The Misadventures of Penoi

Friendster virus?? hmmmmm...

This is a simple wedding logo that i designed. Font used was Allegro and Bookman Old Style with color #1ab9d6

Monte Maria Shrine is 45 minutes drive from Batangas City. A billion peso project of Father Fernando Suarez which becomes a center of critisism among priesthood because  of the financial crisis that we have today. It is said that it will have a tall statue of Mama Mary, approximately taller than the Statue of Liberty. Though the project will take years to build up but it already opened opportunity to Batanguenos living near the shrine. Along the way you will see small stores that offer crops like camoteng kahoy, saging, etc.

Marami sa ating mga kababayan ang nangangamba sa patuloy na pagbagsak ng mga Pre-need companies. Ito na lang sana ang magiging kaakibat natin sa kinabukasang pangangailangan. Aking naalala ng pumanaw ang aking ama. Mula noong mga bata pa kami, sa aming maliit na tindahan sa harap ng paaralan, matiyagang pinaghirapan ng aming mga magulang na bigyan kami ng magandang edukasyon mula sa pagtitinda ng mga kakanin, snacks, pansit, at kung ano ano pa. Dahil na rin sa kahirapan at hindi katiyakang kinabukasan, naengayong pasukin ng aking ina ang paghuhulog linggo linggo sa isang pre-need company. Meron siyang isang libreta na kung saan may sticker na ibinibigay ang agent na pumupunta sa tindahan namin na siya ding kumukolekta ng lingguhang hulog. Isa itong insurance at isang retirement package. Ilang taon din ang lumipas ang paghuhulog biglang hindi na kami binibisita ng agent.. Hindi alam ng aking mga magulang ang mga technical na detalye ng mga insurance, ang alam lang nila, may inihuhulog sila, may makukuha sila pag nangailangan. Nang sa hindi inaasahang pangyayari, yumao ang aking ama.. unang pinuntahan ng ina ko ang insurance at doon nabatid na technically wala na daw ang hulog nila kasama ng retirement at insurance kasi sa biglaang pagtigil ng kanilang hulog.. Kung ganon.. bakit hindi nila kami binigyan ng sulat or dili kaya pinuntahan ng mga bagong agent upang ipabatid na maaaring mawala ang mga hulog namin...pero hinayaan nilang magkaganoon... Naaawa ako sa aking inay noon... pinaghirapan nila pero nawalang parang bula dahil sa mga teknikal na usapin...

maging agresibo sana ang pamahalaan sa pagsubaybay sa mga kumpanyang tulad nito...

At the airport

Foreigner : Do you have Facebook ???

Pinoy :  No i dont have.. but i have Friendster...

Foreigner:  Friendster?? What is that site??

This is a limited edition White Doraemon. Birthday gift from our friend Sam and Nat. Thanks guys!!!

I bought Nirvana Bleach CD thru ebay the other day. This is my first ebay transaction. CD cost S$8.50 including local mail delivery. Looking forward for future CD bargain hunting. :)

2008 is the longest year ever. With an additional of 1 second on the Earth's atomic clock it will be a "leap year" for us. So the countdown will be 4....3....2....1....1 Happy new Year!!!!!! May we have a prosperous 2009 !!!!! :)

Source: Scientists prolong 2008 gloom with ‘leap second’

First week of december we transferred to our new place in Singapore. It is a 3-room HDB unit as opposed to our first place in SG which is in a condominium( i really miss that place). The unit is decent and clean. The owner seldom stayed so everything in the place is quite new.

Happy new year everybody!!!!  This is my second time to celebrate new year while on work. The first one was im still OJT in Astech Philippines during the Millenium Celebration. Im a member of the Y2k Brigade who monitors for possible problem. Oh well, that's life. A lot of sacrifices.

Highlights of 2008
- Marriage proposal to Rachel
- Pamamanhikan to Rachel's Family
- Working in Singapore
- Two months training in India
- Rachel's gift Sony PSP
- One time gig with the Bulahaw at The Arena Singapore

Missed in 2008
- Eraserhead's reunion concert
- Wolfgang's new album Villains launch
- My pamangkins birthdays

Looking forward to 2009
- Marriage
- Palawan vacation/honeymoon :)
- Bring our family to Singapore for a vacation
- New LCD TV and entertainment system
- Finish Sun Solaris Certification
- New desktop computer
- New camera lens
- dream watch  and mac book for rachel
- BABY!!!!!

Last weekend, we spend the whole day in Sentosa. We tried Sentosa's 4D max, Cineblast,Cable car, Songs of the sea and the Merlion Tower. There are two merlion here in singapore. The original is in Raffles and the bigger merlion is in Sentosa overlooking the whole city of Singapore.

I like Cineblast but the most memorable one is the Merlion Tower. In Merlion's head, i proposed to the one i love and i will love for the rest of my life, Rachel. Im kinda shy when i proposed :) and she was laughing the whole time. I got her golden "Yes, i will marry you!!!"



Rachel and Penoi engagement ring

To my surprise also despite of our tight budget saving for our wedding this coming April. She gave me the one of the things that im craving for. My own Sony PSP!!!! It's her Christmast gift and birthday gift at the same time to me. We scored the PSP in Funzquare. Funzquare can be found in the back of Tangs in Orchard Singapore. There's a lot of  games stores here in Singapore but be warned, most of them are already blacklisted!!! Only 2-3 stores offers good to honest services and Funzquare is one of them. Try to explore Filipino's internet forums before purchasing anything in Singapore.



Sony PSP Christmas Gift and birthday gift

After months of waiting, got again the opportunity to grip on my stick and rock my self out loud. Bulahaw played 7 songs in the The Arena Singapore Clark Quay. At first i was so nervous as if it is like the first time to play in the stage, but when the guitar, bass and vocals riffs on, the blood rushes into my brain and played like there was no tomorrow. Rock on!!!!















Balong Malalim and Giyang

My former classmate/bandmate Paolo called me yesterday and asked me if i want to form a band here in Singapore. At first i'm hesitant to say yes because of my work's abnormal schedule, but then again,the music that still in my blood wants to come out. Let's see if things fall into places.

Last week, we had a team building activity in Batam Indonesia. Batam is a 45 minutes ferry ride from Singapore. Indonesia is much like the Philippines. The atmosphere, the people, the streets, the food, etc. But i still like Philippines beaches and seashores.


Ferry Boat to Indonesia


Flags!!!


Watch your child!!!


Batam View Beach Resort


Performer from the Philippines!!!!

Last sunday we went to Suntec just to attend the Food Safari, a food and appliances and laptop exhibition. So what so exciting about this?? It is food!!! Food from different part of the world. From turkish, africans, chinese, etc. So i aim my sony ericsson k770i to take high quality pictures and later download to my laptop using a usb cable and a free software Myphoneexplorer. Also in the exhibit is a low price/discounted LCD TV. Im still contemplating on which is the best of both worlds??? LCD TV or plasma TV??? My housemate bought a LCD TV last month and a DVD player with a HDMI connector and has an SD slot. We test downloading our pictures from the SD card and look at the output on the LCD TV. So far im satisfied with the result. how about on the plasma?? now that's another story.



Suntec Singapore



African food



Discounted LCD TV

This news shock me this morning. The famous author of Jurassic Park Michael Crichton has died of cancer at age of 66. This is such a day of mourning for all jurassic park fans all over the world.

We will be in the Philippines this weekend. Already bought chocolates pasalubong in Mustafa which is located near Farrer Park MRT in Singapore. Also some bags and scarfs that i scored in India.

For OFWs planning for a vacation in our country, better get your OEC(Overseas Exit Clearance) in the Philippine Embassy. I spend SGD22.00 for a two multiple exit OEC. This is use for a tax exemption in Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

After yesterday hacking incident on my gf's yahoo mail account, we called and emailed yahoo customer service and answered all of the security question just to prove that she owns the yahoo id. Yahoo then emailed  us the new password and we were able to retrieve the account from the bastard.

So how the hacker did it???? It was just a simple page that collects username and password. But he is skilled on "social engineering". At first you will not notice anything because the flow of conversation is friendly.

The yahoo mail phishing webpage was so simple. Last night i debug the page by using fiddler2, a free web debugging tool. So after the victim entered the username and password and clicked the fake Sign On button, the account information will be then be saved in a clear text file that the hacker then can retrieve and used to logon unto the victim's account. After that he will change your password and 0wn your account.



Debugging yahoo mail phishing page using Fiddler2



Saves username and password on clear text

So if you are a victim of such incident, call Yahoo Customer Service, email them and never forget all information that you used during the creation of your account, alternate email, pet's name, birthday, etc. War against cyber crime is true so always be on guard.

My gf yahoo mail account was hacked. A friend of her chatted thru yahoo messenger and asking for a load. At first you will not notice the scam because the chat was in Tagalog (native language in the Philippines). And after that the hacker asked her to check a URL for him.

http://ymphotos.my3gb.com/yahoo.html

The page looks like a yahoo mail login page. She then mistakenly entered her username and password.. and boom, her account was hacked.

The hacker then used my gf's yahoo account and chat her friends in yahoo messenger asking again for a load. After a series of conversation on one of her friends. A former officemate in Manila called her and asked if she were in the Philippines and if she is online on YM. They were puzzled why would she then asked for a cellphone load. Rachel notified me to check her Yahoo  but no avail, the hacker already changed the password.

I tried to reset the password but she forgot her alternate email. We called yahoo's customer service but they are already closed for the day.

We spent the night changing all of our account's password and calling friends not to chat her YM ID just to avert further damage.