ORAL TRADITION

I'm sitting with Alma.. Unfortunately I don't have my laptop with me so I'm not working on anything. I guess that is a lesson in itself. I should brace my body to be able to carry my laptop wherever I go so I can work anywhere unlike right now where I'm left with pen and paper. But when you think about it, before the advent of technology, this was it. A pen, and paper. These were the tools of a journalist. Not some battery operated thing that has invisible radio frequencies to work wonders and allow me to connect to the internet. A network of similar machines that provide technology and knowledge. Things might have gotten faster with the arrival of netbooks, wifi and the internet, but the tools of the trade still rely on a pen and a piece of parchment. Just that allows one to jot down history, capture a significant moment in time and eventually deliver it to an audience willing to pay for the knowledge by buying a copy of the article disseminating the knowledge further down the line to other people in the world. It took over from word of mouth, the oral tradition as it was known. Oh how far we have come. But things do come full circle eventually, there would be written as a form of an option, for when bandwidth eventually allows it, people can simply watch videos online to garner the wealth of knowledge from the various cultures of the world. From the wisemen of the various tribes, knowledge that is vital to us, who now are so drowned by the "free" information we get because of advertising, that sometimes, we no longer known which is true and which is false. Maybe someday someone will create a program to help filter the filth and make it all simple.

ACER LAN PARTY ROCKS!

I played Game Master to the LAN Party that was hosted by ACER for the CyberPress (ITJAP) last January 23, 2009. And I joined the Crysis match and won by three measly kills from Ed Geronia of T3 and four from Billy Allardo of PC World. This was a serious win for me and I had to bring my A-Game to the match and then some as these two beat me in a previous match that was hosted by INTEL.

I was quite ecstatic that I was able to pull it off, and I sincerely congratulate Ed and Billy for their respective wins. Tom Noda of Computer World also deserves some kudos as being a black horse in the competition when he took fourth when he said that it was his first time to play the game.

We helped the people of ACER set up the matches and in choosing the games for the LAN party. They were honest enough to admit that they were not hardcore gamers who went to LAN parties. I, being one of a such did so a lot, and was asked by President Jing Garcia of ITJAP to become the point person for the matches.

This I did and I think that I pulled it off quite well, though I could have set up the matches for the Need For Speed: ProStreet a little faster if I did it before. I asked for help in setting up the Crysis dedicated server as I was busy myself in practicing for the match. The NFS: ProStreet was four matches, a qualifying heat, then I separated the players into two tiers, with the winners from both tiers going on the finals. The winners were Melvin Calimag of Manila Bulletin at first, Joel Pinaroc at second place and another dark horse, Luis Oliveros of Computer World at third. Another participant who said "I am not much of a gamer." Funny that the two dark horses in the event were from the same company.

It also helped that the LAN setup was composed of the top of the line gaming computers of ACER and get this, the server we used was the new Predator G7710, the one with the new Intel Core i7. Yes the new processor which again, simply laughed at the load we gave it hosting the NFS match and the Crysis practice match at the same time. Lufet!

All in all, it was a fantastic night of learning for everyone on what a LAN party was and for me on how to seriously host one in a professional manner, used to be it was my friends who did host the LAN parties I went to who did the hosting bit. I guess it also brings me back to the late nineties when we had our first LAN parties at Leech's house where we played Blood, Quake, and Red Alert. Before that we had Modem to Modem parties I guess because that is what we used playing Command & Conquer and Diablo. Ah those were the days indeed.

Tonight it was nostalgia and also some things coming full circle for me when I helped with this little activity. Me winning the Nikon Coolpix L10 was just icing for the cake. It doesn't hurt that the camera will surely help me in my coming coverages for the year for this blog and for Playground Magazine.

Thanks to ACER to Mr. Manuel Wong, Ms. Agnes Espino and the rest of the ACER Team for the very fun night.

TAYA! (TAG! YOU'RE IT!)

Ok. I have to be honest here. I was really just going ape with Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. I mean since I got it hooked on last December 26th, I was just totally focused on it as much as I can, so my plan to put up this blog by end of last year just went pffft!

But here I am finally with what is the first serious installment of Kalaro Mo, the blog. Translated Kalaro Mo means Your Playmate (if you want to be specific, it's Playmate Yours, a lot of things are topsy turvy in the Philippines). It will be a spin-off of my tech column Walastech. Kalaro Mo will deal with gaming ang the Pinoy gaming culture. Something that I have had my eye on for a long time, being a gamer, but a beat that I have had the privilege of covering exclusively all of last year, and continuing this year being the Correspondent of Playground Magazine, the only multi-platform magazine in the country.

My bosses know about this, and they have first dibs on all my stories, especially the exclusives, but whatever doesn’t make it into Playground Magazine ends up here, and eventually, it should end up in the Playground Blog on their fan pages in FFM (Friendster, Facebook, Multiply). Also, I will be posting sort of an online slum book of different gaming personalities here. So watch out for that. Hehehe.

I hope that you, dear reader would support this little endeavor of mine, as this is really non-profit and is a definite labor of love. This is in response to Alex Villafania, the voice of Hackenslash.Net, who said that the more people that cover the local gaming scene, the better it is for everyone, and thus, here is my response.

Here is to hopefully an interesting time trying to figure out what is what with Pinoy Gaming. Mabuhay!

WASTED TIME

It isn't the first time that I wasted so much time. And I am sure that it won't be the last. It is just that every year-end I tend to go into what my friend Bamm dubbed as "hibernation." He said that every now and then a guy needs to go into hibernation. To get away from everyone and everything, and just be alone and get in touch with his self. I said "Oh, you mean vegg in front of the tube watching old movies and eat bad food for a few days away from everyone else." He simply said "If that is hibernation for you, then that is it. For me its working on my martial arts and doing carpentry."

So I thought maybe the best way to know is that if ever you are disturbed from some alone time and your first reaction is to rend the flesh off the face of the offending party, much like a bear in hibernation would do if it were disturbed, then that is your hibernation.

There isn't anything wrong with it, I think everyone should try it every now and then. If you don't you would be definitely a bear with a headache. And nobody wants that in the house or in the office. So the reason why so suddenly after a burst, my blog went silent...I was hibernating...Yawn! Grawl!

SPOILER WARNING

I have an ex-friend who used to look up to me as a "mentor" who texts me everytime that Pambansang Kamao Manny "The Destroyer" Pacquiao has a fight. He sends me an SMS right after he watches the fight and tells me who won. Now this might be okay if he tells me after I too have seen the fight. But unfortunately, he is so much a fanboy that he actually watches the pay per view fights either in the malls or somewhere else.

So what happens, for the past few years is that I get a message of how the fights go, sometimes hours before the fight ends on free TV where I always watch the fights. I am not going to spend any extra amount of money on information that I will eventually learn about since as it happens, the word does leak out from the people who did watch it on pay-per-view. But the thing is. It ruins it for me. And I have told him time and again to not do so, but I guess fanboy that he is, he just can't help his jubilation or grief, whichever it may be. Sad because I thought he would be educated enough to understand the word No and Stop.

But he doesn't and so, it wasn't a surprise when I got up this afternoon, groggily I might add because I am "down with the sickness" these past two days, that there is an SMS about what happened in the recently concluded Pacquiao De la Hoya match. Unsolicited spoilers. Just what I need. Funny enough, I was wondering why there wasn't any clamor outside, lo and behold, my brother-in-law treated my father-in-law to a pay-per-view match at Murphy's--a local Irish themed sports bar. Thus he was not watching the local telecast anymore, where a five minute commercial break is inserted between each round extending what ought to be a "twelve round match" into "The Ten Commandments."

I feel like I shouldn't blame the boy for being enthusiastic, it seems that it is I who is not being enough.

GOODBYE PHILIPPINES

Last New Year's eve, I was surprised to learn that there are a few firecrackers that I never learned about. Aside from the very famous "Pla-Pla" and the "Super Pla-Pla," there is a "Pating" and a "Balyena." And there is actually what is unbelievably called "Goodbye Philippines" a monstrous firecracker larger than the "Atomic" which had almost destroyed my eardrums a few years ago.

One of my kababata, bought most of them, except for the "Goodbye Philippines" and it was not for lack of will, but it was mostly for lack of availability. Anyway, laws and regulations aside, we ignited them and were rewarded with the apropos shockwave that surely would have cleansed any evil spirits from me. Happy New Year.

NINTENDO LAST BEING GREEN

According to the tenth issue of the "Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics" gaming giant Nintendo is still being an environmental Grinch by not taking an active effort in giving a damn about the environment.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia Toxics Campaigner Beau Baconguis and I met up again at the recently concluded Cyberpress Kapihan Forum: Green I.T. at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in A. Venue Mall. I immediately asked her on how Nintendo was doing because since I took notice of Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, they have only made token gestures. And it seems that they are consistent in their apathy.

I myself am admittedly not a "tree-hugger" but when it comes to corporations as large as Nintendo, which makes billions in dollars in their products, they have a responsibility to make sure that they do not destroy the planet in their greed. Major corporations can make an impact that individuals can only dream of, and no matter how much I "Think globally and act locally" My "Every little counts" is swamped by what a major company can do if it only gave even a little "damn." Something that Nintendo should do.

Being a gamer, this is of interest to me, and to those who use Nintendo's products. If they do not begin being more environmentally aware, and their actions continue in the destruction of the environment, us the consumer of their products are part of the problem. I wonder when Nintendo will begin being part of the solution?

Other companies in the list include technological giants such as (alphabetical) Acer, Apple, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. Nokia, though having lost a few points is still in the lead with being the greenest of the lot.

ADAMANTIUM

A few weeks ago, two of my friends got hitched in a church in Laguna, at the foot of Mount Makiling. I'm pretty excited about it since I have known them for a while now, and well, they have been living together since I did meet them. Also they have been together since they were in college.

Theirs is a love that I admittedly envy. It is a love that is already enduring. There are days that I ask if I could endure as long as they have. Because even though they are only getting married today, they have been together longer than me and my wife.

This brings us to the new movie by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchette that is based on a short story by F. Scoot Fitzgerald, arguably one of the best American storytellers. The title of the movie is the Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I won't go into details about the story of anything would constitute a spoiler warning. But suffice it to say, it is about an enduring love. It is easy to fall in love. It is difficult to stay in love. I fall in love all the time. But the rigor is staying in love with the one I am with. Though gadgets are really no threat to a human being, much less my wife, but falling in love is falling in love.

This is what the wedding for me is, a celebration of endurance and a celebration of continuing love. Whoever thinks that weddings are about the vows is sorely mistaken. God may bring us together, but he leaves it up to us to keep together, after all, he is an advocate of free will, including, in my opinion, the solidity of marriage.

I congratulate Raymz. I wish the best for Ducky. I love you both and pray for you to all the gods to bless your union.

BALDUR'S GATE 2: SHADOWS OF AMN

Found copy of BG2: SOA. Can't blog! Must save Imoen! Must kill Irenicus!

I'm sooo weak! Sorry!