There are times in my life that I wish there were more hours in a day. With the amount of work I'm doing, trying to do, and planning to do, it just seems impossible to get them all done and still have at least 6 hours of sleep and time to exercise and play a bit every day. I haven't been playing anything lately (aside from Guitar Hero, which I can only play once a week). No DS Games, no Wii, no Xbox360, no PC. The only video games I've been able to play are the games that we make, and since we're playing them to check for bugs, it's not exactly the same as playing games for relaxing.

What I need is to outsource some of my personal projects, but in order to do that I need money first, and that, is hard to come by. Oh woe is the artist with too many ideas and so little time and money.

On a side note, and something completely unrelated to the previous paragraphs, my American Idol vote Mr. Michael Johns sang my favorite Beatles song tonight. It's destiny, I tell you. He's meant to be mine (in my dreams, that is). Oh, and David Archuleta is not perfect, apparently. He made the biggest mistake anyone can make on Idol: forget the lyrics. But he's still adorable. David Cook is doing some great performances, but I still hate his hair. Carly, finally, sings a great song. And Brooke, oh Brooke. You are the best performer among the ladies.

Oh I'm so addicted to American Idol...

Guuuh. It's been a while since I've drank so so so so much alcohol. It's not easy feigning un-tipsiness when you've drank two glasses of Jack and coke, 2 glasses of vodka 7, and a shot of tequila in a span of an hour and a half (not even sure of the 'half'). Thank you, James and Jeff and Intel, for the drinks! :D

Had a great Friday! I got lost in Makati again this afternoon before attending a meeting. Note to self: do not ask security guards outside Greenbelt for directions. I'm now inspired to write about navigating Makati CBD on foot for the probinsyanang instik. No easy feat to walk around Makati when you're wearing 3 and a half inch high shoes (although I did have a little help from a Php 40 cab ride to find where I needed to go).

For the ...um... 4th time in my life, I was able to go around Rockwell mall. I think it is, at the moment, the place to be to shop for clothes as all the indie fashion designers of the Philippines seems to have congregated and set up shops there. Poor me, I no longer had any money to buy anything, but I did get to check out in person the shoes from Melissa and as it turns out, I don't like them so much. Unlike their online photos, you can easily see the part where the plastic joins together (how can you not? It's right down the middle of the front). They ARE insanely comfortable though, they remind me a bit of Crocs, only they look better. I think I'd rather spend Php 3, 895 on a pair (or two) of boots.

Finished the day with the Pinoy Indie Game Dev party at Temple Bar (which is where I got the drinks I mentioned in the first paragraph), not really a typical place for us nerdy types but with free food and booze, how can I resist? Food was great, but Vodka 7 hardly had enough Vodka to be considered an alcoholic drink :P Bumawi naman kami sa Jack and Coke (pero they weren't free, boo!) Hehehe, I hope we have another event next year (I hope I hope I hope). Tapos sana pwede kami sumali sa competition hehehehe.

Anyway, I think I better retire for the night (and hope that the amount of alcohol I drank will not result in a hangover tomorrow). I still have to make new strips for DWP! >_<

Head hurts a bit,
~C

Today (or technically, yesterday, since it's already past midnight) was kind of a good day. I joined a couple more LJ communities and promoted my webcomic, I got a lot of nice comments and some helpful critique and so far I think I managed to turn a few more people into readers. I also joined StumbleUpon, which so far, is fun as hell to use but I'm afraid of spending too much time surfing the internet with it. I also joined MyBlogLog, which was already connected with Yahoo so I didn't need to spend too much time figuring out what to do with it. I'm not quite sure if it will benefit my website in any way but if it doesn't I could always take it down. I'm considering joining Twitter also, for "mini-blogging" but I want to get comfortable with the sites that I've signed up with so far. I'm having the most fun on LJ, though. The girl_gamers community rocks.

The highlight of my day would probably be getting a wonderful email from YesStyle.com stating that the new boots I bought was being shipped so I should expect it in a day or two. I bought it to replace my Aerosoles whose leather was peeling off. It was on sale too and since it was my first time buying from YesStyle I got $5 off so including shipping fees my total purchase was less than Php 1,500. I just hope it fits. It's so hard to find nice shoes - especially boots - here in the Philippines that fit me (I have really small feet - US size 5) and won't burn a hole through my wallet. I'm so excited to get them!

I also chatted with some old college buddies of mine and it was great reliving the memories of our college days. We're planning a reunion in May and I'm really excited about it. I kind of miss college but I'm happy about where I am right now, I feel so much more mature now. I've grown up so much (not literally, of course).

I finished the day off by inking another strip for Draw Write Play which I plan to color and finish tomorrow morning. I'm really going to try harder to keep my webcomic updated every Monday and Thursday and to write better strips and get more people to check out the site. I'm determined to make my webcomic as big and as good as I possibly can. Speaking of which, I also got an invitation today from a webcomic group asking if I wanted to join their network. I still have to study and think of it though. Right now I'm pretty happy with how I'm handling the site, sure I spent quite a bit on the hosting but hopefully I'll earn enough from the ads to cover the hosting expenses.

I also remember I still have to work tomorrow on the 3-Column Comicpress theme I modified and promised to release on my other blog. I think I'm going to go sleep now. It's been a good Friday.

~C

I want to kill my neighbors. If only it wasn't a crime. They have been singing, nay, wailing bad karaoke at full volume since 10am this morning and now it's about 1:30am (and technically speaking, a new day) and they still haven't stopped. It's been like this since the weekend and I'm almost at wit's end. I don't know how much more I can take from those f*ckers.

If I didn't live with my grandparents I'd buy a copy of Rock Band, turn the TV on to full volume and beat them at their own game. Fortunately though for them, I can actually carry a tune. And I don't think my throat and lungs can take the all day karaoke marathon. Seriously, they should build karaoke machines that self destruct if your singing is bad.

I could always move, but I can't afford it yet. And it's not actually a guarantee I'd be with better neighbors' is it? I'd buy noise canceling headphones if I could find any that I could afford.  But that would mean I'd have to be listening to something else, and I can't write properly when I'm listening to music, especially music with lyrics.

The only upside I can see from having such horrible karaoke-crazy neighbors is that I stay awake enough to write and draw more. But the lack of proper sleep will eventually take a toll on my body. I could only hope that some extraterrestrial life form abducts them and never bring them back. I'm sure my other neighbors will appreciate it as well.

Hey, maybe with the sleep deprivation I can spend some time gaming again. Now what to play, what to play...

~C

My webcomic Draw Write Play has recently been featured in the LJ community girl_gamers and it's quite refreshing to hear both good and bad reviews of my comics from real girl gamers themselves. Admittedly, my characters are not what may typically be considered as girl gamers, since they are as much interested in fashion and "girly" stuff as they are interested in gaming, so my webcomic might not be something you can call a fair representation of the community. I'd like to think of Cel and Pixie as just girls living normal lives except their lives are heavily influenced by the world of gaming.

In any case, the comments that the article (Girl Gamers Represented in Media) received really got me to thinking more about my webcomic and I just hope that in time I could grow it into something that girl gamers themselves will accept and appreciate. It also led me to ask the question: what makes a girl a girl gamer? For now though, I need to stick with my original storyline and grow my characters slowly. Since I am only doing this comic as a hobby, I don't want to stress myself over trying to please everyone. I don't expect to be as big as CAD or Penny Arcade, although of course, every webcomic artist WANTS to be as big as CAD and Penny Arcade.

In other news, I found out this morning that the leather on my favorite and fairly young pair of boots is peeling, which is kind of frustrating because I wanted to wear them to work today. Even more frustrating is it's so hard to find a good pair of boots nowadays, especially in the Philippines (because technically speaking, it's not for our weather).

I also discovered a new (at least, new for me) Japanese restaurant at Tomas Morato called Omakase. Me and my boss went there for lunch and he introduced to some incredibly scrumptious Crazy Maki. Think of it as a combination of Tuna and Sashimi wrapped in Japanese rice topped with fish eggs and chopped fried anchovies (I think they were anchovies). Yum yum. I so love our new office.

My, my. Livejournal sure has changed since I first used it. It sure looks nicer now, and more user friendly.

Well, I've decided to create an LJ account where I will be keeping records of my personal thoughts and snippets of my life that don't fit anywhere in my other blogs (which I have been redesigning and reformatting since last night). Plus, it can be integrated with Multiply's blog posting so I can easily double post this for my friends over at Multiply.

I've been more productive and mentally healthy for the past week and I'm quite happy with the change of pace. I've managed to modify Tyler Martin's Comicpress theme to a working 3-column, widget ready version, redesigned my 3 main websites/blogs (Draw Write Play, Comicology, and Carousel), wrote a new tutorial for Comicology (although I haven't posted it yet at this time), and I managed to do another colored strip for Draw Write Play (which I will be uploading on Monday).

On top of that, work has been really great. Heavy, yes, but great. We recently moved to a new office that's way closer to where I live and our new office just looks fantastic. Plus, I no longer have to bear with the freezing temperatures of the centralized air conditioning in our old building. Even more fantastic is we have a giant full length mirror in the office, which serves as my new vanity mirror. Other than that, despite being bombarded with projects I find that I'm learning a lot more about design, getting more creative, and generally leveling up skill wise. I'm also getting a lot more comfortable using Flash and I never thought I'd actually enjoy using that program but now I do.

So in general, life is really going great for me at the moment. Maybe it's because it's now my year, the year of the rat. I'm looking forward to next week. Hopefully I'll have the same energy next week that I had this week.

~C