tala @ so-phobic

Arwen at the WYRM boards discovered user bars. I’ve become addicted to making them.

I made one for my Guild Wars mesmer, Nymeria:

User bars for the games I play or have played:

It’s fun to make them. I get to practice some Photoshop and ImageReady skills. I plan to make more for each guild I’ve been in, and for Ruby/Ruby on Rails users, and prolly more for GW. Is it obvious that I am sooo bored?

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Fully Booked in partnership with the Powerplant Mall, Rockwell and the
New Worlds Alliance present “The 4th Philippine Science Fiction and
Fantasy Convention: A Dream of Infinite Realities.”

Join us as we celebrate imagination, creativity and passion through the
various TV series and movies that we all love. Help us usher in a summer
of wonder as we toast the winners of the first ever Philippine Graphic
and Fiction Awards. Stretch the boundaries of your world by joining us
as we explore worlds that are strange yet familiar.

All this and many more await you on the 21st, the 22nd and the 23rd of
April at the Rockwell Tent. Hours are from 10am to 12 midnight each day.

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Congratulations Magnum Bax for graduating, and thank you for the fun, fun night! I really love the people in this guild, most especially the Hagibis boys. And I’m never sitting in front of Jackson in a restaurant again.

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Yesterday was the first day of New Worlds 3. We were able to make the booth presentable enough. Many thanks to the guys who braved the Ingress, and to TPTS, for giving us some nylon thread and lending us some supplies. One of the activities we planned for the Con was a Face Painting and Henna Tattoo station at our booth. Aside from the artists’ own designs, we printed out the b&w chapter icons for some WoT-inspired designs. The tattoo artists were polite and were good. I especially liked the way they did the sunburst design symbolizing the Whitecloaks. We made some pretty good money too. So far so good. Then we got screwed over by a charming group of people.

Charmed Pinoy (yes, I have no scruples naming names), a member-group of the New Worlds Alliance, had the same Face Painting and Henna Tattoo service over at their booth. Their takings were probably on the poor side, so they approached the leaders of the NWA and demanded that our group discontinue our Face Painting and Henna Tat services.

Here’s a backgrounder, our side of the story. Aj, our founder, asked one of the NWA Council members if we could do the Face Painting and Henna thing for our booth at the Con. Dana also made some inquiries through YM. We were told that the Council would have to seek approval from Ayala Center first, since every activity has to go through them, to be deemed suitable or not. Dana brought up our list of activities during one of the Saturday meetings at the Via Astris HQ, and does not recall Charmed Pinoy mentioning that they themselves were providing the service. After all, if Charmed Pinoy was listening to our reps at that meeting, they would have reacted to 2 groups providing the same service, thereby competing with each other. Which is at odds with the whole purpose of the Alliance. We were given the go signal. Days later, Charmed Pinoy announces on the NW3 Mailing List that they were going to have Face Painting and Henna Tats as activities. Great.

Therein lies PTM’s only mistake in this matter. We should have called the attention of the Council to resolve the duplication of activities. If we had done that, all the unpleasantness could have been prevented. However, I am not excusing Charmed Pinoy’s rude behavior towards PTM. Ditto with the (IMHO) unfair treatment that we got from the Council.

After Charmed Pinoy made their demand, we were asked to discontinue our activity. Aj pleaded our case and even tried to negotiate a compromise with Charmed Pinoy. PTM is not a member of the Alliance. We only have Guest status. We cannot apply for membership because we do not have a live action movie, one of the major requirements for membership. However, we know what the term Alliance means. Our aim is not to alienate, especially since an honest mistake was made by all parties - PTM, Charmed Pinoy, AND the NWA Council. The decision of the Council to deny us our activity is unfair. Even one of the Council members has stated that she cannot tell who proposed the activity first, us or Charmed Pinoy. I would like to think better of the Council, but I can’t help but think that in order to resolve this matter quickly, the Council applied some PTM is just a guest group anyway, Charmed Pinoy is an Alliance member shit. Protocol may demand that you give the Alliance member priority, but YOU made a mistake too. This oversight was your mistake as much as ours and Charmed Pinoy. Be fair. That’s all we ask. If we are truly trying to help each other, then I’m sure a compromise that would benefit ALL the parties concerned could’ve been reached.

I do not speak for my fellow Sitters and PTM members, but I am having second thoughts about trying to join the Alliance. What good is an Alliance of backstabbing members? Of groups who screw each other? We may be eager to join NWA, but IMHO, we’re not _that_ desperate. How can you entice other future groups to join when you treat your guests this way? In the words of Sirius Black,

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. - Sirius Black, p.525, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (emphasis mine)

So future groups out there, this is how the NWA treats their guests.

As for Charmed Pinoy, that was a low blow. You could’ve approached us first and we could’ve tried to resolve this matter ourselves. You could have taken time to hear our side first, because believe me, we were just as baffled as you are. But being the utterly charming group that you are, you just had to pull the plug on us, didn’t you? I don’t care if I’m being petty when I say that you may need the money more than we do. We don’t see the Con as a fund raising activity. We see it as way to expose people to the world that we have discovered, and to find fellow fans. But hey, I hope you make a lot of money tomorrow, seeing as you are desperate to milk it. I guess we’ll just view it as our way of helping you with your future payments for your future website. Nice Multiply site, by the way. Really reflects the Pinoy Charmed fandom.

That’s it, I’ve wasted enough webspace on these cretins.

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I installed Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 in my machine. Later tonight I’m going to install Microsoft Office Visio. I have less than a month to familiarize myself with these apps and to brush up on my .NET skills (ASP and VB). Sigh. I figured, since every Internship opening I’ve applied to requires .NET skills, I might as well learn the damn thing. *shudders*

I’m itching to move to PlogHost as soon as possible, but Pia still hasn’t sent me a backup of my database. I’m thinking of e-mailing her again, but I don’t want to be too much of a nuisance. I’m sure she’s pretty busy with work.

I’m excited about tomorrow’s iBlog. I heard even Joey’s signed up. Aside from meeting fellow bloggers, it would be a good opportunity to establish some contacts in the tech world. I hope the plan for WiFi blogging during the summit pushes through. I better check the camera’s batteries. I want to make sure this event is well-documented. Isaw afterwards, netizens of the blogosphere? I’m going to have to sleep early tonight though, the summit starts at the ungodly hour of 8 in the morning!

I’m still deciding whether to go to the PTM Concion in the evening. I’m leaning towards going to Froggy’s for game night. I miss PR!

I’ve made up my mind. As soon as Pia sends me my database, I’m getting my own domain name. Any suggestions? I’ve ruled out biatchcentral.com for now, teehee.

yahoohoogle.com. Two search engines for the price of one.

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