worked to a blather

turtle

2009-10-31T19:03:00.004-04:00

7 colors.

every cloud has silver lightning.

2009-08-09T22:01:00.003-04:00

It is easy to imagine that we had stirred to anger a god of old. For these were not the lazy grumblings that oft accompanied those flashes of light thrown across a sullen backdrop of gray. These were short actinic arcs that cut through any hope of surcease and brought with it an ear-throbbing thrust of sound. Such as one would expect to hear as an unbeliever is transubstantiated into a rapidly fading column of soot, or what one experiences as the hubris of man is met with the indomitable strength of a will eternal.

As I write this, the brunt of the storm seems to have passed, though the clouds yet seemingly pulse with a light of their own, for it takes much for such a potent ire to be slaked.

scratchpad: march 06, 2009

2009-03-06T20:15:00.003-05:00

two-megabyte floozy.

2009-01-25T19:46:00.006-05:00

Just noticed this day. This description looks to be quite old. How long has Hotmail been popping pills to keep up with Gmail's stature?

the oral decay of today's society.

2009-01-10T23:07:00.002-05:00

As any other person who may have, at one point in time, used their primary e-mail address as a shopper, whose motto of "spend, spend, spend," is orthoganal to its inevitable consequence, would to gain access to the many goodies the Internet has to offer... though candy would be a more appropriate analogue (I'm an absolute riot, aren't I)-it looks good on the outside, tastes good on the inside, but you'll get toothrot, gum disease, lycanthropy... and the next thing you know, death by lethal injection when you try to address that yawning emptiness that has taken root deep within you. Sporting a crown and an enamel coat, wrought through with the oral decay that was the accumulation of degenerations, it begrudges you its role as gate guardian, door man, pawn. In this match, it is your own pieces that you must keep in check, elsewise they will trade their lily livery for crowns of gold, and they shall make themselves a metaphor disjoint from the rest of the body. Bribing them to filling the cavity at their heart seems to be the accepted course of action.

I started writing this at the end of September.

A listless failure. Or it would be without that series of adversities.

Fire in the Disco!

2008-11-01T18:50:00.002-04:00

about:linux

2008-09-21T21:28:00.001-04:00

"It's simple. Very simple. I didn't like it because it was so simple."

Overheard on the bus. To be fair... he was referring to the Eee PC.

time to shine

2008-09-16T21:29:00.002-04:00

The skyline was a mother's nightmare: the skythrust needles - lewd before the soft envelope of the welkin womb, menacing when polished by the waxing moonlight; the crags of colossal constructions alliterate the horizon with highrise hazards and cruel cutting corners; and the shapeless wraiths skirting the outer firmament, invisible but for illuminary lunar intercession. And so it was until the spectral interplay of shadow and vapour all but vanished with the ponderous eclipsed of the nocturnal tableau. A sudden sheet of frost-rimed air washed over us and the wind tugged at the folds of our clothing with stiff, insistent fingers-with nothing of the nimble indifference of moments before. With all the courtesy of the hoary patron, the aeolian chill ceased against our upright struggles, which quickly precipitated into two wholly not hale hail to hail the Halley hailing hulk.

This was from a story I started to write, only to find that no such story could be written because I'm a terrible writer.

where will we be?

2008-06-24T21:50:00.004-04:00

Winter passed brusquely through the town, with not a thankee here or a piss off there. Just a door slammed - and left open to announce its entrance and a door to the face as you try to usher it out the back. The chill, the stares, the lazy groans as the regulars were moved to coax a hope for warmer climes - long left flickering by a season of long, cold nights reluctant to leave the memory of flesh. The hoar was a jealous crone, clutching at us to keep us from the lush allures of the nymphs of spring - fleeting pleasure for the flesh - and the phoenix of summer reborn in all its too-hot glory only to pass back the guttering torch, to let it fall with but the barest hint of smoke into the frozen clutches of winter eternal. The door, left open, let in drafts of things to be, of snow unfallen, of frigid fingers and nasal neaps, of windworn lips and numbness spread anew. Somnolence stumbles and consciousness takes flight, flitting amongst the draughty spires of free flowing thought, and in amongst the buttresses of reason and faith - auburn ribbon against the golden angles of the present.

Oracle 10g Express Edition License Agreement

2008-06-18T18:27:00.000-04:00

ELIGIBILITY EXPORT RESTRICTIONS
I am not a citizen, national or resident of, and am not under the control of, the government of: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, nor any other country to which the United States has prohibited export.

I will not download or otherwise export or re-export the Programs, directly or indirectly, neither to the above mentioned countries nor to citizens, nationals or residents of those countries.

I am not listed on the United States Department of Treasury lists of Specially Designated Nationals, Specially Designated Terrorists, and Specially Designated Narcotic Traffickers, nor am I listed on the United States Department of Commerce Table of Denial Orders.

I will not download or otherwise export or re-export the Programs, directly or indirectly, to persons on the above mentioned lists.

I will not use the Programs for, and will not allow the Programs to be used for, any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, for the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction.

For serious.

Chapter I, Book I.

2008-06-16T20:51:00.005-04:00

This was something I started writing for the NaNoWriMo in 2006.

Life has her eccentricities, if you can call homicidal tendencies an eccentricity, then sure – life has her eccentricities.

I never understood why they always told you to shoot for the stars. I mean, I don’t think they sell any bullets meant for interplanetary travel, but heck, if they did, the first thing I’d do would be to shoot that great whale of a guy that never seems to have his pants pulled up all the way and thus inviting us to a close up and personal simultaneous viewing of both sides of the moon and all her great craters. Actually, all I would need is a good harpoon – having one around could solve a lot of problems. But anyway, my own two hemispheres were getting acquainted with the divan pleasures of my sofa as I settled in for another viewing of my regularly scheduled programming.

Their outrageous intrusion of my rigorous schedule was like a triple session with a proctologic intern who happened to be the former fiancé you cheated on. I moaned. I howled. I beat the floors (until the big guy from downstairs gave voice to his displeasure by some serious rumblings on my door that sounded like they might have come from an earthquake with a Richter magnitude of 6.283185307 coupled with some pretty scenarios where he got to play doctor – a strange mix of a surgeon and a proctologist, that was when I laid low awhile). When I was sure the coast was clear of the HMS (Highly Moronic Simian) Dreadnaught, I kicked open the door of my wardrobe and extricated my delicate remains from the midget-sized coffin.

With the volume turned down, men and women in bad hair styles and even worse dresses – coupled with that ubiquitous red carpet, it seemed to me like they were showing a re-enactment of the emperor’s, or rather the empress’, new clothes - mouthed things at me, which for all I know could have been profanities and obscenities as vulgar as their vestments. Here I managed to find entry #4264 in my comprehensive to-do list with a harpoon. Each inane face that trundled by added one more serration to my harpoon, but then after my 26^th, the cheesy fade-in spiralled up a name that roughed up a little wind chime in my head. Martholomew Braxton. The little tinkling set some wheels in motion, cognitive processes if you will, that brought my car into the parking lot of Martholomew Braxton High School, the cesspool that is the site of the daily congregation of the town’s kegs and dregs.

I don’t believe the doors have ever been locked in the 40 years that the building has been standing (for the most part – a demolition company had knocked down half the school once on account of a false contract – best grade prank ever). A landfill doesn’t change much over the course of its lifetime, except for a greater volume of trash – such was the case with my old school.

* * *

I prowled around the school, lurking in the shadows. I was a ninja. The ninja. Ninja with a capital J. The blade poised in the darkness. The snake under the covers of night.

I rolled across the lateral length of the hallway and straightened up behind a cabinet. Using my ninja senses, honed after thirty five years of strict training under the tutelage of the famous monastic ninja, I sensed that the coast was clear – backed up with visual cues from my honed ninja vision. I did a back flip over the cabinet, landing silently – like a ninja - and opened the doors in ninja silence. I scaled the walls of the stairwell, as ninjas are wont to do and strode boldly in a furtive fashion onto the second floor as only a ninja can.

My target? The magisterial lounge.

Location? 50 meters south three degrees east from current position.

Obstacles? Ninjas have no obstacles.

I crouched low and leapt forward and up onto the lockers, sure-footed, fleet of foot with no sound as they touched the cheap metal coverings. Arriving at my destination, I leapt down, spun, unlocked the door and entered before touching the ground. There I sought my quarry. Tonight they shall be set free.

What’s this?

A dark shape towered before me, holding something out before it in what was unmistakably the stance of one preparing to do battle. I recognized it immediately. It was a Flail of Cleansing, and thus I realized that I faced one of the legendary Troijan Warriors, for they were the only ones that have ever wielded and mastered this deadly but complex weapon.

With my ninja senses, I dodged a powerful and probably deadly blow to my midriff and rolled behind my adversary. He spun with a deadly and beautiful grace, bringing his weapon down with a ground-shuddering impact upon the very spot where my cranial apparatus had been. I rolled again, this time unsheathing my legendary ninja sword, The Fate of the Phoenix. Made of 100% real Damascan steel – the little old Syrian man who sold it to me even expertly showed me the “Made in Damascus” printed on the tang, he even gave me a certificate of authentication – it could cut bananas like they weren’t even there. The next time the flail came around; I performed a level four Ninja Sword Strike, and knocked it to the floor. I followed up with a level five Ninja Palm Strike to his head, chained with a series of stunning blows that rendered him unconscious.

Troijan Warrior Defeated.

Acquired: Flail of Cleansing

Acquired: Key Ring, Keys [27]

New Level Unlocked.

Hopping over the prone form of my fallen enemy, I stood before my prize.

Acquired: Heavenly Thrones [2]

The hunt was over. But this was not the end of my mission. At the back of the lounge was a door, now unlocked upon the defeat of the resident guardian. Within its vaulted archway, my eyes were nigh blinded as I beheld an artefact of great power.

Acquired: The Tome of Knowledge

Between its covers were entries for every being that was ever kept within these walls. Oh yes. Omniscience in three hundred and forty two pages.

With my prize safely concealed with my ninja arts, I left the premises with the thrones at hand with speeds that only ninjas and angry, psychotic girlfriends can achieve. The wind whistled as the lockers sped by. I whistled back.

Mission Accomplished...

old pics strike deep chords.

2008-04-24T15:33:00.005-04:00

The Cake is a Lie
The locks on my residence room

My Viking Oath

Nesting Geese May Bite - a sign I found on campus (not quite old, but still amusing)

sedimental value.

2008-04-17T17:25:00.005-04:00

I used to think that large words and fancy turns of phrase were prime elements of good prose. I threw big, somewhat obscure words around in hopes of making my writings more appeasing to the inner muse. My textualized thoughts assumed a texture not unlike that of a rock quarry. Rough meaning chiseled into the stony face of language that bears our communications. The verbosity pimples the ground with boulders, impressive in their own right - in scope perhaps, but the disconnectivity and illusory grandeur do nothing for coherency and intelligence. Impassive blocks of text placed adjacent in hopes that a pattern will array itself before me - a tarot of my own creation. In the end, they are simply xenocrysts in the magmatic dregs of my writing.

My post methodology is rather haphazard, as most stem from a meandering stream of consciousness. (Or is that redundant, seeing as all fluids will assume a meandering flow given enough time) It would probably be in my best interest as well as to any who might choose to read my drivel if I took a more rigorous approach to constructing a post. Right now process is akin to the maturation of a river, from a straight shooting stream to a doddering old mucker with a vast floodplain, levees boxing it in, yazoos shooting every which way with absolutely no connection to primary course of things and stagnant ox-bow lakes. The only thing that can help is a total uplift or a lowering of the base level - which results in ruts being further emphasized but in the end you'll have a straighter path - but a longer thalweg. The waters are muddied and the analogies suck like a mudhole. Natural, but inefficient and ultimately this is bad practice. This reminds me of a quote from one of the pixel art forums I frequent and I paraphrase, 'a rough gem is worth more than polished garbage'. One of the basic lessons throughout my Computer Science courses is to plan first - abstraction without obfuscation, and concision with completion. I feel that my writing could be vastly improved if I but made an attempt to plan beforehand (assuming I have something worthwhile to write about and not just some self-pitying abasement of my skills.

At least my life has stopped picking up like some thrice-cursed Katamari. The end of a term always wash up the flotsam that is the course which has run aground of poor planning and other ineptitudes on the part of the professors. The calm after the storm.

Placid waters make for good reflections.

portmanteau.

2008-03-27T20:42:00.002-04:00

BSoDomized
I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. I can't believe this term hasn't been coined yet. At least it doesn't come up on google... (Nevermind, BSoDomy turns up 23 times)

Delugional (deluge + delusional)
A state of being immersed in a worthy piece of fiction. Such as Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson.

Discourse
A lengthy, long winded but ultimately sidetracked discussion. (I know this is a real word, but it doesn't deserve its own post)

Princest
The propensity for keeping marriage within royal blood.

Residence Weevils.

2008-03-10T18:13:00.000-04:00

No, Mr. Exit and Mrs. Sortie do not live here. All the rooms have name tags - ours is not an exception. Yes, we live at the end of the hall, but the nice people who built the place were considerate enough to put stairs in the other room and a push bar on the door. Now you don't even have to unlock the door when you want to leave nor take the three story plunge.

Sure, the unclaimed stretch of the hallway might seem like the perfect venue for your ball games. But I'm the cranky old man and you're the damn kids I want off my lawn. Endzone? Sure. Net? Perfect. Backboard? Let's see how many oblique surfaces we can bounce off at one time.

I'm all about using one's outdoor voice outside, but given the amphitheatrical tendency of the residence courtyard and the excellent vibrational conductivity of glass... I don't want to have to hear about your dealings. Narcotic or promiscuous.

The name Animal House isn't to be taken literally (nor do I condone the real life portrayal of whatever activities are found in the film).
1. You are not a pig, the tray is not your trough and the food is not your slop (debatable). Garbage cans exist for reasons beside your bawlin'. The only shooting you should do is the chuting of your food off your plate. Keep in mind that stacks make things that much more convenient for the dishwashers and those behind you.
2. Neither are you a horse, you do not have hoofs, we do not need to be made aware of your entrance, your persistence and your exit by the constant clip-clopping made by those who are unable to execute the most pedestrian of tasks.
Glass provides the illusion of freedom while maintaining the dichotomy of outside and inside. Yes, the panes are reinforced, but enough force may and has been proven to shatter the glass. These sorts of results do not need extensive empirical testing to confirm.

candycarnation

2008-02-14T18:23:00.003-05:00

the hills are alive with science and physics.

2008-02-13T17:07:00.006-05:00

DKP

2008-02-08T21:45:00.001-05:00

"Afterward, Rattleshirt claimed some charred bones, while the others threw dice for the ranger's gear. Ygritte won his cloak."

-A Clash of Kings pg. 954

Go club, begone!

2007-11-20T11:57:00.001-05:00

in the observatory with the candlestick.

2007-11-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

A line drawn.

The sand parted.

This half is yours.

The other?

Mine.

Alas.

A wave.

One.

Two.

Another.

One more.

Oops.

There we go.

Its gone.

Who

owns

what

now?

Oh no you don't.

That's mine.

And this.

And so is this.

And that.

...

... who are you?

No!

This sand is mine.

See those rocks?

I carved an empire from

their chalcedonic enclaves.

Before me, what you

see was naught but rock.

Observe the waves.

Their fealty is mine.

With each passing moment.

They retreat.

And in the end.

I stand.

alone

Asialand d01 - Toronto/Pacific Ocean/HK

2007-08-25T08:42:00.000-04:00

Day 01 [2007.08.03]
Toronto/Pacific Ocean/HK

Our plane trip was fairly uneventful, unadorned by the delays so characteristic of such flights these days. Upon the plan itself, I endured naught in way of sleep, though I have managed to devour the entirety of the Deadhouse Gates. Good stuff. Turns out that an alarmingly small percentage of the the plane's population was comprised of complete strangers. First was my father's coworker who, as fate would have it, occupied the seat adjacent to that which I had chosen for my throne and empire. Second was the winner of the man of the millennium, a victor not of laurels, he who was not a pontoon. Customs was a walk through the airport. The same cannot be said of what lay before us - although they had cushy chairs, fountains and food depots galore, our destiny lay beyond, and here is a poem to prove it.

The gates slid like river eels;
Dividing hot and cold who like dragon and phoenix
Fought to usurp the bodily humours
The Curtain-Holding God was a welcome sight
With chains of silk and brocade
Of the deepest silver and highest gold.

Appropriated inappropriately from Canadian propriety and property, we were promptly presented to our presumably prepared relatives. We were then reintroduced to the air of the orient, resplendent with smog, moisture and all sorts of goodies that just beg for lung cancer. We were reacquainted with the loft of my late grandparents and a couple of changes welcomed us (though I cannot find it in me to reciprocate those sentiments on all fronts). The newly refurbished elevators presented us with a quicker means of travel (running up 20 flights of stairs does not do wonders for the asthmatic) and the particularly particulated air gave our lungs a right smörgåsbord of mould.

Leaving the premises, we embarked on a journey to the west to the ridiculously belabouring Hong Kong-China border where one must line up, fill out forms and deal with customs agents not once but twice. We proceeded through an environment completely counter to my Canadian sensibilities and fell prey to the incessant, border-transcending compulsion to shop that had gripped the majority of our party. The booking of tables and taking of measurements took all of 10 minutes, and so the select few clearheaded ones were stranded in air left to the whims of those who are eager to exercise their constitutional rights to smoke and spit anywhere and everywhere. The wait for their endless meanderings in search of who knows what left our lungs and ears in a sorry state (two rather loud groups of old men had started a couple games of Chinese chess off in one hallway much to the chagrin of the caretakers I suspect). Dinner was an ordinary affair, punctuated by the flashes that marked the wasteful usage of memory to archive unremarkable images for purposes entirely beyond my grasp. To misquote an old adage, we were out of the fire, onto the smoking rack and into the freezer. The air conditioning unit chose for the repository of its vented frustrations the ipse spots that we were restricted to, courtesy of the all too quick acquisition of the seats of and by our aunts .

Dust runner

2007-06-27T12:00:00.001-04:00

5 colours.

The clouds
bother me.

I have to fix
the colours.

Darn LCDs.

TMNT

2007-06-23T17:58:00.000-04:00

3 scientific equipment companies
3 robberies.
And what was stolen?
2 positron accelerators
4 reverse flux polarity indicators
1 parabolic sine wave generator
And what does all that equipment do?
I have absolutely no idea.

Déjà vu 01

2007-03-28T19:10:00.000-04:00

Crime and Punishment. Chapter IV. Part V. 136-137
Fyodor Dostoevsky

“To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her hands.
“Ach, Sonia!” he cried irritably and seemed about to make some retort, but was contemptuously silent. “Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I want to prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has shown me since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am just such a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I’ve come to you now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have come to you? Listen: when I went then to the old woman’s I only went to try. … You may be sure of that!”

<3 is LUB

2006-12-19T23:46:00.001-05:00

Why is it that news stations and papers release to all knowledge of things best kept silent? For example: a sex offender is out around York University. The police are going to be there hoping to catch the guy. What do you do as a radio station? Broadcast the news for all to hear, of course.

News for the sake of news and listeners is dangerous.

sardines #1

2006-11-25T22:57:00.000-05:00

I have come to realize over that I do not know and probably will not ever know the social circles that my siblings were and are in. The ones that they were in would be more useful to know, but then again could be entirely useless. The different masks that people wear can be dramatically different depending on their environment. Not quite chameleonic. Would they be the type of people for whom I would hold a [often times automatic] prejudiced dislike against? Would they be the sort of people that I would be friends with? Those who I would only be able to place into the category of acquaintance? I would not know.

What place does the internet have in science fiction? Those wasted hours of web browsing? How come there was not much that acted as a parallel to the internet in past works of science fiction? Or maybe I do not read enough science fiction.

synonymous with orange.

2006-10-10T20:09:00.000-04:00

Some of the less lacklustre words could do with having some alternative meanings.

Disseminate - following the lines of such words as inseminate, and well... that's about all I can think of. It sounds to me like an adjective where something that such has been ascribed to is lacking a fruit/kernel/seed of truth.
Inciteful - this would be one of those words with double meanings of both insight and incite. It can be applied to statements that are both insightful and incite thought and/or discussion.

I'll just publish this so it does not get lost.

Infinity - July 28, 2006

2006-08-23T21:43:00.000-04:00

Man seeks to measure, record and control. Their desires are to achieve utter mastery of the universe. Where in this is infinity? How can one measure that which is infinite? How can one compare oneself to another? There is no precision. Another desire is to grow, to amass the greatest amount of one resource. But a ceiling exists beyond which one cannot grow. Stagnation would ensue, as there is no incentive for growth. Sustainability is not a good enough goal/purpose for one to live and die for. So then, what is good enough? Secrets would only tend to amassment. Beauty? A world where beauty and grace are aspired for in all things. Inherently flawed due to the subjectivity, yet therein it can resist corruption to greed and a want for growth. So what can retain this subjectivity for resistance yet can be a relative constant? Where can mankind go after its apex/zenith. All trends point back down, but that is because growth is not sustainable. But if growth is not sustainable, and growth is not possible – then what is sustainable but not sustainability.

This is an entry in my notebook/journal that I wrote while on the plane. Does it sound emo? I do not know. I am not entirely sure as to how I came to such a topic. Probably from surveying all that lay below the plane (since I had the window seat - yay!). I do not like how some of it is written, not that any of it is well written. Or well thought out for that matter. Like... one can argue semantics over what I mean by infinity - or more what they think of as infinity. Generalizations. I am not going to edit it from the original. But that is as close as one will get to reading it. Including me - I am too lazy to read it over. How pointless. Anyway... what I meant is that... greed is not sustainable. And since greed is what seems to be the primary motivator in the growth of the human race. That growth is not sustainable. So what is sustainable that can inspire/motivate people to grow that is not sustainability itself?

What is the renaissance? Can man be reborn indefinitely?

New Brunswick's majestic, endless Spanish morning.

2006-08-23T21:00:00.000-04:00

Why is there a sudden influx of books revolving around [the defamation of] religious entities (or a rewriting of canon), or if the level of such stories has remained a constant, why have so many been propelled from obscurity? What is it that appeals to the masses? Religion is a very touchy subject for some. And some would despise and ridicule anything simply because it touches upon such. Such open minded individuals would probably enjoy see religions, nay, faiths explored in books seeking to rewrite and rewire them. Did that make sense? I tried to infuse as much sense as what the concept made available.

3.. 2.. 1.. Break!

Coincidentally, the two books I just read/am reading both bash/discredit Dan Brown and some of his disreputable sources. The first one talks about Secret Socities and the second is a history of physics with some nice metaphors/turns of phrase. Black Bodes and Quantum Cats by Jennifer Oullette.

I've been trying my hand at cryptics. I've actually managed a couple of clues on the ones in the weekend editions of the star. Grand Manan.

the Draconic Consequence.

2006-08-12T21:13:00.000-04:00

It only occured to me this past week [yes, I know I am slow and like to belittle myself] that (and that I like to use [square] brackets) the standard icons (at least in Windows) for creating a New instance of something is a fresh [dog-eared] feuille de papiere, for Opening something is a folder and for Saving something is a floppy disk. So this started me thinking about when and where these things came to be, and as I did not have access to the omniscience that is Google, nor did I have the willpower when I did achieve access to this repository of knowledge, this phylactery of wisdom. No matter. It must have been quite a while ago, or not so long ago. When floppy disks were the prevalent mode of file-transfer. When people would hoard those AOL disks that came with the flies in their soup and when I was playing Qbert on the Atari 2600 and Tom and Jerry on our 5 1/4 inch floppies [sorry, I'm not that terribly old], go B drives. And MYST! Oh, and being forced to play Double Dragon II with my brother on the NES - but then again such occured once more just this year. No matter. I'm sure someone will come up at one point with a radical yet representative [and relevant] icon with which we may replace such outdated artefacts. Though people will be averse to changing their old, lovable and standardized icons. That was horribly phrased. I suppose that the only thing that could replace the floppy disk is a CD, but that, I suppose doesn't have as representative an image as a floppy. As one cannot save to a floppy disk more than once except if it were a rewritable, but there isn't really a visible difference between the two. Ramble, Ambler, Blamer, Marble. Simian Grunt.

Did these icons come into use upon the creation of the word processor? Who knows. This whole thing was rushed, just like... a Jokulhlaups. Yeah. That's it.

So long as dragons breathe air and fire, so shall we exist to hunt them.

valley clumps the noxious DEEP.

2006-07-30T22:55:00.000-04:00

Fusion and Twist seem to be the keywords in repackaging old hat. From shampoo to alcohol to razors. Though some exist within the trend of fruit and cocktails and such, I suspect tha tmany are just there to jump on the bandwagon. That and fusion is a nifty word.

Stupid bus system. Extra hours of idle time due to the placement of a single letter signifying a completely radical route than expected. At least today, the bus driver who drove me was incredibly nice. Woe to the bus driver who passed me after an hour of waiting and in a pitiful attempt at mockery and dislocated logic told me that "HELLO. YOU ARE IN A BUSSTOP AND THIS IS A BUS". Unbeknownst to his [dispa]raging ignorance, that bus shelter is shared by riders of a widlly diverging busroute. In addition, I had been waiting there for over an hour within which at least 4 buses should have arrived, only to be subject to the arrival of not 0! but 2! buses of my desired route. Of course they were within 5 minutes of each other in an exclusive orgy of humping tardiness [yay for Shadspeak -tardiness], and a half hour since I made my second call to my dear mother to provide me with a ride.

do not hump exclusively please.

For the sake of the children. And the expensive transformers from .

steel wool.

2006-07-25T20:11:00.000-04:00

I do not think environmental issues will see a real push into the spotlights and onto the soapbox in the near future as long as the majority of humanity belives in putting themselves before the whole. If we were to extricate ourselves from the survival of the fittest mindset, only then may sustenance stand in the way of progress. The self must be discarded if results are to be attained. Does one reproduce for the continuation of one's own line or for the survival of the species as a whole? Though disseminating one's seed may contribute to the continuation of one's species, a thread frays faster than the rope.

Somewhat like the Bene Gesserit breeding program much documented within the original Dune series by Frank Herbert (and possibly by his son - Brian?). Any of the reverend mothers (I believe, don't think the acolytes participated in the plan) could be called upon to sacrifice their former life to produce an offspring or sent as a diplomatic agent into a marriage. Their ultimate goal was to steer the human race away from error. [Somewhere in Chapterhouse Dune]

"To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear." So says the Art of War. It seems that this philosophy has been taken to heart by those who would rather see a picture or read a description than experience a wonder. They pollute not the wonder itself, but the wonder within oneself.

Is it that people are so hostile to the very idea of religion and a higher being that they find the very idea of a being hgiher than they repugnant? Or is it that people are ridiculing the various wrongdoings wrongly done in the name of any religion? What is it that makes them laugh, ridicule and mock what others revere as holy? Is that because they think themselves to be of a higher calibre due to their worship of their highest of highs - themselves? I don't know.

That's all for now.

@mok.shad.unb.ca

Armour for sheep

I am Rapunzel.

2006-06-13T16:39:00.000-04:00

The winds of change are upon us. Aye, but these not be the ones to make us filthy, stinkin' rich, nor those which pull at our purses, or bust out our beltbuckles. For uniquity's sake. Maybe. So much is done these days for the single and absolute purpose of reaching that temporal state of absolute singularity. What is fashion. What is avant-garde. Unless it is in way of useful innovation. What is cliche? The extent to which something is cliche is directly proportional to the amount of material pertainable to that cliche concept/idea. The only people who would register this complaint are the "intellectuals". Those who would take interest in something purely for the intellectual stimulation, or more often than not what seems to me to be a pursual of innovation purely for its own sake. Whether that innovation is any good or not is irrelevant. It simply has to be different. If one is presented with something remotely similar, it must be a clone. Worthless. Cliche. After that intellectual arousal must come the intellectual climax. An epiphany? Sure. More cannon fodder for the next Book club meeting? Maybe. Satisfaction at having one up on the sloven masses? Possibly. I seem to see them under a very much green light. Jaded or simply wet behind the ears. Or maybe it is just me being bitter [or snobbish] for my lack of enjoyment in the pursuit of intellectual stimulation. To be able to consume, there must be at least one other who would create. Though we may have all come from an absolute singularity, the past and the future are indeed seperated by that which we call the present. That is where we live. That is where we should live. Change is good. Change for the better. Change simply for the sake of change? Not such a good idea. Without purpose, without meaning - without substance.

Or something.

You can burn the soapbox now. Ironic though it may be.

There is nothing to talk about these days. What is above isn't really polished. It does not completely hold my interest, either. It is completely meaningless. A car. Without any gas. Lacking an engine. And wheels. No matter. Something interesting shall come one day. This has a 30 year warranty. Void upon death, my dead body, apocalyptic events, breakdown of the internet which may or may not fall under apocalyptic events, electrocution, thunderstorms, the seven seas, the deck of the Brawling Pumpkin, drawing pair Aces, the drapes. Show's over.

Another letdown.

string[ ]

2006-06-10T22:28:00.000-04:00

The evolution of the economic sheep.

Stay thy noggin'.
Yay for onomatopoeic-esque words.

Bullies aren't what they used to be. Not that they ever were much to begin with, I suppose. I've never really had any experience with bullies either. But these two random kids, not sure what grade they were in, were walking around and I had just gotten off the bus when I walked towards them on the sidewalk. I planned to walk between them, but one of them decided to shift next to his comrade. Now this doesn't make sense to me if they were trying to be tough - if you wanted to push someone around, you'd want to surround them, not shrink off to one side and give them a wide berth.
They didn't even attempt to push me, though that would have been fun to respond to. And they didn't really do anything until they were quite a ways off, upon which they threw a gutterball and asked me what I was looking at in a derisive manner similar in calibre to that of their intimidatory query. Normally... one would ask this if the intended subject was actually looking at oneself in an incoming trajectory, elsewise it would be qutie lame. Similarly, if one were looking for a fight, then would it not be wiser to throw it out in such a way that the receiving party can respond and not when you're 5 metres away?
Such kids disappoint me in so many ways. Maybe it is just that testosterone in me looking to exercise what strength I possess. I don't know. No matter. It's best if such people remain as they are (in such a case as this).

http://www.supercow.ch/

The local community centre housed something that was most intriguing just this morning. Upon the unfrozen base of the hockey arena, were several (around 50) of armour-clad, shield-bearing, sword-wielding people. If not in armour, they were clad in the garb of not-so-recent times. Very interesting. There were no signs up and I dared not ask, so I am not quite sure as to what it was.

Sorry for the lack of good material. Not that there really was any... but yeah. This post was originally less structured so that each paragraph was in its own individual box, but I'm not quite sure how one can have things positioned absolutely inside another div while that div is in a fixed position (which I don't think is possible). No matter. Maybe something interesting will crop over over exam-week.

recursive acronyms.

2006-05-08T20:50:00.000-04:00

So, I derived a description for my delightful drivel. You can see it off to the side somewhere. Yes, it is a reference to my blog's magnificent misnomer.

In other, more fortunate noise - would not pommelled make for a wondrous word? It would be to beat someone repeatedly [pummel] with the pommel of one's sword.

I had another try at pixelling, but it's not working out so well. I like the lineart, but I can't get the detail/colours to show up very well. The first reminded me of one of those flying koopas' shells, the second kind of looked like a bird but not really, and that eventually morphed into the third thing. The third thing I took and tried making it into an object, more specifically, a gem with a metal, wing-like holder. I tried colouring it in, but it seems it did not work so well. I'm trying to cram as much detail into as small a space as possible. I fear that part of the reason failure is prevalent is that my fundamentals are shaky as they are. I should be able to make larger images with not as much detail look good first before I try something like this.

I must get back into the pixelling groove. Out of the rut and into the groove. PHP is another thing I must do. Tis a roight shayum that aye dae not haf a summer to do such. I'll find a way. As an alcoholic might say, where there is swill, there is a way.

Uncontracted contractions sound so awkward. I do not know if this is because of my regular overuse and abuse of such or if it is because they are naturally so and that is why contractions of such were proposed in the first place. Though I am more partial towards the opinion that it was done out of pure laziness.

I have been working on a site design for awhile now. Or at least... it took 10 minutes to come up with one. Then a couple of months to start coding it into html. At this point I used a whole bunch of image files and a rather large and unwieldly table. That took around a day. I decided that I wanted to be a bit more efficient, so I read up on CSS and cut it down to one image (that rounded edge) and no tables. Then... a couple of months later, I converted it all into PHP and then stuck it up here.

Methinks that be the only thing of slight interest.

one fifth em pathetic.

2006-05-07T18:49:00.000-04:00

Do I sound that androgynous?

Your empathy score is: 4 out of 20
Average score for men: 7.9 out of 20
Average score for women: 10.6 out of 20

Your score: 7 out of 10
Average score for men: 6.6 out of 10
Average score for women: 6.6 out of 10

If you scored 7 - 10: Your result suggests you are a good empathiser, sensitive to other people's emotions. Women generally fall into this category.

Eh. I guess I'm just a good guesser. I'm definitely not good at empathising with people.

Anyway, the test is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/index_cookie.shtml

ah, at last!

2006-05-06T22:54:00.000-04:00

Munchkins is quite an awesome game, though random at times. It is basically an incardation of Dungeons and Dragons.

Go down in the dungeon. Kill everything you meet. Backstab your friends and steal their stuff. Grab the treasure and run.
I ended up winning the third game we played today with a 10 [+7] Dwarf/Elf. At one point I was a Dwarf Wizard, and being a wizard is pretty broken, for a wizard is granted the ability to discard their hand in place of vanquishing their foes, and still allowed to retain the treasure. Highly amusing. As can be the Order of the Stick.

What is the opposite of a gentleman (in the chauvinistic, medieval sense)? Would it be a lady or would it be an uncouth simpleton? If one were to be exhibiting ungentlemanly behaviour, what would they be? How could these things be polarized so that they can exist as counterparts?

As a gentleman progresses towards a lady, their changes would include effemination, a different sort of delicacy and other sorts of things whose nuancies I am not acquainted with. But they both share a sense of superiority, well-mannered composures, practised poise and much else befitting one of noble birth. On the flipside, at least for a gentleman, as they progress towards an uncouth youth, they would venture towards the rough and oft-travelled side of testosterone and their refinement would be from entirely different forges. Though there would be a rather large area inbetween of moderation. The same would occur with a lady as they move away from the ladylike and into the nether zone. I have not much experience as a girl, so my model is somewhat incomplete. Here is a graphic I made to portray the above.

The terms Tomboy and Rascal are not absolute terms, and I do not think them to be completely applicable. They are simply placeholder words until I do come up with a suitable title. Of course the areas inbetween the gentleman and rascal as well as the lady and the tomboy are where the majority of the population lie. Although in reality, it would encroach into both extremes. So, in this chart, the opposite of a gentleman is not what I thought it would be initially (either a lady or an ungentlemanly person), but is rather an unladylike person for they neither share the masculinity thatt would be inherent of both the gentleman and the rascal nor do they share the refinement between the gentleman and the lady. Similar can be said of the lady.

Karate Chimp?

Java can be quit vexing at times. It is riddled with all these (seemingly) arbitrary rules that do not make sense or are not applicable to me right now anyway. As well, some simple-seeming tasks cannot be done as one might think it could be done, but one must make use of some random function that someone else made to get around it.

It is a good day to die!

Yeah, I used the lineart of the corsair that you see when you select units and a reference picture. As is apparent, the top left of the image is quite messy and parts indistinguishable. Do not attribute this solely to my poor pixel-artistic skills (one may pronounce it picso-artistic if they want that Italian-esque flair), for the lineart itself was but a jumble of lines and even I, Salus the Magnifico, was hard-pressed to match up each area to the 3D rendition. I don't think it too bad, considering my eonic hiatus from that great art. Eonic should be a word. It has enough cool points that it can cash in on. I did try to avoid pillowshading, which crops up often in my attempts to simulate metallic highlights.

quality over quantity, right?

2006-03-21T17:32:00.000-05:00

Why is it that washroom stalls have so much graffiti on them? Do such people go to the washroom with their knives, spray paint and permanent marker for the express purpose of vandalizing them? So is it that they now defecate in the streets and vandalize in the lavatory?

Something else I have been wondering about is this phrase thing that I made up to try to discourage people from giving me presents. All in good fun, of course (I don't want the presents, but I don't mind the presence). No time like the present, so, presenting...

Your lack of presence is present enough.

Something like that, but I'm not quite sure how it could be phrased for maximum effecticiency [yay, isn't that word efficiently effective?].

I call him Captain HOOC. (Drawn in MSN Messenger's Whiteboard)

I have nothing much to say anymore. It does sadden me. No matter. Hopefully this recession only means a build up to an eventual explosion.

slowly synching.

2006-03-11T16:03:00.000-05:00

During the eyes of my stormy life, I found it fit to place upon what meagre funding is available to my mental faculties, the task of improving and contemplating the "You are what you beat" system as outlined in the post prior to this.

In addition to the enhancements upon the weapon, if one were a magic-caster, their magical essences may have access to these abilities and training. With each advancement (as given by bosses) that either of these two experience, this will offset the synchronization rate (SR) of the user with either media. Only by constantly using and practicing with them will the synchronization rate be set back. Having an offset SR will result in a lowered effectiveness of that medium in battle. This is a preventive measure so that one may not simply go around killing bosses quite as easily - they'll have to take time after each instance of an increase in their chosen medium's strength to bring their strength/effectiveness up to normal.

" to watch the movie together as a huge grade group! "

Sad thing is, I read that as a huge raid group and it made sense. Too much WoW.

raise the flagpole.

2006-02-28T21:36:00.000-05:00

Why would one strive but to set the standard? To be average? Things are measured according to the average, whether they are above or below or simply average. So instead of "setting the standard since 1XXX", they should have slogans like "we let others set the standards." It sounds much more appealing.

Anyway, I was thinking about something that could be implemented in MMORPGs that would take the players off the treadmill. I came up with something that I thought was nifty, but through past experience, I know that this does not mean that that is the case with others. I'd like to call it "You are what you beat."

It's essentially, where your character's base stats aren't dependent entirely upon killing things. There are no levels. The base stats can be changed much in the same way as they would in real life. If your weapon's weight was more than some calculation from your strength, then you would gain a comparative amount of strength for each time you use it. Anyway... instead of you gaining levels, different monsters train different stats of the weapon. Killing special monsters - unique bosses (Meaning that there will only be one of them, ever, optimally.) will result in the awarding of special abilities to the weapon - abilities that are unique to that boss. This system hasn't been fully thought out yet, though.

I'll get back to it sometime.

Forts 'n Fortunes

2006-02-20T00:19:00.000-05:00

X: yes i think i'm clever. shut up.
Me: That was an impressive display of clevage?
Y: Way to spell and ruin a punchline -.-'
Me: To be clever and to be a cleaver are two entirely different things. Unless... [insert picture of my gnome using Cleave]

So if I meant that I was the gnome (who was clever) rather than Gnomes in general being clever, would I be being immodest in that I am baring my cle[a]vage? I'm male, just for the record, though who would be recording? I am, of course. But I already know. And simply being a human male would certainly not hold any record. Now if I were a male of some other intelligent bipedal species, that might have some merit.

Why is it that certain people enjoy the destruction of the public property? What good does it do to them? What sort of sick satisfaction does it give them? The grade above ours.... they have a commons of their own, and a select group of morons decide to break the door and the doorframe multiple times. Thus they are bereft of their own, and so they go into our hallway and use our couch space and later they urinate on our couches. Anybody with a sense of morals wouldbe abhorred by such an idea. The problem is that we don't know who it is. And if we do know who they are, there really is nothing we can do. They cannot be reasoned with, if we beat them up or urinate on them - we get suspended, there are no commons for us to vandalize, and even if there were... we're not ignoble enough to do so for the actions of a few. This also relates to larger scale things, such as in the book "Crimes against Nature: How George Bush and His Corporate Pals are Plundering the Counry and Hijacking our Democracy". It speaks of how George Bush and his government have replaced the environmental watchdogs and protection agencies with mockeries employing members of companies with very anti-environmental views. They would sacrifice the common good for a few extra dollars. By dumping toxic waste in the waters, and whatever substances they dump into the air. I don't get it. What became of these people? Is money and sheer stupidity that attractive an option?

What about the military? Why do they accept such abuses? Is it because they are loyal? Afraid to speak out? In games, why would the soldiers be afraid of a king and his stupid commands? What do they get out of their corruption and the overtaking of neighbouring countries aside from an early death? Overthrow the king and instate someone smarter. Who is going to stop them?

Nightly Odes Make A Dame Irrationally Cross

2006-01-30T00:08:00.000-05:00

When is a do not also a do not? What is a do? Something that would be beneficial to do. A do not? Something where it would be harmful to not do. Hm.

Where is all this plastic coming from? Where does it all go? Where is it all being used? I think it is a by product of oil - but I'm not too sure on that account. And it doesn't biodegrade easily, either it doesn't biodegrade or it takes a very long time to do so. And it's all being used... to do what? Package things that could otherwise do without packaging. Like.. plastic bags. Bubble wrap. CD cases. It is everywhere and it is going nowhere fast. So much of it is being used per day and it's all going into landfills where nobody wants to or can reuse it. It just occured to me while I was popping bubble wrap for a memory stick. It came in one of those yellow packages with bubble wrap inside. And inside that was one of those hard plastic things to hold the USB Flash drive... Why all this plastic? Yes, it can be hard, durable and whatever... but it serves no further purpose than that which it was intended for. Sure, some of the niftier looking stuff can be used for baubles and whatnot - but that's simply not useful.

I find it rather annoying how I can't insult people, or at least come up with a good comeback. Maybe it's just today. An hour of monotonous marking of the same person's stuff along with a kid earlier (5 years old or so) whose whole attitude is not healthy for a socially acceptable environment. At least where I dwell in society. He tries to be menacing or moronic or whatever, and I can't just do it back at him. If I scare the kid or make him cry... then I'll be held responsible for it. His dad might decide to take him out of the program and then the instructor will get mad at me. And... he doesn't seem to be absorbing any of the work. The problem I find is that he actually doesn't know any of the words (Kumon Reading). All he can do is match the picture with a word he knows and keeps guessing. With these flash cards, there's a word on one side and its dipthong or some other pair of letters and on the back there's the same thing, but also a picture. If I show him the picture side, he can sometimes get it (oftentimes he also guesses other things that the picture might be referring to) but if I show him the other... he can not get it at all. It might simply be a problem with the Kumon approach or a problem with how the other instructors dealt with him. But whatever it is, it's not helping him learn.

This reminds me of a book I read back during the summer [there's an entry on the msnspace account with text from the book] - A is for Ox (: the Collapse of Literacy and the Rise of Violence in the Electronic Age) by Barry Sanders. As a side note, this book was printed in 1995. I forgot exactly what it was about, although I did find it interesting. I have a short memory span, so I don't quite remember the details which is annoying. No matter. It's still make for an interesting read.

Min kyckling kallnar i påvens hatt.

Another disjointed and disfigured piece of FLEM. My SPOO has too much FLEM? I can't think weekends.

when opposites are plural.

2006-01-22T22:28:00.000-05:00

Now we are 5, 1 Mage, 1 Druid, 2 Warriors and 1 Priest. Yesterday, we went on a 4-man raid on the Molten Core and gained 6 levels [66-72]. We took out near everything in there. Gehennas --> Garr --> Shazzrah --> Baron Geddon --> Golemagg --> Sulfuron Harbinger --> Majordomo Executus --> Lucifron --> Magmadar. We took a peek at Ragnaros' Lair, but he was out. I think on this server that the bosses are reduced in their power some, and quite bugged as to render some of the hardships that others on official servers must face into nothing to be scared of. I took position of Main Tank for most of it (as I had taken protection talents instead of arms/fury and so couldn't use Cleave to great effect because of its bugged taletns which made it do a lot more than it should), the druid did the healing and rooting at strategic times, the mage Raged the other warrior and did damage while the other warrior demonstrated the damage-dealing capabilities of cleave. In a later instance, we found Ragnaros and killed him. Took our four man team an hour, but we managed it, and didn't really get anything too spectacular. I got a better cape, though not a Dragon Blood's Cape or whatever. No matter.

I've been playing too much World of Warcraft lately, most of my time has been devoted to it, which is a bad thing. Even when I'm not playing, I might be trying to log on (one of the reasons I might not be playing is due to the 60-player cap). What a waste of my time. Sure, it keeps me occupied - but there are much more useful ways to keep myself occupied - drawing, pixelling, NWP and Kumon.

Sound is so interesting. In a contest of yelling, one yelling would not simply overcome another contestant, but their voices will mesh together and the resulting cacaphony will be louder than either individual would be capable of rather than one just overcoming the other. It's a cumulative thing - from what I surmise and what we learnt of waves in physics class (rather, what I was paying attention to). That hubbub one hears in restaurants is not people raising their voices to be heard (though this might be the case in some... cases) but rather an amalgammation of their vocal output.

Why is it that all the shows on CTV sound the same? CSI. In Justice. Criminal Mind. Cold Case. Is it just a phase that we're all going through, or is it because that we're now more interested in seeing justice being done? I don't know.

New part to the Intelligence Test - http://intelligence-test.net/part2/ At this moment, I'm at 18/24.

Why is it that the female Cora warriors in RF Online wear but lingerie into battle? Especially at the beginning-middle levels. The Rangers and the Spiritualist also look like they're wearing lingerie, but it makes even less sense for a melee fighter to go into with but armour protecting their breasts and shoulders. I know they're called breastplates... but come on. Form over function.

Very disjointed. Hopefully the next shall be cohesive.

An s is added to what is good. From decent, it declines. Declined into the plural. All breaks into dissent.
In case that didn't help. Good = Decent. Decent + s = Descent. Decline into plural --> add an s. Descent = Dissent.

Time for Two Servings of Tea.

2006-01-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

The poor endure the inconvenience of circumstance, while the rich circumvent convenience with convention.

I don't think that profanities are too great of a thorn to society. Though I'm not saying that their use should not be frowned upon. They are a useful way for people to release their anger/annoyance/frustration if they know of no other way with which to dispose of it. If there were no profanities available to them, then they would be making their own ways to vent such frustration. If they did this, then (assuming it is not an obvious aggressive motion) people would have a harder time to understand or comrpehend that person's emotions. It can also help keep in check more violent methods to convey their emotions. A necessary evil?

Even so, I suppose that there is no way to completely remove profanities. Might be able to cycle in new ones, though. If we let them become less charged, then people will simply find new words with which to charge their emotions. So I don't understand why some people incorporate swearing into their everyday speech. They must make up words for a living or something.

I started playing World of Warcraft again, on a private server. The rates were incredibly high, so I got to level 61 in a matter of days (yes, slow) with the full Wrath set (which, by the way is incredibly ugly...) on a Gnome Warrior. Tanking is incredibly fun. There were 3 ways to avoid getting hit. Blocking, Parrying and Dodging. On my mighty mite, I had around 60% block (this was without one of the better shields in the game - Malistar's Defender, the Immovable Object, Some Disk of sorts), 20% Parrying and 16% dodging or some such. All I remember was that it came out to around 30% chance for me to sidestep the blow. On top of that, my armour (with full Wrath set) allowed me to absorb 52% of the damage (might have been higher). Which is pretty awesome. But then came a wipe and the server's rates were lowered by at least a third. Anyway... I remade my gnome warrior and my friend (who was with me pre-wipe) remade his mage, but then two of my other friends joined, though one had to do homework, so we really had a group of 3. He was a NE Druid (which was my character on a previous server, up to 82 NE Druid looking spiffy in his Cenarion and wielding that mighty stave of the ancients, Lok'Delar ;p). So when I was level 27, the mage at 26 and the druid at 20, we broke camp and hiked up the Redridge mountains into the Burning Steppes to confront whatever demonic forces lay in wait for us. First came a level 53 (though it came up as level ??) Obsidian Golem, and we found we could take it down. With me tanking, the mage doing the heavy damage-dealing and the druid rooting, moonfiring and healing me for whatever damage got through to me. I didn't deal much damage, sadly - around 100. But we managed to defeat most of the enemies we came across. We managed to run away from the Skeleton Warriors through rooting and avoided Axtroz and the Murk Worms. But they gave us very little experience, 6000 each, in a group of 3. <-- This was a couple of days ago. Now I'm level 62 with 5/8 of the Wrath set. Too much time spent on matters of consequence. Ended up reading the Little Prince again, last time was some 6 odd years ago. But that's not odd, 6 is clearly an even number you might say. So that makes it odd in itself, huh. Anyway... it had a lot more meaning to me than it did back then when a book was just a book. A book is still just a book. I can't analyze stuff period. I just enjoy reading books for what images they can conjure up in my imagination - this does not expand over into Erotica, although this section is set right next to the Science Fiction and Fantasy section - always. No matter. Not of any consequence anyway. The title is totally T.T.

king in cession.

2005-12-30T09:40:00.000-05:00

Though the electric toothbrush does help me keep my teeth clean much better than if I were to brush it by hand, I can only wonder if it could also be damaging. I'm sure there have been all these tests done to determine that it is safe for the everyday consumer, but still. Whenever I am using it, computer monitors always seem to shimmer, like a mirage would (or at least those you see above hot roads - thermals?). I often wonder if electric toothbrushes would also continually grind down one's teeth. Electric toothbrushes have probably been around long enough for people to attest to such a statement, but I wouldn't know.

Thesalus (male Atavian)
You are level 50 (Paragon) and 60% of the way to the next level.
Health: 2450/2300 Mana: 2530/2530
Endurance: 10400/10400 Willpower: 10400/10400
Strength: 12 Dexterity: 11 Constitution: 12 Intelligence: 12
You are ranked 2954th in Achaea.
You are not known for acts of infamy.
You stand tall as a proud citizen of Shallam.
You are at the rank of 'Villager' in your city.
You are a full member in the Runewarden class.
You are a Rambler in the Fellowship of Explorers.
You have a soul that is truly Seraphic.
You are 20 years old, having been born on the 21st of Daedalan, 390 years after
the fall of the Seleucarian Empire.

You have a shouting voice which others will hear as: An unwavering male voice
shouts, "Blah blah blah."

He succeeded in bringing song back to Bopalopia.

He is a winged Atavian. He is wearing a leather falconry glove, a shady green
backpack, a forest green cotton shirt, a pair of brown suede boots, a forestal
green cloak, a leafy green hat, a forest-green silk tuxedo jacket, and a suit
of polished field plate armour.

The glove is for my falcon and the boots are for walking on water. A shame, really.

Levelling is very slow right now. I wonder how those people get to dragon.

The title comes from my wondering what feces is, its consistency. Would it be like that of meat, meatloaf? Who knows. But it came to my attention that cession has a meaning... regarding the ceding of something [territory], but... it's supposed to relate to cesspool

men are viruses.

2005-12-22T22:52:00.000-05:00

So I've been playing more Achaea. (Duh)

Thesalus (male Atavian)
You are level 49 (Eminent) and 24% of the way to the next level.
Health: 2407/2407 Mana: 2486/2486
Endurance: 10472/10935 Willpower: 10200/10200
Strength: 12 Dexterity: 11 Constitution: 13 Intelligence: 12
You are ranked 3034th in Achaea.
You are not known for acts of infamy.
You stand tall as a proud citizen of Shallam.
You are at the rank of 'Villager' in your city.
You are a full member in the Runewarden class.
You are a Rambler in the Fellowship of Explorers.
You have a soul that is truly Seraphic.
You are 20 years old, having been born on the 21st of Daedalan, 390 years after
the fall of the Seleucarian Empire.

At level 40, I embraced my class and received my 3rd class skill, Forging. And I went and got some more stuff, got Parrying, upgraded my Riding skill and my Forging skill. I also decided to up my Chivalry a bit more, though it'll take a bit.
I can use two shortswords now (yay).
Damage: 71 To-hit: 268 Speed: 146
Damage: 63 To-hit: 296 Speed: 126
I suppose I should upgrade that second shortsword, surprisingly I bought it for far more than the second (which cost me 369 gold as opposed to several thousand). I replaced those two with these:
Damage: 87 To-hit: 264 Speed: 146
Damage: 87 To-hit: 272 Speed: 138
I bought each of these for only 800.

My suit of polished field plate armour (which I bought for 4k) offers me Physical cutting/Physical blunt of 75%/62% while my previous one, a suit of steel chain mail (Which I bought for 8k) offered me a paltry 41%/46%. Now I have nearly 40k, though sheep gave you a lot more gold and were easier to kill.

Quintess yells, "HEY ALL YOU SHALLAMITES! GO FUCK YOURSELVES! YOU ALL DUMBASSS
BITCHES! SUCK MAH BALLS!"

(Shallam): You say, "Standard procedure and duck his bawls?"

Yes. Not quite as good as I'd have wanted it to be, but it sufficed. Darned kids think they know everything. Everybody in Shallam has every right to kill him now, but he probably just made his account to make that one shout. How petty that they would use children that way.

Since it is the holidays once again, I've taken to trying to pixel again. And to go with that, I usually look at art of others' (Pixel or CG). This time, I came across not what was an artist's gallery, but a game. An MMOGG to be exact. A Massive Multiplayer Online Golf Game. This I found to be incredibly odd.

Latin for man is vir. Plural is viri. Virus' plural is viruses yes (I believe). Very nice.

clandestiny.

2005-12-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

Sometimes programs can be suspiciously non-random (when it is supposed to be anyway). As I stated before about if your enemy is at a low enough life to easily be killed by an average blow, you'll always hit it for 1 less than their life total. In a game of cards, if you just played pair Queens and pair something else, you'll pick up a 10, K and an A when you have a J in your hand. Maybe I just get frustrated at times when things just don't go right. No matter how infrequent.

Life gets boring. I've been playing Achaea, and have made it to level 30 (now 31).

Thesalus (male Atavian)
You are level 31 (Distinguished) and 31% of the way to the next level.
Health: 1633/1633 Mana: 1694/1694
Endurance: 7065/7065 Willpower: 6600/6600
Strength: 12 Dexterity: 11 Constitution: 13 Intelligence: 12
You are ranked 3825th in Achaea.
You are not known for acts of infamy.
You stand tall as a proud citizen of Shallam.
You are at the rank of 'Villager' in your city.
You are a journeyman in the Runewarden class.
You are a Rambler in the Fellowship of Explorers.
You are Angelic.
You are 19 years old, having been born on the 21st of Daedalan, 390 years after
the fall of the Seleucarian Empire.

He succeeded in bringing song back to Bopalopia.

From level 21 forthwith (when they kicked me out of the noobie area), I levelled off quests and ratting, and I killed one stirge just last level.

I was disappointed by the 4th Harry Potter movie. In part because the song "Magic Works" by Patrick Doyle did not make a lengthy appearance in it (only snippets of the song). The majority was due to it not being a very good movie. I think they tried to make it understandable to those who know nothing of Harry Potter (obviously), but failed. They cut so much off in order to make it fit within a 3 hour time frame, it became quite empty for those who had read the book. A lot of things that were good in the book were also left out/altered. No matter, it is partially J.K. Rowling's and nobody's fault. She put too much content in the book for it to be made into a decently lengthed film, but the story demands it to be lengthy, I suppose. Poor Harry.

Paparazzi does sound like it could be a short-form for pepperoni pizza. I'd not be surprised if someone marketed the idea and sells Paparazzi down south in California.

I suppose it can be read as either:
clan + destiny
or
clandestine + destiny

It seems to me it would be a word describing the mandate of House Dimir. A guild that supposedly doesn't exist, trying to bend the other guilds to do their bidding essentially.

lost again.

2005-11-24T19:57:00.000-05:00

So how do you deal with people who are full of themselves? Or are obnoxious. Or both. They assume that they are right, and infallible. Wrongly so. For one instance, I was opening the door to the lab and he said that the lab was closed (I assume for a club function - a teacher was there, so he was not lying). I didn't hear him. The problem was that he had said it while I was opening an incredibly squeaky door. Normally, one would wait until the recipient of the message was in a position to hear it, instead of jumping the gun and then blaming it on the other person. People do stupid things, and pin the stupidity on you. Then one would have to waste their time in order to explain their actions. Except it makes it harder when they refuse to listen, or interrupt you whenever you try to discuss - no matter how valid ones reasoning is. This way they will never change and will always assume their way is best - which can cause problems to both others and themselves.

I've decided to take up another game... though it doesn't require a large client. It's called Achaea - a MUD. Currently I'm a level 13/14 Atavian Runewarden. Not that levels are supposed to matter. It's okay. The people are nice and friendly. Currently just getting money so that I can buy more clothes. I've got a homespun shift, a jacket, a steel shortsword, suit of steel chain mail, and a Y4C hat. There's not much I can say since I do not know the game very well. Hopefully I'll get to understand some more of it as I continue playing, otherwise... I wouldn't get anywhere useful.

There's not much to say nowadays. Or possibly it is because we were being bombarded with assignments and tests for the past couple of weeks. I need to brush up on my html and php. I've been saying that for quite awhile now that I think of it. Another would have to be my pixel art skills, which are rather rusty and were never good in the first place. I need some place more permanent where I can stick them (aside from my computer, in case it becomes dsyfunctional again). I'll have to look into that.

nostalgia = lost again. It has escaped my notice for oh so long. It just popped out of nowhere, but I was discussing archetypes with my friend, and I happened to mention the word nostalgia. And I looked at it. I took another look. Lo and behold, it was if the very gates of heaven let loose its glorious hosts and an angelic chorus of euphoniums (euphonium > trumpet) broke the very air with their pure melodies. Not so dramatic... but an amazing find nonetheless.

guilded glory.

2005-11-17T20:20:00.000-05:00

It is extremely cold outside, or not really. It is only -5 degrees. But still. It's not even winter yet! I suppose it is normal for this time of the year, but it is always a surprise the first time it drops below 0. We'll cope. We're Canadian.

My math teacher was telling us a story in class (he usually has all these interesting stories, be it from his time in the Russian army or as a teacher) about when he was a teacher back in another country. A department head was coming to visit and he wanted his class to look good. This department head also taught math, so he would have to make a good impression. So he told his class before hand to raise their left hand if they had the answer, and the right hand if they didn't. But he was found out by a traitor who reported this. Anyway... I found it funny.

So I was feeling somewhat nostalgic about RO (Ragnarok Online). An MMORPG of all things. But it was a fun game, while it lasted. Or at least while aeRO lasted. My time at aeRO started as a knight, and I levelled to a somewhat high level, and as I was doing so, I bumped into some people from a guild called KoRRupT. Kyree and SCryed, I believe. Anyway... I helped them a bit and they invited me to their guild. It was fun, although Joe-Mama/Baysee was asking me for items in CT. I remember my first WoE. Where I walked in with my level 94 knight with practically no DEX whatsoever and tried hitting people but kept missing. KoRRupT didn't fare too well during that time. I eventually mad a priest and got her to level 69 or so. Also had a Hunter at 77 or so. I think I stopped playing on my knight, but joined JooH's guild on my priest. Good times. But a new server had popped up (Charm/Nocturna) called Development. All was good. I made friends with Nakor, Ikuraga, Kiara, irenicalentity. This was on my assassin, and later I made a hunter (Mordax? 115) and a wizard (Salus 153). This was a 2k/2k/1k server. I stopped levelling Salus because the Area of Effect spells (the higher-end spells for wizards) stopped working, so it was difficult to kill things. I just bummed around in PvP for the majority of the time and got to know people, but that died off. Due to randoming guilds consisting mainly of pinoys (philippines - mostly the rude ones), and me being a wizard, I could not do much. Since they have low defence and their attacks are easily negated by GTB cards, which everybody had.

So I switched back to Charm [30x] and played around in PvP, got to know people (some again). I levelled to 99 and joined KoRRupT around then too. Actually... I think it was JooH's guild. I do believe I participated in some WoEs then. Those were fun. Then came the big change... transcendant classes. That changed the fun level of RO completely. Both up and down. I tested some on aeROBeta and made a High Priest... Meditatio was broken (as in... it worked while you were standing) and Assumptio was broken (in that it did nothing except give a cool glowing thing). So I quickly changed to High Priest and levelled back up to 99. I joined KoRRupT and WoEd more. This was a silver age in my RO experience (the golden age being the summer previous in Dev). We would keep castles as a group, and seperate sometimes. Then we could just talk. We'd also level in Niffleheim (newly released, so the monsters gave a lot of EXP) and Baysee would always be on levelling in his "Baysee Mode" (he got to be the highest level legit character on the server). Everybody would talk while they levelled so it was all fun. We took some Geffen castles and had access to the guild dungeons. Here it was that I levelled to 118. But there was a big wipe and everybody got taken down to 110. (Baysee lost around 40 levels), I didn't leave yet though. KoRRupT had been the top guild for a while at this point, and the oldest surviving guild (probably due to a large number of its members knowing each other IRL). There was a large influx of members, some not so great. KoRRupT grew to such a great height that I knew practically none of the members. But it was (conveniently) around this time that a new server popped up. Primal. 5x rates. I joined as a crusader, and levelled up to 85 iwth pretty good equipment. Arch Angel wings, Fin Helm, Thara Frog, 3x Hydra cards. That stuff. But I got scammed. I thought someone was my guild master when they were not. I was stupid and naive. Whatever. My SAsquatch Card.. took me 4000 (literally... I had the Bear's footskins to prove it) to get a card.

I quit. And it was also around this time that Scryed (my guildmaster - KoRRupT) decided to make a new server... KoRRupTRO. I made an assassin X, got her to 99, but not before Zuuko did. Curse him. Made it through a bunch of wipes and made a guild... Celestial Confluence. I then decided to remake my priest. Hebe. So I got her to level 102 High Priest. I quit sometime around there. But not before my friends joined and I had some more fun. But also not after many rounds of DB roulette and many good items won. +7 Kakashi Head Band, +7 Sleipnirs, full elemental armour. But this was back before god items. So I had to hunt and kill 1700 Stem Worms for 4 cards. This took awhile. I also made a bunch of headgears (same as in aeRO). I could duel both Nando and Cassie at the same time (high level Paladin/Gypsy) and come to a stalemate, since I had Pneuma (for arrow-slinging Gypsies) and Angeling Card (for Holy-Crossing/Grand Crossing Nando) and they could both Heal, so it was problematic.

MMORPGs are only fun if you don't know what you're doing. Or when playing with friends and in endeavours that require teamwork. Go NE Druid in WoW. :p Druids are essential when fighting higher-end bosses who can kill you in one hit. But that died off as the levels available kept going higher and higher. Full Cenarion Set, Baron Rivendare's Steed, Lok'De'Lar, Stave of the Ancients. Couldn't get much better. Only like... the accessories and cape. No matter. It was good while it lasted.

And that is my life story.

gild, guild. Easy one.

my awesome day.

2005-11-11T23:37:00.000-05:00

Today I witnessed an incident I found to be incredibly stupid near a small airport (for small 2 person aircraft), which being an aiport had a strong search light aimed upwords and circled around in a consistent pattern as a landmark in the night for aircraft. Near to it was a small machine with four high-powered lights which aimed their beams skyward and gyrated in a seemingly random fashion. This was far more prominent to me than the single light of the airport. It seemed like a malicious attempt by someone trying to mislead small aircraft pilots from the airport. I would not be surprised if they had blue christmas lights strung out across the roof to imititate those found on the runways.

Those who believe themselves to speak in absolute truths and deem themselves infallible tend to fall first and most frequently. I know one person who says everything, no matter how mundane (which is more often than not the case), as if it were profound, worthy of a 9 on the Richter scale. Sure, they may possess an inkling of intelligence, but don't wave it and annoy everyone with your molehill.

Work was incredibly long, though it was only half an hour longer than it was supposed to be. But since my work period lasts for only 2 and a half hours, 20% is a lot. But I spent the first hour correcting and recording as usual. But then my instructor had scheduled 6 new students. So I had to attend to that for practically the rest of the session. Giving them tests, explaining to them what they have to do, keep on reminding them to write the starting time. Marking it and so on. Then during that time I also had to mark the homework of students whose parents are unwilling to mark it. This seems to be the case among parents of new students (and even not so new ones) Some of them go so far as to mark the work, and by mark I mean assume that their child is brilliant and that the ability to make mistakes was eradicated from their bloodline. So they decide to mark all their work as correct, which makes it even worse for us assistants, as we have to assume that everything is unmarked, which negates the work done by the parents who actually correct correctly.

I think it is an unwritten rule in turn-based RPGs that if an enemy is at a hit point well within a reasonable amount of damage you are able to deal, you will always deal 1 less than that. And after that, they will never miss, instead dealing damage on the higher end of their abilities. But missing is the most viable option.

Word of the Day
awe
n.
1. A mixed emotion of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired by authority, genius, great beauty, sublimity, or might: We felt awe when contemplating the works of Bach. The observers were in awe of the destructive power of the new weapon.
2. Archaic.
a. The power to inspire dread.
b. Dread.

tr.v. awed, aw·ing, awes
To inspire with awe.

From awe there came dread. From some it became full. How dreadful.

in need of whiteout

2005-11-10T00:33:00.000-05:00

Pride. I've never had any concrete example that I've been able to refer to and to see it work in a negative manner. But even those that seem to work in a positive manner can have their fallouts, like national pride. Though it may seem all good and glorious and drawing people together, it can instill somewhat discriminatory ideas into people, but isn't that the idea? Our country is better than yours. We are better than you. I am better than you?

What I was referring to was something that happened to me the other day. My mom had asked me if I wanted to rake the leaves, and as was my usual case (lazy), I said that I didn't want to do it, and I do believe that she said something about next weekend. But as I went down to prepare myself a snack later on, I noticed that she was outside raking the leaves. I thought that she shouldn't be doing such a thing, and that rather I should be doing it, being nearly a quarter her age. I knew I should have gone out instead of doing whatever I was doing (namely, nothing), but I was unable to do so... because I had already told her no and that suddenly succumbing and raking the leaves would... be seen as a sign of weakness or some such thing. I was too proud to go back on my word, to rescind what I said and do the work.

I'm too lazy to rewrite this so... it'll have to do. :p

mr. plum bum

2005-10-27T22:21:00.000-04:00

Knowledge gets in the way of wisdom. So it seems. As this world progresses further from the recesses of our earlier incarnations, the margin for error and failure of discretion seems to have decreased. Many of the mistakes and anomlies have lead to not so desirable consequences. We believe ourselves invulnerable and invincible, piercing the very skies, only to be blasted down in a fall of blazing, not-so glorious glory. There are many things wrong in this world, and I suppose many things that are right, I'm only beginning to see things in both/as either.

In other news... L.E. Modesitt Jr. writes good books. ;p Mostly fantasy. Maybe I'll talk about it later.

The latest (WotD) section is as it is in most others that go by the same name, and I've taken the definitions from dictionary.com. They are mostly words I have seen, and would understand when in context, but otherwise would have little idea what its definition is. Don't ask me which of the definitions best suits the context in which I first saw the word used. Truthfully, I cannot say; it could be any of them.

Word of the Day
con·sum·mate
tr.v. con·sum·mat·ed, con·sum·mat·ing, con·sum·mates
1. a. To bring to completion or fruition; conclude: consummate a business transaction.
b. To realize or achieve; fulfill: a dream that was finally consummated with the publication of her first book.
2. a. To complete (a marriage) with the first act of sexual intercourse after the ceremony.
b. To fulfill (a sexual desire or attraction) especially by intercourse.

adj.
1. Complete or perfect in every respect: consummate happiness. See Synonyms at perfect.
2. Supremely accomplished or skilled: “Sargent was now a consummate master of brushwork” (Roberta Smith).
3. Complete; utter: a consummate bore.

Note: lead in latin is plumbum.

sometimes being pacified sucks.

2005-10-25T20:17:00.000-04:00

All talk and no work makes a peon angry and berserk.

Am I unobservant or what? For the first time, I realized the license plates on cars up here in Toronto. All of the newer 7 character ones Start with AXXX 000, where X's are letters and 0's are digits, and the older ones are generally in the 900 XXX series. Goodness gracious.

Anyway... what can one do when confronted with something meant to be an insult constructed out of stupidity and ignorance? Generally, it is far easier to say something without support than to counter it without support. Other than having to explain yourself (what use would that have on one who would make such asumptions), insult them back in much the same way or hit them upside the head really hard, which I've heard to be looked down upon by the authorities. One could also turn their insult right around. I'm not very good at that, though I do not mind terribly much as I see insults not to be insults unless one thinks them applicable. Though it would be well-deserved and most applicable if one were to do so. No matter. Once he was done trying to rouse a response from me, he decided to bother one of the IT people, who soundly dealt with him, of which he had no response. Though it was not an insult that was meant to bite, he was merely being playful. Only after some time would I find something suitably insulting that would work with his poorly formulated attempt at an insult.

If all the axes went off to war, who would chop the firewood? Something along the lines. Wit is more productive when used to make one laugh not at the expense of others.

A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [95]

Fill 'er up.

2005-10-23T22:51:00.000-04:00

"One of the reasons i joined korruptro is of the no language filters."
... It is like a smoker who only works somewhere simply because they are allowed to smoke. Although that situation would be much more understandable.

Pubic Hubris. Too bad it doesn't have that great of a ring to it. What I mean it to be is the cliche trend that teenagers think they know better than their parents as so exemplified in Zits.

Interesting. It was insofar a regular day of school, when during lunch, one of the teachers came down and told us to evacuate the premises due to something causing people to cough in the foyer. So... we all merrily jumped out of the warm building into the not-so welcoming low temperatures that preyed upon pedestrians - slight exaggeration, it wasn't too cold. We stood out there for many a minute, listening to people play their instruments (unlucky kids) and just talking amongst ourselves. We were then called off to the parkette, because you know, there's no better place to spend a friday afternoon than at a park, eh? With 600 of your schoolmates. So anyway... we had our attendance done and according to our emergency action plan with UT/OISE, we promenaded down the street a couple blocks into the South Auditorium of the Oise building and made good use of their seats. To keep use entertained, the teachers told some embarrassing stories and we watched a UTV production (the video yearbook) of when the SVI's - grade 12's - were in FI - grade 7. There were many recognizable faces and events, but some not so much. Bowling? We didn't get to do that, and I'm in SV. Gosh, a lot of these things aren't possible in the UTS of today, as we have seperated from UofT and have lost their insurance plan, meaning we do not have as much freedom as before, because UTS has to be wary of greedy parents or students who want to make it to Stella fame. So yeah... that was fun. The tests haven't come back from the labs, but there were rumours of a gas leak in one of the stairwells. Some say chlorine (trace amounts), others say pepper spray. Man and de. (Ancient greek for those not tuned in)

And... in more recent news, I found a Yoyo. I've never been able to play with one of these successfully. It'd just go down and stay down. I walked the dog and it decided to take a nap. So... I decided to try my hand at it again after however many years it has been... and I could actually get it to come back up. How amazing. A lot of things seem like that. You try and try again, and you don't succeed. But set it aside for a century and pick it up again, and you find that you're able to do it!

For my more obscure titles, I'll be explaining them. Both for my reference and yours.
Fill 'er - filler. I have nothing to say
Fill 'er up. - referring the gas leak. I did not know how to add an allusion to leaks. Oh well.

thoughts on the throne.

2005-10-16T21:04:00.000-04:00

So I was sitting, as is my usual business and having nothing else to do, my thoughts gravitated to a reason happening in my life. Our washing machine had recently broken down, and forced us to either hand-wash them or wash them at our grandfather's place. A worker came and made an inspection, and determined that it would not be worth or while if we were to replace it due to the costs beign near on par with that of a new one. And I thought about something said to us in Economics class that in order for us to live in the opulent throw-away society that we do, someone must pay that price. And that comes in the form of sweat shops and such. So instead of buying the replacement parts and continuing to use our old one, we're going to, or my parents are going to buy a new one. And then I thought of how it was in our past, or not really my past, but the past of humankind. There was nearly always a class system of sorts in place, where the poor had to do most of the dirtywork that we would rather not do (intentional - it still applies to the present). But still, the majority of the people, or most everyone would not simply throw something away, but would instead take it and mend it. But I suppose this was before complicated machinery and such things one would be hard-pressed to repair themselves, but it still applies.

This train of thought chugged me back to an episode of Babar I had watched. It was of Babar and his family going to this town of toys, and spending their time there. This utopia quickly reverted into a dystopia as the robot who ran the place would put the toys into a un-maker of sorts if they became less than perfect (physical imperfections or things like not being huggable anymore). This was all due to the robot being told by his creator (who flew away shortly thereafter) to keep everything the way it was - perfect. So he (mistakenly) took it as a sign to make sure everything was perfect and did what he did as was explained earlier. This is all rectified soon enough, as one can expect in a children's TV show.

This again brought me to see the similarities between that episode and the Mirrodin block. In the storyline, a newly made planeswalker, Karn (a golem) has created Argentum, an artifact plane. In his homeworld, one of his probes, the Mirari has been used and abused and ends up devastating much of it. So in an attempt to redeem it, he gave it intelligence and called it Memnarch. So he left and made Memnarch the steward of the world. And in an attempt to live up to his planeswalker father-figure, he brings life to the plane from other planes in the Multiverse. He learns of Karn's ascension to planeswalkerhood, where a planeswalker as well as a ship with planeswalking capabilities (who had consciousness for a bit) were destroyed in a bid to destroy a great evil god, and out of their deaths came the planeswalking abilities of Karn. So he decides to bring one with the planeswalker spark to a great catacylsmic event (the birth of a fifth, artificial moon) where she'll die and Memnarch will gain planeswalking capabilities. But this is all prevented by her with the planeswalking spark and Karn as he comes back.

No point to my story, really. Just nifty how things can be so similar.

something trivial

2005-10-06T19:16:00.000-04:00

Well, that was a quite a revelation. While playing trivia, one of the questions that came up was:
[19:11] <kidechizen> 2. TV/ Movies: Born Dec 31, 1937, He starred in this movie: The Good Father - 1986?
And to my surprise, the correct answer (which I got) was Anthony Hopkins. Ain't that nifty. And speaking of coincidences:
[19:06] <Salus> I meant to type Haha. and it came out GG.
My reason for laughter was a ridiculous guess in trivia.

[19:51] <kidechizen> You're on fire!
[19:51] * kidechizen hands I a cold beer for getting the last 3 questions!
[19:51] <Salus> Haha.
[19:51] <I> i'm on fire
[19:51] <Salus> Alcohol + fire.
[19:51] <Salus> Nice.

Nice indeed. :p

[19:55] <kidechizen> 5. What sea creature uses its chest as a table while floating on its back?
[19:55] <I> THATS HAX
[19:55] <Salus> :p
[19:55] <Salus> otter
[19:55] <I> sea otter
[19:55] <kidechizen> Winner: I Answer: sea Time: 7.016 Streak: 1 Points: 240 WPM: 5 Rank: 2nd

[20:19] <Salus> crude oil
[20:19] <I> crude oil
[20:19] <kidechizen> crude oil
[20:19] <kidechizen> Winner: kidechizen Answer: crude oil Time: 12.281 Streak: 1 Points: 75 WPM: 8 Rank: 4th

What a cheat. :p Keeps happening too.

[21:52] <kidechizen> 197. 'You get a shiver in the dark, it's raining in the park ...' What's the Dire Straits song title?
[21:52] <Salus> shiver in the dark
[21:52] <Salus> diver in the shark

I like that. :p

back away

2005-10-06T12:56:00.000-04:00

To measure one's ability to accomplish a task, must one take into account their willingness to perform said task in addition to their capabilities? If one were quite able and competent in doing it, that only matters if they are willing to carry it out (although one could be made to do so). Something to that end - that neither can be solely independent of the other. Just a little nothing I was thinking of.

So I was watching a Zellers commercial the other day, and lo and behold, there it was, a Furby, the likes of which I had not seen for awhile. I remember my parents buying us two (for the four of us) and we played with them until they ran out of batteries, then they came to be mere shelf-ornaments. Not even, they are on the lowest shelf in some remote corner of our family room. Same goes with Tamagotchi (although I had mine confiscated, I believe, or someone stole it or I lost it, the last being the most feasible), and that's about all. Never got into that Pokemon craze, partly because of our lack of a Gameboy as well as cable - which is good, Pokemon only lasts for so long while imagination can keep on going for some time. Magic still holds true as a cool game though, how many years has it been? 8 or 9.

Trifecta : with data unprovided, our marks will be divided!
Salus : I guess we will just have to make do, ack, Victor needs help with question two.
Trifecta : this event quickly becomes mired, i think it would be best if these papers were fired
Trifecta : you should join the freestyle battle. =P
Salus : Such a war I do wish to join, for your glory I do not wish to purloin.
Salus : Too many people talking about math. :(
Trifecta : my glory? what glory? my honour lies broken, bloodied and gory.
Salus : Would that be the work of the goshulak, who likes to eat cheese with his mulak?
Trifecta : indeed it is he, he whose name begins with a "P".
Salus : Paul Atreides? I thought he resided somewhere among the Pleiades.
Trifecta : no, twas not him to which i referred; the one whom i speak of, sour cream on his perogies, i think he prefers.
Salus : Methinks thatst thou hast loose thine touch, for some of thine word choices rhyme not much.
Trifecta : oh don't start with me now, most noble anton; for in this great word war, i am but a pawn.
Trifecta : divided we fall, but united we stand; so send your rhymes to the conference, and give our forces a hand.
Trifecta : =P
Salus : That is one course I would like to make, but this math hath all my time take.
Salus : I'm cheating. :p
Trifecta : not really.
Salus : I blame all my grammatical errors on antiquated language.
Salus : :p
Trifecta : *cheating? what of cheating doth thou speakest of? the only cheater among us is that foul simu ... fluv. =\
Salus : :p
Salus : tough love.
Trifecta : ergh.
Trifecta : i kept thinking "dove", but that made no sense.
Salus : He wears white sometimes?
Salus : :p
Salus : , oops there goes my rhymes.
Salus : *go

What weird kids we are at UTS. I hope they don't mind.

tentative tendencies

2005-10-05T00:47:00.000-04:00

A fresh start, a new beginning, a new day? Not yet. I shall see how much flexibility this blog allows one. Previously, I have used the MSN spaces, which was decent, I suppose, although I had had no previous experience with blogs. Got some things going, the puns rolling, the source of which has seem to dried up, and generally got some good feedback. Though I had no real content in there, or so I would like to think.

So today was like any other day, but unlike any other day, it was not as good. Computer Science was fine, though the queue class gave me some trouble (figured out I was spelling it wrong "queu", probably because of that darned The Noob episode). English was okay - it's always an interesting class. And that's about as boring as my day was.

[22:38] <Uenohai> Any idiot knows that
[22:38] <Salus> I'm sorry I'm not an idiot.

I do not understand how such a phrase came to be so widely used.

the old hen house.

Lazy-fare.

2005-09-24T23:16:00.000-04:00

Amazing. Having never spun the wheels before a lit backdrop (my monitor), I had not noticed this before. This is the GTX 82 bike - the lego one. When one spins the wheels, the inner holes on the white plastic part appear to be going backwards, while as it slows down, they appear to be still at one point and finally winding down to a rest. I just found this interesting enough for me to put away for future knowledge and possible exploration, and the internet seemed like the best place to store it. For I have a tendency to misplace things as well as mess my computer and having to wipe it.

I have a dislike of people pointing out aspects of my personality or self, be they negative or positive. If negative, it is not so bad for I can make an attempt to rectify it, but if it is something positive - I often times find myself conscious and self-aware about such things. This is annoying because I'm always afraid that I'll stray from said ways and do something wrong. I prefer to leave things to my subconscious, it makes life so much easier and less cluttered. In doing so, people give me a standard I feel obligated to meet - which leads me to peruse what I do to ensure that it meets those standards which usually leads to an inferior product or the trash can.

My brevity is too much so, which gives rise to problems in my english compositions. Puns are about plays on words, and this year, since we are doing Writer's Craft, I find that they can come in quite useful. In our compositions so far, we have been doing descriptions. To make them interesting, I must find some way to play with the words and form puns or push them towards that direction. This entry isn't as well thought out as I'd like it to be, but then again, none of these are ever thought out ahead of time. This applies to the title in particular, obviously, because it would need a hook to grab people's attention. The problem is that it attracts the teacher's notice and so she chooses it and then it is up for perusal by the entire class. Although I'd have to admit it is a good thing because (it is anonymous) I get some good, free feedback. If I play with the words around enough and layer the connotations (which I often do), sometimes the reference is lost entirely upon the class and it doesn't make sense, but sometimes I hit upon one that people like, which is good. The problem is that these are descriptions, which should create an image for the reader and not confuse them with unknown (I can't seem to recall the word, all I know is it starts with in-) references.

I've got nothing. Especially for my economics presentation.

Back to the good ol' days.

2005-09-14T22:02:00.000-04:00

School has made its return. English and writing descriptions is beyond me to the utmost limits of the horizon. (See: infinity) At least I have some consolation in being able to do Computer Science problems. Simple though they may be. Advent Children was nifty, though I knew not much of FF7 prior to watching it, I did end up doing some research while I paused to get a better grasp of characters. Figured out that Media players are very picky things. I couldn't print screen and save anything properly. Whenever I print screened and pasted onto a program like MSPaint (also tried GGale), I found that I could not work with the image there. With hindsight, I guess I could have tried saving it and then working with it, but I'm not entirely sure if that would have worked either. So a friend mentioned something about switching off the Video Acceleration, and though that might have worked, it didn't fast forward, and I did not intend to wait 23:10 minutes, so I messed around with WMP (got it on my first try) and got it to work.

The path is this:

Tools>Options>Performance>Video Acceleration>Advanced>Video Acceleration>Use video mixing renderer>Use overlays

No puns, all my creative energies have been turned into cacti.

(Note: if anybody didn't quite catch my last post, the limerick was alluding to crosswords. Though I probably should have tried to play on that in the first line.)

Mm... Limericks.

2005-08-31T00:18:00.000-04:00

I called a great man once absurd
Which to anger he was quite stirred
One across did he strike me
But two down did I beat he
All because of a cross word.

I like this forum. http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19 I hate it how my inspiration comes and goes. Mostly when it goes. But then how could I come to appreciate it if I had it with me all the time?

Ancient literature, eh?

2005-08-27T18:26:00.000-04:00

http://www.seraph-inn.com/viewcomic.php?page=239

Being able to draw well would certainly open up some possibilities where words would not be able to do. Although words could be used to draw a picture - it would not conjure up the same image for everybody. An illustrative story would be within my capabilities (one that I find acceptable), as well as concept art, and just simply be able to project an image onto paper. A webcomic/illustrative story certainly would be interesting, though such projects would with more than tentative certainty be kept to myself. Maybe practice and persistence is all I need but where to start and how? It'd require a large amount of study of different subject matter - anatomy, clothinig, textures, just to name a few from my inexperience as well as further study of various digital techniques if I ever want to colour it as I'm bound to mess up if I ever try to do so on a hardcopy. Maybe I'll just try my hand at the fine craft of the word with some study in the drawers.

Annual Neologism Contest

2005-08-22T16:07:00.000-04:00

Nothing new from me today, but I came across this and found it to be quite humourous.

Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
Frisbeetarianism (n.), the belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

all out of kibble

2005-08-19T15:35:00.000-04:00

A sir or king would do.

Not Salus: I CHALLENGE YOU TO E-FIGHT BITCH

Salus: Sorry, but I quit smoking ages ago.

Brevity is the soul of wit... although Hamlet might not have had puns in mind when he said this (or Shakespeare when he wrote it), it still is quite relevant, which I suppose is apparent. But when I am posting a pun, I wonder to myself whether or not I have extrapolated the pun too much for it to easily be followed and whether or not I should explain more so that it might be understood more readily. As is the case with the one posted above - for those who might not get it, to smoke someone can mean to beat them in a competition of sorts.

It seems thought has taken its leave of me. Maybe the advent of school or quitting WoW will rectify that.

One can always hope.

In need of a title.

2005-08-08T22:11:00.000-04:00

Why do MMORPGs attract me so? Even if there isn't much flavour behind it, no replay value and everything is very mechanical - I continue to play. In Ragnarok Online - the initial reason that I continued playing it was so that I could explore the world, I also joined a guild that summer, two I think. First was JooH's guild on my priest, helping them and being helped by them to level was fun. As I got to know the game more and as my knight got to a higher level (94), I joined a guild called KoRRupT, which began when I helped a guy named Kyree to find an Angeling, I believe. Near this time, a new server opened - Development (2k,2k,1k). I joined this server and found everything to be a lot easier, and I made a wizard. When I had got to a high level (120s, highest I ever got was 153 because the AoE spells conked out, which seriously hampered my ability to kill things), I stopped killing things really and decided to sit in Morroc, where PvP was. And here, I wouldn't really kill things (except randomers) but just hang around and talk to people. I made some friends, sadly I've forgotten their names already but I do remember them. After Dev became infested with KSing, randoming, annoying pinoys (not all of them are like that, though), I went back to the old server - Charm and went to PvP and talked with KoRRupT members. Later, I joined their ranks and the guild talk along with WoE (a war between guilds) kept me occupied. Then Scryed, the leader of KoRRupT began his own server and I joined it. But there wasn't enough people and I gradually fell out with not enough player-interaction. So I quit RO.

I spent a couple of nice months without any MMORPGs, played Chrono Trigger. Wrote some exams. But then a friend invited me to play WoW with them, and so I did. That's what kept it interesting, I suppose. Then they got bored of it. I started getting bored, until I ran around doing some quests and then I got bored of that. I joined a guild and randomly talked to people in the GM channel (server-wide channel). The GM channel was all that really kept me playing. There was also an instance where a GM gathered some higher-levelled players and organized an MC run. I only got to participate (Entangling Roots on Ragnaros) in the taking-on of one of the hardest bosses in MC (one-hit kill), but group efforts are very fun to be in. I read about a guild which ran around and killed some bosses as a team (43 people) as drops on the private server I play in are 30x and the bosses are not half as hard. Anyway... that's what I would like from my MMORPGs, except the server does not have that many people - less than 100.

This was a most disorganized and pointless entry so far. I'll just keep it for a possible future redo.

Not too hot for Korean food

2005-08-03T22:36:00.000-04:00

Wow. First time I've had Korean food today. (We have had Korean Barbecue and bought a large tub of Kimchi, but that wasn't spicy at all.) Some of the spiciest stuff I've ever eaten. Everything was spicy except for the bean sprouts and the spinach. There was also this noodle-like stuff with seaweed and rice with sesame oil and seeds - but I didn't eat much of that, it wasn't spicy but it was to be my lunch the next day. I suspect it isn't nowhere as spicy as the suicide wings that my brother speaks of. But it is spicy enough.

[21:24] <Salus> Australopithecus Africanis.
[21:24] <Salus> *Africanus. Whoops.
[21:25] <rusty404> what's the difference?
[21:25] <Salus> It's the difference between you and I.

All I have left are bad puns. :p And some not so punnish one(s). Just another reminder for me how some things just fall into place without much goading. Must be nice to be a poet.

[09:26:17 PM] |O.r.D.i.N.a: you go anywhere?
[09:26:25 PM] Salus: Out and about.
[09:26:29 PM] Salus: Round like a lout.

This is just something random that I found funny. :p

[21:50] <rusty404> you can't pass level 60
[21:50] <rusty404> :\
[21:50] <rusty404> faggot liar
[21:50] <Salus> You can on private servers.
[21:50] <rusty404> private servers are for faggot liars
[21:50] <Salus> ...
[21:50] <Salus> Kick him from the channel!
[21:50] <Salus> He blasphemes.

[21:50] <rusty404> Oh right.
[21:50] <Salus> Haha.
[21:51] <rusty404> THIS WAS A TRAP

This was on the IRC channel of a private RO server (talking about WoW).

None are terribly good, but they'll have to do until more opportunities arise. For now... a name change. I could come up with anything when I began - a token of three. Huh.

Duckspeak

2005-07-30T02:22:00.000-04:00

I have now learnt what George Orwell meant by the term duckspeak in 1984. I was on the bus the other day, and we picked up this lady who, the moment she got into the bus and sat in the front - started harrassing the busdriver with her incessant flow of quacking. First time I've overdosed on quack.

My name as given to me by my superiors is Salus, and I'm an user of the arcane arts. I am responsible for handling creatures of a more shady sort - track them down and open them up for their magically-delicious organs. Leprechauns, turnip-pike, hobbits, frazzled elephant-mice... those kinds of stuff.

I am not permitted to disclose my location - but all I can say is that I live far beneath the buried suds, in a land in which long ago were seas of silver and fields of gold both black and yellow, and where a needle points up above the clouds so high, unlike any other in its size.

Of course, naught is true but the last sentence after the dash.

Well, DEEP is finally over. Now I get to stay home and... play WoW. What a horrendous way to spend my day. It's not even that great of a game. I'm bored of it after 5 days already. It doesn't help that half the people don't speak english very well. The quests are... a waste of time, they don't give good money or experience. The end-game is essentially in the Molten Core, where msot of the higher-levelled monsters are with random bosses scattered throughout and most of which drop epic items (like set items in Diablo II). And these guys are really hard, well the bosses anyway. I think that Diablo II is better than WoW. I guess it's a sort of good thing to have standardized uncommon/rare items but it isn't as interesting as in D2 where the names, and the stats were randomized. As well, the set items kind of stink. Set bonuses do anyway (having more than one item of a set equipped) - the names stink too - Cenarion Boots, Cenarion Bracers, Cenarion Vestments, Cenarion Helm, Cenarion Pauldron, Cenarion Gloves. In D2 - they at least varied so that they had something like - Immortal King's Stone Crusher (maul), Will (helm), Soul Cage (armour), Detail (belt), Forge (gauntlets), and Pillar (boots). And even the name of the sets were not the same, Cenarion Raiment, Arcanist Raiment vs. The Immortal King, Griswald's Legacy.

Hm.

2005-07-21T23:01:00.000-04:00

No more of these for now. I apparently fail at coming up with original ideas. Nobody minds, I'm sure.

So... until I press myself. Or repress myself. Whatever one does to get out of the state of depression. But I suppose it's not so much depression as being dampened of spirit.

Saving everything now and then is good practice.

Punnishment

2005-07-19T22:38:00.000-04:00

Valna : Thats right i am the ruler of posting MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Salus : Damn straight.

GM Jon : thats a ban!! all of you have been banned MUAHAHHA im going on a power trip

Salus : It's band camp for the lot of you.

Puns are so much fun to make, and I dont' even have to look for them, they just come to me on a silver platter. More satisfying than getting all the words in a game of TextTwist. I don't know where my mediocre vocabulary comes from as I do not remember looking up words much when I was younger. It seems that the greater part of the words that I know come from either Magic the Gathering cards or (the less surprising one,) books. Spelling bees thus became easier, I suppose, which is all the better for me. Though I have trouble using those words, or feeling a necessity to use it but by coming across it, I can understand the meaning. Except sometimes the meaning escapes me entirely, as in the case of "Silk's depredations were broadly ecumenical."

I've not much to say anymore. DEEP takes up far too much time. Wake up at 6:30, leave the house at 7ish, get downtown at 8 to 8:30, wait around until 9:30. Go into the room, one hour lunch break at 12, get out at 3:30, wait around until 5, get driven to my brother's workplace to pick him up at 6. And then I get home at 6:30. But then again, that is how it is like on most school days, but it is summer vacation!

'Arry Depressing

2005-07-17T23:45:00.000-04:00

Oops, forgot to send off that last entry earlier.

[10:12:50 PM] |O.r.D.i.N.a: you think that the chinese have invaded costco yet?
[10:12:54 PM] |O.r.D.i.N.a: so then i have like
[10:12:58 PM] |O.r.D.i.N.a: the crappy chinese version
[10:13:13 PM] Salus: Darn Chinese Pirates and their junk. ;p

For those that missed the bad pun here - junks are chinese ships. (We were talking about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

And this was regarding the "misty fug" in the beginning of chapter 3 -

[10:22:44 PM] Salus: I can't believe the editors mist it.

I love bad puns as you can tell.

So I read the Harry Potter book yesterday inbetween dinner and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I didn't find it to be bad (except for the excessive snogging), but then again I don't find many books to be bad. And my standards are not of the conventional sort. A good book to me is one that would cause my imagination to construct the world and the characters as real. Style matters not that much to me, spelling errors don't escape my notice though. If a book causes me to attach myself to the characters and can cause me to feel depressed, elated or other similar emotions then I would call it a good book. My thoughts are even more scattered than usual in this entry.

Since my imagination plays a large role in the success of a book for myself, it is only natural that I see books as more realistic than movies ever could be as movies do all the imagining for you and doesn't leave the spectator with anything - maybe that's because I don't watch any good movies, who knows.Maybe the problem that I have with movies is the very fact that they treat you as spectators, there is a physical seperation between yourself and the people or the scene before you. But with books, there isn't that seperation - one can easily take that leap into the scene and back out. It's a personal experience (that is unless you're reading it with someone else) but even then it is more personal than watching a movie at the movie theatre would be. One of the problems that I have with books is that they have affected my life in a large way. A negative way, I think. For these books tell me of how things could be and then when I come to experience them, sometimes they seem not as magical compared to these literary experiences but the good thing is that they don't linger.

And to end off this entry, "I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

In continuity.

2005-07-17T23:43:00.000-04:00

One can only wonder if the technological management of the lives of infants had gone too far when doctors advised against breast-feeding as an annoying and inconvenient business. The name of Luther Emmett has faded from history. But in the late nineteenth century, Emmett, a physician, wrote numerous how-to books on infant care. His story makes clear how minutely doctors were willing to manage the lives of infants. He campaigned for infants freed from dependence on their mothers, freedom from the breast. To that end he recommended taking the infant out fo the cradle, a device that enabled a mother to maintain some contact with her baby while she did other things, like sewing, knitting, or reading, and imprisoning the itny creature. Breast-feeding created an unwanted dependence, and rocking the baby, Emmett argued, only tied the infant to the mother with an additional knot. Crusading for the autonomy of infants, Emmett created the crib, an innovative piece of nursery furniture that embodied that newly found independence. But autonomy in a modernized, commercialized sense first brought into being in America in the nineteenth century meant that some institution - in this case, the profession of medicine - had the power and license to define autonomy, and then prescribe what the "autonomous" infant needed. Commerical enterprises could then satisfy those needs. Indeed, now only commerce could bring satisfaction.

Barry Sanders, A Is for Ox, 197.

Ballasts at full blast

2005-07-12T23:07:00.000-04:00

[21:34] * Salus hits a submarine with Pentao's head.
[21:35] <Salus> Pentao goes ballistic.

This was in reference to:

[21:32] * Pentao|Forums goes fuck damn in fucking sane.

Black Paige, Beige Plaque? Good enough.

Anyway... I've been spending my time working with AVRs and circuitboards at DEEP (DaVinci Engineering Enrichment Program). Not been the most exciting thing ever. 2.5 hours before and after a one hour lunch break. All this to do some relatively simple tasks, which can take up a surprising amount of time. Mostly because the documentation is so weird. But one gets to play with mercury switches. Which is fun. And one gets to learn a little bit of preliminary C programming.

Haven't been doing much these days in way of pixelling and such. But I have been reading more of the book. It's interesting. As well as that article in the Rolling Stones magazine about the current American government and their various environmental dealings. Both kind of get me annoyed and makes me wonder about what caused people to become so greedy and downright nearsighted so that they would do such things for the sake of profit.

[21:58] Go keel it.
[21:58] With thy boat.

Makes me wonder how such people can have kids and hope to have grandchildren. I, for one, would not wish such a world upon my descendants where the environment has been thoroughly ravaged and where everybody has been negatively affected due to the disregard of what the scientific community had to say. The title of today's entry is both a reference to the starting pun as well as a sort of reference to this, where ballasts are used to keep a ship stable, these ballasts are being removed as to make the ship unstable. Something like that.

Someone once commented on the stupidity of the old saying, "if a tree falls in a forest and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?" I don't find it that stupid, as to me it talks about if you do something, and nobody remembers it - did you accomplish anything? I'm not sure if this is what it is supposed to mean. It probably has some deeper meaning. But still... if one does not accomplish anything lasting, then what was the point in doing it? Though history cannot remember everybody, it does not mean one shouldn't try one's best and to make the most of their life. Sometimes I wonder why I exist and why I should exist because all I do is waste resources - of nature and of others. Anyway... on a side note, here is a recording of a tree falling in a forest with nobody around to hear it.

A is for OX

2005-07-07T21:47:00.000-04:00

I'm still having a spot of trouble with the portrait of Eira - the hair still looks detached to some and I've forgotten hair-cast shadows again. This is the current state she has taken.

Just yesterday I started reading a book called A is for OX by Barry Sanders. It's been an interesting read so far and it talks about, as the front cover says, "the collapse of literacy and the rise of violence in an Electronic Age" and was published in 1995. As far as I have read, the author has been talking about differences in oral societies versus literate societies (those that communicate without written words and those who can). Without the written word there can be no analysis for analysis is being able to look at text repeatedly (or requires that one be able to do such). This is just one of the points that he makes that I'm able to sum up (or be bothered to) in but one sentence but there are many others.The problem with what I read is that I don't remember it, I don't ingest it properly, probably. Oh well. It keeps me occupied and entertained for however long.

Just came across this thread on CGTalk, isn't it amazing?

A talk on mIRC about MtG got me thinking about... well... Magic and as always flavour text. Then to rare items in games. If rare items in games all had some flavour to them from the history of the game, then it would make games, at least for me, a lot more fun to play. And if they were to be made viable and realistic with that world, then even better. Cool, fantastic ideas and viability don't always mix, but when they do - the outcome is guaranteed to always be a good one.

(Notice that my entries are becoming smaller and smaller?)

CGTalk

2005-07-06T19:46:00.000-04:00

Browsing through Jason Chan's (the artist) website, I came upon a link to his entry to a challenge (Master and Servant) on the CGTalk forum. I started a systematic perusal of each of the entries to that particular challenge. Each and every one of them were crafted with incredible talent and thought, but what fascinated me the most was that they all had an interesting story behind them. This should not have come to me as much of a surprise as what is art without a story? A lot more work than I had previously thought had gone into them. Several concept sketches are required - for each of the different components of the piece. For one of the Grand Space Opera entries they had concept sketches for the spaceships, the outfit of the soldiers in it and an overall sketch of what is going on. Another piece required a 3D-model of a random mechanical construct with the appropriate (probably custom-made) textures. It just amazes me as to how much time and effort some of them have put into their pieces.

If only there was a forum like this for Pixel Art. Although most pixel art is not so much art most of the time as the majority (meaning those who are not very experienced/talented) focus on either sprites or backgrounds and usually for games. At least that is the general atmosphere that I get from my time at Pixelation. But that isn't to say that their work cannot be as interesting and beautiful.

An era of Eira?

2005-07-06T12:14:00.000-04:00

One of my most persistent characters in my pixel work over the past two years has been a msyterious blue-haired girl named Eira - the welsh word for snow [link]. Just a little bit of background, I found pixelation once on my stay at the AMD (this was around May 2003). I started frequenting Pixelation (I had found tsugumo's pixeltutorial before that, somehow) and got into pixel art and improved little by little by drawing on critiques from both forums. One of my problems was that I couldn't stand having my pieces being at a mediocre stage so I had to get them up to an acceptable level of accomplishment until I could say I had done some work on it.

Anyway... the attached picture is how Eira has evolved over the ages. At first, she appeared as an emoticon - I also had an isometric version of her but sadly that was lost when my computer had a bout of amnesia. But she started at that point, I believe (there was another blue-haired girl with pigtails before that but she is no relation to Eira), when I was making mini-profiles and portraits of characters. She then evolved into... I don't know what, yes I know she is in a very weird position. Although awkward, I thought it looked good and so I blew up her head to 64x64 and chipped away to make a large portrait which you can see there. The 3rd incarnation was in the form of an RPG-style character of which the shading and form were inspired by a project being done at the time which looked amazing (I've lost the name and examples).

The last I just started yesterday and took me forever to do the face but I think it looks decent now. Except for the hair, which I do not know how to fix - I need to look at a reallife example of it. I started drawing this particular incarnation because I had begun the creation of some character files in addition to random information about a world around which I could revolve either a game or just random pixel pieces.

That's all for now on my pixel endeavours.

[09:15:54 AM] Salus: PK FIRE!
[09:16:05 AM] tint of purp: side + B
[09:18:13 AM] Salus: *sigh* Dweeb.

This time it was intentional, though not as good.

Edit: This is how she looks after approximately a day of toil. Don't know how I shall improve on her next. Pixelation either closed down or banned me for whatever reason, and I don't know of many other places where there be pixel artists.

No flare for fire

2005-07-03T22:38:00.000-04:00

Doesn't this thing look cool? I've never played Xenosaga before, let alone own a PS2 - but it does look spiffy. Like the Ninja Turtles. Camping was a semi-good experience. I got to use an axe for a first time to chop firewood. Can cleave them in two with one fell blow. Alas, I cannot make fires.

I always think that spending time on the computer is not what it is all cracked up to be. Whenever I am at the computer, seeing as I have quit Ragnarok Online... there appears to be nothing to do. After reading through all the webcomics that I frequent, and checking through the one singular forum left for me, I find that there is nothing more to do at the computer. Of course, I could pixel or code, but for that I need inspiration and of course, talent, which I am severely lacking in. So after I turn off my computer and decide that there are no movies that we have worth watching, I sit and think about what a normal person does during their summer vacation.

And I can come up with nothing much. Work, sports, vacation, shopping, read. What do people sit in their homes and do all day? The answer eludes me. Before the advent of computers, it seems that kids were so happy to get out of school. Maybe it was simply the idea of not having to sit through any more boring, hot, humid and hazy summer afternoons in the classroom that appealed to them so much. It's also probably because people back then or even normal people today live close together or at least not an hour's drive away from their school like me. Then they can associate with their classmates more easily and thus play their sports or whatever or invite them over to someone's house in order to hang/laze around.

Another factor may have been that they had extracurricular activities that could keep them occupied. Martial arts? Sports teams? Definitely not watching anime or playing on their game consoles/computers. NES, maybe... Who knows. What Calvin does during his summer in Calvin and Hobbes does seem like what an ideal summer would be like. Randomly tramping about and exploring and doing dangerous things, but that would require having a large unsettled plot of land nearby. Which is a rare occurence in this day and age (in Toronto anyway). Especially that one where he climbs all over the place-through fields, over rivers, up hills, through brambles and up trees to retrieve a flag and "doing something completely pointless" page 29 of It's a Magical World. I'd love to do that with a friend (given that I have one). But for now all I can do is sit here in front of my computer, absorbing all of that good ol' radiation that it throws at me and slave away on these stupid blog entries.

Perfection in the moment

2005-06-29T20:53:00.000-04:00

Haha... this wasn't intentional at all:

[07:10:35 PM] Salus: And no, I'm not stalking her.
[07:11:10 PM] |O.r.D.i.N.a: ...if you were stalking her you'd be in auzzieland w/ her
[07:11:20 PM] Salus: I'm a broke stalker.
[07:11:26 PM] Salus: Haha.
[07:11:28 PM] Salus: I'm a stock broker.

Anyway... it is today. Surprised? Good. The best element, seems to be popular among the 1:2 ratios with death. I bought this book called Surprising Science Puzzles, it's very interesting - it has all these (obviously) science-related puzzles, many of which I cannot solve sadly. My logic is flawed beyond repair as you can see quite clearly through these past two entries. (As you can see, I've been playing with the features of the new editor, but it lags so I'm using the html-ized version, works much better.

Nothing's been happening really. Should really get back to what I set out to do, as it has always been for the past couple of summers. Programming and pixelling. Awesome stuff.

Sean Howard's (a.k.a Squidi) blogs got me interested in MMORPG's and how they could work. An MMORPG that is not only one gigantic set of stairs (too static to be a treadmill) but actually a world that changes from impacts made by the individual. He talks of one called the Saga of Ryzom. And it looks very interesting from the descriptions he gives and the information available on the site. So it gets me to thinking about what the perfect MMORPG would be, which I would have to say is quite similar to what Squidi talks about.

So being inspired by his latest World Guides, I decided to try working on a feasible world - just for the heck of it. It's pretty fun. Except it's taking awhile as I require further motivation. During this, I've been trying to think about how these things could be worked into a possible game. Well... MMORPGs are all well-to-do and stuff, but I'm more interested ina browser-based game (forum-base too). That's where most of my playing around in php was, with Moogie's famous RPG Mod for phpBB2 - I liked it better than maliciousrabbit's (was that his name, I don't remember) but I think Nuladion is still working on it. Anyway... that's what I want to do.

I've found that trying to come up with an original battle system is hard to do. Also having a way to increase one's range of abilities is also hard. Whenever I try to come up with something - the only way I can make something original is to make it overly complicated, which presents some problems. But what I've been thinking about is a way to teach skills/abilities/techniques (whatever you want to call them) to people in a way that requires skill on the part of the user and a way to do it without the intervention of another user - typically. Of course, it will or should require some skill in order to implement those skills in order to do something successfully (it won't only involve fighting but it will ideally all be running in much the same way).

Movies of the Mundane

2005-06-27T16:24:00.000-04:00

I sometimes wonder how Windows ever got off the ground. I copied the contents of this form and then Internet Explorer crashed itself when I tried to add a photo and so it all disappeared. Anyway... I'll try to reconstruct it, which I hate doing.

So I was sitting on the couch (actually, "sprawled all over" would be a more accurate description) yesterday night watching one of those chinese movies that my parents don't infrequently watch. Seeing as my Cantonese is as horrible as many of the Microsoft products out there, I did not understand it, for there were no subtitles to go by. To make matters worse for my attempts to understand it was the fact that I came in halfway through the movie. So my mind wandered and hopped aboard a random train, and I started wondering if it was possible for there to be a successful movie that was about ordinary people in ordinary circumstances. For all the current movies are either about extraordinary people or ordinary people in extraodinary circumstances. Throughout this time, The Incredibles kept coming to mind, which I can sort of understand because it was more about extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances (rather than extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances which seems to be the usual case). And.. as I have not come up with an answer, this entry shall be rather short and useless as no insight is presented. Neither was there any in yesterday's but that was at least longer.

Looking up, I see this - look at the image attached. Another example of what I was talking about yesterday... See all that white fuzz around the CD and the Smiley face? Hm, doesn't even look good against white. Anyway... they could have at least removed that Anti-Aliasing, or redid it on that dark blue background. It would not have taken more than a couple of minutes to remove it - redoing it might take a little bit longer if they wanted it to look just perfect. These are the little things that bug me for some reason. Maybe it's a testament to how inable Microsoft can be at making their products adaptable. Who knows.

I didn't really have anything to say today, maybe I will later in the day. Hm.

Wow... either the edit entry interface is different from the initial entry point's or they had it upgraded just today. More options here.

I was reading the paper earlier today and it was talking about the "Olympics" of the advertising world and how they were giving out awards for how well they can appeal to the senses and sensibilities of the public. Why would you reward such things? To congratulate the refinement of these intrusions upon the emotions and minds of the people. All I do is complain, huh. And this new version of the MSN spaces makes my computer lag. Every upgrade does so. Yeesh. So it wasn't just an error when they had that one second temporary downtime for upgrades or whatever page that they gave me earlier today. Tomorrow is another day, isn't it? 13 minutes...

Hm...

2005-06-26T18:03:00.000-04:00

Nothing original here. Ever. Nothing has any meaning here, it's all just a derivation, a slight deviation. So I'm just doing this because I'm bored - wishing an impact could be made, but knowing that failure is inevitable due to a inherent lack of experience in one as inept and apt to apathy as me.

I need to wash my walls. They're dirty.

Anyway... seeing as I should make use of what resources the internet has to offer at a cost of zilch (to me anyway), I decided to look into these msn spaces. Mainly because I wanted something to fill up that little space I have on MSN Messenger in my contact card. My dragonfly clip looked awfully lonely (for those who might be curious as to why I had or have or might have again "dragonfly clip" in my personal message box - it refers to what Libelle Phrotus has in her hair in Directions of Destiny).

Anyway... (if you may take note of my first sentence-fragment) I keep seeing Microsoft trying to monopolize all that is good and holy in the digital realm. A monster it may be already, but a tryant it should not. They already have Windows installed on the greater part of the computers out there (and forced themselves into most pre-fabricated computers so that new computer users will be hard-pressed to learn and learn of other Operating Systems - I'm no expert in computers myself, I'm pretty much incompetent - or not really, I can do things myself, I just tend to blow some stuff up before replacing it). They've spread into practically all the newest and successful trends through some sort of digital osmosis- blogs, instant messaging, bittorrenting, increase of storage space (more to attract users away from gmail I suppose) and other such junk (I can't think of anything else). I guess it is because they want to stay in business, but a much easier way to do that without forcing everybody down one digital super highway would be to improve their existing products... or even to come up with something original. Yeah, so why am I using their services? See lackadaisical - cool word.

Anyway... I'm a real leech aren't I. That's why I'm using lycos to test run my php scripts. I guess I don't expect anyone to read this, really. So it's more of a journal? A rather public one. Anyway... the first would be my Comics page - this page displays all the webcomics that I read that are scheduled to update on that day of the week as well as the 2 that I read that update sporadically. Most link directly to the image file itself (with the exception of EGS in the "Updates Today" section. Darnit, I just realized that Bob and George sometimes use jpgs. Blah, too lazy to take that into account. Anyway... that's about it, I use a cronjob to update the database on allotted days since Megatokyo, AMD and Real Life Comics use a counter.

My second script is my Map Maker, which takes information from an array, which essentially looks like this:

grass.0.base
rock.1.11,21,22,23,99
well.1.34

and converts it into the map that you see displayed in the link. You can also use the arrows to move the player around (excuse me for the graphics - I was too lazy to put too much effort into them. So, that's about it. I was planning to make it into a small RPG-like thing, which I was planning to convert later into multi-player. I played around with such things on phpBB2.

That's all for now. Maybe something tomorrow. This sure alleviates my boredom. More so than crosswords might, if I could only do them completely.