Summer stretches forever…

Came across some pics and I suddenly realized that yes, dammit, it’s as summer as summer gets right now so everyone go outdoors, bask in the sun or soak in the waters and have tons of fun with a capital F with absolutely no thought for school, work or the like all day! To justify this, here are said pics:

to give credit where its due, learned this one from a very good friend. Though she’d probably endlessly lecture me on minding how I look when doing this shot.

I look absolutely hideous here with light causing all sorts of distortions and undue shine (well... maybe not undue. Or untrue...), but I still like it

Tell me this never crossed your daydreams…

(note: not advertising a particularly good brand of flavoured vodka, just so we're clear)

and don’t ever think of denying you’ve tasted dirty ice cream as a kid; we had this before Tom n Jerry’s and Haagn-Dazs  arrived in the country, and we loved it!

(from chicogarcia.wordpress.com) brings back childhood, doesn't it?

You know that monster of a sandcastle lit with torches that tourists flock at Miami beach? We have a smaller version @ Bora. Seen it before, but no matter who I’m there with, they always, always, insist on having a pic with it… go figure. As I’m more or less not thrilled by it, I cropped most of the castle out (lol) how’d you see me otherwise??

@ night by that sandcastle @bora that's ALWAYS there

You know how your hair is never ever behaved when your on the beach but its all right, quite all right actually, just because you’re on the beach? This one’s a picture perfect example of that

now we've got just the right shine here, courtesy of Body Shop's Dry Olive Oil Mist, my fave

and when you’re secretly not comfortable with riding a small boat to the next island, this pair of YSL sunglasses will nicely cover that fact, and give you a pound of style

to Samal Island w/ D aboard an itty bitty boat

This one was taken on a trip to Cavite. Gorgeous light, wouldn’t you say (just don’t pay much attention to my pose here…)

I don't have an effin' clue what sort of pose I was striking here, an' only w/ a Bishop!

the kind of shot you get when you’ve spent the night with Jose Cuervo, music in the background, an assortment of grilled food before you and a bunch of funny people – and you have to get up at 6AM the next morning, and you wanna play with the camera again

needless to say, @ Island cove

These are two really just letting out their frustration that we got locked out of our house, and its dinner time and mother has the keys (the other sets are inside the house, which we forgot to bring with us in case we get home before she does, which is exactly what happened, and which got us told off) and she isn’t home yet. In short, yes, they were going bonkers

cousins Shaun and Matt after an afternoon of war games

a shot of the girls on that night with Jose

(we reserve all the right that these here are in fact not us, but groggy look alives with no sense of style whatsoever)

I realized too late that the white specs on the lower left were dolphins! You wouldn’t believe how I kicked myself for this

view from the resto of Bohol Bee Farm

one should not go through life without tasting the flower salad, tastes best during the summer. Its refreshing, and surprisingly spicy! yum!

said flower salad, during summer

When your friend insists on going swimming and she hasn’t got a single pair of swim suit, and has only a vague and very general idea on the concept of swimming, and I have a cam, this is what you get:

yes, she has socks on

and this is what happens after a seafood feast of a dinner, on a bamboo rack with a hut perched on it, floating along an unbelievably peaceful ocean – and you feel like posing for the cam

no, no photoshop involved. water looks great, doesnt it

I think Tarsiers are nearly extinct, so they are being well cared for by the Boholanos (if thats not the word for it, then we’ll just call them the people of Bohol). Some facts:

1. they commit suicide when subjected to much noise

2.you wouldn’t believe how light and fragile they are to the touch

3.theres  a soft spot smack center of the head where there is  hollow on their skull

4.its against the law to take ‘em out of Bohol

5.if you wanna get your picture with a tarsier, you have to shed some bucks

6. and you can’t touch ‘em as they’re nearly extinct, very fragile and just that precious

7.I touched ‘em as shown in this picture because yes, I am a VIP (wink wink)

cant go to bohol without an encounter with the tarsier

close of of the tarsier, and the shot you get when you’re not a VIP like some, ahem, people

you can tell it doesn't like being disturbed much

packing up after a day of war games. I’m wearing my flag jacket to cover up how transparent my inner shirt had become during the course of the afternoon (yes, damn hot) and one of the players who shall remain nameless, kept following me around and singing the national anthem, the moron

from top L: me, matteo, my sister B, and Shaun

Airsoft is fun when the people you’re playing with are doing so for fun. There’s so much more comedy than you could ever imagine. A useful thing an airsoft veteran taught me: when the game starts and people are turning around and running for cover, run forward and keep tabs on as many opponents as you can. And of course take ‘em down right away if you can; after all, the game HAS started. And unlike other games it’s so much fun playing newbies, this is something you have to experience to truly appreciate.

when the two teams confirm by yellong 'mask down!' and the marshal yells 'game', you run for your life

This dude is an airsoft legend in the country. He also sets up all of our airsoft guns, advises us as to anything and everything airsoft, and he’s won the airsoft costume thing for YEARS. Oh, and this gun is used by his kid, Kim. That girls the devil with this thing!

w airsoft legend kuya larry @the Maynilad gamesite. That multi-color water gun-looking this is an airsoftgun capable of firing bbs at 500fps. the model for looks can be deceiving

Some of his winning costumes. You can tell that he really puts in the effort. By the way, credit where its due – I grabbed these from various sites and I cant remember them anymore.

He’s the one on the ground dressed as an abu sayyaf. There was also a pic of him with a 9210mobile phone and burger, whilst in costume. It was really a funny pic, that one

the caption for this was: sinamaKitaTaposIkawNanaloEtoSayo (lol)

closer shot. tell me you wouldnt mistake him for the real thing? he had to go barefoot for this one

nice, eh?

Decide for yourself how kickass this one is. His model is right there on the lower left hand

as a navy seal

to one of my great love: vehicles. Another brilliant way to actually ENJOY the SUN and HEAT, is to be behind a steering wheel- preferably with the vehicle moving in high speed. And to all the chauvinists out there, whenever a female can drive, she can drive like hell. Point in case is our kart team. Our, yes, all girls team made the finals and placed, thank you very much. In fact, my sister and I tied for fastest lap honors during the eliminations.

w/ my sister and her venom crash helmet during the final round of the inter-school kartfest

L to R: my sister, Pam, Krish and Me

thats organizer and pinoy racer JP Tuason congratulating us (drivers in red button downs over the racing suit, rest of the team in black team shirts). Now famous pinoy racers like mateo were students of his

Now. If that didn’t make you want to get out of the house/building/bunker/garage/whatever else it is that you’re under and have a huge doze of FUN during these summer days, then you’re completely and utterly hopeless!

Continue having a great summer, guys!

Not for Lack of attempts

So I’m convinced that we will never have a picture where everyone on the team is there – because we’ve attempted it so many times, to no success! There’s always a cam, three people are unbelievably always cam-ready (it takes Anne, Ana & Erap about all five seconds of it look decent and trike up a smile and a pose)  but somehow, we never get a good shot. Here are some of our attempts at a complete attendance shot:

TOP.L-R: Erwin.Vlad.Erap.Ana.Frias. BOTTOM, L-R: Richelle.Kay.Shaun

This was taken two Sundays ago, and believe it or not only four were missing from our number that day, and two of those are the two kids, Mat & K2.

Here's another

from our earlier days of playing airsoft

and here’s another…

@ the forest

pictures…

@ PugadLawin

As you can see, we didn’t really have time to pose for this one. If I recall correctly, someone just shouted: photo op! and we all looked on instinct…

that's Tyra on Papa's left

I don’t think this really counts as we’re only half in uniform…

And now I gotta end this post because I’ve tons of other stuff to do – that and I’m starving

My Team

 

I’ve been thinking of writing about the people which make up our airsoft team for a while now but haven’t been able to come up with a decent intro, so I finally decided to just plunge on ahead without any (some of the pics are taken with a phone, thus blurred, but you get the general idea of what they look like):

 

*my papa!*

There’s my father, (they call him SirBoy) who is the team Alpha. He’s the team leader and so bosses everyone around, even people from other teams. Not that we’re complaining, especially since we rarely follow our own game plans and instead opt to cause mayhem and snicker as we shoot at whoever we want to anyway. And it’s plain cool that while everyone’s supposed to freeze as a car goes by he doesn’t care and peeks and plots;

 

*Erwin*

Kuya Erwin is second in command, Beta, I guess you’d call him. He’s the one whose most serious about airsoft that he actually arranged his work schedule around game dates; he’s the one whose always muttering about one part of his gun or another not doing what it should, the one who wouldn’t forget to secure the ice chest filled to the brim with Gatorade but would show up for a game and promptly leave again because he forgot his gun’s battery or some other gear. He also made me a pair of those straps that go beneath your knees, holding your pants up in place (thanks for that, kuya Erwin!);

 

*vlad*

*matik*

There’s Vlad & Matic, and though sound very much like it, no they’re not goons. Seriously, these two are at least five feet nine inches high, very well built and could take on you without the high-powered (and heavy) airsoft guns we make them lug around. Both has military background and wear the team uniform (tan TACOPS with matching tan boots, thank you very much) best and by this I mean really, really well. It-never-wrinkles-on-them-all-day kind of well. I once asked these two to be my support (as I planned to assault even though our team was designated as the defense team for that game) and I never saw them again until after the end of that game. When I demanded where they’d been, Vlad told me that what I said was for them to ‘keep me in their sights’, which apparently they did from fifteen away and hidden in trees, cabinets and bushes;

*Arlan*

Kuya Arlan is the good guy. He follows rules, he’s a nice guy, reliable and up front. If he has anything negative to say about you it only means that you’re an evil person, no excuses;

*Anne*

Anne, my sister. She plays whenever she can, which is quite rare as she’s busy with Med school. She’s kinda the baby of the group as she’s youngest and papa always asks someone to keep an eye on her (less and less by now, which is good). I’ve seen a lot of funny stuff happen during games and one of the funniest so far was here running down a grassy slope, tripping, tumbling (quickly protectively hugging her Galil) and seamlessly getting up again, all the while running;

*Frias*

(speaking of evil persons…. kidding!) there’s our second Erwin, whom everyone calls Frias (his last name) to his face, and VIP otherwise (hahaha, kidding, kidding). This guy can run. Or maybe I keep thinking it’s him that I see running when in fact it’s Kuya Arlan I’m seeing, or it’s kuya Arlan running like hell and I just think it’s Frias because they kind of look a bit alike in full TACOPS. Come to think of it, I think that I always call him ‘kuya Arlan’ during games… if so, sorry, dude… ;

 

*Ana*

Ana & Richelle are my girls; they’re both built pretty much the same way and that’s where the similarities end.

Ana’s the rah-rah-rah type and if you wanna do a Rambo move you wanna have this girl by your side, but I have to say she’s most dangerous when not in play (she’s prone to shooting people while we’re having a break, believe it or not she even managed to shoot herself with a long barrel LR300. I’d bet she’s the only person who could do that, then again I count that as points for uniqueness, if she got some sort of mark from that it would probably be the crown jewel of conversation pieces). 

 

*Richelle*

 

Richelle, on the other hand, goes for self preservation first and is somewhat reserved. If you can imagine a soft-spoken lady clad in BDU lugging an ‘enemy gun’ (cool AK), then you could picture Richelle. I’ve partnered with both of them and we always manage to have fun, and thanks for the birthday song, girls! (celebrated my birthday @ Sulô Hotel recently and even though I explicitly told my father I didn’t want anyone to sing to me but yes I definitely want the cheesecake, Ana orchestrated a full birthday song: she walked to me, cocktail cheesecake in her hands complete with a candle as she widely smiled and lead the singing, pretty much the entire staff of the hotel behind her, and three kind of live instruments playing in the background, grand piano included. Richelle, on the other hand, kept singing ‘happy birthday to you!’ now and again, over and over through the course of the night) They’re pretty much like that even in games;

 

 

*Night*

 

 

there’s Night, who after all is the night manager of Sulô Hotel, and got the full impact of being Erap’s buddy on his very first game with us, while wearing jeans instead of TACOPS uniform, and lacking a balaclava. On his very first game. He was the first to loudly blow the whistle on Erap: ‘leave no man behind ha!,  as he showed everyone exactly where the BBs hit him (and you can see exactly where it hit), while the rest of us rolled over in laughter because, of course, we know exactly what happens to you when you partner Erap;

 

 

*Shaun*

there’s Shaun, my cousin, who, I have to admit, seems to improve his game by the minute. Not only does he not fit in with stereotypes, he’s a paradox of the usual – ‘round 5feet 8inches high, majors in IT, plays basketball every summer, fond of his PSP , was on the swim team, loves his ipod, goes to gym regularly and absolutely loves his custom-painted, 500fps plus LR300. This is how he is with playing airsoft too. With his LR having that kind of fps you’d think he’d stay behind; he’s usually at the forefront once the whistle sounds, or a close second. Shaun in a game, it’s pretty much like this: now you see him, now you don’t;

*Jerome*

*Erap*

Erap & Jerome, brothers.

Erap, I think, really loves the game. Jerome loves it as well, but probably not as much as he loves criticizing how everybody else plays it (hahaha). Erap, true to name, loves his one-liners: ‘let’s move out, boys. And girls’ (added as an afterthought, of course, in all seriousness)’, ‘cover me’, ‘buddy tayo, sagot kita, bro’ (and he’d promptly and silently disappear soon as the BB’s fly in your direction). Everyone who partners him sooner or later finds out exactly what’s it’s like to have no buddy. Come to think of it, if you partner Erap, sooner or later you get into trouble like Kuya Erwin partnered him and minutes later fell through a mat and smashed his covered knee against some metal. I don’t know how it happens but something is guaranteed to happen to you if you partner our Erap;

 

 

 

*Me!*

This is me! I don’t really have a good idea of how to describe myself as part of this team or as an airsoft player except that I do this for fun and am most comfortable playing with my team and the WarVets.

 

*Mat*

*K2*

Matteo and Roquito. Cousin and nephew, 11 and 6 years old respectively. Mat never hits anyone because he’s always under cover, while roquito always gets hit because he’s the epitome of the word ‘assault’. I think Mat has grasped the concept of pain and pride that goes with not being tagged by the opposing team, while k2 hasn’t yet and probably feels like he’s in one of his PSP games on airsoft games. It’s always fun to watch these two play, and not just for us; we’ve had tons of people grinning as they watched these two play, especially k2 who tends to leave behind his father, our kuya. I get extra exercise running after him during games because he just won’t sit still and would unconsciously insist on being point.

*Kuya*

Oh, and there’s kuya, who sometimes plays and usually doesn’t. Took him quite a long time to come and play (we’re talking months after he’s gotten his guns, gear and BDU) because he thought getting hit by BBs would hurt and playing airsoft wouldn’t really be fun. Needless to say, he’s changed his mind.

So that’s our airsoft team! Made up of all sorts of people gathered together to have fun. Oh, and another thing we have in common is that we all love to eat, and speaking of which, we’re to have another barbecue on Sunday!

Unfriendly Fire

A couple of Sundays ago I was at the Veterans for the usual afternoon of airsoft games. A lot of the War Vets were away on a medical mission, some were just elsewhere, my own airsoft group was four players short. As I have mentioned in another blog entry, Veterans in an invitations-only game site and that weekend’s invitees were none other than team OZ, BOLO Champions (Be On the Look Out) and a team a personally liked watching as they’re just impressive to watch. My airsoft icon also happens to be an OZ, Reggie, or Papang as he’d been dubbed and called by pretty much everyone (I once asked why he was called that, he wasn’t even old, and someone said it’s because he’s basically the father of modern day airsoft games in Manila). You should see this guy play. Actually, you should see this guy move; he embodies the word ‘assault’ – while others were running for cover he’d already be running (takbong snatcher is what my sister calls it) right to the barrier where the opposing team was taking cover or crawl to it really fast, swiftly heave himself over it, land on both feet without making a sound and complete a most impressive knife kill. Anyway, team OZ was playing on our game site that day, there were about fifteen OZ guys, the most of them that has ever played there. As you can imagine, I was a bit miffed that I’d forgotten to bring the cam with me (I’d already been planning on taking at least a dozen action pics and more formal ones of the whole team, and now I’ve missed the chance to take some shots of Papang in action) but I’ve been brought up to deal with what is there, so I was all set for an entire afternoon games, games, and more games.

However, it wasn’t the usual string of fun games @ Veterans. It was somewhere after the fourth game, either the fifth or the sixth, that we’re playing OZ; we meaning my team with some War Vets, while OZ was joined with a War Vet or two. As usual when you’re the defense team, we had designated positions and we’re well covered. I was one of those designated to turn their backs on the sole straight route from the other end of the game site where the assault team would start from and usually aim to break through first – this is where having a team really pays off, you can focus on your area because you know that your team mates has your back covered, literally. My area, and that of Matic’s, kuya Arlan’s and my father’s, was the elevated open field on the right. We were well placed, well hidden and perfectly spaced from each other; Matic and kuya Arlan were in the open field but were well hidden, buried actually, in the sewer and overgrown weed, and had the building guarding their backs, while my father and I were completely open to assault from the back and left but perfectly covered up front. I was careful to keep my entire Galil hidden even as I fired, to keep the nozzle from hitting vines or leaves as I fired which would give away my position, and most careful to fire only when my father did. Of course it’s basic to try and protect your position even as you took shots, but in my case it was plain common sense to hide my position as much as possible – my father had moved this huge old lighting fixture from its original place at the ruins so it would cover him even standing up which guarantees that he’s basically a target. Everyone, of course, was aiming for him and by firing only when he did, no one even thought anyone was in the same area; we were just feet apart, in fact, we were in constant conversation throughout the game. Soon as I saw Matic get up, right hand raised as signal that he’d been hit, I knew it was coming. Sure enough, just a few minutes later kuya Arlan followed suit. Moments later, my father said it just as I realized it: we were the only two from our team left!

This was usually a very exciting part of the game, I didn’t know it would be more exciting than usual, and not in a good way. Precarious as our positions are if the assault team came in from the straight path through the ruins, my father was hit just minutes after kuya Arlan went. Seconds after my father acknowledged being hit, I could hear Papang calling out ‘clearing!’ as sounds of people making their way all around me could be heard. This basically means that they think they’ve gotten everyone but was making a sweep just in case. I knew they had no idea I was there and I was cursing under my breath because I was there and the only one there! Almost lying down completely with only my head leaning on the ancient piece of some metal machinery that was roughly the size of four standard air-conditioning units, there was no way I could get up fast enough, let alone get up, turn around and start shooting, which I wouldn’t do anyway as my gun was nearer to 600 fps than 550 fps and people were a mere two feet away from me – even with full gear, they would feel the BBs. For the second time during that game, I refrained from shooting another player and kept to our rules. Then I saw Kim with Kumanchi player (I can’t quite recall his name right now) clearing well away in front of me. Kim was nearer to me, she was just about six feet away from me, with the other Kumanchi about four feet to her left. I was definitely going to get Kim (we were supposed to be on the same team for that game, she got on the assault team specifically so we could play each other) and the other player he would also definitely get a shot out as well, but I figured it was worth it if I got Kim.

So I took my shots, and I got hit too. So I stood up, both arms up, Galil pointed at the air, as I announced that I was hit. It was good enough for me to be the last one remaining, it was OZ we were playing, after all, and my team mates were all getting better with every game, and I got Kim. To my surprise, shock, actually, I was suddenly being fired at from the left, and with full auto, from several people! There were so much BBs bouncing off me and the equipment around me that I couldn’t even rightly determine direct hits from ricochets. Should this have happened to me during my first few airsoft games, or even recently but in another game site, my instinct would have been to open fire as well, even knowing that I’d do serious damage owing to my Galil’s fps. But we were in Veterans, our own game site, and we’ve been playing here and nowhere else unless forced to like the time it was closed. So I instead covered my masked face with both hands, while around me I could hear two different voices shouting. Papang, who was immediately right behind me, was yelling ‘hit na, hit na!’ and I had fleeting glances of him covering up my left side, putting his body in the line of fire. The second voice was about a ten feet away, but just as loud in my ear. I could immediately tell that my father was pissed off, and, man, you do not want my father pissed off. He was yelling for them to stop while cussing at the same time, and then I heard the distinct sound of his HK, with the 550 fps and fancy mag that feeds the gun by itself, opening fire. The firing OZ guns stopped in the same second that my father’s HK did, but everyone knew it wasn’t over.

I got several bruises (running from wrist to several inches up the elbow, all on the inside of my right arm as I’d had it up in signal that I was hit, along with yelling ‘hit’) and a tiny wound on the outside of my left arm, the one facing the OZs. I had so much more during our first game at Veterans, when we’d been baptized with fire, as we call it, but this was nothing like it. It wasn’t painful at all, it was just… well, I have to admit I would’ve been swearing very openly that time but I couldn’t afford to fuel my father’s anger and he was already very angry, but mostly I was annoyed and disappointed.

I don’t know whether it’s my notion of what should be or if it’s playing at Veterans with the War Vets, but I truly did not expect anything like that. It was OZ, champion team, they were supposed to be good and disciplined. You know, models. I guess I expected them to conduct themselves as we do ourselves when playing outside Veterans. Call it a bit biased, but I consider it rude to exhibit bad behaviour especially when in the territory of others. A similar incident actually happened some time ago when someone had invited Team Akuma and someone from them and kuya Larry of Tactical Lab almost ended up having a physical bout, yet again due to unsporting behaviour.

Second, we have clear cut rules at Veterans and the one everyone is always reminded of is ‘single shots sa ruins’. In fact, I could practically hear kuya Ryan call that out everytime I enter the ruins, whether on defense or assualt. Which is part of number three: the marshalling left some things to be desired. It was odd, really, to say that because we haven’t really had the need for more than one marshal there. One was just enough. I’m not blaming Paul for this, who’d been marshalling yesterday; it was obvious he was having difficulties calling fouls and hits but those weren’t entirely his fault. A lot of the older guys, from all the regular teams (my father, kuya TonTon, kuya Ryan, for example), have a tendency to not put too much stock to marshal’s calls, which had always been okay as our standard at Veterans was friendly game. So even when Paul called hits, they didn’t listen to him all the time. Another factor, I think, is that Paul hadn’t been very sure of himself as marshal. Maybe it was because of the older guys not taking his calls very seriously, maybe he was just a bit intimidated by OZ or their attitude, I don’t know. To look at it from the other perspective, I heard an OZ saying that the incident happened because we were makunat, meaning we don’t admit to being hit. As it was very obvious from start to sweeping to how they opened fire at me from mere two feet away that they had no idea I was there, I could only assume they meant either someone from our team or my father. This I’ll say about my father, though he tends to not follow rules especially when it’s him, kuya Tonton, Alfred, etc. together, everyone knows it and everyone laughs because this happens when they’re after one player or another in particular, in good spirits from both ends. As for the rest of our teams, we’ve been told this before, over and over, ‘wag kase kayo agad aamin! This said, I think that the OZs thought they were hitting someone, probably my father, and he wasn’t admitting to it. But that doesn’t change the fact that one, no player should have opened fire, full auto no less, on anyone in such close proximity. In fact, it was perfect knife kill opportunity as I wasn’t even facing them. There was just no reason to go full auto on someone from that close. Two, I had already yelled that I was hit, if they didn’t hear that, surely both hands and the Galil up in the air was unmistakable. I also didn’t get any sort of apology from those guys, which was a real disappointment specifically because of the BOLO title. Someone did approach my father, but I never got the impression that he was apologetic or anything like it, probably, someone just told him to go over.

To the OZ’s credit, Papang yelled for the shooting to stop, shielded me with his own body, made sure I was okay, gave me a hug which emanated the feel the he was sorry for what happened, and repeatedly apologized to me and my father. To the War Vets who rushed, thanks for the concern, guys. To kuya Christian and kuya Butch in particular, thanks a bunch, I guess we do stick together; we have your back. To Paul, dude, you’re supposed to first on the scene, not handing forgotten goggles minutes after! (lols) To my team mates, oh, well; we learn. To Erap in particular, we don’t need to play them to prove anything, we’ve nothing to prove to them. To Ana, yeah, I guess they haven’t appreciated how and why we play @ Veterans yet, and yeah, it’s just plain nicer when we play just to play. To Frias, dude, next time stick around for the immediate instead of running for backup! Anyhoo, it’s part of the game, what we can take away from this, I think, is that we shouldn’t expect everyone to play by the rules and display good sportsmanship just because we do. Doesn’t mean we have to change, no need to have cancer to understand it as they say. Let’s just be on our guard. Oh, and maybe Paul would need a bit of help marshalling (though I personally prefer having just one marshal, we gotta be honest or we’re wasting time), or the older guys could believe us younger marshals when they call out hits.

my first CQB game @ Sitting Ducks

I played CQB for the first time yesterday. Looking back, I think it was a bit foolish to play CQB against people you don’t know, with only 2 people from your team with you, in a game site you visited for the first time, managed by a team you don’t know. In my defence, the two team mates I had with me were my father and my sister (first time that just the three of us played), and two or three WarVets were there with us. 

That leaves the other players, the game site and it’s managers. The other players, to my surprise, were very nice people. It also probably helped that there were only a little over a dozen players there – I’ve noticed that guys tend to have their guard down with fewer people, and you know what they say about too many guys in one place and adrenalin. According to one of the guys who is apparently one of the regulars there, that’s the usual number of people who play there. I can’t quite decide if this I prefer this over the loud crowd at Veterans, but I have to admit it makes for a nice change. They aren’t the serious-much type of players either, which is great, but then again it was mainly kuya Ryan who was funny as usual. Best of all, I don’t think there were any real zombies (my sister said she’d hit one who merely took a step to the side after being hit, but I guess you can’t really avoid that kind of thing all the time, especialluy if you hit them from pretty far back).

The venue, Sitting Ducks, is located along Libis, right next to starbucks. Parking was fine yesterday but there’s no way it could accommodate fifteen cars. It was also a bit hot as the walls surrounding the place tend to block the wind, but there was tiny store there that sells water and softdrinks (suggestion to the game site managers: gatorade would be nice too). They’ve a little staging area as well, but mostly you’d have to rely on your car’s trunk. As for the actual play area, they’ve a nice CQB area, I find the marshal standing on a platform, which would be level to the roof if there was one, in the middle of things, really cool. Then again this is my first CQB so I guess that opinion lacks insight – but still the platform is cool. I can just imagine myself moving like Michelle Rodriguez, with several Colin Farrells on either side of me, Samuel L. Jackson looking down at us with pride… (SWAT theme blasting in the background)

 

 

my attempt at an action pic @ sitting ducks

 

 

Anyhoo.  The managers are supposed to be Iron Cross, at least that’s what it says on the net (my sense of direction being as off as it is, I looked for the location on-line and glimpsed the name of the team). Based on that day’s games, I think they’re an okay bunch; not too serious, not too rowdy, about as honest as my team mates who are the most honest player’s I’ve ever seen).

Here’s the surprise: I only played two games that day – to think I ditched work, put my gear on at a Petron restroom along C5 (pretty clean and spacious restroom, especiall by gas station restroom standards. it’s the one with a Jollibee and… whatever), and averaged an 85kph all through C5 @ 2PM in the afternoon on a Wednesday. I think that I didn’t have my Galil with me had something to do with it – I used the Stabi as my Galil kills from forty feet away and would just massacre @ CQB.  I have to say I’m just not used to doing without the it’s security. Second, I got hit before I even had the chance to fire a single shot. That’s after I took a right turn into the CQB area, was promptly informed it was a dead end, went back and took a left, and was again informed it was another dead end. But what really made me stop playing was that I had expected players to use single shots since we were so close to each other, but everyone was on full auto. I’ve had tons of friends say that playing at an open fps site (Veterans) seems like asking for trouble, and I’ve never understood what they mean because we like our rules @ Veterans, they go great with our antics and tactics. But yesterday, I finally got what they mean. Being that near and with the player who shot me did so more of surprise that I darted across the gap instead of tactics, it really simply dawned on me that CQB could be asking for trouble. I also had te rare bad luck of wearing a flightsuit which was made of thin material instead of our usual desert TACOPS which had effortlessly withstood raw rocks and smashed bottles @ a Pasig game site and metal aircon shells @ Veterans. Needless to say, I felt all the shots on those two games. This wasn’t the first time I had bruises (had those on my first game @ Veterans last year and three games back, in a not-so-pretty display of sportsmanship and disgusting display of would-be male bravado from some players of a famous team who’d stay unknown for I can’t say that all of them are like that). On hindsight, I think what made me decide to skip the last two games was the fact that it a tiny adjustment would amount to such a big change: single shots in CQB would encourage tactics and movement, where I think full auto is just pointless from near.

But despite all this, I think I like CQB. Now I appreciate what my feather meant when he said he was having second thoughts about letting me and my sister play CQB since it would be a bit scary to have girls play that. But I like the excitement of maybe having someone ready and poised to shoot you down at the next turn and I love the idea of navigating the area  swiftly and efficiently, which is why later that day I texted my team mates and now we’re all excited about playing @ Sitting Ducks again, this time as a team, which is a world of change.

The the managers of Sitting Ducks, thanks for the great game! It was an eye-opener for me, my sister enjoyed it, and my father certainly did. I’m soooo looking forward to playing there again on Wednesday  

Airsoft: WarVets Style

the WarVets (or some of them)

Something to remember about airsoft game sites in the Philippines: they’re usually located @ the places you wouldn’t expect them to be.

If you’ve ever dreamed that you were a rookie soldier (the kind that would be a general in three days’ time, of course) then WHAM! you’re suddenly chucked off the plane and smack in the middle of hostile, trained Iraqi soldiers, then you know how my first airsoft game was. BBs (those are the plastic bullets, or pellets as they’re popularly called locally) were everywhere that for the first few seconds, all I could see where the tiny white balls!

But to give credit where it’s due, Team Talahib, who manages the game site – dubbed the ‘forest’, which is inside Ecology, along East. Ave. (you wouldn’t think to look for a game site there, now would you) – gave us a tour of the place and a rundown of the rules. However, good game site managers notwithstanding, we (that’s me and what would-be my team) decided that playing @ the forest was not for us – not to discriminate or anything, but @ that day there were just too many chinoys who mostly acted like they owned the place, and I gotta say, the attitude of some of the players left a lot to be desired, sportsmanship-wise.

So that first airsoft experience was willingly and easily curbed, and soon enough I was introduced to the only brand of airsoft I would be stuck on…

This one started with getting tossed into the middle of a game as well (hmmm… I wonder if that’s a given with airsoft?). Well, maybe I wasn’t exactly tossed into it because two minutes into the game and my father yanked me behind him while yelling ‘Jerome, nakikita mo, sa dulo ng ruins?’ as he pointed @ something across the field to a brand new acquaintance and team mate. I never could recall who my father directed Jerome to shoot at, or if he did hit that other player (mostly because I was sprawled on my bottom by then) but that’s mainly because of observations and lasting impressions from that day:

1. When we got to the -Veterans Memorial Hospital (you wouldn’t think to look here either, right?) this loud, friendly, bear of a guy wrapped in impressively complete BDU (that’s battle dress uniform) gathered the newbies under the shade of mango trees and enumerated a few, concise rules, each one capped with a joke. He also didn’t use a megaphone to do this, didn’t need to;

2. The WarVets, who managed the place and were basically doctors, nurses and personnel of the Veterans Memorial Hospital, introduced themselves in very friendly manner (it was something like this: si Ryan yang malaking ma-ma na yan, puede na kayo magtago sa likod nyan… si doc Mark tong pogi na nagpasimuno ng games dito sa Veterans, speech, speech!… si Larry yang mukhang NPA, mag-ingat kayo jan… I’m Papang, hi, and I’m not actually a WarVet I’m an OZ! – a champion team, I later learned, and he is now my airsoft icon, he kicks ass!). Everyone there pretty much had the same attitude. A friendly wargame in hospital grounds, can’t get more oxymoronic than that;

3. Kuya Ryan (basically he’s the spokesperson and yeah, a pretty colorful personality) announced that there are girls playing. He introduced us, there were four of us – me, my sister Anne, Ana & Richelle, all from our team –, then told everyone to have a good look. Before I could ask what that was for he continued with the reminder: ‘single shot lang sa mga girls ha, single shot lang, paalala’ (no one said this @ the forest);

4. It did not rain BBs. Far from it. There was absolute quiet and stillness from the ‘defend’ team as the ‘assault’ team tried to identify the other team who were naka baon (hiding in a depression on the earth, surrounded by grass, shrouded in vines, mostly covered by crumbling cabinet) before methodically approaching the ‘ruins’ (in reality, this is a side of the game site populated with pretty much everything that the hospital no longer used – decades old bed, even older machineries, lockers older than my grandparents, that kind of stuff, all ridiculously swathed with big vines and fenced in or under big trees, small trees and whatnot. It’s wonderful and my absolute favorite part of the game site!);

5. In this game between fourty-something players, we had just ONE marshal. Players simply admitted when hit and would stand aside and watch the rest of the game (except when kuya Ryan was the marshal, because the guys tend to aim for him instead of other players when that happens, especially when he yells ‘ceasefire!’);

6. In the middle of games, it wouldn’t be unusual to see hilarious stuff like kuya Larry bellowing in a loud kontrabida voice ‘kala mo kasha ka jan, Ryan?’ as he opened fire on kuya Ryan who insisted on stuffing himself into the ancient, narrow locker for cover as people rolled over laughing (like I said, colorful persona);

7. After each game, someone would shout ‘reload!’, which would take all three minutes, gulping down your Gatorade included. We get loads of playtime;

8. We mix and match. Sometimes by colour, sometimes by pattern, sometimes it’s just what everyone agrees on. So you get to team up with pretty much everybody, which is great as people here share laughs and airsoft tips.

That’s the airsoft game that I got to know, and that’s basically how I spend my Sundays, between 1PM until everyone agrees it’s too dark to play anymore, except for some days when kuya Ryan gets people in early and everyone partakes in good ol’ barbecue prepared by men without mom supervision – a single piece of anything, whether it be a full size steak or a huge sausage or a mere piece of tomato, is mercilessly skewered by one barbecue stick – or people get lazy and starved so we’d troop down to halfway (a turo-turo style place within Veterans) for their garlic chicken and ice cream for the girls.

Here’s to the WarVets & the HQ, for getting us started on a game that we love, and for keeping it coming!

Filipino Airsoft: a (very, very brief) History

Nowadays, when we talk about recreational activities in the Philippines (and elsewhere ’round the globe, I might add) the word ‘Airsoft’ comes up within the first three minutes of the conversation. There’s piko, patintero, luksong tinik -oops, wrong era, let me do that again: There’s basketball, volleyball, swimming, baseball, PSP games, on-line gaming, and then there’s airsoft.

If you’re lucky to have cool, adventurous friends they’d drag you right off Starbucks, stuff you into protective gear and toss you right into an airsoft game site (there’s also karting where you’d get tossed into a kart but that’s another story) – if your friends are really cool, you’d be lobbed smack in the middle of an ‘invitations only’ game site where you’d undoubtedly be overwhelmed with the sight of a select handful of people dressed in kickass BDU (that’s battle dress uniform); an assortment of rifles and handguns so wide it would leave your head spinning; and a downright amazing camaraderie between the select fourty-something strong players (name another game where you plot and scheme to hit a friend using an M14 rifle or knife-kill a whole bunch of them, and right after they’d slap your hand with the compliment ‘nice one!’ If that’s not camaraderie, I don’t know what is).

But before any more airsoft talk from me, a brief Filipino history of the game that we love (found the perfect one on the web which I decided to borrow, a little tweaking here and there and I’ve posted it here; hope the original author neither mind nor press charges… to pay homage where its due, gun salute to the San Pablo City Airsoft Club for this). Here we go:

Not so long ago…

in a place not too far, far away (from Quezon City)…

a band of brothers and their friends decided to stay home for the weekend

and pass the time away by re-enacting the never-ending saga of good vs. evil, macho style…

Some played good soldiers… others played war lords…

They started shooting it out the way only overgrown boys would…

With the SWAT theme blaring on the surround sound component, the boys ran up, down, in, out and around the house, out into the street, and over fences into neighbors’ yards, trying to tag each other using toy guns that fired 6mm hard plastic BBs…

The year was 1985… it was summer… I had just turned two years old… and airsoft wargames was born in the Philippines.

And so, like wildfire at old Binondo (which I’ve never been to, but what the hell), airsoft as we know it in the Philippines grew, and kept growing. hallelujiah!