28th Hour

Am in the office for the 28th straight hour. Thankfully, Diane brought me milk tea and pepper tofu.

Diane on Keys :)

Youth service got cancelled today and Diane paid me a surprise visit. I then let her hear a couple of tracks i just recorded and asked her if they work.

Now see her on keys:

Bagay ba? :)

(Disc0) Hall of Justice

Saw this at my hearing today:

A disco ball inside the trial court! I’m pretty sure this oddity could only be seen in the Philippines:D

Home recording setup!

I cleaned up my room and set-up my mixer, reference monitors and keyboards to record a few tunes I’ve been writing for several months. With my schedule, I realized that I only a few hours after work to do tracking! Yes, my room needs serious acoustic treatment but I don’t have the budget for that right now.

 

Shown above is my Roland RD-700GX and Juno-D, and my bubbly curtain!

Upper left: an Ensoniq SQ-1 Plus. It’s been decommissioned by my church a few years ago. It sounds a bit dated but there are patches that still sound amazing! Lower right: a UMX61 USB/MIDI controller keyboard. Top center: my panda.

Mixer’s a Behringer Xenyx X1832USB and the monitors are Behringer Truth 3030As mounted on On-Stage Stands SM6000-P. That black thing is the coat I wore today

Online Shopping

I finally got my package from Brando!

 

Last month, I bought an HTC HD7 from Hong Kong on the cheap. After reading a lot of tourists’ horror stories, I staunchly resisted the store owner’s upsell—extra batteries, chargers and screen protectors—only to find out, upon returning here, that local electronic shops don’t carry HD7 accessories yet.

As with previous HTC devices I owned, the HD7’s battery life is pretty bad. So I ordered a 1500mAh battery (the stock HTC battery is only 1230mAh) and a device dock with a slot for the second battery. Total bill is about PHP2,300.00 (shipping is free).

I finally got the notice from the post office last week that my order has already arrived. Included with the notice is a pamphlet about “duties and taxes” which I may be required to pay. A quick perusal of the same, however, shows that the information contained therein is pretty inaccurate.

To cut the long story short, I was able to claim my parcel without any hassle and without paying  “duties and taxes.”

On another note, I want to go back to Hong Kong.

Post-Sambo Kojin Coffee

We absolutely have no space for dessert anymore. Diane ordered a dozen donuts to go. I ordered a caramel latte to wash everything down. Man, we’re so full!

Home

I’m home relatively early today. Yahoo!

Thank You

Thank you for staying, through thick and thin, and six sizes later

Dinner @ Buffalo’s Wings N Things

Naumay kami ni Diane kaya kailangan namin magpunta sa katabing 7-11 para bumili ng pang-tanggal umay!

10 Minutes After Arriving Home

Before going home, I planned to install my old VSTis in my new laptop (it has no name yet). However, I ended up recording a short clip containing drum, piano and pad tracks. Since I don’t think YouTube allows mp3 uploads, I was forced to embed the clip in the following video:

:)

Our Firm's New Web Page

Our firm's new web site is now live here and here. Apparently it's been SEO'd too!

Table hunting

Went table hunting with Diane before going home. She’s got a new Mac Book Pro and her old desk just won’t cut it. Earlier today, I searched the web for possible places where we could buy Diane’s desk because last month, when I was table hunting myself, the SM-Parksquare-Glorietta area proved to be poor hunting grounds. My search did not provide satisfactory results.

Three weeks ago, Diane saw cheap tables at the supermarket in SM Marikina, so we initally visited the SM Makati supermarket. After a brief survey of the area, we decided to ask a guard, who , eventually directed us to go to the 4th floor.

On to the furniture section.

After about 8 minutes of comparison, Diane decided to get a PVC-laminated desk (she calls it “faker kahoy”)  priced at P2,999.00. Remembering the difficulty I had last month when I discovered the the instructions included by the manufacturer in the table I bought was for an entirely different model, I asked Furnline (I swear, that’s how he introduced himself to us), the guy who assisted us, whether or not they could assemble the table already and whether it will fit the back area of Diane’s Montero.

Long story short, we got the table and I just learned that Parksquare 1 has 8 levels!

A.M. No. 2010-4-16-SC–Rule on Court-Annexed Family Mediation and Code of Ethical Standards for Mediators

I was fixing my Google Chrome bookmarks when I accidentally stumbled into reading A.M. No. 2010-4-16-SC. Rule 5 caught my attention:

RULE  5.    Presence of Lawyers; Others.  – Lawyers may act as consultant or adviser of the parties but may attend only upon the request of the mediator. The participation of persons other than the parties may be allowed as may be agreed upon by the  parties and upon clearance by the
mediator.

Now, that’s interesting.

The Drive did turn up...

After two days of sweating over that lost Drive, it eventually turned up... in the drawer of my secretary! Whew!

The Perfect Prefatory

Early on, I was taught the importance of starting pleadings and motions with  a smashing  prefatory. A prefatory’s function is simple and elegant—to show in one, two, or more paragraphs, that your opponent is downright wrong. Preferably, it should bite—hard.

So, there.

I’ve been drafting a reply for three days already. Due to the avalanche of other equally important work, the reply was constantly demoted to a lower position in my to-do list.

After finishing my first draft, I launched Lex Libris and searched for jurisprudence to substantiate the prefatory I just made. Unfortunately, nothing came up.

Contrary to the principles of efficient time management for law office workers (okay, I just made that up), I spent two hours searching for the perfect biting quotation that I’ll use to conclude the prefatory.  Just when I found the perfect concluding remark, I was told that we won’t be filing the reply anymore.

 

2011-01-24, 11:46 p.m.

For the most part of the day. I’ve been waiting for a cerebral kick start. It came late, however. So I’m still here in the office. I just finished drafting a pleading, which, after discussions with one of my bosses, will not be filed.

In other news, sulit talaga iyong two piece combo chicken meal ng 7-11. I cup of Hotta Rice, 2 cups of gravy, and 2 pieces of tasty (unhealthy!) fried chicken all for 100 bucks!!! Then, I wash all of ‘em down with Diet Coke

The Drive

That drive should turn up, or else….

That Moment of Clarity

I have a long overdue pleading. At 7:34 p.m., it all became clear.

Trial Post

I just installed Windows Live Essentials 2011 and I’m testing functionalites of Windows Live Writer. I’m done with my self-maintained wordpress blog at the moment, as I don’t have the time to manage the backend side of things.

mucking aroung with my e-620

I just got an Olympus E-620, and I think such a fine DSLR is wasted on me. Haven't had the time to read the manual, but I think I should do so soon. Here is a sample photo taken by my brother. It's so refreshingly clear, my not so refereshing face is displayed here with all my pockmarks, blemishes and stubborn fat:)