racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Those of you who’ve been following my blog for some time now probably know I’m a Smallville fan. I know, it probably sounds corny, but I do dig superhero stuff. And I do appreciate the producers of Smallville have formatted the show such that it grows with its audience (when it first came out, the themes were about adolescent life; now it’s more mature).

Now however, I think I may have grown to be addicted with another television series: Prison Break!

The story basically revolves around how the protagonist gets himself imprisoned in order to break out his brother in death row for a crime he believes the brother is innocent of. And oh, how I love the twists. It’s not your run of the mill escape story. There are bigger things involved. This is a show that geeks would love.

Here’s why I dig Prison Break. (Warning: spoiler alerts!)

• The protagonist, Michael Scofield is a very intelligent and well-educated individual. He uses his expertise in structural engineering, keen observation and analytical skills to carry out his plan. He researches well into every detail of his plan, from the prison blueprints, to escape routes, and individuals’ personalities, and is usually able to things off—sometimes due to sheer luck! How’s that for geek supremacy.
• The “bigger things” involved would be the big conspiracy. The first few episodes of the show only imply a frame-up, but boy are the characters in for a surprise when the conspiracy is unraveled to have actually come from the top: the office of the US President itself! And the twists are never-ending. You never know whom to trust.
• It’s a story of social engineering! The execution of the prison break (and the succeeding activities like the escape and the retrieval of stashed goods) involved a lot of social engineering.
• It’s also a story of code-breaking. Some messages are sent via code. Actually, a lot. Even the way that the protagonist planned the break-out and escape (tattooed on his entire torso and arms) was in code. In fact, at one point, the characters supposedly used an online forum ( europeangoldfinch.net ) to exchange messages by code.
• There’s no black and white. This isn’t a story about good versus evil. The moral lines are often crossed—it’s difficult to determine what’s good and what’s bad. The main theme, though, is whether the end can justify the means.
• Lots of gore (though not too much). Name it: head shots, torture, extremities being cut off. Prison Break has it!
• Prison Break has a collection of interesting characters, including individuals seemingly pre-disposed to crime (like T-Bag), government agents who will kill in cold blood without question just to protect secrets (like Agent Kellerman), and clueless individuals who eventually realize what’s really happening and decide to get ahead with the game. Oh, and there are also those characters you would love to hate (like Agent Kim).
• It’s a story about having to do some nasty things because you don’t have a choice (as with Agent Mahone), or the alternative would hurt those close to you.
• It’s a story about family and families. And it’s not your usual ideal family set-up. Sometimes it’s complicated. Just like in the real world.
• The lighter side—can’t live without it.

Can’t wait to download!

I got hooked since I started watching some episodes of the current season (Season 2) at my in-laws’ place. Now I usually just download episodes off BitTorrent. I know, that’s not actually legal, but the local television airings here are really late (still in the first season, I believe). I’ve actually finished watching the entire second season up to the latest episode so far (season 2, episode 14: John Doe), but I’m still backtracking through the first season.

If you’re interested about episode recaps, Wikipedia has them here. If you’d like to know how (and where) to download episodes, do give me a buzz and I’ll be glad to help out. I’ll probably also be writing episode reviews and recaps here once in a while.

Working on two laptops simultaneously with one having an extended display (guess which one)!

One for writing email and articles, one for blog feeds and IM chat windows, one for reference. Sweet!

Hey, I have designer friends with display set-ups that are even more kick-ass!

Now why do I need both Windows and Mac? That’s an interesting question.

I’ve been offline since the morning of Thursday, September 28th, 2006 due to the typhoon Milenyo. Our power was cut off 7:00 a.m. and the phone line came down a few hours after that. I just heard this evening that the power and DSL connection are already up, so I can hopefully be able to get online later this evening. I’m just checking up my email inbox to see if I missed anything important.

Isulong SEOPH

I’m at Ortigas, by the way, having some coffee and dessert in the aftermath of the Isulong SEOPH contest awarding. Our entry placed fifth!

Too bad we didn’t get to win the iPod Nano raffled off, though.

The crowd at the awarding wasn’t the usual blog meetup crowd. Well, okay, it was about 50% of the bloggers’ crowd, and the other half comprised the SEO people who were (likely) not really into blogging.

I’ll write about this later on, with some pics to boot. Right now, I’ll be enjoying a cup of coffee and some cake with my lovely wife.

(Just had to get online after three days’ being off the grid.)

Update: No power again!

Looks like I spoke (or wrote) too soon. Only a few hours after power was restored, it’s down again in our area. Must be some transformer that overloaded. Am now on battery connecting via dialup (trying to get in touch with Meralco via their website, but to no avail!). Sigh.

My articles and blog posts here and on the other blogs I manage/contribute to have been DUGG several times now, and I’ve posted some of my observations on ForeverGeek:

I’ve a handful of articles and blog posts that have been DUGG to frontpage, and I can say that I’ve had different experiences from each of them. But the few times my stuff had been voted up to front page, one can draw conclusions about the way the DIGG crowd thinks.

Here’s a brief rundown of my DUGG postings:

• On ForeverGeek, my beginner’s guide to podcasting (DIGG link here).
• On the J Spot, my guide to getting free US and UK incoming telephone numbers from anywhere in the world (DIGG link here)—reached frontpage, but was buried and marked “inaccurate” because the server hiccupped due to the sheer rise in traffic during the time at front page.
• My article on VPNs at bLaptops—nearly frontpaged (DIGG link here), but again it was buried and marked “inaccurate” because a glitch in the blog’s layout caused the content to be hidden in IE (stupid IE).
• On ForeverGeek, my post about the Windows vs Mac OS X issue being about the “maximize” button (DIGG link here).
• Several other places, I’d rather not disclose.

And what have I learned from this? Well, to get DUGG, you have to know what interests the DIGG crowd. Notable among these are:

• People love to argue – e.g., Windows vs. OS X.
• People love free stuff – e.g., free calls, free software, etc.
• People love new stuff – e.g., new gadgets, new ways to do things.
• People love how-to’s – e.g., hacks, tutorials.
• It pays to have a lot of friends. Even better, it pays to have influential friends – Bring on the DIGG army!

Check it out at ForeverGeek. Please feel free to comment either here or there.

As I write this, there’s only a week and a few hours left to go for the Isulong SEOPH contest. This is basically your usual search engine ranking contest, where the ones at the top of Google search by the end of the duration for a certain keyword would be awarded the prizes.