Monkey crossing.

Two summers ago I visited the place I was born. I haven’t been back to the Philippines since I left as a 2 year old. I had become a toddler prodigy at the local shoe factory and a multi Peso-naire. Selling my house, car, and caribou were hard to do. Plus having to haul all that luggage was tough for a child my age.

Here is a picture of me a few hundred feet from the Subic Bay military base in which I was born. Which happens to be in the middle of a jungle and during the year of the Monkey. I’ve come to realize, those two facts explain a lot about me.

It was a spiritual experience. As we entered the gates of Subic Bay, we were greeted with a sudden torrential downpour. I couldn’t tell if my ancestors were crying tears of joy, or disappointment over my return. I’m an optimist, so… they were happy damnit! Our van sputtered up the small uphill road that wound through the jungle. I kinda felt like a salmon swimming back to the place I was born. Except I wasn’t going to fertilize a bunch off eggs at the end of the trip. Child support can be expensive. The uphill drive made me think of how life would have been had my parents not moved to America. Although I love my life in America, I might have made a monkey friend in the Philippines. Now that would have been awesome.

Sooome Mike! (Charlotte’s web style)

I’d like to think I’ve made an eight-legged friend! Well maybe not, but the evidence may suggest otherwise…

So I woke up one drizzly morning and hanging above my head was this.

Some might say, “Eww gross it’s nasty and it’s a dust bunny with a hair stuck to it, suspended by a web from the ceiling” but I think it’s artistic. Especially for a spider. The way the dust bunny was carefully placed on the end, how it was hanging from the middle of the ceiling, and how it seemed to be perfectly balanced. I’m impressed to be honest! But could it be a sign of gratitude?

A few weeks ago, I noticed a big brown spider on my wall. I think it was a mouse spider or a wolf spider . I’ve handled these spiders many times as a young nature boy and I really hate killing spiders, so I let it out. A few days later, it started raining heavily in Los Angeles. Then one rainy night I noticed what seemed to be the same big brown spider sitting upside down on my ceiling. I walked up and stared at it for a while, contemplating taking it out… But I didn’t let it out because I was lazy, and it was raining. (Not the spider, the sky.) And I’m not going to get wet for some spider! And I guess it’s kinda mean if you are an animal lover. So I fall asleep with the spider sitting on the ceiling near sliding door. When I woke up laying on my side, I could see right under the pillow next to me, it looked as if a spider had set up shop there for the night! Cobwebs were connecting the pillow and mattress cover but the spider was nowhere to be seen. I was actually a little appalled at the fact I was sleeping with a spider so close to my face and that its current location was unknown. Not to mention the urban legend about the spider bite! After composing myself and avoiding a wig out, I turn toward the ceiling and see the dust bunny and hair dangling and spinning like a mobile right above my mug.

Call me crazy but this is how I put it all together… I let spider out nicely one day, and it comes back for shelter in the rain. I let it stay the rainy night, and to show its gratitude, it hauls up a hair and a dust bunny and makes a mobile for me above my head. After that, it drops down and sleeps next to me. Isn’t that sweet? Thank you spider friend! Can I call you Charlotte? Yay for good karma.

God this pimple is getting BIG.

Command and Conquer 3 easter egg animation

During the production of C&C3, I was given the task of animating a crane. La dee freakin’ da right? Well, I had to entertain myself somehow. Friends were joking about a pop locking crane. Since I laugh at my own jokes anyway, making something like this is never out of the question, especially when it’s during work hours! HA!

When I showed my animation lead what I’d been working on for the past couple days, he laughed but he seemed a little upset that I wasted my time on something that would never get approved…so I sneaked it into the game secretly and made sure it rarely showed up. A few weeks later I had a colleague come up to me and say “WHO ANIMATED THE POP LOCKING CRANE?!?!?! GENIUS!!!” And so it stayed. Guerrilla animation tactics for the win.

*edit

It looks like someone else has found the easter egg too!