Friday, January 10, 2025
Limerence
I cannot keep this music off my mind. It triggers that kind of feeling that I feel like I've been missing ever since... it all fell apart.
The beat, and then the declaration of ``And die~ with a smile!'', such a simple and power phrase that evokes the deepest desires within, for the someone whom I am simultaneously familiar and a stranger too, all at once.
I do not know what else to say---go enjoy this before the embedding goes away eventually.
Edit: The song is ``Die With a Smile'' by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga.
Wednesday, January 01, 2025
Quick Summary
So, a quick summary of what I had written in 2024:
That's an average of 0.123 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.151 last year.
Note immediately that there is no NaNoWriMo entry---that is deliberate. I decided to stop NaNoWriMo, no thanks to the implosion of the non-profit organisation that ran the event. So there won't be a NaNoWriMo entry in 2024, nor will there ever be any more entries in the foreseeable future.
Do I miss it? In a way, yes, but by now, the whole idea of ``losing'' bits and pieces of me shouldn't be considered anything new. Loss as a concept is something that will become predominant as I transition into true middle-age-hood towards old age.
Already I have received notice via Facebook that a guy whom I had met at reiki class back in 2008/2009 had passed on just in 2024-10, for reasons that were undisclosed. He was just 2 years older than me too. And there were the slowly but steadily increasing number of aged relatives of mine who have passed on, or are hit with some rather... terminal conditions.
I don't talk about them because I was never truly close to them for the most part. My cousins are a solid fifteen or so years older than me, and that's looking at the youngest of them. So to say that there's a generation gap is a mild understatement.
But I'm not here to talk about that for this post.
2024. I saw the loss of two more team members, with even replacements after quite a bit of searching and Providence nearer the end of the year. I don't know if the new folks will stay---only time will tell.
I don't really have much else to say for 2024 in retrospection---just read the ``in the moment'' responses that have been written to get a sense of what I think of 2024.
That's all for now.
May 2025 not be too much of a shitstorm. Amen.
- 0 poems posted here
- 44 essays/rants posted here
- 0 prose/stories posted here
- 1 piece of compositions/rearrangements posted here
That's an average of 0.123 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.151 last year.
Note immediately that there is no NaNoWriMo entry---that is deliberate. I decided to stop NaNoWriMo, no thanks to the implosion of the non-profit organisation that ran the event. So there won't be a NaNoWriMo entry in 2024, nor will there ever be any more entries in the foreseeable future.
Do I miss it? In a way, yes, but by now, the whole idea of ``losing'' bits and pieces of me shouldn't be considered anything new. Loss as a concept is something that will become predominant as I transition into true middle-age-hood towards old age.
Already I have received notice via Facebook that a guy whom I had met at reiki class back in 2008/2009 had passed on just in 2024-10, for reasons that were undisclosed. He was just 2 years older than me too. And there were the slowly but steadily increasing number of aged relatives of mine who have passed on, or are hit with some rather... terminal conditions.
I don't talk about them because I was never truly close to them for the most part. My cousins are a solid fifteen or so years older than me, and that's looking at the youngest of them. So to say that there's a generation gap is a mild understatement.
But I'm not here to talk about that for this post.
2024. I saw the loss of two more team members, with even replacements after quite a bit of searching and Providence nearer the end of the year. I don't know if the new folks will stay---only time will tell.
I don't really have much else to say for 2024 in retrospection---just read the ``in the moment'' responses that have been written to get a sense of what I think of 2024.
That's all for now.
May 2025 not be too much of a shitstorm. Amen.
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Last Working Day of 2024
Ah, the last working day of 2024 for me has finally come, and gone.
And how do I feel?
Tired. That's just the only word I have left to say---tired.
It has been a long year. Everything started to come to a head for work, and this did not include the turnover of some folks. I got more involved as a manager, and then there are things where my other hat of being a technical leader came into play. I had my Ls, I had my Ws.
What I did not have, was parts of my sanity.
I was increasingly irascible, though tempered with profound use of profanity both minced and explicit, as well as a healthy amount of jadedness that comes with advancing age. I disliked people even more, clawing hard at the time that I have to spend alone in my room, the door closed, the blinds down, with my thoughts to myself, and with a book (or Wikipedia) opened in front of me as a companion.
I fell sick ever so often, with headaches and sore throats being the prime causes. Sleep was fading away, even as I struggled to derive more meaning in my life through engaging in new activities even as old ones start to run stale and gradually losing their meaning.
Yet the core problem remained: there were people, always there were people. I didn't hate any of them individually, but as a whole, I despised them. I despised the shallow nature of people who pretended to be nice, to seemingly want to learn more about me, when there is little left to learn from what is currently a husk of a man that I am. I despised the shared elitism and knowingness that they had, as they were more deeply integrated in worlds that I am merely a sojourner to. I despised the ever-increasing one-upmanship that was ever so implicitly demonstrated, through no fault of their own, but as a result of the world that they were embedded in.
I love them individually, yet hate them all as a whole.
I sit in a corner, and cry softly to myself about the apparent paradox.
The paradox hits me even in places where I was not expected to put up a public front. I would love to be with someone who cares for me in a way that I would care for her, yet I hate all of them who make hating men the socially acceptable norm. I want to be with that special someone forever, but know that the odds are ever-increasingly stacked against me even as I fast approach the start of the fourth decade of my life. I want to meet new people who may be that special someone, but fear the inevitable betrayal that is common to those who are brought up in an environment where only material gains are revered while hard work is disdained.
And so here I am, sitting here in the soothing darkness of my room once more, lamenting about world with a temporary sense of self-pity, even as the year races on to its end.
``MT, the fuck you want?''
Good question: no answer.
What do I want?
Maybe to be happy again. I think I was truly happy when I was in love---I said nothing about it, but apparently those around me could see it.
I think I was fairly content when I was In The Zone, be it programming a computer, writing a new piece of music, writing some story, or working through a new music with one of the many instruments I play. I think I was quietly content whenever I had fancy aburi nigiri sushi at my favourite sushi place, or when I had successfully pulled off yet another music performance.
But I think I was truly happy when I was in love, and sadly, I don't think that I can ever be in love again.
Time is running short (as is the shrinking pool) to truly know someone, and then there's that trauma (oh I hate this word so!) of getting my heart wrenched out eventually once more.
Each time a relationship was done, I lost a bit more of myself, and it took me longer and longer to recover. I simply do not feel safe enough to want to put myself in that position again.
Naturally, me in this state also means that anyone who is then introduced to me with that as a general direction would be placed under some tremendous implicit pressure, something that I do not feel comfortable having anyone else to experience.
And yet if I do not take that step out, I will end up regretting through inaction.
``MT, man the fuck up and go out there!''
Ah, that ``toxic masculinity'' that society likes to toss out at woe-be-me menfolk. Everyone likes to think about what a man can bring into a relationship with a woman, with the implicit assumption of traditional gender roles as the man being the provider.
I'd like to think myself as a fairly clean and acceptable man, and so my question is then: what can a woman bring into a relationship with me? Why must I demean myself like some toy to some woman just for the chance of some ``relationship''? I'm not looking for a master; I'm not looking for a slave either.
I'm looking for a partner, someone who complements my strengths through filling out my weakness, who sees me not as some cash machine, but as another intellectual being, and are willing to think together with me to take on the world to make it a better place for us.
I do not need her, she should not need me---but together, we are stronger, and we treasure that synergistic resonance between us.
If this ``criterion'' is too much to ask, I suppose it is better to just go it alone instead of settling for something else for the sake of being in a relationship.
The biblical concept of ``unequally yoked'' has made me do a lot of thinking about it. And what I understood of it is quite jarring in the Bayesian way of looking at this whole relation-date-ship thing.
``Unequally yoked'' is traditionally stated as the difference between believer and the non-believer, and how that will end up becoming the point of friction because the values of the two are not the same.
My take on it is that while all believers are saved, not all believers are ``equal''. Some are so steeped and holy that they are walking saints, while there are those of us who are new and are still finding our way to Christ-likeness. So just because two people are believers is of no bearing if they can be compatible in a relationship---where they are on their journey in their discipleship with Christ makes a big difference too.
And since all disciples are still sinners (we still need to repent our sins daily), the comparison of where one is compared to another in terms of saintliness is unavoidable, which leads to the whole ``unequally yoked'' situation.
And perhaps my recent interactions with too many people as a whole have demonstrated this to me time and time again. We may be playing in the same music-making group, but due to where we are in our development of our music, we will never be equals, and the gap is one of those that just isn't going to magically disappear.
``MT, what's your point? Are you rationalising why you are a loser?''
First off, I'm not a loser. I don't harp on my past achievements, but I am actually living fairly comfortably---not rich, but at least I have enough freedom to do what I want, when I want. And since I'm not a loser, I'm not rationalising anything of that sort, but am just merely making a trite observation, and wondering how it may be relevant to my current situation. Since I believe that my fate is with God, I do not take ``patterns'' lightly---there has to be some meaning behind it that I need to understand.
Or if you'd prefer a secular argument, similar situations with similar outcomes suggest that I am doing something similar in reaction, and if I do not like the outcome, it behooves me to re-examine my actions critically to identify what it is that is causing all these outcomes in the first place, with the intention of altering it.
Perhaps the lesson to learn here for me is to not worry about fitting in, and just enjoy being the interloper. I have my skills and my thoughts that may not match up with the norms, but so what? No one said that I had to be a part of that world. As long as I am harming no one, and not blaspheming God, there isn't anything inherently wrong with that.
There are, of course, consequences for any and all actions I choose to take, but that is par for the course and should not be feared.
And with that, I realise that I have said too much for this one entry, and will stop here before the monologue starts veering even more into the land of the nonsense.
Till the next update.
And how do I feel?
Tired. That's just the only word I have left to say---tired.
It has been a long year. Everything started to come to a head for work, and this did not include the turnover of some folks. I got more involved as a manager, and then there are things where my other hat of being a technical leader came into play. I had my Ls, I had my Ws.
What I did not have, was parts of my sanity.
I was increasingly irascible, though tempered with profound use of profanity both minced and explicit, as well as a healthy amount of jadedness that comes with advancing age. I disliked people even more, clawing hard at the time that I have to spend alone in my room, the door closed, the blinds down, with my thoughts to myself, and with a book (or Wikipedia) opened in front of me as a companion.
I fell sick ever so often, with headaches and sore throats being the prime causes. Sleep was fading away, even as I struggled to derive more meaning in my life through engaging in new activities even as old ones start to run stale and gradually losing their meaning.
Yet the core problem remained: there were people, always there were people. I didn't hate any of them individually, but as a whole, I despised them. I despised the shallow nature of people who pretended to be nice, to seemingly want to learn more about me, when there is little left to learn from what is currently a husk of a man that I am. I despised the shared elitism and knowingness that they had, as they were more deeply integrated in worlds that I am merely a sojourner to. I despised the ever-increasing one-upmanship that was ever so implicitly demonstrated, through no fault of their own, but as a result of the world that they were embedded in.
I love them individually, yet hate them all as a whole.
I sit in a corner, and cry softly to myself about the apparent paradox.
The paradox hits me even in places where I was not expected to put up a public front. I would love to be with someone who cares for me in a way that I would care for her, yet I hate all of them who make hating men the socially acceptable norm. I want to be with that special someone forever, but know that the odds are ever-increasingly stacked against me even as I fast approach the start of the fourth decade of my life. I want to meet new people who may be that special someone, but fear the inevitable betrayal that is common to those who are brought up in an environment where only material gains are revered while hard work is disdained.
And so here I am, sitting here in the soothing darkness of my room once more, lamenting about world with a temporary sense of self-pity, even as the year races on to its end.
``MT, the fuck you want?''
Good question: no answer.
What do I want?
Maybe to be happy again. I think I was truly happy when I was in love---I said nothing about it, but apparently those around me could see it.
I think I was fairly content when I was In The Zone, be it programming a computer, writing a new piece of music, writing some story, or working through a new music with one of the many instruments I play. I think I was quietly content whenever I had fancy aburi nigiri sushi at my favourite sushi place, or when I had successfully pulled off yet another music performance.
But I think I was truly happy when I was in love, and sadly, I don't think that I can ever be in love again.
Time is running short (as is the shrinking pool) to truly know someone, and then there's that trauma (oh I hate this word so!) of getting my heart wrenched out eventually once more.
Each time a relationship was done, I lost a bit more of myself, and it took me longer and longer to recover. I simply do not feel safe enough to want to put myself in that position again.
Naturally, me in this state also means that anyone who is then introduced to me with that as a general direction would be placed under some tremendous implicit pressure, something that I do not feel comfortable having anyone else to experience.
And yet if I do not take that step out, I will end up regretting through inaction.
``MT, man the fuck up and go out there!''
Ah, that ``toxic masculinity'' that society likes to toss out at woe-be-me menfolk. Everyone likes to think about what a man can bring into a relationship with a woman, with the implicit assumption of traditional gender roles as the man being the provider.
I'd like to think myself as a fairly clean and acceptable man, and so my question is then: what can a woman bring into a relationship with me? Why must I demean myself like some toy to some woman just for the chance of some ``relationship''? I'm not looking for a master; I'm not looking for a slave either.
I'm looking for a partner, someone who complements my strengths through filling out my weakness, who sees me not as some cash machine, but as another intellectual being, and are willing to think together with me to take on the world to make it a better place for us.
I do not need her, she should not need me---but together, we are stronger, and we treasure that synergistic resonance between us.
If this ``criterion'' is too much to ask, I suppose it is better to just go it alone instead of settling for something else for the sake of being in a relationship.
The biblical concept of ``unequally yoked'' has made me do a lot of thinking about it. And what I understood of it is quite jarring in the Bayesian way of looking at this whole relation-date-ship thing.
``Unequally yoked'' is traditionally stated as the difference between believer and the non-believer, and how that will end up becoming the point of friction because the values of the two are not the same.
My take on it is that while all believers are saved, not all believers are ``equal''. Some are so steeped and holy that they are walking saints, while there are those of us who are new and are still finding our way to Christ-likeness. So just because two people are believers is of no bearing if they can be compatible in a relationship---where they are on their journey in their discipleship with Christ makes a big difference too.
And since all disciples are still sinners (we still need to repent our sins daily), the comparison of where one is compared to another in terms of saintliness is unavoidable, which leads to the whole ``unequally yoked'' situation.
And perhaps my recent interactions with too many people as a whole have demonstrated this to me time and time again. We may be playing in the same music-making group, but due to where we are in our development of our music, we will never be equals, and the gap is one of those that just isn't going to magically disappear.
``MT, what's your point? Are you rationalising why you are a loser?''
First off, I'm not a loser. I don't harp on my past achievements, but I am actually living fairly comfortably---not rich, but at least I have enough freedom to do what I want, when I want. And since I'm not a loser, I'm not rationalising anything of that sort, but am just merely making a trite observation, and wondering how it may be relevant to my current situation. Since I believe that my fate is with God, I do not take ``patterns'' lightly---there has to be some meaning behind it that I need to understand.
Or if you'd prefer a secular argument, similar situations with similar outcomes suggest that I am doing something similar in reaction, and if I do not like the outcome, it behooves me to re-examine my actions critically to identify what it is that is causing all these outcomes in the first place, with the intention of altering it.
Perhaps the lesson to learn here for me is to not worry about fitting in, and just enjoy being the interloper. I have my skills and my thoughts that may not match up with the norms, but so what? No one said that I had to be a part of that world. As long as I am harming no one, and not blaspheming God, there isn't anything inherently wrong with that.
There are, of course, consequences for any and all actions I choose to take, but that is par for the course and should not be feared.
And with that, I realise that I have said too much for this one entry, and will stop here before the monologue starts veering even more into the land of the nonsense.
Till the next update.
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Expungement
Suffer me for a bit, gentle reader. It's the end of the year, I'm mostly alone, and my birthday is around the corner.
This means that the ol' noggin's in overdrive having intrusive thoughts. And the thing about intrusive thoughts is that I need to drive them out before they start to become a real problem.
But first, to the crawling Applebot---don't be a dick, okay?
And now, for the rest of the write-up.
I'm hitting forty. The so-called ``mid-life crisis'' is something that I ought to be familiar with as a concept, having undergone something similar nearly fifteen years ago when I just got out of my first graduate diploma, being in roughly the same position as now (i.e. alone, and out of love). [Un-]fortunately for me, I don't have enough cash to splurge on a car (in SIN city, that's just stupid), an apartment (living with my parents is infinitely better than living alone for a whole variety of reasons), and I don't have the looks and what I think are the ``good'' qualifications to be married.
I know where I stand. My appearance is... much passable now than it was twenty years ago, but that is a very low bar. In addition, being the interloper/outsider for most of the places and people I am with means that while I am there, I am usually not truly integrated into the group-think. There are pros and cons of that---the most obvious pro is that it means that if I end up in an executive position, I will end up being as independent as thought as can be (a boon), while the obvious con is that not being a part of the group-think makes me an even bigger outcast that I might be.
If there's some kind of lasting character quality of me, it is likely to be that of an outcast.
And if I'm an outcast (yet not quite an iconoclast), forget about being attractive to anyone, matchmade or not. I am more likely than not to have little to no connection.
A friend of mine has been trying to matchmake me, and while I appreciate their efforts, the me of today thinks that it's probably going to be in vain. If a relationship's success is dependent on having good and clear communication, then what kind of a relationship can spawn between someone who is likely to be a ``normie'' and one who is a well-known outcast?
Even if we restricted the relationship to something more physical in nature, it is likely to be doomed to failure, since I know just how unattractive I am, physically.
I'm not ripped, have no intention to, have a receding hairline as well as male-pattern baldness, and have bad skin to boot.
Who the fuck in their right frame of mind will see me and go ``ooo he's physically attractive enough for me?'' Talk about massive halu right there.
So I suspect that the route of a spousal relationship is effectively closed now. I'm not dumb enough to swear a covenant, but I think I'll just don't give a shit about it any more.
In other words, this rant might be the last time I talk about all these... relation-date-ship matters.
``OMG MT is turning incel!''
No, not incel---it is not being ``involuntary celibate''. I am intentionally choosing to be celibate, because there are other things to do that are perhaps more meaningful than boning someone. Like reading, writing, and perhaps making music.
``MT, aren't you afraid of dying alone?''
If you are seriously asking this question here and now, you truly do not understand me. Since when am I afraid of dying, let alone dying alone? When I die, I die---perhaps I shall sit with God through Jesus' intervention, or perhaps I end up on Sheol, or perhaps my faith is misplaced and there is truly nothing after. In other words, I'd be dead---why do I care if I died alone or not?
I mean, in the end, everyone dies alone. Doesn't matter if one practises one of the many dubious acts of co-burial/immolation of one's loved ones to ``die together''---there just isn't any proof either way, and so by Occam's Razor the shortest hypothesis of everyone dying alone is probably likely to be the more correct.
I don't even want to get into a ``discussion'' on how having another person can enrich my life. If I were a deeply integrated part of some society, mayhaps it will make sense. But I'm an interloper, an outsider no matter where I am. In that circumstance, how can anyone be a part of my world and enrich my life?
It's funny that I have these intrusive thoughts. Hard to tell if these are truly what I want, or are they actually just thoughts.
Better to just let these thoughts out, and send a prayer up to God to guide me according to His ways instead.
Till the next expungement then.
This means that the ol' noggin's in overdrive having intrusive thoughts. And the thing about intrusive thoughts is that I need to drive them out before they start to become a real problem.
But first, to the crawling Applebot---don't be a dick, okay?
And now, for the rest of the write-up.
I'm hitting forty. The so-called ``mid-life crisis'' is something that I ought to be familiar with as a concept, having undergone something similar nearly fifteen years ago when I just got out of my first graduate diploma, being in roughly the same position as now (i.e. alone, and out of love). [Un-]fortunately for me, I don't have enough cash to splurge on a car (in SIN city, that's just stupid), an apartment (living with my parents is infinitely better than living alone for a whole variety of reasons), and I don't have the looks and what I think are the ``good'' qualifications to be married.
I know where I stand. My appearance is... much passable now than it was twenty years ago, but that is a very low bar. In addition, being the interloper/outsider for most of the places and people I am with means that while I am there, I am usually not truly integrated into the group-think. There are pros and cons of that---the most obvious pro is that it means that if I end up in an executive position, I will end up being as independent as thought as can be (a boon), while the obvious con is that not being a part of the group-think makes me an even bigger outcast that I might be.
If there's some kind of lasting character quality of me, it is likely to be that of an outcast.
And if I'm an outcast (yet not quite an iconoclast), forget about being attractive to anyone, matchmade or not. I am more likely than not to have little to no connection.
A friend of mine has been trying to matchmake me, and while I appreciate their efforts, the me of today thinks that it's probably going to be in vain. If a relationship's success is dependent on having good and clear communication, then what kind of a relationship can spawn between someone who is likely to be a ``normie'' and one who is a well-known outcast?
Even if we restricted the relationship to something more physical in nature, it is likely to be doomed to failure, since I know just how unattractive I am, physically.
I'm not ripped, have no intention to, have a receding hairline as well as male-pattern baldness, and have bad skin to boot.
Who the fuck in their right frame of mind will see me and go ``ooo he's physically attractive enough for me?'' Talk about massive halu right there.
So I suspect that the route of a spousal relationship is effectively closed now. I'm not dumb enough to swear a covenant, but I think I'll just don't give a shit about it any more.
In other words, this rant might be the last time I talk about all these... relation-date-ship matters.
``OMG MT is turning incel!''
No, not incel---it is not being ``involuntary celibate''. I am intentionally choosing to be celibate, because there are other things to do that are perhaps more meaningful than boning someone. Like reading, writing, and perhaps making music.
``MT, aren't you afraid of dying alone?''
If you are seriously asking this question here and now, you truly do not understand me. Since when am I afraid of dying, let alone dying alone? When I die, I die---perhaps I shall sit with God through Jesus' intervention, or perhaps I end up on Sheol, or perhaps my faith is misplaced and there is truly nothing after. In other words, I'd be dead---why do I care if I died alone or not?
I mean, in the end, everyone dies alone. Doesn't matter if one practises one of the many dubious acts of co-burial/immolation of one's loved ones to ``die together''---there just isn't any proof either way, and so by Occam's Razor the shortest hypothesis of everyone dying alone is probably likely to be the more correct.
I don't even want to get into a ``discussion'' on how having another person can enrich my life. If I were a deeply integrated part of some society, mayhaps it will make sense. But I'm an interloper, an outsider no matter where I am. In that circumstance, how can anyone be a part of my world and enrich my life?
It's funny that I have these intrusive thoughts. Hard to tell if these are truly what I want, or are they actually just thoughts.
Better to just let these thoughts out, and send a prayer up to God to guide me according to His ways instead.
Till the next expungement then.
Saturday, December 07, 2024
See? This is Why You Should Save Your Work, No Matter How Temporary
See, the one time I didn't save an intermediate copy of my blog entry on Q10, was the one time Q10 decided to crash and take away the five hundred words.
Well anyway, I'll just speedrun the contents and skip the nuance.
I am/was down in the dumps; week's been long with having to deal with too many people; I hate myself but seeing that past-me gave present-me a chance to thrive, I will extend the good deed to future-me and not do anything utterly stupid; I think I'm a problem-solver type, and suspect that am not ``lovable'' since there isn't anything seemingly emotionally/relationally related to being a problem-solver; Love Hina is sad and isn't some taboo erotica that ought to be banned back when it was still in circulation.
Okay, and now on to something that wasn't wiped out in the crash.
I just got a carbon fibre instrument stand for The Big Flute. The difference was... it was 0.6 kg for the new stand versus 3.2 kg for the old one, all without feeling unstable as fuck even as the 4.6 kg mass of The Big Flute was resting on it. And that does not take into account the more compact for factor as well (tubes with some seemingly 3D-printed joint-blocks and neodymium magnets for holding things in place).
I had also sprung for a carbon fibre case for The Big Flute to replace the current wooden one. The mass difference there should be about 2.3 kg versus 5.7 kg. This means that the total mass of things that I need to lug around is now just 6.9 kg, versus 13.5 kg that I am currently doing for instrument + case + stand. It doesn't sound like much, especially considering that the new carbon fibre case + stand costs nearly a quarter of the MSRP of The Big Flute, but when the volume is taken into account, it is just that much more compact that it makes it worth the while.
Because with this new set up, I can move more easily, without ever feeling nor looking clunky. And this can open up new avenues, especially if something else pans out.
But the case isn't coming in till 2025-02 or so, and we'll just have to wait till then.
Meanwhile, I don't really have much else to talk about, so till the next update.
Well anyway, I'll just speedrun the contents and skip the nuance.
I am/was down in the dumps; week's been long with having to deal with too many people; I hate myself but seeing that past-me gave present-me a chance to thrive, I will extend the good deed to future-me and not do anything utterly stupid; I think I'm a problem-solver type, and suspect that am not ``lovable'' since there isn't anything seemingly emotionally/relationally related to being a problem-solver; Love Hina is sad and isn't some taboo erotica that ought to be banned back when it was still in circulation.
Okay, and now on to something that wasn't wiped out in the crash.
I just got a carbon fibre instrument stand for The Big Flute. The difference was... it was 0.6 kg for the new stand versus 3.2 kg for the old one, all without feeling unstable as fuck even as the 4.6 kg mass of The Big Flute was resting on it. And that does not take into account the more compact for factor as well (tubes with some seemingly 3D-printed joint-blocks and neodymium magnets for holding things in place).
I had also sprung for a carbon fibre case for The Big Flute to replace the current wooden one. The mass difference there should be about 2.3 kg versus 5.7 kg. This means that the total mass of things that I need to lug around is now just 6.9 kg, versus 13.5 kg that I am currently doing for instrument + case + stand. It doesn't sound like much, especially considering that the new carbon fibre case + stand costs nearly a quarter of the MSRP of The Big Flute, but when the volume is taken into account, it is just that much more compact that it makes it worth the while.
Because with this new set up, I can move more easily, without ever feeling nor looking clunky. And this can open up new avenues, especially if something else pans out.
But the case isn't coming in till 2025-02 or so, and we'll just have to wait till then.
Meanwhile, I don't really have much else to talk about, so till the next update.
Sunday, December 01, 2024
It's Faunover
Is the hololive English dream truly over?
Ceres Fauna has just declared her leaving of hololive English while I was at church this morning.
Doomposting aside, I think that there are quite a few things at play that probably few of us truly comprehend.
For one, the Cover Corporation that we knew of is not the same one anymore. Their stable of talents are aplenty, they had gone public, and have invested in stupid big amounts of money in a fancy studio to support their 3D media offering.
Their senior management has also changed, with an old director on the hololive English side being replaced, and their longest supporting director (A-Chan) having left the company earlier this year.
There has also been lots of collaborations with other companies, and many other steps had been taken to monetise the hololive IP, or at least put things on a firm enough footing that the hololive IP is kept in a form that is at least legally defensible as such.
But in the VTubing sphere as a whole, Nijisanji English has collapsed, and a ton of other small corpos have shuttered up, even as the world gets increasingly more dangerous with many rather hard-headed attempts to force things to the way they were before COVID-19 changed how we lived, worked, and played.
Third spaces have been lost, yet we find that people are starting to find alternative ways of leaving their COVID-19 shells of solace. This is especially so due to the backlash from how social media has absolutely fucked up a lot of things that matter to people a whole lot, from elections to jobs, and everything in between. Generative AI lurks in the background, providing large companies with an excuse to splurge money on some nebulous ``AI'' concept that is loosely powered by these generative AI models---the return of investment is seemingly even higher than that of the previous technological hype of the blockchain.
All in all, the world's a mess, and people seem to pine for the ``good old days''.
Unfortunately, VTubing wasn't a part of that ``good old days''. And so when big [old] money gets involved, it seems inevitable that they would force their ways of doing things down---after all, if they weren't smart, they wouldn't be the ones holding on to the capital that the company so sorely needs as ``investment'', right?
That is hard to say.
If the old ways were truly the best, then there would be no reason for evolution into the new ways. And luck does play an unbelievably large role as well, even if it isn't always the most dominant.
VTubing flourishing during the COVID-19 years was happenstance meeting some form of preparation. But whether it is something that can make it into the mainstream media as a consistent revenue stream... is something to be seen.
I mean, who can forget the sitcom era of the 1990s, and then the reality TV era of the 2000s? They eventually fell off the radar, and became niched topics at some point.
Maybe VTubing is heading to that end state.
But what I do want to say is, there's a time for everything. Every peak must be surrounded by troughs; otherwise it wouldn't be a peak. VTubing has probably hit a peak about 2 years ago, with Cover Corporation leading the pack.
And maybe it is time for a trough.
Ceres Fauna has just declared her leaving of hololive English while I was at church this morning.
Doomposting aside, I think that there are quite a few things at play that probably few of us truly comprehend.
For one, the Cover Corporation that we knew of is not the same one anymore. Their stable of talents are aplenty, they had gone public, and have invested in stupid big amounts of money in a fancy studio to support their 3D media offering.
Their senior management has also changed, with an old director on the hololive English side being replaced, and their longest supporting director (A-Chan) having left the company earlier this year.
There has also been lots of collaborations with other companies, and many other steps had been taken to monetise the hololive IP, or at least put things on a firm enough footing that the hololive IP is kept in a form that is at least legally defensible as such.
But in the VTubing sphere as a whole, Nijisanji English has collapsed, and a ton of other small corpos have shuttered up, even as the world gets increasingly more dangerous with many rather hard-headed attempts to force things to the way they were before COVID-19 changed how we lived, worked, and played.
Third spaces have been lost, yet we find that people are starting to find alternative ways of leaving their COVID-19 shells of solace. This is especially so due to the backlash from how social media has absolutely fucked up a lot of things that matter to people a whole lot, from elections to jobs, and everything in between. Generative AI lurks in the background, providing large companies with an excuse to splurge money on some nebulous ``AI'' concept that is loosely powered by these generative AI models---the return of investment is seemingly even higher than that of the previous technological hype of the blockchain.
All in all, the world's a mess, and people seem to pine for the ``good old days''.
Unfortunately, VTubing wasn't a part of that ``good old days''. And so when big [old] money gets involved, it seems inevitable that they would force their ways of doing things down---after all, if they weren't smart, they wouldn't be the ones holding on to the capital that the company so sorely needs as ``investment'', right?
That is hard to say.
If the old ways were truly the best, then there would be no reason for evolution into the new ways. And luck does play an unbelievably large role as well, even if it isn't always the most dominant.
VTubing flourishing during the COVID-19 years was happenstance meeting some form of preparation. But whether it is something that can make it into the mainstream media as a consistent revenue stream... is something to be seen.
I mean, who can forget the sitcom era of the 1990s, and then the reality TV era of the 2000s? They eventually fell off the radar, and became niched topics at some point.
Maybe VTubing is heading to that end state.
But what I do want to say is, there's a time for everything. Every peak must be surrounded by troughs; otherwise it wouldn't be a peak. VTubing has probably hit a peak about 2 years ago, with Cover Corporation leading the pack.
And maybe it is time for a trough.
A Little Bit More on the Flute Fair
Ah... stupid o'clock---the time of day where I sometimes grab an alcoholic drink, and start writing semi-readable nonsense.
So less than a week ago, I was a participant at this year's edition of the Autumn Flute Fair. I was normally just a passive participant, in the sense that I would spend time mostly at the trade floor, hanging out with the dealers, trying out flutes/piccolos, confusing people with music that they aren't used to (i.e. Chinese orchestral stuff), and the such. This time though, due to my affiliation with the King's Flute Choir, I was involved in quite a few of the other concert-like events. In the face of bonafide flute players [who do it Very Seriously], I stuck with going with The Big Flute instead.
Hardly anyone wants to play the contrabass flute for three big reasons:
So, why'd I play it?
Well, mostly because of reasons #1 and #2---I like low flutes after three decades of going high. And on that note, I get all the flashy stuff out of my system through ample dizi playing, and thus have no real wish to spend up to four times more time to master the Flute 1 parts. Most flute choirs are top-heavy anyway, and thus having more bass is always a good thing, making the role that The Big Flute play somewhat more interesting than might otherwise noted.
The flute Jamboree on Saturday afternoon was a fun one, and the closest to the largest combined flute choir-like entity that could be summoned during the Festival. The sonority of having a full-range flute choir when playing out chords was something to behold, especially when coupled with the good acoustics of the SOTA concert hall. While there were a total of three contrabass flutes lurking throughout all the performers, only two were available during the Jamboree proper (the Taiwan contingent came in late enough that they didn't manage/want to unpack their contrabass flute).
It was also interesting to note that of all the eight or so flute choirs that turned up for the Festival, there were only three contrabass flutes to go around. I knew that the contrabass flute wasn't that common, but I didn't realise just how uncommon it truly was.
For additional reference, The Big Flute is probably only the second contrabass flute to be in SIN city as at now, with the first one spending most of its time located in Johor Bahru due to the player [based in Singapore] finding it annoying to lug the heavy flute to and fro the Causeway for rehearsals with the flute choir that is based in Johor Bahru.
But I digress.
I won't write about the concerts, other than they were full of different harmonies due to their different composers.
I think I am likely done with writing anything else about the Festival for a while, even as I slowly find myself becoming a part of the flute fraternity of Singapore (and possibly SEA), possibly due to The Big Flute.
------
In other news, the upcoming month or two is going to be a mixed bag. On the one hand, things have finally tapered off somewhat due to the end of the year, with many of my team taking turns to go on long leave. On the other hand, I'm still stuck holding the fort, and having a couple of new mini-projects that I need to work on, as well as supervising an intern for a special project.
I know that I have no plans to travel out of SIN city, but damn I feel tired. We'll see how it goes.
I wasn't expecting it, but Brotato is a damn fun game. It's like a less claustrophobic version of The Binding of Isaac crossed with the ``be the bullet hell'' progression of Vampire Survivors, and it is addictively fun. I have been playing it at bursts, and have been enjoying it. It also has some quality of life options, like allowing the re-attempt of a failed wave to make it less annoying (I naturally took it---I'm an older man now with little time to spend on grinding unnecessarily).
100 Bullets is a very gritty story that is worth a read.
I think that's about it. The Anchor Strong beer isn't particularly strong (6.8%), but it is getting late. The last thing I would say is my bemusement at realising that an Applebot crawler is actively crawling this blog, possibly when its operators realise that a real-ish human is still writing new entries on it, as opposed to some AI-generated slop.
To the Applebot crawler: don't be a dick.
To everyone else; till next time.
So less than a week ago, I was a participant at this year's edition of the Autumn Flute Fair. I was normally just a passive participant, in the sense that I would spend time mostly at the trade floor, hanging out with the dealers, trying out flutes/piccolos, confusing people with music that they aren't used to (i.e. Chinese orchestral stuff), and the such. This time though, due to my affiliation with the King's Flute Choir, I was involved in quite a few of the other concert-like events. In the face of bonafide flute players [who do it Very Seriously], I stuck with going with The Big Flute instead.
Hardly anyone wants to play the contrabass flute for three big reasons:
- Shit's big, long, & heavy;
- Shit's not flashy; and
- Shit's expensive.
So, why'd I play it?
Well, mostly because of reasons #1 and #2---I like low flutes after three decades of going high. And on that note, I get all the flashy stuff out of my system through ample dizi playing, and thus have no real wish to spend up to four times more time to master the Flute 1 parts. Most flute choirs are top-heavy anyway, and thus having more bass is always a good thing, making the role that The Big Flute play somewhat more interesting than might otherwise noted.
The flute Jamboree on Saturday afternoon was a fun one, and the closest to the largest combined flute choir-like entity that could be summoned during the Festival. The sonority of having a full-range flute choir when playing out chords was something to behold, especially when coupled with the good acoustics of the SOTA concert hall. While there were a total of three contrabass flutes lurking throughout all the performers, only two were available during the Jamboree proper (the Taiwan contingent came in late enough that they didn't manage/want to unpack their contrabass flute).
It was also interesting to note that of all the eight or so flute choirs that turned up for the Festival, there were only three contrabass flutes to go around. I knew that the contrabass flute wasn't that common, but I didn't realise just how uncommon it truly was.
For additional reference, The Big Flute is probably only the second contrabass flute to be in SIN city as at now, with the first one spending most of its time located in Johor Bahru due to the player [based in Singapore] finding it annoying to lug the heavy flute to and fro the Causeway for rehearsals with the flute choir that is based in Johor Bahru.
But I digress.
I won't write about the concerts, other than they were full of different harmonies due to their different composers.
I think I am likely done with writing anything else about the Festival for a while, even as I slowly find myself becoming a part of the flute fraternity of Singapore (and possibly SEA), possibly due to The Big Flute.
------
In other news, the upcoming month or two is going to be a mixed bag. On the one hand, things have finally tapered off somewhat due to the end of the year, with many of my team taking turns to go on long leave. On the other hand, I'm still stuck holding the fort, and having a couple of new mini-projects that I need to work on, as well as supervising an intern for a special project.
I know that I have no plans to travel out of SIN city, but damn I feel tired. We'll see how it goes.
I wasn't expecting it, but Brotato is a damn fun game. It's like a less claustrophobic version of The Binding of Isaac crossed with the ``be the bullet hell'' progression of Vampire Survivors, and it is addictively fun. I have been playing it at bursts, and have been enjoying it. It also has some quality of life options, like allowing the re-attempt of a failed wave to make it less annoying (I naturally took it---I'm an older man now with little time to spend on grinding unnecessarily).
100 Bullets is a very gritty story that is worth a read.
I think that's about it. The Anchor Strong beer isn't particularly strong (6.8%), but it is getting late. The last thing I would say is my bemusement at realising that an Applebot crawler is actively crawling this blog, possibly when its operators realise that a real-ish human is still writing new entries on it, as opposed to some AI-generated slop.
To the Applebot crawler: don't be a dick.
To everyone else; till next time.
Monday, November 25, 2024
The Big Flute and the Autumn Flute Fair
What a weekend!
But first, I'll need to say this: I am going to make this as brief as possible as primo sleep time is fading away.
I took leave from last Thursday to today inclusive just so that I could take part in this year's edition of the Autumn Flute Fair. I got to be a part of a concert with the King's Flute Choir, playing The Big Flute, instead of being just my usual bug-every-dealer-in-the-Fair mode.
I met Chara; it wasn't awkward. It was just like as though the five years didn't happen, and really, did it? Everyone's different post COVID-19, me included. At least we spoke on friendlier terms and shared a little about our lives thus far, just like it all was before we decided to go serious.
SOTA as a venue was alright, though the behaviour of their assigned support staff/ushers/security folk was... odious. I can understand about them needing to do their jobs, but man, when they are front-of-house, their attitude kinda stinks. For instance, on day one of the Flute Fair, me and a bunch of people who have repair appointments at the earliest time slot were just sitting on the public seats outside the Gallery (where the repair technicians and the dealers' floor of the Fair were), knowing full well that we weren't supposed to go in because it just wasn't time. An officious woman from SOTA stepped out of the Gallery thought it proper to walk up to each of us and tell us ``Exhibition not open yet---it opens at one o'clock ah!'' Internally, I was just thinking, `no shit, that's why we're sitting here!', but externally I just frowned.
At the concert that I was not playing, another equally officious woman from SOTA was policing the seating with the rigour that would make the drill sergeant blush.
``No pockets! Move in!''
That was the command that was barked about. Now, there was nothing wrong about asking folks to move in to fill in the spaces; after all no one likes gaps in a concert call audience that prevents others from filling in easier. But there has got to be a better way of doing so.
And that woman barked that command at the dude who rented the concert hall from them to run the concert in the first place, when he was doing his usual I'll-move-around-to-oversee-things. He's a chill dude, and that was one of the few times I saw him get upset enough to stop explaining things, and just get up to walk out; the kind of action that often took these days when I realised that the situation was something that I just didn't have to put up with.
The level of power tripping from these front-of-house staff was just appalling.
That said, back-of-house staff was chill and helpful. They got shit done, smoothing things out, and were a joy to interact with.
But back-of-house was not the thing that the audience sees; the entitled attitude of the front-of-house staff was offputting. Maybe it's their way of showing that they were ``classy'', but I wouldn't be surprised if it was this attitude that made the SOTA venues less enticing for rental for events.
Or maybe that was the intention all along.
Anyway, there was naturally more that happened over the past few days, and I could write about them, but it is getting way past stupid o'clock, and if I do not crash out now, my sleep schedule is going to be utterly fucked by the time I need to start heading back into office.
Till the next update then.
But first, I'll need to say this: I am going to make this as brief as possible as primo sleep time is fading away.
I took leave from last Thursday to today inclusive just so that I could take part in this year's edition of the Autumn Flute Fair. I got to be a part of a concert with the King's Flute Choir, playing The Big Flute, instead of being just my usual bug-every-dealer-in-the-Fair mode.
I met Chara; it wasn't awkward. It was just like as though the five years didn't happen, and really, did it? Everyone's different post COVID-19, me included. At least we spoke on friendlier terms and shared a little about our lives thus far, just like it all was before we decided to go serious.
SOTA as a venue was alright, though the behaviour of their assigned support staff/ushers/security folk was... odious. I can understand about them needing to do their jobs, but man, when they are front-of-house, their attitude kinda stinks. For instance, on day one of the Flute Fair, me and a bunch of people who have repair appointments at the earliest time slot were just sitting on the public seats outside the Gallery (where the repair technicians and the dealers' floor of the Fair were), knowing full well that we weren't supposed to go in because it just wasn't time. An officious woman from SOTA stepped out of the Gallery thought it proper to walk up to each of us and tell us ``Exhibition not open yet---it opens at one o'clock ah!'' Internally, I was just thinking, `no shit, that's why we're sitting here!', but externally I just frowned.
At the concert that I was not playing, another equally officious woman from SOTA was policing the seating with the rigour that would make the drill sergeant blush.
``No pockets! Move in!''
That was the command that was barked about. Now, there was nothing wrong about asking folks to move in to fill in the spaces; after all no one likes gaps in a concert call audience that prevents others from filling in easier. But there has got to be a better way of doing so.
And that woman barked that command at the dude who rented the concert hall from them to run the concert in the first place, when he was doing his usual I'll-move-around-to-oversee-things. He's a chill dude, and that was one of the few times I saw him get upset enough to stop explaining things, and just get up to walk out; the kind of action that often took these days when I realised that the situation was something that I just didn't have to put up with.
The level of power tripping from these front-of-house staff was just appalling.
That said, back-of-house staff was chill and helpful. They got shit done, smoothing things out, and were a joy to interact with.
But back-of-house was not the thing that the audience sees; the entitled attitude of the front-of-house staff was offputting. Maybe it's their way of showing that they were ``classy'', but I wouldn't be surprised if it was this attitude that made the SOTA venues less enticing for rental for events.
Or maybe that was the intention all along.
Anyway, there was naturally more that happened over the past few days, and I could write about them, but it is getting way past stupid o'clock, and if I do not crash out now, my sleep schedule is going to be utterly fucked by the time I need to start heading back into office.
Till the next update then.
Saturday, November 09, 2024
Part Four of Pain: Done
Ah. Yet another pain point/milestone has been completed, and I can breathe a little easier.
Just a little, mind you.
November is reaching the second-third, and different things have started heating up. For instance, I really should be practising some of the more challenging parts for the contrabass flute for the upcoming gig on 2024-11-24, but I'm just feeling all tired and am trying to recover from... I don't know what. Burnout?
🤷♂️
Aaanyway, let's talk politics. No, not US politics, just the philosophy of politics as a whole.
To me, politics is the art and science of making big decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, given the actual number of people who are directly involved in the making of the said decision. To be apathetic in politics is a declaration that one simply does not care about the decisions that are being made, and there are only a very limited number of sets of people who can get away with that---the really privileged whose personal circumstances make them more or less immune to the consequences of the big decisions that are made, and the misled who are convinced somehow that they belong to the really privileged set of people who are somehow immunte to the consequences of the big decisions that are made, without the necessary personal circumstances that can make that a reality.
The rest of us though, we need to pay attention to the politics.
Since politics is the art and science of making big decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, it naturally contains big entanglements of different types of questions that need decisions to. There are no easy win-win decisions most of the time, and there are also as many possible decisions to be made for a single problem as there are people.
But this complexity cannot be used as an argument to stall any form of decision making---the longer a decision (any decision) is delayed, the more confounding and unpredictable the consequences.
So as humans, we start taking shortcuts. In the modern version of things, we create sub-sets of people with broad political ideologies that attempt to articulate some general principles from which their decisions (should they be in power) will follow. Think of it as some kind of ``axiomatic schema''. We tend to call them ``political parties''.
Here's the thing about political parties---it is but one way of having like-minded people (with respect to principles in the setting of policy) to band together to give enough heft behind their bid to advance their idea of how the big decisions are to be made. Political parties tend to be more... rational in some sense, because one needs to subscribe to the overarching principles in order to be a willing member of the said party.
But political parties are not the only way to organise like-minded people, least ways not in the modern age. And the reason for this, is the increasing ease for anyone to communicate with anyone else on their ideas, and to create virtual communities.
Now, there is nothing ``fake'' about virtual communities---they are as real as the pain one feels when one stubs their toe. However, there is still a qualitative difference between virtual and physical communities---the former requires a lot of heavy-lifting from logos, while the latter can rely on the tried and proven firmware of pathos that has been refined over the existence of humanity as a species. Thus, I am claiming that the ``increasing ease of communication'' is paradoxically not a good replacement of what we have done for aeons through face-to-face communications in meatspace. This is especially true when one takes into consideration the current political infrastructure---only political parties have the right (and legacy-driven capability) to actually rule after they become the government, and not any virtual-only communities.
This becomes a problem in that the virtual communities: as they increase in generated communication content, they start to think that they are amassing a more clout/followers/disciples, and eventually they will, as Biggie might say in dismay, ``get high on their own supply''. The echo effects make the virtual communities think they are really strong, but without much of the accompanying actions within the physical reality that conforms to the current political infrastructure, the only thing that currently counts in this iteration of the rule of politics.
It's not about left-wing versus right-wing. It's not even about liberal versus conservative. It's not even about immigration. It's literally about not paying attention to the actual rules of the processes involved to get into the position where the actual decision-making can be made, only because of one's hubris.
``MT, are you criticising the US election?''
No, I'm not. I'm criticising all elections that have a very vocal online presence about wanting change, without the physical support ``on the ground'' to back it up. And no, I don't think trying to co-opt an existing political party to advance one's causes that have traditionally not been a part of that party is the right thing to do either. Mostly because of the way humanity's firmware is run---those who are in earliest and the longest will tend to hold much more sway on the direction than might be initially seen.
As we beware the old who exist in a profession where many die young, we should also beware the veteran politician who stays in a political party that has tried to remake itself many times. Johnny-come-lately may have the piss and vinegar for change, but it is the grandees who give the final call on direction, and those types do not always have the patience nor wherewithal to think otherwise than their own counsel.
Till the next update.
Just a little, mind you.
November is reaching the second-third, and different things have started heating up. For instance, I really should be practising some of the more challenging parts for the contrabass flute for the upcoming gig on 2024-11-24, but I'm just feeling all tired and am trying to recover from... I don't know what. Burnout?
🤷♂️
Aaanyway, let's talk politics. No, not US politics, just the philosophy of politics as a whole.
To me, politics is the art and science of making big decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, given the actual number of people who are directly involved in the making of the said decision. To be apathetic in politics is a declaration that one simply does not care about the decisions that are being made, and there are only a very limited number of sets of people who can get away with that---the really privileged whose personal circumstances make them more or less immune to the consequences of the big decisions that are made, and the misled who are convinced somehow that they belong to the really privileged set of people who are somehow immunte to the consequences of the big decisions that are made, without the necessary personal circumstances that can make that a reality.
The rest of us though, we need to pay attention to the politics.
Since politics is the art and science of making big decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, it naturally contains big entanglements of different types of questions that need decisions to. There are no easy win-win decisions most of the time, and there are also as many possible decisions to be made for a single problem as there are people.
But this complexity cannot be used as an argument to stall any form of decision making---the longer a decision (any decision) is delayed, the more confounding and unpredictable the consequences.
So as humans, we start taking shortcuts. In the modern version of things, we create sub-sets of people with broad political ideologies that attempt to articulate some general principles from which their decisions (should they be in power) will follow. Think of it as some kind of ``axiomatic schema''. We tend to call them ``political parties''.
Here's the thing about political parties---it is but one way of having like-minded people (with respect to principles in the setting of policy) to band together to give enough heft behind their bid to advance their idea of how the big decisions are to be made. Political parties tend to be more... rational in some sense, because one needs to subscribe to the overarching principles in order to be a willing member of the said party.
But political parties are not the only way to organise like-minded people, least ways not in the modern age. And the reason for this, is the increasing ease for anyone to communicate with anyone else on their ideas, and to create virtual communities.
Now, there is nothing ``fake'' about virtual communities---they are as real as the pain one feels when one stubs their toe. However, there is still a qualitative difference between virtual and physical communities---the former requires a lot of heavy-lifting from logos, while the latter can rely on the tried and proven firmware of pathos that has been refined over the existence of humanity as a species. Thus, I am claiming that the ``increasing ease of communication'' is paradoxically not a good replacement of what we have done for aeons through face-to-face communications in meatspace. This is especially true when one takes into consideration the current political infrastructure---only political parties have the right (and legacy-driven capability) to actually rule after they become the government, and not any virtual-only communities.
This becomes a problem in that the virtual communities: as they increase in generated communication content, they start to think that they are amassing a more clout/followers/disciples, and eventually they will, as Biggie might say in dismay, ``get high on their own supply''. The echo effects make the virtual communities think they are really strong, but without much of the accompanying actions within the physical reality that conforms to the current political infrastructure, the only thing that currently counts in this iteration of the rule of politics.
It's not about left-wing versus right-wing. It's not even about liberal versus conservative. It's not even about immigration. It's literally about not paying attention to the actual rules of the processes involved to get into the position where the actual decision-making can be made, only because of one's hubris.
``MT, are you criticising the US election?''
No, I'm not. I'm criticising all elections that have a very vocal online presence about wanting change, without the physical support ``on the ground'' to back it up. And no, I don't think trying to co-opt an existing political party to advance one's causes that have traditionally not been a part of that party is the right thing to do either. Mostly because of the way humanity's firmware is run---those who are in earliest and the longest will tend to hold much more sway on the direction than might be initially seen.
As we beware the old who exist in a profession where many die young, we should also beware the veteran politician who stays in a political party that has tried to remake itself many times. Johnny-come-lately may have the piss and vinegar for change, but it is the grandees who give the final call on direction, and those types do not always have the patience nor wherewithal to think otherwise than their own counsel.
Till the next update.
Friday, November 01, 2024
No-vem-ber?
It is now November. The astute among yinz would ask me what is this year's NaNoWriMo entry title/topic.
And my answer is simply: I'm not taking part in NaNoWriMo this year.
I mean, check it out: 15 NaNoWriMo entries says something. I'm not burnt out on writing, but rather, a couple of things come to mind as to why I am not participating this year.
Firstly, I just have too many other things to do this time round. I'm playing with the King's Flute Choir again, this time for the flute choir concert at the Autumn Flute Fair 2024. I'm playing on my recently acquired contrabass flute in C called ``The Big Flute'' (yeah yeah... imaginative name). The Big Flute is unlike any other flutes that I have played so far---it is by far, the largest flute with a total length of about 2.73 m shaped like a 4, with an inner diameter that tapers off from 49.62 mm. In short, I needed time to both rehearse the contrabass flute parts, as well as to get used to the different embouchure, breathing, and fingering positions over the large vertically oriented flute.
Secondly, the organisation running NaNoWriMo itself was getting too damn weird and offputting. NaNoWrio's AI policy was controversial, and the next most recent not-so-nothingburger was the aftermath of some serious child grooming scandal. Something of an older vintage was the messed up web design update that happened a few years ago that broke many things, among which was the loss of almost all of one's writing buddies.
It also probably did not help that the municipal liaisons for SIN city have stepped down for their own reasons.
I say that NaNoWriMo was getting too damn weird due to the slow and steady evolution of what was a very clear [but dumb] idea of ``here's thirty days of November, here's a word count goal of fifty thousand words---go!'' into some general writing programme for young writers in the US while still maintaining some kind of international presence, with some rather vocal self-declared leftists turfing out their own fiefdoms of safe-spaces within the forums themselves. I'm all for being inclusive, but I do not necessarily subscribe to the metaphorical carving of feudal lands in what was essentially an open agora in the first place. I resent the hypocrisy of alleged inclusion through the use of identity politics---if you want some safe space for your kind of people, maybe do it elsewhere, and not carve up the public space and practise the hypocrisy of accusing others of being discriminative while practising discrimination on their own.
Thankfully I was never in a position in NaNoWriMo where I had to worry about that---I stick primarily to the regional forum and stay far, far away from the places where the hypocrites lurk---but I cannot help but notice that their sheer vocal loudness was definitely shifting the overall tone of NaNoWriMo itself.
NaNoWriMo was always about reaching the fifty thousand words within the month of November---it was never about what was written. Even the word count tool, when it was still around, did nothing about reading the contents except to count the literal number of words through counting the number of whitespace segments in between the words. So why would anyone care if someone's NaNoWriMo story was some racist diatribe, or if someone wanted a white male as their protagonist with nary a female in sight, or if their writing of the behaviour of the woman in the story was close to some messed up erotica than what a ``real and normal woman'' is?
So yeah, NaNoWriMo was getting weird and offputting.
Will I get back to it next year? Who knows---let me survive my upcoming birthday first, then we talk.
------
In other news, Cookie Clicker. This has been running almost continuously in the background of Eileen-III for the past two or three weeks. Big numbers with big names for big numbers are always fun.
And then, there's Persona 5 Royal that I have been playing after work. It... reminds me too much of the time when I was still studying. Cleared three Palaces, and there are more to go.
I'd keep writing more, but then I realised we're past stupid o'clock. I'm on leave tomorrow (or rather, today), so it's not that big a deal, even though I really want to catch up on sleep.
And thus, adieu.
And my answer is simply: I'm not taking part in NaNoWriMo this year.
I mean, check it out: 15 NaNoWriMo entries says something. I'm not burnt out on writing, but rather, a couple of things come to mind as to why I am not participating this year.
Firstly, I just have too many other things to do this time round. I'm playing with the King's Flute Choir again, this time for the flute choir concert at the Autumn Flute Fair 2024. I'm playing on my recently acquired contrabass flute in C called ``The Big Flute'' (yeah yeah... imaginative name). The Big Flute is unlike any other flutes that I have played so far---it is by far, the largest flute with a total length of about 2.73 m shaped like a 4, with an inner diameter that tapers off from 49.62 mm. In short, I needed time to both rehearse the contrabass flute parts, as well as to get used to the different embouchure, breathing, and fingering positions over the large vertically oriented flute.
Secondly, the organisation running NaNoWriMo itself was getting too damn weird and offputting. NaNoWrio's AI policy was controversial, and the next most recent not-so-nothingburger was the aftermath of some serious child grooming scandal. Something of an older vintage was the messed up web design update that happened a few years ago that broke many things, among which was the loss of almost all of one's writing buddies.
It also probably did not help that the municipal liaisons for SIN city have stepped down for their own reasons.
I say that NaNoWriMo was getting too damn weird due to the slow and steady evolution of what was a very clear [but dumb] idea of ``here's thirty days of November, here's a word count goal of fifty thousand words---go!'' into some general writing programme for young writers in the US while still maintaining some kind of international presence, with some rather vocal self-declared leftists turfing out their own fiefdoms of safe-spaces within the forums themselves. I'm all for being inclusive, but I do not necessarily subscribe to the metaphorical carving of feudal lands in what was essentially an open agora in the first place. I resent the hypocrisy of alleged inclusion through the use of identity politics---if you want some safe space for your kind of people, maybe do it elsewhere, and not carve up the public space and practise the hypocrisy of accusing others of being discriminative while practising discrimination on their own.
Thankfully I was never in a position in NaNoWriMo where I had to worry about that---I stick primarily to the regional forum and stay far, far away from the places where the hypocrites lurk---but I cannot help but notice that their sheer vocal loudness was definitely shifting the overall tone of NaNoWriMo itself.
NaNoWriMo was always about reaching the fifty thousand words within the month of November---it was never about what was written. Even the word count tool, when it was still around, did nothing about reading the contents except to count the literal number of words through counting the number of whitespace segments in between the words. So why would anyone care if someone's NaNoWriMo story was some racist diatribe, or if someone wanted a white male as their protagonist with nary a female in sight, or if their writing of the behaviour of the woman in the story was close to some messed up erotica than what a ``real and normal woman'' is?
So yeah, NaNoWriMo was getting weird and offputting.
Will I get back to it next year? Who knows---let me survive my upcoming birthday first, then we talk.
------
In other news, Cookie Clicker. This has been running almost continuously in the background of Eileen-III for the past two or three weeks. Big numbers with big names for big numbers are always fun.
And then, there's Persona 5 Royal that I have been playing after work. It... reminds me too much of the time when I was still studying. Cleared three Palaces, and there are more to go.
I'd keep writing more, but then I realised we're past stupid o'clock. I'm on leave tomorrow (or rather, today), so it's not that big a deal, even though I really want to catch up on sleep.
And thus, adieu.
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Goodbye hololive's #1 Detective!
Ah...
So I spoke about hololive English -Myth-'s fourth anniversary recently, and said:
Amelia Watson just announced that she was leaving in a ``not forever'' sort of way.
How do I feel?
Well, the usual sense of loss, which really shouldn't be anything new nowadays---God knows how many different times I have lost people. Not the dead, mind you, but the kind of loss where they were a big part of one's [daily] life for quite a while, and then suddenly they are no longer a part of one's life any more.
Like eulogies, praise of Ame's innovation and hard-headedness in hard-carrying HoloEN Myth (especially from the early years) have come out once more from all corners of the fandom. When that announcement was first made, many thought she she was transferring into a more managerial role, but within a few hours, Ame put rest to that and pointed out that she was indeed leaving her full-time streaming duties, and not becoming staff.
If anything, the official hololive Production announcement in Japanese makes it very clear (to the extent that it can be made clear) that Ame will remain as a talent, as compared to the vague-ass render in the English announcement, where the phrase ``an affiliate of hololive production'' raised more questions than answers.
The thing about getting older that no one will tell you, is that mortality and impermanence will forever dog you, intensifying themselves through ever increasing frequencies of appearance as one's experiences increases through the ever larger number of people we meet and interact with. And even though we always soothe ourselves by saying that ``we'll get used to it'', the truth is, we never do.
We just end up increasingly broken or numb at each loss.
If that is considered getting used to it, it is of little wonder why the older generations are almost always more jaded than the young.
But that is also the reason why as we age, we need to know how to temper our sharing of our life experiences to those who are coming after us. Yes, we know the world is heading to ruin, if it already hasn't, but amongst that narrow perspective that each of us has, there are unseeable alternatives that can either lead away from the current path of ruin, or even more optimistically take us towards something that is more wholesome and nurturing.
The young, who are fearless through freshness and a lack of enough setbacks, are the ones who take the charge to see these unseeable alternatives for us.
We, the old, ought to shield the young from the shit-fest that we can see, but we should also give them the room to explore a different path, let them learn through making mistakes, and providing them with a safety net to recover from.
It's not even about the old cliché about how a society is at its best when the old plant trees that they will never get to experience the shade of---it's about helping the young plant some new-fangled genetically modified heat-resistant AI-powered tree-hybrid that they come up with, despite us not knowing everything that goes into that, and knowing that there's a chance for them to fail, without discouraging them to try.
That is a much harder thing to pull off.
But back to Ame. She'll definitely make her mark in ways that will surprise us---I'm sure of it. After all, one of the reasons that she's leaving is to go do things that only she can do alone.
To use yet another cliché whose origins are murky as fuck, the way such things usually go:
Godspeed hololive's #1 detective! o7
So I spoke about hololive English -Myth-'s fourth anniversary recently, and said:
I'll miss this group of amazing ladies the day that they decide to retire from being HoloEN Myth.Well, it happened.
Amelia Watson just announced that she was leaving in a ``not forever'' sort of way.
How do I feel?
Well, the usual sense of loss, which really shouldn't be anything new nowadays---God knows how many different times I have lost people. Not the dead, mind you, but the kind of loss where they were a big part of one's [daily] life for quite a while, and then suddenly they are no longer a part of one's life any more.
Like eulogies, praise of Ame's innovation and hard-headedness in hard-carrying HoloEN Myth (especially from the early years) have come out once more from all corners of the fandom. When that announcement was first made, many thought she she was transferring into a more managerial role, but within a few hours, Ame put rest to that and pointed out that she was indeed leaving her full-time streaming duties, and not becoming staff.
If anything, the official hololive Production announcement in Japanese makes it very clear (to the extent that it can be made clear) that Ame will remain as a talent, as compared to the vague-ass render in the English announcement, where the phrase ``an affiliate of hololive production'' raised more questions than answers.
The thing about getting older that no one will tell you, is that mortality and impermanence will forever dog you, intensifying themselves through ever increasing frequencies of appearance as one's experiences increases through the ever larger number of people we meet and interact with. And even though we always soothe ourselves by saying that ``we'll get used to it'', the truth is, we never do.
We just end up increasingly broken or numb at each loss.
If that is considered getting used to it, it is of little wonder why the older generations are almost always more jaded than the young.
But that is also the reason why as we age, we need to know how to temper our sharing of our life experiences to those who are coming after us. Yes, we know the world is heading to ruin, if it already hasn't, but amongst that narrow perspective that each of us has, there are unseeable alternatives that can either lead away from the current path of ruin, or even more optimistically take us towards something that is more wholesome and nurturing.
The young, who are fearless through freshness and a lack of enough setbacks, are the ones who take the charge to see these unseeable alternatives for us.
We, the old, ought to shield the young from the shit-fest that we can see, but we should also give them the room to explore a different path, let them learn through making mistakes, and providing them with a safety net to recover from.
It's not even about the old cliché about how a society is at its best when the old plant trees that they will never get to experience the shade of---it's about helping the young plant some new-fangled genetically modified heat-resistant AI-powered tree-hybrid that they come up with, despite us not knowing everything that goes into that, and knowing that there's a chance for them to fail, without discouraging them to try.
That is a much harder thing to pull off.
But back to Ame. She'll definitely make her mark in ways that will surprise us---I'm sure of it. After all, one of the reasons that she's leaving is to go do things that only she can do alone.
To use yet another cliché whose origins are murky as fuck, the way such things usually go:
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.Amelia Watson is an explorer by nature, and after going far with what she has for now, there are new avenues to explore that she want to do, to fail/succeed fast so to speak.
Godspeed hololive's #1 detective! o7
Monday, September 16, 2024
QCUE Pairing Issues Resolved?
That was... harrowing.
tl;dr: If QCUE isn't willing to pair via Bluetooth, even after factory resetting, then the only way out is to drain the batteries of the two earbuds completely, shove them one by one into the case to check for connectivity, before trying to pair again through the ``normal process'' of holding the back button with the case open till the blue-light blinks.
Context: I bought me some Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (QCUE) a few months back on a whim to replace the now-broken third pair of the Bose QuietComfort 20 noise cancelling in-ear headphones (QC20). The key difference was that the new QCUE were wireless, as compared to the QC20.
The reason why I said ``on a whim'' was because I already lug around a QuietComfort 35 Wireless Headphones II (QC35II) to replace the QC20, which is wireless and does its job well. Except for the fact that in SIN city, the high humidity and high temperature meant that wearing these over-the-ears headphones for long periods of time was... uncomfortable at best. I still use these for all the various teleconferencing meetings due to the excellent sound isolation (we used to call 'em ``Skyping'' back in the day), but very rarely use them for casual music listening on the go.
And thus, the QCUE is a thing now.
I recently switched phones to the Xiaomi 14 from my Xiaomi 12. Had I a choice, I wouldn't even bother, but since the replacement of the non-working screen of my Xiaomi 12 back in late 2024-06 (was it only less than 3 months ago?!), I knew that the days of my Xiaomi 12 was numbered. Thanks to the myriad of 2FA and other ``app-fication'', the stupid ``smartphone'' has become a piece of critical equipment. As for my Xiaomi 12, the rear-backing was starting to show signs of the glue [from the repair] failing, and I did not want to repeat the same scramble for a fix, this time from potentially greater failure.
And so I went to get that replacement.
``MT, you're long-winded--get to the point!''
I'm getting there. I migrated the information and apps from Xiaomi 12 to Xiaomi 14 (bye bye Geocache Calculator and Barcode Scanner, no thanks to Android 14 and beyond auto-blocking apps targeting old-enough versions of Android).
And then I tried to reconnect my QCUE. Which was what prompted the first statement.
I tried everything---clearing all the Bluetooth lists, resetting the QCUE, resetting the phone's network connections, factory resetting the QCUE, re-do all the steps a few more times.
It didn't work.
That is, until I saw this innocuous comment:
And when I finally found that both earbuds are completely drained of power (can tell because the welcome ``vrroomsh'' sound was missing when the earbud was applied to the ear), I pencilled the three contact points per earbud, and put each earbud one at a time into the case, to ensure that it was in good contact before putting in the next.
Then I applied the pairing process with my Xiaomi 14.
Whaddaya know. The pairing was successful!
I did the same for Eileen-III, same.
Now, I still need to verify that the QCUE can actually receive the sound signals, but I cannot do that just yet due to the earbuds being completely drained of power.
But having the pairing working is already a great win.
As a side note, there was also an unknown
And apart from the nugget that saved me, here's the rest of the thread which has other useful information. For how long Reddit will be around for such things to be in existence, is something that only time will tell.
Till the next update.
tl;dr: If QCUE isn't willing to pair via Bluetooth, even after factory resetting, then the only way out is to drain the batteries of the two earbuds completely, shove them one by one into the case to check for connectivity, before trying to pair again through the ``normal process'' of holding the back button with the case open till the blue-light blinks.
Context: I bought me some Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (QCUE) a few months back on a whim to replace the now-broken third pair of the Bose QuietComfort 20 noise cancelling in-ear headphones (QC20). The key difference was that the new QCUE were wireless, as compared to the QC20.
The reason why I said ``on a whim'' was because I already lug around a QuietComfort 35 Wireless Headphones II (QC35II) to replace the QC20, which is wireless and does its job well. Except for the fact that in SIN city, the high humidity and high temperature meant that wearing these over-the-ears headphones for long periods of time was... uncomfortable at best. I still use these for all the various teleconferencing meetings due to the excellent sound isolation (we used to call 'em ``Skyping'' back in the day), but very rarely use them for casual music listening on the go.
And thus, the QCUE is a thing now.
I recently switched phones to the Xiaomi 14 from my Xiaomi 12. Had I a choice, I wouldn't even bother, but since the replacement of the non-working screen of my Xiaomi 12 back in late 2024-06 (was it only less than 3 months ago?!), I knew that the days of my Xiaomi 12 was numbered. Thanks to the myriad of 2FA and other ``app-fication'', the stupid ``smartphone'' has become a piece of critical equipment. As for my Xiaomi 12, the rear-backing was starting to show signs of the glue [from the repair] failing, and I did not want to repeat the same scramble for a fix, this time from potentially greater failure.
And so I went to get that replacement.
``MT, you're long-winded--get to the point!''
I'm getting there. I migrated the information and apps from Xiaomi 12 to Xiaomi 14 (bye bye Geocache Calculator and Barcode Scanner, no thanks to Android 14 and beyond auto-blocking apps targeting old-enough versions of Android).
And then I tried to reconnect my QCUE. Which was what prompted the first statement.
I tried everything---clearing all the Bluetooth lists, resetting the QCUE, resetting the phone's network connections, factory resetting the QCUE, re-do all the steps a few more times.
It didn't work.
That is, until I saw this innocuous comment:
I got the same issue and got to fix it by draining the whole battery of the earbuds, waiting about half an hour more and then charging them againWell, that's the one thing I hadn't tried, and so I left out my QCUE for a day and change. It took much longer due to not having any existing connection to tap into to drain the power faster.
---Tyras25
And when I finally found that both earbuds are completely drained of power (can tell because the welcome ``vrroomsh'' sound was missing when the earbud was applied to the ear), I pencilled the three contact points per earbud, and put each earbud one at a time into the case, to ensure that it was in good contact before putting in the next.
Then I applied the pairing process with my Xiaomi 14.
Whaddaya know. The pairing was successful!
I did the same for Eileen-III, same.
Now, I still need to verify that the QCUE can actually receive the sound signals, but I cannot do that just yet due to the earbuds being completely drained of power.
But having the pairing working is already a great win.
As a side note, there was also an unknown
BT 600 device ID that was emitted by my QCUE---I wonder if this is significant in any way about why the pairing was jank.And apart from the nugget that saved me, here's the rest of the thread which has other useful information. For how long Reddit will be around for such things to be in existence, is something that only time will tell.
Till the next update.
Sunday, September 15, 2024
HoloEN Myth: 4th Anniversary
HoloEN Myth. 4th Anniversary. Don't wait---check it out:
These ladies, though they operate behind an anime façade, helped me through some rough times.
I don't know if I had told the story of how I learnt about VTubers. It was this Trash Taste video; I cannot remember when I first saw it, but that was when I found out about VTubers. Reddit loved dumping hololive on the popular thread ever so often, so I had on-and-off heard of them, but not exactly the HoloEN Myth crew.
My usual content creators were having their own troubles, and so their content creation was on the down, my own relationship was shit, the global pandemic became a thing, and I was on a sabbatical (or a self-social isolation, to be precise) for a year.
HoloEN Myth was an escape from the nonsense that was there. Of course, there was also Pavolia Reine of holoro eventually with her Zero Escape playthroughs, and a slightly more relatable SEA culture references (in English), but the point that I wanted to make was that in the midst of hell on earth, a fairly wholesome entertainment started up, and became part of my media consumption habit ever since.
Three more generations have come since then (CouncilRyS/Promise, Advent, and then Justice), but Myth has been the OG. They were the least put together, the rawest, the pioneers, the most heartfelt, the ones who trail-blazed when few knew what they could be, just so that the later generations can soar from the get-go. Ina's comfy art streams, Ame's brute-force attempts at bringing some form of normalcy for the Myth ladies to match up what their JP senpais in hololive had, Gura for general entertainment, Kiara for being the heart, and Calli for music (that I didn't really got into, but it grew on me---check out End of A life, also the cover by Inamesame in the 4th Annivesary show), and of course the special magic that happens when the five got together each time for their anniversaries or for Halloween.
I can never watch their major collaborations without bawling---I was there when they were going through it all. Each group song they sang, each anniversary they went through... I was there.
We were there.
We all shared in their frustrations as the global pandemic fucked normalcy up, we all shared their triumph when things finally came to a head, and they could finally be what they were meant to be.
I'll miss this group of amazing ladies the day that they decide to retire from being HoloEN Myth.
But in the mean time, I will still watch them, and enjoy the time we have with them.
From a wiki on Hololive talents:
🐙🔎🔱💀🐔
These ladies, though they operate behind an anime façade, helped me through some rough times.
I don't know if I had told the story of how I learnt about VTubers. It was this Trash Taste video; I cannot remember when I first saw it, but that was when I found out about VTubers. Reddit loved dumping hololive on the popular thread ever so often, so I had on-and-off heard of them, but not exactly the HoloEN Myth crew.
My usual content creators were having their own troubles, and so their content creation was on the down, my own relationship was shit, the global pandemic became a thing, and I was on a sabbatical (or a self-social isolation, to be precise) for a year.
HoloEN Myth was an escape from the nonsense that was there. Of course, there was also Pavolia Reine of holoro eventually with her Zero Escape playthroughs, and a slightly more relatable SEA culture references (in English), but the point that I wanted to make was that in the midst of hell on earth, a fairly wholesome entertainment started up, and became part of my media consumption habit ever since.
Three more generations have come since then (CouncilRyS/Promise, Advent, and then Justice), but Myth has been the OG. They were the least put together, the rawest, the pioneers, the most heartfelt, the ones who trail-blazed when few knew what they could be, just so that the later generations can soar from the get-go. Ina's comfy art streams, Ame's brute-force attempts at bringing some form of normalcy for the Myth ladies to match up what their JP senpais in hololive had, Gura for general entertainment, Kiara for being the heart, and Calli for music (that I didn't really got into, but it grew on me---check out End of A life, also the cover by Inamesame in the 4th Annivesary show), and of course the special magic that happens when the five got together each time for their anniversaries or for Halloween.
I can never watch their major collaborations without bawling---I was there when they were going through it all. Each group song they sang, each anniversary they went through... I was there.
We were there.
We all shared in their frustrations as the global pandemic fucked normalcy up, we all shared their triumph when things finally came to a head, and they could finally be what they were meant to be.
I'll miss this group of amazing ladies the day that they decide to retire from being HoloEN Myth.
But in the mean time, I will still watch them, and enjoy the time we have with them.
From a wiki on Hololive talents:
The core concept of this hololive English group is VTubers who hail from worlds of legend.Legends indeed.
🐙🔎🔱💀🐔
Friday, September 13, 2024
Part Three of Pain: Done
Friday. I'm on leave, thanks to past-me for planning out various random long weekends to cover for the fact that 2024-09 has no public holidays in it. We cleared yet another demo/briefing yesterday, bruised, but succeeded on the whole. Next up is the shindig tomorrow morning that I have to go as a ``show face'' event despite being on leave, but it's more of a passive appearance than needing me to do anything.
Meanwhile, I have been spending time re-arranging Can't Help Falling In Love (Wedding Version) into a collaboration piece for flute and cello. It has been... interesting to do so, and I feel a little scammed because the flute part is obviously doing much of the heavy lifting in comparison with the cello (flute is largely playing an adjusted version of the treble clef, while the cello is playing an adjusted version of the bass clef). But such is the nature of the instruments---the higher one goes on the grand staff, the tighter the vertical grouping of the notes that are played, and the shorter they are to provide that sweet sweet melody.
It's a nice piece, but it does sound more Canon in D than Presley's Can't Help Falling In Love. Should be interesting though---I've done arrangements before (heh, mostly of my own compositions), but they were targeted at the full Chinese Orchestra, never for something a little more... sparse like a flute and cello. Once this is done, I might try to arrange another piece, but this time for the Chinese Orchestra itself---that itch is coming again.
Which means no shapez 2 this time. Actually, I've not touched a computer game for about a week now, spending much of my time doing reading, general thinking, and of course, the rearrangement.
In other news, my current phone, after fixing the cracked up screen just... uhhh... last month(?), is seeing the backing peeling off due to the glue seemingly giving way. I suspect it's because this phone has been undergoing some strong heating/cooling cycles when I activate the wireless hotspot feature---for some reason, that always makes the phone warm up more than usual. So it's back to phone shopping I go, possibly today. I am considering if I also want to update the potato that I use to run the ``official'' work number, but that will largely depend on how much I am intending to spend on my own phone to begin with.
``MT, why do you need a new phone? You can just hold the backing in place with rubber bands, right? Or at least, get it re-glued by the same people who glued it together in the first place!''
If there were nothing critical on it, I might have gone on that path. But sadly, there are so many 2FA nonsense that needs a working phone that I cannot run the risk of yet another catastrophic failure. That whole screen replacement was always a stop-gap---the end game had always been a total replacement at some point, and I suppose that today is just the right time for this to happen.
I think that's about it for now. The run of pain isn't over though...
Till the next update.
Meanwhile, I have been spending time re-arranging Can't Help Falling In Love (Wedding Version) into a collaboration piece for flute and cello. It has been... interesting to do so, and I feel a little scammed because the flute part is obviously doing much of the heavy lifting in comparison with the cello (flute is largely playing an adjusted version of the treble clef, while the cello is playing an adjusted version of the bass clef). But such is the nature of the instruments---the higher one goes on the grand staff, the tighter the vertical grouping of the notes that are played, and the shorter they are to provide that sweet sweet melody.
It's a nice piece, but it does sound more Canon in D than Presley's Can't Help Falling In Love. Should be interesting though---I've done arrangements before (heh, mostly of my own compositions), but they were targeted at the full Chinese Orchestra, never for something a little more... sparse like a flute and cello. Once this is done, I might try to arrange another piece, but this time for the Chinese Orchestra itself---that itch is coming again.
Which means no shapez 2 this time. Actually, I've not touched a computer game for about a week now, spending much of my time doing reading, general thinking, and of course, the rearrangement.
In other news, my current phone, after fixing the cracked up screen just... uhhh... last month(?), is seeing the backing peeling off due to the glue seemingly giving way. I suspect it's because this phone has been undergoing some strong heating/cooling cycles when I activate the wireless hotspot feature---for some reason, that always makes the phone warm up more than usual. So it's back to phone shopping I go, possibly today. I am considering if I also want to update the potato that I use to run the ``official'' work number, but that will largely depend on how much I am intending to spend on my own phone to begin with.
``MT, why do you need a new phone? You can just hold the backing in place with rubber bands, right? Or at least, get it re-glued by the same people who glued it together in the first place!''
If there were nothing critical on it, I might have gone on that path. But sadly, there are so many 2FA nonsense that needs a working phone that I cannot run the risk of yet another catastrophic failure. That whole screen replacement was always a stop-gap---the end game had always been a total replacement at some point, and I suppose that today is just the right time for this to happen.
I think that's about it for now. The run of pain isn't over though...
Till the next update.
Sunday, September 08, 2024
Midnight Stupid O'Clock?
It's stupid o'clock (sort of)---time to get all maudlin with a drink in hand.
I was doing fairly well for quite a while, all things considered. Yes, there were moments where I just wonder why the hell I'm still alive (and yes, even now), while intrusive thoughts appear fleetingly through my mind, before disappearing back into the abyss from whence they came.
Then of course all the things started to pile up as a matter of the normal course of operation---projects and what-not always start having their major checkpoints/milestones crammed together the closer we get towards the end of the current funding tranche.
I think I'm stressed out from that. There're also other things that I don't want to talk about specifically, but those things did not do me any favours either, in terms of piling it on.
I coped through playing games that took my mind away. shapez, shapez 2, No Man's Sky, The Talos Principle 2, and everything in between.
I tried to read more. And played more music, this time with a different group even, though the actual mechanics were more serendipitous than anything else. I tried to catch up on my sleep, and tried to get back on schedule on my weight loss programme (that 70 kg at the end of the year is starting to look dicey as hell now).
I went on long-ass cycling trips during the hottest time of the day to shock my body into exhaustion so that I didn't have to think so much.
Last evening, I even grabbed a friend to just hang out after work with some booze and food to chill out and vent a little.
Did all of that help?
In a way, yes. It did keep my mind together. I didn't make too many bad decisions on the whole, which I think is the singularly most important thing when it comes to crunch time.
But you know and I know that all these things that I do... are just temporary distractions at best.
``MT, but what about God?''
I would say that it is thanks to God that I can even hold it together enough to engage these temporary distractions.
In theory, I can just walk away from all the things that are stressing me out. But I cannot, and will not---I have literal lives under my charge, and when I am in charge of something (the team, in this case), I am determined to be the last damn person to leave, not the first.
Call it the curse of the duty-bound, but I think I'm severely sidetracked.
All the happenings aside, I'm not depressed. In reality, I'm just vexed over something else that started to bug me in no small way---my heart started aching for another soul to share my life with.
It crept up on me without my realising. I think it started back when I unhesitatingly replied that I was alive in response to a ``how're you doin?'' question. It was June, this year.
In between then and now, much [shit] has happened, and here we are today, feeling vexed.
I simply do not know if I am ready to pursue anyone, or if settling down with someone was something that I was to go for.
What was that life going to be? Will I still get to go on the path that I had started on ever since that fateful day I got dumped for the last time? Am I really over whatever happened from then, and am ready for the future?
Or is there even a future in the first place?
Annoyed. Irritated.
I think that in some way, it is actually hard for me to go on pursuing anyone. Mostly because I don't usually default into that mode to begin with---my hormones don't really rage hard and drive the horny in a way that makes me actively head out to look for that special someone. In many senses, attraction to me is a very confusing concept, even being a ``veteran'' of several [failed] relationships.
I don't see a conventionally pretty woman and go ``yowzers, she's hot---I simply have to speak with her!''. Hell, I don't even eye any woman whom I meet with the judgement of whether she's ``wife material'' or not---they are fellow humans first and foremost, and I treat them the way that I would treat anyone else, with courtesy and friendliness, without ulterior motives.
Perhaps this is why wherever I end up, most people trust me enough to help them, even at their most vulnerable.
For me to be attracted to someone, she's got to have that... thing about her that I have not managed to reduce into words. All the women whom I ended up in relationships with... they all had the same thing. It was a certain kind of personality, a certain way with which they go about doing things.
They did not stand out, not immediately. They are smart, but they don't usually make it a habit of showing it---speaking with them reveals that intelligence behind the façade that they put up for whatever reason. They are smart, but they aren't in the habit of being condescending with it. They have that wry sense of humour that ``whooshes'' past most people, and they don't usually draw such attention to themselves. They are never really conventionally sexy, but once I got to know them better (and when we became an item), they are incredibly sexy.
But I suppose there's also that other... thing that ensures that these women whom I had relationships with ended up all being exes at this stage---selfishness. It's not quite the same as being self-centred, but it's close enough.
Then again, can I really fault them?
Only a fool claims to be self-less, and even I have since learnt to not be a self-less fool in this world where the foolish are pointed out, made fun and taken advantage of.
I suppose part of the reason why my heart started aching for another soul to share my life with is that I missed the times where I had a safe space with a trusted person to share my thoughts with, to just hold on to physically to remind myself that life ain't all bad, and to have someone else to actually care about, to be a good reason to push on through despite how shitty life can get at times.
Friends can cover much of these, but as we age, even friends have their own lives and families to look out for, not me.
``But MT, you can always talk with ChatGPT! And if you're looking for someone to hold, embed ChatGPT into a gynoid!''
Firstly, eww. Secondly, eww. Thirdly, it's not the same... I have many things I can hold (Twinkletoes being one of them, now joined by a Takodachi in the office), but no matter how soft or cute they are, they aren't the same as another person whom one is spending one's life together with.
Anyway, I think I've lost the plot like ten paragraphs ago. I've vented enough for now, and it's time to turn in for the night---I need to play at the music ministry at PPCC tomorrow.
Till the next update then.
I was doing fairly well for quite a while, all things considered. Yes, there were moments where I just wonder why the hell I'm still alive (and yes, even now), while intrusive thoughts appear fleetingly through my mind, before disappearing back into the abyss from whence they came.
Then of course all the things started to pile up as a matter of the normal course of operation---projects and what-not always start having their major checkpoints/milestones crammed together the closer we get towards the end of the current funding tranche.
I think I'm stressed out from that. There're also other things that I don't want to talk about specifically, but those things did not do me any favours either, in terms of piling it on.
I coped through playing games that took my mind away. shapez, shapez 2, No Man's Sky, The Talos Principle 2, and everything in between.
I tried to read more. And played more music, this time with a different group even, though the actual mechanics were more serendipitous than anything else. I tried to catch up on my sleep, and tried to get back on schedule on my weight loss programme (that 70 kg at the end of the year is starting to look dicey as hell now).
I went on long-ass cycling trips during the hottest time of the day to shock my body into exhaustion so that I didn't have to think so much.
Last evening, I even grabbed a friend to just hang out after work with some booze and food to chill out and vent a little.
Did all of that help?
In a way, yes. It did keep my mind together. I didn't make too many bad decisions on the whole, which I think is the singularly most important thing when it comes to crunch time.
But you know and I know that all these things that I do... are just temporary distractions at best.
``MT, but what about God?''
I would say that it is thanks to God that I can even hold it together enough to engage these temporary distractions.
In theory, I can just walk away from all the things that are stressing me out. But I cannot, and will not---I have literal lives under my charge, and when I am in charge of something (the team, in this case), I am determined to be the last damn person to leave, not the first.
Call it the curse of the duty-bound, but I think I'm severely sidetracked.
All the happenings aside, I'm not depressed. In reality, I'm just vexed over something else that started to bug me in no small way---my heart started aching for another soul to share my life with.
It crept up on me without my realising. I think it started back when I unhesitatingly replied that I was alive in response to a ``how're you doin?'' question. It was June, this year.
In between then and now, much [shit] has happened, and here we are today, feeling vexed.
I simply do not know if I am ready to pursue anyone, or if settling down with someone was something that I was to go for.
What was that life going to be? Will I still get to go on the path that I had started on ever since that fateful day I got dumped for the last time? Am I really over whatever happened from then, and am ready for the future?
Or is there even a future in the first place?
Annoyed. Irritated.
I think that in some way, it is actually hard for me to go on pursuing anyone. Mostly because I don't usually default into that mode to begin with---my hormones don't really rage hard and drive the horny in a way that makes me actively head out to look for that special someone. In many senses, attraction to me is a very confusing concept, even being a ``veteran'' of several [failed] relationships.
I don't see a conventionally pretty woman and go ``yowzers, she's hot---I simply have to speak with her!''. Hell, I don't even eye any woman whom I meet with the judgement of whether she's ``wife material'' or not---they are fellow humans first and foremost, and I treat them the way that I would treat anyone else, with courtesy and friendliness, without ulterior motives.
Perhaps this is why wherever I end up, most people trust me enough to help them, even at their most vulnerable.
For me to be attracted to someone, she's got to have that... thing about her that I have not managed to reduce into words. All the women whom I ended up in relationships with... they all had the same thing. It was a certain kind of personality, a certain way with which they go about doing things.
They did not stand out, not immediately. They are smart, but they don't usually make it a habit of showing it---speaking with them reveals that intelligence behind the façade that they put up for whatever reason. They are smart, but they aren't in the habit of being condescending with it. They have that wry sense of humour that ``whooshes'' past most people, and they don't usually draw such attention to themselves. They are never really conventionally sexy, but once I got to know them better (and when we became an item), they are incredibly sexy.
But I suppose there's also that other... thing that ensures that these women whom I had relationships with ended up all being exes at this stage---selfishness. It's not quite the same as being self-centred, but it's close enough.
Then again, can I really fault them?
Only a fool claims to be self-less, and even I have since learnt to not be a self-less fool in this world where the foolish are pointed out, made fun and taken advantage of.
I suppose part of the reason why my heart started aching for another soul to share my life with is that I missed the times where I had a safe space with a trusted person to share my thoughts with, to just hold on to physically to remind myself that life ain't all bad, and to have someone else to actually care about, to be a good reason to push on through despite how shitty life can get at times.
Friends can cover much of these, but as we age, even friends have their own lives and families to look out for, not me.
``But MT, you can always talk with ChatGPT! And if you're looking for someone to hold, embed ChatGPT into a gynoid!''
Firstly, eww. Secondly, eww. Thirdly, it's not the same... I have many things I can hold (Twinkletoes being one of them, now joined by a Takodachi in the office), but no matter how soft or cute they are, they aren't the same as another person whom one is spending one's life together with.
Anyway, I think I've lost the plot like ten paragraphs ago. I've vented enough for now, and it's time to turn in for the night---I need to play at the music ministry at PPCC tomorrow.
Till the next update then.
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