A Day in the Dreaming

Last Sunday I attended (along with all the Neil Gaiman fans in the city) the award ceremony for the winners of the 2nd Graphic/Fiction contest, which Neil himself started and financed.

As expected, the event was mobbed by fans and finalists (who brought along their families). Among the people whom I happily managed to spend some time with were- Arnold and Cynthia Arre, Leinil Yu, Elbert Or, Charles Tan, Mia Tijam, Joseph Nacino, Ian Casocot, Luis Katigbak and Yvette Tan. I even bumped into several of my Xavier students who were there to see Neil Gaiman and have a few items autographed (I had to dash their hopes though, as Neil was not signing anything for the event).

The night was wet and stormy but we were entertained by a magic show and an amazing arnis/drum performance courtesy of Bahaghari. There was also a funny video clip featuring Neil, but the big event of the night was the awards ceremony and I'm happy and proud to say that so many good friends bagged awards- Ian Casocot won 2nd place for prose (his 2nd time in a row!) along with Yvette Tan who tied with him, Joseph 'Banzai Cat' Nacino won the grand prize for his story "Logovore" and then there was Andrew Drilon who bagged 2nd place (there wasn't any first place winner this year) for his short comic "Lines and Spaces", and also brought the house down by kissing Neil Gaiman when he received his award! Way to go Drew! ;p

Congratulations to all of the winners! It's great to have all your hard work pay off.

I spent the rest of the night baby sitting Sage with my assistant Stalker Charles. We wandered Serendra and wound up at Hobbes where I was able to try out Nintendo's Wii for the first time. I have to say that I'm more of a Playstation guy, but the Wii won me over with a very innovative control system that had me playing golf and bowling while Sage watched and cheered me on. I actually enjoyed it, and burned up a few calories in the process. The best thing about Wii is that it refuses to let you turn into a couch potato.

On the way home, we scoured all the nearby branches of Mini-Stop and 7-11 in order to find a copy of the Inquirer, which just published Dean's story "Chasing Aurora". Our persistence paid off and we manged to head home with copies. Congratulations Dean!