I am fifthStitch

The Life and Times vol. 8: No Clever Title

2011-11-15T11:02:00.001-08:00

Hello. No clever titles this time, no pointless banter before I begin. For once, I'd be Ryan, and just Ryan. No fifthStitch jovial undertones, just me speaking my heart out.

Because after a long struggle of trying to hold everything in, I've got a lot to speak out.

To put it simply, it feels as if though my life and my faith are crumbling. If you've been privy about me personally (and even if you're not, the personal info in the side bar is a dead giveaway anyway), you'd know how much I value my faith, and how inseparable it is from my life. It's what's keeping me sane and kicking; it's so intertwined with my life that I cannot fathom not living without it. But recent events have put my faith to the test, not my belief in a God, as I know there is one, but about whether or not He loves me.

I have no doubt that God is watching over my life, and God has always been looking out for me, at least until recently. I've been really really afraid actually; I know how undeserving I am of God's love, and so I find myself hiding my face from God. I'm a sinner, I admit. I procrastinate, wasting time where I shouldn't be wasting it, visiting pornography sites and performing other forms of distraction. I try to rationalize, saying that I can't help it. I guess it's akin to a smoker's desire to puff a cigarette; especially when you're under fire all the time, it's extremely difficult to fight distractions. I naturally want to be happy, but being trapped in an infinite cycle of stress and distress, it's hard to blame myself from finding easy way outs. But when I do, guilt sets in, which brings more stress, triggering the cycle all over again.

You see, it's quite obvious that I don't subscribe to hedonism. I believe we all have responsibilities, and that pleasure isn't always intrinsically good, especially if it violates those responsibilities. Pardon my bluntness, but I think hedonism is wildly irresponsible, because what might be pleasurable for you can be less so for others, and I will not live a kind of life where the self takes priority over everyone else. My faith had been my guiding light in this regard, teaching me what is right and what is wrong and giving me a real and doable path to happiness. Recently however, this path has become less and less doable, from my perspective.

Non-believers would think that Christians are like sheep who blindly follows a shepherd. Sometimes I just wished I'm like that, just a sheep following the shepherd that I trust. But the same God I follow, the same shepherd who tells me where to go, created me the way I am now. I'm sure He has a reason why He made me the way I am, giving me the ability to think critically and giving me a limited ability to fend for myself. It's just that, sometimes, this same gift has become a curse, as whenever I begin to use it, sometimes I arrive at conclusions that are... for the lack of better words, less indicative of my faith, to the point that sometimes my conclusions go against it. And this makes me very very afraid.

The hardest part of all this is I only feel this way when I'm stressed; other times I'm generally okay, or even more than okay. I can really feel God's presence in those times of peace. But in times like this, the only thing I can feel is darkness. It's getting harder and harder to feel God's presence in my life. I think that's simply what I'm getting at: it's getting harder and harder to detect whether God is truly there or not, granting me direction and purpose. And I don't know if I can survive this any longer. My physical and mental state is taking the damage. I cannot think straight; the things I loved to do before like writing and crafting, even playing games feel strained, uninspired and flat. I also feel ever more lethargic, craving sleep and dozing off way past the time I'm supposed to wake up.

It doesn't help that I need to finish my thesis soon. If things continue as they are, I don't know what might happen. I don't want to leave God's presence, but as more and more of my sinful nature takes over, the farther I walk away from my Father, and the more afraid I become of Him, weird as that might sound. I'm afraid because... I'm actually in part enjoying the distractions. It's pleasurable, pornography, playing cheap games, dozing off. All this are easy and fast and doesn't cost me extra effort. In effect, I'm becoming what a few paragraphs before I said I hated: hedonistic.

What scares me the most is, this might affect what I've been holding most dear in this world, my relationship with my best friend and girl friend. I'm afraid I might become someone she wouldn't like; a pitiful oaf with no ambition, one who lives by cheap thrills seeking the easy way out all the time. I'm afraid I might lose the only thing that's been supporting me, I'm afraid that I might screw up the only thing that's keeping me together. I'm afraid that I won't be able to take care of her; I'm afraid that I won't become a man she could love.

I'm writing this in case in the future, I dip into a low point again. If I rise up, if I remain down, I'm not gonna give up on my faith. I'm not one to give up so easily anyway. I'm at my lowest point, and as my favorite quote in the movie "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" says, "once you're down, the only way to go is up". If ever anyone reads this, please pray for me, pray that I might find God once again, that I might hold His hand so that He might pull me out of this slump and into the true happiness He had always given me in the past. Pray that I don't end up being afraid anymore, pray that I might find the way back to Him.

1 John 14:16 says that "perfect love drives away all fear". Pray that I might find His perfect love once again.

Imagination's Creations: Little Sister Syringe Day 1

2011-11-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hello avid readers of my blog (if you exist)! Welcome to a new blog series I'd like to call Imagination's Creations, where I indulge one of my many many hobbies: model building. Before I proceed though, let me just say, I'm not really a professional or whatever when it comes to building models and other craftsy artsy things; in fact, prior to what I'm about to show you, it's been a couple of years since I last built something out of scratch (as opposed to, say, building a model kit). However, and not that I'm bragging, but friends tell me that I might have some aptitude in prop building, and it's been something I've been wanting to get into anyway, so might as well run with it!

Nothing ventured nothing gained right (is it obvious that this aphorism is slowly becoming one of my favorites)?

Anyway, model building is like zen to me; arduous and repetitive production related tasks like sanding, sculpting, paneling and all that are strangely relaxing to me. In one of my previous builds (my Eva 00 model kit), I've sat through what amounted to around seven or more hours of sanding, washing, and sanding again, just to get those pesky injection molding sprues evened out with the rest of the piece. I don't know, but it's perhaps because I feel some form of detachment and escape from stressful reality when I perform these tasks, like I'm reciting a silent mantra with each pass of sandpaper or stroke of a modelling tool. Anyways, before I get too philosophical about things, let me talk about the project I'm about to feature in this blog post.

About a week or so ago, a friend decided she would cosplay one of her ball-jointed dolls as a Little Sister from Bioshock (great game by the way, if only it weren't so dizzying for the uninitiated). The costume was perfect, she even got her little girl glow in the dark eyes, but it was missing an iconic piece - something a Little Sister wouldn't be caught dead without (and that's not even a metaphor; Little Sisters always carried this malice filled iconic piece which I'm needlessly foreshadowing). Immediately (and maybe a little impulsively) I decided to volunteer and make said iconic piece, which led to today's build.

Let me present to you, the Little Sister Syringe:

IMAGE TAKEN FROM THE UTTERLY AMAZING

VOLPIN PROPS, LINK HERE.

For the build, my friend and I had been tossing around ideas for what material to use. We eventually settled for Sculpey III, partly because it's convenient to use and partly because it was the most readily available at the time of purchase. Again, before I proceed, let me just say, I'm a total newbie when it comes to working with Sculpey, or any extremely pliable material for that matter. Don't expect polish to any degree, maybe in due time I would improve, but due time is not available to me at the moment, along with experience. Not to say I didn't enjoy the build though, had a blast the entire time I was sculpting the piece.

Anyway (what is it with me and blabbering?).

I forgot to document the early stages of the build, but it wasn't really that interesting anyway. We printed a scaled image of the Volpin Props replica above to be in scale my friend's BJD (will be henceforth referred to as Violet), after which I got to conditioning (fancy term for kneading, squishing and more kneading) the Sculpey. Violet has a body that was a little bit more mature than a Little Sister, so I eyeballed and scaled up the piece to fit her proportions relative to the actual syringe in the games. Didn't help that different game arts featured different sized syringes, but we got the size pretty much dialed in.

If there was one interesting thing about the initial stages of the build though, it would be the search for the materials and tools we would use for the build. As you would see in the pictures below, we sort of winged it as we went along. We were fortunate to find an old plastic picture frame of sorts that worked perfectly as a work bench (worked as a work bench... hmmm...). It was cool because we were able to slip the printed scaled picture of the syringe into the frame, which allowed me to eyeball the size and shape of the individual parts of the project. I also had to build some modelling tools on the fly, by bending some wire I found lying around (I think it was from an old binder clip) into a small hoop and attaching it to the handle of an exacto knife (after removing the blade of course). Worked perfectly I must say, for a makeshift tool.

I decided I'd do the main body of the syringe first, modelling it out from a thick wad of Sculpey. I attempted quite a number of different approaches sculpting this part, but I eventually settled with modelling it around a portion of chopstick. Hey, it worked great, I guess the dining philosophers were up to something when they fought over chopsticks!

AND NOBODY GOT THE REFERENCE...

OH WELL, MOVING ON...

That's me by the way, toiling and laboring just to get the shape of the piece right. Afterwards, I got to work creating the tubes sticking out of the main piece, again using Sculpey molded along some unraveled paper clips. In hindsight, I guess I should have searched for some tube pieces instead of molding it out of polymer clay (an extremely difficult task, which I failed quite badly), but I wasn't sure of the proportions at that time, so I just winged it and went with what's available. Next time I'd probably do some more initial planning. Lesson definitely learned.

YES, I WORKED ON A CHAIR.

DEAL WITH IT.

About midway through building the piece, I decided to try curing Sculpey using a blow drier. My friend's brother was having guests on that day, and we didn't want to bother their cooks by using the oven. Needless to say it didn't work, so we bothered the cooks anyway.

DIE PIECE OF POLYMER CLAY!

DIE!

The action-y caption is me over compensating for using a blow drier. For some reason, my friend found that funny. My manliness rating has forever suffered a 10 percent reduction.

Anyways, after building the main piece with the pipes sticking out of it, we decided to cure the clay to see if it would all work out. We were both very anxious at that point because, hey, it was the first time for both of us working with Sculpey clay! Fired the piece at around 250 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes, worked rather perfectly.

I had to leave for a moment to attend to another business, but once I got back, I had a few minutes to spare to create the needle portion of the syringe, plus the little tube attached to it. I first tried sanding and whittling a chopstick (didn't know chopsticks were so tough to cut into) to create the needle. I couldn't get it to a well defined point, which was when I realized I brought barbecue skewers for the express purpose of creating the needle. About five minutes of wasted effort, but hey, I made my friends laugh at my idiocy, and I learned the real toughness of the ultimate oriental culinary cutlery.

I had to leave for the day, but my friend cured the piece at about 270 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes (the oven was already preheated to that temperature, and we were trying to see how much leeway we actually have in terms of curing). Below is the picture of what we were able to finish for Day 1 of the Little Sister Syringe build:

PRETTY COOL FOR A FIRST BUILD, ALTHOUGH

I HAVE TO ADMIT, I NEED MORE PRACTICE

I decided that whatever I couldn't do at the sculpting phase, I'd try to do during the sanding phase. Hopefully I could get the tubes and pieces evened out a bit more, as much as I could. Next up would be building the little trigger mechanism, plus preparing the ADAM vial. I was planning on using a little snap fastener to attach the vial to the main piece, and I'm excited to see how that would turn out. This was so we could attach an assortment of vials to the syringe: a full one, a half full one, an empty one, and maybe some others). Anyways, next time I'd try to take better quality photos, but for now, that would be all.

Whew, trepidation and excitement galore! See you on the next installment!

The Life and Times vol. 7: End of an era

2011-09-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, two Life and Times in the span of a month! Or maybe a week, I can't really remember (of course, I could have just looked at the timestamps but nooo... Too lazy...). Anyways, why the sudden urge to present you guys with another awesome edition of The Life and Times?

Simple. The end of an era has arrived. The End of Eternity has begun.

AND THE START OF A BEAUTIFUL NEW

ADDICTION

Oooh-kay... That was a bit too dramatic. To those who are confused (I know most of you are), I'm talking about a game know in Japan as End of Eternity, but more commonly known in the English speaking world as Resonance of Fate. Now, I'm only a few hours into the game (10 hours is a few right? Right?) but I can already tell, this is going to be one helluvan addicting game. 'Cuz, you know, ten hours is a few right?

All kidding aside, this game has had a bad rap since it's initial release, owing to it's difficulty. Now, while I'm still way to early in the game to make a verdict (10 hours is early into the game. No seriously, I'm not joking. This game takes allegedly something close to 120 hours to 100 percent, i.e. get all the optional stuff), I can say, it's extremely unique, and as such, I cannot really assess if it's difficult or not. The boss battles in the game are understandably tough, as boss battles wont to be, but the regular enemies aren't really that hard. However, if you mess things up, you're really going to get your face creamed; this is a game that rewards smart play - playing smart is crucial to enjoying the game at its fullest.

I'd probably do a game review of this wonderful wonderful JRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game, apparently Japan has it's own flavor of RPGs, and so far, my gamer taste buds are practically salivating for more), but I want to get to the point of this blog post (I'm writing this at around 5 in the morning without sleep, so pardon my brevity). See that girl in the first pic? Ain't she pretty?

SAY YES OR SHE'LL GIVE YOU MORE HOLES

THAN A BEEHIVE! (TRUE STORY)

And she is why I fell for the game, hook line and sinker. See, the combat system is extremely compelling, the story telling (the story isn't told per se, it's more of revealed through small, teasingly short cut-scenes) and the characterizations are all extremely solid. The game could be repetitive true (there's a lot of emphasis on grinding and long dungeon crawling), but heck; the acrobatic jumping and shooting animation still excites me even if it's the hundred millionth time I've seen it (and in the case of the pretty girl up there, gun-fu ballet). But toss in a girl as cute as her and the game just suddenly became my favorite, with the my next favorite game a hundred paces behind (sorry Fang, sorry Lightning).

By the way, her name is Leanne. And yes. I think I'm in love.

I MEAN, WHAT'S NOT TO

LOVE?!?

Ahh Leanne...

The Life and Times vol. 6: One frame links

2011-09-23T00:50:00.000-07:00

Yohou guys? Whats up? It's been a long time but here we are once again in another installment of fifthStitch's life and times. Today's feature: One frame links and fighting games!

AND CHUN LI'S LIGHTNING LEGS!

But before anything else, a quick recap of whats in and what's not in my humble little life:

So I'm still in college, big whup. I'm still in the process of finishing my thesis, and by God's grace, I've been able to finish quite a significant percentage of it (still a long ways to go though, sigh)
Went to Kuala Lumpur a few days ago. Bought me some cool new AstroBoy shoes. No anime lover should be caught dead without any AstroBoy merch (unless you really hate the robotic boy wonder of Japan; hey, isn't he regarded as the first anime character or something like that?).
Celebrated my birthday last Monday, if by celebrating you mean bumming around and not doing much other than playing games and watching stuff. To be fair, the day ended well, since I got to meet with the Song of my Soul and the Beat of my Body (damn, that last one sounded wrong XD oh well, she wouldn't know...)
The Music of my... erm... Manhood? (crap, she's gonna kill me) gave me an awesome Katanabrella (that's Katana + Umbrella for you word chumps out there). Been scaring the beans out of people whenever I brandish it around like a real katana in public transport. Love it. Thanks Rhyme of my Rhythm! (hey, that last one wasn't so bad! Alliterations are fun!)
Ad Continuum is still on hiatus, although I'd probably be reviewing my figures so I could at least have some creative outlet. Anyone interested in reading such?
I've been living a humble life, and have resolved to do so.
I also wrote three short stories some weeks ago. I think they're my best so far. Check them out in my Psychosis blog.
I'm resigning from my teaching job to focus on my thesis. Just when I was getting the hang of teaching; I think my previous (and last) term as a teacher was my best so far. One heck of a challenge too, especially for my integrity and faith.

Whew, that was quite a number of updates there! Now back to one-frame links. For those who don't know what one-frame links are, form my limited knowledge, it's a term used in fighting games to describe moves that are freaking hard to pull off in succession. If you're even remotely familiar with fighting games (if not, you may, um, skip to the next paragraph maybe? Or not read this post at all, but please don't do that!), you'd notice that each time you attack an enemy with any move, it stuns them. Sometimes, this stun (called hitstun) opens enough of a window to land another attack, which could lead to another moment of stun. Time in fighting games is measured in frames (there are 60 frames to a second in, say Super Street Fighter 4). So the amount of hitstun is measured in frames, you with me so far?

THIS WOULD CAUSE A LOT OF HITSTUN YES?

What the... Anyway, back to one-frame links. The speed of moves are also expressed in frames. For instance, jabs in fighting games are usually from extremely small number to quite a small number of frames, while more forceful punches usually take more frames to come out. Of course, jabs cause less hitstun and damage than forceful punches (called fierce punches in fighting game lingo), so you can see the trade-off right there.

To say however that a move comes out in a number of frames will cause you to be kicked in the butt by most fighting game pundits. Moves have three parts after all (and I kid you not when I say, yes, all three parts are important knowledge to know if you want to step up your game): startup, active, and recovery. Start-up is the number of frames it takes for your move to actually come out the moment you press the button to the time when it actually hits. Active on the other hand, is the amount of time your move actually hits. If your opponent is within the range of your attack during this time, he or she will get hit, simple as that. Recovery on the other hand is like recoil, its the amount of time it takes for your character to go back to it's neutral position. Your move is only actually going to cause damage during its Active frames, Start-up and Recovery are there to show that your character's fist doesn't teleport directly to your opponent's face.

Look at the visualization below, painstakingly drawn in Paint by yours truly. Cause I love you, that's why.

ZE CONCEPT VISUALIZED FOR YER

VIEWING PLEASURE

So where do one-frame links factor into this wonderfully complicated and overdrawn discussion that is probably not going to be relevant to my blog post anyways? Whenever you attack, you cause hitstun. On some moves, this hitstun is long enough to allow you to recover. Take Ryu's Close Jab. That move causes 11 frames of hitstun, which means you can recover while your opponent is still haplessly stunned. In fact, you have 5 more frames to launch another attack, hopefully, this new attack's Startup is short enough so that you will enter it's Active frames while the opponent is still stunned. An example of this would be Ryu's Crouching Medium Punch, which starts up at 4 frames. This is a two-frame link (the difference of 5 and 4, then add one), which means you have 2 frames to initiate the next move or else it will not properly combo. Look at the visualization below, again, because I love you:

MAKE SENSE OF IT... JUST DO... THIS IS

WHY I DON'T HAVE A LIFE...

So next time you punch someone, observe how long they flinch. See if you can punch them again before they're done flinching. And no, I'm not talking about in a fighting game ;)

Anyway, so now we finally go to one-frame links. One-frame links are, as you can imagine, moves where-in you have exactly one frame to connect attacks together. This means you don't have any margin for error AT ALL (in fact, I don't know why they call it this way, to me its a 0-frame link, but I don't wanna be kicked by fighting game pundits in the butt). In the example above, you can either launch the attack the moment you recover, or "wait" a frame before you launch your attack. With 1-frame links, you are not given that luxury. And oh, before I forget - why did I enclose "wait" in quotation marks? Well, unless you're one of the Speedsters, you can't really intentionally "wait" 1/60th of a second can't you?

THE FLASH: WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER AT YOU IN

FIGHTING GAMES. AND COOLER...

So what's the point of this long-winded (and technically painful) discussion? Nothing really, just to tell you that I'm really addicted to fighting games right now, 2D and 3D (Soul Calibur 5!!!), and that one-frame links are all friggin difficult. But more of the former than the latter. Obvious isn't it?

Well, off to play more Street Fighter, see you in the next volume of the Life and Times! Till then, may you never drop your 1-frame links.

Chun ~~~ <3

Reflections: Good Friday

2011-04-22T05:37:00.001-07:00

[The following post, I know, might be quite controversial for some. I don't mean to spark any debates, leave those to apologists, but I still felt compelled to share this message with you here. If you don't agree, then I ask for your respect, but if you do, then all I simply ask for is your time to read. Thank you.]

Today marks a very powerful, very significant event in human history. If you're a Christian, you would know what today is. And yes, I know there are some who aren't, and who might get turned off by this entry, but I really still wish to share this message with my friends and acquaintances, so please bear with me.

There's this narrative that I really like to share with people who are interested or who question why I believe in Jesus Christ. It's not a catch all defense or anything, I just find the narrative really really beautiful, and for me, it answers the question of why I believe in Christ really well. If you don't mind, I'd like to share that narrative too, or at least the first half of it. I hope this would have an effect on you, reader, even if only a tiny little bit.

See, the story begins with justice and love, but mostly just love.

During the time of creation, God told Adam and Eve not to partake of the fruit of good or evil, or else they will die (Genesis 3:3). Going against the will of the Father is sin, and this statement in Genesis 3:3 sets the consequence of sin to be death (the Father's will at that time was only for them not to eat of the fruit, going against that would warrant death). For those who know the continuation if this story, you would know that the consequence was put into effect when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, after the temptation of the serpent. They were sentenced to die when their time on Earth is up and they were banished from the garden of Eden (and in effect, from the presence of God, as while they were in the garden, they enjoyed God's presence freely).

Whether this story is real or not, the point behind it is that the consequence of sin has been set to death, and not the physical kind of death, but the spiritual. Spiritual death means eternal separation from God (which, if you recall, happened to Adam and Eve when they were banished from the garden). Thus we see a demonstration of God being just to His word, and a precedent of sin being been set.

Now, we are all sinners; at one point in time, we have committed a sin, big or small. God and sin cannot co-exist together though (since God is all-good) , so it follows that we must be separated from God, and are doomed to be so. But you know what? God, in His infinite love, still wanted us to be with Him, even if we were sinners. He wanted us to enjoy His presence, to enjoy a life with Him that is devoid of sadness and pain. He could've easily thrown us away, with no way for redemption. He is God after all, the creator of everything. But still, He loved us so much that He wanted us to be with Him. God wanted us to be reconciled once again with Him and to enjoy His loving presence.

But what was God to do? He already said that the consequence of sin is death (a spiritual kind of death, which means eternal separation from Him, not just physical death). And since He is just, He has to follow the rule that He set. So what now?

Well, He made a way. And in doing so, He displayed His magnificent love for all of us.

He had His Son, who was one with Him, turn into a fashion of one like us. He had His Son take on the form of a sinner like us, frail and weak. He entered into human history; an unprecedented move of One who is beyond history. And when His time had come, He took His Son and had Him sacrificed. He carried a cross He didn't have to carry, led to Calvary where He was to be crucified; an ordeal He didn't have to go through. And on the sixth hour, with long thick nails affixing Him to the cross (a pain so severe, they had to invent the word "excruciating" just to define it), battered and broken, weak and humiliated, He breathed His last. The God of all creation, humiliated in front of sinful man, willingly dying in their hands for everyone to see.

And as He underwent all this, He took on all our sins, and He died with them. He did this to pay for the penalty of sin, the penalty of all our sins. He did this so we, the undeserving sinner, would not have to suffer the penalty of sin. He suffered the consequences of our sin for us, dying and disconnecting Himself from the Father in our steed. In doing so He became the perfect sacrifice.

And in doing so, He made a way. A way back to God. A way to be reconnected once again with God. A way to be with God once again. He didn't have to do this, but he did so because He loved us so much.

So today, on Good Friday, let us remember this wonderful sacrifice He made on the cross. Let us take time from our busy schedules to thank Him for and to remember what He did for us on this day. And let us eagerly await His return, when He comes full circle, on Easter, when He demonstrated His glorious triumph over death, granting us access to eternal life with Him and the Father.

Amen.

Something to write about: Google Chrome as music player?

2011-02-08T07:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, so maybe I'm the only one who hasn't really noticed yet, but darn is the Google Chrome Webstore filled with awesomeness. Okay okay, I'm probably exaggerating, and the webstore is probably more like a blatant rip-off of Apple's Appstore, but still, it's pretty nifty to be able to play music on your browser while playing some mini games and researching the chords to the most recent Mandy Moore hit I See The Light (uhh, yeah, I think I may have enjoyed Tangle a little too much, hehe).

Like I won't be able to do this with my browser anyway. But meh.

See, I like the idea of apps being integrated into Google Chrome. I like the fact that I only need to open one application and have most of what I need right there and then. After all, isn't this what Google has been striving to do all along, with Google Docs and what not? It's interesting that now, they have even entered (read, crashed into) Apple territory by creating a platform by which small developers could create apps that could run on top of Google Chrome that provide some functionality that, arguably, has never before been seen integrated into a web browser.

Arguably.

While I like the idea, I find it weird that Google has chosen to integrate an app distribution environment into their flagship web browser. It is true that Google Chrome maybe the most used Google product outside of their search engine and email service, but the thing is, haven't we been running these same apps on our web browsers anyways?

For instance, let's take this nifty little lastFM music player I had installed into my Google Chrome. I'm sure internet radio has been out there for the longest time already, and something like lastFM's music recommendation feature has most certainly been a feature of at least one of those internet radio services, so why create an app for it? Sure, it saves you tab space, but at the back-end of it, it still occupies memory, so you're not gaining as much!

And let's not even talk about their game apps. We've been playing flash games on our browsers since time immemorial (or at least when Flash was first released as a web platform for interactivity), so why offer apps that emulate these games?

Now, let's make it clear, I don't hate this new service, not at all. In fact, I love it, as it gives me a new way of playing games and having access to services that's only a mouse click away (or two, since you have to open a new tab to see some of your apps in Chrome's already nifty start screen). It's just that, I find it really weird that they're integrating it with a browser of all things. I have a feeling this browser integrated Webstore is just a testbed to Google's Chrome OS, but that's just a hunch.

Anyway, back to listening to Aya Kamiki on my lastFM Music player app while searching for guitar chords to Mandy Moore's new hit I See The Light on my Guitar Chords app, then maybe later I'd play some Entanglement!

The Life and Times vol. 5

2011-01-25T09:36:00.000-08:00

Hey! It's volume 5!

So what do I have to say? Well, nothing much, just felt like updating this blog. I've been reading my older blog posts though, particularly my very first. It felt nostalgic of course, but the beauty in reading blogs like this is seeing how much I've changed over the years (two years? maybe less, but hey, its still more than one so it deserves to be plural) (and yes, I still put parenthetical side comments, guess some things don't change). Call me sick, but I really get a kick at temporal time travel; putting myself in my shoes back when I first wrote something.

It may be a gift of mine, but even if I have poor memory, when I read something I wrote before, or when I see something I made from a very very long time ago, I re-experience the emotions and sensations I had when I wrote or made whatever that thing is. For example, recently I dug through some old CD's and found some old AMVs I made from a very low resolution cutscene from FFVIII (the one with Rinoa). I spliced some scenes from that video (I think it's the Eyes on Me video, which I still say is a very heartwarming song) into the song Gemini by Sponge Cola. I saw once again the crappy effects I used in the past, plus the crappy Movie maker filters I was so fond of using, but you know what? That wasn't what struck me the most from that video! What struck me was that rush of pride I felt when I finished making it, how proud I was of myself from making such an "awesome" (no it wasn't) video. And even if it does look crappy by my standards now, bringing me back to that time when I made it, made me feel as if it wasn't; bringing me back to the time when my standards weren't as high, and it felt really good!

I HAVE FOND MEMORIES WITH THIS SONG. THANKS FAYE WONG!

It's quite awesome to look back, and it makes me feel like keeping a blog is all worth it. I might even update this blog more often, if only so in the future I could look back to so much more and re experience the emotions I had on the day of a blog post's writing. I don't know if you guys have the same empathy as I do for revisiting and reminiscing, but if you do, I suggest you make the most out of it. It's fun to look back, and it makes you appreciate how God has molded you. It's awesome that way too, since you get to see how much God cares for you, for changing you into who you are right now. And of course, for those who might not have changed much, or who might feel like the change wasn't for the better, realize that this isn't the end of the road, and sooner or later, your fruition as a person would be at hand, just trust in the one who shapes and ripens you.

And with that, today, I bid you adieu!

Something to Write About: Ball-jointed what now?

2011-01-17T06:41:00.000-08:00

I was asking around what accessories came with the S.H.Figuarts Emperor Kiva, and Murakami Night was gracious enough to link me to this site. It was in Japanese, so given the option to translate, translate I did. Now, I dunno if this was meant to be like this or if the translator failed, but it did make me do a double take.

Be sure to click the image to zoom in. You could say this is an if you see it, you'd shit bricks, but instead of shitting you'd be laughing like crazy and instead of bricks... I dunno, carbon dioxide maybe? What kind of gas do you expel anyway when you laugh? And no, not methane, I meant from the front end.

BALL-JOINTED WHAT NOW?

For the uninitiated, yes, collecting figures like these is a hobby of mine. I make comics out of them, in case you don't know yet, and I'm planning to include this particular figure right here. I know you can't see the figure much, but if you'd Google S.H.Figuarts Emperor Kiva, you'd see how golden majestic this dude is (and no, no image, go and Google, it builds character).

Anyway, that's all for that. Hope that got some laughs outta you. Sure got some outta me, haha.

Something to write about: Video Games

2010-12-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I haven't been writing much in my personal blog recently; ironic that my literary dump (supposedly the less prolific of my two main blogs) has been given more attention to lately. See, I've been making comics and blah blah blah... I've told mountains of stuff about that before? Really? Hmm... Well... How about my photography then? It's amateurish but I'm getting the- I've told you of that too? Hmm... Well, I guess now you know why I haven't been updating this blog recently huh?

I know! Let's talk about video games! Wheeee... Actually, I'm a bit lazy right now, so I'd save the long discussion on gaming philosophy and some such for another blog post. Right now, I wanna talk about games, fighting games to be exact. For people who know me personally, it shouldn't be news to you that I love love LOVE fighting games. 3D Fighters, 2D Fighters, even timing based fighters like the Naruto Ultimate Hero franchise and the Dissidia series are all fair game for me, even if I'm still getting the hang of 2D fighters (I'm looking at you Super Street Fighter Four! Oh you've got Juri? Well, I guess you're forgive then... Hmm...). That said though, I've been eying a new 2D fighter for the PS3. You'd be surprised the game is for the PS3, judging by its hardcore 2D graphics, but I'm a staunch believer that graphics don't make a game (most of the time), so in my opinion, it's not going to be a crutch (maybe more of a Segway. You didn't get the joke? Ah well... Erm... Awkward). Anyway, here's a video ripped directly from YouTube!

SEE THE AWESOME

Recovered from the awesome already? As you can see, it doesn't have the most realistic of styles in terms of graphics, physics and game play (unlike the popular Namco games with boob physics), but still, those visuals, for some reason, just do it for me. In short, it rocks. Rocks hard.

From the cast shown on the video, my favorites would be Noel and Alucard. I didn't do much research on them yet, as frankly I'm a little too lazy, but for some reason, these guys remind me of my favorite characters from a similar fighting game from Type Moon, Melty Blood. For those of you who wants to know who these favorite characters are, well they're, Ceil and Hisui (Shiki counts too, but not as much). I know I know, you don't see how they're related, and neither do I, but hey, you're not writing this blog now aren't you?

Anyway, all kidding aside, the game actually reminds me of a similar 2D fighter, Guilty Gear. I actually loved that game a lot, and I rocked Sol and Ky like I know how to rock Sol and Ky, even if I actually suck at that game. If so, then I'm sure BlazBlue would be a rocking good time!

I suck at 2D fighters in general, but there's something about me and 2D fighters that makes me go back to the genre, like an old fling that keeps on coming back, an itch I really like to scratch. I don't really understand but 2D fighters hold that kind of allure for me, like it's some sort of unexplored frontier, the next step in my quest to hone my skills in fighting games. Just hope I find someone to play against though, as I would definitely not like playing against the AI all the time (besides, if I do, I'd most certainly lose 110 percent of the time...).

Well, that would be all. Glad I found something to write about, whew; been itching to write a blog for sometime now, hehe

P.S.: So I actually forgot to give the name of the game. It's BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. Get Hyped.

Reflections: The Moment I Stopped Believing

2010-11-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

The moment I stopped believing, I lost myself. In this world, truly only three things remain as constants: love, hope and faith. The greatest of these is love, but the other two are great on their own ways as well. Love fuels faith, and love brings hope. Hope is the product of faith, and faith gives hope something to hold on to. The moment I stopped believing, I lost myself, I lost my hope, and I lost my love.

I used to think the world wasn't really complicated. That I, though insignificant, can make a name for myself, not to be forgotten way past my due date here on Earth. For some reason, I thought I could make it, I thought I can make a name for myself. If I just try hard enough, if I can just be better each day, then just maybe, I can break through and carve my name in history. If I can just push myself beyond my limits each day, each hour, each second, each passing moment; if only I can, then it would only be a matter of time. One way or another, I would have my own piece of history, a piece that no one would ever forgot.

All of this ambition of course burned down when the harsh reality took me everything from under me. The harsh reality of time, of money, of resources. The harsh reality that there would always be someone far greater and far better than me, and no matter how good I got, someone is still going to be above me. There are more than six billion people alive today based on a conservative estimate, and even if I place higher than someone right beside me, there are still going to be six billion other people to beat. Six billion people I might not even get a chance to meet. Six billion people that might be thinking of the same breaking idea that I have. Six billion people who would get there before I do.

It hurts to have your ambition cut out from you. It hurts to be shown the reality of things. It definitely hurts to know that you are nothing more than an insignificant speck in history, and nothing you can do will change that. The odds are just completely against you! Only a handful in six billion can brag about being the one, and to be part of this handful, its imperative that you have started with something already, or you must have been born under the right era or circumstances, or at best you must have been born lucky enough to be given a break. But not everyone is going to be lucky. Surely not me.

This is when I stopped believing, not abruptly, but slowly, gradually. I let go of my ambitions. I let go of being big. Each painful ambition removed is one new reality faced, one grim, painful and searing reality burned into my psyche. I knew it wasn't going to be, and there would be no point in pursuing such ambitions. And it is quite true. Yet still, reality crushed me further and further. Like a goldmine collapsing after years of exploitation, my soul collapsed. I literally lost something to hold on to.

Then I remembered once again, my favorite passage in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 13, and along with it, 1 Corinthians 12. So plainly does it say, so plainly does it promise, so plainly does it show. Our talents would betray us. Our skills and abilities would never ever be enough. Reality would always be the victor. But if we just lift our skills, talents and gifts to the one who gave it to us; if we could just lift these up to Him, trusting Him fully that He would use us in the way most appropriate, then there would be nothing to fear.

Simply put, the only reason people are who they are is because God willed it so. People would claim that it is their will and not God's, but if God did not allow them to amass such resources, if God did not allow them to die early or to go bankrupt or to be victims of accidents, then they wouldn't have been who they are right now. Sure, people would say it was wise decisions that allowed them to avoid mortality, but ailments do not pick their victims.

To continue, this would mean that everything traces its origins back to God, even our own talents and skills and gifts. And God, in His sovereignty, had already picked for us where He wants us to use our gifts, in a way that we would be happy and in a way that we would truly feel important and loved. People will say this is oppressive, since this would mean we wouldn't have free will, but quite frankly, it's hard to think of free will if we are already clear of what we are hoping to move towards. Aren't we all seeking happiness? What more can we seek? Security, satisfaction, these are only synonyms of the word, expressed in a different light. If God, in his awesome might, had already made for us a place where we can be most happy, then isn't it logical that we try to use our free wills to search for that place?

Then we go back to faith. In the end, the only way all of these would be convincing is if one has faith; if one believed. If we believe in Him who made us, and if we believe that in His love, He had knocked so many times on the doors of our hearts to make us happy, primary of which is the sacrifice of His son; then and only then can we truly accept that we are only because He willed us to be. And because of this, we can certainly hope, that in the future, if we just trust Him with everything that we have, then He would show us the way to where we would be most happy. To where we belong. To our niche in history.

And even if through it all, this doesn't happen, we can rest assured that if we believe in His son and we take Him as our Lord and Saviour, then ultimately at the end of time, beyond even history itself, we will be with Him in happiness.

We aren't destined for history, we are destined beyond history. We must only have faith.

Reflections: Ego vs Truth

2010-11-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

There are definitely times when we feel we are correct and that others are wrong. There are times when we feel like we are on the side of truth, and that we are the ones who are being maligned. And there are certainly times when we feel so righteous and correct that we simply reject everybody else's opinion, shunning them in favor of our own superior idea. These times, we are definitely wrong, and it's our egos that's doing the vindicating.

Just recently, I had a tussle with a person very very close to me. It started out as innocent talk, but then one thing led to another and suddenly all my insecurities are brought out and dug up. I say insecurities now because I know better, but during the times when we were arguing, I was certain I was being correct. And probably I was half-correct, or a quarter-correct, but I kept insisting mine and mine alone is the truth. It's ironic that its during these times, just by insisting you are 100% correct, it actually proves you are false. Twenty five to fifty percent is not one hundred percent after all.

After this jarring conversation, I had so much ill feelings inside that it began to well up. So much so that it threw me into so much disarray, I began panicking internally. I had fancied myself correct and righteous all this time, and now, this righteousness is being challenged. I no longer am correct, and yet a part of me still insists that I am, and that I only am. It was during this time that I met mister ego.

Ego and truth are often mistaken for each other. Ego after all, stands for the truth, but the truth it stands for isn't really the truth. Rather, it is the truth projected from our own inability to accept the truth, and as such, we create our own truths. This is what we call an excuse, an alibi. An alibi is our way of pretending we are correct, when in fact we are horribly horribly wrong. And excuses and alibis is mister ego's favorite weapon.

So i sought the truth. And while it may seem a rather short quest, I know that I did eventually find it. I found it when, finally, in a moment of acceptance, I began to write a prayer, asking for this ego to go away. I humbly and whole heartedly asked that my pride be torn away from me, that all these feelings of self-righteousness be stripped away and removed. And He who is the truth guided me. He taught me what truth really is.

This truth simply is Christ.

Now, while it may seem hard to accept at first, we have to look at the life of Christ to see what it means. Christ lived an ego-free life. He wasn't egotistical at all, nor was he even proud or had any sense of self-righteousness. How about the times when He claimed He was the Son of God, and that He alone was the truth, wasn't He being self-righteous then? Absolutely not! But for you to agree with this, you must first come to terms that Jesus is indeed the truth. He is indeed the Son of our loving Father, who died to take up the penalties for our sins, and who rose up again to give us a chance at eternal life with the Father. Only when you do will you realize that Jesus wasn't using His ego, He was using the truth.

Humility, which for me means the absence of ego, doesn't mean ignorant tolerance. True humility isn't accepting everything as it is, and living with what is being thrown at you. This kind of humility only breeds ego, as ego, as I have established, doesn't recognize the truth, but fools itself with it's own truth. No, quite the contrary, true humility acknowledges the truth, and isn't afraid to defend the truth when truth is maligned. However, in this regard, care must be taken, as for one to be truly humble, one must know genuine truth. The beauty of all of this? It goes back to the very beginning.

The truth is Christ. Only in Christ is there true absence of ego. Only in truth can we truly shed our egos.

In Luke 4:41-52, we see the story of the Child Jesus in the temple. He left His parents without them knowing, causing His parents to worry about Him. Call it short sightedness, but because of this worry, when they did eventually found Him after four or so days (they spent a day travelling), the got "mad" at Him and scolded Him. His response is a model for all. Speaking from the truth, He answered. His answer defended the truth, he didn't allow the truth to be maligned. And yet, out of His extreme humility, even after this, He acted in kindness towards His parents. This for me speaks volumes about true humility. Humility that doesn't allow the truth to be maligned, but doesn't live behind masks of excuses or alibis, the same masks that ego wears.

This is what I have realized. I have been living an egotistical life by allowing others to malign the truth. I wasn't living humbly; I was being egotistical by silently claiming my own truths, all while lying outwardly by pretending I was okay. If then, my pursuit is to get rid of ego, then I must also shed this false humility, and adapt a humility that doesn't let the truth be compromised. Yes it would be hard, but if I keep the truth, then I should not be afraid. But if I were to be unafraid, then I must keep the truth, I must keep Christ.

Reflections: The Story of the Little Frog

2010-10-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

[This blog post first appeared in the FORMDEV website, as part of the Reflections project the Bible Study leaders of our community are starting. Reflections is a simple bi-weekly journal and reflection written by the Bible Study leaders of FORMDEV, although there are plans of accepting guest writers as well. The current theme of Reflections is on quiet time, and how important quiet time truly is to each Christian believer. I felt compelled to share this with you, my dear reader, since not all of you are part of FORMDEV. It is in the hope that the message reaches more people, hopefully touching more hearts.]

During the last Bible Study I attended (the one led by Jacats); I couldn’t help but emphasize the importance of a personal testimony, one that stems from our own personal experiences of the Lord. Little did I know that God was preparing me to testify too, and so now I share with you my testimony, the testimony of one who wandered away from the Father, entering into a life of sin. This is the testimony of one whom, after finding out that he was knee-deep in the ways of the world, tried to make his own way back to God only to fail each time. This is the testimony of one who was lost but was found, not by his own volition, but because the Father found him and He Himself, through His awesome power and infinite love, provided him his way back. This is my testimony, and I hope that through this, you may be inspired, even a little bit, not because of my story, but because of God’s mighty hand that was ever present in it.
Before I begin though, I would like to share a story. This story is about a little frog who found himself stuck inside a deep well. The little frog cannot remember anymore (or maybe the little frog chose to forget) how he got stuck; all he knew was he just found himself stuck inside the well, and with no way out. The frog tried countless times to get out of the well by jumping up its walls, but the well was so slippery that he found himself slipping down more than he was climbing up. Every time his little legs felt any semblance of strength, he would once again attempt to get out, only to find himself wearily slipping down. The little frog felt hopeless and tired; he knew he wasn’t getting out any time soon.

Now, this story has three endings, but only one of them is happy. In the first version, crows, seeing the little frog’s dejected state, started flocking the lip of the well. The frog, in his hopelessness, took his chances with the crows. The crows dropped a bucket on the little frog, enticing him to get on. The crows then pulled him out, but the moment he got out (and full of joy as well), the crows began to feast on him. In the second version, the frog cried out to other frogs, who heard his plea. The little frog asked the other frogs if they could drop him pebbles and stones so he could climb on them. So the other frogs began dropping pebbles and stones to the bottom of the well, which the little frog happily used to climb up. Seeing the progress of the little frog, the other frogs began throwing larger and larger stones, hoping that this would help the little frog climb out faster. In the end, the little frog couldn’t keep up and was crushed under the weight of the stones.

Now, it’s obvious that neither one is the happy ending, but before I give the final version of the story, let me explain first and relate the story of the little frog to my own experience. You see, and I would admit to this albeit shamefully, my relationship with God had gone stale recently. It has been a long time since I last had a good quiet time with the Father; I do pray, but I do so hurriedly and not with the intention of spending time with Him. I was like a little frog stuck inside the well, a well of sin. I tried getting out of that well, shrugging it off at times even, pretending I wasn’t in one, but this only made my condition worse. Like the little frog, I end up growing tired and weary each time I attempt to free myself from temptation and sin.

So where does the three endings piece in? In the first version, the crows symbolize the devil. The enemy, seeing you in your weakened state, would offer you an easy way out, only to be preyed upon in the end, bringing about your destruction. It’s very tempting to fight sin with sin, with justification being the gel that binds them together. We know that we have sinned, and our relationship with the Father had gone stale (or even broken), but we still choose to fall for the temptation of Satan, thinking that what seems “good” for us can never be bad. I myself has fallen victim to this, and while shameful, I would have to admit that there was a time during my apparent “separation” with the Father that I did fall into more sin. I have only God to thank now that I was able to recover, unlike what happened to the poor little frog in our story.

In the second version, the other frogs symbolize human attempts at breaking free from sin. The little frog, confident that he can get himself out of the well on his own, devised a clever plan of enlisting the help of other frogs and using rocks and stones to create his own path out of the well. This proved fruitful for the time being, as how human efforts prove to be most of the time. But since these efforts aren’t rooted in the Father, as Jesus said in John 15:6, they would be “like a branch that is thrown away and withers”. Remember that the battle against sin is a spiritual battle, and as such, physical weapons bear no efficacy. And yes, this I also learned, as I made several well-intentioned attempts that weren’t rooted in faith, but not one of them proved successful.

Now, let me share the happy ending, the third and final version of the story. In this version, the little frog cried out to the Father, broken and repentant, begging the Father to give him a way out. And then it began to rain. The little frog, refreshed at the cool feeling of the rain, began to feel at rest, his tired little muscles feeling weary no more. He did wonder though why it suddenly began to rain, and if this indeed was the Father’s answer to his prayer, but he remained steadfast anyway. Slowly, the well began to fill with water. The water began to rise taking the little frog along with it. Eventually the frog was swept up and over the lip of the well. Not only did he not have to do anything, he was cooled and refreshed at the same time.

Isn’t it wonderful? This was exactly what happened to me. Last evening, I simply found myself weary, tired, broken and repentant. I presented myself before the Father, submitting to Him, asking Him to get me out of my miserable situation. And truly, after a long long time, I was able to spend a good quiet time with Him, and did it feel refreshing! Truly, God is an awesome awesome God! I didn’t even have to do anything! He made the way for me, and He pointed me to the right direction. This is how awesome God is, and though sometimes we misconstrue, in the end, if we stick with the Father, things are bound to not only turn up well, but perfect and beautiful too!

So, if right now you think you have a sin that you have not repented for yet, and it’s hindering you from spending some time with the Father, do not be afraid. Jesus came to give hope to the hopeless, and more than anybody else, God understands your situation. His requirement is neither plans nor effort; his only requirement is a repentant heart and a broken spirit, and indeed are we all broken spirits in the time of sin. He does not demand any physical sacrifice or offering either, nor does He demand promises or oaths.

He only wants you to return to Him, and nothing more.

The Life and Times vol. 4

2010-07-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

Why hello there. If this is your first time reading this blog, then welcome! I'm fifthStitch, the one and only (as far as Google can tell, not counting Fifth Stitch, which has a space in between), and I, well, I don't really know who or what I am. I'm a Roman Catholic, and a pretty devout one at that, but I'm not the type you'd find praying 24/7 in churches or cathedrals. I'm not even that interested in cathedrals (although there are some I'd like to visit, like the awesome St. Peter's Basilica; that place is huge!). I'm also an aspiring writer, comic artist, photographer, software developer (I'm into both corporate and game software development), graphic artist (just a teeny bit), martial artist (hey, to dream is free right?) and all around good guy (I'd say handsome but I value my life so very very much).

GOOGLE SAYS I'M A PIECE OF WOOL. SUPERWASH WOOL (75%)

Anyway, why the sudden introductions? I don't really know. On to the updates then.

So anyway, I'm really writing this just to get the hang of this thing called ENGLISH once again. Recently I've been reading and checking student emails from my COMPRO1 class (which for the uninitiated, is the first ever nightmare a Computer Science student of DLSU would have, before the even bigger nightmare called ADVANSE), which incidentally are, if not C Code assignments, are hastily written email questions. Hastily doesn't even do them justice! Most of them are nothing more than drawl; broken English with a more shortcuts than a tech-savvy poser's desktop. I mean, no offense to the students, but their English really suck. There are some exceptions though, but then again, I can't blame them since their course technically isn't Creative Writing or some such.

Being the malleable and adaptive person that I am (I should probably add this to my self-introduction above), I feel as if my English is beginning to suck too (not that it was awesome in the first place (I took me three tries to type the word awesome before I got the red squiggly to disappear)). So yeah, basically this entire blog post is me trying to get the hang of writing in semi-perfect, close-to-literary-as-possible English. What better way to practice writing than by making an update!

Unfortunately, between this and the vol. 3 (I'm still not convinced that vol. stands for volume, for all we know it could stand for area, or perimeter, or- *hides in a closet for protection*) there really hasn't been much going on. Ad Continuum seems to be going well, although this week I don't expect myself to create a new comic, though I might make a filler of sorts. I'm waiting for something to arrive, and until that something is not within three feet of me, I cannot proceed with the story in a way that would make sense. My thesis is still, well, that, just a thesis. It hasn't managed to materialize from my brain yet, so nothing much new on that. My collection hasn't grown much either, although the thing I'm waiting for may or may not change that fact.

Welp (a subtle kickasskass reference), that should be it. I feel so well versed in English now I could start making LOLCATS.

[fifthStitch would like to apologize for the idiotic piece of turd he paid to write this article. He has since then learned that a paid turd, while a few thousand bucks richer, is still turd.]

MAY OR MAY NOT BE TURD

Reflections: Is it bad...

2010-06-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

To sometimes ask for guilty pleasure? To ask for something worth working for, to ask for a partial reward. Is it bad that sometimes I want to just be happy, and to just get what would make me happy, without thinking of the happiness of others? Is it bad to sometimes selfishly think of just your own happiness?

This would be perhaps the most different and radical of all my reflections blog post, because it strikes so close to home. Ever since the very beginning, I've made sure that my happiness would be hinged on the happiness of others; simply put, if others are happy then I am happy also. I do not desire to boast or brag, but ever since, I've made it a point to live for others without even thinking of myself. I make myself (sometimes even force myself) to be happy when I make others happy, and kick myself hard when I give them even a tiny hint of sadness or disappointment.

I'm not asking for vindication here, but I'm beginning to seriously question this philosophy. Is life really meant to be lived for others? Is life really meant to be an instrument to make other people happy? It's so beautiful to think that life is interconnected that way, but why is it that there are times when I feel that I am not happy. There are times when I feel like nobody is living for my happiness, and I feel jealous that everybody else is happy except me.

Maybe I'm just being emotional here, and maybe I'm just missing the tiny details, but I don't really know if I should continue to live for others. It gives me genuine joy to see other people happy, do not get me wrong on that. It makes me really glad to have made another person happy, even if just for a very short while. But discontent sometimes rears its nasty head, and I lose all sense of satisfaction. It feels as if though I'm being cheated.

The bible certainly says that we should love others, and Jesus even said that there is no greater act of love for a friend other than being ready to die for him or her. And because my hope lies in Him who saves, I of course believe this. Is what I'm feeling merely hunger for genuine happiness that only the divine can give? Am I giving myself too much to others that I forget to be happy myself?

In the end, I'm sure that this is all part of God's plan, and until God continues to convict my heart and give me the spirit of sacrifice, then I would continue to live my life for others. In the end, I just hold on to the hope that one day God will make me happy, or send people to make my life worth living. For now though, I give my life to others, having complete faith on God's promised joy.

Reflections: On Piracy

2010-06-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

[Note: This blog post would be for my benefit more than for the benefit of others. I just wish to finally settle with myself my opinions and my stand on the topic indicated in the title, in the most unbiased way possible. It may seem strange but I do a lot of my thinking when I write, so I'm writing this blog post more as an avenue for my thoughts than for anything else. The bottom line is, this is not a vindication of any kind, this is me examining myself and making sense of my thoughts and opinions. That said, I do not intend this post to be targeted against anyone in particular.]

And now that were done with that, let me jump right in to the topic at hand. Piracy. Piracy, and more specifically media and software piracy, is the act of illegally distributing copies of trademarked or proprietary merchandise (in the case of software piracy, applications and games). It's the illegal procurement and distribution with the intent (either on purpose or not) of making a profit out of the stolen goods. Making a profit though is not limited to positive gain on the part of the pirate, but also includes negative loss on the side of the producer or manufacturer of the stolen goods (and this side of piracy is most often overlooked).

But piracy does not end there, piracy also includes obtaining illegal merchandise through pirates. This means that even the end buyer is culpable of piracy, even if he or she is not directly involved with the illegal distribution (and in fact, he or she is already directly involved, through the act of buying or obtaining said merchandise).

So why am I talking about this? Read on to find out.

First of all, I am against piracy, and I do not find any merit in standing up for piracy. At the baseline of things, piracy is theft; piracy involves illegally obtaining merchandise, that alone should be enough of a basis to say that piracy is equivalent to theft. And while I'm sure there are a lot of ways to justify piracy, I do not find any of them as just or sound; most of the justifications are merely excuses, and while the prohibitive costs of some merchandise are really unjust, it is still not an excuse to be stealing from them.

Now, before I proceed, I wish to make it clear that I myself have in fact committed acts of piracy before, and most likely I would still commit such acts in the future. But as with all my other reflections that defines my stand in an issue, genuine effort for me is enough. I am genuinely trying to purge myself of this act, and I believe this should be enough of a reason for me to advocate my opinion.

Anyway, now that I'm done explaining my stand, I wish to put all that aside to look with an unbiased eye on the reasons why people still commit such acts, and to look and probably devise a way of addressing such problems. After all, nobody would be committing acts of piracy if they weren't given a reason to do so. I thought about various reasons, and while the reasons I came up with would not encompass all the possible reasons, I believe they are major enough to account for the majority, and as such, should be a sound representation of those opinions.

That said, I would think the biggest reason why people resort to piracy is (as mentioned previously), the prohibitive costs of the merchandise in question. I suppose everyone would agree when I say the prices of goods today have skyrocketed to impossible proportions. Some even theorize that in a few years, even basic "free" commodities like water (and ludicrously enough, air) would cost an unjust amount. Blame it on the decline of resources or the inherent greediness of human beings, the fact is, stuff are expensive nowadays. And people would always clamor for things that are free, and would find ways to obtain goods on the cheap, hence piracy (although not always, I'm merely pointing out that it is due to our inherent desire to obtain goods on the cheap that piracy came to be).

Now, while prices do tend to be unjust, we should also consider the fact that merchandise actually have a cost of production, which means that in order to produce goods, the producer spends resources of their own. And since we (especially the entrepreneur producers) also have the inherent desire to profit, the price of merchandise must at least be able to compensate for the cost of producing them. This is a very basic rule of our current merchandising system, and in my opinion, is also the cause of a lot of the greedy and corrupt actions society is currently committing.

So where does piracy come into play here? And for that matter, what are its effects? Basically, when people pirate merchandise, the producer of the merchandise does not get the compensation he or she was ought to get ("ought to get" as defined by the merchandising system discussed above). As a result, the overall sales of the merchandise could become less than the cost of production, resulting in a loss to the entrepreneur. So what does this all mean? Very simply, it means that piracy is preying on the spirit of entrepreneurship; and the more people pirate, the more the innovators degrade, and in the worst case, disappear.

While it is understandable that people would always want things on the cheap or even free, this desire destroys the merchandising industry. In the favorable order of things, when an entrepreneurial activity is deemed successful (and the measure of success is often if not always the amount of profit gained), better products are developed and made, often on the said profits of a previous activity. This ensures better and better quality goods, especially when we include in our model competitors and natural obstacles. But as soon as the unnatural obstacle of piracy kicks in, innovative entrepreneurial activities become uncompensated, resulting in their decline. This would snowball into the degradation of product quality, and could even result in more unfair prices as entrepreneurs want to at least break even with their now uncompensated product.

So should we say then that piracy is evil? Well, amidst all the inherent even that piracy is capable of, it does do one thing, and it does so very very effectively. Piracy destroys capitalism. This I would think is the heroic image painted by piracy, the robin hood effect that pirates revel in. And I suppose this is perhaps a nice little ideology, if it wasn't a nice colorful mask to the truly greedy. I suppose some pirates have this ideology as the reason why they commit acts of piracy. This is I think the reason why underground file sharing communities came into existence (and I suppose the idea of sharing bought merchandise isn't new to our generation, but because of the terrible adaptation of the capitalist model to electronic merchandise, it has become ever more controversial). But this ideology should be approached with caution, as this of course can also be used to justify unjust greediness.

Now that this has all been said, what now can be done? I suppose the only true way to address piracy is to revise the whole merchandising and profit system (capitalism in short). While the idea of unbounded profit is a good thing, it is also a greedy thing. In my opinion, perhaps a naive alternative would be to implement profit bounds that are just enough to compensate for the cost of production AND make a good amount of profit, perhaps for the production of future goods. Once the profit bounds are reached, the said goods could be given out for free; future profit generation from "bound-over" goods could then be in the form of donations and the like. In doing so, while the profits would end up being bounded, at least it could deter pirates, as after the said bound is reached, the product is going to be given for free anyway.

It sounds funny and naive yes, but really, the point I'm trying to drive home is that capitalism should be revised, as it's doctrines are the source of greediness and corruption. And if there was a generation capable of doing this, I do have a feeling that it is OUR generation who could. We are more aware of corruption and are hungrier than ever before to stop it. We, in my opinion, have also become less greedy, and more reasonable and rational. And while there would always exist people or groups ready to feed on and take advantage of the rational and the reasonable, I think in our generation, we have enough of a level of social responsibility to actually start change and put enough of a pressure on capitalist groups.

On a more personal level, I have agreed with myself to follow a certain set of rules when it comes to piracy, with great emphasis on software and media piracy, as these are the kinds of piracy that I find myself committing a lot. For the record, these rules are:

Never obtain pirated or illegal copies of merchandise or goods that I could have obtained legally anyway, unless I am in a pinch which I would define later.
Obtaining pirated or illegal copies of goods that are already out of production is allowed, as buying them from second hand channels would not result in the cash ending up in the hands of the original producer (since these items are already out of production anyway, and in effect, the producer have released the merchandising rights to the goods).
In the case of in production goods that are not readily distributed or obtainable from where I currently am, I am allowing myself to obtain pirated copies of them, as long as I get original copies as soon as they become available.
Finally, in a pinch is defined as any life and death situation or any situation on that level, in which case, the caveat of rule 3 must be followed.

I know these rules maybe idealistic or even questionable, but I set them up so that I would be guided in my decisions. Again, these are my rules, set on writing as a contract with myself. This is not in any way meant to be for anybody else, and if anyone would like to object, I am most happy to hear their objection out, but it would not necessarily mean a change in the aforementioned rules.

And there, I guess that should be it. With all these written up, I feel more at peace with myself, and with how I would deal with these kinds of situations. I know this blog post took a weird turn here and there, but like I said in the beginning (and would apply to all Reflections blog posts), this is more so that I could be at peace with my thoughts and to have a more unbiased look at things. Again, this is not meant to be targeted against anyone, and is not meant to convince or change anybody else's opinions. It's just me, sharing my opinions to the world.

And at the end of the day, what matters is the soundness of the opinion.

The Life and Times vol. 3

2010-06-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, hello there!

NOT THAT KIND OF HELLO!

Augh, I haven't been updating my main blog in a while because I really don't have much time to. So you'd have to pardon the slow updates. Anyways, hello once again! I kinda missed writing here, so this might be one of those very loooooong blog posts. I have much to talk about anyway, so without further ado, let us begin!

So you might be wondering what I've been up to for the past 2 or 3 months since my last update (or, you know, you're not...). Well, I've been slaving over my Master's thesis for quite awhile now, and truth be told, I don't really think it's going anywhere! To those of you who are interested, my thesis is about extending the CDT plug-in for Eclipse.

NOT THAT KIND OF ECLIPSE!

CDT basically is the C Development plug-in for Eclipse. It allows you to convert your Eclipse IDE into a development platform for the C language (ordinarily, Eclipse is a Java compiler). It also adds some other tools that will help you in C programming, like DOM Trees and such. And no, before the picspam gets ahead of me, IT'S NOT THAT KIND OF DOM! Seriously, these developers should give the stuff they develop less promiscuous sounding names.

Anyway, apart from thesis, I've also begun collecting small scale pose-able figures. Currently my collection consists of one FIGMA Koizumi, one Revoltech Fraulein Asuka and one S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Black RX (which, now that I realize it, makes my collection more multicultural than the Justice Friends). I'm saving up to get either a FIGMA Yuki Nagato (non witch version) or an S.H.Figuarts W, Kabuto or Decade. I currently am borrowing a friend's SHF Kabuto and Revo Fraulein Pocco, for use in another project I'd talk about in awhile, but I really really want to get a hold of my own SHF Kabuto, for collection purposes.

For the uninitiated, FIGMA is a line of pose-able figures from Max Factory featuring well known (some not so much) anime characters from a variety of series, most notably the Haruhi Suzumiya no Yuutsu series (their first FIGMA came from that series, correct me if I'm wrong). Revoltech Fraulein is also a line of pose-able figures this time from Kaiyodo, comprised entirely of female anime or game characters (I think, I don't really know where Pocco came from).

YEAH THAT POCCO!

S.H.Figuarts on the other hand is a line of pose-able action figures from Bandai, mainly of Kamen Riders (but I think they also feature some other "heroic" characters). They're the evolution of sorts of the former Souchaku Henshin line of Kamen Rider figures, featuring better joints, more points of articulation and better detailing. I still argue that the S.H. in S.H.Figuarts stands for Souchaku Henshin, or at least meant to be an allusion of sorts to their predecessor line, but someone would kill me, so I just won't (although secretly I still do! Fight fight!)

So, what do I do with these figures? Why, make a comic out of them of course! (What? It's the most logical course of action right? No?)

PILOT CHAPTER: HUNTER HUNTED

If you want to read them, visit this link. Apart from the main continuity, I've also been making side comics for the lulz. To read them, visit this link. It would link you to my other blog where I would house the comics temporarily. Just click on the Read more link, or the full view links on each. A friend of mine also agreed to give my comics a home in his blog, which hopefully gets them to more interested audiences, since he has friends that are really into Kamen Riders and anime and figures. You can visit his blog here.

So for a short introduction of what these comics are, well, Ad Continuum is basically my re-imagining of the Kamen Rider concept. In this world, Riders are spirits, and instead of bikes, they ride on the bodies of hosts, appropriately termed Ride. These hosts or Rides must be of strong magic potential, as this is a requirement to contain the powers of the Rider spirits in physical form. Of Pertaining to Comedy on the other hand is, well, you don't really describe it. It's really just for the lulz, and a place for comic rants. I don't have a fixed schedule of publishing yet for these comics, but hopefully in a week or two the schedules would have stabilized.

I've also started a new line of short stories called Alternatives, which basically are fanfictions of sorts, a re-imagining of the stories of anime series or any sort of series really. So far I've made the first chapter of Alternative DeathNote, featuring Light as a software hacker (of all things, but hey, my college course is about software development and stuff, so what better alternate world right? Right? Ugh).

Anyway, that should be it for now. I apologize for the Hello Kitty brief at the beginning of the blog post. Really, that was uncalled for. Unless you want them. Which officially makes you the most creepy brief-wearer in the world.

Seriously. Don't get near those. They're probably haunted with the ghosts of people killed by shame while wearing one.

Reflections: On Doing the Noble

2010-05-24T02:32:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been very disturbed by the opinions of two of my close friends. I have nothing against them personally, and I'm sure if they read this they would understand why I wrote it, but it still makes me feel uncomfortable doing so because I consider them very close friends, and souring ties with them is not something I would want to do. But since I cannot contain the urge anymore to express my opinions on it, I have decided to write this anyway, if only to clear my conscience with regards to these matters.

Philippine bureaucratic processes cause major headaches to people trying to conduct transactions with the government. It would be great if these processes can be avoided, but since we live in this country and breathe its air, there really is nothing we can do. It's inevitable that at one point in time, you'd be talking in front of an irritable underpaid government agent to avail of a government service, and I'd be the first to say I'd do just about anything to avoid having to go through with that.

But I won't stoop to corruption.

Call me uninformed or naive, because yes, I am uninformed and naive, but if there's one thing I'm proud to say I know and I hold on to, it's that I would always try to do the noble thing. Maybe I'm only able to say this because I haven't had enough experience with these bureaucratic processes, and maybe after experiencing the hell these processes put people into I might consider making a "better" judgement call, but it will take a whole lot of convincing before I consider corrupt methods as practical alternatives.

I do not mean to offend here - yes, to each their own - but I personally will not be able to live with myself if I even considered corrupt methods on purpose. Sure, they are going to get my needs and wants faster than you can say miscellaneous taxes, but it would add more fuel to the ever-growing fire of corruption. As I have said before already, our country is corrupt enough as it is, why should I contribute more corruption?

I'm sure the officials involved also get unauthorized percentage cuts from the taxes we end up paying. But I do not think it's the same thing to adopt corrupt methods, and to pay taxes you know that a percentage of ends up in their hands anyway. For one thing, it avoids you committing the sin, putting the responsibility and conscience burden on those who do take unauthorized cuts. And while I'm sure it's very tempting to consider corrupt methods since you end up paying a whole lot less, it doesn't make it any more vindicated.

That said, I know myself and I know that I'm not perfect and that I do not fit the character of the "Carrier of the Noble Mantle" or "Sir Noble DoGoodAlways". But I also believe that should not be a factor here. So what if at one point in time we fall, everyone does! That doesn't mean we should stop striving to always do the noble thing!

And no, resorting to the easy way out does not automatically make you evil; I do not wish to pass judgement on you. I'm sure people who do have their own reasons, and this is just me airing my own. I do not mean this to be demeaning or derogatory; I'm addressing the act and not the actor.

Perhaps this is the true reason why I still watch childish hero shows, rather than more "mature" dramas. You can stop reading now if you wish, the rest are just my after thoughts. I wish to preserve this "naivety" if you will; this "childlike" point of view. I'm sure perhaps deception and trickery may have its place in this world, maybe not as a tool of evil but a tool to outwit evil, but I'm sure evil itself doesn't. And rationalizing them doesn't change the fact that evil is still evil. But often times, the boundaries are so blurred. Perhaps in the end, we just need to have a heroic heart, and right now, I really pray I do.

Reflections: May 2010 Elections and the Senatorial Race

2010-05-10T17:18:00.000-07:00

Normally I am not so much into the hopeless, star-studded politics of my motherland, but seeing an opportunity open for the Filipino nation to actually cause a change, you'd begin to have a sense of hope. That maybe, my one vote would count, and maybe my one vote would go a long way into triggering positive change.

You're in for a rude awakening if you thought the same way.

To be fair, the Philippines is not the only country to have actor-turned political leaders. In the United States for example, we have the ever popular case of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator Governor of California (might I add that he was actually sworn into office not once, but three times? Things you learn from Wikipedia). I'm sure there are other well-known examples out there (U.S. President Ronald Reagan immediately comes into mind), but I won't bother listing them all here, as while I have nothing against actors turning into politicians (okay, so I may have something, but I'm trying to suppress my disbelief and lack of faith in favor of a more accurate observation), I do am against politicians who do nothing more than warm their seats.

Let's be obtuse and acute here (wow, triangles). It is no mystery that I am a stalwart (and by stalwart I mean... yeah, stalwart) critic of Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. But let me qualify this (the Comelec chairman had been qualifying a lot lately so why can't I?) by saying that, I have nothing against him personally, it's just that I really don't think he should be Senator. I fully believe that he has nothing that would qualify (there I go again) him as a member of the upper legislative chamber of the Philippines. He is a very good actor (okay, maybe not so very good), and dare I say, an effective VRB chief and anti-piracy zealot, but as a legislative official, he falls so very very short.

A quick look at his achievements and background reveals some interesting facts. He apparently jumped into a bus in a hostage scene to negotiate with the hostage-taker. Apparently the hostages were school children, which is a good cause, albeit a rash and brazen move (he could have been shot, but due to his exercise equipment powered indestructibility, I'm sure being killed by bullets didn't even enter his mind). Now, I am not downplaying this feat; in all honesty, I don't know if anybody else would have done the same thing. To brazenly and fearlessly step into a bus just to negotiate personally with a hostage taker takes a whole lot of guts, desire and determination. But seriously now, this cannot be a basis for putting him in the senate right? I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that this act certainly is that of a hero, but a senator? Really?

Now, you might be wondering, why am I ranting about just one particular senator, when in fact there would be twelve right? I mean, if he's as bad as I claim him to be, perhaps he won't even make it to the magic twelve right? Well, if your train of thoughts were similar to that, then you're absolutely, ridiculously...

WRONG!

At Seventeen million, twenty three thousand, two hundred seventy votes (17,023,270), Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr leads the senatorial race over other names like Gilbert Remulla (who, even while being the youngest elected official in the lower legislative house, authored such laws as the Anti Dangerous Drugs Bill) and Satur Ocampo (a veteran of democratic wars, and tougher than nails), both of which did not even make it to the top twelve, albeit being more deserving (in my honest opinion, please don't shoot me). This is after 85.88% of the Electoral Returns were counted and tallied (not canvassed, apparently this is a separate activity). Seventeen million Filipinos chose to vote for this guy. Seventeen million. SEVENTEEN MILLION!

SEVENTEEN MILLION!

That's about the same number of Smart subscribers, according to their ads. Seventeen million chose a candidate with a poor legislative record, who as a result is now leading the senatorial race at an indomitable, unbeatable top spot, three hundred thousand votes higher than second placer Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada (son of former president Joseph Estrada who is now second in the presidential race. Both of them were implicated in an illegal gambling controversy which led to the impeachment of the latter). This begs the question, why? Why? Why would someone without a tertiary education have this much voters? Why would someone who barely did anything during his tenure as Cavite governor be this high in the senatorial race? Just why?

WHY? WHY? WHY?

To be fair, Bong Revilla Jr did a good job as VRB chief, even getting a Plaque of International Recognition for Efforts Against Piracy by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Huwarang Lingkod Bayan Award by the Consumers League of the Philippines Foundation. I dig that, I truly truly do, being a somewhat of an anti-piracy stalwart myself. But as a legislative official, he really leaves a lot to be desired. A pretty face and a kind character is not enough and is not even that significant in the kind of office he would soon hold. Sure, it will get you a seat, and perhaps this will answer my penultimate question, but still, haven't we learned yet from putting actors into public office? What does it say about us and our society?

A friend of mine told me the disparity between the weak middle class and the strong lower class of our society. The middle class bases the credibility of a candidate on their track record and performance, while the lower class bases the credibility of a candidate on their popularity and approachability. I do not think any one of this is an invalid way of ascertaining credibility, but I do think that the middle class method is a more accurate way, as it measures characteristics that really do matter. Approachability, while being a qualified means of measuring character (for me at least) reveals only so much. In the end, what matters more is whether the candidate can cause change, and having a good track record reveals a lot in this regard.

Now like I said, I am not fond of politics at all, but I do get fired up when opportunities to cause change are wasted. In the end, other than disappointment, I try desperately to still have hope. Perhaps these people are not as bad as I thought they would be. Perhaps next time, voters would have learned their lessons. I do am certain of one thing though. Change is inevitable, I'm sure there will be change, but whether positive or negative now lies on the hands of the elected.

Reflections: On how to beat an XBOX

2010-03-21T00:14:00.000-07:00

Before anything else, read this.

Now that you're done reading it, read this and this. These are two very legitimate replies to the post in question, but you have to pardon the bad English on the first one.

Done? Then you may proceed.

The issue of games vs girlfriends have been extant since the invention of games (or girlfriend boyfriend relationships, whichever came first). The gist of the matter is really very simple: girl and guy hook up, girl and guy have steamy relationship fueled by passion (and maybe also by libido), passion eventually runs dry, guy returns to playing video games, girl gets mad and begins antagonizing video games, cursing them like a plague from hell. Optionally, it can also begin with girl asks for space, guy gives space, guy plays video games while giving girl space, guy gets hooked, girl misses guy, girl gets mad, then copy and paste the rest.

I've never really had much of a problem with this, as the one I love shares my love for games, but cases like that are, dare I say, an exception to the norm. At least in the Philippines, I see a lot of girls getting jealous over computer games, like DotA (and its spiritual successor, HoN), and how their boyfriends seem to spend more time playing games than spending time with them (spending time playing with them? let's try to keep this post kid-friendly...). And it's not uncommon too! In fact, I've heard of a song written specially for the girls vs games issue.

It's in Filipino though, so for the benefit of my foreign readers (in case I have them), the song is basically a rant against a boyfriends addiction to DotA.

Now, personally, I find this topic a non-issue. I mean, if you truly love the person, you must be willing to make the sacrifice. There are of course limits to this, which I will be discussing in a sec, but my point is, love is built on patience and sacrifice. A loving partner would understand the addictions of his or her significant other, because its part of his or her partner. I don't think it's true love unless you are willing to accept your significant other COMPLETELY and WHOLLY. That said, the other partner is also expected to do the same.

For me, a real relationship is built on mutual understanding (way to redefine my standards -_-). As the aphorism goes, it takes two to tango. It takes two to love (to make love? like I said, keeping it kid-friendly). Both must be willing to make sacrifices for a relationship to succeed. This sets the limit on how much sacrifice a partner must be willing to give. But I have to make this point clear; no, there are no limits, in fact, there must be no limit on how much a partner is willing to sacrifice, BUT if the other partner is not willing to even make an effort to meet his or her partner half-way, then its about time to consider parting ways. Remember:

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO. IT ALSO TAKES TWO TO FU LOVE.

And while meeting halfway is a requirement, it must never NEVER be on the expectation list of either one of the partners. It must remain as an agreement, not a rule; a covenant and not a law.

As I am typing this, I'm having a conversation with a friend about this issue. And I guess, we share the same sentiments. There is one thing though that I guess requires due time to point out...

PLAYING VIDEO GAMES ISN'T IMMATURE, IT'S OBSESSION THAT KILLS.

Playing video games is a form of entertainment, so is Facebook or any other addiction. But when addiction turns to obsession, then that's the time when it becomes dangerous. It becomes dangerous not just to one's self, but also to one's relationships. It prevents one to meet the other halfway. How do you expect a boat to move if that boat is so tightly anchored at port?

The person that I love also has her own addictions, and honestly, sometimes I get a teensy bit irritated if that's the only thing she ever seems to talk about (sorry -_-). But I love her too much to let it affect me. In fact, I've been developing a liking for the things she is addicted to, so much so that I'm beginning to have a mancrush on... Okay, too much information, I think I should stop now (I do have a manly appreciation for his voice... Too much info still?)... But in all seriousness, what I'm saying is, at the end of it all...

LOVE IS A DISH BEST SERVED FOR TWO.

Or something like that...

And girl, about your XBOX problem? Don't you know men find girl gamers sexy?

We Play Games episode 1: MMO's part 1

2009-11-27T23:04:00.000-08:00

Hello and well, welcome to the first episode of We Play Games.

Before we get to business, let me just explain a little what WPG is all about. See, I'm an avid gamer, and I play a whole bunch of games, from the immensely populated MMOs to the most tear jerking RPGs (Aerith, I'm looking at you... and damn to anyone who thinks that was an innuendo... it probably is...) to Sports games and Racing games (although I must say I hate racing games). So I thought one day (that was today) what if I made a games commentary? A sort of, I write what I think about certain games and to hell with it sort of commentary, but with pictures!

Yes, pictures.

But I didn't want to step into the realm of one of my friend's blogs; see, she writes game reviews. That doesn't mean WPG would be devoid of game reviews, it's just that game reviews will not be the meat (bread and butter? whatever food you dig I guess) of WPG. After all, we play games, not review them! (which did not make sense, but meh)

So alright, time for WPG's first ever episode, and for this episode, what better way to kick WPG off than by talking about...

MMOs

- cue non-existent intro music -

MMOs, or Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG for the savvy ones out there), is a community driven, high population game played by thousands, nay, even millions of individuals fighting, trading, modelling, flirting, living and dieing together in an enormous make-believe world. Each player is given an avatar to mess around with and to interact with various objects in the aforementioned world: NPCs, doodads and of course other players.

World of Warcraft, easily one of the most popular MMOs of all

(picture obviously ripped from gamespy)

So what makes MMOs tick? Instead of pondering on the subject for minutes and to totally rip the fun off of that, let me just tell you why:

PEOPLE ARE EFFIN' BORED

That's right! wanna see it again?

PEOPLE ARE EFFIN' BORED!!!

And who can blame them? The world can get truly boring, with cycles of activities happening over and over and over in a seemingly endless loop. And as with all endless loops, programmers should know it's bound to crash sometime. And that sometime gave birth to the MMO... Or something like that...

Anyway, the exploitability of the MMO concept derives from MMOs answering one very pertinent and significant human need: living. Yes, MMOs address easily one of the biggest human need of all, perhaps second only to watching Spongebob episodes (and don't tell me otherwise, who can resist the big yellow square... er, rectangle). No wonder it appeals so much to this generation.

In a world that kicks new comers in the butt with all the social structures and hidden caste systems, MMOs provide people a place where everyone has a chance to hit it big. Without any structures and prejudicial checks and balances, people can live as they want to live, without age, gender or any other social limitations. Barring of course the occasional power struggle with guild leaders and such, everyone is free to live as they wish.

And if their make believe world fails them, they can easily leave and search for another, living a completely new existence. Life doesn't allow you to get a completely fresh start but MMOs can and do.

No wonder it appeals so very very much to this generation. Try as we might to deny it, we are in search for a family, a group of people we can go "home" too. With the ever widening generation gap between parents and kids, it gets harder and harder to call our home "home". Coupled with the fact that this generation can't live without computers and the Internet, and won't last a day without them, it's really not that hard to imagine.

And so, after spending minutes pondering all that, let's dive in to what I'd like to talk about: MMO genres.

From my time playing MMOs, I've come to see patterns in how different MMOs operate. Of course, they all work under just basic paradigm: take a multi player concept, scale them up exponentially, add chat and trade support and viola, you've got yourself an MMO. But of course, to each MMO their own, but there are certain, let's call them stereotypes, of MMOs that appear. I, being the generous guy that I am, have generously compiled some of them here. Don't take my words as doctrine though, as I am bound to miss a few and forget a few, I just play games after all.

For the first stereotype, I'd like you to turn your attention to World of Warcraft and Perfect World. These are MMOs that have made their mark as being the most massive of the massive, featuring ever expanding content and thousands upon thousands of users on both retail and private servers. These are MMOs you won't be enjoying all on your lonesome, but will have lots of things to do nonetheless. Quests seem to be the defining attribute of these MMOs, but not just ordinary quests, a million or so of them to be precise.

These MMOs have to some extent became a universal language among all gamers, not just MMO players. These games have defined generations and even eras. These games are what I like to call Mega Massively Multi player Online RPGs, or MMMORPGs (mmmorp-guh) for short, or MMs for shorter. MMs, in my opinion, are probably the exemplars of MMOs, as they provide a completely alternate world where players can just log-in and live as they wish to live. Economy is completely defined by the players, and item values vary widely from server to server, but seem to converge if observed in the bigger picture.

As nice and balanced as these games may seem though, they are prone to the same faults as the real world, most notably "power hogging". Strong players only get stronger and the gap between strong and weak players widen over time. Newbies might find it hard to climb up the ranks, if they are the type who likes to. Fortunately not all wants to hit the top, but for competitive players, MMs might make heads explode. Steps can of course be taken to avoid this, like giving ever expanding content and adjusting player and item power levels to keep things "fair", but power imbalances will and tend to happen still.

The nice thing about MMs though is that they are very skill intensive. Say Ragnarok Online for instance, my very first dip into MMORPGs. After all has been said and done, in a vacuum, if two players have the same character builds, the same weapons, the same items and skill sets, it all boils down to who is the better player per se. There are no active chance based win formulas, no game support boosts: everything boils down to who can press the buttons faster in the best sequence possible. This appeals to a lot of hardcore gamers but it might turn away casual players, if they really do mind.

Another point towards (against? not sure) MMs is that they encapsulate the real world the best, and is the best way to live an alternative life. There are of course many kinds of MMs depending on what the main goal of the game is. The common denominator though is that MMs provide the best alternate world experience, and things that happen in the real world tend to happen in MMs as well, including whatever you are imagining right now (oh, don't play innocent).

Games that fall under this category with the three already mentioned are Rohan, Pirates Online, Angels Online, and perhaps Granado Espada; though the first three mentioned also fall under a different category. Runescape and similar games may also fall in this category, though I have a special category for them as well. There are also sub categories in MMs, depending on the epic-ness of the world. World of Warcraft could arguably be the most epic, with Ragnarok and Perfect World not so far behind and Angels and Pirates Online a little further down in the epic-ness spectrum. Ozworld and Second Life also fall under MMs, but is also of a different category.

I'd like to say more about MMs, but I suppose that would have to be it for the launch episode of WPG. Hey, at least I didn't hold a launch party and asked everybody else to hold one in their own homes as well! Maybe in a different WPG I'd re explore MMs and provide an even more in-depth analysis (I like to do that).

See you next time for part 2, where I explore other MMO genres. Till then, may we all play massive games.

The Life and Times vol. 2

2009-09-21T04:49:00.000-07:00

Hello fans, this is fifthStitch once again giving you my very regular updates!

Not... Who am I kidding... Anyway, so where was I... Uhh, updates, right. Fans or no, welcome to volume 2 of The Life and Times; where, if you've been tuning in regularly, you'd know that I'd be giving you updates and future times about my life. Kind of like a blog post.

But cooler...

If you don't get the inside joke, I say don't bother.

Anyway, first for the updates. So I'm working now. And oh boy, did I get my dream job.

YAY WORK!

If you're wondering what, and for the benefit of those who still do not know, I got a job as assistant lecturer in De La Salle University. Hmm... Now that I remember, I think I've blogged about this already... Oh well, yay for redundancy.

So yes, you can say I'm a prof now, though I still say I do not deserve the title. But what am I to do but embrace it with outstretched hands and a (forced) warm smile. It's been (backbreaking) fun work and I (do not) look forward to it every week! YAY!

All jokes aside, yes I've been enjoying my tenure (wow, I've been waiting to use that word to describe something about myself) as a part-time lecturer. It's been really hard at times, especially since I got a really bad time slot at 11:20 AM to 12:50 PM. It's either the students are sleepy or hungry, I suppose you could say that's the lull between breakfast and lunch. Oh and for the record (if anyone out there is secretly recording my blogs ) I'm not handling INTROSE as I expected. Due to some last minute switch involving, I dunno, five minutes of extreme deliberation, I got transferred to INTROOS. Now, I don't have anything against that subject, but I really don't have anything for it either. I suppose the hours of lecturing really drains me of my energy, as can be seen by my lack of updates.

And speaking of updates, random plug (which I will return to later anyways so what's the point), I wrote the next chapter of White Wolf Riiya entitled Conflict. In this chapter we finally see the fated reunion of the three defenders of Love, Hope and Justice (I forgot if the last one was Justice... maybe it was Courage, but meh). I particularly love how I characterized Chacha in this chapter, I don't know why .

Anyway, yeah, back to teaching. So this coming week, it'd be pressure as a ten ton block with five hundred elephants with five hundred giraffes on top of them as I will be having my peer review. What is a peer review you might ask? Well...

TWO OF MY PREVIOUS PROFESSORS

ARE GOING TO WATCH ME TEACH!!!

>_<

May God bless me... This would be the greatest challenge yet of what might be the shortest teaching career in DLSU.

Anyways, apart from that, no major updates so far. Yes, I wrote a chapter of White Wolf Riiya (you could say this is the obligatory restatement). Yes, I'm now into watching Kamen Rider Kiva. Yes, I have yet to finish watching Lain and Evangelion. Yes, I still have to watch Elfen Lied. And yes, I'm still sexy and oozing with awesomeness. What's new?

Well, there you have it! I plan on making my posts shorter and easier to read. If you were a fan of the long posts, shoot me a comment (due to the 'n' key of my keyboard failing, that statement almost made it as "shoot me a commet"). I would be very very happy if you would .

The Life and Times vol. 1

2009-09-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

Following in the footsteps of the great Drew Bagay, I decided to make a weekly gig. It's more of for updates really for those interested, giving your friendly neighborhood fifthStitch that warm fuzzy feeling inside (or maybe it's cuz of all the gas). Anyway, I shall christen this gig

THE LIFE AND TIMES

Which is more of a rip really, until I think of a better name. I shall do these in volumes, like how I plan to with another series which so far has not even left the ground yet. I promise it will... Someday...

Anyway, for the updates...

I am really psyched for graduation.

GRADUATION YAY

All those wasted - I mean fruitful years are now coming to a close! Well, not really, since I still am taking up my Masters, so it's really not yet over. I still have to feel that proud "Hey I did it" atmosphere, but I'm getting there. Thesis is now finally over, no more beating the deadlines, sleepless nights, sleep-filled bus rides, unwatched anime, unwatched movies, unread comics, unread mangas, unrequited love (wha? just kidding, I love you!), undetermined genders of classmates, never ending stress and most of all, no more unwritten blogs.

YAY!

Or maybe not.

Seeing that it's me, I will probably still have more of these (except unrequited love, I love you! Really!). In other news... YAY MOTA!!! I still tend to spell MOTA as MotA. Anyway, so we got silver for our MOTA, with the power programmer group of XT getting the gold. It's not like it's a competition or something (YES IT IS, FIFTHSTITCH SMASSSSSSSHHHHHH), all of the candidate thesis groups could get a gold theoretically (FIFTHSTITCH SMAAAAAASSSSHHHH, GRR GRR). Still, getting a silver is very unexpected, and much appreciated (NO!!! FIFHTSTITCH SMAAAASSSSSHHH!!!11!!11!!). I actually didn't even think we'd make it this far, I am content just finishing on time really. I would really like to thank my thesis mates for bearing with me all this four terms. A quick shout out is in order...

THANK YOU THESIS MATES!

THANK YOU EVER PRACTICAL NICOLE!

THANK YOU EVER INDUSTRIOUS JOSEPH!

THANK YOU EVER GA- I MEAN, EVER HARD-WORKING RAF!

No really, thank you all. Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you for all the laughs, the tears, the fits of rage. Thank you for everything really, I'd shed a tear for all of this and for all of you, but I digress. I'll save it for graduation.

Some other updates. I have written two more chapters of Riiya, the White Wolf. The plot thickens as Riiya encounters long lost memories, figments of a past he has already forgotten now haunting him in cold blood (or something like that). Be sure to read it, it'd make fifthStitch really happy.

DON'T YOU WANT FIFTHSTITCH HAPPY?

Okay... Anyway, also, I'm planning to write a short story derivative of LamB. Let's face it, LamB was a failure. I was really really really really really really really (repeat to infinity) excited about LamB. The concept seemed incredibly beautiful, and the universe it created is exciting beyond a shadow of a doubt. For the uninitiated, here's some condensed info on LamB: beautification panels attached to the skin which enables indefinite beautiful existence was combined with nanotech and mind control to create the ultimate punishment for criminals, forcing them to work almost butt naked for extended periods of time as LamBs under the jurisdiction of shepherds who I am led to believe are law enforcement dudes which serve as wardens for the criminals wearing the LamB suit which meanwhile are the hot topic for fashion since they grant near perpetual beauty which makes hip people wanna commit crimes for the sake of getting that Laminated suit. Uhh, well, it's actually waaaaay better than that. Click here to see the wiki page. And here to see the official site.

SEE? EVEN VANESS WU GOT INVOLVED!

Seriously, LaMB (which I have carelessly misspelled as LamB [damn this DotA MotA thing, and damn this recursive parenthetical shizzle]) was a huge HUGE HUGE letdown. The proliferation of sponsor ads (for goodness sakes, they animated the band members of Simple Plan and the Click Five, what's up with that?!?) combined with over hyped publicity and rather bad voice acting (sorry Vaness) really made LaMB the disappointment of the century. I loved the concept, I loved the setting, I loved the universe it created, I loved everything about LaMB EXCEPT the show itself. It sucked. Big time. And about Vaness being involved, yeah, he was chosen as the seiyuu or voice actor of the lead male character.

I don't mind Eve (the name of all female LaMBs and in this case, the name of that lady in the poster) being a complete rip off of Rei Ayanami from the ever wonderful Evangelion or Motoko Kusanagi from the also ever wonderful Ghost in the Shell. I don't mind LaMB sucking out of the popularity of recent Sci-Fi (well, recent during the time of LaMB's release) post apocalyptic films like the Matrix trilogy. I don't mind the power-point-ish animation style of LaMB, seeing that it's the first original production of Animax. I don't mind the subtle switcharoo by Animax, turning LaMB into an animated feature from the previously advertised animation series. And I certainly didn't mind all the viral promotions Animax gave LaMB. But when they worked in the members of Simple Plan and the Click Five into the animated production (which I believe is due to sponsorship issues), when they waisted all that potential concepts, when they produced a crappy excuse for an animation fit... It's just... Damn... I don't even know what to say.

LaMB FAIL

So there, I'm planning to write a short story set in the LaMB universe. I don't know, maybe for vindication, or probably just to get the satisfaction I expected to obtain from LaMB. I don't know when I'd write it, but hopefully I do before class begins again next week. Did I just say class? Oh yes, I did, which brings us to my last update for this blog (I'm getting tired of typing, and this blog is way over my word limit, not that I have any).

I am going to be a Part-Time Lecturer next term!

YAY PART TIME PROFESSORSHIP!

That's right, I'd be teaching next term. According to the teaching load distribution I got from the faculty, I will be teaching INTROSE or Introduction to Software Engineering next term. This is a really really big thing for me as I have always wanted to teach since my High School days. It was probably due to the introduction of GTO to me or something, but I really really want to teach. Pardon my naivety and idealism, but I really want to be involved in shaping the future, and I believe being a teacher is the best way to do that. You are directly in contact with the future of the nation so they say, nothing beats that.

Anyway, INTROSE shouldn't be hard to teach, since it's more of a practical thing mixed with a few concepts. It's still incredibly pressuring though, as INTROSE is a second year subject and is really not that much of a beginner's course. Still, there's no better way than to kick things off with a bang... Or something...

So there, that concludes volume one of the Life and Times. But first! A bulleted list showing the updates I'm too lazy to write about in full:

I still have yet to watch the last two episodes of Kamen Rider Decade
I'm not sure if I want to watch Kamen Rider W (Philip is gay)
I think I might be into SIC's (Super Imaginative Chokogin, look it up)
I'm planning to start a Solutions Development gig
I have still yet to update Chronos Division, which I hope I will do
I'm about to finish watching La Corda D'Oro (pretty good so far)
I want to play the violin
I just attended a FORMDEV Reco (I'd probably blog about this properly soon)
I WANT A NEW GUNDAM
And so much more...

Right... Goodbye! See ya next time or something...

A pre twentieth post celebration

2009-08-08T05:04:00.000-07:00

Twenty is such a momentous number. It caries with it the same momentousness as any other multiple of ten, save perhaps powers of ten. Yeah, I know the nerdiness level of the previous sentence must have probably rocketed past the Earth's atmosphere, but let's face it, it's worth the epicness right? Right?

Moving on, so this is my nineteenth blogger post since I made this blogger account, and so far, it's been great. Not as much fans as my Multiply account, but I don't regret the transfer. It's been pretty peaceful, and far more manageable than unwieldy Multiply.

So what do I talk about in my twentieth blog post?

Why, my impending twentieth birthday of course! Your dear fifthStitch would be commemorating twenty years of walking this planet of ours in a month or so. September 19 (which interestingly coincides with the number of this blog post) marks the day I become two decades (how do you pronounce this, de-kayd or di-kayd?) old. I'm actually pretty excited, and pretty unsure at the same time, it's my first time being twenty after all (duh).

So what changes would you expect from your dear fifthStitch? Nothing! Nothing at all! I dunno what's so special about growing and becoming an adult, the adult world is incredibly boring. You have to abide by a lot of rules, the space for goofing off lessens, ugh, boring.

BORING.

So there, nothing would change perhaps for me. I would still remain the same old fifthStitch you know and love. Of course there would be tiny changes, but I'd stay as fun and as un-adult as I can be.

ADULT IS BORING.

Some updates

2009-08-05T04:34:00.000-07:00

Life updates, literary updates and more...

First off, some updates on your dear blogger fifthStitch. We passed thesis! On the first defense! I take no responsibility for this success though, I attribute them all to God and to my hardworking thesis mates.

Yay thesismates!

This naturally leaves me bored though, not that I haven't been bored during thesis at all. I'm killing the boredom by doing a little bit more thesis (even if we passed, we're not yet off the hook, since the adviser and the panel wanted some more revisions done... yay...), watching Kamen Rider Decade and playing Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection. And speaking of Dark Resurrection, I beat Drew at least five times already, which is an achievement I think more valuable than thesis itself!

Lili is my favorite character

I also made a tumblr account, for some blogs too long for plurk but too short for blogger. Click here to visit. Don't forget to follow me if you still care :(
Anyway, for some literary updates, I really apologize for not working on any new updates for both White Wolf Riiya and Chronos Division. Said thesis is really sapping me of writing creativity. Rest assured though that those series are not yet dead. Actually, I plan on doing regular updates from now on, Thursdays for White Wolf Riiya and Fridays for Chronos Division. Not sure if I can pull off such discipline, but who knows really. Also, I intend to start a new literary project. It's more of a game really. I'd call it...

FROM AN OTHER'S EYES

What I'd do is I'd write a well-known or popular story (relatively) from the point of view of another character if it was told in first person or from the point of view of any of the characters if it was told in the third. What I plan to do is emulate and see the world from the eyes of that character. Episode 1 (yeah, I decided to call them episodes) would be about a very popular story, so much so that it had, has and continue to have a strong cult following all around the world.
Hopefully no one sues me for trying.
Anyway, that's all there is to it with this update. Gotta go back to working again... Boring...

Due Respects

2009-08-05T04:17:00.000-07:00

Today marks the day of former president Cory Aquino's burial. While I know the entire Philippine nation is mourning for her loss, I cannot help but feel apathetic. It's not because I don't appreciate what she did for our country, or how she fought for independence from tyrannical rule. It's not because I don't appreciate how she lead the Filipino people into an unforgettable peaceful revolt resulting into the expulsion of a dictator.

No. It's not that. I appreciate all that. I idolize all that.

But to be honest, I cannot really feel the sadness that as much. It's probably because I was born only during her presidency, that's why I cannot feel the sadness other Filipinos feel with regards to her death. Don't get me wrong though, I do understand the gravity of the situation. Still, I pay my respects to the mother of our country, the ever enduring symbol of Filipino democracy.

For the powerful light of the nation, for the irreplaceable beacon of the strength of the Philippine masses, may your legacy live forever for as long as democracy is still alive in our nation

It's not history that defines a person, it's the person that defines his or her story

To be truly one

2009-08-02T02:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the first of August, marked what would be one of the most historical events of this year, and one of the saddest; one that would be remembered certainly for a very long time.

Yesterday marked the death of one of the most loved presidents of the Philippines, none other than the mother of this country, Mrs. Corazon Aquino.

I would be annoyed to ends of my wits when I hear the most hated president of the Philippines capitalizing on her death by messages of unity and the like. The hypocrite would most certainly do so anyway, knowing her insatiable desire for a publicity op. Knowing her, she would deliver a very "heart-warming" and "reconciliatory" message to each and every Filipino, advocating "unity" and "peace" both politically and otherwise. She has already taken the first steps; she declared August 5 a non-working holiday to honor the burial of Cory. On that day, I hope I would never turn on the TV to see our dear president delivering her laughable message. The TV better be equipped with 5 inches of protective lead and fiberglass for it's own good.

Call me stingy or whatever, but we should all face the truth. I read a newspaper article today claiming that the death of Cory brought the Philippines together. It claimed that due to her death, the Philippines became united. But the fact of the matter is, this unity is only very temporary. This unity would only last for until the death of Mrs. Aquino still has an effect; very soon it would fade away and we would all be back in disarray.

It's painful to admit, but the so called unity of the Philippines depend so much on temporary and passing things. Remember when Manny Pacquiao defeated Ricky Hatton? A lot of people also claimed that during that one day, rebels and soldiers alike took a break from fighting to watch his match and celebrate his victory. We saw a lot of enemy politicians congratulating the triumph of our "hero". The Philippines was united, but only for so long. The following day (figuratively and literally), the trapos, soldiers and rebels were back to their old routines. The "unity" we enjoyed was really short and temporary.

Our country needs to find and hold on to a lasting source or inspiration of unity. If there's one thing Cory Aquino taught us, it's the fact that no matter how small we are individually, united we can stand against any form of tyranny or oppression. We are weak, sure, but together, no tank or soldier or ill-meaning politician or leader can stand in our way. I'm not advocating for another people power or another massive rally in Mendiola or EDSA, but we should really learn to be united and cling to a relatively more permanent inspiration.

After a month or so, once the uniting effect of the death of Cory wears off, we would be back to our old routines. Trapos would be once again trapos and our dear president would once again be our dear president. But if we would all learn to be united not for the sake of a Pacquiao victory or a death of a noble leader, how much more beautiful would the Philippines be?

Do we really need Pacquiao to win 365 matches a year or to kill 365 noble leaders just to ensure a year of peace and unity?

My journey through the Decade

2009-07-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

So I guess I'm addicted to the newest installment to the long running tokusatsu drama "Kamen Rider", the new installment being "Kamen Rider Decade".

Now, I'm not normally into metal heroes; well, not since Power Rangers (which I vehemently despise right now when I found out it was basterda- I mean Americanized) and Kamen Rider Black. It's probably not due to the rider that shares the name of the series, nor is it because of Kanna Mori (but darn isn't she pretty?).

Kanna Mori as Natsumi

Nor is it because of the theme song sung by Gackt (which was surprisingly good, not because of Gackt but because of the fact that it's a Kamen Rider theme song). No.

I fell in love with the series because of the bad ass epic-ness.

I told a few close friends about this little factoid about me, and now you would know as well. fifthStitch likes alternate versions of things. In songs, movies and television shows, I really like covers, cross-overs or alternate realities. So what's this got to do with Decade you ask?

Simple. Kamen Rider Decade is an epic cross-over of all the Heisei era Kamen Riders, from (in the tone of the DecaDriver) Kuuga, Agito, Ryuuki, Faiz, Blade, Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O and Kiva. Decade is the tenth of the Heisei era Kamen Riders, and as part of his growing retinue of abilities, he can transform into any of the nine riders before him. Now, I have just begun to watch this series, and even though I already know more about Decade, I dare not spoil you my dear beloved reader or myself by rudely exposing all of Decade's other abilities. Suffice to say though, due to these other abilities, Decade received it's own tvtrope page.

Decade Final Form whooping those bad asses

Well, there you go. I wish to say more about Decade but I'd watch the series first before I make a review. So far I think 27 out of 30 episodes have been completed and I'm at around the 4th. Tomorrow I continue watching the series, as they dive into the vampire music world of Kiva.

Till then, may you have your own journey through the decade.

Up on the fourth floor

2009-07-18T02:10:00.000-07:00

Is where I am right now.

I should be doing something for thesis, but my fingers feel frozen due to the cold. I'm typing this with my frigid fingers, warming them up for a day of typing ahead.

Yes, I did mean a day of typing. Looks like I'm going home at ten again.

Anyways, today had been a fun day thus far. I beat my old Plants vs. Zombies I, Zombie record of 7 with a whopping 9. Yay.

It's not without help though, I got some small tips from my thesis mates. And yes, right now I just confirmed all of my thesis mates play or had once played Plants vs. Zombies. Can't blame them, it's a really fun game. To quote a review site I visited which I already forgot, the game keeps on giving and giving. And yes, it does. I suppose a hardcore player can breeze through the game in perhaps 15 to 20 hours, but realistically, it takes a little longer. And with the Zen Garden game mode, Plants vs. Zombies can keep you entertained, well, indefinitely I suppose.

As my previous post mentioned (indirectly though), I've been watching this mindfucking anime entitled Serial Experiments Lain, or Lain for short. Lain is a really complex complex anime, interpretable in more than one layer. Incidentally the episodes are called Layers, but I think that's more of due to the fact that it discusses lots of computer network concepts, and computer networks topics really like to use the term layer. Back to Lain, Lain is a truly difficult anime to watch, each short moment might bear some significance that takes a while to process. It's really just that mindfucking.

It's very nice though, shows like those really stimulate the way I think and challenges my thought process and my concepts of what is standard or real. Suppose it's just fantasy, yes it is, but it still does not take away the fact that it has some more than real issues being tackled. And those issues are sometimes so compelling that no matter how fictional the work is, it still is worth some second thought.

There, my fingers feel quite nimble again. Guess it's time for more thesis, up in the fourth floor.

Duality

2009-07-16T05:57:00.001-07:00

The Internet is beautiful isn't it?

You can be who you want to be in the Internet. You can be a girl if you're a boy, or a boy if you're a girl. You can be a legendary hero, or a devious villain. You can be a magician, a swordsman, a warrior, even a dark lord. You can be who you want to be.

You can be wild and outgoing. You can be meek as a sheep. You can be sassy, aloof, conceited.

You can be anonymous.

The Internet makes this duality very possible. In the Internet, you can be who you want to be, even be the complete opposite of who you truly are. If you're shy in the real world, in the Internet you can be wild and outgoing. If you're ugly in the real world, you can be as sexy and alluring in the Internet. If you're a loser in the real world, you can change that in the Internet.

The Internet is beautiful isn't it?

The anonymity associated with the Internet makes all these possible. In the real world, you can only be born once, and once you become a physical entity in the real world, you assume a set of traits, and other people begin associating those traits to you. You gain an identity, and that identity will stick with you. It's not to say you cannot begin anew; the physical world permits this. It's just that, you cannot really begin anew, the old you would continue to haunt you.

This is not true in the Internet.

In the Internet, you can create as many identities as you want. You can assume any characteristic, any trait, any personality. And you can do it as many times as you want. You can assume any number of virtual entities, any number of virtual identities.

In short, you can be anybody.

A friend of mine wrote about freedom and reality. For him, reality is a "concentric", with multiple "realities" existing inside each other. It need not be a complete reality, sometimes sub-realities exist. For instance, a slave lives in his or her own reality, in which he or she is limited by his or her master. Slavery then is a sub-reality of the "real" physical reality. The difference between full realities and sub-realities is also ill-defined, what could be held as a sub-reality can be a reality all on it's own. In this light, freedom then is defined as being in the most external of reality, and questing for freedom is defined as finding your way out of your inner reality and embracing an outer reality.

How do you find out if you are still in an inner reality?

For him, an indicator would be repressive force. If something represses you in your reality, then you are not truly free. There exists a more external reality than where you believe you are in, and it's up to you if you want to pursue this more external reality. A slave would feel repressed by the limits set upon him or her by his or her master. This would indicate that there is a more external reality to the reality the slave is accustomed to, since he is not totally free yet due to the repressive force.

What then is the most external reality?

Is it the physical world? Then why do people escape to the Internet? In the physical world, you cannot assume more than who you are. It's difficult to be more than who you are already; unlike in the virtual world.

Is this repressive force? Is this then enough to say that the physical world is not the most external reality, but is an inner reality to something else? Say, the virtual world?

So which is it? Which is more real? The seventeen year-old boy sitting in front of his computer, or KittyMaster<3<3 his laser saber of kitty-cuteness, cutting a swath across the magic flower field? Isn't he more free as KittyMaster<3<3 than as a boring seventeen year-old bound by the rules of society?

Who then is who?

Tiring tiring tiring

2009-07-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most tiring days ever.

I don't know what set it apart from most days though, it seems pretty ordinary. I went to school for a morning class (I actually made it earlier than I usually do, still not enough to make it on time, but way earlier than usual). Then did some thesis work right after, then went home.

Seems ordinary enough.

But by about three PM, I was already wasted. At about that time we were trying to work things out for thesis. I thought after I ate (some decent chicken fillet carbonara from pizza place, yum!) I would be able to think a little more properly and clearly. While it had that effect for, I dunno, thirty minutes, it wasn't long till I felt really really sleepy and tired. We were in the game lab at that time, so it was probably the relevant silence and coldness of the room that made me all sleepy.

Anyway, so there, it was a really tiring day. It was great to cap it off with an Imperial Chinese Supreme Bowl from KFC. KFC should thank me for the free plug, but that dish (I dunno if I should call it a dish, since it's more of an order than a dish) is one of the best! The sumptuous sauce, the crispy chicken, the tangy eggplants... It's really really good! Too bad it's probably full of MSG, which probably is the ingredient responsible for all the flavor. Oh well, at 100 pesos a meal, its definitely a steal.

So there, that's just about it for today.

Oh, hold on, speaking of my morning class, it got so boring everyone began to plurk songs. Plurk turned into a spontaneous singing bee! Hehe, oh well, maybe next week we'd have another round.

God's Chisel - The Skit Guys

2009-07-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

Click here to watch this video.

Control or chisel?

It's gonna be painful, but I say chisel.

First day of driving school

2009-07-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

was really fun.

Well, the instructor wasn't as friendly as when I enrolled for the manual a year ago, but he's OK, just a little intimidating but after living through two terms under a certain professor, nothing quite intimidates me too much anymore :p

I kindof had to get used to driving again though; it's been a year since I last drove a car. I had to relearn and reacquire a feel for the gas and brake pedals (since I'm driving automatic now) and proper timing for steering. I also had to relearn some of the terms like two point and three point turning and stuff along that vein. Otherwise though, I think I did OK for a pseudo-first time driver.

I wish though that this time my folks are actually going to allow me to use one of our cars. The last time, after I studied manual, my parents never actually let me drive. My mom in particular was afraid I was going to treat it like a toy or something, which was kindof annoying. Why would you make me take up a driving course if you won't let me drive anyway? And up until today she keeps on blaming me for not practicing how to drive all this time!

-_-

Anyway, it's all cool. This time though I'm more determined to learn and have my own driver's license made. Driving is a pretty important skill, seeing as to how society nowadays rely heavily on automobiles for transport. I'm just worried it'd turn me into a lazy sloth.

Recently I've been undergoing some form of holistic betterment, basically doing stuff that makes me feel good about myself physically, emotionally, mentally and most of all spiritually. Think of it like a tune-up for a car, since I've been talking about cars anyway. I'm trying to cut down on unhealthy foods, watching my diet, aiming for 10,000 steps per day, doing at least 10 proper push-ups a day (incrementally increasing), praying each night and daily bible reading; all this to make me feel better about myself. My worry is that when I learn how to drive, I might cut down on walking. I might feel tempted to use the car to get to a very nearby location, wasting a good opportunity to use my legs. Nah, but that's still sometime from now, I would just have to practice a little more discipline.

Anyways, that's just about it for today. Day isn't over yet so I'd see what else I can accomplish before it ends. Tomorrow is another school day, which is good for me since being with my family seriously makes it harder for me to keep up my diet vigilance, hehe.

Guys, don't put your hands in your pockets

2009-07-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

It doesn't make you look cool.

At all.

Especially on a date.

Seriously, I know. I've been there and I've done that.

Going home from school today, I spotted a couple which from how I deduce it are in the mushy bashful stage of their relationship. It was kindof annoying since they were in front of me in the tricycle stand line (in case you don't know what a tricycle is, it's a motorcycle bolted to a sidecar used in public transport, probably exclusively in third world countries). I got there and they were at the end of the line already; which means I'm next in line to get a trike (contracted version of tricycle) home. But for some reason they were so bashful and shy they were arguing who gets to ride the trike first! This would have mattered if they were riding separate trikes but they were going to ride just one! Took them a good part of forever before finally deciding who gets to go inside the trike first. As if it matters.

The worst part in this silly anecdote? The guy, trying to look cool the entire time, kept one if his hands inside his pocket! Even when he sat down inside the friggin trike! Which made him look really stupid by the way, imagine curling your arm inside a small sidecar just so it would remain inside your pocket (trike's have notoriously small passenger accommodation, usually each trike is good for three or four: two inside the sidecar and one or two hitching a back ride on the motorcycle).

I dunno if it's a natural tendency of men to place their hands in their pockets when they're idle. I guess it's the effect of mass media or something, that sometime ago it was cool to place your hands in your pockets. Not that I'm not a victim to this too, but at least I know when to shove them in and when not to! I don't know if people would agree when I say that yeah, sometimes hands-in-pockets makes a guy (or a girl) look cool, but it's a volatile thing that while it might work for some, it definitely won't work for all, and not at all times too.

Mass media has that much of an insane effect in people don't you think? Take the hand-in-pocket mannerism for example. What about cramming a person's hand inside a tight pocket? What's so special about that? So does it mean that back in the day when there were no pockets, people have one less mannerism to make them look cool? And what about placing hands in pockets make it cool anyway? I mean, it's a friggin hand in a friggin pocket!

Anyways, sometimes things like these puzzle me to no end. It's like an unwritten rulebook of cool. Certain mannerisms make a person look cool and attractive to the opposite sex; mastering these mannerisms becomes more than a necessity if one intends to impress. And yet it's also very fickle, as the hands-in-pockets mannerism is a definite no no during corporate occasions, and yet is perfectly OK in formal occasions, provided you can pull it off.

I don't know really. I'm naturally cool so I don't really need to impress.

Do you know of any mannerisms that fall in the same vein?

Thesis thesis

2009-06-26T23:28:00.000-07:00

I think everybody I know would agree to me when I say "We hate thesis!"

Yeah...

Eh, I dunno, most of the time I don't really hate thesis, nor do I like it. I'm sort of neutral, if that's even possible. If I have to do it, then I'd do it; that's how I used to treat thesis. But right now, I dunno, I'm beginning to grow a heavy distaste for thesis. And at the worst time as well, I've only got one month. Can't it be any more cruel than that?

How I wish thesis could just disappear. It's been one of my prime source of stress in the recent months, and is the prime source of stress for most of my friends as well. But I guess there's really nothing that could be done. If it has to be done, it has to be done perhaps.

Which brings us to my day so far. I woke up a teensy bit late for my first class (yes, it's a Saturday but I have a morning class, my close friend was right, not a very good idea). I got to school probably an hour after the class started, but I might as well have skipped the subject altogether.

The instructor was teaching us how to code in C#, but it was kinda confusing. I think he was trying to teach us the procedural way of coding; the basics. But because he had been using C#, or because the slides were saying so, he taught us the object-oriented style of coding in C#. It's all ok and good, but it was really boring. He seemed a to be in the lower end of the confident strata, maybe bordering a little to incompetence - but that's way too harsh. He did not build any sense of rapport with the students, and some of those present were even manipulating him subtly. While I know teaching is a difficult job, he seemed to be letting it get the most of him.

So while he was trying to teach us the basics of C#, a lot of us were doing other stuff instead of listening. The class literally became plurk class; there were open plurks everywhere! I admit I was pretty much guilty as well of plurking in class; I was trying to listen but it was quite difficult when the instructor wasn't speaking so much. It was good the class ended even before we realized it.

Fast forward to a few minutes after class. My friends decided to visit one of their previous professors they have grown a liking towards, so I tagged along with them. I never got a chance to be the student of this professor, but she seemed fun when she talks with them. Once we got to their classroom, we found out their class weren't over yet. So we waited outside and things started becoming crazy.

One of us started singing Michael Jackson songs (RIP Michael, your music would be sorely missed). He started dancing too, first to Thriller then to Heal the World. We were all trying to contain our laughter since we would be making too much noise! It was really really crazy. We dispersed soon when we realized the class we were waiting on is gonna take longer than we thought, and my friends had to go to Greenhills. I went my way and that's just about it. Right now I'm just waiting for us to leave for SM Mall of Asia, maybe play a couple of bowling rounds and if possible maybe grab a Gundam along the way. I badly want a Gundam right now, it's been more than a month since I assembled one.

We will miss you

2009-06-25T02:37:00.000-07:00

This morning I attended the wake of one of the most dear persons to FORMDEV, Brother Ceci. I cannot say anything much about Brother Ceci. He was a very simple man. He seems to be always smiling, always laughing; he was a very happy person. Brother Ceci was also a very good storyteller, and his stories continue to resonate upon those who heard them. His stories inspire and touch the heart; some will make you laugh, some will make you sad, all would strike a chord in you. These are often stories of students ranging from the little kids to La Salle sports team memebers; all of them he had befriended and loved.

But if there was something that would describe Brother Ceci, from how I knew him, it would have to be love.

Many people quest for happiness. Many people pay big bucks to buy things that they think would make them happy. Others find happiness in hobbies, games, friends. But it's always never easy, as what may make you happy now may not make you happy tomorrow. But for Brother Ceci, it never seemed to be the case. He may have his ups and downs, but he seemed to be always really happy. People like him are a mystery to me, until today.

If there would be one thing I would remember Brother Ceci for, it would be his capacity to love.

His was a simple love. He would love you and that's it. Maybe I am exaggerating things, but from his stories and the sharings of his life, this seemed to be the case. And he never seemed to run out of love. He always seemed to have space to love another person; his was a big heart.

And he allowed his heart to be drowned in God's love.

How I wish I can love like him. How I wish I could flood my heart with God's love and love unconditionally as he did. He made it look so easy; I guess it really shouldn't be that hard.

Brother Ceci, thank you. Thank you for the stories you shared, the lives you touched. Thank you that you became part of my life. It may not have been as big as I wanted, I really wished I could have talked to you more, but the inspiration you gave me I would try to treasure and remember for the rest of my life. You showed me that it is possible for man to flood himself or herself with God's love and love unconditionally. You showed me how love need not be complicated. You showed me how to truly love.

Thank you Brother Ceci.

Happy endings are real

2009-06-20T06:45:00.000-07:00

I have already given up on happy endings.

Oh yeah, before anything else, this is my first blog post in blogger/blogspot. Hello. I originally came from multiply, but after their layout update, I dunno, I find the changes a little too obstrusive for me. Yes, it does what it claims to do, but it's a little too clunky, and the entire thing takes longer to load. Who knows, maybe I would find a reason compelling enough to return to multiply, but until then, I'm migrating all my stuff here in blogger. This blog would be for my personal life, rants and raves, while this would be for my short stories and other literary work. Yeah, I'm also a writer so deal with it.

Anyway, about happy endings. Movies often end in happy endings; at least in the movies I watch. Yeah, there are a lot of movies out there that do not have happy endings (I'm looking at you Skeleton Key) but I dunno, I rarely get to see any of those; not that I really want to. I don't normally watch movies, for a reason worth another blog. When the good guy hero kisses the leading lady, or when a band of warriors or soldiers finally achieve victory; happy endings are always too good to be true most of the time. They are often too amped up, and for good reason. Movies aren't movies without flair; or at least they aren't movies that sell.

Wouldn't it be nice if lives also had happy endings? I mean, it doesn't necessarily entail the "end" like death or anything, just happy moments. Like after finally being able to finish preparing and waiting a full three minutes for your cup noodles, it becomes a delectable aldente treat, not an overcooked or undercooked cup of turd (I get this quite a lot). The world would be a lot better if there were happy endings, and if everything ends the way we want them to be or better.

Nah.

Wrong answer, no one thousand points for you.

Of course life has happy endings, we're just too busy picturing out the ideal happy ending in our heads we forget to see the real happy ending. We're just too prone to imagining how good the end will be that we overlook how good the end had been.

I dunno, people won't agree for sure, but while experts say the secret of successful people is that they see the end from the very beginning, I say the secret of happy people is that they see the good in every ending. I know a lot would throw tomatoes at me for claiming such a naive thing, but truly, I think one of the secrets of a happy life is seeing the blessing in adversity - seeing the positive in the negative.

I think people gifted with this ability are those who become truly happy with their lives. How I wish I could become better at doing that, seeing the good in the bad. Sometimes, life just kicks me so hard in the ass it's really difficult to find the treasure in the trash, the diamond in the rough, the banana in the monkey, the golden needle in the filthy haystack (ok, ok I'd stop now). And life has a knack of kicking me in the ass too, so it really gets kinda rough at times.

Meh, at least now I'm more aware of this fact. Now I can be more proactive at seeking the happy in the endings. See? Told you happy endings are real.