and then there were 11.. .
just like that.
not a warning was given.
not even the slightest hint,
of what was to become
on that one fateful Friday.
should we feel sorry for them?
sorry seems like an insult.
dispensable or not.
deserving or not.
unfair. was it not?
makes one really wonder.. .
are we lucky to be still here?
when anytime
they could make you disappear.
certain decisions must be made soon. and it is up to you to decide which one to take.. . but i guess that choice has already been made for you. you really thought it was you who decided, didn’t you?
.. .on the one hand, you can go on and continue believing what you’ve always believed in since you first woke up into the World of Computers.
ignorance is bliss after all.
on the other you will know the truth.
that you are a slave and have been one since you entered the World.
you thought you were free because there was nothing else in the first place. that you didn’t have a choice. that you really didn’t know much to begin with. that it is the only thing.
but the real deal is that you were forced to it. they really didn’t tell you anything. and they can’t be blamed either. they too were blindly following the ones before them.
i know you. you would readily spit at the choice rather than consider what is being offered. how could you be such an ignorant fool? at least stop being a hypocrite and bow down before the Gates. pay what’s due!
you laugh at me because i am different. i mock you because you are all the same.
and for what?
because you refuse to see beyond. because you refuse to understand. because you refuse to choose.
you will never be free.
it is not because i am here and you are not. never will i pretend that this is better. nor will i say that where you are now is paradise. it is only because you constanlty refuse to consider the choice that is being given to you.
.. .while waiting for my darned script to finish (it seems ridiculously slow), i’ll just write a few things here.
once again i’m at it. back to where i was a few months ago – working ’til the wee hours of the morning that is. and now it seems i’ve surpassed my previous record of staying up as late as 3am. yesterday it was 4am. top that!
maybe tonight i’ll extend it a bit more. what’s another hour anyway?
5am should be reasonable enough.
standing tall among all the other edifices in some residential neighborhood, this 3-storey construct that was originally meant as living quarters for lease is home to one not-so-conspicuous IT/outsourcing company where i work.
the office environment is homey and simple. with a bunch of 64-bit personal computers sitting on a round table in groups of 4. big LCD screens in silver frames, one could easily mistake if for an internet cafe. not quite what you would expect from a BPO company.
the tables and chairs are so ‘native.’ polished wood. rattan make. even the blinds are made from bamboo.
and to top that not-so-typical look is the door lock to the men’s rest room – a barbecue-stick door lock!
yet another Pinoy invention?
over the past 6 years i’ve installed Linux on different machines countless times. from one distro to another. one upgrade after another. most of the time it’s for desktop use only.
always, i’ve managed to secure copies of important data and valuable applications before i wiped the harddisks clean. but if there’s one thing i haven’t learned out of all those installs, it’s making backups of my applications’ customized configurations and themes. just when i’m already feeling so comfy with my Linux desktop environment, there’s always that one thing that makes me wanna upgrade into a newer version of my favorite distro (or maybe try out another one) and then i’m back to square one!
last night was not an exception (thank God this was for my office workstation, so i’m not so particular with the details). after copying important files to another harddisk, i carelessly proceeded to re-partition my disk without even thinking about saving the configurations and themes of my KDE applications. so now i have to do it all over again. but this is one of the fun things of having a Linux desktop on your comptuer. you get to do it however you like it.
so let this be a reminder to me.
this week i’ve been having troubles on my OpenSuSE Linux. it seems to be awfully slow. sluggish to be exact. i’m almost always using the same applications during work — Quanta for PHP programming, Firefox, Amarok for music, Kmail (for what else?), Kopete for chatting (hehe.. .), a little of Kspread, and the all-in-one Konqueror. everything was fine before.
hmmm.. . what could be wrong? a memory leak in one of these applications perhaps?
a faint tapping sound arose in the wee hours of the morning.. . like the sound of someone, something pounding rapidly on plastic tiles.. . and then a slight hesitation. a pause. the sound of a chair being moved backward and forward echoed within the walls of the small rectangular partition that is at the topmost floor of the building. noises. like muffled footsteps. it stopped. plop, plop.. . like someone, something dropping a good-sized rock into a pool. and then another. and then another. the clickety-clank of cutlery follows. metal to metal. stirring. the constant droning sound of a machine nearby seemed so distant. cold air floated heavily around. then the door squeaked open.. . a rush of air.. . footsteps again. this time in a hurried manner. fading. . . fading.. .
have you seen the ghost of focus penthouse?
the workstation that was given to me at work had Windows XP (only) installed to it. being a Linux user for more than 5 years already now, I’ve gone a bit uncomfortable in a Windows environment. i do have Windows XP installed in my own computer, but i rarely, rarely use it. i don’t know why I even still keep it. maybe for games, but i am not a gamer. it’s a waste of disk space, i must say. most of the time i just use the space to store files like music and/or video.
so anyway, a month passes and i’ve been working on a Windows environment. then a co-worker, quite a Linux user as well, made a bold move and asked our boss if we (for those who preferred a non-Windows OS) could install Linux on our workstations. well, what do you know, he (our boss) says ok to it and so now i’m using Linux. OpenSUSE 10.1 64-bit to be exact. what a relief. i thought i was gonna be stuck into using an OS which i don’t really prefer to use. i still kept the “other” OS though.. . as an ALTERNATIVE. because who says Linux has to be the alternative?
ok.. . so i’m away from home – about a 12-hour trip by boat from the city where i came from – just to start my career in programming. i’ve been in this job for like 1 month and 3 weeks. i think. so far i’m pretty much getting the hang of it. or maybe not. bah!
my first project was kind of a disaster. well excuse me… this is, of course, my “first real job” as a programmer. plus the things i was asked to make was totally different from the ones we usually do back in school. also, i had trouble understanding what my boss wanted me to do. in fact, there were two people ordering me around and each had his own version of what the project should be like in the end. good thing i pulled it off in due time.
now i think i’m gonna believe the old adage which goes like this, “you can’t serve two masters at the same time.. .”
ahem…anyway, i am not blaming anyone. if there is anyone to be blamed then it should be me. it’s my responsibility after all. and this is my blog after all, so i can say anything.
I am
