confessions of a psycho goddess

how appropriate

2007-02-27T02:21:14Z

this quote was sent to me via sms by my good friend arcie. all i can say is -- how appropriate.

on taking chances:

"at some point, you have to make a decision. boundaries don't keep other people out; they fence you in. life is messy. so you can waste your time drawing lines or you can live your life crossing them. if you're willing to take the chance, the view from the other side is spectacular."

-grey's anatomy

once feared and respected...now just respected

2007-01-28T10:03:43Z

after an almost two-month hiatus from blogging, i'm finally back. but since i'm too busy to write anything decent right now, i'm opting to share this interesting, albeit very long, article from the new york times about microsoft.

microsoft is launching vista for the filipino consumers this coming saturday at the sm mall of asia. it will be launched earlier in the week in the US, two years behind schedule. the vista and office 2007 launch may, as the article says, be microsoft's last hurrah. as big as the empire that bill gates has built, it is not invincible. and microsoft knows it. which is why it is also trying to somehow reinvent itself to ride the web 2.0 wave.

it remains to be seen what will happen to the IT giant. but, truth be told, the company that competitors once feared and respected is now just respected, as steve lohr very aptly put it in his article.

January 28, 2007

Preaching From the Ballmer Pulpit
By Steve Lohr

RUNNING a storied enterprise like Microsoft — software heavyweight, geyser of cash, corporate icon — is about much more than energy and commitment, says Steven A. Ballmer, the company’s chief executive. It is all but a calling, an article of faith.

“You’ve got to be very realistic about where you are, but very optimistic about where you can be,” he said during interviews this month. “And the day you can’t be both of those things, you shouldn’t be a leader of a company like Microsoft. You have to believe; you have to believe; you have to believe.”

In the Ballmerian world view, failure is not an option. “If we don’t get it right at first, we’ll just keep coming and coming and coming and coming,” he says.

For the better part of the last two decades, the prospect of Microsoft coming and coming and coming, relentlessly picking off and then dominating various sectors of the software business, has sent shivers through the ranks of its competitors. Many have fallen by the wayside or changed course to avoid being crushed by one of the most successful and viciously competitive companies of any era.

No longer.

Competitors once feared and respected Microsoft. Now they simply respect it. And as Microsoft prepares to unveil new versions of its desktop operating system and office programs on Tuesday it finds itself facing emboldened competition, even uncertainty. With the Internet revolution upending business models across a broad swath of industries, Microsoft itself is feeling the heat. The challenges that the company confronts today are different from those of the past, and its market power in the personal computer business matters less than before.

More homes and offices are getting wired with high-speed Internet connections, a market-altering shift that is buttressed by a stream of advances in data storage, computer-processing and software. This second generation of Internet technology animates advertising-supported Web services like search, and opens the door to the delivery of online alternatives to Microsoft’s popular desktop programs like e-mail, word processors and spreadsheets.

The consumer rollout this week of new models of Microsoft’s mainstay products, Windows and Office, is one that many industry analysts view as the last hurrah of the fading order of computing, dominated by the PC and ruled by Microsoft.

Google, the search giant, is, of course, the leader of the Web 2.0 wave and may be the most potent competitor Microsoft has ever encountered. But Microsoft faces a variety of nimble, wily and innovative opponents in other markets as well. In video games, it goes up against Sony and Nintendo; in music players, Apple; in corporate software, I.B.M., Oracle and Linux.

Deciding how to respond to Microsoft’s growing host of competitors has fallen to a bullet-domed, hulking, boisterous whirlwind whose friendship with Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder and chairman, dates back to their college days and whose dexterity and acumen will determine Microsoft’s fate. Mr. Gates declared last June that he plans to step out of day-to-day work at Microsoft entirely by the middle of next year to become a full-time philanthropist.

Mr. Gates says he is confident that he is leaving Microsoft in safe hands. In an e-mail message, he calls Mr. Ballmer “a great partner and a great friend” and describes his relationship with Mr. Ballmer as “one of the greatest business partnerships of all time.”

Yet earlier victories may not help Microsoft much today.

“The world has changed, and how Microsoft adapts to that change is going to be the test of Steve Ballmer,” observed Brad Silverberg, a venture capitalist and former senior Microsoft executive. “He has fundamentally sound judgment, he’s a great leader and he’s capable of listening and hearing things that are not the way he wished. He has the tools.”

Others who have worked with Mr. Ballmer over the years have no doubts about his intelligence, persistence and underlying pragmatism. Even so, Microsoft, despite its deep pockets and immense resources — in fact, precisely because of those vast resources — has potentially much more to lose in the Internet age than other companies. “This is every bit as disruptive for Microsoft as it is for others,” said George F. Colony, the chief executive of Forrester Research, the technology consulting firm. “The dilemma for Microsoft is that it is a prisoner of its business model, and the fact that it is a gilt-lined prison makes it brutally hard to change.”

One of the evolutionary laws of business is that success breeds failure; the tactics and habits of earlier triumphs so often leave companies — even the biggest, most profitable and most admired companies — unable to adapt.

Microsoft faces that quandary today. A huge promotional push will accompany the arrival of Microsoft’s gold-mine offerings — Windows Vista and Office 2007 — because the desktop operating systems and office software businesses accounted for a majority of Microsoft’s $44.28 billion in revenue last year and about 80 percent of its profit. Yet Windows Vista, repeatedly delayed and arriving two years late, comes as the center of gravity in computing shifts increasingly toward the Internet.

The PC software business will not wither anytime soon, according to technology analysts and executives, but more and more of the excitement and significant new applications will gravitate to Internet-based software. Since Mr. Ballmer’s first full year as chief executive in 2001, Microsoft’s revenue has risen 75 percent and its operating profit 40 percent, but its stock price has been flat, reflecting Wall Street’s doubts about Microsoft’s growth prospects.

Yet as Mr. Ballmer navigates this pivotal juncture in his company’s 31-year history, he remains a visceral optimist. (He often deploys a favorite Colin Powell quotation: “Persistent optimism is a force multiplier.”) When asked about his biggest worry for Microsoft’s future, he dismisses the notion of worry as “a funny term,” as if it were an alien concept. Instead, he speaks of advertising-supported Internet software and services like Google and open-source software like the Linux operating system as “new business models that we either have to compete with or embrace” — and thus rivals worthy of his attention and his “spare brain cycles.”

Don’t call it worry, but Mr. Ballmer acknowledges that Microsoft’s toughest task has been in deciding where to place its bets in new markets or technologies that don’t operate by the same rules as its tried-and-true products. “One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made over time,” he acknowledges, “is not wanting to nurture innovations where I either didn’t get the business model or we didn’t have it.”

But those days are past, Mr. Ballmer declares, saying that he and Microsoft have learned their lessons. He pointed to Microsoft’s Xbox video game console, its Zune music player, Internet search and online advertising as examples of big investments the company is making in businesses that are very different from its lucrative stronghold in PC software.

“I think we’ve shown more willingness to embrace new models than anyone else in the technology business,” he asserts. “Will it be good enough? Let’s see.”

THE prevailing image of Mr. Ballmer, 50, is mainly that of a marketing dynamo — a hyperkinetic, booming orator who can fire up the sales staff and industry partners to labor tirelessly on Microsoft’s behalf. He has strained his vocal cords when shouting at sales meetings. Years ago, his gestures became so animated in a meeting with reporters that he cut himself in the face with a fingernail and, bleeding, continued on, extolling the virtues of the latest Microsoft offering.

Videos on the Web of Mr. Ballmer at large Microsoft gatherings several years ago, when he was heavier, show him bounding across the stage, mostly screaming. In one, he finally comes to the podium to shout to the audience, “I have four words for you: I love this company.”

People typically have one of two reactions when they witness this behavior — either, “This is a man whose stability is in doubt,” or “This guy is no corporate politician — he really believes.”

Trailing Mr. Ballmer this month, at a pair of speeches and small meetings with industry groups and customers, suggests that his performances have become more subtle. Speaking to several hundred people at the annual convention of the National Retail Federation in New York (one of about 120 such speeches he gives a year) he orates without notes or a teleprompter and paces the stage, rarely standing still for more than a couple of seconds. He tells the retailers of the two years he spent as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble before attending Stanford business school. (Then, in 1980, his old Harvard classmate Mr. Gates persuaded him to join Microsoft.)

Mr. Ballmer gives the retailers a glimpse of how consumers will increasingly use technology to search, compare prices and shop. He tells them, “Our company is committed to retail, and invested in your success.” During a question-and-answer period, he says the “heart and soul” of connecting to the Internet, either by cellphone or PC, is “likely to be a Microsoft operating system running a Microsoft browser.” The unstated, but clear, message is this: stick with Microsoft, the safe choice.

On the floor of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Michael Mauerer was pinning his start-up company’s success to Microsoft technology. His company, Retail Teamwork, is building software to automate the purchasing, sales and store operations of small to midsize retailers. His product is being built on the Microsoft’s business applications software, a market that Microsoft entered in the last few years. “Microsoft is a very safe bet,” Mr. Mauerer said. “They’ve never failed. They ultimately get it right.”

Before and after the morning speech to retailers, Mr. Ballmer holds a dozen small meetings with senior managers from retailers including Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Safeway and Crate & Barrel. The next morning, after a five-mile run in Central Park, Mr. Ballmer has an 8 a.m. meeting with about two dozen corporate customers, mostly from Wall Street and commercial banks. In front of this smaller group of sophisticated information technology managers, Mr. Ballmer gives a very different talk and fields more detailed questions. The topics run from the intricacies of licensing data-center software to Microsoft’s stance toward free software like Linux.

At one point, he says, “All software will become software with a service.” Mr. Ballmer emphasizes the word “with.” The clear message is that Microsoft is embracing the move toward software written by using open Web standards and delivered over the Internet, but that these software services will be added to Microsoft products instead of replacing them. We will move to the new world, he suggests, but will not cannibalize our flagship products.

Mr. Ballmer tracks his calendar with a detailed Excel spreadsheet. “I have a religious budget on my time,” he says. Part of the religion is spending time with customers, about a third of his schedule. He jokes with his wife, Connie, and some colleagues that meetings with customers are his “Sally Field moments,” a reference to a 1991 movie, “Soapdish.” (In it, Ms. Field played a TV soap opera star whose most enjoyable time is spent mixing with ordinary fans at shopping malls.)

“I get energy from seeing our customers,” Mr. Ballmer explains. “It reminds me of the things we’re doing well and it also reminds me of the things where we need to improve.”

Like many math geeks, Mr. Ballmer has a strong affinity for numbers. Colleagues describe him as extremely analytic when it comes to dissecting business plans and financial projections.

“He has a near-photographic memory for facts, and he can scan a spreadsheet and zoom in on the one aberrant figure that suggests a problem,” observes Craig Mundie, the chief research and strategy officer.

Robert J. Bach, another senior Microsoft executive, says: “I like to think I’m analytical, but I’m not in the same ZIP code as Steve.”

But Mr. Ballmer says he does much of his thinking by talking to people. He likes to “wallow” in an issue, as he puts it, consulting customers, industry partners and Microsoft managers, often face to face. Numbers are important, he says, “but for me it’s different to see, touch and feel than it is to just sit there and look at kind of dry statistics.”

He uses e-mail, but not like Mr. Gates, whose decision-making is far more solitary. Mr. Gates reads deeply, writes lengthy strategy documents and then sends them to senior staff members. “Steve is very different,” says one Microsoft executive, who requested anonymity. “His north star is very tuned to the last customer or industry partner he talked to.”

Computing is essentially math on steroids, and writing code is a deeply mathematical skill. And in his student days, Mr. Ballmer was an outstanding math student. He seemed to have all the makings of a computer whiz. But he says he gravitated to the business side of the technology industry because he wanted a more social career than that of a software engineer, with its long stretches of solitary toil. He decided that he lacked the temperament to really excel as a programmer.

Growing up in suburban Detroit, the son of a midlevel manager at the Ford Motor Company, Mr. Ballmer earned a scholarship in his freshman year of high school to Detroit Country Day School, an academically demanding private school. He transferred from a public school and arrived at the private school a year behind in his math work. But he soon caught up and surpassed other students, helped by his math teacher, Edward Kuss, whom Mr. Ballmer called “a major force in my life” for igniting his interest in math.

Mr. Ballmer took college graduate courses in math at nights with Mr. Kuss, participated in a summer National Science Foundation math program for advanced students and scored a perfect 800 on the math SAT exam. Mr. Kuss, now an actuary for an insurance company in Ohio, said Mr. Ballmer was fun to teach because “he just soaked it up.”

Yet Mr. Kuss recalled that what impressed him most was when Mr. Ballmer said his proudest achievement was shaving 20 seconds off his time running the quarter-mile. Even then, his time wasn’t good, and his main event in track was the shot put.

To his former teacher, Mr. Ballmer’s remark years ago speaks of persistence and character. “The things that he was good at and came easily to him, like math and science, he enjoyed,” Mr. Kuss observed. “But the things he had to struggle with were the things that gave him the most satisfaction.”

Mr. Ballmer went to Harvard, assuming that he would pursue a career in the sciences or math. He recalled taking a couple of physics and math courses during his freshman year. “I was doing a lot of problem sets by myself, time in my room,” he said. “By the end of my freshman year, I decided it wasn’t me. I knew I needed more interaction with people for me to be happy.”

So he tilted his academic work away from science and toward business. He still kept a strong interest in math, majoring in applied mathematics as well as economics. He scored high in the prestigious William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, an exam sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America; he did better than Mr. Gates — no math slouch himself.

But Mr. Ballmer also took on extracurricular pursuits. He was a manager for the football team and worked on the business side of The Harvard Crimson newspaper and The Advocate, the college literary journal.

AFTER he graduated, Mr. Ballmer went to work for Procter & Gamble, as an assistant brand manager for products like Duncan Hines brownie mix. The marketing trainees worked in small offices at the Cincinnati headquarters with their desks shoved together. Another young brand manager in the same office was Jeffrey R. Immelt, who is now chief executive of General Electric. Mr. Ballmer’s “intelligence and passion,” Mr. Immelt recalled, were apparent back then. “He was loud, spirited and fun, pretty much the same guy he is now,” Mr. Immelt said.

The two men have remained friends over the years, occasionally playing golf together and talking about business. One subject the two have discussed repeatedly is the necessity for big companies to constantly keep evolving and trying new things, some of which will succeed and some of which will fail. G.E., founded in the 19th century, has been evolving and trying new things for decades, Mr. Immelt said, while Microsoft has started to do so as well. “My sense is that Steve really understands that and is committed to it,” Mr. Immelt said. “That takes courage.”

Today, Mr. Ballmer is a member of the upper-tier of the world’s superrich. His current stake in Microsoft is worth $12.7 billion.

He rides a corporate jet for the roughly 200,000 air miles he logs annually on business, and he is shadowed by a pair of bodyguards. But his personal lifestyle is more comfortably affluent than ostentatious. His wife and his three sons live in the same two-story brick house in suburban Seattle that he bought before he was married. He has coached Little League, though no longer, friends say. He makes sure he is back home as many evenings and weekends as possible, for camping trips, Seattle SuperSonics games and other family outings.

Pushing Microsoft outside its traditional comfort zone, Mr. Ballmer acknowledges, has not always been his first instinct. Microsoft was slow to invest in the market for software linking PCs in office networks in the 1980s and early ’90s, he said, because the business looked very different from the market for desktop PC software. That hesitation allowed Novell to get a big early lead in PC networking software.

In 1998, when he became president of Microsoft, after managing product divisions and sales worldwide, Mr. Ballmer thought that the company was in too many businesses. He questioned, for example, whether Microsoft should be in the hardware business, making computer keyboards and mice. He was talked out of jettisoning hardware, and the expertise that Microsoft gleaned from that business made it easier later for the company to develop other promising hardware products, like Xbox and Zune.

In 1999, Microsoft sold Sidewalk, an online city guide service. It seemed a wayward foray outside Microsoft’s software business at the time. “But Sidewalk was really aimed at what we now call local search,” Mr. Ballmer says. “Sidewalk is one we should not have gotten out of.”

Today, he says, he tries to prod Microsoft to widen its vision. “Focus is an essential thing, but you sort of want to focus short-term and be expansive long-term,” he explains. “If you really want to be a technology company that’s relevant and important and driving value for the long run, you’ve got to have big eyes.”

When Mr. Ballmer entered the computer business, and for years afterward, I.B.M. was the dominant company — “it was everything, the grand pooh-bah,” he says. And, certainly, I.B.M.’s decision to use Microsoft’s Disk Operating System, when the computer giant introduced its first PC in 1981, set the upstart software maker on its way. Mr. Ballmer says he admires and respects I.B.M., especially the way it transformed itself into a technology services company when the profits from I.B.M.’s mainframe business plummeted in the 1990s in the face of competition from lower-cost computers. I.B.M. changed its business model, and saved itself.

Yet Mr. Ballmer sees another important lesson in I.B.M.’s evolution. Over the years, I.B.M. pared back in businesses it once led. It got out of data center networking, and Cisco Systems became the leader. In computer chips, I.B.M. ceded the PC microprocessor market to Intel. Once I.B.M. was a leader in the software that companies use to run their factories, procurement and finances, but it pulled back from that market and SAP took over.

“I think if I.B.M. had been more willing to be expansive in its product portfolio and its innovation, and more long-term in its approach, it would be a very different company today,” Mr. Ballmer says. “That’s my opinion, but it’s a fundamental learning for me.”

SO where, exactly, has Microsoft been expansive? Mr. Ballmer and others at the company point to Microsoft’s video gaming business, led by its Xbox machines. Believing that software was playing an increasing role in consumer electronics, and that Internet-connected video machines looked to be a vital on-ramp for delivering technology to homes, the company decided to take a leap into video gaming at a meeting on Valentine’s Day 2000, shortly after Mr. Ballmer became chief executive.

The meeting, in the Microsoft boardroom on the corporate campus in Redmond, Wash., was scheduled for an hour, but it lasted more than three hours. A handful of executives attended, including Mr. Gates, Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Bach, who now leads the Xbox and Zune units.

“The real discussion came down to some very hard choices about Microsoft deciding to do something that was really not our normal model,” Mr. Bach recalls. A video game console is tailored for playing games, unlike a personal computer, which is a general-purpose system. The Xbox would run its own software. “It’s not Windows,” Mr. Bach says, “and we don’t pretend it’s Windows” — a notion that was heretical inside Microsoft when Xbox was first concocted.

Mr. Ballmer, according to Mr. Bach, told the participants at the meeting that they would not leave the room until a decision was made. When agreement was reached, Mr. Ballmer told Mr. Bach and J Allard, the leader of the Xbox development team: “I won’t be second-guessing you every third month. I trust this team; go get it done,” as Mr. Bach recalled.

The Xbox shipped in November 2001 and struggled at first, as gamers flinched at its $299 price. Within months, Microsoft cut the price by $100, and sales picked up; it eventually sold more than 24 million consoles. The next-generation Xbox 360, equipped for online gaming, arrived in the fall of 2005, beating Sony’s PlayStation 3 to market by a year. More than 10.5 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold, and half of the buyers subscribe to Xbox Live, an online gaming service.

Still, despite investing billions, Microsoft has yet to show any profit from its video game venture. “Look, the jury is still out,” Mr. Ballmer acknowledges. “But I feel very confident that we’ve built a good market position with Xbox. I feel very confident that we’re on track to make money.” The company has said the Xbox business, including hardware and software, should move into the black this year, but when, and if, the business will pay back its multibillion-dollar investment is unclear.

And Zune, introduced late last year, is just beginning a long and costly uphill fight against Apple’s iPod business in the digital music market. “No other company, for better or worse, would be willing to get into that business at this time,” Mr. Ballmer says.

The new product lines are Mr. Ballmer’s answer to the most nettlesome questions about Microsoft’s future: Where will it find new growth as the Windows and Office businesses continue to mature? Can Microsoft navigate its way to a future that is as bright as its past?

The challenge comes amid a leadership transition at Microsoft, as Mr. Gates prepares to stop working daily at Microsoft by mid-2008, though he will remain the board chairman and the largest shareholder. Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Gates have shared one of the most enduring and lucrative partnerships in American business over the years. Put simply, Mr. Gates has served as the main architect and master strategist at Microsoft, while Mr. Ballmer has served more as the tactical field marshal.

From the outset, Mr. Gates recalls in his e-mail message, “it was clear to me that Steve’s skills would be absolutely essential to our success.” Though their talents and personalities are different, Mr. Gates said, “we have a common view at the highest level of what the company needs to do to succeed: hire great people, make big bets and take the long view and be patient where we think there are the greatest opportunities.”

Mr. Ballmer has been the company’s chief executive since 2000. But on the day Mr. Gates announced his plans to spend more time on philanthropy, Mr. Ballmer recalled, he felt as if he was entering a “new era” personally and that he had a “new job.”

If Mr. Ballmer has entered a new era personally, some things still haven’t changed. Not long ago, after finishing off a conversation with an aide, he backed up quickly and banged into a reporter, sending him reeling. With a helping hand and grin, Mr. Ballmer joked: “So much for the kinder, gentler Ballmer. He’s still knocking people down.”

To the degree that a kinder, gentler Mr. Ballmer — and Microsoft — truly exist today, it is largely a legacy of the antitrust rulings against the company in the United States and Europe. A series of federal court rulings in the United States several years ago found Microsoft to have repeatedly bullied rivals and industry partners to illegally thwart competition. Until the court setbacks, Mr. Ballmer, like Mr. Gates, dismissed any suggestion that Microsoft had done anything wrong. Their view was that the suits against their company were the handiwork of disgruntled competitors lobbying antitrust regulators.

But once Microsoft lost, it became Mr. Ballmer’s job to settle its legal troubles and repair the damage to the company’s reputation. He appointed a new general counsel, Bradford L. Smith, and directed him to talk to and cooperate with people previously regarded as Microsoft enemies: government officials and competitors.

Mr. Smith says his job has been made easier by Mr. Ballmer’s willingness to meet people on their own turf. For example, Mr. Ballmer opened settlement talks over a round of golf in California with Scott G. McNealy, Sun Microsystems’ chairman, and addressed the French Senate in fluent French. (Mr. Ballmer spent two years in elementary school in Brussels.) An antitrust dispute remains with Europe. But Microsoft has settled state and federal lawsuits in the United States while paying more than $4 billion in private settlements related to the federal case.

Forging better relations with industry rivals is a business strategy as well as a legal tactic for Microsoft because the complexity and broad dissemination of information technology means that Microsoft simply can’t opt to go it alone anymore.

Cooperate-and-compete relationships are common among companies selling technology for data centers, the engine rooms where companies run customer databases, the back end of e-mail systems, and the like. There are many data center competitors, unlike the PC software market where Windows and Office programs hold more than a 90 percent share. Still, Microsoft has grown rapidly in the corporate software market, with revenue reaching more than $11 billion last year, though that business is far less profitable than Windows or Office.

MICROSOFT and EMC, a large maker of data storage systems, have built a strong partnership in the last couple of years; the two companies conduct joint marketing programs generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. “It’s a great relationship,” said Joseph M. Tucci, the chief executive of EMC.

Well, not always. In 2003, EMC bought VMware, a fast-growing Silicon Valley venture that makes software allowing computers to run multiple operating systems. Microsoft is working on this technology, known as a virtual machine, and VMware’s software has the potential to undermine the importance of operating systems, Microsoft’s mainstay.

Just before EMC announced the purchase, Mr. Tucci called Mr. Ballmer to let him know, as a courtesy. Fine, Mr. Ballmer replied, but did Mr. Tucci know that a senior member of VMware’s technical staff had just agreed to join Microsoft? Mr. Ballmer apparently could not resist the competitive jab, but the move backfired. Alerted, EMC and VMware executives persuaded the senior scientist, who had already looked at schools for his children in Seattle, to stay.

Mr. Tucci laughed about the episode. “We’re mostly partners,” he said, “but Steve is going to try to beat the heck out of us in that market, and we’re going to try to beat the heck out of Microsoft.” Mr. Tucci has known Mr. Ballmer for years and says the Microsoft leader has become more broad-minded. “Steve Ballmer is an intense competitor, and he still has to win,” Mr. Tucci observed. “But he has come around to the view that this is a big environment, and others have to win, too.”

In the end, Mr. Ballmer must come up a winner in Internet services like search and untether Microsoft’s software from the desktop by transforming it into a service that is distributed and accessed over the Internet — both trends in which Google is the early leader.

Inside Microsoft, there are differing views on the nature and immediacy of those threats. Microsoft, some executives point out, has trailed in previous technology waves, only to catch up and surpass rivals. Apple was the path-breaking innovator in point-and-click graphical computing with the Macintosh operating system, but Microsoft’s Windows eventually became the big winner in the marketplace. In the 1990s, Netscape was the early leader in Internet browser software, only to have Microsoft catch up and smother that competitive threat.

“Is there some new agent, more disruptive than we have faced in the past?” asks Mr. Mundie, the company’s chief research and strategy officer. “No, not really.”

An internal memo written 15 months ago by Ray Ozzie, who has taken over for Mr. Gates as Microsoft’s chief software architect, had a different tone. It was titled “The Internet Services Disruption,” and it was a call to action. “It’s clear that if we fail to do so, our business as we know it is at risk. We must respond quickly and decisively.”

In an interview, Mr. Ozzie framed the challenge further. “This is a big change; there’s no question about it,” he said. “But it’s been coming since the beginning of the Web.”

The current round of Internet-driven change is different from the 1990s wave. Netscape never got to become the big rich company that Google is. Microsoft bundled its Internet Explorer browser into Windows and gave it away. But it has no similar way to crush Google search, which is free to consumers and supported by keyword advertising.

Still, analysts say it is also not clear what Google’s business model will be as it moves increasingly beyond its lucrative stronghold of Internet search. It has many software and service offerings, some entirely online and some requiring small software downloads, including e-mail, satellite mapping, instant messaging, online word processing, spreadsheets and desktop search.

Mr. Ballmer, of course, is watching closely for hints of Google’s future plans. “It’s not like they are getting much ad revenue out of any of it,” he says. “Nothing out of Gtalk; nothing out of documents and spreadsheets. Are they going to try to trash our business, just give it away to help their business? Maybe. We’ll see.”

Mr. Ballmer and other Microsoft executives often scorn online alternatives to its desktop software as second-class options with no market. Internet-based software, they say, lacks the features and functions of Microsoft’s “rich client” programs. Also, what happens when computer users are not connected to the Internet, say, on an airplane?

That’s wishful thinking on Microsoft’s part, according to the Internet insurgents from Google and elsewhere. They say Microsoft’s critiques attack older, browser-only programs instead of newer software services that place some applications on PCs while also linking the machines over the Web to supercomputing data centers. New features and services, they say, can flow to users every time they tap in, instead of waiting three years for the next version of Office. The classic work-on-a-plane problem? Researchers, they add, are working on caching software and other innovations to solve those kinds of issues.

Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, discussed the implications of this “emergent new software applications architecture” in a meeting with computer scientists in Washington last fall.

“So the obvious question becomes to what degree can this replace the traditional Windows-dominant, PC-dominant, monopoly structure that we’ve all been used to,” Mr. Schmidt said. “It’s pretty clear to me that there are enough people working on this in research universities and in companies, building applications that empower this, to make it happen.”

Microsoft recognizes the threat. The company has top technical talent working on Internet services, and it has brought out offerings like Office Live, a package of services to help small businesses set up Web sites. But some industry analysts say Microsoft is being too timid, fearful of cutting into its traditional PC software business. “Microsoft is now focused and engaged, but we haven’t seen much yet,” said Richard G. Sherlund, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. “Where’s Office delivered as a service? Where’s the online versions of Excel, Word and Powerpoint?”

Microsoft, Mr. Sherlund said, has to recognize that “there will probably be some cannibalization of Microsoft’s existing business, but that’s the price of customer acquisition going forward in Internet services.”

“And it could turn out to be a good business for Microsoft,” he added, “if they can generate online traffic and make money with better search and advertising.”

Mr. Ballmer replies that there are different paths to putting more of Microsoft’s offerings online as Internet services that rely on subscriptions or advertising to generate revenue. “I guarantee you that all of those options have been considered, and some are being pursued,” he says, declining to elaborate.

TO succeed, Microsoft must convince new recruits that it will be a leader as the next wave of computing unfolds, and not just a defender of the status quo. Microsoft has suffered a few high-level defections of senior technical people recently, but has managed to lure some top talent as well.

In 2005, Gary Flake left his post as the head of research at Yahoo to join Microsoft, where he set up Live Labs, its Internet research unit. Until Microsoft wooed him in earnest, Mr. Flake, 39, said he had not considered working for the company. He was a product of Silicon Valley’s technology culture, and he said he had been recruited by Google and saw Microsoft as the old-line enemy.

But Mr. Flake decided to join Microsoft after, he says, he came away “stunned at how open the company was to change, how self-critical the culture was.”

“Microsoft, more than the others, is redefining itself,” he added. “And I do think Microsoft is in a position to raise the bar for what is possible in Internet services.”

Embracing the Internet may be part of Mr. Ballmer’s agenda, but he is still left with the chore of defending and milking Microsoft’s huge cash cows, Windows and Office. When he talks about the Web, he accents the need for accelerated innovation.

In the same breath that he emphasizes innovation, Mr. Ballmer describes his new strategy in the vernacular that Microsoft has been using for years: “embrace and extend” — in other words, new products and services should simply be extensions of the old. Even if rivals and industry experts doubt that the old Microsoft game plan will work this time, Mr. Ballmer is certain that it will.

“We will do well,” he told a group of investors and analysts at the company’s headquarters last year. “Whether it’s me or the guy who replaces me because we don’t do well. We’ll keep coming, and we will do well.”

waxing sentimental

2006-12-08T13:15:34Z

this afternoon, one of the most special people in my life right now suddenly became sentimental. when he started asking some sentimental questions, i went: "is that a trick question? wazzup with that?" apparently, he just wanted to pinpoint some milestones in our lives, "for records purposes," he said. how sweet. i almost friggin cried.

and then just a few minutes ago, we were treated to a fireworks show. thank you, ayala center. the makati shangri-la building kinda got in the way, so we didn't get to see the entire display. but, in a surreal way, having that building there, made the display that much more enchanting. it looked as if the building was exploding -- spewing red, green, yellow and pink sparks. sentimental all over again. it would've been nicer if you were here with me to enjoy that fireworks display.

someday, mister, someday.

of lies, manipulation and opinion clashes

2006-12-08T12:41:05Z

in my opinion, my beloved org cyberpress already has too many liars and manipulators. so why invite new ones to come in? i was forced to reveal my reasons for not wanting eager beaver in the org. i was honest enough, without revealing too much dirt. but, of course, i was accused of using office politics as a reason for my not liking her. no surprises here. the person who expressed that opinion is not exactly a friend of mine. no love lost there.

ok, ok. this is a meeting of a collegial body -- the cyberpress board. no suppression of opinions here. but, like it or not, some people are just plain obvious in expressing their opposition. damn lackey.

emotional rollercoaster

2006-12-01T11:54:28Z

my overactive tear ducts overtook my overworked brain yet again. some time this afternoon, i found myself crying buckets and buckets and buckets of tears. amazing how an exchange of text messages can trigger such a reaction.

it started well enough -- i found it hard to hold back tears while reading messages that invoked a rollercoaster of emotions in me. they were happy tears, at first. i just couldn't explain my emotions. i was so happy, so touched that i had to let the tears out. but then things got a bit too serious, and the discussion suddenly centered on a topic i'd rather not discuss anymore. and the tears fell. and fell. and fell.

i'm such an emo bitch, i swear! yeah, i cry easily. if i were to attend an acting workshop, i swear i'll ace the crying test: a tear from the right eye, in 10 seconds. another from the left five seconds later. can you imagine anyone shedding tears over a scene in "george of the jungle"?! yeah, i thought so, too. i guess i'm psycho like that.

and you had better get used to it, mister. if not, you'll be putty in my hands every time i cry. and i can use that to my advantage. haha. kidding, mister, kidding.

the color-and-spunk combo

2006-11-30T10:39:22Z

i'm ms. congeniality, life of the party, bitch of the century rolled into one. no wonder person number two feels that i bring color to his drab and monotonous existence. how totally sweet! let's see how long you'll last, mister.

you, mr. faceless, never fail to brighten up an otherwise dull and lifeless day. you make me grin like a raving lunatic in public, with your amusing and sweet text messages. i don't think i can last a day without hearing your voice. addictive, you are. like a new tv sitcom with an exteremely witty script. or a tall cup of good old mocha frap. or a wonderfully soothing massage.

i'm hooked for life, man, and you better be, too.

loving the faceless

2006-11-29T09:15:02Z

"vanity is my favorite sin." - the devil himself, al pacino in "the devil's advocate"

yep, like it or not, all of us are vain, in one way or another. which is why belo and calayan are raking in the big bucks and thailand is taking advantage of the beauty tourism boom. we love to look good. coz it's always easier to love the lovely, to fall for the beautiful.

sure, we're all for personality and intangible characteristics. but, reality, reality, we usually gravitate towards the beautiful people. and you don't see magazines naming their 100 ugliest people for 2006 (although there may be something like this that i'm not aware of) or the top 10 eyesores of the year. we have people magazine's 100 most beautiful people in the world, the fhm top 100, the cosmopolitan top 10 male centerfolds and 69 bachelors to watch out for, preview's best dressed, etc. ok, you probably get my point now.

so now i'm coming to the whole point of this exercise. i'm not trying to make a stand for everything unlovely and unlovable. the entire point of this entry is to show that it's possible to love the faceless. ok, ok. so maybe the lead was a bit off the mark (labo). all i want to say is that i've managed to develop a strong connection with someone whose face i don't even know -- who's just a voice and a composer of amazingly witty text messages. hundreds of kilometers from where i am, someone is making me smile the minute i open my eyes to a new day; is wiping away my tears everytime they manage to slip out of my overactive tear ducts; is giving me renewed hope to mend a heart that has been broken countless times (and remains broken now, actually, but is slowly healing).

my DEAR faceless person number two, terms of endearment aside, thank you for making me extremely happy; for stealing my heart (hoy, ibalik mo yan!) and for sweeping me off my feet. your everyday craziness and innate kadramahan has given me a new lease on life. and love.

quoting you from one of numerous phone conversations today: "mahal kita."

to person number two

2006-11-27T10:14:05Z

if you're reading this, yes, i'm referring to you. i hope you've gotten your butt to an internet cafe to check how you continue to dominate my posts these past few days. and how your text messages now comprise about a third of the contents of my inbox (a crown that used to belong to person number one). now that has got to mean something, doesn't it?

it's great to have someone to talk to -- someone who understands anything and everything i say, without even having to be anywhere near me. person number one and i used to have that. but, somewhere along the way, "things" have taken their toll and our relationship can be described as nothing but strained in the past few months. this has nothing to do with chanelling my feelings to another person. i'm not the type (or maybe i am but i don't know it yet?). this has everything to do with caring for someone, with no strings attached (yet), with no expectations.

you're right, we shouldn't categorize. it's wonderful what we have now -- comfortable and casual, yet deep and seemingly supernatural (as you have so put it). putting a label to what we have right now might just ruin everything. and i don't want that to happen. not right now. it's too soon. so let's just allow things to take their natural course and be happy with each other. no strings attached.

explaining the unnatural high

2006-11-27T06:35:28Z

person number two goes:

"supernatural things can't be explained by science. science, with its empiricism, can only explain the natural world. this is supernatural, so don't even attempt to explain it."

several more text exchanges after this, i read an email from person number one that totally crushed me. seems the gods are conspiring against me. and person number two was the only one there for me. nobody else understands.

unnatural high

2006-11-26T15:43:25Z

i've felt restless all day. can't focus. can't work. nodded off in front of my pc even! all weekend, i've been a jumble of emotions -- depressed one second, then giddy another second. it's like i'm on drugs or something (girl, are you drugs? harhar).

it's amazing what one text message, one phone call, can do to a person. one can go to sleep extremely happy, in anticipation of a really good thing the next day, but wake up totally wrecked, having had one's most awaited thing or event snatched just like that.

but one text message (or several) and a phone call (or two or three) can also turn an otherwise sucky day into something tolerable, quite enjoyable even. just a few words in their shortened, text-friendly form strung together and sent over the air can make a world of difference in the life of a person who's just about given up on life and love. and hearing an already familiar and comforting voice, with no face still, can turn things around just like that.

danger lurks beneath, however. the person with the friendly and comforting voice, with the witty text messages, with the funny and clever analogies, is someone virtually unreachable. and cut from the same cloth as the person from whose mobile phone emanated the offensive message and the depressing phone call. the similarity between the two is eerie -- in the way they talk, they reason, they joke and even justify the not-so-holy stuff they do in their lives. the main difference: one has a face -- an all too familiar and very much loved face -- while the other does not -- remaining a mystery and prompting the imagination to conjure images that seem to go with the friendly and comforting voice.

the first person still occupies a huge space in my heart. try as i might, i still can't shake this person off. he fills almost every waking moment and even my dreams. before the sandman claims me, it is always his face -- the brooding light brown eyes and the mischievous smile -- and his long fingers intertwined with mine that i think of. when i wake in the land of the dreaming, it is still he whom i meet. someone who has made an indelible mark in one's life is indeed hard to forget.

the other person -- the one with the warm and friendly voice -- remains faceless. i know virtually nothing about him, except that he has the same principles as person number one. that he has a liking for processed food. that he has a very high tolerance for alcohol -- always with pulutan. that he is a smooth talker. other than those things, person number two remains a big mystery (only he will know that these descriptions refer to him, if and when he chooses to read my journal. and maybe person number one, too, if he happens to remember me at all).

a young sage (one whom i dearly loved, but only realized this fact when i had already lost him to ill feelings and to another girl) once told me: "technology, no matter how advanced, can never take the place of human interaction." this, person number two totally refuted by saying that "technology transcends the supernatural. though we've never met, i feel as if i've known you all my life."

that, my friends, brings an unnatural high -- one borne out of flattery, of a glimmer of hope for the impossible, of having a willing rescuer who brings comfort and assurance. unnatural because it shouldn't be felt but is there nevertheless; because it's not right but persists just the same. and that unnatural high could very well be the downfall of the one who feels it.

beware, the customary email closing

2006-11-26T10:08:52Z

some net etiquette from the new york times. i'm often guilty of breaking these rules myself. read on...

November 26, 2006
‘Yours Truly,’ the E-Variations
By Lola Ogunnaike

CHAD TROUTWINE, an entrepreneur in Malibu, Calif., was negotiating a commercial lease earlier this year for a building he owns in the Midwest. Though talks began well, they soon grew rocky. The telltale sign that things had truly devolved? The sign-offs on the e-mail exchanges with his prospective tenant.

“As negotiations started to break down, the sign-offs started to get decidedly shorter and cooler,” Mr. Troutwine recalled. “In the beginning it was like, ‘I look forward to speaking with you soon’ and ‘Warmest regards,’ and by the end it was just ‘Best.’ ” The deal was eventually completed, but Mr. Troutwine still felt as if he had been snubbed.

What’s in an e-mail sign-off? A lot, apparently. Those final few words above your name are where relationships and hierarchies are established, and where what is written in the body of the message can be clarified or undermined. In the days before electronic communication, the formalities of a letter, either business or personal, were taught to every third-grader; sign-offs — from “Sincerely” to “Yours truly” to “Love” — came to mind without much effort.

But e-mail is a casual medium, and its conventions are scarcely a decade old. They are still evolving, often awkwardly. It is common for business messages to appear entirely in lower case, and many rapid-fire correspondences evolve from formal to intimate in a few back-and-forths.

Although salutations that begin messages can be tricky — there is a world of difference, it seems, between a “Hi,” a “Hello” and a “Dear” — the sign-off is the place where many writers attempt to express themselves, even when expressing personality, as in business correspondence, is not always welcome.

In other words, it is a land mine. Etiquette and communications experts agree that it is becoming increasingly difficult to say goodbye.

“So many people are not clear communicators,” said Judith Kallos, creator of NetManners.com, a site dedicated to online etiquette, and author of “Because Netiquette Matters.” To be clear about what an e-mail message is trying to say, and about what is implied as well as what is stated, “the reader is left looking at everything from the greeting to the closing for clues,” she said.

Mr. Troutwine is not alone in thinking that an e-mail sender who writes “Best,” then a name, is offering something close to a brush-off. He said he chooses his own business sign-offs in a descending order of cordiality, from “Warmest regards” to “All the best” to a curt “Sincerely.”

When Kim Bondy, a former CNN executive, e-mailed a suitor after a dinner date, she used one of her preferred closings: “Chat soon.” It was her way of saying, “The date went well, let’s do it again,” she said.

She may have been the only one who thought that. The return message closed with the dreaded “Best.” It left her feeling as though she had misread the evening. “I felt like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of formal. I don’t think he liked me,’ ” she said, laughing. “A chill came with the ‘Best.’ ” They have not gone out since.

“Best” does have its fans, especially in the workplace, where it can be an all-purpose step up in warmth from messages that end with no sign-off at all, just the sender coolly appending his or her name.

“I use ‘Best’ for all of my professional e-mails,” said Kelly Brady, a perky publicist in New York. “It’s friendly, quick and to the point.”

Because people read so much into a sign-off, said Richard Kirshenbaum, chief creative officer of the advertising firm Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, he has thought deeply about his preferred closing to professional correspondence, “Warmly, RK.” He did not want something too emotional, like “Love,” or too formal, like “Sincerely.” “ ‘Warmly’ fell comfortably in between,” he said. “I want to convey a sense of warmth and passion, but also be appropriate.”

Which is just what a professional e-mail message should be, many executives say. Surprisingly, the sign-off “xoxo,” offering hugs and kisses, has become common even for those in decidedly nonamorous relationships. Ms. Bondy, who received from 300 to 500 e-mail messages a day while at CNN, was no fan of the “xoxo” farewell, especially when it came from a stranger pitching a story idea. “They’re trying to be warm and familiar when they shouldn’t be,” she said. “It’s inappropriate, and that’s probably the e-mail I’m not going to return.”

Robert Verdi, a fashion stylist and a host of “Surprise by Design,” a makeover reality show on the Discovery Channel, is a self-described “xoxo offender.” “Never in the first or second communication,” he clarified. But after a few friendly phone conversations or e-mail exchanges, he feels comfortable with the affectionate and casual sign-off, though he generally waits for the other party to make the first move. “The other person gives you the cues,” he said. “They send a ‘You’re the best! Love, Alison,’ and you send a ‘Hugs and kisses’ and all of a sudden you’re over that awkward hump and you’re best friends.”

Ms. Kallos said Mr. Verdi’s approach is the correct one. “In business you want to maintain the highest level of formality until the other person indicates otherwise,” she said. “Mirroring isn’t a bad thing to do. You’re letting the other side set the level of familiarity.”

It is also important that the closing is in keeping with the spirit of the message or it may create some sort of cognitive dissonance, said Mary Mitchell, the author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Etiquette.” “If you’re complaining to a company about a product and you sign off with ‘Warmly,’ you are miscommunicating,” she said.

Many e-mail users don’t bother with a sign-off, and Letitia Baldridge, the manners expert, finds that annoying. “It’s so abrupt,” she said, “and it’s very unfriendly. We need grace in our lives, and I’m not talking about heavenly grace. I’m talking about human grace. We should try and be warm and friendly.”

But it is important not to have too much fun with sign-offs, Ms. Baldridge cautioned, before recalling a closing from a man in his early 20s that read, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” It was “so pedestrian and boring and such an unattractive image to leave with people,” she said. “You want to leave an attractive warm image. Bedbugs are disgusting.”

Not to mention they prove a point Ms. Mitchell makes about e-mail correspondence. “While on the one hand e-mail encourages people to write,” she said, “on the other hand it discourages people to write thoughtfully.”

weird, weird feeling

2006-11-26T09:48:33Z

have you ever encountered a forked path -- where you have to go either left or right, not knowing what lies ahead? for all you know, both paths can lead you to your untimely demise. but both can also lead to the pot of gold that you've always known leprechauns hid anywhere but the end of the rainbow (that one's just a ruse). or maybe one path would lead to a huge jackpot, while the other may be the path to the dark side ("i am your father...").

well, i think i've hit a forked path. right about now, i'm more confused than when i first entered the tangled web now known as "my life." the past five years have been quite a ride -- landing my dream job, meeting the man who became my second bf (now an ex who has a cute baby girl), adding memories to my "treasure box" (thank you, ronski, for our little private joke), getting hurt in a way i've never known in my life.

career-wise, things have been going very, very well. i'm at a point in my career when i feel i don't have to prove myself to anyone anymore. not that i'm saying that i know everything and that i've already proven myself to be God's gift to journalism (like some people i know. mind the grammar lapses, man). i'm just comfortable where i am, and i'm ready to take on whatever challenges will be presented to me.

my family life is also okay. it has always been. i can't even write anything much about it, since all i can say is that i love my family very much and i'll do everything i can -- work my butt off -- to give them everything that they deserve. i'm getting everything that i need in life, with room for some luxuries from time to time. in five months, i'll be done with my car payments (wahoo!). which means i can prepare for new investments (like the retail treasury bonds that will be sold next month, and maybe some mutual funds or investments in stocks).

there's just this one aspect of my life that has never ever been good. when it comes to matters of the heart, i always seem to be the biggest loser. i somehow always end up with the "wrong" people -- wrong for me, i mean, or maybe just a classic case of wrong timing. amazing how i always find myself in situations like those.

now here we go again. my heart continues to bleed and pine for someone. yet i find myself taking comfort in confiding in someone else. while i yearn for the attention and affection of yet another person -- someone whom i believe will be good for me. which is confusing the hell out of me.

a wise man (somone i love with every thread of my being, with the very core of my existence) once told me: "things change, people change. such is life, such is love." he has shown me that change can work both for me and against me. at this point, i'm choosing to let whatever changes there are work for me. why shouldn't things work for me this time? i've suffered enough, i believe. i think i also have a right to be happy -- truly, completely, absolutely.

my sentiments exactly!

2006-11-22T00:43:38Z

when i found out who the next james bond would be, i wasn't impressed. for one, daniel craig did not look like james bond material at all. if anything, he'd pass for one of bond's nemeses. for another, i did love pierce brosnan, almost as much as i loved sean connery. but, being a bond fan, i had to watch casino royale, and see for myself how craig fits into the role.

the opening sequences were immediately fast-paced, tiring. and i still wasn't comfy with the new bond's look. but, to his credit, at least he actually looked banged up after the prolonged chase within the construction site. no steven segal syndrome here (no bruises, no blood, not a hair displaced from his sleek ponytail even after a huge fight, complete with cool aikido moves and stunts galore).

i'm not gonna delve into too many details here, as i'm borrowing an article from the new yorker to express my sentiments about the film. but before i paste that article, i just have to say that i hated the long lovey-dovey sequences. they were so un-bond-like. but i did get renewed interest in poker after watching the film.

---

Of Human Bondage

“Casino Royale”

by ANTHONY LANE

Issue of 2006-11-20
Posted 2006-11-13
The New Yorker

Who said this: “It is interesting for me to see this new Bond. Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the center of them. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining.” The speaker is Mathis, a kindly French liaison officer in “Casino Royale,” Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, published in 1953. More than half a century later, we are back with “Casino Royale,” No. 21 in the roster of official Bond films, and we are back with Mathis. As played by Giancarlo Giannini, who was recently seen having his intestines removed in “Hannibal,” he is pouchy, affable, and dangerously wise, and his presence hints that this new adventure will not be an occasion for silliness: no calendar girls, no blundering boffins, no giants with dentures of steel. The same goes for hardware, with rockets and gadgets alike being trimmed to the minimum. It is true that Bond keeps a defibrillator in the glove compartment of his Aston Martin, but, given the cholesterol levels of the kind of people who drive Aston Martins, a heart-starter presumably comes standard, like a wheel jack. Whether Bond has a heart worth starting is another matter.

He is now played by Daniel Craig, as the world knows, and, if I had my way, the world would have shut up about it for the past thirteen months and waited to see the result. Mathis was right: what we get is a Chinese box, although one’s initial impression is that the outermost box is a packing crate. I cannot prove it, but I suspect that God may have designed Craig during a slightly ham-fisted attempt at woodworking. His head is a rough cube, sawed and sanded, with the blue eyes hammered in like nail heads. He could beat a man’s brains out with his brow. That suits the Bond of “Casino Royale,” who has only lately acquired his license to kill, and, like a kid who’s just passed his driving test, is eager to step on the gas. He will slay anyone, if he so wishes, and the news is that he does so wish, and that he worries about the wishing—not enough to stop the killing, although at one point he tenders his resignation to M (Judi Dench), but enough to make him wonder if he’s fit for anything else. Craig has the courage to present a hollow man, flooding the empty rooms where his better nature should be with brutality and threat. His smile is more frightening than his straight face, and he doesn’t bother with the throwaway quips that were meant to endear us to the other Bonds. The only thing he throws away is a set of car keys, having borrowed a Range Rover and slammed it backward into a row of parked cars, in order to set off their alarms. Calm down, you want to tell him, have a Martini; and so he does. “Shaken or stirred?” the barman inquires, and Bond spits back at him, “Do I look like I give a damn?”

The plot, unusually for a Bond picture, leans heavily on the novel. Bond is up against Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who has a six-foot-tall mistress, a weepy eye, and nothing to cry about. His pleasure is gambling, and his career as a banker takes him to selected trouble spots, where he likes to meet the locals and help them with their plans for terrorism. What sets Le Chiffre apart from Bond’s preceding nemeses is that he has absolutely no interest in running the planet, preferring instead to profit nicely from its ruin. This is a welcome twist, one of the pitiable things about the 007 franchise being its fixation on global conquest—a cheesy homage, I often think, to the ubiquity of the Bond brand itself. When Martin Campbell, the director of “Casino Royale,” made “GoldenEye,” in 1995, the outcome was spirited enough, but it also felt stupidly grand, all wall-size computer screens and electromagnetic pulses fired from space. The new film has a leaner streak, and the high-tech attack methods are as follows: drowning your enemy in the washbasin of a men’s room; throttling him in a hotel stairwell; and, best of all, chasing him through a construction site.

This chase goes on far longer than expected, like a theological discussion in a Bergman film, with both the fleeing baddie and the pursuant Bond careening off walls and cranes and anything else that juts into their path. Rather than zipping through some customized hideout beneath the waves, decked out with nuclear reactors and sharks, they are merely making the best of their environment. Could this be something new in movies: green violence? It looked pretty natural to me, with Bond forever getting nicked and bruised. “Casino Royale” is allegedly the first 007 saga to feature rain, and Craig is the first proper bleeder, standing in front of a bathroom mirror and contemplating his own downpour. (Look how he swallows a Scotch to numb the hurt, and then try to imagine the Roger Moore equivalent—the pensive sip, the appreciative smile at the distiller’s art.) This is still Bond, however, so the next scene finds him sliding into his seat at the poker table, in a bloodless white shirt; indeed, if my math is correct, he goes through three freshly ironed dress shirts in a single night, which suggests that he has off-loaded Q in favor of a silent Jeeves. Also, he has to look good for Vesper Lynd.

Miss Lynd is an accountant, employed by Her Majesty’s Government, and, just as “The Spy Who Loved Me” is said to have burnished the sales figures for Lotus sports cars, so “Casino Royale” should transform accountancy into the most erotically charged of the professions. (There is one horrific attempt at product placement, and I hereby propose an international ban on Omega watches.) Vesper is played by Eva Green, who retains from her role in Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” an unnerving blend of the fleshly and the spectral, and one thing she definitely is not is a Bond girl. Vesper is a Bond woman—a Bond Lady of Shalott, I would say, with all the sufferings of the world reflected in her dark-shadowed eyes. Her skin is paper-pale and her lips are vampirically red, as if she hadn’t slept in a hundred years, although, whatever has been keeping her awake, it isn’t sex. She is the only woman with whom 007 partakes of coitus uninterruptus, and even that takes two hours to bring off. For a Bond picture, “Casino Royale” is amazingly short on lust. There is a moment when our hero lands in the Bahamas and glances over his shoulder at a couple of flirters in tennis gear, but Craig looks so embarrassed, almost insulted, by such levity that the experiment is never repeated. Bodies, it would seem, exist to be abused, not caressed, and Campbell takes care to incorporate, straight from the novel, a sequence in which Bond is denuded and tortured, with particular attention being paid to his organs of desire. Poor fellow. If Pussy Galore showed up, he’d pour her a saucer of milk.

Things have been so moribund for so long in the Bond business that it was always going to take some major defibrillation to jerk it back to life. “Die Another Day,” the last film, was a gruelling nadir, although the producers would be right to point out that it earned four hundred and fifty million dollars, which is three times the purse that Bond and Le Chiffre battle for at the tables. This means that the sight of Pierce Brosnan driving an invisible car, though bound to dismay every Bond-revering adult, was catnip to the larger constituency of teen-age boys, who were comfortable with a film that felt like a video game. What they will make of “Casino Royale”—no babes, no toyland, and the poker not even online—is anyone’s guess, but the earnings of the new film will doubtless affect the look, and the casting, of the next. If Craig falters, then I guess it’s full speed ahead to Chris Rock as 007 and Borat as Blofeld. That would be a shame, because “Casino Royale,” though half an hour too long, is the first semi-serious stab at Fleming, and at the treacherous terrain that he marked out, since “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” in 1969. Like that film, this one ends in despair.

To be precise, it ends with Daniel Craig wearing a dark-blue three-piece suit and toting a machine gun, which is the best, though not the most cost-effective, way to overcome despair that he can think of. The name Le Chiffre means “the cipher,” but, once the stage is bare, it is Bond who remains the enigma—as unbreakable to the cryptographer as to the torturer, and even to himself. Raymond Chandler once challenged Fleming in a letter, saying, “I think you will have to make up your mind what kind of a writer you are going to be. You could be almost anything except that I think you are a bit of a sadist!” As with Fleming, so with his creation: the fledgling Bond of “Casino Royale” has yet to make up his mind what kind of a man he is going to be. The cruelty he can manage, with ease; what he still lacks is the license to live. Hence the scene in which, flush with winnings, he shares a late supper with Vesper, as if hoping to dine himself into being a gentleman. Even his grainy features are flattered by the soft lighting, and, savoring the mood, he pays his companion a wooing compliment, then blows it by adding, “I thought that was quite a good line.” Even James Bond, in other words, wants to be 007. Join the club.

pacman strikes again

2006-11-19T16:39:33Z

oh, yes, he did it again. the pacman has proven, yet again, that, even without a world title belt to his name, he's currently one of the world's best boxers, and that he deserves a spot on boxing's hall of fame.

the only man who can singlehandedly reduce the country's crime rate to (almost) zero, rid metro manila streets of traffic, and unite opposition and administration politicians every time he steps into the ring to fight, manny pacquiao has turned into a modern-day national hero -- representing greatness achieved through hard work, determination and faith in God.

Pacquiao Stops Morales in a Three-Round Thriller
By Doug Fischer (Nov 19, 2006)
(MaxBoxing.com)

LAS VEGAS – Manny Pacquiao won his rubbermatch with Erik Morales in electrifying fashion, dropping the Mexican legend three times and stopping him two minutes and 57 seconds into the third round of an abbreviated barnburner. It didn’t last as long as their first two encounters but the three-round junior lightweight thriller packed as much action and drama as any 12-round fight of the year candidate in recent years.

Pacquiao, who improved to 43-3-2 (33), was off-set by a sharp Morales jab in the opening minute of the first round, but the Filipino icon timed a hard right hook off of the Tijuana native’s chin mid-round, prompting the proud warrior to step in with a hard retaliatory one-two combination. However, Pacquiao took control of the round with a one-two combination of his own near the end of the stanza.

The second round was an instant classic as both national heroes had their moments in the opening minute of round, landing two- and three-punch combinations that ignited the Thomas & Mack Center’s electric sell-out crowd of 18,276. Midway through the round Morales backed Pacquiao against the ropes with a series of punches, most of which were blocked by the southpaw’s high guard. El Terrible’s brief surge got a rise from the Mexican fans, but it was short lived as Pacquiao landed a counter left that knocked Morales to one knee. Morales got up quick and rushed Pacquiao immediately in an attempt to regain the momentum he so quickly lost, and just like that the two resumed ferocious back-and-forth exchanges that lasted until the end of the round.

At the start of the third round, Morales looked like he’d already fought 10 or 11 hard rounds. He tried to keep the torrid pace that was set in the second round, but his punches lacked the zip and power that Pacquiao’s carried. Pacquaio landed hard three-and-four-punch combinations to Morales’ body and head that the former three-division champ tried to answer but only wound up catching more leather. After Morales absorbed a right hook a minute into the round that turned his already weak legs to rubber, a violent blur of punches sent him down for the second time.

Only Morales’s intense pride allowed him to get up and he instinctively attacked Pacquiao as soon as he was able, but the same warrior’s heart that allowed him to prevail in so many hard battles over the years only hastened the ending of this contest. After landing a good right hand that snapped his Filipino rival’s head back, Morales caught a series of accurate power punches that sent him down for the third and final time of the bout.

Morales, who dropped to 48-5 (24), wearily sat up and watched referee Vic Drakulich count to ten through glazed over eyes. The scene was reminiscent of Alexis Arguello sitting in bewilderment as he was counted out in his rematch with Aaron Pryor. The Nicaraguan hall of famer had to accept that he was in over his head vs. a bigger, stronger, faster, younger opponent.

Morales made the same realization tonight vs. Pacquaio, who landed 51 of 71 power punches in the third round according to CompuBox stastistics.

“He was too fast, too strong,” Morales said. “I did everything in camp necessary to win this fight. I didn’t win it. It wasn’t my night.”

After all the punishing wars Morales has been in over the last 10 years the question has to be asked if it will ever be his night again in the ring. To his credit, Morales understands this reality.

“For the first time in my career I felt the power of my opponent,” he said. “Maybe it’s getting to be that time.”

While one legend probably ended tonight, another legend only gained in momentum. Pacquiao is hands down the most exciting performer in the sport, worldwide, and is arguably the sport’s best fighter, pound for pound.

“I was faster than him and I was bigger than him,” Pacquiao said of Morales. “I could tell that he was surprised by my right hook, so I kept throwing it.”

Mega-fights loom for Pacquiao in 2007. The 130-pound division is one of the sport’s most talented and experienced weight classes and in Pacquiao, who hold no world title belt, the division has a clear leader who is willing to take on the best.

In the main supporting bout of the evening, Greece’s Mike Arnaoutis was outright robbed of a deserved title victory by the incredibly inept judging of the official judges, who somehow saw fit to award Ricardo Torres a 12-round split-decision victory that gave the Colombia native the vacant WBO 140-pound title.

Judge Jerry Roth got it right (barely), scoring the bout 114-113 in favor of the Greek southpaw. Judges Harry Davis and Adaladie Byrd scored the bout 114-113 and an absolutely ridiculous 116-112, respectively, for Torres, who improved to 30-1 (27).

“I thought I did enough to win,” said Arnaoutis, now 18-1-1 (9), who scored a knockdown in round seven. “I’m disappointed with the decision, but it was a close fight.”

No it wasn’t. The Greek clearly out-boxed the crude slugger in no fewer than eight of the 12 rounds.

Arnaoutis jumped out to an early lead on the strength of his jab and excellent footwork. The stick-and-move strategy prevented Torres, a devastating puncher, from getting his offense started. However, Torres, who dropped to 29-2 (27), warmed up in the fourth round, marching forward with a two-fisted attack that sent Arnaoutis backpedaling. Torres stayed the aggressor through round five and continued to charge forward in round six with little regard for Arnaoutis’s return fire, which was a mistake as the Greek boxer buzzed the Colombian puncher with a right hook near the end of the round.

In round seven, Arnaoutis went one further by dropping Torres with a beautiful one-two combination punctuated with a right hook. Torres was pummeled in the remainder of the round and through round eight and rendered ineffective by the superior skill and technique of Arnaoutis in the final four rounds of the bout.

In the opening bout of the HBO Pay-Per-View broadcast, Guadalajara’s Omar Nino retained the WBC 108-pound title with an unpopular majority draw verdict over former titlist Brian Viloria, who scored two knockdowns (a questionable one in the fifth and a hard one in the ninth round) during the nip-and-tuck contest.

Judge Dave Moretti scored the bout 115-112 for Nino, while judges Samuel Conde and Carol Castellano scored the bout 113-113 (or seven rounds to five in favor of Nino, but minus two points for the two knockdowns; Moretti only scored the ninth round 10-8 in favor of Viloria).

Viloria, who was lackluster in a decision loss to Nino this past August, was much improved in tonight’s rematch, fighting with more intensity and taking more chances. However, Nino’s awkward stick-and-move style continued to trouble the 2000 U.S. Olympian from Hawaii. Every time Viloria caught Nino with a single power punch (left hooks early in the fight, right hands over the second half of the bout), Nino would answer back with two-and-three punch combinations and body shots before stepping out of range.

Even though Nino’s punches lacked the speed and power that Viloria’s carried, the Mexican national was more consistent with his offensive output, pumping a bothersome jab and punching with both hands. Viloria fought in spurts throughout the fight, occasionally catching Nino with one or two power punches but then failing to capitalize on the opportunity by pressing the action.

In the fifth round, Viloria caught Nino off-balance and forced one of the titlist’s gloves to scrape the canvass. Referee Joe Cortez called it a knockdown but instant replays showed that Viloria did not land a clean punch. Viloria failed to land clean punches in rounds six, seven and eight, stanzas that Nino did very little but won on the scorecards of all three official judges probably because of one punch – the jab. Nino utilized it, Viloria did not.

“The first knockdown was push, it shouldn’t have counted,” said Nino, now 24-2-2 (10). “I controlled the fight with my jab.”

However, in round nine, Viloria landed a crisp right-hook-right combination that put Nino down for real and set the Filipino fans in attendance on fire. Unfortunately, Viloria did not fight with enough fire in the final three rounds of the bout to impress the judges who unanimously scored rounds 10, 11 and 12 for Nino, although the rounds looked fairly even in terms of action from press row, where the majority of the media saw a close victory for Viloria.

“What more can I do?” said a disappointed Viloria, now 19-1-1 (12). “I scored two knockdowns.”

CompuBox data, which credited Viloria with only a 9% connect rate with his jabs (19 out of 223), would suggest that Hawaiian could utilize his jab more. Most observers also believed the 25-year-old could have let his hands go more consistently throughout the fight, especially following the times he hurt Nino.

THE UNDERCARD

In the opening bout of the Top Rank-promoted card, 18-year-old Bernabe Concepcion, of The Philippines, captured the WBC 122-pound “Youth” title with 10-round decision over 20-year-old Joksan Hernandez, of Mexico, in an entertaining slugfest. Concepcion, who won by scores of 116-113 (twice) and 118-112, improved to 19-1-1 (10) with the victory and should mature into a formidable featherweight over the next two or three years if he continues to develop. The game Hernandez dropped to 11-1 (6) with the loss but remains a prospect worth watching.

Junior middleweight prospect Vanes Martirosyan improved to 11-0 (7) with a technical stoppage over Edgar Reyes after four one-sided rounds. Ruiz, who dropped to 10-6 (3), was unable to continue and the Mexican journeyman’s corner waved it off in-between the fourth and fifth rounds.

Junior featherweight contender Fernando Beltran Jr. improved to 28-2-1 (17) when his opponent, Edel Ruiz, was disqualified by referee Kenny Bayless in the fifth round after landing five low blows. Ruiz dropped to 27-16-5 (16) with the DQ loss.

ubiquitous homing device

2006-11-19T15:40:46Z

came across something interesting from the new york times. this ought to be useful, assuming local cellcos catch on. the technology has been around for quite some time -- location-based services using gps -- but, as what the article author has said, consumers have not been quite that ready to take advantage of it. well, understandably so, considering the security issues. and i guess we just aren't that comfortable yet with the thought that other people can track us almost everywhere we go -- as long as our cellphones are turned on and within range of nearby base stations.

November 19, 2006
Digital Domain
Cellphone as Tracker: X Marks Your Doubts
By RANDALL STROSS

THE diminutive cellphone is turning out to be the most clever of devices. As it connects to more networks, stores more kinds of data, delivers more kinds of entertainment — wherever we happen to be — it effectively becomes the most personal computer we own.

Now, as more of the handsets are equipped to use the Global Positioning System, the satellite-based navigation network, we are on the verge of enjoying services made possible only when information is matched automatically to location. Maps on our phones will always know where we are. Our children can’t go missing. Movie listings will always be for the closest theaters; restaurant suggestions, organized by proximity. We will even have the option of choosing free cellphone service if we agree to accept ads focused on nearby businesses.

None of this entails anything exotic. The technology has been ready for a while, but not the customers. Prospective benefits have seemed paltry when placed against privacy concerns. Who will have access to our location information — present and past? Can carriers assure us that their systems are impervious to threats from stalkers and other malicious intruders or neglectful employees — or from government snoops without search warrants? Contemplating worst-case scenarios, our hands holding these very mobile devices have been frozen, hesitant to turn the location beacon on. Are we finally ready to flip the switch?

Two wireless providers recently made separate announcements about new positioning services, betting that the time has arrived. Two weeks ago, Helio — a wireless service owned jointly by SK Telecom, a South Korean cellphone company, and EarthLink, the American Internet service provider — introduced the Buddy Beacon in its new phone, the Drift, which costs $225. With the press of a button, the Drift shows on a map the location of up to 25 friends — if each is also carrying a $225 Drift.

Last week, Boost Mobile, a unit of Sprint, and its technology partner, Loopt, unveiled Boost Loopt, a similar offering described as a “social mapping service.”

Both Helio and Boost Mobile market exclusively and unapologetically to a young clientele. “We’re not going after soccer moms and businesspeople,” Helio’s C.E.O., the veteran entrepreneur Sky Dayton, said last week. Freedom — to be a hedonist — is the leitmotif in its materials. “Have a party,” Helio’s Web site says invitingly, “not a search party.”

The Buddy Beacon serves at your pleasure, for your pleasure. “Turn it on when you’re up for a party;” turn it off when you need “a night of privacy.” A press release anticipates your feeling the urge to “slip out the back of the club into the V.I.P. room.” (Yes! All the time!) In such instances, the beacon goes off.

Social mapping on cellphones is not all that new; it is just the next stage in social networking. Dodgeball.com, which has been operating since 2004, should be credited as a predecessor: a Dodgeball member uses a cellphone to send in a text message about his or her whereabouts, and notifications are then sent automatically to the member’s circle of friends. ( Google acquired the company last year.)

But Dodgeball can’t update a change of location automatically. With G.P.S.-equipped handsets, the Beacon Buddy could remedy this shortcoming, but Helio elected not to enable automatic updates: a user must push a button to refresh the phone’s location. “We didn’t want a situation where someone left their Buddy Beacon on and didn’t know it,” Mr. Dayton said. When the marketplace is more familiar with the service, he added, it may introduce an auto-updating option.

Boost Loopt’s service has offered its first-generation users an option to automatically send current coordinates every 15 to 20 minutes. Anticipating potential security problems, it urges its users to admit only “good and trusted friends” into the closed circle that can follow their movements.

Loopt suggests that all prospective invitees pass a number of tests of trustworthiness: Do you have their phone numbers? Do you know where they live and where they grew up? Would you lend them your car? Would you give them your house keys to feed your dog?

Verizon Wireless has decided to hold off on social mapping. The only G.P.S.-based program it now offers is a navigation service. Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said Verizon was interested in social networks but felt the need to “give a lot of thought to privacy and safety issues.”

Using a hypothetical 16-year-old customer to illustrate risks, Mr. Nelson said it was one thing for the customer to imprudently send out her e-mail address to a stranger, and still another for her phone to reveal her home’s location. “If suddenly a bright light goes on above your house, saying, ‘This is me; this is where I am,’ you’ve lost privacy and anonymity in your home,” he said.

The tattered condition of the wireless industry’s reputation for privacy protection — which was not helped by the recent Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandal involving phone logs — is not entirely the industry’s doing. Not so long ago, industry players acted together to try to secure the Federal Communications Commission’s help to tighten — yes, tighten — rules governing the privacy of location information. It was the F.C.C. that let us all down, then and now.

Six years ago, the business potential of so-called mobile commerce was making investors swoon the way online social networks bedazzle them today. To many, this m-commerce — from on-the-go “concierge services” to location-specific ads — was poised to exceed PC-based e-commerce. And that was when there were 106 million cellphones in use in the United States, versus 227 million today, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade group.

But the potential of m-commerce could be realized only if consumers had ironclad assurance that, except in emergencies, the service provider would never use location information unless they expressly gave consent. The industry acknowledged that customers who received unsolicited ads keyed to their movements would have perfectly legitimate privacy concerns.

CTIA-The Wireless Association petitioned the F.C.C. to draft rules guaranteeing basic privacy protections, like requiring that customers give explicit consent before any information was disclosed to third parties and that all location information be protected from unauthorized access. When the F.C.C. considered the request in 2002, it declined to act, arguing that existing legislation was enough.

One commissioner, Michael J. Copps, dissented. He pointed out the rarity of a group in this industry seeking stricter rules for its members. That it would do so, he said, showed that the statutory language had not resolved all questions relating to the handling of customers’ location information.

The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999, known as the 911 Act, requires that customers deliberately choose to have location information collected. But some wondered whether customers gave “implied consent” just by using the service.

Even the definition of what constituted “location information” was in dispute. Cingular maintained that the location of the nearest cell tower was not, strictly speaking, the customer’s location information, and so was not encompassed by the 911 Act.

Mr. Copps pleaded that the commission “put in some sweat now” to create the clarifying rules “before consumers make up their minds about whether they trust location practices.” His plea went unheeded; the F.C.C. has remained inert.

LEGISLATION that provides stronger protection of location information will come, said David M. Mark, a professor of geography at the State University of New York, Buffalo. But, he added, it would probably take a “horrific incident involving a celebrity” before legislators paid attention.

The Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 was passed after the video rental records of the Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork were made public. Let us hope that no one, famous or not, will be hurt because a cellphone’s location was improperly leaked; one famous person in one headline, however, could lead to swift passage of a Location Privacy Protection Act of 2007.

The stronger the protection of cellphone location data, the faster the public will accept the new positioning services. The best policy would be to require by statute that carriers continually purge location data. If location history is never stored, the possibility of mishandling or theft of that information is removed.

When families adopt positioning cellphone services, a new problem will likely emerge, Professor Mark said. The very act of turning off one’s location beacon may itself be seen as suspicious. “If you don’t want your location known,” he asked, “does that mean you intend to do something improper?”

of newspapers and steve wozniak's mugger-friendliness

2006-11-05T06:08:37Z

i was doing my weekend reading and i came across this interesting article from the new york times. for some time, friends from the print and online news industries have been debating about which medium will most likely survive in the coming years. i'm not even gonna start listing down either side's points. i just believe it's an interesting debate that will only get an answer if and when one medium gives way to the other.

as comic relief (well, not really. but it did make me smile), i also copy-pasted the last part of the article about steve wozniak and his love for cash (as opposed to plastic).

November 4, 2006
What’s Online
Reading Between the Lines
By DAN MITCHELL

THIS week brought another spate of bad news for newspapers. Daily circulation is down an average of 2.8 percent over the last six months, continuing a slide that started at least a decade ago. Layoffs and labor strife continued across the country, from Philadelphia to Oakland, Calif.

There’s no question the newspaper industry is “under siege,” as a MediaNews Group publisher told his employees in a memo warning of layoffs at his San Francisco Bay Area newspapers. But how bad are things, really?

For starters, those circulation figures may not be as dire as they sound. A “significant portion” of the drop “results directly from the industry’s long-term, and arguably long-overdue, initiative to eliminate inefficient vanity and promotional circulation,” writes Allen Mutter on his blog, Confessions of a Newsosaur.

That means newspaper companies are cutting out discounted subscriptions, free papers at hotels and delivery to far-flung locales, none of them particularly appealing to advertisers and increasingly seen as not worth the cost.

Just as the lackluster circulation numbers were being dissected, the Newspaper Association of America released the results of a study it commissioned showing that when Internet readership is counted, the newspaper audience is actually way up — nearly 8 percent over all from February 2005 to March 2006 (naa.org).

But the study does not mention that newspapers still haven’t figured out how to make a healthy profit from Internet readership. Cluttered, hard-to-navigate newspaper sites proliferate. And many sites force readers to register, which Internet types say is counterproductive, when those readers can so easily go elsewhere for their news. In terms of the content itself, Louis Hau of Forbes.com thinks he has the answer: Look to New York City’s dueling tabloids, The Post and The Daily News. Even as most other papers had circulation declines, both tabloids picked up readers. The gains, Mr. Hau said, can be attributed to the fact that both papers “emphasize local coverage,” “offer stories you can’t get anywhere else,” “keep it short,” and present the news with “attitude” and “a point of view.”

MUGGERS, SKIP THIS Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Computer, walks around with about $20,000 in his pockets, he told The Sunday Times of London in an interview this week that focused on his wealth and his spending habits. “Cash has always appealed to me more as a means of payment than cards,” was his simple explanation (timesonline.co.uk).

His biggest windfall was, of course, when Apple Computer went public in 1980. How big a windfall was it? “I’m not sure how much I made out of that,” he said. “ It might have been $60 million, but it could just as easily have been $120 million.”

dreams (past and present)

2006-10-22T09:30:59Z

i dunno what got into me a couple of hours ago. i was swamped with work but, for some weird reason, i had this strong urge to dig up one of my freshman class projects -- an autobiography for soc sci 1 class. i remember having a lot of fun (and sleepless nights) doing that project. anyway, cliche as it may sound, it was like a walk down memory lane for me, reading how i used to write as a 17 year old, seeing how many of my principles in life have changed since then.

there's one particular section that i just have to single out -- the one outlining my dreams for the future. remember, i was but a freshman in college. that was almost 10 years ago. wow. here are some of the entries on my "dream list." some of them i've actually already fulfilled.

--graduate cum laude or better - i did graduate cum laude on april 22, 2001.

--get into harvard law school and eventually become a criminal or corporate lawyer - i've since thrown dreams of becoming a lawyer out the window.

--serve in the college of mass communication student council - i did serve for one term, 1999-2000, as journ rep. i remember being offered to run as treasurer or college rep the following year, but i opted to serve as up-mco chair instead.

--find God's will (His chosen one) for me - i'm on the brink of giving up hope that such a person exists.

--write a book - i've partly fulfilled this dream by being one of the writers of a soon-to-be-launched book on one of the best pinoy bands of all time. i have a few storylines that i would like to turn into full-fledged books in the chick lit genre, but i just can't find the time to do so. i was supposed to get one book written this year. maybe next year.

--compose a song - i've tried a couple of times in the past. my problem is that i don't play any musical instrument. i used to play the organ, but i haven't touched one since 1994. now i'm thinking of just stringing some words together and having my kumpare write the music.

--sing with the up singing ambassadors or the up concert chorus, and eventually with the madrigals - i didn't even audition, even though many of my orgmates were convincing me to do so. i guess i'll always wonder whether or not i could have made it to any of those groups.

--have a family of my own - next, please...

--write for the philippine daily inquirer - i'll be celebrating my sixth year in the company in may 2007. i still love my job.

--have a stint in cnn - hmm...why not, right?

--see the world become peaceful and orderly - not in this lifetime, i think.

--become the next loren legarda - i used to admire the woman, what can i say? i had political dreams back then, i guess.

sucky day

2006-10-17T10:09:56Z

today is just a sucky, sucky, sucky day. i dunno what it is -- the weather, the fact that i'm suffering from a severe lack of sleep, or this empty feeling inside me. i'm just depressed out of my mind, i dunno what to do.

i just wrote a long-ass letter to a special person in my life, ranting on and on about anything and everything. in the middle of it, i had this urge to pull all my hair out or to pull my fingernails one by one with trusty old pliers. dang. twas that bad, that bad, bad feeling deep inside me.

i'm talking crap. i better start walking to wherever. and i better stop writing before i write something that i don't really wanna write anyway. ah, crap!

the prank

2006-10-14T09:23:53Z

hours after last night's gimik with some of my most favorite people (chena, nald, paw and, sige na nga, tom), i still find myself laughing (in my head and audibly) when i remember "the prank."

five or so bottles of beer obviously got into nald's head (despite our hearty dinner at fazoli's). when chena, paw and tom got up for a wiwi break, nald had this sudden urge to stuff empty san mig light bottles into chena and tom's bags. it was great fun, particularly when i saw tom heading back to our table, with nald's hand still in his backpack. my distraction worked though and tom didn't notice a thing. 'twas funny, really, coz tom actually laughed when chena discovered the beer bottles in her bag and started putting them back on the table.

so the night went on -- we had one more round, a lot more kwento and even more laughs. when it was time to go, all of us (including owen of ibm, except tom) were trying hard to contain our laughter. nald failed miserably, btw. he looked really funny, too, in his yellow long-sleeved shirt and black slacks, trying not to fall over laughing. we went on our separate ways -- nald and i to qc, and chena, paw, owen and tom to mandaluyong and makati -- with tom still not suspecting a thing.

consumed with guilt, i walked beside him and pulled on his backpack twice. the beer bottles went CLINK, CLINK, but tom was still so damn oblivious! when nald and i finally got a cab, i couldn't take the guilt anymore. i had to call tom to tell him about the prank. and, yes, he never suspected a thing. twas only then that he discovered the beer bottles. amazing!

twas really fun, last night. too bad april and jer weren't there. but then there's always next week.

witty, snooty, whatever remarks

2006-10-11T10:09:41Z

was in an hp event last night -- the launch of its new business notebooks (on which they spilled water just to prove a point -- the damn laptops will still work!) -- where i had some very interesting chats/run-ins with different people. for posterity, i wanna post a few:

*scenario 1: julls, sean and i at the buffet table
julls (to me): hey, nice boots.
me: tnx.
sean: ano, nice boobs? eh wala naman ah! (mischievous smile)

*scenario 2: ron and i by one of the pillars at the ayala museum
me: bakit ayaw mong umupo dun with your beatmates?
ron: eh there's this girl who sat beside me, a girl i don't know. di ko gusto aura nya. alam mo yun, when someone you don't know sits beside you, it's ok. but this girl, it's not ok.
me: if you were a girl, you'd be a bitch.
ron: yeah, i'd be a female dog.

*scenario 3: ron and i by one of the cocktail tables
me: kuya, sya yun (referring to a person whose name my heart is screaming right now -- argh! cheesy!).
ron: hay, naku. umaalembong ka na naman! tigilan mo na nga yan, walang patutunguhan yan.
me: eh bat mo naman nasabi?
ron: kasi walang mangyayari dyan. di ba malabo sya? walang mangyayari hanggang di sya lumilinaw.

*scenario 4: jing, melvin, edwin and i around a cocktail table
jing: i like your boots. reminds me of...
me: porn?
jing: yeah. i'm a sucker for boots.

*scenario 5: jerry, mick and anna may seated by a cocktail table, while i was standing with ron by one of the ayala museum pillars
mick: yang notebook na yan (referring to the demo unit on which water was deliberately spilled) ang ibibigay sa raffle winner.
me: (LOL) baka yan ang mapunta sa yo. ok na ko, i don't need a new notebook yet. mine's still ok.
jerry: psssst! anong notebook mo?
me: talaga bang sutsutan ako?
anna may: bastos talaga nito.
jerry: nalimutan ko pangalan mo eh.

*scenario 6: a number of IT journalists standing around some cocktail tables, discussing ateneo's loss to ust at the uaap
someone i don't recall: atenista ka rin ba, riza? yan si april atenista din. (pause)
joel: may isa pang atenista dito (super pang-asar smile in place, places arm on erwin's shoulders)...
someone: (quoting erwin's post on the cyberpress mailing list) "oo na, talo na." feel na feel ang pagka-ateneo! (everyone laughs)
me: erwin, bat wala ka dun sa (adenauer) list of fellows? tiningnan ko, your name wasn't there. kasali ka ba talaga? (yeah, i'm that bitchy)

cheesy

2006-10-11T09:42:47Z

cheesiest quote ever:

"without romance, love gets dry.
without respect, love gets lost.
without caring, love gets boring.
without honesty, love gets unhappy.
without trust, love gets unstable."

admit it though. you do agree with what it says. we're all cheesy. *teehee*

so true

2006-10-08T16:18:20Z

"the shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends."
-cicero

ABNKKBSNPLAKo?!

2006-10-08T11:25:29Z

some of you may know bob ong, the mysterious writer of some light-reading books about anything and everything under the sun. i dunno what he looks like, though, coz none of his books carry pics of him. actually, i don't think even his publisher knows who exactly he is since i heard he just emails his manuscripts.

anyway, i'm currently reading one of his books, ABNKKBSNPLAKo?! (aba, nakakabasa na pala ako?! --> hey, i can already read?!). it's very amusing coz it documents his experiences as a student, from grade school to high school to college, and eventually as a computer teacher in high school. i just finished reading a chapter on teachers' aliases and i couldn't help but recall some of the names that we used to call our high school chinese teachers -- some without their knowledge, and some who were aware of the nicknames but couldn't do anything about it.

*ambrosio - i'm not exactly sure why students called him such, though. i just remember him as the guy who's fond of expelling phlegm from his system -- for all the world to see and hear!

*bulldog - i suppose she got this nickname coz of her droopy face.

*exorcist - weird old lady rumored to live in a semi-haunted apartment along baler st in qc. she has an equally weird grandson who went to our school.

*refrigerator/bilbil - hers is not a "universal" nickname as i think it was only our class who called her such coz of her humongous (understatement) hips. she loved me and my two girlfriends so much that all of us got "C+" conducts when we were under her. made me a star sec probee for one grading period.

*black lady - the assistant supervisor for the chinese high school department during my time. she was neither dark nor ghost-like, so i dunno how she got her nick.

*goldfish - black lady's boss. i'm assuming she got her alias coz of her semi-puckered lips.

*jukebox - a pretty cool grade school and high school teacher, except that she always sang while giving us exams. it was very distracting, especially when the exam had a "biak sia" (read: we had to write down from memory certain pieces of chinese literature, usually poems with at least three stanzas) part.

*wonderwoman - not that she looked anything like linda carter. actually, i'm not sure how she got her nick.

*hitler - despotic. tyrranical. a scary lady with short, tight curls who never hesitated to punish students who were brazen enough to get on her bad side. known for her metal ruler (which usually landed on our hands with a painful "PAAKK!" everytime we faltered during "biak diam" -- recitation counterpart of "biak sia" -- sessions) and her "flying" blackboard eraser.

i've forgotten some of the aliases. a lot of them must have already evolved since i graduated from high school in 1997 (beepers were status symbols then. cellphones were rare, especially gsm ones. very few knew how to use the internet). and i'm sure students have given teachers with no nicks during our time their own aliases.

awwwww.....

2006-10-08T08:34:00Z

mother's love -- one of chenachena's many cats

oktoberfest!!!

2006-10-08T08:17:58Z

my first oktoberfest! yeah, hard to believe. i don't have a lot of pics since it was so dark in our little corner in eastwood (my nokia 6680 disappointed me) at that time. but i took some pics/had pics taken anyway. camwhore! *teehee*

pa-cute si pao...

while jerry sleeps

and dreams...

with up and coming indie director bobbi bonifacio

and it was finally time to go home (at 3 a.m.)