I haven’t been blogging that much lately because I get so caught up with work. Yeah, that stupid non-paying internship. Actually, it’s not really that much stupid because I love it which is really weird because I thought when I resigned from work then that’s the last time I’ll ever do PHP/MySQL again. My project is huge, something that I wouldn’t be able to complete in a month, and I’m the sole programmer there. So, I’m thinking, if I do good enough (duh?) then they could pay me loads of cash to do it. Well, not actually “loads”, just enough to get my MacBook or whatever Steve will announce on Macworld SF 2007, which by the way, I will be able to attend. Ha, It’s Disneyland for Mac geeks!

You know the difference on developing with a Mac than on a PC? You actually strive for greatness. When I was doing web applications on a PC, I act like a regular programmer–just get it over with and think kick-ass logic without ever caring if it’s user-friendly or beautiful. After all, those are the designers’ job. Now that I use my Mac in the office, I want my applications to be really awesome and beautiful. I want it to be delightful to use, just like every Mac application available. Thanks to AJAX and some awesome Dynamic HTML effects, I was able to achieve that.

Switching gears now, one of my professors in class is hilarious! Yesterday, he was actually bad-mouthing another professor calling her “mukhang tikbalang”. I was so laughing my ass off. I also have a huge crush on this girl also on his class. Her chance of being single right now: probably 20%. My chance of actually being able to work up the courage and ask her out on a date: 0.0000001%. Hehe.

For those who likes free wi-fi hotspot, there’s one right here in Starbucks Waltermark Makati. I get 2 bars on my airport so it’s probably coming off from Don Bosco or some establishment here in the area. Funny, the name of the hotspot is ‘FREE_INTERNET’ which is awesome.

It was fun while it lasted–bumming around the house, nothing to do but sit on the couch, watch tv and eat a boatload of junk foods. Now, it’s back again to a world filled with alarm clocks, those little devils that snatch you from heaven and takes you to a cold freezing shower. Why, you might ask? I started my internship. I have decided to go with Solar Entertainment just to get it over with fast and easy. It’s all good (pun intended) as of this week–met some nice people, learned a little bit and started programming again, which surprisingly I missed doing. I survived 3 days of it which makes 30 more before I finish the required hours.

Faster than saying “neophilia”, I decided to change my phone again. It’s a Sony Ericsson K610i and I just couldn’t resist buying after watching this mesmerizing video. It’s gorgeous and comes in this nice packaging:

I think Sony Ericsson is the Apple of mobile phones and even though I convince myself everyday that Motorola is better, it just doesn’t work for me. One thing’s cool which is the “Blog this” function. Basically you just take a picture, click on More and there will be a Blog option. The phone automatically resizes the picture and takes you to a Blogger interface in which you can type in your entry. Way cool.

The mandatory mirror shot…

I loved the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie which surprised me because I thought it’s going to be boring and I just watched it for Keira Knightley. Having said that, there’s no doubt I would be excited to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, perhaps even more than Superman or X-Men. So I woke up early this morning, ate my breakfast and head on over to Mall of Asia to get tickets for the 3:10 pm screening at the Director’s Club. At the booth, I went “Director’s club at 3-something screening. Just for one.” She goes, “Sir, 350 each po iyon.” I said “Uh huh.” and then she said “Sir, hindi po iyon IMAX!” I went “Yep.” I handed her over 400 bucks. She said while looking at my open wallet, “Sir, bibili pa po ba kayo? 350 po iyon!” I said, “yeah?” I’m not judging her even though she did judge me. Maybe the reason she acted that way is so many people are buying tickets at any of their cinemas thinking they are all “ay-maks tyeter“.

I’m now here at my new favorite hangout, SBC in Mall of Asia facing the bay. There’s usually no other people here during weekdays and I have the couch all by myself. It’s a cold rainy weather and I can see the water from the bay violently rushing and the trees swaying like crazy and I’m loving it. Globe WIZ got the rights for the Wi-Fi in here which sucks because I’m an Airborne subscriber. No worries though because Smart 3G will still cover me despite much slower speeds.

Philippine Airlines still haven’t called regarding my internship. Total bummer.

I thought looking for an internship gig at any company would be easy. After all, in most cases, you’re offering free labor to those company moguls which also gives them the right to tell you to make them coffee. Anyway, as much as I would love to tinker around with the coffee maker and staple tons of papers together all day, I need to find a company that will actually ask me to do something related to my specialization which is Java.

I sent in my resume yesterday to Globe, Smart and Nestle and other companies. The first 2 still haven’t called and Nestle sent me an e-mail saying they don’t need an IT intern right now. I asked my mom’s pilot friend (which, by the way, is officially my idol because my mom said that when he was younger he was a captain at PAL doing international flights, had a hot flight attendant girlfriend which became his wife…what more can you ask for?) if Philippine Airlines do accept computer science interns. He said he doesn’t know and most probably not. I tried passing my resume anyway since their HR department is only a 3-minute jeepney ride from our house.

As I walk through the grounds of PAL, I can’t help but noticed the small building with a sign that reads “Pilot’s Lounge” and thought to myself that I hope someday I get to hang out at that lounge. I handed over my resume to the HR and she quickly said, “Have this waiver notarized. We’ll call you next week for the orientation schedule. Wear business attire.” Does it mean I got in? I don’t know because she barely even looked at my resume. Maybe they just badly need unpaid labor right now.

A couple of companies called me but I had to turn them down because my priority is now with PAL. Here’s hoping that I really got in.

I had my fair share of bad, no, horrible weekends so it just seems natural that The Powers That Be would grant me a nice perfect one. It all started when I wake up saturday morning and found out that there’s fresh brewed coffee on the pot, hot breakfast on the table and the morning paper. While sipping my coffee, I just realized that when I go online and log on to my school’s website then there it is, my grades for the quarter, one failing mark will push the target graduation date back to another 3 months. I grabbed my dad’s PeeCee and logged-on. There it is, 5 subjects and not a single failing mark even though I was 80% sure that I would fail one. Actually, this term posted the highest weighted average I have ever got in the 4 years I’m in that school. I started jumping and shouting that my dog started barking loudly probably thinking I went psycho.

Sunday is Superman on IMAX day! Before I prepped up to go to MoA, I reserved my slots on my 3 remaining subjects which luckily the school is offering this term. I breathed another sigh of relief and as I click on “Finalize My Load”, I hoped that it was the last time I did that. At 4PM, I received a text from Girlie that she’s on her way to MoA and I’ll meet her at 5. Screening starts at 9pm so we’ll have a good 4 hours to hang out. Found out that the Superman screening was delayed until 10:20 pm so that “good 4 hours” became “5 hours with nothing to do but walk around the mall and check out items we cannot buy because we lack cash”. It was OK though because I was in good company.

After watching Superman on IMAX 3D, here’s what I got to say: the admission price was very much worth it. Don’t expect anything spectacular during the 3D scenes…it was just “meh” though the glasses were useful during trailers. Good thing that Kris Aquino chunkee corned beef commercial I was talking about wasn’t on 3D or else it would be really horrible because she might poke us with those huge fork-thingie. The movie didn’t take up the whole IMAX screen because it was shown on its original resolution which is in widescreen. What was awesome about the experience was the sound… everything from the roar of the airplane engines to punches was crystal clear and loud that it puts THX cinemas to shame. After experiencing all of that, I can see myself shelling out 350 bucks for every movie they show there.

I got my mac back from Apple Center today. They didn’t do anything to repair the bottom case because I have to pay them 3000 bucks even though it is still covered by warranty which I think is a rip-off. I’m just gonna live with it for a while and send it to another service center and try my luck.

Everyone was taking pictures before the Superman screening so we went in on the fun…