K.I.A. in a Jar


Hmmmm....

Saw this at the window display of KinX Cakes at Megamall. Just had to snap a pic. Heh.

It runs in the Family


That's my sister, Lea, posing beside her masterpieces.

There's a definite artistic streak running through my family. My brother is an architect from the same university that brought up Gerry Alanguilan, and he's good at technical drawing. I do comics. My elder sister on the other hand, paints. I've seen her draw a lot years and years ago, when we were a lot younger. Recently though, she's been able to get deeper into her painting. Well, it was a pleasant surprise to see her open an art exhibit along with a gaggle of other painters. The exhibit, entitled Sikat, is open now at the 4th floor of SM Megamall. Lots of colorful art to see. Go and take a look if you're in the area.

The King Returns in May

Yep, if you wanna see the nailbiting Siege of Minas Tirith, the MAD, mad, mad charge of the Rohirrim versus the monstrous Haradrim Oliphaunts, the battle between hobbit and giant spider, the charge of the Dead Armies and Viggo Mortensen singing again (Yipe), the date to wait for is May 25. The initial release of ROTK dvd will be the 2-disc widescreen theatrical cut release, which will include of course special features, trailers and other good stuff. The much meatier and more anticipated EXTENDED version will most likely land on our shores by November. Well, that's the LOTR event to wait for this year...

Appealing to my Inner Tyrant

Several weeks ago, Carl introduced the gang to a site called Nationstates.net, a game site where you create and guide your own 'nation'. You make up the name, type of government, policies, flag and national animal, and you're off. It seemed like an interesting way to waste more time online, so I resolved to try it. But it was only after seeing Nikki do it that I finally got to making my own little private country online.
My state is called The Dictatorship of Madrapoor, and we're a benevolent but iron-fisted state that has one year of compulsary military service, a belief in strong spirituality and a national animal known as The Madripoor Viper. Yep, it's a nice place to visit, but live there only if you like snakes.

Heh. Okay, back to work...

Gaming Interlude

Over the weekend I was able to pick up a bunch of games. The first two are for the Xbox. One is Samurai Shodown Special, which is apparently a cracked version/port of the latest game in the SS series- which is COOL since normally you'd need to have a NEO GEO arcade unit to play that. Anyway, Samurai Shodown 5 brings together a lot of familiar fighters from the past SS games, such as Haohmaru, Genjuro, Charlotte Christine Colde, Nakoruru, Rimururu, Tam Tam, Kyoshiro, Hanzo Hattori, Galford, Gaira, Basara, Sogetsu, Kazuki and more. Joining the veterans are some new combatants, including a sexy, scantily-clad archer girl, a HUGE demon, a warrior with more swords than he has arms, an 'evil' version of Nakoruru and an old man who looks a bit like Han Myoung from the Soul Edge games. I can't really say that I find too many of the new guys interesting (the archer girl is quite fetching though), but this is the latest in a classic series, so I'll give it a play or two.
Everything or Nothing is the latest videogame in the James Bond franchise, and I have to say it looks great. The producers pulled out all the stops and got actor Pierce Brosnan to give his looks for your onscreen bond. Actors Judy Dench (M) and John Cleese (Q) reprise their roles from the films via voiceovers, taking you through the missions and giving the game quite a bit of authenticity. Along with the regular Bond cast, there are a bevy of Bond girls to encounter, played by actress Shannon Elizabeth, model Heidi Klum, singer Mya and Japanese model Misaki Ito. On the heavies side, Willem Dafoe plays the head bad guy. Yep, this game has all the trappings of a real Bond movie- Hell, they even got Richard Kiel to reprise his role as Jaws!

While I never got into past bonds because the gameplay was generally blah, EON has intuitive controls which are responsive and fast. Firefights are exciting and enemies are smart, and it takes no time at all to become an expert gunman. The first few levels are pretty cool and include a battle in a fortress and a train chase. I think I'm gonna see this Bond through.

Finally, Final Fantasy X2: International + Last Mission for the PS2 adds the english voiceovers of the US FFX2 with new modes, a couple of new dress spheres and more to freshen up this girlpower RPG. I doubt I'll be able to finish this one through, but I got it just to see Yuna in her kimono outfit. Heh.
Sigh. So many games, yet so little time to enjoy them. Gotta put these away and get back to churning out pages...

Hoodlums

Recently, I was walking home sometime after midnight, inside our subdivision. As I was passing the local basketball court/playground, I noticed some youths grouped at the side in the yard, smoking and hanging around. As I walked by, I heard some of them talking 'gangsta' speak (You know... words with mother and the 'F' word). Just then, several small pebbles clattered all around me. One even hit me on my back. It didn't hurt, but the blow wasn't physical.'

WHO THE HELL ARE THESE BASTARDS TO THROW FRICKING ROCKS AT ME?

I stopped and turned to look at the darkened playground where the youths were. One of them kept muttering (at me), still in the stupid gangsta speak- "What'cha looking at Motherf___er?"

Perhaps it was against better judgement, but for some reason, I walked TOWARD the pebble-throwers. I could tell they were teens, smoking and probably tipsy with drink, or worse maybe even drugs. It didn't matter. I was mad.
"Were you throwing stones at me?" I rasped.
They at first denied it, saying that it was maybe just some rocks falling from the sky or something. There were no more gangsta comments or quips. They were silent, obviously not prepared to get confronted for their posturing.

"Stop that." I said. I turned, but kept my eyes at them. As I walked away, the guy who spoke to me started apologizing, probably worried that I'd cause trouble. I didn't give any reply and just kept walking away. I was done. I had half a mind to report them, but if I did, whatever happened next I would be at a disadvantage. I'll let it pass, for now. But still, I'm not totally unscathed. Now I have to make it a point to avoid walking that way at that time, just for safety's sake. Gotta make it a point to ride a cab home that late.

This is my home, for God's sake. I've been living here for the past seventeen years. Those bastards were just frickin' sperms in their stupid parents' when I started living here. They have no right to terrorize people here.

PRIME Vanishing Ray targets. Bastards. What a waste of oxygen.

WOW

I once thought all SOLAR USA was just good for B-movies, bad cartoons and the odd tagalog action film. Well, ever since the channel got WWE wrestling into its program schedule, it's been a regular stop for me. Imagine my surprise when one night I turned to SOLAR and found myself watching WOW, or Women Of Wrestling. FYI, WOW is the recent (well, it was a few years ago) resurgence of the old GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) show in the 80s. Like its predecessor, WOW features an all-female roster of female wrestlers, most with their various themes, schticks and gimmicks. This includes of course 'faces' (Good Girls) like Terry Gold the Perfect Ten gymnast, and the Beach Patrol, who skip into the ring wearing the trademark red one-piece swimsuits from Baywatch. Then there are the 'heels' (Bad Girls) which include Jungle Grrl, a leopard skin-wearing wildcat who loves flattening her enemies with a splash from the top turnbuckle; and the Disciplinarian, a teacher from hell. As you'd expect, the cheese factor is pretty high, but so is the babe factor, so it's cool for anyone who loves seeing slinky femme fatales doing clotheslines and suplexes. Hey, that's me! Heh.

Blog-on-the-Run

Right now I'm blogging at home on my laptop. Plugged in the phone line, filled in the numbers, and voila! I'm online. Amazing tool, this Powerbook is. Like Dean, I'm really getting into the portable office/writing thing. For now though, I'm really having fun with the Bluetooth feature, which lets me link with my phone, letting me load videos and wallpapers into my lovely 6600. It's not the lightest thing around, and I do have to lug it back and forth from Makati to Marikina everyday, but I guess the good things outweigh (argh) the bad.
This beats surfing on the PC, which seems to be soooooo buggy these days. Maybe if the old grey box sees how great the new silver tray is doing, it'll shape up. Sigh.

Hot Topic

It's been a long time since I've posted a taxi story.

I got down at the usual disembarking point with Vin. I didn't even have to wait; a taxi was already slowing down to meet me. As I told him my destination and settled down into my seat, it became plain that the middle-aged driver was the talky type.
Anyway, the conversation started with the traffic situation. We talked about how fast the overpass at C-5/Libis was completed (like it grew out of the ground), and how, in comparison, the construction at Katipunan was painfully slow.
As we talked about the traffic at Katipunan and how overpasses would help ease it, the driver got into a slight tirade at how these flyovers would fail to ease traffic so long as there was no Mobile/Vehicle Regulatory Board to control the influx of new cars and drivers.

Wow.

He went on to say that because of the traffic, the multinationals were leaving, since all their goods weren't reaching their destinations on time. The goods in the trucks were spoiling in the containers. The talk then shifted to chocolates (!) and how the confections would melt well before they reached the stores and customers.
"I remember the old Werter chocolates before. Those were so popular but now, they're all gone." he said (translated from tagalog, of course). Kitkat is still around, but that's because they're mostly wafer, and probably treated with preservatives so they don't melt." (I wonder if the man knew I had a bunch of Kitkats in my bag?)

I talked about Horlicks, which was a nice candy from Europe, which I remember was impervious to metling too. As we went along, more candy brands were mentioned, like Toblerone, Chupa Chups and more.

Hmm. That was an interesting taxi ride. I don't think I became a better person because of it, but I am gonna appreciate the sweets I got tonight a lot more. Oh well. You take what you can.

Out with the Old

Today I saw my old iMac being lugged off from my table, to be taken elsewhere. All my work (and play) will now be centered on my new laptop- Workfiles, Office communications, surfing... it's all where I go (at least, when I have my bag). It's an odd but refreshing thing to be portable- it will probably take me a bit of time before I get used to it. Tonight, I'll try surfing and blogging with my laptop via my home connection. Will that signify the end of my home desktop as well? Probably not. I'll still keep the ol' PC for hard file storage, and probably the odd game or two. Or ten. Heh.
Again, it'll all be a matter of being able to manage my time and utilize my new mobile capabilities to their best. It won't happen right away, but it will. Darn.

Last-minute Submissions

With all the great stuff that has been submitted, I feel so fortunate that three more artworks have been submitted for K.I.A. just slightly after the deadline. Here are sneak peeks at the latest and last pinup submissions, from three great local comic artists.


Anthony Yap has done lots of comics in the past, for Alamat's Baylans and Blitzworx comics. He submits a sexy, action-packed ninja chase/battle.


Edgar Tadeo is one of the more respected and well-known names in local comics. I am so glad to have him give us an artwork. CUTE!


Arnold Arre needs no introduction. No one draws Kai like he does, and his artwork is simply awesome. It's also in full color, so I am loathe to lose those wonderful hues and tones. We'll see what we can do...

Great stuff. If K.I.A. were just an art or pinup book, it would rock. But of course, the meat and potatoes of this grafiction meal are still being cooked. The pages of the more than ten stories are being done as we speak (I hope), and hopefully they'll all come together soon.

Wait for it.

Rush Food

On my way home I was able to stop by a Ministop to get my dinner- microwave chicken and pork adobo rice, pork kariman and a hefty slice of Black Forest cake. All were pretty good; the adobo was tasty and ALMOST satisfied me; still, there were only about 4 or 5 pieces of meat, which was just enough for the accompanying rice. Good thing the Kariman was there to give my hunger the coup de grace. The cake was actually a bit too big, was tasty but only had the cream and the chocolate; black forest lovers will probably complain at the lack of cherries.

Darn. I'm really getting into this microwaveable food thing. Hope I don't start developing some weird habits. Okay, exceptionally weird habits...

Gushing

Return of the King sweeps the Oscars! WOOHOO!!!

Say what you will about a big-budget fantasy film winning the Academy Awards, but the LOTR trilogy's overall production, direction, performances, music... EVERYTHING about LOTR screams of the highest quality, and for me ROTK's overwhelming victory is a win for all 3 films. For me, no other trilogy/series/franchise has maintained consistent entertainment quality like The Lord of the Rings.
Congratulations to director Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh, WETA Digital, New Line Cinema and the whole cast of LOTR, and thank you for giving us fantasy lovers a glorious and lasting film series to represent the genre (Better than Dungeons and Dragons...). Heh.

CHEERS!

A New Start

Today was a pretty interesting day. I started work today in my agency's new office in Makati. The new place is pretty cool, though quite unfinished. We'll give it a couple of weeks before it becomes totally liveable. So far, the PROS are; NICE view, smart, snazzy building, closer to clients. CONS so far, it's quite a distance from a meal (and NO MINISTOPS nearby!!!), farther from home, closer to clients... Heh.
I rode the MRT again after a looooong absence. Still as crowded as I remember it. Anyway, I got down at Buendia and found FX taxis aplenty which would take me to my new building. It's a really posh and modern place, with a nice cafeteria where you order stuff with a swipe card and pay only when you leave the premises.

Today, we spent our time trying to get our lives back in order as we faced a new and more radical, free-flowing office layout, dust and boxes of STUFF everywhere, and unfinished furnishings laying about. Of course, EVERYTHING paled in comparison to the sudden entrance of our NEW LAPTOPS. Yep, our Apple Powerbook G4 notebooks arrived today, and we were able to finally hold them in our hands, set up our new partners-in-crime and even go out later in the evening to shop for laptop bags.



Afterwards, we ate a little snack at SPAM JAM, the restaurant at Glorietta which specializes in various preparations of... well, Spam. Not as bad as Dean made it out... or maybe I was just really hungry, and it's been a long time since I had Spam. Heh.

It was a hot yet cool day. Lots of firsts and new things, and things that bode well for the future. Here's to things getting better as we go.

Fantasy Rules the Oscars


RETURN OF THE KING: BEST PICTURE!

Peter Jackson for Best Director

Grant Major and Dan Hennah won the Oscar for Best Art Direction.

Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor won for Best Costume.

Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke for Best Visual Effects.

Richard Taylor and Peter King for Best Makeup.

Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges and Hammond Peek for Best Sound Mixing.

Howard Shore won for Best Original Score.

James Selkirk won for Best Film Editing.

Annie Lennox, Fran Walsh and Howard Shore won for Best Music (Song).

Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens won for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Phone Whore Part Deux

On another whim, I ran off to Greenhills this evening to snazz up my new toy. I traded in the 32 MB Memory Card for a 128 MB version, and had it loaded up with some cool applications and games. Unfortunately, I came near closing time so I wasn't able to get all the good stuff (I'll have to go back there probably next week), but I got some real nice treats, such as an application that lets me take videoclips of up to 30 seconds (the regular camcorder only lets you take 9-second vids), a Sonic the Hedgehog game, a cool fighter videogame called Steel Warrior that reminds me of the classic Sega Space Harrier, an alternate camera program, a 'safe' program for storing top-secret photos (heh) and some more odds and ends.
All in all, that stuff took up about 21 MB of space, leaving me, oh, 104 more Megabytes to play with. That's pretty much all the space I would ever need for short clips and photos till the cows come home. Yep, I love my 6600. Things should get even better next week, but even now I'm one happy phone fanatic.

Smarty Pants

Last night, the group went to Chili's. It's been a long time since we've been there last, so it was cool. Bottomless drinks and good chili! WOOHOO! The capper of the night was a couple of games of Smarty Pants, a board game/pop culture knowledge competition where the more you know, the less you advance, and the the best player never leaves the starting line.
Well, you're reading the blog of the champion of our debut Smarty Pants round. MAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Vin won the second, but that's just a footnote). Fun though somewhat potentially very stressful game. Hoho!

Today I'm enjoying the last of the weekend; still, I've got art chores to do, including stuff for Kunoichi Boy, K.I.A. and some more odds and ends. Tomorrow, I'm off to Makati to see our new digs. And hopefully, I'll have MMS on my new phone, so I'll have cool pics up again on my phlog. Stay tuned!

Phone Whore


Yep, I got it.

I know, I know. I've been saying for some time that I would be staying with my Sony Ericsson T610 for a while. I've had the nice T610 for a couple of months, and I loved it for it's lovely, sophisticated design, the large screen, the cool camera, Internet-WAP-GPRS and other features. But while I loved it, the seeds of doubt were in it from the start.
For the benefit of those who haven't read through my blog a lot, I got my T610 as a means of assuaging my frustration when I won a Z600 last Christmas, at my ad agency's Xmas party. I won it... and LOST it since I wasn't there to claim it; I left a bit early on personal reasons. You see, I NEVER win in raffles. And when I finally DO win, (and win BIG), I still lose. GAAAHHH!!!

Well, anyway, if the T610 was a shock-absorber phone, the Nokia 6600 is my dream phone. I've been dreaming about owning it ever since I saw it late last year online, at the Nokia site. I loved the look, the firmness and tight design, the cool wideness (which just lets you know it's FULL of features- and it is!), the VAST screen and hi-res camera and videocam (more hi-res and brighter pictures compared to the T610 and lesser Nokia camera phones such as the 7250 and 3650), and the loads of other stuff.
I also love the fact that memory is NOT a problem- not with a memory card which can potentially give you the space for hundreds of pictures, loads of applications, videos and other crap. You get a 32 MB card right off the bat, but you can upgrade to as high as 256 MB. What you have with the 6600 is a viable digital camera, videoclip recorder, PDA-type thingie, internet browder and e-mail device, a gaming device (yep, you can load in cool games meant for the crappy N-Gage into the 6600- I've got the original Tomb Raider right now- How COOL is that?!) AND you can call and text people.

So, when I found that ONE single 6600 being sold second-hand at the cellphone bazaar in Greenhills, I jumped at it. I traded in my T610, added cash for the balance (which was nicely enough just a thousand more than the cash I put out for the T610) and I was the owner of my dream phone. Dream comes true. Lovely, lovely, lovely phone in my hand.

I'm happy as a clam right now. This time, I WILL be staying with this one for a while. Until the next superphone comes along, perhaps, in a couple of years...

But then again, that new Nokia 7600 looked pretty wild... heh... maybe... hahaha...

Just kidding.

Cellular Ghost Story

My Dad told me this funny story recently.

About a week ago, he was riding the car with my sister's driver, Mang Primo (both are probably in their sixties). At one point, they heard a sound which he described sounding like, Treet-treet-treet. Both men assumed that it was the taxi behind them, honking its horn.
The continued driving. After a few minutes, again the honking noise. Darn taxi.

They drove down the road to our subdivision, entered through the gate and were nearing our street when AGAIN the sound.

Treet-treet-treet...

The taxi was, of course, no longer there.

"ABA!" exclaimed my dad. "Wala na ang taxi, ah!" Hey! The taxi's no longer there!

"Baka may multo! May tao sa trunk!" said the driver. Maybe there's a GHOST! Or someone's in the trunk!

At that moment, before panic could go any further, my dad had a thought.

Maybe it was his cellphone. The same cellphone I gave him (it's a Samsung C100, a nice, simple but cool color phone I gave him for Christmas). And yes, they saw that this was so.

Apparently, he had forgotten that he had asked my brother to change the ringtone and then didn't recognize the new tone.

End of story.

Grand Century


A grand spread for Siglo!

Saturday night saw the whole Siglo: Freedom crew, tons of comics and creative personalities, press and the good people of Nautilus Comics and Mango Books together at Glorietta 2, to celebrate the Grand Launch of the 'Comic book of the Century'.

I'll say this... Nautilus really knows how to throw a party, complete with lots of great food, drinks, merchandising materials, streamers, sound system and even a cultural dance show (featuring an arnis drummer and a flamenco dancer). The event was graced by our publisher, Mr. Choy Cojuangco and Raul Roco Jr., son of Presidentiable Raul Roco, and Dean's batchmate in college. While there were tons of food around, I really didn't get to eat too much since I was too busy signing books, mingling and chatting with local comics people (Hello to Jac Lim, Ner, Fero and the Blitzworx people) to really relax and dine. I was lugging a bag and it was hard to really get comfortable, but I still managed to eat up an ice cream drumstick, a couple of chicken lollipops and lots of softdrinks (I was more thirsty than hungry).
Afterwards, the gang packed up into Vin's tan van, which promptly conked out on EDSA in traffic. Luckily, we were at the side of the road when it happened. So while Vin was working the engine, Dean had an impromptu photoshoot with Gig on the curb. Heh.

We ended the night at UCC Coffee, chatting about stuff to come in local publishing and comics in this bright year 2004. Congratulations, guys and girls!


The Guys and Gal of SIGLO; Me, Elbert, Dean, Gig, Vin and Gerry.