August 31, 2002
[dutiful girlfriend mode]
Hey now, it's a payday weekend and, whaddyaknow, the Philippine Bookfair opens today, and, oh looky, Adarna has 22 NEW titles and, woohoo!, one of them is my beloved Arnold's book After Eden! Please do check it out, friends.
Quick info:
Retail price: P295 ï 254 pages ï 3 color pinups ï one-shot special ï for mature readers
Dates to remember:
ï September 7 at 6pm: soft launch and book signing, Function Room B, Megatrade Hall, SM Megamall.
ï Aug. 31 to Sept. 8: duration of the Book Fair.
oh and in case you'd like to greet Arn, September 2 is his birthday. (:
ï Thanks much to everyone who've expressed interest and special thanks go to Ramon and Neva for their all-out support in promoting the book (:
ï Thank you also to Zoorex for sending hundreds of hits to the site on it's opening day!
ï Thank you too to the people who trekked to Megamall thinking the launch was yesterday (namely Jeff, Zoo & co.). Aww, so sorry for the confusing info.
We hope to see you on the 7th!
[/dutiful girlfriend mode]
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By the way, the 5th National Book Awards is happening on Sept. 3 and some books by our good friends got nominated: The Spectacular Tree, a feel-good children's book by Robert Magnuson; Isaw, Atbp., a comics anthology by the Quest Ventures team; and One Night in Purgatory, a comic book by Carl Vergara.
We'll be there rooting for all of them. (:
07:57 AM
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August 27, 2002
Ta-dah! After Eden is Arnold's NEW graphic novel.
[please click on the image for more info]
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Surf-worthy: Bong Seg's Minimum Order is up! (Bong is also the force behind Eraserheads Online).
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Signs that the The Sim bug* has bitten me.
ï The numbers 100/100 flash in my head when I'm spending quality time with my Arn.
ï I find myself thinking, "Uh-oh, my fun level is dropping", or "my energy bar's in the red" whenever I'm working.
ï I take mental notes whenever I would pass a row of pretty houses so I can build similar ones for my "people".
ï I can't look at real-life furniture without evaluating how many points they score in "comfort" and "room".
*Shil, Cha, and Ailene should know what I'm talking about. (:
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Had a lovely lunch date with the De Dios sisters (Hi Jennygirl! Hi Jeline!) at the new-ish Encomium Cafe last week. Very nice place -- interesting decor, homey ambience, good food (their servings are more than satisfying) at Katipunan student-friendly prices.
We stopped by CCHQ afterwards where I spotted a copy of Cut My Hair by Jamie Rich, Oni Press ed-in-chief. Moon, give me money!
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Belated happy birthday again to Ramon-ra! Look, I'm blogging away too, but at the rate things are going, this could be my only entry for the week.
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By the way, I'm trying out Luis P's acronym tag tip in this entry. Muchas gracias for the info!
10:46 AM
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August 22, 2002
Because I'm too exhausted for words, I'm writing this week's entry in blog-list style.
Top 5 work-related preoccupations that prevented me from blogging this week:
1. Creating an ad campaign for a fruity non-alcoholic beverage brand.
2. Finishing up a website for a home building company.
3. Attending production meetings and supervising a photo shoot.
4. Working on something Arnold & I are doing with Ninoy & co., Drew, and Zoo.
5. Finalizing materials for Arnold's upcoming graphic novel release.
Top 5 non-work-related preoccupations that prevented me from blogging this week:
1. Spending quality time with Arn and my family. (:
2. Cleaning up my computer's hard drive.
3. Playing with Sim people.
4. Going on online shopping sprees at Amazon and Strange Haven.
5. Preparing Arnold's birthday gifts. (Sshhh!)
Top 5 events I encourage you to look forward to:
1. Arnold's book's launch (sometime soon (: ).
2. The 2002 Philippine Web Awards (sometime in November).
3. The NEW HalfProject website's launch (we saw part of it already -- kickass fantastic!!!).
4. Comic Quest Festival Mall's opening (this Sunday).
5. Quark's directorial debut movie "Gamitan" (we couldn't attend the premiere last night though, sorry Kuya Twin.)
03:55 PM
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August 17, 2002
As far as Arnold and I were concerned, there were three happenin' concerts in the metro last night. One was an up and coming band's album launch at Big Sky Mind, to which Jazz, Nix, and Justin sent me sms invites for though we couldn't go because of a few conflicts; the second was the Megastar's Anniversary Concert which my close pal Sheila attended, Sharon being the endorser of her major ad account; and third was the San Miguel Master Chorale's concert at the CCP which we attended, Ryan Cayabyab and the SMFPA being among our prized clients.
The concert was entitled LANDSCAPES, a tapestry of voices weaving a panorama of changing seasons, geographical terrains and biblical visions. I found myself closing my eyes several times throughout the show, just absorbing all that vocal energy. One of the show's highlights was their beautiful performance of music by recently deceased National Artist Lucio San Pedro, including "Sa Ugoy ng Duyan".
After non-stop applause and a standing ovation at that, they proceeded to perform a total of three encores after the audience urged them to play more after each one. Before their last encore, concert master Jonathan Velasco announced, "As you know, the San Miguel concert team is divided tonight because the San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra and Mr. Cayabyab are accompanying Sharon Cuneta at the Big Dome."
[insert laughter from the audience]
"...and so you won't think na lugi kayo, we will perform a song by... Regine."
[insert more laughter]
Heh, so even concerto maestros are in touch with showbiz chismis.
 | What outing is complete without a photo op? That's Arn beside the artwork he made for the SMFPA. |
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Yay yay! New blogs from our good friends: Ramon's Mind Fuel (take note how he refers to me as "ate Cyn", hehe!) ï Neva, who's now a Professional Amateur ï and Chris' "Useless" blog.
09:53 AM
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August 16, 2002
Here, listen to the anthem of my childhood.
(via Cheesedip)
Six years ago when I was still in the ad biz (also, back when anime wasn't as big as it is now), my copywriter partner and I thought of spoofing the Voltes V split-screen "Let's volt in" sequence for a Pepsi promo TVC. I even had my 45" record of the theme song (Vicor, no less! hehe) converted to cassette format so as to give my British-born-and-bred boss an audio peg since he had absolutely no idea of who and what Voltes V is.
As the first few strains of the theme filled the air, everyone in the hallway started singing along to the Japanese lyrics (making up their own, I'm sure). All my boss could say was, "That's Japanese?? It sounds Russian."
By jove, it never occurred to me until then that the instrumental part does sound like a polka.
Note: Come presentation day, my writer was sick so, unfortunately for me and the clients, I had to sing the jingle on my own. Yeah, they laughed hard but they didn't go for the idea. We eventually went with our alternative concept, "Pepsi Megadrive", which, if you remember, came out sometime in '96 too.
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I don't really agree with the result of this quiz but I'm posting it just to keep on-topic:
You Are a Henna Gaijin!
You're not Japanese, but you wish you were! You can use chopsticks with your eyes closed, and you've memorized hundreds of Kanji. You even answer your phone "moshi moshi." etc etc
So, What's *Your* Japanese Subculture?
(via Crybaby)
06:38 AM
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August 12, 2002
(I hope you guys aren't getting tired of this Mirror Project fixation.)
*haha, 10 points go to Junnie for spotting the new pics before I could even post about them here!
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Killing Me Softly has been playing in my head for days. Can you guess why?
*It may also be in reference to my current killer workload.
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I made fun of the Holland Sausage mascot in this blog before and I thought that the madness stopped there... until I saw this at their Greenbelt outlet:
So -- if I were to put on my advertising-creative hat, based on this artwork I would say that their brand strategy could be either of the following:
(a) Holland Sausages are so good that cows don't mind eating them (even if what they're chomping on could be all that's left of their "lost" cousin); or
(b) Holland Sausages are made only from cows fed with Holland Sausages (a controlled two-step food chain, in other words).
 | Sausages slathering catsup and mustard on themselves can't be well in the head. |
*Arnold wants you to know that he loves to eat there (because of the man-size servings) despite the bizarre decor.
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Forget "Dweezil" (he's so 80s ha), it seems that Manila's rock stars -- well, the ones I know anyway -- are catching up with their foreign counterparts in giving their offspring interesting names. Here's a sampling: "Una". "Atari". "Eon Dracula". "Veda Luna". "Keoni". "Akira". "Kaio". and, the latest addition to the kiddie-rocker party, "Awit". I wonder how many of them will follow in their parents' footsteps (and hopefully come up with band names more creative than their given names).
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Arnold and I would like to congratulate this year's Palanca winners, especially Luis K. ... again?! You the man!
01:07 AM
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August 6, 2002
Too bogged down with work to post a decent blog entry so I'll leave you with this questionnaire-type* meme for now.
(*via Sunshine)
Name the band that...
You love to sing along with:
The Cardigans (the title of my blog was actually inspired by one of their songs.)
Sums up your teenage years:
Aztec Camera, New Order
Makes you cry:
The Softies, Trembling Blue Stars
Perks you up:
Cibo Matto
10:57 PM
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August 3, 2002
We spotted 80's new wave act The Lotus Eaters signing autographs at O last night. No wonder there were heavily eye-linered dudes lurking in the area. We thought we were caught in a time warp.
Our First Picture of Them. Gee, why only now, guys?
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My Arnold-the-genius and art whiz kid Avid are going to be featured in a certain teen magazine and so had a pictorial at an artsy venue yesterday... but guess who got dragged into the article, yikes. (For this reason, I'll never tell which mag it is).
By the way, this girl who seemed really nice, despite her um star stature was also at the pictorial. Arn and I discussed whether to tell her that we worked with her notoriously powerful grandma* sometime ago, but decided against it lest she thinks we're trying to be pa-close.
*Please note that we do not necessarily support their family's political leanings.
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For Luis P and Jo: The Podium is a swanky newish mall behind Megamall. See this previous entry too. (:
11:38 AM
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August 1, 2002
Two new mirror shots coming up, just to make up for not signing in for days (:
I'm really taking Heather's "Keep taking pictures, baby!" advice seriously.
Note: For those going "wha--?", that's the signature line in the automated Mirror Project submission-approval e-mails.
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Here's a slight variation to the "Guess-the-Starbucks-branch" thing going on at Shiloah's site.
 | In my version, she's part of the shot, hah! (Yup that's Shil). You still have to guess which branch it is, by the way. |
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My weblog owns 6.25% of me. Does your weblog own you?
(link via Pile o'Smeg)
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Sigh, too many things are going on offline and it's obviously much easier to post pictures and random test results for now, just to keep this site running.
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Plug: Do visit Junnie's (aka Lonely Tylenol) latest creative endeavor: Memento
09:21 AM
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