that's it

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

11.26pm
back from japan. wasted trip. tour group, wasn't expecting much. but still, big dissappointment. tokyo? shinjuku. then this place called palette town in odaiba. shopping. clothes. ginormous shopping centres with nothing but clothing and food outlets, how the hell does that work. that's how i spent christmas, trudging around a mall with my family, surrounded by legions of young japanese couples, with their styled hair and trendier duds than i will ever own.
that night, in odaiba, i saw the comiket building from afar. broke my heart.

and forget even stepping foot in akihabara, i didn't even see one single anime store the entire fucking week. it's like they planned the tour that way. bookstores and media cafes, pfft, huge selections of manga but what the hell am i going to do with that shit. i want to get merch. damn it all to hell.

so i didn't buy anything. shiny plastic gewgaws are stupid. if i cared about being fashionable i could do that in singapore. oh, i have some beef jerky. and a pratchett book i bought in changi. and i took some pictures. i am in none of them.

happy new year!

what to say

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

8.45pm
nothing much, really. i hope the trip doesn't suck.

i did not step on that spot on purpose dammit

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

8.35pm
so my mouse is finally giving up the ghost. the right click is sticky, and requires twice the normal force to click. so sad. i only noticed it while playing minesweeper while watching anime. that last sentence is so sad. picture me, shut in my room, alone at my desk, clicking away in the dark.

pathetic no-life aside, this didn't make sense to me. why is my right click wearing down before the left? i gave up wondering and went to play some l4d2.

and answered my own question.

results out. i woke up, dazed and stumbled to the com. what the hell, it's 10.30, i woke up half an hour early. might as well try, maybe they put it up early. what, i can't log in? i set up the stupid webvpn shit last night. oh, it's full. whatever, back to bed. woke up again a couple of times, interspersed with some dream about being made of clay and fighting zombies. zombies are a common dream element for me when i play right before bed. woke up for real at 4, and saw they finally changed the message from 'webvpn is full' to 'don't use webvpn click here'. fuck you, doesn't this happen every sem?

i should go pack for the trip.

it's starting to get light outside

6.47am
off to bed

results come out in four hours

why

Saturday, December 19, 2009

2.10am
i'm running on five hours of sleep. my entire day was spent fighting the urge to take a nap, so that i'd sleep early at night and wake up at a decent time. somehow, midnight rolls past and i'm not sleepy anymore.

this post convinced me to play tropico 3

Friday, December 18, 2009

8.29pm
I have been a good Presidente. I am a fair and honest man. For the last twenty years I have led my island into times of prosperity. I have ensured housing and steady work for my people and through these two decades my subjects have been joyous and loyal.

This suddenly changed.

Out of no where, this arrogant, self-righteous school teacher, Edwardo Estavas, steps up to oppose me. He had been gaining rapid popularity among the people and on this day they had the sheer audacity to call for an election.

An election!? These pitiful ingrates dared to question my authority after twenty years? I am a good man, but I have my limits. That very day I had soldiers enter the Estavas home. I had him shot and killed in front of his wife and children.

Outraged, the people brought forth a new challenger one month later. Her name was Sylvia Emenaz. Sylvia! A woman! My patience had worn. I immediately had Ms. Emenaz arrested. Within moments, and without trial, she was sentenced to life in prison.

The Democratic Party threatened to riot, I had all four daughters of the party leader shot on their way to school.

My spies listened carefully those following days. Thirteen citizens spoke that they would rather vote for a farmer named Gerald Lasto if an election took place. Despite Gerald himself claiming that he would vote for me, I had him killed on the papaya field which he tended, and his entire family of six imprisoned for life.

There are no more talks of elections now, nor have there been in five years.

I am a good Presidente.

downloading now! can't remember the last sim game i played. i think it was... zoo tycoon?

thanks, douchebag

12.21pm
i slept at 5am again, having given up attempting to fix my sleep cycle. at 10am i woke up the sound of some motherfucking fucker making a huge racket downstairs. i have nfi idea exactly what it was, but it sounded like a motorcycle revving. really loud. fucking annoying. i stuck my head out my window and i'm pretty sure it was right below my block. i contemplated heading down to find out where the fucker's bike is parked and key it later.

but thanks to that, i'm awake. and dog tired. should i go back to bed now? i just sent two hours in tf2 trying to unlock the new unlockables. great marketing, valve, i actually have more tf2 time logged this week than l4d2.

just reread. i typed 'nfi idea'. that's dumber than 'atm machine'.

what a tweest

Thursday, December 17, 2009

9.52pm
ff13's out, and so are spoilers. apparently someone is someone else and someone dies and time travel's involved. shyamalan-quality stuff.

oh damn it all

1.20am
so for the past few days i've been trying to get on a decent sleep cycle again. gotta be prepped for school. or at least the holiday to japan. yes, i'm heading to the land of land of tentacle rape as well, a day right after gary gets back. did i mention that before? i guess i should have. i also guess i should be more psyched, but i doubt the guided tour will bring us anywhere near winter comiket, so big resounding 'meh' there.

so, sleep cycle. i've been trying my previously-abandoned plan of alcohol induced sleep. of the past four days, it's only work decently well once, where i drifted off to sleep relatively quickly. the other days i still threw and rotated in bed for a good 45 minutes.

so, i realised that such a brilliant plan just might have been attempted before, and i could benefit from the information of past insomniacs. so i went to my friendly neighbourhood search engine asiaone to find yahoo to find google. really, i should have thought of that earlier.

turns out alcohol isn't a good idea! WHO KNEW!
"Alcohol leads to rapid induction of sleep and helps you stay asleep for about two hours because of its relaxing properties."
not for me. i'm dazed but not relaxed.
"The problem is that once the alcohol metabolizes, withdrawal symptoms begin to occur. These include shallow sleep, multiple awakenings, nightmares and vivid dreams. This increases the adverse affects of sleep deprivation, leading to fatigue and lack of alertness."

so... it seems i have two options. stop my revolutionary idea.... or drink more, so that i both knock myself out more effectively, and lengthen the time it takes for the matbolization. brilliant!

make it stop

Sunday, December 13, 2009

4.20pm
i've woken up at the crack of mid-afternoon.
i can't remember exact content of the last nightmare i had. all i remember is that it as a concentrated burst of fear, over an irrational subject, taking place a few minutes before i woke up.
i just woke up from a nightmare that must have taken the resources of one of those nightmare moments and spread it out over the course of an hour. i suffered an extended period of annoyed discomfort, taking place over the hour right before i awoke.
firstly, i was on a segway. i've never been on one for realz, and i assume it's pretty easy. but in the dream, i was wobbling backwards and forwards. so mostly i felt like i was going to fall on my face for the whole hour.
next, i was travelling back and forth from point A to point B. point A was a bookstore at the top level of a shopping centre. point B was my home. i kept going back because of something i forgot. like, my bag. or some discount voucher. then my wallet. back and forth. i absolutely loathe situations like this, so good job subconscious nightmare department. the most recent case would be... leaving the house without my phone. halfway out to the bus stop. the exact distance between, 'i can still go back' and 'ah fuckit i'll just forget it.'
oh, and my hair was short. hmm.

backed up

Saturday, December 12, 2009

5.20am
BY SCIENCE!

chainsaw carving: by japanese. consequently, of course, of anime.

sleep cycle's gone to hell again. woke up at 3pm yesterday. slept at 9pm. woke up four hours ago at 1am.

ah crap

Friday, December 11, 2009

3.10am
so my brain must have flipped the limit break switch. started the day with less than full health and negative status, hp steadily drained away and now i'm not sleepy anymore.

played borderlands. lucky drop from a chest, got best in slot weapon for my class. funny, when i chose my class i was attempting to be as roguelike as possible, i expected to run into meelee range and fill my enemies' heads with critical hits, with on-kill shield restoring talents to back me up. but i'm too pussy and i just gun them down from midrange. i think i'll start a sniper next.

played l4d2. without my headphones, to rest my ears. realised that i'm total shithouse without aural input. too used to reacting to footsteps and infected noises.

if i stay on the com any longer i'll start playing dragon age, then my brain will liquefy out through my nostrils. i think i'll go read a book. i need to buy pratchett's nation. i suspect i can't find it because it may be in the kid's section.

ALIENS

12.38am
ALIENS
SPIRAL IN THE SKY

if i sleep at 5 again today i'm going to sleep entirely through friday

hmph

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

12.53pm
considering i spent the past three days playing it dawn to dusk, i guess i have to admit it.
dragon age is a pretty good game.

i still don't enjoy the gameplay. it's like the worst of both worlds. there's the clunky decision making of turn based rpgs without the satisfaction of strategy, because everything so damn messy like an action game.

but the story is solid. the lore is interesting and new. and the characters are a bunch of the most unique, lively, fully-formed creations to come along in recent memory.

so these few days i've been sleeping at 5am, then waking up at 9.30 on the dot everyday. i usually go straight back to bed, but i really have to investigate this. is there some nearby alarm that's waking me up? the school nearby has a pretty loud mid-morning announcement chime, if i remember correctly. so yeah. normally i go back to bed and sleep till 3+. holidays are awesome. ah, what i would give to go back to the start of this year.
i woke up, and finally touched l4d2 again.
watching zombieland (again) really made realise what irks me about l4d2. well, perhaps 'irks' is too strong. perhaps it peeves me. it chafes me. ruffles my feathers. it certainly doesn't vex me, no. oh, right, it bugs me.
l4d1 was like, 28 days later. shit was fucked up, four people were trying to survive.
l4d2 is like zombieland. death-defying escapes by racing car. smacking clowns in the head with frying pans. rescuing garden gnomes.
quite a big difference in tone and atmosphere. tone and atmosphere... this is a lit lesson.

anyway, i did the achievement. on easy, with randoms. the only one using his mic was a 12 year old singaporean kid. 'team leader' with captain obvious-style of leadership. SHIT TANK BACK BACK BACK this is easy mode, kid. and don't ask me why i'm carrying the gnome. google it. or at least learn about the game you paid money for. sorry, your parents/brother paid for. or you could quit the game in the finale. yeah, go do that. and give the achievement to some random new guy who joined for 2 minutes. i didn't votekick you because you acted like good bait, running ahead and attracting everything, but whatever, waste your 'effort'.

so after that i went and wikied garden gnome. and i went to dwarfs. and dark elves, or Svartálfar. then Ljósálfar, and Vættir. then Travelling Gnome Prank, Where is my Gnome, and Amélie.

i wonder what time my brain will crash and burn this evening.

there was no yellow

Monday, December 07, 2009

5.27pm
i woke up about an hour ago. i got up, went to my laptop and sat around reading about miracle berries and remembering another wikipedia article on stevia, and how the FDA bends to the mighty will of the US sugar industry. and if they can fuck with sugar, it's suddenly a lot more likely that oil companies crushing economic fuel substitutes might not be such a crazy idea.

then it was 5, and i went outside to get some food. and because it's been raining, the sky was already dark.
so,
dear diary,
today i didn't see the sun.

draggin age

Sunday, December 06, 2009

1.49am
well... it isn't a huge mess. and i guess that's enough. still overhyped.

great graphics? yes. well rendered, highly detailed models of... boring weapons and armor. i'm not expecting wow-standard silliness, where has more metal than a small airplane, and plate armor looks like some sort of christmas ornament. but i'd like my weapons to look a bit spiffier than a kitchen knife.

great storyline? well, so far so good. still a hell lot of the standing around gesticulating and the random waving of arms and endless talking. And the moral choices crap is getting tiring. it's the same stuff since kotor, either i can talk nicely or be a total ass. and i'm doing the same thing i always do, pick the answer that's as close to 'Whatever' as possible. go go true neutral. but yeah, that crap aside, the story seems decent. interesting changeups, elves are now the inferior people, the ones everyone are racist against, living in ghettos, kept down by The Man. and The Man is Humans.

great gameplay? fucking hell, no. i'm not too clear, but there's probably some influence from western dungeons and dragons rpg rulesets that are making a fucking mess of the gameplay. wish they'd just drop it already. and actual control feels like a rts, where i'm micromanaging everyone. my stupid archer stands outside the room, bouncing up and down while the rest of my party is inside getting slaughtered. and i'm micromanaging everyone because they decided to use the amazing gambit system from ff12. and it's a stat i have to raise, or i don't get enough action slots to program my stupid drones. so the natural course is to ignore that shit and get everyone to attack the enemy with the lowest health. which makes me feel like i failed somehow, when the battle starts and all my characters run off to fight different enemies. oh well, i've had practice there, thanks to pugging in wow. focus fire on the casters, you idiots.

so yeah, if this gets any worse i'm going to start cheating and finish it for the story. and lest i seem to be praising the story too much, let me reveal a small spoiler. a sample of the plot.
one of my companions revealed he had a wife and was expecting a child. oh, is that so? okay, guy. excuse me while i unequip everything off of your ass, right now. and literally less than a minute later... yeah.

my actions were needless, though, because i automatically get my stuff back when someone leaves the party. oh, how convenient.

now that was just silly

Saturday, December 05, 2009

9.58pm
i just had a personal version of one of those scenes from House where he's hallucinating but it seems real.

i fell asleep around 4. i think my father came to wake me up around dinnertime. i woke up, had dinner. i was reading a book while eating. then i went to my room to finish the book. then i went to my laptop, but it wasn't there. then i found it on my bed, unplugged and in sleep mode, running out of battery. so i plugged it in and opened it up, and i couldn't understand anything.

then i realised this was a dream, and i woke up, and it was dark, it was five hours later, and i realised that i ignored my father waking me up and i hadn't eaten dinner.

that was boring. no dead people, or even using robots to gut a patient.

PURPLEz

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

11.23am
i just spent the entire fucking day playing borderlands. i'm so addicted. i hope my pirated save file can be copied over when i buy it for real. definitely worth my money. fuck fallout 3, fuck mass effect, this is a rpg fps done right.

dragon age got 10/10 in digital life. but, it's digital life. reliable source. the guy praised the deep storyline and voiceacting, but if it's anything like mass effect's storytelling, then it'll just be two people standing around while the camera zooms from one face to the other while they talk. i'd rather read a book, thanks.
but still, i'm freeeee now so might as well try it. game's downloading now.

scathing review of the new twilight movie in today's life. hilarious. strange that they got a guy to review it. also, holy shit zombieland came to singapore. i wouldn't have downloaded the crappy telesync version a month back it if i found out earlier.

back to borderlands. hunting for GUNZZZZ

kay

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

2.49am
off to bed before the final exam
i wish i could say that i'm not really worried
because after sec 1
i haven't harboured any illusions of doing well for a history test
so no pressure

but still
it would suck to fail