| 2007: The Retrospective Year-In-Review (and a very retro New Year's PLUS bonus unrelated shit) |
[Jan. 1st, 2008|11:55 pm] |
Best Accomplishments of 2007:
-Finished shooting my FIRST FEATURE FILM GASP AUGH HOLY EFF
-Survived many an organizational crisis regarding the above
-Rediscovered interest in dance (tap specifically, plans to branch out later on)
-Maintained my damn chest, exercised even more effectively than in '06
-Holding down a job for a year and a half, an unprecedented personal feat
Music of the Year:
Ozomatli: Live at the Fillmore, Jurassic 5: Quality Control, Galactic: Ruckus
Books of the Year:
Yotsuba&! Vols. 1-5
Games of the Year:
Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection, Call of Duty 4, Virtua Fighter 5, Resistance: Fall of Man, Puzzle Quest, Contra 4
Movies of the Year:
Children of Men (late), The Royal Tenenbaums (SO late), Shaun of the Dead (sense a trend here), Hot Fuzz, Transformers (not a WORD, Oni)
2007 was the year of HARD ASS WORK. The hardest working year I have EVER had. And SELF-MOTIVATED at that! Amazing! Productivity milestones raining like hail. I took last year's FIRST REAL FEELING OF DRIVE to CONQUER AND SUCCEED and followed through on it like Daniel Craig charging through drywall in a chase scene. The biggest fanciest planniest of them all is still 90% done, and it is definitely going to set the tone for 2008 once it hits like the faggy art film that it was ALWAYS MEANT TO BE. TAKING OFF EVEN MORE! HOO-AH (pelvic thrust)
( New Year's getting of togethers, gay eateries on Sunset, former High Schoolers who have barely put on weight, plus some flippy shit I did a few days ago... what fun! ) |
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| And it was The Best Labor Day ever |
[Sep. 4th, 2007|11:55 pm] |
Mid-week we found that there was no awesome going on during Labor Day. Hasty plans were made for shenanigans! My place was roughly the midpoint, not to mention the coziest option.( And lo, it was! The BEST. ) |
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| Gung hei gung hei/gong xi gong xi. |
[Feb. 18th, 2007|11:06 pm] |
It being the Year of the Boar, and my dad being one, I tried to draw him in his cycling gear riding a Boarcycle but it didn't come out the way I envisioned it.
I haven't done anything for Chinese New Year in ages. The most vivid things I remember about it as a kid was occasionally going to big seafood restaurants in Chinatown, sitting at tables of over a dozen people with the place so overcrowded that it was a definite fire hazard. Couldn't move your chair far enough to get up. I never ate anything besides rice and soy sauce.
Fancy Plans has been seriously jumping off this month. We're probably going to have as many or more shoot days as we did back in September, which was nine. October was the most productive month overall.
The website is SO ready. It's so freaking ready I can TASTE IT. One or two days, BOOM! WEBSITE! MYSTERY! SPECULATION! LOTTA COLORS! Anyway. Monday or Tuesday, hells of yes. It took me damn forever to get started, there was just a mean heap of graphics to make. After a few late nights I got over that hump quicker than I suspected, but it was a lot of tedious do/undo test-test-test for a while. SO ready. Hells of yais.
I've only played about an hour and a half of Resistance, I just got out of the conversion center in the beginning, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy this from my boss. He doesn't play it because it's too visceral for him (I can imagine how it would be a bit much for a 55-year old Chinese guy). The game is TENSE. I found the Gamespot review to be the most accurate. Also, I totally invented the damn Bullseye tracer round back in 7th grade.
This game is so damned huge and insane on my badical TV. ;_; |
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| 2006: The Retrospective Year-In-Review (and a very Filipino New Year's) |
[Jan. 1st, 2007|11:14 pm] |
Best Accomplishments of 2006:
-Writing and storyboarding a feature film
-Organizing and shooting almost half of said film so far
-Rediscovered drawing
-Seriously exercising regularly after two years of sporadic maintenance
-Learning new movements after over a year of stagnant ability
-Growing a damn chest
-Getting a regular job after five years and loving it for a change
Music of the Year:
Maceo Parker: Life on Planet Groove, Pipettes: We Are The Pipettes, Basement Jaxx: Crazy Itch Radio
Books of the Year:
Achewood Vols. 1-7
Games of the Year:
Guitar Hero, Mario Kart DS, Meteos, Tetris DS
Movies of the Year:
Thank You For Smoking, The Departed, Block Party, Throwdown, SPL
Overall 2006 was a phenomenal year, a landmark in my personal evolution and fantastically better than the wavering uncertainty that was 2004 and 2005. Big things happened in my artistic ambitions, I rediscovered old passions and turned them into strengths, I found my FIRST REAL FEELING OF DRIVE to CONQUER AND SUCCEED. Hella improvements physically and mentally. I'm riding the crest of this wave well into 2007 and it will be a bigger and better (and busier) year. I'm TAKING OFF! *strikes pose*
On the 31st I drove up to Gene's in Palmdale (holy CHRIST middle of nowhere) to throw down into the new year. DYLE was there for a good chunk of the afternoon. Jed, Oscar, Reuben, DP Darryl and Gene's cute-as-a-button-with-a-lip-ring little sister were in attendance with Justin arriving later.
( Clicka for New Year's party type shenanigans and a Filipino bonanza ) |
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| I hope you all get tube socks and eighty push-ups. |
[Dec. 22nd, 2006|12:16 am] |
-Past two days I've been scraping a layer of ice off of my car before work. First time for everything.
-Read this awesome story about MEAT. It's fucking great. There's a short film of it on youtube but I thought it tried too hard to be funny. The window gag was great though.
-This year I am feeling a COMPLETE lack of holiday spirit. Not a damn ounce of the stuff. I'm thinking the crass materialism of it all has finally struck me. Christmas is only good to see the family again, a second annual break away from the usual. It's pretty disheartening to walk through a store with families yelling at each other over what to buy/not buy and for who and how much oh that's too much mom I want this be quiet I said you can't WAAAH that's it we're leaving HONK HONK THAT'S MY SPACE MOTHERFUCKER etc. Too much value placed on STUFF. It's not fun or whimisical or jolly to me anymore. Then again, I bet if I had a girlfriend I'd be the JOLLIEST bastard on the earth and annoying the hell out of everyone in my perimeter right now.
-I am the worst holiday gift-giver. Well, not exactly the worst, just unimaginative. I always want to get people practical things that they need or I'll know they'll use so I either ask directly or just gift card the FUCK out of people. I'd try to be more creative but otherwise it feels like gambling- there's always a good chance of that terrible look of disappointment and apathy. "Oh... great! It's... nice. *cough* Thanks."
Liquidlungs & Der Liebhaber
We're taking a short break for the holidays and new year's, which isn't as long as I previously thought since time goes by so fast now.
Going home in twelve hours, going to get some festivities on and hopefully good times will be the had, verily. Christmas recap around/about Thursday. |
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| Thanksgiving Not-As-Mega-As-Last-Time Pictoral Thanksgivingish what what |
[Nov. 26th, 2006|11:58 pm] |
After that bleedin' long-as-the-nine-hells drive I didn't have the strumgth to get out of bed until about four. Late-night pasta in the works right now. Also macula-deep in my old In Living Color/Sifl & Olly tapes. I have like eight of the damn things. MAN they did a lot of Ike Turner sketches.
Thanksgiving was laid-back and coooooool. It was one of the smallest gatherings since there were some uncles absent. Things carried on in true Leong fashion, which is constant munching lathered with a fine coat of dry wit.
( Pictures, hoo-ha, whatnot, so-on and so-forth. Hyphen bonanza. ) |
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| Ramon proudly endorses Tiger Load malt liquor |
[Feb. 14th, 2006|05:42 pm] |
Happy Valentine's Day! :D
(Moved to DeviantART)
(Ball-point blah blah 3 or 4 hours)
Poor guy. I mean you put on a bow tie, get a forty, a sizable erection, and go up to a married woman to give her a box with a thong in it and get the teeth knocked out of your face.
I never liked Ramon, could you tell? Ramon and no Leona. Fuck THAT noise. Even though Ramon is like the first cruiserweight pro wrestler in a 2D game, cross body blocks and all, everything he does looks goofy as shit. And his voice/lines just make him worse. Bleh. Give me a Great Sasuke or Hayabusa lookalike anyday.
One thing that I've noticed since drawing again is that I'm actually satisfied with leaving things undetailed. Back in the day I used to cross-hatch and hyperdetail the FUCK out of things until they were damn near unintelligible. That's how most of my early attempts at women got totally ruined. I mean Ramon's chest and pants there, a few years ago he'd be so freaking roided out with muscle lines all over the place but now I'm just cool. Thank goodness for that.
edit: MAN I love Vanessa's suspender strap things. Those are awesome and I don't know why. I just die for wonderful female midsections.
Time to do some workings-out and write some choreo, yesss. |
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| 2005: The Retrospective Year-In-Review |
[Dec. 31st, 2005|03:00 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | holidays, internet | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  optimistic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Ridge Racer - Rhythm Shift | ] |
Goddamn new year's is TONIGHT. That shit crept up like a thug. Time for a long-ass retrospective- any of you guys feel like doing this too, I'd love to read 'em.
Best Accomplishments of 2005:
-First role in a feature film. I hadn't even worked as background on a feature before, plus it's a big movie, yay! Comes out in 2007. I'm not saying what it is, so don't ask.
-Traveled to British Columbia and St.Vincent & the Grenadines.
Best Discoveries (and Re-Discoveries) of 2005:
-Got back into Shaolin/Hung Gar after 8 years of forgetting the forms
-Chinese food
-I look fucking GREAT bald
-Journaling (got the LJ on Jan 21)
-Walking locally instead of driving
-NJPW (specifically Jushin Liger and Great Muta)
-Rechargable Lithium AAs
It was also a banner year for meeting internet buddies, most notably TODE, SUPER, PD and DYLE. Had some epic Hatercons (Day of Days). I think if you spend a lot of time socializing with folks on the internet, you should take the time to meet some of them. Fortunately I tend to hang with guys who act the same online as they do in real life.
Music of the Year:
Bebel Gilberto: Remixed, Prince: Live at the Aladdin Las Vegas (DVD), Led Zeppelin (DVD), Bowie: A Reality Tour (DVD), Dance Hall Crashers: Live at the House of Blues (DVD, more on this later), The Work of Director Michel Gondry (DVD)
Books of the Year:
Zen in the Martial Arts (Joe Hyams), If Chins Could Kill (Bruce Campbell), 2001 (Arthur C. Clarke), Making Movies (Sidney Lumet), Azumanga Daioh and Yotsuba&! (Azuma Kiyohiko)
Games of the Year:
Tekken 5 (played until I broke the first copy), Metal Gear Solid 3 (Subsistence in MARCH?? ARGH), Cardfighter's Clash, Rebel Strike (co-op), Urban Reign, Ghost Squad,
and especially the NGPC and the EyeToy
Movies of the Year:
12 Angry Men, The Band Wagon, Sin City, The Life Aquatic, Evil Dead II (took me long enough), Napoleon Dynamite, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Tom Yum Goong, 40-Year Old Virgin, Musa: The Warrior (more on this later), Magnificent Butcher (more on this later)
Goals for 2006:
-Get a new car
-Action direct something
-*spoiler tags*
-*spoiler tags*
Overall 2005 was a great year and fantastically better than the awful & depressing mess that was 2004. Big things happened in my career, spent lots of quality time with my family and my best friend, traveled and met a wide array of new people, got a new bunch of hangout buddies, and amassed a grand pile of ideas for next year. The only downside is that I was broke most of the time but that's nothing new. I feel there are great things to come in 2006.
AND THEY'D BETTER... *flexes eagle claw toes menacingly* |
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| Satellite Radio + Yule Log Channel = a good time |
[Dec. 25th, 2005|08:00 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | family, holidays | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | super rad | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Bonnie Spector - Rockin' Around | ] |
Last night we had dinner with my mom, her parents and Uncle Leon. It's funny, dinner with them gets shorter every year (felt like 15 minutes then we were all literally full) but this time everyone was more relaxed and the night was long and pretty freaking hilarious. We rocked the Uno and Pictionary hardcore near the end of the night as the old folks watched the Sound of Music. Actually got dad to play, we haven't played board games with him since we were kids. Dad had a very Richard Pryor Christmas. I bought him the Here and Now/Sunset Strip DVD and Leon got him the 2-disc Anthology CD coincidentally.
X-Mas eve:
-1GB MP3 Player from dad
-Borders gift card from Leon (I got him the SAME THING olo) Probably buy Yotsuba&!.
-Pile of money that will immediately go to bills when I get home.
WHOO SANTA CAME SANTA CAME YAY
Santa apparently likes getting us mass quantities of junk food alongside dental products. We have the most sarcastic stocking-gift-opening Christmas morning every year; "Wow, Jolly Ranchers! Just like I saw at Long's Drugs when we were all there the other day! HOW DID SANTA KNOW." el oh el. Actually we all just wrap stuff for each other and cram the stuff in the stockings the day before. Off to x-mas brunch with my dad's side of the family in about 20 minutes.
EDIT: Just got back from San Francisco.
Christmas was really awesome this year. Food abounds, and people were getting REALLY creative with the presents this year. We had the longest present-opening session in years and it was roffletastic. Jeff had the stomach flu so the kids didn't come. The best part was getting everybody to play Pictionary, we actually had 10 people on four teams going at it. Dad fell on the floor TWICE it was so hilarious. Good thing Grandpa's deaf. I got up to do victory marches on "Lurch" and "Skid Row" (Dad was drawing smelly houses when everyone else was drawing cars skidding, Uncle Don said SKID and then it suddenly hit me- dad was on the floor and I was parading around the room). We've never before had everybody play a game together, ever.
1. Team Spongebob (Me, Lian, Dad)
2. Team Wait a Minute (Eva, Don, Leia)
3. Team Discovery Channel (Shay, Christina)
4. Team Fish (Sarah, Cara)
We took 'em to SCHOOL. Aunt Eva was eyeing us suspiciously going, "There's SOMETHING strange about how well this team is doing..." and Dad was all, "It's genetics." Lian and I were dying. Last year was Uno, next year Taboo probably.
I got everyone Borders gift cards. I was promoting a very literate Christmas.
X-Mas:
-Money for bills! :D
-Zorro by Isabel Allende
-Bruce Lee shirt by Giant Robot
-Gift cards for Borders (lol) & Best Buy (SO hoping for another Brian Wilson album :P)
-Toothbrushes and Gum (used to be MY annual thing), Pocky and popcorn
-A bendy yellow peg-leg Pirate
It was the best Chrimmus in a long long time. Pictures Monday or Tuesday. |
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| JINGLE BELLS JINGLE *SHOT* |
[Dec. 3rd, 2005|03:36 pm] |
It's cold. BRISK! I like it. It's a significant enough change for a Los Angelean, anyway. People all out shivering in their winter coats in 60 degree weather. The rest of the world may laugh, but this is what happens when you live through a 6-8 month summer.
Went for a hearty jaunt this morning. I rarely take walks on weekends and had almost forgotten it was Saturday- until I stepped into Big Lots and saw about 2 million people in there. The state's population was also in full force at Toys R Us. I tried to give the employees there some moral support. I worked during the holidays at TRU in Emeryville back in 2001, those were the WORST of times. That TRU had the highest theft rate in the whole country then (NEVER. WORKING. RETAIL. AGAIN.). And the CAROLS! HOLY GOD THE CAROLS! Big Lots hit me with the holiday season pretty hard, I had to duck into Office Depot to get some peace and quiet. I love Office Depot. Everything's so USEFUL. I don't NEED the metal file separator but I still feel the need to buy it! Accursed practical displays.
Some teenaged ruffians drove by on the corner blasting Frank Sinatra. That made me smile.
At TRU the PR:MF toys are out already! I found a Blue and Pink (LUCKY /Napoleon) and picked them up, these will go for a lot in a short while. Last year I found a PR:DT Yellow and kept it in my closet for a few months, it went for about $28 later (4x what I paid). In PR toys the girls are always the most shunned in case assortments and thus become coveted (particularly in the first run before all the variants come out). This is primarily how I survived from 2000-2002, just working the collector's market with Joes, Spawn, and Spider-Man. At least I wasn't a TOTAL bastard about it though, when I auctioned them the starting amount was always below what I paid.
I like the holiday season but I'll enjoy it more when I get my Christmas shopping done. Money comes in and flies away just as quickly ;_;
My sister got a free copy of Sniper Elite for the PS2 and gave it to me. I had been hankering for a WWII shooter, I played the hell out of MOH: Frontline until I could play it backward with my eyes closed (MOH: Rising Sun was a disappointment). I'm interested in Call of Duty 2: Big Red One but I'm not paying $40-50 for anything right now. So hey! Lucky me, a WWII shooter falls into my lap.
( Click here for a review ) |
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| Thanksgiving Mega-Weekend Pictoral Part 2 of 3 |
[Nov. 28th, 2005|12:28 pm] |
And to follow:
Dad, Lian, and I at the new Japanese place in Hercules on Wednesday night. It's a very nice looking place and extremely busy, probably the nicest restaurant in Hercules (not that there was much competition). Their chicken katsu was effing bland though.
( (Click here for the food and a huge-eyed baby) ) |
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| MERRY SPOOKMAS |
[Nov. 1st, 2005|06:56 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | holidays | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | alert | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Spongebob Season 2 - Disc 2 (again) | ] |
Another year, another interactive Homestar cartoon. And a short film that has nothing to do with Halloween but you must watch anyway if you've ever seen Power Rangers before (HEY FONZ!).
Anyway. Some party pics from N.Hollywood on Saturday, just a few highlights. There was a great Buddy Jesus and a CEO in a neck brace that were roaming the halls for a while but I missed the opportunity for a shot. There were several parties going on in the same area so tons of folks were dressed up one way or another. Lots of people doing the prison inmate & sexy policewoman thing.
Thriller MJ wearing a Bruce Lee wig (his tight red leather pants were the talk of the party), the Punisher eating ribs, Claude Rains (this guy was really cool, he came in with a gentleman in a bowler's hat and a huge pink tutu), and Bruce Lee sans wig (SUCH EFFORT -_-).
The Crow, hot girl in a vinyl skirt, Ash (had an electric chainsaw hand and everything), Corpse Bride, construction worker, voodoo man something-or-other (This dude was FUNNY holy shit. He never let go of his shrunken head. No, that's not a crude joke.)
For most of the night I was ye olde creepy floating head on the left. In the dark I was hard to see and as people got inebriated I would become an increasingly unnerving presence in the room. For about 15 minutes I just sat still in the corner of the room not saying anything, and some guys were just freaking out. "Who IS that guy? WHY ISN'T HE SAYING ANYTHING?!" Ho ho ho! Best original costume ever. People would ask who I was, I'd just stand real close and not say anything. They were TRIPPING, it was great. For a while I just took off the white mask and went around as a black head with glasses, that scared people even more. Note to self: wear black pants next year too.
Then we have MJ and Ash getting they schwerve on, some brief Twister action (short-lived but VERY hot for the minute it went on), and a familiar look that I sported earlier in the evening for a little while. When it got around 1:30 AM we started doing backflips in the really cramped living room. Best part about that party were the multiple trays of baby back ribs which materialized out of nowhere.
Afterwards I crashed at my sister's and we ended up cracking jokes and quoting Spongebob/Monty Python/Ren & Stimpy well past 4 AM. Then she showed me the Krusty Krab Training Video episode from Season 3 and I laughed so hard I got cramps. "AH-HEM, I said... GRAPH." Some of the jokes are really lame, but the WHAT-THE-FUCK factor that they actually DID them just makes it utterly gut busting. What a great show.
Sunday not much went on and Monday almost nobody was out tricking or treating in my neighborhood. Sam came by and tried to trick me with his girlfriend, but I had heard his chortling behind the bush before she knocked on the door. We went out for Mexican food at the 24-hour place up the street. Saw about a dozen misc. people walk in all dressed up, including a pack of about 8 or 9 lesbians decked out as prison inmates and sherriffs with short skirts. I would've taken a picture of the obscenely hot redhead but they probably would've torn my head off.
Halloween was good this year. Now I can look forward to hopping by Savon and buying candy on clearance.
NOVEMBER ALREADY?! CRIKEY! Today I call my mom and sing happy birthday in a glorious and mostly on-key display of vocal dexterity. |
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| Hills and valleys, money down the hole |
[Jul. 6th, 2005|12:36 am] |
When it rains, it pours, eh.
My new hard drive works great, but we found my processor is running at superhumanly excessive temperatures and my cpu nuked itself. Great. So my friend Rich is currently building me a new one. No predictions on when I'm back up. Reinstalling everything is gonna be a-whee fun fun time gabba hey. And I want to tag all these entries pretty soon.
Life for a modern man is peculiar without the convenience & community a 24/7 internet connection brings (and with comforting regularity at that). I miss the gang and the late-night realtime zings.
Spent the 4th with my sister and friends. Illegal fireworks have been going off all over the neighborhood for the past 3 days. People still shooting them off today, too.
Movies watched during the downtime:
-Schindler's List (Excellent)
-Apollo 13 (Good, but hammered you to death with the suffering family shots OH GNOES RING DOWN THE DRAIN)
-Star Trek III (Previously seen only partially. WORST. KLINGONS. EVER.)
-Big Fish (Wasn't remotely interested at first, but was surprisingly good)
-Madagascar ("YOU DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING" = Absolutely brilliant)
-The Life Aquatic (Excellent soundtrack and art direction)
-Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (Best of the Shinsei era, no question)
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Outright bastard Godzilla sans pupils = toppest of tiers
P.S. FeedLindsay.com is funny. |
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| Experiencing technical difficulties. |
[Jun. 22nd, 2005|06:14 pm] |
I got back on sunday and discovered my computer now refuses to load windows and infinitely restarts. Hopefully I'll get my shit repaired by the end of the week, because I have a lot of sinful, depraved pornography intellectually robust websites and message boards to catch up on, as well as protracted business-related claptrap to thoroughly dismantle and follow with the proper forthright riposte.
>=|
For Father's Day I got my dad this Lewis Black CD. It's an excellent disc and gets better as it goes on. |
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shower need like whoa
sleepy
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irksome