Category: Geek/Gaming

Motorbiking to Calauit Safari Park

Thank God I didn’t insist on driving my own motorbike. That was all I could think of on what seemed like never-ending stretches of dirt roads from Coron to Calauit. Our destination was Calauit Safari Park, a game preserve where animals roam freely, located on a small island at the tip of Busuanga, Palawan. A map showed that it was roughly 70 km away from the Coron Town proper and locals said it could be reached in about 2-3 hrs time by motorbike. But like a real life version of Excitebike, the terrain seemed to challenge us with increasing levels of difficulty the longer we drove. There are dirt roads, then there are demented dirt roads. This was the latter dialed up a notch.

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Gone Fishing in Culion

It seems simple enough in concept – attach bait to a hook, throw the line in the water, wait for the fish to bite and then reel them in. How hard can it be, right?

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Game Review: The Walking Dead

Season 4 of The Walking Dead TV series is set to resume in a couple of days and it’ll be great to get my zombie fix again! To celebrate, I finally got around to writing a game review for The Walking Dead (A Telltale Games Series), which I played and finished at the start of the year.

The Walking Dead  is an episodic single-player graphic adventure based on Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic book series. Instead of the usual zombie shooting spree you see in most games of this genre, this focuses instead on story and character development. As the protagonist, your must do your best to survive amidst a zombie apocalypse, interact with other survivors and make difficult decisions that will ultimately impact the storyline. Since the game adapts to your choices, playing this feels like one of those “Choose your own Adventure” books, and each gaming experience is unique.

My immediate reaction upon finishing it was that it was one of the most “mind-blowing” games I’ve played in recent history. Pun intended. [Note: OK, I changed my mind. The Last of Us was mind-blowing x 10. Separate review on that.]

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Game Review: Uncharted Series

Uncharted is an action-adventure third-person shooter platform video game series developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for PlayStation. The main series includes Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, followed by Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception.

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A Hobbit Birthday Party

September 22 marks the mutual birthdays of hobbits Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, two of the most loved characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The day is actually known as Hobbit Day! So, we thought it would be a fitting theme for my nephew Eli’s fourth birthday last Saturday. Here’s a quick look at our Middle-Earth celebration.

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Gear Review: Spyder Reboot Motorcycle Helmet

One of the most important safety gear to have if you’re a motorcycle rider is a protective motorcycle helmet. Wearing a high-quality helmet can spell the difference between leveling up on your road trip and “game over.”

Because of the passage of the Motorcycle Helmet Act at the start of the year, all riders are now required to wear helmets that have passed the standards of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and have ICC stickers. There are a handful of brands that are certified, including Spyder, a major sporting brand in the
country that specializes in high-performance athletic gear. Spyder helmets bear the marks of excellence and safety, so they’re a very good investment.

They promise safety above all, but they don’t scrimp on convenience, functionality and style either.

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Scenes from a Zombie Bike Ride

Old military trucks and vehicles lined the path of the muddy trail under a canopy of trees, rusted beyond repair. Overgrown moss and cordyceps-like plants sprouted from the back of one vehicle covered in decaying leaves.

In an abandoned building, only the rafters from the roof remained, the rest of it crumbling into pieces on the floor. Rusty nails, gear and a machete just lay on the floor beside planks of wood and steel pipes.

This could easily be a glimpse into a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies. Continue reading “Scenes from a Zombie Bike Ride”

A Trip to The Mind Museum

When we were kids, my sister and I always looked forward to visiting museums and science exhibits. I remember family outings to the old planetarium in Rizal Park, the Dinosaurs Exhibit and Ripley’s Believe It or Not in Shangri-la (anyone remember this?). I also got to visit the Science Center in Singapore during a trip there a few years ago.  I’ve been wanting to check out The Mind Museum in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, the first wold-class Science museum in the Philippines, ever since it opened to the public in March 2012. It’s only appropriate that the trip was a family affair, this time with the next generation.

A couple of weekends ago, I invited my sister Lorie and her son Eli (age, almost 4), cousin Roxy and daughter Annie (age 7) for a kid’s playdate. We’ve been looking for fun places to take the kids, especially during this rainy season when parks and outdoor areas are not ideal, so the visit to Mind Museum on a stormy Saturday afternoon was perfect.  Continue reading “A Trip to The Mind Museum”

Travel Gear for Geeks

Originally posted 7/28/12; post updated 7/22/2013 (added Pacman Slippers)

Contrary to popular opinion, geeks don’t spend ALL their time just vegging out in front of the television or computer. For some of us, real-life adventures are preferable to virtual ones. But when we do travel, we like to channel our geek pride by using clothes and gear that show off our unique interests. Here are a few cool finds that I use for travel and where you can find them here in the Philippines.

Pacman Slippers

These collectible PAC-MAN flip-flops from Havaianas really bring back some great memories. Anyone born in the 80s will have spent time playing this hit video game arcade classic and will love the retro chic look of the slippers. They come in two designs – navy blue with a yellow logo and a maze from the game and black with a green logo decorated with Pac-Man, pac-dots and the ghost enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde). Plus, the slippers glow in the dark! How cool is that? Thank you so much to Havaianas for coming up with this design and to All-Flip Flops store in SM Naga for letting me have this! I will be eternally grateful.


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Game Review: The Last of Us

The Last of Us is an action-adventure survival horror video game developed by Naughty Dog (the same team behind the hit Uncharted series) and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3. Released just last June 2013, the video game has already reached critical acclaim, with many gaming publications giving it a perfect score.

Having finished playing it a couple of weeks ago, I totally agree. This is just one mind-blowingly amazing game. Playing it was such an intensely riveting experience. Yes, it may have been brutal and violent, but in between all that blood and gore was a powerful story and flawed characters that I cared about.

As author Karl who I lent the game to said in this awesome 8 List article on life lessons we can learn from The Last of Us said: “If you are at all interested in video games and the narrative power they possess and the fuzzy feeling of happy happy joy joy they can imbue, then you must (YOU MUST) play this.”

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