Pipay and her Palanquin

Manila is not a very friendly place for dogs.

No dog parks exist here. In fact it's against the law to have your dog out in public without a leash due to a national rabies control law. Many establishments don't allow dogs to enter. Many condominiums forbid dogs to live there.

I can't really blame them. The reason why this city is so dog-unfriendly is because of a lot of irresponsible dog owners.

I have seen dog owners who allow their pets to "go" in public places and not pick up after them. I have seen them just letting their dogs roam wild out in the street, to harass whomever passes. But mostly I believe this is because most dog owners aren't really aware of the responsibility that owning a dog really entails. They just think that they have a friendly animal that they feed, will come when called and stay out of sight when not needed. They are not aware that pets need companionship, proper nutrition, healthcare, exercise, stimulation... almost as much as a small child.

Fortunately things are getting better for dogs. With the advent of the internet and exposure to foreign dog care shows such as the Dog Whisperer, there's a growing awareness of the responsibilities that one has to a dog and increasing tolerance for dogs who have owners that are responsible enough to make sure that they aren't nuisances to other people. I'm actually quite grateful that this country's largest mall chain SM tolerates dogs inside their malls... provided they come in proper "packaging".

Hence my dog Pipay has her "palanquin"; a dog stroller. I actually bought her dog stroller for another reason, but inadvertently I realized that it had a side effect: it allowed us to get into shopping malls where normally dogs on leash are forbidden. I wonder if there's some kind of class thing going on because usually it's the well to do people that can afford a dog stroller, and it's usually those kinds of people who are aware of their social obligations when bringing their pet out in public.

In any case, despite the pet-unfriendly nature of the city, things are looking up. It definitely isn't up to first world standards but I think with time things will get there. In the meantime Pipay and I will just have to deal with the challenges of pet ownership in Manila.

Commuting

If only our trains looked like the Chicago ones...

When you say "Commuting" here in the Philippines, we don't mean hopping into a car and driving to work. We mean leaving your car behind and hopping into several forms of public transportation to get to work. Because cars are prohibitively expensive (in real terms, a decent mid-sized sedan costs 2 years of my salary to acquire) and parking an expensive pain in the posterior (when you can find parking at all!) I prefer to take public transportation.

When taking public transportation there are three considerations: Time, Comfort, Low Cost. and you can only pick two.

Time + Low Cost = The MRT3 - The cheapest and fastest way to get around Metro Manila. Unfortunately you will be packed into a car with the other human cattle and end up having to fight for your breathing space. Comfort is sacrificed.

Time + Comfort = Uber Black. - If you want to go around in a luxury car like some oligarch politician, you can hire a luxury sedan or SUV from Uber using it's premium Uber Black service. Thing is it's not cheap. Low Cost is sacrificed.

Comfort + Low Cost = Airconditioned Buses - If you can get the modern buses with wide seats, and are able to actually get seats. (In this country, buses are allowed to cram people into the aisle between seats.) you can actually get a comfortable, reasonably priced ride to the office. Thing is since Buses must pay a "boundary" (meaning if they net below a certain amount they get no salary) they must stop at each and every bus stop, and make improptu bus stops to herd as many people as possible into their buses to hit the boundary which means you'll get to your destination... eventually. Time is sacrificed.

This madhouse commuting system is compounded by the fact that our president initiated no public infrastructure projects for the first 4 years of his 6 year term, and is catching up by initiating them ALL AT ONCE.

Is it any wonder why lots of my countrymen dread the daily commute?

Angel's Song: The Conceit

Today, I present to you the conceit of my Tabletop RPG/Manga/Visual Novel "Angel's Song"

Super powered manga characters!

You are a Cantor. A member of one of the four Supernatural Clades of humanity. You know that things have been hidden from the everyday world. Magic, supernatural beings, not-so-human beings exist and our world is constantly under threat by monsters from other worlds. All of these things have been hidden from mundane view by a great Reality Veil that resets reality every night at midnight in an attempt to repair any damage done to it and prevent monsters from getting through.

Of course, with reality around here damaged as it is, things get through. Mean things, nasty things. Things that want to use this raucous and chaotic city as their base of operations to eventually conquer reality.

Our job is to stop them.

 

You can probably channel and shape fire, air, water, earth or some other exotic elemental force like Order or Spacetime. You were born with it. A gift from your parents, or your grandparents, kept secret from you until you’re ready. Now you know what it’s for.

They call us Cantors because we hear a voice singing a single note every time we draw the energy of the Worldwell, the force of creation. When the magic fills us up, we hear that note in our heads, and when we channel the energy into the world, everyone around us hears it too. And for those things we hunt, it's the last thing they hear. Yes. We're weapons.

 

We don't do this alone though.

 

Together we're the Eternal Symphony. Most of us anyway. It's an old, old, old institution. It used to be monolithic, like the Church, but today, things are more progressive in the sense that we're more diverse and free now. Some say too progressive as some of us have some positively stupid ideas about how to protect reality.

 

The Eternal Symphony used to just be just "The Symphony". We had our partners, those who could bring the ideas of the world to life just as we could channel its raw elemental power. They were called Icons and in the Symphony they were known as the Infinite Symphony.

 

What happened to the Icons? They all went mad. Or will be mad.

 

During the Great War, some idiot had this crazy idea to use the power of the chaos between the worlds to buffer the Earth's defenses. The device backfired and tainted the Mindforge, where the Icons draw their power. Now it’s driving them all crazy.

 

Yeah not all of them are crazy yet. Granted some of them are pretty stable. But eventually, they'll snap. They can't help it. Their power source is tainted. Eventually we'll have to put them down. But not while they're still useful. They help as best they can, but we'll always have a wary eye on them, and put them out of their misery when they finally lose their humanity.

 

The Icons aren't the only ones of our brethren to fall. They're just the latest ones. The first ones are still out there, and still a thorn in our sides. They're called Reavers and they are monsters. They feed off the life energy humans and other supernatural beings to fuel their own destructive abilities and they enjoy it. Literally they do. Their brains release endorphins when they sense pain coming from a victim. They claim that the best way to "protect" everyone is to rule over them as their secret masters. We've been at war with them ever since. But still they do protect reality in a way. I remember once in an encounter, we would stop fighting to go kill a monster that had entered our territory. Though they think of themselves as dark heroes I think they're just sadist hedonists with a messiah complex.

 

Of course, our ancient enemies have always been the primal, malicious forces that enter the world to corrupt it. We collectively call them the Wyrm. They come from the chaos between realities. Like viruses seeking to invade a healthy cell, they slip into our Reality, and begin multiplying. Yes. Multiplying. Wyrms have the ability to infect other people and places with their reality, transforming those things into versions of themselves. They've been trying to get at us since time immemorial. And the sad thing is, this is what a Tainted Icon eventually becomes... which is why we end up killing them. The Wyrm do not reason, they do not negotiate. They only exist to propagate. Never forget that no matter what lies they put in front of you to seduce you to follow them. 

Gadgets

The PC on the left is Meloy's. The one on the right is mine.

I've got a lot of gadgets.

I've always been fascinated with technology. As a young child growing up in the early 80s, I was fully expecting to live in a futuristic high tower, have a flying car and eventually take vacations on the Moon.

Well I got the high tower part right.

Growing up I toys, after puberty, I had gadgets. The first gadget that I really attributed as mine was my state of the art desktop. At the time I bought it (circa 1991) the thing was the cutting edge available in the Philippines. It had an top tier Intel 386-DX  processor running at an amazing 33-mhz, and equipped with a mind blowing 4 megabytes of ram. I felt so awesome owning the most high tech device.

For a long time my PC was the only device I really associated with as a gadget. I got my first mobile phone in college, in 1998 and it was the classic Nokia 5110. Soon after I also was able to buy my first mobile console, the PlayStation. So from one device, I had three.

Recently with the maturing of mobile technology, my gadget list has exploded. For a time I would just want to buy gadgets willy-nilly. But now, I realized that each gadget must fulfill a certain niche... or "Use Case" as my colleagues in the software testing industry say. Or I just might be getting older and less susceptible to impulse buys.

Currently I have:
1. A Convertible Laptop - Use case: Content creation (writing/drawing), light gaming, OTG browsing (in tablet mode)
2. My mobile phone - Use case: Light browsing / Audiobook and music device / Wireless hotspot / Navigation and Quick Updates (Twitter, Wayze, Google maps, etc)
3. an xbox360 console - Use case: Exercise (Kinect), Streaming video display (netflix)
4. A Desktop PC - Use case: PC games, but currently idle, since I find myself not playing PC games so often. Plus it's out of warranty video card finally gave out. I'll need to replace it before I can play games on it.
5. A 7 inch Nexus 7 android tablet - Ebooks, some video streaming.
6. The Peripherals:

1. A laser printer that can print on both sides of the page. (Yes, for printing RPG PDFs)
2. A Factory flashed DD-WRT router (So I can get a US IP, share it with all devices in the house and continue watching Netflix)
3. 11000mAH Power Bank (because phones run out of power too quickly)
4. Wireless keyboard - This is a legacy device that I had when I was trying to use my Nexus 7 as a content creation device. Right now it's pretty much idle.

I find myself unable to buy a gadget nowdays unless I can figure out it's use case first. Which is a good thing since gadgets are so expensive! 

Humidity

Metro Manila is humid.

I fully did not appreciate how humid this city is until I lived in temperate climes for three of the four Seasons.

Because it is so humid, food spoils quickly when left out of the refrigerator. A cold drink is always wet with condensation. And clothes rake forever to dry.

Also because it is so humid you can smell all the rotting garbage that anyone leaves anywhere outside.
Also due to inadequate infrastructure, common folk like to pee on cement walls. There's a walled street adjacent to a Jeepney terminal that turns into a giant urinal in the morning. And if there's no shower to wash away the smell... It positively reeks to pass by.  I imagine that it's what a medieval city would've smelled like. Since plumbing was not a thing back then.

Still there are positive effects to the humidity. I never need moisturizer. My lips don't chafe. I sweat buckets when I exercise outside.
I take the humidity for granted. I've learned to accept it's omnipresence in the city. And generally don't mind it. After all if it really bothered me, well...  That's what the air conditioning is for.  :)

Anime and Manga and my changing tastes

Random ComiPo art since I can't draw well (yet)

I was introduced to anime and manga in my 4th year of high school. The art club was screening a "Japanese Cartoon" called Bubblegum Crisis, with English subtitles. After watching some episodes, I was hooked.

I became a huge anime fan in the late 90s. My tastes in shows reflected my aspirations at that point in my life: I was fascinated with the idea of love and romance, but had yet to experience it myself in any major way. So the shows that I watched and liked reflected the aspirations I had for my future relationship. I loved the poised and elegant way Belldandy of Oh My Goddess cared for her human boyfriend, and the sheer tenacity of Ukyou Kuonji of Ranma 1/2 in pursuing her man. I loved stories wherein after suffering hardship and challenges, the main guy and the main girl ended up together. I wanted something like that, which is why I also ranked Fushigi Yuugi as one of my favorite anime's of the 90s, despite the fact that it was a reverse harem.

I lapsed out of my "hardcore" anime and manga fandom phase in the early 2000s. I consider myself a dabbler now, occasionally watching shows but not really paying much attention to them or fanboying over them.  With my trip to the US I was able to binge watch a lot of "modern" shows, and I discovered something interesting: my tastes had changed.

Today I am not a stranger to love and relationships anymore, unlike when I started watching Anime and Manga. I *have* my life partner at this point. Inadvertently it started to affect my tastes. Harem shows, which I enjoyed a lot in the 90s I started to find annoying. I guess since I have been in romantic relationships, the simplified and contrived relationships presented by the harem shows break any suspension of disbelief that I have for the show. I also pay closer attention to how the characters develop a relationship with each other. I guess in my heart I'm still a romantic. I just want it more realistic and less contrived this time.

Relaunching!

I've tried to blog about stuff in the past, and failed miserably. Now, in aid of my writing habit formation, I'm going to blog again.

But unlike before where there'll be just fiction snippets. I'll add other things here too. Stuff that until recently, could only be seen on my Facebook feeds. So you'll see an eclectic range of topics here from politics to news to technology to fiction and general geekery.

The view outside my window. Yes, Manila traffic.

I'll post something every day, or at least try to. Welcome to the Beacon!