On Superstition

Superstition is actually a surprisingly rational construct. When someone was telling me about my being superstitious, I was rudely shocked. Me? Superstitious? Irrationality did not seem like something I would readily tolerate in myself. Indeed, it is the in-depth scientific analysis that separates rationality (as we understand it) from superstition.

Take for example the omens of bad fortune. Here's a hypothetical situation: I see a black cat. It is my superstitious belief that it portends ill fortune (no, I don't, in reality). Naturally, it will be my approach to attempt to prove this belief to be true. That very day, I fell and scraped my knee. Clearly, this is a form of ill fortune. I think back to the other times when bad things befell me because of the presence of black cats. A pattern was obviously forming: Black cats are bad luck.

The approach is surprisingly rational. Every time a black cat turned up, I seemed to have ill fortune. It is the same for people who believe they have special powers, or that storms portend a downfall. The correlation is unmistakable. However, it is their failure to establish causality that was problematic. Correlation without causality is insufficient to draw a reasonably rational conclusion.

For all I knew, I did have accidents on a regular basis. I only noticed those when black cats were around. That, or black cats did not increase my accidents in a statistically significant way. Without accurate record-keeping and analysis of the data, it can be quite impossible to get a fairly rational conclusion. Selective memory would cloud that area of judgment.

Love, Truly?

A friend asked me a fascinating question some days back. It is a question I am still mulling over. Is it possible to be romantically in love with more than one person? The situation is like...if you're already with someone, can you tell the other that you love him/her?

Frankly, I don't know. For one, I've never actually been in romantic love so I guess it's impossible to know for sure what I'd be like in a situation like that. Maybe I'm incapable of romantic love. I don't know. But theoretically, if one can love others (i.e. care for them) and do so for a whole bunch of people out there, why can't one be the romantic lover of more than one?

Of course, I'm not equating love to sex. That just isn't it. Then again, how does one know what love truly is? Is it exclusive so that declaring your love to someone would lessen it for everyone else? Is it such intense lust (Goddess forbid!) that you can't let that person go? I don't know. But if I were to hazard a guess, my response would be that it is possible to love more than one person, without the sexual connotations. Sure, maybe one would probably love someone more than others, but I feel it's possible to love more than one person...equally. Yeah.

Heart Of The Swarm

When I got back this night, I was greeted by a rather spectacular sight: Thousands of flying ants had decided to swarm around the lights at the apartment block opposite mine. They probably started swarming due to the heavy downpour earlier today. It was quite something. Intimidating enough that most passers by were quite reluctant to pass through.

Naturally, I saw this as a photo op too good to give up, so I grabbed my camera and stood in their midst to take some shots. Strangely, the insects were quite reluctant to get in my hair and nostrils and all that. They barely touched me. If anything, they started swarming towards the other lights, leaving me with a dwindling pool of subjects. This seemed to be quite the opposite for most other people, who were frantically swatting bugs from their bodies. I figure the bugs thought I was a horrible nutter who was inclined to eat them or something. Despite the rather intimidating appearance of the swarm, my impression was significantly different. It was almost like being in the presence of fairies, with wings fluttering to a unified cadence, illuminated by the warm lighting. I don't think I've ever been in the midst of so many beating wings.

But the insects also reminded me of the ephemerality of life. These are due to be dead by the next morning. All the evidence of their existence are their half-eaten carcasses and wings littering the floor. As my friend so succinctly put it: Having sex, then dying. In the big picture, humans are very much like that. What makes a human? Strip away philosophy and learning and achievements, and you find a swarming creature that lives only to reproduce...

Where Will I Go?

Wanderlust. It’s an interesting thing. I suppose some of us are never satisfied with the places we are born in. I sure am not. Of course, realistically, I have an advantage on home turf because of familiarity and the presence of kith and kin. Sure…things will be hard in a foreign land, but I guess that’s where the excitement really is.

I mean, everyone hears tales of this and that place. That’s what they are: Tales. Stories and anecdotes. The world is a big place. It is not “everywhere else”. A bad experience in a far off city does not automatically condemn the entire country. I suppose, if anything, it is essential to get a taste of even bad experiences. At the very least, it will help one appreciate what one has.

If it were up to me, I’d uproot and wander the world. I would change country of residence every few years to see what everywhere is like. It is sad that the state of the world makes that a wee bit harder. For example the distrust of foreigners and the difficulty of finding work, closed borders due to fear of terrorism and all that. It is becoming increasingly hard to wander freely… Not to mention the language barriers and how to keep the funds coming to support this endeavour…

The More We Get Together…

…the harder things get. There is such a thing as a saturation point in relationships. I guess the adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” does have some weight after all. Still, it needs a qualifier: Within reasonable limits.

It’s easy to get along with friends. However, I notice that most friends don’t exactly see one another on a daily basis. When that happens, things seem to go downhill rather more often. Take the case of married couples living together as opposed to a dating couple. Or how friends getting together to start a company can wind up becoming bitter enemies.

I have seen this happening even in my own friendships, where some start off really well but taper with prolonged contact. One of my schoolmates was so eager to know everything about me in the beginning, then we slowly ran out of stuff to talk about.

I guess it really is true that people need time to grow, and to be apart. Things change, and keeping one another abreast of developments is probably a good way to “catch up”. Yet when people are apart for too long, they grow distant and “you have changed” becomes a common enough parting phrase…

A Crackpot Scheme

Last night, I was walking to the train station when I was accosted by this man. He started fast-talking right after saying hi, and that was an instant turn-off already. Besides, it was in mandarin. But then he seemed desperate enough, so I figured I'd hear him out. After informing him that I wasn't particularly inclined to converse in mandarin, he switched to English.

He told me that he was on this entrepreneurship program and was required by his teacher to raise 100 bucks. *sarcastically* Wow. Then he told me his plan: Here's a box of paper clips. I'll sell them one by one for a dollar each, until I raise a hundred bucks. He said his rationale was that he couldn't possibly sell a box of clips for a hundred, so he'd do it piecemeal. What a crackpot scheme! I liked it so much that I'd have given him more than a dollar just to hear it.

Unfortunately, I would only give a dollar due to his delivery. For one, he tried to worm more money out of me by asking for two dollars. And then his fast-talking technique which nearly made me reflexively toss him away. Plus, he took too long to get to the point. If not for all these, I'd gladly give him 2 bucks. Hah!

Warhammer: Soulstorm

Ordinarily, I would not like Warhammer. I was never fond of the figurines, the concept and the whole pen and paper gig. Of course, that also meant discounting whatever universe it was that the community churned up. And then I encountered Soulstorm.

Now, that didn't quite get me to make a full 180 on my perceptions of the Warhammer universe. However, I really did like the game and it provided an interesting introduction to the dynamics of Warhammer. Naturally, I would like no faction more than the Sisters of Battle.

As a game, I loved it for its variety and balance. Some units may be more powerful than others, but even juggernaut-like units could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers of lesser units. I do not think the storytelling was quite on par with Starcraft, unfortunately. Even after climatic battles, the cutscenes seemed to lack the oomph that Starcraft captured so artfully. Then again, it's hard to fault them given the sheer amount of content they had, with tales interwoven between the factions. I like stories told from the perspective of the various combatants.

Overall, I think it's a good enough game (and a nice introduction to the Warhammer universe) but it lacked one key element: Veterancy. Granted, it may be hard to balance, but it would be nice if units could get stronger the more they fight. That'd reward players for not squandering their units...

Storytellers

I miss the storytellers of old. Back then, stories were not set in stone. They had a structure, but were able to adapt themselves as the audience required. These days, the stories are fixed in order to cater to as many people as possible. In trying to satisfy everyone, they truly satisfy virtually no one.

The bards could spin a tale as and how the audience wanted. If they wanted to hear of a noble knight saving a princess, the bard could make it so. If the audience wanted the noble knight to fall while on his quest, it would be so. There was less impatience, with people willing to sit around hearing tales over a winter's fire instead of trying to get as much drama into a short stint as they could. Perhaps that lack of overtness in the tales was also stimulating enough to the imagination that it bred storytellers of its own.

I like the idea of the dreamtime, and how stories can come from the other planes and affect the realities elsewhere. In a way, the story is always real someplace, somewhere. No matter how absurd the story turned out to be, it was true. Of course, that bit of enchantment was probably lost as well. Apart from children, few audiences are willing to accept what would be widely regarded as illogical storytelling...

On Wanderers

If the destination is more important than the journey, the wanderer has no reason to journey. A single trip to the destination will suffice, for after which there is nothing more to explore except at the place of comfort.

Just yesterday, I felt the wanderlust again. It was like the calling of the runes, the summoning of my past. I seem to have a fascination with the runes and the concept of walking between worlds. Perhaps some would figure I'm the shaman type, neither fully in this world nor every other. There is something to detaching oneself from the prison of the body and exploring everything else within reach.

Some would call it the Dreamtime. Others the dreamwalkers or astral travellers. They come by many names, but the ideas are similar. I was never fond of divination and neither do I believe in the fates. We are free to make our own fates, which makes us the wanderers. Of divination, no future can be certain and a casting can only call up a probable future which is little different from every other possible future. Yet I feel that the runes have a power, and can be a useful guide.

It is strange how I can have encountered them so long ago in the past, yet come across them yet again entirely by chance. I was at the library and saw a novel about someone using runes. In addition to awakening an ancient call within my blood, it also made me seek out places with a sense of mystery. While wandering, I chanced upon two stores that stocked the esoteric paraphernalia I knew back then. Ah, well...the gut knows, and it leads true.

Beowulf

I rented that CGI flick Beowulf. Frankly, the first thing that turned me off about it was that it was CGI. CGI blood never looks as nice as the physical theatrical variety. That aside, I think Beowulf was a rather interesting retelling of the old epic.

For one thing, I really pitied Grendel this time round. I always wondered about what it would be like to tell the tale from the perspective of Grendel and his mother. Nobody really cares about the lives of monsters, only the fact that humans were killed by them. Then again, it's always the humans killing the monsters in the end. Seems to be roughly the same thing, if you ignore the they-started-it-first argument. This time, Grendel was a rather pitiful creature, and seemed frightened rather than purely vicious.

Overall, I think the main thing that sold me on the movie would have to be the epic battle sequences. I especially liked the demon thing Beowulf did: Damaging himself so he could slay the monster. It is not a typical human approach to a problem. I can't really say that the movie is original, since the story has been retold like a zillion times. However, I do appreciate the retelling of the story. It highlights the weakness of men, and I think it was a fair interpretation of the key themes. That means it earns 7/10

An Inhumane Experiment

If I were asked to do an inhumane experiment, the first thing I would try involves investigating whether the human “need” for social contact is a product of nature or nurture. As things stand, many are convinced that the average human shows signs of distress in isolation. Indeed, this is corroborated by the effects of social isolation on the shipwrecked or even in isolation wards in prisons. However, it cannot be denied that these were distressing situations to begin with, and those humans in question were brought up to crave social contact.

Thus, a trio of experimental groups will have to be formed. There will be 1) a control group brought up from birth in a normal environment 2)another without any social contact 3) and one with nonhuman social contact. After bringing the test subjects up for 25 years (25 being the end of the major pubertal phases, and presumably cemented neural pathways at their peak), they will be put together in different combinations to see whether they would make attempts at social contact.

Naturally, it is expected that 1 will attempt social contact at all times. However, the outcomes for the other two are unknown thus far. If humans are social by nature, groups 2 and 3 will attempt to make social contact, but find themselves limited by their training. 2 would not know how to communicate, but would attempt to set up some kind of protocol for communication. 3 would probably have no trouble switching from nonhuman social contact to regular interpersonal contact.

However, if social neediness were the result of nurture, 2 would have learned to live without social contact and make no attempt whatsoever at relating to the other two groups. 3 would resume their nonhuman communication protocols and not bother with that, as well.

Confounding factors, of course, would include the fact that just about any committee would regard this experiment as inhumane, for reasons obvious to them. We also have the case of group 3 basically having social contact, albeit through nonhuman media. After all, even books are written by humans and constitute a form of social contact, just as contact with animals counts as social contact of another sort.

Hell

It does make sense after all. Hell is a place you put yourself in until you feel better. After all, we have our own demons to fight. They could be from actions, inactions or just about any other nasty/regrettable event encountered. The best thing is that we go into a place of suffering to experience them, again and again and again...until they die.

Slaying a demon is not easy. It's certainly not like what Buffy or every other "demon slayer" on Hollywood flicks. I think the funniest thing is that the demon is basically slain when you realize you don't have to fight it anymore. That the event that spawned it is no longer relevant and can be put aside. That is probably the best form of punishment, and it is entirely self-inflicted.

Everyone can get out of their personal hell. The catch is, of course, people kill their demons over and over again. After all that killing, they forget to forgive themselves, and resurrect their demons anew. The cycle ends only when people finally decide they do not want to stay. Some prefer to stay on...

Hitman: The Movie

I always watch movies based on games with extreme trepidation. It is always too easy to mess up the core story with a shoddy attempt at dramatizing it. I understand that not all games make for good movies, and Hitman is one of the many that certainly won't. Sneaking around won't cut it for the average gunfire addicts, so I expected some artistic license with the show.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they did stick mostly to the subject matter. Number 47 is still the (mostly) heartless asexual contract killer. When I saw 47 with a woman on the promo posters, along with guns blazing in the trailer, I was beginning to worry that he had gone over to the dork side. Granted, he was way too tender for my taste and talked too much in the movie, but I suppose it was an essential part of the dramatization. After all, he did redeem himself by promptly sedating Nika as she tried to seduce him.

Of course, as a fan of the game series, I was disappointed that our dear 47 was attempting to get a Mass Murderer rating by pretty much slaughtering everyone he encountered. I am still puzzling over the assassins showdown, too. Swords instead of guns? That doesn't sound like my Toby at all! The one I know would simply shoot them all...if he even got into the situation in the first place. I'm sure there was plenty of room to insert some really sneaky killing, presumably making the process humorous or thrilling at the same time.

I think the movie deserves a 3/5. Primarily because of what they did to my Toby. I do not regret watching this on rental because I would have felt it was a waste of my movie money.

Iron Man

I think perhaps the Iron Man movie will be one of my more memorable outings. I was watching it with my friend at like 9.45pm. By the time the movie ended, it was pretty late (or early) and we were feeling peckish. The natural approach here would be to go grab a night snack, since we jolly well knew we were going to miss the bus anyway. After a nice long chat at Macs, we decided against taking a cab. So yeah...it was basically me and him walking back till the wee hours of the morning, with sporadic worried calls from both our moms. Ok maybe that was a bit irresponsible, but I think it was fun. Going out at night is way better than in the daytime, along with a bit of spice knowing that it's also easier to get ambushed then =p

Anyway, I loved the movie and it's not from the afterglow of having a nice long night walk. I think they managed to somewhat capture Tony Stark's personality, peppered with the amusing process of him working on the improved Iron Man suit. (I shall refrain from snickering at the name "Iron" Man, at this juncture).

Seeing as how this was based on the comic, I figure there's little to comment on except for the fact that I'm always at least mildly peeved when movie makers inject some contemporary political concerns into the films. Granted, it makes them feel more "authentic" but I cannot help but see that as a passing attempt at flag-waving.

Overall, I liked the movie for the characters, special effects and especially the obligatory showdown. The exploration of corruption in a business context is also interesting, albeit cliched to the extent that my friend could see what was coming the moment he saw that big boss Tony Stark had a lackey. I'd say this one deserves 3.5/5. It would have been 4, if not for that particular Afghanistan scene. Oh, and no I didn't add any points due to my night outing. =p

Bad Teacher

I found a major character flaw in myself, and it is something that must be rectified through careful balancing. It would come under the wider classification of not practising what one preaches. Me...I like it that people keep an open mind about just about anything. If something is contrary to their beliefs, the nice thing to do would be to evaluate that on its own merits and decide for themselves whether the contrary view is a worthy addition to their own belief systems.

Me...I find myself having a knee jerk reaction to such views. That is, my carefully analyzed world view is set such that anything contrary would actually force a review of large segments of it. In fact, acknowledging certain alternative views would imply that my initial logic was faulty. This need not be so, and thus it is actually a logical flaw in itself. After all, alternative views can coexist and this may even be dependent on the concept. Count this as a self-reminder not to automatically screen out alternative views, Fenris.

Being such a bad learner at times, it casts a pall on my liking to be a teacher. In a personal sense rather than academic, of course. A bad learner has a tendency to teach yet more bad learners. It is a chain that must be broken. Then again, problems exist only because they are waiting to be fixed...

Universe At Production

I guess today would have counted as fairly productive. Got back, had dinner, played some games and actually gotten down to tidying my room. It's really the tidying bit that made my day. Sometimes it's just sickening how I can let things get like post-hurricane messy and leave them that way because I just don't have the time/inclination to getting down to actually working on clearing the mess. I mean...there are so many other things to learn and stuff to do. Who has time for the mundane unnecessary things like tidying? Ok...at least till it reaches the stage where it's hard to get into your own room. That's a sign, I tell you.

Anyway, I think I'll have to tell Universe at War: I quit. For starters, it started lagging like mad on my comp for no apparent reason. That's a fine dealbreaker. Especially considering it was running just great a day back. But I just feel so sad about how such a nice game could have wound up so poorly implemented in single player. I mean, it's well balanced, has some unique takes on the RTS faction warfare and it doesn't let humans take centerstage in the narrative. Yet they saw fit to totally remove the research tree from single player and provide such a terribly cliched story.

Ok so maybe I'm a bit different from the gamers who play for the multiplayer. I'm quite the exclusively single player sort. At the very least, single player should serve as a sort of tutorial for multiplayer mode, introducing the player to the ins and outs of how the factions operate. They seem to have decided to leave that out here. Comparing the story to Starcraft, they just seemed to have a knack for hitting all the wrong spots when cooking up cutscenes. Where Tassadar's sacrifice was heart-wrenching, the Founder's sacrifice was really rather an anticlimax. Where Fenix's doom was merely suggested, Orlok's death was taken to unnecessary detail and left nothing to the imagination. I guess I'm going to need some cool down time before I decide to take this up again and actually finish it off.

V Revisited

V For Vendetta is a remarkable comic series. I think this will have to be the third time I've gone over it. Yet I seem to get something out of it every time I reread. This time, it reminded me of what I stand for, and sporadically fight for: Anarchy.

There is a difference between anarchy and plain chaos. Truly, it is between a land of do-as-you-please, against a chaotic barbaric landscape of take-as-you-please. The authorities take issue with the concept of people coexisting peacefully without a fascist leadership in place. They are right to do so. After all, who would need them, when everyone learns how to get along?

Of course, reading it also gets me really sad. My favorite hero dies, only to have another live on for him. Like V, my idea of a perfect society is almost pure wishful thinking. But like V, ideas are bulletproof.

Products Of Our Experiences

We are all products of our unique combinations of experiences. There are times when I prop my pillow up and think about what life would have been like if my younger days didn't turn out all sucky, and I had all my wants largely granted. They aren't extravagant wants or anything, but it basically means that life would've gone a heckuvalot more smoothly.

Of course, I came to the same conclusion as always: Had things all gone my way, I would hardly be the one I am today. If I didn't get beaten and bruised all through elementary and high school, I could have simply wound up as one of the mindless masses.

Red pill? Blue pill? If I were offered the blue pill today, one that could warp reality to make my past the way its shiny equivalent would have been, I'd throw it away as far as I could. Even though reality itself had changed and my resultant life wouldn't have been a lie, things just wouldn't be the same. I would probably never think much about why life is as life is, or meet the same people who would guide me through life. Perhaps it is better to have the hardened exterior and a nice squishy inside, than it is to be squishy all over and just waiting to be squished.

I don't ever want to live a lie, and neither do I ever want a life without awakening. If the stimulus, however painful, does not exist, neither would the urge to better understand oneself. Or the world. Or why flowers are pretty. Life would become a blur of trippy, flashy lights like the ones I see when I zone out, and when the train hits me I will know nothing about what happened in between. That is not something I'd like to have in exchange for what I already do.

Soulmates

If a soulmate were a player class, it would be a support class. Some religions believe that souls make pacts before rebirth, that they will support one another in the life to come. That is, often helping one another attain spiritual enlightenment.

Strangely enough, soulmates need not turn out to be the spouse or best friend. In fact, they could well be the worst enemies who work indirectly by disgusting the soulmate enough to force them back onto the path to enlightenment. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it does make a twisted sort of sense.

This is not to say that I necessarily believe in reincarnation or soulmates, nor shall I discuss my past-life experiences. It's just that sometimes there are people who come along, whom you just can't stand. They seem to be such turnoffs that they lead you clean off whatever track they had been taking. Strangely enough, these have indeed caused me to avert various potential disasters. Soulmate? Coincidence? I'd say at the very least it's quite an interesting concept.

Bioshock: The Movie

Nothing's fixed yet, and I'm wary ever since Hitman and Doom...but BIOSHOCK IS GOING TO BE MADE INTO A MOVIE. Of course, it may turn out to totally suck and I'm quaking at that prospect. Then again, it's gona be directed by Gore Verbinski (the director of POTC), so I hope I can keep my hopes up. Again...BIOSHOCK IS GOING TO BE MADE INTO A MOVIE!

On Relationships

Relationships are very delicate things. In fact, they are so finely balanced it's a wonder that they exist at all. One such balance is about neediness. On one paw, being too needy will creep the other out. Like, say, wanting to do the exact same thing at the same time. On the other paw, being patently un-needy is just going to introduce distance into the relationship. Between the two, it can be difficult to gauge. There is a lot of probing to understand where the other stands on this issue. Perhaps going a step further to see where it goes, then hurriedly backing off when the other shows signs of unhappiness. The process is repeated until the other's personality is well understood.

Sounds like a lot, but that's just one balance point amongst many. Variables within variables within variables. When someone says that relationships are a lot of work, chances are that they are. There are a whole bunch of variables to compute, and it doesn't help that people change over time. It is remarkable, the amount of effort people put into keeping relationships healthy. Sometimes I wonder if it is also the strain of maintaining relationships that makes people cut themselves off from other less significant relationships.

I hear that cortex cells go into growth overdrive during puberty, and that neural pathways are being refined at that time. If the pathways were not established properly, the cells degenerate and I guess that causes personality changes. Theoretically, someone who is constantly illogical during puberty would grow up to be an illogical person because logic cells fry themselves (if such a thing actually happened). Perhaps the same thing happens to relationship cells?

Storm Of Sustenance

What has happened in Myanmar is a human tragedy of incredible proportion. That it has taken a massive toll on human life and induced suffering of an intensity beyond words. Yet it must be noted that, in the great scheme of nature, such an event is but a blip on the radar.

At risk of sounding inhumane, as far as nature is concerned, such an event is actually of benefit to the environment. Fewer humans to throw the land off balance. Sea water and rainwater to irrigate the fields. Bodies to rot and fertilize the soil. Agricultural experts have also predicted a bumper rice harvest as a direct result of this event.

Perhaps people should take this time to remember the transience of life, and how the world never truly ends…only human life as humans understand it. Such is the way of mortals.

Being A Dumbass

I'm the sort of dumbass that never learns. If there was a judgment day and everyone watched my life on instant replay, they'd laugh their balls off (where applicable). See, the problem is that my gut is almost never wrong. If I were to "see" something, chances are that it would come to pass. Despite this, though, I always seem to persist in cooking up some thought to basically override what the gut tells me.

Like today? I was intending to have dinner, so I went around the stalls. I saw a bowl of stuff that I thought I was craving. Then I got this nice little vision of a bowl of watery, unappetizing soup. My urges won out, however, and I managed to convince myself that perhaps these fellas would make me a decent bowl.

So yeah, I got my order and it was exactly the bowl of watery, unappetizing soup. Better yet, it was bland enough that I really couldn't finish it. The moral of the story? Pretty much what I've been trying to tell myself all this while: Trust your gut! Really. It's dumbassed to be so irrational as to pin everything on fat hope when the answer is so obvious right in front of me. Note that, Fenris.

Fingernails

Something my friend brought up really got me thinking: Why do (on average) men look at their fingernails with their fingers curled inwards, whilst women look at the same with their fingers outstretched and at arm's length. While I was experimenting with it, I found that it was indeed counter-intuitive to do that at arm's length when trying to see what was wrong with my nail's tips.

Then it struck me: the women who were looking at arm's length were examining the backs of their nails, whilst the men were examining the tips. It made perfect sense, considering those who cared about the backs of their nails were more likely to have painted them in the first place. The edges of a manicure are often well done enough that it's really the painted bits that really count. As for men...well...most won't even be painting.

My Reflection

I was soaping my face this morning and glimpsed into the mirror. I thought I saw an old, white-bearded man instead of my reflection. Talk about an inkblot epiphany. Is that what my self-image like? I always say that reflections are as they are, direct opposites of reality.

To paraphrase Mulan: When won't my reflection show who I am inside. I mean, I do truly feel like an old geezer at times. All wrinkles and weariness and feeling that I wasted my youth. Sans stubble and other old geezer stuff, of course.

Still, there was a certain interesting symmetry at play here. There could be no reflection more positively opposite to what I was in reality.

Buying A Life

By the way some people live their lives, it seems that they exist for the next paycheck. Of course, we will screen out those who have difficulty making ends meet. I'm really considering those who earn enough to have room for some luxury. Yes, arguably some of these sell their souls for pay. That is, they dedicate their lives to work so they can earn more to spend more and only to earn yet more after that. It's a joyous cycle.

There is always a consideration: Pick a job that pays relatively poorly, but is fun, or pick one that pays well but pretty much sucks. It is an interesting consideration, getting into something dry like finance in order to suck up more funds. Funds that will go towards early retirement. Presumably, this would allow one to do what one likes to do from then on.

But, just like everything else that sounds good on paper, there is always the specter of corruption. That is, the possibility of becoming so attached to the material things that one loses touch with who one truly is. After all, even saving for early retirement on a comparatively high salary will take a good lump of years. Things change, and souls die. Why would one risk selling one's soul for a high salary? It is relatively difficult to buy a life using material goods...

That Shopping Mood

It turns out I'm in the thrall of yet another of those shopping moods. I tend to get the variety that drives me to get all sorts of weird technological stuff. In this case, I drew up a wishlist of sorts: Headphones, new speakers, tablet, pc overhaul. Now, if I were to actually indulge myself, I would effectively blow all my internship savings and more. Not exactly a nice prospect, considering I'd be back to the square one I was before commencing the internship...plus some serious goodies. Actually, that does sound pretty good. Anyway, the priorities turned out to be: Headphones (essential), speakers (fairly essential), tablet (luxury, since I may or may not make full use of those), PC overhaul (luxury. Gona be a big ego boost, but I guess I can live with the performance of the current rig till my next semester, when I get to do the serious gaming =p)

Naturally, something had to give, so I opted to get myself a pair of Sennheiser HD202's. They were to replace the ratty Philips SBC HS520's. Not that much of a comparison considering the two are in entirely different price brackets, with one being plain headphones and the Sennheisers being solid closed earphones.

I was really second guessing myself at first, wondering whether it was really better than the other two I was considering: The Audio Technica SJ3's and Philips SHP2500's. They actually looked pretty good on paper, with both having a greater frequency range than the HD202's. The SJ3's were more fascinating by virtue of the greater portability and ability to do one-ear monitoring. The Philips pair were significantly cheaper.

Upon checking out the reviews and from personal experience of those brands, the Audio Technica would have to be out. In a way, swivel headphones were also more likely to break. The Philips simply didn't have good reviews, and I was skeptical about something costing half the price being quite as good. In the end, it was really the 2-years warranty of the Sennheisers, and the brand's reputation that won me over.

All I could say about the new phones was "Wow", but that isn't saying much considering that I was used to bottom scrapers and my dying 2.1 speakers. Then again, they probably beat the 2.1's since I'm hearing way more detail in the audio than I used to. However, the bass is nowhere near as good as that of a full subwoofer, but I guess that's to be expected considering the size and price of the unit. I am hearing more detail on these than from the 2.1's. I'd attribute that to its closed ear design. Not noise canceling, but sufficient that I can roughly hear what is going on around me but cutting out the small annoying sounds like that of a ticking time bomb and my computer's fans.

Comfort wise, I was a bit put off by the weight, but it turned out the padding at the underside of the headband was really handy to keep the phones from sliding off, yet redistributing the weight away from the ears. Surprisingly comfortable, though I will take some time to get used to the warmth.

These things probably grow on you or something. I was really questioning the wisdom of my purchase, yet I started warming up to these. Ah, well. One down, and...quite a lot of shopping to do. Kardon speakers, anyone? =p

Pretty Faces

I guess I would have to agree that it really is the prettier gals who worry the most about their looks. Of course, this includes the prettier ones who don't realize it. I mean, chew on it, if you're really that ugly, a bit of extra ugliness probably won't take you down a notch. For those who are like all the way up there, even a pimple can seriously detract from the perceived ideal. That's not hawwt.

So yeah, in a way I feel lucky not be be way up there. Nothing much to worry about in that area.

Dignity In Death

Death is not to be feared. In fact, if there’s anything people should fear, it’s the indignities other people will put their bodies through after they’re dead. I mean, just dying and rotting on the pavement is pretty much the most dignified way for the body to be treated.

While this may sound unusual, consider the myriad other undignified ways for people be treated post-mortem. In many modern countries, there's embalming. Maybe being spiced and wrapped up in bandages like a sausage is out of fashion today. Instead, they'd rather flush the innards and replace the blood with preservative (much like a sausage), then burn (like a sausage) or bury the lot. Let's consider the bbq they call cremation: It's basically a grill that overdoes the bodies to the extent that they're quite unusable for anything but fertilizer. It's not even edible anymore.

Then we have burial. With or without embalming, they basically toss dirt over the body because it's too shameful to be shown in public for extended periods of time. Of course, exceptions occur when the embalmed body is displayed like a choice buy otherwise inedible sausage. Burial without embalming? The body becomes worm food, then perhaps dug up to be bbq'ed when they find that the cemetery is really sitting on a bit of choice land. Talk about a double whammy.

A marginally more dignified treatment would be for the body to be eaten. After all, it's slightly better to be non-worm food than worm food. One becomes poo, after all. But at least the body goes directly towards nourishing stuff without turning to mush that stinks the place up, and, in some cases, this act is done with some degree of reverence. Worm food ultimately becomes worm poo anyway.

Now, how about being left where one died? Granted, it's not dignified either, but at least the body is not subjected to weird treatments. Of course, given this logic, I can only conclude that those who sensibly fear death do not really fear what comes after in the sense of the afterlife, but what others would do with the inert body afterwards.

Parallel Conversations

Sometimes it's amusing to observe how parallel conversations occur. It usually happens when a bunch of polite but uninterested people try to talk about stuff. I observe that sometimes when my parents talk to one another, and when they're talking to some neighbours they don't really like.

What effectively happens is that they keep acknowledging what the other says, what with the regular nods and all that, but they have absorbed absolutely nothing from the conversation afterwards. It could be a repeat of the exact phenomenon when I asked them what they talked about, and then they tell me that they totally forgot.

Perhaps the most amusing anecdote would be yesterday when dad tried to order beer. He told the serving wench that he wanted a bottle of beer. Mom figured that it was too much, so she wanted a can. He insisted on a bottle. Fair enough. The wench kindly told him that they didn't have cans. They only had bottles. He said he wanted only a bottle. She said they had bottles, but no cans, so that would be fine. He said again that he wanted only a bottle. She repeated that they had bottles, but no cans. At that, he just brushed her off and canceled the order. Ah, the amusement of the day.