Like Man, Like Dog

When I go out to work, I sometimes pass the sorriest sight I've seen for quite some time. It is this old man with a dog. Now, this old man used to have two rather sad dogs, but only one remains. But that's not the sad part.

The old man was saddled with the dogs because his son's wife didn't like them. But the old man was abandoned by his children as well, so he really has to fend for himself. The old man is hardly able to look after himself, let alone dogs. Understandably, the pups are in really poor shape. Unwashed, mangy and not quite well nourished.

What do I see today? I see the old man, mangy as the one dog. The dog has practically lost half of its fur and has a raw looking wound on one of its legs. It really is a matter of time. I suppose little could be done but to put the dog down. It may even be a mercy to put the man down while we're at it. Sometimes, life can be real unfortunate. Short of euthanasia, I suppose the next thing to do is grimace and bear it.

Personal Standards

I strongly believe in personal standards. A personal standard is a standard one sets for herself, independent of what's out there in the "real" world. In short, it is non-adaptable to "reality" and forms an anchor point of one's identity. It also serves well to cement one's otherness such that one can avoid becoming too assimilated into a social reality, becoming unable to see beyond the reality to the ideals.

I was thinking about this when one of my colleagues made an absurd comment. The subway train we were taking was full of passengers. In fact, there were no free seats at all and a goodly number of passengers were standing. She said...wow the train's practically empty. Why would someone say that, when the train is very clearly crowded? It does not compute.

When I challenged that statement, she pointed out that trains are normally packed like sardine cans. Therefore the train was empty in comparison. Well...I suppose relativism in this case can make life happier, in that one can convince oneself that the situation is better simply because there are worse things out there. To me, however, a fact is a fact. To convince oneself otherwise is self deception...blasphemy by my book. Truly, it is a race to the bottom, because really, it's easy to keep sliding the standard downwards and if people are intent on self deception, they'll find themselves in a cesspool sooner or later. As my other friend says: Just because something is better than something else doesn't make it good.

It's The Little Things...

It's been awhile since I've listened to a track that I truly loved. Tonight, when my friend sent me a Music Box video link, I started thinking about a particular song by that title. It's Music Box by Jennifer Rafferty.

Now, I don't remember if I've written about this particular song before, but frankly I'm still in love with it even after not having heard it for a couple years. In fact, it's the sort of song that can have me paralyzed for some time, just soaking in the tune and the lyrics.

I guess it reminds me of the little things in life that I truly love, but have forgotten. Things like night photography, and certain kinds of music. Perhaps it's the fact that I actually remember and try to revive these interests that prevents me from mindlessly plodding on at work and being absorbed by it. (Not that it's currently the case)

Rainbow Six

I love book exchanges. I like the sheer randomness of the experience, never knowing exactly what you're going to get out of the deal. Well, this time round was no exception. I did my usual tossing out of books that I deemed to be "trash", and then gone on to pick up stuff that I didn't think to be trash at the time. Simple enough. Actually, chances are I'd think they're trash anyway a year from now, but that just lets me dump them back in the book exchange. It's an elegant system.

Now, this year, I managed to pick up a book on runes, which is quite amusing to me seeing as how I've got my own personal set of runes and this is well...about my stuff. Always nice to have books about stuff you already know. And then I happened to see this boring looking book that seemed to have lost its sleeve: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Now, I know some people didn't like the story because it's quite one dimensional and not necessarily credible, but hey I liked it back then, so I picked up the nice hefty hard cover to decide whether I liked to have another copy. And then I saw the silver marker writing on it. Holy crap...Tom Clancy's signature. DIBS!

I later found out that I picked up an autographed limited edition copy of the book. With his old signature, to boot. Well, it's a happy day for me, and I hope someone out there isn't too unhappy about it. I believe we can safely assume that books that wind up at the exchange are unwanted, after all...

Path Dependency

I think the single most important thing about our lives...is the past. Much as how many of us will undoubtedly have regrets about how the past went, well I think where we are today is a product of exactly that. For better or worse anyway.

I'm thinking back about all the shit I went through when I was younger. To this day, I still think it's shit and I'm not happy about it. You can have that on the record. Then again, when I think about the alternatives, I realize that I wouldn't be who I am today, doing the work I do, had things actually went better for me. In fact, I'd most likely be in a line of work that gives me way less satisfaction. It is interesting that my life today is indeed literally the product of a series of unfortunate events. Hmm. Of course, the rest is how I deal with those events, which is another story for another day.

While we're on the topic, I'm meditating on what I know of as path dependency. Simply put, where you were will help determine where you'll go. It's an unfortunate fact of life, and it does make me wonder just how much of the world's population is victimized by this, whereby they aren't given fair opportunities at the early parts of their lives, resulting in their not having a fair chance at life when they grow up. I look around me and think...a heckuva lot. For me, it was a happy accident so far. But for many others, I can only wish them all the best.

Space Battleship Yamato

Yes, the anime series and the animated movie's way old. It's a cult classic. And if you don't already know the storyline, you've probably been hiding under a rock somewhere. Now, I won't mince words in saying that I'm partial towards this particular show, because it's something from my younger days, and really...I do tend to like over the top narratives. If it's going to be a movie, I don't seriously expect realism and coherent storylines.

This particular rendition has some differences from the original anime, especially noticeable in the romance sequence they've thrown in. It seriously annoys me, how the makers of these shows are so fond of throwing a romance in to increase viewership. Sex sells, but really...that's just unprofessional aboard the Yamato =p

Jibe aside, the over the top of self sacrifice, xenocide and reasonably dramatic space battles is everything I expected. Granted, the special effects aren't quite top notch, but it's clear that the creators made some effort to provide some iconic scenes from the original anime. I appreciate that very much. Overall, however, the look and feel remains somewhat plasticky and seems to lack the high budget realistic oomph that I've come to expect. Of course, that could be due to a creative decision, but that's how it comes across to me.

Narrative is...well...every bit as strong/weak as the original, with the invariable weakness of romance thrown in. For some reason, whenever there's a crisis, the lovers invariably embrace and talk sweet nothings while the fate of the world is at stake. It annoys me, and note this for the record. Guys, get a room. You can always make out after you get home from the suicide mission which you people invariably survive anyway.

Overall I'd say the movie gets 7/10 from me. Marked down for the romance, though I regard the plot holes as part and parcel of a live action movie that at least tries to stay faithful to the original material. The movie's not bad, but I'm pretty sure it's really for the old faithfuls.

The Naturalized Politician

There's something that constantly bewilders me about people. Some people are pretty middling when it comes to social relations. Others are quite withdrawn. And yet others are what I regard as naturalized politicians. By naturalized, I mean they've become social to the extent that it's essentially a normal part of their personality.

I have difficulty differentiating between someone who's actually really social and friendly by nature, and someone who's doing it for potential political gain in the long run. Another thing I've been wondering is whether there's any practical difference at all. Obviously, someone who's friendly by nature is in it for some sort of gain. At the very least self satisfaction. It's also a natural side effect that they wind up ingratiating themselves with others and that ideally positions them for political maneuvers. Simply put, I'd just regard social people with suspicion at all times, simply because of the nature of these relationships.

Undoubtedly, there is power to weak ties. And some people do excel at creating massive networks of weak ties. While I understand at an intellectual level that it is prudent to maintain such ties and that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with doing so, I have the nagging (guilt?) that actively pursuing the creation of weak ties is a form of weakness simply because it makes one reliant on others. Undoubtedly, no individual is an island or self sufficient, but then I'm the sort to prefer cultivating stronger ties all around. It commands loyalty, and I feel less like one who's getting to know others just for the gain obtained in the relationship. Sure, it's less than efficient, but I guess it works for me.

Suckerpunch

Once in a while, a truly unique movie comes up. It makes you go WTF, and really is not something that's readily understood. What's better...it masquerades as an action flick. Suckerpunch is precisely that movie.

There's a word to describe Suckerpunch, and that word is "disjointed". At first glance, the story appears to be incoherent, and from what I've seen it seems that the movie's been badly panned for precisely that reason. Whoever thinks that is the case has totally missed the point. The movie doesn't attempt to be, neither does it serve as, a challenge to Inception. It's not the kind of narrative that is convoluted, while attempting to tie up all the loose ends. It's a unique narrative, to me. A narrative that works by sheer omission: It tells you everything but what the story really is about.

I find the narrative-by-omission to be a stroke of genius, because the premise is about a rich heiress who is politicked into a mental asylum and is basically losing the last dregs of her sanity (and from a procedure that will not be named in the avoidance of providing spoilers).

As I've said, the movie attempts to masquerade as an action flick, and flashes erratically between the dreary reality of the real world, the sordid dance club with its garish colors, and the earthy drama of the fantasy combat realm. I find this erratic jumping to be a perfect representation of the breakdown of the psyche, and is in itself fantastic. What's better, each scene in the combat realm is completely unrelated to one another, yet maintains some aspects of the dance club realm. Yet, the unrelated combat scenes manage to throw in every over the top pop culture trope in bizarre action sequences. The references alone make the movie worth watching.

I've said much, and perhaps I've spoiled it for some even for that. Regardless, I think much remains for personal interpretation, and it's really up to the reader to decide just what the whole thing is about. For me, I'd buy the dvd (or bluray) just to watch it over and over again. 9.5/10.

Earth Invasion: Battle Los Angeles

Cheesy title. If my colleagues didn't ask me out to watch this with them, I would've passed on it on general principle. But now that I've watched it, I don't think I regret spending that time.

BLA is Hurt Locker meets Independence Day. As with sci-fi type alien invasion movies, plot holes are not only expected...they're probably encouraged. Ok really, I can think of a bunch of ways such technologically advanced aliens could've done things more efficiently. As in with much less loss of alien life and ordnance.

That said, the movie manages to capture the paranoia and drama of battle, specifically the knowledge that death may well be lurking around the next corner...after whole swathes of peace and quiet. The movie manages to get by with a surprisingly low tech art style for the aliens, and really I do think it's refreshing to see ghetto atmospheric thrusters and alien machinegunnery instead of the usual slick laser toting variety.

Not much can be said about the story in general, though I note that it doesn't attempt to shoehorn a romance into the narrative and that's always a plus. I'd say...8/10. I like the action and the desperation the show manages to portray. I don't care for the storyline though IMO it's not a big deal in such flicks. That's all.

The Invisible Killer

I think there are few things as frightening to mortals as the idea of an invisible killer stalking them. Of the many invisible killers stalking mortals, ionizing radiation is pretty salient at this point. Specifically the ongoing meltdown over at good ole Japan. Lovely.

Right, then. There have been reports of radiation leakage at the nuke reactor, and the Chinese are understandably concerned about the situation. What's interesting is how the people at risk will grasp at straws to ensure that their continued health is maintained. In this case, there was a run on salt, because a rumor went around that consuming salt (presumably iodized salt in this case, because of the iodine content) would safeguard one from radiation related ailments.

Indeed, it seems to me that this is a really good way to manipulate the masses, by putting them in fear of their own well being. A good way to achieve this is to create an invisible enemy that everyone must band together to fight. An invisible killer that only the leadership can see for sure. Of course, that also demands the peoples' absolute obedience to the cause...

Love The Night

I've recently rediscovered my love for night photography. In general, I don't feel much like shooting at night because it's primarily about shooting the city lights. Which isn't necessarily all that awesome. Or original.

Then I decided that hell...if I was in a city full of tall apartment buildings with public access, why the heck am I not taking advantage of the readily available sniper perches. As a bonus, it's all happening at night, precisely when I don't feel like I'm having my face burned off. Sounds like a win win situation for me.

Well, so far I've been having a ball. The perspectives are fresh, and soon they shall be stale. It is then that I shall be forced to innovate again, and that is where my skills shall improve. Or not. Whatever. It's fun =p

On Iodine And Fallout

Mom received a hoax SMS saying that exposure to fallout was imminent and that everyone should stay indoors and stock up on iodine. Alarmed by this "notification", she proceeded to inform dad and he went to buy some rubbing iodine. Lovely. I do so love misinformation, especially in uncertain times.

I think it is highly irresponsible to send out such alarmist messages when it can cause a run on the iodine stocks and ultimately does everyone not one whit of good. Seriously, folks, the iodine you want is potassium iodide tablets...which, incidentally, are not readily available around these parts as of the time of this writing.

I find it interesting that everyone's so alarmed about it, when in all probability any fallout that comes all the way is likely to be greatly dissipated. In the event that sufficiently high levels arrive as to call for distribution of iodine tablets, I think radiation levels in general are going to be hazardous enough to seriously consider leaving the region for a time.

On Japan

Japan is facing a tragedy of proportions that rival WWII. Huge swathes of the island are currently waterlogged and large numbers of people have been swept away by the waters of the ocean. Yes, I think it is the perfect time to send out alarmist messages of the imminent end of the world, and to scare everyone into becoming religious. Or just scared in general.

The thing that pisses me off the most is not religion itself, but how people are warping religions purported to be about love into something that's built on hatred. I care not for the good intentions undoubtedly behind whatever it is that they're selling...I paved the road to Hell with good intentions quite some time back. And messed with their cooling systems, but that's another story for another day.

Anyway, if there's anything that can serve to aid me in losing my nonexistent faith in humanity, this is most certainly a part of the deal. Along with all the other stuff that people do that're just galling. Much as I don't like humans in general anyway, I still wish Japan all the best...if only to spite the hypocrites.

The EPL1

I finally sucked it up and bought myself an EPL1. Now, I've had an issue with my ageing compact camera for some time. Primarily, the resolution leaves much to be desired, while the image quality is passable only in the best lighting. After being spoiled by dslrs for so long, I've come to realize that I really do find it unsatisfying to shoot with a compact, however convenient its portability is. Not to mention I'm something of a control freak, which doesn't help...much.

That said, I find that the EPL1 fits the bill of compact camera replacement pretty well. It's heftier and noticeably larger than my compact, for sure. However, it's got effectively the same imaging capability of my dslr in exchange for greatly lower weight/bulk but sacrificing sheer speed. I find that to be a reasonable tradeoff in everyday carry. Never again will I have to grumble to myself that I didn't bring a more serious camera out to shoot a lovely scene that just decided to show up.

Now, that doesn't mean that the new body is a replacement for my dslr. Not at the moment, anyway. I'm sure its descendants would achieve that at some later date, however. In the meantime, when I go on dedicated photo expeditions, I'll be sure to carry my more robust and speedier body. But for day to day casuals...the EPL1 is hard to beat.

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

Amplification Through Simplification

I was recommended Understanding Comics by my boss, and truly, it is a good read. It is pretty unusual in actually reading a comic book about comics. But what's more interesting is that the book is really on quite a serious discussion of what comics are about and how they work. It's also quite a treatise on how design in general works, and how the human mind processes it.

I find it quite clever, choosing the medium of comics to present the content of a formal book. As they say, a picture paints a thousand words. But in this case, it helps to greatly summarize what the author is trying to say, without having to go through the linguistic gymnastics in order to precisely explain concepts and their nuances. Anyone who's written documents for others would know how hard that can be, without using images.

I especially liked the suggestion that comics worked through amplification through simplification. Design in general does do something of the sort. By cutting out the noise in the message, the key features left emphasized are the ones that the audience will tend to notice first. Which is why most photographs need to have a very prominent subject matter, so that the correct feature of the photo is presented to the audience.

I have not finished reading the book just yet, but overall, I do think it will be quite an enjoyable read.

Where The Wild Things Are

Once in a while, you get a movie that's pretty heavy...in the emotional sense. Where The Wild Things Are is one of them. Now, I do vaguely remember reading such a tale when I was younger, but I am pretty sure it wasn't presented quite the way this one was.

Now, there are often tales of young kids (usually boys) running off to some great adventure, meeting fantastic creatures and then coming back to reality with unique experiences. Most of the time, however, they take the form of a coming of age story, whereby the protagonist comes back all mature and better for the experience, while the characters in the magical land end up happy and contented. Not so, in this one. In short, it really is more of an end of innocence story. Everything starts off on a high note, then gradually goes south till everyone ends up miserable.

Now, some of my friends do say that I feed and grow fat on misery and despair...they're probably not wrong. This is the sort of story that appeals to me, and I find it to be a refreshing twist on an otherwise common childhood genre. 8/10

Empathy For Cloth

I just realized that I do have a tendency to have empathy for objects, and more often so than I would with people. I have this handkerchief that I owned for quite a while. It's soft and really quite nice to handle. In fact, I handle it so much that it's gone somewhat ragged.

That's normal enough wear and tear, of course. I can no longer bear to use it now, however, since every new tear in it makes me feel as if an old friend's being hurt. And of course, I'd rather that my friends didn't get hurt. So basically, it's in retirement now.

The thing is, on further analysis, I find that that's also why I would not use certain things, because their inherent beauty or some other positive attribute of them would wear out...and I'd feel their loss. It is a strange thing, and I am not sure why that is so, but that's basically how my brain works I guess.

On Lock Picking

I got my lockpick set today, and of course the first thing I did was try it on some locks I had lying around from my trip last year. Now, lockpicking was something I've intended to do for a rather long time, but I've never managed to get my grubby hands on a set before.

Naysayers like to point out that Hollywood movies show people picking locks as if they're using keys, opening locks mighty swiftly using a simple pick set. Obviously, such techniques are highly unlikely when one's faced with a high security lock. But I only had my cheap travel locks at hand, so I tried my hand at those. Being a complete newcomer to the lockpicking business, I was shocked and frankly quite alarmed that I could open those locks within around 5-10 seconds of picking them. Clearly, cheap locks aren't just vulnerable to the lock cutters of thieves: they're also easy pickings.

The next step would be for me to try out higher end padlocks, to see if they're as easy to bypass. I expect them to be more of a challenge seeing as how budget padlocks tend to have a rather limited number of pins and the higher end stuff just makes it that much more difficult given their higher level of sophistication and increased complexity in their mechanisms. As someone who's crazy about figuring out systems, this is something that should occupy me for awhile.

Making A Stand

I always believe that we should make a stand for what we believe in, even if sometimes the consequences for doing so can be quite...unhealthy. Today, I got a chance to prove myself, when my family and I were at a food court. After waiting for a long time, there was a table that was clearing up. A couple was sitting at the far edge and we needed another seat to allow everyone to sit together.

I looked over and noticed that one of the seats was taken up by a pair of bags. Knowing what this normally meant, I asked the nice fella if the seat was taken. His response was that no, but he had to put his bags there. Things went south pretty rapidly when I asked him if he could move them. Clearly, this was a fella who was unwilling to give up the seat taken by his bags, and was perfectly willing to be nasty about it. It's common enough that the blow by blow account can be passed on. I only wish I had enough self control that I didn't have to resort to flipping him the finger, which I do feel to be a rather unintelligent way to present a point in an argument.

The point is that I'm pretty sure he thought he was in the right for hogging the seat, and I thought he was wrong about it. Perhaps it was my bad for not asking him nicely enough, perhaps with a few kowtows thrown in (no, sorry...don't do that). Either way, it was a rather vigorous verbal agreement and I was at the limit of my self control. It's been awhile since I managed to let myself slip up like that.

Anyway, the good thing about it is that I managed to stand my ground without completely losing it and ripping his throat out (or something similarly unpleasant) even though I think I was visibly shaking by that point. Ultimately, I hate being shoved around, and I'm sure he feels the same way. Nothing personal. I am, however, proud of the fact that I was willing and able to stand firm even though he was clearly trying to strong arm me into backing down. After action review would suggest that I be less sleep deprived, however, so I don't cut things so close with my self control.

On a related note, I find the physiologic changes quite interesting when the aggression comes on. For one, recognizing the changes and thinking "Calm down" have little to no effect. The heart beats so much faster and harder. The muscles tremble. Everything appears so much brighter than it used to be. I do wonder if I filmed myself getting pissed, would I actually see my pupils dilating? Hmm...

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.