Crimson Crux

Reminds me of my Notable Steampunk Games article at Gadzooki!

Sometimes, writing on a moleskine isn’t luxury enough — you’ve got to write on a customized moleskine, one that reflects your personality on the outside as much as in the writings inside.

Enter the laser engraved and etched moleskines. For a few dollars, you can have your own design/photo impressed upon your black book of daily impressions, giving you another means with which to impress your friends. You can also choose from a menagerie of pre-made artists’ designs, such as the ones offered by various custom moleskine companies. Some examples:

From Laser Moleskine comes a tsunami that engulfs mountains and can quite possibly make you believe that your art can surmount any obstacle. Okay, that was stretching it a bit, but it’s an awesome design nonetheless.

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This is what Ia Lucero and I had been cramming for in the past few weeks. Quoting the popular Panitikan.com.ph site:

JUNE 22, 2008

BULAWAN ONLINE LAUNCHED

At his lecture in UP Diliman last June 19, National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario was glad to launch a new website: bulawanonline.com. He serves as chief editor while Roberto T. Añonuevo, Romulo P. Baquiran Jr., Michael M. Coroza, Vim Nadera and Fidel Rillo serve as co-editors. Phillip Kimpo Jr., Sophia Lucero, Eilene Narvaez and Ernanie Rafael are the staff members.

Bulawanonline.com gets its name from Bulawan, a refereed quarterly journal published by the National Commission on Culture and the Arts. The NCCA is also one of the major forces behind panitikan.com.ph.

The maiden issue features works and commentary by Nikka Osorio, Roberto T. Añonuevo, Ronald A. Atilano, Romulo P. Baquiran, Jr., Michael M. Coroza and Virgilio S. Almario himself. Visit the new site here: http://bulawanonline.com/.

The lit journal only accepts works in Filipino — poems, short stories, critical essays, and translations. Several important links:

• The first issue
• About the journal
• Submission guidelines

Submitted works will be reviewed by some of the most distinguished names in Philippine literature; accepted pieces will be accompanied by critiques from the editors.

The online journal’s elegant design is courtesy of — you guessed it — Ia. Now, if only she’d update her portfolio to include this latest masterpiece!

Visit Bulawan Online.

Another of my dear friend Sophia Lucero’s web design masterpieces has been featured on a top-notch venue, this time on Performancing WordPress Themes, home to “the world’s best free WordPress themes.”

The new Rubidious theme has a classy look that is sure to please lovers of the red-and-dark (myself included):

Rubidious is a three-column theme sporting deep hues of red and blue. The theme name is based on the chemical element Rubidium, which comes from the Latin term for “deepest red”.

The free WP themes site is part of the Performancing.com, a popular and trusted resource where I used to write.

You can preview and download the theme exclusively on Performancing. Also, if you will remember, Ia’s Tiffany Blue design won in a major contest last year.

Earlier today, I received my first two copies of the Scientific American magazine for the months of April and May 2008. I’ve gotten used to this kind of delivery delay (from way back in my CACM subscription days), being a resident of the Philippines and a lucky customer of the inefficient PhilPost.

SciAm was one of my favorite magazines in high school; I used to regularly visit the library archives and photocopy the best SciAm articles.

My new subscription to SciAm isn’t just a rekindling of that old interest — it will also help me in writing/researching my future, future science fiction works (I have to emphasize future, as I have plenty of cake on my plate, such as my creative nonfiction in English and poetry in Filipino).

Here’s to my read-to pile getting taller!

I got this news blast from the UP ACM e-group:

UP ACM, UP CURSOR and UnPLUG
invite you to attend

K.I.S.S.S 2008
Knowledge, Information, and Skills Sharing Sessions

on JUNE 21 and JUNE 28 at the UP Alumni Engineers Centennial Hall (commonly known as UP Eng’g Lib 2 and Computer Science Department)

June 21
9-12 pm - GIMP
1-4 pm - Macromedia Flash

June 28
9-12pm - PHP with MySQL
1-4pm - HTML/CSS

This is a FREE tutorial.

Registration starts at 8:30 am and 12:30 pm

You can register at our KISSS webpage.

See You There!

On a side note, it feels good that the student org I helped resurrect a few years ago (UP ACM) is very much alive and kicking today. Keep it up, guys.

I was at UP Diliman this afternoon, in the hours right smack in between the celebrations in the morning and the concert in the evening (at the Cultural Center of the Philippines).

That meant I wasn’t able to relish in any of the activities, unlike last January when I was happily clicking away with my camera during the Centennial kick-off celebration.

Still, it felt mightily good to be there in the Diliman Republic, strolling beneath the towering acacia trees and inhaling the crisp after-rain air. It felt good to be there on June 18, 2008, fanfare or no fanfare. It felt good to be there on the day the national university turns 100.

Cheers to the University of the Philippines!