Chick Lit from fellow Bloggers

One of the things I envy about my blogger friends Kaoko (Chrissie Peria) and Chris (Christelle Mariano) is that they're such good writers. And now they're published authors. <3 I knew them before blogging became such a public thing so I guess that's my claim to fame. Hahaha!

To be honest, I love chick literature. Books like these give me a break from over-thinking and over-analyzing things so when I found out that Chrissie and Chris published their works, I immediately bought them from the Amazon Kindle store. Both are a steal for $0.99 each!

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My Best Birthday Gifts for 2012

Wow, the last time I posted was in January. But yesterday, which happened to be my birthday, was so inspiring that I really felt like writing about it. As many of you know, I had been so exhausted and stressed over game production work and my doctoral dissertation (41% done at 195 pages) that I felt I had hardly any time left for myself. Well, it's a habit for me to make March 5 my "Me Day", which usually involves going to museum trips to just basically enrich myself. And if there's work left to be done, I usually would just worry about getting scolded on March 6. Haha!

Going on a museum trip was a little bit impossible yesterday, since I am still writing my dissertation. I had planned to go to Bataan's Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar. I ended up in Alabang Town Center, at Timezone, and re-acquainted myself with my long lost love: Dance Dance Revolution.

In any case, I have received wonderful surprises from the middle of the day onwards so all is well. Let me just enumerate the top three:

#3 Received a "gift" from Facebook

These babies I picked up from the City Hall (where the post office is haha). I thought I was going to have problems with the customs, but it turns out that a lot of people have already claimed them.

Did you know that Facebook is giving away free business cards based on your Timeline? I guess it's their way of  promoting Timeline even further (goodness knows, I have a difficult time using it). In any case, they teamed up with Moo to give us these.

You get to choose which of your cover photos you can use on the cards and it will use your latest profile photo as some sort of an ID picture. They arrived quicker than expected. Only two weeks, whew!

They're lovely! I just wish I had better cover photos, though.


#2 George R. R. Martin's Dream Songs

This one is from my sister, who probably bought it for me so she can read it for herself. Haha! Anyhoo, I love George R. R. Martin. I just wish he'd stop killing off characters that I have gotten attached to. He kind of has that habit in his books.

I am so looking forward to curling up in bed with this. As soon as I find out when I can defend my dissertation. So excited!!


#1 Launching the game Grave Mania

This is the very first Anino original intellectual property game that I have worked on and I am so happy to have done this with team mates who are not only incredibly creative and driven, they're also waaaay quirky. And why is this game really special to me even though I have worked with other Anino projects? Because it's ours, our intellectual property,  not something we did for clients. That gives us the kind of satisfaction no other kind of project (except maybe for pro-bono tie-ups with educational institutions) can bring. So, yeah!!!

Finally, after 8 months of adventurous travails (where we also got called "silly" by real adults), it has arrived!!

And on my birthday, to boot!!

Grave Mania is a casual Time Management game about a husband-and-wife tandem, who had to deal with a zombie epidemic. Since they own a funeral parlor, they solve the problem the "Loca" way: by dressing up zombies -- making sure they are  happy and contented before laying them to rest. We think it's pretty fun. But that's just us. You have to be loca to appreciate it. =P

Check it out at Big Fish Games!!

And yes, I think we are silly in real life, haha! Wouldn't have it any other way.



A quick note to pirates: Have mercy on us developers from third world countries. It's only $6.99. Joke! (No, actually that was half-meant. Hahahahahaha!)

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Geeky thoughts and friends I've sorely missed

I was already compiling my thoughts on the things that I have wanted to write about but didn't have time to do so and I guess it's only now that I've stolen my own office space that I've actually given myself a brain breather. Goodness, I've got two games to release by end of the month and a dissertation defense sandwiched in between. (Plus a game development competition and a festival to help organize.) Lemme just breathe for the next 15 minutes as I write this.

The world loses another genius.
I'm actually grieving right now. When our Communications Officer, Vana, told me that Steve Jobs died, it took a minute to register. Tears involuntarily (and embarrassingly) fell on the exact moment that my team leads arrived into my stolen office to have our production mini-meeting. I guess I'm taking this hard (probably as hard as how the MJ fans received the music legend's death) because it bothers me that I cannot download all the information from a person's brain and he takes it all with him when he dies. And well...I'm a Mac user. I may not love everything Apple, but to me the Mac makes perfect sense. Right now, I don't really feel like being a good researcher by putting in quotes from Bill Gates etc. Ok, I'm getting all depressed again now so let me just move forward...

(Apple's tribute to the amazing visionary, as it appears on the official website.)

Congrats to Jenny on your Palanca!
My dear classmate in graduate school, Jenny Ortuoste, just won a Palanca. I've always admired the way she wove words so this didn't come as a surprise. I guess, it's about time. =^.^= And goodness, girl, I've missed all of you, along with our other classmates! I miss our discourses and how we make each other sounding boards for ideas and concepts that later bloom into geeky research papers. Hope to see you soon!

Uh, but what is this I see on the tarp? Naman, UP! Kaloka ang typo ha! It's literally gigantic and it's right smack in the middle of a very public place. (And I still haven't forgiven the college scholar certificates you've given me that are written in Comic Sans Serif.)

On cloud computing.
My friend Michelle's (MyMomFriday) husband has launched Arcus:IT. It's the first cloud computing company in the country. So what does the company do, exactly? According to their website, they provide "IT infrastructure that is available on demand, elastic — a user can have as much or as little of our service as they want at any given time; location-independent, and fully managed by us. You need nothing but a personal computer and Internet access. Whether you are developer, an enterprise user, an SMB, a start-up company, you do away with the long deployment times and huge capital outlays associated with hardware infrastructures. Talk to us and we’ll help you chart a roadmap to the Cloud."

For business owners out there, this might be worth checking out.

And Michelle! I miss our chika sessions with Rowena and MichelleM!

A Song of Ice and Fire.
Since I have about a month left before I defend my dissertation proposal, I took advantage of my free weekends to devour George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. Many of you might have heard of (or watched) Game of Thrones, which was shown on HBO. Well, that was based on these books. The characters -- and gosh, they're numerous -- are so addictive, I just want to curl up in bed and read all day. I'm already on the fifth book and I'm lamenting the fact that GRRM took 14 years to write all 5. That means, I'd probably be a grandma by the time he finishes.

The books are:
A Game of Thrones (1996)
A Clash of Kings (1998)
A Storm of Swords (2000)
A Feast for Crows (2005)
A Dance with Dragons (2011)

Game On!
Calling all college students who are interested in games: In line with the upcoming Philippine Game Development Festival 2011 (PGDF2011), the Game Development Association of the Philippines is holding an inter-school competition that aims to showcase student abilities throughout the country. We'd like to grow our talent pool and this seems like a great place to start. For more information about the competition, visit the PGDF website.

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Beastly (2007 book)

I almost re-reviewed the movie (starring Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens) until I saw that I had already reviewed it before. Haha. Anyway, this is actually a very late review, since I finished the book the day after I saw the film.

Remember that I raved about the movie, as it is a modern retelling of a classic fairy tale? Well, the book, written by Alex Flinn, is so much better! It is actually very close to how the fairy tale was told: the Beast is hairy; Beauty's father was found intruding in the Beast's garden; and well...there's the explanation for why somebody enchanted prince charming in the first place. He was, after all, being beastly!

What I like about this retelling of an old children's story is how it was able to capture our times, not only in the look but also in the feel. Flinn, without playing so much with words, really knows how to weave literary textures to make them palatable to the ordinary 21st century reader.

The Beast, vain and obnoxious Kyle Kingsbury, actually chats online with other unfortunate fairy tale characters like the Frog Prince and the Little Mermaid, many of which, obviously, had been physically transformed one way or another. I also love how Kyle transforms and gradually falls in love with the plain but lovable Linda Owens, who is Flinn's version of "Beauty". The story is told through Kyle's perspective, and though I am not quite sure that he thinks how guys think, I appreciate the attempt in capturing the male psyche.

The caveat here, however, is that this is not something I'd read to my younger brother (a 5th grader) or any of my younger cousins. There are slightly mature overtones that are better read by teenagers on the verge of...well, that kind of discovery. They could probably relate to that struggle between your hormones and your sense of responsibility.

Overall, I'd highly recommend this -- and the film -- to romantics out there. Both have that kilig factor that will make you forget about the harsh realities of life for a while. Hehe. Of course, note the differences and appreciate them for what they are. (I'm sorry, I just can't lose when cutie Alex Pettyfer is in a movie.)

Oh and a bit of trivia:
Unlike the movie, which got a lot of negative reviews, this book fared well with the critics.

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A tribute to all Tiger Moms

One of the first things I did upon getting Kindle for my Android phone was to download about PhP3K worth of books from Amazon.com. (I did not notice it and I ended up lamenting about it when I realized how much I had spent.) One of those books is Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which I downloaded because I had been curious about the controversy surrounding it and thought that it could also be the key that would unlock my question of, "Why are kids these days feeling so self-entitled even when they don't deserve it?"

Oh yes, a lot of us would cringe at Chua's parenting methods (she was such a perfectionist that it's scary to even contemplate) but take note, I live in a country where it's legal to spank your kids. (And am I so ever glad that it is legal here. I think it kept the brats from dominating this country for a while.) She never spanked her kids, so I don't understand where all the hostility is coming from. Also, this is a memoir. She makes fun of herself even when she brags about her and her daughters' accomplishments because at the end of it all, she was indeed humbled by her rebellious second daughter.

What people probably failed to see is how this kind of mother had to sacrifice a major part of her time and youth in order to ensure that her children become the best that they could achieve. Even if that's not what the kids want. Heck, she works, cooks, cleans, tutors her kids, takes care of the dogs...only a mother could clock in that amount of dedication. Oh, sure, her obsession with perfection is twisted but you have got to admire such love and passion. Of course, she did have her bouts of self-doubt and that was interesting to see as well.

(A video of Russell Peters' comedic talk about how immigrant parents beat their kids and how Caucasian kids feel left out because they only get sent to their rooms. It's funny, just don't take it too seriously because we all know that you're not supposed to beat your kids.)

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a riveting read. I appreciated my mother more. She was about as tough as Amy Chua herself. She wasn't a perfectionist (getting a grade of B was forgivable; C was not) but boy did I get spanked. And I am thankful, even when she realized later on that as a toddler, I was the type of child that you could actually talk and explain mistakes to without resorting to spanking. She was a lot more lenient with my younger siblings, having learned her lesson from her experience in raising me. You know how it is with eldest children, they're like the trial-and-error kid.

Like Chua's daughters, I went through piano and voice lessons (my sister learned the violin in addition to that; I think it's an Asian thing) and I threw my share of tantrums when I wanted to stop. When I was younger, I couldn't stay 10 minutes in the room alone with my mom without getting frustrated but as I grew older, I realized that really...all moms want what's best for us. They may not always be the perfect parents, but they do try their hardest to lead us to bright futures.

To re-post my Facebook status:

Dear Ma, I probably inherited most of my skills from you. I hope I inherited your looks as well. Hahahahahaha! Thanks, Ma. Love you! ♥ ♥ ♥ Happy Mothers Day!

And to all the moms out there: I SALUTE YOU. Motherhood is not the easiest thing to do as it requires multitasking, dedication, passion...and it's not something you can resign from.

Happy Mothers Day to you all!

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DigitalFilipino Talks: Making Philippine History Relevant Online

Thanks to the DigitalFilipino Talks episode that tackled issues about the Big Bad Blogger, I discovered yet another website that deals with one of the things that are very dear to me: PhilippineHistory.PH.

Making Philippines History Relevant Online from Janette Toral on Vimeo.

I must admit that my interest in Philippine History only surfaced in college, when UP professors profoundly -- and animatedly -- spoke about our ancestors' emotions, behavior and culture. Those were things that were never touched in elementary and high school. Primary and secondary education tackled dates and events in such an emotionless manner that it isn't very shocking to find that kids are bored.

Holistic Education
Dates and events, for many college students, are irrelevant. For most people now, these are merely good for dictating holidays. I say this with such deep regret and sadness. When I was in UP and figuratively dying because of my major subjects, my General Education subjects saved me from leading a very unbalanced college life. They kept me sane.

When I began teaching in private schools (after years in the corporate world), however, I noticed that students find General Education subjects -- History in particular -- to be more of a nuisance than a relief from all the cerebral study load. Students now are more concerned about graduating and immediately making money than enjoying their academic life while they still can. Though I do teach technical major subjects (eCommerce and Game Design are just a couple of them), I find it so unbalanced for students to just want to concentrate on one thing, willing to be technical/work force drones instead of critical thinkers that can form various conceptual frameworks. I cite this imbalance as one of the reasons why this generation of youngsters experience burn out at earlier ages.

But who can blame the students? If a professor isn't very passionate about the subject he or she is teaching, they will never go beyond what is written in books. Lack of passion begets lack of inspiration. Ms. Gloria Melencio understood the problem well enough and she took it upon herself, as a writer and educator, to address this.

Reframing for Relevance
Ms. Melencio spoke about primary and secondary sources when Ms. Janette Toral asked about history books. Ms. Toral brought up a very interesting observation and she hit it right on the nose: historical accounts are tainted with the biases of the historian. Comparative Literature majors are well aware of this fact. That's why they compare the works of Gregorio Zaide, Teodoro Agoncillo, Renato Constantino, Reynaldo Ileto (a very unorthodox historian and one of my favorites) etc. and even go so far as to study the works of fiction writers like Jose Rizal to see if they can extract the "full flavor" of a particular period. Agoncillo, for instance, provides the dates and brief descriptions, but Rizal provides the texture, the dialogues, the poetic imagery and language of his time though his literary masterpieces. Primary sources, like Rizal's journals and artifacts, are the raw information, while secondary sources provide angles to which meaning making could take place.

How do all of these make History relevant? Well, they add to the wealth of knowledge that could somehow be useful to us. As a game designer, for example, toying with the what-ifs in history can be a very rewarding task. I have seen the results of such intensive research in my students' thesis Mayi, which is a 3D game set in pre-Hispanic Philippines.

Here's a screenshot of their thesis:

My Personal Satisfaction
As I look at what the author of PhilippineHistory.PH has done, I feel empowered by my decision to co-create Sarimanok.PH: Philippine Arts & Culture last year. We seem to be doing the same thing. Because of Sarimanok.PH, I have undertaken the task of going around the country in search for primary sources -- case in point: the Cebu Sinulog Festival and my Cebu City museum visits -- as I play willing to be a secondary source. I do this in the name of education and my personal goal of highlighting the importance of embracing our culture.

And like my minor subjects, these activities keep me sane. I work in a very cerebral environment. My PhD studies are equally as left-brained. I needed to participate in this project to bring about holistic perspectives, which are my keys to maintaining a balanced lifestyle. Though I don't intend to be an entrepreneur just yet, I'm hoping my passion will keep me from becoming a drone.

Ms. Melencio's interview -- which centered on her passion and her advocacy -- seemed to be echoing my sentiments, which is why her blog has just been added to my reader. Thanks again, DigitalFilipino, for the wonderful insights. I have found yet another kindred spirit.

"So this is what you've been doing instead of studying for our PhD compre." - Manila Standard columnist, Jenny Ortuoste, when she visited my recent art exhibit.

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W.B. Yeats' Battle Cry, Applicable to Murphy's Law

Our exhibit opens tomorrow and it seems like everything is crashing all over the place. I am almost tempted to figure out if I made the right decision of bravely doing art instead of sticking to the structured comforts of design. In this dire hour, I turn to W.B. Yeats' The Second Coming (1921).

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I hope people find inspiration from this great poet. I can't be emo over things I can't control, because then I'd be such a cliché. I can only allow myself one emo artist moment and then I have to act. Even if my body feels like it's close to breaking from lack of sleep and physical overexertion. (Because I'm both left and right brained and it's not in my nature to let my feelings get in the way of work and my new-found self discovery, deadma na to muscle pains.) Heck, I just told Murphy's Law to "BITE ME. I will never lose to you."

So thank you, Yeats. And like the title of my one of my artworks ("Transcendence"), I am choosing to rise above Murphy's challenges. Emo artist be damned. I'm calling in the scientist.

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My Christmas Wishlist - PG Version

Some people have already asked me for two kinds of information this season:

1. What do you want for Christmas? (from friends)
2. Do you have any suggestions for Christmas gifts? (from readers)

I actually created a Christmas wish list a few days ago, but that was for J-List products and they were sort of...rated R. Hahaha! Mabuhay ang mga babaeng bakla! (If you're interested in finding out, you can take a peek here. Warning, the site is not for the faint of heart and it was one of my earlier projects as a Multimedia Artist.)

Anyway, when Cris showed me her Christmas wish list, I sort of had an idea and dropped by my favorite online store, Amazon.com. Thank goodness they have that wish list widget, so I just searched for the things I really long to own and just clicked to add them into the list. Amazon simply automates the process and gives you this snazzy widget for your website. I love it!

Anyhoo, here it is (you might have to wait for it to load):


Image Credits: Snowman Christmas frame from Vector Jungle.

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Brown Bag Market at The Collective

Too bad this bazaar was a one-day event and I only heard of it the night before I checked it out. Well, actually, my sister dragged me to it because she wanted to dress me up.

Anyway, I like the idea of an eco-friendly event where various enterprising bloggers (and online retailers) meet up and showcase their stuff. Plus, the Brown Bag Market gave me a chance to explore The Collective. As I had stated in my arts & culture blog, I didn't even know that the building's name is The Collective. I only knew that Outerspace Gallery resides inside it.

Anyway, photo blogging time! Here are the stuff my sister Alex, her colleague Aliza and I enjoyed.

Alex pretending to be the model for Archive Clothing. LOL. (I'm actually wearing what I brought from Archive Clothing right now.)

I've always been a fan of Human Nature, especially of their hair products. I buy my stocks online, though.

So many trinkets, so little budget! XD

Ahhhh! This is my favorite ring. It's just so meeeee. It only costs P50. (Sorry, my hands are 20 years older than I am. Ugh, so dry!!!)

More retailers...

I had always been on the lookout for charm bracelets (since they're the safest kind of accessories). Finally got myself one.

Vintage clothes, for the win!

More accessories! (Ran out of budget by the time I got here.)

Uh, we were supposed to get free coffee but the day was so hot, the thought of coffee already made me sweat.

We wanted to look for the vegetarian noodle house that people were talking about but we were so hungry, we opted for the first restaurant we saw, which was Good Spirits. (We eventually found the noodle place, but will be posting about that separately.)

The Good Spirits' interiors. This is so artsy-fartsy!

Their house iced tea. It's pretty good.

That's a lot of rice, though.

Chicken casserole!

Aliza complained about being bullied by sisters. Haha! I forced her to buy yogurt so I can take photos of her.

I never explored this area of The Collective before.
This is actually where the mystery noodle house lies.

Books!!!! There were lots of classics in this pile. It's really a shame that the Brown Bag Market is a one-day event. I could have gone back with more money.

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Cubao X at Night. Libreria Launching.

Yet another late posting. We visited a shop's Cubao X launching last Friday.

The first time I went to Cubao X was during the day. I had thought that the place was asleep. Well, it looks like Cubao X isn't too awake at night either, because many of the more interesting shops started to close when we arrived.

Like these shoe stores. I was just about to drool over some lovely lovely boots when the lights went out. Nyoikes!

Hm. I don't think Cris knew that I was going to take a photo of her. She was mesmerized by the sheer number of footwear. Hehehe.

This street leads to Mogwai. That famous hangout was under renovation when I first dropped by. I heard they show art films here. I can't imagine how...it was rather noisy in there. Boisterous laughter permeated the air, along with the scent of smoke and alcohol.

We went over to the other side of the street. I took photos of the second floor of the buildings because I was curious about them. Some of the stores seemed to use their second floor as storage. Others had paintings hanging on the wall. Fascinating.

Karma, one of the really intriguing fashion stores in the area. Some of the stuff here look vintage. They look expensive, too, so I had to walk away.

I stopped in my tracks when Cris told me that a showdown -- between a cat and a rat -- was about to happen. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn't even think about using my camera's video capabilities.

We wondered why the cat didn't strike immediately. Then we noticed the size of that rat. It may look like it's cowering here, but it's almost the same size as that cat.

The cat struck and the rat ran screaming. It immediately found refuge in one of the open stores. The cat couldn't fit in the door's small opening at first.

I knew the moment the shop owner saw the rat because she ran and jumped around the room in fright. She noticed the cat then opened the door.

*Sigh* I really should have caught it on video. Now all I have are blurred photos.

When the excitement died down, we decided to go to the bookstore that Cris's older sister, Ate Barbs, was talking about. It had opened that day.

It doesn't have a signage yet, but there was this huge mirror right in front of it. I took a photo of its exterior through the mirror.

The book shop's name is Libreria. It used to be located somewhere in Tomas Morato and it used to serve coffee as well. This Cubao X incarnation of Libreria just focuses on the books.

Whew! Some of them are so cheap -- going for as low as P50 -- that we sort of hoarded.

Book shop owner Triccie Cantero, here with Ate Barbs. Ms. Cantero is also from UP-CMC...like me! =^.^=

These are some of the books we hoarded. This is actually just the beginning of our pile. We practically doubled this by the end of our visit.

A lot of bestsellers, classics and rare covers can be found here. The place is very spacious. Ms. Cantero said something about holding workshops here since the space is big enough.

Hm. I wonder if I can hold my joint exhibit with Rebie Ramoso here?

Here's another one of the interesting things you can find in this quaint little shop: hand-painted bookmarks. They're actually quite huge, which is perfect for someone like me who keeps losing her bookmarks.

Ate Barbs seems to like pop-up books a lot. That's pretty understandable since pop-ups are always full of wonderful surprises. Not to mention, they're usually very pretty, too.

Here's a closer look. It's full of pretty fairies, butterflies and illustrations of other enchanting beings.

Ah! Here's a really great find. I had been looking for an illustrated version of the Chronicles of Narnia. This actually showcases Narnia's important details in a chronological fashion.

It's called an "Interactive Timeline" because it's full of pop-ups. You'll find layers and layers and layers of pop-ups here that will surely entertain you.

Oh, and this is something we had to play with. It's a chair that converts into a stepladder. Nifty, huh? I would really like to own a lot of these. They'd be really useful to have around.

I haven't had this much fun in a bookstore. Ever. I think I'd like to go back to hoard more books and play with other odd things that might find their way here. ♥ ♥ ♥

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