I just arrived home last night when I learned from Izza about a blast at the House of Representatives. I immediately checked The Inquirer and realized something is really up because but it was not responding, probably overloaded with requests. Fortunately, ABS-CBN was and I was able to confirm that there was indeed a blast. The report said that the vehicle of Wahab Akbar, a representative, was on fire and that he was among the injured and later died. Although some grandstanding politican (coughdeveneciacough) immediately claimed it was a terrorist attack, I wouldn’t be surprised if Akbar was the specific target. He has too way many enemies from political rivals to the Abu Sayyaf who has been using bombs more and more. Supposedly he used to be a member of the Abu Sayaff but later left and turned on them. Heck, even the Philippine Marines could be counted among those. There was this rumor before that his men were involved in an ambush a few months back where 14 marines were killed, some of whom were mutilated, and beheaded. Knowing the loyalty of the marines to their comrades, this possibility wouldn’t be far off.
Rei Ayanami
This morning, Joy gave me good… heck… excellent news. She has pre-ordered for me the first of Kaiyodo‘s Fraulein Revoltech Line: Rei Ayanami!!! Pre-orders just started this month and it will actually come out only by January. Still, it’s good to already know she is coming my way. Can hardly wait! Thanks Joy!
Lust, Caution
You probably heard about Lust, Caution because of its R rating and its supposedly hot sex scenes. Indeed the scenes are hot. Really hot, in fact. But that’s not all there is to it. Really. Behind it all is a well-crafted wartime espionage thriller.
Set during World War II in Hong Kong and later Shanghai, Wang Jiazhi (Wei Tang) is a resistance agent tasked with seducing and then eliminating Mr. Yee, a high-level Japanese collaborator. Tony Leung as Mr. Yee is, as usual, impressive as the initially suspicious and impassive target.
The act of seduction, pulled off wonderfully by Wei Tang, unfolds slowly and subtly creating palpable sexual tension between the two. This gradually gains speed and culminates in intense physical contacts that illustrate the feelings that developed between them. This feelings clouds their judgments and eventually lead each to take actions they didn’t intend.
Definitely, a must watch.
Rating: 5/5
SetACL: Deliverance From Windows ACL Hell
We were wrestling with a weird problem in Windows the whole day. We were trying to transfer access rights to files from one user to another but we keep ending up with some directories that still can’t be accessed by the new user. We were stumped for quite some time before we found out that some directories can prevent inheriting access rights from its parents via an option that disables inheritance!!! How this came about we still can’t don’t know. But because of this option, the built-in ACL manager of Windows can’t completely assign access rights to all subdirectories. Neither can other Microsoft utilities like CACL (Change Access Control Lists) or XCACLS (eXtended CACL). There is definitely no way you can go from affected directory to affected directory removing that option. Thankfully there’s SetACL. Among its features: Reset permissions on all sub-objects and enable propagation of inherited permissions. Open source rocks!
2007 October 28 Aquaventure Reef Club, Anilao, Batangas
dived with win and din
wanted to wine and dine
but there was no time
so maybe next time
still with win and din.
Forgive my attempt at a limerick :P
Erwin wanted to do a refresher dive at Anilao as a prelude to his trip to Bohol. So he, his friend Claudine, and I went to favorite dive destination Anilao. We were operating under a time constraint since he had to fly at 11:45 the next day. He didn’t want to pop and fizzle like a freshly opened can of soda so he wanted as much no-fly time as possible. We therefore planned for a quick morning dive.
We were supposed to leave for Anilao by 4 but I got lazy and thought it was too early so I moved it to 4:30. And then Erwin misplaced something (again :P) so we ended up leaving around 5. Talk about always leaving some buffer time. Still, we got to favorite dive resort Aquaventure Reef Club early enough at around 8:30.
After registrations and gearing up, we started diving around 10. The sky was gray and it was drizzling. We dived at Beatrice and Caban. The current was strong and the viz was not good at both. But we still saw the usual clouds of fishes and even two puffers. I haven’t dived since April so that was already great!
We were back in the resort by around 1 where we ungeared and had the usual lunch buffet. It didn’t disappoint: All the food you can eat in an attempt to make up for quality with quantity :P I don’t really eat that much but I know from experience that the ala carte items are expensive and take way too long to serve. Nor do they taste any better.
After settling our bill and packing, we left the resort around 3. On the way to Anilao, we had noticed the extremely long line of northbound vehicles on the South Expressway so I decided to take the supposedly scenic alternate route through Tagaytay on the way back. Unfortunately, the view was shrouded by fog. And worse, we ended up stuck in traffic at Tagaytay anyway.
When I finally got home, I felt tired but glad for a great drive and dive day. Here’s hoping for another one!