Call it a dot if you like.

I need to two more periods to make it an ellipsis.

But where do I get those two dots?

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ambiguity, period

When John Green, the most eccentric author that I know, announced on YouTube that he’ll sign all of the copies of the first printhing of The Fault in our Stars — he even had carpal tunnel syndrome in the process of signing his name 150,000 times — I promised to myself that I would get a copy of it. It became one of my priorities. I badly wanted one mainly because I’m a big fan of John Green (although I have only read two of his books).

But how do I get one? Being in the Philippines and having only one branch of National Bookstore near my place, this posed to be a big problem. I didn’t know if the more well-stocked bookstores in the country (e.g. Fully Booked, Power Books) accepted pre-orders, and had I pre-ordered a copy from them, that would have been very inconvenient for me because the nearest Fully Booked from our house is at Marquee Mall (which is about 16 kilometers away from where I stay), and I don’t go there much.

So my only option was to buy it from the internet. I still have some reservations with this because the postal service in the country is not reliable. Lost mail is common. Plus, the customs is bi-polar; You could either get taxed at exaggerated rates or get properly taxed (i.e. no tax at all). I’ve heard enough horror and tragic stories regarding this topic that I try to refrain from ordering things from the internet.

Most of my internet purchases were for services, so there’s nothing to deliver. But I have a few experiences in ordering physical materials (especially from the UK). So far, I received all of my previous orders. As for paying duties, I was taxed for a book that I didn’t buy (I got it from BookMooch). Could you believe that? And the waiting time is agonizing. There is really no assurance when you’ll get your package (if it wasn’t lost). I can still remember the first time that I ordered MiniCards from BookMooch: it took Philpost almost two months before I received them.

All of these, and telling myself that I have to minimize my spending on books didn’t stop me from pre-ordering one. This is a necessary purchase that I can’t afford to miss.

Amazon charges a hefty fee for shipping, so it was my last option. Good thing, I learned about Book Depository. They don’t charge you even a single cent for shipping! Amazing, right?

I gambled. Last December, I finally placed my order. It was dispatched on the day it was released, January 12, 2012. Two weeks later, I started to panic a little as it still hasn’t arrived, and there’s no way I could track the parcel. Every time the postman delivered something to our home, I got excited, only to be disappointed because he’s delivering bills and other letters.

Finally, it was delivered to me last Friday (and it was received by the local post office just a day before that). Seeing the parcel got me excited. I was jumping and constantly reminding my self that it was rude and weird to shout with glee in front of the postman. It was like I was in a candy store. Not even the Php 40.00 (less than a dollar) that I had to pay which the postman said was for the tax didn’t ruin my mood.

And the first thing that I did with the small package? I took photos of it, and tweeted about it.

Oh, I’m planning to order more books from Book Depository! I’ll order until Philpost effs me up!

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Book Depository, books, bookstores, John Green, mail, postal service, The Fault in Our Stars

This blog hasn’t turned out to what I envisioned 14 months ago. The site sucks, obviously. My writing skills have drastically decomposed faster than an unrefrigerated iceberg lettuce¹. Most probably that’s the result of not really trying writing anything more than 140 characters, a lack of much needed inspiration, a lot of distraction, and less time to blog.

It’s lackadaisicalness 101.

But I’m not here to talk about my blogging life. It’s too boring for you. I’m tired of saying “I’m back!” and then disappear for a very long time (although, I haven’t disappeared completely, I’m active both on Twitter and Tumblr) over and over again.

The real itch that I have right now is to read books. Actually, I haven’t really stopped from reading. The thing is, I’ve limited myself to reading just long-form journalism, articles regarding tennis, football, and whatnot.

For 2011, I set a target to read at least 10 books within the year. Yes, just ten books, and yet, I failed disastrously. I’m unsure, but I think I was only able to read only three books. If you have read one of my entries last year, I wrote that I would try to read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird again since during the first time that I tried to read it, I stopped where Scout’s neighbor’s house was burning. During my second try, I stopped even before that event. Sorry, but I’m not a really classics guy. But I’ll try reading it again sometime.

But even though I was only able to read only two or three books, I did enjoy them! The first one was Paper Towns by John Green (one of my favorite authors) which ending was saddening, the other one was David Nicholls’s equally depressing One Day. The third? I can’t remember it. At best, I’m just imagining that I was able to finish another book. At worst, I’m denying that I was only able to abysmally read two books.

This post was supposed to be about John Green’s new book that I just received yesterday. But it’s getting long so I would stop here. I guess, that will be the topic of my next post.

As usual, feel free to send me book suggestions. Hint: I absolutely enjoy tragedies and crime fiction.

1. I wrote that because I saw a half-rotten lettuce earlier, however, it was refrigerated.

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, books, David Nicholls, John Green

Well, you don’t need to have a handheld device to use Instapaper’s services, you just install a bookmarklet which you hit when you find an interesting article that you want to read at a later time (I should note that it’s Google-Reader-friendly). When you want to read that article, you simply go to your Instapaper account where you’ll find the link to that article. But there are articles that are impractical to be read on your computer, and let’s face it, reading could be time-consuming. I’d rather read during idle times (e.g., waiting in queue at the doctor’s office, travelling, etc.) than during the times when I have something else to do. Although I’m not saying that I’m not guilty that I read even when I have something more pressing things that I should do.

Coupling Instapaper with a compatible device (it works for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Kindle, and other ebook readers) makes reading articles from the internet easier. And you could be a little more productive when you normally don’t. Basically, the app saves a copy of almost any webpage (even those websites with stupid paywalls) on your device letting you to access them at a later time even if you don’t have any internet connection. It also strips down the webpage to its barest form: just the article itself, no navigation bars, no sidebars, no footers, no “Most Popular” list and other lists that could be a big distraction to you. This is the text-optimized view, although it doesn’t work all the time; I think this feature depends on how the page in question was coded.

One nifty feature that I like is its built-in dictionary. Encountered a big word that you haven’t got the foggiest, like “lackadaisical,” perhaps? No problem, the Instapaper app lets you learn and expand your vocabulary without leaving the app. Just tap and hold the word that made you think you have a vocabulary of a five-year-old and tap define.

You could also make folders to organize articles — in my case, I segregate articles by topic: football, tennis, Youngblood articles, recipes, etc. But if you’re really obsessive-compulsive, arranging articles on your device is a big headache. It’s a multi-stepped process that would leave your thumbs worn-out (or your pinkies if your thumbs are too big and you’re forced to use them). Likewise, deleting articles is tedious too. I wish it’s as easy as organizing and erasing items in the Mail.app. On the other hand, the Instapaper website lets you do that in one or two clicks.

What makes it more useful is that a lot of apps have a “Send to Instapaper” feature. One of the most notable app that has this functionality is the official Twitter app for iPhone. After putting your Instapaper credentials, it’s as easy as swiping and tapping to send articles to your Instapaper account.

The app — complete with all of the features that I mention plus more — is available for $4.99. A stripped-down version is also offered at the app store for you to try. You may think that “Hey, that’s going to be a free built-in feature in Mobile Safari once iOS 5 comes out, but it looks like having a dedicated app for a reading list far outweighs Apple’s free solution especially if you are a heavy reader.

PS: If the owner of Instapaper is reading this, please add a search feature on the Instapaper website.

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, Instapaper, iPhone, reading, reading list

At first, you might think that Yakimix only serves Japanese food because just below the restaurant’s name, the word “Sushi” could be found. During the two times that I dined there, I found out that they do not only serve sushi, tempura, miso soup, and other classic Japanese food. A mix of cuisines were present in the buffet table; they serve Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and even American dishes.

For only Php 580.00 (or Php 499.00 during weekday lunches) you could eat whatever you want, and how much you want. Yes, eat all-you-can! Be sure to go there with an empty stomach, and early so you could enjoy the various food that they serve.

The ambiance is just fine. Sure, it feels like you’re eating at a better-than-normal restaurant, and space is not an issue. They have big chairs, so no matter what size you are — especially after you’ve satisfied your tummy, you’ll have enough room to sit on. Plus, the big chairs come with big tables, you’ll surely have enough real estate to place the food that you took from the buffet table. The only main attraction, aside from the buffet table, are the smokeless grills that you could find at the center of the tables.

What’s the use of the smokeless grill? Obviously, that’s for grilling the variety of raw items that you’ll find in one section of the buffet table. And yes, you’ll be the one who’ll grill your own food. Your options for raw food are almost endless — you could choose from hotdog, shrimp, fish, squid, vegetables wrapped in what looked like bacon, meat that looked like bacon sans vegetables, chicken, and more. The grilling part is fun, kids would surely love it. And you don’t have to worry about smelling like food after your meal as their smokeless grills really don’t produce smoke.

On the other side of the buffet table, you’ll find a selection of cooked items. Most of them are Chinese food, but as I’ve mentioned earlier, they offer other food that you might like. They had some sort of seafood pizza, ebi tempura, and others that I don’t remember. Their tempuras aren’t that good. I bet they aren’t their specialty. Tokyo Tokyo’s tempura are better, actually. I also have an issue with their sauces. They have a lot of sauces, but I haven’t found one that tastes like the regular sauce for tempura. You can’t really enjoy tempura without that sauce full of sweet rice wine.

A separate table is dedicated for various kinds of sushis. There were really lots of sushis. I haven’t tried them all, but most of them would be enough to satisfy your taste buds. The first time I went there, I mostly ate sushis. I’ve had so many of them that by the time we had to pay the bill, my lunch almost reappeared. They’re really that good. They also have sashimi, if you enjoy raw fish, be sure to try them too.

They also have a section for desserts. The first time I dined there, there was a cake from Red Ribbon. And on the second time, there was a Goldilocks cake. It’s kind of weird for me to see cakes like that in a restaurant like Yakimix. They also have other pastries and sweets, and ice cream (Selecta) that you could try if there’s still enough space in your stomach.

So if you like eating at an eat-all-you can restaurant that serves a humongous number of viands, be sure to check this restaurant. The probability that you have visited this restaurant is high, especially if you live in Metro Manila. But for people living outside the capital region, be sure to at least try this restaurant once. You’ll surely have a lot of fun dining with your friends or family.

Yakimix branches can be found at Tomas Morato, Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard, Trinoma, and SM Mall of Asia.

I own only the first two photos. The rest are owned by various users on Flickr. Click on the photo/s to see more detail.

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: food, restaurant, Yakimix

© Working Title Films

Starring: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan,Vanessa Redgrave, Juno Temple, and Benedict Cumberbatch
Screenplay by: Christopher Hampton
Based on: Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Story

1935, on the hottest summer day, Briony sees Cecilia, her sister, undress in front of their longtime servant’s son, Robbie. Because of her immaturity, Briony interprets adult intentions differently and completely misunderstands it. The succeeding actions of the three — and a prior incident between Briony and Robbie — would result into Briony’s crime, a crime that would intertwine the lives of the three and which she would eventually try to atone for years as a nurse during wartime. Robbie is sent to prison, and eventually released, on the exchange of serving for the British Army — virtually severing almost all of his connections to his dear Cecilia.

My Take

In the first part, the time goes back numerous times to tell the story in the perspective of another character. In both book and movie versions, there’s almost no transition from one perspective to another, so if you aren’t paying attention to details, you’ll surely get lost in this labyrinthine story. This could either be viewed as a flaw or brilliantness. It makes you think where one perspective ends, and another one starts. But obviously, that makes it complicated.

The story could feel really heavy and boring, especially at the middle where Robbie is trying to escape from France back to England. I know some people who were not able to finish the movie because of this. In my case, I almost stopped reading the novel (I read it first before watching the movie adaptation). McEwan’s heavy writing could be simply termed as lullaby. It took me almost two weeks to finish it, and in my standards, that means it took me a long while. Although the cogwheel of this tale is Briony’s crime, the story as a whole is also dependent to some sequences from that boring part, remove them and the story wouldn’t be as powerful as it should. Well, I’m really glad that I was able to finish the book.

The beauty of the story lies at the last few pages of the book or minutes of the film where the reader or the viewer respectively is presented two different versions of the ending. The twist at the end is just so big that it will surely change your opinion on Ian McEwan’s magnificent novel. But the icing on the top is that whichever version you choose, you won’t escape the sadness that the story would bring to you.

The actors who played the main characters were well versed in what they were doing. The acting is just so good that you can feel that it really happened. I was really impressed with the mad acting skills of James McAvoy in this one. He’s a really damn good actor. Oh, and I’m sure that you’ll notice the music that was used in the movie. It’s so original, right? Who knew that the sound of typewriter could be used as background music, hu? Dario Marianelli (the composer) is inventive and an outright genius.

The Better Version

It’s hard to pick which is the better version. The movie adaptation is so close to the book that I can’t decide. It’s one of the rare movie adaptations that was really faithful to the novel. And although the twist at the end was presented differently in the two versions — a family reunion in the book, and an interview in the movie — it doesn’t make a big difference. So be sure to check both! But should they release another Atonement movie, I hope they’ll combine the two.

Tearmometer

Prepare at least eight and a half rolls of tissue, you don’t want your clothes to get soaked from tears. In other words, I’m rating this as 8.5 out of 10. It could have easily scored 10, but owing to the fact that there are boring scenes, I had to deduct a few points.

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Atonement, book, Ian McEwan, James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, movie, review, tearmometer

What I’m trying to say is that I was not a lover of tragedies from the very start. Tragedy is not easy to love. Well, I guess, no one would instantly love stories where the protagonist dies mercilessly leaving his or her partner in misery. Tragedies could be really cruel; They’re heart-breaking and make you want to cry and produce enough tears to refill an almost empty Angat dam to the brim during hot summers. I understand why my friends don’t listen to me when I try to suggest a movie or a book that ends tragically. I guess, most people who are not fond of this kind of poignant stories don’t want the number of stories with tragic endings that they have heard to go up. Come to think of it, we all experience different kinds of tragedies in our daily lives, be it on a personal, social, or political level. You can’t really force tragedy down the throat of someone, especially if this someone is already depressed, or worse, is already taking lithium — okay let me rephrase that — is suffering from bipolar disorder.

Yes, I used to dismiss tragedies to the sidelines. I have always asked how do you find pleasure from tragedies? How do you explain sadness is equal to entertainment? But my views on tragedy, or any story that makes you sad and gloomy for that matter have changed. I believe it’s an acquired taste. You have to be in the perfect mood to appreciate tragedies. And when you get more exposed to tragedies, it wouldn’t be hard for you to like the genre. That’s what happened to me. Although I have to admit that it took years before I was finally able to tell myself that I like it.

Now, I find it easier to find pleasure and appreciate this genre. I believe tragedy is better than any other genre in delivering message to readers or viewers. It makes you appreciate life and the people surrounding you more.

For the past few years, I have already encountered a number of novels and films that fall under this genre. But I haven’t had the chance to post my views on them. Well, for some, I may have tweeted or posted a paragraph or two regarding them, but I don’t think that would do justice to those works especially the big ones like Atonement and The Reader. So expect a review on these tear-jerking movies and books every now and then. I actually planned this post to have three to five accompanying reviews, but I’m afraid that this post would be very long so I scrapped that plan out. And of course, I’ll be rating them through my own system, the tearmometer.

Oh, if you know a good book or movie that falls under tragedy, please suggest it to me. Okay? Thanks!

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: genre, stories, tragedy

Since I started blogging circa 2003, I’ve already tried numerous blogging platforms — Xanga, Blogspot, self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com. I’ve also tried blogging manually, everything was in pure HTML. I’ve also had to move from one web host to another multiple times. It’s like I’m an NPA in the internet. And only God knows how much time I’ve spent backing up and restoring my site, and how much data I’ve lost in the process. Okay, enough of that because this blog entry is not about my blogging history.

But I was actually excited to make the great leap from my old web host, Tracspace to Namecheap. Last year, I signed up for a hosting plan on iRock Web Hosting (it was either later acquired by Tracspace or changed its name). I bought a hosting plan from iRock because it was only for $13.00, and the features that came with it were more than what is enough for a personal blog. I was satisfied with their services, but only until the dying days of 2010. iRock has already disappeared and Tracspace took over my account.

I had my first problem with Tracspace on the third week of December. Their server was down for at least three days already, but I haven’t received any email from them. I should have been informed about the situation, right? I don’t like talking to customer service representatives, so as much as possible I avoid them. But in this case, I really had to contact them. And thus started my agonizing journey to their customer service. I informed Tracspace about it, and they moved my account to their other working server but decided not to tell me (or forgot to tell me) that they wouldn’t be able to move my data. Just how stupid is that? But I’m really glad that they were able to salvage my data, although I had to manually retrieve them and transfer them to their other server.

And then came the smallest problem I ever had with them… the server’s time. It wasn’t set correctly, it was two hours late. Sorry for them, I’m really particular with time. I don’t want to see my posts with the wrong publishing time. Changing WordPress’s timezone setting to artificially show the right publishing time of my posts is just a Band-Aid solution and I don’t like it. I wanted a permanent solution for it. I submitted a ticket regarding it on December 20, 2010. I waited for days for them to fix it but I was only told that they were still investigating it. Fast forward to January 07, 2011, the technical service representative that I was talking to said the following:

I apologize for waiting quite long but we forgot to update this ticket and the issue has already been resolved since December 25, 2010.

However, I checked the server’s time after Christmas, and it was still two hours late! And clearly, their customer service is uh, a little bit incompetent. How dare you forget my ticket? I let it pass because I didn’t want to make a big issue out of it. I was happy that it was finally resolved. But a few days later, the server where my account was located went down, and when it was up two days later, the server’s time was wrongly set again. I immediately notified them about it, but until now, I haven’t heard back from them. On the other hand, I don’t care anymore, since my account with them has already expired (I think). However, until now, I’m still wondering if changing the server’s time could really take days to fix. I’m not a Linux guy or an owner of a server, but surely, that would only take a few clicks, yes? I could change my laptop’s time in less than a minute, so I don’t see any problem why setting the server’s time correctly could be a headache.

Because of this bad experience, I decided that it was time to move. I wanted mma more reliable host with a competent customer, but that is equal to higher price. So I was reluctant in getting a new host for my site. Good thing I found out that MM and Pam were also looking for a web host too. We bought a hosting plan, and divided the price between the three of us. So it’s almost like hitting two pigs with one bird. It really looks like Namecheap has a very reliable web hosting solution and a great customer service, so I’m hoping this will be the end of my web host hopping. It’s tiring, you should try it! LOL. Just kidding!

PS: Sorry for using the word “but” or any words or phrases related to it numerous times.

1. I had more than 10 tabs opened when I put this blog back up and running.

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, customer service, hosting plan, web host

I assure you that my blog will be back really soon. Probably during the first week of February. And if I’m lucky, my site wouldn’t go offline even for a single hour.

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, web host, website

I’m aware that I have published only a few posts here. What, less than 10 posts in a span of one year? But I’m planning to change that this year, although I can’t be sure if I would be able to implement my plans. I’m really hoping that my plans wouldn’t just stay and rot in the drawing room. However, before I green light any of them, I have to transfer my site to another web host first³.

From the time I started blogging, circa 2003, I’ve blogged mostly about my personal life. But I don’t think writing about my life is still something that I like to focus on. My life is quite boring, really. But should something extravagant happens, I’ll definitely post it here. Besides, I have a Twitter and a Tumblr account that you could follow where I post things about the not-so-exciting parts of my life. I’ve also already identified other avenues that I could tackle here, like reviews of my favorite apps that I use on my three-year old iPod touch, and probably, some book and movie reviews (although I really suck at doing those). There are also the essays I wrote years ago — including the controversial essay that I submitted to my professor which he marked “Plagiarized?” or something like that — that I’m planning to release here soon.

I have other plans for my domain as well. I’ll check my backups and I’ll put all of the posts that I would be able to salvage on a subdomain, minus my favorite posts which I’ll file on a separate subdomain.

For now, you have to forgive me for the crappy and little content that my site has.

1. Please do not make me enumerate them.
2. Hopefully, that would not be the case with this one.
3. More on that on a separate entry

© Louie Alfred L. Gomez 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, writing