Marcus Can Blog

 

Have you ever been in a situation when you were with someone annoying inside the movies and yet you can’t seem to do something about it? Well, we were yesterday.

Imagine this. After months of being kept away from relaxing on the soft padded seats, dark yet comfortable room illuminated only by the lights along the aisles and of the ever changing projection on the silver screen, you finally had the chance to bring this someone with you to watch the perfect movie.

And after treating this someone to a hearty lunch in one of your favorite restaurants your group formed a beeline to the ticket booth with almost everyone excited and anticipating that within the next few minutes everyone will indulge themselves to pure cinematic sensation that is way different from what the boob tube at home can offer.

Eventually, you all reached and entered the doors of the cinema and being a good host of this gimmick you glance at your guest expecting him to at least glance back to show his appreciation. But instead, for a moment he seems to have chosen to ignore you and would rather focus on the trailers being played as if it were already the featured film. “Well, that’s good enough…at least he’s one that doesn’t talk in the movies”, you reminded yourself, a bit disappointed.

But soon as the movie started he gets jumpy and annoying, and he began to look at you and your partner, just a little short of saying that he needs to discuss something while the scenes flash on the wide screen. This time it’s your chance to ignore him back, while looking around if there’s someone near your seats who might be already irritated of your group’s restlessness.

He smiled, he grunted, he stood up and sat down, and he did almost the complete opposite when you first entered. At some part of the film he fell silent and focused once again, with you thanking good heavens. Unfortunately at some part he did the whole thing all over again as if on purpose. The worse came when he demanded for you to give him a drink and that was when you almost lose your cool. Some people are just mean, aren’t they?

So what do you think I did with this unruly guest? Did I give him the seemingly effective shhhh? Or did I whisper to him that he better stop it or he’ll be out? Well, no. None of those. What can I do, he’s our one-year old baby. Besides, it’s just his first movie and Monsters Vs. Aliens is for him after all. Hahaha. Kids will be kids.

Not bad. At least, the ticket lady believed that our little son is already 1-year old.

Ice Age 3 is next. Hope he won't sleep like he did in MVA.

 

 

Mood: 2/10 Honks!

 

The Wordpress.org installation that is supposed to take me five minutes has unfortunately reached its fifth day. The other day I was so excited when the browser loading status bar past half-full without displaying the 404 error but soon enough all the excitement dissipated when I saw that instead of the expected Wordpress log-in window, what appeared was one line of Chinese characters. Well, thank you for that GoDaddy but I neither speak nor even understand Chinese.

Looks easy, huh? Well, it's not...trust me.

Anyway, so as not put to waste every effort (and the USD 83 subscription) I’ve spent already with this ambitious migration, I’m now considering this as a challenge with the end goal of making my own domain work as soon as I can. Looking at the bright side, however, the only consolation that I can find here is that at least I now have something to make myself busy in the next few days by importing and exporting files, looking for new themes, and most likely tweaking some settings that best fit my new site, plus some other related things that may come along. Well then again, that all depends if the good people of GoDaddy.com will soon find a way to fix the server error which started 24 hours ago.

***

On top of this blog migration, I will be also occupied with doing a video for some people whom I’ve previously worked with and who will still be working at Intel Philippines. I actually thought at first that they have ditched the idea of having this video or (worse) of having me to do this for them. Surprisingly, while I was already preparing myself for the imminent last day in office, they called a meeting on Monday to discuss all about it.

Needless to say, but once again I became so excited since it has been quite sometime since I made one. In fact, I was so eager to do it that despite having the option to skip work yesterday, I went to work mainly because of it. I now can’t wait to get all the materials (photos, videos, etc) that I’ll need.

 

 

Mood: 2/10 Honks!

 

Everyone is panicking right now because of this swine flu virus. It’s been in news for days and it’s sad that this virus has killed so many people in Mexico where it was suspected to have originated. Of course the Americans, being paranoid by nature, has made all the necessary efforts as well to contain this virus from spreading especially that the risk is so high considering the high influx of people coming through the Mexican borders, legally or illegally.

Here in the Philippines, the Department of Health together with other related agencies is already in high gear to prevent this disease from entering our country. And while watching the news tonight, I learned that the price of pork has gone down at a very steep rate because people have avoided buying it. This one made me smile – evil, maybe – because all of a sudden I remember that it is during times like this that it is actually perfect to do just the opposite of what most people do. Let me explain.

I read some time before (when the news of the recession first came out) about Warren Buffet encouraging investors to buy stocks while the rest are trying to sell theirs with the hope to save what is left of their plummeting share values. The moment after I read about that radical idea, I realized that it complements some of my similar thoughts:

1. It is safe to ride airplanes days after one has crashed because every airliner at that time will be taking a closer check of its fleet;
   
2. And for the same reason, it is also safe to board ships days after one has just sunk.
   
3. It is safe to visit the malls days after one has been bombed (like the Glorietta incident) or vandalized because every security guard will be on its feet and will surely pay more attention with the way they conduct their inspections.
   
4. It is safe to buy vehicles of the same brand after a recall because the manufacturer will make sure that the present problem doesn’t get out of hand and that its sales won’t be affected any further.
   
5. It is safe to eat at a restaurant after a fly has been found taking a leisurely dip at the soup because most likely management will be on the lookout not only for flies but other things that a customer would hate to be in or on his food.
   

The above stated advice of course should be followed only after careful considerations of several factors that may affect the decision making process. Like one should check if the Airline Company, mall, car manufacturer or restaurant involved is reputable otherwise they might just not even care even after something bad has happened. It is also of course highly and always recommended to check WHO gave such advice in the first place. Hahaha. So do you think you’re going to buy pork now?

 

 

 

Mood: 2/10 Honks!

 “Tell me why I don’t like Mondays” – Bob Gelfof and Johnny Fingers

“I hate Mondays” – Garfield

 

Yesterday was the weirdest Monday that I can recall…so far. Here’s why:

1. On my way to work the discussion over the radio was about an episode of the Oprah show where she approved of her guest’s suggestion of having to introduce teenage girls to the vibrator – and to mention that several Filipina girls called agreeing to such. I now wonder what else I’d hear this morning.
   
2. The parking lot was already full when I arrived. If my memory serves me right, it’s been months since it has become one of the deserted place in our company. For a moment I actually thought that our company isn’t closing after all. Hahaha. Wishful thinking, huh.
   
3. I’m starting my first day of the week listening to one of my most hated things to do – selling (outbound call center account) – and which for some, weird, reason I ended up enjoying the simulation activity. Isn’t that great? So does this mean that I do have the potential to sell?
   
4. Lastly, after reading one farewell email coming after the other, it has finally dawned on me that this is my last week at work, together with other identified employees. It now feels I’m starting to be sucked into the deep void of the bumhood black hole.
   

Well after conceding to the fact that this is really it, I had to excuse myself from our call center training just to compose my own farewell message. Here’s what I wrote in haste:

Friends and co-workers,

This is my last week at and I’d like to say the following: Thank you, Sorry and Goodbye.

Thanks. For the wonderful years I had with every people I work with. Thanks to my past and present mentors, colleagues and subordinates. Rest assured that every encounter I had with each and every one of you gave me experience and knowledge, and it has made me a better person than I was years ago.  Of course, I would like to thank my very recent group who welcomed me like I was already one of the experienced engineers – I really appreciate that. Thanks for the opportunity.

Sorry. I apologize to those whom I might have offended in one way or the other; it’s just some times the word constructive doesn’t come together with confrontation. And while I’m at it I’d like to say to those who have offended me (or at least they think so) as well that I won’t be leaving with any hard feelings.

Goodbye. I’d like to say goodbye those who are yet to leave – whether they like it or not. And lastly, I’d like to say good luck to everyone whether you’re continuing to Vietnam or be pursuing a different life after Intel.

Keep in touch. See you around folks.

Although I hate the fact that it isn’t a resignation letter (I’m still yet to write my first), I sent it out of course to almost everyone I’ve worked with; but like one lit up fuse flickering slowly towards a barrel of explosives, I became sentimental, somehow, about the whole thing while I was already on my way home. All of a sudden I find it ironic that at the start of this week is the beginning of the end of the long years working for what I’ve known as a great place to work. Hasta la vista Intel folks.

***

I figured later in the day that the reason why the parking lot was full is because some of my co-workers are already processing their clearances and some brought their car along with them.

There also was a job opportunity expo which was participated by a number of companies and probably the representatives parked their vehicles ahead of some of the employees like me; and this is one thing that will be missed by most because if there’s one company that doesn’t have reserved parking slots, it would be Intel. “Sorry boss, you’re late…go park somewhere.”

***

The sight and feel of yesterday’s job opportunity expo was unexpectedly great – may be because there isn’t much crowd unlike in the malls. The participating companies range from several business franchisors to cater to those who have finally decided be entrepreneurs; the ever familiar semiconductors were also present for those who haven’t got enough of the manufacturing environment; and of course there were call center companies which lately have become one of my interests. Well, Isn’t that great?

Ready for the call centers?

 

 

 

 

Mood: 4/10 Honks!

 

I’ve just watched the live Bahrain F1 race and during one of the laps I saw a shot of Felipe Massa’s Ferrari overtaking the Fischicella’s Force India car which is actually one of the exciting moments of the race – watching a red bully battle out with a fighting underdog. The shot also shows something that made me remember what was one of the things that kept me wondering if there’s a word for it; fortunately indeed, it has.

This is called the Stroboscopic Effect which was answered by someone when I posted my query (more than 5 years ago, if I’m not mistaken) in one of the automotive forums that I used to frequent – Autoindustriya.com. Here’s the definition according to Wikipedia: … It also accounts for the “wagon-wheel effect“, so called because in video or motion pictures, spoked wheels on horse-drawn wagons sometimes appear to be turning backwards. In a sense it can be compared to the audial effect called beat.

So there you go, the next time you see a wheel, especially those running fast, and wonder why it is running backwards for moment despite the forward motion, always remember that there’s a word for it. It is called Stroboscopic effect.

***

While finishing this post, I suddenly remembered that my wife mentioned about our baby having this fascination of watching the wheels of the vehicles right beside us every time we take a trip. And it may be because of this the same phenomenon that fascinated me when I was a kid. Even until now, this seemingly forward-reverse movement of the wheels still attracts me like magic shows do – Life’s simple pleasure.

***

I won’t blog about the recent F1 race but instead I’ll direct you to Allen on F1 for the updates. I myself am going to check it out to know why there’s so much controversy with this one part of the Formula 1 car, the diffuser. This is a part that has been blamed by some of the teams, especially the former front runners – Ferrari and McLaren, as the reason why the newest team – Brawn – has dominated the first four races of the 2009 season. Hmmm, interesting, isn’t it?

 

 

Mood: 2/10 Honks!

Baby LIKE to play.

Originally uploaded by Marcus Can

The recent call center training I attended made me more keen on spotting grammatical errors. And my son’s shirt didn’t escape my attention.

Any hint where this shirt was made? Hehehe.

Since I have finally decided to migrate from Blogger to Wordpress, I’m now transferring some posts which I made exclusive in my blogspot account. Good thing there are just four posts for now and luckily these are just short ones.

These posts will belong to a new category which I will call Out of the Blue posts. This category will basically contain brief posts which may be short reviews, photos with short captions, product comments, TV ads review, light bulb moments, etcetera.

As of this moment I’m still trying to figure out how to work around GoDaddy.com as I’m having some difficulty installing Wordpress 2.7.1 which is supposed to be done in jiffy as documented in Wordpress.Org’s 5-minute installation handy guide.

I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, although the possibility is high, but I’m now dealing with something alien. Right now my mind is crammed with things like MySQL, PhP.net and other database and web hosting-related stuffs. I’m up to the challenge for several compelling reasons like making sure that I don’t waste the USD83.82 I paid to get this web host.

I also have sent an email to GoDaddy’s customer support team. And the weird thing about it is that something in me is trying to make me dial their 1-800 number out of curiosity if their customer service agent follows the inbound call flow. Hmmm, it seems like today’s customer service training is still haunting me, huh. Well, I’d like to get even now. “Hello, thank you for calling GoDaddy.com. This is Mr. Smith, how may I help you?” Better be ready Mr. Smith, I’m gonna be an irate caller. Hahaha. Just kidding.

***

Just yesterday, I also added another category called Learning and this one will be about training, seminars, studies and other similar things related to my continuous quest to learn.

 

Mood: 2/10 Honks!

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It’s Friday and I’ve got several things final.

It’s final. I have decided to shift from Blogger.com to Wordpress.org. I’m just waiting for activation notice from my webhost GoDaddy.com before I start the task of migrating which until now I don’t know how tedious it will be. For my Blogger readers, this means that I will disable my account in Blogspot. And for my Wordpress readers, this means that I will continue to blog from here. I will however use the marcuscanblog.com domain instead of the crisn.wordpress.com. So please do check it out.

It’s final. Today will be my last Friday at work which I actually just realized after I woke up this morning. The slope going down is now beginning to be steep. It’s really all downhill from here. I’m now counting down my days to bumhood.

Have a nice Friday everyone.

***

It’s not final though for my call center training. We’ll have customer service session today and I’m really hoping that I’ll do well. I now wonder where I kept my anger management handbook. Hehehe.

 

 

Mood: 5/10 Honks!

 

In my continuous quest to learn English, this week I started attending a call center training (against several odds) that will go on for one week. And although I prepared myself to be corrected, all that mind setting did little to help suppress the shock I got the moment I heard our trainer speak. Man, I haven’t heard such good and fluent English spoken in front of me in a long while.

The fluency of our trainer with English once again got me humbled and speechless, literally. I feel as if I was totally ignorant of this language the whole time. It may be because although I’ve been blogging a lot for a couple of years already, I really haven’t had the chance to converse regularly in English. And if ever I had such chance to speak with someone at work, the conversation did not come any near to what I’m currently hearing while inside the class. I’m not saying that there’s no one in my current company who can speak impressive English, but it’s just that there’s a very big difference compared to the call center standard. And it has something to do with what they call the American thwang.

Learning the America thwang, accent or pronunciation – it’s funny that even this word is hard to pronounce – is what majority of this call center training is all about on top of my ever “favorite” grammar discussions. We’ve also practiced listening skills and yesterday, we also did a very long tongue twister that by the end of the class my tongue was just as tired as my mind. Our trainer has also suggested that we evaluate our typing skills by downloading the Typing Master application — at least it confirmed that I can still do a decent 50 wpm with 95% accuracy.

There will be three more sessions to go and I’m excited to learn more. And as painful and embarrassing as it may seem, I’m opening my mind to what is being taught for this week I’m relearning English. I kill me. Hahaha.

 

 

 

 

Mood: 3/10 Honks!

“The optimism of action is better than the pessimism of the thought.” – Greenpeace activist

 

I admit I did not realize that today is Earth Day. I’ve been occupied with travelling from one place to another – I wish it was abroad – that I only learned about Earth Day just this morning over the radio on my way to work. I also don’t know if since when we have been celebrating Earth Day. I totally have no idea.

Anyway, as one self-declared environmentalist, this one email coming from Greenpeace.org prompt me to comply with their call to action.

Here’s an excerpt from this said email:

…Here at Greenpeace, we’re pushers of a controlled substance. It’s called hope…

…When we take action against environmental crimes, we also take action against despair. And there are times when inspiring other people to take action are by far the most powerful outcome that we could hope for…

…If you agree, we want you, and 2,999,999 people like you to sign up as climate activists. Together let’s act and protect our future…

The most important meeting of the century

When the UN Climate summit convenes in Copenhagen this December, delegates there will be deciding the fate of the Earth. It’s looking more and more likely they will bring us a lot of hot air, not a cooler planet.

YOU need to tell them that’s not good enough.

YOU need to raise the bar on the world’s expectations.

It’s time to get involved. It’s time to get your friends involved. It’s time to get your parents or your kids involved.

Our first mission is to get the message out that we want our leaders to take personal responsibility for stopping climate change.

The first step to ensuring that the climate summit makes real decision is to make sure that real decision makers are there.

This Earth Day, please join us in this conspiracy of hope called Greenpeace, and inspire others to action…

Chuck Baclagon
New Media Campaigner
Greenpeace Southeast Asia

 

Also included in this email is Greenpeace.org’s request for everyone to participate in the following actions:

1. Demand key leaders go to the climate summit by signing the petition.
2. Post the “Inspiring Action” video to our blogs, Facebook and other social networking sites.
3. Donate.
   

Lastly, here’s the “Inspiring Action” video. Please spread.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVu9eawb1QY]

 

Mood: 2/10 Honks!