Damn, I Miss Wushu

I'm beginning to feel the lack of easily accessible large empty indoor spaces around here. Acutely.
/(≥﹏≤)\
Back at uni I could go to any one of three gyms within a few minutes walk from home. Here, I'm at a loss. Wushu really does take up quite a bit of space. Especially some of the flashier techniques.

This is way back when I was really crappy. Now I'm just regular mediocre haha.

In other news, I found a kung fu combat technique manual in the bathroom today. Not mine, probably dad's. That's one of those moments when I feel a swell of pride for being Asian. *nyuk nyuk nyuk*

Time Traveling In the Van

So in yet another incremental step towards fully operational status I vacuum-cleaned the van today and cleared out all the accumulated pens, erasers, papers, wrappers, craft-sy projects Baby made in grade school, etc. You know: trash. Tomorrow I'm going to go in with a scrubby sponge for the fine cleaning but for now it is much improved.

Whilst going through that clutter I found a lot of old toys from way back in the day. Including one Monopoly game piece: the car. It was actually kind of eerie to see some of these toys again.

Pumpkins

An honest question: Does anyone really eat them? Personally, I don't care for pumpkin pies, or pumpkin drinks or anything pumpkin tasting, but I don't see anyone eating this stuff outside the Halloween season either. Not like apple pie. People eat those all the time. Pumpkin pie only seems to come out when the holiday is here, otherwise it disappears. Like candy corn. I don't know of anyone that actually likes candy corn or buys candy corn because they like the taste. It's cheap and people buy it to give to all the kids for trick-or-treating. That's it. Otherwise, candy corn is garbage.

So tell me, all of you, do you like the taste of pumpkin-anything? And weigh in with your candy corn opinions too if you'd be so kind.

In/Appropriate Reactions at a Horror Movie

Two of my most memorable experiences whilst watching a horror movie in a theatre:

Inappropriate and not funny.


28 Weeks Later [2007] - Definitely one of my favorite horror films owing to the fact that the fear stuck with me for quite a while after. The inappropriate reaction came during an extended chase scene midway through the movie. The big bad military chases the main characters who flee in an old sedan. They elude the foot and car patrols but then a fully armed attack helicopter rises up from behind a building and begins firing rockets. At which point I burst out laughing. I can explain though. This time (just this once) I was not, in fact, hoping the protagonists got killed. It was just that they just had all this might coming down on them it was ridiculous.

Appropriate but funny.

Quarantine [2008] - Drawing close to the end of this film, the black guy from The Practice pokes his camera up into the attic to do some reconnaissance. After about 340º of rotation a child-like pseudo-zombie screech-and-lunges at the camera. The best part was this: there were 4 black peeps sitting a few rows ahead of me, arranged like so:
{1}{2}{3}{4}
At the screech-and-lunge Person #1 yelped, jumped across 2 seats and landed in Person #4's lap. AHAHAHA WHAT A WANKER.

Halloween Time

So as you may have expected there's been a marathon of the Halloween movie series [1978 and onward] airing on AMC this week. In addition, Cujo [1983] was on a few nights ago.

The weakness of the American horror genre lies in its penchant for also being a thriller film. I've mentioned this before but I feel it needs to be reiterated. Americans do love their action. (And so the rise of Michael Bay came about haha.)

Unfortunately, this can only go on for so long before things get... tired. Audiences know what's coming and you get people saying, "Don't go investigate, bitch!". As for me, well, I'm already inclined to be critical of stupidity so I'll be the first to admit that I for one switch to celebrating the deaths of the dumb ass protagonists very quickly. Some might say alarmingly so.

You really can't expect me to place my hopes on some of these idiots, right?

Watching Halloween [1978], the first one, I just rolled my eyes every time Jamie Lee Curtis turned her back on Myers, assuming he was dead. What a dumb bitch... This happens twice.

In other news, at some point I read this top-rated YouTube comment:

"Jamie Lee Curtis is probably the greatest butter-face in history."

A bit mean but the comment has merit.

Pride and Contempt

Is it possible to have one without the other? Can you think highly of something or someone (yourself included) without looking down on the rest? I hope it's possible. (And if there's one thing Obama has taught me: Yes, we can. hahaha)

Well, you all know I have plenty of pride so this question is especially applicable to myself. I like to think I'm not excessively (hehe) contemptuous of others. Nevertheless, I'm not blind enough to make the assumption/judgement that I'm truly not. Best to just endeavour to be who I want to be, eh? Advice to live by, I think.

Hospitals and Zombies

So today I went and visited my uncle in the hospital. He's ok, btw.

Man. Haven't been in a hospital in a long time (lucky me, eh?).

The whole time I kept thinking of the only good scene from the first episode of The Walking Dead, you know, that one with the chained door.



That was good. The episode itself was lackluster. Since then I've seen a few more episodes. It's still only "ok" in my opinion.

Truth and Reconciliation

I suppose I won't go into a gushing glowing post on how much I like the Halo video game series here. Not just yet anyway. hehe. (^.^)/

In fact, as far as single-player campaigns go, I've actually only played Halo: Combat Evolved, the very first installment, in that respect. (The rest I've only played at friends' houses on multiplayer.) That's why I can't really speak in depth on the story quality of the later ones. Mark has a different taste for the series but since I have an admittedly limited experience with the others I won't try to convert him haha.

No, no. This post is just to tell you guys about how cool I think the name "Truth and Reconciliation" is. Any links to the South African commission do not interest me. Just that super bad-ass name.

For those of you not in the know, the Truth and Reconciliation is the name of an alien spaceship from the first game.

CCS-class battlecruiser

A Day To Contemplate

(￣_______￣)
(º___º)
(º︵º)
(▂⊙⊙)
/(⊙Д⊙)\

(o.ô)
(º.º)
(º_º)
<(￣__￣)>
╮(╯_╰)╭

Military Channel

Costanza would approve.

So I've been watching a lot of Military Channel this past week. Really interesting, entertaining AND educational stuff. THE TRIFECTA.

Watching Surviving the Cut has the same effect as watching Sasuke, haha: It's making me want to work out and get fit. Now that makes this quality TV in my book.

There was a feature called Hitler's Deadliest Secret: The Hunt for U-864 on last night. Hitler sent a submarine with blueprints and materials for building jet fighters to Japan in 1944. Fortunately, for the Allies, it never made it. The British submarine, HMS Venturer, sank it in the North Sea. What makes this engagement unique is that this remains the only instance in history that a submarine has sunken another submarine in combat whilst both were submerged. I don't know about you but I was surprised to learn this fact. Haha, I mean torpedo vs torpedo salvos, I've seen that in the movies more than once, I'm sure. Once again I am reminded that TV is not reality. (^︿^;;)7

One of the Venturer's crewmen on that day, now a white-haired old man, told us about the event and the aftermath. In particular, I noted his description of the crew's reaction after hearing the hit. At first everyone cheered and celebrated. Then the elation of having eliminated the threat rapidly vanished as the reality settled on their minds. That was another U-boat full of men they just sent to the bottom. Men like them, just doing their duties. Everyone sobered up. There really wasn't cause for celebration.

The Dog and the Snowball

More than a decade ago I was listening to NPR when a short story reading came on. It was about a man and his dog at the park. I can't recall the particular wording nor the author but a memory of the story has stuck with me all these years and I still think about it with unusual frequency.
=================================
A man and his dog go to the park. It has snowed recently and the entire park looks like a perfectly frosted cake. Smooth, pristine, glistening snow. The man plays with his dog, tossing a stick and having the dog fetch, a time-honored tradition between canines and their owners everywhere. The man throws with all his might but the dog never fails to retrieve the object. Eventually the man decides to play a little trick on his faithful companion. He bends down and packs some snow into a ball. He pitches it out into a snowdrift and, as always, the dog bounds over to find it. But, of course, the snowball disintegrated upon impact. The dog pauses on the spot for a moment, confused. It circles a bit before digging. Digging. The man laughs at the success of his hoodwinking. He tires of the spectacle quickly as a bit of guilt trickles into his mind. He calls for the dog to return.

The dog looks up, a bit of powder frosting its black nose. It takes a few steps but turns back and digs down further. The man calls again. The dog does this a few times. A couple of hesitant steps toward its master before returning to the place it saw the ball land. It knows the ball landed there. It can find it, it knows it can. It has never failed before.

The man calls louder, agitated. What a foolish animal! he thinks. The dog returns with its head down, failure in its eyes. The man reassures his dog. The man can't explain the truth, though. How could he communicate the concepts to a dog? But he does the best he can. The dog is stubborn. It doesn't want to let go. It looks forlornly at the spot a few times more. He tosses the stick twice more to distract the dog from its "failure" before they return home. Later that night, lounging in front of the blazing hearth, the dog chews valiantly on a bone, its tail happily wagging. The man marvels at the zeal (and foolishness) with which the dog had searched (futilely) for the lost snowball and chuckles at the equal reluctance with which it had abandoned the pursuit.

Still later, the man and his dog turn in for the night. The dog curls up and drifts off, quickly, contentedly; the snowball completely and utterly forgotten. For a long while the man lays beneath the covers, staring at the ceiling.
===============================

I hope I did the story justice. (^_^)7

White Noise 2: The Light [2007]

So White Noise [2005] and White Noise 2 [2007] were on last night and I watched them both. I gotta say the sequel was a massive improvement over the first, thanks in no small part to Capt. Reynolds Nathan Fillion.

Take note though! A movie needn't do much to be thought better than White Noise. Actually, just casting Fillion means the movie was better than that piece of crap.

Anyhoo, it was pretty standard jump-scare fare. I freely confess that if the Captain wasn't in it I wouldn't have enjoyed it at all. As things stood, I enjoyed it a little.

I really do not have much to say about this movie one way or the other up until the final sequence. That's when I really burst out laughing at the idiocy of the screenplay writer and the director.


Check it out here. To give you a quick set-up on context: Nathan can see when people are about to die and he saves them. It turns out that on the third day after he has helped a person cheat death in this way the person gets possessed by the devil and goes on a killing spree. This woman is minutes away from the 72 hour mark and Nathan has come to kill her before she perpetrates a mass murder.



(≥ヮ)AHHAHAHAA WHAT A FUCKING IDIOT THEY HAVE WRITING THIS SHIT!

Oh man, what the hell did I just watch.
So let me get this straight. The ambulance shows up and the paramedics see a woman, apparently traumatized from the attempt on her life but otherwise UNHARMED, and make the diagnosis @4:40: "She's going into shock, let's get her out of here."
What, you need to take her on a car ride to calm her nerves, huh? Maybe play some smooth jazz on the radio to settle her down a bit?
Not to mention they toss her in the ambulance and drive off without even looking inside to see the man who has been shot multiple times. But nooooo, that woman is hyperventilating! Get 'er to the hospital, stat!
And then this ambulance driver who practically crawls into the back to see what's shakin' instead of watching where he's driving... I do hope you recall what it really means to go into shock by the way.

In the Trenches

One day, my high school history teacher was talking to us about WWII and the men in the trenches. It isn't a scene from the trench warfare but if you've seen the Omaha Beach scene from Saving Private Ryan [1998] you can get an idea of the kind of indiscriminate mass slaughter people experienced during that war.
The question came up, how did they manage to get up when so many bullets are flying through the air? What goes through a person's mind to allow them to hop up, out of the relative safety of the trench, and run into oncoming fire?
He hadn't personally fought in the war, although we joked that he was old enough to have done so, but he had spoken to veterans who had.

When you got into that situation you stopped thinking about yourself, you thought about your comrades instead. This train of thought also gets touched upon in Mark Bowden's book, Black Hawk Down, which is a good read for any of you interested in some non-electronic entertainment haha.
He also told us that what really kept you throwing yourself into the line of fire was the fear of shame. You didn't want to be the one who sat down and let everyone else do the fighting.

That comrade-in-arms brotherhood... I think a lot of people have lived their entire lives without ever feeling that kind of 'my life in your hands, yours in mine' sentiment. I mean really felt that, not just a close friendship or something close to it.

I attribute the appeal of being a soldier to this lack. You really feel like you're a part of something bigger than yourself. That something, someones, are relying on you. Life and death. Not dollars and cents.

I Don't Miss People?!

I'd been passively aware of this personal trait for a long time but I suppose I never gave it much thought until D-girl brought it up.

At the end of the school year most people, including most of my friends, went home for a few days before returning to move their things back home. My time at uni had come to an end altogether so I spent the time packing up from the leased house I'd been living in, prepping to return home for the last time.

After a few days D-girl came back and she half-jokingly asked if I'd missed her. I suppose my reply wasn't duly sincere haha. My smile doesn't help with looking trustworthy either.
(^ヮ^;;)7 It's a testament to how well she understands me that this didn't faze her in the least.

She is right in noting that I don't miss people, that it's "just part of my personality". Honestly, I can't say that I'm apologetic about it. However, what I fear most is that it will hurt their feelings. There might be a sense that I don't appreciate them or care about them, that they were just the latest in a line of 'friends' that I will meet and discard in my life. This is most certainly not the case.

I don't forget them but I guess the most candid way to describe it would be that they simply don't come to mind everyday. Not quite an 'out of sight, out of mind' sort of action but not far removed either.

I would attribute this to my "Live every day everyday" philosophy. Think about that line if you have to. It'll make sense eventually.

A Good Day's Work

So I've been fixing up an old van to drive as my very own. When I got back from uni there was this large crack across the windshield and the engine has all kinds of problems. Still, it's definitely perfectly beat up to serve as a 'first car' haha. (^__^)

Manually replaced the windshield today and drove it around the parking lot a bit. It definitely sounds like it's seen plenty of years.

Tired. That's all folks.

Uoooh, You Are Indeed A Worthy Opponent...

This is a dream I had about 3 years ago but I still remember it vividly because of how indignant I felt after I awoke.

I'm sure at one time or another you and your group of friends discussed what super ability you would each like to have, no? I feel like this is a common experience most people have had at one time or another. Well, when I imagine up an ability I usually give it some kinds of limitations. Firstly, it makes it more interesting when dreaming up stories and adventures. Secondly, it somehow makes it seem more real and possible to me.

In this case, in this dream I mean, I had teleportation but only to a location within my line of sight. Not as far-ranging as the one in Jumper [2008]. I was walking past the university's bookstore when some men in black came to capture me. They started by firing flashbangs into the air and followed with smoke grenades to cage my range. The thick smoke meant I could only teleport a few feet and soon not at all.

"Damn!," I said. Why is my subconscious so efficient and deft at screwing me over?
(▂⊙⊙) /(⊙Д⊙)\ (سಥ益ಥ)س

Military Movie Mood and some Random Info

I've been in the mood for some military films this past week. Action packed, sure. Realistic, not usually. Entertaining, yes.

The discipline and control of a well-trained military unit is undeniably cool. War, actual war is not.  Nevertheless, a few generations of people have grown up seeing war on the big screen, not with their own eyes. They play games like Call of Duty.
This isn't a post about desensitization or "video games encourage violent behaviour" bullshit, though.

No, my point is that war seems cool to a lot of people. On a related note, guns are cool to a lot of people despite their function. Back in the day, I didn't understand. I feel safe in assuming that only a fraction of them have ever actually shot a person or been shot. When I heard someone say that a certain gun 'sucked' I could only imagine that they were speaking from a list of numbers: statistics of range, caliber of bullet, and maybe even something they'd read concerning its reliability in the field but mostly not from personal experience. If they had a bullet in them I wondered if they'd note any difference about the gun it came from. Oh, it's possible they'd be able to remark on it, sure.
--------------------------------------------
Time for an educational moment.

Do you know what it means to "go into shock"? I'll wager you think it's what you've seen on TV or in the movies. A person, possibly injured and/or in a crisis situation, is pale, shaking, stuttering, eyes wide, deer-in-the-headlights look on they face, right? Naw. That's called *being* shocked, not *in* shock. Shock is a medical term for when not enough blood is getting to where it needs to go, usually from massive blood loss or some kind of trauma. It is not a psychological condition. When you go into shock, you're in need of some immediate medical attention.
--------------------------------------------
I'll give you these words of wisdom. I wish more people would take heed of them but it ain't meant to be so... But here they are:

TV shows and movies are forms of entertainment.

Yeah, shocking, I know. (hehe) You can learn a lot, but you have to know that it isn't there to educate first. Unless, you're watching a documentary..... No, you don't just have to know, you have to be aware. There is a difference.

A 2011 Remake of The Thing [1982]?

Reactions to the news.

No?
THANK HEAVENS.
That was close. It's a prequel, not a remake. Still looks like it sucks though. If the trailer is any indicator then this movie is going to be filled with jump scares and rehashed scenarios of the original. Probably with some shiny CG effects for good shitty measure.

One thing I don't understand is why they didn't title it at least a little differently, that is, if they really wanted to make sure people knew this wasn't a remake.

By the way, reading the wiki article on this movie and I found this one passage illuminating, but not surprising in the least.

Yeah. They went looking for something to dredge up from the vault of quality. What a couple of clowns.

A Racially-targeted Aggressive Dream?

So last night I dreamt that I was walking along, wearing a large and heavy backpack. That's when someone kicked me in the butt and I turned around. It happens to be a guy I knew from uni, last name of Nguyen. I boot him and notice someone else on the scene. I don't think they actually know each other in real life but her last name is also Nguyen. I give her a boot in the ribs too but lose my balance because of the backpack and fall over. Then she jumped up and stomped on me. O the humanity.

An FPS Dream

So watching Black Hawk Down [2001] yesterday gave me a cool dream last night.
I ended up in Mogadishu with the rest of the 75th Ranger Regiment. Two guys were up the road ahead of me with a machine gun emplacement. To the right I could see a guy on the rooftop but I wasn't sure if he was a combatant or not. Then he picked up a rifle and started to draw a bead on my squad mates. I had another one of those "Hey! I know I shot on target, he's totally using cheats" kind of moments. After a ridiculous number of hits he went down but a guy on horseback came around the corner wielding a large scimitar. I fire and hit him a few times but nothing happens. Then I notice that the clip is empty but the Low Ammo indicator didn't light up. (Real guns do not, in fact, have Low Ammo indicator lights by the way). I recalled the last time I got cut on and backed off quick. He swung again and I clubbed him with the butt of my rifle.

Just what I need in the morning, eh? An action packed adventure simulation.

Playgrounds: Not Just For Kids?

So I got all 26 seasons of Sasuke and I've been watching it from the beginning. Naturally, I went out to look for obstacles soon after. There used to be monkey bars and such at the local public park but it has since been replaced by some colourful dinky crap. That and all of this stuff seems a lot shorter than it used to. There's slides and tiny ladders and shit but nothing to jump and climb and hang from. What the hell, man? Is this a symptom or a cause of our unhealthy youth generation?

Incidentally, I notice that I haven't eaten a potato chip in a long time.... hmmm...

A Fresh Hot-Off-the-Press Post

Guess what guys? This is the first post in a long time that I haven't had a draft of at some point. All posts marked Published, no Drafts, none Scheduled. This one's coming right off the top of my head.
(>ワ) HOO HOO HA HIII!!!~~

A laid-back Monday. (￣_____￣)

(´_`) (\`.) (|:) (/.') (.￣.) (`.\) (:|) (.´/) (・_・)

Glasses

I've gone through a lot of glasses in my time. Honestly, I'm not as careful with them as I should be, mostly because my eyesight is good enough that I don't need them to get through a day, especially now that I don't have classes in front of a blackboard anymore.

The 1st pair
Gold, wire-rimmed. Mom insisted on the gold color because she claimed black made glasses too prominent on the face. Personally, I think gold is more attention-attracting than simple black, in addition to looking much more nerdy. And round frames?! (___- -) I haven't gotten light-colored frames since.


They looked like this. I don't have the actual pair anymore.


The 2nd pair
The frame is called Modern Todd. Black, wire frame. Basically the complete opposite of the 1st pair. These are pretty unremarkable glasses with a nice and simple look.

The 3rd pair
I don't have this one to show you guys. At some point I actually stepped on them and completely destroyed this pair. The most damage I've ever done to any set I've owned. They looked similar to the 2nd pair but the height of the lens was about 1/4 shorter.

The 4th pair
Same frame as the 2nd, different prescription.

The 5th pair
I picked these up soon after I got the 4th pair, same prescription. Blue and black, metal. Polycarbonate lens, Transitions even! These are my 2nd favorite glasses and one of the nicest I've had.  Super light and the first to have my preferred design: half-rimmed.

Transition lenses!

You might notice the left lens is missing in that top picture. I lost it on the dance floor of the Spanish Galleon last year. It's actually a miracle I found them again at all, haha. Somehow, a friend saw them on the crowded floor and said, "Hey, those look familiar" and retrieved them for me. After that I went back to the 4th pair for a while.

The 6th pair
By far my favorite pair, right here. Half-rimmed, of course. Lightweight. Beautifully stylish brown and translucent green plastic. Polycarbonate lenses. Nike.

You see the side I'm holding? That side won't bend because I had to super glue it to reattach it.
(- -__|||) Man, I'd only had this pair for a little while and I took care of them, too. But this time, it wasn't me. It was a friend who broke them.... \(>.<)/ Oh, I've only told you about this one in passing. That will come later. I'll just say this: If it had been anyone else, any one other person I would have gotten mad. But in this case, I just got annoyed. Really annoyed.

Now though, when I see them they remind me of her. Haha. Imagine that.

A Mall Cop Dream

Anyone seen that movie Mall Cop [2009]? Pretty crappy. Retarded plot. Nevertheless, I had a dream inspired by that movie.

Some punk kid who looked like Norm, the bag boy, from another movie, The Mist [2007], was trying to rob a clothing store. For some reason I only had a Crosman CO2 airsoft pistol. At first I hid behind a rack of jeans wondering if I should try and confront him or try and just talk him down. Then he came around the rack and I made the decision. I whipped the fake gun out and put it in his face demanding he give me the gun. I snatched it from him and he took off.
I'm pretty sure real security guards aren't actually allowed to have guns, airsoft or otherwise. Anyway, I used the revolver I just took from him and shot after him. Handy crosshairs appeared in the air and even though I definitely fired on target he got away unharmed. Meanwhile, the supervisor came riding up on a segway. She looked like Carla from Scrubs. I got told off for firing into an area filled with civilians. (__ -- )

Favorite Word #5: Loaf

Loaf - n. A shaped mass of-...

Actually, I won't give a definition for this word as its meaning is unrelated to its status as one of my favorite words. Unlike the previous entries this one attained a spot on my list through no significant semantic achievements. Nay! Solely from the delight I receive in exercising this word's phonetic powers has it earned the appellation: favorite word.

I didn't have any loaf or bread related images so... here.

A wookie riding a squirrel fighting Nazis.

A Postal Dream

Last night an interesting dream came.

I was a postal worker delivering mail in a snowy area. While I made my rounds putting letters into mailboxes a postal service snow plow was supposed to have come by and cleared the road. (There's no such thing as a postal service snow plow by the way, that's a Dept. of Transportation issue.) When I got back to my truck it was half-buried by the piled snow pushed off the main street. Someone comes out onto their porch and watches me digging it out.

Hahaha isn't that supposed to be someone else's job?
I look up and reply, "Yeah, but when you work at the post office long enough the code you follow becomes: 'Fuck it.' Because the mail, it nevers stops coming. Day after day letters pour in and you have to send it out. No matter how fast you work it's always coming in. Bags and bags of it. Insanity is an inevitability. Hence the phrase "going postal". It's the boxes that are the worst. I hate boxes."

At which point the man points out that the mail car is shaped like a box.

And I destroy it with my pickaxe. In cubes. And I don't even like Minecraft. (%__)

Epic Trailer Music

Hmm, that's odd. This didn't post yesterday...

Anyhoo, the past week I've been listening to music from Two Steps From Hell. And guess who I have to thank for linking me to this music? P-boy!



Yep. That there is some high caliber epic trailer music. While some people dislike it for being 'generic' that doesn't bother me. I know where they're coming from but you can't deny the music is 'effective' at setting the mood it's intended for.

This isn't the first time I've come by good music from someone who is otherwise distasteful to me. It is good to be reminded that you can't judge a person's character based on their likes and dislikes. There will be a post on that subject later down the line.

Idiosyncrasy #5: Bzzzt

Man, I'm probably going to regret revealing this one later on down the line. (/﹏><)\

I don't like static shocks. That is to say, I get apprehensive every time I am about to touch a metal surface in winter.

Cooler weather has started in and with it the air has gotten drier. This, in addition to the increased number of clothing layers I wear when venturing outdoors, means touching any metal surfaces often results in a spark of static electricity.

It doesn't hurt much, I've felt higher degrees of pain before. The real issue is that I sense that the shock is coming but I still have to touch the surface.



I can foresee this new information being used against me in the future. As long as they have decoys. DECOYS!

Tyrion Lannister's voice

So I was watching Game of Thrones, excellent show by the way, and I suddenly realized Tyrion's voice sounded so very familiar.

Any of you ever play Thief: The Dark Project? It's an old PC game from way back in 1998 so I wouldn't be surprised if none of you had even heard of it. But it's one of the best computer games ever made in my opinion. The story, the gameplay, all of it just top-notch. And even today it has a large cult following/ fanbase. That's gotta mean something right?

Brother Murus

Anyhoo, there was a ghost in one of the levels named Brother Murus. In reality he was voiced by Randy Smith. And he doesn't actually sound like Tyrion, played by actor Peter Dinklage. Oh wells.

A Telling Dream

Sitting at a table outside a café. My phone lies on the table.
=======================
A white girl walks past and says,
Hey, cute phone charm.
Thanks.
What is it?
....I'm sorry. We can't be friends.
=======================

Hahaha. Yeah. That was it.

Any person who grew up in an Asian household would have recognized Ding Dong (or Doraemon) from the children's TV show.

Favorite Word #4: Serendipity

Serendipity - n. an unexpected stroke of good fortune.

While one of its other definitions is 'an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident' I much prefer this one. Basically it would be what you'd have called the finding of the $20 bill without the ensuing parking ticket.

Personally, I like unexpected strokes of good fortune more than everything just going right in the first place. It's more interesting and it really makes me appreciate the flow of events more, and makes for a better story besides. For example, you might go to the store and return home. Uneventful. Unremarkable. Or you could forget to buy sponges, resign yourself to making an extra trip, only to find a 3-pack hidden in the back of the cabinet. O happy day!

Then again, I've always had more than my fair allocation of good luck. If it were otherwise I might be less favorably inclined to leave things to chance. As things stand, hurray serendipity!

By the way, I am aware that my scenario there and the description given of my own experiences with this phenomenon are, indeed, perfectly fitting for that other definition I said I didn't care for. What ev's, man. What ev's.