Last Thursday September 28, a super typhoon came directly to Metro Manila, making a mess out of the already messed up city. We were having a group meeting in the morning and after the meeting we were ordered to evacuate our office building using the emergency stairway. At the lobby, we could already see the strength of the storm. Pieces of metal sheets flying around as well as leaves. Rainwater began to drip from the temporary lobby's ceiling, prompting me and others who notice to get everyone inside the main lobby. A little while later the ceiling of the temporary lobby collapse much to the horror of everyone, especially the women in my group. The situation was getting worse, winds are already reaching inside the main lobby, so we were moved back to the stairwell. That was a good move since a moment later, the glass door shattered and the ceiling inside the main lobby also fell!

 

Back at the stairwell, we were hearing the strong rushing air of the storm hitting the front. I took stock at the situation and checked if everyone in our group was OK (I guess that's where my Military Training came in.) And almost an hour later we were moved upstairs to a more 'secure' location. Without power, save for phones and some running water we waited out before an escape route was given to us.

 

It took some time to have an escape route prepared for us and we moved away in groups. We ended up at the building's parking lot and outside, we've seen the damage, major damage on the surrounding area.

From the MSEvents Site http://msevents.ph :

 

Date:
9/30/2006

Time:
9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Venue:
Videosonic Building, 1351 Candelaria St.,
Santiago Village, Makati City

Sponsor(s):
Microsoft Philippines
Philippine Windows Users Group (PHIWUG)

 

Load up on vista and bring clarity to your world.  Try out and explore Windows Vista for yourself and see what Windows Vista can do for your home and business.  With the new user experience, improved security, and a whole lot of things new in Vista, you'll be sure to do more with less. Windows Vista introduces a breakthrough user experience and is designed to help you feel confident in your ability to view, find, and organize information and to control your computing experience.

 

You can bring your PC's and we'll have them installed with Windows Vista.

 

Please see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx to check whether your PC is capable of running Windows Vista.

Also visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista for more information.

I'm digging this tune from Justin Timberlake right now hehehe nice and catchy!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlvqeISfIk

 

Somehow though it does look like it's going to be in James Bond

Well since this was my first official payday in my life and the rest to come. I had to liberty to head to the mall and buy myself clothes, and some other stuff I wanted badly as a kid.

 

First I bought a new long sleeved shirt for work. This time around I used my own fashion sense (or whatever's left of it) and got myself a striped shirt that hopefully makes me look cool in and out of the office. (next time it would be my pants and shoes to look uber handsome!) (kapal mukha mode). Then I bought this month's issue of FHM since I've seen a very hot girl in this issue while I was having my haircut at our local barbershop/salon. Biggest Sigh, I'm so lucky, yet when it comes to getting the girl, I don't seem to get her. (end Biggest Sigh)

 

Then lastly I went to my favorite gaming store, Datablitz and bought my ever sought after game called Rainbow Six: Raven Shield.

 

Sigh I wish I can do this more, but I guess I have to work harder to earn that one.

Finally, my officemates and I were able to get our first month's salary from work! It wasn't much, but really it was enough just for start-ups like me. And so like all other Filipinos who just received their first pay-check, we treated our family to dinner.

 

At first I chose to eat in Italiannis but because the nearest Italiannis was in Tomas Morato (which was full by evening of other people who received their pay checks) We fell back to going to TGI Friday's near ABS-CBN for dinner. The whole reason for dining there was that I'll be able to use my recently acquired discount card giving me 20% off on my purcahses there.

 

At Fridays, my family ordered: Ceasar Salad (to Share), Brocolli Soup (for Dad), Jack Daniel's Buffalo Wings (*for Dad), Fried Calamari, Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich (my two sisters), Chicken Quesedilla (for mom), and Porkchop and Chicken Comb meal (for me), and a slice of Friday's new Mudslide pie (chocolate overload, I swear). If you look at the itemized breakdown, we ordered A LOT. I was breakin in cold sweat calculating the cost for this one.

 

Well the food was totally great! I got to eat Buffalo Wings TWICE, since my combo platter had buffalo wings as well. The Jack Daniel's Wings weren't bad either, and the Calamari rocks!

 

Then came the bill. I must say that the discount card really did it's purpose since I was still able to pay for dinner without excusing myself and withdrawing additional cash.

Last night, I attended the Philippine Windows Users' Group meeting at the Microsoft Office's Vista Theater/Viewing room. We talked about the launch of Vista along with the plans for Phiwug in general.

We also had introductions from the PMs of Microsoft for Client and Server namely Ms. Chay and Mr. Nicky.

 

And of course the highlight of the night was the raffle. 2 sets of items were handed out: 1) shirts, and 2) An Enterprise Edition Windows Server 2003 R2 DVD with 25 CALs (can be used to build a small high-powered network). Well to someone who said lightning doesn't strike twice, well, he's wrong, coz: I actually won a shirt, but since I already own the same shirt, we returned the shirt AND my raffle stub, back to the pot and had a re-draw for the shirt.... and then the Server which I surprisingly and shockingly won.

Yesterday night, some batchmates (BS CS 06) and some of the CompSAt officers gathered for a despidida dinner for Marc "The Fake" Lihan who's going to Japan for his Masteral course in Computer Science for roughly six years. We had dinner at Dencio's @ Eastwood City along the mall's "streets". However, the weather turned bad and began raining, spoiling our dinner somewhat. After dinner, we all proceeded to Arbi (another classmate's house) to continue our partying and well, drinking of booze.

 

At Arbi's place we played games such as monopoly, which Punzki won hands down (and I was second). The others were playing poker, while others were playing sungka (! that was a game that I used to play... years ago...)

 

A little while later, Troy came in with his drink for the night called Velocity and Unleaded (named after the fuel type sold @ Shell) and we began

the drinking spree which lasted all night long. And thats where all the fun started MWAHAHAHAHAHA! (enter thoughts of Hard Gay scenes being acted out)

Mwahahahaha connection established! Wow, it's much better to post here than on theSpoke, multiply or other blogging sites! (then again it's my own preference too!)