Animo Run

Two official 5k runs in the bag! I ran in the 7th Animo Run at MOA last Sunday but unlike the “race for life,” this event was full of flaws. I just want to mention some of the stuff that kinda ticked me off:

• There were participants that cut the race short (or didn’t even run) but still lined up for an official time at finish line. These were the ones who looked like they were forced to participate by some professor for additional credit.
• There were more “walkers” than runners. This caused a lot of bottlenecks, which in turn, caused me to exert more effort weaving in and out of these moving obstacles.
• For 10k runners, water stations disappeared by the second lap. My bro-in-law was the one who experienced this. He probably almost passed out when he discovered this lapse in judgment.
• People that finished the race at 40 minutes had to line up for 5+ minutes to have an official time logged. I’m not really sure how the race organizers will come up with an accurate time for this race.

Overall, I still had a great run because I spent some quality time with my family and the queen; and I improved my lap time by 2+ minutes (finished at 33 mins by my watch). However! I would definitely think twice about joining this event next year.

Special thanks: To the Queen for the pics below; and to the Animo Band for providing a festive atmosphere throughout the event.

Animo Band and flying girl

Starting Line

DS: New Mario and Luigi RPG

I got a new DS to replace my stolen one (a side note to the gamer hoodlums: die you burglars! and may your brain be melted by the simple puzzles in Scribblenauts; also the the adapter you stole is 110v, so be careful not to burn your house down). Anyhoo, yep, I’m back to my usual handheld gaming  mode and I’ve got the game to help me forget my recent misfortunes — the latest plumber RPG, Mario and Luigi – Bowser’s Inside Story. It’s pure genius.

The game starts out with the plumber duo getting stuck inside Bowser, aka “King Koopa”. Obviously you’ll have to find a way to get them out but this time you’ll also have to control Bowser. Controls switch bottom screen (Mario and Luigi) to the top screen (Bowser) flawlessly. At some points of the game you have to strategize your attacks using all three of them to kill an enemy.

The gameplay is a fusion of traditional turn-based console RPG and a 2D platformer. This allows you to dodge and counterattack while in battle mode. It’s a must have for any DS owner or Mario fan.

Bowser!

Mario and Luigi

A couple of days ago I joined the “Race for Life” which was a fund raiser conducted by the Real Life Foundation.  I never would have thought of joining one of these events because I have a lung capacity of a preschooler. Anyways, two of my sisters forcibly signed me (and the queen) up for it and so I thought: “it’s the new badminton…”, “I’m all for supporting life…”, and also “I’m in a weight loss bet at work”; so what the hell.., Let’s run this thing!

Here’s what happened:

• Woke up at 4am
• Picked the queen up at 4:45am
• Arrived at the British International School at 5:30am
• Met my sisters, niece, and bros-in-law at 5:45am
• Huddled on the starting line at 6:00am
• Race starter gun went off at 6:11am
• Finished the race at 6:47am (WOOT!)
• Lined up for the finisher shirts and goodies at 7:00 am

Yep, I have pushed my limits and finished the 5K race well under an hour (36:17)… but moments after, my achievement was quickly muted  by the arrival of some old men in their 70s who finished the 10K. Suddenly, the red straw around my neck has lost it’s coolness.

All in all, It was a great experience even though I had to sleep through most of the weekend to recover my energy. It’ll be a while before I run another one of these… maybe next year’s race for life… see you then.

Starting today I’ll be posting some of my random comics here. I’ll still continue creating CallCenterBoy but I want something that I can just crap out and doesn’t take 4 hours to draw, ink and color. This will just contain random thoughts, jokes and nonsense. I’ll try to find a way to get a page for it, but for now it’ll just be seen like a regular post.

And so without further ado, I present to you, randomboxing–©2009 nats payag… oh wait, just look at the next post!

Heyo!! Ever heard of Moleskines? Yep! Those over-priced notebooks that  Picasso, Van Gogh, Hemingway (et al.) “supposedly” used. Well, I’ve found an alternative.. Pageone!! Ok, it doesn’t sound as cool as “Moleskine”… Nor does it have the romance that you’re using something that might have inspired legends… but it does have paper, and lots of it. So if you aren’t crapping gold like the old names I’ve mentioned, might as well try this one.

It has a hardbound cover and an elastic that goes around the front to lock the pages in place. Leather would have been nice, but that just adds unnecessary bulk… to the price tag.

Pages are smooth but are textured enough to take pencils really well — Perfect for doodles on the go.  My lazy estimates: it’s around 5×6 inches, 100 pages, and 200 bucks..

Comic strips. Storytelling through a few boxes and word balloons. It’s just genius.

If it isn’t obvious yet, I’m very much into this simple art. My fondness for comics go way back to when I started reading local newspaper strips (e.g., Baltic & Co., the works of Larry Alcala) and the Pilipino Funny Komiks (Home of Nik-nok, Superdog, Matsutsu and Bardagol).

This brings me to my recent acquisition of used books. I stumbled upon a couple of great finds, well, for a comic strip aficionado like me — Good Ol’ Charlie Brown and The Joy of a Peanuts Christmas.

comic loot

The first of my comic strip loot is an old, actually… a really old Charlie Brown compilation. It was printed in 1967 and was previously owned by a kid named Eric Severud. How do I know? — He penciled his name on the book cover. He also wrote down the page numbers throughout the book which I found very convenient whenever I stopped reading the thing.

since 1967

Erik’s scribble on Charlie’s shirt

ingenious page numbers

Just out of curiousity, I googled up Erik Severud and apparently, if this is him, he’s an orthopedic surgeon now. Good job Doc! and thanks for the page numbers. Now this just proves that if you read comics, you eventually wind up being successful. Read on kids, read on!

The other book, The Joy of A Peanuts Christmas, doesn’t have an underlying real life story. But! It does have 50 years worth of Peanuts Christmas strips (from 1950s to 1990s) so I think it evens out. Charles Schulz has passed away in 2000, so this book contains all Peanuts christmas-themed strips created while Charles was still around.

50 years of Christmas funnies

At under a hundred bucks for each book, I couldn’t find a better bargain. I’m an old school guy so even though there’s an online Peanuts archive at snoopy.com, I really prefer reading them on paper. I just hope i can find more of these classic Peanuts books because now I’m hooked.

hello-hello! Had time to create an update and hopefully I’ll have more time to do this stuff. Before anything else, thanks to jobzilla for posting from time to time– but three posts in a span of seven weeks?!? what a lazy oaf! .

Anyhoo, during my off time, I have gotten some cool ideas to write about but I’ll just start with posting the greatest thing that has been given to me recently (thanks again to the Queen). See below.

It looks like a regular sized Mead notebook (from the makers of the once popular Trapper Keeper binders) but it’s actually a paperback edition of Journals by Kurt Cobain. I’ve been trying to get a copy of this ever since its hardback release in 2002. It contains the thoughts of Kurt from the time he was starting trying to start a band to his days in Nirvana. The pages are actual scans from his notebooks so you get to read his lyrics, letters and random thoughts in his own handwriting (errors and all). I have yet to finish the book but so far it has been insightful.

Two weeks ago, we (the Queen and I) came across a book — Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  It’s about a kid named Greg and his life in middle school (which should be around grade 6 here in the Philippines). The book is a combination of a comic book and a novel. It has comic strips in between the text which was a cool concept. I’ve pasted a sample of the comics below.

It’s a short read and I’m not sure if its worth my 500 bucks but I guess I can pass it on to my niece when she’s about 11 years old (apparently the book is targeted to tweens ). Anyhoo, it’s a step-up to my usual reading materials which contain random stories about Archie and the gang.

This is the first book in the Wimpy Boy series and I recommend checking the whole series out when you happen to pass by any bookstore (NB, Powerbooks, Fully Booked, etc.) Better yet, if you have a couple of hours to burn, just read it there . Yep, I’m a cheapo.

Got a nice surprise over the weekend.. fluves! Yep, it’s the plural form of “fluff”. A couple bottles and a cookbook — surprise goodies from the Onin (the Queen’s bro) which will prolly last a month or so. Yea-yeah! It’s going to be a nice break from my good ol’ PB and J sandwiches. I might even try a couple of recipes and I’m looking at Lora Brody’s Classic Hot Chocolate as my first disaster-in-the-making. See below for details:

Serves 6

1 cup heavy whipping cream
8 ounces bitter chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 cups whole milk
3/4 cup Marshmallow Fluff

Heat  the heavy cream in a medium saucepan set over medium heat until tiny bubbles form around the edges of the pan. Remove the pan from the heat and add the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate melts. Divide this mixture amoung 6 mugs. Heat the milk in the same saucepan until small bubbles appear around the edges but before a skin starts to form on top. Divide the milk among the mugs. Stir the hot chocolate and serve immediately wih a generous dollop of Marshmallow Fluff.

Hmm.. I just noticed this recipe says requires cooking skills which I do NOT have. I will have to defer this task to the Queen or my sister Kendong. Please, please make this for me.. even Oprah recommends it.

Two sites have been launched the past weekend — brewingsessions.com and professionalcommuter.com. One of my favorite blogs, Brewing Sessions, has transferred homes once again. Kudos to dropsofjune a.k.a. “the brewer” a.k.a. (ku)letlet for successfully migrating six years of content to the shiny new site.

The other one, professionalcommuter.com, is the newest pet project of jobzilla. It’s an online guide for going around the metro via public transport and/or human ambulation (in other words, walking). New content is being added frequently (they’ve got a lot of writers) so keep an eye out on this one. By the way, you can create a requests on the site! (i.e. directions to Cartimar).

Aand attention movie buffs! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is going to be shown in movie theaters on July 15 (US). Woot!!! That’s going to be July 16 here in Manila. What’s good about this is that the  movie will be released in regular cinemas and IMAX simultaneously. Yep! I’m gonna IMAX this one and it’ll probably be my last for the year (’coz I just realized that 400php x 2 = 1-2 original dvd/s or a ton of chickenjoys).

- Nats