Adventure Book II

CHANGING WORLDS

2010-03-03T05:38:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a very long while, primarily because of facebook. I have been writing bits and posting pictures on there for quite some time. Still I felt a need to post here again for an update and because this book will soon be wrapped. Same as with book one, it will not be wrapping up at the place I planned it, nor for the reason I was originally going to end it. It is wrapping up because blogger, the tool on which I am writing this, is shutting down this particular method of posting later this month, in favor of their own hosting methods. I can totally understand this move on their part. Still, I also have no desire to be stuck with a "blogspot" domain or any other type of hosting under their control, so I will return to my old ways.

A bit of explanation: As you may remember, BOOK I was done in a different format than this. I had my Macbook at the time and using a web authoring tool called Rapid Weaver to construct the entire site. I still use it for the site, but when I went to Korea in January 2009, I sold that Macbook to Victor, my trainer. It wasn't the most useful thing to have in Korea for reasons I explained back then. Korea is a world wrapped up in Windows and with internet so fast, no one cares about WIFI. There was only one place that I knew of, where I could even connect my Macbook. Everything is web based in Korea, their mail, news, blogs, even their games. I found it better to do my thing at internet cafes which are on every corner there and super fast. I eventually returned to the Philippines, to a province not far from Manila. Thanks to Dylan, who I stayed with, and who had a great many computers, I eventually got my hands on another Mac, this time a Hackintosh system he made using the same parts found in a Mac Pro and an E-Fix chip to make it work. That eventually broke in a power outage, and we switched to using iDeneb OS X to make that system run. Recently I bought that system from him and I am back up and running with all my same tools and software as before. With blogger shutting down the FTP method I use to do this, and since I now have Rapid Weaver and my own high speed wired internet connection, I will be starting BOOK III with a return to Rapid Weaver's blog.

In my last post, on December 27th 2009, I wrote:

"Next year, it is time to reach for the stars and do all that I really wanted to do. Actually, I'm not waiting until next year, I've already started, but that will be my focus. I live in a lively house, now filled with nine people, in an interesting city, and everyday can be an adventure. I could say a lot about just how different and amazing a life one can create if they choose to be a little creative. It makes me look forward, always, to whatever might come next. I can relax, think about what I really want in life, rather than suffer the stress and business of the rat race, and actually go after it. That makes life real."

So now, being two months into the new year, an update on that. Me and Annalyn have left that lively house with so many people in it, and got our own place. We have been putting a lot into getting all the things we need to startup a new home. Luckily Dylan sold us the bed, computer screens, and many other things we were using at the old place, including my big Hackintosh system. Now we've settled down and things are extremely relaxing. I don't know if I wrote about this before, but I could only work very late at night at the old house because of so much activity inside and outside all day. Here is so quiet I can work anytime. I also just got some of the equipment I need to complete my home studio for full production. My busness has been doing better and better and with some of the new connections I have made, there may be more opportunities for travel and adventure this year.

We are already talking about a trip to Hong Kong, possibly to get new iPhones also among other things, and a trip to Japan later. There may even be a return to Korea. The sky is the limit now as we have tons of time and I can create what I want. Which is where I am at the moment, in that place of creating my next big project. I've already started on it and just need the last bits of information and inspiration to take the plunge. I got those earlier today. I can't even begin to imagine how great will be the adventure in this year of 2010 and how amazing will be the growth of this new life. It will all be chronicled in the upcoming BOOK III, complete with new galleries as well. Book II was an interesting ride, maybe not as cool as BOOK I, but still quite a lot of fun. I suspect BOOK III is where the ultimate adventure will begin!

CLOSING IN ON THE END

2009-12-27T05:51:00.001-08:00

Well, it is getting close to the end of a full year of adventure. I left the USA in the summer of 2008 about the time of the writers strike. I spent all of last year in Cebu City in the Philippines. I started this year of 2009 with a bang in Cebu City, full of fireworks, great friends and too much drinking. Me and my friends then went to Korea where I spent another few months of adventure. ow I am back in the Philippines where more adventure awaits. I will cover the year in detail if I do a "year end review".

So for the next year I want to expand the adventure. My business is doing better and I want to start moving toward what I really want to do. Although I am finding a good audience creating educational content online, based on my skills from my working life, it is not really my ultimate goal. My roommate Dylan also has considerable skill in the education and training industry, on the technical side, and has been talking about getting into the action too. When his site is up and running we have the opportunity to do some cross promotion and joint ventures like the real internet marketers do. But that is only one piece of the puzzle.

Recently I've been reading some articles and watching the sites of different artists who are really doing exactly what they want to do, and finding an audience that joins in and makes it a viable business, or even a path to getting rich. Some are doing comics, some cartoons, some serious CGi shows, music and some doing out there things we may not have thought of were it not for the net. That got me thinking.

When I was kid, I was most influenced by a TV cartoon called Robotech. It wasn't really known as anime back then, but the show was cobbled together from a few different anime shows to make something kind of new for America. I knew then what I really wanted to do. Unfortunately, I forgot that along the way and went in many different directions. I even fell victim to the Hollywood trap and started thinking I had to do things their way. I listened to people I had no business even talking to about my dreams and allowed myself to get severely sidetracked... for years! Now it is time to fix that.

Next year, it is time to reach for the stars and do all that I really wanted to do. Actually, I'm not waiting until next year, I've already started, but that will be my focus. I live in a lively house, now filled with nine people, in an interesting city, and everyday can be an adventure. I could say a lot about just how different and amazing a life one can create if they choose to be a little creative. It makes me look forward, always, to whatever might come next. I can relax, think about what I really want in life, rather than suffer the stress and business of the rat race, and actually go after it. That makes life real.

NEXT STEPS OR PAST STEPS

2009-12-16T08:22:00.000-08:00

The other day I lost my wallet. With that I lost all access to my money. Luckily some solutions presented themselves in the meantime. Still, this forced to move toward some things I should have done months ago. I am in the process, also working with my fiance, to create as many channels and avenues of access to funds as possible. I had accounts that could have been of use that I let languish for too long. I am now getting them back up and running. I am also pursuing every new account, card, or other method I can get into to, in every country I can get into it.

One of my goals, of course, is still to get a Japanese bank account. This will be the holy grail of accounts which will allow me to break full force into the absolutely humongous indie comic and animation art scene there. Japanese tend not to use cards, Paypal or any such services. They do everything by direct bank transfers, which they can even do on their phone to another person's phone. This is how artists get paid. I want to get paid like this too! More on that later!

THE KIDS IN THE HALL

2009-12-03T21:29:00.000-08:00

There are kids among us now. This is irrespective of the fact that my roommate's wife just had her baby yesterday morning. There are others. My roommate's friend Alexis, whom he has known for a while has been saying she was going to come here for months. She finally did, along with her daughter, who I am guessing is around 8 or 9. In anticipation of that, my roommate's wife's little sister, about the same age of 8 or 9 came over so she could play with someone her own age. Her other brothers and sisters are all older and most work in her mother's store. It is starting to seem, however, that they dropped her off and forgot about her.

Alexis also works, and she is gone all day, from around 7:00 AM until 10:00 PM. She is paying Aika to watch her kid. Since Aika works for my roommate's wife, she now has both kids to watch. Of course, her cousin Kim is often here and helps with that too. The problem is, Kim, ever being the party girl, likes to go out a lot and Aika wants to go too. Last night, after Alex arrived home from work about 10:00 PM, Aika was dressed and ready to go out. The kids had been fighting all day and Alex's daughter was still crying. I got the impression Alex wasn't in the mood to deal with that and was not too happy that Aika was going out. As it turns out, though, she was not going out to party, she was called to the hospital to stay with her employer, my roommate's wife.

My roommate and his wife will be in the hospital for days it seems. That leaves me and my girlfriend here with Aika and the kids, and sometimes Kim, which takes Aika's attention from watching the kids. Who knows where that will go. Me and my girlfriend have our own plans though. We need our own internet service and many other things. I don't know yet how things will turn out, but I am sure it will be an adventure!

GPRS IS YOUR FRIEND

2009-11-21T00:44:00.000-08:00

When you're out and about, in the depths of the country, GPRS can be your best friend. I'm visiting with my girlfriend's family for the weekend, for her cousin's birthday, and as if we didn't already live far enough from the big city, this place is even further. WIFI is not likely to be found out here. With this in mind, I stopped in the mall before coming here to load up my phone and then turned on GPRS.

I'm not sure what GPRS stands for, but it gets you the ability to access cellular data networks here. Just like in the U.S., on the AT&T plan, the iPhone can access Edge networks pretty much anywhere, with GPRS activated, this iPhone can access Edge or other data networks out here, and they cover pretty much everywhere. Unfortunately it's not unlimited like with AT&T. It costs 10 peso per 30 minutes.

GPRS has other costs too. It eats up my battery 3 or 4 times faster than normal. It makes the phone get really hot, and calls and texts seem to have trouble getting through. I've had texts come even a day late. Usually it's just an hour or so though.

Out here, though, none of those drawbacks matter. I'm checking my mail, keeping up with Facebook, and still participating in my regular forums. The speed is not bad either. In fact, the Internet at the house gets so bad sometimes, I might just keep this on!

FALLEN IN

2009-11-17T20:56:00.001-08:00

Okay, so I bought into it. I'm now spending almost as much time on Facebook as Annalyn. I'm playing the Cafe World game that she got everyone in the house playing. What can I say, it's a lot of fun! This is not to say I've totally lost my focus. Last night I released my greatest product to date. I will be pushing this one to be the success it deserves and it will vault me into doing what I truly want to do, which is my animation work. I expect great things on that front.

I now have to be careful about my weight again. Annalyn has been cooking up a storm and she is really good! I mean really good, and of course she cooks enough for a small family. We had some amazing dishes just in the last few days including her fried chicken which is amazing. Last night we have Pancit Canton (chow mein) done local style and that definitely had me going back for seconds. hehehe

INTERNET WOES

2009-11-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

Now that I finally got my girlfriend a computer, that still doesn't take care f all our problems. The internet here just plain sucks! Unfortunately, this can't always be blamed on the service provider or the poor infrastructure common in this country. Yes, there are problems on that end to be sure, but also I think a lot of what we are experiencing is simply too many people, or at least processes, fighting for bandwidth. I'm not entirely certain my roommate doesn't intentionally unplug us at times so we don't interfere with his online gaming.

The worst thing is, this interferes with my work. My work is all about the internet. When I create art for people or training videos on how to make animation, I have to send them wherever they need to go on the internet. These recent problems are slowing that process down and, thus, interfering with my influx of cash. It's not catastrophic by any means, but things could sure be a whole lot better. I think my girlfriend is not entirely happy here and may wish for us to go elsewhere, even another island.

Speaking of travel, we have been talking about going to the famous island of Bohol for Christmas. No solid plans yet, but it sounds like a cool idea and could be a fun adventure. Whatever we do next, I am looking forward to it. For now, though, back to work!

GAME OVER MAN!

2009-11-05T21:26:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend has monopolized my computer with her cooking games and Facebook for long enough! 2 days ago it was time for a change. We went, with my housemate and his wife, to the supposedly best computer store in town, and began to buy the pieces of what would be a new system for my girlfriend. Last night it was completed. Housed in a sleek, black case which looks something like a modern DVD player, the system is up and running. She is, at this very moment, watching a movie on her own system with headphones. MY HEADPHONES but one step at a time, right?

The point is, she can play her cooking game and do Facebook all day without interrupting my computer endeavors. We also just happened by a used book store on the way out and found a hard cover copy of The Da Vinci Code for around $5 USD, in great condition. She already finished it. After recently reading Dan Brown's latest work, I am curious to dive into The Da Vinci Code myself. She told me there are many great things which did not find their way into the movie version.

Now I'm waiting for a few updates to be made to my system, namely OS X 10.5.8. Because we are doing a fresh install, as I'm changing to a larger startup drive, I will likely spend the next day or so just getting the system back to where it was. Once there, it'll be time for some serious work. I want to make a real schedule for a while and start doing those things I believe I was meant to do!

SERIOUS ADDICTION PROBLEMS

2009-11-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

Everyone in the house, but me, is addicted to Facebook. More specifically, the little games inside Facebook like Cafe World and Farmville. I thought it was bad enough when my girlfriend was always playing these, keeping me from my computer time, but now she has everyone playing!

Just yesterday, Dylan and Jhanna had to go somewhere, even somewhere important, but they were held up because they had dishes cooking in Cafe World that needed to be served to their customers. Even worse, while they were out shopping, they remembered they had dishes to serve and they actually stopped in an Internet cafe to play their game! Apparently, in this game, if you cook a dish and don't serve it soon enough, it spoils.

Anyway, now I see I need to get my girl her own computer. Even now I'm writing on my iPhone while she is on my computer. It becomes difficult to get into the zone in my work because there's always an interuption so she can serve her dishes or feed her fish in the aquarium game, or harvest her crops in the farming game.

The level to which this addiction has spread is astounding. Yesterday, we were coming back from the mall and, while talking about these Facebook games in the back of the taxi, the driver chimed in. He spoke of how he sits at home after work and manages his shop in Cafe World, and then wakes up really early to harvest his crops before he goes out to work. I remember reading an article some time ago about how Facebook had quickly grown to be the number one social networking site in the Philippines, but this is insane. Jhanna even told me she saw senior citizens sitting in the Internet cafe playing this Cafe World game!

JOURNEY VS. DESTINATION

2009-10-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Have you ever gotten something and then realized that process of getting it was more enjoyable than actually having it?I've experienced that a lot lately. Unfortunately, I started this post on the 25th and today is the 29th and I no longer remember exactly what I was going to write. So I'll talk about today.

One of things that has stopped me from posting so much is that I forgot the essence of blogging. I remembered a long time ago I used to sit in my favorite restaurant or cafe and blog on my Sony PSP. Today, though, I have an iPhone, which is a much better tool for that sort of thing, and is not limited to WIFI, since I can use cellular data networks, but I still don't do that. One of the reasons is because I got too caught up in pictures and making each blog post like a fancy magazine article layout. That's all well and good, but the need to do that made the barrier to entry for simple blog post to high, so I didn't do it so much.

Were it not for the convenience of the iPhone, I would probably change this blog back to the way Book I was done, all on the Mac with Rapid Weaver. That, of course, eliminates the blogging from anywhere aspect, except that I had a laptop in those days and could still upload it from any coffee shop or other WIFI location. From my experience in Korea, though, I learned the value of web based tools. All that fancy stuff isn't necessary because, in the end, the journey is a story. It needs to be written.

Pictures are certainly good for storytelling, but these can always be added later. It certainly shouldn't stop me from writing. I need to be more mindful of taking pictures too, though. I have been to some really cool places, even had my iPhone camera with me, and forgot to take a single picture! I think the ideal way, now, is to do this: Write without a care for article layouts and so on, but get the information, the story of this adventure, down as it happens. Pictures and layout can always be added later, anytime when I have nothing to do. Lately, time is not a problem. I am mostly at home these days.

The last major outing was when me and Annalyn went to another town for her Auntie's birthday party. That was a cool event. They had a big videoke machine, tons of food and it was a lot of fun. We stayed there overnight, and even got to experience taking care of a baby, whose father got too drunk and left her with us. It was a great experience, but I never thought to take a picture.

Anyway, I want to write more, even if I am sitting somewhere on the iPhone. I want to continue to capture this adventure as I did in the old days in Korea or in Cebu City. So I will just write the story. That is the most important part. As I gather pictures, I may create new galleries or add them to nicely formatted articles at some later time. The important thing, though, is to just keep posting.

NOT SO AFTERMATH

2009-10-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

In just over a week after the raging storm I wrote about previously, another storm, this time a super typhoon, was headed our way. The first storm left a high body count, waist high flooding and millions in property damage. This new storm seemed like the end. In preparation for it, we had quite a few visitors. Annalyn, who I met some time ago, and who is now my girlfriend, wanted to spend the stormy days with me. Dylan also had visitors, namely Aika and an old friend Alex, along with her daughter Zyra. We assumed most people wanted to weather the storm in a real house rather than wherever they might have been.

A day before the storm was reported to hit, me and Annalyn decided to do some grocery shopping to last through the siege. Apparently, everyone else had the same idea. The SM City supermarket was packed, prices were extremely high, most items were out of stock and we had to wait for well over an hour in the checkout line. Finally, after all that preparation, the storm never happened.

Word was that there were some big storms moving to Japan, and possibly even an earthquake in Indonesia which all added up to change the direction of this super typhoon. It hung off the northern coast for a while, then went who knows where. So in the end, we were all just able to relax, with a full house and lots of fun, movies, eating and hanging out chatting. Alex and her daughter left after about three or four days. I guess her daughter had to get back to school. Annalyn stayed about ten days, but eventually had to return home because of concern from her family. It was a great time though. On that day of shopping I mentioned, I bought nearly 50 blank DVDs on which to put movies. I used them all and we watched a lot of stuff.

At the end of the ten days, me and Annalyn went to Batangas where she stays with her Auntie and family. We chatted with them for a while and there were clearly rumors that we were now living together. I guess they didn't expect her to come back. Most of the juicy conversation happened after I left apparently. Her family, in general, is not at all like what one usually hears about in this country. They own many businesses, multiple cars, apartment buildings and live in nice houses. I guess image is important to them and so they aren't very happy with the idea of her staying with a guy to whom she is not married. In fact, with she stayed with her other auntie, not far from where I live, she even had a 9:00 PM curfew, and she is 26 years old!

Today she is back again, and this time it may be for a lot longer than ten days. Later today we will go visit her other auntie, not far from her, and tell them what we are doing. There is concern they may not allow her to leave the house after that. At the very least, we will probably hear a lot of yelling. Still, we are happy together and enjoying our days. I got about 30 new blank DVDs too! ;)

RAGING STORM!

2009-09-26T21:29:00.000-07:00

We just went through the ultimate storm. Flooding is bad everywhere, inside and outside. Even though we paid a guy to fix the roof so that we would no longer experience the leaks I wrote about before, my room is full of water. The water runs out of my room and out into the living room. We have to keep pushing it outside. Outside is even worse.

I heard you can't even get to Manila because of flooding. People are walking in waist deep water. Vegetables and other produce have doubled in price overnight. People were at the mall stocking up. The parking lots were all full. They say this is the worst storm in recited history. I may have mentioned before that we were expecting "the big one". This was it.

We were busy dealing with the water issues when we heard a loud popping. This was the same popping sound that preceeded our electric box burning out back in May, which led to three weeks of no electricity. Dylan actually saw the outlet. It was outside, uncovered in the carport, getting wet with fire coming out. He rushed to the electric box and shut off the breaker for all downstairs electricity. We were saved from a repeat of that electric company fiasco of months past.

Today we went to the hardware store and bought some wire caps. Dylan cut the wires to the outside, exposed outlet and capped them off. We just now turned the electric back on and all is well. For now. Hehehe

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

2009-09-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

If me and Kim had a baby, would it look like this? Actually this is Kim's niece as her brother came out to visit recently, but being that she is so dark skinned, when we were walking around the mall, most people thought, for sure, it was me and Kim's baby. Unfortunately, all is not bliss with the surprise visitors. Her brother came out here to find work, but not yet having it, Kim felt she must take care of him. Sadly only Kim believed this.

Kim is the type to sacrifice herself and put her family first even if everyone else says she is wrong. Her brother is older and a man after all. Because of this she has brought on herself undue stress. She's not eating well or sleeping well. She's getting thin. She's spacing at work, which has led to her getting a number of violations on her record. She spacing in school, which is leading to falling grades. She even spaced somewhere, probably on public transportation, and lost her wallet, and her money for tuition etc. And because everyone believes she is wrong to sacrifice so much for her family, they won't help her. Her other brother, who has always given her money, would not do it this time. Her auntie, who has always taken care of her, won't do it. The last person left to help her is Kris Aika. I hope she doesn't ever piss Aika off. Aika is really her angel.

We had a mother cat go into our attic some time ago and deliver a bunch of kittens. As they grew they began to make a lot of noise up there. Luckily as they grew and could move around, she brought them down and they began to live in some cardboard boxes in our carport. They also, unfortunately, like to hide under the car. What this means is when they hear a noise, or something scares them, they run under the car. The problem is, what if that noise is the car? Two of them have been killed already. We believe some of the neighbors have taken some of the other cuter kittens leaving the jet black babies behind. Now only the mother and one black kitten remain. They now stay on some duffle bags outside my window.

It's good to have money. You may remember the old days in Cebu City last year when struggle was the order of the day. Things are by no means perfect, but my business endeavors are doing well. I'm relaxed and having fun. I'm almost finished with a cartoon gig for a Chinese studio, one which the Chinese government is quite interested in. This may be what leads to my trip to China. I also got a decent payday from some stuff I made and sold in Japan. Finally, I started doing training videos to teach others what I know and the first one went over quite well and even created a bit of a buzz. One customer says people are hungry for this stuff and that I'm the only one who seems to ask people what they want. He said if I follow that crowd and deliver what they want I'll be bale to retire soon. He believes that many people are craving the knowledge.

We'll see what the future holds. Right now I am just slowly walking to it. Whatever is around that corner, I am sure will be an adventure!

GETTING OUT IS GOOD

2009-08-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

It's been way too long since my last post and I have to say getting out from behind the computer is a very good thing. A lot has happened, but since my camera is working well, I'll do a quick recap in pictures. For starters, Kris and Kim, who I wrote about in the last post are hanging out with us almost everyday now. They hang out here at the house and we go out to different places when we have time. But that's not the only benefit of getting out. Remember that clarity of ideas I claimed to get from it? Well, putting some of those things into practice, I actually have money now! I'm not scraping to get by. Things are going well with my contact in China and we have many ideas in the works. I see an incredible potential rise in my business, and maybe even some quality time spent traveling to China and other places in and out of the Philippines.

We hooked up a satelite TV system. I'm still amazed at how the people on TV are so light skinned and Asian looking compared to the people in the real world.

Vanessa from the Noodle House came by for a visit and to sing some karaoke. Well, watch us sing I guess. his girl has such a good head on her shoulders and is so different from any of the others I have met or even heard about here. She might just be someone special.

Just as an example. I was chatting with this girl named Jessica. She has an American boyfriend that she chats with online. They have never met, but he supports her and her family financially. He sends her money every month. He is planning to come out here in a couple of months where they will be married and he will take care of her and her son. In the meantime, though, she wanted me to come over and uh... drink with her.

Jhana, Kris and Kim have been hanging out talking a lot which is kinda changing the dynamics of this once male dominated household.

We've been looking for the big one in terms of storms, something to eclipse the disaster that preceded my arrival in the Philippines over a year ago (It's been that long already). It hasn't come yet, but there have been days when we thought it was upon us. As you can, I hope, see in the picture, heavy rains can lead to some really bad wall leaks. My friend Dylan has to line his bedroom wall with buckets to catch all the water. One time they all got full in less than ten minutes!

Kris is here more than Kim because Kim works a job at the mall, same as Vanessa. Kris claens the house here sometimes or just hangs out and has fun.

We went to a large membership called Makros. It is similar to Costco or Sam's Club etc. I originally went to get bed sheets but I found this awesome stainless steel wok for less than $10 USD. This is the best pan I have ever had ever! It heats so quickly and evenly and food comes out with that real restaurant flavor!

Bringing us up to most recently, I spent a fun day out with Kim and Kris. We ate at Jollibee which was funny. I ordered my favorite chickenjoy meal and got it immediately, but whatever Kim and Kris ordered they had to wait for, as you can see in the image. They had a number on their table and the staff would bring their food when it was ready. It took more than ten minutes in the end. Even more funny was that after we ate that, Kim decided she wanted a chickenjoy also. I wanted to get one too so we all got more food. Kim ate so much her stomach was enlarged and she looked pregnant. She was embarrassed to go outside after that. We went grocery shopping after that and she was shy about her stomach the whole time.

In the grocery store the girls were funny, playing with all manner of items like these hair ribbon things. We had a great time. Somewhere in there I also went to Manila to play for a day or so. That was fun too. I could see staying in Manila for a couple of months being very fun. In fact, the person I was with there has been asking me to come back. I so want to go back, and I will, knowing that it will be another great step in this adventure.

JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED

2009-07-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

Getting out more has really been paying dividends the last few days. While I haven't made any actual headway on my business, the clarity I have gained from just being out having fun has allowed me to come up with what I believe will be the ideas that make it all happen. I will be implementing those today, assuming other adventures don't pop up. Still yesterday was like the height of seeing just what putting yourself out there can do.

First we went to a small, local market called Emilus. This is the kind of place where foreigners are probably never seen and so we got no end of interest from people there. There were some girls looking at us like they planned to eat us. As always, these little marts are full of the piracy. They already had Harry Potter 6 and Transformers 2 on DVD there, likely shot off the screen with a DV camera. None of this, though, was part of our plan so we quickly headed out to SM to stop in the Noodle House and chat with Vanessa. While me and Jhana talked with Vanessa, my friend Dylan disappeared. Eventually Jhana said, Listen. That is Dylan singing." At first I didn't believe it. He is a good singer, so it sounded like the real song playing, and I just didn't think he would do that.

Eventually Dylan came back and told me about the crowd that had developed around his little performance. One girl even waited for him to finish to get his autograph. People really thought he was a real singer. I guess he kinda is, though, since he has been on stage with Digital Underground, where Tupac and Humpty began their careers. While we were discussing this, I noticed two girls milling around behind us. I recognized them. They worked in the store, but this time were out of uniform and "off duty" so to speak, so their pretending to look at a display behind us seemed a bit odd.

I decided to go back with Dylan to check out this singing area this time. Basically it was the spot where they were selling the videoke machines. (Video + Karaoke = Videoke) Of course, I had to sing a song too. Dylan was right. One gets treated like a celebrity for doing that. Of course, it probably helps that I am not a bad performer. One guy even asked me if I am a real singer! The guy selling the machines told me and Dylan about a spot that is really hopping on weekends that has an open Karaoke area and apparently plenty of girls. We may hook up with him to go there this Friday.

Dylan pointed out to me that one of the girls kept pulling out her phone, pretending to use it and being obvious about it. He said she was trying to get my attention so that I would ask for her number or give her mine. With that, I took a strip of paper with my number on it and handed it to her saying, "Here. Something for your phone." The girls giggled and walked off. The texts started flying in while we were still in the store shopping. We kept passing by the girls too, walking with their basket and putting items in. Finally Dylan went as asked them and it turns out they were just following us, randomly putting items in their basket with no intention to buy.

Finally we finished our shopping and I went to say goodbye to Vanessa. The girls sent a text to say they were sitting in the food court with nothing to do. We went to meet them there and eventually invited them back to the house for some Karaoke. I cooked quite a spread for our guests and they actually said it was quite good. Our Videoke computer wasn't working, so we decided to go with American Idol on the Nintendo Wii. With five people playing that was truly fun. Even more surprising, I actually won! It probably didn't come as a surprise to anyone that it came down to me and Dylan in the finals. What was surprising though, is that Dylan got 100,000 score on his song, the highest possible, and even unlocked some new songs as a result. I came it at 98,820 on my song, but still took the prize. We surmised that there must be other factors the judges consider besides out score. For example. Dylan did a somewhat fast paced pop type song, while I performed John Lennon's Imagine, which the judges may have seen as more challenging.

After our Karaoke battle ended, we went to the local Mini Stop to get some drinks. One bottle of Red Horse, extra strong beer and a small flask of 80 proof, cheap, clear stuff set me back about 100 peso (or $2). We returned to the house and me and the girls drank while we all chatted. Dylan and his wife did not, of course, partake. Eventually, as we drank into the wee hours, people started disappearing. Jhana prepared a guest room for one of the girls. Eventually Dylan and Jhana went off to sleep and I was left chatting about every subject under the sun with the remaining girl. We talked about this place in which we live. We talked about the island from whence she came, which I have heard is an amazingly nice place worth visiting if not settling down. We talked about strange and supernatural things, a common topic here. We basically had a good time and a lot of laughs. Then the making out started. The rest is... well, the rest.

STUPIFIED

2009-07-19T04:52:00.000-07:00

Friday, we went out to see the latest Harry Potter film. I guess we should count it a good thing that we went to a mostly empty, early afternoon showing, because this picture shows the line, going into the next showing, when we came out. It may be hard to see, but notice how far back that line goes into the theatre itself. The movie was cool, although it may not have been up to the level of some previous efforts, but this is not a movie review site, so I am not here to talk about that. I want to talk about some other experiences being out and about that day and the surrounding days. The end result of which is that I got a few phone numbers and have been chatting with some nice, new and interesting girls.

One of the first I met was a really short girl named April, although she spells it Eipryll in her text messages. She worked in a pet store on the first floor of the mall. I actually saw her earlier when we were in another place and she was passing by. She smiled at me, so I wasn't going to forget that. When we passed the pet store and saw her in there, we just needed some excuse to go in. We went in and looked at products and mostly joked around. After my friend and his wife left, I was on my way out and thought, "What the hell." So I turned around and asked the girl for her number. I got it and so gave her mine. We ended up texting each other until midnight that night.

Next up is my favorite of the girls I met recently, one named Vanessa from The Noodle House in the mall food court. Neither the store uniform nor my pictures do her justice. If you could see her picture on her ID card, she looks like a model. I mean really gorgeous. Anyway, Dylan's wife loves the noodles there, and I guess she just likes to hang out and talk with them too, so we have been there a few times, always chatting and joking with them. One time, just before we were off to see the movie, she pulled out her phone and began to text someone. I asked if she was sending a message to me, and she said, "Give me your number and I will." I gave it and we have been texting quite a bit ever since.

At one point we were milling around in the hardware store and there was a cute girl, walking with what likely was her mother. She kept smiling at me and so Dylan said I should give her my number. I wasn't fancying the idea of doing so while her mother was standing around. Dylan gave me a receipt and got a pen from the counter, and I wrote my name and number on it. I went over near the girl pretending to look at the doorknobs in front of her. She almost laughed, knowing what I was up to. I slipped her the paper with my name and number. She started texting me before we left the mall!

In all it has been interesting. This all stemmed from the idea that recent electrical and computer problems were a sign that I needed to get out more, see the world around me and learn about this place I am in. So I am doing that. I am meeting new and interesting people and learning to really like this place. Remember that wasn't case back when I posted about my trip out to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine. My tune has changed considerably since then, especially after recent outings in this area. Now everyday I get out in that world is becoming an adventure!

TAMPO

2009-07-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

This is what Tampo looks like. Tampo is a "feature" that comes standard with most Filipina wives, from what I hear, and I have read much about it on the internet, but have, up until now, never seen it. Tampo can range from the husband simply getting the silent treatment for a while, to full blown, foot stomping, object throwing tantrums. I should note, right here, that this is probably not a Filipina only thing. I've seen Sally, who's Korean, go down this path as well, not to mention I have witnessed Jerry throw some tantrums that would make a 3 year old envious. Still, as far as what I have read, it was all about the experience of Western foreigners married to girls here. As for the picture, which is the end result of this story, I shall now attempt to recount, at least from what I can tell, how it all came to be.
It all began with a game of American Idol on the Nintendo Wii. This, by the way, is one of the coolest games I have ever seen. As you may know, karaoke is all the rage in Asia, and it is super huge here. People here absolutely love to sing, no matter what their actual skill level. My friend's wife is no exception. She loves to sing, and her skill level... Well, I'll let you know what Simon had to say about it.

Now Simon is the most brutal of the three judges on American Idol, the other two being Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson (but not Michael's brother). He pulls no punches and tells it like it is. I don't know how the game can rate all aspects of one's singing based on a USB microphone, but it seems to register not only accuracy and timing, but tone as well. Tone being the major issue here. The judges are voiced by the real stars from the television show and they must have recorded an amazing amount of comments for every song, because you never hear repeated comments. In this case, my friend's wife's singing was met with comments from Simon such as, "That was a horrendous, pathetic version of a song any 3 year old should be able to sing." Another favorite was, "I am never listening to that song again." The absolute worst was, "I really really hate you right now." Even Randy Jackson, usually the most lenient of judges, said,"This is just not for you. You should give up."

The girls seemed to take all this in stride at the time and laughed about it, but I am guessing it really hurt her feelings. The things is, these are all comments people wanted to say to her, but no one had the heart to. Once I was chatting with Jerry and she heard the singing and said she felt sorry for me. Even the neighbors have complained about her singing in the past. Not the noise mind you, just her singing. Letting the game tell her seemed like a dream come true. The next day, though, I guess the result of the harsh judging came out.

One mention of American Idol and she went off. There was throwing of items, and breaking things, and she even dumped out the garbage in the kitchen. Just like I often read about Tampo, through, it eventually ends and it was like it never happened. The house got cleaned and everything went back to normal. The plus, though, is there is a lot less singing.

FOOD ADVENTURES

2009-07-09T19:22:00.001-07:00

With no computer and little idea what to do next, it seemed like a good idea to just get out of the house and see the world around me. One of the things bound to be involved in any outing, in this place, is food. In this case, however, the food adventure actually began at home. It began with what is known as Pan De Sal which are Filipino traditional bread rolls. Like most things here, the name comes from Spanish and literally means "salted bread". According to Wikipedia, "It is a bread made of flour, eggs, lard, yeast, sugar, and salt. It has a soft, powdery texture and is eaten in a number of ways combined with numerous sandwich spreads."

I knew it reminded me of something I had eaten in Korea. I also read that originally Pan De Sal was similar to the French Baguette. There was a place called Paris Baguette in Korea that me and Jerry went to many times. Anyway, here;s how things work here. Starting early in the morning, sometimes as early as 4:30 and continuing until past 7:00, guys from the bakery will ride around on bicycles tooting their horn to let you know the bread has arrived. If you want it, you simply go out and get it. They usually cost anywhere from 2 to 5 peso (4 to 10 cents in US currency), though I heard it is even cheaper in some communities, and it always fresh and hot. AT lunch time, they often return, with different types of breads, some filled with sweet coconut paste or other interesting filling. I have to say I am already hooked.

We went out with a few objectives, aside from getting me out of the house. One was to get water, since the security doesn't seem to want to allow our water company to enter the subdivision to deliver to us. We believe it is because a competing water company is trying to monopolize the village. Anyway, we also went to the mall to return some hardware items Dylan didn't need for his music room project, as he has a full studio worth of equipment he has yet to setup. Upon entering the mall, though, we were immediately distracted by an all you can eat buffet, called "eat all you can" here, for only 298 peso, or about $6 US. This place as mostly local style cuisine and I can't begin to tell you how awesome it was. It had a full salad section with many types of dressings. There was an entire soup section, which boasted some type of rice porridge which was so good I lost count how many bowls I had. (they were small bowls though... really...)

They also had the main section where the big dishes sat. Here they had awesome chicken and some kind of beef stir fry, longaniza sausages and sisig. They had a few nice looking fish dishes, but I am not the biggest seafood fan in the world. I'll eat it, but it comes in last when there are so many other great things around. They had some really interesting looking fruit teas, like lemon and some kind of red fruit punch type drink, but I didn't try them as I can't drink the water here. My friend, Dylan, having been here for years, apparently spent a month, mostly on the toilet, intentionally making himself able to do so. He said the lemon tea was great. The other not so great.

We walked around the mall for a while after that. Amazingly beautiful girls were everywhere, smiling giggling, waving at us, some even inviting us to chat with them. We had a lot of fun, making me grateful to get out for once. Maybe the computer dying wasn't such a bad thing. Eventually I got thirsty and wanted a drink. We ended up at an Italian place called Sbarro's. This place had the most amazing looking deep dish pizza I had ever seen. We were more stuffed than any humans should be, though, so we couldn't partake. They had a nice beautiful bottled water machine in the place, which was my goal. I got a piece of garlic bread and the cheesecake pictured at the very top of this post, and sat mainly guzzling water. The atmosphere in the place was amazing and it had an incredible view of the forest, or jungle maybe, outside the window. It was grand. One day I will have to return to actually eat the pizza.

After that we continued searching through this huge place, finding technology stores, fashion boutiques and even video game shops. In a video game shop, Dylan bought an American Idol game for the Wii. They had a few things I would be crazy for, like Resident Evil 5 or Street Fighter 4 for Xbox 360, but his Xbox isn't working for some reason. I also thought I don't want to defeat the purpose of this time away from the computer I was given. Next we stumbled upon some kind of car show. We saw the latest version of my old car, the Suzuki Swift AKA the Geo Metro in America. The new one actually looked cool. Having recently come from Korea, I had to check out the Korean cars they had on display. The girls at the Kia setup were really nice and gave us all the information one could want about the cars and financing option available. Now I never saw the need for a car outside of America. Most places have great transportation options making it unnecessary. Here is not Cebu, though, and I can't just walk outside and flag a taxi and even if I found one, it would cost 5 to 10 times what it would cost in Cebu. I could see the value in a car out here, even though traffic is horrendous and it wouldn't be fun. Still, at the prices these new cars cost, I don't see myself picking one up any time soon.

Eventually we ended up in what I guess was the more muslim section of the mall. It has lots of little booths selling clothes, jewelry or cell phone accessories. Girls with their shawls on their heads were everywhere. We chatted with a few people and they always seem surprised that my friend, an American, would be a muslim. I guess they think all Americans must be christians. As the mall was closing we found ourselves in the Japanese store. I got a cool 1 liter pitcher for juice and some iron chop sticks. I got tired of using the little disposable wooden sticks for ramen. By the time we got home it was after ten PM. I had a mail from Pucc... I mean Jerry, asking me to jump on Skype, but it was already too late. Being two hours ahead, she was already asleep. Still that day changed my whole outlook on this place. It has me really thinking about my course from this point. Even when I do get the computer back up and running, I may not be interested in doing the same things. Whatever I choose to do next, I am sure it will make for a great adventure.

WHEN IT RAINS...

2009-07-07T05:47:00.000-07:00

My computer is dead. I don't know how or why. I don't even know when, only that now it won't even boot up. I rose early this morning and all was well. I started up the system and worked for hours on my new project. It started up just as well after breakfast. Somewhere during the course of the day's work, though, evil befell the system without my knowledge. Having taxed the RAM as I often do using my paint software, I went to restart. The system never came back.

You may remember from a previous post that this is a "hackintosh" clone of a Mac Pro. It uses the same mother board, CPU and parts as the Apple systems and it is one chip that makes all the difference between it being a Mac Pro or just another computer. That chip must have gotten fried at some point, likely during one of the many power spikes or brown outs we have here. In order to get back up and running, at least we think, we need to reflash the firmware on said chip. Unfortunately, the software updater runs on the Mac! this has apparently become quite a big problem for many users of this product. You also need to update the firmware to run OS 10.5.7, but if you're already running it, your system won't boot. I stayed with 10.5.6 for this reason. Now I need to update anyway.

I'm not totally offline or our of the loop. I thank God that I have my iPhone and that I recently updated it to OS 3.0. In fact, I'm getting to know it real well now. I finally spent some quality time with the App Store. First up was the Skype application, so I could keep in touch with Pucc... I mean Jerry. That worked like a charm. I also found numerous language tools for learning Japanese and Korean, some free and some pay, but all seem quite cool. I always wanted to have the dictionaries for each language on my phone. The store even has multiple translations of The Holy Quran or the Bible.

Books were one of the more interesting items in the store. Some of the Amazon titles were priced as high as $9.99. I would have thought digital books would be cheaper since there's no paper or printing costs involved. More interesting, though, were the comics. I saw only big name stuff like Transformers, a prequel to the recent movie, or Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer, which was free so I downloaded it. The comics seem to work exactly like what I was attempting on my iPhone Alchemy website when I just got my phone. Most seem to run $0.99 for 64 screens. They are big name titles though, linked to established franchises. I can't imagine an indie breaking in.

So while there's a lot explore, the reality is I have no idea what I'm going to do! I will certainly call my buddy in China and see if he's ready for me to head out there. The money from that gig would likely get another Mac and leave plenty left over for some serious adventure! In the meantime, though, I'm going to relax! That's what the Philippines is made for. If you've ever read Fred Grazton's Lazy Way to Success, you know there's always a reason for incidents like this. Then again, Dylan suggests the reason might be so that I'll get outside, see the city, catch swine flu and die. Hehehe... Whatever the reason, I am certain this is but a small step leading to a larger adventure!

THE REAL PUCCA?

2009-07-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

The other day, me and Dylan, along with his wife, were at the SM City in Bacoor not too far from here. Inside the supermarket, I came across this Pucca gift set and seeing the picture on the front, I immediately thought of Jerry. So I took a snap of it with my iPhone to send to her later, for the purpose of teasing her of course. The funny thing is, at the time I didn't recognize the character nor know her name, even though I had actually seen the cartoon a few times in Korea. I had simply forgotten.

When I was living with the family in Korea, the living room and kitchen area was always alive with activity. The computer would be on where Seung Bin was playing games. The TV might be on though no one was really watching. Someone might be cooking in the kitchen. Others might be talking or playing with the dog. So it was that I caught Pucca on the screen, in the background, but didn't remember until now. Anyway, when I got home, I sent that image to Jerry saying, "I saw you at the mall!"

Needless to say, she wasn't too amused. Although we got a good laugh out of it, she went out of her way to explain that she doesn't look like Pucca. So convinced was she that she didn't look like this cartoon character, that she foolishly put her hair into that style just to show me that she didn't look like her. That's when I made the above image and sent it back to her. I also teased that the next time we play some penalty game and she loses, she will have to dress as Pucca for a whole day.

I was doing some research on Pucca and reporting my findings to her when she became concerned as to why I was so interested in this. She also reminded me, again, that they don't look the same. What I was interested in, though, was the success story behind Pucca. You see, neither of us knew, at first, if this was a Chinese, Japanese or Korean creation. It turns out that it is Korean, from a company called Vooz. That, however, is not the most interesting thing about this.

Pucca actually started out as a Flash cartoon on the internet back in the year 2000! The original cartoons had little to no dialogue so that anyone could enjoy them, and they mostly centered around Pucca chasing after her reluctant boyfriend Garu. Over time, the cartoons got more complex and more characters were added, and it grew into the phenomenon it is today. The sheer scope of the success story is what intrigues me.

While it may have started as a simple internet cartoon, today Pucca has replaced Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and other top brands in the world of children's products throughout Europe. Their cartoons are shown all over the world on TV now. There are children's books in multiple languages in many countries. There's, of course, a comic and games and everything else you expect from a major franchise. I guess it took its time to build, but it built up big! It's almost like a textbook success story. I'm thinking the creators must be pretty happy by now.

GET OVER HERE!

2009-07-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

Chris Casamassa is probably most known for his role as Takeda, AKA Scorpion in the Mortal Kombat movies and television series. According to him, they are preparing to begin shooting on a third Mortal Kombat movie in September, in which he will reprise his role as the undead fighter.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a big fan of the Mortal Kombat franchise, even though the second movie almost made for a fatality for the series. Aside from the two movies, there is also the Mortal Kombat: Conquest TV series, which I loved watching so many years ago, though I never got a chance to see it all until recently, thanks to the episodes being online. I've been watching a lot of Mortal Kombat lately, but then I started thinking.

Chris Casamasa is, aside from being a stuntman and actor, quite a serious martial artist and has built something of a franchise out of his Red Dragon Karate chain of schools. He loves to teach and, I suspect, makes a lot more money in that business than doing small movie parts. He's been seriously into martial arts for 40 years, having started as a small child when his father, a black belt in multiple styles, told he could start learning under the condition that he never quit until he gets his black belt.

"I learned at a very young age about commitment and dedication and sticking to something," said Casamassa. "My father told me that I could quit once I got to black belt, but I was hooked, so I really never wanted to stop." Commitment and dedication are common subjects in the world of success and motivation. Many great men of our time write about how important it is to stick with something. If you read success writers like Robert Kiyosaki, George Samuel Clason or Napoleon Hill you will encounter many little anecdotes about people who, right at the point where all seemed lost, or where they were about to give up, they pushed just a bit further and the windfall of success came upon them.

So after a few days watching Mortal Kombat, while still working on my new project of course, I decided that I am only at the beginning. I am not out of the woods yet, as far as ordeals or taking this adventure to where I want it. In the past I have often started projects and at the first sign of things not going as I want them, I would move on. Worse still, I would come up with what I consider a better idea and want to move on to that, without letting the original idea play out.

I think this is the time to really focus on my own commitment to what I am creating for the Japanese market. In that past, as I wrote before, some of the stuff I did for the Japanese market saved me in times of crisis. In fact, it has been one of the best performing endeavors I have embarked upon. So rather than get too relaxed now, and spend too much time watching shows, going to the mall or chatting for hours on Skype, I want to be more committed to my next show and building my name and my career. That will really put this adventure on the right path.

BACK IN CHAT

2009-06-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

After two weeks of near complete silence, me and Jerry are talking again. We ended up chatting for a good six hours at least Of course, it started with a bit of a fight, mainly because we were both being too stubborn about who was at fault, but after that things were back to normal like it never happened. Jerry's sister Sally was not in the least surprised we are back to normal, though, as she apparently "knows we are stupid." I guess it was just a matter of time.

This same two weeks also happens to be the time i have been smoke free! I hardly ever think about it now, let alone crave one. It feels good. I have to admit, I started hating the idea of some huge tobacco company having power over me. Come to think of it, it's been two weeks since I smoked. It's been well over a month since I had alcohol, and that was one time since months before that. Also It has been months since I had pork, since I stay with a Muslim family. I'm not complaining though. My health certainly isn't complaining. Even the large gash I accidently made in my hand, trying to puncture a can with a knife, has already healed up quite nicely.

So now most of my days are spent in front of this humble computer setup. With the new unlock, my iPhone plugs directly intot he computer without it complaining about the lack of the original sim card. The iPhone base is sitting atop an M-Audio Fast Track guitar/mic recording interface which gives me pro quality audio right on the desktop. Next to that is a very nice microphone. I even made a new song with it! The black AVR box, sitting under the CDs I have no idea about, protects the computer from the horrid electrical systems out here.

Speaking of horrid electrical systems, I really need to get a good UPS. Brown outs are becoming more common as it is the typhoon season again. Remember when I came here last year, about this time, and some of the storms I wrote about? Well it's that time again. Luckily I have never had any problems or lost any serious data, but my roommate and his wife have not been so lucky. Once when the power when out, while his computer was writing to the drive, he lost everything. He even had to rebuild the system. His wife lost all her video codecs because she was streaming a movie when the power suddenly went out once. We even had an outage as I was chatting with Jerry yesterday. I was worried she would think I hung up on her, since that was during the heated early parts of the chat. So a good UPS should be standard procedure around here.

I wrapped my project and sent it off to Japan where it will hopefully go on sale this week or next week. I already started on another project. I am not resting on my laurels or anything else this time around. I have seen what throwing some good content on the Japanese sites can do for me financially. I may have written about how it saved my bacon a couple of times last year. Now I want it to grow big enough to make for the most amazing of adventures!

CAMERA CADABRA

2009-06-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

I decided to upgrade my iPhone to the new OS 3.0 because of all the amazing new features I have been going without and I got a few expected bonuses. The first being that my camera is back in action. Both me and Dylan suspected that my camera problems were software related. One reason was that, when activated, you could clearly see the video playing in the camera window. When an picture was taken, you heard the flash sound, saw the aperture close and saw the image drop into the bin. The only problem was that after that, all images in the bin were blank. Well, thanks to the miracle of modern operating systems, namely iPhone 3.0, it all works again.

Getting there was no small feat though. I originally used a supposedly popular app called Ziphone to unlock my iPhone back in 2008. You can read that story here if you don't remember. Now I knew that updating the OS to the latest version would likely forfeit said unlocking, but I didn't think getting it back would be such a pain. Anyway, I plugged my phone into the Mac, pictured above. This machine is actually a "Hackintosh" meaning that it is self built using the same Gigabyte motherboard and parts that the Mac Pro uses, but is not an official Mac Pro, thus the weird Transformers case. iTunes popped up and downloaded OS 3.0 and the install went smoothly. That part went as expected.

After the successful install of the OS, I decided to try switching back to my Philippines based SMART SIM card. That, of course, didn't work. That was not a surprise though. I figured I would just throw a new Ziphone unlock on there and be done with it. Sadly, it was not going to be that easy. The new version of Ziphone failed, unable to even find the damn phone connected to the computer!

Taking the error message which Ziphone gave me and putting into Google, I began searching for solutions. Most of these led to forum threads on the subject. The general conclusion from nearly all threads was avoid Ziphone like the plague. My roommate had been saying the same thing since we stated talking about the new OS, so that didn't surprise me. I just liked the one click ease of use involved with that tool. Most of the forum threads pointed to tools created by some unofficial iPhone Dev Team and sporting cool names like Pwnage, Red Snow and Ultra Snow. Red Snow looked like the tool I needed, but the list of steps to make it happen was long and included distasteful things like again downloading the nearly 250 MB OS 3.0 package, which on the slow internet here, means waiting for a very long time.

I tried everything I could think of to get out of going through these steps. I searched for other unlocking tools that might be one click like Ziphone. It was all for naught, though, and I eventually resigned myself to waiting for the download of an OS I already had from earlier this morning, and went to eat. Luckily, by the time I was done eating, including time spent caring for a wound after stabbing myself in the hand with huge freaking knife, the download was done. I went through the rest of the useless and unecessary steps, which put a bunch of stuff I don't care about and will never use, and finally had my unlock complete. Anyway, even though I started writing this on the desktop pictured above, I'm now in the mall about to die walking around trying to write this on my iPhone, so I'm calling it for this post. Back to the adventure!

FALLEN VISUAL QUALITY

2009-06-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

Having almost wrapped a project of my own, and needing a bit of a break, I decided to get out for a while. We went to SM Molino, where we usually shop at the Hypermarket. I needed to replenish some things anyway. While Dylan and his wife ate at a calamari street stand I'm not quite brave enough to try, I decided to go into the mall and eat at Wendy's, since other places were overcrowded. Even though the Classic Triple was staring me in the face, I decided to have fried chicken and rice (which every fast food joint has, not just KFC) as usual. I can at least say I've tried the fried chicken at McDonalds, Burger King, Jollibee and now Wendy's.

While starting on my frosty, I got a text from Dylan saying his wife wanted to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in ten minutes. I stared my frosty and thought, being lactose intolerant, if I finish this, I may not make it through the movie. I also considered, like with Terminator: Salvation, if I don't see it while I'm here, I'm not going to see it. I didn't want to miss this one on the big screen.

Now, of course, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was one of the most awesome spectacles I have ever seen on the big screen, blew away all my expectations and delivered beyond my wildest dreams. This is not to say I don't have a couple of complaints though. The first problem I had with the movie was something I knew they were going to do! I could even tell from the trailers. Now that the franchise is established and they have already proven themselves, no effort whatsoever went into making things look completely real like the first movie.

Now maybe they simply bit off more than they could chew. I mean, the movie started shooting just over a year ago. That's FAST by anyone's calender. Also, I don't mean to say that it didn't contain some of the best CG work ever to be seen on the screen, but it looked like CG work. In the first movie, there were many times you simply couldn't tell until a car transformed or did something otherwise impossible to shoot. In this one, such scenes were few and far between. Some scenes were almost on the level of Mortal Kombat or some older, cheaper film.

It should also be noted that this film was so big that many FX houses were needed to pull it off. That could also explain the inconsistency. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the explanation is that movies know they can "get away with it" and don't have to make things look totally real, because audiences expect and maybe even like CG.

My other complaint is something of a trend I am seeing in too many modern action movies. I really noticed this in the Bourne films and in the recent Vin Diesel flick Babylon A.D. I even read this in a lot of internet comments, so I know I am not alone in seeing this. The action is shot in such a hectic way, you can't even tell what's going on half the time. This is part of that MTV culture, music video mentality where they think movies for young people must cater to this attention span.

When you have all this awesome spectacle, why not show it?! Why obfuscate it with shaky, hand held, home video style camera work? I remember one of the great movie scenes killed by this was in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the second movie. When she fought the Nemesis character, the camera was all over the place and I just assumed they were hiding horrible fight choreography. Then on the DVD, you see them behind the scenes, training for the fight in the gym, with a simple locked off video camera pointed at them. The fight choreography was awesome and very complex! You saw none of it in the movie because it was shot so badly. There was too much of this in Transformers as in so man other movies today. Some of these modern movies are so hectic, it almost makes me long for Mission to Mars!

INTERFERENCE

2009-06-25T19:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, this girl came over to do some recording with me. She speaks pretty fluent Japanese and can even sing. She brought an iPod with her demo songs on it for me to listen to. Unfortunately, she also brought along her troublemaking little sister Edz, who is called Ging Ging, and she did nothing but get in the way. You may remember I wrote about these two in my post MORE ORDEALS.

Anyway, Marilyn lived and worked in Japan for almost ten years and has gained a pretty good grasp of the language. She also happens to be quite a competent singer. I wanted to capitalize on both abilities for my current work, which I intend to push in Japan. I didn't write about it, but my first time in Manila proper I met another girl who had also spent time in Japan and learned the language. I will be trying to get her in here today. That is another story.

In a post called NOTHING REALLY HAPPENING, on April 24th, I wrote, "I feel like I am really zeroing in on what I really want to do. Actually that hasn't really ever changed, it's more about how I want to do it and believing I can do it. Listening to too many other people and their opinions about my work basically turned something I used to love into something I hated and I gave up on it completely. Having all this time to think, I was able to get clear on what I really want to do, meaning with my talents as an artist, and how I want to do it. Who cares what other people say I should do with my skills?" Well now I've more than zeroed in on it, and I'm actually doing it! The best thing about being here in Asia is that it becomes so easy to find the talent I need to help me with it. There are many girls who can sing or speak Japanese, Korean Chinese... It's like a perfect hub of Asia here.

Of course it helps if the talent doesn't being along their troublesome siblings. Even though we were supposed to be recording, the first thing Edz wanted to do was plug up the videoke machine and sing! I guess it didn't occur to her that might be picked up by the microphone. Next she decided to play games on her sister's iPod as though that was somehow silent. At one point we sent her to get snacks and drinks, hoping that would get rid of her for a while, but she must have found a store right around the corner because she was back in less than five minutes. She was generally bored and fidgety the whole time, and clearly did not want to be here. That basically cut things short with her sister and we did not get done all I wanted to get done. If Marilyn should decide to come back, she will have to do so alone.

In the meantime, I am hoping this other girl will work out much better. The problem is she is so far away, like most things. At least Marilyn and Edz live right down the street, in walking distance even. This next girl is hours away by any mode of transportation in this traffic ridden city. Being far from everything can really suck sometimes. I would trade the relative peace and quiet for the big city hustle and convenience in a heartbeat. If that big city was Cebu, even better!