august 31, 2007
     ree-hee-hee! i've been watching mythbusters on tv and the topic was all about dogs. now i don't how old the episode was but it's the first time i've seen it. what really interested me was the bit about foiling the bloodhound. adam tried several methods to mask his scent and thus fool the bloodhound on his trail but none of them worked. huh! go figure.
     well, actually, the last one gave the hound some difficutly but it was only because he had little experience in tracking felons in an urban environment. his training hadn't gone that far yet. he still managed to find adam though.
     the results really surprised me. all along i had been thinking that some of the methods they used could actually work. these methods were: zigzagging & backtracking, crossing a river, using pepper to cover one's track, bathing & changing one's clothes, using coffee & cologne to mask one's scent, and finally, running through an urban environment. and none of them worked! crossing the river would have had a chance of working if the river adam crossed was bigger and had a stronger current but crossing such a river was quite risky, i guess; one runs the risk of drowning oneself.
     heh! i just love watching mythbusters.
     unlike that stupid xbusters...

august 29, 2007
     here's another nifty recipe for ya. i forget where exactly i heard it but it's definitely from a discovery: travel and living show. i haven't tried it myself though, ever the lazy bum that i was. heh!
     well, just in case any of yas are interested, here's the recipe as i remember it. first you take a couple or so loaves of commercially available chocolate cake. you slice the loaves into half-inch-thick slices. you then take a large bowl or a deep dish and place a layer of chocolate cake slices on the bottom bowl. slather strawberry jam on this layer and sprinkle sliced and pitted cherries on the jam layer; bottled cherries will work nicely as the syrup can be used later. put in another layer of chocolate cake slices and repeat the whole process. make sure that the topmost layer is a layer of chocolate cake slices. pour the syrup of the bottled cherries on top of the whole thing. some might even want to add a little brandy onto the layered cake slices. finally, you top the whole thing with whipped cream if you have it. set aside to allow it to settle or place it in a cooler, if you a have a big enough cooler to hold the whole thing.
     haven't tried it yet like i said but you have to admit, it does sound scrumptious. no cooking or baking, too. heh!
     oh, yeah, be sure to save them chocolate cake crumbs. store 'em in an airtight container and place 'em in the cooler. they'll come in handy the next time you eat ice cream. sprinkle the crumbs on your ice cream and eat. yum!
     hhhmmm... i wonder if substituting bread crumbs with them chocolate crumbs when making "breaded" fried chicken or pork chop would taste great...

august 26, 2007
     damn! i'm a member of this motorcycle group, parañaque riders club or prc, and lately, the attendance had been pretty much sucking. out of the nearly twenty members of the group, only about four to five had been consistently showing up every evening. and sometimes, no one even shows up except for yours truly. sigh!
     i don't really mind that though but what really irks me somewhat was the fact so few members were showing for the club's official hang-out time every fridays. bleh!
     the ironic thing was that we were on the verge of pulling things together about three weeks ago. attendance was on the rise but then the problems with the traffic management group or tmg (bah! don't ask!) and the rains came. attendance was pretty much non-existent for several days and then very low afterwards.
     here's hoping that attendance will be a whole lot better next month. particularly when the damn weather gets a whole lot better.

august 20, 2007
     i've already told you guys about me obsession with tools like hammers and such, that only thing holding me back from acquiring a whole plethora of power tools was me incredible shrinking wallet. well, i recently went and bought a small axe, an eagle professional tools hatchet to be exact. i absolutely loved it. i've been honing it's edge evening to help while away the time as i watched tv, waiting to get sleepy enough to go to bed.
     and it came quite handy, too. due to the storms and heavy rains we've been having, the tree out front got blown down. my trusty axe, with her honed edge, made short work of the hapless tree.
     yep. it was one of my better buys, in my opinion. my only regret was not being able to afford the bigger, heavier axe. he-he-he!

---

---

july 20, 2007
     lately, i had been putting a lot of work time on my 2d6 rpg system ebook that i was finally able to post the first instalment (25% of the first draft). while there still isn't a lot of meat in it yet, i'm very much excited about it and i really think that you should give it a once over if you are interested in paper-and-pencil rpg's. heh! you just might like what little bit of info there is, enough to give it a second look when i post the second instalment.
     you'll find the ebook in the rpg section. just use the navigation bar on the right, the link with the paper, pencil, and pair of dice in it.
     i really have high hopes fo this rpg, a lot of plans for it. i already have ideas for the advanced rules ebook, as well as for the system's first campaign setting ebook. both ebooks will feature additional rules and information on how to make the system, and thus the game, more interesting and exciting. and then there are the ebooks on monsters and campaign adventures i'm planning to write.
     all in all, this is a project that will most probably take 5 years to accomplish. perhaps even more. all will be yours, free for the taking. whee!

july 15, 2007
     i love drinking brewed coffee, that foul and bitter liquid. and i like it black without sugar. but lately i've been drinking less and less of it and more of tea, taken english style: with milk and sugar. i hadn't taken to drinking tea with biscuits yet though. heh!
     i had discovered that i liked the taste of milk and tea. or rather tea with a little milk in it. with sugar to taste. i found it quite soothing and relaxing. and it went quite with cigar, too. whudathunk!
     still, my love for brewed coffee remains. when i eventually get off my lazy butt, i'll go out and get me a pint of vanilla ice cream. i'll go out and try that brewed coffee recipe i found in one of them online comics i read. vanilla ice cream and brewed coffee — the poor man's espresso.

---

july 4, 2007
     and so my obsession with tools continues. i just went and got me a soldering iron, a coil soldering lead, a soldering iron stand, and an L-shaped metal ruler. and come next month, i'll be getting a couple more tools whether i need them or not. hee-hee! i just can't help myself. why, if i had anymore money to spare, i'd be buying power tools, as well as a mini-mill and a mini-lathe.
     but since i don't, i'm just gonna have to be satisfied with the ones that i could afford. the way i figured it, if i was meant to own a power tool or a mini-mill or a mini-lathe, i'll eventually get my hands on it. if it comes, it comes. if it was meant to be, it was meant to be. no sense in trying to buy what i can't afford after all, what with that bike i'm currently saving up for.
     heh!

july 1, 2007
     a couple or so weeks ago, i discovered a place where i could buy pirated anime dvd's. heh! i could already hear the indignant growls and screeches going through the crowd. but i don't care. hereabouts, genuine anime dvd's were quite uncommon and expensive as hell. besides, them anime videos i was talking about were mostly fansubs, compiled and sold by enterprising individuals.
     now i know that you're not supposed to pay for fansubs, being free and all. but i'm not complaining. i find it easier to just buy the compiled videos than look for individual videos myself, even if they were free. besides, the dvd's were quite cheap. only 70 pesos per dvd. and considering that each dvd contained a whole series, there were quite cheap indeed.
     thus i've been watching anime almost every evening. to date, i've watched: cooking master boy (whole series) and rave: groove adventure (whole series). currently, i'm watching the series samurai 7. i'm thoroughly enjoying it all. he-he-he! i really can't wait to go back to that place and get me some more anime dvd's.

june 9, 2007
     the rainy season's here! or just about here. i can feel it in me bones. that and the increasingly fluctuating weather from sunny to wet. still friggin' hot though. bleh!
     this reminds me that i really needed to replace my baby's tires. more than two years old and all worn down. the roads will all be quite and wet slippery soon and old, worn out tires really won't do. they're a ticket to accident-ville that's for sure. with my busy schedule though, i won't be able to go the bike shop just yet. but as soon as an opening in my schedule shows up, i'll be hoppin' over to the bike shop for new tires. i already have the money set aside just for that occasion.

---

may 31, 2007
     happy birthday to me! happy birthday to me! happy birthday, happy birthday! happy birthday to me!
     today i turned, well, let's just say my age can no longer be found in the calendar. it hasn't been in the calendar for a couple or so years now. he-he-he! in truth, i had not celebrated my birthday since college. for some reason, it just didn't seem to be that much of a big deal to me anymore. i don't even take note of how old i am. in fact whenever i am asked how old i am, i keep finding myself subtracting my birth year from the current year.
     it was different when i was kid, of course. very much different. like any other kid, i couldn't wait for my birthday. cuz then it meant a party, lots of ice cream and cake, and loads and loads of gifts. yep. my birthday party was one of the highlights of my year back then together with halloween, christmas, and new year.
     i got myself a new pair of rubber shoes for my birthday. none of those fancy-schmancy footwear that costs an arm and a leg though. even as a kid, i had always been a sensible shopper. i just got me a simple pair of shoes. but they're sweet nonetheless. and i needed them, too. the old pair i got more than three years ago were just about worn out. you heard it right. my old pair of rubber shoes were more than three years old. i don't wear rubber shoes much these days as i preferred wearing heavy duty boots that were more appropriate for riding my baby to and from work.

may 27, 2007
     recently, i found myself obsessed with amassing tools; to date, i've gotten a mini saw, a small hammer, a riveter, a rachet set, and a glue gun. like most things in my life, i just can't quite figure it out. i mean, i'm not much of a handyman and yet here i am buying these stuff and planning to get more. i even hope to one day get my hands on a mini lathe and a mini mill machine. maybe it's a guy thing or something. heh! now i've got to get me a book or two (or even three) on how to use these stuff properly.
     hhhmmmm... maybe i'll go build myself a birdcage. after all, i had been entertaining the idea of getting a couple of pairs of lovebirds for some time now. yeah. a birdcage definitely sounds like a good beginner's project. the lazy bum that i am though, i'll most probably get around to it near the end of the year. anyways, i'll put it in my list of things to do.
     yeah, i've got a list. quite a long one, too, let me tell ya, with but a few items crossed out. the way things were going, i'll be able to finish them in two to three years. but with new items being added to the list, well...

may 25, 2007
     waaaaghhhhh!!!! i am beset by pesky gremlins again! my stuff seems to be either breaking down on me or inexplicably malfunctioning temporarilly on me. waaah! at first, there's my dvd player and then the saved game in my gba game: harvest moon — friends of mineral town. and then there's the front sprocket of my baby's chain drive. and then just this morning, my phone's alarm rang at around 7:30am when i distinctly remember setting the alarm for 6:30am. bleh! needless to say (but i'll say it anyways), i was quite late for work. to top it all of, my baby refused to start this evening. it's been drizzling all evening so it must have been the cold or something but it took me several times before i eventually got her started.
     i shudder to think of what them gremlins have in store for me next.
     of course, it could just very well be my imagination. and no matter how bad things seem to be, there were always other people that were far worse off than me, or leastways, just as worse off. ah! comforting thought that. truly, misery loves company.
     on the upside, the gods of workload were looking down upon me with favor. i've all but finished the papers that needed to be checked. on that department, i was really way ahead of schedule, which gave more time to keep my lecture notes up to date. yeehaw!

---

may 12, 2007
     oh...boy...oh...boy...am...i...excited...i...could...barely...contain...myself...in..a...couple...of...days...it's...elections... here...in...the...philippines...i'm...so...excited...i...can't...wait...to...go...to...the...polls...and...cast...my...votes...only... to...have...the...current...administration...cheat..me...blind...bleh!
     we filipinos are just to stupid when it comes to politics, i guess. and president quezon had such high hopes for us, too. ninoy had it wrong. filipinos are not worth dying for; the country would have been a lot better of had he lived to succeed marcos. contrary to what many people believed, ninoy and marcos were buds. they had it all worked out in a neat little package. but you know what's been said about the best laid plans of men. they never counted on marcos getting sick like that and on imelda meddling like that. ah, the things a woman scorned will do!

may 10, 2007
     heh! i'm simply crazy about harvest moon: friends of mineral town. i've got several gba game cartridges but the game's just about the only one i play these last couple of months or so. for some reason, there's something about running a virtual farm that appeals to me. i can't quite figure it out. i mean, i really hated planting and tending plants way back in the old days when gardening was part of my grade school curriculum. and the bugs, ugh! i've got nothing against bugs really. i like looking at them. i just don't like touching them, let alone having them crawl up my arms or legs. a shiver runs up my spine just thinking about it. brrrr!
     to date, i've only got a gba. a bit outdated, i know, but it's the only one i could afford brand new. well, relatively brand new. most likely, it's old stock. still, i got it new. i really wanted micro but i just couldn't afford it. well, that's not really true. i could afford it if i don't shell out for food, gas, and stuff. heh! hopefully, come next year, i'll have my hands on that beauty.

may 3, 2007
     oh, boy! oh, boy! i just checked my bike fund and i found out that i had nearly one hundred and twenty thousand pesos is said fund. it won't be long now. just thirty to forty thousand more and i'll finally be able to get a second-hand honda steed or yamaha dragstar. or even a yamaha virago. it had always been my dream to own such a cruiser. i would be aiming for a brand new four-hundred-cc (or up) cruiser but sadly, it's just one of those situations where the spirit is willing but the wallet is not. sigh!
     by my reckoning, i'll probably have enough money come the end of the year. i can't wait! oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy!
     don't get me wrong though it may be my name. my baby's a fine, sweet thing. she really is. all one hundred fifty cc of her. she's easy on the eyes and quite reliable, too. i'll keep her for decades to come, that's for sure. but it would really be great to have a bigger bike and all.

april 30, 2007
     here's another egg recipe for ya. take a couple of eggs, break the shells, put the yolks and white in a bowl. then whip them up into a nice froth with a fork. add a cup or two of cooked rice, any rice will do. spice to taste. if you have 'em, put in some fried bacon bits, chopped onions and parsley, steamed bean sprouts, and diced potatoes (chopped fried french fries will do quite nicely if you don't have potatoes). pop the whole concoction into the microwave and cook for three to five minutes at high setting. and there you have it! a nice snack to tide you over until dinner. you can top it with sour cream and chives if you want to. or salsa. personally, i prefer spicy banana ketchup fortified with a tablespoon of tabasco sauce. yummy, huh?
     sigh! i really hate it when people buy and show stuff off but absolutely refuse to tell you just how much the stuff cost. i was hanging out with the guys at petron treats this evening when one of the guys showed us the nifty aviator-style riding goggles he had just bought. it really was a nice pair eyeball protectors. but when i asked him how much it was, he absolutely refused to tell me. all he would say was that he got it cheap. man, what a jerk!
     but what can you do? all people are jerks. at one time or another. if we get rid of all the jerks in the world, the world would be a much better world alright. only there wouldn't be any people left in the world to appreciate it. bleh!

---

april 24, 2007
     i'd always known i was a pack rat but i only recently realized just how much of a pack rat i really was. i was rifling through my closets and stuff looking for a book i wanted to reread when i came across my high school notebooks. ha-ha-ha! i can't believe i kept them all these years, that i have so much crap lying abouts. i really should do thorough spring cleaning one of these days. i chucked the notebooks into the garbage basket and continued searching.
     heh! kinda reminds of the time i found a couple of five hundred peso bills in my room. i was cleaning out my drawers when i chanced upon the money. i must have hidden the money and forgot all about it. huh! go figure. i don't normally do that with money. i'm usually careful with the little money that i have and keep a close eye on them.
     and then there was the time that i reading through my old magazines. an old five peso bill fell out as i was turning the page. i must have used it as a bookmark or something and then forgot all about it. ha-ha-ha! they don't make five peso bills anymore. the darn things have been out of circulation for quite some time now, replaced by five peso coins. i have since forgotten where i next put the five peso bill but without a doubt, it is still somewhere in my room, the pack rat that i am.

april 20, 2007
     i have something to confess. i'm deathly afraid of pez dispensers shaped like maxx's head. there! i finally said it. and i owe it all to sam keith. thanks a lot, sam! thanks for nothing! now i break into a sweat whenever i walk into a candy shop, praying to god almighty that i don't run into a whole shelf of pez dispensers shaped like maxx's head.
     well i wasn't really afraid of pez dispensers and i kind of liked maxx. but i was deathly afraid of having my fingers bitten off. you might say that candy isn't worth losing your fingers over but who could ever resist the strong but subtle temptations of candy? oh, you say no at first but before you even realize it, you're reaching for a candy and popping it into your mouth.
     it's a good thing that pez dispensers, let alone ones shaped like maxx's head, were quite uncommon, if not all out rare, hereabouts. whew! thank god for small blessings.
     what's that? you have absolutely no idea what i'm talking about? aw! :( you poor, ignorant, wretched fool! you are totally missing out on a good thing. a very good thing indeed! if i were you, i'd go out to my local comic book store and see if they still have back issues of the maxx.
     incidentally, maxx is also the name of a popular menthol candy here in the philippines. i just went and ate half a bag of the stuff. bleh! i really should stop doing that. i've been told that too much sugar in my bloodstream causes me to say crazy things. very crazy things.

april 16, 2007
     ugh! don't you just hate it when you discover that the bread you made your cheese, mayo, and butter sandwich out of was moldy? yeah. particularly after you had just eaten about half of it. blech! i really hated that. i guess it served me right though. i really should start inspecting the bread before i eat it or make a sandwich out of it. i guess that strange, musty taste wasn't the cheese after all...
     speaking of sandwiches, i once made a platter of hot sauce sandwiches. tasted weird, i gotta say. kinda like bread slathered with spicy vinegar. i couldn't quite decide if they tasted good or not that i continued eating. by the time i came to the decision that hot sauce sandwiches were terrible, i had eaten a whole platter of the stuff. six friggin' sandwiches, man. six friggin' hot sauce sandwiches. i had an upset stomach all afternoon.
     one good thing about gobbling up hot sauce sandwhiches though: water never tasted so sweet.

---

april 12, 2007
     don't you just hate them jokers who rant about a movie they've just seen and about how good it was, when all along the movie was more than a year old already? yeah. i hate them, too. problem is, i'm one of them jokers. i don't go out to see movies myself. i just don't see the point in it. i'd probably go if my friends drag to the movie theater and force me to buy a ticket at gun point. i'd rather just wait for the movie to show on cable, or better yet, for the dvd to come out. then i can sit back and relax in the comforts of my own room. case in point, i saw the fellowship of the ring movie when the two towers movie was already showing in theaters. hee-hee! you can just imagine the looks on my friends' faces when i talked to them about how i loved the movie and how i couldn't wait to see the sequel.
     stranger still, i got to watch the return of the king movie before i saw the two towers movie. forturnately, i knew enough of the middle earth trilogy story so as not to be terribly confused.
     i guess i'm just weird that way...

april 8, 2007
     pssst! hey, buddy. wanna hear a funny scrambled egg story? funny weird. not funny ha-ha. several years back i thought up of a nifty way to make scrambled eggs. at least i thought i did. i told jay about it and he thought it was such a good idea that he'd give it a try. well, at least that's the way i remember it.
     anyways, here's how you do it. you take a couple of fresh eggs and give each one a strong shake. not enough to break it, mind you, but enough to break the yolk inside and mix it all up with the white. then you pop the eggs in a pot of boiling water. and walah! in a couple of minutes or so, you have scrambled eggs. no fuss, no mess. you just shell them and eat them like you would boiled eggs.
     nifty, huh? it makes for a great snack on the go. huh! no more boring old boiled eggs for this guy. and think of all the picnics you can fancy up with them puppies.
     but then again...
     jay gave it a try like he said he would. the egg shells all cracked and popped open while the eggs were cooking. so much for that idea. bleh!
     some of you might have better luck though. if you do give it a try, i wanna hear all about it.

april 2, 2007
     ah! it's election season and the stench of politicians and false promises once more fill the air and choke the not-so-innocent masses. feh! ignorant masses more like it. apathetic masses even. nothing brings out the worse in people than politics and elections only make things even worse. worser?
     it's already been what? two, three days after the start of the official campaign period for this year's election and already the newspapers are full of reports of an election-related violence. a congressional candidate was shot dead by as of yet unknown assailants. damn, brother! i mean, damn!
     such reports and the facts that the agencies and organizations that were supposed to ensure a safe and clean elections were rife with unresolved issues of corruption and even violence only serve to give one a sinking feeling at the pit of one's stomach. a sinking feeling indeed. it's a good thing that i don't take politics quite seriously or i'd be going to the mountains to become a hermit. with the ways things were going, the philippines was doomed to mediocrity for decades to come, even — dare i say it? — for eternity.
     with that said, i'll step down from my soap box now. it was just something that i had to get out of my system. i feel much better now.

---

march 30, 2007
     man, i'm pissed! and depressed. and anxious. sigh! i guess they were right, whoever they are. when it rains, it really does pour. first, it was my baby's rear sprocket. i was on my way to the office when my baby suddenly refused to move forward. her engine was running smoothly; she just refused to move forward when i rev her up. i eventually discovered that the studs connecting her rear sprocket to the rear wheel had all sheared off. damn! not only was i unable to go to work but, on top of it all, i had to shell out nearly one thousand pesos for a new sprocket.
     and then a couple of days later, my laptop computer suddenly began crashing. at first i thought it was overheating but i later found out that the hard disk drive had finally gone the way of the dinosaurs. damn! damn! damn! i called my cousin about how much a new hard disk drive would cost me and his answer sent me reeling. three thousand and five hundred friggin' bucks, man! aaaggghhhh!!!!
     it was cheap, of course. as far as hard disk drives go, it was cheap. really it was. it was just that my emergency funds were quickly being depleted. i was not a happy wolf.
     i was really quite depressed. even went as far as thinking myself the unluckiest bastard around. with the exception of jay, of course. nobody's unluckier than that guy. nobody. hee-hee!
     but then i got to hear the problems of my other friends. their problems were far worse than mine. i felt better then. misery does love company. nothing perks up a miserable soul than another soul who's more miserable than he is.

march 25, 2007
     i recently discovered that i hated pickles. at the very least, i found that i disliked them. i had been eating burgers with pickles in them for many years now and a couple of days ago, i tried eating one with the pickle slices removed. i was delightfully surprised how tastier the burger was. huh! go figure.
     the odd thing was i absolutely adored relish, which was basically chopped pickles. nothing tasted better than hotdog topped with relish, mustard, and catsup. hhhmmm... maybe i should try putting relish in my burgers. maybe that would make a tasty treat even more of a treat.
     then again, maybe i just don't like pickles, chopped or otherwise, in my burgers.
     i heard that some people liked their corndogs slathered in pancake syrup or, weirder yet, in sweet and sour sauce. ugh! my taste buds are shuddering just at the very thought of it. now curry sauce on the other hand, that's a whole different story altogether. i can totally understand why some people would want curry sauce on their corndogs. i can dig it, man! curry sauce rocks!
     is it just me or am i the only one distressed at the seemnigly overwhelming popularity of pineapple as pizza topping? why, i'm absolutely appalled at the idea! nothing ruins the heavenly taste of pizza than chunks of pineapple randomly strewn all over it. i don't know about you guys but to me, pizza was never meant to be sweet and tart. blech! the same goes for burgers. please, don't get me started on that one. hawaiian burger, my ass!

 

this site is maintained by me, wrong wolf, purveyor of crappy items from the bargain bin of life. if you want to receive email whenever this site is updated or to just say "hi", drop me a note at sbaun@yahoo.com.

this site has been tested with the internet explorer 6 browser, as well as with the firefox 1.5 browser and is best viewed with maximized windows and a resolution of 1024 x 768.

circa:

march 24, 2007

last updated:

august 31, 2007

this site has been updated nine times since its creation.