Progress Report

Since I restarted from scratch on the Flash program, it's only now that I've managed to reach where I last left off (before dismantling it). At least now it's more streamlined.

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Random Plugs

Actually, the title should be renamed to plug, the singular noun.

Anyway, click here for Cowboy Bebop's history.

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The Unlikely Working Group

It's only last night that I thought about how strange my working conditions are.

First is the location. Elbert lives far North, Jaime somewhere South, and I'm in the middle (Ortigas). As you'd expect, coordination is far from the simple. (Jaime even joked as his cousin was complaining. "I don't go up to people and ask them 'do you live here? No? Okay, I can't work with you'.")

Second is the computere we use. Jaime is a using a G4 Mac. I'm using a Pentium 4 PC. And Elbert... let's just say that it's prone to crashing. Even the programs we run on those computers are different. Jaime uses Director MX, me Flash MX, and Elbert Photoshop (whichever version runs on his computer nowadays).

As expected, we specialize in different things: Elbert with graphics, me with programming, and Jaime acquiring and managing the jobs.

The only thing we all probably have in common is that we're Chinese... and we study in Ateneo (or in Jaime's case, teaching there).

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April Fools

For some strange reason, I always thought that April Fools fell on the 4th, not the 1st.

Waiting

So there I was, waiting at 6750 for Jaime to pick me up since that was where we had arranged to meet. Of course he came to fetch me thirty minutes after telling him I was there already. Which really isn't anything new since I've been waiting at that post since last year, when I'd drop by Jobert's condo.

I'm used to it by now, the stares some people give me, or the taxis that expect me to be their next passenger. I wish I was a fan of automobiles, so I can admire the expensive vehicles the residents of Makati have, but I'm not, so I was just there, standing and waiting. I wish I also drank Starbucks coffee, but you all know I'm a cheapskate, so I'd rather wait in the sun for my ride rather than enter the air-conditioned counter and spend P100 for a drink.

Then it dawned on me that at this point, I should just be walking to their homes to meet them. I mean it took me fifteen minutes to get from Ortigas to Makati via car. It's taking Jaime 30 minutes to get from Rockwell to Makati. With thirty minutes, I could have walked from Guadalupe to Makati. Then again, I don't exactly know how to get to Jaime's place. All I know is that it's near the Powerplant Mall.

However, I do know how to get to Jobert's place, and it only takes me half that time. So the next time Jobert's in the country, instead of asking him to pick me up at 6750, I'd just meet him in his condo. And save him gas money at the same time. =)

Charles the Eternal Skinny Guy

Which is what people assume since they seldom see me eat. Which is more or less what happened at Jaime's place as I ate two pieces of squash and some rice. Of course I just had breakfast but...

My Employers

Later that afternoon, came to meet with my employers. It's an air-conditioned building (right next to Starbucks!) with security guards. The first thing that caught my eye was the receptionist and the three phones she was handling. One of the phones even had half a dozen red lights blinking.

Anyway, the mood of the business area was something familiar... and strangely, so Atenean. My employers were pretty young and their outfits were not formal (no business suits!). Three of the four executives were female (strangely enough, they remind me of various people I know... one reminds me of Lala, complete with accent and speech pattern, another looked like Elbert's older sister) and guess what, most of them studied in Ateneo. >.<

Work Area

As I was retouching Jaime Bautista's Flash presentation, I just realized how important the work area is. I think each person is most comfortable with their own computers. For example, at Elbert's place, I found the computers slow and the keyboard difficult to use (since it was in a drawer). Jaime was using a Mac and well, one thing I really like about the PC is the fact that the mouse has two buttons. Sure, you could purchase a two-button mouse for the Mac or hold the apple button but doing stuff with one hand goes a long long way.

And regardless of the popular saying that a Mac doesn't crash, it does (although not as often as a PC). And beleive me, I've tried to Force Quit a program before and the computer crashed. At least Jaime tells me that doesn't happen anymore with OS 10 but...

Building from Scratch

Much akin to writing, it seems that I have to scrap the entire work I've done so far for the Flash program and start from scratch. It's easier to build than to edit, especially at this point.

Of course I'll start tomorrow, since I've been out the whole day, and I'll probably die from radiation poisoning for yesterday's immersion with the computer.

Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah #2

Click here for a preview of this really funny comic.

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Busy!

Spent something like half of my waking hours facing the computer, working on the Flash project I'm supposed to cram in the next few days. Oh, and I'm supposed to show to my employers tomorrow (later actually) what I've done so far. If the radiation from the monitor doesn't kill me first, that is.

Anti-Virus Software

Finally managed to snag one. After 11 months of owning a Pentium 4 without the benefit of an anti-virus program, it's amazing my computer is still up and running. Of course the downside of things is that my computer slows down since it checks each and every email I receive (and send), as well as automatically updating itself, costing me some much-needed bandwidth.

Stalker-sense Tingling

Well, I did get an email a week ago from an acquaintance I knew. Last I heard, she was freaked out by me (that was the official news I heard like last year). Of course now, she's emailing me asking me all of these questions and suddenly taking an interest. There's also the fact that one of her friends is one of the people that used to stalk me.

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Book Trends

It seems as of late the genre between adult SF&F and children's SF&S is getting blurred. I don't know why (perhaps it's the success of Harry Potter) but companies are starting to release "children's editions" of popular books.

What are children edition of books? Basically, it divides the novel into two or three books and has new art, both for the interior and the cover. For example, Wheel of Time's "Eye of the World" got split into two books. Terry Brook's "Sword of Shanarra" got split into three books, and lately, Weis and Hickman's "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" got split into two books as well, the first one entitled "A Rumor of Dragons" and the second "Night of the Dragons".

Free Comic Day

Since I am a patron of CCHQ, I'd just like to remind people Free Comic Book Day is on May 3. Yes, they actually give free comics. But so that no one takes advantage of this, customers who've bought items from CCHQ of a certain amount get stamps on a card. For each stamp, you get a free comic. And there are a lot of comics. Aside from famous publishers (e.g. Marvel, DC, Image, Darkhorse, Dreamwave), there are also a couple of good ones from not so famous publishers like Avatar Press, Broken Tree Publications, Dorkstorm Press (no, I am not making these names up).

No Time for Books

Strangely enough, haven't read a book in the past week. Ironically, it's when I have school that I actually have free time to read the books I want. Lately, I've been busy with this Flash project I'm doing.

Teachers are Everywhere

After leaving E-Klik for school yesterday, had to wait in school for Elbert and Jaime. Of course Elbert fell asleep, so I ended up waiting for half an hour. In the meantime, I was strolling around school and ran into some familiar faces (like the guy whom Cyril and I used to play Warcraft 3 with). One of them is a classmate from Phil. Lit. who has a cute face but whose name I forgot. She recently graduated from CE (Computer Engineering?) and she's planning to teach (in Ateneo). So that's three people graduating who'll be teachers: Sacha, Cyril, and her. Hmmmm...

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Alone at 9:30 am in Katipunan

I was supposed to meet Elbert at school but he had to postpone it 30 minutes before I left (but I already asked to use the car by 9:00 am since mom will be using the driver afterwards) so I was at Katipunan by 9:30 am, with nothing better to do.

After strolling around campus (the computer rooms are all shut down and few people were roaming around, although there is this particular UA&P basketball player who came out of the Philo dept. and literally jumped for joy), I decided to walk around Katipunan. Unfortunately, they were as empty as school as shops were still closed.

Even CCHQ opened a few minutes late. But that was okay. I was sitting on a bench with Kit and Elbert's crush, who was wearing black spaghetti straps (yey! I finally know what a spaghetti strap is) and a lovely skirt.

Still, was alone for the rest of the hour since people were literally at one side of CCHQ and I was alone at the other corner, reading the latest issue of Previews. Lots of gossip heard but I'm not at liberty to say what it is I heard, especially since I know those who were there are reading this blog, no matter how much they'll deny it. =P

Here at E-Klik where the connection seems slow. Maybe I should transfer to the Internet stall beside Blue Skies where they have Bayantel DSL.

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The Blue Screen of Death

For us PC users, the blue screen of death has been a way of life. Somebody should patent that name. And for those interested, no, it hasn't happened to me recently (which is a good thing considering my computer doesn't have a reset button, much less an off switch). At least not with the computer model I'm using. Can't say the same for Elbert though.

Coraline at Powerbooks

For those who haven't gotten one... And Ringu VCDs are out at Music One/Tower Records.

SARS

It's strange. We're getting all these news coverage about the war in Iraq that news about SARS is getting eclipsed by it. As well as other important news like North Korea testing weapons without informing its neighbors (maybe one day I'll wake up to find out that North Korea launched a surprise attack on Japan or something). And of course, these things are closer to home.

The funny thing about SARS is that it afflicts a lot of people, and those that die from it are usually the healthy people. Well, if it's any comfort, my chances of surviving SARS is pretty high considering I'm far from healthy, and have been plagued by respiratory diseases my entire life that I'm probably immune to it by now. At least until my regular attacks come to plague me.

Home... and Alone

That's what being broke does to you. Do you know the last movie I watched in a theater was Hero? And that was several weeks ago.

Anyway, here I am at home, checking email, watching TV, checking more email...

One thing that's good during summer is that I get to email people. And since people usually have nothing better to do, they actually reply to my emails. =)

Anime Con

Anyway, a few weeks from now will be TeleSuccess's anime convention. Some people I know are already preparing their costumes for the event (and some even their dance numbers).

Hopefully, I'll get to write for K-Zone. Maybe they'll let me cover the event. Ha! Fat chance. Oh well, back to my day job. Oh, wait, I'm a bum...

My Writing

Speaking of K-Zone, had to give them a sample of my work the other day (actually, had an acquaintance give it to them... so I'm assuming that my acquaintance is reliable and actually handed it to them by now) and well, I couldn't really find anything good and recent with the exception of my feature article, which is long. I also had this other article which I planned on submitting for Animedia but he didn't get to use it, and I can't do it right now in HTML since it involves tables. Lots of them.

Anyway, just had to burn onto a CD my old fanzine and anything that's written there is at least three years old. Aside from my horrible writing skills back then (the only comfort I have is that I'm not alone, buwahahaha! I have Rin's old work, as well as Mia's and Kara's, to name a few), they're filled with jargon (since it was my intent to target the fans, not the masses) and less than optimum writing (I was trying to break free from my "news writing" sensibilities at the time). The only good thing is that at the very least, that's my minimum output for any work given.

Now if I only had the technical knowledge of Benj, Kara, and Sacha, the layouting skills of Arcina, Tchan, and Rin, the literature sensibilities of Tin and Richie, the drawing skills of Elbert, Nicole (ah, my PO Bytes graphic artist), and Katch, and the marketing talents of Fed, I'd be a self-sufficient person on his way to success.

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Busy busy busy

Despite the fact that I don't have any classes anymore, found myself at school yesterday because I had to meet people.

Not that I was the only person to be in school. In fact, I saw a couple of classmates and acquaintances.

Anyway, Carlos was picking up cigarettes and placing them in plastic bag for community service. He also went to the cashiers to hand them that bag full of cigarettes. I didn't know what he was thinking.

Philo grades were also posted. I got a B. I guess that would bring my grade up to a C+.

North, South, and Everywhere Else

That's where I've been yesterday. From school which is a bit up north, found myself flung to Rockwell which is near south. Then, I head to Megamall, which brings me somewhere in the center of the city.

Flash MX

Call it on the job training. But it'd be real helpful if someone who has mastered the action script can help me.

Lonely Me

Self-explanatory.

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