself involved with. I have no one to blame but myself and that makes it even more difficult to accept. So, I’ll just shoot those people from TPC responsible for my misery. DM, Woody, Deedee, Saizer, Migraine Boy and all you other guys with nasty desktops to boot… Damn you guys (I mean it in a good way)… I would also like to extend my cursing to ATI, Nvidia, Intel and AMD, screw you guys too!!! There are just a lot of people and companies right now that I would like to swear at.
The saying about "more money, more problems" can never be more true. The fact that I am going to get a credit card that will help me pay for my Power Rig in deferred payment is such a tease. I haven’t even got the darn plastic yet and I am already planning to make the purchases for my rig.
Plus, I am also caught in a freaking architecture upgrade wormhole from both Intel and AMD. Future proofing for Conroe (there is the budget Dual Core 805) on the Intel front, then M2 socket change and DDR2 support on AMD. All these freaking chipset by this and that company is making me dizzy. At least I got my head set on the video card and I am going for an ATI X1900XT, a 2000+Dhs (30000PhP) price tag comes as a gigantic slap on the face though. And when you connect the dots together, I am looking at a 7000Dhs (98000PhP) damage report not including the earlier purchases I made. I think I should go back to my roots and remain with the time table. Though I am seen talking to myself more frequently about the future mistakes I may make, I think I am in the right step in getting back my sanity because when my dad finds out that I just wasted 100000PhP on a PC, he may cringe at the thought of raising a complete lunatic.

Most of you will agree with me when I would say that my wife and your wives are some of the most taken advantage women in the world. Even if you wife is the modern liberated woman type, when she snuggles you, just makes you feel guilty that you just can’t give more. To my wife, I salute you and love you with all my heart. Though I bring the bacon home, you make the place I stay a HOME. On your special day, I wish to great you a Happy Birthday. Of course the I Love You’s, the kisses and the ooohhhhs and aaahhhsss (*wink) are also included. My life is never complete with you. You complete me and I thank the Lord that I was blessed with someone like you. To my friends and everyone who came to our simple gathering, thanks for coming, it meant a lot to me and Angie even though we are not back in the Phils.

Exclusive backstage passes again at my wife’s Fotopages.

Remember the double the wages earned and double the expenses paid I mentioned, last time, well basically I am just continuing where I left off. Despite being the hub of every thing possibly known in the business world, Dubai is also know as one of the better cities to live in. It is actually on the top 100 list of cities to live in. It has the vibrant atmosphere, virtual melting pot of Arabs, great jobs and high paying wages as well as a tourism industry which is comparable to the top destinations of the world.
Its great living here but unfortunately, when you come looking for the truth you find that Dubai is a growing city and is a victim of its own success. Basically, no one really expected that after 15 years, this place to boom in comparison to Mount Krakatoa which eventually sunk itself to the bottom of the sea, I hope Dubai doesn’t follow that. But basically you have things like traffic, over population and construction. I am not going to get into prostitution or crime and all that, I just want to stick to what I see everyday. And today, I just happen to notice all three things, traffic, over population and construction.
Based from the picture you see how messy it can be during rush hour but the main thing I would like to point out is how fast things come up, go down and come up again. The place I was walking into was a parking lot and now is being broken up and I have no clue whether it be a new road extension or a new building coming up. Its fun because here, you see your money work for you. There is no income tax but government services does involve money. You also pay hefty parking fines, electricity and an assortment of bills which sometimes you don’t know where it comes from. To make the long story short, paying a lot of things gives the facilities here and this parking lot would eventually become something significant, either to improve Dubai’s over all aesthetic environment or ease traffic along Maktoum Bridge. Whatever it is, it just goes to say, in Dubai, what comes up, will come down and will come up again, just add people, cars and cement.

Dubai is one of the best places to be in, its a fact… Provided that the conditions are as follows:

1. It’s DSF time.
2. It’s winter time or cool the whole day.
3. And when it doesn’t rain.

Dubai is a great tourist place and when you have conditions 1 & 2, going for you, even just condition 2, you feel you are not even in the desert. The weather during those times are fantastic and no doubt it is way better weather than in the Philippines. You can practically sunbathe without breaking a sweat or without feeling too much of a sting on your skin.
Unfortunately, a few days back, it rained. It isn’t a rarity here as others may think. This place isn’t a dead desert like the Sahara, it rains and can rain hard but not as hard as typhoon or monsoon rains we have back home. As a matter of fact, it not only rains, it hails! Yes, ice falling from the sky but in selected areas. So what is the fuss all about, well, living in a place like this in these conditions reminds me of Phili. Yes, unfortunately, a place like this has flooding too. Ofcourse not as bad as ours but when it rains, expect a little inconvience. The roads don’t dry up as quick and the reason for the flooding… well it ain’t garbage caught in the drain pipe, just a poor sewage system. Unfortunately, everyone here earns twice as much and pays the government in services twice as much (like parking and fines, water & electricity). So it pretty weird that they’ve invested in a lot of things except for flood control.

Thursday are always great specially when you have to report to the office. For someone like me who is always out on the field, in weird places and remotest of locations, heading back to the office is such a treat. So it maybe weird but I have grown to love DIC and I sincerely miss going back to my station. I haven’t seen my preggy friend Mamette for a long time also, as well as my colleagues too. Well, like it matters seeing my colleagues, but of course it does! Playing the office politic games is played on both sides, if you play one side you are either the poor victim or the heartless backstabber, so it is just right to play victim and killer from time to time if you wish to survive. Lucky for me I play my part well, I hate sucking up but it has to be done but I’d be lying if I tell that I do miss that to because I don’t. I hate playing in office politics!
I just reported briefly today to attend a brief demo of the IPCC service by Tecom, I was sent there by my bosses to check how we can maintain Quality Control on our small call center in our office. To bad, my trip lasted longer than the demo I saw but I really came to see DIC’s call center in action and it’s reporting facilities. From there, I had a funny feeling that all was very familiar to me, I was not only missing DIC but I began missing the people back home. The scene reminded me of where my career began and even though I am out of it already and doing somethings similar to it, there is nothing like remembering you first kiss as to remembering when you started out small. Enjoy the pics from DIC Bldg. 3 & 4.

I just couldn’t wait and I had to just take advantage of the situation. This is so bad especially when you buy your first item on the 1 day of last month and then by the next one on the 15th of the next. 45 days of of torment and since Hussein and I was driving in the area where this PSU was available, I just had to take the chance. I had every reason to buy the next piece of the puzzle but made a tactical mistake. The perfect time for me to buy my items will always be the 16th of each month as I will be able to fully maximize the 55 day payment period of the CC, I bought it a few days early and it may cost me, anyways, the good thing is that the next item will be a keyboard and mouse set which should not be the top most priority and will have minimal effect on my budget.
So now, why so drunk in power, well it is because I do have one of the grand daddies of power supplies with me, the Enermax Liberty 620W. I was really debating on what power supply I was going to purchase, I was in the Al Ain Center with my friend Mahesh and he offered me the Thermaltake Pure Power 550W for 550 Dhs. Basically 1 Dhs per Watt. After reading reviews from NewEgg I tried to convince myself that I was not being cheated, $136 including US shipping compared to $149.66 is not much of a difference for the same brand but the fact that there were other notable PSUs in the website, I began to think if I should push through with a US P.O.Box as I see it as an advantage in the long run when getting memory and all. Then I took a look at the higher end models and the margins in difference was decreasing, I was still undecided but if I go now, I’d take the higher model so I won’t feel disgusted about being cheated. I just could not hold myself and made calls here and there. Today I was not really expecting to buy this but out of the blue, we were moving on the same road as Power Optionz and I was compelled to drop by. Instructing Hussein in trade for beer in the future we made a brief stop and like an eagle made a quick swift scoop for the Liberty. Yes, modular is driving me insane. Saves me in buying cable wrap and all plus, it will allow better air flow and all.
The whole thing cost me $183.67 (675 Dhs) which in contrast to NewEgg is $182 including shipping. I said not bad at all but I lost around $3.5 (13 Dhs) in for credit card use. All in all, it was decent enough and having this baby with me will sure future proof me. I did feel empty after purchasing it since I did not have the proper test bed to run this monster, I did install it on my sister’s PC and being a 2 Kg monster, it purred like a kitten. Reading reviews of it blowing up did not happen and I am just glad that it was working. No Blue LEDs but with a personal package of stickers, ID strap and modular cables, its nothing fancy, but definitely RAW Power.

So the Project stands:
February: Casing
March: Power Supply
April: Wireless Keyboard / Mouse and Hard Drive
May: DVD Writer / BD Writer and 5.1 Speaker System
June: Display
July: Cooling Solution and Sound Card
August: Motherboard
September: Memory Modules
October: Processor
November: Video Card

Every not so often I get sent to weird and desolate places in Dubai. Whether it be in the nook and cranny of Naif to the deserted places of Al Quoz. You name it, I’ve gone there. But today I get sent to another corner of Dubai… Rashidiya. In the beginning it looked like a weird place but while taking a bus ride, I began to see things which hold a place in my past. I was passing by my old school, The Cambridge High School. It has changed a lot really and I hardly even noticed the buildings and all. Now, it is being over shadowed by the big Al Futtaim Showroom, IKEA and the Festival City. A lot has changed and well, while waiting for an agency manager to pick me up, I just looked around this once so desolate place and it doesn’t look so desolate anymore. Surrounded by people, activity, cars and residential buildings, so much has changed. Yes, I was made to wait for 45 minutes by the manager, swearing at myself and hoping that my misery would end soon. Despite this, I wasn’t really feeling all that bad, I was actually enjoying myself waiting out in the sun. I am just happy that I made it this far and if I do have a car someday, I’d definitely drop by here again.

One of the things I hate about my schedule is the lunch breaks for travel agencies and the majority of other business establishments. I do have time by my side when I start work but I usually get screwed specially when I am running late or the clock is about to strike 1PM. The trouble here is that when I in very remote locations, finding a place to go and lounge around is a problem. The late sleeper that I am, I usually get sleepy in the afternoon and get by it sleeping during my rides. Meals are never issues but how my body reacts after the meal is another thing. Either my body feels doing the #2 or my system wants to go in shutdown mode. Thanks to my handy dandy Imate Jam, I still manage to get by either reading an e-book or typing out a document such as this. Email is always there but it sucks after I found out that I was getting charged 30 Dhs per month as rental for GPRS. Anyways, today in Ajman I was just lucky that I was around City Centre, of course I had to walk the course of this desert to get to it; it is a complete hassle for me to take the bus home and back to Ajman again. It was a complete bore but this being the smallest City Centre in the UAE, you can’t expect much. I did visit the local Carrefour but there isn’t really anything that can grab my interest. Besides I hate window shopping since you keep looking at something you can’t buy, practically starving yourself and feeling bad in the end. Anyways, moving from one corner to another I was able to waste 3 hours or time. I almost feel asleep by the benches, I’d really love to lay around the bench, it was calling me… and so will was security when assuming the pose. I always learn lessons the hard way and the importance of starting work early so I won’t get stranded…

I just wanna lie down here for a sec… Oh it’s already 430PM… Back to work… =)