:Six Feet Under… and then some.

Submitted for your review:

The clock theory in determining the degree of societal advancement.

Premise:  In a lot of industrialized countries, clocks are more often than not synchronized to a central standard.  In other places, clocks and watches are set to different times - school time, city hall time, even different hospital wards set their clocks to different times.   The implications have something to do with degree of conformity leading to order (and accurate time keeping) as opposed to non-conformity - the belief in the anomie present in certain societies leading to an individualistic approach to interaction with other members of society, ie arriving late due to the belief that the others might arrive late as well, due in part to screwed up timekeeping practices.

I’m sure a lot of other conclusions can be derived from this premise, but it’ll start getting confusing.
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Checked out the price of either a step-up transformer or a new shaver on-line from Ace hardware and Radioshack.  *cough*  Looks like I’m stuck with 2 hour haircuts…

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What’s with this place?

I checked the local news channel for the weather today.  Temperature was somewhere in the mid-50s.  FYI, thus far, these numbers mean nothing to me.  NOTHING.  Sure I can subtract 32 from the Fahrenheit scale, but when it comes to dividing by 5/9ths then bye-bye!  The only 2 metric-imperial conversions I can do right now are feet-meters, and PSI-BAR.  This comes from diving in either Cebu (which uses meters and BAR), or in Anilao (feet and PSI).  Other than that, things like distance in miles and temperature in Fahrenheit are just funny numbers to me.

Another addition to the annals of the Fantastic Oversight Bureau would be when I tried to use my shaver here.  See, I’ve been shaving my own head for the last 12 years or so.  So it was a no-brainer that to save on a few dollars, I would just bring my own shaver for my weekly hair-cut. Kind of forgot that this place runs on 110v.  Hello!  Tried taking my shaver apart to see if I could "adapt" it, but no dice.  Was able to get it running though - albeit a little slower - so what would normally have taken just ten minutes turned into an hour-and-a-half long ordeal of hair getting caught up in the blades.

See?  This is why the Mars Climate Orbiter burned up toward Mars!

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Oh goodness!

Its 4:20 AM here, I’m still awake, and I have this overwhelming craving for Baliwag liempo.

I’m gonna try to get back to sleep.  If I don’t, I’ll end up all loopy again later, like I was yesterday…

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I’ve always found crossing timelines amusing - imagine taking off from Manila at around 7 AM on Wednesday, and arriving in Chicago at around 2PM on the same day.  Heck, the flight from Detriot took off at 1335, and "arrived" in Chicago at 1345.  Not bad for an hour long flight!

Sure, fascinating enough on paper, but not something you want to be doing everyday…

Let the review begin.

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22 hours to go, then a long flight

Back to studying…

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Oh, I’ve started adding photos to my albums on the right (I’d like to thank my neighbor for the WiFi!).  Unfortunately, I can’t add too many right now.  What with me being the scrooge and not upgrading my account for more photos…

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It was a good day

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Since I was in the Makati area, Anton and I stopped by the Armscor range to fire off a few.  I can honestly say my groups are improving.  Now my shoulder is kinda sore.  If firing a shotgun is like getting kicked in the shoulder by a mule, try firing 9 shells one after another!  Hey, at least I hit the targets all the time!

Duh.

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The range in Makati is also used by various security agencies to train their personnel.  Today happened to be one of those training days…

Welcome to the most secure site in Metro Manila.

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In another show of jackass behavior, we also got a stun gun.  I was slightly disappointed when Anton tried it on himself, with no subsequent drooling or paralysis - not even after the 3rd or 4th try!  I even managed to try it out myself.  While it makes an intimidating electrical cracking noise, at most, all it does is make you jump back in surprise.    Bear in mind, though, we used to stick 9 volt batteries on our tongues as kids just for the buzz (didn’t everybody?).  Suffice to say it wouldn’t  stop a determined attacker.  Unless your attacker was geriatric and had a pace-maker…

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I had to test my computer in the pool yesterday. Now, chlorine

just sucks for gear, so I take my post-dive cleaning seriously. While cleaning my primary second stage, I took it completely apart, and in the process, I accidentally ripped the stem of the exhaust valve.  No biggie, I thought, I’d just get another one in Makati.

I got to the shop today and inquired if they had the correct piece.  They did naman.
The original is on the left, and the spare is on the right.

I decided to get 3 pieces - one as a replacement and 2 spares.  Then I asked how much they cost:

    “Sir, 350 pesos po”
     “350 para sa tatlo?!?”
    “’Di po, 350 kada isa…”

That’s just stoooooopid! What person in their right mind would spend 350 bucks for a stupid piece of silicone?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I got 2.

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There are certain instances in your life where a little voice inside your head tells you to wait.  When it comes to spending money, this little voice (the voice of reason) inside my head usually gets drowned out by “rationalizations” (the voice of rationale).  I recently bought a used steel tank from a junk shop for just PHP 1.5K.  Rationale?  Steel tanks cost around $250 to $300 in the States.  So at the time, I thought it was a steal!

Last week, I went to Aquamundo in Makati to get the tank hydro tested.  2 days ago, they called and said it failed.  After hearing this, the rationalization in my head was going “Well, you’re actually glad it failed because you never really could trust anything that came from a junk shop, could you?”, so I decided to get a new tank instead.

Today, when I got to the shop, the tank I decided to get was no longer being sold.  Additionally, the valve of my steel tank wouldn’t fit their new aluminum tanks.  The cost of a new one was PHP 7K.  I was all set to get it, but decided to defer until I checked out the other shops – specifically Nautilus.  I went there and found out that their tanks cost 8.5K!  At this point, I decided to return to Aquamundo to get the cheaper tanks.  That’s when I heard it… my voice of reason:
 
     "Hey Ed, why are you so hell-bent on getting a tank?"
     "Uh, shops don’t rent out tanks, and I want to have something to use at the beach?"
     "How often do you think you can use THAT there?"
     "Uh…."
     "See?  And how can you justify spending that much when you don’t even have a proper depth gauge or dive computer?"
     "Yeah, I guess you’re right…"
     "You bet I’m –"
     "Hmmm, I should get a computer instead!"
     "No, wait, that’s not what I meant…"
     "Hey thanks!"
     "Noooooooo!!!"  (fade away…)

So I got a computer instead.

Here it is

Thank goodness for the voice of reason!
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FYI: No, I do not meet the DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia.
    "Are you sure?"
     "Yeah, pretty much so."
   "Okie…if you say so…"

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One of the projects my brother and I cooked up within the past few weeks was making a suppressor for an old .22 cal rifle.  To test the theory, we decided to get an old water bottle, taped it to the end of the gun and stuffed it with cotton.  To our surprise, the thing worked great!  Even clapping your hands was louder than the report.  It worked so well, the bottle is still stuck to the end of the rifle.  Now the yard is full of holes…

Speaking of guns, if I was a budget diver, my brother would be the budget shooter.  While both sports don’t come cheap, we look for ways to save here and there.  But a few days ago, Anton encountered someone who takes the cake:  An old geeky guy at the range would sift through the pile of old cardboard targets for things to shoot.  Now this in itself isn’t so bad, but when you consider that he would use his old masking tape (from other used targets) to patch up the holes on the other targets, well that’s just taking it to the next level.  That’s like super yagit, man!  Compare and contrast that with the fact that at 8 bucks a pop, he was going through ammo like they were candy.

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I remember back when I was a freshman physics major in UP.  It was the CS freshman get-together where we were all supposed to introduce ourselves – stating our course and reason for joining.  I don’t quite remember my own reasons, but I do remember one response of a former classmate:
“I went into physics so that I can invent a giant filter to solve Metro Manila’s pollution problem…”

*Brilliant!*

I think he should’ve shifted to literature and used his fantastic imagination to create the novel of the decade.

I wonder where he is today.

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I’ve been using the suffix “-ish” a lot.  Y’know like small-ish.  Nice-ish.  Ish. “It was ish…”

     "How was the movie?"
     “Uh, nice…ish”
     "How’s the weather outside?"
     "Warm-ish."

This part of the post was… ish.

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Other bits of news:
- The CS kitten’s been dead a while (2 weeks ago).  Was able to do a post-mortem ballistics analysis of a .22 on it, so it served a higher purpose.  Whaddya know! POEx is a lot larger than POEn.
- The steel tank failed hydro.  I must admit, I’m more than slightly relieved.  That means I got to get a new tank.  Safer all around I guess.  As I said before, even I had limits to how cheap I get.
- I finally got the negative scanner to work, so some of the pictures in my album on the right will be updated by next week, after I get to the States. 

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One more week.

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ITs been a while since my last post.  Been spending most of my time either tied up reading articles from the board, or getting my stuff together in preparation for leaving for the states next week.

Anyway, what got me to post?

This ad I heard over the radio: 

The BIR and the Department of Education have banded together to invite high-school students who can draw or come up with a story to create a comic strip entitled "The Adventures of Super Pinoy."  A superhero who protects Filipinos around the world from harm - and encourages them to pay their taxes on time!

Ahem.

That series goes right beside my X-men series collection.

What were they thinking?!?

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The Crocodile Hunter is dead!

Crikey!

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