Movie: The Skeleton Key

I just watched and enjoyed it. It portrays how nurses should be, caring about the patients, not about the business. Unfortunately, especially here in the Philippines, many youth get into nursing for the money. Can't blame them though. XD
Anyhow, another thing I like about it is that in the start it appears to be a ghost movie. But halfway through it, it will seem to be a voodoo and belief movie. But then, at the end, it is a combination of the two. Everything in the beginning and in the middle were build ups, no ghosts, only clues, for the ending.

The story is good. A nurse who takes care of her patient but gets in the middle of something else.
Something she does not believe initially, but eventually... When she started believing, they got her.
The characters are good. The main character's background, not being able to take care of his dying dad, is enough to justify her longing to take real care of her patients. Unfortunately for her, she gets into trouble for doing her job well. I feel sorry for her. Lolz.
The ending is pretty much one of the best I've seen. All my questions are answered and cleared. After seing the ending, I actually got stunned because all the answers came in fast and my pentium-poor brain had a hard time processing the information.

Movie: Event Horizon

I just finished watching it right now. Remember watching it long ago. At that time, I wonder why I never thought what I think now.

The movie is just plain gore, and horror. In every scene, the concept of the inevitable shocker is presented. The style is typical for horror movies.
The story sucks.
The characters are said to be "professionals" but they don't behave like ones.
The sounds are shocking (Name a horror movie without shocking sounds).
The effects are pretty much okay.
The ending is horrible.

The idea that the shortest distance between two points is zero is pretty interesting though. But if their distance is zero, that could only mean that they are actually just a single point. That is since no two things can occupy the same space at the same time. I don't know. XD

Anyhow, if you want some time-wasting, sci-fi, gore, and horror movie, this one is the way to go.

Another one of those work related stuff

I and some of my block mates took this work related exam a while ago. We traveled to the examination place in Makati. We did not know where the location was exactly so we utilized the power of the taxi.

I was a bit late so I was not with them when they got to the spot. Fortunately, I managed to get there within the five minutes when they told me that they were to enter the building whether or not I was there.

The exam reminds me of the UPCAT, pretty funny actually. It is like the UPCAT minus the physics and chemistry part and plus the computer science parts. In addition to that, it is only to be taken for two and a half hours. The questions are also easier, but there are many of them. So under time pressure, answering them is like the ACM. I’m glad that I have just been subjected to that kind of pressure earlier. I suppose my team mates, who also came with me to take the exam, thought the same thing.

I liked the exam. It was a pleasure taking it, not like the exam that I took last month.

If I pass, cool. Otherwise, it’s okay. Lolz.

2006 ACM - ICPC Asia - Manila

The contest proper started at around 12:00pm in the afternoon. Our team started solving the "easy" or "five-minute" problems first since that would most probably give us a great chance at solving anything at all.

We solved the Gaussian Primes problem within the first hour. The crappiest thing is that we did not pass our solution, and skipped that problem because we thought that the solution was wrong. Very dumb indeed. I suppose this is the bring down factor that affected out perfomance throughout the competition. We proceeded to another problem called AGTC, which was basically a longest common subsequence problem. The best part of that is that the code for the LCS in our notebook was very buggy. So I ended up using a lot of our time copying the code but not being able to utilize it. Damn. XD We tried another problem, I forgot the name, but it was, again, basically a minimum cost spanning tree. The code in out notebook, again, was not very friendly. Those are the moments when memorization or, at the very least, familiarization of codes or concepts, is essential. It was about 4:30pm when I finally decided to have our team focus on a single problem, which was the Gaussian Primes problem. We successfully solved and passed it, but too late. We also tried solving the Nuevo Romano problem, which is basically a parsing problem made because the computer is too dumb to recognize, and add roman numerals. XD

I was the main programmer and "captain" of our team. I guess my unwise judgment and the team's lack of experience made us get, if I remember correctly, the rank 39 out of 82 teams. XD

Anyhow, we did have that one hundred percent factor, since the only solution that we submitted was correct. XD

We also enjoyed most of everything regarding the competition. The preparation, the travelling, the food, the places, the problems, the contest, the slack times, etc.

The contest is finished. It took a good two-week part in my life. Great experience.

More pics here

I'm off

I just prepared my stuff and self to go back home. I realized that it is very hard to pack up, bring your stuff, and after that repack again... I get tired of it, literally. Hopefully, I'm not going to do this again. It's so exhausting.

It's going to be three days of mind churning. Tomorrow and the day after will be the Manila ACM ICPC. Me and my team mates prepared for a single week. And yes, we expect to get to the top 10. XD

After that, a work related exam and interview. I hate these kinds of things...

When all these are over, I'll slack, yet again.

Movie: Dead or Alive

The introduction is pretty nice. Some of the cast are pretty. There are some cool action scenes. But the thing is, I've seen those kinds of stuff in other movies already. Can't they like think of innovative ideas that will make the audience awe or something? In addition, the story sucks, a lot.

Whatever great there is in the movie is swept away by its flaws. It is not a very good movie.

no trash bins

Another thing, which we noticed here in Baguio, at least outside of the UPB campus, is that there aren't any trash bins anymore. Back when we were freshmen, there were many trash bins all around with the name of the former mayor, Bernardo Vergara. After his reign, all the trash bins with his name were removed. Now, after about two years after the new mayor's term, there are still no trash bins, even in session road.

Although it's very inconvenient to have no trash bins around, where anyone can just throw trash, an advantage of this scheme is that people usually take home their trash. That is, with exception to some people who just throw around their trash anywhere, without care. It seems that people in Baguio care a little more.

When I remember the garbage bins in Manila being very unaesthetic, I just get the thought, maybe having no trash bins is for the better.

mobile babes

The Baguio Convention Center is located in front of the UPB campus. Many events are done in there. Anyhow, it has a wide parking lot directly beside it, and oftenly, there are buses parked there. The cool thing is that, seemingly so, every night there is a sort of service that brings girls, who are casually dressed and wearing cosmetics, to that place. Events also take place Baguio Convention Center parking lot. There is one night when we saw the service unloading the girls and each of the girls just entered a bus. Another funny thing that confirmed that this is an every night ordeal is that we see the service at around 10pm at session road. What they are doing is obviously illegal. Unfortunately, it's just another manifestation of having no policemen roaming around at night. XD

sembreak?

We started training for the ACM-ICPC only last Wednesday. It's going to end this Wednesday so it's just a week of training before the actual competition. We are not expecting to win the top prizes, but we do hope that we will be able to get to at least the top 20 or, better, top 10. That is, even if we did not train well, relative to all the other teams. XD

After that programming competition, I'm going to take another non-academic exam for a job.

After that exam, I'm going to focus on my flash time dilation project because it's due on November 21. It's supposed to be a nine month project. XD Anyhow, I've already got the idea on how to implement it so I'm hoping that I'd finish it nicely.

Technically, no sembreak. Maybe it's justice. I don't really know. XD

mr/ms conductor

In EDSA, there are buses, many buses. In each and every single one of those buses, there is a conductor (konduktor). If you happen to need to ride in one of those buses, and the bus that you need is full, the conductor of that bus will still announce "maluwag pa, maluwag pa, pasok lang". Sweet.

Another unusual thing is that the conductor does not usually announce that the bus is still not loaded when there are few passengers in that bus. Reverse psych ni conductor.

humanities class is over

The class ended with us watching the conclusion of the movie "My Fair Lady". Wala lang, I'm sure gonna miss the class, I'm not gonna have any other class like it.

nasaan na ang mga pulis

Tuwing gabi, habang ako ay nagpapahinga na sa aking higaan, mayroon nalang ako biglang maririnig na humaharurot na mga kotse. Sa malamang, nagkakarera sila. Drag racing nga siguro. Ang nakakabagabag lang talaga eh wala man lamang sumisitang kung sino man. Nakakatakot din dahil baka makadisgrasya ang mga yun. Wala lang, wala ring pulis. Hindi ko alam eh, baka nga dito lang sa Baguio... Kaya kung ako, magiingat ako kapag gabi.