Something's Wrong With Me

Now this is something worrying:


I watched the whole video straight-faced then when Big Boss appears for 2 seconds I rewound the video to watch those 2 seconds over and over again.

What have I become?!

Yes I have not updated for a while

There's a very good reason for that. A reason which I've almost forgotten because I pushed it far into the back of my skull due to its traumacity.

So one day I thought:

"Hey, it'd be a totally awesome idea to live in this cheap place with colleagues for a while until I'm ready to get a car!"

After all, I could wake up at 8.30 am and be in time for work since the place was so damn close to the place anyway.

Which means I could sleep later too so that I get time to entertain myself with entertaining things after all that hard work in the office.

So there I was coming home from work one day fully expecting a normal comfortable evening when:

"OH MY GOD MY HOUSE HAS BEEN BROKEN INTO!"

My eyes quickly darted around to see what was missing.

First thing I noticed was that my PS3 was still there. That gave me a false sense of relief as I assumed that one of my roommates probably came home early and forgot to lock the door.

The false sense of relief quickly dissappeared as I realised my entire LAPTOP BAG is MISSING.

GONE! NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN!

Which also means my phone charger is missing, my awesome Gigabyte wireless mouse and keyboard, some rechargeable batteries, my HotFM notebook, and of course my TABLET PC.

"MY TABLET PC IS GONE. AAAAAAA.."

...was what went on in my head when outwardly I had a calm face and generally appearing as if I'm not really bothered by its disappearance.

So there you have it. My main digital drawing device has been stolen and it'll be a while before I get a replacement.

Explanation complete!

Now, to resuppress this unpleasant memory and carry on with life. Good day fellows.

Being a meanie in Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops

In MGS Portable Ops, one of the main things in the game to do is to recruit soldiers.

In the picture above, you can see the result of a few minutes hard work of disabling soldiers to do as I say. Like force them to give me their guns or their Adult Magazines.

Which reminds me, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is coming out around May of next year. I hope they have some sort of bundle! :D


Me playing the Peace Walker demo for the first time. There has been three demoes so far since their introduction. The first one was Japanese and was a bit rough in terms of completion. But you get to watch a cutscene, a training level, play 1 boss level and 2 sneaking operations including the tutorial.

The second one was also Japanese but they added an extra level, interactive cutscenes, some new CQC moves, easier to spot orange-clad grunts in the tutorial level and is pretty much similar to the one that people got to play at the Konami booth at the Tokyo Game Show.

The third one had all the features in the second demo but it's in English. David Hayter is back as Snake but Robin Atkin Downes who voices Miller in English does a poor performance with his "Snake Call" when you Fission Mail when compared to his Japanese counterpart.

Still, looking forward to the game next year. :D

How Being in the Art Industry has Changed the way I watch movies

I remember a time when watching a movie or animation was just about watching it. Those were the good ol' days.

Then I thought that I wanted to make my own animations or movies. Somewhere along the line, I decided to make that my career. Before I knew it, I already have my degree and am already working in an animation company.

When you come into the art industry, you are programmed to make things look good and believable. As a result of this, you begin to scrutinize every tiny detail in a production.

I remember watching Buzz Lightyear of Star Command the pilot episode having much fun and in awe way back then.

I rewatched it recently and caught myself playing interesting sequences frame by frame, analyzing how they made a scene, how they achieved an effect and noticing glitches in the animation.

For example, there was one frame where a character snapped from one position to another when he should be standing still. Fortunately, I still had fun watching the show.

One other thing I noticed was that I actually paid attention to the credits. SHOCK SURPRISE MADNESS. Well I would want my contribution to an animation to be recognized would I not? So I noticed that most of the animators of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command to be Asian (of which I am)

Watching something more recent like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs also made me unwittingly use art terms in comments such as 'Wow I like how the color scheme changed to red when the..' or 'haha the animation of that guy is hillarious. he had snappy pose-to-pose animations' or 'i bet they used a separate head model with unique blend-shapes for that particular scene'.

Having said that, I still managed to enjoy the show. I suppose the change of the way I watch movies isn't necessarily negative; it made the process of watching something to be something not only entertaining, but also educational!

That's right folks, I revise my studies by going to the cinema.

Just in case those of you who 'read thick text-books to remind yourself how this function affects that operator' missed the impact of that last off-hand comment:

I revise my studies by going to the cinema.

On another note, do not trust movie trailers. I actually considered not watching 'Meatballs' because the trailer looked really mediocre. But what I watched was totally much better than my expectations.