Gather 'round for a ritual we practice every four years.
A JibJab political video for Election 2008. Hilarious stuff. Gotta love them unicorns.
Woke up this morning, got yourself a gun.
I've been watching the first few seasons of The Sopranos. Nice show. I'll have watched enough to sate my appetite for Mafia-related shows for the next ten years by the time I'm done with this show. Well-written, interesting characters, etc. It's all been said before by now, though - didn't it end about a year ago?
Unfortunately, the videos from the source I'm using - youku.com - have some Chinese subtitles, which are sometimes a little weird. Also, thye seem to have changed their back-end provider recently, and the download speed's dropped pretty drastically. It's very annoying.
Could be worse, I suppose. It could always be worse.
I wonder how to find a squash partner. My usual partner's not as enthusiastic as I'd like.
More Team Fortress 2 tomorrow. I've spotted a cybercafé down the road - maybe, instead of holing up at home getting my kicks from HoMM5, I'll spend my fun time there instead. I should fix up the bike.
Sarpino's makes good pizza. It probably doesn't need extra cheese though; next time I'll just get it plain.
Can't tell I'm 23 already. Most people would have already started their adult lives by the age of 23. I'm probably mentally 16 or less.
Changing my post numbering system to a month-based one. I keep losing track of the number. Not that it matters. This is my blog-thing, anyway. LOLZ.
My Internet stalking skills are waning. I'm almost certain Michelle keeps a blog, but I cannot for the life of me find where it might be. This is quite annoying.
On a related note, I definitely need to get out more.
Am considering switching blog-space providers again, just in case someone I know is reading this. I've been careful, but there have been slip-ups.
Time to sleep. Got some driving to do tomorrow.
Team Fortress 2
The game's been out for a while but I only first played it last Wednesday. Man, it was fun. Part of the appeal is the availability of different classes; sometimes it's nice just to sit back out of the crossfire as a Medic and heal up a Heavy while he does the dirty work, sometimes it's lovely picking off unsuspecting enemies from afar with a charged-up sniper rifle, and sometimes nothing beats getting all up in your opponents' faces with a roaring flamethrower.
Every class has their appeal, actually, except the Demoman and his indirect fire weapons - still can't get the hang of those. A lot of the classes demand that you get your ass out of the line of fire and flank your opponents to be effective, except for the Heavy. The variation in running speed and general durability among the characters is refreshing, as is the great variation in weaponry and the strategic considerations when respawning (which character class would best help my team next?).
When all is said and done, I think the Pyro's still my favourite class. You get a bleeding flamethrower! Nothing beats that. The nature of the class demands you get up close and personal with your enemy - you know who's out to fry your ass, and you're out to fry his as well. Unlike, say, the Sniper, or the Spy. Results are immediate and very visible. The parameters for success are well defined and obvious. You aren't some namby-pamby weakling who dies at the first sign of enemy fire, either, unlike the Spy or the Scout - you'll absorb quite a bit of damage before going down. Unlike the Heavy, if things start going bad, you at least have some chance of high-tailing it out of there, too.
Oh, and the terror-filled screams from an ignited opponent running desperately for the nearest river to douse his burning body? PRICELESS.
Second would be the Medic. People seem to underestimate the Medic - and, unlike every other class, it's not entirely necessary to stick your neck into the enemy's line of fire to be effective. You just need to find a friendly Heavy or a Soldier and you're in business. People love you if you're on their team and save their ass from a premature fragging. And, if things get hairy, the Medic can hold his own with that needle gun, which people seem to underestimate. He can at least fight his way to the exit and then find some assault class to cover.
My it’s been a while since I've blogged, LOL. I'll make this quick.
1) Home for summer.
Seeing my family and my dog again was nice. It's still nice. Don't know how long it'll last.
2) Upgraded to Leopard.
Time Machine is sexy. So is Spaces.
3) Met some old friends.
Took a while to do this. So far it's been positive, but not completely; sometimes I'm only meeting people because it's practically obligatory to. I mean - the choice is between letting some of those friendships die or spending an hour engaging in desultory, meaningless talk. Up to now I've been choosing the desultory talk over the gentle euthanasia, but euthanasia's becoming a more attractive choice every year.
It's not the same for everyone. I really do enjoy the company of some of these old friends. No, srsly.
4) Swam around in the past for a while. It smells of rot and death and rain.
5) Am swimming.
Am wondering how else I should work out. Working out gives me a buzz that sitting in front of a computer all day long doesn't. I'm also playing squash and doing that gradual buildup in onehundredpushups.com. LOL.
6) Watching The Sopranos.
Did I ever mention that I like gangster films? This is really just an extension of that. It's a good show, too.
7) Worrying about academia.
Obligatory. At the rate I'm going I'm going to fail my finals next May... sigh.
Right, that's it for now. Can't believe I took 4 weeks to get this shit out. Hopefully the writing gets better after this. Also, MOAR. Hopefully.
She had a sing-song accent, a melody of a voice and smelled strangely attractively of - of all things - fresh laundry. If she were a little taller, blonde, and didn't have that weirdly huge chin I'd probably have collapsed at her feet in worshipful adoration, deeply inhaling her fresh laundry smell. As she was - I just breathed, and listened.
Although, come to think of it, it might have been the actual laundromat I was smelling, and not her. But let's not spoil the moment, hmm?
So, after 5 weeks of putting it off, I have written a fairly straightforward note to myself so that, when I wake up in the morning, I'll stop putting it off:
"Go swimming/ You stupid fucker."
I wonder if my morning-self will cower with fear at the unbridled wrath of my evening-self and race out the door in haste to do his (my?) bidding. Probably not. But I hope to actually get that done.
Other things.
First off: my third improv performance will be on Friday and Saturday. This is the single longest thing I've done since I started attending university - nothing else has lasted quite this long. The level of enthusiasm I have for it also outdoes anything else by quite a long way as well, too. It makes me happy, though recently I have begun feeling rather dissatisfied with my performances - flatter than I'm capable of, less spontaneous and inspired than they have been.
We're also beginning to look ahead to the next year in the hope of keeping the group going in the next academic year. While we're losing at least 3-4 members (out of about 10-11), most of the core group - including one of the two experienced improvisers in the group - will be sticking around in Oxford. Which is good. We're already thinking about recruitment and getting a regular time-slot, possibly at one of the smaller theatres in the city, or possibly a watering hole with a small stage area for performances.
It's great fun. Pity Singapore has no improvisation theatre to speak of - and at the moment I'm far too inexperienced to run it myself. Maybe after another year. I like this stuff enough that I'm half-tempted to live in Chicago for a while if only to go for some Second City sessions. Crazy talk? Maybe! Maybe. Maybe not.
There's an "ImprovEverywhere-inspired" group in Singapore at the moment, but it's not quite what I'm looking for - I'm thinking theatre-based, not flash-mobesque type improv. Part of it is simply because I really like to, once a week, just not be myself for a while.
We'll see. Summer should be interesting. Or it might not be. I'll have something to do, at least...
Elsewhere - my libido is oddly low. Perhaps I'm moving on from the hypercharged state of the adolescent male to the more even keel of the older man... about time, really. Or am I deluding myself? Bleargh, stoopid hooman. Anyway the idea of being hopelessly obsessed with a single person is both repulsive and highly inconvenient. Better a detached, mild interest than an exhausting, all-consuming, ever-present obsession, I say.
Take G., for example. One of the more liberal Christians I've spoken to (for some indiscernible reason, a LOT of the Singaporean Christians in Oxford tend towards the Crazy Evangelist type), she's interested in politics and such, is articulate, and - get this - hates the idea of marriage. Like, omg where have you been. Sort of. I don't know, I don't feel particularly obsessed with her, which is a refreshing change from previous experiences... we'll see. At the moment, I have that show to stress out over, heh. Not to mention a truckload of frickin' essays. Which are in themselves actually quite fun to do, if I don't leave them to the last minute.
Can't concentrate. Tired. Why tired? Had sleep. Had plenty of sleep.
Turns out my room faces east. At 8am the sun's rays shine directly onto my face; a delightful natural alarm clock. Love it. Will be great at the weekend.
It's three weeks into term and I haven't gone swimming as I'd planned yet. Tsk.
Tired. So tired. Why? Didn't do… I am repeating myself.
Had a lecture by Joseph Nye earlier this morning. Interesting, but lost concentration halfway through. One hour later and I'm losing it in an economics lecture. In the best of times I can barely make it through an economics lecture without nodding off.
Pity.
So much wrong with my head.
A quick talk with fellow students reveals what I'd been dreading: that my standards are horrendously low. Horrifying; I was satisfied with 60s and 62s on my essays; others consider those scores to be the nadir of their academic career. It would seem that I have some catching up to do. Same tutor, mind you, so at least the measurement is consistent, if depressing.
Some work to do.
Longish day today; things to do. Alan Rickman coming to the Union? Okay, but I'm not really that interested. If that bug-eyed guy who played Mister Pink in Reservoir Dogs came, maybe I'd give a hoot.
I will spend a while sorting out my calendar for the rest of term. And figure out a way to drag myself from bed to go swimming in the morning. Gaah.
Sleeping on time is an indelible ingredient. Perhaps if I got everything ready the night before, so I could just get up, grab a bag and throw on a shirt and go, rather than actually have to stumble around half asleep getting the stuff I need, it might be easier…
Right now: still tired.
Expectations are important. My expectations of myself, if I were to be brutally honest, are very low. I am capable of more; I have done it before. The problem is, expecting little, I produce little; there is no pressure, no motivation to produce more than I have to. How can I raise those expectations so I drive myself to give more? Questions, questions.
I mean, I'm as good as any of the blowhards around me. Why, then, am I performing so frickin' badly? All things being equal, it is therefore likely to be a problem with the most overt variable: myself.
Case in point: an hour ago, while taking a nap, I foolishly let the soundtrack play. When it got to this song, I was dreaming about being a part of a SWAT team (or something similar), and we were approaching a door at the far end of a long, wide corridor. When it started playing, my dream-self was utterly convinced that clowns would burst through the door and charge us, doing horrible things to us on the way. This went on for a while, until I recognised the loud, horrifying music as coming from the soundtrack.
Eureka. Instantly I pictured fluffy bunny rabbits running through the door instead, and poof! The horror went away. The bunnies did come through, but that's okay; no killer rabbits here.
Interestingly, from then on my dream took on an interesting twist - being now aware I was dreaming, I think I actually started controlling my own dream - shades of lucid dreaming there. It was fun until I had to wake up to continue writing my economics essay.
Still, those few minutes of mind-numbing, inescapable horror were intense. Like nothing else I'd ever felt before. Ugh.
To lighten the mood, a rather nicer song from the same soundtrack:
The movie Paprika, incidentally, is also excellent. If you don't have an aversion to anime, it is definitely worth a look. Ironically, it's about a dream-travelling super-agent who can travel through dreams with the aid of a high-tech device. Surreal.
