Friday, May 26, 2006
Comics, online and on paper
Here are the webcomics I read on a regular basis:Penny Arcade - usually a gamer's webcomic, but they touch upon books and movies occasionally.
Order of the Stick - comic about D & D. The art style is simple yet elegant.
Achewood - I do not know why, but browsing through the archive has got me hooked on this. I can't really describe what it is, either; better find out for yourself.
Questionable Content - comic about life in general. I'm not too updated on the indie music they refer to sometimes, though.
It's a real bummer I can't get a hold of any copies of Scott Pilgrim here in the Philippines. -_- Power Books can get it for me via Special Order, but I'm thinking if it's cheaper buying it from Amazon (counting shipping and tax).
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Four-Color Love Story
It's a cool song I found in the web. Note: It is in no way related to the four-color theorem in map coloring. It refers to the way the original comics were printed (probably up to this day): The usage of Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black inks.Four-Color Love Story by the Metasciences
Another day at work is nearly over
You must've seen the whole thing on T.V.
Seventeen more city blocks and I can almost smell you
Waiting at the windowsill for me
It's our 41st anniversary
But we don't look a day over 23
Not in this life
Not in this universe
And we were still in high school when I met you
If you believe the continuity
I rescued you from robots and untied you from the tracks
And you pretended not to know that it was me
We didn't even kiss until issue 26
And this world still feels like 1963
I love this life
I love this universe
And you'll keep my identity a secret
And you will know the touch beneath my glove
And I may go out every night and risk my life for strangers
But you're the only girl I'll ever love
And Gwen Stacy isn't dead, she's only sleeping
And Elektra isn't evil or insane
And those bastards in the pentagon can't really kill Sue Dibney
No more than they could kill off Lois Lane
And I swear to god there'll be hell to pay
If anybody tries to take you away
Forget this life
Forget this universe
You're everything I need
You are my life
You are my universe
And they'll have to go through me
Friday, May 19, 2006
So how about that Code? I heard Da Vinci made it
Watching it tomorrow night. Being a person of not so intense faith, I still believe it won't affect my beliefs, when I know that it's fiction at its core. People need to realize that and stop getting so damn tight-assed.Thursday, May 18, 2006
Story idea!
I thought of this as we were going home from a weekend trip from Batangas. My crazy-cool uncle from Hawaii and my slightly crazy grandma were my inspiration for this.Regular worker guy (tentatively named Blake) meets Regular girl (tentatively named Ria). They manage to hook up after a brief and formal courtship, and Ria (after an unspecified and unimportant period of time) finally introduces Blake to her family, who are definitely not normal.
Ria's father is an accomplished werewolf hunter, her mother is a master swordslady of a prestigious samurai line, and her uncles (father side) are : A bald guy with ESP, a ninja, and a hypnotist rock star.
So what's up? Apparently, Ria's family has a very long, unusual history. Each and every member of the family manifests some sort of power (ie her ESP and Hypnotist uncles), or experiences an event that changes him/her forever (her father and her ninja uncle). Whoever marries into the family, male or female, gets affected by this phenomenon as well. Also, male outsiders has to drop their surname and adopt the Weird family name, to preserve the line (technicalities aside).
The story revolves around Blake getting acquainted with Ria's many relatives and the oddball adventures that happen to him as he tries to get accepted into the family while trying to retain his sanity.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
I have nothing to say
except that today is a typical day for me. Come to the office, type up queries and generate tables of data, get interrupted by phone calls, get back to your work and realized that you have lost your train of thought and you need five to ten minutes to get your bearings back. Yeeeep.Yesterday though was a different matter. I'm a total sucker for abstract mathematical discussions and stupid math problems (the kinds with the twist - you know about the twenty five peso rent and the missing peso? Those kinds), and in a book I read yesterday, there was this problem that made me utterly hate coconuts and monkeys.
The problem goes like this:
"Five men and a monkey were stranded in an island. To survive, they picked coconuts all day, and at the end of the day, they decide to start the splitting tomorrow morning, and everybody went to sleep.
In the middle of the night, however, one of the men woke up, and, thinking to get his share early, went to the pile of coconuts, and divided them (almost) evenly into five piles. One coconut was left over, and this he gave to the monkey. Then he hid his share, put back the rest into the pile, and went to sleep.
The second man did the same, dividing the coconut to five even piles, with one more coconut left over. The leftover went to the monkey, the man's share was hidden, and he went back to sleep.
This process repeated itself with the other men, each taking roughly 1/5 of the remainder and leaving one to the monkey.
In the morning, they divided the remaining coconuts among each other, and it was neatly divided among them, no leftovers (this was a modification of an older problem). The question now, is: How many coconuts were there in the beginning?
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Home Alone
Sounds: Cool Joke's UNDOPreparations for the upcoming Freshman Advanced Registration yields a surprising lesson: The next time you try and pick up an HP LaserJet, remember that you are a programmer and you will have the tendency to be, well, a shrimp. My left bicep feels like a small child has his gums gripping it, not unlike a vice.
Today is Day 2 of 3 of the "me-being-left-while-my-sister-and-mom-enjoy-themselves-in- Puerto-Galera" Series, and I am hanging on quite nicely. Maybe I should practice my drawing hand again tonight, or tomorrow. I still haven't touched the past and spaghetti sauce they left me at the fridge; pray I don't burn down the house while trying to heat my lunch.
Why The Fool?
I have several aliases used in the wide reaches of the web. But what inspired me to pick the name of what might be the most unique card in the deck of Tarot?Firstly, I wanted something different. And I've never used any of the Tarot cards as a username, so now is a good time as any.
Secondly, the Tarot is one of the most symbolically charged items in the history of the Western world. I have a private habit of finding symbolism and connections in everything I see; one might say I love symbolisms.
Thirdly, and probably the most important reason of all, is that the idea came to me as I was staring at the register screen. And it hit me, in a way that a icy cool human-high sea wave might hit one in a hot summer. It just felt right.
"The Fool makes a profound statement[...] dropped in amongst the kings, queens, and powers of the cosmos. All the other cards are in competition with each other in the game; each player hopes their card will "triumph" over those of others, and much distress results if a valuable card is beaten and taken. But the Fool alone is not in competition; he's outside the game. In every hand he appears once, somewhere, unpredictably, never taking anything and never being taken. He just is. Total humility bestows invulnerability."
For more info on the Fool, check out everybody's favorite look-it-up site.
