My Lakbayan grade is B-!

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Created by Eugene Villar.

When the world is still, I think of you, of all that was and what used to be. In that moment, there is clarity, the suns shines brighter, and the wind touches my face like an old friend who knows how much tears I've stopped from falling. 

The world seemed too real then, every breathe pierced my lungs, every feeling hurt my chest, and only you could stop the pain, but even then the dream does not stay. 

When the world is still, there is music, the rain stops, the clouds roll away, the sky is bigger, people smile, wishes come true and there's you when I turn at the corner.

But today, life's noise drowns the pain, and only the memory remains.

2011.01.16.6.28.a.m.

“Watching Over Me”
FFH

Where could I run, where could I hide
Where could I go where You are not
Where could I be where You don't see
All of these demons chasing me
What kind of sin could I find myself in
Where You wouldn't stop
The world from spinning 'round and 'round
When it seems like I am upside down
But in Your comfort I have found
A safe place to fall

And I'll be alright
Safe inside
Stayin' alive
As long as You are watching over me

Where could I go where I don't know
All of the comfort You bestow
Where could I fall, where could I land
Where I'm not resting in Your hand
How could I stray too far away
Where You won't leave the ninety-nine
To come and bring me back
And put me on Your shoulders and
Carry me around Your neck
Until it's safe to walk

And I'll be alright
Safe inside
Stayin' alive
As long as You are watching over me

And I will be fine
'Cause You are by my side
And I'll be okay
'Cause You're with me every day
This one thing is sure
I could never, ever ask for more

And I"ll be alright
Safe inside
Stayin' alive 

That the sky would lift
That I’d find my place
That I’d see your face in the door

i press my face against the tinted glass and watch as the rain drenches the long dark street that is kingsway. in exactly 13 minutes, the flourescent bulbs will blink once, twice and finally sleep, i will then count 43 strides from my sanctuary to that corner beside the door that leads to a seemingly endless flight of stairs, and with a power that only i possess at this forsaken hour, i will flick the eternal switch that separates light from darkness.

And the sun would glint
On a time well spent
On a time that ain’t no more

in between sleeplessness and dreaming i glance at the painted orange and pink colored skies on dry canvas that my friend made with a hand that never tires and a mind that never runs out of ways to mix ink into masterpieces. the portraits remind me of ephemeral childhood days when time didn't exist to mark failures we've committed nor milestone we have yet to accomplish, back then plans were nothing but castles that giant waves crush into scattered lumps of sand.

Takes the broken hearts
In the vacant lots
To see the fruit that rots on the trees

as my eyes dim and surrender to the grey cloudy skies that hide the stars, my brain gives in to translucent dreams chasing after each other. i freefall straight into the chasm, there is no pause, not even for a gasp of air, but just when my heart is about to explode.. the heavens open.. and i am blinded by the light.. i hear wings beating against the wind, flying towards a sun that burns me..

Had to turn my head
Leave it all for dead
But it’s in my mind always

i wake up, the screen flickers, i'm still here..

song excerpt: "Lately" by David Gray, from the album "Life in Slow Motion"

2009.03.24.02.31.a.m.n.d.g

Just when I stopped listening to Jack Johnson (because I heard/saw somebody strum Banana Pancakes on the guitar and that ruined it all for me..), Apple then decides to play his tunes on the recently concluded Fall Event that introduced several new iSoftware and iGadgets,

"Better Together" by JJ opened the show and the closing act was "Yellow" performed by Chris Martin - these songs are haunting me with memories I want to forget,

..and this is why I stopped listening to secular music.

Yellow
by Coldplay


Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah they were all yellow,

I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called yellow

So then I took my turn
Oh all the things I've done
And it was all yellow

Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
D'you know you know I love you so
You know I love you so

I swam across
I jumped across for you
Oh all the things you do
Cause you were all yellow

I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
And it was all yellow

Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
D'you know for you i bleed myself dry
For you i bleed myself dry

Its true look how they shine for you 

For the past three years, I've only been home for a total of three weeks so I thought it would be great if this time my brothers and I could hangout somewhere outside the country and just chill. Can't complain about the sunshine and beaches in Cebu but 42 degrees is just insane. I'll trade this for snowstorms anytime of day. 

I've never really explored HK, the longest I've stayed there was when I had a 12 hour layover for a connecting flight. I figured it's time to pay a visit to the land of of the laser lights, and who knows, maybe see Disneyland. But of course, my two burly brothers were not the least bit interested to see Mickey Mouse so instead we bought octopus train cards at the airport and went on to chart the best course to see the city.

At first we joined a tour group that took us to all the shopping places we didn't really want to go to, so we bailed out on that, took the MTR and double deck buses, and explored the city on our own. I must admit, a map is important in this type of quest, but the only map I got was the train stops for the red line. Fortunately, we met someone who used to work in the city some years back. She decided to go back and revisit HK now that she has enough money saved. Among other things, she showed us where Jollibee was =) now, we know where to score all the chicken joy.

After a visit to the massive building where they sell all the electronics stuff, we walked down Nathan road to the Avenue of the Stars so we could watch the symphony of lights show, but before that we decided to stop by a restaurant that serves BBQ duck. Twas great that the menu came with pictures, coz the guy at the counter didn't speak any English and we knew no Chinese. I sincerely hope that was duck we ordered ^_^, it looked like it.

The trek to Victoria Peak is probably the highlight of the trip. Although it was drizzling and foggy, we did manage to get a good view of the downtown Hong Kong skyline, Kowloon, and Victoria Harbour. Kuya was also able to buy some souvenirs to take back home.

We spent two nights in HK then proceeded to Shenzhen via train. The bus tour guide asked us if we were picky about food and if we eat anything. Some people said they eat everything and the guide warned us that we shouldn't order hot dog in that city, because that meant real dog, eww! I think that was when we decided to stick to McDonald's and KFC for this leg of the trip =)

There was really not much to see here, it was also the same time when the flash floods were happening and it was all over the news - so there was an overcast of gloom on the city. We did see the Windows of the World and more night markets, jewelry shops and car factories - I guess those tour buses are shopping traps in disguise. Good thing we weren't really into buying stuff, but more into eating so that's where all our HKD and RMB went to.

The whole adventure was a great opportunity to bond with my brothers. It was their first passport stamp, their first trip outside the country, and I'm glad we survived it despite our constant petty quarrels. We laugh when people say that we look like we get along really well ^_^ Hopefully we can do this again next year.

Jailbreaking the iPhone for the benefit of science is a lofty task, especially for people who have too much time in their hand to tinker with new technology. When it first came out in 2007, the first thing I did was immerse myself in firmwares and basebands and scripts until I got familiar with its file system. Now two generations later, Apple still makes incredible attempts to plug holes and stop people from messing up with their systems.

Currently I'm on 3.1.2 and the latest firmware as of writing is 3.1.3. With the release of the iPad and the 4.0 SDK, another upgrade is imminent. To preserve the status quo on my present setup, I sync with iTunes regularly to backup my files and keep a handy set of utilities.

One pitfall I always find myself in is the endless loop of apple logo display that does not proceed to boot up. I also encounter the dreaded iTunes 16xx or 20xx errors when I try to restore to custom firmware. This usually happens when I'm doing a lot of surfing or launching games that connects to the Internet. My phone works fine while I'm doing all those stuff but when I put it down and maybe leave it overnight, or put it in airplane mode while I'm in transit (usually for an hour or so), I find that upon waking it from sleep mode,  it suddenly couldn't connect to my wireless routers anymore.

I then do the customary shutdown and startup just in case there are some background processes hogging the cpu or something, but this often triggers the endless loop problem. In case it does boot up properly and still can't connect to the wireless server, I then continue with resettting the network settings, which might actually fix the issue if it can bypass the endless loop syndrome.

After much hands-on experience with phenomenon, I've devised ways to prepare myself for the impending doom and I've amassed a collection of nifty implements to get me out of jeopardy and back into the almost perfectly working world of fw 3.1.2. What can I say, I don't want to upgrade until I've figured out all the nooks of the current release.

Here are some points to remember:
1. Apple has stopped signing fw 3.1.2 so restoring back to it through the usual Option + Restore method in iTunes will result to 16xx or 20xx errors.
2. It's important to have a copy of your iPhone's ECID and SHSH files.
3. Have a handy copy of your custom restore file.
4. Sync with iTunes everyday to have a backup of your files and settings.
5. Don't jailbreak unless you want your life to be complicated.
6. Panic count: 0.

These days, when my iPhone starts acting up like taking too long to respond after I've opened a hundred tabs on Safari or suddenly disconnects from my router or couldn't search available wireless networks, the first thing I do is plug it on my Mac and sync with iTunes. I am already preparing myself for the inevitable restore so I need the freshest backup possible. Then I try the following and see if any of them works:

1. Restart.
2. Hard reset.
3. Reset network settings.

If it was some stray process, any of the three would solve the problem but if its some weird stuff you were not supposed to install then never, I mean never jailbreak your iPhone again unless you can get yourself out of this. This reminded me of all the ROM flashing I've done with my Palm devices back when CLIEs still roamed the earth. You don't have business messing up the low level stuff if you don't understand a single line of code. Better stick with the stock options.

Anyway, assuming that you know your stuff well, then you really don't need to read this. I'm just writing notes in case someone asks me how and I'm too busy to explain in detail. This morning I woke up and checked the weather forecast on my iPhone but found that it couldn't connect to the server. Could it be all those threads I opened last night to simulate multitasking? I don't know for sure so I just plugged it into iTunes and started syncing. I then tried the quick fixes mentioned above but none of them worked and step 3 brought me to endless apple logo loop.

Without delving too much into the technical explanation of each step, here's the rest of the procedure that resurrected my device:

1. Put the iPhone in Recovery mode.
2. Modify the host file to intercept iTunes
3. Fire up TinyTSS and run your own signature server using your backup SHSH file
4. Run iTunes and plug in your iPhone
5. Once iTunes recognizes the device in recovery mode, restore to the custom firmware and load your settings back.

As I'm writing this I've just finished doing all the steps above and my iPhone is in happy working state again. Thank you Apple for giving me an education.