Ethereality News & Weblog

News:
Elena and I are packing up at the moment, ready to move back to the States (California). I’ll be taking apart the computers soon, so this might be my last entry for a while. If things go smoothly, I should be back online in a couple of weeks.

Weblog:
This is going to be my last entry from China–Elena and I are probably on the plane as you read this, heading home to California (home for me, but for her, it’s a new adventure in a foreign land). Fortunately, she’s already been to the States once a few months ago, and it left a really good impression on her. As far as I can see, her only problem now is the language barrier, which will take care of itself just like it did for all the other immigrants (well, the ones that bothered to learn English anyway). We’ll be staying temporarily in Sunnyvale, then move to wherever my next job will be at. Life will be hectic for the next few months. I’m kind of dreading it, but it’s about time I moved on to the next phase of my life–whatever that means. I don’t even feel like I’ve completed the current phase, but I guess that’s how it always feels–that life moves at its own pace and you can only keep up.

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In July I’ll have to fly back to Asia again, as Singapore’s CGOverdrive 2006 has invited me to be a guest speaker. I’ll be doing a workshop on digital painting that’ll last an hour and forty-five minutes, and although I’ve decided on the content of the workshop a few times, I keep changing my mind. If you were to hypothetically attend, what would you like to learn from me in an hour and forty-five minutes?

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While packing, I realized that I have about eleven hard drives that I’ll have to put into a carry-on bags (I do not trust that they’ll be fine in the suitcase if I check it in at the airport). I’ll also be transporting the motherboard and the two optical drives in the carry-on bags as well (not to mention my Canon 1D MKII, flash, and four lenses–although the lenses will probably be in the suitcases to be checked in). The computer case, keyboard, mouse, Wacom tablet, LCD monitor..etc will go in two seperate suitcases–I’ll make sure they’re well padded. I transported my workstation that way when we moved from Malaysia back to China two years ago, and it was certainly heavy and painful. I can’t think of a better way to transport my workstation safely though. No way I’m going to trust anyone else with over one terabyte of data. I’ll need to have a fully functional workstation as soon as we step off the plane so I could get right back into the swing of things, so shipping by sea if not an option. I don’t trust the cargo loaders anyway. My other machines will be shipped by sea as I don’t need them as much. If those get trashes, I won’t be as devastated.

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A few days ago, Elena told me that while helping her sister move, she saw an entire box filled with handbags and purses. I thought she had pointed that out in order to justify her own obsession, explaining that “all women are the same–I’m not the only one.” Then I found out everything in that box were hand-me-downs from–get this–

…Elena.

This woman has given away more handbags and purses than she owns–boxes of them (counting her cousins, aunts..etc), and she has the audacity to buy more?

I looked at her coldly and then said with a calm voice, “If I ever see you come home with a new purse again, I’ll break your legs.” She saluted me, grinned, then turned on her heel and walked out of the house with her little skirt flapping behind her. (She was mimicking me. I often respond to her naggings with a salute, do a military styled heel turn, and then head back to my studio.)

I don’t know how it is with other women (and I can’t remember much about my ex-girlfriends), but Elena ranks handbags and purses on top of her girly fancies list, then comes shoes, clothes, and finally cosmetics and beauty products. She used to own a cosmetic shop and have used just about all the brands or makeup, perfume, lotion..etc, so they no longer interest her. She’s got lots of clothes she’s never even worn once (and she feels slightly guilty about it), so she’s got pretty good self-control when it comes to clothes. Shoes are more of a practicality issue to her, as she hates shoes that are uncomfortable to wear, so it’s rare that she finds a pair that’s both attractive and practical. But when it comes to handbags and purses, it’s like something in her brain just switches off (or clicks on, depending on your perspective), and her eyes would light up like the Neko Bus in My Neighbor Totoro. I suppose it’s kind of cute to watch her lose her cool like that, as long as she has no plans to come home with a LV bag–unless it’s a knockoff. She gets the real ones as gifts from admirers and rich friends/relatives sometimes, but they don’t seem to excite her as much as when she finds them on her own. My Kitty Cat is strange like that.

News:
I have implemented an anti-spam plugin (been getting some comment spams from spambots lately). From now on when posting a comment, the person would have to answer a very simple question to prove that there’s a human being there typing–something that anyone over seven years old could answer.

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Kitty Cat Diaries updated:

Weblog:
There’s a strange phenomenon that I call the “Asian shopping atmosphere.” Basically, it means that Asian countries have a much stronger “shopping atmosphere,” compared to the western countries. Elena and I discussed this more than once and we still can’t quite figure out all the factors that contribute to this phenomenon. The factors we can identify are:

1) The shopping areas in Asia are typically busier.

2) The shopping areas in western countries are typicall spread further apart, whereas in Asia it’s more crowded so shops are packed closer together.

3) The shopping areas in Asian countries typically open till much later, while western ones close a lot ealier.

4) Asians are really into bargaining–which adds to the shopping atmosphere.

5) Asians tend to be louder in public places (except maybe Japan), adding a more festive mood to shopping areas.

Here’s the interesting thing though–when I asked Elena if I were to put her in a shopping mall in Hong Kong or Malaysia, but swap out all the shoppers and make them all non-Asians instead, would the festive shopping mood still remain. Her answer was no (I agree with her–that was my feeling too). Then I asked her, if I were to put her in Stanford Shopping Center or San Francisco Shopping Center, but swap out all the shoppers and make them all Asians instead, would that make the mood more festive for shopping? Her answer was yes (as was mine). I’m sure this is some kind of psychological conditioning from our collective Asian background, but I wonder if it’s possible to actually identify the determining factors that form this psychological conditioning.

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When I worked at Optidigit, we were involved in the Malaysian government funded Saladin project. I had written two versions of synopses at thirteen episodes each, plus drew a few pages of test storyboards for it, but the project appeared to be dead in the water. We assumed that it would never happen as government funded projects have a lot of red tape to deal with, and they often kill the project completely. Imagine my surprise when I saw the trailer posted on cgtalk.com. You can find out all about it here. According to the credits, the trailer was done by the guys at Silver Ant. If I’m not mistaken, this is the same Silver Ant that Optidigit worked with in the past (we shared some projects and resources). They are a bunch of very talented guys and extremely hardworking. With a trailer like that, they should be able to secure funding to produce the TV series. However, it would be impossible to produce them at the same quality as the trailer, as TV show budgets just don’t allow that kind of quality. They would also be limited to non-Christian dominated countries only due to the subject of the show–and that’s a severe loss in full market potential.

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If you don’t know about youtube.com yet, you really should take a spin there–you just might uncover some really cool and rare videos of stuff you have been looking for but couldn’t find. I managed to find a lot of very rare videos that people essentially taped on the VCR of old interviews, TV appearances, or bootleg videos of concert footages..etc. I found rare videos of some of my favorite Japanese musical acts from the 80’s–Sakamoto Ryuichi, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Boowy, Kawai Sonoko, Psy.S, Barbee Boys..etc. It was like discovering an unspoiled archaeological site for me.

Weblog:
The other night when Elena took me to this restaurant she discovered, I experienced another one of those unique cultural experiences I’ve only seen in China. The restaurant was so packed that we had to wait in the lobby with about fifteen other people. While waiting, I was treated to the sight of a woman in her early thirties sitting across from me, furiously digging in her nose. She would roll around her findings with her forefinger and thumb, then flicking it onto the floor–with the same casualness of someone flipping her hair. She did this for a good five minutes, then surprisingly, decided to cover her busy hand with her other hand while reaching into her nose–as if that somehow made her action less appalling. Now, to put things into perspective, Fuzhou, the city I live in, while not a big metropolis like Shanghai or Beijing, is still considered a major city, but even in a city this size I’ve often seen similar levels of social etiquette in the last four years I’ve lived here. This woman at least had some inking of an idea that what she was doing was probably not kosher, whereas often the social offender in question simply just didn’t know any better. I could list more examples, but it’s almost dinner time, and I’d rather have more pleasant things on my mind while eating.

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Remember I had mentioned my friend Jason Sereno getting laid off from EA? Well, there is a happy ending to that story. He happened to have called me the night before I was going back to China to say good-bye, and I happened to be hanging out with my ex-roomate Jason Felix (who’s currently working for Flagship Studios on Hellgate London) at the time. Anyway, you can put two and two together, or read about it in Jason’s blog. I felt so bad for him when I found out he got laid off because he was getting married in a month, and I’m totally thrilled that I got to help him out. Maybe he’ll return the favor when Elena and I move back to the States in May.

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Speaking of moving back, I’ve been working on a bunch of new pieces for the purpose of updating my portfolio–stuff like concepts for environments, vehicles, weapons, characters, and some 3D stuff with Zbrush. From now till May, there’ll be new pieces added to the site regularly. I’ve been itching to finish off some of the WIP’s I’ve had for a while now too, but those will have to wait till after I’ve found a new job.

Weblog:
Vacation’s over, and I’m back in front of my computer. I REALLY hate being without my computer for longer than a couple of days, and I think I’m ready to breakdown and buy a powerful laptop to take with me wherever I go from now on. Elena actually felt the pinch of not having a powerful computer with us at all times too during this vacation–which is surprising since she barely spends any time in front of a computer normally. Her reasons were that we could search for information while on vacation about the places we’re at, find directions/maps for driving, process the photos we took, check email…etc. God I love it when I corrupt her and turn her to the darkside.

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We flew over Alaska on our way back from California, and saw some pretty amazing landscape from up high, made up of the snow, ice, mountains and the ocean:

The beautiful aerial view made Elena giddy like a little school girl:

Tomorrow we’ll be flying back to China, and on our last day in the Bay Area, I took Elena to Monterey and Carmel. We didn’t take the 17 Mile drive because we were on a tight schedule, and I knew Elena would want to walk around the beach and see all the cute little shops. Monterey is really nothing to write home about, while Carmel on the other hand is a lot prettier. Next time, we ought to stay the night at one of the cozy little bed & breakfast places. Here are some of the photos I took while walking around:

Elena took her share of photos of Monterey and Carmel with the Fuji F10. You can see them here.

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For dinner, we met up with my old buddy Emory, his current girlfriend Sue, my old roomate Jason Felix, and my brother Dennis and his wife Liz at Broadway Prime in Burlingame. Em told me that when the owners of Broadway Prime left House of Prime Ribs in San Francisco to start up their own restaurant, they were sued by House of Prime Ribs and the case was settled out of court for 1.5 million dollars, which Broadway Prime made back in a year. I don’t know if that’s considered a huge success, but I know plenty of restaurants that don’t come near that number.

During dinner, Jason told us the hilarious story of his horrible experience of being a witness to a crime, and then having to testify in court. Anyone who knows Jason Felix knows how animated and funny he is when telling a story–he had us in stitches the whole time. Afterwards we went to Emory’s office/warehouse and played with his airsoft guns and action figures. God I miss playing airsoft! After we move back to the States, I’ll totally get back into playing again.

It’s hard to decide whether to use a SLR or a compact when shooting situations like above. A SLR would need to be stopped down a lot to get everyone in focus, but then you’d need insanely long exposure time to capture the ambient lighting, and that’s just not possible when shooting groups of people (and you could only use small amount of flash or you’ll kill the ambient lighting). A compact point & shoot would have vast depth of field even when at its widest aperature, but the image quality simply cannot match the SLR, and the on-camera flash of the P&S cameras are just atrocious. (Canon 1D MKII on the left, Fuji F10 on the right.)