Sick...

Yesterday I felt like shit... there... done :P
No, but seriously, I didn't write yesterday because I felt very bad and had lots of things to do.
I hadn't felt like that in ages, I had stomachache, headache, allergies and was a little tired because I went to run on Sunday...
I think something that I eat was making me sick, I even threw up... and after that I felt a lot better... the weird part is that the only different thing I ate was some beet and red cabbage...
Anyway... I feel better today.

Demo...

One thing I kinda miss about games is demos, being able to try a game before buying it. Now most of the times you either have to wait till a game is reviewed or hope for it to be good, or at least that it has most of the features that were promised, and that they don't have game breaking bugs. Most of the times games are enjoyable, but probably not worth paying up front 60 bucks, or 40, or even 30...
I won't lie, it has been ages since I bought a game at full price... the last one I remember was Diablo 3... and it came like 2 years ago... but it was in part because I didn't have a computer capable of playing most new games properly and I didn't have a job. Now that I have both, a good laptop and a job, I have been looking at new games again, one that I had in mind was TitanFall... it looked freaking awesome... but it didn't convince me because it is exclusively an online multiplayer game...

Yesterday I saw that it had a 48 hours trial and downloaded it to my PC, I have played it for a few hours and it was really good, I have been considering buying it... but I think I'll wait a little, I did enjoy playing it, but... I have some other games that I want to finish first...

Here is a little video I recorded today.

Pain...

So, for the past months I have had a mild pain in my hip muscles, they feel tight when I walk or stretch them more than I do when I run. At first it didn't bother me too much, but this past weeks I have been training a little harder and therefore I have been feeling more tired, sore and tight... so I started to read what was happening... apparently this kind of tightness is common among people that run long distances and have office jobs... but it's not a big problem, with some stretching exercises the tightness can be reduced, although I have been doing some myself this week for that same reason, but I just started doing them without reading or anything... it helps ease my mind knowing that I was doing them right, the last thing I want is to injure myself.

This week I'm resting and hoping this Sunday I can beat my record, and after that I want to start a real training program to run half a marathon.

Sometimes you forget your shirt...

...and yeah... sometimes you steal others titles :P
So... I forgot my shirt today at my house... I have been packing it on my backpack because I walk to my job most of the times and since it's like 3 km with a heavy backpack, I always sweat at least a little. And I don't like a sweaty shirt... so yeah... because of that I forgot it... but I have a Dream Theater t-shirt... still... I feel awkward since this is an office... lol

Also... since I said I was going to post about fruit... last week I found a match made in heaven, nectarine with Indian Chai tea, I liked it a lot, the combination of the fruit with the tea boosted the flavors and complemented pretty well.

Color Run...

A few weeks ago I had my first color run... I didn't plan on running it, but it was held on the park I go to run on Sundays. I got to the park at 7:30 and I saw people... almost every time they have events of that kind I don't feel comfortable running... there is way too many people and one way or another they close at least part of the race track so I have to run between people...

I ran anyway, but I changed my normal route, which is only running on the track, to an artificial canal they have in the park (called Paseo Santa Lucia). I made a trip around the park (like 7km) and when I got to the start of the race I noticed that the run had not started yet and it was just going to start... so I decided to run along with them, it was only another 5k and I was feeling like I needed more :P

So I did... it was just like any other race... except there where people throwing colored dust at your face... like literally at your face... at least to me... I think I ate some too... it wasn't that bad... but I don't think I'll run one again... it was hard removing the color from while showering... Also, I broke my record for 5k at 4:56 minutes per kilometer :P

Unfortunately I don't have any pics from that day...

Accidentally bought a game...

So... I accidentally bought a game a few days ago... but I'm just kinda happy... or not pissed anymore at my bank... which I kinda hate... but I'm there still because in the end it will save me money when I go to Juárez...

So why accidentally? In June I went on vacations and used my debit card on the cities I visited, apparently that made the banks system block it. But... only to buy things with it, I still could get money at a ATM and use Paypal. So I didn't notice until later.

Long story short... it was august and I still wasn't able to make the bank unblock my card... in august only I made at least 70 calls to try and unblock it, but I was never able to speak to any one, it always left me on hold for like 5 minutes then dropped the call... I was able to speak twice in July, the first time the agent told me that it was done, my card was unblocked, but it wasn't, the second time they told me that they where going to return me a call which never happened...

So after that I did the thing I should have done from the start, not after two freaking months (well... other than cancel it and go to another bank...), I reported it as lost and requested a new one, but you know how this things work... or don't work... I got it, activated it and had to wait a day or two before I could use it... or that's what they told me...

After the first day I wasn't able to use it to buy online... the second day it was rejected... then I linked it to my Paypal account and it didn't work... then the next day Netflix auto charged successfully (I have it with my Paypal account)... but I was able to use Paypal with the other one too... so I saw a game I had on my wish list on Steam and tried to buy it...

First time Steam told me that my card was declined... I changed my phone number to my old one (the one I had from Juárez) and... it worked... so I bought it not really by accident, but I didn't think that it would charge me, I'm glad it did though... but the frustration I felt... jkfdjska;jfd s;jkl;jfdksjl, unfortunately there is nothing I can do to make them pay for it... at least nothing legal -_-...

But on the bright side... the game is cool, lol. It's Kingdoms of Amalur and I have enjoyed it :P

New project...

For the last weeks I have been recording some game footage, mildly editing it and uploading it to Youtube, I have been doing this because I really like it, find it entertaining and want to learn more about it, although I don't want to make a gaming channel, not yet at least.

I want to use this as a tool to learn to speak English, by doing it this way I force myself to do it right, or at least that's how I feel. My biggest problem to learn to speak it is that I never had someone to speak to and practice... and let's get real, I barely speak to anyone on any language, so this might be the best way other than going to a club or a school, lol.

So my first project is recording a full play through Dark Souls and commenting it, and the second project I have is playing through a Horror Game, in that one I will be recording my reaction too... I have played that game for like an hour and it was freaking scary as hell, lol.

These are some of the last videos I uploaded, each boss was difficult and gave me a lot of hell, lol, specially the second one (Black Dragon Kalameet), when I defeated him I was like FUUUUUUUUUUUCK YEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! (not joking, lol)

Bread...

So I have been making bread for some time now, I really like to do it and have gotten somewhat good at it, to the point where I don't follow recipes or measure the ingredients. And since I like to experiment, I made my own sour dough (again), I have had this one for half a year at least, and it tastes really good, better than the first one I made back in Juárez.

Although, a great part of why I don't follow recipes is because I read a lot of theory of bread making, not just practice, it really is something amazing. I remember a Ted Talk video about bread that made me respect it a little more, how it is somewhat like creating life.

Rest...

Every month and a half I get a free Saturday, today is that day, I wanted to go hiking... but it's freaking raining, so I decided to rest this day and do nothing... other than the normal stuff except for work. So I have all morning to lay and rest a little. But it's impossible when there are so many things that I need to do... laundry, wash the dishes, buy the groceries... this sucks XD... although slightly less than normal

But at least today I don't have to go out until I feel like it, which is nice, lol. I just hope it doesn't rain all freaking day -_-, or that some one gives me an umbrella, I don't know why but I haven't bought one, lol... I know I should.

Mount Doom on a rainy day

Mount Doom on a cloudy day :P

Mice....

I have nothing new to write today... so I'm going to write about my (not so) new mouse. I know most people feel comfortable with just two buttons on their mouse, and maybe a scroll wheel. But for me, I really like to have more options and be able to configure it.

A few years ago I bought a entry level gaming mouse, the Logitech MX518, it wasn't that expensive, it had back and forth buttons, and customizable dpi. It was a great mouse, but it was starting to show it's age, one of the buttons was already making double click and another one sometimes didn't register the click.

On my job I have had the opportunity of using normal mouses... and I hate them... even the ones that aren't bad feel bad against the one I had.

So, when I decided that I should probably buy another one I read and saw reviews about many brands and different type of mice. But the more I read the more I was thinking on investing more on it, investing on something that would last years and at least be as good as the one I already had.

In the end I decided to buy the Logitech G502 Proteus Core, a wired mouse with up to 12000 dpi, back and forth, fast scroll wheel, and many many other features that for a moment I thought they might be too much... but what the hell... It's not like I have some one that depends on me or anything, and I really wanted to try something nice, well... I bought this with the SSD, so... I double dipped there :P

From the moment I started playing with it I knew that this was a good investment too, so far I have been very happy with it, and I have really used it's functions, well, some of them, but it's so much better than the one I had. It feels freaking good, the switches this thing has feel way better than any other mouse I have used, it's smooth, and the weight is adjustable to make it feel better.

More info on the mouse
http://gaming.logitech.com/en-us/product/g502-proteus-core-tunable-gaming-mouse

l44t h4ckz0r

So yesterday I had a problem, apparently some of our sites where hacked, they where redirecting to a Russian site... After checking some things my boss found that the main problem was caused because someone changed the .htaccess files on CakePHP and Wordpress. We restored those files quickly and I was looking at how it had been done. It was somewhat stressful.

After "resolving" that I had to work on some other things and didn't find what could possibly be the problem. I backed up everything (I usually back up the Database every week) and made sure everything was working properly, and checked every now and then that the sites where working normally.

Today I was checking if everything was working again and it was... though I decided to check the .htaccess files and they where changed... again... but they weren't redirecting.... I restored everything as quick as I could and decided to check some other sites that aren't being used.

In one of those I found something weird, a lot of files that I didn't recognize, so I was checking file by file. It was on an old Wordpress site that I don't develop... I don't even know if it is used, but it probably was the backdoor that made this whole mess possible. I checked every file and the ones that didn't look like they belonged to Wordpress I renamed and moved to another folder.

Now my boss is updating every site that uses Wordpress to make sure that this doesn't happen... I just hope that that was the problem, lol. If not... I'll have to look at it again XD

SSD === Speeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!!!!!

Back on June I bought a gaming laptop, before buying it I read a lot... a freaking lot about everything I could need, one thing that always popped was the need for a Solid State Disk, the laptop I bought only had a Hard Disk Drive, a 5400 rpm HDD, which I was OK with, I have been using them before, both laptops I have had used them and they didn't felt slower because of that, or that was what I thought.

When I got my laptop I felt that sometimes it would take more time than it seems it should need. Apparently on my older laptops they didn't feel slow because everything was slow in comparison, but on this one it really felt like a bottle neck.

When I ran a game it would take a few seconds and load the game, like it always does. When I closed them it would close them immediately and I would have to wait a few seconds before the system would respond normally because it had to write things on the HDD, in comparison, on my older laptops it would take more time closing the games while freeing resources. So it would seem normal to me to wait after closing something a game (or almost any program for that matter).

Since I knew I had to go back on July for Sergio's wedding I decided to buy a SSD. First, when I installed the system on it, it was very quick, like 15 or 20 minutes, while on the HDD it took me almost an hour. Booting up windows is quick as hell too, in the time it takes me to type my password, pick my mouse and click the Chrome icon it already finished, and Chrome is launched freaking quickly too. If I need to restart it is done in less than a minute, while on my other laptop it can take me up to 10 minutes before it restarts and boots up again.

So far, this has been a great investment, I would highly recommend it, and I don't think I can go back to HDD, unless it is for storing things like music or games, etc. My games are installed on the HDD (my laptop has two bays) since they don't really benefit that much from the speed of the SSD, and since it only runs the game on the HDD and everything else on the SSD it no longer feels like a bottle neck.

Changes...

So it's time to write again, it's been a long time since last we posted, like 8 months apparently. Since then so many things have happened. I'll try to make it quick so I don't bore you all.

First things first. My last post was about me finally running a 10k (not what my phone says is 10k, but an official race, measured and everything), since then, many things have changed.

I started exercising like 2 years ago, and some time I decided that I wan't to do this thing called an Iron Man Triathlon, for me that sounded impossible (it's like 4km swimming, 41km running and 180km on bike, all on the same day), or at least that's what it would have looked for me a few years ago, to this day I can run 15k in 90 minutes, thought I know that if I rest well and take a little more care of myself I can run half a marathon no problem. So far I haven't done it because I'm always tired since I almost never rest, but I need to change that... which means I need to stop walking to my job everyday, which is a 30 minutes walk with a 10 kilos backpack, my laptop alone weights like a fat baby :P, and doing some other things.

Anyway, I never noticed how much I had changed until recently. Just a few months ago I realized that I had lost almost 1/4 of myself, and since January I have been loosing more and more weight, mainly because I didn't wan't to pay extra when I went skydiving, lol.

Before I started to exercise I was weighting more than 120 kilos, and now I'm around 85, there's still some more weight to loose, but that's nothing now.

Photo of my graduation back in 2010

Photo taken when I got to Monterrey in April 2013

Photo after skydiving taken on June 2014

Photo taken before Sergio's wedding

Since last year I have accomplished so many things, I got a good job, I became independent, I finally got to skydive (which is probably the best thing I have done yet), I got to travel a little, finally bought a good laptop. And some other minor things that I have done that I'll probably write some other day.

And... for the first time in years... I have been obsessed with a game, lol, Dark Souls, I have played it at least 60 hours, and it has been one of the hardest games that I have played in recent years. I leave this video of one boss that I fought today, although it was easy since I already have a good level and awesome equipment :P (just to put in perspective, a hard boss took me a week to beat, lol).