It's been forever

Just came from my cousin's wedding. Right now I'm drinking glasses of water to flush the two double Black Labels I indulged myself to. No one in their right mind would sleep with that shit rolling in their bodies. That's just asking for a very very bad morning.

Funny realization: I haven't seen my cousins in three years. No one's abroad or anything, its just that our family doesn't get together for the holidays anymore. Hell if I know why though. I thought I was pretty cool with it, I mean, family's family, right? You all get together, you talk about the same drivel over and over again ("He's so biiiig now!" "Who're you seeing now?" "Are you still in school?" "You got fatter/thinner!"), share some anecdotes and have cigarettes outside to hide from the rest of the family. That sorta thing.

So anyway, my cousin. She's walking down the aisle after the standard picture taking in the altar tradition's done and I walk towards her to say my hellos, tell her how beautiful she is and that I personally think its hilarious that she has a make-up artist trailing her left and right with brushes and hairspray ready for any emergency touch ups. Then - out of nowhere - she ambushes me with an "I miss you."

Shit.

Funny Realization: I miss them too.

My whole evening was spent trying to catch up on everyone, including my godson (I owe him a LOT for the birthdays and Christmases I missed), gushing the usual "He's so biiiig now!" "Who're you seeing now?" "Where are you working?" "You got thinner!" (I'm polite).

Now I'm pretty excited to see them again. The newlyweds are my neighbors, so that's a 5 minute walk from my place, and they're having a house blessing in a few weeks (read: drinking in the new house, woo!) and I'm pretty psyched. The nostalgia and the excitement's pretty intoxicating. Now that's the kind of shit rolling in my body that I'm cool with.

That's just asking for a very very good time.

Intersucktion

So I got a ticket yesterday. Apparently I stopped too far in an intersection and right in front of a yellow-clad member of Makati's police force. I could totally point the blame at the fact that the goddamn line on the street was too faded to see, but the truth is that my eyes were on the stoplight while attempting to invoke my Lite Ace's powers of beating yellow lights. Guh. Now, I know that the Makati Police do not like to be messed with, so I just remained as complacent as possible. I even spoke straight Filipino to cooperate. This is a far cry from my SOP when it comes to dealing with problems like these, because I usually I play the "I'm foreign! Your country confuses me!" card and speak really REALLY fast English.

After the whole thing, the officer says "Alam mo sir, ayoko talaga magbigay ng ticket kasi ang bait niyo po" (You know sir, I really don't want to give you a ticket because you're a nice guy). I told him it was cool, it was my fault, and he's just doing his job. Feels pretty good actually, knowing that someone appreciated your effort of kindness.

THEN I REALIZED THAT I DON'T HAVE A LICENSE FOR THE ENTIRE HOLY WEEK, HAVE TO PAY A 500 PESO FINE, AND HAUL MY ASS TO SOME BUILDING WHOSE LOCATION IS NEXT TO UNKNOWN TO ME.

FUCK!

I am Iron Man. Insert guitar riffs here.

Iron Man Exclusive Trailer

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Is it just me, or are they trying to capture the Guitar Hero market by playing two songs that, if memory serves me correctly, both appeared in the game?

Don't get me wrong now, I can't WAIT for this movie (because I have a feeling that they're gonna play the "Tony Stark's an alcoholic playboy" card a lot) but if I frigging hear the chords to Black Sabbath's Iron Man again then its just going to leave a bad taste in my mouth. The first time was downright awesome, but continually using the song really kills it for me. Here's to hoping they save the song for the credits instead of slapping it in every other fight scene or DOE (demonstration of epic-ness). Or worse, using it as one of the character's cellphone ringtones. That is a horrendous gimmick.

I'm really liking the dialogue though, "Let's face it, this isn't the worst thing you've caught me doing" tells me this movie is going to be good times.

Stopping Procratination

If you're anything like me (lets both hope to God that isn't true) then procrastination is probably no longer an obstacle when it comes to working. Its most likely a lifestyle by now. I've gotten so accustomed to either putting off work until the very last minute or relying on a combination of luck and improvisation to get most of my tasks done.

Everything I've been doing recently, from school papers to articles, has either been the result of an intense caffeine session or an exercise in escapism. As my dad loves to put it, I'm getting older (thanks dad!) and this sorta shit just won't fly anymore. I can't keep relying on lady luck (who, admittedly and thankfully, has been more of a "lady-tonight" than a "stuck-up-bitch-who-never-shows-up") and one-liners to save my ass from another deadline yet again (I'm running out of said one-liners). Things have got to change, 'yo.

So I did what my generation does when we need answers to possibly life-altering questions.





Which led me to Steve Pavlina's blog. The guy's got a lot of self-improvement articles up there that a.) Doesn't sound preachy as fuck, b.) Doesn't make use of a lot of exclamation points, i.e. "Change your life NOW!", and c.) Doesn't ultimately try to convince me to buy a goddamn book.

Seeing as how I spent the entire day sleeping and ingesting caffeine (I couldn't let good coffee go to waste) I'm probably just gonna read this 'till the wee hours of the morning.

While putting off more work, of course.

Is reading about procrastination a good excuse to procrastinate? Probably not. But to hell with it, I'm-a do some self-improving NOW!

This is gonna be an awesome game

So Audiosurf's coming out Friday and I'm pretty excited about it. It's basically what would happen if Tetris, Wipeout, and your own personal iTunes got drunk and started messing around each other. In your room. During your party. While you were still going out with Tetris. That Russian whore.

Ahem. Anyway, Eurogamer explained it perfectly during their IGF review.

The program analyses the track before you play, creating the pacing and the gameplay space that you’re going to be surfing through. This means that as the music peaks, so do the visuals that surround your game. If you’re in a particularly intense section, then the chances are that the music will be rising as you play. When the music hammers home its major releases, so the neon track scintillates around you. As you’ll see when you have a play of Audiosurf (because I’m sure every gamer and his roadie will want to take a look at this), it’s a deeply impressive effect, especially when the program takes just a few seconds to figure out how to deliver your MP3 back to you in audio-visual gameplay form.

Something like this:





The possibilities are frigging endless! Am I the only person currently browsing his iTunes playlist looking for music to generate into experiences? Right now the top songs I can think of are

5. Beating Hearts Baby by Head Automatica
4. Digital Love by Daft Punk
3. Stellar by Incubus
2. I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) by Meatloaf (The ending riffs would be INCREDIBLE)

1. This:



It's gonna be a TRIP.

Scott is Free

So I'm trying to find this quote by one of my favorite writers to kick start yet another blog. Unfortunately, my google powers really aren't working tonight and after a few hours of searching I've decided to just fuck it.

The thing here is that I haven't written anything in a long time all because of a variety of reasons I won't even begin to list down. Let's keep this short and sweet: I want to write again. In a blog.

Sometimes - and this is something I've only realized recently - it's a simple as that.

Would've been nicer to start with that quote though. It always reminded me of great times. Which is pretty ironic right now because I cant repeat the damn thing for the life of me.

But this is great. Trying to remember little odds and ends always gets you started on that imaginary trail in your head. That trail where you don't always find what you want but most of the time you usually get something nifty out of it.

It's great therapy.



Every once in a little while.

Scott's free. And there's a whole world waiting to be explored again.