It’s hard to say goodbye (a real goodbye, not just something that you say everyday), even if we have to, and specially when we have no choice. Last night, I bid farewell to my sisters, bound for the U.S., where they’ll stay for 5 years.
The thought of them leaving was slow to sink in. Reality only hit me when me and my dad were already on our way home from the airport. I watched these two grow, and it’s all still a bit surreal for me – I’ll miss five years of their lives.
I’ve had an iPod Touch since 2009. I don’t buy a lot of apps except those needed for work/research. But I did buy some select apps that I use on a regular basis. If I were to choose my top 3 apps for my device, these would be my picks:
On my iPod Touch (iOS)
iBear Money
This app is an really useful expense tracker app. I bought this app on sale at $4.99, if I remember correctly. It’s quite handy for tracking all of my income and expenditures. It has a lot of nifty features like reports and charts. It’s also a bit easy to know what you’re looking for because of all the icons that you can use for every category.
The only downside of iBear Money is the cluttered interface. And there’s just too many layers of information before you can get to where you want to go. I guess that’s what you get for a comprehensive expense tracker software. But nonetheless, I was happy with this app.
Back in 1997, on a hot sunny afternoon in school, me and my friend were talking about an awesome game called Diablo.
Alan: Dude, ang ganda ng Diablo!
Carl: Syempre, Blizzard yan eh.
Alan: Hmm. Tingin mo, possible tayong makagawa ng game in the future?
Carl: Sige, mangarap ka lang.
Alan: Aba, malay mo.
Nine years later, I became a game designer.
That’s the great thing about dreams; the ones that you want the most tend to become reality.
As someone who spends a lot of time thinking and daydreaming about almost anything (most of the time unproductively, unfortunately), it’s quite handy to have something in hand to jot down the more significant figments of my imagination.
I’ve been working from home since our company started last year. I’ve only been familiar with this kind of setup for about a month when I worked as a freelance game designer three years ago. Almost a year in at staying at home, I’ve come to realize that though the setup might sound “nice” at first, it’s not really all that wonderful, mostly because I’m not really employed or working freelance and have a salary, but rather handling a business – which makes all the difference, believe me.
I’ve already covered some of the basics of playing FPS games in my previous article, and now I’m back for more tricks of the trade. This time, I’m going to cover some of the more advanced stuff a player should be aware of when playing. What I’ll include in this article might look trivial at first glance, and it’s not surprising how a lot of players take these for granted. The more educated player will most certainly know how to exploit these small details and surely gain the upper hand over a less enlightened enemy.
Butter knife to the face. Ouch.
Creative output is based on inspired thought, and you can’t force inspired thought (at least for me). It’s one of the things I’ve learned while working in a creative industry, which focuses a lot on concepts and ideas and whether they would be fun or not. Since entering game development in 2006, I’ve learned to cope with the deadlines and milestones of projects that come my way, which are sometimes a bit unrealistic. But out of the frustrations of scheduling blunders and development hurdles, a realization emerged about my own creative workflow. It’s something I’ve been doing for the past 5 years in game development, whether consciously or subconsciously, that somehow worked for me, so far. »Read More
This is kind of an embarrassing moment, but a testament to how strong my imagination is ever since I was a child. You are free to laugh, it’s okay, I don’t mind. 
So anyway, this happened way (really way) back when I was still in kindergarten. We were in class and the teacher was discussing something in front. I had a crush back then (oh shut up, don’t judge me) and she was sitting approximately two columns to my right and one row forward, and I can see her clearly. I looked at her while I leaned on my table with my left arm. Needless to say, a few seconds later, I started daydreaming. »Read More
Goodbye 2010! Hello 2011! Yeah I know, this post is already a week late, but then again this blog wouldn’t be Idlectic if my posts were on time. Anyway, we have again survived another year of ups and downs. We laughed, we cried, we felt pain, we caused pain, we triumphed, we failed, we have undergone the perennial phase of change. I can cram a lot of new year quotes and phrases but that would be monotonous. And I might find it too boring to write and boring to read. So I won’t. Instead, I’ll write about 2010 from my point of view, and my perception of 2011; It’s probably more boring but I’m going to write it anyway.
I was really close to my grandfather. I looked up to him since I was a kid, and I remember telling my cousins that I wanted to be as successful as him when I grow up. He was financially well-off, but was never selfish nor greedy; his siblings, sons, and even colleagues would vouch for him on that account, and I can say I can vouch for him too. He wasn’t much of a disciplinarian, he always wanted to see his grandchildren happy, and he made us happy. He also tried to instill in us the sense of responsibility he practiced, specially when we got older, old enough to understand such values.
