Of Cars and Food Tripping...

Prologue...Pro-blog-ue...

I don't know why i'm on a blogging hiatus for the past month or so...and my non-blogging has actually haunted me since the calendar turned October 1st of this year. *SIGH!* I guess it's just one of those phases in my life that i'd like to call "Procrastination in C Minor." Don't get me wrong, it's not that I have nothing to write about coz I do...it's just that all are half-baked...it's always never done. There's a beginning...a middle...but no end. Oh well...so to make up for my non-blogging months (namely, May and September), I made a vow to myself that i'd finish two for tonight. So here we go...

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I was at Pampanga last weekend for a car show that I got dragged into by my brother, mom, and dad. This is what happens if you don't have a social life. Your Saturdays are spent malling (or going to car shows) with mom and dad...add to that Sunday as well. I'd like to call it "quality malling time with the family." Anyway, under the heat of the sun, I got to see cars in their all-out-glory! I'm guessing these cars on display never get used by their owners. I don't actually see the point in it but hey, it's their car...they can do whatever they want with it. Besides, it's actually nice to see sparkling (literally) cars on display with clean engine, interiors you wouldn't even dream of (I saw a car once with an aquarium in its trunk! I can only wonder why...), in colors you wouldn't even know how to pronounce, and sounds that can actually battle with the best sound system in the world (well, maybe the last one is a bit exaggerated but you'll never know what these guys are up to next!).

So, like in every other car show I've been to, I busied myself with taking pictures of the cars with my almost 5-year old Canon Ixus camera (to view the amateur photos I took, see this link). What stood out for me is the Ariel car (you know, Ariel...the Little Mermaid?Ü) with the pink interiors and a quasi-aquarium in its trunk...all because I find it very unique. I also liked the Concept One mags on this red (or is it maroon?) Vios that was on display at the show. It's simple and clean-looking...just how I'd like the mags on my imaginary car would be. And by the way, my imaginary car, is pink. <*WINK!*> Ü

It took me only 30 minutes to take pictures of the cars on display, afterwhich I went to the coffee shop (to escape the heat) in front of which are displayed the four grupoRAV4 entrees for the car show...three of which won an award: One for Best SQ (apparently, SQ means "Sound Quality" Ü), Best Paint, and Best SUV. Congratz guys! (Kahit hindi kami close...hahaha!Ü)

Dinner that night was spent at C' Italian Dining restaurant just at the outskirts of Clark, Pampanga. We ordered Kristina Panizza (just so it's clear, "Panizza" is the common noun or the generic term while "Kristina" is one of the few choices of Panizza available in their menu), which is yummy and is served with Arugula, Alfalfa (not the one in Little Rascals Ü), and Olive Oil with herbs. The Panizza is actually like a pizza with a twist, and can be eaten as-is or stuffed with Arugula & Alfalfa, rolled, then dipped in Olive Oil. Our other orders included Wood-Roasted Chicken, Black Angus Steak, Caesar Salad, and one pasta dish in white sauce and another in red. Needless to say, I found the Panizza and pasta dishes uber yummy, while I wasn't much of a fan of the chicken and steak that they served. But they do have a way of using herbs in their dishes that make it unique and tastey. If you ask me if i'll be coming back to this place if i'm in the vicinity...i'll definitely do. But i'll just order the Panizza and pasta, which is basically what Italian food really is to me.Ü

For lunch the day after, we headed to Aling Lucing's Sisig place, which I think is near the market area in Balibago (???), Pampanga. Obviously, we ordered sisig at this place and I have to say that it didn't disappoint. Although I like my sisig toasted and crunchy (the sisig at Aling Lucing's was not), I still enjoyed my sisig lunch together with a Royal true orange on the side (my friends out there know i'm not a softdrink-drinker so this is such a big event for me...haha!).

All in all, my weekend was an event of cars and food tripping in two very extreme places: One was at a semi-fine dining resto that serves Italian food while the other was at a palengke where I enjoyed sisig at its original and finest (they say sisig actually originated at Pampanga). Oh, and did I mention that I saw Martin Nievera's back at C'?!? I'm sure that was Martin...although it was only his back that I saw. Well, that's all for now. Hopefully my non-blogging hiatus ends soon! TTFN! (Ta-ta for now!)

Active Desktop Calendar

An officemate of mine has this software that sits on her desktop which she uses to track events in her calendar. Intrigued by it, I asked if she can share this software to me since I've been actually looking for a program that can remind me of certain calendar events that I want to take note of most especially birthdays & anniversaries. However, when I used the program in my PC (it's the freeware version of Desktop Calendar & it doesn't require any installation), I found that it doesn't actually serve the purpose that I was looking for, which is a desktop calendar/reminder that can allow events to recur weekly, monthly, yearly, etc. So I went & searched for a torrent of the upgraded version of it (which can do the "recurring event" function I was looking for but costs $14.99) but found the Active Desktop Calendar (ADC) instead. I decided to check it out & am glad that it didn't disappoint...although it takes a bit of getting used to.

So...why am I loving this software so much? Let me count the ways...

-Adding birthdays, special occasions, events, etc. is probably the most tedious thing you'll ever do in setting up your calendar, but once done, everything will be a breeze! (I tried the Import via CSV tool but it didn't work since I was not able to replicate the formatting it needs for the CSV import to be successful.).

-The Export & Import facility allows you to easily add events to another PC running ADC, which is the case for me since I have it both at home and in the office. That's why I was easily able to import the birthdays that I manually added in my ADC at home to my ADC at the office (Needless to say, it was just a one-time set up of birthdays for both my home and office PC).

-The software also has a "Task" pane which can act as a To-Do list...but it would have been nicer to have checkboxes as the bullets for this list to be able to easily put a check/tick mark on it once a task is done

-There's a lot of cute icons to choose from and options to change how the calendars & notes are shown on the desktop

Well of course, if there are positives, then there are negatives as well. One of which is that the program takes quite a while to load on startup, which is a letdown, but you can always choose for it NOT to load upon startup if you're the type of person who wants to use the computer as soon as it loads. Also, there's no facility to sync calendar events from Lotus Notes, which is the facility we use to schedule meetings at the office. But it has options to sync events from Microsoft Outlook & Google Calendars...so I guess if you're a user of that then "YEY!!! I'm happy for you!"

I'm glad to have stumbled upon this software since it's made it easier to setup reminders especially those TV shows that I download a day after it is shown in the US. If you guys want a copy of the software, let me know...i'll try to find the torrent like that I used to download it. In the meantime, feel free to view my desktop with ADC in the images below.Ü