Catholic School Boy's Journal

4:56pm: The Devil in the Details : the final exorcism of Nightmare
before the year 2000 there may have been Filipinos
who have made and dressed up in medieval armor
for the challenge and thrill of building and wearing one for themselves.

based on how the word is locally used nowadays
these efforts may not have been considered "cosplay"
but surely such an endeavor's essence is the same
with the original Japanese definition of cosplay.

in the year 2000 there was one
who deliberately built an armor
based on the designs of a videogame character
with the full intent to cosplay.



 

that fellow was me
one of the first who dared to cosplay
at Anime@Arki's anniversary party

http://cosplay.ph/photogallery.php?album=15





i cosplayed as Nightmare, the knight possessed by the evil sword Soul Edge.

This costume armor was made with foam rubber
and it was an exciting medium to build solid bulky shapes with.
But you can tell this first outing was a miserable reproduction of the original designs
because i was still unfamiliar with the material
and was experimenting & making solutions up as i went along.
It was a happy case of trial and error.

as i improved my skills making other costumes and props
using foam rubber i finally had enough confidence
to pursue an improved version of my Nightmare cosplay in 2004.





http://cosplay.ph/photogallery.php?photo=1301
http://cosplay.ph/photogallery.php?photo=1302
http://polidread.deviantart.com/art/Nightmare-costume-16025948



THE REST OF THIS ENTRY IS CONTINUED HERE: http://polidread.multiply.com/photos/album/44

10:29pm: Still life in my night life





back when i was much younger, in my primary and secondary school years,
i used to remember finding plenty of artist books featuring sketches such as these - common items found on tables.

i always felt disconnected from such sketches because it made me feel like those sketches may have been staged
- that the artist drew the items in certain deliberate "artistic arrangements"

in my mind "staged artistic arrangements" are those that brought out the maximum artistic merits in these common household items,

i imagine the artist arranges these items and then photographs or sketches or draws or paints them
to deliberately pull in the meager unartistic attention of the common spectator
(common spectators such as my former primary/secondary, pre-art school self.)



*************


this sketch was drawn during an after-office cool down at the nearby taverns.
i sketched after the food ran out and the beer buzz was finally simmering down.

my vision may have been enhanced or disabled by binge satisfaction
but i saw the shiny damp bottles glimmer in the dimmed light and got inspired.

and the items were sketched as i saw them.

they were not placed in any "staged artistic arrangements"
and i did my best to capture the loopy round feeling i felt in my head and belly as i sketched,
as well as the feint lights available in the beer place.


**************

6:31pm:

10:09pm: i didnt know deviantart could connect to LJ...

Chow Yun Fat by ~polidread on deviantART


okay, so anyway, there he is.

i just had to make a drawing of Chow Yun Fat today,
HAD to make it and finish it in one sitting coz inspiration hit me so hard,
and im not even a huge fan of him.

by the way i fucking skipped Komikon just for this.

heck, maybe i'll go get that Indio graphic novel ive been raving about some oher way.
or maybe not.

whatever.

12:44pm: Komikon 2009 na!
mga sabisabi galing sa ibang website:




general komikon 2009 information: http://komikon.deviantart.com/art/October-KOMIKON-2009-poster-138702699
October 18, 2009
Sunday, 10am - 9pm
Megatrade Hall 1, 5th Level Bldg. B, SM Megamall
Entrance Fee: P80.00


EL INDIO: Komiks classic by the late great Francisco Coching
http://gerry.alanguilan.com/archives/2066

Komikon 2009 is INSANE! a list of komiks that will launch on Oct 18...
http://gerry.alanguilan.com/archives/2054

from the pages of Culture Crash Comics: TWO "Cat's Trail" books ready for Komikon 2009,
one a comic book, the other an illustrated short story!
http://bwrain.blogspot.com/2009/10/cats-trail-books-have-arrived.html

11:33pm: Cosplayers!
boobs and butts


http://www.figure.fm/post/en/3292/WitchBlade+Alodia+Ashley.html


versus


'bots and bombs


http://www.figure.fm/post/en/3079/NERV+Pilipinas.html




ready? GO!

11:42pm: long delayed but still crawling forward...
Working Wounded



*title came directly from one EvilDhex's favorite blog tags*

Stephen can get passionate about his causes and he only ever thinks in wide scale.

It gets so that his friends, Leon and Charlie, often find themselves taking care of him, reminding him that he needs to sleep or eat.

(i have a slightly bigger display at my deviantart)

4:03pm: Thick Shaggy Heads!


Early morning bed heads of thick shaggy hair
Where does mine end and my sister's begin ?

my sister's deviantart:
http://elevensorrows.deviantart.com

2:37am: dont let this be my final drawing before the storms claim me.


Bishojo Senshi Shadow Moon
- punishes you in the name of the moon!
- if that doesnt work, he'll have to resort to rider kicks

Tuxedo Kamen Rider Black
- dynamic entry
- shares a poem
- throws you roses and then runs away

bigger, crazier display over at polidread.deviantart.com

11:12pm: from an experienced flood victim
By Gwendolyn So

Unbeknownst to many, my family and I are experts when it comes to flooding. By this I mean that for almost 10 years when we lived in a low part of Sto. Domingo Street in Quezon City , we experienced flooding INSIDE the house at least once a year and if I remember correctly, sometimes it was twice or even thrice a year.

The first time it happened we were in shock, but as it happened more and more it became routine. Here are some nuggets of wisdom that may help:

1. I learned that once the water reaches knee level, the gates can’t be opened anymore because of the water pressure. We thought we still had time to take the cars out but realized we were trapped. That time our cars submerged. Make sure you know which area near your residence is considered higher ground and take your cars there EARLY.

2. Do not despair so much if your cars submerge. They can be fixed. It’s expensive and takes a long time for the smell to go away, but it’s not the end of the world. After the flood, just let the car dry. We were still able to use our Hi-Ace and Mitsubishi Lancer despite their having been half submerged in floodwaters.

3. I learned that heavy stuff, like the ref and shelves, FLOAT. So every year from then on, we would TIE DOWN heavy appliances like the ref (too heavy to carry upstairs but in latter years we did lug it all the way up to the 2nd floor), the big shelves with wedding souvenirs and knick knacks and my dad’s collection of wine. How did we do that? Tie them to the windows.

4. Adrenalin will give you superpowers once you decide you’re not afraid of a little water and start saving what you can. In my case, it was my collection of books. They’re not rare first editions but regular books. However, I love my books and I’m not letting them drown! I was able to move and carry our heavy sofa powered by my body’s own adrenalin hormone.

5. You can have fun in the midst of disaster so I took out our cameras and starting taking pictures. It was to make everyone have a good laugh as we surveyed the chaos around us, the cockroaches and rats swimming by, the black inky spots of oily stuff occasionally floating around.

6. Apparently, no matter how much you’re enjoying yourself frolicking in the water and saving what you can, once the cold water reaches your chest (especially your nipples), you start to shiver and it gets hard to breathe. This is the time to give up and go upstairs.

7. If your electricity stays on, go to the switch box and turn off all the electric outlets downstairs but not upstairs.

8. Cleaning after the flood is a pain. Once the waters recede, you are left with mud everywhere. They stick so you have to get the hose and start using the walis tingting (how do you say this in English? It’s a broom made of just think twigs/sticks tied together in a thick bundle). You just keep the water running and sweep, sweep, sweep like there’s no tomorrow.

9. You must scrub the walls with disinfectant. If you only rinse with water, it will still smell. We used Lysol. Scrub, scrub, scrub like there’s no tomorrow.

10. First time water got inside our house, we didn’t know we had to use Lysol and that the drying process is super vital. So, after a few days, there was this nauseating smell and later we found molds growing everywhere! We had returned the furniture and appliances to their normal places and the walls behind grew molds. Yuck!!!

11. We were still able to use our ref that floated in flood waters. Just clean and clean and dry and dry.

12. Once electricity is available, get out all your fans and dry everything thoroughly.

13. Yes, paint will peel off and wooden drawers and shelves deform. Salvage what can be used. Once they dry, it’s still ok but sometimes the drawers get stuck because the wood expanded so you have no choice but to destroy it because icky water is still trapped inside.

14. Wait at least 2 to 3 days to dry everything. Use fans and hairdryers. Do not, I repeat, do not be in a hurry to return stuff you saved to their original places.

15. Have this mindset: Ah, it’s good Im now forced to do a general cleaning of my house. Now I have no choice but to do it.

It is easy to go insane after this kind of calamity, to despair of the material things we lost (especially the cars), but please be thankful you got away with your life and that of your family and loved ones

10:10pm: it's in how many times you stand up
Some of the mud has dried
and is windblown
dusting my eyes as i rubberneck out
the sides of my jeepney ride home.

desolation at all borders of marikina city
the folks calmly grimly reclaiming their lives
strewn on the streets buried in the mud
bathed in sewage flossed in refuse.

TV news showed a car and truck intertwined
in an imaginary lover's embrace
on an abandoned brown public intersection,
i saw them in person yesterday, still there.

you can tell how high the waters went
by how brown the formerly white walls
of the shoe factory building are,
its leather innards are being dried out at front.

something sour reeks in the air
some of the still glistening mud
demands to be washed away because
it took with it the smelly river water.

SM Marikina's basement parking looks like porridge
the most horrible porridge you'll have in your entire life
coz you'll demand to get shot after
this porridge contains cow carcasses and flies.

11:56am: Macross Pachinko game animation


this footage is just for a pachinko game? dont tease me like this!

********************************

made a quick round of my unvisited sites
and gave myself a smile
even tho the study room ceiling is leaking and
i have to change the catchbuckets every few minutes.

is Macross the only thing that'll cheer me up these days? XD

********************************

oh, flooding in my streets now.
oh, flooding at my doorstep now.

oh, fark XD

8:16am: two drifters off to see the world
not drunk, but i wasnt sober last night either.
blinked in and out of consciousness in the jeep ride home
and played the flute til i fell asleep.

7:27am: what.


last week's friday work frustrated me.
7pm found me trying to sulk at my usual Burger Machine
trying to bury my grief under a small pile of ground beef and bacon.

it didnt console much so i asked a friend to have dinner with me,
she just got off her own overtime and was just settling down at the boarding house when the message came through. we talked each other's troubles away in EDSA Central's TapaKing.

11:54pm: do not curse the rain, do not curse the weather
i would,
but i knew
i had to bring an umbrella
even tho the morning sky never suggested a tempest tonight.

so i have no one to blame,
no one to curse
but me.

instead,
let's imagine
the backstreetboys
singing in the rain
with me.

10:35am: Shabondama
i am not much of a cat person, but i can understand why you miss your cat.
people are much too difficult to be with sometimes.

7:42pm: from the words of a wise guy
"...Because it's true what the noncreatives keep saying, even if they've really stopped believing in it-- work edifies. More important than the monetary gain is the sense that you have built something, participated in something good, something greater than yourself, something that will benefit you or someone close to you, if not humanity in general. This is what makes the work experience a humanizing one, because at the end of the workday your time, your life means something. You've experienced your labor pains and given birth to something worthy. ..."

http://polidread.multiply.com/photos/album/28/Incomplete_Phil
http://polidread.multiply.com/photos/album/29/Incomplete_Phil_set_2
http://polidread.multiply.com/photos/album/30/Incomplete_Phil_set_3
http://polidread.multiply.com/photos/album/31/Incomplete_Phil_Set_4

8:54am: EVERYBODY : Cosplay Mania '09



CosplayMania09:
Bigger. Better. Bolder!!!

September 13, 2009
Sunday
SM Megamall, Megatradehalls 2 & 3


~~~~

For More Info, please visit CosplayMania.com

12:14am: up and down and up and down
raging over petty things like
malfunctioning computer speakers,
idiot forum noobs being idiot forum noobs,
ex-friends being irrational and then being offended about it,
seeing my own cranky disposition in other people

im in the middle of a mood swing and i hate it when i know it's happening.


*****************************************************************


all i need to do is go see some beautiful thing and then im fine, fine.
(so beautiful i wanna punch somebody's face in so they wont be so beautiful!)

this is not good for my heart, the LOLler coaster ride of emotions.
my chest's tight, i have to breathe deeply every 5 minutes
and this isnt asthma.

dont worry about it, polidread, we're just being erratic.

as usual.

*****************************************************************


fashion models are fleeting, superficial beauty is so fleeting,
this season's fashion may even be overturned in a matter of a few weeks when something revolutionary sprouts out of hell knows where.
but the impact of a single image may burn itself in your memory forever.



I'm so mad about you, going out of my mind
Say you want me,
Baby could you send me a sign?

Cuz' every time we're together
You keep me guessing
Thinking about the mood in your eyes
Smile as I see you walking on the runway
Love you and it's no surprise

Happy Sad, honto ni okashi na adana ne!
Fukigen na 'pose' kidotteru

And every time that I see you walking away
You know I don't know what to do
Just like living on a rollercoaster
My heart just belongs to you

My moody blues could stay or go away
Boy you just call my name
My heart can make brand new kind
Of sweet soul music
Don't care if I'm mad or glad
Make me feel so Happy Sad

Ooh, anata to futari nara itsudatte,
'Happy Sad, Happy Sad, ooh ooh'
ooh anata o aishitara itsudatte,
'Happy Sad, Happy Sad'

My moody blues could stay or go away
Boy you just call my name
My heart can make brand new kind
Of sweet soul music
Don't care if I'm mad or glad
Make me feel so Happy Sad

10:48pm: Sabaw !
fark!

i was trying to read my LJ friends list but i couldnt read anything coherently
(fuck! i even had to look at the keyboard to type "coherently" down!)

is it bcoz ive been heavily working (moving my hands and fingers and planning with my brain)
on a costume for most of the long weekend?

wow! didnt know this could happen!


my back's sweating !

10:26pm: Was it a productive weekend ?
Saturday:

Showed up at SM Marikina to be Fed's LOL wingman to attend a Tabletop Gamers' Meet

Met Mike, Miyaw, Krimi, Antony, Mark and other familiar faces. I did my best not to look like the clueless guy that i usually am in geek meets.

i wish i could remember the name of the organizing groups,
ah, the PUGS - Philippine Underground Gamers Society
and the other one's name really escapes me right now

anyway, it's been years since ive actually sat down and played anything like a
throw a die make a move read the rules and think your tactics true blue tabletop game.

but im sure i had fun.
Mike introduced me to James, a slight gal in glasses,
we had a few moments of wide eyed staredown immediately after being introduced
but nothing really transpired. after a few games in different tables, we'd catch each other looking at each other's direction.
i guess we both were just trying to decipher what the heck the other was thinking.

We superficially caught up with whatever most everyone else was up to -
jobs, houses, TV shows, our collective japanophillia, futbol - general fandom things.

after dinner we all left for the North of EDSA
got lucky and hitched a ride to Trinoma for my job....
we had a pre-event set-up for my office's All About Scrapbooking Fair for Sunday.

Sunday:

Showed up at the Pasig Ortigas office to fix a music CD to be played during the event.
ive gotta put the playlist in my multiply site sometime.
and then flew to the other end of EDSA to deliver the CD to Trinoma.

after that i loitered around, mostly at National Book Store.
bought a 9 peso sketchpad (thank god for Best Buy!) and went back to the Trinoma's Activity Center
to idly draw the Scrapbooking participants.


a thin girl, her fey buddy, and a mom and daughter


a MILF rushing across the activity center

but i wasnt able to draw enough as we got busy clearing up after the event.
it was a well-attended event, finished on timeand so i had enough energy to wander around.

went back home to the Katipunan area via UP.
i wish i knew how to contact the dorm kids in my friends list
so i can YO! disturb them when i come visiting the Unibersidad.
i wish i could have had dinner with any of them,
i can bring hot cocoa or coffee - pampalubag ng loob,
consuelo de bobo for tolerating my LOL presence....

anyway...

i eventually rolled on to Katipunan and had a microwave sandwich and cold M'Dew at Mini-Stop.
Pulled out the sketch pad and began doodling the scene outside the glass walls.


The rider didnt look older than sixteen yet there's the yosi in his fingers.


A girl in cargo shorts went in the Mini-Stop,
looked into the ice cream section and then walked out
towards the opposite street. Jiggly thighs.

Eventually my small busy corner got noticed by a pair of little girls
who at first stared at me but couldnt help but chat me up.
I guess they were barely five and seven years young, asking me about my drawing skills and lamenting that they sucked at drawing
Of course i had to ask if they went to school and if they knew how to write.

after all anyone who can write can draw,

so i had to encourage them by any familiar thing to them. In this case it was school and handwriting.




they were very earnest to strike a pose for me - and soon the tricycle drivers from the other side of the glass wall was looking at my table. Couldnt hear what their conversation was,
but i guess they knew the girls coz they were pointing and admiring them and the artist-freak theyve stumbled upon.

soon the Mini-Stop crew was rubbernecking too just to see my progress with the pair of girls.

Oh well. Its very rarely someone like me comes visiting them and
doing odd things like doodling while eating.

I gotta do this immersion thing more often again.

Went home much later than i planned coz of the doodling activity, but hey, i wasnt in a rush anyway. I had no office work on Monday.


Monday:

Woke up late around 1oam and found the sungit little girl working on the living room pc.
still had some drawing energy left over from the previous evening,
and so expended the last of it on her.



and here we come to another crashland ending
to a TLDR livejournal entry.

forgive me, haha!

3:11am: Macross Frontier 2nd Opening song: Lion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qWnDqeXMhA

violin featured
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=JP&hl=ja&v=YcE_n8zy3UQ&fmt=18

bass guitar featured
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hylg-pbqvK8

rhythm guitar featured
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICcwfAs90KQ

percusions featured
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdhL4UerThU

9:15am: I am not your prisoner
The others knew she had a voice different from all the parched throats of the colony,
she mostly whispered but never sounded hoarse even during the hottest of dry spells.

One particularly arid day she left her pick axe at the side of the field and stood and stared beyond the fence.
She began humming a nameless tune.

We went on with our work not minding why she had suddenly stopped working,
certainly she was risking the anger of the guards and overseer
but it was too hot a day to bother with her.

The wind breezed hotly and soon the clouds grew thinner as the sun beat down on us harder.
When the wind stopped blowing we finally noticed she had begun singing.

Some of the guards beyond the fence took notice but didnt stop her from singing.
It was definitely much too hot to bother reprimanding her.

................



................

Under a summer dry spell we knew some of the less hardy plants would wither
but that week the plants and grass near the fence seemed to have dried out faster.

and there was news of a cholera outbreak at the guards' housing area, too.

the water shortage must have been one of the causes.


*****************************

an Angels of Armageddon theoretical backstory

[link]

spot illustration rendered in Pigma brushpen, gray markers, and white correction fluid

color corrected in Photoshop

drawn during my lunch break

for a bigger view of the lineart, please visit my deviantart gallery and click on  "download"

1:14am: Evisceration and Famine
evisceration is such an elegantly spelled word
- in all of its aspects of beautiful violence -
is it not too different from you?

***************************************************

She speaks very rarely, and always in whispers that carry.




This is Charlie from the from the
Angels of Armageddon serialized novel.

http://polidread.deviantart.com/art/Hello-Charlie-133972604
clicky here in my deviantart gallerfor a closer view

10:58pm: Click Zzzzt Whirrr Bzzzt zot zooop whirrrr clack