Coredump

• Work: Gone Unix-hardcore. Our team currently leads Unix training for other infra teams. Shell/Perl scripting occupies a large part of the, er, curriculum. I’m “re-learning” Perl. I’m also amazed as to how open source is being leveraged here. I lurve open source.
• Family: Prior to a change of shift sked, I go on an extended off-shift period of four days. Like, wow! What better way to start that four-day weekend than to slooowly fry in my own oil (not a nice imagery there) here at the airport. Hooray. Love the company, though, as always.
• Others: I still haven’t gotten around to reading Good Omens. Haven’t watched Harry Potter, too. (Why bother? I heard it’s not as good as the book, anyway.) And, I haven’t been online in a while. Smart 3G’s a big bummer. Been getting lots of connection errors lately. Hope it stabilise soon.

Look what I found lying around at National Bookstore, Cybermall:

Actually, it was waiting for me. I was just supposed to kill time, waiting for my passport photos to get developed (I looked particularly icky in those pictures).

I would have gone back upstairs to the office, but the photos would only take 30 minutes, so it wasn’t very “efficient” running back and forth like that. Well, I *did* go up before that, because I couldn’t wait for the bank teller to return to her desk so I can ask for a bank statement. Then after logging in and checking some mails, I went down again, got the statement (very quick, that one — she didn’t even ask for my account number, just my name), and had the passport photos taken.

And so… While killing time, I dropped by NBS, and there it was, this beautiful thing wrapped in plastic, mint condition. I would have promptly bought it, but I still had plenty of time, so I browsed the stacks. I found a few nice titles (Vintage epic books, retelling classics by Virgil (Aeneid becomes The Fall of Troy), Homer’s Odyssey (to The Return of Odysseus), among others. Pricey, though.), and the usual paperback sellers. But I kept ‘The day…‘ close to me, and so when the 30 minutes had elapsed, I went to the counter, paid for it, and went out to claim the photos (which looked absolutely horrible — not that I’m vain or anything).

Originally uploaded by iandexter.

(Yet another “New Year’s resolutions” post.)

1. Life. I will strive to be the best tatay to my two sons and wife. Being away most of the time (and going home only on weekends) is taking its toll in my relationship with them, but I will make up for that. My wife and I will learn cooking together. Even the little one can join in if he wants, but he will be busy with his little brother. I will also continue to be a great kuya to my brother and two sisters, and a good son to Mommy and Daddy. Last year had been a year full of changes, and I had been remiss in my family duties. This year will be different. I will also go back to school.
2. Work. I will brush up on my coding skills (I really ought to review on Perl, and learn Ruby). I also resolve to blog more often, with meatier and substantive posts, not only here but for PTB. I may not be able to take on many side projects, but for those I do get, I will — as always — give the best I have, providing quality and innovation, and going beyond expectations.
3. Play. I have to write some more, and go out more often, and read more books. We will probably travel at the end of the year (when the baby is big enough for that) — nothing grand, just a regular family trip. I will see to it that my collection grows. I have been quite lazy with this the past year, but this year, I intend to double my hoard.

We had our team’s Christmas dinner at Twist (which, incidentally, was the caterer for the company Christmas party in Speedzone, The Fort, last Sunday). The food was great — loved the roast beef, and oyster (the hollandaise was a bit icky, though). And for Php500++, the buffet was a steal.

We exchanged gifts, basing on the gift registry wiki we set up. Here’s what I got:

Before the dinner, we had our year-end team performance report. Guess who came out on top. And for those endless parsing of log files and lab-environment setup, I got a rip-off iPod nano. Yay. (I’m having it replaced with a real one, hopefully. Hehe.)

Remember Johnny Mnemonic, and how Reeves mangled it? Brace yourself, because he’s doing Philip K. Dick’s cyberpunk book, A Scanner Darkly (screenplay and direction by Richard Linklater (Dazed and confused, Before Sunrise)).

Here’s a preview trailer:

Reminds me of a recent thread on PLUG-Misc. I haven’t read the book, but I do hope they do cyberpunk right this time. Film renditions of PKD’s work have been okay so far: Blade Runner, Minority Report and Paycheck were cool flicks. Wished they’d do more SF movies. The sneak peek looks promising, though — it has that gritty, drug-induced feel to it.