Sports Drama

I never envisioned myself to be a sports fan but lately, most of my anime viewing and manga reading is centered around sports. Lately my big three are Eyeshield 21 (American football), Hajime no Ippo (boxing), and Major (baseball).

What's interesting is that despite belonging to the same genre, the good titles remain distinctively unique. Eyeshield 21, for example, manages to inject slapstick comedy and surrealism yet remain serious during the times it needs to be serious. Hajime no Ippo certainly has its laughable moments but it's serious and down-to-earth all throughout. Major, on the other hand, has this consistently flawed protagonist and for awhile, was concentrating more on human drama than sports drama.

Which brings me to my point. Most (if not all) stories contain drama. In sports anime/manga however, there's two kinds of drama that predominantly stands out. I call them human drama and sports drama. Human drama is when there's something going on outside of the game (whatever their sport may be) -- it could be an injury that prevents them from playing, peer pressure of family responsibilities that prevents them from participating in a game, or even flat-out social relationships. Sports drama, on the other hand, is excitement that's related to the game during a game -- a missed shot in basketball, the psychological pressure in needing to sink the ball into the goal, the support from your teammates that lends you strength to perform magnificent feats, etc. Some titles will balance out the two while others will use one more predominantly than the other.

Captain Tsubasa, for example, while contains human drama elements, is more of a sports drama title. The focus is on the games and the "special moves" the protagonist performs. Slam Dunk usually shifts back and forth, with a few consecutive episodes focusing on human drama before shifting high gear into sports drama (and you know it's sports drama when several episodes/chapters are devoted to one single game). I caught a few episodes of Dear Boys and it's not my cup of tea simply because I found it had too much human drama and too little sports drama (or rather executed the latter poorly).

To those unfamiliar with those titles, I'll use a Western example: TV wrestling (whether it's TNA or WWE). My media class in high school mentioned TV wrestling as a man's soap opera. And in certain ways, it's true because it has lots of drama (and formulaic drama at that). Human drama occurs when there's conflict outside of a match (usually happens when the wrestlers are talking). It could be taunting an opponent, betraying them while they're in the middle of a speech, an off-screen romance, antagonizing the manager, etc. Sports drama, on the other hand, is the reasons why wrestling matches are long and why the wrestlers have "signature moves". It occurs when wrestlers manage to revive before the three-count, or usually breaking out of a submission when the crowd is cheering them on. To me, the sports drama in TV wrestling is a bit lacking. Sure, the wrestlers are performing dangerous stunts but the problem with live television is that you don't have the benefits of cinema, everything from using slow-motion, flashback, or even a simple good close-up. The tools TV wrestling seems to have is the camera rerun and crowd participation.

Of course the other thing I like about sports anime/manga is the fact that the story arcs are finite and easily identifiable. One game is usually a story arc with a beginning, rising action, climax, and epilogue.

Weekend Updates

I took a leave last Friday to finish a story I needed to re-write and perhaps the most noticeable thing is that I write best in the morning. Of course the problem with working a 9 am - 6 pm job is that you're always in a rush to get to work in the morning (either that or lose some sleep). Not to mention that between 10 pm - 8:30 am, I don't have Internet at home (blame PLDT).

It was also a sale at Robinsons Galleria last Friday and I treated myself by purchasing the entire stock of Eyeshield 21 manga at Comic Odyssey. Good news is that in addition to the 10% discount (because of the mall-wide sale), I also got one volume free. Also managed to acquire Museum of Terror Vol. 1 albeit a day before the sale.

Saturday was spent doing some last-minute downloading for Tin but unfortunately, my Internet conked out before it could finish the job. Of course I also spent the previous three days watching the first two seasons of Major, which made me interested in watching anime again.

Passed by to Robinsons Galleria (again) and I finally found out where National Bookstore Bestseller is located. It fascinates me though that out of the four floors of the mall, three of them are occupied by National Bookstore. It's nothing compared to how a few years ago, there were four Jollibee fastfood chains in the same mall (and two where in the same floor) but still.

Managed to complete the Gollanz SF/Orbitbooks UK of science-fiction novels since Bestsellers apparently was stocking the last three books I was missing in the collection (and was priced at less than P300 thanks to the sale).

Then it was off to a friend's sleepover birthday party where we managed to play Order of the Stick, A Game of Thrones, six hours of DotA, and ogled at Starcraft II.

But as the Peons would say, now it's work work! (Dabu.)

Moleskine at Avalon.ph

"Hi all,

Got these Moleskines and will be posting them on the site soon (with pictures). Read on below to find out what a Moleskine is all about or just browse to www.moleskine. com. Let's just say it is the "Mac" of notebooks. Pamper yourself with one now!

BRAND NEW Moleskine Notebooks!

Market/Original Price: P1,200.00 up

Avalon.ph price: P600.00 below (Price subject to change)

NOTE: Due to transit, some portions of the plastic seal is peeled off. I already sorted out the "reject" stocks so you'll get the item 80% to 99.9% sealed. For those who want a "reject" stock please e-mail me. I can give a discount of PhP20.00 to 50.00 or more on these. Since you will be removing the plastic cover and using the notebook anyway I suggest you take advantage of this offer. For reject stocks, all defects if any are FORMULATED into pricing.

For orders, e-mail macs01@avalon. ph.

Moleskine: Ruled Notebook - P600.00

240 Lined Pages
5 x 8 1/4" (13x21cm)
Acid Free Paper
Expandable Inner Pocket
Attached Page Marker Ribbon
Elastic Secure Closure Cord

-------

Moleskine: Sketchbook - P600.00

100 Plain Pages
5 x 8 1/4" (13x21cm)
Top Quality, Heavy Acid Free Paper
Expandable Inner Pocket
Attached Page Marker Ribbon
Elastic Secure Closure Cord

---

Moleskine: Plain Reporter Notebook - P500.00

240 Plain Pages, last 24 sheets detachable
5 x 8 1/4" (13x21cm)
Acid Free Paper
Expandable Inner Pocket
Attached Page Marker Ribbon
Elastic Secure Closure Cord

---

Moleskine: Ruled Reporter Notebook - P500.00

240 Lined Pages, last 24 sheets detachable
5 x 8 1/4" (13x21cm)
Acid Free Paper
Expandable Inner Pocket
Attached Page Marker Ribbon
Elastic Secure Closure Cord

---

Moleskine: Squared Notebook - P450.00

240 Squared Pages
5 x 8 1/4" (13x21cm)
Acid Free Paper
Expandable Inner Pocket
Attached Page Marker Ribbon
Elastic Secure Closure Cord

---

Moleskine: Blank Cahier Ruled Kraft Set of 3 - P400.00

Set of 3 Ruled Journals (Kraft)
Brand New & Sealed in Original Plastic
80 Ruled pages, last 16 sheets detachable
5 x 8 1/4" (13x21cm)
Acid Free Paper
Expandable Inner Pocket
LIMITED STOCKS!

---

Moleskine: Blank Cahier Ruled Black Set of 3 - P400.00

Set of 3 Ruled Journals (Black)
Brand New & Sealed in Original Plastic
80 Ruled pages, last 16 sheets detachable
5 x 8 1/4" (13x21cm)
Acid Free Paper
Expandable Inner Pocket
LIMITED STOCKS!

--- "

The Textbook Dilemma

A serious problem plaguing the Philippine education system is the lack of books and textbooks. Most students simply can't afford to purchase them or are unwilling to devote funds to legally obtain them. I mention the latter part because one of the more serious violators of copyright infringement is happening in the Philippines: the photocopying of books. In the Philippines where the quality of life isn't as "convenient" or "luxurious" as the West, the more prevalent mode of book piracy aren't eBooks and illegally downloaded documents but the photocopying of books and textbooks.

There are, of course, a lot of factors contributing to this phenomena. One is the fact that a lot of Filipinos aren't rich--most of them are suffering from poverty. Photocopying is a simple and cheap means to replicate a book. In a way, the local textbook industry has somehow adjusted to this. I mean in my seventeen years of education, I've seen science books in black and white printed on newsprint. This isn't necessarily bad if done correctly but the problem is that they're simply reproductions of more expensive, colored science books. The charts become unreadable, references to color that's simply cannot be distinguished, etc.

The other fact is that it wasn't always illegal to photocopy a book for "educational" purposes. Back during the Marcos regime, it was legal to do so. And I'm not condemning the government back then for instituting such a policy--in the short term, it seemed like the best solution to solve the poverty and illiteracy dilemma of the nation. Were foreign publishers happy? Probably not. But the political climate has changed and the present government has to appease a lot of external (and I really mean international) forces.

I'm not directly condemning photocopying--it is a cheap and effective method of distributing media. The problem is it's a short term solution--disregarding laws (and in this case, copyright laws) is disruptive in the long run. And if I have any complaints against the Philippines, it's that we always turn to short-term solutions instead of long term ones. So now we've made a long term decision to enforce copyright law but enforcing it is another problem. And the problem with humans (and not just Filipinos) is that it's harder to give up something we're used to or feel is a "right" even when that's not necessarily the case.

Perhaps what's shocking is that while the textbook photocopying is a solution for the impoverished, it's not only who take advantage of it. I'm not by any means impoverished. If I gave my family an honest assessment, we're in the upper middle-class or lower upper-class income bracket. I went to Ateneo de Manila University for my college degree and it's not exactly an impoverished university (and while you might argue we have scholars and working students, for the most part, a lot of the university's students are well-to-do). Yet textbook photocopying is still rampant here. In fact, it is in universities that these micro-photocopying industry thrives. I mean one can only photocopy so many hand-outs and notebooks--a good chunk of what's being photocopied are books, especially in the university library.

Of course looking back, purchasing books legally instead of photocopying them might have easily cost as much as my tuition. I mean I took this one literature class over the summer and it cost me half of what I'm earning right now to acquire all the necessary books I need (the class was "Ten Books of the Century"). The other problem I faced, aside from the acquiring the funds to purchase all those books, was finding the books themselves. I think the local bookstore landscape has changed in the past few years for the better but four years ago, it wasn't so easy to find Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Castle by Franz Kafka. And that was just one class. How much more for a student who has multiple classes?

Again, this might not be so much of a big issue in the West but it is a dilemma with no immediate viable solutions. We're a third-world country buying first-world books. What probably caught me off-guard was my friend asking for a Demonoid account, not to download porn (which I expect from him) but to acquire medical books (for one reason or another, whether it's out of his budget or out of circulation locally).

The one solution I see that will make books and textbooks accessible to the masses are eBooks, but that must be quantified. Right now the biggest barrier to eBooks is the fact that you need an expensive device to read them and the industry is doing little to remedy this. What does one need to read an eBook? A computer, a PDA, an eBook reader--all of which are expensive, even if the eBooks themselves might be sold cheap (or even free in the case of illegal downloads). It's simply not a viable alternative as it is.

What hurts the most is probably the fact that this shouldn't be the case. The industry can follow the loss-leader business model. Or simply create a functional but featureless eBook reader that will cost under $20.00. It doesn't even need to run Mac OS X, I'd be happy with Dos. But it seems that people are dazzled by things like the iPod and PDAs and the like. What irks me about Filipinos is that they'll somehow manage to scrounge up enough money to buy a mobile phone but not food for their family for the day and such.

Neutral Grounds Sale (and some interesting RPG info on the Philippines)

Neutral Grounds Robinsons Galleria is currently on a moving sale (don't fret, they're simply moving to the next week). RPG books are like 50% off while the cash-cow items (i.e. miniatures) are going for 10% off.

Just talked with the owner and I confirmed my suspicions: RPG supplements aren't selling (or rather certain supplements do sell... it's simply hard to predict which will and which won't). The Core D&D books have been doing well but they've essentially stopped importing supplements. D&D Miniatures, on the other hand, are a different matter. So it's come to the point where they've stopped importing D&D books but keep on acquiring D&D Miniatures. Which isn't really a surprise to me. What is, however, is the fact that they haven't been cashing in on WotC's other cash cow: Dungeon Tiles (at least according to my theory). Have no fear however as Neutral Grounds will be giving the product a shot.

eBooks Redux

Wattpad recently made a comment to my post on Reading: Interface and Design. To sum up what Wattpad is offering, they're enabling users to read eBooks from their mobile phone via SMS. Of course their solution has two problems, one of which they're ready to admit: the fact that you're reading a novel from a tiny screen. Of course to me, this "problem" is less noticeable in a non-Romanized language such as Chinese or Japanese, which takes up less space per character (and is one of the reasons why certain Famicom games worked but lost a lot when translating it to the NES). The second problem is that your phone probably needs a lot of memory to store the eBook. I mean while mobile phones are prevalent here in the Philippines (to the point that crooks rob you of your cellphone but not your wallet), a lot rely on the Sim card for memory, and phone memory isn't a lot except on the high-end models. Barring those two flaws, the product seems to work (haven't tested it yet though since my phone needs to have an Internet connection--another limitation--in order for me to download it), especially in light of its biggest advantage: it's free and works with commonplace technology.

Going back to the subject of eBooks, another hurdle eBooks has to overcome is its history. What I mean by that is that eBooks would probably have been more acceptable if books didn't come before it. I mean rising from the primordial soup, if humans suddenly discovered electronics and skipped the stone age and the metal age, eBooks would probably be widely accepted as the medium for reading. But that's clearly not the case. Whenever you're grasping an eBook (or rather the device containing the eBook), one can't help but compare it to a similar product: the book. In fact, regular books are probably the biggest competition eBooks face. If we eliminate conventional books from the face of the earth, more people would probably consider learning how to use/read eBook more. But that's simply not the scenario here and probably won't be in the near future (but the distant future is another matter), making the point moot.

An important question few dare to ask is whether the current direction of eBooks is where we want to go. I mean the medium of paper is clearly different from the medium of a computer screen. There are things one can do that the other can't. Take for example Nick Bantock's Griffin and Sabine books. That's simply one book that will never make a complete transition to the eBook format. Sure, you can have the images, and even have certain things "pop out", but you can never capture the feeling of opening an envelope and smelling the stamps for example. Having said that, there are also things that an eBook can do better than your ordinary book. Take the Choose Your Own Adventure line of books. It's something that feels like it was designed for a video game, and perhaps the best method to capture it would be through eBooks. No more sifting through pages and "accidentally" reading through the other possibilities or paths. What you read--and what you choose--dictates the story. Sure, you can cheat, in the same way people can cheat memes, but at least doing so would be intentional rather than forgetting to track where you are or a misturned page. eBooks can give readers a level of interactivity that conventional books can't (although I'd argue that Nick Bantock's books are quite interactive, but that's the exception) but it's not heading in that direction. The question is, should it or should it not? I mean just because you can pack a lot of features into a DVD doesn't mean the companies do so. But whereas it's perhaps more clear-cut in the movie industry (yes to additional features!), it's perhaps an unexplored topic in the eBook field. People are merely converting printed books into a digital format when it is capable of doing more. Should we unearth this latent potential, or let tradition rule over this technology?

Presently, the current mentality is that books are more valuable than eBooks, whether it's in cost of production or the price consumers are willing to pay for them. I mean the first argument that comes to mind is that publishers pay to have a book printed while that's not the case with eBooks: the latter remain as softcopies. I think publishers should take note of that mentality: present readers are unwilling to pay the price of a book for an eBook. It doesn't make much sense to them, especially in light of DRM, the fact that hard drives can be more fragile than books (although that's not necessarily the case), and the fact that they're used to reading books but not eBooks.

Of course in the far flung future, that mentality needn't be true. In fact, I envision the reverse. A thousand years from now, people will be willing to pay more for eBooks than books. This assumes of course that computers and technology become more prevalent than what it is right now.

1. eBooks are easy and cheap to reproduce. All I have to do is "print" it. Books, on the other hand, are difficult to replicate. One needs to access a photocopier in addition to the labor needed to copy each and every page.
2. eBooks is a portable medium. I can store it in my flash drive, in my computer (especially when computers become smaller and smaller), in my mobile phone, in my PDA, or whatever digital accessory that becomes developed. Suffice to say, I can make lots of back-ups (and is one reason why DRM is currently hindering the growth of eBooks). With a book, once it gets wet, burned, torn, it's gone. eBooks are for the long term while paper books are for the short term.
3. eBooks are easier to loan to other people. Whether it's sending it via email, a web server, WiFi, an SMS message, etc., it's probably more convenient and cheaper to pass around an eBook (much like #2) than it is for a book (especially due to shipping costs).
4. It's easier to maintain a digital library than a physical library. It works for music and it should work for eBooks too should the idea be embraced. I mean right now, just look at people and their iPods. People don't carry their entire CD collection with them, they just carry one or two music devices. For eBooks, archiving even becomes easier. Interested in looking for a certain passage but don't know where to look? Forget the Dewey Decimal System, just use the search function!
5. Instant delivery. Just download the book and there you have it. No more waiting for shipping dates or taking the time to go out of your house and visit your local bookstore.
6. I can read eBooks with nearly any device instead of simply relying on paper.

Of course in order for this to be all true, sufficient technology is needed and it takes time for people to undergo a paradigm shift. I mean presently, #5 and #6 are perceived as assets of books (taking the time to browse through a bookshelf, the fact that paper is more convenient than an electronic screen) but those same advantages might appear as liabilities in the far flung future.

What I mentioned, however, is simply a possibility, and it bears watching how long the "paper revolution" will resist the technological one.

More Dreams

I'm probably a biological aberration in the sense that I could be dreaming (not daydreaming!) and at the same time aware of the surroundings of my sleeping body. I don't really know how that's possible. It was doubly weird a few days ago when I was quite tired and sleepy, and in my dream, I was still sleepy. I'm already sleeping... what more does my dream-self want, to sleep in my dreams too?

Of course just now, I awoke from a dream that revolves around a motif that recurs over the year. I don't get it often yet the theme is always the same. It's not exactly a nightmare but neither is it a pleasant experience. My bad dream? Learning Chinese, complete with answering exams you're bound to fail because you leave too many blanks.

Quark's Looking for "Actors"

Taken from Quark's Livejournal:

"so diego and i wrote this movie about a rock band called Rakenrol two years ago and it's in development hell mostly because the Philippine movie industry is still stuck in the 1950s with the goddamn studio system and big studios won't lend us their talent and so i wake up this morning and think to myself, "motherfucker. i don't need artistas, dammit! i can get actors!"

hehehe. so. we have decided to hold auditions. if you love cinema and music do spread the word. tell all your friends! or audition yourself!

we are looking for people to play the
following--

ODIE
male. someone who looks 18 years old. college student, thin-ish build. shy, reserved guy into rock music. quiet genius type. knows how to play guitar.

MO
male. someone who looks 24-26. thin build. barista and former punk, but doesn't look it anymore because he has to make a living. knows how to play guitar.

JUNFOUR
male. someone who looks 18. a bit more heavily built -- bully looking. is a drummer who doesn't know anything about music but just needs to vent his anger to the world.

IRENE
female. 18 year old looking. thin to medium build. spunky, pretty, funny and quirky. must know how to sing (preferrably rock music or any of its sub-genres)



auditions will be held at Furball Inc., #70 18th Ave. Cubao Quezon City on Saturday, May 19. for scheduling purposes and inquiries you can contact Sab Tañedo at 0917-5380435 or e-mail her your resumes at republic_of_mindanao@yahoo.com"

The Philippine Geek Primer part 1

Of course when I say "The Philippines", I really mean "just Metro Manila", the product of over-crowding the country's urban cities. So while we may be bigger than say, Hong Kong, to an urbanite geek like me, it doesn't feel that way.

Comics

When I speak of comics, all I'm really talking about are comics shipped from the US. Occasionally, a store might pick up a Japanese product or -gasp- a European title but the norm is stuff you get from the US.

So here's the deal. In the US, the latest comics gets released on Wednesdays. Unfortunately (but fortunate when it comes to movie premieres), we're ahead of the US by half a day so we don't get our comics on Wednesdays... usually. Shops like Comic Quest and Comic Odyssey are usually the exception. I mean Comic Quest usually has the latest stocks by Wednesday evening assuming nothing goes wrong or realistically by Thursday in most of their shops. I don't have insider information on Comic Odyssey but as far as I'm concerned, when I drop by on Thursdays, they have the latest stocks. In the past, mainstream comic shops like Filbars usually get their stocks by Friday so that should be the day you should pass by. Back when CCHQ was still in business, they got their stocks on Friday mornings. I've never been to Druid's Keep but I expect they'll have the latest stock no later than Friday.

The secret to knowing how much a title will cost is knowing the exchange rate the store is using. Usually it's P60.00 = $1.00 (for various reasons, everything from shipping, taxes, and you know, profit) but there are exceptions (and from what I hear, Druid's Keep operates on a lower exchange rate--only time will tell whether this is sustainable or if their business plan works).

Books

If comics are shipped every week, bookstores operate on a less-frequent shipping schedule. As far as I could ascertain, bookstores like Fully Booked and A Different Bookstore gets new stocks every two weeks, with new stocks on display by the weekend (as early as late Friday). Booktopia also gets new stocks twice every month if I remember correctly (but they've cut back on book orders, which ships once every month). National Bookstore and Powerbooks operate more on a monthly schedule and usually takes twice as long to order books.

Here's what you need to know: the mainstream bookstores (Fully Booked and National Bookstore/Powerbooks), because they're these huge companies who ships large quantities of books (that's not the only variable in the formula though), they can afford to give a lower peso value against the dollar. Last I computed it was something like P40.00 = $1.00 (you can grab a random book and do the math yourself). The independent bookstores, however, can't offer to sell their books at those prices. It's somewhere more along the lines of P50.00 = $1.00. That changes, however, when it comes to ordering books. The last time I ordered a book from National Bookstore, it was something like P55.00 = $1.00 (but back then, the peso to dollar exchange rate was around that high).

Another tidbit you need to know is that the annual book fair occurs on either the last week of August or first week of September (August 29 - September 2 in 2007) in which participating concessionaires sell their books at a discount (and this includes the University Presses, in addition to their own Academic Book Fair). The month before the Manila International Book Fair, it's a common tactic that bookstores go on sale.

Board Games, Card Games, Miniatures, RPGs

If I lumped them into one category, it's because the industry here isn't that big.

The most popular (and I assume most profitable) are Collectible Card Games (CCGs). You don't have to be a hobby store to carry them. I frequently see comic stores carrying them as well. Unlike the US, we don't get every CCG imaginable. We get the popular ones though. Here's a quick rundown of CCGs that managed to land here in at least one point in time (I might miss a few):

• Magic: The Gathering
• Legend of the Five Rings
• Wildstorm
• Ani-Mayhem
• Marvel Overpower
• C-23
• Netrunner
• BattleTech
  
• Star Wars
• Lord of the Rings
• Rage
• Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
• Initial D
• Pokemon
• Yu-Gi-Oh
• Warlord
• World of Warcraft
• A Game of Thrones
• Naruto
• VS
• WWE Raw Deal
  

Of course over the years, a lot were fads (i.e. Ani-Mayhem) while others developed into small cult followings (i.e. V:TES). A few made it mainstream (you can probably guess which ones those are).

Right now the distributor of all things Wizards of the Coast (WotC) is Neutral Grounds. They also have a virtual monopoly in the related-hobby save board games: they're the distributor of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K, HeroClix, and a bunch of the CCGs I mentioned above (including the non-WotC ones).

Honestly, if you want miniatures, it's not really an option -- you go to Neutral Grounds. They also have paints and brushes as well as various Games Workshop items (including White Dwarf magazine).

Re-stocks at Neutral Grounds are usually once every month (but I could be wrong) but they're usually on time for pre-releases and such. Exchange rate is at P60.00 = $1.00 last I checked.

For RPG products, you either went to Neutral Grounds, Comic Quest, or crossed your fingers and hopefully found them at bookstores like Fully Booked and A Different Bookstore. The bookstores and Neutral Grounds seemed to have given up on RPG products however and there hasn't been any new products on their shelf since 4th quarter of 2006. The last non-WotC product at Neutral Grounds was World's Largest Dungeon for example. Comic Quest continues to get RPG products when it can. Their latest inventory includes Tome of Artifacts, various White Wolf books, and your monthly dose of Dragon and Dungeon magazine. The only thing it has trouble picking up are WotC books thanks to a new retailer policy from WotC.

Board games is dominated by board game shop Hobbes/Landes. It's mostly mainstream products and kid-friendly games (so no ultra-violent board games here) and is a reliable source for games like Settlers of Catan and Carcasonne. The other place to get board games is Neutral Grounds, which has the other, more exotic stuff such as A Game of Thrones and Warcraft board games. Between the two, they're your source of card games and board games barring independent merchants (I know someone who's side business is to import board games for example but he has no physical shop) and the occasional turn-out at Comic Quest.

Note that big toy store chains and department stores also get various products, such as HeroClix miniatures, Magic: The Gathering booster boxes, and even the occasional board game. But it's still the same price at what Neutral Grounds sells them, minus the diversity of products.

An Experimental Post... and Board Games to Boot!

First off, I'm trying to publish a blog entry via email so if this doesn't get through, you'll never see this post anyway.

Second, media coverage really helps entice people to buy a product, even if it's a "soft-sell" or not directly telling you to "go buy it". For example, visits to Newsarama almost makes me purchase comics I never intended on buying. Lately, the criminal in question is listening to a podcast interview with Joshua Frost (from Paizo Publishing) by Pulp Gamer.

Paizo's new product is Stonehenge: An Anthology Board Game. What that basically means is that you get a board game that can be played several ways, in the same way that a deck of playing cards can be used to play solitaire, poker, or bridge, or the way Half-Life served as an engine for various games (the most notable is Counterstrike). It's an innovative concept that makes you wonder why someone hasn't done it in the first place.

Anyway, you get five great game designers working on Stonehenge, and there's other equally-talented game designers working on the expansion (and the next anthology board game after that). My problem with the product page of Stonehenge is that while it gives the credits of one of the designers, Mike Selinker, it doesn't give the rest. Here's a quick run-down of the various designers and the games they've designed:

• Mike Selinker (Pirates of the Spanish Main, Axis & Allies, and Risk: Godstorm)
• James Ernest (founded Cheapass Games which gave us the likes of Kill Doctor Lucky, Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond, Give Me the Brain, and Diceland) [Of the four, I've only played Kill Doctor Lucky.]
• Richard Borg ( Battle Cry and BattleLore)
• Bruno Faidutti (Knightmare Chess, Mystery of the Abbey , and Citadels)
• Richard Garfield (Magic: The Gathering, RoboRally) [I didn't even have to use wikipedia!

Of course my question will is...will it be available here in the Philippines, or will I have to trade an arm and a leg for it?

Dreams for May

Yesterday's nightmare was relaxing in a hot bathtub... full of cockroaches.

This morning's horror consisted of body-possessing creatures that controlled people by latching onto people's heads (think of facehuggers except with mindflayer characteristics).

Hmmm...

Putting Things Into Perspective

While there are arguably objective truths in the world, for the most part the human experience is full of relative experiences. One man's trash is another man's treasure, so to speak. Or perhaps an individual might appear to be a villain to some people, and a hero to another. When it comes to problems (and don't we have our share of problems), I'd like to follow what my former pastor told me about them: there are two kinds of problems, good problems and bad problems. Here's an example:

Good Problem: You spot two coveted items in the mall yet you only have enough money to pick one.
Bad Problem: You have no money.

Good Problem: You have too many players for your RPG game.
Bad Problem: You have too little players for your RPG game.

Good Problem: You're busy with work.
Bad Problem: You don't have work.

Make no mistakes, both instances are legitimate dilemmas. It's just that one stems from "success" of a sort while the other takes a keen eye to spot the silver lining, if any.

Slipping Through the Cracks

Occasionally, Comic Quest manages to get an RPG-related t-shirt in addition to its staple of superhero shirts. One of the black tees that arrived last week was one that said "Do you want to check your hit points... before or after I slap you?"

Reading: Interface and Design

Good design, good interface, you can call it whatever you want. I think one of the biggest hurdles of eBooks and its acceptance (even as I’m struggling myself with the idea that a “book” doesn’t need to be one in print) lies with how we interact and utilize it.

Let’s start with what we know—the printed book. Now books in general are hard to classify under one design philosophy. The problem is that they come in various sizes: a book can be as bulky as an encyclopedia, or as tiny (and unreadable) as a keychain. Layout-wise, the content will similarly be different. A children’s book will have lots of illustrations and minimal text while your “regular” novel will be on the opposite side of the spectrum: little to no illustration and lots of text.

Yet for some strange reason, we’ve managed to classify these printed products under one name: books. And what comes to mind when I hear the word “book” is “reading”. In a certain sense, books as a reading tool works. I mean I don’t usually associate anything else with books aside from reading. It’s totally unexpected for people to say “I smell books”, “I taste books”, etc. Of course part of it, I think, is due to the fact that the idea of reading books was forced upon us by society. Schools, for example, reinforce the idea that if we want to read, we should read books. We adapted to the medium rather than vice versa. I mean reading books isn’t the only way to read after all—we can read from signs, from a screen (be it a television or a computer monitor), or even magazines.

Books aren’t necessarily the perfect medium for reading but I’ll admit, it sure beats reading from a scroll or worse, stone. Of course having said that, books are a partial failure when it comes to enticing people to read. I mean I’m a bookworm and even I am intimidated when I see certain thick and heavy books. Imagine what the common man feels when he sees a thick paperback book. Do you think it motivates him to read? Compare that to say, a magazine or a comic. Now those are things people read (even if they’re not necessarily willing to pay for them). In fact, those are the material of “bathroom reading”. And bathroom reading I think is special—it’s when we’re most vulnerable, when our pants are literally down. Yes, I know people who read books when they’re in the bathroom (unfortunately I’m not one of them… I don’t want to accidentally drop the book I’m reading into the toilet). However, they pale in comparison to the people I know who read magazines and comics in the toilet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not critizing the format of books. All I’m stating is that there’s room for improvement. Just as scrolls evolved into books, hopefully something else will prove to be a worthy successor.

The eBook format appeared to be just that. Much like any new technology, it’s being met with resistance. And that’s understandable. People need change yet they don’t always welcome them. I’m not saying that eBooks is the perfect successor to the book but it is an alternative that’s being touted.

So why doesn’t it work? I attribute it to two things: interface and money. The latter is the easiest to explain yet problem isn’t the biggest issue. A book costs a few dollars. In order to read an eBook, I’d need to invest in a few hundred, whether it’s purchasing a desktop, a laptop, a PDA, an eBook reader, or if you’re in Japan, a mobile phone. So far, cheap, disposable eBooks haven’t been invented yet. Maybe if an eBook and an eBook reader would be sold for under ten dollars, we’ll solve the money issue. But even then, that doesn’t address what I think is the heart of the problem: interface.

A book, despite the fact that it may come in various sizes, is read in two ways: either left to right and top to bottom, or right to left and top to bottom. You can hand a person any book and they will know how to utilize it. Whether they actually will is a different matter entirely but you get the point. Reading books is almost intuitive—that’s the mark of good design. eBooks, on the other hand, has been inconvenient to say the least.

The first problem is the format—there’s tons of them. And unlike music which has various formats, the output isn’t the same. When you play a music file, no matter what format it is, it comes out in an aural medium that can be heard and appreciated. Not the case with eBooks. I mean depending on the file format, the screen resolution, and the device I’m using, an eBook appears different. I could be seeing an entire “page” on my computer screen, or a single paragraph in my PDA. The interface is simply inconsistent and doesn’t always motivate me to read.

Of course inconsistency is the least of our problems. Even if all eBooks came out in the same format and appeared identically no matter what device you’re using, the problem would be determining what the optimum appearance will be. And that’s the second problem: what’s the best way to deliver text via a digital screen?

I mean people are used to reading from their computer screen but using different applications. They might be comfortable reading from their favorite word processor but word processors have a zoom in/zoom out function so determining what the perfect scale is impossible. I’m used to reading web pages but I’ve also attempted to read a novel in one huge web page and it simply doesn’t work. One of the issues I had was finding chapter breaks and continuing where I left off. Perhaps we can settle for a PDF but the problem with PDF’s is that you’re essentially making a carbon copy of a printed book and transporting it into your computer screen, instead of maximizing the medium on its own. The Japanese make do with mobile phones but then again, Japanese language is comprised of Kanji characters—characters which take up little space compared to words formed from the Roman alphabet (in other words, it won’t work with English).

The perfect solution for me was PDA’s and eBook readers which could display several sentences at once. But using such a device is not without its learning curve and technology still has a long way to go to make it more efficient (i.e. being able to read it without the light reflecting off the screen) and affordable. And just because I’m used to it doesn’t necessarily mean other people will.

That’s not to say there is no solution the eBook interface problem. There probably is, we either just haven’t found it yet or can’t make up our minds which one to settle for.

The third hurdle lies with the social consciousness. As kids, we learned to adapt to books. As adults, on the other hand, we’re resisting eBooks. We grew up with books and the simplest conclusion to make is to stick to the one we know. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is an aphorism that supports that line of thought. But just because someone isn’t broken doesn’t mean we should stop innovating. There’s always a better, more efficient way to do things. That’s the logical side of things but we’re only human and we’re prone to be swayed by our emotions (especially us bibliophiles who often get nostalgic when it comes to books). And that’s the problem now with eBook design: growing pains on both the creator and consumer side of things. Perhaps in a couple of decades, people won’t distinguish between a book and an eBook: it’ll be part of the same package (i.e. homework!). But before that time, eBooks needs to work on its PR as well.

Anti-Anonymity

Charles Tan is a pseudonym that couldn't be more plain. But the reason I keep this up is because I dislike anonymity. But let me qualify anonymity. Fortunately, Gerry Alanguilan already talked about it in his blog. Banzai Cat (a pseudonym, trust me), for example, isn't anonymous even if I didn't met him in real life. If he went Stalker001 one day though and then Guest004002 the next day repeating the same comment, yes, that's anonymous.

So why the anti-anonymity? Bokardo says it best in 3 Necessary Conditions for Human Cooperation.