The Dubai Chronicles: Rebirth

about dxb chronicles

The saga of Jeff living in the City of Gold. Presently living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, unravel his journey throughout the city with memoirs and everyday life stories.

pixel art uncovered

my mind was set last night for design... i started designing faith's blog template and jerry's business card. while scouring for photos in my cds, i stumbled upon the pixel artworks i did few years back.

i've been looking for my psds and tuts for a long time. some pixel works i did were posted at deviantart. now that the old works has been found, i'm going to do some 1px brushwork again...

discoursed by jeff @ 1:30 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

theme parks & fun centres show

there was this old man from egypt who was grumpy and looking for his pet, tiny. he looked very mysterious...

he keeps telling stories about his adventurous "tiny" as i listened. i wonder what kind of pet it looked like. then suddenly the ground trembled...

"there! there's my tiny! i bet he's hungry now..." waw, what i nice name... and so i ran away.

we looked like kids when we visited the theme parks & fun centres show in dubai world trade center. there were lots of arcades, 3d theatres, theme park plans, rides, and other recreational stuffs. i just went there to play tekken 5 and gather some brochures and mags for future references. btw, the old man was just mechanical. almost real, eh?

i missed timezone in glorietta...

discoursed by jeff @ 2:45 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Monday, April 25, 2005

work work work arrghhhh work!

you must be wondering what's the pic all about. that's my to do list for today... magazine ad here... web flash banner there... logo concept in a 10-minute deadline... some very very very urgent artwork to finish in an hour's time with an ultra-slow pc to work with...

i ain't complaining. i just want them to be reasonable with timelines. if you're still wondering if i can handle more work?

bring it on.

discoursed by jeff @ 3:06 PM | 1 comment(s) | permalink

Friday, April 22, 2005

ibn battuta mall

at long last i am going to meet my old friend, neil. i decided to tag along with dennis on his way to work to the newly constructed ibn battuta mall (formerly known as the gardens mall) near jebel ali.

neil lose weight from the last time i saw him in manila. it was a good timing because it was his break when i met him. i also got the package that mom and mayi sent me before. i treated lunch and a little chit-chat. afterwards, he went back to his work and me to stroll.

ibn battuta composed of six theme malls rolled into one. each mall correspond to a particular location. china mall, india mall, persia mall, egypt mall, tunisia mall, and andalusia mall have different designs that fits to their name. the designs were great but unfortunately, most of the shops are still closed. it's better to visit this place in a month or two to appreciate your shopping needs. also, you need a lot of patience (and money) if you're commuting because the bus route is very few going from/to dubai. best way is to go there by car. taxi's expensive (40++ dhs) if going from there to trade center dubai.

here are the pics:

china mall

india mall

persia mall

egypt mall

tunisia mall

andalusia mall

discoursed by jeff @ 9:14 PM | 6 comment(s) | permalink

Thursday, April 21, 2005

scale model

another holiday in uae and this time it's the prophet's birthday. they are on holiday, not us. the key people involved in the upcoming conference this may were obliged to go to office. afterwards, i met bob and mond on the other side of sheikh zayed road to visit a local toy store.

we're planning to build a diorama... miniature stuffs like what you see in a real estate offices with replicas of buildings and tiny cars or the one in ayala museum where we used to visit it when i was a kid. the scenario picked was world war II. try to picture the movie saving private ryan and maybe you'll understand what we're planning to build.

unfortunately, it's a bubble burst. the scale model kits of tanks and other props we're looking for are out of stock. mond was able to buy a russian t-72 tank few days back. now it's gone. so we looked for an alternative shop, toys r' us in deira. once again, we found none. we dropped the plan and wander around al ghurair mall and after that to bur dubai to buy a new hard drive.

after installing the new 80gig hardware and winxp os, i decided to see a movie marathon... star wars episodes 1,2,4,5 and 6. now i can't wait for the final installation of the saga, the revenge of the sith. bitin.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:18 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

10 in a day

waw, it was a real crunch time for me. i have to finish 10 different ads on different sizes on different magazines... and i still managed to blog. waw.

about last night, i owed somebody and i had no one to turned to. good thing, my colleague fished out his last money. he's such a lifesaver. i paid my debt quickly when i got the salary today. learn to budget, jeffy.

also we visited japs & liz's place for business and pleasure. we got carried away playing alien shooter. pure adrenaline, slime splatting, bullet wasting action...

...and i bet japs didn't slept last night just tryin' to beat my score. hehehe.

discoursed by jeff @ 8:19 PM | 1 comment(s) | permalink

Monday, April 18, 2005

get a haircut... not

we usually go out of the building after eating lunch and walk to grocery few meters away. after buying mango nectar in a bottle for a dirham and sometimes m & m's, we walk towards through the front side of the buildings. on our way to the office, a fat guy, arab maybe, wearing a suit was approaching. when he was near, he was staring sharply at us and suddenly told me, "i want to see you tomorrow with a haircut" then he passed as if nothing happened.

WTF! i can't believe on what i've just heard. i didn't know the guy and probably he didn't know me. blood boiled within seconds i've heard his comment. he has no right to tell me what i am going to do with my hair...long or otherwise. he's not my boss and he is not even my father! f*ck, i don't care nor didn't mind that he's bald...

racism is still alive and well.

tomorrow, i'll show up at the same place and at the same time and hopefully he will not show up again or else...

"you're such a distraction, please don't block the walkway. go on a diet."

in other news, as stephen requested, i'll look for engrish stuffs. this one is in the office:

govternment

discoursed by jeff @ 5:20 PM | 4 comment(s) | permalink

Sunday, April 17, 2005

engrish

the editor-in-chief must receive 1000 lashes for not checking the front page boo-boo... hehehe.

addendum: i would like to thank faith for delivering the package while she was here in dubai. she left the goods on the concierge, unfortunately, we didn't see each other because they went shopping when i arrived at the hotel. maybe next time. salamat, faith!

discoursed by jeff @ 2:56 PM | 4 comment(s) | permalink

Saturday, April 16, 2005

things are going into place but....

faith, hanz's girlfriend called me up last night and told me that she's here in dubai for a few days. she said that i have a package from my wifey. goodie, another one.

the problem is that how can i pick it up because i ran out of money. salary's not yet coming and my debts were overdue. tough luck. i was suppose to send money back home via from a balikbayan in order to escape from 15 dirhams of door-to-door charge.

just when you're financial troubles are reducing to zero and now it's going back to negative... f*ck.

think. think. think.

in other news, my wifey has landed to new jersey and started to work...

discoursed by jeff @ 2:30 PM | 1 comment(s) | permalink

Friday, April 15, 2005

barbecue

im the barbecueman. yes i am and i barbecued kilos of chicken wings and legs, pork, and big fishes from morning till evening. i wasn't appointed to do this smoky task but i did it anyway because i missed grilling stuffs.

why too many stuffs to grill? well, there were two birthdays celebrated this day (actually three but the third one was held in jumeirah beach park and i wasn't brave enough to endure the searing heat) and it was held in jaffliya.

i had a great time...even i felt like a smoked ham. another well-enjoyed friday.

i didnt barbecue this..tsk.

i didn't barbecue the fish fillet..tsk.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:49 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

chinese-pinoy names

born during the night - andy lim
born blind - kenneth sy
born being swindled - lino co
born while cooking - nilo toh
born as 10th child - sam po
born while being courted - lily gaw
born fat - bob uy
born little - kathy ting
born different - eva yan
born with porridge - lino gaw
born looking for someone - allen sia
born while counterfeiting - faye king
born during Sunday - lyn go
born with malice - mali sia
born angry with someone - ally tan
born with picture - lara huan
born with sweets - ken dy
born undefined - sam ting
born while taking a bath - lily go
born not to take a bath - dinah lily go
born while buying - bill li
born secretly - tina go
born to pass flatus - otto tin
born ugly - kow yan
born easily - malou wang

plus k700i songs of the week (my damn pc is still down!)... i'm considering to buy an ipod...nah.

smashing pumpkins - 1979
bob marley - redemption song
the weedd - long hair
rivermaya - hinahanap hanap kita
maroon 5 - she will be loved
big mountain - baby i love your way
razorback - payaso

discoursed by jeff @ 12:11 PM | 4 comment(s) | permalink

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

happy birthday my little girl

she's already three years old and i left her when she was one. i wanna go home and see them. they probably don't recognize me anymore...

happy birthday maria juliana! i'll be home soon, inshalla.

discoursed by jeff @ 5:03 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Monday, April 11, 2005

the meeting

due to confidentiality, i would only point out the outcome of the meeting this morning. to other people involved, they were sad... others pissed off. but the big boss commented on my work a "no comment at all."

okay...

i ain't lifting my own chair here but i'm just doin' what i have to do... finish the job and get paid. i heard rumors also that one of us is gettin' a fluffy accomodation (i hope it's true). stay tuned.

discoursed by jeff @ 9:35 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Sunday, April 10, 2005

the lousy idea

i've been formulating this idea for almost a week now. a friend of mine, joel, who works part-time at the hotel as a waiter told me that food served there was very abundant. so we talked about the stuffs they served, the crepe, biryanis, croissants, juices, lamb chops, barbecues and others. i asked him what happened to the leftovers and told me that the food were disposed.

that gave me an idea.

leftovers from hotels were thrown out to the garbage bins. instead of doing that, why don't they keep the food with a longer lifespan and give it to the poor or better yet to famine-infested countries. foodstuffs collected by some agency (non-government or whatever) and sorted out fit for delivery. then it would be airlifted (if abroad) by a cargo plane or whatever chartered flight and paradropped to it's destination. it would only take just quick, just like what fedex or ups doin' the wee hours.

maybe i'm just bored but then again if i have the power of authority over it, then that i would do... instead of feeding the leftovers to stray cats and flies.

discoursed by jeff @ 9:00 AM | 1 comment(s) | permalink

Friday, April 08, 2005

kablog problem

i can't login to blogger (down maybe?) and so i have to edit this...

thursday night, it was archie's despedida (farewell) party. met new crazy friends and sang videoke the whole evening. food was superb. slept at dawn.

afternoon, i watched the burial rites of the late pope on television at jaffliya. the emotion was intense. farewell pope john paul II, you will be missed...

later in the evening, some domestic quarrel, a lousy idea, and jamming occurred. we made some crazy ala mtv videos of reaching out (bob's version of out of reach by gabrielle), moonstar 88's torete, and ang pag-ibig kong ito, avril lavigne's version of knocking on heavens door and parokya ni edgar's mr. suave. we looked like people who escaped from mental institution. it was fun. videos will be posted soon.

discoursed by jeff @ 9:21 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Thursday, April 07, 2005

weird dreams

few hours of sleep and in a drunk state due to vodka with pineapple and mountain dew intake i had disturbing dreams.

as i far as i can remember, the first part of my dream was i'm with my groupies arriving in a room and getting ready to jam the music. i noticed the black drum set for the first time and it's not yet installed. we're gleeful that we have now a real drum set. so i installed it. to my surprise, the tom-toms, bass drums, snare have a square marking and looked like lcds as if it is electronic. then it lights up on its own. numbers are showing...

the second one was a nightmare. i don't know how it occured but i'm making love with a boy! it's so sick.

alcohol deceives the mind... and almost didn't make it to work.

discoursed by jeff @ 12:35 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

license to drive

i received a sms message from my cousin george that he passed his road test on the second try which means he will be getting his driving license. it's hard to obtain the driver's license here in dubai. exams were strict and you have to take lessons from a driving institute before you take the tests.

only residents with a residence visa issued in dubai (which means i'm out) who is 18 years of age and above can obtain a license. if a resident of other emirate (abu dhabi, sharjah, etc) can be transferred. any person who has driving license from any other GCC countries (saudi arabia, kuwait, bahran, qatar, and oman plus uae) can be transferred without any hassles of having lessons and tests. people from other countries such as australia, france, japan, south africa, austria, germany, luxembourg, south korea, canada, holland, norway, sweden, belgium, greece, new zealand, spain, czech republic, iceland, poland, switzerland, cyprus, iran, portugal, turkey, denmark, ireland, singapore, finland, italy, slovakia, united kingdom and the united states can transfer their license as well provided that they are 18 years of age, have a valid driver's license, have a residence visa in dubai, filled the necessary documents like passport, passport-sized photo, the license, eye test report and others.

the driver's license he'll be having will be valid for 10 years. congrats insan!

discoursed by jeff @ 4:56 PM | 1 comment(s) | permalink

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Liberae sunt nostrae cogitationes

finally, i finished the last thirty pages of da vinci code last night. it was good and i still have hangover for it. also, i had an appointment in jaffliya trying to fix their printer. they bought a refill type instead of a genuine ink cartridge. not a good decision...

afterwards i made my late night stroll and headed back home, tequila waiting. raul, the guy who took us to ratsky that time was looking for a killing time. there my bottle goes...emptied.

later on we visited japs and i saw him very pissed off. it was the first time i saw him very serious and angry. i shut my mouth up. went home and slept the evening...trying to buy back some sleep i've lost few days back.

in other news, this afternoon's weather is very humid now... a 35 degree centigrade temperature and humid i think gettin' higher. a bottled water is now needed from my walk from office to home.

and by the way...the latin above is not related to this journal. it translates as our thoughts are free by cicero.

discoursed by jeff @ 5:00 PM | 3 comment(s) | permalink

Monday, April 04, 2005

last hurrah

my computer has been pestering me for two days. windows xp is not booting up. i suspected it was the ddram memory but it isn't. my pc have two operating systems, the oldschool windows 98 and the buggy windows xp professional. i booted up the windows 98 and worked fine.

i remembered, few days ago, i removed the service pack 2 from the system because bluetooth stopped working then the usb (which is plug n play) malfunctioned for no reason. bluetooth and usb worked as soon as i uninstalled it.

last night, i tried reinstalling the xp system due to service pack 2's garbage that left the registry and other files that weren't removed through the windows 98 system but it failed.

something's wrong.

later on i restarted it and it prompted me that the system needed for a surface scan... bad news.

finally, it revealed itself... bad sectors. that's the reason why xp failed because a lot of B's (tagged as bad sectors on scan disk) are showing up on the first and middle parts of the scan disk procedure. i turned it off immediately...

i will wait for the new drive till i transfer the files. information is very valuable.

discoursed by jeff @ 10:21 AM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

Sunday, April 03, 2005

requiescat in pace Karol Jozef Wojtyla

he was remembered as the people's pope to believers and non-believers of catholic faith. i still remember him when he used to swing his cane on the wee hours of vigil during the world youth day in manila. that was the first and last time i saw him personally. thank you santo papa for all the blessings and inspiration you have given us to this world.

special report on CNN

in pictures: pope john paul ii on bbc news

his biography on wikipedia

in other news, i started reading the controversial book da vinci code by dan brown. i'm on the early stages of the book and things are getting interesting page by page.

O, Draconian Devil! O Lame Saint!

discoursed by jeff @ 9:42 AM | 1 comment(s) | permalink

Friday, April 01, 2005

fooling around

no household chores, no sideprojects, no direction.

i spent my whole day attending little parties and meeting up with friends. i spent videoke and consumed red horse beer in the afternoon with my relatives at my aunt's place in jaffliya, bringing my pasalubong for my family to take them back home.

later in the evening we fetched joel's wifey at the airport. afterwards we headed to jap's place to celebrate boni's secret birthday (he didn't reveal when his birthday) party and spent some videoke and fake band performance (imagine a male vocalist lipsingin' with a female voice and the other band members headbangin' on a love song tune) until i realized i stayed up late again...

gee, another 4-hour sleep.

discoursed by jeff @ 11:17 PM | 0 comment(s) | permalink

The Dubai Chronicles