Belated Happy Holidays

Even my Christmas and New Year break is almost a no break at all. Yes, I am away from work but I am also into other things like visiting relatives, attending parties of sorts etc. etc. So here's what I got.

• Took off from Changi Airport at December 22, 1:00pm. The weather is shitty, the plane is in the midst of an air pocket for half-hour(I think), it was dark and no cabin crew were visible during that time, so you can imagine.



• I touched down in Manila at 4:45pm on schedule. Yeah baby, welcome to Third World! There's nothing like the Philippines when it comes to Third-World-ness from the Immigration check-out up to the monstrous traffic jams, my flight from Singapore to Manila is much faster than my way from the airport to home! But the weather is great, cool air, breezy, a bit drier than Singapore, who said it's not humid in Singapore? I can tell because the plane descended smoothly down to the runway. It's a sign of a good weather, what I saw and learned in my meteorology class from our aviation school years ago. But I am not your famous Jordanian Pilot



• Almost everything is dirt-cheap, a bottle of San Miguel Beer is less than SG$1, I can treat a bunch of jackasses for SG$30 and ask to them beat some street punk to a pulp and they will do it with much gusto and machismo. Full-body massage for 90 minutes from one of the most reputable massage centers is just SG$23, my haircut with shampoo, hot-oil treatment and a minor shoulder and arms massage is just SG$20. And a lot more for too little.



• Because almost everything is so cheap, this is the best place to do business. Even with some hooligans in the government around, it's still cheap. And everyone will do anything at your bidding. This is just a matter of choice, profit or principle, but let's be honest, we only talk about the latter once the earlier has been achieved, anything before that is bullshit.



• Open Source is ALIVE in the Philippines! Java is ALIVE in the Philippines! Quality and Product Excellence is the paramount concern rather than just simply making things work especially in the Software Development industry. In Singapore, it's "Create-your-monster-now-and-let-it-kill-you-later" thing, no wonder a lot of talented local IT folks are switching to "easier" jobs such as real-estate brokering, teaching in secondary schools, accepting lower salaries for easier work. Because I realized they've created each of their own "Monsters-that-worked" and eventually did "killed" them along with their careers. But Open Source will never be anyone's silver bullet, that is a dangerous assumption. It's always a balance between a lot of things, a lot of GOOD things.



• Wi-Fi, The most misunderstood term in the Philippines. Blame it in whole to Smart's Wi-Fi internet. Is it really Wi-Fi? Is it Wi-Fi Certified? My SPECTEC SDIO WLAN 802.11b card for my O2 XdaII mini is Wi-Fi certified but I don't believe "Smart Wi-Fi" is Wi-Fi certified, is it 802.11b/g? It's neither. That is a serious mis-branding of a product that is not what it claims to be. Another Wi-Fi shit, Airborne-Access from PLDT. I was at one of the Seattle's Best Coffee Shop in Alabang bought five $3/hour prepaid WiFi Access cards called Wingspan so I can use my SPECTEC on my O2 and try the "Philippine WiFi" and guess what the coffee shop has no signal. So I called the Airborne-Access support and they said there's really no signal(!) in that coffee shop, OMFG! So all those fucking "conios" showing off their laptops around is just showing off. They barely don't have an idea that they can do real work while really showing off, geez laptop is too big to show off these days. Going back to Airborne-Access, it's really a cheat, if I don't disconnect manually from their site my session will continue until my remaining time credits runs out, so the next time I am back, it's all gone. So once I saved enough money to open a coffee shop(If I will), Airborne-Access is dead. I'll be giving WiFi access for free, something like McDonald's in Singapore.



• Coffee Shops, Philippines has everything, name it. Starbucks, The Coffee Bean, Seattle's Best etc. etc. maybe a coffee shop that serves Teh Tarik can be quite entertaining there and will definitely complete the list.



• Synergize, a sales office in Singapore and an R & D in the Philippines. That will be a "killer-combo".



• Now I am back in Singapore, gloomy weather can trigger homesickness. It's January, one week after New Year's Day and the weather is un-fucking-believable. If I want to go home soon and retire, I have to make 7-14-day business goals to achieve. Otherwise, I'll be stuck here a little longer.