My Ultimate Driving Machine

As the title suggest, you may think that I'm driving a Bimmer (BMW), unfortunately, I only drive one in my dreams. Reality is, for almost four years, I have been driving a Toyota Altis 1600cc. It is a good machine, driving is responsive, it has a very "macho" look (very important for every normal Filipino car-owning person), but four years is a long time, and I'm at a point where I hope I have a new car to drive. Issues, issues and issues... But I still have to wait for another year before my company will replace what I am driving now, oh well, one year is a short time, better start scouting for one.

What I have in mind supposedly for my new vehicle was to request for a pick-up instead of another sedan, and there are a lot of choices out there right now. Foremost for me is the Toyota Hilux pick-up, its a monster!!! But it rides like a car, yes, I know, I have a colleague that has one and have rode with him several times. The times when we complain that pick-ups ride like big tanks are over. The Hilux is a car on 4 big wheels, its suspension is very well tuned, the engine, a 2.5 diesel engine provides ample power during climbs but accelerates like a car during stretches on the highway. But at around 950 thousand clams for the E model, its pretty pricey.

Another option for me is to just go with a sedan, and right about now, the hottest one on the market would be the new Honda Civic. I have not rode one yet, but by car's looks alone, the car just exudes class and style. And knowing Honda, the engine probably won't disappoint. By foregoing a 1600cc variant, Honda is making sure it has the goods to not only edge the Toyota Altis but to put it to shame. I sure hope I can get to ride one before the day that I have to decide to buy one. Sure looks cool. And at 770 thousand clams for a 1800cc manual model, it sure looks like a steal!

But before I end this discourse, I just read in the papers an ad showing a new Toyota vehicle called AVANZA, and just by looking at the ad picture, I instantly fell for the mechanical beast. It is touted as the "baby" Innova, But personally, i don't agree. Here's the thing, the Innova looks good but in a "good" family way. While the Avanza, though smaller, looks like a small SUV/AUV variant, and does not shout "family van" all over and it seats 7 persons too. I went to the next Toyota dealer just to look at it, and sure enough, I LOVE IT!!! The only iffy thing for me is Toyota putting a 1500cc VTI engine to the vehicle (very well for pricing consideration). But the whole package is just right. If you go out and buy the G model, it has everything a car buyer wants (atleast almost) at a very reasonable 773 thousand clams. How I wish its February 2008 already so I can take one home.

"THE" SE K610i

For two weeks now, I have gotten my new cellphone. its a company issued phone. For the past 3 years, I never use my company cellphone. IT'S USELESS!!! But I guess this is about to change... The Sony Ericsson K610i is a great piece of equipment, it offers every cellphone or techie nut like me all the bells and whistles you may want in a cellphone right now, at a great price (Php11,500.00 on the streets).

First off, the unit is sleek. It is said that the unit is Sony Ericsson's slimmest candybar phone to date. The keys and make does not feel flimsy and cheap (a nice touch by Sony Ericsson). For the features, well, its 3G (third generation). You can surf the net at DSL speeds, you can of course make video calls (husbands all over! our days for seedy and kinky night outs are about to end.), its Tri-band, its a music player; plays almost all major file types (atrac, mp3, wav, wma and etc), its also got a decent video player (3gp & mp4), the k610i also has a 2mp camera attached to it. It can record video at 30 fps and it is limited only by the memory you have on your phone. Speaking of memory, the unit's can be expanded via Sony's proprietary Memory Stick M2 series (what jerks, its expensive as hell). You can of course use the gadget for voice calls, sms, mms, email, its got the usual calendar functions, task list, notes, calculator and other stuff to keep you organized. Best of all, you can sync it with your computer via bluetooth or usb cable (included), to keep your data up to date and backed up. There are still a ton of features i did not mention, you just have to read the manual or find it out for yourselves. you can go to this link and check it out for yourselves. http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=ph&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pp1_loader&php=php1_10389&zone=pp&lm=pp1&pid=10389

Now, for the not so good, the camera is decent but without led flash (no night pictures!!!). Its got no IR port (although jurassic as a tech, it is still very usable and dependable). And since its not using the Symbian software (unlike Nokia), third-party software are limited to Java kind. To keep the price low, SE decided to give us the bare bones package, no head phones and the Memory Stick included is a measly 64mb!!! and lastly, if you are the type that fiddles with your phone a lot then daily charging of the unit is a must, the battery capacity is kinda low.

But the good far outweighs the not so good, overall I consider the phone a buy, specially for the budget conscious techie who wants to jump over the 3G bandwagon but does not have the clams to buy themselves a high end Nokia Nseries or SE P990i. Go ahead and take the K610i for a test drive I'm sure it won't disappoint.

US Bound!

Twelve days to go... Me and my wife will be going to the USA. Yahoo! This is for the both of us our first time to go to a western country, both our foreign travels are of the asian variety. China, HongKong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, been there; done that.

What gets me most excited in going to the US is.... NEXT GEN GAMING!!! At the time of my visit, Sony and Nintendo would have just launched their respective consoles the PS3 and Wii. Although I have decided to buy the Wii (budget cap) it will be so great to see the PS3 console in those malls and stores even before it hits the Philippines. Even my son Hans is excited at the prospect of playing a Wii, although his dream game machine right now is still the Nintendo DS. I guess Nintendo will be the lucky corporate bastard to get my holiday dollars this year, imagine both the Wii and the DSlite. Sorry Sony, I love your console but its just too expensive for me right now. Maybe 3 years down the console's life, I will certainly get it.

Well, back here in the Philippines, Xbox 360 seems to be selling well. especially now that they have found a way to flash the drive of the console thus enabling people to play copied games on it. The Philippines is still basically a third world country and for people to be spending roughly $400 or more for a console, games should be cheap. and i guess the hackers helped the market to flourish right now. The question is... Microsoft certainly isn't happy about it, as all gamers know, to make money on the console market, developers and Microsoft should sell a lot of software, they make their money on software not hardware. so basically in South East Asia, where its been said that the Xbox 360 is selling well, Microsoft may be losing money. Because they may be selling a lot of consoles but most definitely very few original game titles as the pirates are busy supplying these market's gamers with illegally copied games. I think Microsoft has made a move in the right direction by smearing black glue on their drives for flashers to have a harder time opening the console's drive. But personally, i think they should try harder. I don't think black glue will stop the hackers. As we say in Pilipino, ABANGAN!

I hope my sister (our US host) will have time to take me and my wife to see atleast Hollywood, Universal Studios and Las Vegas (home of the original CSI). You see, my sister lives in Santa Rosa, its actually nearer to San Francisco (around 1.5 hours) while LA is a long 8 hours away. So from my sister's place we are bound to see San Francisco, Napa Valley (Yipee!! wine tasting) and I think Lake Tahoe. We will be spending Christmas there. First Christmas for both me and my wife outside home soil and away from our two boys; Hans and Cross. With Hans, he will be staying with my parents. He agreed to not have us for Christmas as long as he gets his DSlite (granted!!!). For Cross, he will be staying with Maphel's; my wife's parents. Cross is ok, he is still too young (1.75 years old) to know that we will be going away for a month. We will just see if he will still recognize us when we get back. Hehehe

Oh well, Got to go. hopefully will be able to pose some pics and write about our trip when i'm there already.

First...#@%!?

My very first entry. Nothing to write about except that I finally jump on the bandwagon... I am now officially a BLOGGER!!! This is a nice start. Happening a day after Alcano winning the World Nine Ball Tourney on home soil, and in less than a week, PacMan will maul the leaving daylights out of Morales thus sending the old fart to his retirement.

This phenomenon of blogging is indeed empowering, it gives ordinary people like me the forum to write just about everything and anything I want. And that's GREAT! (even if nobody's reading this).

Well, gotta go, still have work tomorrow. Cheerio!!!