Saturday, March 24, 2007

Hospital horror stories

This is not new, I've seen a few bloggers who shared their personal experience in this area. However, what prompted me to blog this was after watching a story in the tv program "Imbestigador" - sharing a story about a patient potentially neglected by the hospital staff(s) that resulted to death.

Four years ago, I brought my son to the emergency room of the Philippine Children's Medical Center wanting to be sure that he doesn't have dengue. While waiting to be called, a child was brought to the hospital, who seem to live in the slums and claimed that a snake has bitten her.

A few minutes later, the child had an attack of sorts that prompted the staff(s) to give her a CPR. While doing it, another staff, who appears like a senior one in position, approached them and said something. They started laughing and had a quick hearty exchange of words.

Very shortly, the child died, and they began comforting the relative beside them then.

It was shocking. My son, confused, could only ask me, "bakit ganun sila?"

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Level 35 in Granado Espada


Here's an update on our Granado Espada closed beta gaming experience. I should have posted this much earlier but so much stuff got in the way.
  • We joined the Ninja Monkey faction. Our family reputation is currently at 192. We need around 200 to be able to build your own faction.
  • If the enemy's name is written in white color, you get no EXP. If red, 40% of the original EXP. It is higher for orange, around 60% or 80% of the original EXP. Yellow is the best as you'll get all the EXP.
  • After the tainted quest, talk to Claude who will give you a challenge to defeat him. Unfortunately, at first, we had a hard time beating him as his one attack can hit you all three. If you are level 21, it will cause you 483 damage. His special skill or stance damages around 960 in one direction. Of course, we conquered him in the end.
  • We got into a lot of quest. Make sure that your squad is big when you enter the Tetra Ruins as the spawn rate is high.
  • We got into 29 duels and won 16 of them.
The closed beta will be done soon and our account will be wiped out. It is one unforgettable experience and hope to join more closed beta opportunities like this soon. I hope to meet some Granado Espada closed beta testers at iBlog3: the 3rd Philippine Blogging Summit.

Also, are you a DreamVille member? If yes, add me!
(P.S. Referring to the photo included here, our family is the one carrying that huge sword!!!)

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Up and running again with Granado Espada


Our Granado Espada playing adventure was paused since Sunday night as I tried securing the computer where it was loaded. Well its the kids' computers and didn't care much about then. Without agreeing to any re-formating, the machine is now fixed, with 700+ RAM and running so cool.

At Level 19, we were able to do the following:
  • Make a mission or quest to get a reward that you could use to avail of upgrades.
  • You can get soldier cards, NPC cards, that you can use during fight quest.
  • We were able to buy ourselves the round-top hats. Not so cute for the elementalist but the guys really look handsome with them. Those nice costumes are pretty darn expensive.
  • Harder to level up once you reach level 15.
  • Ramiro almost kicked our ass after we said that the photo of a lady musketeer he showed is pretty. It was unbelievable and ridiculuous actually. He was able to summon flame ground and deluge of an elementalist, among other powers. Two of us got killed in that brief encounter. Fortunately, upon revival, we were able to beat him and he already pledged his loyalty to us. To utilize Ramiro, we need to have an extra space in our barracks (we already have 4) which we don't have now. We're still figuring this out.
  • In the old armour quest part 1, we were able to find the item behind a stone. The price is an EXP card with 1000 points.
  • We experimented with the new poses we bought. (as a Mom, now that's pathetic but the kids were having so much fun with it)

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Joining GSIRT Philippines


The idea of organizing government security incident response team has always been an advocacy by friends in the law enforcement and IT security field. I've always been supportive but at times doubt the direction of such body will take.

Last February 21, I found myself in the meeting discussing possible activities of those who joined the Microsoft's Government Security Program. PNP CIDG's Colonel Gilbert Sosa took the lead in pushing for the creation of a GSIRT team that is currently a unit under group. We elected several persons at that time who can function as the interim team. I became part of that group and here's the officers' list:

President – Col. Gilbert Sosa

Vice-President – P/Sr Antonio Delgado

Secretary – Ms. Ollie Hulguin

Treasurer – Mr. Richard Paul Quinlog

Auditor – Janette Toral

Last Thursday, our group met again and decided on activities and services that GSIRT can offer from reactive, proactive, to other services within the government. There's also a need to be part of international group to formalize GSIRT's recognition internationally.

To raise the resources, we agreed to hold a Security Incident Response conference whose income will be utilized to faciliate the fees for international membership and buy resources needed to support GSIRT operations.

My spirit is high with this advocacy as its contribution possibility to the community has a lot of potential.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Toral Family enters Granado Espada


Finally, I got the chance to pick up the CD yesterday and join the close beta of Granado Espada. There's at least five of us in the family who agreed playing alternately with the intent of fully exploiting the game.

When preparing for this game, one of the concerns that we had is our Internet connection. Good thing I'm testing Globe 3G at this time using the Huawei E220 USB modem. So far, we've been playing well using this as our primary Internet connection.

As far as Granado Espada is concern, day 1, we've learned the following:
  • It is a challenge to play with it due to numerous controls.

  • As we're just starting, it will take some time to master what each character is capable of. So far we're playing elementalist, wizard, and fighter.

  • The fun thing about it is that it is easy to move or level up.

  • There are also items that can be found to heal yourself while playing.

  • On some dungeons, it is best to partner with other players as the opponents are very strong.

More updates on this one next time. The kids are playing! We're now level 15!