| Golden years |
[22 Nov 2009|04:41pm] |
So we were digging through our mountain of junk and I came across this little gem from my eldest, Ukrainian-centric brother in his best years, speaking of him and our eldest in sweeping, glorious prose.
"Me and My Sister"
by
CMac
"Me and My Sister"
'My SiSTer went to The hoSPeTl AND........'
'I went to Cogo RiVer!'
'And Shoe dis Pizze.'
'Then She came Back...withe a cAst on her Leg.'
'The End'
I wish I could write this well NOW.
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| Blaaaaaargh |
[18 Oct 2009|03:24pm] |
Sick with a cold since Friday. At least I can sleep well at night, confident that I have passed it onto Jas, and probably Katelyn and Froggy. Thus my plans reach fruition.
Of course, I'm not staying home from school tomorrow. In IB, you're only allowed to stay home from school if you've lost a limb, and even then no more than two days at a time.
Beat Final Fantasy IX again, though that's nothing new. Something about it always feels so rewarding, though.
My jonesin' for rp with someone other than my stalker has started to flare again. I expect it will have died back down by the end of the week. A dog don't live if it ain't fed, ya get me?
And...that's about it. I just posted something here so I wouldn't have to see that sucking void whenever I open up my friends page.
God, I always feel so terrible for anyone who has to share a theater with us.
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| Being a jerk |
[16 Sep 2009|02:52pm] |
It's been a while since I posted something, huh?
...
I'm going to go do my Chemistry lab write up now.
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| Cruel irony |
[26 Aug 2009|02:34pm] |
Received Final Fantasy: Dissidia in the mail today, but the PSP charger I ordered hasn't arrived! So now I wait. On the other hand, I'm not too hyped up about the game. I got it solely for Zidane, and once I play through as him, it just won't be as much fun. Also, school is looming and ominous as junior IB. I will have far too much to do by the end of next month to have more than a couple hours of free time on weekdays. Which isn't too bad. Thank god I'm not in any clubs or sports teams. I don't know where they find the time. And there will always be weekends.
Plus, before I play Dissidia or Professor Layton (which I am also expecting in the mail), I really should beat Shadow Hearts. But there are so many subquests! I cannot decide.
Also, I got my textbooks yesterday. There were twelve, count them, twelve books. Katelyn is my god for driving me home so I wouldn't have to fumble books on an overcrowded bus. I don't like the bus this year.
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| Squeal! |
[18 Jul 2009|09:49pm] |
This morning, at roughly five AM, I had an epiphany. No, more than that. I had a revelation. Naturally, it was Final Fantasy IX related.
Let me first explain how I came about to have this realization. For one of my summer reading assignments, I must read How to Read Literature Like a Professor. It's actually a fairly dry, fun read, and I've only got a few more lengthy chapters to go. The guy regularly alludes to famous works as an example, citing people such as Hemmingway and Dante.
So, as I lay in bed, thinking random thoughts as I am wont to do, my thoughts turned to my favorite game of all time: the FFIX. I ended up thinking about a scene where Zidane is talking to Dagger almost right in the middle of the game. In good parable form, he tells her the tale of Ipsen, an explorer who's had many plays written about him. So I got to thinking about the name Ipsen. And then it hit me.
Who is the famous playwright, in real life, of the hit A Doll's House, cited in the above book? Henrik Ibsen.
Ipsen? Ibsen? It's too perfect to be a coincidence, especially with the mention of plays.
Not good enough for you? Okay, here's the second, big, less obscure revelation I had shortly afterwards. This one, I think you'll agree, cements the fact that the writers and translators were geniuses.
All right, this one's more central to the plot. In the beginning and end of the game, some characters are putting on a play (which I think is both brilliant in concept and execution). The playwright of this one is known to be a great writer, and has written many other plays. His name? Lord Avon.
If you don't get it, who's heralded as the greatest writer of all time in real life? William Shakespeare himself. Where was he born? Stratford-upon-Avon.
You can just imagine me hugging myself when I figured THAT one out.
If you still think it's a coincidence, allow me to educate the nonbelievers. The play is deliberately written and translated to sound Shakespearean. If you can find a video of the scenes of the play that are shown in the beginning and end of the game, you'll see what I mean (really, check; there's also a line that harkens back to the two previous FF protagonists at the end). Furthermore, it's clearly meant to pay homage to Romeo and Juliet, in that it's about two star-crossed lovers who die at the end - one by suicide, the other by more or less the same.
Now, if there are a lot of other people who've picked up on this, let me say that I am ashamed it's taken me so long to riddle it out. I first started obsessing over the game in first grade, when I was learning to read. Therefore, it's either appalling that it took me this long to realize it, or understandable since I had never heard of Henrik Ibsen in the first grade, and I barely knew who Shakespeare was.
Regardless, this was a treasure for me to discover. It sent me into, and I shudder to say the word, fangasms.
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| Every second a glittering grain of sand |
[15 Jul 2009|02:16am] |
Rey closed his eyes. It was easy, when you thought about it. At least, it was for him.
What was time, after all? He could hear it being killed with every tick of his watch, but it was born just in time to die again, starting the whole process over. Like the world's unluckiest phoenix.
So if you could hear the ticks of a single second withering at a time, if you listened very closely, somewhere you'd hear all the other seconds, seconds gone by and seconds to come. Minutes spent, minutes yet left. Shiny new years in the future, and the old, dusty years filed away, perhaps in a photograph, or maybe just as a memory.
And if you could hear them all pouring away, you could then close your eyes and try to see them, too. And you would, every second hanging in the air, glittering like grey grains of sand for miles upon miles. And if you moved even an inch, you knew you would disturb something, and that disturbance would ripple out to all the others. So you didn't move. You let it move for you.
If you could let water flow by you or carry you along to where you needed to be, then why not time? It wasn't like a river until you thought about it that way. Time was just an idea, after all. The birth of the first microbe, that had been the beginning of time. It had been built upon, with towers and buttresses and parapets, into a huge, insurmountable castle.
That was where everyone else went wrong. They tried to find the door to the castle. They thought that was trick. Rey moved through the walls, essentially willing them not to exist.
And it worked.
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| Fact: Layton is cooler than Holmes (the hats, for one) |
[11 Jul 2009|10:09pm] |
There is some fabulous Professor Layton fanart out there. I highly recommend all who have played the game (soon to be games) go out and look some up. I think this is going to call for a Layton userpic, if I can find one that both fits the bill and an artist who gives me permission.
Okay, it's settled. Next convention I actually go to, I'm cosplaying as the big L. He's easy to do, what with the shirt, pants, and jacket setup. The hardest part will be finding a hat worthy in stature.
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| Technically, it's a tortoise, not a turtle |
[03 Jul 2009|11:02am] |
Well, I received yay_cheezits' tortoise yesterday to look after it the week or so she's in Arizona. The tortoise has survived her first night in my room, so I figure as long as I feed/water her and she doesn't burrow her way out of the container (which she's been adamantly trying to do), I probably won't have to explain why I have a dead reptile rotting in my room. She woke me up at nine thirty this morning by bashing against the wall of her home, apparently having views about people who sleep in during the summer. I expect the rest of the week will be much the same, unless I either get used to the noise or put her in my brother's room instead while he's away. He has expressed displeasure toward the idea, but not abjectly refused, so it's a sort of permission.
She's an entertainment during the day, I'll give her that. Yay_cheezits has informed me that I may take her out and play with her if the urge so strikes me, but as the tortoise (MJ, I think it was? Unless they're not initials, and it's Emjay or something. I'll go with MJ, because either I'm right or it's a cool way of writing it) has claws, I don't think the fancy will ever arise. Listening to her scrabble about whenever I'm in my room gives me something to do. She likes upsetting her water and food bowls, and I have to refill her water a couple times a day while she happily digs about the wood shavings, now with lettuce trawling here and there. I don't really mind. It's interesting to have a new pet around temporarily, though my brother's departure means I have to remember to feed the dogs as well (I already took care of the cat and bird).
Speaking of the bird, I'd better go refill his seeds and water. He burns through those.
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| Written out of boredom |
[02 Jul 2009|03:29pm] |
I'm waiting for my brother to emerge from the confines of his room so I can play Persona 4. Perhaps this is cold of me, seeing as he's leaving tomorrow to spend two weeks in Kiev with my eldest brother. I figure I've seen him nigh every day for the past almost sixteen years, and will continue to do so off and on as we both reach college. I'm sure we'll communicate regularly through emails, and perhaps lj if he can be persuaded to take up his journal again. I'm not worried about losing touch so much as now the parents' attention will be zeroed in on me. All chores and most school expectations will turn their gaze onto me, being the last child left at home for two years. I expect to be spending my junior and senior years of high school out of the house as much as possible. I might do this by staying at school past school hours to look at scholarships or do homework or the like, provided I can get a ride home, or I might latch onto friends and go over to their homes from time to time. Or perhaps I'll start spending more time in my room and/or playing video games. Who knows?
Anyway, Persona 4. I played and beat Persona 3 last year, and was fairly well pleased by it. It's all fighting monsters and becoming as popular as you can with people you meet in the meantime. So once a week you might go do battle with ancient evils, while the rest of the time you're heming and haing over how to win your next girlfriend's heart, which isn't too difficult in half the cases. Hell, as long as you give enough attention, you could have all five possible girlfriends going at once. It leads to some awkward situations, but apparently the main character doesn't have any moral qualms about it as long as the girls' Social Links get maxed out as quickly as possible so you can summon even more powerful Personas to fight said ancient evils. But in the meantime, dates and hanging out with friends.
Persona 4 is more or less the same as 3, but with some tweaks. The reason I was so hesitant to play 4 until now was because a) the paralyzing amount of freedom, and b) I thought I'd pretty much enjoyed the whole experience already with 3. And I had, except people talked a LOT less in 3. You literally spend three to four hours just getting through the intro in 4. That's what I spent MY Saturday doing.
The problem with me is that I'm obsessed with doing everything and doing it right. I don't care much about the quests, but I want to know WHO I should hang out with on WHAT day and how much time I should spend boosting my Knowledge/Diligence/Courage/Understanding/Expression so I can have even MORE Social Links. And in between all that I need to make arrangements to fight ancient evils INSIDE A TV WORLD so a person isn't MURDERED the next time it RAINS or some shit. As you can see, a lot is going on here. This game gives you no time, and you have to meticulously plan your steps days in advance. The thing is, you don't really have to go through the trouble. You can just cruise your way through with some Social Links and focus on the battle part of the game, which everything is centered around in a really roundabout way.
I COULD be playing it like that. I sort of am. But there's a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that says I should be doing as much as possible with the time allotted to me.
I really like Teddy, though. He's a bear...thing that acts as your guide in the TV world. He makes terrible bear puns, such as "beary" instead of "very". I wish he'd insert something more clever from time to time though. What about "how grizzly"? Or "quite polar"? Ah well, you can only expect so much out of a video game translation.
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| A kobold, a mindflayer, and an orc walk into a bar |
[27 Jun 2009|12:35am] |
So a few days ago was Free RPG Day. This did not mean we received any free RPGs. Well, we didn't. My mother did. And that's what I'm about to talk about.
The only place nearby that was participating in the event that wasn't also hours away was an innocuous little store called Cool Games. It was ridiculously easy to miss, and you wouldn't find it if you weren't looking for it. In light of this fact, it occurred to me that this was no store for the mere hobbyist. No, if you found this place it was because you meant to come in order to satisfy your thirst for modules and dice. Yes, folks, this was a D&D store. They were THOSE kinds of free RPGs.
I believe I've mentioned here my mother's bizarre infatuation with Dungeons and Dragons since 2007. (My brother has recently been drawn into this, but mainly to the extent of listening to her online games every Wednesday and Friday night.) So she heard about Free RPG day from her fellow online enthusiasts and hopped on the wagon. She dragged me and my brother out of bed at the ungodly summer hour of noon and towed us along to Cool Games. I believe walking through that door is the nearest experience to a D&D convention that I'll ever receive.
90-95% of the people in there were male, and ranged from teenagers to a little younger than my mother's age. Most of them were hunched over some tables the store had set up, and were immersed in the game. We were easily the most out of place thing to walk in all day. It clearly wasn't meant to be a family environment, at least not where half or more of the family was in possession of two X chromosomes. We reached the counter amid calls of "I roll for initiative" and "I try to dodge the wizard's fireball." When we began talking to the person manning the counter (who had clearly scored low for Charisma in the great game of Life), it dawned on me why my brother and I had been shifted from our comfortable blanket coccoons. Each person who came in got one free thing on display on the counter.
My mother chose dice and handed my sibling and I a module each. My module was called Castles and Something or Other. She was very excited, saying that she had found three of the things she'd most wanted. We stood in line, I uncomfortably holding my module, carefully so it would not be provoked to burst into flames and thus lose resale value. It was at this moment that a gangly teen roughly my age walked up to me and started chatting it up with me.
He was surprisingly friendly, talking about the game I held gingerly and asking if I'd ever played that brand before. After twenty seconds of talking with him, I found him to be disturbing. He called me "baby". Nobody has ever called me that in public, and only in private as a joke. Even then, it wasn't as if it was a habit. My brother was giving him a weird stare. Clearly, he also didn't know what to make of the intruder. I realized after a few slow seconds that he was hitting on me. I immediately spent the remainder of the seconds we used there ushering my mother and older brother out the door and into the safety of our vehicle.
I related the incident to my mother, who thought it was a hoot. When my brother heard what the boy's intent had been, his disposition towards to the lad turned unkind. It was a surreal afternoon. I tried to get my mother to promise to keep this to herself. I don't know how successful I was. On a scale of one to twenty, probably a three. Perhaps a four.
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| Life is good |
[12 Jun 2009|05:03pm] |
Reasons why life is great:
1. My summer reading, while indeed consisting of three books, is not looking so bad.
2. Within the next half hour, I will be going to see a movie with my family for my parents' 27th anniversary.
3. Terry Pratchett.
4. I have a newfound love for the band Muse.
5. My shiny new Discworld userpics.
6. I had a good idea for a story, and I'm sure it'll come back to me in due time.
7. While still deriving enjoyment from rp, I am no longer by any means addicted to it.
8. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is coming out in a couple of months. Hours of puzzle-solving, here I come!
9. Three times a week, exercise of the hardcore variety is happening. Though this means I plan to challenge people to arm-wrestling contests once we go back to school (and one person in particular).
10. I have lovely fanart of FFIX (courtesy of yay_cheezits) to ogle and sigh over at regular intervals.
On the other hand, I'm probably not going to Metrocon. Pro: people will not have to deal with me. Con: No presents for you guys!
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| From Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett |
[11 Jun 2009|06:25pm] |
Azrael raised his finger to a face that filled the sky, lit by the faint glow of dying galaxies.
There are a billion Deaths, but they are all aspects of the one Death: Azrael, the Great Attractor, the Death of Universes, the beginning and end of time.
Most of the universe is made up of dark matter, and only Azrael knows who it is.
Eyes so big that a supernova would be a mere suggestion of a gleam on the iris turned slowly and focused on the tiny figure on the immense whorled plain of his fingertips. Beside Azrael the big Clock hung in the center of the entire web of the dimensions, and ticked onward. Stars glittered in Azrael's eyes.
The Death of the Discworld stood up.
LORD, I ASK FOR-
Three of the servants of oblivion slid into existence alongside him.
One said, Do not listen. He stand accused of meddling.
One said, And morticide.
One said, And pride. And living with intent to survive.
One said, And siding with chaos against good order.
Azrael raised an eyebrow.
The servants drifted away from Death, expectantly.
LORD, WE KNOW THERE IS NO GOOD ORDER EXCEPT THAT WHICH WE CREATE...
Azrael's expression did not change.
THERE IS NO HOPE BUT US. THERE IS NO MERCY BUT US. THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US.
The dark, sad face filled the sky.
ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION.
AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOME DAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.
Death took a step backward.
It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.
Death glanced sideways at the servants.
LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
He waited.
LORD? said Death.
In the time it took to answer, several galaxies unfolded, whirled around Azrael like paper streamers, impacted, and were gone.
Then Azrael said:
YES.
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| Dammit |
[28 Apr 2009|05:18pm] |
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I want to go live somewhere in Europe. Like Britain, or France if I can get by, y'know, without actually speaking French. People seem so much more polite and tidy. Stupid, corporate, commercialized AMERICA
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| Vocation in life |
[26 Apr 2009|02:27pm] |
So. I've been playing slots on gaia obsessively.
I feel I must note that I personally don't see the attraction of spending hours dressing up pixels with pixels. I just go on to earn tickets/a little gold for a friend when I have nothing better to do, with is about 30-35% of my time. So lately I'm just getting tickets to get said friend a jester hat or two to sell for cash money (It's looking like the yellow and blue ones sell better).
The thing is, it has brought out the inner gambler in me. More worrisome,however, is that it's brought out the stock market broker in me. I have more fun looking for the cheapest tokens on the market than I do actually playing slots. This is not considered healthy in any country/language. Therefore, I really think that when I go into the wide world and I'm trying to make a living as a starving writer, I will support myself by playing the stock market or something similar.
As far as I know, there are almost no children out there that will respond, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, "Someone who stays home and plays the world market! Also a pony."
Unfortunately, there has been no technology as of late for turning humans into ponies, so I have to go with the other option. But still I live the dream.
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| I'm going to force myself to do research |
[28 Mar 2009|07:10pm] |
WHEN AM I GOING TO WRITE AGAIN.
I want to get back on that! I just need to think of a story that I both want to write and think has a chance of being good. I really do miss writing well. I want to start doing that again, and implement some of the skills that I've learned over the last couple of years. It could be great.
Not to mention it would give me SOMETHING to do over breaks like this. All I've got right now is leveling up in Okage, finishing my history project on Maus, and staring blankly at the computer screen.
You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to start writing right now, without any particular aim of what to do with it. That's actually turned out to be a pretty good strategy for me. I tend to think something up as I go along, then spend several hours planning it out in my head.
Onward!
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| I will bet money |
[26 Mar 2009|07:20pm] |
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Some people just seem to be TRYING not to allow you to take them seriously. Like, ever.
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tetrawrath's journal
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/14/i-h