Being too Kind is Stupid

I just came from a guys day out with my friends from my last job at SGV. We played Warcraft DOTA most of the afternoon and I just spent P124 on LAN games at Be Connected. It was fun but tiring. We played full 3 games, we won at first and lost on the last two. We dealt with professionals out there so it was expected anyway it was fun.

During my SGV days, we would play during lunch breaks and when the team-up is not balanced, I tend to not be serious but after a while, I realize that it suck to lose when you taught it is an easy win. And this is because of I was too kind. This is a bad habit of mine that I always carry in most of my life:

• I am too kind that even though somebody gives me a hard time and I get mad, I am too soft to easily forgive and forget what happened.
• I am too kind that I tend to lend things to people and I tend to forget the details afterwards and not get back what I gave before.
• I am too kind that I give too much of an effort on my business and sidelines but not get what I should be working for.

It is a bad habit of mine that I can't seem to avoid. I guess my mind set is "there a reason for everything." And since God has been good to me, I guess I should just always forgive and forget. I had such a rough beginning during my early days of working but now I have a good job, good friends, and a good life. What more can I ask for?

I guess one thing I should take note always: Be too kind but NOT STUPID. Learn from your lives experiences and think before you act. Most of the time you think you are too kind but it just points out that you are stupid as well. You are not lucky most of your life and you should take care of yourself always.

Keeping Track of You Bookmarks

Last year, I have a hard time maintaining my bookmarks. Every time I have new things, on my office or at home, I need to copy them to my USB and synchronize at home. And when I am using the internet cafe, I don't have access to my bookmarks at all. This all changed when I was able to read the Feb 2007 edition of PC World which changed my internet experience.

Since most of us spend our time surfing the net, when we encounter a good site we usually bookmark it using our browsers. This is only stored on the pc you used and you need to copy it on your notebook or your cellphone to keep it to yourself. Since last year, there are plenty of bookmarking sites out there that you can freely use and if you are a Yahoo fan then you can use their own: Delicious.

Delicious, I think is for users that only need a web site that will store and catalog their bookmarks. It is simple, easy to use and also provides a search mechanism that will help you find sites better (since other people have bookmarked them as well).

If you are the type of person who likes social sites such as friendster, multiply or facebook, then you can opt to use StumbleUpon. This site is a community of users who like to surf the web, find good sites and talk about them. I have not used this site yet because for now delicious' functions is all I need for my bookmarking needs.

Extreme.. Extreme Free Karaoke Sing!

I got this friend who is addict on singing and she wants to buy a Wow Magic Sing which costs about P10,000 and each song upgrade chip (contains additional songs) costs thousands more. They might say that magic sing is portable and all but you still have a lot of cords to plug-in and did I tell you that the mice is not that durable so you have to be careful when using it with other people and kids.

This last summer in Palawan, we stayed in a resort that offered a different type of karaoke. In this one is a DVD player type that all you have to do is insert CD's and there you go. I remember that there is a menu in which you can choose what song you can play. This is a cheaper alternative but the "portability" part will be much less. But if you are a typical filipino household which does much of the singing in the house then you should just go to Divisoria or even Makati Cinema Square and find for that DVD-Karaoke player.

But if you have an computer at home, having a fair size of monitor (I think 15" is good enough) a good pair of speakers and a PC-mice (I think CDR-King has one) then you are in luck! You can easily transform your computer/laptop into a karaoke machine.

Just two steps:

1. Download and install KaraFun (a karaoke player)
2. Download and play karaoke songs

Enjoy guys!!

My BPI Savings Account

During the week I have decided to go through some of my plans which is to open a new BPI Family Savings Account. It was quite easy and right now they have a promo of "Get Started with Insurance" which is like a normal family savings account (with no extra charges) which entitles the account holder of 5x its current balance as its insurance premium. Opening an account on BPI is as easy as 1-2-3:

• Bring 2 valid government issued ID's (sorry company id's not allowed)
• 2 1x1 ID pictures
• 1 proof of billing on your name
• Initial deposit P5,000

What I like about BPI is its internet banking. You can enroll your Meralco, Globe post-paid / Globe Broadband payments and even your credit card payments. This allows you to pay your bills online without any hassle.

Anyway I will use this savings account to save up for emergency purposes and for the future as well. I have to keep in mind that:

• Savings is not equal to Income - Expenses
• But.. Expenses = Income - Savings

You have to save something for your self first so that you can effectively save something every pay day. You don't have the power to work and work for all your life. In some point you have to retire and you can not simply rely on pension plans provided by pre-need companies, SSS, or your previous company. You have to be sure that you have enough savings before retiring so that you don't have to rely on your kids too much for support in the future.

Planning Ahead

Yes most of us just go by day after day, living our lives as we are used to. However, do you ever wonder what will come to us after we get old?

Right now I am almost 27 and until know I have not kept a single cent for my savings. I still not have started my "plans" that will give me a bright and promising future. I have already read various books regarding managing your finances and saving for the future, Investing and being "wealthy."

But really now, what is being wealthy?

It does not necessarily mean having a lot of money to spend and spend. Being wealthy is a state in which you have the necessary passive income to keep your chosen lifestyle. I got this idea from Jaime Colayco which wrote a best seller Wealth Within Your Reach. This teaches a lot about:

• personal financing
• planning ahead
• retiring early

I would recommend you guys read this as well. It costs quite a while (for about P500 or so) but this really helps specially those who are currently abroad and away from love ones just to earn good money.

Blog Trash

After successfully adding a new feature on my blog: Label Cloud
(referencing on my good friend's blog)

I decided teo look for other blogs by pressing the Next Blog button at the top, to get tips on their layout and strategies. I discovered the ff things while exploring:

• Porn Links
  
• Flickr Pix (porn)
  
• Useless Google Group Posts
• Pointless Google Talk User List
• News Clippings (copied somewhere)
• Ebooks (with a lot of terms of use none sense)
• And.. More Porn

Luckily I was able to view an Egyptian women's blog and I gladly posted a comment on her latest post. After a while I gave up on the idea. What I noticed on most Porn blogs is that the "Flag Blog" button is disabled thus not allowing me to notify Google of a crappy blog just created to produce Ad Sense income w/c is sly.

I do hope Google has the time to block such blogs but since there are millions of blogs and hundreds created per second, I think it is impossible. But anyway I am still doing my part of reporting such blogs. I don't want blogger to be limited like other blog sites because of irresponsible bloggers out there. If you have time guys, please give some time to explore also and Flag such trash blogs.

Tragedy on Makati

It was confirmed that the explosion that took place this Oct 19, 2007 at the Glorietta Mall is not gas leak but a c4 bomb. While writing this, there are now 9 confirmed dead and hundreds wounded. It is sad because so many innocent people are damaged and for what? It is not yet confirmed who did this horrible thing. What usually comes to our mind are terrorists, and since Hariraya just ended.. But I think we should not always blame them for it, after all peace talks on Muslim Mindanao continued after Hariraya so what the heck is the meaning of this??

Anyway I got another theory.. Right now there are many controversies and scandals happening on our government. Maybe this is one of those things that might take of our attention to? Believe me Malacanang is currently in the hot seat right now because of the recent "gift-giving" to local officials such as mayors and governors. It is sad that corruption is leading our country to the ground. We are such a promising race and yet we always think of ourselves and not for the good of all. And we stick too much on traditional things that leave us behind, poor and degraded.

I just hope and pray that this tragedy will not happen again. This is a major tragedy that leaves us Filipinos paralyzed once more.