[Books] You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams Audible Review

After the heaviness of You're Not My Father's Son, I was rather surprised at the starkly different tone of Alan Cumming's third memoir, You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams.

To be fair, it's like I expect all of his creative ventures outside of his entertainment work to be about emotionally significant aspects of his personal life. But this was a very different book indeed in terms of tone and approach.

This book is not just comparatively lighter but it's simply delightful and is more a celebration of things that he loves and things he has chosen to commemorate in photos.

This is still an intimate sharing of his life, but in a completely different way.

[Personal] Capturing Jason Mraz

Last October 30, my partner Tobie and I managed to have what felt like a one-in-a-lifetime experience to catch Jason Mraz live in concert here in the Philippines. We totally weren't expecting such a stellar concert so soon after the other life-changing experience that was catching Kylie Minogue live just a few months prior. But then this year has felt absolutely surreal at times, so I've learned to stop questioning and just accept how awesome things are.

And as much as I enjoyed just being there in the stadium with all the other fans celebrating Jason Mraz's music, I also wanted to make sure that I semi-documented the night to help mark this amazing event and spread the love along. I'm a tad obsessive in that regard I support given the effort I put into trying to capture these moments so that my partner and I can look back at everything and fondly remember the night.

And this where things get geeky.

Beyond sharing my "documentation" from the night, I also wanted to take time to really give praises to my camera, which is a Panasonic Lumix ZS7 . I had picked up this compact megazoom last year as a birthday treat for myself and I've been quite the happy camper ever since. It takes pretty amazing pictures despite its small size and it helps geeks like me get to document major events where DLSRs are normally forbidden for whatever ridiculous reasons.

[Geeky Bits] Mismatched Google News Images

I'm a regular Google News user - it's nice to have so many news sources in one page and entire blocks of articles about the same topic all grouped together.

But sometimes the algorithms that pick up images and news articles don't always work out.

And so you get weird pieces like these:





What's with dogs today?

And don't get me started on the second image - we all know that issue has already been thoroughly discussed.

[Games] My StarCraft II Day In Pikchurs

Being the net-enabled geek that I am, for some reason I ended up documenting how my StarCraft II Day unfolded from the moment I picked up my copy of the game. I sent all my photos to photo-sharing site Pikchur (for multiple social networking photo-spamming) and figured it would make a good starting point for today's blog entry. Pardon the quality of the photos - they were all taken with my Nokia E63, which isn't exactly designed for extensive photography.

It's too early for me to talk about the actual game just yet - give me more time to play through more of the missions before I post a more formal review of the game. I'm loving it so far, but of course that's a first impression still somewhat intermixed with my happiness that there's a StarCraft sequel, period.

So let's just jump into things, shall we?

[Theater] Wicked - Los Angeles (Pantages Theatre)

Yes, I'm finally getting to writing about some of the other things I did while in Los Angeles other than working and training Americans. On that note, however, I must admit it was fun to be the "expat" for a change.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to have some family still in the area while I was in the US - this was in the form of my "auntie" (You know how that works, right? It's a Filipino thing) who was nice enough to help me get a ticket for the show (practically in front, too!). They even offered to have dinner, take me there (since for some reason they didn't get tickets for themselves) and eventually pick me up after the show. Absolutely sweet, right? Yes, family is love indeed.

So after an afternoon spent at LACMA (I'll write about as well) and a quick dinner at Arby's (my auntie loves their signature sauce) it was off to Hollywood Boulevard to the historic Pantages Theatre for my first official taste of US musical theater.

Man, I was in for a treat beyond words.

For those sadly ignorant of the tale, Wicked is the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West (yes, in Oz terms) became so, well, wicked. If you've only read the official Oz books, then you'll have no idea what to expect from this story since it's not quite in that universe. The story is based on a book of the same name by author Gregory McGuire, who's known for reinterpreting classic fairy tales with more complex and "modern" plot twists.

Like most fans of musical theater living in the Philippines, I've long contented myself to listening to the official soundtrack over and over again to get a good feel for the show along with catching various clips of performances on YouTube or in one extreme case, the entire show recorded illegally as was uploaded to Google Video. Yes, the lengths we go to in the culture-starved Philippines, eh? Thus it was such a mind-blowing experience to finally get to watch the play, even if only in Los Angeles, which will never, ever be the same as New York to any true lover of theater.


rOckY at Pantages Theatre

First, the theater itself was gorgeous - it's one of the older ones in the country and for a good number of years was the location of the Academy Awards, so that definitely says something. It gives you that nice old theater feeling without excessively dark shadows or anything like that. I was in love with the ceiling designs and wish that photography inside the premises wasn't so frowned upon, hehe. Then again, I perfectly understand the logic behind the rule, don't get me wrong.

The cast for the night was pretty top-notch as well. Caissie Levy played Elphaba for the night and while she started a bit soft, she definitely ended things on a high note and made sure everyone understood why she got the part. Megan Hilty was an interesting Galinda / Glinda given that she added a bit of an LA spin, from my perspective. Beyond the typically bubbly characterization we've come to love based on Kristin Chenoweth's orignal performance, Hilty threw in a little Anna Nicole Smith for good measure, all the more embracing the stereotypical blonde image that the early Galinda seemed to personify.

Image via WikipediaWhat is certain is that both of the leads along with the rest of the cast really put a lot into their performance. Plays aren't about just one individual actor or performance but is the sum total of all the pieces coming together and showing itself to be a cohesive unit. I definitely have to give credit to the LA production for such a phenomenal job that gave someone like me more than his money's worth...even though I didn't pay for it myself.

The costumes were just jaw-droppingly breath-taking, I truly have to admit. Being able to see the various performers on stage in their highly intricate robes and outfits really made the difference for me - you just know that you wouldn't feel the same way if you saw this only on video. It's no wonder why they won the Tony Award for Costume Design.

The sets were something else as well, most definitely. there's a lot of stagecraft involved in pulling off a play like this - something that reminds me of the original run of Into the Woods with their revolving sets and such. Of course the most complicated item was the Time Dragon (at least so they say) but then there was a lot more to things than just that one piece of the set. I liked how everything came together and the performance for that evening was top notch - with so many things going on at any one time, mastery of the sets and manipulation of the various pieces was just essential.

Of course after the show I went apeshit over the official Wicked merchandise and bought a number of items meant to be given away to friends and such. My favorite items definitely have to be the two variant Wicked Glitter Globes that you can wind up to play the melodies of two major songs from the play. The Elphaba version of course plays Defying Gravity while the Galinda version happily chimes along to the tune of Popular.

Needless to say, I definitely enjoyed Wicked and can most definitely see why it got that close to winning the Tony for Best Musical had it not been for Avenue Q. Still, it's amazing piece of work on its own and as long as the casting remains that strong and the costumes and set that intricately beautiful, then any production of this stellar play is bound to deliver.

[Blogs] Just Beautiful Men

If you're one of my straight readers, I don't suppose this entry is for you. You might want to stop reading right now (as if the image above wasn't enough to dissuade you)

Like any other gay man, I admit that I give into using the internet to look for guys to ogle - whether it's a gay-oriented social-networking site, one of the harsher hook-up sites, Google Images, or outright porn for that matter. Hey, I'm a guy and I'm only human and so we go back to that classic line, "The Internet is for Porn."

It's been a while since I last featured a blog and I should probably get back into the habit of doing precisely that. In this case, this is definitely not a blog known for the power of its writing given there's not much to write about - a picture is worth a thousand words after all, right?

Just Beautiful Men is a blog with a very simple purpose - to showcase amazing photos of beautiful men in all their glory. From time to time you might be lucky to catch glimpses of Eric, the young man behind this photo blog not in terms of pictures but words that reveal more about his personality, likes, interests, that sort of thing. Not that I'm complaining about the other stuff, LOL - I think he's doing plenty well with what his blog mainly presents.

The blog is hosted on the Blogger platform and is naturally image-heavy. Although I've yet to see any full frontal nudity, I'd still tag this blog as NSFW unless you normally have pictures of beautiful, half-naked (or almost naked) men swimming around your work desktop, then you should be cool. Think of this as a more Western-focused version of Manila Gay Guy, although pretty much just photos and not much else.

Then again, there's NOTHING at all wrong with that, eh?

[Travel] The Geek is in LA

Well, it's been more than a week since I last posted and perhaps a few of you are actually wondering what's happened to me. At least I hope some of you have been thinking about me and are actually following this blog. *crosses fingers and toes*

Anyway, I am indeed in the US - Los Angeles to be specific. My original itenerary had me here for 5 weeks but now it looks like I'll be extending well into May, so I'm definitely going to be around for a while. Things have been good so far although work and generally getting to know the area once more after so many years being away (think well over a decade and then some) and things of that nature. It didn't help that I got stuck on a Wednesday to Sunday schedule for training, which meant I worked 7 days for the most part last week since I reported for work starting Monday. The things we do for money. To add insult to injury, that extension into May involves me going down to our Texas site by April 21. Thus, if any of you geek readers in the Los Angeles area want to meet, we better do it soon.

I have been immensely enjoying my stay and have been trying to take as many photos as humanly possibly. My mom helped me get a laptop for this trip as well and so I'm now able to connect to the web as long as I can find a WiFi spot. Considering I've mentioned this, you'd think that I'd be blogging more, right? =P

For those interested in my photos, you can see pretty much all of them on my Multiply Page or you can also try my Picasa Web Albums or my Facebook page.

So to kick off my return to geekier blogging, I thought it would be fun to go over some of the major things I love most about my Los Angeles trip so far:

The Metro System - public transportation has gotten pretty efficient in recent years and it's pretty easy to plan out your trips using the Metro website. It'll spit out the relevant routes, train / bus schedules and whether or not it's a good idea to get an Metro Day Pass for $5, which lets you hop onto any Metro train or bus for the day. Sweet deal.

Crosswalks - I'm not saying we don't have pedestrian lanes back home, of course not. What I do like is the fact that everyone strictly follows them around here - a practice of the law that makes me look even more obsessive compulsive that I actually am in conrast to your average Filipino pedestrian. Nobody jaywalks and there's no real need to since all the Walk / Don't Walk signs include timers for when the light is about the change so you know exactly when to cross. In Santa Monica, they even talk.

The Weather - I caught California at a pretty good time. It's technically Spring, which just means nice sunny weather and a pretty cool breeze the likes of which you'd need to visit Baguio or Tagaytay to experience back home. It was a bit of a challenge to get used to the dip in temperature since I left Manila with summar already making its presence known, but then it's a more than welcome change for me.

Walking - This is probably more connected to the previous item that I'd like to admit, but then I have to admit that I really enjoy being able to walk more. Our street in Pasay wa always pretty busy with all the people and jeeps / tricycles passing through, making walking an uncomfortable experience. Now I tend to walk pretty much everywhere with the aid of the Metro system, although I don't seem to break a sweat even after walking around for more than an hour.

TV - I get Time Warner cable at the hotel, so I have more than my fair share of choices in terms of programs to work. I'm glad this trip coincided with the season premire of Battlestar Galactica, so I hope to follow the series as much as possible while I'm here.

The Internet - Although I'm on broadband back at home, the connection speeds I'm getting even on just two WiFi bars is amazing and I have to admit I've been torrenting here and there just to enjoy the connection to the fullest. At home I could only torrent alone or do my general surfing and stuff. Here I can keep my torrents running while chatting, wasting time of Facebook AND watching videos online. That's just insane.

Well, I hope this trip continues to go well and my experiences continue to be positive. I'm going to do my best to maximize my stay here in Los Angeles since I don't think I'll have as many entertainment possibilities in Texas once I get there. I promise I'll be posting more often from this point on since I'm pretty much settled in my new routine. I have a number of pending reviews and such that I really need to get around to plus there's been a lot happening in the tech world.

Don't be a stranger now - comment or email in case you want to meet up!

[Viral Video Chart] $1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera - Lose The Tripod

I absolutely loved this idea! As much as the internet is filled with highly unusual How-To guides and instructional videos, this one is pretty useful as compared to most.

Whether or not you're a camera enthusiast, this tip will definitely come in handy in terms of improving the quality of your photos.


#9 - $1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera - Lose The Tripod

[NWA] Sci-Fi Philippines September 'Thon

Last September 15, 2007, Sci-Fi Philippines held it's big science fiction movie / TV marathon over at Brash Young Cinema. Personally, it was my first 'thon ever and I was pretty excited since we had been trying to flesh out the movie list for weeks now over on the mailing list and the general plans around the day's selection was pretty exciting.

Little did we know that this would be a truly unique 'thon among 'thons - this now turning into an account of the story of the tale of a group of geeks who surmounted all technical odds in the name of science fiction. [insert incidental music here]

I arrived a bit past two and Burt wasn't there yet so we had to await. He arrived closer to 02:30pm and opened up Brash and we all made our way around the room in order to deploy our things - a mix of random consumables and science fiction books that had been brought just to be shared with the group and other reasons. I made my way around to plug in all the fans and get them set up - something I had noted in my previous trips to BYC with Via Astris.

Then *FLASH* - something popped when Burt tried to turn on the TV. It was plugged into the correct socket on the AVR, but given the general condition of the equipment, who knows what voltage was really pumping out of that thing. The 'thon almost ended right there.

The first back-up plan was to try and watch the movies we had scheduled out on Burt's laptop. The screen was pretty small and the sound was horrible - not a good things since we started the 'thon with the The Quatermass Experiment, this being the 2005 remake of the 1953 classic. I say this was a bad thing since it was more of a talkie given it was a British science fiction film, so the lack of decent sound had all of us a bit frustrated, perhaps especially Sister Iris.

Burt started texting away and finally confirmed that the projector at his office was not is use so he sped off to pick it up along with some PC speakers. The rest us tried to endure the film while snacking on chips, the sack of cookies Sister Iris brought and some siopao from Davao courtesy of Dom. Within 20 minutes, Burt was back with loads of gear - it was off to work for the geeks!

We improvised a projector screen using some old Styrofoam sheets leftover from previous events and rigged up a mount for the projector using the mini-cooler Burt had brought along. I twiddled with the keystone settings to compensate for the somewhat extreme angle. Throw in the DVD player Burt brought along instead of the laptop and *PRESTO* - one jury-rigged projector set-up. On with the 'thon!

Since he had started it, we eventually finished The Quatermass Experiment. In order to remove the bad taste in our collective mouths we switched gears and watched the Blink episode from the newest Doctor Who series and it was killer! I'm pretty sure everyone loved it (especially Sister Iris) and it certainly has me wanting to buy the series once it comes out on Asian DVDs, hahaha.

We then watched most of the pilot episode of Odyssey 5 but missed the last few minutes because of a bum CD. That forced a snack run to the nearby Chowking just so we could hurry back and watch the three-part season ender of the newest Doctor Who. It was pretty cool too and I have to admit I'm hooked!

That last Doctor Who piece ate up most of the night, although I'm definitely not complaining. We had time for just one more movie and settled on the somewhat cheesy time travel flick, The Final Countdown. It was mostly a poster movie for the US Navy but it was still fun to watch together with the group since we could all spot the blatant errors in continuity and in the science while commenting that the young Martin Sheen really looked like Emilio Estevez - go figure.

The night ended with most of us heading over to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf over at Greenbelt 3 past midnight for more great conversation and more than our fair stares given he had someone in costume and I'm sure we were pretty loud considering how the branch seems to suck up all sound.

The photos flashing above pretty much cover the before and after - I was too busy watching to take pictures during the 'thon of course, hahaha! I can hardly wait for the next one - we're planning on watching some of the cheesiest science fiction films known to man. It's going to take a fair number of emails to settle on a final list of movies / shows, and even then we might not get to watch them all.

[Blogosphere] Photos from Taste Asia 2

I finally found time to finish uploading my pictures from the 2nd Taste Asia Blogger's Party held at Taste Asia at SM Mall of Asia last August 23, 2007.

Enjoy!

[Metro] New Worlds: Transformed - Day 6

This is a Tri-Blog entry that will appear on all three of my blogs The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything, Beyond Dinobot Island and Moonbase 8.

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These pictures are also available on Multiply.

I would have posted this sooner had I not been without sleep for more than 24 hours, haha. Darn, there goes my perfect posting record for LJ, hehe.

I finally got the chance to attend the New Worlds: Transformed event over at the Power Plant Mall at Rockwell, Makati yesterday and it was a blast! It was my first time to attend a seriously large science fiction / fantasy event and the geeky fanboy in me clearly jumped for joy upon entering the exhibit area.

Saturday was a great day to go since everyone was really getting into the spirit of things by coming in costume. You won't believe the number of times friends were asking me why I wasn't in costume only to realize a few moments afterward that I didn't have any...at least not yet. =P

My thanks to everyone for being so nice and putting their best foot forward for the event. It kinda blows my mind to think that this isn't even the full, official convention the group is supposed to have yearly! I can't wait!

Thus this ultimately begs the question...any Dune fans out there? =D

[Web] MediaMax

Today we're taking a look at the media-host site MediaMax (formerly Streamload to understand just why exactly I like this site.

Back in 2005 I was desperately looking for a place to dump my MP3's, admittedly for the sole purpose of pirating them over to the office. Of course there was email, but it was taking a lot of time and I also wanted to create backup copies of my music. I came across Streamload which seemed to have potential but while it promised a lot of storage space, free accounts couldn't download more than 100Mb per month. Ouch. I used the site for a while and eventually abandoned some time later.

I had heard about the rebranding of Streamload to Mediamax in recent months and decided to check it out once more after a long conversation with a friend of mine about backing up music and files online. It's a good thing I remembered this site.

The free account level of MediaMax now offers 25Gb of storage with a 1Gb download allotment per month - not bad at all when you think about it. The true purpose is to use this as a backup facility so you're not going to be re-downloading your files every time. You always have the option to stream your music as opposed to downloading it, treating your MediaMax account like a weird external hard drive.

As part of the rebranding, MediaMax is no longer just about music. It also features photo and video hosting services as well, which is pretty keen. There are media-specific file organizers that are "smart" enough to interpret your media such as identifying the album and artists for your music files if the information is available. Plus it has a lot of sharing options whether you want to allow people to download your music or by sending them the files directly.

The downside so far is the uploading tools - the HTML tool is sure to work but is slow and will time out over slow connections. The ActiveX uploaded in IE works a bit better but has similar speed issues and it's hard to track down where your uploaded files went since the system copies for your local file structure in MediaMax, making for a number of unnecessary folders. For Firefox there's a Javascript-based uploader that's highly buggy and I do not recommend it.

They also offer a beta product called MediaMax XL, which is supposed to help you manage uploads and downloads. In terms of uploads it's a lot faster than any of the previously mentioned options. You can designate where the files will be saved and you can pause and resume your uploads as needed. The only downside is that it has a tendency of "losing" your files, such that it shows as uploaded in the application but when you check your account the files will be missing. The Tech Support crew got back to me fairly quickly but have no immediate solutions apart from re-installing the program, with the disclaimer that it's still in beta. They also recommended I try their FTP uploading options which I have yet to get around to at the time of this entry.

So if you need a lot of online space to stow away your looming collection of music or in fact any multimedia files, then this is a good site for you, as long as you can deal with the upload issues. If you need more space, there are paid account levels that offer more storage and bigger download bandwidth.

[Star Trek] Happy 40th Anniversary!

Today, October 6, 2006 in terms of US dating, marks the 40th Anniversary of the landmark Start Trek series. Whether or not you consider yourself a "Trekkie," you can't help but acknowledge the tremendous impact the series has had on pop culture on a global scale.

I'm glad that CNet.com has decided to "celebrate" the anniversary with a host of various Trek-related articles, blog entries, videos and slideshows. They've centralized all Trek coverage on one page and to help all those Geeky Guide readers out, here are some of the more interesting pieces (in my opinion at least).

Of the the piece photo slideshows that caught my eye was Life Imitates 'Star Trek', which is a very brief look at some of the more prominent influences the Star Trek series has had in terms of the development of technology over the years. It's another case of life imitating art, I suppose, considering the same geeks who grew up watching the adventures of Kirk, Picard and all other that followed have become today's intellectuals changing the way our future is shaped in terms of technological advances. One such comparison is seen on the right in terms of pretty much all flip top celluar phones will have to owe some credit to the original Star Trek communicator often used on the show. At least the predominant influence in modern times was not Get Smart's shoe phone.

Another good read is Neha Tiwari's blog entry Search for Spock on the WEb, which is a nice Trek guide to what's worthwhile on the web. You have to admit that even the ranking methodologies of Google are insufficient to truly determine which of the hundreds or even thousands of trek-related sites exist on the web today. With the disclaimer that the list based on her opinion of things, her top ten sites are pretty good and I'll agree with most, if not all of them. Some of them are sites I've yet to encounter but definitely had a lot to offer even the most stringent of Trek fans.

Recent news is buzzing with the results of the Christie's auction of Star Trek memorabilia amassed over years from all of the TV series and movies. The bidding was pretty fierce and somewhat unusual at times given some of the bidders decided to come in costume as well. CNet had previously posted photos of some of the items up for bidding so feel free to go down Trek memory lane as you go over the images.

The last entry that came to mind was another Neha Tiwari blog posting, this time called Star Trek Movies: Which is best?, which tries to determine a way to really determine the ranking of all 10 movies so far. It was just interesting to see how their gross earnings over the years evened out although I would like to see someone try to recompute the totals b factoring in inflation somehow.

There are more tidbits for you on the main CNet page or elsewhere across the web as the science fiction world unites to celebrate those brave explorers or boldly went where no TV series had gone before.

[The Web] Deleting the Barkeep

CNet News - and writing CNet that way is just a personal preference - recently posted pictures of the Intermission Bar at the University of Westminister.

Why would a bar become featured on a tech site like CNet? Simple.

It turns out school's student union is testing out new high-tech tables that allow bar patrons to order their drinks on their own using a touch screen. This eliminates the need to muscle one's way to the bar in order or to try and corral a passing waiter just to get yourself a drink.

What will they think of next?

The tables also allow customers to IM other tables, going as far as providing pre-formed pick up lines. One can order drinks for other tables or forward credit in the same way just from the comfort of your seat. Now that is a novel idea.

I wonder if this will become the start of a new trend in bar design. It's certainly something I'd appreciate...