Letter No. 8

I joined Glitch, and it was love at first play. Now, I have just a little over two weeks left to have my fill of milking butterflies, cooking Awesome Stew, and exploring the magical world of Ur, because the best MMOG I've ever played is about to close.

I had just volunteered to organize an in-game community event when the news broke, and the forums went up in a collective wail as the players realized, Our world is actually ending.

I'd recently watched "Wreck-It Ralph" twice and felt a jolt in my gut; the fantastic predicament for the glitch in that movie was now very real for us; who knew what would happen to us as the plug was pulled on our own little universe?

The event I was to run was immediately cancelled, to allow participants to say their goodbyes, draw up their bucket lists, and spend their last days as glitchen however they pleased. There was a virtual filing out of the room.

Left alone, it wasn't hard for me to see the precious value of the time I had left. I had only played for about two months. I had just started piecing together the in-game clues to the real story behind the 11 giants. I had only just reached that level of skill and self-sufficiency in the game where I could really do what I wanted. My ultimate project, to build a travelers' rest with cheap food, trip tickets, and free reading material, had just begun to gain momentum.

Now, I had to decide whether to go on with glitchy life as usual, or hang the plans, close my doors, and take that metaphorical cruise around the world.

My brother, perhaps in going about his own end-of-the-world business, generously finished building for me. Partly so his efforts wouldn't go to waste, and partly to avoid disappointing whatever visitors I'd get before the end, I put up the sign, got some furniture, decorated the place, and stocked the vending boxes with whatever I could make out of the ingredients I had at the time. Then, I splurged on some new clothes and set off for both unexplored and beloved corners of Ur.

I trekked through every last one of the savanna-like Ancestral Lands, bounced on the fungi trampolines of Haoma and Kloro, went salmon fishing in Jal, scaled the last rocky ledges of Ormonos, bid goodbye to the bureaucrocs at the Department of Administrative Affairs in the Ministry of Departments, hung out with the bartender of Hell, got lost in a bunch of abandoned basements, attended a party on the moon, and even looked down at Ur from orbit.

The asteroids had become shrines to the game; they were covered with heartfelt letters, favorite foods, keys, toys, old tools, and other everyday-items-turned-mementoes of our glitchy existence. I left my own letter and a bowl of stew before heading out again.

In the ancestral lands. Trees in Ur talk after you interact with them. The paper trees speak in haiku.

The frozen lake in Nottis, Ur's snowy northern region.

Somewhere in Ormonos.

"A mixologist of the underworld, no one knows the true story of Hell's Bartender, but assume he was either really good at pouring bad drinks, or really bad at pouring good drinks in a previous life." — The Glitch Encyclopedia

Partying with Mikko on the moon.

The asteroids.

When I was done travelling, I came home to my own firebog treehouse in the highlands and saw that my time wasn't up just yet. I restlessly wandered some more, casting about for something fulfilling to do in the weeks I had left, and finally thought again of my travelers' rest. There was no way I could end the game without at least attempting to make my humble pit stop as wonderful as I'd imagined. So, I bookmarked some good poems, came up with a menu of my favorite dishes in the game, and found myself creating spreadsheets on the ingredients I needed.

I decided to cook 61 of everything; I wanted a two-digit prime number because the game creators liked prime numbers, and the digits add up to 7, my own favorite (also prime) number. I set to work, gathering, growing, harvesting, and buying as much as I can.

That's how I spend most of my free time now. I know it sounds like a waste of time, but that's how attached I've become to Glitch in the short time I've played it. Even if I never cook 61 of all 12 dishes I've chosen and spend the rest of my time in the game gathering 4,758 cherries, even if I have to give up because the countdown to the end of the world is about to begin, I'll at least be able to say that I spent my last days doing what it took to reach my little dream.

I'll admit, it's more than I can say about my life offline. Yet that's also a big part of why I love Glitch. The spirit of the game inspires me even when I'm not playing, and its impending end is as much a good thing as a sad one. I know that I can't depend solely on a fantasy world to make me feel powerful, creative, and generous. I know that my actual life should have its own projects. As I work through the last days of Ur, I remind myself that when it's all over, the next quest will be to find something I can actually create, work toward, and be happy about.

The timing is pretty good. The new year is coming. I'll head back to Chinese classes then, and I want to learn about other things, too: the stock market, drawing, flexagons, Asian literature, Asian history, and so on. There won't be any fungi trampolines, but there will be travelling; I want Cris to see Kalsangi, and I hope to take more trips with him and with my family.

And though it isn't over yet, it's been a truly lovely year. Even with the weird blue funk I've been in for the past couple of months, I am happier than I thought I'd be now, and I am in a very good place. I'm excited about what's next.

But first, 4,758 cherries, 488 bottles of butterfly milk, 1,830 allspice corns, 1,281 bubbles, 610 tomatoes, ....

Letter No. 4

I’ve just found a big bowl of salad at the top of a tree.

I don’t know who put it there. It might have been a bug. It might have been a fellow player. It might have been a gamemaker. It might have been a gift from any of the 11 Giants who are said to have imagined this world. (It’s probably Pot, Giant of Cheffery).

But whoever or wherever it came from, this random-seeming meal from the sky has enlightened me on my new purpose in life. Becoming a master furniture craftsman can wait. I’m going to dedicate myself to cooking and leaving food in weird places, too.

Maybe I’ll start calling myself a food fairy. A food-lanthropist. No, a benefooder! Yes, that’s it.

And I’ll follow in the footsteps of my own benefooder, leaving delicious meals for tired, hungry travellers in my wake. And maybe that will inspire others to do the same, who will fill other bellies and inspire those bellies’ owners to do the same.

And maybe at some point in my journey across the magnificent world of Ur, I will cross paths with the first great being who left me this salad, and he/she/it will tell me that I have been a good follower, spreading the joy of excellent cooking throughout the land, from the snow-capped mountains of Andra to the darkest corners of Illmenskie Deeps.

And maybe he/she/it will finally tell me what makes secret sauce so secret, even if its ingredients make it sound a lot like regular mayonnaise.

Or maybe he/she/it will reply to this post, “You idiot. I dropped the salad there because my pack was full.”

And why not? I’ve only been playing Glitch for about a week, but this kind of far-fetched fantasy seems to be just what this game encourages.

[You can skip this part and scroll down to the next heading. The following is just rambling geekery.]

Let me backtrack a bit, before you think I’ve been munching on mushrooms. (I’ve yet to eat a mushroom in the game, so I don’t know what that does. I’ve eaten a purple flower, though, and the experience was very, very interesting.)

I don’t consider myself a hardcore gamer, mostly because our only console growing up was Family Computer, and my personal computer has been a Linux netbook since 2008. If I really wanted the MMOG experience or even just local network games like DoTA, I’d have to make the commitment of going to an Internet cafe, paying for access, training, paying, and training some more, for days or weeks  before I’d reach a certain satisfying level of progress. It just seems too expensive and time-consuming for something I’ll probably get bored with a month or so down the line, anyway.

Because somehow, I’ve always missed the thing in these games that draws players in for really serious, notebook-filled-with-formulas, level-99999-with-all-the-upgrades play. I do love computer games, and I love playing with friends, but none of the MMOGs I’ve tried so far have been able to hold my interest.

I think it’s because most of these games are essentially war games, and being a warrior of some sort is all you really get to be. Even if some games let you choose a non-martial class, like a healer or a wizard, you’re mostly other players’ sidekick; you don’t really get to fulfill your purpose if you aren’t there at the battleground for the warriors’ benefit.

And no matter how beautiful the graphics, how masterful the world-building, or how rich the story, in the end, you’re still in that story to fight. You never really get to be the bartender, the city tour guide, the blacksmith, the chef, the storekeeper, the farmer, the brewer, the scientist, the local doctor, the monk — all these roles and more are filled by game robots, when I’m sure there are lots of human players like me who would love to take over, instead of heading out into the dessert to kill 200 squishy pink things for a handful of coins.

On the other hand, non-war MMO games these days are mostly designed for the gamemakers’ benefit. They let you level up fast, and then they ask for your wallet and your phone book. Facebook-based games in particular tend to tie your progress to the amount of real money you’re willing to pay and to the number of other people you can coerce into playing with you. After a while, these games become a drag, and you become a drag on your friends, who would like you to stop asking them for imaginary nails.

So, when I read this boingboing post a few days ago, I was intrigued. The computer requirements were netbook-friendly, and Glitch’s about page, quoted below, sounded like everything I hadn’t realized I wanted in online gaming, plus a touch of weirdness:

Glitch is a web-based massively-multiplayer game which takes place inside the minds of eleven peculiarly imaginative Giants. You choose how to grow and shape the world: building and developing, learning new skills, collaborating or competing with everyone else in one enormous, ever-changing, persistent world.

What's different? For starters, it's all one big world. Which means everyone is playing the same game and anyone's actions have the ability to affect every other player in the game. It also involves very little war, moats, spaceships, wizards, mafiosos, or people with implausibly large muscles. Also: we have egg plants. Egg plants make it very different.

I had to see it for myself. I requested an invite to the recently relaunched game, and as soon as it let me in, I was hooked.

[If you skipped all that stuff, you can start reading again.]

As much as I’d like to describe Glitch by comparing it with other games (I sucked my own brother in by telling him it was an MMO version of one of his favorites), I’m afraid this might just make people dismiss it without giving it a try — and I really, really, really want other people to give it a try.

It’s kind of like having read the most amazing book and wanting to shove said book in all your friends’ faces, so you don’t have to feel the way you feel about it alone. Your friends ask you, “Well, what’s it about, what’s it like?”, and all you can do is grunt exasperatedly and say, “Just read it! Read it already! And then tell me what you thought about it!”

That’s kind of the way I’d like to go about sharing Glitch. Forget everything I just said about the MMO gaming experience. Just think of the way you felt when you read or listened to a favorite story as a child.

Think of the thrill you felt, imagining yourself exploring the world of those stories — how spooked you got as you followed some mysterious instinct deeper into the forest, swamp, or abandoned house, and how wonderful it was when you saw the reward at the end.

Think of your old make-believe games where jumping over a hole in the ground was really jumping across a canyon, and how seriously you took your play.

Think of your half-remembered dreams, of conversations where you can’t remember the participants’ faces or what they actually said, yet you find yourself puzzling over what they meant when you wake.

Think of the wittiest, gentlest, wisest characters who’ve made you laugh, made you think, and made you want to improve yourself a little bit — or a lot.

Then tell yourself that Glitch is that kind of story or dream. It’s still in progress, and you get to be one of its people. And if you want, you can be a guru, builder, gardener, wanderer,  healer, businessman, bureaucrat, or benefooder — and no one’s going to force you to be or do anything you don’t want, because the only character class is “character.”

The only way I can conclude now is to say, play. Just play it, play it already, and then tell me what you thought about it.

--
If all that’s way too vague for you, I suggest you just visit this page. And if you want a more traditional what-this-game-can-do review, this is a pretty good one.

Dan's Rubik's Cube Solution

If you were one of my college blockmates in freshman and sophomore year, chances are, you would have seen me messing around with a Rubik's cube.

For posterity, I've rehosted the guide I was using at the time.

Chinese Names and the Unfortunate Meaning of 精

I still haven't chosen a full Chinese name.

When I first tried to come up with a Chinese name, I looked up the meaning of Alvarez, which is a Hispanic "Alfher's son." Alfher itself means "elf army" or "elf warrior," which is pretty awesome!

"Adventure Time" © Frederator / Cartoon Network

So, I looked up "elf" in my Chinese dictionary and found the word 精灵 (jīnglíng), which is also used for spirits, fairies, sprites, and genies.

精 (jīng) by itself also means "essence," which I really liked. If I went with the traditional meaning of Katrina ("pure"), I'd come out with "Pure Spirit/Essence."

Sounds pretty good, right? It seemed to fit, if I took into account my physical size, my love for fairy tales, and my occasional intellectual pretensions. It even alluded to one of my actual names — when I was even smaller, my dad nicknamed me "Impy."

As I read the dictionary, the cool meanings of 精 kept coming:

• vitality
• energy
• mythical goblin spirit
• highly perfected
• elite
• the [top] pick
• proficient

And then,

• semen, sperm

Cue the record scratch, the face-palm, the dizzying pig's blood scene from "Carrie." The magical, wonderful 精, had to be scrapped, lest I suffer some schoolyard "haha, your name is Pure Semen!" taunting.

I decided to put off the search for a proper Chinese name until I'd learned more. In the process, I found that there are actually Chinese words that are recognized as surnames. All of the names I've encountered so far have several meanings, like 精 above, but one of the dictionaries I use also lists "Chinese surname" among them.

Eventually, I deduced three common characteristics or requirements for a decent Chinese name.

1. The surname character is a recognized surname character.
2. For non-Chinese people, the whole Chinese name sounds something like their non-Chinese name.
3. The characters also describe one's personality or ideals, or just something aesthetically pleasing, like "Little Cloud."

My textbook features two foreigners, David March and Natalie Lynn, and their Chinese names are 马大为 (Mǎ Dàwéi) and 林娜 (Lín Nà). I'm not sure if their personalities really match "great horse" and "elegant forest," but I suppose it's also possible some names are more for sound than meaning.

A better example, I think, is Cris's Chinese name, 耿实勇 (Gěng Shíyǒng). 耿 (Gěng) is listed in my references as a surname, the whole name sounds similar to "Garcia," and the entire name itself means "bright, honest, brave" — quite fitting for my boyfriend, if I do say so myself.

Unfortunately for me, there don't seem to be a lot of Chinese surnames that start with A (there aren't a lot of Chinese surnames to begin with). So, I'm looking now at lists of surnames for B, R/L, W, and Z sounds and then picking out what seems appropriate or interesting:

• 白 (Bái) - white, pure, clear
• 毕 (Bì) - complete, full
• 乐 (Lè) - happy
• 罗 (Luó) - to collect, gather, catch, or sift
• 饶 (Ráo) - rich, abundant; to spare
• 芮 (Ruì) - small
• 文 (Wén) - language, culture, writing
• 菑 (Zī) - field ready for planting

I also like 平 (Píng), which means "level," "equal," and also "peaceful." While it doesn't sound anything like "Alvarez," it does match my preferred meaning for Katrina, "each of the two."

For the "ka" sound in my first name, I've only got 卡 (kǎ), which means "to stop/block" or "card" — not very interesting. The next closest sound would be three "kai":

• 开 (kāi) - to open/start/drive
• 恺 (kǎi) - contentment, joy
• 凯 (kǎi) - triumph

I'm not too keen on the last one, though; I'm not a very aggressive person.

For T sounds, there is only 特 (tè), which means "special" or "unusual." Lest anyone think I'm being conceited, the rest of the tè aren't really good options:

• 慝 - evil/demonic idea
• 忒 - to make a mistake
• 螣 - mythical flying snake (téng), now used to refer to a pest insect

There are also some tí that are all right:

• 提 - to carry, lift, or put forward
• 媞 - just a sound used in girl's names

If I used a B, L, or W surname, I could also go for a first name with L/R and Z sounds for Alvarez, just as Cris's name mimics the soft C and Y sounds in Garcia.

• 利 (lì) - sharp, favorable, to do good, or to benefit
• 立 (lì) - to stand, or to establish
• 历 (lì) - to experience or undergo
• 瑞 (ruì) - good luck
• 睿 (ruì) - wise, far-sighted

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a lot of interesting Z-sound words.

• 泽 (zé) - pool, pond, or favor
• 子 (zǐ) - child [this would make a nice allusion to the "son of Alfher" meaning of Alvarez]

Still, there's a lot to work with. I'm going to mix and match these and see if I can make a decision.

Anyone reading this have a preference, or better yet, a reference? Just nothing that means "demonic idea," or "semen."

Another Note on 是

I realized that yesterday's examples of "yes" and "no" in Chinese may not have been really clear. Here are some that might better illustrate what I mean about answers requiring more conviction or even commitment.

The word 吗 (ma) at the end of a question means that it's a yes-or-no question, but we weren't taught to actually answer with unique words for "yes" or "no." Instead, the way is to answer with the verb used in the question. So there's no simple "yes" or "no," but a full taking on of the action being asked.

你去北京吗？
Are you going to Beijing?

我去。
I am going.

你想她吗？
Do you miss her?

我想她。
I miss her.

你可以等外婆吗？
Can you wait for lola?

我可以等。
I can wait.

Note that none of the questions nor the answers used 是. I think you can actually answer questions with 是, but that would be like:

我在这儿可以买衣服吗？
Can I buy clothes here?

是。
(You) are.

I don't know if this is correct or just how I understand the nuances of Chinese grammar and vocabulary, but that understanding is based on what I've learned out of mainland-published textbooks, so....

--
Cris is meeting the rest of my family tomorrow. That should be fun. :)

Commuting a Sentence

Yesterday was the first time in a long time I found myself wondering why I still worked this job and lived in this country. Maybe Cris has spoiled me with all the driving around. Maybe I've gotten too comfortable living and working with home just 4km away from work and a minimum of Metro Manila traffic in between. Maybe my new neighborhood is just that much nicer than my old one.

Whatever the case, I would like to express my admiration for anyone who must commute home from work from Ayala Station every day. Yesterday I felt like crying for all of them.

The sheer number of people in the queue, which just takes over the entire station, is astounding. I walked the length of the station last night and then walked back when I saw the exit was blocked, and in the three minutes it took to do that, the number of people lining up (hundreds), crowded, noses smashing into one another's backs, seemed to have doubled. I could only imagine the number of people crowding onto the actual train platform and the number of people on the actual train.

I'm no stranger to the MRT, nor am I a stranger to the crowd at Ayala Station, but this was the first time in the past four years that I actually tried getting home from there at rush hour. I decided to take the bus.

That, of course, meant walking 1.2km back to the correct loading bay on Ayala Ave. in a storm, but I thought it would work.

Okay, as much as I've been driven around in the past couple of months, I'm still quite proud to be a pedestrian and a commuter. I'm also used to walking, and I actually prefer the rainy season.

But yesterday, everything just seemed to get me down. I'd been sick for almost a week and was feeling nauseous. I'd come from a disappointing, demoralizing meeting that made me question my career choices and crave a vacation. I'd had to put off a doctor's visit to carry out a family errand. I'd had to go up, down, and across three different mall buildings looking for the place to carry out said errand. I'd done all that walking in the pinchy meeting shoes already responsible for the ugly black line across my big right toenail. The downpour (and the puddles) meant that there was water in those shoes. Now I just wanted to go home — like everyone else on Ayala Ave. at that hour.

So, it's no surprise I couldn't get on a bus, either, at least not the bus back to Quezon City. I decided to just sleep over at my grandmother's place in Makati, then commute back to QC in the morning. I crossed the street, which sounds simple but, on Ayala Ave., meant a 200m walk to the underpass and a 200m walk to the bus stop actually across the stop I'd just left.

It was the first time in a long time I found myself feeling miserable about Philippine urban planning, which is why I was wondering why I still live here, which led me to think about getting a job elsewhere, which led me to question what's still keeping me at my job here.

Once again, my teal-and-gold-filtered memories of Singaporean streets, Singaporean sidewalks, and Singaporean public transportation swam before me like dreams of summer vacation. I thought of the difference the position of taped lines in front of train doors made (they're supposed to be at the sides!). I thought of the difference crosswalks made versus under- or overpasses. I thought of the difference trees, clean air, and conveniently placed bus stations made.

My brothers at a crosswalk in Singapore.

I also thought of the children and parents in "I Not Stupid." I thought of how many foreigners often see Filipinos, even successful ones in white-collar jobs. I thought of Philippine beaches and Philippine mountains. I thought of the Chocolate Hills, which I've never visited. For some reason, all that was enough to make me feel torn.

How much would I have to give up just to be able to get on the train without feeling like cattle? Would it all be worth it? Or is there not enough in my native country and culture worth staying for? Do I really live in a world where I have to choose between clean air, a less f-ed-up government, good urban planning, and a manageable population, and staying where I've spent ~7/8 of my life to date? What kind of world is this? Why is it so hard to go home from Ayala Ave.?

--
Here's some language nerdiness that borders on philosophical. I can't find Chinese words for "yes" and "no."

A dictionary like nciku will tell you that "yes" is 是 (shì), but none of my teachers or lessons so far have actually spelled out that 是 and 不 (bù) mean "yes" and "no" in the same sense as "oo" and "hindi." In fact, the very first Chinese lessons say that 是 means "is/am/are/be," and 不 is "not – ," as in,

它是不是红的？ ; "Is it or is it not red?"

So in dialogues, when they answer a yes-or-no question with 是 or 不是, in my head, I translate, "is / is not."

Another way to affirm or negate is 有 (yǒu) or 没有 (méi yǒu), but that's literally "have/meron" and "have not / wala."

你们有苹果吗？ ; "Do you have apples?"
没有。; "(We) do not have (apples)."

你给她打一个电话了吗？; "Have you given her a phone call already?"
没有。; "(I) have not."

Maybe it's just me, but saying that something is or is possessed requires more conviction than just a simple "yes" or "no." I wonder if this is reflected in Chinese culture somehow. I could just be a geek.

Monday Already? + Bike Notes 8

My weekends have become increasingly interesting since late last year, and the last weekend in particular should go down in my personal history as one of the best ever.

Nothing too spectacular happened, but I had a lot of fun. More importantly, though, I had this overall feeling of satisfaction—this is what I always thought life in my 20s would feel like. It's simple yet fantastic. I can't help but feel grateful for all the good that's come so far.

Mostly, I'm writing about the last weekend, boring as it will sound later to some of you, because I kind of can't believe it happened. The colorful weekends of vivacious 20-somethings are the stuff of music videos and Zooey Deschanel starrers*. A musical number with animated birds, plus a girl wearing a vintage dress and playing the guitar, would have been the cliche cherry on top of this past weekend.

I guess that's what comes of having all your ideas of young adult life colored by whatever pop culture gets through the filter of not growing up in a major city.

Here's where the entry gets boring (look, a lampshade!).

Is this thing on?

I've installed the IntenseDebate comment system for new posts on this blog. This is just a test post to see if it's working.

Cut, cut, cut

Some of you might have guessed from this post (not that I was terrifically discreet) that something big was coming for me in the arts and crafts department. Well, yesterday, everything finally came together.

What happened was, the creative director of our newspaper's luxury magazine saw one of my popup buildings and asked me if I could make some for the Christmas issue, which would feature some really, really, really pricey fountain pens. In a moment of hubris, I said yes.

After the meeting with the photographer, I spent most of my spare time drawing buildings and cutting models. I also sat through three howtoarchitect playlists (1, 2, and 3) in one day for tips and ideas.

I also spent a day with Highlife's production assistant, Nina, going to stores and picking out pens to feature. It is a little ridiculous to walk into one of those stores, ask for the most expensive thing they have, and be taken seriously.

There are more photos from the shoot here, and I'll be posting the actual shots in a week or so. It depends on whether I can sit on them till the magazine actually comes out.

I am trying to play it cool at the office, but inside, I am kind of panicky about the whole thing. None of the work is as great as I'd like it to be. On the other hand, it was nice to be asked to spend a day on something that I really, really love to do.

Baby steps, I guess.

In this picture, you can see the backs of Kathy Chua, photographer, and her assistant Eric. They are cool people, and Adphoto is a cool agency.

Gmail and Thunderbird FAIL

I finally had time to go on with my project of deleting old attachments from my Gmail account and seemed to be making headway, until I noticed that something was wrong.

As I went through my old messages in Thunderbird, deleting attachments like crazy, I would keep Gmail open in my browser window also. I'm not sure how the folders in Thunderbird sync with Gmail, so I'd take breaks between batches of deletions and use Gmail's web interface to remove the newly stripped messages from my "Check Attachments" folder.

While I was doing this, I would occasionally look at the counter in the lower-left corner of the web UI. That's where it says "n% full" and "Using x MB of your y MB."

I expected these numbers to drop as I went on, but they were actually increasing. At first, I thought that it was just because I was receiving a lot of new e-mails and attachments, and I wasn't deleting old ones fast enough. Today, though, I saw the number go up (1) while I was deleting and (2) while there were no new messages for hours.

I did a quick search of a few stripped messages, and this is what I found:



For some reason, Thunderbird deletes the attachments, and then it (or Gmail; not sure which) creates a complete duplicate of the original messages with the attachments intact. So instead of reducing, the bug actually almost doubles the amount of space used by these old e-mails and files. :/

I've since filed a bug report and put this project on hold, while I go through all these e-mails and delete the duplicates one by one.

The dupes only show up in Gmail, by the way; they're not visible in Thunderbird, so add-on applications that claim to remove duplicates don't detect anything.

I've created this blog post in case anybody used my prior Gmail notes (sorry, Zoe) and they have the same problem. I'm also hoping to get the attention of someone who knows how to fix this, since within several seconds, my bug report got buried under all the new ones. :(

Halp.

--
UPDATE: Someone responded to the bug report and said that it was likely a Gmail problem, not a Thunderbird problem. In the meantime, I've taken to this only-slightly-more-tedious way to delete old attachments:

1. Delete attachments in Thunderbird.
2. Search Gmail using the web UI for the just-stripped message.
3. Delete duplicates via the Web UI.
4. Remove stripped messages from Gmail label "CheckAttached."
3. Rinse and repeat. For ~4,500 messages with attachments.

Philippine Prudential's Shady Selling Tactics

Yesterday afternoon, I got this text:

FINAL NOTIFICATION: Gud day! Ds s Ms..SHIELA REYES,, from PHIL.PRUDENTIAL Claiming Area,Ur 3 REWARDS and PRIVILEGES For Free are still here n our ofs.U need to Claim and Activate TODAY because the management will finalize all the records of our recipients who don't claim their rewards. For your claiming code w/u will need to present upon claiming;you may call exclusively in our makati ofs from: 9am to 5pm for further information. Tel.(02)7551532 upon receipt of this msg.Many Thanks and GodBless! (DISREGARD IF CLAIMED)

I'm extremely suspicious of strangers who text or call me, especially if they're trying to sell me something. This message I got from Ms. Reyes (+639486506960) sounded especially scammy. "FINAL NOTIFICATION"? This was the first time I'd ever heard I'd won anything from Philippine Prudential*; how could it be the final one?

The first thing I did was to google the landline number, and it turned out to be legit. This contact page for Phil. Prudential was the third search result—and the first two were about a kind of scam.

I thought then that the scammers might be using Phil. Prudential's real contact number to trick people into thinking they were the real deal. When I tried calling the number just to verify whether it really belonged to Phil. Prudential, it just rang and rang; nobody picked up.

But after sifting through some confusing posts, I finally managed to dig this up from New Media Philippines's blog: The Philippine Prudential Life Plans "Scam"?. I suggest you read that post and the horror stories in the reader comments first, but they seem pretty clear: the text I received is a selling tactic actually used by the company to get people to listen to their sales talks.

Enticed by the idea of prizes, people call the numbers or go to the offices and end up sitting through hours of spiels, after which they often buy an insurance policy out of sheer fatigue (I sat through all that; there must be something I can get out of this), confusion (Wait, so that paper you made me sign says you can take things out of my credit card account?) or gullibility (Can I have my prize now?). And if they want their money back, they have to battle unhelpful and even deceptive customer service agents before they can fully back out of the whole thing.

ABS-CBN did an expose on this scheme, and New Media embedded the clips at the bottom of their post. Unfortunately, a rep from ABS-CBN is carrying out a takedown campaign, so I wasn't able to watch the first one. In the second one, though, there's a rep from the Insurance Commission who describes the whole thing as "deceptive marketing." He also said that if the company continued to "tolerate" these sales practices, the commission might issue a cease-and-desist order.

The clips were uploaded in December, though, so it's been about eight or nine months. Considering that I got the text yesterday, these practices are still going on, and people are probably still getting duped.

Phil. Prudential is still registered with the Insurance Commission and still has a certificate of authority for the year. The company released this official statement after the ABS-CBN documentary came out, and the company opted to focus on one disgruntled customer and their awards, while ignoring all the angry consumers who've taken to ranting online. There's also this terribly written looks-like-a-blog-post-but-smells-like-poorly-done-damage-control text that's getting regurgitated by online content farms.

I think this whole thing is less a scam (i.e. a ploy to sucker people into paying for nonexistent or snake oil products) than it is a really aggressive and deceptive sales approach tied to really awful customer service.

At this point, though, I don't care whether they're a real company or if their products are actually any good. I'm definitely not answering Ms. Reyes's text.

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* As if to add to the confusion, Philippine Prudential Life Insurance Company (PPLIC; referred to in this post as Phil. Prudential) shares similar names with Prudentialife Plans, Inc.; Pru Life Insurance Corp. of UK (Pru Life UK); and Prudential Guarantee and Assurance, Inc. Doesn't the Securities and Exchange Commission have rules on this? :/

30 Days of Books

I found this 30 DAYS of BOOKS meme through fellow Heights alumna Fidelis Tan and thought it would be fun. I'm not very updated when it comes to the "cool" or "highly acclaimed" stuff, so this list might be kind of dull for book snobs, but hey, I'm just sharing what I've got.

Notes: Deleting just the attachments from Gmail

- saw that 60% of my inbox capacity is used up; I know that this keeps increasing incrementally, but since I started at this job, the increase in space can't keep up with the increase in e-mails with attachments

- couldn't find any in-Gmail solution to deleting just the attachments without losing the message itself
> suggestions on help forums included forwarding the message to myself while unchecking the attachment box; didn't like this as I wanted Gmail conversations/threads to stay intact and to keep the name of the original sender
> other popular suggestion was to use an e-mail client with IMAP, like Thunderbird

- while Thunderbird was downloading, followed forum poster's advice and searched Gmail w/ "has:attachment" (no quotes), then labelled everything with a new label, CheckAttachment

- in Thunderbird, saw
> over 500 messages in the CheckAttachment folder
> some of them with attachments I wanted to save, like work documents, stuff from parents and other family, stuff from old schoolmates
> couldn't get through all that without fear of deleting something I wanted to keep
> deleted some stuff I wanted to keep after all

- new process:
1. in Gmail, go through CheckAttachment label w/ combined search operators (e.g. "label:checkattachment" and "label:family-mail") to get good stuff out of CheckAttachment
2. sync Thunderbird again
3. proceed with deletion

A Long, Full Life

This is going to sound geeky, but my Sim died the other day, and it depressed me a little bit. Why? Well, by a mix of Sim and human standards, her life had not been as fulfilling as it could have been.

A few months ago, I installed the Sims 2 on Martin's old computer. No one was using it, and I wanted something to do while he did weekend work but wanted me around.

I immediately started work on a Legacy family but also created a Sim self and Sim Martin to be their neighbors. I would alternate between the families to give myself a break from the problems of one ridiculous household by wrangling another.

Anyway, because Sim me and Sim Martin were created at the same time, I assumed that they would die of old age at the same time. But, as in real life, that was a silly expectation.

For those who are not familiar with the game, Sims have aspiration levels of red, green, gold, and platinum. You rack up aspiration points by completing your Sims' "wants," which in turn depend on their age and aspiration type: Grow Up for toddlers and children, and Family, Romance, Wealth, Popularity, and Knowledge for teens, adults, and elders. The number of points they gain throughout their lives determines how happy they are and how long they live.

If you manage to get your Sim to elder-hood without them starving, drowning, burning, getting electrocuted, or encountering any of the other unnatural causes of death, you then get to see them die of old age. They suddenly stop whatever they're doing, stare into space, and see the Grim Reaper, who gently escorts them out of the game. Meanwhile, any family and friends in the area also stop what they're doing, run to the area, and sob miserably over the Sim's passing.

Now, if your Sim happens to die while carrying a platinum aspiration level, the Grim Reaper arrives escorted by hula dancers and hands your Sim an umbrella drink and a suitcase. Your Sim then sets forth into the afterlife with a smile on his or her face, and a platinum grave marker with the symbol of their aspiration appears in their stead. It's a sign of a long, full life that will stand as long as your Sim's descendants continue the game, or unless you delete it.

So, what happened to my Sims? Well, Sim Martin's wants generally involved making friends and being creative. By the time he was an elder, he was a bestselling author and a retired celebrity chef. Sim Kat's wants centered around her family's well-being, but I also got her a career in science to increase the household income. By the time she was an elder, she was a retired mad scientist and had two well-raised kids and one grandkid.

Before long, I saw that death would catch up with my Sims soon enough. To make sure that they would go out in a happy, platinum state, I timed the youngest son's wedding for one day before their deaths. Both Sim Martin and Sim Kat wanted him to get married, and completing the want was worth 8000 points, a number sure to max out their aspiration levels.

On the day of Grim's arrival, all Sim Martin and Sim Kat wanted to do was hang out with their family and each other. I thought it was a sweet way to end it all. Also, while interactions with other Sims are worth only 500 points, nice Sims generally want lots of contact with each other throughout the day, which makes it easy to maintain a platinum state.

Finally, the hour arrived, and the Grim Reaper came--but for Sim Martin alone. My happiness at seeing him accept his umbrella drink quickly dissipated at the sight of Sim Kat left behind, bawling her eyes out over a platinum grave marker. To make matters worse, I had no idea how much longer she would have to live.

I hoped to keep Sim Kat happy until her turn came. The next day, she wanted to hang out with her sons and grandchild, so that kept her in platinum for a while. But the day passed, and she still didn't die.

The next day, she wanted to find love again. Specifically, she wanted to hang out with her best friend from work, a fellow retired scientist whose alien spawn was now Sim Kat's daughter-in-law, and see if they could take things to another level.

This is not a scandal to Sims, for whom a day can be considered equivalent to a human year (and alien abduction and insemination, though it produces green kids with humongous eyes and great cheekbones, is completely accepted). I should also have expected Sim Kat to want to find love because wants cycle.

For instance, after a Romance Sim has attracted, kissed, and seduced another Sim, they'll want to do it over again with someone new. After a Family Sim has had a baby and taught it to walk, talk, and go potty, they'll want to have another child.

Unfortunately for Sim Kat, Family Sims also like being married. So if a Sim spouse leaves or dies, their wants will naturally reroll to finding love again.

I could have ensured my Sim's happiness by inviting her best friend, who was single anyway, over for lunch. However, my human loyalty to both Sim and human Martin refused to give in.

I had hoped that Sim Kat would live at least one more day, either to fulfill her other big want, to have another grandchild (one of the daughters-in-law was due to give birth soon), or for the small wants to reroll to something simple, like talking to her eldest son or making pancakes for everybody. After all, I had managed to keep Sim Martin happy by completing enough simple wants, so he died in platinum even though his last manuscript was still unfinished.

But Grimmie decided to arrive for Sim Kat just when her aspiration meter fell back to gold. Although my Sim wasn't disappointed (gold-level Sims still get the hula sendoff, but sans special tombstone), I was.

Putting myself in the game was definitely wish fulfillment on my part. I wanted the pretty home, the interesting career, and the husband, kids, and grandkids, and I made sure that I got them. The fact that I had outlived Sim Martin meant that I'd had more of my desires fulfilled during my lifetime than he. By both human and game standards, I didn't really need anything more.

But because of her job and because her wants focused on her family, Sim Kat didn't get to fulfill any of human Kat's other fantasies, which involve doing something big and creative. Sim Kat didn't finish her novel or paint a masterpiece because she was too busy studying things for science, cooking dinner, and making sure her kids did their homework. Sim Kat didn't want to write or paint in the first place, but like I said, it would have been wish fulfillment for me.

The less petty reason for my disappointment is, even though Sim Kat died surrounded by her family, and with all the memories of her achievements, she was still lonely. Though she died pretty happy by Sim standards, she was not as happy as she could have been by either Sim or my standards, due to both the game's design and my own choices.

So my Sim's death bothers me because I can't help seeing it as a miniature of my own existence. It's not just some game. I am afraid that my own decisions and last wishes mean that I die unsatisfied. I am afraid that even if I do find fulfillment, I will always seek more of it. I am afraid that I can't or won't let myself be content with what would otherwise be a really good life.

with Kat A. as the Non-Action Snarker

While transcribing my last interview*, I started to think of a new way to get through the workday. Since I bond with my coworkers over pop culture anyway, it made sense to start to think of 0800-1800 as scenes from a sitcom, filmed in real-time and yet to be edited. And the good part is, the show's not about me.

No, I'm in a show about my cool and single colleague(s) joining the working world, coming out of their shell, navigating life after college, and so on. Like Ugly Betty but with more drudgery. My boss gets to be, well, the boss. Her second-in-command gets to be the older, wiser one we underlings look up to. Our account managers and their supplement proposals are now plot devices. (Blame TV Tropes.)

I get to be the one who sits quietly in a corner until the right moment to make a witty** comment. Deadpan if I can manage. Other than this, I'm not of any interest to the audience because it's not a show about me.

If I leave the office before my officemate does, the camera stays with her (they're all girls), and my bit part in today's episode is done. If she leaves first, the camera goes with her, to document her post-work adventures (e.g. dinner in which Mom asks her why she doesn't have grandchildren, corporate event in which she may possibly meet a handsome stranger, blind date, or just horrible commute resulting in existential crisis).

All this just to make it easier to shelve office worries until my next scene, really. (Why are you texting me? I'm not in the script.)

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* investment banker. My favorite subject, to be honest.
** Ha! I wish.

By the way, I went to Angono last week and took these pictures. Just in case I haven't turned you off with my delusions yet.