omnimon_5000

Thanksgiving
Dinner was held at my family's house, and we were joined by Moe and his family (his sister Nathalie and parents). Peter also joined us, as it seemed everyone in his household were off celebrating it at separate locations.

Contrary to what I promised in the previous entry, I actually did find myself eating turkey. Didn't plan on it though—it just worked out that way, as my mom didn't prepare any chicken and Moe's mom just happened to bring over a stuffed turkey. Gotta be a conspiracy! Anyways, I told everyone that I wasn't too big on turkey (I've just never found it appetizing), but since I didn't want to be rude about it (looked like a lot of preparation was put into it), I went ahead and put some on my plate. Aside from that, our table included potato salad, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, a baked ham, seafood linguini, and homemade Oreo cheesecake. :)

After dinner, us "kids" went into the living room and whipped out Risk (Moe brought it over). I'm not really into games like that, but regardless, I managed to enjoy it. During the global battle, I put up an awesome fight against Peter's forces— basically, I had a small occupation in Mongolia and he possessed every country surrounding it. Out of sheer luck, my dice rolls kept hitting sixes, which caused his forces to gradually deplete (he eventually managed to conquer my occupation). Towards the end, me, Christine, and Moe allied up against Nathalie and Peter. It was fun until we conquered like 80% of the world. At that point, we went straight to the Xbox and played some Halo—I suck royally at shooters, so I didn't enjoy this as much. :p

Black Friday
On Moe's suggestion, we ended up going to some outlet mall in Leesburg, as it opened at midnight. In hindsight, I regret doing that, because I missed out on the good chance of possibly scoring Lego Rock Band at the Old Navy near my house (they were offering free copies with a $20 purchase). That kinda bummed me out and it even left me in one of those "coulda-woulda-shoulda" funks. But then again, that's to be expected on Black Friday, especially if you're with a bunch of people with separate shopping intentions.

I didn't find any appealing doorbuster deals at the outlet mall, so I ended up buying nothing there. Later in the wee morning hours though, my sister and I would set off on our own separate journey to the Best Buy near our house (we tend to go there every Black Friday). There, she managed to pick up a copy of Supernatural Season 4, since it was going dirt cheap for $15. I on the other hand, found some solace in my Black Friday woes by picking up the new... Carrie Underwood album.

That's right, I said Carrie Underwood. :p

While I possess a low tolerance for country, I do find her new song 'Cowboy Casanova' unusually catchy, lol. Plus, said album was doorbuster cheap, so why not? Overall, we managed to get through in exactly half-an hour (to break it down, it took twenty-six minutes to stand in line, three to get what we came for, and another minute for checkout)—this now stands as our record for Best Buy on Black Friday!

Following that brief excursion, we headed straight to the Kettler Iceplex to watch the Capitals' morning skate. We were a tad bit early, so we parked somewhere nearby and took a short nap in the car before driving to the ice rink. Lots of people were there, but luckily, we found a vacant spot in the front row. My camera managed to last a good hour before finally giving out (forgot to charge the battery), at which point I switched to my camera phone. Not too many shots, but it's a good variety. Alex Semin and Quintin Laing (two of our currently injured players) managed to come out towards the end of practice, but I didn't stay long enough to see them finish.

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Tangent 1: I think from now on, I'm just venture future Black Fridays with only my sister. We seem to get a lot more accomplished if it's just the two of us. I liked going out with friends this year, but it felt as if a good chunk of time was wasted playing phone tag with them.

Tangent 2: Christine thinks it's funny that I got a Carrie Underwood CD, so she placed it in my arms while I was sleeping in the car and snapped this quick photo of me in the process. Normally, I'd retaliate after seeing a picture like this, but to be honest, a Carrie Underwood CD is all I have to show in regards to this year's Black Friday conquests, so I guess I'll take it, lol... :/

...and any international buddies that choose to observe it as well, enjoy your Thanksgiving!




And to you little guy, rest assure, you're safe from my table. I never really liked turkey. We're having chicken instead, lol. :p

Since my Powerbook's been acting up again, the company has decided to fund me a laptop PC. Moe said he found one cheap through Craigslist, and from what he told me, it's the exact same model as the one he uses. Downside is that it lacks an internal wireless card. Luckily, the guy who sold it was kind enough to include a wireless dongle for free!

I know installing Windows on a Mac is done via something called Bootcamp, however, I'm not too familiar with the reverse. Moe's been doing some research on the installation, and from what he's gathered, installing Snow Leopard on a PC is in fact doable. Why go through all this trouble some of you might ask? Well, I've got way too much Mac software already invested, and at this point of our operations, it'd be a waste of money to buy PC licenses from Adobe or purchase a brand spanking new Mac. A hybrid method seems like the logical course of action. :D

Bless you Apple for going Intel-based!

Caps vs Islanders Game
Wednesday, I got to go to the Capitals-Islanders game. My sister was already going, but since she was offered an extra ticket, I ended up being a last minute invitee. I was incredibly weary about donning my Mike Green jersey to the game (prior to the night's game, he'd been playing like crap), so I told her that I felt like getting another player's shirt—and we came to the conclusion that Brooks Laich was the shirt of choice. So prior to the game, we hit the Kettler Iceplex to get one (my sis was even awesome enough to pay for it)! When we got to Verizon Center, some cameraman working for the Caps stopped us on the way to our seats and asked if we wanted to be a part of an in game-feature by submitting a question for a Caps interview segment. Couldn't think of anything interesting on the fly, so we went with "What's your favorite cartoon?" The guy said fan questions would be answered within the next few weeks, with them being shown on the big screen during intermission at a future game. Now whether or not our question gets chosen remains to be seen. That'd be cool if it were. My sis was on the big screen during last season's intro, so it'd be quite a privilege. As for the game itself, it was quite intense. Eight seconds in, Alex Semen scored a goal for us, but couple of minutes later, the Islanders would score three quick ones, which resulted in Jose Theodore being pulled and replaced by Semyon Varlamov. The game ultimately went to a shootout, which lasted an insane 11 rounds! After Clark hit the game winner, Varlamov sealed the deal by stopping NYI's final shooter. Here's some pics from the game.

Business Cards
Friday night, Moe came over with something awesome: my set of our company's business cards! It may not sound like much, but for a designer, it's like Christmas. Anyway, here' s what they look like:


Makes me ecstatic that we finally have them. It's a badge of honor for me, since I'm the one who designed them. Out of my set of one thousand, I've already given away seven of them (and yes, I keeping count, because I'm a loser like that, lol). Here's to potential clients!

Running on (or should I say "walking on") less than two hours of sleep
Saturday I took part in the American Heart Association-sponsored 2009 Start! Greater Washington Heart Walk— a walk raising money for those with cardiovascular diseases, namely heart disease and stroke. Me, Christine and her friend Mel were invited to walk with The Washington Post, as one of their teams was called "Team Tito," a team they named in my dad's memory. Such a beautiful gesture! Since we had to get to the Post building bright and early, I didn't get much sleep, so I had to make use of all the energy I could muster. Luckily, they provided free breakfast, so I wasn't in total zombie mode. After a quick group photo outside the Post, we all headed to the National Mall on foot (made a good warmup!). As for the walk itself, I walked the entire thing with my sister, her friend and Aurora—one of folks my dad worked with at the Post and the one who coordinated the Post's involvement in this year's walk. I never realized that two rotations around the National Mall was approximately 2.9 miles. It was also drizzling the whole time, but I didn't mind it at all—it was all for a good cause! Here's some photos I took from the walk.

Later in the day, I felt jazzed up about walking so much that I decided to do a little more when I got home. I figure since my hair was getting kind of unruly, I'd head to the barber to get a trim. But rather than drive over, I made the effort to walk the two miles back and forth (so realistically four miles). In total, I probably walked about ten miles the whole day! After my second trip back home, I realized I'd been awake for just over twelve hours, so I did what any sane person would do and took a nap. Of course a few hours later, my sister bothered me awake for the Caps-Devils game. I told her I'd get up when Washington scored, which ironically enough, happened four minutes later... :p

Sleep and Boxing
I tried to stay awake for most of the hockey game, but kept nodding off every so often, and towards the end I just stopped watching. Hard to stay awake when New Jersey has a tight grip on a game after scoring an ass-load of goals. I did however, manage to wake up again around 3AM, as it totally donned on me that I'd missed the fight between Manny Pacquaio and Miguel Cotto. From what I read "Pac-man" took Cotto to the 12th round before finally sealing the deal with a TKO to win the welterweight title. Nice! Various sources say that this totally sets the stage for a dream match between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.

Anyway, I'll end this entry in with a small tangent...

Manny Pacquiao earns an ass load in his respective fights, but realistically, he doesn't fight for it. Instead, he fights for the people of the Philippines. Believe it or not, whenever he has a boxing match, the crime rate in the Philippines drops to absolute zero. Here's an article from before his fight with Ricky Hatton to support this claim. I think that that's quite a feat in and of itself. I wish there were more boxers like him, and not douchebag folks like Mayweather. I read somewhere that Mayweather won't even take part in any fight, especially one with Pacquiao, unless he earns more than half of that fight's earnings. Seems counterproductive on his part. If money fuels his performance, I hope Pacquiao wastes him faster than his match with Hatton (which if you're not familiar with that outcome, Manny won in the second round).

Today commemorates the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. Like most folks, the show encompassed a good portion of my childhood. I'm glad it's still around, though I've heard the format's changed drastically since "the good 'ol days,"— for example, Cookie Monster's now vegetarian. Anyway, I thought I'd take some time and share with everyone certain Sesame Street segments that managed to linger in the back of my head for many years, aka my top ten favorites. Enjoy!

( YouTube vids behind the cut. )

Some of these were actually quite hard to find, like it took me forever to find Friend Watching (I only remember the first few seconds of that segment, lol). You know, I never realized till now, how fond I was of Grover, Bert, and Ernie. But in retrospect, they were my faves. Probably because of all the awkward situations they presented themselves in. :p

Probably nothing, as I'm way too lazy to put something together. To be honest, dressing up has somewhat lost its appeal to me, especially since I frequent the convention circuit often, and dressing up for those feel a lot more fun (and comfortable) than dressing up just for one day in October. Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween, and everything associated with it. Perhaps my inaction for dressing up stems from the fact not all my friends are up for it. But if I were to dress up, here's a list of folks I'd possibly see myself as...

( Cut for video links )

Finally optimized and uploaded my pics from Caps Opening Night and Tour de Canada '09.

• Caps 2009-2010 album.

• Pics from Tour de Canada '09: The Northern Getaway.

I meant to write multiple entries during my time up in Montreal, but I found myself often falling asleep typing them at the end of every day or just not blogging at all. As a result, this huge entry is nothing more than a collection of my day-to-day adventures (or mis-adventures)— cut for your viewing pleasure!

( The Bus Ride Up North )

( Rainy Day )

( Wedding at the Palais de Justice )

( Downtown Excursions )

( Holiday In... doors )

( More Downtown Excursions )

( Running Around to See Family )

( Overall Thoughts )

Ironically enough, this'll be me in a couple of hours. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna pass a 15 to 16 hour bus ride in one piece, especially when I'm gonna be without my trusty iPod (still being repaired).

Reading-wise, I will have a copy of Heroes: Saving Charlie. I've already gone through half of it, but that was like a year or two ago. Perhaps if I'm focused enough, I could get through the entire thing. Won't hurt to start from the beginning. Of course, that'll have to wait until the morning hours, as my departure is at night.

Technology-wise, I do have my cell phone to tweet or have text message conversations. I also have my DS on me, so I'm guessing that could take a good amount of time.

Lastly, I've got my sketchbook. I just hope there aren't too many shaky roads along the way (which reminds me, where the hell are my art pens?).

So maybe I do have I have some bases covered. It's just gonna be annoying that I won't have awesome tunes to groove to on the way up.

Saturday night was amazing for the Caps home opener against the Leafs. We won 6-4, which by the way, was Washington's eighth consecutive home opener win! So here's a little recap of the evening and whatnot...

Got to Verizon Center a good hour before the game started, so I could get my free Mike Green bobblehead. After getting in, I met up with my sis and her friend behind the Caps net for a good spot during pre-game warmup. Conveniently enough, we got to stand smack-dab against against the glass. I must've gotten there at the right time, because not too long after, a huge ass crowd was behind me. Having almost always been on the side during these in the past, I totally wasn't prepared for the frequent barrage of pucks smacking the glass at high velocity (from my experience, I'd maybe hear two or three). Needless to say, it was fun for the eardrums! :p

The game itself was great! The seat I got in 403 (my second time ever in the 400 level) wasn't that bad— had a good angle of the net, and I got to see some quality goals by Ovie, Knuble, and Laich. Now if they had just continued that momentum during the 3rd period, instead of letting Toronto almost make a comeback, it would've been awesome. I was a little disappointed that the Leafs started with Toskala instead of Gustavsson. But hey, at least they switched to "The Monster" at the start of the 2nd period. As for our goalie, Varly was bad-ass. In the 1st, he made this really crotch-paining save. Can't really fault him for some of the goals he let in. Solid performance from the young net minder to say the least!

Prior to the game there was a pre-game ceremony, highlighting last season's accomplishments. I'd have to agree with my sister that the ceremony itself was bit anti-climatic. Instead of the banner being physically raised (like they've done in the past), it was unrolled from the top of the rafters. Plus there weren't any player introductions as in past opening nights. Though in retrospect, had they done every player in numerical order, Michael Nylander would've been the last one. For those that don't know, Nylander's one of our players in Washington. For whatever reason, the guy isn't being played and basically taking up salary cap space for doing absolutely nothing. So yeah, awkward much?

The video intro was quite exciting. I'm totally digging the motif of the red heart pulse. Hell, they even have it being projected onto the ice during intermissions, with certain intervals showing a laser imprint of the Stanley Cup. The player graphics are pretty sweet too!

One change I did notice was that all the banners are now uniform in design— all crimson red with retired numbers sporting inward angles and division/conference banners with outward angles. Not sure if I like it, namely because all the classic banners with the players faces are gone, and all the vintage banners no longer have their respective logo-schemes (maybe that's why they unrolled it from the rafters— so everyone could see the newly designed banners). Guess I'll just have to get used to them.

I might have been on the telescreen during one of the t-shirt tosses, as the Red Rockers came to our section during the first intermission. Can't say for sure, but on said gigantic screen, you could see a dude in a blue striped shirt (easy to pick up, when everyone else is wearing red). Upon further realization, the dude was behind me, but before I could take a second look at the screen, the cameraman had turned off his camera. Lame.

Speaking of cameras, I now remember why I kinda hate point-and-shoot cameras. Out of the assload of pics I took, maybe a handful came out as quality shots. Oh well...

Overall, this was probably one of the best games I'd ever been to. I'll probably get some pics up later this week.

Had a discussion with Moe last night and this afternoon about our upcoming ad agency. From the looks of it, the workload preparation is slowly easing up, and we're almost ready to go live any day now. This comes as a relief, mainly because once the website is up, we can actually talk about our agency in a normal capacity, rather than act all secretive and sketchy. Also means I can get back some blogging time!

Saturday night needs to come already, 'cause thanks to Capitals Ticket Exchange, I was able to find a reasonably priced ticket for the Caps home opener against the Leafs. The seat's in section 403, which is at the edge of Verizon Center's mezzanine center. According to the seating chart, the Caps shoot twice on my side (hope they do a ton of damage in the 1st and 3rd periods), so it's totally worth the amount I paid. Speaking of the Leafs, I wonder if Toronto's gonna use Jonas Gustavsson against Washington. I've heard lots of good stuff about this goalie's prowess, so this could turn out to be a potentially awesome matchup. Guess we'll have to wait and see...

So I've been given the proverbial okay to get some vacation time out of the way. A while back, I promised my family in Montreal I'd visit them for Canadian Thanksgiving (October 12th). Since it coincides on the same day that the US observes Columbus Day, it's quite convenient. I'd only be using up 3 days worth of vacation time (6 days for trip minus corresponding weekend and said holiday), so that's not much of a problem for work. I've never been up there during the fall (it's usually just the summer), so this should be fun. According to a bunch of resources I've gotten, there's a ton of awesome attractions up there during this time of the year, like an elaborate Chinese lantern display and a highly touted film festival. I figure while my younger cousins are in class, I could use the downtime to check out some of these neat things. And of course, a trip to Canada means an opportunity to indulge and invest in stuff only found up there (aka movies, music and food). The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the insanely high taxes in Quebec...

October's gonna be sweet!

Been busy as of late, so I guess I should recap on what's been going on...

Increasing My Running Abilities
For over two weeks, I've concentrated on getting back to running shape. Somehow I've squeezed out an average of four miles every afternoon. It's probably the first time since maybe high school that I've athletically committed myself with utmost consistency and it feels really great. Part of my workout involves a non-stop run of 3.2 miles, which took some time to progress. It started out as alternate intervals of running and walking, with most of the walking taking place around inclines. Eventually, I figured out my limits and got comfortable enough to run the whole thing.

Of course last week, my one of my earphones stopped working and two days after that, my iPod began to drain sooner than usual (it's pretty damn old), so I've had to resort to hearing the sounds of my footsteps and breathing. I really wanna invest in one of those new iPod nanos, mainly for its Sports Kit compatibility, but that'll have to wait. Till then, I've got to find that spare battery I've got laying around and take some time to install that....

Family
A couple of months ago, I wrote several entries about losing my dad. Following his funeral back in June, his remains immediately underwent cremation and kept for safekeeping at the funeral parlor until we could get burial preparations taken care of at a nearby cemetery. Last Tuesday, we got everything squared away, finally laying his urn to rest with a small ceremony that involved immediate family, close friends, and one of our parish priests.

While it's still strange not having him around, but I've found ways of adjusting to life accordingly. However at times, these changes do drive my patience mentally, mainly because he's no longer there to offer moral support. Of course, now that's he's physically resting somewhere, I know exactly where to find him if I ever need that spiritual boost. That notion alone gets me one step closer to absolute closure.

Preparing for Work
So I'm just a few weeks away from starting my job at the advertising agency Moe's starting up. Spent most of Friday at his house productively discussing what needs to be done in the coming weeks. At the moment, composing website content and developing business cards (which I'm almost done with) is my task at hand.

A big reservation coming into this is that my soon-to-be co-worker just happens to be a close friend. And while this is a matter of concern to us and our circle of friends, we've come to an agreement that seems fair: during work hours, it's strictly professional—we're colleagues with clients and nothing more. Before and after said timeframe, we're totally chill friends. Obviously it's easier said than done, but if our argument about the company's website is any indication (lots of creative differences), it'll be alright. A handful of friends worry that I may get treated like a work horse, and while it is a valid concern, my rebuttal is this: my workload in art school was a lot worse. Regardless of any negative sentiment, I'm only gonna focus on the main positive: it's a design job. I'm absolutely looking forward to this venture!

Searching for Hockey Tickets
I'm getting pretty psyched about the start of the upcoming NHL season. I spent most of last Saturday trying to score some reasonably priced non-mezzanine end nosebleed seats— to no avail. Ticketmaster's giving me a headache with all those security word's you've gotta type in during each search (where the heck do they come up with these word combos?). Anyway, the reason why I'm trying to find non-mezzanine end seats is because I find the safety net to be a bit distracting.

Finding Capitals tickets on StubHub is yielding slightly better results. I really don't wanna put this off any longer, as the more unreasonable I am about this, the sooner available tickets will disappear. Maybe I should just put money down for the end seats. I really wanna go to opening night, especially since they're giving this away. Mike Green FTW!


So yeah, that encompasses the missing two weeks.

A press release came out this morning that states Disney's acquired the rights to Marvel Entertainment.

I can't help but laugh at the majority response from the blogosphere, as they seem to have this preconceived notion that Disney's gonna ruin Marvel by watering down the comic book giant's properties.

News Flash: Marvel's already done that without Disney's help. Itsy Bitsy Spiderman anyone?

Besides, Marvel's current management is supposed to remain in tact, so it's not like Disney's gonna make drastic changes on Day 1. In all honestly, I believe it's a smart business decision. Think of what Disney owns in the United States: ABC, ESPN, the distribution rights to Studio Ghibli Films. Disney has the capacity to make Marvel bigger, without ruining anything already established. There's room for even greater exposure, me thinks. If I'm not mistaken, ABC Family's aired Marvel cartoons for quite some time and nobody's complained. At least with the acquisition, there's more flexibility to use Marvel's properties without being bogged down by the legalities of distribution rights. It's really a win-win situation.

So overall, I welcome this business venture. While I do understand the concern, a lot of the mass's fears are rather farfetched. It isn't that bad. Am I the only one who sees a potential Marvel Universe/Kingdom Hearts crossover?

Wistful thinking of course... ;p

So last Saturday I took a day trip with Miguel and Rose up to New York City. I'd been up there a couple of times in the past with my design classes, but those trips were mostly limited to art museums, and graphic design studios. Don't get me wrong, they were cool places to visit, but this trip was the first time I actually got the chance to map out an itinerary, rather than spend the day following someone else's schedule. Since I didn't really know the streets and stuff, I decided to sketch out a small map for each location in my sketchbook, as well as a few details about each one.

Our agenda was simple— run around the city and check out fun and geeky stuff! To make it easy on your eyes, I've separated each leg of the trip accordingly...

( The Search for Waverly Place )

( Back Uptown )

( World of Disney )

( Nintendo World )

( In New York, Canada is Right Next to Kentucky )

( Times Square )

( Uncomfortable Journey Back to DC )

Overall, it was a fun trip. There were a lot of other things I wanted to check out, including the AIGA Headquarters (a Graphic Design organization that has close ties with my alma mater), Media Blasters (an East Coast anime distributer), and the NHL store. Due to time constraints, we had to cross those off the list. I also wanted see The Little Mermaid (the Broadway version) or Shrek the Musical, but funds hindered those. Perhaps I'll plan another day-trip to include them, but that'll have to wait. For now, it's all about resting my leg and prepping for my upcoming job in the fall (that Disney print should help my productivity in the office!).

Anyway, here's a link to my photo album... :)

Elementary School Self: Eat your damn vegetables! They're not as bad as you think.
High School Self: Track was a partial waste of time after getting your Varsity letter. Try out for the school hockey team instead.
College Self: Don't be so passive in Typography class.

So my PowerBook went all grayscreen (aka it froze at the loading screen) today. Last time that happened, I had to backup my entire computer, and reformat the damn thing. That's gonna be a fun process to do again. Luckily my project has progressed far enough, that I don't really need it... at least for the time being.

Of course, this means my only form of net access for the next few days is the Internet Channel on my Wii (though I have grown quite proficient typing with the Wii remote!).

Random thought: why is gray sometimes spelled with an "e?" Art school allowed me to use both, but I never got a concise explanation for using both so interchangeably... :/

So I'm working on a massive design project right now (which in that regard, is as far I can divulge about at the moment). Listening to music is really helping me fly right through it. Problem is, I'm starting to get tired of all my playlists.

Rather than risk growing bored of my current tunes (like any songs by Gunther, O-Zone or Metallica for example) during this project, I figure I'd take 'em out of my computer for the time being and let some other tunes have a chance at the speakers. Long story short, I'm looking to my fellow bloggers for some music recommendations (maybe five to ten songs, or however many you feel).

Just to give you an idea of what's been making me productive, here's screencaps of one playlist from yesterday and what I have in store for today.

Playlist 1
Playlist 2

Wow, judging from the two screencaps, I developed quite an affinity for Disney-related music, Euro-pop, and rock. But don't let those narrow your recommendations— I'm open to anything really. And yes, John Tesh's Roundball Rock (aka the old NBA on NBC theme) does repeat on both— it's one of those rare occurances where I don't get sick of it, lol.

At the moment, I'm a bit too lazy to go through all my pics and post them in this blog accordingly, so I'll do the next best thing and offer a link to the Otakon 2009 album I just put up on Facebook.

Oh look, I'm in a Hawaiian shirt!