Fright Night with Tom

Yeah, yeah…

Last month, 15-year old Little Big Star finalist Charice Pempengco was invited to perform in a Korean variety show.  A week or so later, clips of that guesting was put up on YouTube.  Early this month, Ellen Degeneres invited her to perform in her daytime talk show.  And Hollywood seems to have noticed her, even having a significant nod at the Daily Ten, citing her performance of a song from the movie Dream Girls and how Jennifer Hudson has just been upstaged by Pempengco.

Now here's my two cents, and I'll spare you the nationalistic bull crap everyone seems to be spewing.  Not that I don't agree with her impressive talents, but there's just too much of it going around.  And yes, in the Bianca Ryan comparison, Pempengco still gets my vote.  All I have to say is, kung napapa-wow ang buong mundo sa talent ng batang 'yan?  Bakit hindi sila pumunta sa Pinas at magsawa sila.  Ang dami nilang kayang kumanta nang ganyan.

Delayed Company Xmas Post

Pics from the company Christmas party Monday last week…

(L-R) Zhai, Cielo, Jen, Erick, Jopet, Verns, Billy, Leah, Doris

The party was at Bonsai Garden in UP Diliman, but when we got there an hour or so before the start of the party and we were starving, so Verns suggested we head for Chocolate Kiss over at Bahay ng Alumni first for some snacks.  Highly recommended: the sans rival, tsokolate eh and the devil's food cake.  Diabetic delight indeed.  Oh and Jen's sandwich also rocks.

girly shots of Zhai, Doris and Cielo   

Zhai wanted to find out if the butterfly pendant she bought was made of real silver and precious stones.

One last pic with Leah and Doris before we make our exit.

Here's a pic of on of the trees in the area, I was actually hoping I'd see some ectoplasmic shit caught on film (or on SD card), or at least some orbs.  But no soap.

Girls of the company.  Most of them anyway.

Doris and I are mighty shiny.

 
Nice pic of the girls at the karaoke after-party party. Drunk, drunk Jopet.

Guess who's camera-shy.

An actual post to come soon.  

I want…!

This:

and these shirts: (more…)

Cats, Cats

 This so reminds me of Aoitenshi.

Machinima

Last week, Testlab Boy Erick and I attended the Machinima event by Intel and IP-eGames held at the ex-Oakwood Ascott.  And thanks to hyperlinks to wikipedia I don't need to explain much here other than that they're giving attention to more locally produced digital content for videos using game engines such as Granado Espada's (GE).  I'm no gamer so I never got knee-deep into the MMORPG thing, so I was only partially interested.  But then I remembered that a few incarnations ago, the dork in me tried to make a storyboard-like shit using The Sims.  And my skin began to crawl upon remembering that shit.

Anyway, to show us that the technology can be utilized to create movies or shorts, they showed s how it's done and even played a couple of videos.  Here's a parody by Randall Glass of the courtroom scene of "A Few Good Men" with Tom Cruise and Jack Nocholson, as done with Half Life cut scenes and retitled "A Few Good Gmen":

And here's something I stumbled onto while running amok around YouTube.  It's "High School Musical" with Sims2 graphics.  I'm not particularly in awe with it, but it's an effort and talent worth a shot of rum.

World Bazaar

Shai was assigned to man the company booth at the World Bazaar at the World Trade Center and Cielo was dropping by to hang out with her for a couple of hours since she lived only a few minutes away.  I, on the other hand, was going to Verns' place anyway to pick up the Canon IP3300 I won in a party raffle a week ago so I decided to drop by the booth too. 

I was planning to leave the booth as soon as Cielo does but when I got there my selling skills were put to test and I had fun trying to sweet talk people into buying copies of the mags.  I got to watch Nityalila play on stage, ate some atay and balumbalunan, bought a handful of stuff for the kids and hung out with some friends for a bit so the day wasn't really a total waste.

 ps.  ignore the dates on the pictures (dated January 1, 2006).  I forgot to set the dates when I turned the cam on.

My dying gelert

I'm a horrible virtual pet owner. 

I deliberately murdered Sims brutally by burning, drowning or making them play with the disease-carrying hamsters until they keel over or motionlessly sink deeper into the pool and tombstones appear.  Also within a two-week period, four tamagotchis have starved to death because of my negligence.  And I just visited my four-year old Neopet GreyDwight (yeah, a unimaginatively idiotic name I know).

Dying.  Well, at least he's cheerful. 

Fwd

Marc and Abby tied the knot a few months ago.

DJ recently got married.  So did Tetet. 

Earl's now a dad.  Jinky gave birth to a baby boy.  Raf and Mimi's got a baby girl. 

Vangie and Jen as well as Jerry are now in the US. 

Niche now has his own radio show.

And I'm still here wondering what to do next. 

ARGH: a Heroes junkie’s pain

The remote control is missing.

Last night they were watching some program on ABS-CBN and then this morning the remote just sorta disappeared.  We've been looking everywhere and still our TV is still tuned in to channel2 and so I was locked out of AXN, Star World, Discovery Channel, C/S, ETC and JackTV channels I usually haunt during weekends. 

And so, I fail to watch Heroes AGAIN!  And at this point I don't mind reading spoilers.  This is me getting desperate for my Heroes fix.  This is pain!

Speed Racer

I know it's gonna be shown next year 2008, but I so want to see it now!  As in right freaking now. 

I find the cast list interesting.  Playing the title role is Emile Hirsch, who most of us have first met as Matthew Kidman in the Elisha Cuthbert vehicle "Girl Next Door."  Also in the movie are is Christina Ricci, LOST star Matthew Fox, and providing real acting chops are John Goodman and Susan Sarandon playing the otherwise idiotically named Pops and Mom Racer.

Odd inclusions are Richard Roundtree (aka Charles Deveaux from HEROES), German punk goddess Nina Hagen's daughter Cosma Shiva Hagen and Korean superstar Rain.

Oh and it's directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski (who also carried screenplay duties), but instead of the dark apocalyptic vision of the future that bounded the Matrix trilogy, Speed Racer employs an Andy-Warhol-meets-Golden-Age-America look and atmosphere with Van Gogh bright colors and heavy shadow interplay.

I Want One

After work yesterday I, along with Deb and Maya, headed for a restaurant in Tomas Morato to attend the Maxtor product launch.  After a decently short presentation by Seagate's managing director for Asia Pacific channel sales and marketing Kevin Lee, there was a raffle that gave away two external hard drives (with 250GB each, they were two of the three products being launched) and several P1000 worth of spa services from The Spa. 

Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini

The Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini is a portable hard drive weighing less than 6 ounces, making it easy to confidently carry your up-to-date portfolio and important files in your pocket, briefcase, or backpack. Ideal for students and traveling business people, this portable external hard drive is designed for ease-of-use, with a simple user interface that makes automated backup scheduling, specific file restoration, and security a snap. You can also automatically sync data on multiple computers so you always have your latest files handy. The OneTouch 4 Mini now includes Maxtor SafetyDrill for complete recovery of your PC hard drive’s contents in case of a system crash or virus/spyware attack. To further safeguard your important files, Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini comes with two levels of security - both data encryption and Maxtor DrivePass.  -from the Maxtor site

Available in :
80 GB
120 GB
160 GB
250 GB

Deb won this and I'm jealous because I want one, or need one so I don't have to clog the home PC's HD wit my shit.  It may be one of the cheapest external hard drives out there, but with the rate I'm going it's gonna take years before I can actually save up enough to buy one.  Meanwhile, both Maya and I got the spa certificates.

Oh joy. 

Coloring Jean Grey –

I started coloring this Jean Grey artwork a few weeks after I started working for my current company.  We had just finished my first issue (July) when I realized that I had nothing to do.  After reading all the recent episode summaries on the Lost and Heroes wikis and the online Heroes graphic novels I still found myself staring at the company directory pinned to the divider behind my monitor.  Then I remembered that I had installed Photoshop 7 in my PC so I went online to look for inked artworks to color.  I headed for the Glass House Graphics site and found this one by Tondo-based Ernest Jocson.

But because I dove into work a week after that I only got to continue coloring it during breaks and idle hours.  And roughly six months later, I finally get to finish it.  First jpeg below is the original Jocson inked artwork, second one is right after I was done with it.  Click jpegs for close up.

Tangina?

I was logging on to the IMDB site when I found this random quote at the bottom of the first page:

TANGINA
Now clear your minds. It knows what scares you.

It has from the very beginning.

Don't give it any help, it knows too much already.

Apparently, Tangina is a character from the Poltergeist trilogy played by Zelda Rubenstein, and since I have no memory of ever seeing that film I'm guessing it's either the poltergeist's name or some voodoo witch.

The Kingdom non-Review

Monday.

I was waiting for 5:00pm to drop when grandmaster Sean asked me if I can attend the Palit event that night as they introduced their motherboards and graphics cards, which, of course included a presentation, a raffle (an HTC Touch and a portable DVD player, I didn't win either of them), an odd testimonial from "the most famous game reviewer in the Philippines" (that left a rather weird taste in my palette) and then the showing of the Jamie Foxx/Jennifer Garner/Chris Cooper/Jason Bateman movie "The Kingdom" which I personally recommend.  The action sequences where great and the pacing was riveting.  And I also enjoyed subtle comic relief Jason Bateman and Jeremy Piven (who has obviously typecast to play annoying side characters who look and act like drunk motivational speakers just like his Ari character in  Entourage, only minus the screaming).

The  movie opens with a softball game played in Riyadh.  This is in a protected area within Saudi's soil where Americans have colonized.  Kids run around with bats, chasing balls as their parents watch them grilling hamburgers and hotdogs.   Saudi's police force roam around the area with watchful eyes for suspicious activities.  Then two similarly clad Arabs manage to get inside the area, killed two policemen in their police van and took the vehicle for a ride as they shoot every American in sight, starting with two girls taking their dogs for a walk.  The softball field erupts into panic as everyone in attendance is gunned down.  One policeman shouts to the crowd to calm down and to come to his general direction.  Thinking they'd be safe if they follow his instruction, everyone does.  And he raises his arms, flicks a detonator in his hand and he explodes along with the people trying to seek his protection.

The scene is disturbing.  But even more disturbing and unsettling is the fact that this may be a common occurrence in the Middle East.  I'm a fucktard when it comes to current events around the world, but even I know the amount of brutality and utter inhumanity that hinged these terrorist attacks in the name of the twisted views on religion.  How dare they call themselves 'devout Muslims.'

At the convention

"Alam mo, kahit patay ka na, papatayin pa din kita!"
-Ace Vergel to John Regala

December came too soon. And I started the month with a convention, not that I was planning to attend it but the dubbing contest I joined was to be held there.

But before that: early yesterday I went to Trinoma for an Intel-Creative Media & Film Society of the Philippines event that always reduced me to a whining sonovubitch.  The event was titled "Digital Overdrive: Concept Art & Design Set to the Speed of Quad-Core" and as the title suggests, was about utilizing the full potential of Intel's Quad-Core technology for digital arts.  I was an intimate event held at by the mall's MRT entrance/exit and when I got there, a workshop/Q&A session and an art competition was under way.  I wanted to join the art contest so I asked this girl at the front desk.  She said that the slots were already filled up but she'd put me in the waiting list and call me up when a slot becomes available, something I was seriously doubting would happen.

An hour or so later, left the mall and headed for SMX where the dubbing competition was going to be held.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that out of the 200+ people who auditioned, I was part of the top 20, and since only 15 showed up during the orientation and then 13 actually went to the event, I guess we're officially the finalists by default.  So we met up at the Creativoices booth and hung out, waited for the competition to start.  I wasn't really nervous, I was a wreck; shaking and my brain numb trying to think about a million ways I could screw up on stage.  Around 2:30 the girl from Intel sent me a text message, saying that there was a vacant slot and would I be be available from 3:00-4:30pm?  Oh shite!

The convention dragged on with a battle of the bands competition (I think) and then we were supposed to be next.  But for some reason, the organizers had the Cosplay on next.  It would've been a welcome change because I can at least practice or whatever, but apparently there were around 250+ Cosplayers in the event. And it was getting dark.  So they ended up moving the dubbing contest to tomorrow.