Ethereality News & Weblog

NEWS:
I just signed a contract to score an upcoming video game. It’ll be my first time composing the score for a game, so I’m really looking forward to it.

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The legendary demo group Alcatraz contacted me recently, asking me if I wanted to join them (they’re aiming to have a rebirth at Breakpoint 2007. Their last release was in 1995). I’ve known about the demo scene for a while now, and I’ve always admired their creative approach to programming, graphics, music..etc. The limited footprint of their executable files always had me in awe, and I can totally see how the demo scene had influenced various developments in the mainstream video game industry. So, I said yes, and I look forward to contributing to the Alcatraz group.

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Here are some BJD (Ball Jointed Dolls) photography I did during a New Years party (click on pics to see the whole set):

Kitty Cat Diary updated:

WEBLOG:
New Years Eve is also my birthday (I turned 34), which can suck for some, because it’s so close to Christmas and you get only one present, and on your birthday the whole world is celebrating New Years–your birthday is the last thing on their minds. Luckily for me, I never celebrate anything, because I don’t believe in the whole concept of showing you give a shit on a specific day of the year–you should care all the time. Since meeting me, Elena’s adopted the same philosophy, so we never go out of our way to celebrate Valentines, Christmas, New Years, Birthdays..etc. We make an effort to be loving and understanding to each other everyday, and we spoil each other rotten without needing any excuse to do so.

None of this means we’d refuse other people’s invitation to festive get-togethers though. So when my bud Emory invited us to his New Years thing, we happily said yes. Here are some photos I took that night (click on pics to see the whole set):

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My brother Dennis got me a couple of books I’ve been wanting for my birthday–the Sonar 6 Power! book and Cakewalk Synthesizers book. I love it when I get new bathroom reading material. He also took us out to dinner–you can see the photos Elena took in her blog entry.

Speaking of bathroom reading material, I had finished reading two books I highly enjoyed recently–The Zombie Survival Guide and Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The zombie book is right up my alley since I’m a huge zombie fan–now I know some of my past zombie evading strategies were shaky at best. The Blade Runner book (I hate calling it that, because the real title is “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and should remain so, no matter how popular the movie adaptation becomes) was awesome because I never knew the film version left out so many essential elements. The two are so different in tone and approach that I think of them as two very different entities. It’s hard to say which I enjoyed more, since I really loved both.

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So, what am I looking forward to in this new year? First, we need to move out of our temporary place and find a decent place that we can call home. Then, I want to complete the missing pieces of my home recording studio so I can be more productive music-wise. I also need to secure a steady stream of clients for my freelance work, or get a full-time job instead (I never got that call from Gentle Giant Studios to ask me to move down to Burbank–no one knows why the CEO never gave the nod to the managers–not even the managers). I want to take my photography up to the next level and shoot some magazine cover-worthy sessions. I need to help Elena get over her English learning difficulties and also help her get her driver’s license. We both need to get in shape–we’re soft and flabby right now, and we hate it. Man, that’s a lot already. Let’s see how much of it we can accomplish this year.

NEWS:
ImagineFX magazine’s posted on their website the interview they did with me, originally printed in the first issue of the magazine. For those of you that missed it when it was in circulation, you can now read it here

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Spectrum 13 has shipped, and one of my paintings was accepted this year. (For those of you that don’t know, Spectrum is the most prestigious annual publication in the field of sci-fi/fantasy art.) You can find out more from these links:

About Spectrum, the annual sci-fi/fantasy art publication

About Spectrum 13, the latest in the series

You can purchase the book by clicking on the image:

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I’m still in the Bay Area at the moment. I have no idea when the studio wants me to move down to Burbank, and I’ll remain busy freelancing for them in the foreseeable future–until I get snatched up by another studio, that is. If that were to happen it would be too bad, because I like the guys there and my tour of the studio gave me a good impression of the place.

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Been a long time since I updated Kitty Cat Diary. Not that I stopped shooting, just that I’ve been too busy to prepare the images for the web. I took a couple of days off this weekend and got caught up though. You can see the latest entries here:

WEBLOG:
I used to pull all-nighters a lot when I was in the comic book industry, writing and illustrating comics for a living (if you can call the laughable money I made “a living”). When I defected to video games, I’ve only had to do an all-nighter once in three years and five shipped games (the all-nighter was for a Playstation game called “Pastrana VS. McGrath Freestyle Motorcross,” and I actually got to design the level as well as texture it–it’s the level with cherry blossoms, taiko drums, shrines, and lots of snow). In CG animation, I never had to pull an all-nighter–maybe really late nights, but never seeing the sun come up. In the last week, I had to pull three all-nighters straight on Spiderman 3 and Surf’s Up, with roughly two to three hours of sleep between each day. I took a caffein pill on the first day, and Elena boiled up a pot of jinseng–they helped to keep me awake and alert. The second and third day I did without any caffein pills and just drank the jinseng. I didn’t really feel any difference, so I’ll do without the caffein pills the next time I pull an all-nighter.

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One thing I don’t like about using WordPress for blogging is that although I have full control over everything (CSS coding), can host it myself, add plugins for more features, and make my own backups, I don’t have all the nifty features of communities like Livejournal and MySpace (they’re the ones that most of my friends use). So I figured out a way to implement it–a simple link to my own Livejournal/MySpace pages, which will then be linked to all of my friends, and also linked back to my site. Those links are now implemented into the menu on the left.

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Here are some quickie movie reivews of the stuff I’ve watched lately:

Brick - I was excited to watch this, as the guys at Filmspotting (one of the best film review podcasts on the internet) raved about it, but the film didn’t live up to expectations. I understand what the director tried to do–bending the noir genre by setting it in a high school with teenagers, but the whole thing felt more like an exercise in style than something that’s truly heartfelt. I can’t help but think if the film had been shot in a more realisitc manner with natural dialogues, instead of the hardcore noir dialogues and David Lynch-esque scene setups, it would’ve resonated more emotionally. There’s something inherently fake about teenagers playing grownups–something that writers do occassionally, but rarely do it well enough to be forgiven. Teenagers without any trace of what makes that age group unique, are not teenagers anymore, and I think that’s essentially what’s wrong with writers trying to push inexistent maturity upon characters that just aren’t ready for it yet.

Spanglish - I was afraid it would be one of those mindless and patronizing romantic comedies that plagues mainstream Hollywood, but Elena and I ended up really enjoying the film. The dialogues were unpredictable, and although it was light on serious social commentary (which isn’t the point of the film at all) about racial or cultural issues, it packed enough great moments to hold our interest–it even got some big laughs out of us.

And oh yeah, Paz Vega is quite something in that movie. There’s a scene of Adam Sandler yelling at her to get out of the wind because he was being distracted by the view of her being back-lit by the moonlight, with her dress clinging to her, revealing all kinds of curves. It was quite a vision. There’s a Chinese phrase the describes curaceous women as “Protudes in the front, sticks up in the back.” Quite fitting in this case. Strangely enough, I’ve also seen her in Sex and Lucia (from the director of Lovers of the Arctic Circle), and in the nude she isn’t that curvaceous at all. It just goes to show you how much clothes can shape a woman’s figure.

Battle Star Galactica Season 3 - Still one of the best shows on TV (although I don’t really have time to watch TV at all, so I’m not exactly up to date on other shows out there besides Lost). I’m so happy to see Sharon reinstated as an officer, although I found it hard to swallow that Adama would be that careless. I mean, everyone still remember that Cylons can be mind-controlled to do things, right? What’s to stop Sharon from another murderous episode, or worse, an evil betrayal? I’ve only watched up to Exodus part 1, and I hear part 2 was a mind-blower. Can’t wait to see it.

Poseidon - I can’t believe this is from the same director of Das Boot. It’s probably the most typical mainstream action/thriller film I’ve seen in a long time–totally predictable, by the numbers, and without any trace of creative passion from the people behind the lens.

Eight Below - As much as I love dogs and as cute as the ones in the movie were, I kept thinking the dogs were way too human-like in the movie–then I remembered it’s supposed to be a Disney film.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - A pretty good chick flick for teenage girls. I would watch anything Alexis Bledel is in, because she’s such a rare mix of angelic grace, shyness, and natural beauty.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand - It’s no Brian Singer, but it wasn’t a disaster either. On the other hand, it would’ve taken a really terrible director to wreck the standard set by the previous two films. Even a hack director can simply ape the vibe of the previous two films and end up with a half-way decent sequel.

It’s interesting to see the previous generation of cute teenage actresses getting older and losing some of their fresh-faced appeal. I used to think Anna Paquin’s a total cutie, now she’s starting to look a little strange to me. But Kitty Pryde–meeeeow!