Back in the Fray

To summerize my Hawaii trip in delicate terms, IT WAS FRICKEN AWSOME! Everything from tourist activities down to local swap meets. Instead of me slaving away on the keyboard describing how the trip was, I'll let photobucket to the work for me.

Yet again it was time to chime down the fantasy vacation and tune back to reality. As I return from the airport and back to my apartment in San Francisco, the nostalgic feeling was priceless. Though it was a small apartment, but it was my small apartment with the freedom to do whatever I wanted.

All what's left now is to wait till September 4 when class starts.

Aloha Hawaii, Augest 14-28 2008

Alooooooooha

Two weeks of vacation and I mean vacation where work is put aside and the only decision making that I need to make is whether I want to go to the beach or check out a movie. With me newly acquired driver’s license and my girl friend accompanying me along the way, this was going to be a vacation of my life.

August 14, 2008

I can’t say that the vacation started off great, since there was a mix up of luggage and I had the opportunity to drive back and forth the airport three times to get things straight and finally retrieving our original luggage. To be optimistic about it, I at least got use to the streets of Honolulu where the denizens on the street are easy going and they never honk if you drive to slow, but best of all is that they actually have a lane for fast drivers. I call it, “the noob free line.” As I finally returned from my last visit from the airport where I picked up my girlfriend who arrived five hours later than my last arrival. Even upon arrival, we had to clean up the beach house that we were living. Overall, it was pretty tiring but everything was set up to welcome a full on vacation.

August 15-16, 2008

The next two days of our trip consisted of frenzy on sale shopping at Ala mo ana, also known as, the phatest shopping mall. The place is just as just as big half a city block where the two farthest stores, Macy and Neimen Marcus, is a three-minute car ride to get to. Two days of shopping only chipped the tip of the iceberg, but the outcome was four pairs of jeans, two khaki pants, and one epic backpack that cost 394 dollars. I don’t know how it’s done, but the new backpack is like a Marry Poppins bag, bottomless and almost weightless.

August 17, 2008

This day was a turnabout for me, as it was the first time I got to be behind a steering wheel of a car without the safety net of my parents or relatives that I could rely on. The only person that cheered for me was my girlfriend who was sitting shotgun, but in all honesty, it wasn’t that much of a fright. I got us to KoKo Marina easily and got into a parking space without a scratch. We decided later on to catch “The Dark Knight” and after viewing it I was later disappointed that Keath Ledger already died. “The Dark Knight” was just badass, and I can’t wait to get it in DVD.

One Final Trip to Dan Shui

One final field trip of the year in Taiwan and it was decided by the class that Dan Shui was the place to spend it. And oh my god I forgot to pay back the teacher for the Hong Kong style lunch… oh well, it was good eating. We started our order with a traditional Peking duck, and veered our chopsticks to other dishes as they arrived

With part of Asian's culture in my belly, it was off to the main venue, Dan Shui. Although the ride wasn’t smooth with the constant contortion of my body to fit the swarm of bodies around me, I was able to exchange a slice of life stories with my Mandarin instructor.

“The final destination… Dan Shui Station… Dan Shui Station…” reported over the mic and it soon to once again place a happy face to some new people joining in the party. The class next to ours decided to hop on our excursion and they answer us with less than half their class showing and some members coming late. No worries, cause it’s not uncomfortable at all to wait under the scorching sun complimented with the sweat breeze.

To summarize it all, the trip consisted
Window-shopping
Bike rides
Digital cameras
Boat rides
Shaved ice
Potential sun burns
Asking for directions when admitting lost
Finally, A giant blow up sword
Oh, and also bitching and whining about going home.

Either it would be the last time I'll be able to throw out some sarcastic comments, or pretend that I actually care for the trip, I found myself actually enjoying the moments along with the people whom I thought I could careless for. In honesty, I might be sugar coating the last sentence for the sake of the upcoming audience who received e-mail notices that this site even exists. Overall, they were some pretty decent people I've seen for a while, and yes that also includes you Sarah even though your enthusiastic laughter causes me to cringe from time to time.

Bottom line, this summer was stressful but worthwhile.

Craig out.

P.S. Photos of the trip is located here. Use it at your own risk.

final days left in Taiwan

Another 2 days and I'm off to a real vacation where Mandarin classes are absent and the photoshop program is finally off the dock.


The luggage is packed and it was no easy task especially for a gamer/artist to get everything under the requirements of airport security.

No flammable liquids (goodbye to the spray cans)
No Guns (damn it, got to leave my airsoft gun)
A single luggage must be less than 23 kilos (video games ...or... art supplies...)

So far these are the only restrictions that applies to me. The past week I have been weighing, packing, repacking, and decorating the external look on each suitcases cause god forbid a mix up luggage at the airport.

It’s goodbye Taiwan and Aloha to Honolulu! BOOYA!

DM or PC for 4E

There is nothing like relieving stress issues with a friendly game of Dungeons and Dragons with some friends and handful of exotic dices.

It started out as a level 5 Human Warlock on the 3.5 edition of DnD later transitioned to a DM on the 4th edition and I got to say that the switch is gratifying. The new edition of DnD has simplified a lot of the rules in the original version thus making the game play friendlier for beginners like me and veterans to jump right in.

It was on July 14th, 2008 that the DnD Game Day commenced in Taiwan at my local tabletop game store where all my gaming nerds conjure their thoughts and skills of on the table. By the time I arrived, my usual click of friends have already started an adventure thus leaving me to observe just what in the world was going on as for I was a virgin to the realm of DnD. Through observation and reading the Core Rule Books, the games started to perk my interest and the lost sense of curiosity started to boil in my veins once again.

Fortunately, one of my friends with the alias of "Ribon" was already a veteran DM and was kind enough to let me jump into one of his main campaigns that involved 6 players in total. Just by playing for the first hour, I was already browsing through amazon.com for my own set of DnD Core Rule Books 4th Edition. Of course like many games I played, I would always have that guilt after playing game due to the fact of this little voice in the back of my head constantly whispering, "you should spend time on your art work." Usually a long sigh follows, but with DnD it was a different story. What justified that guilt was the fact that I get to create my own story and use maps that I drew from photoshop into a DnD session. Both gratifying and productive for mind of an artist, but most of all it is just fun.

I'm hoping that my return to San Francisco isn't going to create a stagnant on my DnD career as I plan to recruit some players to join in my own campaigns. Yet consciously knowing the fact that as classes start to pick up at the Academy Art University, time will become an essence for my art rather than gaming pleasures.

Craig out

First timer on the blog

Gas cans, X-acto blades, 2 ply papers and half bottled tea most likely cold already from the neglagence of my attention. Punching

It was this fine day that I actually found the time (and the patients) to sit down and recollect my thoughts and start jotting them down on a 15 inch wide screen laptop. As of now, it's more about personalizing, tweaking with the settings, and thinking about how much attention people get by creating a good game review. I've only recently found out that blogging now has become a very intergrated part of life and that being oblivious about it is just not a good excuse anymore.

More or less, this blog may be solemny about me and my journeys through the different stages of my life. Many big ideas in my head as of now but the act of execution is just impossible as it requires alot of skill and commitment for now. Yet the ideas just keep flowing and making a decision just gets harder and harder with numerous options.

A Video Game Review site
Discussion site about DnD 4E
Personal Diary
A portfolio site of my work
Food critique
Heck, maybe even all of the above.

Although my ambitions always start off big, the issue is always about how to do it. Usually what happens is that self realization of how hard or easy something is becomes the determining factor
of creating something.

Since this is just the first post, most likely this will just be a reminder for myself that this was the day I chose to start a blog. Whether it'll be an online diary, game reviewer, art critic, social networking, or whatever. Only time could tell what would happen to this fateful html.

Craig out