I’m very upset. What I just read on Inquisitr.com and Yahoo! Finance about Express Scripts made me shiver in disgust.

Express Scripts Inc., the middleman between pharmacies and drug producers, has decided to kick Walgreens out of its network, putting in trouble not just the company, but their several customers all around the continent (US) too. Apparently, for no good reasons: some sources say it’s because they’d need to pay 20% more in comparison to other pharmacies, but that’s not even verified. Actually, since Walgreens is VERY cheap to customers – and it also offers special discounts for families in need with the (annual) Prescription Savings Club at Walgreens – the decision is more troubling than benefiting to both parties. In particular, customers who own Express Scripts cards can no longer get Walgreens products from them and now have to spend more money to drive off-town to get their drugs. This is hardly a client-sided politics!

Now, does the Walgreens and Express Scripts dispute touch me? No, because I’m not a direct customer (I used their products through other family members) BUT it does touch my sensibility. I simply cannot accept a politics that goes against the customer’s good. Besides, Walgreens has been doing a lot of good to people in need with its Way to Well Fund™, its support to US troops (Tricare) and its initiatives and discounts aimed at helping the poorest getting information and cheap drugs to cure their own illnesses.

So now Walgreens is no longer part of Express Scripts’s pharmacy network, as of Jan. 1, 2012. It’s very sad… I hope Express Scripts will re-think its position and opt for their customers’ goods. Because Walgreens is so widely spread – and loved – that they have ALL to loose with this decision.

I’m going to signup on Facebook later only to add the Walgreens page and show my support. Also, I will add Walgreens on Twitter. Will you add Walgreens on Facebook and Twitter too? Let me know if you do.

ANYWAY, it’s time for my New Year Resolutions. 2012 perspects as a productive year and I want to start with renewed energy.

1. take advantage of FREE offers (meals, textbooks, pens, notepads, etc.) to save money and be less of a burden to my family
2. FINISH all my pages (and add more content) on ToyHeart.com and SailTheSky.me, as well as blog more regularly
3. help Chrissa with Academy.ice-pop.org and setup my random blog buzz.ice-pop.org (thanks honey!)
4. comment on my friends’ blogs more regularly
5. get to know some of my newest siblings better and more profoundly
6. attend two extra classes at Academy, for fun and for extra credits
7. get Chrissa a special ring <3
8. more interplanetary trips (I REALLY want to visit planet Junk!)

What are your Resolutions for the year 2012? Let me know!

‘Later guys.

So it looks like I’m gonna be an uncle again in two days. OMG, that’s only Thursday… and I don’t remember where I put my baby birth present… ! I’m gonna look for it later, when I’m done with homework. Who are the parents, you’d ask? Well… my brother Longreen and his wife Naral, of course. It’s going to be their first “biological” baby – whom they named Rou – and the first ever robot/Bajoran hybrid. I guess the Bajoran media are going to show cast it every where next week. . ^^

Remember my Christmas post from last year? Well, this year Chrissa is staying over for the holiday. She’s coming tomorrow and is staying until the 27th. I can’t wait!

Woody and Jessie made some room for her in our corner, so we can spend time together before sleeping. I don’t remember when she last stayed over anymore, but it’s been long… too long I’m happy my family was okay with having her sending are some days with us. I shouldn’t have doubted though, as my parents are some of the sweetest and most welcoming persons I’ve ever met.

Good thing that Chrissa is coming via teleport station and not on foot or by vehicle on wheels… because it snowed a lot this night in Genzano. Really! This morning I woke up and all roofs were covered in snow, including the yard and the edges of the streets. The bad thing is that all streets were covered with ice during the night, because of the low temperature, so going by vehicle or on foot is pretty dangerous. Hopefully, tomorrow all the snow will have melted so we can go out. Mom has university classes too, which she missed today because of the situation.

Regarding Chrissa, I have bought her a nice Christmas pressie for her at T-Mobile, one that I had been saving up for months. It’s a LG DoublePlay™ phone equipped with Android™ 2.3 “Gingerbread”, dual touch screens, two independent displays, 5-megapixel camera, QWERTY keyboard and sweet messaging options (Cloud Text™ and Group Text™, to interact with computers and tablets). The feature I liked the most is the multi-tasking capability of this phone, pretty useful when you’re a student who does almost everything on a computing device.

I would have bought one for myself too but, if we exclude my family and Chrissa, I don’t send many text messages a month, and I don’t use social networks a lot (for now, at least… I’m still unsure if I should join Diaspora or Facebook, for instance). On the contrary, Chrissa wants a Facebook account and many other things as soon as she can, so the LG DoublePlay™ is going to be VERY good for her.

What else? Ah, I read Twilight (the first book)…. AWFUL! O___o Please, dear Meyer, go take a writing course before you continue hurting  our eyes with such a childish writing! A pity, because the characters (excepting Bella) were good enough…

Questions:

- Do you spend many hours texting and using Facebook/other social networks?
- Do you like the LG DoublePlay™ as a social networking phone?
- Are you having somebod over for Christmas?

In other news, we celebrated my siblings Asha‘s and Dartride‘s birthdays a few days ago, on the 4th of December. Asha turned 16 and Darty is now a little 3 years old toddler. How cute!

Asha got a pair of pearl earrings from bro Ranth, a new Harry Potter book from mom, a pair of ZENNI cheap eyeglasses from dad (Asha is in love with that brand of prescription eyeglasses, and not just because they’re cheap – they’re stylish too, and dad is well happy to make her happy!) and finally, a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate from me and a group of my siblings.

Dartride got a pair of cuddly plushies and a Playschool construction set. Won’t mention how many hours he spent enjoying his new toys after the party. xD Ahah!

I have some things to do on this domain… add more visitor content, fix some links and add personal pages. I miss being able to writer extra long entries too — I wonder where has my fervor gone. ^^;

Paper is not enough to me, and it’s often associated with school work, so I’d rather not use it for personal purposes — with the exception of love letters to Chrissa on Valentines. Writing by hitting keys on a laptop keyword is like doing it on an old typewriter — awesome.

There is more to laptops than simple writing on a word processor — there’s Internet. There’s blogs. There’s the feeling of writing for yourself while a small corner of your mind knows that you won’t be the only one reading it. But you still don’t care, because your site may be public but you are THE wordsmith, you are the master of your thoughts and opinions.

Laptops are the perfect typewriter replacement — not desktops. You can’t carry desktops around. You can’t recharge a desktop battery and write your blogs and stories while sitting on the grass in a sunny day.

Questions: Do you own a laptop? A netbook? What do you love about it?

When I heard about Timothy, a young robot living in the US, a home carpet cleaning services austin worker, I remained open-mouthed for a long time before I could speak again. And I reflected: “How did this guy, so young, be so full of energy to give life to a second Robocity in Austin, US?“.

Timothy is the new hero – like Commander, Firebot, Speeder, and many other Robocitans who were the first to inhabit Robocity back in 1994, year of its first opening. They – and Timothy now – gave life to the strong community that exists nowadays, that keeps growing and teaching us more about life than life itself.

I know I haven’t really talked too much about these beautiful robots, but you know I prefer talking about my life and family members in my blog. Anyway, the young robot from http://www.thesteamteam.com/ is going to come over to Italy in a week, thanks to Commander, Primus and the current Leaders who paid for his airplane ticket. I’m eager to meet him in person. Will update you on the encounter when time comes.

Time to finish homework and go to sleep. I’m dead tired… Good night.

The project part of our Psychology & Education class, which only lasts one semester and it’s going to give us extra 7 credits (7C).

My work touches the learning condition of students with disabilities and what strategies teachers and educators can implement to rise the quality of instruction for these risk students.

My Psychology professor suggested we make large use of the Mentoring Minds‘s teacher tools, especially the Master Instructional Strategies Flip Chart, to identify areas of possible intervention.

I’m going to work with a class of 20 high school students in Iacon City, which means I’ll have to commute back and forth thrice a week until the end of the project. I’m too excited to feel tired though. The project starts this week and will go on until December 1st, when I’ll need to hand in a complete report and then work on my research paper for the class final term (on February 1st, 2012).

Sounds like a lot of work, I know, but I’m pretty happy with the perspective of helping those students achieve their goals. Doing good to others is always soul-fulfilling, you know.

I don’t know how I’m gonna handle classroom management, though. I’ll have to rely on Mentoring Minds or my professor for help, I guess. Hope to get my future students to collaborate some. ^^” Hehe.

I’ll keep you guys updated on my project!

Image credit: www.public-domain-image.com

I’m really glad he came down that decision, because he was getting annoying with us: moody here, moody there, no jokes, no relax… we could barely talk to him anymore without having him lift his tone and cursing. Not pleasant, at all. I wanted my brother back so badly!

My brother when he gets angry… Ugh!

Not that Doc has never been that moody… That’s part of his personality, I guess. Just… not THAT much please! It’s barely endurable, trust me. Besides… why all that mess for a simple order of nursing scrubs?! Doesn’t make sense to me. Ruining the family atmosphere only because your scrubs weren’t shipped on time is by no means justifiable. Ah!

I hope he gets his lesson.

Question:
Have you ever bought or even just looked up anything from http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Women/?

Red scrub my brother Doc bought for his assistant

This week has been a strange one. Life on the Web couldn’t be sadder, first with Steve Job’s death, then with Google PageRank being shut down for over 24 hours while Google performed an update of the toolbar query URL.

Hearing about Steve’s death made me cry for hours. I was shocked. Besides having been an Apple fan practically since the day I was first produced, it was Steve Jobs’ strength, creativity and desired to change the world that I always admired. The thought he’s no longer part of this world is disconcerting… planet Earth just lost a wonderful, irreplaceable person.

I hugged my iPhone and cried. I know, that won’t bring Steve back but it was my way to mourn.

Then we come down to Google PageRank, that was suddenly shut down on October 6th and it took over 24 hours to come back online. Google simply changed its toolbar query URL, but they did it without warning, so all toolbars took several hours to replace the old URL with the new one. You can imagine what mess that provoked… People freaked out, especially those (like me) who need advertising and reviews to keep going.

It’s fine. I mean it. Toolbars are back to normal since yesterday, today everything works smoothly and everybody’s happy again.

Questions:
~ How did you react to Steve Jobs’ death news?
~ Did you care about PageRank going down for 24+ hours?