Mike’s Personal Blog

To all those who celebrate or at least have fun with the each year’s Halloween - Happy Halloween to you.  I used to be a strong believer of ghosts and the paranormal back in the old days and while I still can’t explain some of the weird stuff that I experienced in my life, I’m now more inclined to search for practical and logical explanations to things.

Anyway, for the sake of the spirit of Halloween, allow me to share on of my own personal ghost stories…

I was only 6 years old and we were living in an apartment in Coronado Heights Subdivision in Mandaluyong.  I won’t tell the exact address for the sake of the apartment owner’s privacy and business but I will tell you that one of the room sin that apartment seems to have something weird going on in it.  It was the only room in the house that feels eerie and we were not the only ones to have noticed it - previous and current residents of the apartment report the same.

My mom sleeps in this room but I slept in my grandmother’s room since I was afraid of this supposedly haunted room.  One day however, I was convinced (can’t remember if it was my mom or my aunt who convinced me) to sleep in this dark, humid and really weird feeling room and little did I know that I was about too experience one of the most horrifying experiences in my life.

Moments passed by and I wasn’t able to sleep.  My mom was already deep in her slumber but I stayed awake thinking of my “crush” Susan.  I was somehow thinking about next day’s playtime hoping to play the game Doctor Quack-quack so I could touch Susan’s hands.  While I was fantasizing, I had this weird and cold feeling that someone was looking at me by the window.  Though I knew it was impossible for someone to be looking at me from outside the window because the room was at the second floor of the house,  my childhood curiosity still took control of me.

To my horror, I saw what looks like a decaying head (no body at all) staring at me.  I screamed loudly shouting, “mommy, mommy, may pugot sa bintana!” (mommy, mommy, there’s a floating head at the window!).  My mom immediately woke up, looked at the window and so nothing but I was so sure that it was there.  My mom consoled me and said taht I was just having a nightmare.

The next day, I told my experience to the rest of the family and my friends and eventually realized that I was not the only one to experience such weird things in that room.  Some stories say ghosts were seen floating outside the window while others claim to suffer regular nightmares sleeping in that room.  Years after, I went back to that subdivision hoping to meet some old friends and had a chance to ask around and found out that just about every tenant of that apartment complains that the room is haunted.

Hey to all. Just want to let you know that I joined Tribal Wars - an online role playing game. The first time I saw this was when my brother Paul was playing it on his computer. My first question was, “What’s that?” He gave me a short explanation of what it is all about and somewhat gave me the impression that it was similar to the game Age of Empires except that the speed of the game is way too sloooowwwww - taking hours to upgrade and even days to attack another village.

If it’s that slow, ain’t it boring? Actually, that was the second thing I told Paul - that the game looks boring - but for some reason he enjoyed it. Out of curiosity, I decided to join the game and with a little help from Paul himself, I’m now on my way to upgrading my village.

Did I find it boring? Now that I’m playing it, I learned that it’s not the type of game that requires your attention all the time but rather a game wherein you set a few things to do (upgrade, build, attack) then leave it to do its thing and come back minutes, hours, or even days later to check on what’s happening. So no, it’s not boring - just takes time…

Basically, you’ll start with a small village with the basic necessities to survive. Their will also be other villages around you. The world map itself (I joined World 3) is so huge - that’s why it sometimes takes days to conquer or help another tribe.

Today, my brother Louie also joined the game and my mom is also interested in it. If you’re curious then I suggest that you join the game - it’s free anyway (though you can opt to upgrade to a premium account). You can join Tribal Wars here. Once you joined, you can also invite your friends to join using your referral URL by going to Settings -> Recruit Player.

Here’s a quick screenshot showing some of the stuff when you take a look at your village overview.

How to get started… The site provides a tutorial when you join. You can choose to go through the tutorial OR you can do what my brother told me - click the structure in the middle of your map, then upgrade timber and clay. That’s the most important thing to do in the beginning (according to Paul) since you will be needing resources. Eventually, also upgrade the other structures and iron as well. Then along the way, start building new structures and creating new people.

To cut things short and satisfy your curiosity, I suggest that you just join the game - I’m in World 3 and so are my brothers. If you join the game, kindly post your username and map coordinates in the comments section below so we can help you out. Feel free to post questions as well. Enjoy!

Most people I know are brought up in an environment wherein doing the “right thing” is highly encouraged. Furthermore, they are frowned upon when they make mistakes. On the other hand, I was raised by my family to learn from my mistakes. In other words, they do not look down on me when I do something wrong. Rather, they ask me the question “what went wrong?” and allow me to analyze the things I did and what could have I done to make it better.Which is better? I don’t think I’m in the place to judge which method is best as there will always be grey areas when it comes to matters like this. However, allow me to speak from my experience…

Oftentimes, I am asked by friends to teach them stuff about the computer – from basic to advanced. There are also times when I teach a group of people and it is during these teaching endeavors that I noticed one thing. The slow learners are often those who are afraid of making mistakes. They attempt to “do things right” the first time they do it. While I do admire their approach to doing things, I just don’t think that it’s realistic and healthy for learning. In fact, their being the slow learners is a monumental fact that being afraid to make mistakes results to them being slow learners. They don’t want to experiment and they don’t want to try. They’d rather be spoonfed the exact steps to do things which oftentimes results to them forgetting a single step or more in the process thereby causing them to end up with nothing in the end.

What about the fast learners? How do they do it? The answer is simple. They do exactly the opposite of what the slow learners do. The fast learners would “experiment” doing something instead of raising their hands and asking me how to do it. They have enough courage to try out different things – even things that are not being taught to them yet. As a result, they spend most of their time understanding the process instead of just memorizing the steps.

But who makes more trouble? I have to admit one thing - I fear the moment when I see a fast learners raise their hands because when they do it is most likely that they really screwed something up. Is it bad? I don’t think so. I myself broke a few computers while learning - I reformatted an entire harddrive, I ruined a floppy drive, I burned a motherboard and so on… but instead of feeling bad about it, I’d just add the experience to my “Be careful next time” or “Don’t do this again” list. Costly indeed but I think learning from experience is priceless. Even better, each time I make a mistake, I know I am one mistake less towards success.

So if you see yourself as someone who is afraid of making mistakes or even afraid to try, I tell you this – don’t be afraid to try. Everybody is bound to make mistakes and doing something wrong doesn’t make you a lesser person. In fact, the successful are most likely to have made more mistakes in their past than the unsuccessful.

Lastly, before people say that I advocate making mistakes, I just want to clarify that doing mistakes is not a good thing. However, I’d rather make a thousand mistakes than not trying at all. It’s merely how you treat your experience that eventually defines whether or not you will become successful.

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Some of the web hosting review websites will make you believe that there are only few best web hosting companies. But this far from the truth, as a matter of fact some of the best listed companies on review sites are not top notch. The review sites are either paid to write positive review or the review site is owned by a web hosting company. To see the enormous list of web hosts just Google the term webhosting domain. You will find that there are loads of web site design, hosting and domain registration companies out there. Some of the wireless internet service providers can even throw in personal free web hosting with their packages. Most hosting companies don’t do the managing via humans. The management is automated through software data management packages.

Ever wondered what the leading cause of death for the elderly is?  I used to think it was plain old age wherein the human body just stops functioning.  I also thought it was cancer.  But none of these two is the culprit for the death of the elderly majority.

According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons or AANS, the leading cause of death for those age 65 and above is to fall down.  Here’s a list of deaths in the US due to falling in the year 2006.

• Floors or Flooring Materials: 260,983
• Stairs or Steps: 114,752
• Beds or Bedframes (other or not specified): 101,548
• Tables (not classified elsewhere): 70,452
• Ceilings and Walls (completed structure): 64,356
• Chairs (other or not specified): 50,482
• Cabinets, Racks, Room Dividers and Shelves: 40,014
• Bathtubs or Showers: 34,446
• Doors (not specified): 32,009
• Desks, Chests, Bureaus or Buffets: 26,110
• Sofas, Couches, Davenports, Divans: 25,227
• Ladders (all types): 17,251
• Toys (all toy categories combined): 14,924
• Rugs or Carpets (not specified): 14,867
• Porches, Balconies, Open-Sided Floors: 13,994
• Toilets: 11,246
• Bunk Beds: 10,778
• Counters or Countertops: 10,683
• Door Sills or Frames: 10,014
• Fences or Fence Posts: 9,383

Look at those numbers!  This reminds me of how my grandmother - Carmen “Acacia” Montinola-Amechazurra.  She died while trying to kill a cockroach crawling on the ceiling.  She stood on top of a chair and fell.  She didn’t take any medication and didn’t want to go to the doctor.  Eventually, her memory started to fail until she could barely recognize her daughters - she then died.

Well, I guess I have to remember not to fall when I get old.

Source: LiveScience.com - http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/071017-llm-head-injury.html

Who is Neo?  They say it’s Keanu Reeves.  I beg to disagree ‘coz I’ve met the real Neo and he’s no other than Julius Sebastian (Who on earth is Lio?)  Here’s a video to prove my claim.

Do you believe me now???