Up Dharma Down - The World Is Our Playground - Lyrics

you are my sunshine
and my occassional rain
we become divine
after every pain
so please, won't you
sit this through
because everyday
will find reasons to stay
if words are too few
to keep horizons in view
will you go
or stay and grow
standing on the edge
between crazy and sense
remember what i said
nothing has to end

Top 25 Videogame Consoles of All Time - Ep. 2

IGN's list just turned turned into a joke. The Xbox360 is higher on the list than the PS1 and N64? Give me one Xbox360 game that can compare to the impact and status of Mario64, Zelda - Ocarina of Time, GT1 & 2, MGS, FF7.

There are great games on the 360 but so far none of them is legendary. The only legendary thing about the 360 so far is the RROD--the first time a console had such massive failure rates.

Microsoft is leading the industry only now on its second Xbox. Sony stole the show from Nintendo and Sega on their first try. While the PS2 delivered the death blow to Sega's hardware business, it was the Ps1 who incapacitated it.

While I love the DC, Sonic Adventure and Shenmue, they should not be ahead of the N64.

My prediction for the top 5, if IGN still has any sense in them will be. (I just realized there are no handhelds in the list.)
5. Genesis
4. SNES
3. Atari 2600
2. PS2
1. NES

Up Dharma Down Album Art

Here are Fragmented and Bipolar

Top 25 Videogame Consoles of All Time

IGN is currently counting down their list of top 25 consoles of all time. I'll list my own top 5.

5, Atari 2600 - There were consoles that were first. But this was the first to make it big. Some of its games are still played on mobile phones today: Pacman, Pong, Breakout.

4. PS1 - This is the first console for company that had little to no videogame influence. And they made it big--enough to have 3rd generation of this console.

3. PS2 - Market domination, longevity and a long, long list of great games make this my favorite console of all time.

2. Gameboy - This console started the handheld market. And it ran it for what seemed like an eternity.

1. NES - I wouldn't be gaming today if not for the NES. A lot of games wouldn't be here today if not for the NES. A lot of NES games are still fun to play even today.

- Note -
Why no SNES or Genesis? Just one reason--they didn't dominate the market during their time because of each other.

Daily Hatred

One of the things I hate most about my job is having to deal on a daily basis people I detest, loathe and hate. I do not exaggerate. I regularly pray to the Lord God that these people get mugged or hit by a bus.

The worst part of it is I not only have to deal with these people, I also have to mind their feelings. I don't care if they get families gets murdered in the middle of the night. I care much less about their feelings.

Today's hatred is focused on... I'll call her Fangs. This person is the most narrow-minded and juvenile 50-year-old I will ever meet. Two unique and possible deaths I have for her--death by lung cancer and/or death by tooth decay.

MSI Wind Review Ep. 3 - The OC Strikes Back

Well surprise, surprise. The Wind when OC'ed by 24% is comparable to a much more expensive HP DV2 and an MSI X-Slim, with 7-Zip at least. Above are my benchmark results compared with Techreport's results.

MSI Wind Review Ep. 2

More thoughts on the Wind. The CTRL key placement issue now less of an issue. I found this modified BIOS that switches the CTRL and Fn. When I touch type, it works like a charm. On the rare occassion I look at the keyboard when I press CTRL, I wonder why it doesn't work, then I remember the switch.

I'm thinking of writing over the keys with correction fluid. Not the most elegant solution I know.

Also the latest BIOS has overclocking support. Pretty nifty. I don't think other netbooks have the option. I won't be using the feature for now but it's good to know that if I change my mind, it's there.

MSI Wind U100 Review

I downgraded from a 15-inch Compaq powered by T2370 and 2 gigs of RAM running Windows Vista, to a MSI Wind—Atom N270 and 1 gig of ram. Why? Because portability and size are more important to me right now. Besides the Compaq was only used for netbook tasks. The most performance I needed from it was when I ripped CDs.

I settled on the Wind because of several favorable reviews online. It supposedly had the 2^nd best keyboard next to the HP Mini, standard netbook innards and a fair price.

It's been 3 days and I like it so far. I initially installed the Windows 7 RC on it but replaced it with XP after a day. The performance felt sluggish, much like how my previous laptop performed with Vista and only a gig of ram. The Atom, the 1 gig and Win7 just didn't do it for me.

XP is a much better experience. Using the Wind as a netbook doesn't feel like running a gimped CPU. The last time I used XP was with an Athlon64 3000+ with 2gb ram. The Wind seemed just as fast.

Besides the upgraded portability, the screen quality is also an upgrade from the Compaq. It has better viewing angles and is much brighter and it's matte surface has less glare than the Compaq's glossy screen.

Just 2 things I didn't see mentioned in all the reviews I read. One is the annoying placement of the left CTRL key. Its placement has been switched with an Fn key. And 2 is the HD noise—it sounds more audible than my previous laptop. The cause might simply be the quieter fan of the Wind which doesn't mask the HD noise. The loudness is comparable to the HD noise of my 120gb iPod Classic, if not slightly louder.

So do I recommend the Wind? Yep. Just remember you're using a netbook and not a laptop.

Here are some of the reviews I looked before I bought my Wind:

Techreport

HardOCP

LaptopMag

Album Art - Barbie's Cradle

Here are the album covers for all 3 Barbie's Cradle albums: the self-titled debut, Music from the Buffet Table and Playing in the Fields.

OPM Album Art - Bamboo

It's tough to find high res, high quality album art for OPM albums. Here's me sharing what I have. First up: Bamboo - As the Music Plays; and Bamboo - Light Peace Love.

Great Idea

Here's a blog with a great idea. I do hope it catches on and most of the music torrents off of Isohunt follow this standard.

Compaq C762NR Review Ep. 3

Here comes another bench. This time it's 7-Zip and comparisons are based on Xbitlabs.

This time the T2370 pulls ahead of the E2140. I think it's safe to say both are evenly matched. The E2140 pulls ahead sometimes because of its higher FSB while the T2370 wins a few where clock speed matters.

My Recommended Builds - March 2009

One of my friends is buying a new PC for gaming and video editing and asked what I would buy. Here's my recommendation.

Intel Q8200 Php7,600.00
MSI P43 Neo-F Php3,900.00
Powercolor 4830 Php5,300.00
Western Digital Caviar Green 640gb Php3,300.00
Kingston 2gb Php1,200.00
Liteon DVD writer Php1,500.00
Corsair 400CX PSU Php2,600.00
Antec 300 case Php3,200.00
Total Php28,600.00

Also an officemate asked me for a budget gaming build. Here's what I'm recommending. I have an AMD CPU there because the guy is obtuse and would not have an Intel CPU not for all the sensible reasons in the world. The only reason one should have an AMD CPU is if they must have integrated graphics only.

Athlon X2 5000+ Php2,900.00
Asus M2N-MX/SE Plus or Asus M2N-VM/DVI or MSI K9N6PGM2-V Php2,500.00
Powercolor 4830 Php5,300.00
Western Digital 160gb Php1,800.00
Kingston 2gb Php1,200.00
Liteon DVDwriter Php1,500.00
Generic case w/ PSU Php1,500.00
Total Php16,700.00

*The recommendations are mostly ripped off from TechReport. Prices are from PCHub.

Compaq C762NR Review Ep. 2

So my benchmarks would be more useful, I will be mirroring the results from various hardware review sites. First up is Cinebench R10. My results (in red) can be compared with Anandtech bench beta here.

Compaq C762NR Review Ep. 1

Here is the first of a series of benchmarks on my laptop which is powered by an Intel T2370. FYI I've upgraded the ram to 2gb from the factory bundled 1gb. The first benchmark is LAME 3.98.2. I pre-ripped Jeff Buckley's album Grace to a single wav file before using LAME to encode. The file was encoded in 2.34 seconds at a speed of 20.122x. Here are the screenshots for reference.

Francis M - Freeman

Here's a copy of the late great Francis Magalona's album Freeman. If we ever have to replace Lupang Hinirang as the national anthem, Three Stars and a Sun would get my vote.

Up Dharma Down - Bipolar Album Review

I suck at describing music that I love. This album is exactly that--music that I love. And love is a word I don't throw around easily.

So instead of failing miserably to describe how this album sounds, I'll share what I think of it. Very few sophomore albums can say that they are better than their critically acclaimed and commercially successful predecessors. This is one such album. But this one doesn't edge out like Pinkerton did against The Blue Album. It demolishes Fragmented like it was an amateur effort. And Fragmented was no amateur effort. It WAS the best Filipino musical achievement of this millennium.

Bipolar is modern. It is brave. It is emotional yet brilliant. Shut yourself in a room and turn the volume up.