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Ever since I was young, I was always taught that if you do good things, good things will happen to you. As the old adage goes, “As you sow so shall you reap”.

For years I have tried my best to live by this philosophy, always trying to do the right thing and at the same time being wary of fate’s retribution should I stray for even a moment from the straight and proper, destiny’s payback, or what we often refer to as karma.

It is ironic though, that despite my efforts to avoid doing the wrong thing, success, or at least my personal visions of it, has been somewhat elusive.

Don’t get me wrong, I have had a lot of blessings through the years for which I am grateful. I’m reasonably well-educated, I have what qualifies to most as a well paying job, I get to pay all of the bills and still have a little left over, I have a happy and healthy son who’s doing well in school, I have my parents and siblings, and I have my health, despite occasional bouts of hypochondria.

But like everyone else, I tend to notice the things that are absent in my life, the same way you notice a missing piece in a huge jigsaw puzzle. You may have all the other pieces, but somehow, it doesn’t take away the fact that there’s still a gaping hole somewhere in the picture.

And I have lots of holes. Okay, maybe not that many if you really think about it, but if you’ve ever spent time solving a jigsaw puzzle, you soon realize that even a single missing piece is enough to ruin the experience.

I won’t go through the details of each and every one, lest I come across as an insatiable and thankless ingrate for the things that I do have that many other people don’t, but sometimes, in the back of my mind, I ask myself what it is I have done to deserve the absence of certain pieces in my jigsaw puzzle.

I’m well aware that I am not perfect, that I have screwed up a lot of things in my life, and made a lot of bad decisions, but then again, all of us have, at one time or another. What lifts me up though, is the realization that despite everything that has happened, both good and bad, I have, at least in my own estimation, remained "good", and have for the most part avoided doing anything truly "evil". Of course, this is all relative, since what is good for one may be considered evil by another. The point is, I have tried to remain true to myself, avoided as much as possible the prospect of deliberately causing pain or harm to other people, and refrained from activities which would grant me opportunities for gain at the expense of other people. At the end of the day though, I really don’t have much to show for it except for the altruistic sense of satisfaction that I haven’t turned to the dark side.

But in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?

I have seen people get ahead in life by stepping over anyone and everyone who get in their way. I have seen people resort to all sorts of dirty tactics in order to get what they want. I have seen people cheat and lie their way to success. No doubt you’ve seen your share of such people as well. We often console ourselves with the thought that someday, karma will catch up with them, but other than the rules we have imposed on ourselves by virtue of human laws, morality, religion, or some other abstract sentimentality, there doesn’t seem to be any natural precept which punishes anyone or anything for being “evil”. Speaking purely from a natural sense, nothing in nature is truly “evil” or truly “good”. It just is. “Good” and “evil” can be considered nothing more than labels which we have adhered to things in our realms of existence in an attempt to anthromorphize and rationalize everything we see around us.

A lion eating a deer is no more or less evil than say, a deer eating grass, or arguably, a hunter shooting down a lion (despite the fact that it may be illegal if it’s in a protected wilderness area). It’s just the way things are. Nature is a cycle, and every living thing no matter how big or small is part of that cycle. Then there's Darwin's theory of evolution. Weak things give way to stronger things. Survival of the fittest.

Perhaps it’s the same with our lives. Maybe nothing is truly evil. We just do whatever it is we need to do in order to get ahead. I don’t know. It may be true, but somehow, I am not really comfortable with that prospect. I’d like to think that as human beings, we are above the amorality of nature, that we have a sense of what is good, and what is not. That’s why we have advanced to the point of developing laws, philosophies, morals and religion, in order to reinforce our concepts and beliefs of what is right and wrong. We have to accept though, that there are some of us choose to ignore these rules and instead choose to do what is necessary to get ahead. Does that make them evil?

It really depends on your point of view.

And what you’re comfortable with.

Maybe, just maybe...I have to start doing what's necessary. Or at the very least find something else to do.

A boss wondered why one of his most valued employees had not phoned in sick one day. Having an urgent problem with one of the main computers, he dialed the employee's home phone number and was greeted with a child's whisper. ' Hello ? '

'Is your daddy home?' he asked.

' Yes ,' whispered the small voice.

May I talk with him?'

The child whispered, 'No .'

Surprised and wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, 'Is your Mommy there?'

' Yes .'

'May I talk with her?'

Again the small voice whispered, 'No .'

Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked, 'Is there anybody else there?'

' Yes ,' whispered the child, ' a policeman '.

Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee's home, the boss asked, 'May I speak with the policeman?'

' No, he's busy ', whispered the child.

'Busy doing what?'

' Talking to Daddy and Mommy and the Fireman ,' came the whispered answer.

Growing more worried as he heard a loud noise in the background through the earpiece on the phone, the boss asked, 'What is that noise?'

' A helicopter ' answered the whispering voice.

'What is going on there?' demanded the boss, now truly apprehensive.

Again, whispering, the child answered, ' The search team just landed a helicopter .'

Alarmed, concerned and a little frustrated the boss asked, 'What are they searching for?'

Still whispering, the young voice replied with a muffled giggle... ' ME!’

Another one from my inbox. :-)

An excerpt...

When everybody on earth was dead and waiting to enter Paradise, God appeared and said, "I want the men to make two lines. One line for the men who were true heads of their household, and the other line for the men who were dominated by their women. I want all the women to report to St. Peter."

Soon, the women were gone, and there were two lines of men. The line of the men who were dominated by their wives was 100 miles long, and in the line of men who truly were heads of their household, there was only one man.

God said, "You men should be ashamed of yourselves, I created you to be the head of your household! You have been disobedient and have not fulfilled your purpose! Of all of you, only one obeyed. Learn from him."

God turned to the one man, "How did you manage to be the only one in this line?"

The man replied, "My wife told me to stand here."

From my inbox. :-)

In the past I've posted a number of more or less scathing entries regarding e-Games' support (or lack thereof) for the the popular local MMORPG RAN Online. It's been several months, but I have to hand it to them. The service has indeed improved a lot. It's still nowhere the level of service I would like to expect from them, but compared to the dismal performance they have been showing not so long ago, the playing experience has definitely changed for the better.

Gone but not missed is the dreaded connection error dialogue box.

It's been months since I last encountered a user's account is being connected error message.

The number of disconnections that I have experienced lately has dropped significantly.

"Server resets", that is, when everyone logged in is abruptly disconnected when the server is full to capacity, are things of the past.

The missing EXP events seem to have disappeared as well.

I'm not in a position to state whether or not all players have enjoyed these improvements, but I can say with certainty that at least from my vantage point, the gameplay has graduated from being merely "tolerable" to actually being "enjoyable". Given the dismal state Ran Online was in a few months ago, this represents a huge leap for them.

Of course some things never change.

Lag, for instance, can never be really totally eliminated, particularly during peak hours since network conditions are highly variable both on the server and client side. I still see a number of partymates get disconnected now and then, in all likelihood due to gaming cafes connecting as many clients as they can to a single broadband connection.

I haven't had any recent experiences with e-Games' helpdesk facilities as of late though, so I really can't say if the quality of support provided by helpdesk personnel has improved, or if their issue resolution response times have been reduced.

Of course, there is still e-Game's penchant for adopting schemes that maximize its profit margin. For example, they have driven up demand for 3x EXP Ultima Rosaries by virtually eliminating 3x EXP events. Such schemes don't really come as a surprise, though. Business is business, as they say.

It's probably worth taking note that I haven't been playing the game as often as I used to, since nowadays I only play about once a week or perhaps twice a week at most. On other days I usually just keep a vendor minimized in the background. So I guess it's possible that the reason I haven't been experiencing many problems lately is because I haven't been playing much at all.

But all things considered, it can be safely conceded that there has indeed been an improvement in RAN Online's quality of service and gameplay.

Who knows? Maybe they got tired of the sea of complaints and finally decided to get their act together. Maybe some of the complaints even got into the hands of some government bureaucrat or politician who's in a position to pressure e-Games to resolve the complaints leveled against it. Your guess is as good as mine. The main thing is, the service and support has improved, and whether its a huge or small improvement, it's still good news to us Ran Online players.

Hopefully, e-Games will be able to sustain this, and that this recent turn of good luck as far as us players are concerned isn't just a fluke or one-off.

Only time will tell though.

Reposting this for whatever good may come out of it. :-)

Anyone here interested in purchasing a plot of commercial land located along Commonwealth Ave. in Quezon City? It's my father's property, and it has a lot area of 2,844 sqm., with a number of residential improvements. The frontage is a bit on the small side, at 14 m., but it directly faces Commonwealth Ave.

The lot has been on the market for quite a while, but since the real estate market has been down for some time now...well you know how it is.

Just in case you're interested, or know someone who is, please feel free to leave a comment or to email me at ronallandottk@yahoo.com. To cut the hassle, would prefer to deal with direct buyers only. Sometimes it can be quite hard dealing with a multitude of brokers and middlemen...you know how that is too. :-)

You can also call 9315575 if you have any inquiries.

Siteplan of the property.


Aerial view. The road at the top of the photo is Commonwealth Avenue.


Here's a tighter aerial shot. The improvements are clearly visible from this distance.

And just in case you're wondering, no, I didn't hire an airplane or a helicopter. Used Google Earth instead. :-)

It’s been a while.

I’m not really sure why I haven’t been posting anything lately. It’s not as if I’m having a dearth of things to blog about, on the contrary, I have a lot of things on my mind that I’m eager to commit to keyboard.

But I just haven’t gotten around to it. I guess I just have too many things on my mind right now.

But since this blog is not going to update itself, might as well go back to business.

The truth of the matter is, I’m facing a blank wall. I’m not particularly sure what I want to do with my life. I have a job, a son, myriad responsibilities and obligations but frankly, nothing much else comes to mind as being important or significant at this point in time.

I have a head full of dreams, but I may have to face the inevitable truth that perhaps some of them will probably remain dreams despite my best efforts.

Being in my mid-thirties, I may no longer have enough time to do all the things I’ve always dreamed I do, so it’s about time I perform a triage of sorts and prioritize the things that I still have a shot at.

Maybe that’s the reason why I haven’t been blogging lately. Perhaps I couldn’t get myself to accept that I have to compromise some of my dreams and aspirations. In my daily existence, I have learned to get used to the idea that compromises have to be made every now and then so as to get some desired result, but nonetheless, compromising your own lofty goals which you have held on for so long can be quite a bitter pill to swallow.

Sometimes you wish you can turn back time and undo some of the mistakes you’ve made in the past, but you can’t do that, and so you trudge along, hoping you don’t make any more mistakes that can compound the ones you’ve made before.

But sometimes, you find yourself so afraid of committing more mistakes, so you end up doing nothing.

Admittedly, I may be guilty of precisely that at one time or another.

Yes, I may be a productive (so to speak) member of society, I have a job, responsibilities, and the like, but sometimes I get the urge to escape from it all. I lock myself in my room, immerse myself in countless DVDs, books and computer games, trying to compensate for my shortcomings with an extensive knowledge of pop culture, arcane and obscure historical, scientific and mathematical treatises, and experience in virtual fantasy worlds, all in a rather futile attempt to avoid the answering the question that I have dreaded for some time now:

Now what?

And that is the million-dollar question.

At the back of my mind I’ve finally decided what to do with the rest of my life. Of course, it isn’t easy to look forward that far to the future, so I try to keep my goals in sight, and hope and pray that the timing and circumstances are right for me to forage ahead.

Let’s start with the little things. Like this blog for instance. At least, the fact that I have finally decided to post my thoughts after a hiatus of several weeks is, if nothing else, a positive sign that I am now comfortable with the decisions I have made.

But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. There are still a lot of things that need to be done, issues that need to be addressed, responsibilities to be performed, obligations to be fulfilled, needs to be met.

For now, I can take small pride in the fact that I have decided. And that, for me at least, is half the battle won right there.