I've always prided myself in being able to find amusement in creating things instead of just watching others people's work. It's something I picked up as a kid, whence I found myself rarely able to get the day's rage in toys I was left to find substitutes using what toys I had (lego, being a flexible toy helped out a lot) and a good dose of imagination.
It is that same drive that convinced me to try out writing novels, doing comic books, writing countless articles in this blog, trying to write for print, creating my own website, creating my own programs, games, apps or what not, trying my luck in doing standup comedy, creating music, poetry (albeit sucking at it), working on videos with friends, doing business, and finding out ways to earn a living beyond what I'm expected to be doing. I succeeded and failed in varying degrees in each field, but the bottomline is I just had to try. I was able to push through because I was with people who had the same ideals, though unspoken, could be seen in the way they worked the world.
A lot of that has stopped in the last few years, and I also lost contact with a lot of the people I worked with and shared my dreams with. I have the best excuses. I dont have time anymore. I need to focus on more important things that will matter to my future more. I have a different set of goals now. I figured, it's alright. I'm trying to become an adult, and maybe the lot of those things is just part of being young and wanting to do everything.
Tonight I got to thinking again. Am I really losing time because of what I think I am doing? Half of the time I say I'm pushing through with work, second work, and other boring adult stuff, I'm just leafing through my usual site feeds. I'm watching videos on youtube. I'm thinking of one liners for Facebook or Twitter. If I'm not in front of a browser, I'm playing video games. Or I'm watching TV or a movie, or just reading some random book. If I'm outside, I'm hanging out with friends. Or going out on dates with my girlfriend. Or being out of town, chilling out in some far remote location, probably inebriated half of the time. Those aren't really productive things, but I keep on claiming, I'm being choked with work. I'm not.
I took a look at the monstrous stream of people's activities in Twitter and Facebook. They're basically doing the very same things. There's something inherently wrong with the idea that so much devotion is spent in entertainment in our generation. I seriously doubt our parents spent this much time on amusement. Even less so for the previous generations.
And for my part, I'm beginning to feel the toll that such a lifestyle exacts on my ability to create. The short bursts for twitter and facebook are hampering my ability to write full articles on this site. One liner quotes have taken over the ability to create full dialog, characterization, and even plot. It's the distraction that's starting to chip away at what's supposed to be the main attraction, and it's scaring me.
Without me realizing it, I've become the ideals that i used to hate. I have become the audience. Those who just sample life without ever wondering what it's like to be on the stage. I dropped my pen to write and picked up the papers to read.
But it's not too late. I have my resolve left and I vow to overcome this rut. Here are the things I have decided to start with:
1. I'll reduce posting bullshit oneliners in Twitter and Facebook fishing for random online countenance (or whatever is the equivalent of it). It's won't matter to anybody in the long run, and I can make use of those ideas better in bigger projects.
2. I have to uninstall distractions on my PC. Call off the feeds. Remove my bookmarks. My life is understandably short and I do not want to be doing accounting at the very end of it to find out I had pissed the lot of my time on entertainment alone.
3. Stop forcing myself to do things out of social contract. There's gotta be a golden mean somewhere, and I will have to strike that balance soon. I don't want to live like a hermit either.
4. Reassess again what I want to do. This will probably take the longest of the steps but I know it's the most necessary as well. I resolve that being an adult doesn't mean I have to let go of the things that I love to do. I just have to find out a way to squeeze the most of them in without compromising my ultimate goals.
It starts now.
5 More Uses of Phone Cameras
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thanks to the advent of technology, and mankind's apparent desire to record the shit out of everything for the next generation to ignore, we now have cameras in about every phone and the ability to store more stills than an average cinema reel. You'd think something that powerful would have really useful purposes, but right now, it's pretty much a social tool, mainly for sharing moments both public and intimate (read: scandalous)
I'd beg to differ, however. Apart from taking pictures of half-drunk friends, my chiseled, glistening half-naked body in the bathroom, and pretty much every sunset-bathed skyline in existence, here are five more uses of the phone camera that I've experienced thus far:
1. Ordering food where there is a language barrier - So you're craving to eat something you saw either on display or on somebody else' table, but you're in a country where English seems to have been outlawed five decades ago. The menu is posted where you can't pinpoint what you want without looking like a 3yo wanting his 'mamam'. That's a problem. You could drag the order taker to where you saw the food you want, or you can just snap a picture discretely and just show them what you want.
2. Recording details of a traffic mishap for insurance purposes - Let's be practical here. Accidents happen. Unfortunately for the lot of us, Insurance Companies have this policy of pretending like the term "accident" has not yet been invented until the very moment you claim it happened. They want proof. Usually in the form of a police report, which usually comes from police, which if you live where I do, are as rare as honest government workers. To make it worse, if you move your car from the scene of the incident, the police refuse to do the report, causing you to block the road until they confirm the incident. All the while, you earn the wrath of pretty much every car within the next two kilometers on both directions. So snap a picture instead. Or even better, take a video of it, like you're documenting some rare breaking news. Then move the goddamn car because the only thing worse than a bent fender is getting shot by a road-raging driver because if your bent fender.
3. Taking down blackboard/whiteboard notes - Gone are the days where you have to jot down everything like a chippy idiot in your notebook when you know you'll only be using that information for about 20 minutes many days later. Snap a picture instead. You'll save on paper, ink, and precious time you could spend doing other, more important things - like writing down articles about using camera phones to take notes down.
4. Recording taxi details in an instant - Capture the taxi name, plate number, phone number, and model in an instant, ensuring you can track your women friend's last ride in case shit without having to have them wait until you are able to jot the information down. Like a goddamn BOSS.
5. Remembering obscure places - Let's face it. While Google Maps is awesome, it ain't the one solution to all your locational problems. A small nameless tiangge where you bought your shady bootleg copy of Bang Brothers is probably in a sea of other tiangges inside a mall is not suppored by Google Maps. Solution? Take a picture of the place with the surroundings as reference. That way, when episode 5: Curvaceous Carla turns out to be a dud, you can always go back and swap it with some other sad variation of american pornography without problems.
I'd beg to differ, however. Apart from taking pictures of half-drunk friends, my chiseled, glistening half-naked body in the bathroom, and pretty much every sunset-bathed skyline in existence, here are five more uses of the phone camera that I've experienced thus far:
1. Ordering food where there is a language barrier - So you're craving to eat something you saw either on display or on somebody else' table, but you're in a country where English seems to have been outlawed five decades ago. The menu is posted where you can't pinpoint what you want without looking like a 3yo wanting his 'mamam'. That's a problem. You could drag the order taker to where you saw the food you want, or you can just snap a picture discretely and just show them what you want.
2. Recording details of a traffic mishap for insurance purposes - Let's be practical here. Accidents happen. Unfortunately for the lot of us, Insurance Companies have this policy of pretending like the term "accident" has not yet been invented until the very moment you claim it happened. They want proof. Usually in the form of a police report, which usually comes from police, which if you live where I do, are as rare as honest government workers. To make it worse, if you move your car from the scene of the incident, the police refuse to do the report, causing you to block the road until they confirm the incident. All the while, you earn the wrath of pretty much every car within the next two kilometers on both directions. So snap a picture instead. Or even better, take a video of it, like you're documenting some rare breaking news. Then move the goddamn car because the only thing worse than a bent fender is getting shot by a road-raging driver because if your bent fender.
3. Taking down blackboard/whiteboard notes - Gone are the days where you have to jot down everything like a chippy idiot in your notebook when you know you'll only be using that information for about 20 minutes many days later. Snap a picture instead. You'll save on paper, ink, and precious time you could spend doing other, more important things - like writing down articles about using camera phones to take notes down.
4. Recording taxi details in an instant - Capture the taxi name, plate number, phone number, and model in an instant, ensuring you can track your women friend's last ride in case shit without having to have them wait until you are able to jot the information down. Like a goddamn BOSS.
5. Remembering obscure places - Let's face it. While Google Maps is awesome, it ain't the one solution to all your locational problems. A small nameless tiangge where you bought your shady bootleg copy of Bang Brothers is probably in a sea of other tiangges inside a mall is not suppored by Google Maps. Solution? Take a picture of the place with the surroundings as reference. That way, when episode 5: Curvaceous Carla turns out to be a dud, you can always go back and swap it with some other sad variation of american pornography without problems.
Pambansang Laro Ng Pilipinas
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Bakit nga ba SIPA ang pambansang laro ng Pilipinas? Wala akong kakilala na naglalaro ng SIPA. Di ko napapanood sa TV ang sipa. Sa totoo lang di pa ako nakakakita ng totoong laro ng sipa bukod sa PE namin nung highschool.
Talaga bang may sport na sipa? O kathang isip lang natin yun? Bakit walang binebentang bolang ratan sa mga sports shop?
Ang sipa lang na alam ko, yung larong pambata na ang gamit e tingga at balat ng kendi. Kung medyo sosyal, yung may parang straw pa na wig, ewan ko kung ano tawag dun. Tassle? Dapat ata yun na lang nag pambansang laro natin. Isipin mo, pag televised sya, pati yung sipa, may sponsor na - nakadisplay dun sa balat ng kendi.
Kung sa dami nang mga sport natin na TOTOONG nilalaro, bakit di na lang antin palitan ang sipa? Eto ang ibang possible suggestions sa national game/sport natin:
1. Patintero Professional League
2. Ultimate Trumpo Championship
3. Putangina Mo Piko Tayo Federation
4. Henry Sy's Chinese Garter Open 2011
5. Pambansang Palakasan ng Inuman
6. Ewan. Matulog na lang tayong lahat.
Talaga bang may sport na sipa? O kathang isip lang natin yun? Bakit walang binebentang bolang ratan sa mga sports shop?
Ang sipa lang na alam ko, yung larong pambata na ang gamit e tingga at balat ng kendi. Kung medyo sosyal, yung may parang straw pa na wig, ewan ko kung ano tawag dun. Tassle? Dapat ata yun na lang nag pambansang laro natin. Isipin mo, pag televised sya, pati yung sipa, may sponsor na - nakadisplay dun sa balat ng kendi.
Kung sa dami nang mga sport natin na TOTOONG nilalaro, bakit di na lang antin palitan ang sipa? Eto ang ibang possible suggestions sa national game/sport natin:
1. Patintero Professional League
2. Ultimate Trumpo Championship
3. Putangina Mo Piko Tayo Federation
4. Henry Sy's Chinese Garter Open 2011
5. Pambansang Palakasan ng Inuman
6. Ewan. Matulog na lang tayong lahat.
Jai Alai is a Crazy Sport
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Jai Alai
I was channel surfing the other day when I saw a telecast of a Jai Alai game. Am I the only one who thinks the sport was specifically created so nobody will ever know what the hell is happening at any point throughout the game?
The layout is already confusing. Opposing players are playing side by side, even though they're fighting each other, and they're enclosed by three walls, one of which serves as their target. The ceiling is ridiculously high and the audience are to watch in the missing fourth wall. If the athletes weren't playing with really fast moving balls while wearing grandpa trousers, you'd think you're watching a stage play based on Bucket List .
The crazy doesn't stop there.
The game is played with eight players or two paired players in eight teams. That's EIGHT competing entities in just one game. Imagine if boxing played out the same way, where the referee invites the top 8 seeds of the heavyweight title, gathers them in the ring and says "fuck it, last man standing gets the belt". Every game is a royal rumble. No, make that a battle royale. Each team/player faces off against each other per round, and whoever loses gets replaced by the next pair of queued opponents. So it's no more a tournament than it is a survival of the fittest, with a race to 7 rule implemented. I seriously think that rule is just to make sure anybody who gets too good walks away with the probability of dying from a hit from the fastest moving projectiles in any sport save for archery and trap shooting.
Oh did I mention that? The balls called pelotas are made of woven metal strands wrapped in goat skin (presumably so any injuries will look like a goat teabagged you at 300mph). These balls are hurled by one player at very very fast speeds to the opposing wall, which by laws of physics, bounce in the most unpredicable patterns towards the OTHER player, who is EXPECTED to catch the damn thing with a wooden hurler called a xistera and bounce it back without suffering from various penalties like clinical death. Oh and you're supposed to do this while avoiding hitting or interfering with your opponent who is STANDING right next to you. As far as sportsmanship goes, Nancy Kerrigan wouldn't be able to play this game without getting sanctioned two minutes in.
I was channel surfing the other day when I saw a telecast of a Jai Alai game. Am I the only one who thinks the sport was specifically created so nobody will ever know what the hell is happening at any point throughout the game?
The layout is already confusing. Opposing players are playing side by side, even though they're fighting each other, and they're enclosed by three walls, one of which serves as their target. The ceiling is ridiculously high and the audience are to watch in the missing fourth wall. If the athletes weren't playing with really fast moving balls while wearing grandpa trousers, you'd think you're watching a stage play based on Bucket List .
The crazy doesn't stop there.
The game is played with eight players or two paired players in eight teams. That's EIGHT competing entities in just one game. Imagine if boxing played out the same way, where the referee invites the top 8 seeds of the heavyweight title, gathers them in the ring and says "fuck it, last man standing gets the belt". Every game is a royal rumble. No, make that a battle royale. Each team/player faces off against each other per round, and whoever loses gets replaced by the next pair of queued opponents. So it's no more a tournament than it is a survival of the fittest, with a race to 7 rule implemented. I seriously think that rule is just to make sure anybody who gets too good walks away with the probability of dying from a hit from the fastest moving projectiles in any sport save for archery and trap shooting.
Oh did I mention that? The balls called pelotas are made of woven metal strands wrapped in goat skin (presumably so any injuries will look like a goat teabagged you at 300mph). These balls are hurled by one player at very very fast speeds to the opposing wall, which by laws of physics, bounce in the most unpredicable patterns towards the OTHER player, who is EXPECTED to catch the damn thing with a wooden hurler called a xistera and bounce it back without suffering from various penalties like clinical death. Oh and you're supposed to do this while avoiding hitting or interfering with your opponent who is STANDING right next to you. As far as sportsmanship goes, Nancy Kerrigan wouldn't be able to play this game without getting sanctioned two minutes in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
