Merry Christmas Everybody!

And for those of differing faiths, Happy Holidays to you! And if someone greets you a Merry Christmas, try to take it in the spirit of the season. For Christians, it's to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. For others, well, it's the season when families that were separated for many months, be it because of school, of work, etc., come together as a family and be one again. For some people, it means gifts and Santa Claus. For some, its a time for Children, for some it's a town fiesta. Whatever reason people want to celebrate at this time is perfectly allright to me. Just as long as people are happy and they are nice to each other, with the hope that they carry this feeling throughout the year.

And the weather, man, can you beat that? I swear, this weather is so cool. I just wish it didn't drizzle so often. Well, the lighter side of this is that if we were in a more colder country, that drizzle would be snow. And since it drizzles often during Christmas here, well, if we were in a colder country, we would have lots of white Christmases!

Last night I baked a chicken, some ham, drank some leftover beer that went into baking the ham, wrapped some gifts. Emailed Christmas greetings to some folks. Just on a whim, I emailed this pretty newscaster from CNN, Monita Rajpal. I told her that watching her on CNN makes bad news doesn't seem so bad. And I really did mean it. I wished her Happy Holidays and that was pretty much it. It was a very short email which I would not have otherwise sent if I was just a little bit sober. And wow, she wrote back thanking me for the greeting. Well, at least I hope it is her.

Up for this day, heating some of the leftovers. he.he. Then go visit Ilyn, then do some work. Yep, work. I still have a ton to do which I need to Fedex first thing the holidays are over. 2002 is going to be a pretty busy year for me, I think. And that's the way I like it.

Wow, it's almost Christmas! The weather is terrific! The cool weather that started November seems to have persisted, which is just terrific. I try to go out as much as I can, but work still needs to be done. After finishing Ochlocrat, I needed to start work on High Roads, the book I'm inking over Leinil Yu for Cliffhanger. I'm nearly done with issue #1, which I hope to finish before Christmas Day. I hope.

Surfing the net this morning, I stumbled upon this terrific Alex Nino site. It's a Japanese site, so the text may not register on your browser (unless you have Japanese text plugged in), but the pics are absolutely AWESOME. If you are an artist looking for inspiration this just might do it for you.

Japanese Alex Nino Site
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/techno/drome/alexnino.htm

There will be a comic book exhibit at the Robinson's Galleria in Ortigas early January for which I'll be contributing artwork to. I'll post more news about this later on.

OCHLOCRAT

Is finished at last! And I have to say that it was quite an extraordinary experience. I've written about the entire experience at the Ochlocrat Page at my site. No holds barred! No spin! Can't write more about it here. Just head on over there!

WASTED NEWS

News for all you Wasted fans. A Wasted movie is now in production. Several scenes have already been shot and man, they look damned cool. I'll talk more about it when I get more info.

WOMEN

Women! Bah! Who needs 'em? Well, actually I do. I love em! But damn, I'm still having trouble drawing them! Bah! Working on Ochlocrat has made me realize this even more. I just bought the magazine DRAW! where there is a really nice feature on drawing sexy women by Brett Blevins. I need to work on this thing really bad, if I'm ever going to continue drawing much more....

The sun has finally decided to come out this afternoon! The rains the past couple of days were due to the tail end of a cold front hovering right over the Southern Tagalog province, meaning right on top of me! Now that the rain has gone, and the cold front remains, it's pretty damn cold now! Which is cool! Add to that the smell of fresh paint, well, it's Christmas! Strangely enough, I associate the smell of paint with Christmas because many times in the past we have had painters come in the house for some painting work which all have coincidentally occurred during Christmas. So the smell of paint always brings back the memory and the feel of Christmas to me.

Hello to my architect friends who visit the site! Hello Bimbo, Darwin and Cesar!

It's amazing. Just yesterday the sun was out, it was hot, and nary a cloud in the sky. Today I woke up and I thought I woke up early because it was still dark out. Actually I woke up the same time I always do, it was just dark, and it wasn't supposed to be. It was raining, and it rained all day without stopping. It's so dark and wet it makes you think it had been dark and wet for weeks and you don't remember what the sun looks like and how heat from it feels like.

Aw man, I haven't been here in a while. I've recovered from my illness and now I'm desperately trying to finish the deadlines that were further delayed by my 2 weeks of not being able to work. I haven't been able to visit the message board much and I haven't been able to post here much. I feel so bad about those people I've inconvenienced. I hope I can make it up to them.

I'm sick of being sick.

I'll be in Cebu for the next few days. Architect stuff. I've brought work with me anyhow. See you guys...

I saw a woman get hit by a car today. It was one of the most blood curdling things I've seen. It's one thing to see it in movies (and in that case I've seen a LOT), but to see it for yourself right there with your own very eyes is truly quite shocking. The woman on the side of the road lying still, a younger woman trying to help her get up. It was horrible. I was in a bus and I saw it in a split second, but it's enough for the sight to sear right into my mind. I don't know really how long I'm gonna carry this. Probably a very long time. Probably all my life. The woman didn't seem to be seriously hurt as I looked again as our bus passed by. She was moving, and it was a good thing a police jeep was immediately behind the car that hit the woman. I'd like to think they were able to bring her to the hospital.