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