It’s all about balance?

While treating me to Taco Bell (americanized tacos, btw: no hint of spice) for suggesting a cheap VCD transfer store in Cubao, a friend mentioned that life is about balance: to gain one thing, we have to sacrifice other things.

Excuse me?

That’s a pretty in-the-box thinking thing to say, I replied. You CAN have it all. In fact, the things you want in life comes in a package. You can get more and more by working less and less. You can be successful in multiple fields,  if you want it bad enough. It definitely requires imagination and a change of mindset

I don’t want to be a guy who leads a balanced life, then meets a guy who has it all. And I don’t want to be a guy who sour grapes afterwards, saying life is unfair.

Screw that.

GO-BEERKADA is two weeks away!

It will make it within April 2005! I swear!

Ah, I spent the past three days fixing the layout. I’ll spend the next two days proofreading.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Susan Scorned

What does Susan Roces hope to gain with her tirade against the current administration?

It’s not as if her husband will become President, he’s dead! It’s not like she’s running for president herself. All she’ll do in the end is lower the stature of the President (pandak na nga eh). And that is not good for our country. Her quest for justice may gain her peace of mind in the end but all it will do is disunite and that is the last thing our nation needs right now. Susan even FPJ has enough manly sense to suffer in silence. Do the same, you’re only hurting the rest of us.

Signs of maturity

Ive been editing go-beerkada, and ive noticed discontinuty errors. danas mom in the stuck door knob storyline looks thinner and has straighter hair compared to the jimmy valentine storyline (beerlenium).

And did you know that danas fragrance is angels breath?

I’d better start a beerkada bible, or sourcebook.

A sourcebook. Sounds so corporate.

Artists’ Den is near to closing a deal with YEHEY.COM

Yehey would like is to post our comics on their website as part of their features. Our content, their crowd.

So now I have a new catchphrase: YEHEY!

Meanwhile, AD is trying to get Mobius (of MU fame) to sponsor its Komicon this June. Mobius, as with a lot of start-up gaming companies, has the resources but needs a crowd. And that’s where we come in.

Keep posted for updates.

Just watched SAHARA.

A friend mentioned that he didn’t read the original Clive Cussler novel so he couldn’t determine if the movie was true to the original material. I said ‘C’mon; with a protagonist named Dirk Pitt, don’t expect Lord of the Rings.’ A ot of the James Bond stereotypes are there: the exotic, beautiful female academic; the lead who likes to use his fists; the no-nonsense boss. At least the Q stereotype wasn’t there.

There was Steve Zahn’s line that goes,’ I’ll deal with the bomb, you go get the girl.’ C’mon, man: no one passes to rescue the hot chick to deal for a chance to be vaporized. Unless there are other reasons to hang out with a macho alpha male…

Lyndon Gregorio’s GIRLASH debuts in MWAHAHA

Lyndon Gregorio’s new irregular series, GIRLASH,
makes its printed debut on MWAHAHA comics!
GIRLASH is the story of Red, a recent college
graduate and ‘hot chick’, who makes the
observation that its not so hot to be hot.

Enjoy this teaser page.

MWAHAHA comics, Vol. II, No. 1, is now
available in major bookstores and magazine
stands. It’s the one with the Valentine cover and it
retails for P60 only.

Meanwhile, GO-BEERKADA is still being printed.
Expect in in Comic Quest, Spoofs Ltd., National
Bookstore and Powerbooks by late April 2005.

~L.

The Fellowship of the Joel Chua invitation

So the Artists Den has a new member, Joel Chua, who was cool enough to invited the group to his place. Only a few members were confirming their attendance, so Ariel Atienza set an ultimatum for the minimum amount of members.

I stepped up. So did Lico Reloj.

Sadly, it still wasn’t enough, and the gimmick was cancelled.

But it makes for a great spoof.

Vote for my friend in Slimmers World Bikini Bodies 2005

~L.

Just got out of convalescence

I caught this stubborn fever since Good Friday. I’m all better now.

I spent the afternoon in Glorietta.

i tried to draw but my mind wasn’t in it.

I was offered a free bio photonic scan if I accomplished a simple survey form. It turned out the scan was in Ortigas. I wasn’t happy.

I just signed the Spoofs,  Ltd. contract. please let me not screw THAT up.

The book is still not being printed,  as my chosen printer still has a backlog of print jobs.

Don’t worry; it will still come out this April.

JUST WATCHED RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE

It’s like watching Shaider:

I kept waiting for panty shots from Jill Valentine.

~L.

Thanks to jangelo for the i.ph

It’s free for me, courtesy of him.

~L.

Software Piracy: Terrorist-Related Activity?

I read this article on Gaming Piracy,  which suggests that buyers of pirated video games support terrorist activities.

This was the reaction of a reader to the claims of Ric Hirsch, senior vice president for intellectual property enforcement of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), who I interviewed for my Infotech article “Game piracy may be financing other crimes: ESA exec” (http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=31028). Hirsch had pointed out that consumers might not realize the possible links between pirated games (and other counterfeit products, for that matter) and organized crime.

The rest of the article can be read here.

I emailed the article writer, a Joey Alarilla,  this feedback:

Re: Your article on gaming piracy

Joey,

You are SUCH a writer: all rhetoric and no sense of opportunity.

Filipinos wanting things for free or almost for free? Then how do you explain Starbucks blooming around every corner? Why are Filipinos buying overpriced coffee while living in this ‘pitiful state of our country’?

Because Starbucks is about service, something not so easily pirated, unlike cds and running shoes. And here lies a clue on how to win in the gaming industry; in any industry, in fact.

Filipinos wanting things for free or almost for free? Since when is THAT a bad thing? The great people at Level Up give away free installation disks of Ragnarok Online. Radio plays free music all of the time. Inquirer Online publishes the same articles as its broadsheet counterpart, minus the P18. This is a another clue.

‘[S]top this endless cycle of thinking that it’s OK for people to break laws because they’re poor?’ This reminds me of a true story: as part of the Baywalk area development, the City of Manila installed steel benches along Roxas Boulevard. 24 hours later, the benches were gone. Someone had the audacity to steal them for resale, por kilo.

The City eventually installed concrete benches.

The lesson? It’s easy to moralize on the poor when you have a full stomach, indoor plumbing, and separate bedrooms. The better idea is to make law-breaking an near-impossible endeavour.

The best idea is to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Are people buying pirated CDs of Avril Lavigne? Then have Avril perform here live in The Fort: not only are there more people willing to attend her performances now that they are better acquainted with her hits, but it gives her a chance to earn her wealth for a change, one audience member at a time. This is a third clue on how to win in the gaming industry.

Finally, I remember my marketing professor sharing a story of how Meralco released a pamphlet about the ‘electricity’ monster. There is the problem of people stealing electricity, and someone from operations thought that calling some of their consumers ‘monsters’ was the way to go about it. They were MONSTERS for stealing their electricity.

Joey, you dream of the day when the Philippines will become a world-class game development center, instead of becoming a developer of games and gaming systems that lots of people enjoy. You dream of the day when our country will become a major market for international game publishers, instead of some local entrepreneur seizing dominance in a market deemed too small to be touched by the global players, (he can develop games like Patintero Online and World of Sungka). You dream of the day when Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft will launch their consoles in the Philippines, instead of wondering why we need to make these corporate bastards richer than they already are.

Stick to writing, Joey. The entrepreneurial mind never regards the buying public as criminals and terrorist supporters. And as syndicated columnist Dave Barry once said, ‘Don’t you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don’t even have to be true!’

And you get paid, whether or not people like me enjoy reading your article/s for free.  

Lyndon Gregorio

In a two-ice cream scenario…

Should a man clean an ice cream scoop before scooping into the second ice cream?

I was in the Via-Astris Wholly Trek Day festivities (another morally dubious scenario, as it was during Maundy Thursday) and they were serving Rocky Road and Cookies and Cream for dessert. I plunged into the Cookies and Cream, the scoop still heavy with Rocky Road residue.

Two guys criticized me for dirtying the Cookies and Cream. Said I wouldn’t be getting chicks with that kind of  swinish behavior. I might as well be using the spaghetti ladle for the ick factor registered.

By the way, the event inspired the comic page you see above, which will be included in the next book.

~L..

the Third Option

A recent TIME magazine article extolled Sen. Hillary Clinton’s alternative viewpoint on the abortion debate. In an issue  traditionally divided between pro-life and pro-choice, Sen. Clinton pushed for a compromise: both sides want a reduction to the number of abortions performed.

What’s remarkable about Sen. Clinton’s stance, the article said, was that no one ever brought up the idea before. But this sort of third option mentality is rampart in Star Trek, one of  my favorite shows.