It’s Sumo Paint!

For months, I’ve been scouring for some freeware program/application to support my interest in doing digital painting/arts since I am not that satisfied with the limited tools from my old Photoshop 7.0. I tried cracked versions of the latest Photoshop editions but was never lucky enough with guessing the right product key, aside from the nagging guilt feeling of doing something illegal although a lot of people are doing it (Adobe.com, don’t worry, I won’t steal from you.).

Lo and behold, thank you to the makers of Angry Birds who decided to make an app for Google Chrome (yes, apps are no longer limited to smartphones and tablets), I came across the Chrome Webstore that provided you with something for games, utilities and whatever imagineable that you think you can download from the Android Marketplace.

While exploring it’s menagerie of downloadable applications, I typed-searched out of a whim the word draw and painting and a quirky icon of a sumo wrestler’s head with the tongue out caught my fancy out of 12 that showed up in the top results. 

After reading a bunch of good reviews about Sumo Paint as an image editor, I decided to download it and launched it right away.

So far, I have no complaints on this one. I was able to attempt 3 tries and manages to keep into my expectations, especially with the brush tools.

This is my 1st attempt using "oil brush" tools to give it an oil paint feel.

I also saw a symmetry tool that gives your doodle an instant 6-or-so symmetrical lines that move as you move your mouse (yup, mouse only…no special pens). Here is my first try with it by choosing to bevel  in order to get the 3D feel.

optical illusion 1

My latest try was to finally mix a variety of brushes, from my favorite oil brush, down to 3B brushes and shapes.

Winter Landscape

Over-all, Sumo Paint is a good alternative to Adobe Photoshop, however, the only thing I don’t like about this one is that you can only work with it online and upon checking Sumopaint.com, upgrading to the Pro version with offline capabilities will set you back at €19 or roughly Php1,124.31 as of latest conversion. Still, for novice digital artists like me, well, this is thing to begin with before jumping onto the bigger and more complicated image editing software.

Sometimes…It is Okay to Give Up

“MERALCO ka lang, hindi ka NAPOCOR…kable ka lang sa poste ng kuryente..”                                                            —  Bo Sanchez on “How to Love Difficult People”

Those words have been my life mantra in the last 2 years alongside serious contemplation of whether to let go of someone that had been a part of my life yet had been too hard to handle. Many people have been asking me if lay Catholic preacher, Bo Sanchez did really say those words and what he meant by that. My answer is yes and you won’t be able to hear where and when exactly did he say them unless you join his Kerygma Family online community. But for the benefit of non-members, I’ll give a short explanation in the best way I can.

Difficult people. I bet everyone of us has their own share of them. They can be the most demanding and nagging persons, or they tend to blame everything to you or criticize your every move with the foulest mouths, or somebody ungrateful to what you’ve done or somebody utterly stubborn or anyone who do cringe-inducing things that makes them a pain in the neck.

But why love these people? Well, it’s a commandment: Love your neighbor – even if they are really more worthy of our loathing. Tough isn’t it? But these guys desperately need the love and attention of people willing to listen and understand why they are like that. Also, consider them as blessings too. Because God will not give them to you if He doesn’t have a plan for you. 

Say for instance, your demanding boss who have been nagging you here and there is actually a way for you to improve your patience meter or a means for you to quit your job so that you may be able to look for greener pastures. Another example could be like a female friend keeps on calling you at night because she is depressed about her bad break up from her boyfriend. Although you hate your sleep being interrupted, your sparing of some time just to talk to her is actually helping her release the pain and stopping her from doing or even thinking about doing bad things like committing suicide.

However, if in situations that you have already exhausted all the means to help or show your love that difficult person and the response is not equated or surpassed by what you have done, this is the time we back-out and give up so that other people may be able to help him/her. You have done your part, you can only do so much. Remember that they are blessings from God and let Him decide who should receive them next. As for you, allow God to recharge your energies.

In short, as the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) provides the electricity that the Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) distributes in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces, God, on the other hand, is the key source of our love and strength and we are his distributors of that same love and strength to the people who needed them most.

Welga here…welga there…

If there is one thing that I love about my current status was that I won’t have to take up public transport just to work. However, back in the days, I used to be caught by the traffic snarl that hound my mornings and worse, the feeling of being stranded by mass transport strike.

Earlier today, the latest batch of mass transport strikes had just struck again and I can just imagine the hassle experienced by regular commuters. Although I have nothing against the people behind such display of democratic freedom of expression against the seemingly endless oil price hike, repulsion of the oil deregulation law and the “conspiracies behind it”, what comes to my mind is that how do these people earn a living if they are always on the streets protesting? Also, are these people yelling or joining protests really advocates of the cause? And don’t they know that burning effigies is actually bad for the environment? Just plain asking here, no offense meant… 😉

Are you Single?

In a society like the Philippines, there has been so much stigma with being single especially among women. Spinsters, old maids…God knows what terms people call those like me who chose to be non-committed to anyone. Worse, once you hit late 20’s, chances are you’d be the butt of jokes or talk by people who say that you’re age does not appear in the calendar anymore and be perennially asked, “When do you plan to get married?”.

As a single myself, my response was always, “I haven’t thought about it” or just smile at the person asking. Come to think about it, what makes people stick to single-blessedness for so long? Well, here are some of my most common observations:

Destiny freaks. Believe me, there are still people who are waiting for Mr./Ms. Right to come along in the right place and time as if they’re characters in their own romantic movie/fairy tale with happy-ever-after endings which is not always the case.

Workaholic junkies. These guys literally have their lives revolving around books, computer/office files, tight office schedules and basically spend days off sleeping, watching TV or doing the laundry in between home-cooked meals.

Little Miss/Mister Choosy. These guys have incredibly high non-negotiable standards for their Mr./Ms. Right that whoever Average Joe or Jane they meet will be immediately dismissed because of the reason: just not my type.

Approval addicts.  These people wouldn’t enter into relationships just because they fear that their future partners might not get the approval of their parents, relatives, friends or whoever in their community and get bad feedback.

Traumatic past. This is somewhat I’m guilty of and I bet there a lot of you folks out there whose previous relationship ended in a bad note, there’s this anxiety of getting into another one in fear that it might wind up into another heartbreak.

The Ex-factor. In short, these those who are still madly in love with their exes despite the fact that the relationship has been over for years already. Peeps, please move on.

Best friend material only. These people believe that their better off as friends with the opposite sex rather than becoming a partner in a romantic relationship. However, there are instances wherein these people are really that “torpe” to admit their true feelings and afraid of losing the friendship and trust that took them so long to forge.

Called to exist by their lonesome. Aside from priests and religious people who have committed to living the celibate life, there are ordinary folks who believe that God called them to be single for the sake of fulfilling more important tasks better.

Well, there are a lot of reasons in staying single either by choice or by chance but what matters really is how you make the most of that time that you are unattached because should you choose to get a partner soon, you won’t be able to experience that freedom that you are enjoying right now.

9/11…the day the world stood still

“The tragedy of that day is compounded by the perpetrators’ claim to be acting in God’s name. Once again, it must be unequivocally stated that no circumstances can ever justify acts of terrorism. Every human life is precious in God’s sight and no effort should be spared in the attempt to promote throughout the world a genuine respect for the inalienable rights and dignity of individuals and peoples everywhere.”

          — Pope Benedict XVI on his letter to the US Catholic Bishops Conference on the commemoration of the 9/11 Terror Attack

10 years ago, at around evening here in the Philippines, I was discussing some homework with a classmate over the phone. In the middle of  what was supposed to be a regular, happy evening chat, we were  halted by the horror of seeing two airplanes crashing right through the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York caught live on CNN. We were both speechless for a moment and then, my classmate started crying, “My dad is working in one of the towers.” I was literally tongue-tied upon hearing those words, I don’t know how to properly react, too stunned to speak. All I could say was, “just pray and I think we better put this phone down, you need it more now than I do.”

The next morning, my classmate came to school with swollen eyes, perhaps from crying overnight and still no news about her dad. It took three days for us to receive news that her dad was okay, thanks to a decision to go down on a break just to meet her cousin who just came to New York. Lucky for them, but I still couldn’t help but feel sad for the other that didn’t make it. These people came to work on that day in hopes of bringing a bright future for their families but because of some mad men hiding behind the cloak of religion, these dreams were shattered, worse, lost their lives for no reason at all.

Fast forward to the present, so much has changed but the wounds are still there. Just because the main man behind the horrors that happened exactly a decade ago is a Muslim, now adherents to the Islamic faith are now targets of hate and are wrongfully accused of being terrorists when in fact, most of them simply want to live in peace and mix with the rest of mankind. This has to be stopped.

Before, anyone can joke about a bomb but say that today while waiting for your plane to take off, you’ll be escorted out right away and be considered a threat to the others. Even a simple box of mooncake left behind gets mistaken as something that can blow up an entire airport.

While scholars argue about the exact legal definition for the term, terrorism, I personally describe it as a simply deranged act of violence, torture and psychological fear to innocent people done by equally deranged people with distorted ideology yet ironic that these very people despise being called terrorists, claiming they are God-sent freedom fighters out to redeem the world.

But the question is, what exactly are they fighting for? Is blowing people and infrastructure up really the answer to attain goals of so-called New World Order? I don’t think one’s race or party is superior to anyone, worse, no one has the right to impose his or her beliefs to anyone by force, something these terrorists want to happen. All men are created equal under God, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah or whatever name people give the Supreme Being, regardless of race, economic status or socio-political ideology.

As we commemorate the events of September 11, 2001, my heartfelt prayers goes out to the people who lost their loved ones on that fateful day and I pray that one day, these people spreading out hate and violence against mankind will come to their senses and give peace a chance.

Come to the Table of Hope

“Come to me all who are weary and burderned and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28

A few days ago, as I checked my YouTube account, I saw an uploaded video of a Probe Team documentary on Joey Velasco, the famed artist behind “Hapag ng Pag-asa”. For those who do not know about the artwork, well, this is a Last Supper-themed piece but instead of your usual Apostles, you see street children flanking Jesus at the supper table. This image had been featured in countless calendars, magazines and even mounted on churches. But what really struck me most about this painting is not really the artistic and aesthetic detail of it but true the story behind it.

As I watched through the entire documentary from Youtube to Probe TV’s website, I came to understand that the late Joey Velasco (yup, he had indeed passed on last year, July 20, 2010) was never really an artist in the first place. He used to be a successful businessman who put material wealth over everything else but that changed when he was diagnosed with the BIg C – cancer, that is. His world collapsed, he succumbed into depression. But God does work in mysterious ways. In that darkness, Joey was able to find a way to cope up with the pain — through the paintbrush. With that paintbrush, he came with a mission to remind not only his family but all the people in the world that there is light of hope at the end of the dark tunnel of despair.

In one way, I can relate to his story and like him, I did spend some time in the dark due to some traumatic experiences. But instead of a paintbrush, God showed me an old Apple on the very moment that thoughts of suicide was lingering in my mind. I opened our aging Mac Powerbook and led me to an online forum where I started to simply let everything go, bit by bit. For some strange reason, people whom I’ve never met personally are the ones who really pushed me to move on and reconnect with people I love – God, my family and friends.

I know I will be never be able to do masterpieces like that of Mr. Velasco but that doesn’t mean that I won’t be able to carve out a legacy for people to remember that in times of despair and hopelessness, there is Someone Up There who will never abandon you no matter what.

Below is a video that I made in celebration of the artist and our Savior’s never ending love for us: