Star Trek redux

Last year (as early as January) I had an entry about how I liked Star Trek - mentioning what's so good about it. At about that time, there was hardly any news about anything Trek related, and I'm sure I shared some form of frustration with other Trek fans about how this missing genre piece was a blow to the Science Fiction world.

Was it disinterest that did this? Hardly - I would like to think that it was the general direction set by the producers of Trek, and the not too keen writing they dished out for the episodes. They even tried a retcon (of sorts) with the creation of Enterprise (carefully keeping mum on Star Trek, per se... and presenting a less perfect world where Humans were still being treated by Vulcans with mistrust or condescension.

Well the series seemed to be exciting at times, yet these exciting ways were still a far cry from the intellectually stimulating stories of a franchise that had seen better days. Still... even when they decided to stop Trek production altogether, I had hopes of watching even some movie or direct to TV special, updating what we know of Trek.

Maybe I was not the only one doing the wishing... Paramount, not really wanting to release the franchise so others could try producing it, opted for a Trek film... number XI it should seem, and would bring back the focus to Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

But wait, Deforest Kelly (who played Dr. McCoy) has long since been gone from this world (soon followed by James Doohan - who played Scotty), so how would this pass muster?

Answer... it would be a retelling (of sorts) of Trek's crew for the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701) . Yes it would have Kirk and company - but stepping into these characters shoes would be a new generation of actors (and actresses).

After all, if the roles of Batman and Superman can be handled by many faces (albeit, not at once) why not Trek? But the produces know that Trek has always had a strong fanbase - some would say, bordering on zealousness - so they (the production people) were probably cautious, not wanting to anger such loyal fans. So how did they make the announcement?

They started by announcing the plans to do a movie - based on the characters of Kirk and co. When fans did not protest, they started searching for people they could include in the cast. How fares the names of the people connected to the film? For starters, the seemingly most recognized actor amongst them (by way of Lord of the Rings) is playing the good Doctor McCoy, a known actor - thankfully recognized for his role as a villain in Heroes the TV show, will play the famous Vulcan (as portrayed in the past by Leonard Nimoy) and a relatively new actor will be playing Kirk (or at least, relatively new to me - recognition-wise).

How do I feel about this? I'm glad there's a new initiative to start (revive) the franchise, but like many fans apparently, I'll be reserving the right to either love them, or hate them - after I've seen the movie. After all, if being a Trek fan has taught me anything, it's to be very patient. Until then "Live Long and Prosper"

Back to the grind...

The Christmas season officially ended last Sunday (with the celebration of Three Kings), and we just celebrated it by way of getting together, and, likewise celebrating Dict's birthday. His birthday was actually on the 3rd of January, but everyone was too caught up in their own New Year revelry activities to get together that time.

As for me, this Christmas vacation was one activity after another, I literally had to stop and decline a few Christmas and New Year reunions, or I'd find myself too fatigued with all the trips and too filled with all the rich food being offered in homes or bought in restaurants - due to our visiting overseas relatives' craving for food they have not had in a long time.

Had I my way, I would have wanted this last day to be one of pure rest, seeing as Monday would be a 'back to the grind' day.

Yup... we're all getting back to a semblance of routine - of waking up real early and going to work, braving the traffic, working our usual tasks and clocking off late in the afternoon (or early evening) to get back home in time for dinner with the kids where we could ask how each one's day was.

In a way, I'm rather glad to get back to this routine - I started to feel that I needed a break from our Christmas break. Its not our visiting relatives fault, its just all these activities were tiring - and it was not all concentrated to our visiting guests either. Adding complication to this set-up was the fact that traffic in the Metro had gotten so bad, it was better for us just to stay home than brave the malls in those few days before Christmas day.

But as we usher in 2008, what exactly did I find memorable?

For one, the fact that Barbie (my wife) had all her brothers and sisters here in the Philippines - a rare event these days, specially since half of them are now working in Dubai, and are thus U.A.E.-based, while another was recently posted in Germany. So you can imagine that this gathering was welcomed by all. Yes, it was hectic and tiring - but old acquaintances and all... it was good to see them. Whether such a grand reunion will ever happen again, who knows?... and who knows when? Not in 2008.

Included in this package was the new addition to the Suzon family - my new Godchild, Jon Gabriel (or Gabby for short), who we were all glad to finally meet. Somewhere in between, Dict got married - didn't I say things were hectic? Despite a few faux pas in said wedding and reception ; we enjoyed the experience.

What I would have wanted to have more of...

Family reunions from my family's side - granted that we're all here anyway, we rarely find time to see each other. My dad's got his own life, my mom lives outside of the Metro - about two hours drive to a province, and this Christmas rarely had us seeing each other. I'm sure I missed a few of the larger family reunions - but I guess it couldn't be helped.

I did get to ask for two jars filled with Grace's great Macapuno (sweetened coconut), which was spectacular as a dessert by itself (and possibly helped me gain a few pounds during the holidays), and enjoyed some of her cooking. This type of celebration however was cut short when her brother suddenly died right after Christmas - possibly enjoying too much of the holiday feasts. This really put a damper on my dad's family's celebration.

Barbie's family was just too large to help organize a trip to Cuenca and visit my mom, and the originally scheduled trip was postponed for one reason or another. I had to make a quick trip to mu mom on the 24th of December - to bring her Christmas ham and other items.

My side of the family finally had its reunion, of sorts, after the New Year - and it was not as complete a visitor's list as we had hoped. But at least. Things were just too hectic to do things as we wanted. I would have wanted a more complete, more organized trip - but under the circumstances, I took what I could.

I did not have time to meet friends... of which I had basically three sets - S.A.G.A., Jaycees and work colleagues. S.A.G.A. folks? Guess we were all too busy to even have the usual post-Christmas reunion dinner. So nada... zip. I hardly had time to meet Gerry, Ariel and Carlos - Deke's gone to Canada, Fred at least I got to see in his niece's birthday... but that's it.

As for the Jaycees' annual get together - I missed that too, since it had its conflicts with our entertaining Barbie's family. Office colleagues? Forget it. We were lucky to have our post-X-mas party Starbucks get together - that's it. Oh well, at least we finally saw each other - and got to update ourselves with everyone's> goings-on during the Christmas break - oh yeah, I forget... there was that bazaar we all agreed to go to.

After all that - it must be tiring to read this entry... imagine living all the details. Will next Christmas be as eventful? Hope not. I'd appreciate something less hectic, less intense, less tiring. I wouldn't mind the company - but I do mind the events happening all to close to each other.

I never bothered thinking of Christmas stress - yet here it was. Oh well... I did get an iPod nano (series 3), and Bryce did get a new memory card for his Sony P.S.P.... Bernice still believe in Santa... and Barbie got to have a get together that may - or may not be repeated in two years.

Christmas was grand, despite the stress - but you can understand why I was looking forward to working again. back to some semblance of normalcy... even if its work.

Imagine that... my preferring work to vacation. Maybe in a few months time, I'll get back to normal - and will once again prefer vacations to work. I just need to regain my breath - and try to get back to doing those things I wanted to do before the New Year came. Ah well. better late than never in that regard.

But right now... back to the grind? About time! One more week like this and I'd propbably crawl back begging to work.

Lousy Internet service

Have you ever had the experience of paying for your first-ever D.S.L. service, getting it right the first few months, then suddenly finding it difficult at times – later difficult to get a signal most of the time, and still having to pay said D.S.L. services because of a 2-year lock down on services your supposed to be getting?

How many of you are in this same boat?

My D.S.L. service falls under P.L.D.T. and for the most part – including today, the above first paragraph, specifically the latter portion of said paragraph is what my family has been experiencing this past holiday season.

Reason enough for me to write this entry in MS Word at my home PC (its currently 12 noon, January 2, 2008)- hoping to post it later should we find an internet connection that is actually working constantly, or worse, maybe I have to go to another location – pay more, just to upload this entry.

By the way, I’ve been able to insert this in 2:50PM, January 3, 2008... almost a day later. This is not just based on P.L.D.T. D.S.L.'s availability, but my availability to access it as well. After all, tehy could claim that during the times I was out, they had some service - but when you consider this service to supposed be 24x7, that can't be an excuse.

note: I would normally be in the office at this time, had I not still been on vacation leave - so even if there is currently available service, this has the tendency to degrade after office hours... when I (and possibly everyone else) need it at home.

We’ve done the usual calling up the company to report this – and we get assurances that things will be looked into… but I wonder if things really get looked into. No follow up calls telling us what the problem’s cause was, what action items were considered and if our lives are now better with said promised service now being given to us.

In many companies, this would fall under ‘not meeting Service Level Agreements’, on the assumption that service was being provided and should it not be provided as agreed upon, certain levels of remuneration to the affected party which did not receive said agreed service would be automatically in place.

Unfortunately, ‘us’ public consumers – the ones that get the cheaper D.S.L. services individually, and not through a company seem to be at the bottom of this service provider's priorities. I guess, people like us have no clout - hence are not worth worrying about in terms of (non)quality services being received.

Calls of complaints are taken, noted, and possibly lost in the shuffle between the root cause assessment process/repair considerations… possibly even placed in a folder called ‘not really worth solving’... or why bother with a folder when the trash can is just right there?

Well I, for one, am getting frustrated and its times like this that I wonder if we can somehow come up with a stronger consumer protection program to get enough clout to get P.L.D.T.-D.S.L. to fix their service. If anyone reads this and knows, let me in on how we can do just that – for I am really tired of sub-standard service being given to me by way of my rarely-accessible internet connection.

I will be posting this in here, and maybe in my Friendster account and possibly other places where I hope it can be seen by many – including P.L.D.T.-D.S.L.'s service-connecting and maintaining people.

I shouldn’t even need to do these things – yet, in a city where the reality of service seems to still be borne more from marketing hype than technical delivery of what was agreed upon, we consumers need to be able to find alternate means to get our gripes across.

If this cannot be solved due to reasons they would be embarrassed to mention, then they should at least allow us to get out of said 2-year contract – without our suffering any legal repercussions, especially since it was them that did not meet the service contract specifications.

We should be allowed to try other services – as we seek the better service that a more conscientious service provider may be able to offer us.

But this begs the question : Is there a better (in terms of service availability) and more conscientious Internet Service Provider we can possibly find?