Suspension Of Disbelief

I've been thinking about movies and TV shows, and sometimes I think the writers really do not think through the mechanics behind the distinctive features that characters have. Take for example Tron, where the "disc" is one's most important possession, but it's effectively used as a melee/thrown weapon and really is voluntarily cast away from the user pretty often. And well...it's a virtual universe, right? Where are my machineguns or other equivalent ranged weaponry? It does seem like that would make combat a whole lot easier.

Then there's the matter of the Vampire Diaries, where the daywalker vampires (seemingly the entire bunch of them, really) have to wear some sort of trinket to allow them to walk in the sun. Well...yeah you guys are vampires, right, with super healing powers and such? Why don't you just surgically implant them, so the trinket doesn't just get lost or something. It'd be a good precaution, against having it fall off in the middle of a football game and then suddenly someone becomes a pile of dust. Or ashes. Or whatever. 'sides...these creatures are also all super strength and super speed. You'd think they'd be quite resistant to the average human trying to stake them, or even from ranged weaponry like guns. Why...if a vampire could move that fast, surely they could pluck bullets out of the air...

Well, these are really just two examples of the bunch of stuff out there that just doesn't really make sense. While I am perfectly capable of suspending my disbelief to some extent just to enjoy a narrative, I really do think writers need to think the distinguishing characteristics through a little more carefully so that such blatant contradictions do not trip up an otherwise unique character profile.

Law And Order

Presumption of innocence, taken to an extreme, can be every bit as bad as presumption of guilt. I was talking to a friend about how the law works where he is, and I was told that the police basically brought the presumption of innocence to the extreme. For them, a crime only occurrs if it succeeds. As such, someone who attempts to hold up the gas station but fails to do so is deemed innocent of the crime, and will have no penalties resulting from the attempt.

I think it's pretty obvious how such a system is totally broken. If someone tries to break into your home, but fails because you beat the crap out of them, you may well be in for an assault charge even as the would-be burglar walks free. That seems to be major suckage to me. Of course, the converse is just as bad, when one can be charged for a crime purely on circumstantial evidence that leaves quite some doubt.

It seems that while presumption of innocence is something that will keep innocents from being wrongfully convicted, it may also result in innocents being made victims of crimes from being too easy on the would-be criminals. Ultimately, there has to be a balance between the two. Unfortunately, as it tends to be with human systems, it is rather difficult to find that delicate balance point

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows...part one

Way to go, producer dudes! If a cash cow franchise is coming to an end, make the ending extra long. Like two episodes long. Gota love capitalism.

Gripe aside, I do think the movie was reasonably well done this time round. I was quite disappointed with the previous one, and really I'm not a Harry Potter fan though a friend or three would tend to want to watch it with me anyway so I just tag along. That said, I do so like it when stories take dark twists and become permeated with a general sense of desperation. It mirrors life of so well, and I dare say I can relate.

Mmm there's not a lot I can say that won't be a spoiler, and well most people probably already know the story so it hardly will be anyway. My conclusion is that the movie's worth maybe a 7/10. Pretty good, but then I've got my biases.

Personal Power

To me, a feeling of empowerment is extremely important. Integrity is equally important. As such, when I encounter people who operate contrary to my philosophy of life, I get pretty peeved at them. This is not a rational evaluation of them as people, but rather as a measure of their own life's philosophies.

One example is personal relationships. Take friendships, for example. To me, a friend is a person who is friendly to me, and whom I can trust to guard my back to some extent. As such, there are few people I would actually call friend, and a whole lot of friendly people who are just friendly in relational terms. I wouldn't trust friendly people with my back. Now, I've learned that some people view friendships in terms of debts of gratitude, which disgusts me to no end. One does not take on a friend primarily or perhaps to a large extent due to the fact that friendships allow one to ask favors of another. That would be improper, in my opinion. To me, a friendship is primarily about trust, in that if the shit hits the fan, at the very least you can be sure the friend isn't going to backstab you. For those who know me, they'll certainly notice that I rarely if ever ask them for favors, because to do such a thing is an imposition upon the friendship and it sullies the relationship.

Integrity aside, personal empowerment is something that I feel is essential to everyone. Of course, I do not expect people to agree with me, but that is my opinion regardless. I was quite displeased when some people told me about something they did not like, but that they were unwilling to speak up (or complain) about it because they feared possible repercussions. In my opinion, a valid complaint is valid regardless. It should be presented to the relevant authority in a polite, logical manner. Any reasonable authority should be expected to receive this criticism in good spirit, and act accordingly. To fear to speak out is to accept personal disempowerment. That is unacceptable. I do not claim that discretion is unimportant, and indeed sometimes there are better times to speak out. However, there is no excuse for keeping mum out of a what-if fear. Worse yet, if someone uninvolved in the problem is told that others are afraid of speaking out because of their fears, the person is forced into an unhealthy situation: She can become involved by becoming the voice (and therefore a patsy) of the oppressed, or she can become a hypocrite by leaving them to pluck up their courage to speak up for themselves. True, it may not be actual hypocrisy by not speaking up for others if the only thing keeping them quiet is their own fears and not some actual risk of personal harm, but it certainly does not leave the affected one with a good feeling about herself anyway.

The other thing related to disempowerment is self-deprecation. This is even worse, because one is now voluntarily underpricing oneself. Again, there may be tactical choices made to hide one's prowess in special situations (like to avoid a fight, for example), but overall I believe one needs to be truthful about one's abilities. When someone is clearly self deprecating, my respect for them takes an instant nose dive. On the flip side, I can tolerate boasting but overboard boasting also ticks me off.

On a related note, deprecating others is something that will guarantee a perception nose dive. For example, showing a lack of confidence in another's abilities is plain offensive. If someone claims that they can do something that's plausibly within their abilities, saying something to the contary like "We'll see if you can REALLY do that" or its variants is just nasty and mean. Even if it's in jest, there's a pretty good chance that I'd be offended. It's bad enough to be out in a world where everyone's challenging one another to prove themselves with stupid acts. It's even worse when someone's challenging someone else to do something that they can plausibly do and will probably do anyway. To issue such a challenge robs the challenged of honor: There is no glory in achieving the goal because doing so can effectively be considered doing someone else's bidding. There is shame in failing to achieve the goal, because the challenger is proven right.

Overall, my rant boils down to the core idea that one should first live for oneself, and not for others. Only through being comfortable with oneself, can one truly come to terms with the concept of helping others. There is no life in living for the sake of approval by others, or from believing oneself in some way inherently inferior to others. We are all Great Ones, if we would only be willing to embrace our potentials.

Let Me In

Well I'm just back from watching Let Me In with a coupla friends. Long time friends whom I've not met for over half a decade now. It's amazing that they still remember me. Anyway, 'nuff on me and more on the movie. I dare say that I really did appreciate it, and it's a rather decent remake.

Now, the narrative is largely the same as Let The Right One In, and it does stay reasonably faithful to the book's narrative even though a few key areas were significantly changed. In fact, I am struck by how the director managed to reproduce choice phrases from the translated book practically verbatim. I dare say that the camera work was stellar, and while the film was made with almost exclusively close shots, the intimacy of the scenes were striking to the extent that one did not miss the establishing shots. I would call it a masterpiece in terms of camera work.

As is expected, the remake is significantly bloodier than the original, and a whole lot less subtle. In fact, the very act of making the blood and some key action bits obvious has resulted in fairly comical moments. I would not help but see Eli/Abby as Gollum in certain scenes. Some drawn out struggles wound up laughable instead of brutal. That aside, I certainly felt for the acting, and it really was close enough to the original to be worth seeing as a comparison. I also do wish the directors would refrain from turning every damn story into a romance.

I find that the original suffers for the lack of awesome camera technique, and this remake suffers from a lack of subtlety. If the two could've been put together, with the camera from this and the subtlety and narrative from the oldie, I'd have the perfect rendition of the rather fine book. I'd still give this movie an 8/10, however.

Defining Dinner

Sometimes I wonder if I just had dinner, or if it was lunch. Seeing as how I wake somewhat late on weekends, I would define it as lunch, by my standard. Who cares about what society says about when dinner really is. If it's the second meal of the day, I'd call it lunch. By my definition, there are generally 3 proper meals in a day, even if the meals are voluntarily skipped (in which case it's simply a skipped proper meal). Therefore, the first meal is breakfast (regardless when you wake), the second is lunch, and the third is dinner.

Then, out of curiosity, I tried to find out just when the three meals were, in other cultures and other eras. I was fairly surprised to find that the meal timings were hardly as ordered as they are today, and in fact three was really quite an arbitrary number anyway. It just so happens that the current culture simply favors having three meals at these rather specific times. I expect that the timings would shift yet again in the next 50 to 100 years or so. Perhaps the trend would be towards 5 mini meals instead. Or 7. Who knows. Maybe they like prime numbers. Anyway, that said, I now find nothing wrong with defining my mealtimes as I like to. After all, if humanity in general can't really make up their minds over just when a proper meal is taken, I see no reason why I can't concoct my own definitions. And I'm standing by my definitions till I change my mind. So there.

Reunions

Yesterday, I met a friend I did not personally meet for just about 6 years. I guess my friends and I have a rather unusual perspective of time, seeing as how we can jump right back into a rather familiar conversation as if we last met the day before. Perhaps it has something to do with how little we change over the years. I know for one that I am still readily recognizable by people from my earlier years. I guess overall we don't really change as much as we think we do.

Anyway it's been really great to finally meet up again, at a comics convention no less. In fact I did bump into a number of people who knew me, and it's really so nice to see the fellas I'm reasonably close with. I think the key differentiator between those I regard as acquaintances and those I regard as friends is not just the trial by fire thing (which would define my inner circle), but that they have not forgotten the important bits of our time together even despite having not met for like ages.

In fact, I did not exactly recognize my friend when she first glomped me. It's something I do feel somewhat bad about, but then again I'm bad with faces and it doesn't help if people change even slightly. Hell I often can't recognize the same face if a picture with a different expression was presented to me. That aside, I had little trouble getting into the swing of things, and I guess that's a mutual memory and that's what counts. Much as I don't necessarily value relationships with humans, I do say that some are worth keeping. Some.

Avoiding Silver

There's a reason I avoid silver: I get weird reactions with the metal. Or something alloyed into it. Whatever. Which is, of course, why I'd favor alloys like stainless steel and lead-free pewter. And then I realized that lead-free pewter could have silver in it as well. Lovely.

Well the background of the situation is that I got this really nifty ankh I've been meaning to use for a charm on my bracelet. It was sold as "silver pewter", which silly old me figured was...well...silver-colored pewter, since most pewter's silvery anyway. Guess I was wrong. I wore my ankh a couple days, and noticed a strange black residue that showed up on the back of my hand where the pewter was. At first I thought it was leavings from the blackening treatment on the stainless steel, but then I realized that the coloring was not under the steel at all.

Then I recalled that I tended to get weird reactions from silver, and the metal would leave black residues on my skin as well. It clicked, and so I had a check online about pewter...and behold. It seems that some pewter does indeed come with silver mixed in. Lovely. Well, I've had similar situations before, and the solution's always the same: Give that sucker a coat of nail polish. QED. Still, it is an item with the exact right shape, size and appearance, so I guess I won't be hunting for a replacement.

Let The Right One In

I just finished watching the 2008 version of this story, and I must admit that I am quite enchanted by it. I've seen my fair share of fangporn, and frankly it does get old after awhile. This one, though, it manages to convey the savagery of a vampire's feeding without making fangs and blood the star of the show. More importantly, it deals with a rather touchy issue of a quasi-platonic romance/friendship between a pair of young boys (albeit one being quite a bit older than your average human).

The narrative is quite faithful to the original book, choosing to showcase key moments from the novel and toning down its sexual aspects. The depiction of bullying is as poignant as the novel's, and truly one can sense the menace of the bullies here. On a side note on the casting, I find it amusing that Eli was actually played by a real female.

On the whole, I'd say the movie's totally worth watching if you can find a DVD of it somewhere. It's a refreshing take on the vampire genre, and rather touching in parts. I'd call it a clean 9/10.

On Immortality

One of my friends was talking at dinner about how he desired immortality. I found it rather amusing, and tried to get him to define exactly the sort of immortality he desired. It proved to be quite a challenging enterprise.

We started off with the typical understanding of physical immortality, that the immortal is incapable of dying. It was all well and good, except that the immortal may not be invincible. What may potentially result is perhaps the chance to become an eternally living pile of ash after incineration, because one is just incapable of dying. Hmm...not so desirable. Perhaps we should throw in preternatural regeneration, vampire style.

The next thing one would wonder at, is whether one could potentially regenerate oneself from a single shed skin cell. In effect, one could perhaps eventually grow an infinite number of clones of oneself, making individuality a rather hairy prospect. Very well, then. A single coherent individual must be maintained even though one is perfectly capable of miraculously regenerating oneself.

Yet, even with a perfectly functional regenerative system, there's no guarantee that one will mentally remain identical to how one was before becoming immortal. For example, the popular idea of becoming a vampire tends to take away one's humanity, so that one's out. So another condition would be that one must maintain one's psychological faculties and essential personality. By implication, one should remain in control of the immortalized body.

After considering the basic personality, another problem came up, since the personal experience of living eternally is quite different from a mortal existence. At some point, one's mental state will begin to diverge from that of an average mortal, because time becomes considered in terms of eternity and boredom with life in general may sink in eventually. In short, one can become a rather depressed immortal that is incapable of killing himself (by virtue of his immortality). It really is quite an undesirable state to be in.

In short, a desirable true immortality turned out to be a rather hairy thing to define, full of if's and but's. It also seems that, without an exit option, one may wind up stuck in a rather unpleasant situation. Ultimately, while one may wish to stay forever healthy, death remains a desirable option at some point...just in case.

Sick Of Christmas?

This may sound strange, but I am frankly getting sick of Christmas carols. By extension, I'm losing my patience with commercialized Christmas in general. I find it singularly absurd to see Christmas decor being put up sometime in the last week of October, only to have it dragged on all throughout November. Hell, it's not even December and I'm real tired of seeing all the Christmassy decorations for a festive season that's over a month away. In fact, instead of making me feel like "It's the season!", I'm feeling more like "Man that thing's never coming, you assholes."

What irks me even more is that when I pointed this out to one of my friends, she said that well...December IS Christmas. Which really...that...well I have nothing to say to that, honestly. People, wake the hell up. December is NOT Christmas. December 25th is. Everything else is commentary. It would be nice if the decorations could come up within a decent window like perhaps at the start of December (or at least after Thanksgiving) so that people can get into a festive mood, without having to see the same color scheme and hear the "cheery" music over and over again. Really. Auld Lang Syne is a (bad bad bad bad bad bad bad)^infinity song to hear sometime in November, let alone late October. To you capitalist pigs out there: Fuck you. I hope you're happy that I'm not.

Megamind

Megamind. Yep it's animation. Since it's animation, we all know how it'll really end: Happy ending. After having watched How To Train Your Dragon, I've come to realize that the creatives aren't afraid of making the endings bittersweet, and I think that's really cool. Well this one isn't. It's got a sweet ending. There. Spoiled it for ya.

Now let's get on to the meat. (Which I happen to like. Bloody, if at all possible.) Megamind's about a misfit alien who just had everything go horribly wrong with his life. This is the classic case of a misfit being forced into being bad. Then of course, he's got a rival alien who's got everything going right for him. Jealousy and rivalry. As is predicted, good will prevail...somehow. What I like is that good doesn't prevail in the most painfully obvious way. No, Metroman doesn't beat the snot out of Megamind, letting Metropolis become a hero-ruled place living happily ever after. On the flip side, I do wish they'd let the villains win once in a while. Or at least remain mostly evil in the end. Seriously.

Overall I'd say that I liked the twists in the plot, even though the constraints of happy ending animations kinda made the twists somewhat easy to anticipate. I'd still say kudos to the team, who managed to make the animation really funny, touching in parts and overall much more satisfying than it would've been as the obvious narrative. I'd say that while the graphics and special effects aren't exactly the most realistic I've seen (and perhaps that is intentional as an art style), the story itself gets a neat 7.5/10 from me. I sorta liked it, but then I shan't knock it for not being my kinda show.

Gracie

Well I've finally had the opportunity to attend an introductory Brazillian jiujitsu seminar with Royce Gracie himself. It's really something to have a hands on session with someone you've heard of, and is effectively a legend in the industry. It's a lot like me having a game design workshop with Will Wright, or Ian Livingstone. Awesome!

There really is something to the techniques in BJJ, even though I probably will not be likely to commit to mastering this exceptionally sophisticated art. I am constantly amazed at how easily a BJJ expert can manipulate someone on the ground, even if they resist, to the point of establishing a perfect submission hold. The expert can just as easily maim the person using just a little more force.

However, I find that such groundfighting does not mesh with my general self defense objectives because indeed getting out of a ground situation and ready to escape or take on another opponent would be the sort of situation I am more likely to be in, rather than a one on one duel exclusively on the ground with a single assailant. Which, of course, seems quite in line with what Krav Maga teaches. Anyway, I am very much honored to have had a basic class under Gracie and having learned a few little techniques. This will be one of the more memorable moments, and a fine entry in the blog.

Generic Systems

There is value in designing generic systems that are basically highly flexible. The merits of such systems is that their attributes are sufficiently generic so that they may be reused in different forms without requiring a complete redevelopment of the system every time something is changed. In short, it saves a lot of unnecessary busywork.

An example of a generic system is seen in how someone would make...say...a fireball spell and magic missile spell. A generic system can generate both the fireball and magic missile's effects without requiring excessive external development. In short, one will not be coding the two spells independently.

To achieve the development of a truly generic system, commonalities must be distilled from the forseeable requirements. A magic missile spell deals direct damage from homing projectiles while a fireball deals AOE damage from dumb projectiles. A possible generic system would have variables like damage, speed of projectile, area of effect and a boolean value for homing. Therefore, a fireball may have attributes like AOE: 50, damage: 20, speed: 40, homing = true while a magic missile may have AOE:0, damage: 30, speed: 50, homing = false.

The balancing factor here, however, is whether creating the generic system will indeed save more effort than it takes to do everything in a one-off manner. Yet, it is generally a good idea to go generic even if the obvious gains are marginal, simply because one can never forsee whether the easily created variants are going to come in handy just beyond the forseeable future.

The Human Factor

I've been puzzling over creating an optimized system that would run well with the presence of humans, and I realize that it really is awfully hard to get humans to stick with the system. Firstly, it is expected that humans will have differing opinions of just how optimal the system is, and invariably seek to "improve" it by various actions ranging from suggestions to outright disobedience.

In fact, humans themselves cannot be trusted to administer the system in the way originally intended, because they are likely to form different interpretations and opinions about the rules. These aspects of free will invariably serve to color and vary the implementation of the system. This is not to say that the variance cannot possibly be an improvement on the system. Unfortunately, if the system was carefully planned to achieve optimized results, it is very likely that any tweaks attempted would simply result in a less than optimal outcome.

Realistically, one may choose to approximate such a hypothetical system by factoring in the probable suboptimal human responses to each of the rules, such that the net effect of following the rules will be in line with the optimized plan. Unfortunately, this may involve implementing certain extreme penalties to strongly nudge probable behaviors away from suboptimal directions...

Apple Cider

I was having a drink with my colleagues this evening, and I managed to sample Green Goblin apple cider. For a drink that's 6% alcohol, it tastes remarkably like Jolly Shandy. In fact, it is a lot like a beer that manages not to taste like pee and still has a respectable oomph.

Cider aside, there really is something invigorating to having a drink with friends at night. Especially a bunch that's capable of taking my jokes without spewing their dinners shortly afterward. It is a good crowd. It also helps that they're not particularly inclined to spend the entire night drinking, which rapidly becomes a bore after the first few drinks.

Overall, it's been a good week. Big meetings, things going well overall. It is nice to feel like one's actually achieved something, aside from the usual daily grind. It is also comforting to know that I am still growing. The day I stop growing is the day I should change my career path.

Were-Hamsters

When I was considering the spoof of the Twilight saga, it does make me wonder why every were-creature seems to be some sort of highly aggressive carnivore. Were-lions, wolves, panthers, sometimes birds of prey. You rarely hear of were-hamsters or gerbils or guinea pigs, or even gazelles.

A friend proposed that a were-creature has to be aggressive, and carnivorous because they're more likely to bite. However, were that to be true, then we should be having a lot of were-hamsters and perhaps were-mosquitoes, since they are biting creatures and may well transmit the were-syndrome.

I think the general rule is that a were-creature has to be conceptually cool. If the creature in question is not cool, it is unable to transmit the were-syndrome. Alternatively, an uncool animal may be sufficiently unnoticeable that a were-uncool animal would pass unnoticed and never be noted in popular folklore. Of course, I have little doubt that the ancient lorekeepers have records of these creatures hidden somewhere in their archives.

Living The System

The people are a reflection of the system they are in. I was thinking about crime. Take for example the chance that a gang of hooligans decides to assault a lone person. Intuitively, one should be justified in using any means necessary in order to stop the attack and thereby defend oneself. An extension of this self defense is the possibility of justifiable homicide.

I was discussing the matter with some friends, regarding how they would defend themselves in a life threatening situation. Indeed, the ideal solutions would be to avoid the conflict in the first place or perhaps to flee. Yet, sometimes I do wonder whether flight is always the best possible option to aid one's survival. If flight is not an option in a situation, the logical thing to do next is to stand and make a last stand.

Realistically, one cannot possibly expect to defend oneself against a large group of assailants. However, it may be possible to take one down in a sufficiently intimidating way such that it discourages the rest from continuing the assault. One such method is a messy kill. It was pointed out that if I did exercise that option, I would be slapped with a lawsuit even in the unlikely event that I should succeed.

That got me thinking. If the use of deadly force is never justified in self defense, the system weighs fairly soundly in favor of criminals (or assailants). They have already committed a crime by acting as aggressors, yet one cannot respond with deadly force to avoid becoming a victim of aggression. Such a mindset may also explain the reluctance of bystanders to intervene in an assault, not just from the prospect of being harmed, but also from fear of legal repercussions from trying to aid another person. Whether the legal system does indeed rule in this manner seems to be less relevant than the public perception of how such rulings go, with respect to how a responsible citizen would or could respond in these situations. Indeed, the perception of the system is sufficient to shape the behaviors of those living within it.

Love Thyself

I believe one's first priority in life should be to learn to love oneself. I find it curious that loving oneself is often associated with narcissism and is thus generally frowned upon. To me, loving oneself and being narcissistic are two different things. One's about having a healthy self-love so that one does not develop self esteem issues, and the other is about loving oneself to excess such that one becomes incapable of considering others' needs.

In my opinion, one is incapable of truly loving others if one cannot actually love oneself. In fact, those who do not love themselves seem to be the sorts of people who act in a mean manner towards others, or seem to mechanically perform beneficial acts without self-motivated intention. For example, I know of people who have a very other-driven aspirations. When they do things, it's exclusively for the sake of other people. I do not believe it to be a bad thing to wish others well, regardless of the origin of those motivations. However, I find their situation to be precarious, because the actions are done in an effort to seek approval from others so they feel validated in loving themselves. Basically, should that approval disappear for any reason, their self esteem crashes. It is not unlike a junkie seeking a fix.

Then again, self-love is not necessarily something that is easy for everyone. There are various reasons for it, ranging from real personal problems to trouble overcoming social conditioning. I suppose it helps some that I am something of a narcissist and would generally do things primarily for myself, but then again I also have little trouble doing beneficial things for largely altruistic reasons. Regardless, my view of life is to first love oneself, and the other loves will follow. Mostly.

The Writer's Gaze

I was reading the work of a local writer, and basically found the writing style to be clumsy. I tried to identify exactly what was clumsy about the style, which seemed quite common to new local writers.

The style, as I would describe it, is akin to having a fixed writer's gaze. A novel, like a movie, has a gaze. This gaze essentially is the camera in a movie or a perspective in the novel. When the gaze is fixed, the narrative starts feeling stilted. An example of such stilting is the constant act of describing what happens in the story from a fixed perspective. The woman enters the bathroom. It has pink tiles. She turns on the water and soaks in the tub once it is full.

Now, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the description. It does indeed let the reader know what is going on in the scene. However, the perspective taken also creates a sense of distance, with a distinct lack of richness. How does the bathroom smell? What are the sounds? Is there something going on in the immediate area? Undoubtedly, there are times when distance is desirable and can even be used to create suspense. However, when an entire story starts being written with such distance and lack of sensory richness, it gets stale in a hurry.

Losing Their Religion

Sometimes I think that certain churches are losing their Christian direction. Correction, perhaps more than just sometimes. The very religion is full of contradictions, but I think the worst one is when legalism is allowed to supercede grace.

I am talking about the way these churches turn away those perceived to be "sinners". Now, of course, it is a Christian ideal that people avoid sin as far as possible. Yet, it is also recognized that the church is meant to serve as a sanctuary for sinners, since its presence would not even be needed if everyone were truly blameless. Indeed, at that point I'd say everyone was in heaven.

So the problem here is that if certain groups of "sinners" are kept out of the church, would they not become a group of "unsaved" people and made so by the neglect of those who are "less" sinful? Shouldn't the goal of salvation be to let everyone in on the deal, but leave Big G to judge? Truly, I think, there are a goodly number who have lost their direction.

Knowing What You Want

When it comes to game design, it can be quite difficult knowing what one wants especially with regard to balance. I love the mid production phase when a lot of stuff isn't in yet, but it's sufficiently complete that people start believing that they have an idea of just where the balance should go. It's a real awkward situation.

In fact, it can be somewhat bewildering. On one paw it's entirely possible to keep tweaking the balance until everyone is satisfied. However, by doing so, not only is there unnecessary work from the constant tweaking, it also becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of less than legit changes made to achieve balance in the interim state of the game. This is a comparatively small matter on a small project, but the difficulty of maintaining documentation on a large project is very much harder.

Then again, the tweaks can also be viewed as iterations. In general, the higher the number of iterations, the more the balance is refined. By that logic, the balance should be constantly tweaked.

Of course, I did figure a balance point to my balancing approach. Specifically, that the tweaks should be made periodically to address the most significant flaws, while keeping in mind the overall direction of the project. That basically means leaving some flaws out of the fixing cycle such that they serve as a constant reminder of just what is still missing. It is not pleasant, but it serves its purpose.

To Calibrate A Response

Ideal responses and real responses differ, and I think most are quite aware of that. Today, I was pondering the way my colleagues often defer to their superiors. Basically, they cut out certain responses in a bid to somehow not offend their superiors. While I can see how this can be a useful survival technique, I do view such deference as a form of cowardice and not quite an optimal way to deal with superiors.

Now, my view is to treat everyone as equals. That is regardless whether they are the world's most powerful president or the lowliest beggar. Of course, since some beggars can be quite irritating, that does not always hold true. However, I do not permit myself to be intimidated by someone's social status on its own merit. Ultimate, I would treat them as I would any other person, unless I receive a very clear signal to the contrary.

My view is that such an approach is more optimal, because one never knows just how receptive a superior may be to casual but respectful conversation and suggestions. It seems quite pointless to gimp one's own opinions by having the default view of one's view not mattering. If anything, the superior may well be swayed to one's view through other means. In fact, that can circumvent the superiors' right to overrride a view that they feel is contrary to their goals. In brief, I believe a subordinate should never sell themselve short.

To Scent

I think living in an urban environment tends to nudge most of us towards heavy uses of sight and hearing as the primary senses. Touch and taste come next. And the last one that's of major significance seems to be smell, except perhaps when it comes to food.

One thing that's been fascinating me lately is how people smell different. I'm not talking about the obvious scents like nasty body odors or heavy perfumes, but the general biological and acquired scents of each person. Some females smell particularly musky, and somewhat different during the different times of month. Others are mostly scentless except for the lingering aroma of the shampoo/skin cream/sunblock. One of my male colleagues smells faintly of beef and something of dog, and yet another male colleague smells something of goat and something vaguely metallic.

Consciously recognizing each aromatic signature is key to knowing who's standing behind me, along with the other signs like the general height and mass from the floor's vibrations. Besides the identifying factor, it's just interesting to pay attention to the less used senses for a change. I guess that is how animals with stronger senses of smell become able to readily distinguish between people. Being able to mentally mark out the individual constituents of each scent goes a long way towards identifying unique aromatic signatures.

Representation

Sensationalism and plain social bias are key factors in ensuring that homosexual people remain sidelined. As we say in media writing class, a dog biting a man is generally not news, while a man biting a dog will make it to the papers. Now, whenever a paedophile becomes involved with a young kid, it is invariably something that makes the papers. In fact, it would be wrong not to reveal the presence of such unacceptable behavior. There is no intrinsic moral wrong in doing so.

However, since such crimes are newsworthy, and the achievements of homosexual individuals are hardly so, I imagine the popular representation of homosexual individuals would be quite negative in the press relative to their positive representations. Again, this is not intrinsically morally wrong. It's just media writing and deciding what is nesworthy.

Basically, given that homosexuals are a minority (and all that entails), and are simultaneously under attack by certain groups of people, it stands to reason that these negative representations are simply used as a means by which to condemn them. Undoubtedly, such acts are quite unfortunate and understandably revilved by the community. Worse still, decent gay folk are rendered quite invisible.

Overall, the popular perception is difficult to reverse. The media's other duty is to inform the public, and I believe they are right to reveal the unsavory acts of the black sheep. However, what can be done to help the situation is to give some indication that the crimes, while undoubtedly heinous, are not the norm. Certainly, priests may abuse altar boys, yet I seriously doubt a majority of priests do such things at all, let alone on a regular basis. Should there be an attempt to make peace between the factions (impossible though that may seem at this point), it may be possible to persuade both sides to self police and somewhat improve this sordid situation.

Survival Of The Sickest

I've been reading this fascinating book on genetic "diseases" and evolution. Granted, I have not finished it at the time of the writing of this entry. However, I do like what I've read so far, and I believe that while it does overlap the subject matter of Parasite Rex somewhat, it does have more of a focus on genetics and that topic has always interested me.

The book is easy reading, and does alert me to just how limited my senior high school biology education has been. (And I thought that was pretty hefty by itself). Basically, what I learned from my classes was that evolution was, at best, introduced to new genes through the vagaries of random mutation on a rather minute scale. Perhaps some of it could be from gene exchanges through sexual reproduction. Yet, my education failed to at least hint at the possibility of genes switching position outside the context of sexual reproduction, that they could be switched on and off prior to fertilization such that the on and off state could possibly be passed on to the offspring.

I've always suspected that evolution was more active than I've been taught in school, primarily because the adaptations that parasites come up with seem to be suspiciously pertinent to their needs. After all, if it were always a case of a random 1 in a million parasites coming up with the fix, then repopulating to that million, it seems quite improbable that such elegantly adapted samples could just pop into existence even after a million iterations. Improbable, but not impossible, of course.

Of course, I'd imagine that should this subject matter be taught as well, my senior high syllabus would have been even more horrendous. Regardless, I've been introduced by this book to the adaptive benefits of certain congenital conditions that we popularly regard as genetic defects. It also sheds light on my own condition, and how G6PD deficiency could possibly be a good thing. Perhaps I should take care to avoid certain foods that I wasn't previously told to avoid. Hmm. Besides that, I'm also glad that I have not actually donated blood at some point, and risked dosing someone with my epic exploding red blood cells.

Fashion: Self Policing

Fashion is a pretty potent way to send a social message on a daily basis. The way one dresses sends a signal to others regarding the disposition of a person. It also serves as a check of social conformity. This is of course not a problem in a society that respects ones' right to individuality (within reason). Yet, it is a huge penalty in a society where conformity is important.

For example, someone dressing in a manner contrary to the climate and popular culture will most certainly draw attention. In fact, curious bystanders are likely to snap pictures of the person and spread them over the internet. That aside, in a conformist environment like high school, someone not conforming to whatever expectation the gen pop has of them is very likely to face some rather unpleasant social reprisal. I am talking about bullying.

Simply put, fashion is a sort of social confmity test. If one fails that test, there are consequences. A strong-willed individual may go fuck all regarding this, and do as they wish regardless other peoples' reactions. In reality, that is not always the case, and someone winds up victimized as a result. Undoubtedly, this self-policing is potent, and very real.

An Interesting Question

When I was heading home after a drinking session at a bar, we met this rather interesting transvestite (in full drag, no less). He/she turned to me with rather obvious bewilderment on his/her face and asked me: Are you a man or a woman? I suppose the irony of the question was lost on him/her. I simply responded by saying: That is a very interesting question. My friends were quite creeped out by the experience, especially since that wasn't quite a convincing drag getup, and with a rather interestingly masculine voice. I think I have served my stint as mysterious night creature this time round.

What is interesting though, is how such a person who indeed does seem quite willing to transgress gender boundaries by going about in drag at night yet turns out to be so concerned about the formal delineations of my gender. If anything, I'd have thought this person would have set them aside at least for the crossdressing stint.

That is not to say that I have not asked myself that question before. So far, my response has been...does it really matter? Sometimes, after much thought, my conclusion is that...it doesn't really. Androgyny for the win!

Those Senile Delinquents

I am becoming increasingly annoyed by the rising incidences of senile delinquency. Now, the situation is that some old folks are starting to believe that they have some kind of entitlement to a seat on public transport simply by virtue of the fact that they're old. While I do agree that we all have a duty to protect those weaker than we are, there is a difference between being willing/unwilling to do one's duty, and to have someone arrogantly presume that you need to do your duty for them simply because they expect as much.

Now, what happens when an older person is standing before you on public transport? One's duty would come to the fore if the older person (or any other person, for that matter) shows that they are in greater need of the seat than you are. That, or they can voice it out if they show no external signs of weakness but need the seat regardless. Yet, it irks me to no end if someone simply stands in front of another, expecting that their mere presence would coerce the person into giving up their seat. No cookie, my good chap. The standing around and looking imposing bit is largely my role, thank you very much.

I believe that everyone should do their utmost to be civil in all their public dealings as far as possible. In the event that someone chooses to be uncivil in the manner of standing around expecting things to happen, then expressing displeasure when nothing happens because of their silence, I would put them in their place. Being older folk, I have even greater expectations of them, because they have been around longer than I have and I do expect them to have a greater understanding of what constitutes politeness. I do wish, however, that senile delinquents quit behaving like they do and thus giving other older folk a bad name. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure it's wishful thinking at best on my part.

Peeling The Dream

I am documenting my method for peeling aside the layers of my dreams in order to better understand them. I do tend to amuse myself by doing exactly that, whereby when I wake up remembering a dream, I get down to dissecting its contents as I remembered them. Of course, it is expected that some details fade from memory practically immediately, and the memory continues to decay, so it is useful to analyze the dream at the moment of recollection.

The thing I would do is recall as much of the dream as possible, then try to pay attention to each dream segment. From there on, I try to sift out which memory maps to each dream segment. For example, if I dream about a house with a river and a mountain nearby, the interior of the house can often be mapped to an interior I've seen in a movie, read about or just simply seen in real life. What comes next can be distilled further, like how the water is moving and what sort of emotion/experience it is reminiscent of. The process repeats itself till I become unable to reconcile the final dream segments. That's what I regard as somewhat original segments, in that they do not readily relate to a memory or previous dream.

Of course, this is not to say that the "original" segments (which probably are not) are of any particular significance. Except perhaps my rat dream and the other similar ones. Regardless, it is interesting to go through this exercise and realize just how much of a dream is really quite intrinsic however bizarre it may seem to be.

Brainwashing

Sometimes I think the term "brainwashing" is a subjective judgment of highly effective persuasion. Simply put, if someone's personality and opinions have been changed in what is deemed to be a positive manner, that someone has been persuaded. If the change is in a perceived negative direction, that person has been brainwashed.

That bewilders me, because I am trying to better understand just what brainwashing is, and how to differentiate it from plain persuasion. The loose way the term is bandied about does make me think that the terms brainwashing and persuasion are interchangeable depending on the arbitrary perspectives of the people deciding the label. For example, if someone suddenly decided to join an unpopular cult and started becoming exceedingly devoted to the cult, brainwashing is suspected because the person was not expected to originally be of the temperament that would nudge them towards cult membership. And given that the cult may be deemed detrimental to them, their devotion to it may be seen as yet another sign of brainwashing.

However, I've always wondered if they were indeed "brainwashed" as the term is understood. It may well be that the person genuinely believes in this cult for whatever reason. In fact, the term "genuinely" is dubious as well, since it may well be that the brainwashed individual and the persuaded individual both truly believe that they are devoted to the cult. How will one distinguish at this point? My current take is that perhaps the terms are differentiated by perceived acceptability of the persuasion, rather than any objective measure of brainwashingness. After all, I haven't heard of people being brainwashed into being perfectly good law abiding citizens. They were...persuaded.

Sharing The Blame

I was considering the case of gang rape turned aggravated outrage of modesty. Here, a bunch of guys gang raped a girl at a drinking party, but the judge later amended the charge to outrage of modesty. Granted, I do not know the exact facts of the case, so I cannot possibly make a fair alternative judgment, but I do think there is an underlying principle to such cases: sharing the blame.

Now, it seems that the girl has engaged in risky behavior, having gone to a drinking party as the only girl amongst a bunch of guys. Indeed, when people are drunk, they are capable of doing incredibly stupid things, so they are to some extent absolved of being expected to exercise their better judgment. Thus, she is certainly doing something foolish by putting herself at risk.

Yet, there is the niggling doubt here, that justice was not served. The principle is simple, in that a crime is a crime regardless of one's state of mind at the time, and regardless of the risk the victim exposed themselves to. If a man covered in jewelery was silly enough to walk into a lonely dark alley alone, I could reasonably expect that he'd be a target of an opportunistic robber. However, should the robber be caught, I seriously doubt that the robber would be charged with a lesser crime: the robber clearly robbed the man, and would be punished as such. The fact that the man was stupid enough to expose himself to crime is irrelevant in this case. In fact, the man's stupidity was already punished by his being turned into a victim of a crime of opportunity.

Back to the raped girl, my take is that if all involved were drunk and the guys were still sober enough to drag her out to be gang raped for a couple hours, they are certainly sober enough to have a niggling notion of right and wrong. While their state of intoxication can shed doubt on whether consent was given at the time, the fact that they did force themselves on a girl seems to be sufficient grounds to consider the crime a gang rape.

Of course, this assumes that a crime did take place. There is the flip side whereby it could have been that the girl did indeed consent to sex with all of them while she was drunk (or sober) instead of with one of them as claimed. In short, she could have cried rape. Conversely, the guys could simply gang up and claim that she was consenting at the time. It becomes a somewhat tricky call, because all were presumably drunk at the time, while their truthfulness and integrity of memory may be in doubt due to intoxication. Circumstantial evidence may serve to be the objective witness here, though the trustworthiness of the evidence is only as good as its interpretation.

Ultimately, however, I disagree that women should by default avoid such "risky behavior" to evade potential harm. Responsibility for one's actions should fall equally upon everyone. If the girl in question was at risk of being raped, it is the responsibility of those guys nearby to prevent their peers from doing so. To assume otherwise, that the woman is responsible for avoiding harm, is a slippery slope. How far should one go to truly avoid harm? She might as well hide at home wearing a full suit of armor and a chastity belt. Surely such a solution is unsuitable. As I've said before: if men were truly unable to control themselves, they should not be permitted to go out unescorted by a sensible woman. To do otherwise would be irresponsible.

I discussed the case with a friend, and after much discussion of avoiding harm when drinking, we found that there was no real way to avoid harm when drinking and have fun at the same time. If the girl drank alone with guys at someone's house, the girl is understandably at risk. If the girl drank with female friends at a pub, it is still not inconceivable that the lot of them would get stone drunk and carted off somewhere by a gang to be taken advantage of. If they drank with a mix of both genders, it is still possible that the guy friends proceeded to take advantage. The possibility, then, was to not get stone drunk in the first place. Yet, such an approach is still not suitable, since it is a fine line between being drunk and being amnesiac-drunk: One may not know when one will cross the line, depending on health status, drug use, food consumption, etc. The metabolism varies. The final solution is to simply ban alcohol (and other similar substances) to avoid becoming intoxicated at all.

Ultimately, it must be accepted that some risk is always involved when one is going to get intoxicated for recreational purposes. The risk is not the problem. The problem is societal attitudes that someone is disproportionately responsible for their own safety. In a case where everyone is equally responsible, the victim already bore the responsibility from becoming a victim in the first place. What is left is for the perpetrator to pay their dues.

My Poor Shades

I got myself a new pair of sunglasses a couple weeks back. I was rather pleased with them until I realized that the lenses both had a distortion in the material, causing the image to be blurry towards the bottom of the lenses. Naturally, I brought the pair to the store and the storekeep tried to replace the lenses. Unfortunately, the new lenses turned out to be darker on one side than the other, and the store had no more spares, so back to the supplier it went.

I got the pair back and it seemed like the tinting was even while the image distortion was negligible. Lovely...till I realized that more light was coming out the bottom of the left lens relative to the right. I thought I had them on crooked, so I kept adjusting them without success. After examining the lenses, I realized that one was on crooked. It seems that the lens was marginally oversized for the frame. After another replacement at the store, it seems like the new batch has the exact same subtly oversized lenses. Back to the supplier it went.

I figure the fellas at the store have me tagged for a fussy customer already, but it is really quite unusual that standard issue stuff (mine were not prescription optics) could have such production variance. Given that they were made in France, I shall be a bigot and declare that French engineering leaves much to be desired =p

On Madness

I was considering the Catch-22 situation, and really do think it is an interesting paradox: can a madman truly know that he is mad? The original postulate was one of absolutes, whereby a madman has to be absolutely ignorant of his own madness. However, it is interesting to consider the hypothetical situation whereby this is not the case.

For example, a madman may be aware of his own madness, but be unable to refrain from mad behavior. I recall with amusement the case of Fulgrim whereby he had the misfortune of realizing the madness of his ways after the death of his brother, just before the Slaaneshi daemon fully possessed him while allowing a fragment of his consciousness to gawk in horror at the daemon's actions.

A person thus afflicted cannot be reasonably held accountable for the involuntary actions of the body, yet in a world where people are largely expected to be in control of themselves, I do wonder how such a person would be judged. Guilty, I suppose.

Human Optimization

I was having a discussion and the issue of assholes came up. That is, humans deciding to abuse their privileges, be it authority or access, in order to have personal gain or satisfaction. My friend proposed that nobody was truly an asshole by nature, but is encouraged by the system (or circumstances) to exhibit asshole conduct.

I found the idea intriguing, because indeed abuse is only possible should an affordance exist. For example, I am unlikely to wrongfully arrest someone if I am not invested with the authoritative powers of a police officer. However, there is little question about the desirability of asshole conduct: to those who know right from wrong in a context, the decision tends towards whatever they might deem to be right at the moment. The assumption here is that asshole conduct is not done in a vaccuum out of purely malicious intent.

It occurred to me, however, that asshole conduct is actually a form of situational optimization. That is, if an affordance for personal gain is made available, it is in fact sub-optimal to pursue the "right" path. Take for example white collar criminals. While they are wrongdoers in the eyes of the law, they are also self-optimizing individuals because they spotted a flaw in their respective systems and wilfully exploited them.

Interestingly, the implication is that the morals we are ingrained with are measures of artificial de-optimization to inhibit the maximal exploitation of available opportunities. In a less than optimal enforcement environment, it is actually more desirable to inhibit self-optimizing behavior lest the whole system descend into chaos.

Inception

Let me be upfront: I loved Inception. In fact, I loved it so much that I watched it twice: the first being back in Kentucky. I suppose I would describe the movie as a cross between The Matrix and Mission Impossible. What happens when you try to fiddle with someone's memories, without them knowing? That is basically the crux of the movie.

Now, I can relate in a way, having had dreams of waking up where I realized that I really haven't. It's quite a bizarre experience. However, the concept of precisely navigating dreams within dreams in a perfectly synchronized manner in order to plant an idea in someone's head is quite a challenge. Of course, it does raise the obvious question of what, exactly, reality is. Weaving a tangled web of reality and non-reality, it really does force the viewer to think about what just happened and just where reality lies. The cliff hanger ending does reinforce that, as well.

It has been some time when a movie's encouraged me to think in the sense of I wana know what it is really about rather than trying to imagine connections in an incoherent story. I'd give the movie a straight 8.5/10.

A Quirk Of Memory

I seem to be having some cognitive issues lately, primarily in terms of visual recognition and short term memory retention. I can start a task, get distracted, leave it incomplete for hours (while convinced that I probably did finish it), then realize that I didn't remember finishing it off. Other times, I can read something, and comprehend it entirely wrongly. For example I could read numbers and not remember some of them or reverse their order, read letters entirely wrongly and similar misunderstandings.

What is interesting is that there is nothing wrong with my visual acuity. If anything, it's generally above average in anything but bright lighting conditions. However, just because I can see something doesn't necessarily mean my brain would process it as exactly what I see. I comprehend by reading inside my mind, and what comes out is what I understand as the message. Unfortunately, it seems that I have developed a propensity towards scrambling that message. Or dropping the signal entirely.

3 possibilities: I'm getting senile, developing ADHD, or am just plain sleep deprived from the punishing daytime schedule. For the sake of what little remains of my sanity and the general feeling of being totally messed up from having to be up through the daylight hours, my bet would be sleep deprivation. Note to self: It may be better to make sure parents don't shake me out of bed on weekends.

The Worth Of Love

How much is love worth? It is a question that was raised while I was stuck at Narita. Of course, measuring the exact value of love is a fool's errand, since humans value loved ones differently and prices will vary according to an individual's shifting moods. However, it is sufficient to know that there is indeed no true cap to the price of love, given the correct stimuli.

The situation in question is when a dearly beloved person becomes progressively incapacitated, towards death. Initially, expenses are justified in restoring the person to health. As the incapacitation worsens and greater resources are demanded, the real price of love becomes increasingly apparent. Given the resources available to an average person, expenses may well eat through all savings and might even force one to mortgage the primary dwelling in order to keep the loved one around. The question, of course, is whether it is worthwhile to do so.

Such a consideration is never easily resolved in real life. Human affection may be such that the price of love is effectively infinite, and every additional expense is just another last ditch attempt at saving a life. However, in the hypothetical situation whereby the situation is known to be hopeless, I do wonder if the human in question would actually stop treatment at a particular point and actually let go.

Heading Home

I managed to head down to Naritasan temple early today after a hearty breakfast at the hotel (with meat and fruit again!). The place was just gorgeous. I was also amused to note that I was walking on hallowed ground that was hallowed since 940 AD. That's some old territory. I also walked back via the Omotesando road, which was pretty much a shopping street in the old Japanese style. Pretty much exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to see in anime. Overall, I'd really love to visit these sorts of places rather than some old shopping district in Tokyo. If you're brought up in the city, every other city is kinda the same if not for the subtle differences and obviously the different kinds of architecture/shopping.

After the good long trip home, I finally hit the airport at nearly midnight. Lovely timing. Since I am pretty much able to sleep virtually anywhere, I actually did manage to have a good rest on the plane. My mom figured that I looked pinker from the experience. I am unsure whether I can attribute that to the meat or the brutal sunshine. Of course, the main thing after a trip is the usual unpacking, and then the preparation of the massive number of photos taken...

A Detour

Headin home. I flew down to Houston and was enroute to Japan when there was a medical emergency on board. The flight had to detour to Alaska (yay I've finally "visited" Alaska!). By the time we got to Japan, we already missed the connecting flight. Fortunately, Continental did a bang up job, having tickets to a replacement flight the moment we landed, complete with hotel stay and meal tickets.

I transferred to my hotel in Japan, both somewhat disturbed by the disruption, but also intrigued by the new opportunity to explore the city before my flight the following evening. The buffet dinner at the hotel was really good, especially considering the free flow of roast beef. Come to think of it, I really did get to have a lot of beef on this trip, with the hearty servings of beef stew when I was at the restaurant and at another eatery with my friend. I figure I probably would've gained some weight by the end of the trip. Anyway, early to bed, then early to rise for my visit to a Japanese temple tomorrow.

Moar Flea Market

Last day in Kentucky (I fly tomorrow morning), so I basically headed down to Frankfort Avenue for my trinket shopping. Unfortunately it turns out that a good half of the stores are closed on Sunday, so I did not get to view some of them. Regardless, I managed to have a look at a pawn shop and two trinket (vintage) stores. Crazy Daisy's Antique Mall was fantastic, as was the other place I visited along with Phil's Pawn Shop. From these places, I managed to get a bunch of rings. The other trinkets weren't quite as nice. One of them was a 10k gold ring, with a blood red stone that is probably garnet. Probably my favourite acquisition of the trip, after my photos.

Heading back to downtown, I asked my friend out again and we managed to hit the museum, hang out at the skate park and then catch a movie. We took photos together in the evening, and really...that's about it for Louisville. I'm gona miss the place and the nice people. Of course, seeing as how there was a not-so-nice person right at the end of the day, I'm sure it isn't exactly a city made entirely of smiles.

Flea Market, Gun Show

Today I met up with my conference friend and we headed down to the flea market at the Kentucky Expo Center. It had an incredible range of vintage items, beef jerky (YAY!) and that's when I realized just how cheap gum could be at the flea market. Yes it's new (non-expired) gum, that costs 1/6 of what I paid downtown. Talk about feeling cheated. Anyhoo, I did manage to grab myself some beef jerky to take home, and that really made my day. In thanks for the trip, I bought my friend a knife that he really wanted to have.

After the flea market, we went over to the gun show that was on right next door. Basically, we got to molest a whole range of awesome firearms and various combat knives. Having seen the price and heft of a .50 cal round, I really do feel sad seeing people firing off that M2 Browning. Overall, it was totally worth the entrance fee.

Evening was basically having a huge pizza at a wonderful pizza place, and as usual there was stuff to take home. That was possibly the best pizza I've tasted...like ever. There was as much cheese on top as I usually put on my ghetto pizza, and every bit as much meat as well. These people really know how to make pizza.

Last Conference Day

I presented my second conference paper today and I am reasonably pleased with the outcome. It is always nice to have an award. Anyway, after the conference, I was wondering where I should go in town and probably ride the Belle of Louisville when I learned that another professor was quite inclined to visit the tank museum at Fort Knox. Between the novel experience of riding on a real honest to goodness steamship and visiting a museum full of old military hardware, hell I would go for the museum any day of the week. Every ship largely feels like every other, as long as it isn't a speedboat or catamaran.

Anyway, the museum was smashing and had what was basically entire halls full of military hardware. Even though we had to hire a driver at quite some expense in order to get there and back, it was really a unique experience. It was in fact made even more unique because the museum itself was moving away from Fort Knox. Basically, that made us one of the last few visitors to the place.

The rest of the evening was largely uneventful. It was getting late, I was quite tired and overall there really wasn't a lot we could do anyway. Just a walk around the waterfront one more time, and then off to bed.

Around the town

Today was a fantastic day. I had my breakfast at the hotel, then managed to head down to the Old Town of Louisville. Just the ticket, considering that I am a big fan of these old places. I took the trolley down and marched about in blazing sunshine. Frankly, summer sun sucks, especially when it's approaching midday. Bitching about Sol aside, I nearly wanted to pull out when I started seeing the old buildings.

It really is quite amazing to see the old French-inspired architecture, amongst other buildings from the Victorian era. I even managed to hit the Conrad-Cladwell house, which was quite the quintessential richly decorated Victorian mansion. Overall, it was quite the tour of the town and its historic buildings. Unfortunately, I did not go for the ghost walk at night because I found out online that the ghost walk was really effectively a walking tour without actually going into the "haunted" houses. A pity, really.

Anyway, I headed back after that and had a good walk down the waterfront. It really is amazing when the sun's down at 9pm, because that means the sunset (and sunrise) is effectively a whole hour. Plenty of time for some serious shooting.

Conference Days

These two days were effectively conference days, with all that entails. I presented my first paper, and the reception seemed generally positive at the point. On the first day I went out with this really nice fella from the conference who gave me a spin in his Mustang, and we got to visit the historic Bardstown road area. Again, it was quite the place and the food was superb. It's a shame that most stores closed real early, so I was unable to do a lot of shopping.

On the second day, my post-conference time was mostly taken up by the conference dinner, so it was a lot of food and rubbing shoulders with minimal sightseeing. Regardless, it was nice to have a little walk around downtown area after sundown even though it was lightly drizzling at the time. I did hear that the area was prone to street crime, so I did avoid going too far by myself given that I was carrying some serious camera gear. Ah, well.

To Downtown

Morning at Louisville. I learned that the nearest (and most iconic) attraction nearby was Churchill Downs, a.k.a. *The* Kentucky derby racetrack. If Kentucky's known for its horsies, then CD is the place where it's all at. In theory anyway. It was a right fine place, and a good photographic warmup even though I was never really all that fond of the derby. I did learn some little things about the gig in general, and really it was quite the fun experience.

Of course, this was also my first taste of summer sunshine and I dare say it was singularly horrific. I set out early at 7am, figuring that I'd be back before things really got scorching out there. That's the theory anyway. It turns out that after walking to the derby track, mooching about the museum and all that, I was really heading back at around 11am, which was pretty much as good as high noon. Note to self: walking around at high noon is a painful experience and should be avoided as much as possible.

After checking into my hotel, the next thing was to figure out where everything was downtown, and plan my movements for the next day. I felt real fortunate to have a free city trolley service that could take me across town in air conditioned comfort. That was a real life saver and would prove to be most useful in the coming days. I hit a thrift store just as it was closing, and then basically wandered about getting my bearings with the aid of a map.

At Louisville

It was a really long plane ride, with a bunch of transits. Basically, here I am at my hotel after a free shuttle ride from the airport. One thing good about being me is that I can basically sleep in most places, including on planes. So far, it seems like I have little trouble with the time zone shift.

Unfortunately, as it's really close to midnight, there's little opportunity to explore the area except those immediately close to my hotel. Perhaps I would have an opportunity in the morning. All I can say is that the room's positively enormous given that I chose the smallest they had available...it'd probably fit 4 people comfortably. Regardless, I'd go get about the next day.

Off To Kentucky

This begins my log of my trip to Louisville, Kentucky for a conference. At this point, my key concern is not so much about the nitty gritties of presenting papers before an academic audience as it is about how I am to go about to the city proper and moving between hotels. It would be my first time navigating a new city a goodly distance away from home, and it is indeed quite a novel experience. The other noteworthy concern is how I'd deal with an exceptionally long plane flight.

Overall, however, I am pretty excited about the prospect of going so far, especially considering that the travel and hotel expenses have been covered. I have brought my laptop and main camera, along with my sidearm, so I should be pretty well equipped for an extended photographic jaunt.

Unfulfilled

It is a strange feeling, how unfulfilled I can be at times. I had another pang of it just now while heading home from my walk. I suppose what hurts is that everything is starting to feel routine. There are few truly new experiences, and I guess the best description for what I am feeling now is empty. Truly, I have achieved some things, and I guess life in general is going pretty well, but something's still missing. I can't really put a finger on it, though.

I guess I got a hint of what did get my blood pumping during martial arts class. It was a good feeling. The thrill of the hunt, as I put it, though that still felt somewhat unsatisfying. Perhaps I had simply not sated my bloodlust for too long. Well, whatever it is, the fact remains that I still feel somewhat empty inside, and there's a tingling urge for me to do something about it.

I went out today to get a feel of the camera in my hands again. I've not walked my gear for some time, and my trigger finger was itching. I am always conflicted whenever it comes to taking my camera for a walk. On one paw I am never thrilled to go out while the sun is blazing. On the other, that's probably the best time to grab shots given the excellent lighting. Ah, well.

The Value Of Life

There was this question I asked myself regarding the exchange rate between pleasure and life: would I swallow a pill that would make me feel good permanently, but has a 10% chance of killing me outright? In terms of odds, I'd say it looks like a pretty good deal. 100% chance of a significant benefit, vs 10% chance of total wipeout. On that evaluation alone, I'd say yeah of course! But then again, things are never that simple when evaluating a deal. My marginal utility of the option is quite low, considering that I wouldn't really be feeling all that much better since I'm not all that messed up in general.

This hypothetical situation is an abstraction of how addictions happen. In general, addictions will have some sort of wipeout-style drawback. Gambling addiction may result in financial ruin. Drug addictions may wind up with a fatal OD sometime. Yet, the good feelings gained from the addictions are what make them addictive (in addition to their own inherent addictiveness like in the case of drugs). If one is truly feeling mighty messed up, the exchange rate between pleasure and life becomes pretty low. It is a lot easier to shoot up some good feelings today and fuck tomorrow, than it is to endure another "safe" but otherwise awful day. Simply put, their marginal benefit from the experience is way higher than my own.

That is not to say that I do not have my own addictions. It simply is that mine are, while possibly harmful, generally not expected to have some truly lethal wipeout scenario. The black swan will show up when it does, but I can reasonably expect to survive that experience when it does.

Toy Story 3

First thought: just what was I expecting? It's Toy Story, after all. Anyway, this is the time when Andy grows up and the toys have to find a new home. The attic, someone's childcare center, someone else's home, the dumpster...you get the idea. Them old toys gota go somewhere.

Unfortunately, I think the story lost a lot of its drama when it was made known early on that Andy did not intend to throw the toys away. It would have done a lot better if the toys had a true story of woe, only to learn later that they were not junk. But then again, that's my personal bent.

Now, the premise is similar...toys go on an adventure, everything resets in the end. Only this time they have a new owner, since Andy's now off to college. I guess this is something I cannot really relate to, since I never really had those sorts of toys when I was a kid, and I certainly never imagined that my toys were anything else but toys.

While most other people can and do appreciate this particular installment of the series, all I can give this one would be 7.5/10. Primarily due to the touching scenes that dot the story. I still prefer How To Train Your Dragon.

Faces Of Slavery

Slavery does not just disappear. It simply reappears in different forms. There is always a demand for labor one way or another. And of course, the cheaper the labor is in whatever terms matter, the better. That simply means there will be more labor available to help get work done, thus freeing up resources for other applications.

The modern day equivalent of slavery (apart from slavery itself) would be outsourcing of production to poor countries, whereby foreign labor is paid pathetically small sums in order to produce goods for their richer employers. Some may argue that it is a fair business transaction that is agreed upon by both sides, and that the employees receive enough money to be reasonably well off considering the cost of living of their countries. That sort of logic is also applied to slaves of old, whereby they are "privileged" to be treated well...or rather...simply not being abused.

Simply put, compensation for outsourced labor can never be fair. If it is fair, as defined by the market rate for labor in the original country, there would actually be a disincentive for companies to outsource. Outsourcing as a cost cutting measure necessitates that costs be lowered and this is achieved by under-compensating labor. Indeed, this does not sound like the traditional definition of slavery, which in modern times is common amongst trafficked humans. That is, people forced to work and often for no pay. Yet, the modern face of wage slavery cannot be ignored, considering how people from poor countries are basically paid an artificially low wage simply because their would-be employers would not pay more and they can do little better locally anyway.

Memento Mori

I had a rather interesting discussion with a friend yesterday regarding the important distinction between having no fear of death, and enjoying the active pursuit of death. A challenge I often encounter when claiming that I do not fear death, is that I should perhaps go kill myself right away, since I do not fear death and thus should be courageous enough to do so. Frankly, if I responded to that claim every time I encountered it, I would be dead many times over.

Since I am typing this, I am of this moment quite un-dead. I probably would remain so for some time, bar unforeseen circumstances, given the particular quirk of my bloodline. Regardless, I think it is important to distinguish between pursuing death and having no fear of it. For example, I may not fear the average passer-by, but it would be silly of me to "prove" that lack of fear by punching random people in the face. There really is nothing to prove here. In the case of pursuing death, I believe hypocrisy is readily proven by the simple fact that self-claimed pursuers of death are generally still alive when they speak of it, thus invalidating their claim. 'nuff said. On the flip side, however, I also believe that living life in the active evasion of death is equally foolhardy: one stops living for oneself and does so more for the sake of survival itself. Neither seems to me like a good way to live.

I believe memento mori is a pertinent philosophical guide here. One should learn to accept one's mortality. Life will end...sooner or later. Knowing so and accepting it frees oneself from the extremes of pursuing and avoiding death. Che sera sera and all that. That is when one can finally begin to truly appreciate life for what it is. To this I have received challenges before, that I should prove my lack of fear by proceeding to off myself. And to those challenges I say bollocks. If one needs to prove such a thing in the here and now, one is simply willing to go ahead while one still has the guts for it. I'd say the proof is in the pudding: I can find that out for myself in that undefined future when time finally catches up with me.

Terrible Service

Today, I experienced the worst of all bad service so far. I was eating at a cafe with company, and the place was fairly crowded. After a reasonable wait, part of our order was delivered. Given the crowd, it was to be expected that the other part would take awhile. Of course, this is where the problems began.

We ordered a pair of pizzas, and only one arrived. The waiter said that the second one would come soon. It occurs to us that no plates, paper napkins or utensils were brought out. We ask for water. Fifteen minutes pass. We ask the waiter, and are assured that the pizza would come. Still no cutlery, and no water either. I had to chase them for the napkins and cutlery. Half an hour passes. Still no pizza. The water had to be collected personally even though it should've been served. The kitchen has been instructed to prepare one as a priority order. Three quarters of an hour. The waiter indicates that the order has been passed down, but the kitchen isn't bringing it out. Food continues to flow out to other tables. An hour passes. Waiter asks whether we wish to cancel the pizza order. What. The. Hell.

I think I do not need to describe exactly what went wrong here. The situation is quite self explanatory. Perhaps I should have declined when they turned out to be really sloppy with the reservation procedure. First I tried calling them. They said the reservations were only taken online. Fair enough. I made a reservation online a few days in advance, and was told that the place was full out. Wow that's pretty hot. I got a call yesterday saying that one reservation was withdrawn, so I was happy to be slotted in. I requested that they send a confirmation email just in case. They did not. I sent an email reminder, figuring that they were bus and forgot. Still no response. On hindsight, I figure that if they could not be bothered to respond promptly to their sole means of securing reservations, I shouldn't have expected them to provide good service. There goes a potentially good evening.

Back To Training

It's time to get back to physical training. After doing 3 months of rather sedentary work, I can really feel things going south with my overall fitness level. Hell, even if it my fitness wasn't going south too quickly, I'd think it's generally a bad thing to let it go south in the first place. Besides, I'm probably getting fat as well, now that I prod at my tummy.

For the record, it's lightweight stuff, with my trusty old dumbbells and grip bars. High reps, low load. That kind of thing. Even a bit of training is better than nothing, methinks.

The next step would be to get back to working the abs and my lower back. Keeping those in tone would probably do wonders for my posture, which at this point is admittedly not good at all. Something needs to be done about that for sure. Now that I just did my first session in quite a while, I do find myself feeling pretty darned good. Things can only get better from here.

Heritage Sites

I've been mulling over the whole world heritage site concept, and really...while admirable as an anchor to counterbalance the inexorable march of progress, I wonder just how sustainable such a concept can be. For example, site A is preserved because it is worthy of conservation. Eventually B, C, D and so on get selected. It stands to reason that increasing tracts of land will be frozen from redevelopment in order to preserve the integrity of the sites.

The question, then, is whether there will come a point where heritage sites take up such a significant proportion of valuable landmass that their heritage status will have to be revoked. It seems to be the case, seeing as how heritage sites that were manmade tend to be on plots of land that are in some way useful to humans. It therefore stands to reason that some people will invariably desire it for their use at some point.

Of course, the flip side is the sustainability of cultural and natural heritage. If things of natural beauty and human cultural heritage were to be swept away in the tide of progress, how then will there be anything left for the descendants? This is one balance I am glad I do not have to administer, because I do not have the answer to it at this point.

Office Politics

Office politics are always interesting. I learned today that someone was being quite the asshole, playing the CC game at work. That works by bringing an argument before bosses by CC'ing them in an email. Of course, seeing as how I have not actually witnessed the person doing such a thing, there remains a non zero possibility that I received this story as part of a political maneuver.

What is interesting is that even though I believe that I was not lied to, every maneuver within a social setting is effectively a political move. The only really important distinction is between whether the move is benevolent or malicious. The simple act of warning someone against a genuinely malicious person is a political act in itself because it will adversely affect the person's opinion of that malicious someone. However, due to its good intentions, I expect it is something that is desirable in a professional work environment. In fact, it may be something to be encouraged, seeing as how it is a good way to bring such acts to everyones' attention and thus to reduce the incidence of vicious games at the office.

Darren Shan

Darren Shan...that oh so weird series. I guess it really is a matter of time before people get sick of the traditional styled vampire tales and go with a reinvention of what it is to be a vampire. I picked up the book at the library because I noticed that it bore the Cirque Du Freak series label, and figured I might as well find out what it was about.

One thing I'd say to the author's credit is that the Darren Shan series just isn't your average teen romance masquerading as a vampire story junk. It's quite a bit darker, and has some interesting themes of acceptance and difference. That said, I cannot say I liked it overly much. I mean really...it's really kinda weird having vampires cutting their victims with their nails to draw blood, then using spit to heal the wound back up. Really? Seriously?

That said, I really couldn't be bothered to continue the series. Especially not since I'm reading another dhampir series at this point. Time's limited, and I guess not every youth-targeted vamp novel series is going to appeal to me. The last time I read a good one was probably by Lisa J Smith.

Karate Kid

I got to watch the Karate Kid today. I believe this film is a whole lot less cheesy than the initial offering. Surprisingly enough, I think the remake is actually better than the original. Then again, perhaps I am just biased against orientalist exoticization and all that.

Anyway first things first: It's NOT a karate show. Dammit...just why would they ride on the Karate Kid brand and make it a kung fu flick. Granted, there was a goodly bit more emotional involvement in this show, moving beyond platitudes on the code of conduct in martial arts towards some sort of backstory for the characters. I especially liked that the kung fu master was not just some guy living on a high mountain and not having very much to him besides that.

That aside, the show's really your average good vs evil tale, whereby an underdog protagonist has to deal with a bunch of really powerful and vicious "evil" dudes. Interestingly, the "evil" guys turned out to be more misled than actually intrinsically ill intentioned.

I'd say the show deserves a clean 8.5/10, even though I personally believe that kung fu shows should have fewer of the flashy techniques. That's just my personal bent, and I guess the kinds of things I'd like to see are not quite suited for public viewing.

Points Of Death

I know, I know. I deal with this topic a lot. But of course, mortality is such a fascinating topic to ponder. Right now my focus is towards what one could think of as conceptual death. By conceptual death, I mean how can we map out with some certainty the boundaries that split the living from the dead in the conceptual sense.

For example, someone may be "dead" to others by becoming so overwhelmingly evil that others are horrified into denying that person's status as a living human. That person's personality has been destroyed, and the person becomes conceptually dead. Alternatively, someone may be brain dead and have effectively no personality while lying on the bed, yet this person may well be conceptually alive, as evidenced by the general unwillingness to end this person's life.

As with most conceptual things, we probably already know that different people put different weightages to different acts and statuses. Like a highly religious person may deem another to be conceptually dead for apostasy. However, the fact remains that there is most certainly a tipping point beyond which one is deemed to be too far gone. Also, it may be possible to map out the point values for each individual person, and thus derive just how many "life points" each person really has in the eyes of others. I have not actually created a life points table at this juncture, though.

Promoted To Incompetence

One thing that never ceases to amaze and amuse me is just how it is possible for someone to be promoted into incompetence. When someone is good at their work, they may be assumed to be good enough to try out a superior position. As a result, they are promoted. Of course, we know the cycle eventually winds up promoting someone into a position they are really not very good at. We also know that the sound decision in this situation, to step down, is very difficult to make considering how much prestige is lost from the move.

Allowing people to try out the new position, and pull back if found unsuitable, seems to be a fair solution to such situations. However, the other very real issue is how a superior position's pay is almost invariably higher than that of a lower position. This presents a rather strong disincentive for would-be demoters: even if no prestige is lost, salary would go down as well.

Pay just does not seem to scale well in relation to performance/productivity. A highly productive tier 1 employee may do more for the company than a mediocre tier 2, yet the tier 2 will most likely earn more. It makes little economic sense. In fact, some companies deliberately refrain from promoting a highly skilled employee out of the fear that doing so would result in the loss of a good performer. Were the pay structure to be revised to allow a flatter salary distribution amongst the tiers, it may well be that a superior personnel spread could be achieved.

Ip Man

It is quite interesting that while I watched Ip Man 2 just recently, the bus driver played Ip Man 1 on the trip enroute home from up north. I am very much inclined to agree that Ip Man 1 was superior to its sequel if only just because of its plausibility. Ip Man's tribulations under the Japanese during WWII seemed that much more credible and emotionally engaging than some pride-inspired tiff with the British. It is one thing to be forced to fight for one's family's survival. It is quite another to be obliged to do so simply to preserve honor.

I also appreciated that Ip Man 1 had quite a bit more brutality than in 2. If I am going to watch a martial arts oriented show, I would certainly expect it to have extensive culture. And I dare say it's lived up to my expectations.

I'd think Ip Man deserves 8/10. Blood scores points.

Up North

I had a really nice trip up north last weekend. There certainly is a sort of charm to visiting the old buildings and doing a spot of antique hunting with my partner. If nothing, it was certainly good exercise. I suppose the single biggest blooper in the weekend reel would most certainly be the horrendous 4 hour traffic jam that held us up at the front end.

One thing that I did notice from the trip was how different attitudes can be towards trying things out. My usual approach tends to involve going ahead into area when there is no obvious opposition (signs, barriers, etc) to my doing so. Conversely, there's the conservative approach of proceeding only when permitted. I think that issue has been covered enough, so there is little need to elaborate.

Regardless, it's always nice to bring back goodies for the family. I originally intended to have some for the colleagues, but it turns out that my parents really loved them. No gifts for the office, then. Of course, since I made no overt guarantees to actually get something for the guys, I was in no way obligated to do so. My word is my bond, which is why I would refrain from giving my word too readily.

Talking Across

Today, I got into an argument with one of my friends over an issue. The content is not of much concern to me, since such arguments can arise over just about any issue. The main issue is that it is sometimes possible to engage in talking across (or what I somewhat inaccurately term "parallel arguments") to the extent that it becomes impossible to reach a favorable conclusion even when both parties in the argument are already agreeing with the main points of an argument.

The conclusion of such a situation is often a stalemate, with both parties agreeing in principle on the main thrust of the argument but with either or both sides vehemently refusing to accept this agreement by virtue that either or both sides harbor views that run contrary to either party's idea of complete acceptance. In short, it is an unwillingness to compromise even peripheral points.

This seemingly irrational approach is so precisely because irrationality is thrown into the mix. Specifically, someone got pissed. It surprises me how easily one can inadvertently push the buttons of another in the course of sensible discussions, causing them to degrade into such parallel arguments, where passions prevent agreement where it would have been obvious in less emotionally tainted scenarios.

The challenge, it seems, is to know which buttons each individual has, and to avoid pressing them in the first place. Easier said than done, since besides the obvious ones like being overly aggressive or outright rude, people do tend to have their personal niggles. A more tenable solution, perhaps, would be to find ways to un-press those buttons. The most effective general purpose solution seems to be disengaging for sufficient time such that the other party manages to cool down, without becoming angrier about being ignored. However, it does seem certain that there are more...elegant methods in existence.

Ip Man 2

I watched Ip Man 2 today, and really...it was a film that was a wee bit too dramatic for my taste. Undoubtedly, I was expecting a flick with reasonably realistic martial arts combat (less of the extreme Chinese superhero acrobatics) and it delivered. I later learned that Ip Man was really Bruce Lee's tutor, and that was quite surprising. As for what seemed to be a biography of a master martial artist...it just seemed quite over the top.

While I can understand how the Brits look down on the Chinese, I did wonder whether the duels between a champion boxer and Chinese martial arts masters did actually happen. What certainly did not impress was the fact that the masters were going up against a boxer who clearly massively outclassed them in weight and strength, but seemed quite unwilling to use force multiplier techniques on him. If one would fight to the death against such a foe, and was highly skilled in the arts martial, one would think that one would be willing to use more desperate techniques...

Regardless, it was not an unenjoyable show. I liked it to some extent for its...culture. Yet the only thing that really impressed was the gentleness of Master Ip. That is probably something that I cannot truly comprehend, but something that I can appreciate regardless. I'd say maybe...7/10.

Death, Revisited

I write many entries on death. It is an endlessly fascinating topic, given how much weight people grant this one great unknown. Yet, the conceptualization of death's boundaries seem quite indistinct. What, exactly, constitutes the death of a person?

The common answer is unsatisfactory. There are many specific signs of clinical death, but such definitions are guidelines at best. I believe the specifics of this were covered in an earlier entry. My aunt's tasted death before, and so have I, so that much doesn't necessarily hold true.

What does fascinate me is the idea of cellular death. Now, all cells die eventually, so everyone is likely to have experienced complete cellular death at least a few times in each normal lifetime. What is there to fear from experiencing that one more time right at the end? After all, when the human is defined as clinically dead, a goodly number of the cells still live on (as cells do live) for significantly longer before they finally expire as well.

Death seems to be a fuzzy concept that is really about the gestalt of an entity. Specifics like cellular death do not matter, because the gestalt entity remains consistent even though the precise cellular composition has been nearly completely overhauled after 50 years. The gestalt of the entity goes beyond the cellular, towards the conceptual understanding (for example personal memories) of the same. As long as the gestalt endures, death as a concept does not apply. However, should any key portion of the gestalt perish, then conceptual death occurs.

Kick Ass

I'm gona say this upfront, and what I'm gona say is that Kick Ass was truly kickass. No two ways about it. If you haven't watched it already, I'd say you're missing a lot. A flick like this managed to press every single one of my Woohoo buttons. Deadly pubescent assassin girl. Check. Blood and gore. Check. Dark humor. Check. Humor...oh wait, I already said that. Regardless, some scenes had blood real looking enough that I could almost taste it. Beats a lot of spurting stuff that just looks comical. And the audio. MMmm mmm mmm. Crunch.

What's great...well, our intrepid superhero wanabe is exactly that. A wanabe. And really not terribly good at the superhero business. What I truly appreciate is that all the heroes just aren't uberpowered gods. They get hurt. Badly. Some die. Average criminal goons die (for a change). I've been waiting for flicks like these for a long time. Yet, amidst the death and gore, they managed to sneak in some Tarantino'esque humor in violence. Unfortunately, they do fall short in that regard, since the zany music in some battle scenes just seem forced rather than a true comical part of the whole spiel.

I'd say this one deserves a 9/10 from me, though somewhat to heavily influenced by a personal bent. It's really a love it or hate it kinda show. If taken seriously, it's pretty abominable. But overwise, I'd say it's near perfect. They'd get more points for getting the Tarantino humor done right.