And then there’s Tiny Tower.

I’ve only been playing Tiny Tower for about a week, ever since my two iPod Touch-wielding sisters Ina and Tessa bugged me relentlessly to download it. “It will eat up your life, Kuya,” they said. And they were right.

Tiny Tower is an 8-bit (that’s Family Computer graphics for you tech term-impaired) simulation game, where you build and manage your very own condominium. You start with a handful of coins, a few Tower Bux, and a ground floor/lobby. To begin, you use up your coins to build a residential floor, wait ’til people come in to rent the space, and then start building shops where your bitizens (citizens made up of bits – cute, huh?) can work. Once you’ve hired people to work in your first shop, you then proceed to build or produce goods, and once that’s done, you stock your shop with them.

Everything you need in one place

Stock up!

In Tiny Tower, you’ll earn money in several ways: rent, shop sales, and tips. See, apart from being the owner and manager of your condominium, you’re also the elevator operator. What make this a game with the potential to eat up your life are the variety of management and customization options available. Lemme try and explain this as briefly as I can.

There are 5 shop categories: Service, Recreational, Food, Retail, and Creative, under which there are various options. Each resident comes with both a dream job as well as skills in each category, on a scale from 1-10. As you build both more residential floors and even more shops, you’ll find it will help to put residents in jobs that suit their skill levels, or if possible, in their dream jobs. Each item in each store takes a different length of time to complete production, and that time will depend on the employees’ skill levels.

Skillz That Killz

The game tends to get harder as your tower grows taller (no green jokes, please), and that’s where your Tower Bux and certain VIPs come in. You can use your Bux to speed up jobs, sell of stock immediately for more money, upgrade your elevator (this will help immensely), or buy more coins. It gets more expensive to build a new floor over time, but it compensates for your added income, so it’s all good. VIPs will come in handy as well: depending on which one you get, they can speed up construction, hasten production, move people into empty apartments, drive more customers into your shops, or buy out your entire inventory. Even the regular Joes who enter your tower and ask for an elevator ride will sometimes tip you Tower Bux for your trouble.

Finally, there’s BitBook, the Facebook-like networking sites where your bitizens rant or rave about their jobs, talk of seeing ghosts in the halls, or even make jokes about feeling like they’re inside a computer simulation.

You'll find yourself laughing at some of your bitizens' status updates

It’s been said that apps for smartphones and tablets are for what they call “casual gamers,” and this is true for those that you can just pick up and drop at anytime. Not so Tiny Tower, which you will find yourself coming back to again. And again. And again. Every. Single. Day. Now, if you’ll excuse me…

“May gatas ka pa sa labi,” says a rival boss to a tied-up and brutally beat-up Salonga in the first scene of the film. It’s hard to get past Estregan’s age through most of the film, especially when he shares scenes with his young wife (Carla Abellana) and querida (Valerie Concepcion). Talking about the film with some of my office mates, one suggested that perhaps Baron Geisler, who played one of Salonga’s henchmen, could’ve done justice to the role. I agree, although Geisler’s performance as Erning was perfect in my book, too.

I’ve been thinking about who else could’ve played Salonga in the last week or so, and I can’t imagine anyone else doing justice to the role. Yes, there’s no one else who can play a convincing 27 year-old gangster. I realize now that what passes for entertainment in Philippine TV and cinema these days are mostly vehicles for pretty boys with washboard abs and soulless beauties with hot legs. Our screens are filled with stories rehashed from what was hot in other countries last year, sometimes even blatant rip-offs.

The few truly original stories have to be confined to Cinemalaya and other such festivals, where budding directors, writers and actors walk away a few trophies richer but with wallets even thinner than when they started. Despite its poor showing at the box office in its first 3 days (only P7M), I hope that Manila Kingpin makes more money as the days go by, especially since it practically swept the MMFF awards. It’s time that we as moviegoers clamor for films that not only put smiles on our faces or cause tears to fall from our eyes but also for those that have original, genuine and rich stories to tell.

Let’s have movies with stars who shine in them, rather than whose credits shine with superficial, synthetic stars.

*flexes muscles, licks chops, lets out a low growl and then sniffs armpits*

Stay tuned, dear readers. Happy New Year!

They’re as yet half-formed ones,

wrapped up in amniotic sacs of idealism and optimism,

floating in the opaque fluid of wishfulness

There’s a pool at sunset (sometimes sunrise),

and my toes tease the water: half-in, half-out

There’s a jogging path where the trees are always glad to see me,

and their branches pat me on the back as I run past: another minute,

another half-K, they seem to say

A bottle of wine that runs out sooner than

we run out of things to talk about sits

on a wooden coffee table, and books lie

open on their spines, ignored and indifferent

In my suburban dreams, days and nights

are one long indie film: quick cuts, montages

and vivid vignettes devoid of plot but always,

always ripe with theme and meaning

We stayed at The Kowloon Hotel, at the corner of Nathan and Middle Roads in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, right across the towering, colonial Peninsula. Rather than post photos chronologically, I think I’ll put here my activities based on theme/purpose.

Geeking Out in HK: The Chungking Express locations

Chungking Express, directed by Wong Kar Wai, has got to be one of my favorite films. Starring Tony Leung (small Tony to people from Hong Kong), Faye Wong, Brigitte Lin and Takeshi Kaneshiro, this 1994 film that goes around both the Hong Kong and Kowloon sides is a visual treat that you fall in love with more with every viewing.

Chungking Mansions along Nathan Road, where the name of the film comes from

The Midnight Express, a late-night food shop along Lan Kwai Fong where a majority of the film was shot, is now a 7-11

Tony Leung's star along HK's Avenue of Stars

Wong Kar Wai has a star, too

Breathtaking Views: The Peak and the Tian Tian Buddha

Taking a tram up to The Peak and having a cold pint of Asahi beer while soaking in a great view of Hong Kong was a treat. So was taking a cable car to Lantau Island (where HK Disneyland is located) and seeing the world’s largest outdoor sitting Buddha.

View from the cable car

Hello there, Tian Tian Buddha

He tends to get bigger the closer you get

See what I mean?

FedEx plane taking off

Imagine drinking this...

...while looking at this...

...and this.

Miscellaneous shots of food and other cool stuff

Kung Fu (?) at Kowloon Park

Man Mo Temple along Hollywood Road

Statue of Bruce Lee

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAB!

BUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNSSSSSSS!

Hong Kong is a busy city where old meets new, and it was a pleasure to have been thrown into that mix. I’d love to go back as soon as another opportunity presents itself.

I’ve packed my Canon PowerShot A3300 IS (with fully-charged battery), 2nd-generation iPod nano (will be fixing my playlists today), and paperback copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens, both of which I plan to reread sometime during the 3 days and 2 nights we’ll be there. FYI, Orwell’s book is the origin of the term “Big Brother,” the omnipotent, omnipresent leader of English Socialism in future (1984 was first published in 1949) London.

The Ad Congress is a time of learning, networking, self-praise, and stress release. As a delegate, you’ll end up attending talks given by practitioners of both advertising and other related industries, rub elbows with big shots and familiar (if not friendly) faces, reap success in the form of trophies given out to the best work in the last two years across various categories and mediums, and get plastered with all the free booze at the different parties thrown by different people/organizations for different reasons.

Yes, it’s a great time to be working in the industry, as well as for an agency that supports such glorious endeavors. Will resume posting next week!

My problem with a lot of our countrymen is that they see Manny’s victories as their own. Sure, he’s Filipino like you and me, but is he really fighting for us? I mean, this isn’t the Olympics after all. It’s a professional fight, a career of his own choosing, one which he prepared both his mind and body for over many years, with its share of both reward and sacrifice. He fights for money, for personal glory, and for his own pride. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’ve ridden in my fair share of cabs over the years, and if my conversations with these taxi drivers are any indication of the general mindset of most Filipinos about Manny is that he’s the hope of the country, a shining beacon of hope for the poor. It’s gotten so that Manny’s skill in the ring and overall nice-guy aura has made people believe that he’s a savior of some sort, with him even being voted into public office. I feel it’s a symptom of a scary disease in which those afflicted feel the need to have someone “fight for them,” rather than doing the fighting themselves.

It would be good if it was just Manny. But then along come people like Willie Revillame who give away not their own money, but rather the money from advertisers on their television shows, and people worship them as though they were giving away parts of themselves to help the poor. People kill themselves to get onto a show, even having their children make fools of themselves on national television to venerate someone who couldn’t be any less than deserving of their respect, much less their love.

People turn personalities who are all too human into demigods, leaving their fates in these celebrities’ hands and washing their own hands of the responsibility for their future and the guilt of their past. They slack off and live without consequences 362 days a year and then pin their hopes on 3 Pacquiao fights instead of putting on their own metaphorical gloves and doing the fighting for themselves and their families.

When Manny steps into the ring on Sunday (Saturday in the States), no one else is gonna do the punching for him, and he alone is gonna take Marquez’s punches. So whether he wins or loses, we should all remember that when the final bell sounds we all have to get up and continue fighting our own fights.

I mentioned that I had a pair of Spongebob Squarepants boxers, to which he replied: “You’re never gonna get laid in those.” And from there, the song you’re about to listen to was written and recorded. In one take. At about 5 in the morning. Click on the link and enjoy our random stupidity!

Spongebob Shorts by Migs Marfori and Noah Valdez

In the year 2161, science has found a way to stop people from aging past the age of 25. What happens is, on your 25th birthday you get just one more year of life, displayed on your arm like some surgically implanted digital clock. You work for more time, pay for food with more time, and even loan time from the bank. In this future, time really IS money. As Vincent Kartheiser (playing a 90 year-old bank executive) asks Justin Timberlake in one scene, after he’s been given centuries worth of time by an “old” man who’s found that being immortal is generally not what it’s chalked up to be: “Do you come from time?”

In Time poster

It’s a generally dark future. Since people live to be centuries old (if they have the connections, that is), with only murder or a freak accident standing in the way, those who have all the time in the world end up living lives of comfort without really doing any of the things that are fun: no water sports, no racing, etc. Literal time zones away live those who aren’t so lucky, living day to day and sometimes just dying on the street just a few seconds away from their next paycheck or collecting a debt.

When JT meets Amanda Seyfried, an adventurous spirit who’s lived her whole life as a spoiled little rich girl who feels she hasn’t truly lived, what follows is reminiscent of Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. JT and Amanda Seyfried live dangerously, stealing time from those who have it (namely, her father) and giving it to those who don’t, all the while being pursued by Timekeeper Cillian Murphy, who’s obtained some lines on his face since he was The Scarecrow in Batman Begins and the target of Leo Di Caprio’s inception plan in, well, Inception.

The script is lined with puns about time, as may be expected, but what turned me off about the lines in this film was how JT and Amanda Seyfried delivered them. JT goes about this film doing his Sean Parker role from The Social Network, while Seyfried seems to be doing her best Zooey Deschanel impression. It almost feels like they’re about to look into the camera and wink every few seconds.

All in all, it’s a fun Saturday night movie. If you can accept the premise, it draws you into an alternate future that’s actually interesting to follow characters around in. Too bad the leads make you wish you were following completely different people around.

Score: 3.5/5

My mom's set up our tree already

It’s also the best time to catch up with friends and family, whether they’re from out of town, out of the country, or just out of mind since last we decked the halls with boughs of holly. Personally, I’ve found that Grace and I’ve been eating out a lot recently. We’ve both been busy the last few weeks so we’ve made up for it by maximizing the long weekends that’ve just passed us by.

Blueberry Pancakes from Pancake House

Inasal Paa from Chicken Bacolod

We also joined my family at Marciano’s last Sunday night for a long delayed celebration of mine, my dad’s and my sister Ina’s birthdays. There were 17 of us, but 4 appetizers, 5 pizzas, 4 pastas and 4 risottos were more than enough to keep us happy. If you’re ever in the mood for good Italian (by way of New York) food, check out Marciano’s!