The Outdoor Guy

Saturday, February 18, 2012

he is not a film star

for nearly a year now, i have been posting mountain bike trips on my blog. it's the usual photo-and-text blog, with just one video posted in its 10-month existence. but words and images have an inherent limitation: they cannot convey motion. photos are great for freezing fragments of seconds but what happens before and after is left to the imagination of the reade--something that would not work if you want to share what cycling is about.

mountain biking, like love, is a poorly understood sport. before i turn 23 this march, i want to do a trip that will sum up what it means to be a mountain biker. it is not about being hardcore or having Wolverinish quads. why do i want to do this? because this sport is a big part of myself. and a big part of myself will forever be misunderstood if i do not try. i want people to understand why i go out on my bike way before light and come home way after dark. this afternoon, i've tried putting my facebook-level filmmaking skills. i want to know how far a point and shoot camera can go in capturing what i do.

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i would like to thank my Boss for giving me these Fox Sidewinder gloves.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Google Chapel

Instead of chasing Google through its maze of algorithm changes, which often come unannounced, don’t you think it’s about time we “boo” Big G? Come on ref, make up your mind. But then again we have to feed the Giant because it feeds us. Web techs and bloggers are keeping the chase and they will do so until a competitor tips the seesaw flat. Then we’ll be free to favor the nicer guy. Dream on. That will never happen.

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I do not hate Google. It is still my favorite search engine. But I appreciate it more because of Google Earth. Google Earth has helped me find a number of exciting trails. Google has really extended its definition of “search engine” into a more literal level.

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Third year of mountain biking. Over the years, I have learned to love chapels more than churches. Asking for directions from locals will almost always involve the mentioning of chapels. Chapels serve as landmarks in the most inaccessible of areas. And where DPWH will most likely never reach, missionaries have Christianized decades ago. That’s why chapels, in their crudeness, have done more help to me than any church in Cebu. There's a lot more salvation in chapels. Yes, in my ride this morning, I passed by a chapel.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Here's to Family Computers

The world of video games is a perfect place to find some sense of accomplishment if you cannot find it anywhere else in life. I contrived world where there are only self-imposed expectations and no real consequences. I devoted a good part of my childhood trying to master the art of leaping over turtles and mushrooms, and making dragons fall into a flaming lake that does not move. Spent a good time trying to rescue a flute-toting princess while she is held captive by ninjas—going through an entire host of hostile enemies and a fire-blasting, faceless Vietcong. In case you are not a family computer geek, those are references to Super Mario and Legend of Kage.

Back then, there were no “saves” and “cheats” were minimal. It’s either you spend an entire day trying to “survive” a game or be permanently condemned to repeating stage one every time. Of course, being the Sisyphus of Video Games is not the title anybody wants so if you have played family computer before, you probably know the number home works you did not tell your parents about just so you get that extra hour you need to get to the next level. And, of course, you know that those home works are cosmological in numbers, so were the hours you spent at dawn or midnight sneaking your fingers into those joysticks.

Graphics were minimal back then, so a lot was left to the imagination. Regardless, those games were packed with the adrenaline of making or breaking. These days, our video game adrenaline is completely dependent on the amount of gore and the hope that the girl character we are playing RPG with is actually a girl and she lives in the same town.

Levels and stages and titles are given because manufacturers are aware that they give some sense of accomplishment to the gamer. But today this need is over-exploited, which explains why there are hundreds of different stages and infinite number of badges out there for grabs.

Recently, my parents bought a “China version” of family computer from a popular department store in Mandaue City. I realized that it’s called “family” computer for a reason—it actually gave me a lot of bonding time with my sister and younger cousin. Being from China, sweet China, it did not last long so I’m back to this personal computer (which is actually a laptop, whatever) doing stuffs that we can’t scream about, stuffs that does not make us flail the joystick all over the place just so our character can reach the next landing. There’s no “hurrah for this new comment” or “you almost finished that comment, let’s try again better next time.”

While I am at this, allow me to share the sense of superiority I get from kicking the brains out of my bot opponents at FIFA 99. I chose a team with a huge transfer fund, played perpetually in the “amateur” level, turned off the offside rule, so a lot of games have ended with Rugby scores (to my favor, solely, as I care not for how these random binary codes feel).