Topic 101: Automated Elections

On the same day that we ate conveyor-belt sushi my partner and I ran into a voters' education program at the SM Mall of Asia. It was being hosted by both the GMA Network and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV).

This year, on May 10, will be the first time for most Filipinos to cast their votes in a national election via an automated election system, and a lot of people are still apprehensive about the new technology, not to mention are really not familiar with the process for voting via machine.

So while the PPCRV has been touring the Philippines with lectures and some hands-on voting practice, GMA went one step further and created a song-and-dance number that explains in the vernacular how the new process of voting works. It's called "Bilog na Hugis Itlog" (or, roughly, A Circle Shaped Like An Egg). The song features the company's resident dance troupe, the Sexbomb Dancers.


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I'm talking about this now because I participated in the mock voting exercise on Sunday, and afterwards my partner said, "You should blog about this whole elections thing: the process, you know, tell people how it's done."

I'm not sure I'm going to do a better job than the folks at PPCRV, who have been at this for years, but I will do my best to try.

Musings and assorted fannish notes

THE TALE OF THE PACKAGES

During the recent weekend I dropped in at a friendly neighborhood FedEx facility to ship off the items of the WaoHana Project: the Sunny Beret, the Bobble Beauty Beret, and the Experiment 626 Scarf. For each item I enclosed a card with laundry instructions. I also wrote a note to the intended recipients.

A friend of mine also wanted in on the delivery and added a couple of crafty little gifts - little dolls made with felt and fiberfill, very cute - and her own fan letters.

It took three days, but the package, sent off on a Saturday afternoon, arrived at its destination yesterday after lunch (Japan time). So that's a small victory to crow about.

Hope its recipients wear/use the items we sent them.

Also last week I purchased a pair of back issues of one of the Takarazuka Kagekidan's publications: the January and August 2003 issues of Kageki. I bought them because the cover girls were Wao Youka and Hanafusa Mari, respectively.

So what was THIS that showed up at my office yesterday?


Hmm! A mysterious package for me!


Surprise! My magazines arrived!

*grins* I have good omens, good omens indeed. There's just one more set of fan letters to send off - my friend will be taking care of that later this week.

HAMSTER WINS ACCOLADES


Hey, check it out, the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA just took the Reader's Choice accolade for Netbook of the Year at the 2009 Engadget Awards!

Its counterpart in the Editor's Choice derby was the Toshiba NB205.

READ AN RPG BOOK IN PUBLIC WEEK

I...I'm seriously thinking about it.

On the other hand I would also settle for conspicuously carrying a bag of polyhedral dice somewhere on my person. Perhaps in a nice holster at my waist.

Have you guys got ANY idea how DIFFICULT it is to procure proper RPG dice here in the Philippines? Ever since the late lamented Nova Fontana hobby shops closed down permanently, the only way to get proper dice has been online. (My kingdom for a Pound o' Dice!)

I desperately need a set. Anyone want to hook me up?

Oct-Dec Loot Post: Things that make me happy

In the previous entry I mentioned I'd finally get around to putting up some pictures of the things I've bought in the past couple of months. These are purchases that really, REALLY made me happy, the sort of happy that Dollfie owners would reserve for new daughters and nendoroid/figma types for new gets.

13 October: "HAMSTER" GET



Once again, here is my dear Hamster, acquired on a Friday the 13th.

Technically, this is Hamster the Second, since the first unit I bought turned out to have had a bit of a problem with its keyboard. (The entire upper-left-hand corner was not secured or "nailed down" properly to the rest of the netbook.) So I simply took it back to the retailer that same weekend and had the whole unit replaced. All's well that ends well.

Hamster has served me faithfully; I used him a lot during the NaNoWriMo weekends. He comes in pretty handy at the office too, when I need another computer unit to complete a series of tasks that my main desktop cannot handle because it's already working on something else.

I think I'll go ahead and put a few stickers on his lid now that I've got some neat ones to use.

5 December: PEN HEAVEN



Fellow stationery geeks unite!

You're already familiar with my trusty moleskine-type fandom notebook, which was also a handy accomplice during my first NaNoWriMo experience. I wrote several bits of plot and character details in it, and even used it to keep track of which version of the document was most active on any one of the computers I was using to write the novel.

What's new, then? Answer: the black pen on the left. That is my brand-new fountain pen. Like its white companion, it, too, is a cartridge-loading type. My collection of good-quality Parker pens is growing, and that makes me happy. Also, it makes me smile to know that this particular pen is the first one that I bought with my own money. (The other fountain pen, as well as my two Parker ballpoints, were gifts to me from generous friends.)

I hope that the next loot I get will be a proper set of crochet hooks in different sizes. It's very strange indeed to find out that my local crafting shop stocks only one size of steel crochet hooks, which are used for fine work, but several types, weights, and colors of yarn in both wool and cotton.

Oh, well. Once I get the hook set, I'll start stocking up on yarn and get to the crochet work, something I'm really looking forward to. I've already decided on plans for items to make for family and friends.

Now all I need to do is convince the significant other to let me design a scarf or something for him. :D

Presenting: Hamster!

Way back in July I talked about wanting this:



And now, as I had hoped for in the end of yesterday's entry, I get to introduce to you my Hamster:



So, yeah, meet my new baby. :) I hope to put him to good use and hopefully provide a review in maybe two weeks' time.

This is also the part where I start getting even more paranoid about my bag and my belongings. Having already had the painful experiences of being mugged at knifepoint and getting my purse snatched by motorcycle-riding thieves, I'd be an idiot if I don't try HARDER to hang on to Hamster. I'm already pondering the extra steps of getting locks for the bag that I bought to go with.

And if safety means permanently carrying that backpack in front so I can see it all the time, then so be it.

I Dream of Eee

Okay, so I'm a little late in jumping onto the tech train; netbooks have been around for a few years now. Well, blame it on the fact that I was always waiting for something close to an ideal: a screen resolution at or near 1024x768, a LOT of battery life, RAM at or near a gig, etc. etc.

Previously, the above specs weren't exactly run-of-the-mill - but now they are. People EXPECT a netbook to approximate these features and actually are now clamoring for either the next stage to get here, Windows 7 for netbooks, the newly-released Google Chrome OS, or the CULV laptops.

So I've finally narrowed down my netbook wishlist to these two fine models from ASUS's Eee line. While the 1000HE is now widely available here in the Philippines (and I've been canvassing for it, so I know that its baseline price is just around PHP20,000), I wonder if I shouldn't be holding out for the 1005HA and its slightly longer battery life. (The 1000HE is supposed to have about nine hours; the 1005HA around ten.)

I've already gotten somewhat obsessive about the subject, and you better believe I've been making lists of the things that revolve around the netbook:

- peripherals to go with it (compact external HDD, netbook sleeve + secure backpack, ways of organizing the power and other cords, proper headphones, etc.)
- software (strip down the OS to all the essentials, then load on anti-virus/anti-malware, Firefox Portable, VLC Media Player, WinDjView, etc.)
- browser bookmarks (Gmail, Yahoo!Mail and Web Messenger, Facebook, LiveJournal, all the links in my sidebar)

Gosh, I'm really going to push myself to get one of these machines. I've been needing one for quite a long time now. Maybe I can time it for just before the holidays, when the prices start dropping like rocks in a lake....