Weekly Ketchup 40 - When It Pours

After relatively quiet weekends with virtually no social obligations to meet, I decided that I was gonna go to EVERY EVENT I was invited to this past week. This after many months of skipping conventions and other events, which, to be fair, has done wonders for my wallet and my time (being definitively "anti-social" allowed me to advance in the many games and ebooks I acquired the past year).

While tiring myself out in pursuit of geek activities (remember Geek Week?) isn't really new to me (lord knows how I feel about repetitive activities, especially conventions), something just clicked into place earlier this week: A sudden burst of motivation, inspiration, and productivity.

The team at Relik's Trivia Tuesday. We lost by 2 points. Bummer!

See, for a long time now I've been thinking about launching a vlog series about geek life in Manila. I actually shot some footage a couple of years ago (in standard definition) but never got around to compiling them into a watchable (and hopefully shareable) video. So yeah, it's been a long time coming and the footage have just been gathering virtual dust on my hard drive.

Now that I have a better high definition camera and with so many geek events happening back-to-back, I thought it would be a great idea to restart and actually pursue the project. This would all have been pretty dandy but, as with any good story, there must always be conflict. Unfortunately, inspiration isn't the only thing that came pouring in heavily this past week. I'm talking about the effin' weather! On more than one occasion, the rains have (literally) dampened my plans. Our house was also flooded in TWICE this week! It's ridiculous!

Winners' selfie after Amici Quiz Night last Thursday

Also: Being out every night wreaks havoc on my budget and diet (yeah I said it). I've been trying to cut back on my gluttonous behavior because my pants haven't been fitting well these past few months but I just can't help it when I'm out with friends. And when you eat, you spend! I didn't get to attend Geek Fight Wednesday because of the rain and because I spent too much the night before at Trivia Tuesday. But that's just on food!

Since most of the events I attended ran well into the night, another consideration and reservation I had was security. The entire week I was worried about going home with my expensive camera that I won't be able to replace anytime soon if it gets stolen. I don't drive and I can't afford to take a cab every night (I had to take a cab Tuesday evening because I wasn't feeling well) so I was risking a lot to pursue this project.

Pirates at Ludo! Got to play Pirate Fluxx, Walk The Plank, and Munchkins!

Rain and limited money were the reasons why I had to walk a long way to get to Ludo for Play Like A Pirate Day on Friday evening. Come CosplayMania the next day, I had to deal with EVERYTHING - keeping my camera secure from the rain and theft, not feeling well, and working with a limited budget!

Was it all worth it?

My only picture from CosplayMania. From geek friend Adrian's Instagram.
That's other geek friend Alec as Starlord.

Well, all throughout the week, I had to remind myself why I was doing this. Aside from hanging out with friends and the satisfaction of completing a personal project, I was thinking I could use the experience to beef up my portfolio in case an opportunity to earn money from doing similar projects comes along. I'm subscribed to many YouTube channels right now (the Buzzfeed channels and John Oliver are my latest favorites) and I would love to participate in that industry as well.

Hopefully, I'll have fewer things to stress about in the next few events I plan to cover. Star Wars Day, Komikon, and the Christmas ToyCon are all in the pipeline but I'll start working on editing the footage I already took this week! As always, the chief motivation is just to be able to say "I've done it".

This week's newest discovery is John Oliver.
I plowed through his entire playlist.
So informative and entertaining!