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Affilliation
Bug Attack!
While driving, my foot started itching, so I gave it a scratch. Pretty soon, my hands started itching too, then I started feeling the heat slowly climbing my neck to my face. It was a familiar thing, and I knew that if things didn’t get controlled, things might get ugly.
Those of you who know that I almost died before due to a caterpillar allergy can appreciate how frightened I was starting to get at these symptoms. I decided to cancel my appointment and go home, hopefully a bath would wash off whatever it was that was causing the spreading allergic reaction. After the bath, I felt my itching foot settle down, and my hands and arms starting to settle, so I thought I just had to relax and the itch on my face will start to subside too. Good thing I was right.
My SO mentioned that it might have been the venom from an insect that I spread around me using my hands when I first scratched my foot. She’s probably right, but now I don’t know if the insect is dead (it probably is) and where I contracted it (the shoe? the socks?). Regardless, I’m gonna be more careful with my next change of clothes.
No tags for this post.Big City
While looking for a simple meal in SM Mall of Asia, my friends and I ran into Big City. It’s basically a hot-dog place, which is just the simple type of food we were looking for, so we gave it a try.
They have 3 basic types of hot-dogs, locally made dogs, Nathan’s (imported beef hot-dogs), and Johnsonville (imported pork hot-dogs). They have some rice meals, a pizza, and burgers, but of course we were there to check the dogs.
The the hot-dogs can come in the typical set meals which consists of the hot-dog of choice, fries/onion-rings, and an iced-tea. I tried the beef hot-dog, my SO and our friend tried the local hot-dogs. We all agreed that the hot-dogs were pretty good. The fries were better than usual (though it needed a bit more salt), and the onion rings are fair. What sold us to the place was the price, a set meal costs around P80, which ain’t bad considering that the hot-dogs were pretty good (the beef hot-dog tasted similar to Sabrett), and that it included better than average fries/onion-rings. The only downside we found was that the condiments were sub-par (the ketchup wasn’t all that good).
The place has a good price-versus-performance ratio, pretty good taste for a relatively cheap price. If you drop by MOA and feel like having a hot-dog, do give it a shot.
No tags for this post.Christmas 2006
Am tired, but I wanted to make this post to I can greet any visitors on time.
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone!
No tags for this post.It’s Like Riding a Bicycle
I’ve been reading some “game of the year” articles here and there, and among the stuff I’ve found was Company of Heroes. It’s reputed to be one of the best modernizations of the RTS genre, and manages to blend good realistic visuals with a focus on tactics instead of build management. It got me remembering the game that consumed be before Guild Wars and poker… Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
It’s been a long long time since I last played Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, so I decided to give it a go. I was a bit afraid of how I’ll play since I haven’t played the thing since… August! I was thinking of playing against the computer first to get myself warmed-up, but then I told myself “what the heck”, and I plunged right into my usual old skirmish routine.
I was a bit surprised that it all came back to me rather quickly. My reflexes probably isn’t top form, but it was good enough. For some reason, my basic builds, strats, and hotkeys seemed automatic to me, and I was playing as if I only left the game for 2 weeks. 
On hindsight, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve been playing the game for years day-in/day-out, quite a bit of it should already be instinctive for at least a year. Regardless, it felt good that I could still put up a fight.
[below] My Blade Master giving the enemy Demon Hunter a good ol’ critical hit while the rest of my squad and my teammates gives the remaining enemy team a final beating.
Bangu-Bang Mania!
Apparently, there’s a Filipino startup game development company called Virtual Titania Amusement Software (VITAS) Development that’s making an online game to be called Bangu-Bang Mania!. hackenslash.net says it’s a casual fighting game inspired by Super Smash Brothers. Beta starts early next year.
Hmmm, given being a start-up, the small staff pool (around 12 as of this post), and the fact that the man who started this has no previous experience in related industries, it should be interesting to see how things pan out.
Good luck, people.
official site | read more | digg story
— edit —
VITAS put up a “coming soon” sign at their site.
No tags for this post.Hulchul
My SO and I decided to have some Indian food last night, and in the place where we ate, they were showing a Bollywood film. The film was Hulchul, and the production seemed to be pretty good. It seemed just a tad lighthearted, so we decided to watch the rest of the film intently while eating.
The story seems to be about two powerful rival families, and one of the sons from one family falls in love with the daughter from the other. It seems simple enough, but the film elaborates on the complex relationships both inside and outside families, and a lot of plans and schemes take twists and turns. I was pleasantly surprised how they were able to place all the emotion and plot twists, and still have room for comedy in a simple story. In short, I really liked the film.
Production and cameras were quite good, and I already said that the drama and comedy is nicely mixed. Yes, there was a song-and-dance, but it looked like an MTV, not the cheap way of squeezing a song-and-dance into a film that I’m used to in Filipino films. In fact, plot, cinematography, acting, and production are all far better than most Filipino films I see, even in the current Manila Film Festival. In fact, I feel that Hulchul could be better than all local the entries for the local Film-Fest this year!
It’s a sad thing to notice, but it should also be a knock on the head to the local film producers.
I tip my hat to Hulchul, I was very happy to have watched it.
hackenslash.net now on YouTube
hackenslash.net, one of the Philippine’s gaming news websites, now has an online video channel in YouTube which they are calling hackenslash TV. I haven’t seen the videos posted yet, but I’m assuming it will be an avenue for some Philippine video-game related items that they feel would look good on a video reel.
hackenslash.net is under the INQ7.net Philippine online news website (collaboration between GMA Network Inc. and The Philippine Daily Inquirer), making me wonder (depending on how independent hackenslash.net is from the rest of the site) if this is will be looked at as a small scale way of “testing the waters” on other means of publishing news (or other media network programs) online.
I’ll be checking out the channel to see if the video news will do any good in improving content delivery (why try if it’s not expected to?). Some would argue that they’d need to have some content to show in the first place. I’m hoping that there IS content available, and that this medium would help in its delivery.
No tags for this post.Joseph Barbera: 1911.03/24 - 2006.12/18
Joseph Barbera, co-founder of the Hanna-Barbera animation production company, died last 2006.12/18 from natural causes at the age of 95.
Hanna-Barbera gives fond memories of Saturday morning cartoons I watched when I was a kid. I grew up watching Scooby-Doo, The Jetsons, The Flinstones, Super Friends, and many other animated products they produced, as I’m sure many of my current generation did. The rights to their animation has been with Time Warner these past few years, which is why the shows they produced in the past are currently being played in Cartoon Network, along with the newer stuff the current kids are watching.
To William Hannah (1910.07/14 - 2001.03/22) and Joseph Barbera: Thank you very much for all the wonderful childhood memories.
Tags: obit
