Thursday, September 23, 2010

Priest 2011

It appears my gothic fangirl-ism has been tendered.

Priest is possibly one of the more epic movies to be released on 2011. It’s based on the Korean graphic novel of the same name, although I find it strange that they want to go with another “vampire” film instead of the zombie saga.

Regardless of the vampires, the presence of the Catholic Church going about its usual ways of covering up something protecting the general public has always been a source of fascination for me. I’m definately watching out for this one when it comes out… Let’s hope it does not disappoint.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Rei's Kitchen: Sunny Omelet

a.illusions - rei's kitchen - sunny omelet

I should remember to update Rei’s Kitchen… not that any of my recipes are anything superbly fantastic, but they are tasty and easy~

When I woke up this morning, I wanted to eat something with potatoes in them. A friend of mine mentioned having difficulty in making potato omelet, so I decided to give it a try. Surprisingly, it turned out pretty delicious – that, or I was just that hungry.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 small potato, diced
  • 1 hotdog, chopped
  • 2 eggs

Eggs cook fairly quickly, so boil the potatoes in a small amount water, just enough to cook the potatoes thoroughly. Chop the garlic and onions and add these to your pan, seasoning with salt and pepper. Slice up the hotdog to pieces that are almost the same size as the potatoes and cook them until the water dries out. Add a dash of olive oil and pan fry the ingredients slightly before pouring two scrambled eggs.

This serves two people when served with rice or toast. It’s a really good pick-me-up, and I think it will be just as good when cooked with ham instead of hotdogs.

Oh, and just in case you attempt making this, I demand to see photos please. :3 Have fun in the kitchen! ♥

Thursday, September 9, 2010

A Tale of Angelfishes

When I decided to take care of a silver angelfish that no one wanted, I never realized I was up for a sibling drama that would rival the longest of telenovelas.

Clow Reed the silver angelfish used to have a white angelfish as a companion but sadly died of unknown causes. Clow became depressed and was almost koi food when I decided to take him out of that tank and into a 2.5 gallon one. Smaller than his usual 75 gallon, but big enough for him to swim about while he recovered from his wounds.

While I tried to figure out a way to buy him a new tank, filter, air pumps, and maybe a few more angelfishes, he was introduced to a gray and white feeder named Suicidal. Suicidal was the last of his batch of feeders who were all killed by the White Spot disease. I named him Suicidal because while I was cleaning their tank, Suicidal jumped out of the pail that was on a chair and landed on the cemented floor. He’s thankfully still alive until now, with no signs of ever giving up on eating every food pellet he could lay his eyes on.

Although Suicidal and Clow seemed to get along, I had to separate them when I bought two new angelfishes. A pure black one I named Yuuko, and a small white one named Sakura. The three were moved into a 20 gallon tank against my wishes as my sister favored the 15 gallon one I wanted. The ordeal upset me a lot, because having a 20 gallon tank in my room is 5 gallon harder to maintain than a 15 gallon one. Heck, my brother-in-law’s uncle takes care of 7 fully grown angels in a 10 gallon tank. Why I couldn’t buy my own 10 or 15 gallon, I do not know.

I was too bitter to really tell my older siblings off, but decided not to bring the tank home as I originally planned. A bad decision for my part, because my tank was moved to the lowest shelf of the aquarium stand. My sister has a bad back and had trouble seeing her fish if they were on the top shelf as my brother-in-law suggested. Why she didn’t consider my own difficulty in seeing my fishes if they were closer to the ground like my brother-in-law, I do not know.

I was mostly angry at this point because I had to give way to my older siblings wishes; first for the home I wanted for my fish, then the placement of the tanks… the last straw was when my sister decided to take the toys I had bought for my fish and returned the ones I had given her because she wanted the colors I picked. It wasn’t even my decision to buy the colors she had, because she and her husband chose them. I had no intentions of buying orange or yellow plants, but now I’m stuck with them.

What kind of a person returns gifts to their senders anyway?

Unfortunately, Yuuko and Sakura probably felt my anger and went on a hunger strike. Yuuko died only 2 days after I brought her home and Sakura died a few days later. I didn’t want anything to do with fishes any more, but I remembered I still had Clow Reed, who was also beginning to show signs of a hunger strike.

He reminded me of myself. Someone no one wanted and desperately wanted to care for someone, but ended up being alone all over again. My mother told me that grandfather also took care of angels before, and that made me want to try one more time.

With a last act of determination, I went to another fish store to look for angelfishes. A store called “Heavenly Fish” carried a small selection of angels, but they were having a sale at P100 (US$2.25) for ever large angelfish. That was where I saw Doumeki (the black angel with a golden head) and Watanuki (another pure black angel). Doumeki was larger than Clow and Watanuki reminded me of Yuuko a lot, so I had to bring them home.

angelfishes - black, silver, gold - clow reed, watanuki, and doumeki

So far, the three of them are getting along… Clow Reed started eating again, but tends to chase after Watanuki at random. I’m hoping he and Doumeki don’t die like Yuuko and Sakura did, but it’s only been 3 days so it’s hard to tell. I’m trying to keep myself positive and let go of my frustrations so that they won’t feel my hostility.

Needless to say, I’m happy that I have 3 angels now. If I can afford it, I will buy a few more and have 5 or seven large angels in that tank. I mean hey, if my grandfather could take care of angels, so can I.

…on a last note, why do angelfishes like biting and chasing after one another anyway? I noticed that with my own tank and the tanks in fish stores. They should have called them “Vampire Fishes” instead of angels. =_=;;;

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Devious Journal Entry

I’ve been much more active in Deviant Art lately… mainly because the haphazard life of a free-lance artist needs much more care and attention than I thought.

I found out that merely posting that you are opened for commissions does not mean people will start falling in line right outside your doorstep. For someone like me who has only 20,000 pageviews in 4 years, the forums turned out to be a huge help. You can offer your services there and find people who are looking for artists to commission.

My persistence with the forums paid off, as I’ve had 2 commissions so far. A third one is on the works, which is taking more time than I thought.

That’s another thing I learned about these commissions: people are willing to wait for their artworks. It’s a good and bad thing as you get to work on your own time, but tend to slack off whenever something grabs your attention.

Needless to say, this artist needs more discipline. But it’s admittedly a huge relief from commercial works with deadly deadlines.

In other news, I won second place in the Thou Shalt Honor Fella Contest! This gives me a 6 months premium subscription on Deviant Art and an official Fella Plushie! x3 I’m not sure when I’ll be getting my plush, but like my commissioners, I’m willing to wait. :D

In case you’d like to commission me too, I’m having a Commissions Sale for the month of September. It’s called the Faux ScreenShot Project, in which fake screenshots will be made for only US$7 a piece. The catch? They’re in smaller resolution; 700 x 525 pixels to be exact.

More information can be found on my Deviant Art. For now though, here is a sample of what I can do on such a small canvas:


Faux SS 02: Rima by *kurohiko on deviantART

*cough* Just in case you know someone who'd like to see their work turned into an anime screenshot, please do point them my way. You don’t need a Deviant Art account to commission me, but you do need a paypal account. ^_^

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Emergency NTC 117: NOT For General Public Use

vampire knight icon - kuran kaname by cokho7Yesterday evening, on our way home, there was an accident between a “security” car and a motorcycle. The accident was on the corner of our street, and at first glance, it appeared as if the security car had run over the motorcyclist. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the car stopped on an incline, and it looked like it didn’t have the hand brake on, threatening to crush the driver a second time.

My sister and I were the only ones in the car, so my first instinct was to call Emergency NTC 117. I had my Sun Cellular mobile phone with me, and immediately tried to call for help.

That was by far the most idiotic choice one could ever make.

The phone kept ringing until I received a message saying there was no answer on the other end of the line. I called again, and this time, after a few rings, I received a busy tone. 4-5 calls later with the same results, my load ran out, and I never did got to call for help.

Just what kind of an emergency number is 117?! No answers, busy tones, and it eats up your load just for hearing a ringing/busy sound? I had at least P70-50 left on my credit, and I know this because I had just reloaded my Sun Cellular with a P150 regular load on August 25th, 2010; a load that would usually last me 45 days with a lot of credit left over.

Aren’t emergency numbers supposed to be answered quickly and efficiently? And most importantly, there is an emergency. Why should we have to pay for calling for public service help?!

Sadly, we didn’t see what happened to the motorcyclist and the crying child, who was presumably with the motorcyclist. He seemed unharmed, but was scared and crying all the same. We saw the security car on another road a few minutes later. Same car, but the motorcyclist was not there. The driver seemed to have fled the scene and kept his headlights off so that we couldn’t see his plate number.

I hope this blog post somehow gets on the news. I’m certainly posting this on twitter, plurk, and facebook. For shame, Emergency NTC 117! Charging for calls without even answering them is a disgrace.

Alas, only in the Philippines…