A Courageous Exit

I just got back from the funerals of two of my aunts. That is not to say that either death was unexpected considering their advanced ages. Unfortunately, it seems that my favourite aunt bought it this time, so I guess I'm a bit less than happy about the whole affair. Then again, I've never really viewed death as an entirely bad thing, so I'm not overly bothered either. It happens when it happens.

To me, she's managed to finish her life with an aesthetic that I would love to emulate were it possible. First, she was cogent throughout her life, and never did go senile. In short, she was of sound mind even on her death bed. Now, I generally find it unsatisfying when one dies a straw death. Undoubtedly, that's how she went. But what's most important is that she went to it with her eyes open. Even when she was critically weakening, she was stubborn enough not to want to go to the hospital. When her body was failing, she did not flinch. I like that. It's probably as close to dying with a sword in hand as it gets, in the modern day.

The background here, is that she was not in the best of health, and really only lived this long because of some invasive medical procedures. In fact, she did not want those back then, but they were pretty much imposed on her. Now, given a second chance to skip the medical nastiness, she finally found her exit. There were indications that she did not expect her end to be this near, and relatives who visited scarce days before found her to be greatly improved from back when she was ailing. Regardless of the outlook at the time, I think it sweet that her children chose to honor her wishes this time round, and let nature take its course without rushing her to hospital and forcing her to continue living a half life. My aunt, I honor you. Rest in peace, and know that your exit was thoroughly graceful. See...that's why she's my favourite =p

We Are Few

The eldest two of my paternal aunts died today. One in the morning, and one in the night. When I say that I am running low on relatives, I sure am not kidding. Well, that's not to say that I didn't see this coming. I had a feeling they were not long for this world, which is why I took an unusually large number of photographs at my last visit nearly a year ago. The foresight seems to have been of some use this time round.

I keep an album of the pictures of relatives who've passed on. I find there is little purpose in dwelling on their deaths. Big deal. Everyone does that sooner or later. What's more important is to celebrate their lives, and to document their finer, happier moments in photographs and video recordings. To me, that is the superior way to honor their lives, and, come to think of it, it really is a sort of digital immortality. Where the photographs of old immortalized static images of ages past, the videos of today preserve a moving snippet of their lives. I like the idea.

Hmm...and nobody make a joke about how my camera sucked the souls out of them. Though, of course, as a photographer I do think it is my job to capture souls in images... It brings them to life =p

New Year's Haul

I was looking at my red packet loot, and realized that my haul has been shrinking by the year. In fact, it's reached an all time low this year. Strangely enough, the individual amounts have not changed much, so there should be little reason for the overall yield to be lower...right? Wrong. I failed to factor in mortality.

Note to self: ensure that red packet givers are immortal, to ensure consistent yields. After some thought, I realized that my haul can be attributed to the shortage of currently-living relatives. In fact, I'm currently short of 3 of them at the moment. Hmm. And not recently...I just failed to take note over the years. That'd also explain the comparative freedom during the new year period, since there are fewer family members to visit. Eureka!

On a related note, I found that the red packet amounts are a generally insignificant amount of my overall current salary, which may explain my lack of notice of the change in amounts. *checks relatives list* Darn...a bunch of them are getting old alright...

On Luck

The Chinese New Year is full of superstitions regarding how one may optimize one's luck in the coming new year. Of course, that's also confounded by the year's predictions of probable luck outcome, so the cosmos kinda sets an upper limit on how things will turn out.

Being someone fascinated by systems, I figured I'd try to break down how the things work and perhaps find a more efficient solution to the whole issue. Unfortunately, it seems that the thing does have some contradictions, so it does complicate the matter somewhat. Simply put, it does seem awfully hard to min max such an inconsistent system.

Take for example the year's forecast. Say the forecast is somewhat adverse. One tried and tested (according to hearsay) method to improve that is to clean out the house. It's supposed to remove old luck to make way for new luck. Most excellent. Except when the forecasted luck is supposed to be worse than the previous year's. Hmm...wouldn't that make it somewhat risky to let fresh luck, seeing as how it may be rancid before the year even begins?

Yup...good reason to get lazy about spring cleaning =p

Ultramarines

Warhammer 40k. Space Marines. Ultramarines in particular. Dan Abnett as screenplay writer. What could possibly go wrong? ... right? I think you know how things did actually go. In short, the movie sucked bigtime.

First let's talk about the quality. Visual quality. I am generally willing to overlook poor quality image post processing (even though that's not expected anymore nowadays), but there were too many problems with the visual quality. The composition (and camera work) was atrocious, with fog covering up what little detail there was in the predominantly featureless landscapes, and perspectives that keep the viewer from appreciating the grandeur of the architecture or hazardous landscape. For example, the characters are fond of kicking bodies off precipices, only to have them fall through a fog down a bottomless pit. At the very least they could've had the bodies bounce off the sides. The animations of the Space Marines leave much to be desired. To top it all off, the pacing was terrible, with oodles of travel time and battles that felt more like skirmishes than anything else. As any WH40K fan would know, skirmishes will not suffice in a universe of epic fights.

Then comes the narrative. It's weak at best, and I have a hard time believing that Dan Abnett was behind it. I really do wonder what was going on. Sure, there was a deployment to a planet, some Chaos scum was there...eliminated. Typically, you'd expect them to be doing more than sitting there waiting to ambush some Space Marines. Like...doing some sort of Chaos ritual, for example.

I guess the sole saving grace of the movie would be that the visual quality and action improved quite a bit towards the end, making me think that the crew was learning on the job in addition to having a rather low budget. I have little else to say in favor of this lousy flick. 2/10