CRUISE SUMMER VACATION 2008

Intro:
As I said on the earlier post I was going to a cruise… and maybe stay on an island. Well, I did went to the awesome cruise but sadly came back to reality and never got to go to Norman Island which is south of St. John, and St. John wasn’t a stop from the cruise route. The route consisted of Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Marteen and St. Thomas, the islands were all right I think they got better through the week, but the cruise was like one of the best things I’ve seen, couple diner rooms, a shopping street, an ice skating rink, rock climbing, inline skate track, mini-golf, basketball court, theater, pools, Jacuzzis, bars, casinos, arcades.. DAMN it had everything. I must admit I wasn’t that hyped about the cruise but, eventually, found it was one of the best vacations I ever had.

Did so many things so what I’ll do in this post is describe the highlights of each day of the week (it was a 7 day cruise) and put some relevant pictures with it, so here it goes:

SUNDAY
LOCATION: Puerto Rico
Before getting aboard the cruise Ingrid and her cousin wanted to buy alcohol (yey I am so crazy and cool) to get on the cruise –since the alcohol is expensive there- and drink freely on the rooms. When they were at the duty-free store I remember I told her clearly… ASK THE CASHIER PERSON TO SEE IF PEOPLE CAN BRING ALONG ALCOHOL, of course she didn’t ask, and of course she thought I was wrong or didn’t know a thing. BUT, what happened when she bought the alcohol? She was told she could not take it aboard the ship. HA HA HA HA! Noob. And of course the cashier wouldn’t give the money back. I think it’s a scam in all, since they don’t tell anyone about it until the purchase is made. That is why I told her to ask… but of course… I don’t know anything. Anyways they got the opportunity to handle the alcohol to the ship thanks to me, and my dragon jacket. Ingrid’s cousin –the sex starving- Jason put it inside his jeans and covered it with my jacket. That’s about it, later that night Ingrid, her brother, and her cousins Jason and Karla were drinking it, in a way I felt back in highschool, were drinking illegally was cool and awesome. Not. Anyways that is what I remember from Sunday. Oh yeah during the day we walked around the ship to get to know it and bought like 2 piña coladas that day.. one from the pool bar and the other at night at Jesters Night club.

MONDAY
LOCATION: SEA
We were told that on Monday the cruise will be at sea the whole day, because the cruise route consisted of spending a whole day sailing to the last island (first from the route) and then from that island slowly sailing back one by one till we get to Puerto Rico (where we departed).
So what I did on Monday?
It sucks because I can’t quite remember but I think I did went to the gym.. or Tuesday? Damn it, I knew I should’ve written on a notebook the things I did because I knew I would’ve confuse things. Anyways on Monday I think it was the day I broke the record on the Raiden Fighters Jet and landed first place and finished the game at the same time. It all happen because when I died the first time, I looked at the score and compared it to mine and it wasn’t that behind… so I decided to start again and break it. Thanks to my practice on many shoot’em up games like Gradius, Ikaruga, R-type I got to finish the game on one credit. Here is the evidence:


Besides that I think on Monday is when we had the first Formal night so we all had to dress stupid. After a fancy dinner and bullshit I went back to the room changed clothesto something almost me and took Andrea my niece to the arcades for some real fun. After that I think we went to Jesters again… I don’t remember…fuck. Oh yeah, we walked around the ship taking pictures and being dumb.

TUESDAY
LOCATION: BARBADOS
Barbados looked like Sabana Grande, after some nice breakfast we wnet down to the island and walked around downtown, many rasta people, who harassed me saying “hello, rasta man” constantly. After walking around looking at nothing we decided to go to the beach. I realized they charge for everything. At the beach we paid I think for an entrance fee or something to use the bathrooms… then we had to pay for the chairs. When we got to the beach I felt I was in Resident Evil with all these zombies (people) trying to sell you stuff. They were all calling me RASTA MAN, fuck that, I am no rasta I have dreadlocks but that doesn’t mean I am rasta. Dreadlocks are not rasta exclusive… it just tangled hair… actually many anarcho and crust bands have dreadlocks… actually I have an issue of the Profane Existence fanzine which is about anarcho punk and crust were all the pictures in it, there is someone with Dreadlocks. Anyways, one of the guys were selling necklaces and I wasn’t interested until I got to see one from his hand and liked it here is a pic of me trying that:


After that Ingrid saw a skirt that she liked and thantks to that I met the FREAK LADY, Ingrid was trying it out and she liked it, since she didn’t have enough cash I decided to buy it for her, but we weren;t sure yet… the skirt was $25… then since Ingrid tried it out… the lady said $20, so I said ok lets see… but hten Ingrid wasn’t sure… but when we decided to get it.. the lady was like… no $25… she said she had a hardtime making it…. I wich I could say a big FUCK YOU OLD WHORE to that lady… but hey its her job… we are tourist… so it was ok… Ingrid didn’t agree with me buying it fro $25 but… man… these people are poor.. and we have enough money for our things… I thinks its low to try to “regatear” or make deals with people that area clearly poor…. You do that with stores… but no to a seller on the beach… its fucking low… so I paid the full $25 so my girl could have a skirt she wanted. Whatever.

The beach was nice, and it had more people around selling stuff, offering services of Jet Ski rides and of course Ganja. Since I had dreadlocks I was constantly harassed if I wanted the buy some Mary jane, but of course I declined every time. I know other people wanted but one of them exceptionally wanted it more but didn’t want the responsibility to carry it to bring it aboard… how easy life is. From this day on my nickname on the islands became RASTA MAN. I don’t remember well what we did later on, but I know I went to the gym and I don’t know what else I did.. probably Jesters again… or maybe that day was the ice skating show…. Fuck I don’t remember. Oh, before I forget, in the duty-free stores at the terminal they had THE BEST BROWNIES OF THE PLANET…. Don’t believe me? Here:



At night we went to an ice skating show which wasn’t that bad, the highlights were when 3 of the skaters fell stupidly through out the show. One woman there was really talented that is all about to say.

WEDNSDAY
LOCATION: ST. LUCIA
I think in this place we just took a taxi van for a trip around the island…. It was pretty boring… it sucked actually… it was looking at a poorer Puerto Rico… nothing interesting that I can remember. Afterwards I think I went to the gym. Then later on..maybe I went to Jesters again. Honestly I am trying to think everything in order but it falls out of place. Oh yeah today I think it was the day I dressed as a woman on a quest contest… yeah. We were 6 groups and we had to find elements within the crows as requested… so for the final challenge they said… look for a bad ass guy you can see on a bar… like a harley guy, and of course I had my bandanna on so I was a target… great. So after getting in show area they said.. NOW YOU HAVE TO MINUTES TO DRESS AS A WOMAN! So all girls from our group threw bras… shoes everything… so after breaking a heel, and ripping a bra here is how I looked:


No comments, lets move on.

THURSDAY
LOCATION: ANTIGUA
Antigua was all right, like an improved St. Lucia…. We just walked around town took some pictures and went to a really cool graveyard here is a pic:


Then on the way back decided to take another taxi for a 2 hour tour. I did learned that a pineapple takes one year an a half to be mature, among other things. The driver was cool he even bought some type of banana for us from a total stranger from the street.

It sucks we gave the driver shit tip… we were out of cash… I send him an email. Yeah he gave his email. I want to mention that I went to a store here and they had plenty of music magazines, porn, and all that fashion shit… except video games… no magazine about video games, actually thinking about it… not even technology stuff… I might be wrong. But anyways, I went to a music store near the port and they had all this Wii stuff around and Wii systems, Wii games, Wii gadgets all… its funny, here in Puerto Rico.. stupid people go shit all about the Wii and it is always out of stock (don’t know why… the games suck, these stupid consumers like to swallow marketing and probably other stuff) but in Antigua its like plenty of them lying around… I bet they are really expensive.. since some PSP games were around $65… which considering the game it was… it was 3 times expensive.

Later that night we had our last formal night, this is me looking suave:

It was a good night.

FRIDAY
LOCATION: ST. MARTEEN
Nude beach. We went straight to a nude beach. And of course kept my pants, and is not about not being insecure because trust me I would’ve felt really proud walking around of what I have, in other words I bet those men’s wife use dildos or something to reach fulfillment. I felt ok I am above average, proved. Is just something private you know, not about being insecure, how about this, I am so secure of me that I don’t need to show off. How about that dipshit? Oh well, it was fun, I saw the most able to walk fat person alive naked. Truly, he was naked but at the same time he wasn’t, the fat of his deformed second belly (yeah a second belly) covered his parts… until he passed by, I admire that person. Maybe he is an asshole and he is ruining people’s vacation and traumatizing children just walking by.
After that we went back and not sure what we did. Hum, I think we went to sleep early since on Saturday we had to do something with our passports really early like at 7.

SATURDAY
LOCATION: ST. THOMAS


This was like the shopping day. We went to an aquarium first which I thought it would suck but ended up really cool. They had a submarine section, and a pretty nice view. After that we went to the beach next to the aquarium which wasn’t that amazing, but the water was rather clear and cool. What I liked the most is that the guy taking care of us, gave us dog cookies for the fishes, so if you were snorkeling could gather the fish with the food. Instead I used the food to attract the sea gulls, and then threw pieces and Ingrid’s and her cousing while they were snorkeling so the sea gulls would peak at them. Since it worked I did the same thing to her mother and aunt, it was fucking hilarious sihce they were looking for cover but since they were in the water they couldn’t hahahah, I think it was the moment I laughed the most on my trip… I liked that shit so much I went out and bought more.. and gave it out to another kid to do the same… hehhe oh well.

Then we went to the town, which looked like old san juan to buy over priced souvenirs.
They had a Mango Colada… fuck it was good, but still can’t top a China Colada.
There was a store called S.O.S. something.. that had pirate stuff and many of it were actually antiques. But very expensive, for an example, they had a bead… yes a single bead from the pirate ages for $8, I means it’s a bead smaller than a Skittle, for $8. I mean if it was for $3 (Still expensive) I might’ve bought it… but it was really small… and fragile. But they had other cool stuff.

After that we went to the cruise, and did some ROCK CLIMBING:


And some mini Golf. You know taking advantage of the last day of the cruise.
We went to dinner and said goodbye to Lui and Cecilia who did a great service, and celebrated the 34th anniversary of Ingrid’s parents, they have a great relationship.. which CAN’T be copied ;). Then we just walked around bored… went to a casine.. and went to a slot machine.. Ingrid tried one and lost the fist one, then her cousin, then it was my turn and I thought of using my own quarter because I thought “If I win Ingrid will say IT WAS MY QUARTER”, guess what? I won on my first try, $12 but I won. And of course she wanted part of the money… I knew it. Women. Jorge knows all about it, I better start listening to him.

After going to other places we went upstairs to play UNO, I didn’t knew how to play but Ingrid and her cousin told me how… and eventually I won. Women. Hhehhe joke.
Later thath night every one went to sleep, but I went upstairs to the Arcade, to reclaim my top position that was pushed to the 7th (mysteriously) after playing and finishing the game, I did went to the top again using a type of ship roster… but then I realized that people that got the highest were people that played a different mode (special not normal) that let them lose, insert another quarter, lose insert another quarter while their score kept adding up…. Instead of playing the normal mode, were your score is based on one credit. SO in other words I did finished the game and got the most points only on one credit. But oh well, fucking noobs. Fuck you. Again, I still have the top score on the original ship. Go, I might be there, if some one is on top of me maybe they wasted 7 credits instead of one. Yeah, sometimes I am an asshole, but like Jorge said, its more fun that way, instead of being.. “nice”.


SUNDAY
LOCATION: Back to PUERTO RICO
Yeah it was quick it felt like they were kicking us out, pressuring us to leave… and people at the crew they didn’t even smile anymore… they were like “Ok BYE”, at breakfast they didn’t even gave us a menu… oh well. Have a nice week at the cruise.. you still have 6 months of tourist. HAH! I am talking about the morning crew.

BACK TO REALITY
I had a free week after the cruise to do stuff, stuff I normally can’t do because I am either at work or just tired because of work. Prepared some demos of my band and sent them to other bands and fanzines. Started programming a video game and played others I haven’t played in a while. And yesterday I bought a BBQ and a small pool and did a last minute BBQ on the terrace, which was cool. So that’s about it for now…. Oh yeah sang an early happy birthday to me since mine is tomorrow… fucking 27 years… lets see if I do something at the last minute. Oh well.


HIGHLIGHTS:
1-ARCADE
2-ATTACKING SEAGULLS
3-BEING CALLED RASTA-MAN ON ALL ISLANDS..NOT!
4-ICE SKATERS FALLING ON THE ICE
5-GYM
6-ALL FOOD FROM THE CRUISE
7-PIRATE STORE IN ST. THOMAS
8-WINNING ON THE CASIONE O MY FIRST TRY
9-BEING CLASSIFIED AS BAD-ASS THEN DRESSED AS A WOMAN
10-JUST BEING AWAY FROM WORK.

OUT OF HERE!

Before going on vacation I wanted to talk about the cancelled game (prevous post) I was working with because it was a big hit, I know it happens in this field but this actually hurts because the product was completed and now it cant be used, but oh well.

Now yeah I am fucking out of here, going on a cruise and won't be touching a computer for a week, only my Nintendo DS, PSP and couple books. I know things at my work will be hectic without me, but its a good thing they will miss me.

I wish I could visit NORMAN ISLAND .. its a pirate island... you know sometimes.. I wish I just could sail away or something on a total random place either some weird island or fucking norway and just be away of all these technoogies.. I could keep some of my video games I dont mind. But I wish I could stop doing multimedia and stop making other people richer and instead fulfill my own dreams... my college degree is not my life.. is just something I use to earn money thats it, love doing it, but is not what my life supposed to be. Its just work... we work earn monay pay bills.. and geta little taste of vacation then the same thing then we die... I wanna do more.
Let me see how this trip triggers my impulsive self... I might come back of course 90% sure... but I never fully understand myself... might stay away on an island and get a bout and just be there... I wish... but who knows... life sometimes is unpredictable... see ya.... gonna go now.

CANCELLATION of a game of Colgate piece of shit toothpaste

THIS IS THE SECOND PART OF A POST POSTED ON MAY 30TH.

Its sad.. sad sad. I feel sorry for agencies and its clients sometimes and even myself for wasting so much effort, creativity and neurons on something that it was cancelled after completion. Why? Who knows why. Maybe the agency fuck up something.

I don't agree how this game production was set. There was no contract anywhere... I didn't knew about it until it was cancelled, so its like... why I wasted so much time on something that wasn't even 50% sure it will be approved by the client... COLGATE. How the agency expect me to do a GAME.. its a game is not a fucking website or ad, its a game.. it involves planning, programming, audio editing, illustrations.. problem solving testing... etc. Its fucked up, and they wanted me to finish it in what? Less than a week? 2? I I said on the earlier post about this game, we had a meeting on May 23, and they wanted the game ready for June 2nd. And on May 30th I already had the game programming working, I did enhanced it later on but the core of the game was working. After that date instead of using simple squares I added a mouth illustrated by the practice student of mine Gabriel, here is how it looked the test game by that time:

It looks Ugly I know, but it was for testing purposes, I already had a quality bar of the toothbrush -which you suppose to switch every 3 months, (nice way to get money assholes)-, I also had the health bar, which starts decreasing if many teeths are dirty at the same time and on the right I had the 3 month calendar, which of course was the game's time, each level was a different 3 month. And yes the points on the top. The game worked... but I wanted to make it better by reprogramming the toothbrush to actually brush the teeth instead of just clicking on it. I came up with this techinique -programming and graphic wise- that actually ended up being pretty impressive making the game more fun. Gonna re-use it on a Guitar Hero type of game I am working with Misfits songs -which I dubbed an extra guitar played by myself- to use the mouse to strum the strings.

After the agency tested it, they still were like.. WHERE ARE THE PRODUCTS WHERE IS THE ART!? Of course they know shit, we gonna add that later on, we are still working with the game... is not like.. we do all the art then we jsut click a button that says... ADD TOOTHPASTE GAME WITH A 3 MONTH CALENDAR AS TIME. I know there concern is branding... they give a shit about the core mechanic of the medium, if its either a website, ad interactivity or game... they jsut wnat the PRODUCT BIG AND NICE. BUT, they need to know that this multimedia / web field is waaaayyy different thatn the traditional mediums... the main difference is lets say.. one medium is linear and the other is non-linear... in the linear one you just look at it and have no control, on the non-linear you consumer controls it and well there is the non-linear 2.0 were the consumer not only controls it but customize it as they want. So this means I was working on a non-linear medium.. it was a game... people interact with the product having fun of it.. dedicating more time being exposed to the product visuals than flipping an ad page on a new paper that was exposed for what? 2 seconds?
Agencies here in Puerto Rico KNOW SHIT. This makes me make my own or be a director or something and take controls of things on agencies since I know the limits of this type of field... I fucking studied multimedia and web so I know whats the deal of it.. not some asshole that studied communication or something and then they say all we know this or that... FUCK YOU.

Anyways after re-working the game and many illustrations by GABRIEL which were all declined.. - I thought the mouth he did was pretty good - because the client was TOO traditional... fuck them, if you want to reach a younger audience you better be not traditional asshole. Anyways the agency sent an illsutration and said make the avatars look like these. Yes, the game ALSO had an avatar selection screen, which you could modify, so after GABRIEL actually traced waht the client sent - I told him so- I started doing the other features of the avatars, I did a martian, a clowen, a pirate along with other traditional faces and it was awesome... but when the client saw it, they were like NOT SURE THERE ARE GREEN PEOPLE WITH CLOWN NOSES AROUND...you and then they said THE GAME WAS TOO FUN. Dude... its like.. its a game it supposed to be fun. This reminds me an episode of EL CHAVO DEL OCHO where chilindrina wanted to watch tv and asked her dad don raon and he said YES YOU CAN WATCH IT, BUT DONT TURN IT ON. Its stupid.

After making some adjustments here and there and taking many avatar features out and only leaving CAUCASSIAN, LIGHT BROWN AND BEIGE as the skin colors - black wasnt allowed- the game ended up looking like this:


You can even play it here http://especiales.primerahora.com/promociones/colgatejuego/!

The game works, its all there, did what they wanted... then they decided to cancel it on the day it was suppoed to be delivered beacuse it didn't met their expectations. Its like, if they sent an emai lsaying do these adjustments AND i DID... how come then they said NO? And saying it didnt met their expectiations when they were FOLLOWING all the game process? Its like having a girlfriend all this time agreeing on buying a house making all the wedding arrangements then at the altar saying I dont wanna marry you. WHY ALL THE HASSLE AND PRESSURE? Fuck the agency and fuck the client. Even the agency got screenshots of my game and did some graphics adjutsments to make it look like an infro graph of colgate and still they declined it. All I got of the agency who harrassed me during all the process was... MAYBE THEY ARE NOT READY FOR THIS MEDIUM, THANKS. ...Thanks? Does that "thanks" pay me for all the pressure I went through? No... the worst of all is... there was no contract... so all that effort was worthless because we did a game customized to the client specific requirements... whcih cant be used for another client. Its my fault of my department then. No contract no sample or demo. Fuck it. I was just giving away MY IDEAS and concept.

So there, the game was cancelled, I was pretty excite about this game... maybe I'll rework it or something... I dont know... for now I jsut want to can the mother fucker.

Because of things I am thankful Im et the team of POR DIVERSION who make games here in Puerto Rico, we are trying to form a game developers group locally and we had this meeting at Chilis:


We gonna make things right.

SUMMER MOVIE BLAST FEST 2008! part 1

I think this year has the best summer movies so far in a while. If I recall correctly, 1989 was a good year of summer movies too, with movies like Batman (Tim Burton version) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the roster was enough to make it amazing. And its interesting, since this year we also have other versions of Indiana Jones and Batman billing on the roster, which makes it a great nominee for best summer movie year along with other amazing yet to be released movies like Hulk, The Mummy 3, Hellboy 2,and more! So many good ones on the way!

Other years I can recall are 1991 with Terminator 2 (good fucking year), 1992 with Batman Returns and 1993 with Jurassic Park, that was kind of big actually. Oh and 1996 with independence day. So many years with great stuff, but again this year is pretty consistent, we just needed a 4th Pirates of The Caribbean out of nowhere to completely satisfy the overall audience.

But since we live on the present (which is a gift... thats why its called present.. see Kung Fu Panda) gonna mention the movies I've seen so far since the beginning of this summer til today (this doenst end here!).

In order of screening (not of best):

SPEED RACER

This reminded me of Spy Kids 3-D and Shark Boy and Lava girl, special fx wise but in a more presentable (better quality) and highly entertaining way, not that the forementioned are bad but oh well. This movie is not for everyone I must admit, and I even fell asleep in some earlier scenes (I was damn tired and it was a late showing, midnight?). But besides that I can say that I did liked the movie, its just fun to see, although some editing could've make this movie more justice but hey, I am not the director. What made this movie special is that I went to see it with my brother from New Jersey and best friend after eating some Pizzeria Uno. I think the last movie I went to see with my brother was 13th Warrior back in 1999 before I headed to college in Florida. Back to the movie, the ending well the last race at the last seconds was just how can I say it.. heroic? epic? It felt like a rush on intense emotion, I was like actually grabbing the seat. In other words I liked it, it felt really really intense that race ending, with everyone screaming, with the visuals just going over the top psychedelic it was amazing really, Ill try to look for it in you tube. Good movie, again not for everyone, if you are into unreal special fx, cartoon characters or just plain action flick (minus boring dialogues) then look for it if still at the theaters!

IRON MAN

Iron man is a good movie, not great, but its the right type of summer movie (not an all timer). It has great special fx, the main character is not boring, has some (rather few) action sequences and its just feels fun and straight to the point. My only complaint is the movie is that, it just wasted too much time telling the story of the developing of the Iron man, I mean, they could've included that developing but as maybe cutscenes or some quick story telling, and maybe focus the movie on other situations. Because of these, the last fight seemed dull and just rushed, nothing special happend, really.. all this time getting ready for what? Wont spoil it, but I was like.. ok so this was it? Besides this, I consider it a must see summer movie anyways, its just fun, makes me wanna get some Iron Man toys, and even the game, what the hell.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Won't talk a lot about the movie since I dedicated an earlier post about it. But, I did went to see the movie a second time, and yes.. its a dissapointment, sadly to say, if you are an Indy fan. But if you are just an average mainstreamer, yeah, this is THE SUMMER MOVIE. Has plenty of actions, good moments, but it all falls flat on another viewers perspective. But we al lsay the same, hey its Indiana Jones! The second showing wasn't that enjoyable cause I was sitting alone, and the theater was full of lame people, kids screaming... I liked the premiere better, because I got some vip tickets from work, and I was among the first people to see it in my island and even before USA (since movies are released 2 days earlier) it just felt a good experiene after 19 years since the last one. But would I see it a third time? Who knows I might! Maybe its the last time I will see an INdiana JOnes flick on the big screen, think about that. Unless the do a Mutt Jones movie, in which case I think they might if george lucas or stven are still alive... hum thinking about it lets leave it there, lets just dont overkill it. See this movie! This is like the perfect sunday matinee movie before some pizza or ice cream! I still got the big ass poster in my room for like ever.

SMART PEOPLE

NOT A SUMMER MOVIE TYPE WHATSOEVER! But hey, we need to have soemthing for everyone. Since my girlfriend likes sometimes lame romatic comedy movies (some are funny like Forgetting Sarah Marshall or the likes) but these independent kind of movies some times are just like a dull blade, its there it still works, but not as it suppose to. But actually the movie is not bad, Sarah Jessica Whoreker is in it and of course she makes her bitch character well, WHO WOULD BE INTERED IN SOME ONE LIKE THAT BITCH WHORE CHARACTER, she has issues... maybe I hate Sex and the City and almost hate this movie because of her, yeah she should get a STD or something. What saves this movie is Ellen Page and her adopted uncle. They bring fun to a stale movie. Talking about Ellen Page, I do admire her, she is fucking pretty and her way to be its similar to mine, just being asses sometimes no matter to who and not caring afterwards, but still have some good behind the evilness. I can live without this movie and I dont recommend it unless you have a vagina. Looking forward to other Ellen Page movies :).

KUNG FU PANDA

Go and see this movie. Have kids? Don't have kids? What you waiting for? I haven't seen a good animated movie since The INcredibles, and I am talking overall. Characters, lighting, color scheme, story (although I wasnt really into the story) etc, everythng was into place. They avoided fart jokes, unnecesary clumsyness and let me tell you Po the panda was a clumsy guy, but it all fitted all right, not jsut falling out of nowhere, it just felt justified. The story I think lost it purpose at some point and the ending felt again.. rushed and what happend to _____ kind of way. But all this I htink was on purpose to make a short delivery straight to the point fun movie for all audience. I got to see this movie along with my co-workers and girlfriend thanks to the premiere vip tickets, and I got to work for couple minutes taking pictures of the audience for a web photo gallery, and got some promotional merchandise and they even had some chinesse drums playing and some people dressed as traditional chinese dragon costume. It was well done and fun. Loved it. Good summer movie. Afterwards some of the group along with Emma (daughter of one of the work mates) went to eat at a chinese restaurant down stairs just to complete the experience. This is the type of movie nights I just dig. Try it.

Well this is the first part of summer movies maybe the second part Ill post it in July or something, but I am really eager to see The Dark Knight (batman), the incredible Hulk, and the Mummy 3. Maybe I'll see this days Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian... but I have my doubts... and maybe Sex in the City, just to be a whore. But seriously I will need to see it (and give it a critique) since its a sadly summer movie too, and we need to have a movie for everyone including nymphomaniac narcisist whores. Fuck you Sarah Jessica Parker.

Making a game for COLGATE toothpaste

This will be a post I'll be updating every now and then during the production of a game I am developing for the COLGATE toothpaste brand so you guys can see the different stages I went thru.

Client: COLGATE / Agency: MecGlobal
Objective: Do an interactive application based on the product which is a tooth brush that needs to be changed every 3 months. Make it fun, make it viral.

With this in mind I went to a meeting with the guy from the agency, donwstairs from were I work, my boss wasn't there, so I took the opportunity to ask him what he wanted to do with his product. To be honest I didn't knew what to do with the product, I knew I wanted to do a game... but how I could make it fun and challenging at the same time? Well, after couple minutes of discussing the matter, the idea just popped in my head and I started drawing on the board. The idea came alive, to do a whack-a-mole type of game (those you bang with a hammer on the dying arcade places) but using a mouth as a back drop and each teeth would get dirty and with your toothbrush (linked to the mouse) you had to click and brush the dirt away.

Here is a sketch I did based on what I had on the white board in the meeting:


On top of that, even thou the mouth would be illustrated, the face had to be an image uploaded by the user and calibrated with a mask that fits the position of the mouth. Kind of challenging, never done that from an user upload point of view, but still on the works. The game time will be represented as 3 months, in the game real time, each day will be a second, since the game is running at 30 frames per second that means each "month" = around 30 seconds, so the total of 3 "months" is 1 minute and a half. After the time is up, you pick a toothbursh and go the the next level. Four levels total, 3 months each = one year, so the total gameplya time is 6 minutes, which is perfect for the target audience, a short rush fun game. See, this type of web games are targeted for an audience form the newspapaer website who are jsut passing by looking and interacting with promotion on a short term. SO hte shorter the better.

Couple more subjects came in as a highscore board, the upload image feature (which could be substituted by avatars...Wii likes), tips, product placement and so on. Everything was fine until the deadline was spoken.... June 2nd 2008. Lets see, the meeting was on MOnday May 26th 2006. So that means I had a week to do all this, when I am actually working with another big project for 3M which is another breakthrough story I will talk about later on. One week for a game like this is not enough... I mean its doable if I was cloned like 5 times each of me doing something different, graphic, audio, programming and so on. But no, jsut me, and it was my concept, my programming etc. To be honest I started working with this yesterday.. thursday 29th, like an hour or 2 before leaving, working mainly on the programming, and this morning also, I worked with the programming because the agency started harrassing us. And to be realistic this is NOT DUE for the june 2nd, at least maybe 5th of june, and with out image upload.. unless like I said I was cloned already. So I jsut concentrated on the base programming sent it to the client so he would be happy for the moment so I could then work on the graphics... here is a screenshot of it:
Right now I am still testing the gameplay, but I will leave it simple as it is. Thats it for now, hopefully I will do more updates to the game the last couple hours left today. I do love designing games, it just sucks when I have to do other work at the same time that require the same level of concentration and creativity... it just makes me not do high quality projects since everything is due around the same date. But oh well, but thanks to the encouragement of my co-workers it keeps me motivated, specially when I received a call from my friends downstairs were someone asked if Angelina JOlie was showcased pregnant in Kung Fu Panda..... its like... ok thats stupid... maybe she was pregnant on the voice over.... but c'mon a pregnant cartoon? hahaha oh well why not? oh well.. time to keep on working! Funny shit.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

PROLOGUE:
Before talking about the movie I want to say that I must admit I was quite desperate for the realease of this movie since it was announced.. even before that when I heard the rumors and the change of hte scripts etc. I always loved the indiana jones trilogy. Since a little kid my dad let me see Raiders of the lost ark and temple of doom every day, so I grew up with that (along with Conan and star wars, althoug can't wait for King Conan to be released). Besides that, Indiana JOnes and the Last Crusade, I think it was the last movie I saw with my dad before he died 2 years later. I consider Indiana Jones its a great movie series.. and also have some great sentimental value for me. Indiana JOnes is the true action adventure hero... he inspired so many games and movies... lets say movies like The Mummy, National Treasure, many more advanture movies have clear resemplance to Indiana Jones, also games like Tomb Raider, God of War, Pitfall, and many more... have their action and puzzles straight out of Indiana Jones. That means its a classic... its a stepping stone for every action adventure movie. Recently at work when they said we got the movie account for web publishing.. I WANTED THE PART, even thou I was working with something else I took my time to do a splash page (which I posted the link at the bottom of this post). I wanted to do the splash page and its funny because 20 years ago I would never imagined that I will have the opportunity in the future to work with the movie advertising for the web, so I added some extra elements. Not only that, because of the promotion we received a 7 foot tall poster of the movie.. and since it had a small tear it couldn't be given away to the public so my boss gave it to me! That was really cool from her, and not only that.. I got tickets for the premiere. So right now I just need Indiana JOnes toys.... and of course the trilogy in dvd since I lost the trilogy on VHS. OH fuck I am so excited.... so now read my half assed review... SEE THE MOVIE!

REVIEW:
GOT TO SEE INDIANA JONES tonight in the PREMIERE (which is 2 or 3 days earlier than USA). ALL I WANT TO SAY ITS A DAMN GOOD MOVIE. But to be realistic, I think Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark still can't be topped. I did liked Temple of Doom, but I think it was more obscure than the others. This movie is good but it wont be fair to compare it to the others from 20 years ago, for various factors,.. including that Indy is older now and they had to impress an already how can I say it..special fx hollywood spoiled audience?

But the movie its really good on its own purpose. It has good humor, action, some nostalgic moments, great characters and special Effects. But for some reason the movie didnt have that punch... for an example the bad guys didnt felt that intimidating... they actually felt dumb and harmless. So the movie at some points feels like... "so what are we suppose to do, who we running from" the y did exactly what the bad person wanted... all along. So Idont know... that part of the script felt a little vague. But besides that the movie is really entertaining, it was meant for all the public, I have to admit there is some slow parts... but is the scholastiv part that explains what are they looking for.. then straight to the action. If I had to compare the plot... it looked really familiar to Last Crusade... like these key elementes: add family factor, bad guy captures indy, indy helps bad guys, indy escapes with loot, bad guys try to keep up with indy to the final spot where bad guys catch up and then the tables turn; what they wanted is what kills them. Its a classic indy formula it happens in Last Crusade and Raiders of the lost ark... so no spoiler.. But yeah I think the movie is a success, it made people from this time to go back and see the old movies and see this one... and relive the joy... The characters (good ones) did an amazing job, maybe the female character overacted on some parts but fuck it. ITS GOOD.

I just said what I think of it, and yes I WILL SEE IT AGAIN AT THE THEATERS... I got luucky I got to see it on the PREMIERE since where I work they had some tickets for it so at the last minute I was granted 2 tickets. PRICELESS, literally. Go see this movie, I think Harrison ford did an amazing job, I think is the best Indy performance from all the movies... even thou I think Temple of Doom Indy ahd its moments, but still this Indy is more mature, more wise, and jsut.. INDY! Go see this movie.. its fucking great... The best summer movie so far! check the splash page I did here:
http://www.primerahora.com/promociones/indianajones/

The show must go on...

It's been a month since my last post, and yes like always lots of things happend in that time. As far I can remember the spot lights were, having a family weekend... maybe the first in many years.... many years. My brother came down from Jersey with his wife and 2 kids who are real fun to be around with, since they are into retro video games too and are just.. crazy. We all met along with my other brother and his son, my mom, my girlfriend and last but not least my son. It was a great experience, I jsut hope it happens again here is a pic of me and my son and nephews:


The moments were unforgetable but I won't recount them now. Besides that I went to an 80's party were I dressed.. not so different of myself actually but my theme was SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, and my girlfriend tried a Cindy Lauper / Madonna thing:


And besides that... another thing was that the guitar player of my band got a hold of a warehouse and he managed to get a Vert RAMP there for skating and I went there and I just felt like back in high school, felt intimidated by the ramp drop but after some half ass runs I got it. I jsut can express how good it felt to be on that free warehouse with punk music on the background and some other band memebrs around just talking and others skating along... it was priceless.

I know I wnet to a birthday to the restaurant EAST, it was one of my friends/co-worker birthday... it was a nice surprise for her... we all ate there and the master chef cooked for us in front of us. Later we went to a place I really like.. DRUMS I talked about it on some earlier blogs, but it was ok... many things happend. It was good.

Besides collecting other consoles like Gameboy Color, and the NES... something kind of fucked up happend... one member of my close family was shot dead at his house. The reasons? Are many, considering his is a Director of Planning at the City Hall and had many people who envy him. The situation just took me and the whole family by surprise. I t was a really sad stituaion, it filled me with sadness, anger and just awareness because we live on a fucked up society where you need to be always on alert and be ready to defend yourself. My brother is the most affected by it, since he was the person closest to him, its sad taht situations like this need to happen for the family to get more united and stronger... we arent made forever... even thou I have plans of how I want to die which is fighting a Giant Squid... I never know what might happend.. now... tomorrow or the next day after that. Dont feel like writting anymore... many projects on my mind... wanna make a video game fanzine.website and other stuff.... for now I did something with my website...
www.rexcartagena.com oh well gonna go now.. the show must go on.