Liz and Doms

In my antique flash drive, there was a folder where I stored pictures of jazz musicians, supermodels, my real life friends, and animals. These were pictures I meant to sketch; I wanted to draw realist arts like those by Andrew Loomis.

How I wish I could go back to that time when I was younger, naiver and hungrier, and not too critical of my own work that I become demoralized. Even when I knew that my hands were not those of an artist, I did not care; I whittled my time away while forgetting all my problems by drawing on blank sheets of Oslo paper.

I look at these stuff…

…and hope that the sun will shine on my sketchbooks again someday.

Cokeandcomics and I

cokeandcomics: i’m reading your post

cokeandcomics: the one about your neighbor

nightdreamer: aah. nightdreamer: my neighbor sucks.
cokeandcomics: he sounds weird
cokeandcomics: and unlikable
nightdreamer: he is weird
nightdreamer: and unlikable
cokeandcomics: what did you ever do to him?
nightdreamer: i’ve never done anything to him.
cokeandcomics: huh
cokeandcomics: he’s a jerk then
nightdreamer: totally.
cokeandcomics: an asshole
cokeandcomics: heheheh!
nightdreamer: his mom is kindhearted though.
cokeandcomics: have u tried asking him what his problem is?
nightdreamer: why would i want to do that?
nightdreamer: it’s his issues, not mine.
cokeandcomics: i see
cokeandcomics: its a shame since you were friends when you were kids
nightdreamer: i find that most of the time when i ask someone what his/her problem is, he/she becomes confrontational.
cokeandcomics: i see
nightdreamer: it’s probably some denial thing.
nightdreamer: oh well. he’s just a dang jerk.
nightdreamer: there’s one girl from the same building where i live in who is really hot though.
nightdreamer: although i live way above her.
nightdreamer: so i haven’t really bothered to talk to her.
cokeandcomics: oh cool!
nightdreamer: coz i don’t know what to say, actually.
cokeandcomics: well its up to you how you’re gonna make the first move
nightdreamer: she lives too near the first floor that even when we’re taking the same elevator there ain’t much time to converse anyway.
cokeandcomics: hmmmm
cokeandcomics: well you can find out first if she has a boyfriend
nightdreamer: how?
cokeandcomics: i find that single ladies are more game to converse with people
nightdreamer: “hi, my name is nighty. do you have a boyfriend?”
cokeandcomics: no no
nightdreamer: haha kidding
cokeandcomics: search the usual… friendster, facebook, multiply
nightdreamer: i don’t know her name.
cokeandcomics: ah…
nightdreamer: maybe it’s just, i find her attractive but at the same time i’m not interested enough.
cokeandcomics: i see
cokeandcomics: its up to you
cokeandcomics: i know the feeling
cokeandcomics: but it should be easier to strike a conversation since you’re in the same building
cokeandcomics: i mean she should have seen you a couple of times already
cokeandcomics: you’re not a total stranger
nightdreamer: yeah. maybe.
nightdreamer: though really, we don’t bump into each other very often.
nightdreamer: although these past two days we did get into the same elevator
nightdreamer: but before that i haven’t seen her in months.
cokeandcomics: there you go!
nightdreamer: i guess i just don’t pay much attention when i’m at my building
cokeandcomics: time the schedule
cokeandcomics: estimate or something
nightdreamer: i’m often grumpy when i’m at the elevator. so many kids misbehavin’. hahaha.
cokeandcomics: well not in the elvator maybe
cokeandcomics: cause there’s other people
cokeandcomics: i dunno….
nightdreamer: well of course. if there wasn’t anyone else i’d be the one misbehavin’

cokeandcomics: hahahaha!

cokeandcomics: if its just you two then thats the best scenario
cokeandcomics: to start talking
nightdreamer: i think you should blog those stuff!
cokeandcomics: no haha c’mon
nightdreamer: cnc the ladykiller!
nightdreamer: the cnc method!
cokeandcomics: there is no cnc method
cokeandcomics: hahhaah
cokeandcomics: its just easy to shell out advice
nightdreamer: i’m sure you’re popular.
cokeandcomics: but when it comes to the real thing, it’s different
nightdreamer: i’m sure you’re being talked about in Embassy
nightdreamer: they are like,
nightdreamer: “omg did you read cokeandcomics’ newest blog updates? they hit me deep like sex!”
nightdreamer: [interesting simile]
cokeandcomics: hahaha
cokeandcomics: its up to you, nighty
nightdreamer: yeah, it is
cokeandcomics: you know the building better than me,

nightdreamer: i’m old enough to decide!
nightdreamer: i have transformers too!
cokeandcomics: hehe!
cokeandcomics: hahaha
cokeandcomics: figure out more or less her schedule and make your move when there’s an opening
nightdreamer: t-that sounds really erotic.

cokeandcomics: hahahaha
cokeandcomics: whoops
cokeandcomics: i didnt mean it that way
nightdreamer: i’ll ask her, ‘hey you wanna play mortal kombat vs dc universe? i have it at home!’
cokeandcomics: really????
nightdreamer: i don’t have yet actually.
nightdreamer: i’m just makin stuff up
nightdreamer: but i’m sure she’ll find it cool to play mk vs dc
cokeandcomics: yes!
nightdreamer: and then i’ll tell her she’s like wonder woman
nightdreamer: full of wonder.
nightdreamer: [blech!]
cokeandcomics: thats actually not a bad idea
cokeandcomics: i could use that actually hehe
cokeandcomics: nah sorry
cokeandcomics: actually maybe not
nightdreamer: and she kisses like sonya blade: it brings fire!
cokeandcomics: ho ho!
cokeandcomics: the cornier the better
nightdreamer: hahaha
cokeandcomics: i think girls go for corny lines
nightdreamer: nah, i doubt that.
cokeandcomics: depends
nightdreamer: but i’ll be sure to tell her than when she looks away i feel frozen like a man iced by sub zero!
nightdreamer: she makes me feel like superman
cokeandcomics: stop it
nightdreamer: omg i am killing myself with my own corniness.
cokeandcomics: stop talking
cokeandcomics: hahahahah
nightdreamer: i hope i make her feel like catwoman; i hope i make her go MEOW.

nightdreamer: i’ll harpoon her and say “GET OVER HERE!”

cokeandcomics: the sonya one’s actually good
cokeandcomics: “wow your kiss brings fire”
nightdreamer: well too bad there aint no heart ripping kano fatality in mk vs dc coz i could’ve used that, “when you’re mad my heart feels like that!”
cokeandcomics: hahaha
nightdreamer: “you’re like raiden - you course electricty through my spine!”
nightdreamer: ok, enough.
nightdreamer: hahaha
cokeandcomics: i cant believe you just came up with those just now
nightdreamer: hahaha i can’t believe it either *facepalms*

A Fan Mail to Hollywood

Hello, Holly. I got a not-horrifying word from thehorrorgeek that your guy, Steven Spielberg, is remaking Oldboy, which is a manga that a Park Chan Wook film is based on. Having seen the Korean film, I cannot fathom how Will Smith is fit to play its vindictive protagonist, but whatever, right? Anything with Smith sells, and since this is just a remake, you’re earning with least amount of effort – all you need is his one-liners and some Adobe Aftereffects, and, viola, next day you’re swimming in a pool of cash!

But I’m worried about your tendency to remake anything that has made five bucks; I’m worried because someday you might run out of things to remake. Oh no! What will you do when that happens?!

I have a suggestion that you’re free to abuse, so that you can keep partying, pouring crystals, and ignoring those who suffer from the global financial crisis. Am I asking you to write original screenplays? Heck, no, that’s boring! Instead, amalgamate! Patch two (or more) movies together to make one! They’re economical, and as long as you choose the good combinations, nobody’s gonna accuse you for lacking creativity – after all, did anyone complain that You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is Borat plus every Adam Sandler movies ever made? No! Nobody did! And it grossed some millions too, so who cares if anyone griped? Anyway, don’t think too hard on this; I’ll even pitch in some examples so you can just use them - and no royalties required either coz I’m so benevolent for you!

Bolt-E

Titular dog thinks he’s a superhero even after the world has been deserted. Hello, box office!

Harry Potter and the Golden Army

After defeating Voldemort, Harry Potter sets out to live among Muggles, only to find that Muggles resent his kind. So he’s instead assigned to Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, a top-secret government organization that deals with supernatural affairs. Meanwhile, one angry elfenkind is on the loose, using his mad swording skillz to slay everyone in his way, in search of an artifact that will awaken the Golden Army, a horde of unstoppable golems.

Oh and no part of the movie will there be a subtext about Dumbledore’s homosexuality, but he will say he’s gay in an extra scene after the end credits.

You Don’t Mess with the Chuck and Larry

Adam Sandler is an Israel super-spy who would rather be a hair stylist, but to be one he has to pretend to be gay! Plug the Rob Schnieder cameos and the requisite hot girl (who in reality won’t ever be caught appeasing these jock types), and you have a film that will make Sandler-heads feel more “cultured” while the armchair critics groan.

Hairspray Mia!

The Corny Collins Show, a daily afternoon sing-and-dance TV show, only lets black folks perform once a month. Tracy Turnblad upstages a beauty pageant by starting a civil rights protest to integrate the black and the white performers together. ABBA’s songs are sung, decreasing the funk and soulfulness by a million times. (Don’t worry, oldies will love the nostalgia trip; just remember to ban Gen X’ers and beyond from watching this, lest they go on a murderous rampage.)

Kung Fu Panda Escapes 2 Africa

Jack Black, I’m sorry, the Panda goes to Africa and meets up with a lion, a zebra, a hippo and a giraffe. They toss a bunch of pop culture references. Viewers will love the gags and then completely forget what they just saw.

Indiana Jones & the Forbidden Kingdom

The fanboy’s ultimate dream come true, a battle royal of Harrison Ford, Jackie Chan and Jet Li explodes while they search for some super corny artifacts. Later, they learn that even at their most uninspired, they can act better than Shia Labeouf (who will no doubt say “no no no no”), so they band together to kick that misfit’s butt.

Quantum of Twilight

Never has James Bond’s life been more at stake than when he’s up against an immortal adversary, in this case a vampire. Complicating things further, he has inadvertently fallen in love with a girl who is the vampire’s romantic interest. Whose side are you on: of the tech geek or of the shrieking fangirls?

(Heck, if you really want to reach the arthouse crowd, you can make 100 Quanta of Solicitude and have it be about a fictional town in Columbia where a family of secret agents all named Jaime Buendia resides.)

Spider Ranger

This video says it all:

My Neighbor

This post is not intended to be read by good-natured people who enjoy motivational fluffs. This is about my neighbor, whose appearance won’t grace any spiritual book’s cover even if he wore a snazzy suit, dyed his hair white, and made himself look Caucasian.

And it’s a good thing that my neighbor has no clue what my complete name is, because I have no clue what his complete name is either. I just know that there’s a printer that is his namesake. I don’t want to name names because I don’t want to mislead people looking for info about [censored] printer Google-ing into this blog.

So…

I started living next door to him when I was in grade 3. Although we weren’t very close, I’d often go to his place and borrow NES cartridges, which I always promptly returned when he wanted them back. Sometimes his dad would ask me to help install programs on their PC.

When I was on my first year of high school, I was a delinquent, but my neighbor was one of those few that I stood up for: whenever he was bulled I’d tell the bullies to get off of his butt.

Once, I saw my neighbor having a fist fight with his classmate. After the fight had ended, in which he lost, I went to him and told him to stop trying to earn respect by means of violence. I admonished him to ignore bullies because they’re always trouble to be around with. He didn’t listen to me. He kept his belligerent ways, to the point that he started to take out his aggression on all of his classmates. His name struck ridicule to the bellies of many, and I couldn’t help but shake my head whenever he’s laughed at.

There were more that we had in common than he would care to admit. We both had a crush on the same girl, though he didn’t know that, and neither of us were successful in earning her approval – such is my choice of word because we were so darned incompetent in presenting ourselves that we hardly left an impression (and definitely not good ones) to the girl we liked. We both had our careers as Chiang Kai Shek students cut short, as we left our school after we’re done with being a high school freshmen – I even went to Bacolod, a different island, because I couldn’t stand Manila’s jock-like culture anymore.

When I graduated from high school I went back to Manila to pursue my college degree, and for that I ended up living in the same apartment that I had lived in before leaving for Bacolod. Although my neighbor had changed school, he never moved out to live on a different place. So one day, I struck a conversation with him just for old time’s sake. I was not responded to favorably, as he always had an antagonistic tone of speech whenever he said something to me.

It baffles me that he treated me like this even if I tried to help him on his harsher times.

It’s been more than eight years since we last spoke, but he’s still my neighbor. For some unknown reason, he always glares at me whenever we pass by each other. His face is sprinkled with pimples and he always wears a constipated expression, and given that he’s always as grumpy and snobby as a menopausal woman of the suburbs, it amazes me how he’s managed to have a girlfriend. Still, that makes no difference; though he may start attending high school reunions while prancing about with his newfound pride, to me he’ll always be that ungrateful crank, and I don’t expect that by this Christmas he’ll finally bite the bullet and apologize for being a jerk. I suppose I should be more Christ-like, but he makes it so hard for me.

How I wish my neighbor was a girl with a hot bod instead.

Quick Update

I’ve been told by someone - by this voice inside my head that nags at me for everything - that my blog is the most cluttered one he’s ever read. Sadly, I can’t disagree with him, and I’m not reveling for that. Elsewhere, readers can expect what he/she would be reading, but here, there are posts about videogames, movies, and comics, about my obnoxious personal life (which I tend to be secretive about anyway), about books, about basketball, about my comatose dating life, about my pointless instant-message conversations, about music, etc. A lot of times I post entries that have so little connection to the previous one that gulfs exist between them. I’m not even trying to come across as a well-rounded individual, because I’m not (Have you ever tried conversing with me in real life? You haven’t, right? So there you have it, the reason you’re still alive and vigorous). I’m just so disorganized.

While I’ve entertained the idea of creating blogs that are more focused on one particular subject - like make a blog for videogames, another for movies, and another for books - it’s just not feasible for me. I don’t have the time and energy to keep those consistently up-to-date, since my interest in any hobby arbitrarily grows and dwindles.

So, nightdreamer.i.ph is staying woefully random. At least that’s a spirit true to the name, noh?

Nightdreamer is Asleep

…virtually.

I don’t have anything productive to say right now. I’ve been slammed with work. The only reason I’m posting now is to savor the moment of typing on this super-soft keyboard, which makes me feel like gliding.

Come back next week, I suppose.

The Bumpy Road to Kerouac

I haven’t been talking about books for a while now, mainly because I’ve spent an entire month trying to finish Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. It’s merely 300 pages long; that it has taken me so long to finish may lead some to believe that I didn’t like it. Truth is, my sentiments for it are not that simple.

Before anything, though. I’m not going to assume that everyone knows who Jack Kerouac is and what On the Road is about, so now is time for some introduction. Jack Kerouac is one of the most iconic writers of America, and the way he wrote and the subject matters he chose defined the Beat Generation. On the Road is his autobiographical novel about his road-trips across America, in which he is accompanied by his friends - most notably Neal Cassady. He didn’t have many intended destinations when he traveled; he was more of understanding Neal as they wandered together aimlessly.

I really dig Jack Kerouac’s writing style, because there’s just a certain lyrical quality to the words that he uses. Some of his proses about madness are among the best quotable quotes I’ve seen from any writer, ranking up there with Truman Capote (we’ll hear about this guy again later). Even on the first few pages of On the Road, I was already bowled over, and it’s by this line, “…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time…” And that was it, I said to myself, I just have to read this book.

To be sure, there were no shortages of those kinds of delicious proses within the book, and those were my motivation to keep reading it. Unfortunately, I just did not like the story. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I completely understand what happened behind the novel’s creation, nor know who the characters (all based on real persons) involved in it are, because I don’t - I wasn’t born in the Beat days after all. From what I can gather, On the Road is a celebration of the lost “carpe diem” ages of America when unrestrained drinking, partying, and philandering were orders of the day. And honestly, I’m not a fan of those ages; it’s really bizarre for me to read Jack cavorting around with his love for those activities when F Scott Fitzgerald and Aldous Huxley, both alive in the times Jack was nostalgic about, were very disdainful of them. I know this is all based on personal beliefs, maybe values, but I for one am indifferent to Jack’s pleas.

A bigger problem, however, is his fascination with Neal Cassady. I don’t know what kind of people both are in real life, but I couldn’t sympathize with either of them as I was reading. Jack came across to me as a social-climber who squanders his money so as to belong with his band of hipsters. And I just don’t see any lovable qualities with Neal Cassady at all, because he’s little more than a con man with a boundless energy to me. These types of people are very common where I live, and they’re not really that great, if you ask me. Yet Jack wouldn’t stop waxing epiphanies in ultra-hyperbolic proportions about Neal’s “madness”, as though Neal were Jesus. It eventually became embarrassing to read. Truman Capote once made this scathing comment on Jack, “That’s not writing; that’s typing.” This book felt like that, because it dawdled and rambled on and on and on and on and…

Well, this quote from On the Road sums up what I’ve felt about the whole ordeal:

“In God’s name and under the stars, what for?”

PS2 Euphonies

In the earlier 3 posts of my videogame music euphonies series(NES, SNES, and PS), I gave a background of how videogame music have developed over the years. Anyone playing videogames for as long as I have – from the NES era to now – will have noticed the progression of the sound quality: from 8-bit to 16-bit and finally, during the PlayStation generation, culminating to the CD-like WAV.

Videogame music composers, however, were not quick to adapt to the new freedom offered by PlayStation’s audio. Early PS games sounded conservative, in that they still clung to that bleepy MIDI sound. Take Final Fantasy VII: though it has great compositions, its music sound like they were done on cheap Casio keyboards. Only during the later stage of PS’s life cycle have it become the norms for videogame music to sound like they’re coming an audio CD, which includes higher sampling rates and the use of live instruments.

So I don’t think I need to tell you that when PlayStation 2 was released, I was very excited to hear what kind of music its games would bring. After all, even during the chrysalis stage of videogame industry, the music already sounded very creative. Since the composers were no longer constrained by hardware limitations, I believed that they would explore other genres of music, because all I’d heard so far were rock, new age and orchestra - not that they’re bad, but there’s always this thing about variety being the spice of life. I expected to be further ensorcelled by what’s to come with videogame music.

Sadly, it didn’t happen that much. Sure, there are tracks that are just as good as - probably better than - anything else I have heard from videogames so far, but those are very few. I’m not lying if I tell you that I had much difficulty narrowing down my SNES and PS euphonies lists to just 10 tracks, but for PS2 I could hardly name 10, and most of them are from games that have only 1 or 2 good tunes. It doesn’t look like it’s going to improve with this generation of videogame consoles either; sans Eternal Sonata I’ve not found any X360 soundtrack (that is comprised of compositions made for the game) memorable.

What really gets me is how lazy videogames have become with their choices of music. Since the industry has become very profitable, the game developers either acquire the rights to play licensed music, or hire popular musicians (e.g. popular rock bands) to perform for them. The quality varies for licensed music – Grand Theft Auto certainly surpasses most others – but I don’t find that very effective in giving videogames much identity. As for popular musicians, they are chosen based on how they make the supplemented videogame more mainstream, and it’s because of this that some games takes a turn for the garish: just listen to the atrocities Godsmack have wrought to Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within. The mainstream from this 21^st century hasn’t been known as the golden age for any genre of music, and I think most will agree with me on how they just don’t make rock, rap, hiphop, rnb, or jazz like they used to. It’s sad that videogame music also has to suffer from the dreck the music industry tortures us with, but what can we do: commercial appeal is the gospel truth for everything, right? Don’t be surprised if the next Splinter Cell has songs by Linkin Park.

There still are cases when videogame-exclusive composers write game’s music, but this has become infrequent. Moreover, with the growing focus of using the “moody atmospheric ambient sound” to give players “a better immersion to the game” (really?), they just seem less and less intent on making memorable listens. So, all things considered, I think videogame music has gone downhill.

Anyway, this is my top 10 PS2 music list, which I compiled with a heavy heart.

(more…)

You May Beckon, But I Won’t Budge!

You may recall from a few post ago when I said that I was playing this game:

 Well, just a few days ago I sank my money on this:

See, I want to finish Tales of Vesperia, but with all the buzz about Fallout 3 being one of the most avant-garde games of this generation, I’m having a hard time not putting Vesperia aside, because that’s always how my progress with a game goes to an indefinite pending.

So what I’m going to do is convince myself that I’m resolute about finishing Vesperia.

My will is strong!

I’m delivered from temptation!

(Tagalog) Determinado ako!

(Chinese) 我要堅持!

(Latin) Fortiter in re!

(Ilonggo) Di ko ma-hampang sang Fallout kung wala ko katapos sang Vesperia!

Ok! Now I’m convinced. I’m gonna drop all my activities and play Fallout 3 now.

Wait, I mean Vesperia.

Darn. 

Remembering Grave of the Fireflies

Someone in Youtube posted a 2-minute summary video of Grave of the Fireflies and dubbed it with a fitting French song (I think; please correct me if I’m wrong). It’s full of spoilers, so I don’t suggest anyone who has yet to see the movie to watch the Youtube video, especially because Grave of the Fireflies is one of the few films that I would recommend everyone to watch in its entirety.

Anyway, the Youtube video is here. Remember, I’m only posting it for those who want to remember the experience of seeing the film.

Rarely have I found a film so affecting as to change who I am and what I believe in, but Grave of the Fireflies is one such film: without seeing it I probably would not be as anti-war as I am now. It affected me so much that newsreels of civilians suffering from the dire consequences of war always remind me of its protagonists - Seita, a 14-year old boy, and Setsuko, his 4-year old sister. Right at the onset, Seita is seen dying at a corner of the street that passersby pretend not to notice. Even in the first five minutes, anyone can tell that this is not a happy story.

The movie flashes back to when Seita was still living happily with Setsuko. This was during the WWII period. Their father left them to be part of the Japan navy, and they lost their mother when the city where they lived in (Kobe, Japan) was firebombed. So they started running, finding shelters, and trying to survive. They were met not only with the threat of military firepower, but also of the adverse psychological reactions people get amidst war-torn lands. Despite all those, Seita was bent to convince Setsuko that there would be brighter days ahead of them. I won’t reveal how that went, because I want you to see the movie.

Seita and Setsuko were as innocent (or, perhaps, more so) as any civilians, and they were just unlucky enough to be victims of the consequences of war. Grave of the Fireflies is a keen reminder that, regardless of choices, everyone suffers in war, and the only ones who cavort proudly about it are those in power whom are responsible for making it happen in the first place. That this movie is based on a semi-autobiographical novel only makes it more powerful.

Missing the Campaigns?

… then here’s some inspirational Obama video for ya!

… and McCain got it too!

Th-there are no words!

What I Want

I know there is a month more to go before 2008 will end, but I can safely proclaim this year as one of the better years of my life. I gained many new friends, had one of the best vacations ever, read great books, and witnessed history. Thought here are still a few things that, looking back, I would prefer to have done differently, overall this year has been a pleasurable glide for me. I’m happier than I was the previous year, at least.

When it comes to material possessions, I’m also mostly satisfied. I’m not likely ever going to have the biggest collection of geek gears (and maybe stuff of higher purposes, like, I dunno, letter-openers and stamps? Does anyone still collect those anymore?), but I’m happy with what I have. Still, there are some things I would love to get in the next few months or so. And since Christmas is nearby, well… you probably know where this is going. Hello, wishlist!

1. Persona 4

Okay, I promise this is the only part where I’ll be longwinded.

I got an Xbox360 in the late November of 2007, and then Persona 3 for PlayStation 2 (P3 hereafter) one month after. When I first played P3, I was both angry and glad at myself: angry, because I wished I could’ve played it sooner (it was released more or less half a year ago), and glad, because had I played it sooner I probably would’ve altogether skipped buying the X360. Prior to P3, it had been some time since I enjoyed any JRPG’s. I couldn’t bring myself to finish the purposeless and meandering albeit enchanting Dragon Quest VIII (which I still haven’t given up on, since I intend to go back to it someday), or the loading-time-riddled Suikoden V (also on pending). I couldn’t even bring myself to get past the first hour of Final Fantasy XII without falling asleep. Perhaps my overall disillusionment with the genre was why I did not clamor for P3 like Twilight fans did to Breaking Dawn upon its first day of release. Thankfully, after playing P3 (and it took me a while to finish that game, since it lasted 80-something hours) I can say that at the hands of the right developers – i.e. those that are not concerned with bloating a story-dominant genre with hordes of CG cutscenes, although P3 was abound with those – JRPGs can still get me engrossed. At its core a generic save-the-world RPG, P3 distinguishes itself by making what the player does on his daily life as a student integral to the game. This means I have to study hard, and in the process engage in activities that’ll make me more popular, charming and courageous. I can even be friends with the characters of the game, and maybe date some of them along the way. I was sold by those concepts! Being someone who has graduated from school for 3 years, I often look back at the zaniness of high school life with great fondness. P3 made me relive all that, which is why I instantly became a fan of the game. Until now I still haven’t used my X360 in as much time I had spent playing P3.

I also found the designs and the art styles very appealing. I liked those so much that I resolved to track down as many Shin Megami Tensei games as I could, even if I knew that most of them dealt with different and more controversial subject matters (which make them more appealing, in my opinion). So far, I got Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Devil Army (remind me never to spell all that again), and Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2. As for Persona 4, it promises more of P3, with a different setting and with some tweaks. That means I’ll probably like it too.

Watching the trailer always gets me excited.

December 9, 2008? I can’t wait!

2. 120 GB iPod

Because my 30 GB one has no more free space. I don’t need the fancy touch screens or the slick smallness; I just want the storage capacity. And no thanks, I don’t need Nelly Furtado in it.

3. Some books

On top of my head, I want Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, The Leopard by Giuseppe Lampedusa, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson, The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, and Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. But I’m not limiting myself to books of a particular period or of a particular genre, and I’m open to suggestions. Not Twilight, though.

4. Some comic books

Because reading full-length novels can be tiring. My list of comic books that I want isn’t as expansive as that of books: I merely want Astro City by Kurt Buseik, and DMZ by Brian Wood.

PS Euphonies

Here comes PlayStation! It may have to do with how the games are stored, but at this stage, videogame music have progressed so much that they have begun to sound as though they’re coming straight from audio CD’s. We’re talking about a leap from MIDI to WAV. Not only did the audio quality make full-blown orchestra arrangements sound authentic – unlike the “compensated” orchestra of the SNES days - it also allowed more experimental developers to make the music part of playing the games. PS-exclusive games like Parappa the Rapper, where buttons are pressed to make the titular character rap, couldn’t be done in SNES.

It’s also at this time when CD’s containing videogame music began to get mass-produced and to earn mild commercial popularity. Whatever anyone may think of Faye Wong’s Eyes on Me (for the record, I don’t happen to think very highly of the lyrics, and they could’ve used different arrangements) it undoubtedly made an impact in the videogame industry because it is a song that everyone in Japan and Taiwan has heard. People have begun paying attention to videogame music. Consequently, more talents have hopped aboard the recording booths Capcom, Square, Ubisoft, etc.

With the new freedom PS offered to composers and musicians, more soundtracks that reverberated within every fiber of my being were made. Hear my 10 favorite pieces after the jump!

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A Thought-Provoking Observation

A friend of mine observes from the international news:

cooler_purple: Why do they (the news) always distinguish Chinese, Japanese and Koreans from other Asian communities?

cooler_purple: If people try to tell a person that he/she looks Chinese/Japanese/Korean, they say that they look like Chinese/Japanese/Korean. But they don’t acknowledge them as Asian.

cooler_purple: But when they see people from other parts of Asia they regard or describe them as Asians?

You know, I think he’s onto something there. What’s the deal with that?

Black Star

I was glued to the internet all morning watching the live updates of the tallies. It was a Wednesday morning here in the Philippines, and at around 9:30 AM I was dead-certain that Obama will be the next U.S. president.

Being the only person in the office who followed the campaigns, I announced the result forcefully, “Obama is gonna win!”

My coworker gave a curious reply, “Really? America will take a turn for the worse then.”

I paused uneasily, and then wondered aloud what he meant. He said, “That country can now be governed by a black man. It means Negroes will be freer to roam the streets to do their thugs stuff.”

I was not in the mood to debate with anyone, so without challenging him I let him had his hateful speculations. Even if I couldn’t blame him for being ignorant, those comments did not sit well with me. My brother, also living in the Philippines, had been in a similar position few months ago when he and his coworkers watched the trailers of Resident Evil 5. While my brother found the images of a white hero shooting black zombies in Africa distasteful, his coworker commented, “Well there are many black terrorists anyway.”

Here’s a background of how black people are regarded here in the Philippines, a country that worships America and will follow it to the ends of the earth. Our country cannot be blamed for being a big fan of America because when Americans ruled our land many years ago, they gave us, among other things, industrial and economic developments. Above all, they earned favorable opinions from us because on July 4, 1946, they allowed us to be an independent nation.

The year is 1946. This was before Americans had the civil rights act. Racial divide was rampant at their side. From this, we can conclude that Americans did not educate Filipinos properly about what black people were like, because even Americans themselves couldn’t see black people for who they were individually. Although blacks, Negritos specifically, were the first to populate our country hundreds of years ago, they had long become a minority here, being settled in our most isolated and undeveloped regions. The average Filipinos did not congregate with blacks too much, so we did not know them too well.

To this day it is not very common for us to see blacks. Most of our immigrants are Chinese, Hispanics, Caucasians, and Koreans. Most of us only see black people through movies, or if live then only through local basketball leagues where they play as imports. Many of us don’t even know who Martin Luther King, Jr. is.

Until now, the media have never been known to represent blacks favorably. Often in Hollywood movies, black people were paid to play the throwaway loud and comic roles, while the whites are the heroes saving the world (see: Transformers). Meanwhile, in hiphop music videos, we don’t see black men conduct themselves in the cleanest ways because we see them glorifying life of hookers, blingblings, and gangbangings. It doesn’t help that the contents of their lyrics are on the explicit side.

To be sure, the media are to be faulted for their propensity to portray blacks in negative lights. Do they sing praises to civil rights activists as much as they would criticize gangster rappers? Do they commend Toni Morrison’s literary achievements as often as they would condemn OJ Simpson’s crimes? Even the black people’s songs they play are selective: instead of choosing the heaps of intelligent raps, soul and rnb music that dominate the underground scenes, it’s the Souljah Boyz’s who get all the airtime, ululating “ho” so that holier-than-thou soccer moms can slam Biblical wisdoms onto them. There’s something to be said about music industries being too obsessed with images of badness and cockiness, yet how often does anyone condemn the white race when a band of white guys acts like punks?

Indeed certain blacks, just like certain people of other ethnic groups, are up to no good. Indeed the ghetto life can be gruesome. Yet, rarely has any efforts to understand what made those happen ever reached public awareness. Furthermore, there has yet to be enough proof, 68 years later, that what happened Richard Wright’s Native Son does not happen anymore on modern times: when its black protagonist Bigger Thomas faced charges of murdering a white woman, white people treated the trial as the prosecution of the entire black community. And this is exactly what’s happening here: my coworker is unable to perceive black personalities as individuals, and instead judges the whole black race through media’s oblique expositions.

There still are long ways to go if racism is to be driven permanently out of existence, but electing Obama as president is the start for Americans. They showed the world that they are ready to make an African-American become the world’s most powerful man. If indeed change is gonna come is anyone’s guess, but just as it behooves Obama to make America more peaceful by cultivating it as a land that treats diverse groups fairly, it behooves us all – including the rest of the world - to remove our ignorance.

SNES Euphonies

(Edit: if the audio player refuses to play on your browser, you may have to clear your cookies and caches. Also, if you tried to play all files before, you’d noticed that Lufia 2’s boss theme was at number 9. That music file didn’t work. I tried to fix that but it just refused to cooperate, so I had it changed with another tune from another RPG.)

The videogame consoles made after NES has quite a leap in the quality of sounds. The sampling rate is higher, and the bit has increased from 8 to 16. By the time gamers migrated to SEGA and/or SNES, they were beginning to hear music that sounded like they came from real instruments.

I haven’t played SEGA for a long enough time to have a top 10 list of favorite Sega music, but without a doubt Sonic the Hedgehog had some fine tunes, which was kind of like him saying, “Step aside, Mario. I run and jump faster than you do, and my taste in music is better too!”

Nintendo rebutted, “Don’t give me that attitude, Sega! You may have your Sonic techno, but I have my Yoshi chillout tracks!”

Okay, I’m kind of getting ahead of myself. Playing SNES for more than 10 years, I have, of course, grown to be very attached to its games. Everything NES had done SNES did better. The games had more stories, more styles, and of course the tracks sounded cleaner and a lot more beautiful than before.

Again, my top 10 SNES tunes, in no particular order.

1. Tetris Attack – Forest Stage Theme

This is the Yoshi chillout track I was talking about. That dinosaur starred in Tetris Attack, which is quite a good puzzle game. The title is a misnomer because it’s not really Tetris. 

2.  Terranigma - The Underworld

Here’s one RPG tune for you. In the PlayStation days people often associate RPG’s with rousing soundtracks, but way back in SNES great RPG tunes were already being made. This Terranigma composition is striking for its very somber tone, which fits the mood of the game. After all, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world.

3.  Lost Vikings - Factory Beat

Evidence that not only did Japanese game companies get the creating of videogame music down pat. Lost Vikings are made by the publisher who later released Warcraft, and even this early their genius already shows. I still can’t name a puzzle game that surpasses this one. I dig the soundtrack too, which is full of funky new jack swing tunes.

4. Donkey Kong Country 2 - Bramble Blast

Another one of those chillout tunes. Seriously, if all the chillout tunes I hear are as inspired as those Nintendo and Rare come up with, I might not be so dismissive of electronica as “lazy music”.

5. Dracula X - Stage 3 Theme

This is actually a remix of an old Castlevania tune. it’s too bad that Dracula X sucks.

6. Starfox - Corneria

Another proof that Nintendo knows how to make great music when they’re inspired. Rock with this!

7. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island - Obstacle Course

And yet Nintendo… okay enough of that. This time here’s something that sounds like ragtime music.

8. Final Fantasy V - Battle with Gilgamesh

The best RPG battle themes are those that get the player pumped up. This one is an example.

9. Final Fantasy VI - Decisive Battle

This one is another, and it’s not surprising that both number 8 and 9 are written by the same composer, Nobuo Uematsu.That name should be familiar to anyone who has passing knowledges of videogame music.

10. Wild Guns - Stage 1 Theme

Rock with a little Wild Western sound. The game is also Wild Western, but also with robots. They need to make more games with that setting!

NES Euphonies

Call me geeky if you must, but I’m a self-professed fan of videogame music. It’s easy to dismiss videogames as mere products of amusement, that what only matter is whether it’s fun or not fun. There’s really nothing wrong with such perception, per se; I just happen to think that good music benefits a videogame as it would a movie. Take Super Mario Brothers, for example. It’s still considered one of the best games of all time, but do you know what else about it is remembered? Yes, the music. I hear people use its compositions as their ring tones. It happens because they are catchy and pleasing to the ears.

Anyway, videogame music has come a long way. In their nascent stage, videogames only had intro tracks that went for less than 10 seconds at the beginning of each level, and that’s it. Videogames then were all about how it played, and gamers were given no other objectives than to achieve highest scores; there were no rooms for superfluous things like endings, cutscenes, level progressions, music, or styles. One was more likely to deduce, or maybe interpret, a game’s story by the cartridge art and by the design of the arcade cabinets than by playing the game.

It’s when NES had come into being that videogame music began to show some complexity. Although gamers were still hearing 8-bit bleeps, they could hear melodies while they’re playing. Of course, videogame tracks of then looped after a brief amount of time (and to this day most of them still do); still, they achieved their purposes of giving the game distinct feels.

This is my 10 favorite NES compositions, in no particular order. Note that I edited all the songs, such that I made them fade out when they’re about to start looping.

1. Super Mario Brothers Level 1 Theme

Yeah, everyone has heard of it already. Moving on…

2. Super Mario Brothers 2 Level 1 Theme

Whatever anyone’s opinion of that game may be (“HOW COULD ANYONE CALL THAT A MARIO GAME?!” was the cry of many) it’s hard to deny how infectiously happy the tune is.

3. Darkwing Duck New Bridge Theme

Disney has always been identified with unforgettable (and in some cases schmaltzy) music, and Capcom manages to give its Darkwing Duck game the same unforgettable quality. What a bluesy tune.

4. Batman Level 1 Theme

It’s so Batman, don’t you think?

5. Kirby’s Adventure Title Screen Theme

This one is chirpy and lighthearted, and it may just expedite your next visit to your dentist. Incidentally, I find it funny how the quality of Nintendo games seem directly related to how good their music is. How else to you explain the bland tracks of the equally bland Kirby and Yoshi’s Island for the DS?

6. Megaman 2 Bubble Man Theme

Though there isn’t any surf-like sound effect, it still evokes the feel of ocean breezes.

7. Megaman 3 Spark man Theme

No other tunes from Megaman series makes my tap my feet as much as this one.

8. Contra Level 1 Theme

The only tune bad enough to rescue the president.

9. Journey to Silius Level 1 Theme

Actually, the soundtrack of the game is rock-solid. It’s interesting to note that Journey to Silius was originally meant to be the Terminator game. Can you imagine this song being played for that James Cameron classic? I can, because I find it just as somber.

10. River City Ransom Level 1 Theme

A very funky tune. Seriously, we need more of these! What’s more impressive here is that this one goes for almost two minutes before it starts looping. That’s not very common in the NES days.

Link Lovin’

I haven’t been suggesting blogs to read for quite some time now, mainly because I’ve been alternating between being extremely busy and extremely grumpy. I promise it’s rarely both! I’m doing this again today because I’ve been feeling generous. Or maybe just bored.

Meet Shelly. No, not that girl who wrote Frankenstein (and yet Nightdreamer’s pretentiousness rears its ugly head!) and I would think that authoring horror books is not on the top of her aspirations. She is, however, a very good artist, and by artist I mean someone who draws. I’ll give you an idea of how good she is at drawing. She drew Elena, a female Street Fighter who does capoiera with her lissome body. The artwork was so flawless that Udon Entertainment published it in their Street Fighter tribute artbook, compiled along with comic industry giants like J. Scott Campbell, Jo Chen and Adam Hughes. That’s like being considered the same league with people who drew Gen 13 and Runaways. If that doesn’t impress you I don’t know what your problem is, so I’m just going to blame it on poor taste and Arroyo.

Her blog has more of those great illustrations, plus it’s a refreshing place for those who want to read from the more artistic kind of people! She also writes about makeup, which is also a good topic (err, as I was told by my female friends). Plus, she just really likes videogames and has been playing since the Atari days. How can you not like her?

Still not convinced? Okay, how about this: she draws sexy pinups. Go ahead and tell me that that didn’t have you curious.

Vesperia

When it comes to role-playing games made in Japan, quite a few series can be considered staples of the market. There’s Dragon Quest, which is where it all began. There’s Final Fantasy, which is RPG’s equivalent of blockbuster movies. There’s Suikoden, which always tells a political story and always involves recruiting 108 characters. There’s Wild Arms, which often has a Wild Western setting.

And then there’s the Tales of… series (or Tales series, what it will henceforth be referred to), which has the players battling like they do in fighting games.

When I first heard of the Tales series – and this happened in the early stages of the PlayStation life cycle when Tales of Destiny was just released – I liked the idea. I liked that unlike most RPG’s it wanted my involvement by having me go through all the dirty works of combating instead of flipping through menus. And so, I got Tales of Destiny, played it, and was disappointed. Sure, it does have me running around battlefields and hacking my enemies till next week, but it isn’t done very well. The fighting isn’t fluid: what I can do is run and slash, and then my character automatically runs back to “recharge” so that I can run forward and slash again. Imagine Street Fighter playing as jerky as that. Plus, the game is ugly. I’m not really much of an aesthetics junky when it comes to videogames, but then I don’t ignore this flaw when said game is obviously being lazy. Not only does Tales of Destiny look like a SNES game, it’s also uglier than its predecessor, Tales of Phantasia. The colors are so washed-out the game ends up looking like Chrono Trigger projecting out of TV covered with white cloth. And then there’s the unrelenting encounter rate: I understand that Namco is enamored by the battle system, but belaboring its brilliance by bombarding me with a battle everytime I walk 3 steps is infuriating, especially whenever I try to solve puzzles. It didn’t take long for me to shelve this game.

Wanting to give other Tales game a chance, I got Tales of Phantasia for the SNES. Nope, that didn’t click either, since it also had the random encounter issues. Tales of Eternia (Tales of Destiny 2 in North America) mitigates those and improves the combat, but the story and the characters are uninspiring, so I didn’t go far. Having decided that the Tales series is just not my type, I skipped all the sequels that came for the PS2 and Gamecube.

Being an owner of X360, the one thing I don’t like with its library of games is that it doesn’t have enough of Japanese RPG’s. I imagine those who buy X360’s get it for the Halo and the shooters; I got it for those games too. Still, I soon grew tired of shooting tons and tons of aliens and thugs on many gritty wastelands, and I wanted a change of scenery.

I wanted a more colorful landscape. I wanted to warp back to the days when I was that valorous guy who wanted to save the world, without needing closed-up shots of me sulking or being macho.

After hearing Tales of Vesperia as having all the qualities that I’ve enumerated, I decided to buy it, despite being wary of being let down like I was with the previous games of the series.

I’m 5 hours into the game, but I can already conclude it as the best Tales game I’ve ever played. The fighting feels very natural because I’m not forced to run back and forth just to hit anyone. It’s much closer to playing like a fighting game than the preceding games of the series, since I can jump, combo, connect normal attacks with special moves, dash, and move closer or farther from the screen (i.e. z-dimension - the previous three Tales games I’ve played only allowed me to move forward and backward). In fact, the RPG element can be taken away and the result can still be a decent fighting game.

The encounter rate is more forgiving this time. Enemies still come out of nowhere, but now I can see them, such that if ever I decide not to fight, I can just avoid running into them. Not that I’ve ever done that though – I like the battle system so much I actually want to fight, rather than dread it.

I can’t comment much about the story yet, but I suspect that it won’t be the most original one. I don’t mind that, though, because all the characters that I have met so far are interesting. The dialogues are often funny, and the characters do have multiple-dimensions, even if they first come across as archetypical. The game also has beautiful environments, and I can say that of all the games I’ve played, this one resembles an anime the most. The designs, all done by Kosuke Fujishima (renowned artist of Oh My Goddess! and You’re Under Arrest), further reinforces the anime vibe.

Other than my few gripes with the non-rotatable camera, the game is generally well-crafted and endearing. So, yeah, here in Vesperia I am sticking around. Watch the anime-like intro movie here and hear the cheesy bubblegum-pop with the accompanying engrish lyrics:

One Night in Boredomsville

Every once in a while when I’m bored stiff, I flip through my phonebook and call whoever number turns up after I mash the arrow keys. I don’t even have much reason for calling certain someone at times; God knows I’m not very close with more than 80% of owners of those numbers I have stored in my cellphone. It’s just, well, one of my quirky habits to open up to people regardless of if I’m familiar or unfamiliar to them.

Darn, I feel like a loser confessing all that to you. 

I spent the entire October being more or less a loner (although I did go out with a friend once) for no particular reason again. Maybe I was trying some of the belt-tightening that has since then become very much in vogue and that I’m not really discouraging. I just didn’t find much time to speak with anyone outside my family. If you were my friend in Facebook you’d notice that. If you were my friend in Plurk you’d notice that. If you had me on yahoo messenger you’d notice that too. If you were reading my blog you would also notice that I was mostly only posting impersonal entries throughout the duration of the month. Well, I didn’t have problems going on in my life and I was not sulking. I reckon I was just distracted. Being a reticent person may have its merits, but it fails to make me happier. In desperation to hear human voices, I, uh, endeavored yesterday night at 10 PM to call anyone.

Out of the 15 numbers I called, only 2 answered. I guess everyone else sleeps early? The first person who answered the phone had wakened by her phone that I caused to ring. I was really sorry about that. The second person who answered was on her way home from Powerplant Mall. Perhaps it’s her way of telling me that her life is more remarkable than mine.

I still seek to hear some human voice. It’s getting really quiet in my part of the world lately.