True Protection doesn’t come cheap..or free, in my case.

I’ve had AVG free since I got connected to the internet. I was content on that level of protection but I encountered a problem just yesterday that shook my faith.

I don’t have a printer because I don’t need it that much, if I have something to print, I go to PC shops. So I was in that scenario when my flashdrive where the document was got infected with a worm.

Thinking that AVG would deal with the worm. I let it pass. But to my shock, not only did it infect my PC but AVG free was unable to detect the virus.

What the virus do is copy files to the root directory and to any connected drives. Recycler.exe paired with autorun.inf, Files made are executable files disguised like sex videos. No matter how much I delete the supposed sex videos, it comes back within a few seconds.

I downloaded Avira Free Antivirus, it detected the autorun.inf but it comes back even if you delete or quarantine it..and it gets annoying too, the Avira virus detection window pops up like every 10 seconds to warn me about the autorun.inf even if I did anything or not.

So it dawned on me after hours of research and brainstorming that maybe I should try a trial version, not the free one. So I downloaded a 1 month trial version of Trend Micro antivirus and what do you know, it removed the virus. Not only that, it detected 2 more trojans that AVG free And Avira Free failed to detect.

So I learned that Free basic protection is just what it is, basic that comes with being free, free as in not 100% protected because you’re too cheap. So when I get a hold of spare money to buy one,  I’m buying a Micro Trend Antivirus.

I watched the news last night (shocking!) and there was a preview of the episode of Survivor: Philippines which aired later that night.

From the preview, I saw that pretty much most of them are drama queens and kings. They cried foul with every elbow and kneeing, they even stopped the fight for a nose bleed.

A drama queen stopped in the middle of the test because she got hurt a bit, Gave the “OMG, I got hurt, call the freaking press!” look. I got news for you, darling, it is called Survivor, not America’s next top model.

It’s as if the staff and cast of S:P have never seen the original survivor, all of it is part of the game. One idiot even got pissed enough to attack a castaway. Please.. obviously the castaways and staff don’t know what they are doing.

I actually didn’t have time to watch the actual episode but one scene I manage to see showed that not all of the castaways are self-centered drama royalties. The one where one castaway of each tribe digs the sand for something and wrestle for the buried Item(Which is kinda a not well thought-of plan). The two gentlemen manage to make an agreement that they unearth the Item first before they fight for it, they even shook hands for it..Kudos for them, Thumbs up.

You know, I don’t think much of Paolo Bediones as host of S:P, He was so close to the castaways during their tests that he’s much of a distraction than a help. Now Jeff Probst does it right, he keeps his distance as much as possible.

Yeah, been doing alot lately.. Not really important errands but it gets me through the day.

So some randomness again:

I found some interesting thingies on the web.. and that’s because I bought an EDGE game thingy for my DS. Apparently, EDGE is the new R4DS for the Nintendo DS. So I went panic download on games. That’s the reason my Hard disk space went from 20% to 60% in just one week. Alot of interesting games but another time for those.

Free DS downloads: Plenty of pop-up ads, you can only download two games at a time, No registration required, Just click, input this and that and you’re ready to download.

Macuha.com: A Filipino blogger that I share similar interests with, worth a read.

The Pirate Bay: “The world largest Torrent tracker”, or so they say..If it’s downloadable, you’ll probably find it there.. Just check if you still have disk space.meh

I’m planning on buying a PSP, so I’m kinda looking for places to download..But having no PSP makes it harder to look since I don’t know what I’m looking for. And I little website info about PSP, since I like to do research before I buy anything..uh..yeah. Can you help? meh

Life sucks without internet (once you get accustomed to it..like cellphones.)

My internet connection died on me for over ten days before it was fixed (I’ll make another blog about philippine service when I’ve gathered enough annoyance from deep within.meh)

So ten days without internet, I watched too much TV, most I’ve seen before. I tried reading a book, It made me sleepy, the novel wasn’t that interesting, just another rip-off of The Da Vinci Code. Alot of time in between complaining to my internet provider that they are taking too long to fix it. Yeah, Quality and Service in the Philippines suck.

Oh, and I made another enemy.. *sigh*, Filipinos are sometimes a bunch of Idiots, You get hated for excercising your rights. I tell you, If you want to do what is right in this world, prepare for the world to hate you. Filipinos, from kids to the supreme court lack discipline, and lack of it is why our country is in chaos.

Some things changed when my internet became operational again; I make like 20 posts a day at One Manga’s forum before, now I lost some of that vigor. Though my post count lessen, there is more substance to what I say now..I guess.

When I was young, my mom told me “Instead of loitering around, why don’t you read a book.” a few weeks later.. “You read books too much..do something else.”

So that’s how my love affair with books started..meh

The first book I bought was Peter Pan, Not because I like the flying kid with perfect teeth, but because it was the same book as the one in the Hook movie (some sort of movie sequel of the Peter Pan novel.) When I saw it, I told myself that I just got to buy it.

So from Pete came other books, or I borrowed from my niece’s school library. I mostly read classics, from historical to girly books. I’ve read The Count of Monte Cristo, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Little Women, Crime and Punishment and many more.

You get alot of insights in reading the book, rather than Watching the movie or from someone else quoting it, not to mention you get to see some nice quotes from time to time (more on that later). For example, a misunderstanding that got cleared once I read the book; Juliet’s monologue in Romeo and Juliet..

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
Juliet, act ii scene ii

Frankly, before reading the play, I thought Juliet was looking for dear Romeo in that first line..meh But after reading it, I understood that it was not so, Juliet is asking why Romeo is Romeo, A son of Montague that is in fued with her family, the Capulets. Well, that’s a better meaning than just looking for Romeo.meh

But Romeo and Juliet is not my favorite Play, the honors fall on two: Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand and The Two gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare. I’m quite a romantic myself (I hope my girlfriend would agree to that.meh) and I find Cyrano’s tale a lovely and endearing story.. It proves that the heart can be found in any face. The reason I like The two gentlemen of Verona is rather lame; I liked it for one dialogue of a character in that play:

And why not death, rather than living torment?
To die is to be banish’d from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish’d from her,
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by,
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon;
She is my essence; and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster’d, illumined, cherish’d, kept alive.
I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:
Tarry I here, I but attend on death;
But, fly I hence, I fly away from life.
Valentine, act iii scene i

I love this dialogue, enough said.meh

When I was in college, a classmate and a crush of mine lend me a Stephen King book titled Pet Sematary (yeah, its spelled that way on purpose.meh) and became a Stephen King fan ever since. Pet Sematary for me is the best horror story I’ve read so far.

Then I’ve read Anne Rice’s to Dan brown’s works. I find Rice’s new concept of the vampire mythology refreshing but I kind of disliked of her portrayal of men to men (vampiric) affection bordering on homosexual love. >.> it gave me nightmares…well…no, not really.meh

In Dan brown’s work, I found another great entertainment. I don’t mind the people saying it’s the work of evil for attacking the foundation of the Catholic Church, since all they said is BS and I don’t really care much for my religion since they’ve claimed to never butt-in in state and political affairs and yet their actions tells the opposite. My opinion is they’re as much of a heathen as the heathens they’ve claimed to be so.

And so my randomness about books is coming to a close.. and I guess I should list my favorites..

My favorite books, in no particular order are:

The adventures of Tom Sawyer
Pet Sematary
Anne of Green Gables
The Da Vinci Code
The Three Musketeers
Scarlet Pimpernel

In my search for mangas here on the Philippines, I found another bookstore.meh

Fully Booked: Basically, it’s a speciality bookstore similar to Powerbooks with stores around the metro and some provinces. The one I visited was in Trinoma with my gf and her mom a while back. Unlike Powerbooks, it has the special order feature similar to National Bookstore, but it has some programs that’s for lazy people, I guess.meh Fully Booked can deliver books right to your doorsteps (for a minimum of 2,000 pesos)..

As of now, I don’t have plans of using their features since I am happy with the service I am getting at National Bookstore (Costumer service in Festival mall is really impressive, they do their best and does it with a smile.)

So for now, just gonna browse Fully booked’s shelves when I get the chance and see if they have good mangas I can buy.meh

Well..Something about me..

Well, you can call my kind an anti-social, sort of…

I’ve been living where I am now since I was five, I guess, and the people I know here by name is about a dozen maybe. I don’t mind mingling, the problem is I hate socializing with idiots and there is alot in my country.

What possibly can I talk with the lots of them? What mental exercise could I do with them? Nada, zilch! All they do is talk and spread idiotic rumours about who’s cheating with who and all that crap. They are like vile spreading diseases. (Makes me sick..)

Also, there is a bunch of poor drunkard people running about. Where are your manners, people? Visiting my brother drunk as you are? have the beer melted your brain or what? It’s the middle of the afternoon and you’re already dead drunk. You can’t feed your family yet you have enough money to buy booze?! Get a life you morons.. (and that message is for about 70% of Filipinos.meh)

…and this message is brought to you by the hate inside of Oink.

My mom gave me a hundred dollars.woot.

Lemme see, I’m gonna buy an additional memory for my PC, order 3 more mangas (One Piece volume 1-2, Claymore volume 1) and pay my internet bill.meh

On a side note: I’m nearing my 2k post count at One Manga
! Yosh, 3k more to go before I get a custom title.meh >.> <.<

Yosh! after around ten hours of patch download. Granado Espada is up and running. Wooohooo

Well, there are things that sucks on my end. GE is best for the standard keyboard layout. Sadly, I’m using Dvorak keyboard..T_T

The game itself is OK, although as a newbie, of course the progress is rather slow..very.meh (not to mention I died twice after being lost.)

Beside the fact that I have to use a standard keyboard and being a newb, it is still promising.

*sigh* I need a manual.. *sigh*

Being in the Philippines sucks if you are an manga otaku at heart. But there are ways to buy any english mangas here..

1. Powerbooks bookstore: They have a nice collection of mangas for sale, I recently saw Full Metal Alchemist volumes being sold and I bought a One Piece volume three there (yay). Although a bit pricey, if you really really want it, price doesn’t matter, right?meh

2. National Bookstore: They also sell some (cheap but lame) mangas, but it has a program that makes it better than Powerbooks, and that is the Special Ordering. To put it simply, if NBS doesn’t have the book that you want, you can order it. There is a 50% downpayment and you get it after four week, But again, so what if you get it after four weeks as long as you have the manga that you really want. Also, you have the bragging right to have a book not sold anywhere in the Philippines.meh

3. One Manga: Well, it isn’t really buying..>.> But if you like to freeload alot and can access the internet on your free time then OM is the right place for you, You can read mangas online, plus it has a nifty forum where I am an active member (Username: Oink McOink). I’m not freeloading, you can call it “scouting for good mangas to buy”..meh

Well, there you go, I hope I helped you feed the Otaku hunger..lol.meh