Greenwich Sisig Pizza vs Red Egg Pizza

I just had both greenwich holiday specials, the sisig pizza, and the red egg pizza, and the sisig pizza wins hands down. I’d been wanting to taste both of these holiday special pizzas, and finally decided to do something about it today.

The sisig pizza captures the essence of sisig, with crunchy chicharon bits to boot, while the tomato sauce and cheese complement it perfectly as it swims inside your mouth. The Red egg pizza was by no means bad, but it tasted much like bibingka with a few slices of christmas ham for good measure.

With the Sisig pizza setting you back 150 pesos for a double sized pizza and the red egg special hitting you with 219 pesos, the sisig pizza is the clear favorite, and is the limited edition pizza that everyone should try.

Geeking your way to fitness

 

I’ve decided to start working out again to get fit, after remembering my doctor’s advice during my near catastrophic hospital stay.  He said something like, “The body and the mind are closely connected to each other, so when one is helathy, the other is as well”.

Leveling Up 

I’ve also been thinking about why it is that so many geeks are unfit?  I think that it’s partly because there is no leveling up when it comes to real life.  I mean sure, if you work out everyday you’ll start to see results, but there is no gauge.  No window that pops up to tell you that you have reached level 22 fitness, and you now have +2STR,  +5STM, +3DXT, etc.  With no metrics to keep track off, the would-be-fut geek gets bored and decides to go back to playing GTA San Andreas.  At least in the game there’s a bar and stats to keep track of your fat, strenght, sex appeal…

I think the cure to unfit geeks is to simply add some gameplay and game mechanic elements into the process.  For example, the simple act of listing down the kinds of exercises that you do and then listing the number of sets and repetitions, then plotting the increase in their number over the next  few weeks can reinforce your desire to exercise.  Confused?  Don’t worry, I made an image.

What you see is a very basic training regimen that almost anyone can type out on a spreadsheet.  For the “arnold’s press” week 1, I’ve listed the number of repetitions as 12 and the number of repetitions as 3.  For week 2, I’ve upped the repetitions to 13 and maintained the sets to 3.  I will keep increasing the number of reps every week, but the important thing is that I’m documenting my progress and reinforcing the idea that I am increasing my repetitions, thus getting more fit.  An increased number of reps can be treated as an increase in a stat, be it HP, MP, or AGI.

A true geek might even propose that once he reaches 15 reps and 3 sets, he will have achieved “level 2 fitness”, and he can reward himself in some way, like buying a new game or gadget or something.  I use 14 pound (kilo?) dumbells for these exercises, but I suppose you might substitute really big books instead.

Watching your calories and tranfats

You can also make a game out of calculating the amount of calories and fats in the foods that you eat.  Before picking up any snack food, check the nutritional information on the back.  I don’t normally lok out for calories anymore because caories are something that you can burn through exercise anyway.  What i do look out for is the amount of fat, specifically transfat that is contained in the food.  It’s easier to work with these figures because they give you the percentage of the daily recommended amount instead of a vague number.  For example, if Snack A has 50% transfat in a single srving, that should make you stop and think.  With this one snack I’m using up my allotted 50% of transfats for this day.  Is it worth it?  You’ll have to be the judge.

Regardless, this is at least one other metric you can play around with in your head.  In a game, there might be a “fat” bar which, upon reaching dangerous levels, would start to glow red, and your “character” would start to get dizzy, and the controls would be all fucked up.  That’s what transfats do to you.  Just kidding.

Be aware: Know all the geeky stats and hacks

As a geek, it’s also important to be informed.  Stats and hacks such as those found in WIRED magazine.  For example, did you know that you can increase your breathing power by keeping water in your mouth and breathing through your nose only?  By forcing yourself to breathe through the nose, your breathing muscles will work harder, and will thus work much more efficiently in actual physical exertion.

You can do much more research yourself about information that can spur you on.  For example, did you know that Bruce Lee suggested parkng your car a few blocks away from where you work or live in order to force yourself to walk?  He also said that avoiding escalators and using the stairs makes people much more fit than they think, and that these simple action can halp make you a fitter, healthier person.

GI Joe had it right ladies and geeks, knowing really is half the battle.

Well I hope you enjoyed my spurt of blogging.  I know this is pretty half assed, but hopefully I presented my argument in a semi-coherent manner.  Getting fit can be geeky, so all you slackers have no excuse anymore.  It’s all about the mindset, and you have to admit, I just made exercising sound like the geekiest thing ever.

To point you in the right direction, here’s a link to the blog of a geek trying to lose some excess poundage.  You can do it my friend.  Just remember every pound lost equals and increase in AGI.

RIP James Brown : Godfather of Soul dies at 73

Sad news, indeed.  I honestly don’t know what to say, except every music fan should take a moment to thank him for the music.  So long, and I hope you’re somewhere up there still sining your lungs out.

The Beatles’ Love Album

It’s like listening to the Beatles if they were a band coming out today.

That’s right, encourage them why dontcha?

 

Foolish, foolish Japan.  When will you see the error of your ways?  Your robophile culture will surely turn on you someday, and the consequences will be devastating.  However, until that day comes, feel free to give your future masters shiny metal awards so that they look upon you with a little less disdain once they take over the world.

In other words, click the link to read about Japan honoring the innovative robots of 2006.

Ornusa Cadness on MPH January 2007

 

Click on the link for some Ornusa Cadness goodness.

The Worst Movie Trailer Ever

 

Seriously, how can anyone get excited about the Transformers movie when they release a shitty trailer like this?  It’s like the editor suddenly rediscovered “Fade to Black” on his video editing program and went wild with it.  Using fadeToBlack ad infinitum is sooo not the way to get me excited about the movie.

Instead of submitting yourself to that torture, check out MattMoylan’s collection of “Lil Transformers” comics, which are sure to make any transformers fan laugh till his gut hurts.

Little Miss Sunshine

 
I swear to god at the end of this film I was misty eyed, and I missed my family more than I’ve ever missed them in my entire life.  Little Miss Sunshine is an ode to the dysfunctional family, and it crosses borders of race and culture to deliver a message about the importance of sticking together, even when you have to push a broken down VW van in order to start up the engine in 3rd gear, while your dead grandfather lies in the trunk wrapped in a blanket.

It’s too late to catch it in theaters, but I encourage you all to go out and watch this movie, even if you have to buy it from pirates (yarrr).

Line Rider = Time Waster

 

Draw a track, press play, and watch the line rider ride along his merry way.

Pixelstream graphics engine demo at hackenslash tv

Ok, so this is pretty cool. Props toHackenslash TV for letting us take a look at the graphics engine pixelstream showed of in the Asian Game Developers Conference in Singapore. I’m too lazy to embed the video here, so check out Joey Alarilla’s blog instead. Good writer, that guy. Too bad Hackenslash sucks.

Hackenslash should just shorten its name to Hacks.

I have hated hackenslash for a long time. Well, not hated, more like disdained, mocked, and been frustrated by. They are, for all intents and purposes, the premier online gaming mag in the Philippines, yet much of their content fluffs up dead in the water games and provides half-baked articles that don’t really reveal the entire story to their readers. The one I’m most annoyed with recently is this piece, specifically because I wrote about it already a few weeks ago.

In the article titled Wii-spotting in Manila: Stalking Nintendo’s baby, Hackenslash rightly reveals that:

Toy Kingdom in SM Megamall is selling its Wii basic package at 29,999 pesos while its games range from 3,000 pesos to 4,000 pesos.

TK Megamall also sells the Wii remote control at 2,999 pesos, the nunchuck at 1,999 pesos and the Nintendo classic controller also at 1,999 pesos.

Meanwhile, Celtex in Greenhills is selling the Wii at 29,500 pesos, though they do not have the games or extra controllers yet.

This is good, because the information so far is correct and in fact I didn’t even know about Celtex in Greenhills. What bothers me is the fact that Hackenslash makes no mention of the fact that Toy Kingdom has historically always overpriced their games and consoles. Don’t they find it odd that last gen PS2 games still cost around 4k, the same price as Wii games? They make mention of retailer Datablitz later on, but they don’t say that Datablitz prices its Wii games at a little over half the price TK sells its games. I mean seriously, what the fuck?

Hackenslash is the premier (and I use that term VERY loosely) electronic gaming mag in the Philippines, so why don’t they write about TK’s extortionate prices. Why can’t they make the connection that it’s not about Wiis being new or in demand, it’s about a Toy Chain that’s being irresponsible with it’s pricing, whose only rebuttal to a query on the Wii’s price tag is “yan kase ang latest, sir.”

Hackenslash should be on TK’s ass, asking questions and making connections. Why are only the electronic games overpriced? Why can Datablitz, whose inventory is tiny compared to TK’s, offer lower prices? These are the things they should be asking, instead of simply coming to the conclusion that Wii it “…does enjoy a fan base that might be willing to pay 150 percent more just to get one. ” They shouldn’t have to, especially if they’re buying it from a huge retailer that’s supposed to be catering to the mass markets.

Otherwise, what’s the point? If they’re not willing to use their influence they should give it to someone else. Like me, for instance.

Not that Hackenslash is all bad mind you. Their website is decent, although there are numerous UI issues that I won’t go into detail on here. Yet. Their venture into Youtube via Hackenslash TV is also promising, but also pretty half-assed, as they interview game designers and journalists during a christmas party where you can barely hear what’s being said. For the most part it’s promotional fluff (ie hello, I’m so and so from IBM, and here’s what we’re doing for you…), but hopefully they can come up with more interesting videos soon.

Oh and uh, it’s nice to be enthusiastic about your new product but seriously, there’s something to be said about moderation, and keeping things real. “Hackenslash TV will be the coolest gaming TV show around — and it’s not even on regular TV.” The coolest gaming TV show around? Not really Joey, not really.

Garage sales and donations

 

Had a garage sale this weekend, and sold off lots of pirated playstation CDs, old VCDs, and clothes I’ve grown too thin for.  I made perhaps a little over a thousand pesos, which I proceeded to use up for all sorts of miscellaneous expenses on Sunday.  I learned that comics, even when sold at 5 pesos a piece, do not sell well, and that shoes are one of the biggest draws in a sale.

All of the old comics I have left, plus the old clothes that weren’t sold and other paraphernalia will be donated to our local gas station, who will then pass it on to charitable institutions while at the same tim holding a raffle where DVD players and such are up for grabs.  Everyone wins.  Isn’t it great when that happens?  It so rarely does.

On Game Design

Lost Garden is a treasure trove of information for game designers, social architects, and anyone involved in the design of a game or application.  Read it. Now.

A thought on MMOs

Part of the reason why MMOs bother me is that the settings of the MMO and the culture of the people playing it sometimes clash so painfully that it draws a person out of the game.  Imagine yourself in a woodland setting.  You’re a renegade knight, travelling the world for fame and fortune instead of honor and glory.  You spot a fellow adventurer battling a monster, and decide to help him ( while helping yourself to some of the monster’s loot in the process).  The battle is fierce, but short lived, and just before the monster makes a desperate lunge for your companion, you stabit in the belly, upon which glod an all sorts of interesting items pour forth from the wound.

Your companion looks almost shell shocked, and you chalk it up to shock.  He’ll thank you any minute now.  A message window appears on your monitor.  You smile.

“TANGINA MO NAMAN KILL-STEALER KA NAMAN EH AKIN YANG GOLD NA YAN SUMBONG KITA SA MGA ADMIN EH!”

Suddenly, you’re back in the third world and any immersion or suspension of disbelief is shattered by a foul mouthed 13 year old playing in a dark 10 peso an hour internet cafe.

The reason why good single player RPGs like the Elder Scrolls series are so great (apart from the obvious), is that everyone stays in character (naturally, since they’re AI).  You read fantasy novels to escape reality but you play fantasy games for a chance to live in a nother reality for a few hours, where demons and dragons are you bane, and not the workload your boss send to you via email.  That escape becomes shattered in an MMO because these are real people in the real world playing this game and they bring with them real world culture and values.  To me, this ruins the very essence of playing a game set in a fantasy world.

I don’t know how much fun I’d find playing an MMO similar to the real world, because I have a real life that I have to lead, and I’ll be fucked in the A before I pay someone coin to live another mundane life virtually.  The Sims is an entirely different concept of course, as it’s really fun because you’re playing god over such a human-like creature.

So what genre would make me play an MMO?  Maybe something playing off an alternate history, like if we were actually co opted by the Japanese and DMac (MacArthur) never came back.  Or something sci-fi but set in the very near future, so you could imagine that the culture would still be very similar but there’d be a few flying cars and strange gadgets around.  A story or genre that twists reality enough so it’d be interesting to play, but not so far out that if someone spoke in taglish I’d be annoyed.

To anyone making MMOs that reads this blog (Luna, are you guys making one?), go ahead and steal this idea.  Run with it.  Just give me free playing time ok?

Team Manila SALE!

This may be too late, but any of you within the Makati area should really go check out their shop. Astig ung mga desayns ng mga Teesirt nila. Saka ng mga bag. Solid mhen, solid. Bili na kayo!

Check out their site (and address) here.

OMG I think I just peed in my pants

 

Dragon Quest IX. 2007.  Another reason to buy a DS, as if there weren’t enough already.  Those screenshots look amazing.

KG plus AI = NBA championship

 

Man, I made the comparison between Allen Iverson to Kevin Garnett before, but never in a million years think that there would be a possibility that the two of them might be playing for the same team.  I mean, can you imagine it?  Two players with the same kind of fire and drive and loyalty to their teams coming together; things will definitely explode, whether good or bad, but it sure as hell will be fun to watch.

Come on Kevin McHale, do the right thing.  Get rid of Ricky Davis and any other Timberwolf takeing up precious salary cap space.  Talk to KG.  He wants Iverson, so maybe he’d be willing to take a small hit to his million dollar salary to get him.  Do it. NOW!

E-buys: A new way to screw Toy Kingdom in the A.

Toy Kingdom sucks ass when selling electronic videogames, but it’s ok because we have the internet and e-bay, which is a beautiful and wonderful thing designed not to fuck customers in the A and make them say they liked it.   Damn that felt good.  Without further ado, here are two e-bay Wii packages that are much more palatable than the 30k “cause it’s new” Toy Kingdom has to offer.

Wii + 5 games for 20,000 pesos

Wii + Legend of Zelda for 15,000 pesos

I must stress that I do not know these sellers and do not vouch for their authenticity.  Check out their feedback, send them a few messages and decide for yourselves whether or not they’re legit, then finally decide whether or not you’re going to be one of the first few people in the Philippines to get a Wii.

There’s still time left for humanity…

…because as this video shows, Asimo fell down, and couldn’t get up. Asimo, Honda’s metal contraption with no soul that feebly attempts to mimic human walking, tried to walk up some steps in a presentation in Japan, slipped and tumbled down to the ground. Robo-medics (already the robots have slaves!) rushed to their master’s rescue, covering him up from the scorn and derision of humans before opening up his chest to make some repairs.

While this is a cause for celebration, all this means is that our generation will be known as “those who lived free from the robots’ yoke”. Our grandchildren will have to deal with the robots, but fuck ‘em and let them handle it, just like they’ll have to deal with the environment.

Kingdom Hearts review

I just finished Kingdom Hearts by Squaresoft (they weren’t square-enix yet) and I must say it was a very satisfying game. The most important thing that KH achieves for me is breathing new life into Disney characters that have been collecting dust over the past few years, despite the Disney Channel’s best efforts. It seems almost improbable that it took a Squaresoft RPG to reinvigorate classic characters like Donald and Goofy, but they did, and did it magnificently.

While the graphics are obviously dated by now, they still hold up and manage to stay true to the visuals of the Disney worlds that they’re based on. In fact, it’s always a treat to first visit a world just to see what it looks like and which Disney character you’ll be able to use next. The characters are fleshed out in 3D but lose none of their charm, and gain none of the awkwardness usually associated with transporting 2d characters into a 3D world.

The gameplay however, could use a bit of retooling, and I hope to see some of that happen in the next installment of the franchise. The camera viewing angle is average, but becomes frustrating when you want to look around the world, especially during the platforming sequences. You can switch to 1^st person view by pressing select, but I wish you could just look around on the fly, using the left analog stick.

There’s also the gummi ship sequences that the game forces you to go through when travelling between world. The control system when flying is incredibly flawed (when you move the target reticle your ship correspondingly moves in that direction) and feels uneccessary. It becomes even more annoying in the last stage of the game that some of the last treasure chests that you stumble upon contain items meant for your gummi ship, which at that point is pretty useless since you can pretty much warp to any world that you need to go.

The battle system is tolerable, but for all the abilities and summons that Sora and friends learn, it’s annoyingly frustrating to select an ability or summon in the heat of battle. You’re allowed to customize buttons to magic spells, so it seems like it’d be natural to allow you to link a button to a summon or an ability. Sadly, this is not the case, and so I was relegated to button mashing the enemy to death for the most part.

Gameplay quibbles aside, it’s really the characters and their interactions with each other that make this game really worth the play through. Every new final fantasy or Disney character or world that you see feels like a treat, and that’ll keep you going until the end.

It doesn’t help.

Look, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not the best artist/designer out there, which is why I try as much as possible to submit my work early to receive feedback that I can use to edit my work as necessary. I don’t have an “artist complex”, and I’m not whining that “nobody understands my work”, but for fuck’s sake, there are limits.

Please, please don’t make me design an image, send it to different people to get their feedback, choose 3 designs to work on further, send it to those people again for more feedback, focus on one final design, go back and forth until we find a design we all agree on, then tell me next week that we need a new image.

Because it doesn’t help. It really, fucking, doesn’t help.

Jamiroquai’s High Times:

 

You’d think it’d be pathetically easy to make a  Jamiroquai greatest hits album, but High Times proves you wrong by officially becoming the worst greatest hits album ever.

Another reason to buy a Zune, or then again, maybe not.

 

ZunePh, which feels supiciously like a Microsoft sponsored problog, offers locals a taste of what owning a Microsoft’s flagship mp3 player Zune in the Philippines is (or will be) like.  Apparently, you can download great Filipino artists like Gary V., Lea Salonga, and Jamie Rivera off the Zune marketplace!

*crickets chirping*

Anyway, check it out if you’re interested in geting a Zune or love anything not Apple.

Iwa Moto in FHM

It just dawned on me all of a sudden. The solution to all my blog traffic woes is to put up some chicks. This is sure to quadruple my traffic, or even more! Thanks to um…Jed… I bring you Iwa Moto!

If this doesn’t get me to pinoytopblogs, I don’t know what will.

More Iwa Moto here.

The Cold War Kids

They remind me of Gavin De Graw mixed with a lot of Hot Hot Heat, which is definitely a good thing.

Robot pwns man at chess (again), nudges us closer to robot age (again)

While not as legendary as Kasparov vs Deep Blue, another man vs machine duel has taken place in Bonn, Germany this past week. Deep Fritz (because he’s German, get it? Fritz? German?), created by German company ChessBase, has beaten chess world champion Vladimir Kramnik 4-2. Kramnik played against Fritz 4 years ago in Bahrain, where he was able to play the computer to a 4-4 draw. Future historians will note that day as humanity’s last stand, as we will surely be pwned from here on in.

That’s your future master up there in the pic. He sure don’t look pretty, but he’ll beat your ass silly…in chess.

RIP James Kim

I’ve been following this real life drama for a while, and it’s sad to see that it came to this conclusion.  I used to read James Kim’s reviews on mp3 and media players, he was one of the better reviewers out there.

learnFlash

I’ve started on a new category today, called “learnFlash”, which is a psuedopun on how Actionscript (flash’s programming language) is coded.  Why do I want to learn Flash?  First, it’s pretty useful to have knowledge of Flash and its ins and outs, and second, I can use it to make games, including mobile games.

I’m putting up my efforts to learnFlash on the web in the hopes that I can get small group of local indie game devs together as a “support group”, cheering each other on and patting each other on the back to help us keep going.  On that note, I’ve created another blog (don’t you just love how blogging is free and abused) called onegame which will hopefully be an aggregator of local indie game devs and their experiences.

Man…I hope this works.

Incubus’ Light Grenades

More of the same old stuff, which isn’t really a bad thing.

Is there such a thing as a calling?

 

This post will be emo, and very stream of consciousness like, so don’t expect much rhyme or reason.  You were warned.

I’ve been thinking, is there such a thing as calling?  You see in movies and read in books all the time about people who’ve felt their calling and followed it, even against the wishes of their loved ones, simply because it was what they felt they had to do.  It’s always a magical movie moment, where the skies clear and the sun comes out and everything starts to make perfect sense, and the hero decides that his mission is to save the world, or take care of cats. Something like that.

I wonder how many people have felt that?  Because honestly, I don’t think I ever have.  My job right now is neither glamourous nor certainly what I imagined I would be doing after college, but it pays well enough and is pretty stable, so I can’t complain.  Sometimes I catch myself thinking that I’d rather be making games again, or maybe making comics, or even music, just anything that’s not so regular.  Then I start to think that if I give up this gig it better be for a damn good reason, or else I’d just be stupid, wouldn’t I?

Hence, the calling.

If I truly felt that there was something out there that I needed to do, something that called out to me, then perhaps that would be worth going for.  Otherwise, what’s the point?  So I wonder, do I want to make videogames because I think it’s my calling, or do I just think it’s a cool, non-regular job?  Do I want to write or draw comics for the same reason?  I don’t feel like I have a story to tell, even though there are stories I’d LIKE to tell.  That’s a huge difference.

I’d like to believe that I was meant for something grand, but how do you tell the difference between delusions of grandeur and actual destiny?  Are people who achieve great things in life delusional in a way that they have to fool themselves into believing something until it finally becomes a reality?

What drives people to do these things?  What does it feel like to have a calling?

Filipino Game Designers Reprazent!

 

It looks like 3 Pinoys will be speaking at the Asian Game Developers summit this weekend in Singapore.  From pinoytechblog:

The Asian Game Developer Summit is a game industry conference for promoting
game development within the Southeast Asian region. The event is jointly
organized by game developers from Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

This is on December 9 and 10, at the Orchard Hotel Singapore.
The event features speakers from around the world on topics from game
programming, production, art, and the business side. Aside from really
good international speakers, local developers speaking at
the event.

These include 3 Pinoys: Altair Martinez of Pixel Stream (on Shader-driven Graphics Engine Architecture), Paul Gadi of Anino Mobile (An Attempt at Test-Driven J2ME Development), and Alex Calero of Glyph Studios (Lipsync and Facial Animation Systems: Choosing what works for you).

It’s good to know that we’re getting some recognition in the game developing community, and I give props to all these guys, especially Pol Gadi (That’s him in blue.  Sorry ladies, he’s taken. besides, he laughs funny), since we play Poker and DoTA in his office every Saturday.

Better late than never: Casino Royale

Everyone and their sister has probably seen and reviewed blogged about this film, so I’ll just offer up some food for thought. Casino Royale’s success is partly based on the fact that the filmmakers were able to “reinvent” bond. Daniel Craig is neither as stylish, debonair, or manipulative as the older James Bonds, but that’s because we’re watching a man in transformation.

Casino Royale was the first Bond novel, so it’s safe to assume that as the follow up will show us a Bond that’s morphing into the one we know and love recognize. How much of the success of this film is based on the fact that it’s much more grittier than earlier Bond films? Will it be as exciting once the whole “reinvention” cycle is complete? Lastly, how many more Bond films starring Daniel Craig can we expect to see?

My prediction is that the next one will be just as good, and ideally they should let it go at that, but studio execs will want to milk it a little further, giving Craig a total of 3-4 Bond films under his belt. You heard it here first.

Iverson is like KG, only smaller

 

Just caught the tail end of a fantastic Sixers/Nets game, with the Nets barely escaping with a 112-107 win over the scrappy Sixers. A few things struck me while watching the last few minutes.

Allen Iverson is like a smaller, scrappier version of KG. Both are immensely loyal to their teams and vice versa, both have had a rotating cast of support players as their respective teams try to find a good match, Both have had one dream season each (Sixers lost the 2001 finals 4-2 against the Lakers, and both are fierce competitors. It’s amazing how Iverson moves at his age, coming in out of nowhere to make a steal or managing to sink a tough 2 while getting the foul.

Chris Webber moves like an old man. You’d think he’d be shamed by Iverson to get into better shape, but he just looks soft and decidedly unmenacing on the court. The Cwebb you used to know back in Sacramento is gone, and the man in Philly is just a shade of his former self. He’s still got the jumper though, as he proved in this game by providing a clutch 3 down the stretch. Of course he missed around 10 shots before that so… I still hate Vince Carter, and I hate that he was made player of the game. It just ain’t right.