My Memorable Gigs This Year

December 28, 2009

This year has been pretty eventful for me musically. I’ve been going out to gigs more steadily, and playing more of the music I actually wanted. 

 

This is also the first time I will host videos on this simple i.ph site o’ mine. 

 

With that said, here’s a show I played last May. I was the lead guitar for Bulagta here…

 …notice the flashy dual guitar tapping thing. We didn’t actually practice it that much, and when we did, it doesn’t come out the way we want. But then at the venue itself - what the heck! 

 

 

 

 This one was from a June show with ‘my’ band Fluggen. Why Fluggen? You go ask Kevin [dude with the Hamer V] and let’s see. Anyways, this was the first time that I shared played guitar in a band with Johanne. The first time was the quasi-disastrous San Felipe YFC-gig-rakrakan whatever thing about 6 years ago… 

 

 

Come December, word was going around the office that we needed to think up of a theme for our company’s Christmas party. Each team had a net meeting, then I jokingly threw around the term ‘glam rock’. Everyone took it to heart, albeit with mixed results. 

 

Glam rock. We needed real rock music. 

 

 

And I needed a new guitar. I accidentally fucked up my Strat in an effort to clean it up. Haha. I was like ‘Oh shit, what am I gonna do!?’. 

 

It was good bye Nina… **ru-ru-ru**

 

The obvious answer was to get a new guitar.  And so, with all the money I had left, I got a new one. Well, new in my hands at least…

 

 

 

The new guitar of course had a new feel to it. And while I wasn’t able to play like Eddie Van Halen because of the different feel…

 …I did play more like [omg] Michael Schenker…

 …or so I thought.

 

 

 Forgive me oh guitar gods for name dropping thine divine names!

 

 

 

Then I needed band members. And that was precisely the reason why I called upon my office friends to form a group just to play for the occasion. That group was composed of Vlad, Dennis, Franz, Anye and myself. We didn’t have a name for ourselves but we wanted to play so badly…

 

 

…that we didn’t give a second thought to Dennis singing on a Bon Jovi classic. 

 

Then came the real show. This was the first song…

 …which was almost done for because some dude turned off the amp. The ROAA guys turned it on already, then just zeroed the master. Somehow, a moron who didn’t know about rockin’ out turned it off. I played with the amp still warming up, hence the weak and wussy sound. I just left it open afterwards…

 …and got this nice guitar tone! Sweet song. I’m sorry Slash fans, but I’m really poor with actually covering lead lines. I improvised on all of it. I don’t love everything here, but the part at 02:36 onwards was like ‘Oh my, did I play that?’. 

 

 

 

Well that’s just about it. Hopefully, I can play more shows next year!

 

 

 

The Gunslinger And A Word From A Pro

My  sister and I didn’t have much to do last Friday night, so we figured that we’d have a little shoot in our garage. This is actually one of my first attempts with strobist stuff using a model.

To make this shot, I placed flash [Starblitz] behind her as backlight, then fired my YN460 from the right side as a kind of fill flight. I got all kinds of comments for this, but most notably, it was Mr. Jo Avila who pointed out that I placed my lights in the wrong places therefore they’re throwing shadows in the wrong places. 

 I’ve been doing some thinking about enrolling in a formal photography class. I wouldn’t mind starting from the basics. But money is so freakin’ elusive nowadays. Hay, must content myself with reading for now.

Enjoy the shots though!

**18mm, f8.0, 1/320, ISO200**

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mini4WD Craze And The Man With A Swiss Knife

December 24, 2009

McGyver’s awesome.

Anyone born in the 80’s and does not know him ought to have been born in the 90’s. Those who are familiar with him though would immediately be struck with nostalgia with a dude who fashioned an ultra-light made from tents, bamboo poles and a lawn mower motor.  

This man singlehandedly popularized the use of the Swiss Knife, then a little known gadget used mostly by outdoors men, and of course, the Wrangler.

~

McGyver’s sense of D.I.Y. certainly influenced a whole generation of kids, who during their later years, would fashion all kinds of crappy ‘inventions’ from all kinds of things.

Bosconians knew [hint : past tense] this all too well. Though not everyone knew of McGyver [or remembered], everyone had some kind of gung-ho, DIY-spirit. Thank our famously technical syllabus, which called for kids to make their own power supplies, transformers, can openers, tools and all kinds of things. Though most are built from kits [Long Live Alexan], the fact that average elementary and high school kids can put together such things is quite awesome. There just aren’t much in the way of technical schools, and pretty much all in existence must’ve copied from Busko or somethin’.

School pride ito pare.

What I’ll write about tonight is not how we applied our technical know-how to help out at home, but rather how it won us a lot of Mini 4WD races, albeit illegally.

It was the year 1999. The new millenium was coming, and the Y2k was the big thing. We didn’t give much of a fuck about because the ISTCs computers were too slow, so their clocks probably time warped and got stuck in the 80’s - which made it quasi-immune of sorts.

I have been tinkering with Mini4WDs [Tamiyas as known locally] since I was kid. But I never tinkered much beyond the kit parts.

That changed when I was in 3rd year, and 6 months into the year 2000. Nuclear war didn’t erupt as Armageddon theorists thought, so life went on peacefully in our little school.

Mini 4WDs were breaking into the next big ‘in-thing’. Everyone owned one - from kids to adults. Literally everyone was in on it. There were races everywhere, it was even bigger than basketball at one point. Because of their fantastic speeds, there was even a TV special where a car dragged race a Mini4WD.

Of course, the old owner type lost.

You could find these things everywhere!

There were the China imports that cost only about 50 bucks, and feel like they’re gonna explode on the tracks. Of course, the real deal Tamiya kits cost around 250 bucks [old models], new ones would be 450, and the ultra new Japanese imports which would be around 500++. These are just the basic kit stuff - stock parts, stock everything and most didn’t even have a motor in them.

As a high school student, everything was expensive. Coupled with the fact that I don’t ask for money from my folks for my indulgences, that meant I only have very few race-worthy cars - although I do collect the models too. I always bought Tamiya parts, so did Rich and Rich. Heck, of course my classmates Robie and Karel were on it too. We spent cash like stink on these things - well at least Rich and myself did. The others were just well too moneyed to even feel the pain of a purchase. I feel the pain of a million ouches everytime my cars fly off track and suffer a dent or something.

Clearly, this was becoming serious, and as any serious racer should do, there should be a steady supply of back-up parts. At that point, I all I had that was steady was the fact I lose more money racing and upgrading than I am eating.

It took a geeky atheist to turn me on to a good source of cheap parts from China. That dude was Dar, and he raced a hitherto unknown brand called Auldey.

All the Chinese brands were a load of crap. Paper thin plastics, less than standard bearings and gears, and slippery as shit tires. Auldey, on the other hand, boasted of rigid bodies, high quality moving parts, and best of all, stock slick wheels that are better than Tamiya’s. Top that with a killer stock motor and you have an awesome kit for about a hundred.

Now back in those days, there weren’t very much restrictions on racing. But we kept on losing out to the guys who were armed with slicks and Plasma Dash motors. Clearly, something had to be done.

Being the Bosconians we are, it didn’t take long for someone to figure out something.

I would credit Dar and Robie to inspire me to ‘rewind’ a motor. That means unwinding the motor coils, and rewinding it again with the intention of increasing it’s magnetic properties, and therefore increase it’s operational parameters. We didn’t have much cash to buy motors, and we sure were not gonna tinker with expensive Tamiya motors. What we did was we experimented with one of my blue cap [stock] motors.  

It was perfect! The rewinding works! We learned in class though that certain wire gauges and windings worked better than just winding and winding mindlessly. Haha! The blue cap went faster and faster til we burned out the brushes. Then we took it to another level. We began buying Auldey kits, and salvaged everything for parts especially the motor and slicks. The body and chassis were mostly thrown away. The Auldey’s more powerful magnet, and our rewound coils churned out more power than Tamiya’s fastest stuff. At this point, our problem was overheating. Hell yeah we would win races, but at the cost of a burned out motor. The other problem was that the cars were going too fast for the track, and flying off was quite unsolvable. At first we thought that weights would give it more stability. But then, the cars we made were already stable. More weight simply killed off whatever advantage our illegal motors had. Tamiya’s brake pads were too wussy slow down our cars. My solution was to make larger pads - skids we called them. Basically, it was an FRP cut in the middle and stuck with a braking pad [we found that Rotring erasers worked best] then screwed to the rear bumper. It worked well but then sometimes, the brake effect was not enough, especially on complex tracks with long straights and sudden jumping corners. That was solved too - we put a brake pad up front to double the effect. Presto! We had ultra cool cars that were quasi unbeatable - for the next three weeks. They knew something was up when we kept bagging the races.

Then came the rule that says…

Only all Tamiya set-ups can be sanctioned.

That perfectly killed us. Then we left the mainstream races, and went underground - meaning the usual street corner races. That was where Robie and myself made a mark for ourselves. But then, even the underground races started to ban DIY set-ups…

So much for our racing history! ^___^

~

A piece of sad news though. The dog that we were taking care off has unfortunately succumbed. I believe he got poisoned trying to lick the gasoline off his wounds. Well, that’s life. He’s now in that big boneyard in the sky.

~

Ah c’est la vie! ^_^

Ah Yes Glam Rock And Some Sob Stories

December 18, 2009

 

 

At last! Our company’s Christmas party pushed through without incident last December 12. Well, nothing bad of course, and I’m out to think that it was all good. Actually, for the past few months, we [Dennis, Franz, Anye, Vlad and myself] have been practicing every afternoon - or at least as much as we can - to play some music in the party. This year we had drums, compared to the previous one where there was nothing even remotely percussive.

 

 

 

**photos by : Mick Alsan Perez [mickperez.multiply.com]**

 

 

Nothing ultra spectacular except the place was AWESOME AS HECK! I mean really! There was a smoke machine [which got me off-guard and got me thinking we burned the amps], blinding and strobing lights, and enough room to move and jump around. Nada ladies and gentlemen, this ain’t yo’ Dayo Bar. Make it be known though, that we still go and perform there.

 

~

I don’t get it why people get pets, and then don’t raise them well. Some don’t get fed enough, and sadly, a large number of them end up on the streets foraging for themselves because their masters gave up on raising them.

Having a pet is a responsibility. It’s your responsibility to that animal to keep him fed enough, and provided with shelter and care - in return for it’s loyalty and affection. I would understand that cats are a little harder to domesticate completely because they are skilled climbers and often travel away from their home in search of adventure. Dogs on the other hand, very seldomly are able to get past the front gates. But when they do, most often get lost and end up wandering for the rest of their days - no food, no shelter, no care.

Recently, I came across a shabby looking dog beside our street’s barangay outpost. He was covered in grease, sickly and had a limp hind leg. He is actually the tanod’s pet dog, and was tied up. And it seemed that while he does have water in an old aluminum bowl, he hasn’t had anything to eat. Pity set over me, so I got some sardines and rice, and topped it with some of Chance’s dog food.

It’s been quite a few days since we’ve been leaving him food. I can’t really give him as much as I can for my pets because of my very limited budget. I’d like to see him make a full recovery though because the grease irritated his skin and left patches of flaking skin.

He’s standing more and barking at the passers-by now. ^____^

I dare the person who left that dog tied up there if he’d like to be tied up with no food and shelter.  I can almost hear a resounding N-O.

Animals are certainly below humans because of our ability to think. We are their masters - we put them to work, we teach them skills and in return, some part of us is satisfied with that. But looking at the plane of survival, they have pretty much the same right to live. After all, had they been in the wild, they’d be able to fend for themselves. But not in our concrete jungle. Here, they need us as much as we need them. They did not choose to be brought up in our organized chaos. They can only choose to live, as most animals and even us would fight for.

I’m not saying we go vegan or take to the streets for their rights. All I’m saying that we all have to be responsible for them in the same way that we are responsible for other humans.

The bottomline is if you can’t take care of one - don’t get one.  

~
Ah c’est la vie! ^_^

HPP Means Ummm Just A Short One

December 7, 2009

These days, especially this morning, I’ve been into more ‘heavily processed’ photos. As the photos below show, my knowledge with HPP is very limited, but my idea is to use little effects or ‘noobish’ compared to the pros, in order for the photo to retain it’s idea and content as a ‘photo’. 

 

All re-processed with GIMP, but taken with D40 and processed RAW via CS3.

 

 

 

I really want to explore this realm so stick around for more HPP! Drop me a line though of what you think about it.

 

~

 

People are really busy these days. Christmas is just eighteen days away, and I can’t believe that another year is already ending again. Oh how time flies.

 

~

 

Beneath the veil of smiles and laughter,
There hides a dreamless sleeping monster,
Tread lightly on these waters friend,
Lest your steps spell out your end.