Once upon a time, I worked at some regional sales office in a not so distant land. They made me take a timed IQ test before they hired me, and when they checked my answers, the big boss was deeply and genuinely impressed. He sliced his hand in the air above his head and said with a noticeable undercurrent of excitement, “You scored really, really high, and I mean really, REALLY high!” He even used the word “genius” in the…
I want to do a comic strip. Just a little mini-series of a comic strip, mind you, but a comic strip just the same. A cartoon rendition of characters living out their lives, except that while I have a pretty good grasp at what the characters might be like, I still can’t decide on what to call the series. And so I can’t begin working on it yet. I know that it will be set in New York city, though…
I sometimes imagine that right before the noses, eyes, breasts and biceps are passed out among the born-to-be souls, some God’s assistant, who looks remarkably like Anne of Green Gables, asks: “Which would you rather be: divinely beautiful, dazzlingly clever, or angelically good?” Tough choice. I don’t think I would have been granted divine beauty, even if I’d asked for it. All divine beauties have shapely noses, and I’m part Filipino, so the laws of genetics dictate that I have…
I came up with this trick while playing with Photoshop filters, and since I don’t use plug-ins or have the latest version of Photoshop, this came in pretty handy for me. Who knows? It might come in handy for you, too. Create a New file. [Ctrl-N/Command-N] Render Clouds. [Filter > Render > Clouds] Distort using Ocean Ripple. [Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple] Duplicate layer. [Layer > Duplicate Layer] Stylize the top layer with Glowing Edges. [Filter > Stylize >…
I didn’t like my friend Jennifer much. I didn’t like that she did all the talking in a phone conversation, and I didn’t like that she was my best friend Glenda’s “other” best friend. I always felt like I was in some kind of tug of war with her, always trying for a bigger piece of the conversation pie, always trying for a bigger piece of Glenda’s attention. Little did I know that I would ever get burned in such…