Month: July 2013

General

MacBook Pro Memory Upgrade

By on Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Last week, I decided to upgrade the memory of my MacBook Pro from 4GB to 8GB. I did my research and then went to Villman which is my usual go to place for hardware components. Ever since their humble beginnings with Boyet at the People’s Park, I’ve almost always gone for Villman. Lucky for me, they got the modules that I asked for.

When I got home, I excitedly swapped the old memory modules with the new ones. It won’t boot! I  rechecked my research and it turned out that I was wrong. I got PC3-12800 (DDR3 1600 MHz) modules when I should have gotten PC3-8500 (DDR3 1066 MHz). Bummer.

So I went back to Villman and returned the memory modules. They didn’t have PC3-8500 modules but they told me they can order replacements which should be available in 5-15 days. It was quick and painless. And that is why I always come back to Villman.

So today, eight days after ordering, Villman called me that my memory has been delivered to the store. I had no plans of going out but I just had to go and pick them up. Michelle and Jeanne went with me to get snacks. As soon as we got home, I (still) excitedly swapped the old memory modules with the news ones. And this time, it booted up perfectly. And performed whoa so much faster. Memory is definitely the best bang-for-the-buck upgrade!

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General

iOS 7 beta 4

By on Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Apple has released iOS 7 beta 4. This one took 3 weeks. Either the developer site hacking incident disrupted the release or they’ve shifted to a longer release cycle as the beta stabilizes. It certainly looks like the latter to me. Stability and battery life were already good with the previous beta 3 and didn’t look like it changed much with beta 4. Most of the obvious changes were UI tweaks. Unfortunately they still haven’t fixed the Safari and Settings icons :P

At this rate, there’s probably going to be one or two more betas before the golden master and then the final around September or October… Along with the new iPhone. Or iPhones since a budget iPhone is rumored to be in the works.

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General

The Wolverine

By on Monday, July 29, 2013

thewolverineWell, what do you know? Logan (the Wolverine) is a comedian. After sleeping with the very-much-engaged Mariko he confronted Noburu, Mariko’s fiancé, and chastised the latter for being engaged and cavorting with two working ladies. Now that’s real tongue-in-cheek humor from the normally grumpy Logan :P

Overall, I like the movie. It follows the trend of more real-world superheroes. Or superhumans. Or mutants. The mutants here look like normal people and wear regular clothes. No fancy skin-tight costumes. Except maybe Viper’s but it was still within the realm of normal wear. Even the action scenes are almost realistic. Except for the one on top of a speeding bullet train. That was simply preposterous. Logan himself is pretty mortal, almost human, for most of the running time so he toned down his heroics. A bit.

Instead of the action, the movie focuses more on the story, Logan’s story. After an invitation from a Japanese mutant, he travels to Japan to say goodbye to a dying acquaintance, Yashida, whose life he had saved and had built up one of the world’s biggest conglomerates. But all is not what it seemed with Yashida, his son, and his grandaughter (Mariko). And the mystery quickly thickens as Yashida dies and the funeral is attacked.

But instead of leaving it all behind, Logan, decides to stick around and untangle the web of deceit. Or maybe it’s because of the ethereal Mariko. If Logan wasn’t a comic book with a need to show off some comic book action, it could have been a suspense thriller. And a would have been good one, too.

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General

Educazione Siberiana (Siberian Education)

By on Friday, July 19, 2013

There’s something interesting about crime family dramas. People usually think about the epic Godfather series. But there are many more films with variations of the theme. In this case, a Russian special forces team is tracking a gang of drug smugglers. And it appears one of the soldiers, Kolyma, is tracking one of the smugglers specifically. As the team gets closer to their prey, Kolyma’s past is gradually revealed: growing up with friends in one of the remote Siberian towns where Stalin resettled various ethnic groups during his ethnic deportations. While growing up in a generally tough environment, the friends are involved in and quite a bit of petty crime. Stereotypical for bad ass special forces types, I guess. But of course, it’s got more story to the drama than that.

Following the mold of the Godfather series, there’s John Malkovich is the godfather figure. He has always been one of those quirky, harmless-looking but pretty scary characters and he fits the role perfectly. Aside from him and Eleanor Tomlinson, I don’t know the other actors. Which is fine, even good. One thing that seems a bit off is the use of English while retaining the hard ethnic Russian accent. Trying to retain a bit of realism, I guess. But personally I’d rather have Russian (or even the particular ethnic language) with subtitles. If you can get past the faked accent, then it’s no problem.

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General

Breakfast at Antonio’s

By on Monday, July 15, 2013

Yesterday, we went to Tagaytay for Breakfast. At Antonio’s. For a change, we went up early. You know, when the air is still chilly and there’s still a bit of fog. We went straight to Breakfast at Antonio’s.

Well actually, straight is not accurate. I got caught up enjoying driving a bit too much and somehow ended up to the end of SLEX. So I had to backtrack via the back roads and ended up at the far end of Nuvali. Thankfully, the guard allowed us to pass through after some good-natured chit-chat ;)

So anyway, we did finally get to Tagaytay and Breakfast. It was already crowded when we got there. But we we’re able to park and get seated reasonably easily. Ordering and getting the food served took a bit longer. But not too long either.

I ordered Beef Roesti. Per Wikipedia: Roesti or Rösti is made with coarsely grated potato, either cooked or raw. Depending on the frying technique, butter or another fat may be added (and usually salt and pepper). If not, oil is used for the frying. In this case, it is fried to crunchiness and topped with roast beef, poached eggs, and cheese.

Michelle ordered Eggs Hemingway, a variation of Eggs Benedict. Per Wikipedia: Eggs Benedict is an American dish that consists of two halves of an English muffin, topped with ham or bacon, poached eggs, and Hollandaise sauce. With Eggs Hemingway, smoked salmon is used instead of ham or bacon.

Both our sevings were large, tasted great and were a wonderful departure from the usual simple breakfasts like something-silog or something sandwich. They’re a bit harder to prepare which should be part of the reason they’re expensive. The other reason is, I expect, the general expensiveness of everything in Tagaytay.

Service is generally good and the staff is quite attentive. But there are occasional lapses such as when it took a long time to get an extra slice of bread. One slice. We followed it up and the waitress said it’s been punched in. And yet it wasn’t on our initial bill. So we actually had to ask them to re-check and recompute. And there there’s the missing staff at their shop.

Good place for when you feel like a special breakfast (and willing to pay the price). But can certainly still be improved.

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