domz

On an old IBM Thinkpad I decided to erase Windows XP and replace it with a Linux OS. For days I have been searching for the perfect Linux for it, I started with testing it out with Linux Mint, had a few issues with it trying to boot up due to the machine being “non PAE” which means it is a really old one. When I got it working it seemed to boot up quickly, though running some programs seemed to make the machine sluggish. I downloaded Lubuntu, a lighter version of Ubuntu, installed it and tried it for a day and it seemed pretty quick to run programs, though booting up took some time and playing videos was not so good because the OS was forcing all videos to be played at the highest bitrate possible, therefore making the videos stutter.

Then I came across some forums looking for another Linux OS that as a good following. And there was Crunchbang.

After downloading and installing it, I ran a few programs and it did work beautifully. The videos were okay for an old machine,  the interface was simple and lightweight, and I love the fact that the main menu appears when you just right click on the desktop.

So it looks like I will be using this old IBM machine often for browsing, blogging, and practicing Linux command lines, and dedicate my Lenovo Windows 8 laptop for my heavy duty graphics and multimedia work.

An American friend of mine from work gave this to me a couple of days ago for my newborn son. He got it from his trip back home in America. How thoughtful of him. It never occurred to me that I would see and hold a real one during my lifetime. The first time I heard of a Dreamcatcher was through a movie from Stephen King of the same name. It may be contrary to my non-belief of the supernatural, but it does interest and amaze me to hold one. Wicked.

I don’t smoke cigars but if I had some, I’d be giving them away.
More than a week ago, my wife gave birth to a baby boy. Wayne Ezekiel. Zeke for short. She picked the name because for some reason she finds the name “Wayne” quite interesting. Anyway, I am quite happy that we have a boy for I always wanted to have a son. My daughter seems to be a little jealous because of the attention this baby boy is getting, especially the presents. She is getting a bit naughtier than usual and probably is seeking our attention more often. I love her so dearly, sometimes it hurts me to scold her for being unreasonable sometimes but she also needs to learn the right ways so she could be a great “Ate.”
Wayne is more than a week old today, and he’s getting much bigger… and livelier. My wife is getting less sleep and she sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night (which I hate doing) just so that she wouldn’t be the only one doing all the work.
Anyway, I am so gratefully happy to have two kids with me. And one kid who’s far away back in my hometown, whom I miss the most.

Been reading a comment thread in one of my groups in Facebook,  about how local bands or musicians in my hometown are still being exploited or manipulated by event organizers to perform for measly talent fees. I grew up being a part of the local music scene, as both a musician and organizer in a few occasions. The problem is, there is no local public entity that looks out for the welfare of the musicians, and even the musicians stoop down to a low pay even they are worth more just to get a quick buck rather than nothing. This has been going on and on and nothing is being done about it. So this thread I read (and rather participated) was about setting up this kind of entity watchdog for local musicians.

When I was a with my buddies in a band, we would even perform for free just to get seen and heard. But after numerous gigs and with experience up your sleeve, sometimes performing even for a measly fee is just not worth it. Its okay if its a free event with friends for a cause, but if if you know that the organizer gets big bucks for the gig, I think its fair to get paid generously as well. There should be some kind of expectation set before agreeing to perform for a gig.

A musician’s life is not easy, and a lot of money is spent before one gets to a certain level of experience. Getting paid enough for the performance is to compensate the investment made. I remember paying a lot of dough just for our band to practice for countless hours in rehearsal studios, just to get to an amateur performance level. Then you also need money to buy your instrument and stuff that goes with it and your craft.

So I hope the guys back home would start setting up a guild or organization some thingy. That would help ease the burden of local musicians from the hassle of haggling with organizers for a decent talent fee. It would also even the playing field and set a standard of quality of local performances.

Money is evil.

That is absolutely true. If I had lots of it, I would be a materialistic pig. If I had none of it, I would be just a simple pig. Money is like “heroine,” at first it feels good to have it in your system but then you begin to crave for more of it, to get that high, just like buying stuff you want but you don’t actually need. Ultimately, if you have a lot of money, you become high all the time, everything that you want, you already have, just like the last high wasn’t better than the previous one, so you crave for more money even if you have lots of it. Then everything else in life doesn’t taste better than money, so you forget all of them and stop taking in what you really need. You then become sick and die a lonely death.

Now lets put that perspective into our society today and how it uses money. Because of money we consume too much resources from the Earth even if we don’t need it. Because of too much consumption, we pollute and make a lot of waste. With already depleting resources, we taint poison into resources left because of too much waste and pollution. We are all going to die because of money.

For the past few Saturdays, we have been visited by a fellow Pinoy who is a pastor from some Christian church. He drops by our humble abode just to bother us with something he calls “Bible Study.” The pastor, whom I have no idea where he comes from and what religion he represents, is welcomed by my wife, for I am busy with the laundry (Yes, my extravagant lifestyle has come to this).  I do not blame my wife for inviting him in, for she is just being hospitable and friendly to a fellow pinoy. She and I agreed beforehand that we would not convert to whatever religion this pastor is trying to lure us into.

Now, for thirty some odd minutes, after a lengthy conversation of God-knows-what, he begins to share his bible to us and start preaching. The Bible is a good book, people treat it with much respect and consider it holy. For me, it is just like any other book. I’m just not sure where to categorize it, for I believe it is a work of both fiction and non-fiction. This poor pastor probably does not know the origins of the bible. If he had the time to search the net in wikipedia or some site about religious history, about the book’s origin and its relationship with the “Council of Nicea,” then I bet he would think twice of studying the Bible. I think there is no problem studying it, but the way they do it is to pick verses from different parts of the book from different authors, put them together to present an idea or message, which he obviously concocted and practiced for years. Why do that? Why can’t they read the bible just like an ordinary book, from beginning to end? Why flip from page to page, reading excerpt from excerpt, just to put an idea together? That doesn’t make any sense. The authors of those books of the bible are probably laughing at us for jumbling excerpts together to make a halo-halo special. Jesus! That only means, I can come up with something weird to preach, let say for example, “Humans are pests of the Earth” and find verses in the bible that can relate to that idea, and then convince other gullible people to believe it because it is the word of God.

Anyway, we let the pastor do his work, and we being polite, go along with it. And whatever he said about those excerpts, I just smiled and displayed a face of affirmation. But inside my thoughts, he reminded me of those poor souls who do a good business of bothersome preaching inside buses or jeepneys in between routes in Manila, asking for donations to their church and their beliefs.

The pastor knows we are Catholics and we go to church every Sunday. I was born a Catholic and even though I no longer believe in any form of organized religion, I still go along with the religious hullabaloo just for the sake of my family, especially my growing daughter. I think religion can instill good values to kids when growing up, just like making a kid behave or the “boogeyman will come and get ya!”  But if you’re all grown up, it isn’t appealing if you still believe in some mythical deity up in the heavens, or should I say “some boogeyman in white robes.” In the kind of primitive immature society we have today, I believe religion does good to kids or people who need it so they don’t do any harm unto others. But other than that, religion is also a farce belief system, a mind-controlling system,  a gargantuan con job, a big business that is outdated with the science and technology we have already achieved in this world. If I was Einstein and I believed in God, I would have put a bullet inside my head. If spirituality is a religion, then I would rather choose it than believe in something that is obviously been created by other human beings thousands of years ago.

So this pastor makes a remark about there being only a one true faith, as he takes it out from an excerpt in the bible. He is obviously insinuating that his “faith” or religion is the true one because he wouldn’t if he wasn’t sure if his religion now is the “true faith.” So it is also obvious that he is slowly trying to convince us to join whatever “true faith” church he is into. Which is too bad, for he is just wasting his time. I would rather kill myself than to become a primitive troll that believes in an imaginary  supreme being.

So then he talks about redemption and the usual stuff because judgement day is soon and sure to come. In one of his sermons, he knew about the blooper of which Harold Camping caused, which makes me wonder, why can’t he realize that Armageddon in the bible is a fairytale and the real World’s end is actual physical obliteration of the Earth and humankind because of global warming, the magnetic fields of our dying Sun or nuclear war? There is no scientific fact or basis to prove that a supreme being will return to earth and take our souls and throw the non-believers into the bottomless pit of the Inferno. It’s absolute bullshit. Maybe the supreme being is the alien Annunaki, like what Zechariah Sitchin is trying to theorize, but waitaminute, we are beings of a primitive society using a primitive system… there’s no way aliens would want to befriend or socialize with us if we can’t even evolve and elevate to their plane of thought. To them, we are barbarians, because most of us still believe literally in stupid fairy tales from a book that has been edited and edited for centuries by people who want to get other people to join their true faith.

So after the time wasted of talking about the verses in the bible and putting “his own” meaning of those verses into light. He bade us farewell and left, hoping to see us and waste our time on another Saturday. This is what my wife and I will have to go through for the next few weeks.  Ultimately, he will try to convince us to visit his so called “church” and be a part of it and maybe contribute to it financially. Because that is how religions work. Because a religion without money in a society that uses a monetary system cannot survive. And if there is a religion that has no need or use for money, then I praise the Lord Jesus Motherfucking Christ! Alien!

Too bad we will have to turn him down on any offer of converting to his “true faith” and be sorry for having wasted his time and effort. But at least we let him do his job.

Alien!