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

Here’s an interesting video supposedly of Bill Gates’ last day on Microsoft. This was shown during Bill’s keynote at the 2008 CES.

My mom says I’m abnormal. To make things worse, she called me a psycho!

Angelo—once a psychiatric case

Angelo, at 26, is the eldest. Naturally, being the unico hijo, our world revolved around him, ever over protective, as they say, guarding him every single second, no mosquito was allowed to be within reach. At one point in time, there were 5 helpers in the house, two dedicated to him alone, and even while asleep, he should not be left alone. We didn’t realize it, but he has became boss in the household, every single word was a command. He was pampered. And through the years, he has developed these peculiarities, like, when wearing shirts, right hand first before left; when wearing shoes, right foot first before left; shorts should be with pockets; shirts with collars; shoes should be rubber shoes (leather shoes are no no – he even was ring bearer for my brother’s wedding, all in his formal clothes and tie, wearing his red Mickey Mouse pair of shoes!).

One time, he hurt his small finger. Since then, for many weeks, no one was allowed to take off the band aid. If ever it was taken out while he was sleeping, it had to be replaced. After several weeks, we were aghast, the finger has wrinkled, the nail gangling – it was an ugly sight, so ugly that he could not look at it.

At age 2, he was already playing the piano; at age 4, he was discussing physics in school, as indicated in his progress report card. And he was the most stubborn, most angry, most spoiled brat that I knew of, and I became paranoid. I asked myself – where did I go wrong? What was I lacking at?

Check it out here on her blog.

Pictures speak louder than words.

The PowerBook Pismo is teh cool!

It’s great to stumble upon old photos at home. You get to reminisce about days past (perhaps not too long ago), and you get to marvel at how thin and young and perhaps foolish you used to be. Never mind that you’re currently still considered to be young, being in your quarter-life stages, but ten years ago is ten years ago. And you’d feel O-L-D comparing yourself to 15- or 16-year-old self.

Sometimes you also reach a point when you just ask yourself “What the heck made me wear that?” or “What was I thinking?” Remember the 80’s? Fortunately I still wasn’t in my teens during those times. Otherwise, I’d be wearing stuff that’s just so … tacky. That’s not to mention the hair. Mullets, anyone? What about teased hair?

Reminiscing

Remember the days when digital cameras were toys for the rich boys or for the professional photogs with the dough to spend? We used film-based cameras and had to have the prints developed at the local photo shop. And then we’d be digitizing them using our trusty ol’ handheld scanners (and later on those big, bulky, expensive flatbeds).

Having no handheld nor flatbed scanner these days (don’t need them anyway), I just resorted to taking digicam-captures of these old prints. Not perfect, as there are some distortions owing to the prints’ not being laid flat, but it’s probably good enough for sharing over the Web.

Right now, just the thought of not having a digital camera makes the shutterbug in me shudder.

And here they are!

Here’s a random selection. You may also wish to visit my Flickr site itself for photos tagged with ‘oldpics’ .

Ah, the good ol’ days. To quote from the Pet Shop Boys, Life is much more simple when you’re young.

I’ll be heading to Caren and Pia’s school this noontime for a book reading. I will be reading the Gruffalo, which I chose for the cool and exciting characters (scary, but in a funny way). And of course, there’s the lesson. Be smart!