Not too long ago (Friday really) I attended a Halloween party held at a friend's place. It was made up of a group of folks from the ##uiuc channel of Freenode, as well as other random folks from /r/uiuc of Reddit. Anyway, I found myself there on a Friday evening/night, sipping on homebrewed cider and some beer that was microbrewed (I think) while hiding in the back room and talking to as many random people as I can.
And of course now I find that I like hiding in my apartment and not leaving it unless necessary. There's always something about a large crowd of people that makes me want to hide away and not come out and interact for a good two weeks since the occurrence of the said party.
I don't really know the reason. It is not as though I didn't enjoy myself at the party. Sure, I wasn't about to pick anyone up there (never was the intention anyway), and I had meet up with quite a few interesting/different people that I would otherwise not have the chance to hang out/talk to. Some of them are dicks of some sort, but many of them are cool (too cool really), but overall it wasn't a bad party. Yet after 3 to 4 hours, I start to find myself ever more detached from the mess, becoming even more of an observer rather than a participant.
Well anyway, that's all the junk I have to talk about. I'm still trying to recover from my exposure to so many [gorgeous] people in a [cramped] place, while hallucinating bits and pieces of the storyline for my NaNoWriMo 2012 entry, and wondering when I would stop procrastinating and finishing up the pieces of homework that are due, as well as the grading that I need to do, among the other relatively large life decisions that I need to make.
Till the next update.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
Time for NaNoWriMo 2012
Heh. Talk about stuffing my foot into my mouth. Not too long ago, I said something to the effect of not having a story to tell and having a rather complicated semester that is affecting the way in which I could plan and write a story.
Well, things have changed. There are a few rather earth-shaking changes in my life at the moment (no, I'm not getting married or jailed) that those who are closest to me know, and from those changes, I managed to come up with some kind of story line for the upcoming NaNoWriMo. So yes, I am back for NaNoWriMo 2012, as seen via the setting up of the customary word count widget on this blog.
So far, my entries for NaNoWriMo had been some sort of modern-era story line with a very strong ``slice of life'' flavour. Nothing out of the ordinary there, since I am basically following the old adage of ``writing what you know best'', and in my case, writing about my experiences from a different perspective was the easiest way to tackle this. This year, however, I have changed tack. It will be the first time that I am writing a fantasy novel.
Now, if you know me, the first thing that ought to come to mind would be ``no way, him writing fantasy? But he hardly reads anything fantasy to begin with!''. Well, yes, there is a strong ounce of truth there---I have not really read much fantasy in a long while, because really, fantasy is hard to write. I mean, there's a ``new'' term to describe fiction that take place in not-now (speculative fiction), but really, trying to invent a world and write it up such that it does not suck [in content and realism] and yet sucks [the reader in without him/her realising it] is just not that easy. So of course, there is a caveat hidden somewhere.
I cheat, obviously. For the most part there is a strong fantasy component; I blame this on my recent re-reading of Girl Genius and Wapsi Square, together with some rather... odd dreams/nightmares that I have been getting. But that is only part of the story; I will include quite a bit of vignettes of life in a style that is similar to my usual ``slice-of-life'' method of writing. All done with juxtaposition of course---it is hard to convince me to do do otherwise.
So the long and short of it is: I am back for NaNoWriMo 2012, with a slightly different genre from my usual comfort zone. We will see what kind of story I can come up with for my fourth 50k-word novel.
Well, things have changed. There are a few rather earth-shaking changes in my life at the moment (no, I'm not getting married or jailed) that those who are closest to me know, and from those changes, I managed to come up with some kind of story line for the upcoming NaNoWriMo. So yes, I am back for NaNoWriMo 2012, as seen via the setting up of the customary word count widget on this blog.
So far, my entries for NaNoWriMo had been some sort of modern-era story line with a very strong ``slice of life'' flavour. Nothing out of the ordinary there, since I am basically following the old adage of ``writing what you know best'', and in my case, writing about my experiences from a different perspective was the easiest way to tackle this. This year, however, I have changed tack. It will be the first time that I am writing a fantasy novel.
Now, if you know me, the first thing that ought to come to mind would be ``no way, him writing fantasy? But he hardly reads anything fantasy to begin with!''. Well, yes, there is a strong ounce of truth there---I have not really read much fantasy in a long while, because really, fantasy is hard to write. I mean, there's a ``new'' term to describe fiction that take place in not-now (speculative fiction), but really, trying to invent a world and write it up such that it does not suck [in content and realism] and yet sucks [the reader in without him/her realising it] is just not that easy. So of course, there is a caveat hidden somewhere.
I cheat, obviously. For the most part there is a strong fantasy component; I blame this on my recent re-reading of Girl Genius and Wapsi Square, together with some rather... odd dreams/nightmares that I have been getting. But that is only part of the story; I will include quite a bit of vignettes of life in a style that is similar to my usual ``slice-of-life'' method of writing. All done with juxtaposition of course---it is hard to convince me to do do otherwise.
So the long and short of it is: I am back for NaNoWriMo 2012, with a slightly different genre from my usual comfort zone. We will see what kind of story I can come up with for my fourth 50k-word novel.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
傻女
Something from yesteryear:For some reason, the tune sticks really deep in my mind for this one.
And yes, it is in cantonese. I'm sure there is a chinese version, but I'm not sure where it might be.
《傻女》——陈慧娴Lyrics courtesy 虾米.com
这夜我又再独对夜半无人的空气
穿起你的毛衣 重演某天的好戏
让毛做长袖不经意地 抱着我静看天地
让唇在无味的衣领上 笑说最爱你的气味
我恨我共你是套现已完场的好戏
只有请你的毛衣 从此每天饰演你
夜来便来伴我坐 默然但仍默许我
将肌肤紧贴你 将身躯交予你
准许我这夜做旧角色 准我快乐地
重饰演某段美丽故事主人
饰演你旧年共寻梦的恋人
再去做没流着情泪的伊人
假装再有从前演过的戏份
重饰演某段美丽故事主人
饰演你旧年共寻梦的恋人
你纵是未明白仍夜深一人
穿起你那无言毛衣当跟你接近
And yes, it is in cantonese. I'm sure there is a chinese version, but I'm not sure where it might be.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Indiana Hiking/Geocaching
It has been a while since I wrote anything here, hasn't it? Like always, this place feels as though I were merely shouting hoarsely into the void, where the vastness of the Web renders my words to be as effectual as a bucket of water dumped into the ocean. But that suits me fine---this is still just one of the many outlets that I have allowed myself to have in order to ensure some minimal level of sanity.
Alright, enough of the blathering. What's new? Recently, I made a trip out to a state park in Indiana to pick up a cache that was placed there in the year 2000, one of the oldest caches that I have physically logged. The previous old cache was circa 2001 and in Singapore, so it was an interesting find. The cache was rated as 3/4.5, but I think that the terrain is at most 3. Maybe the terrain difficulties in the early days were less extreme than what we have now, which made the 4.5 terrain level justified, or it could very well be the case that I am more or less near the physical prime of my life, which made hiking through the state park a breeze, even though the trails were rated as being ``very rugged''. Of course, John and I speculated that there were some legal reasons to over rate the trails, just in case of an accident.
While on the hiking/geocaching trip, I actually come to realise the truth about combat boots---they are the all-round most mediocre boots to be hiking with, but they still trounce any sneakers that are used for the same activities. Unlike ``proper'' hiking boots, combat boots don't have that much ankle mobility, which makes long term walking tricky, but more importantly, the treads of the combat boots are not that well suited for moss-covered rocks or rocks that are generally slippery from say water. They work extremely well in mud due to the thickness of the tread (the tread pattern is basically islands of quadrilaterals, which work on a similar principle as say caterpillar tracks), but since the end of the treads do not have the smaller ``grips'' that are present in hiking boots, we find that walking over moss and/or wet rocks just does not work that well. Unfortunately, most of the hiking over in North American deals with non-muddy situations, so the combat boots are not the best way to go about. Come to think of it, I actually do own a pair of hiking boots that I wear on days that I choose not to wear my Vibrams---I treat them like sneakers, but they are fairly comfortable to walk in. But I still stick with my combat boots for the single awesome property of being waterproof up to two inches above ankle height, a very useful property when trying to ford streams while simultaneously avoiding being wet. For that purpose, a pair of tightly laced combat boots works wonders.
Strange enough, as I am typing stuff here on Firefox 16.0, I'm not facing any of the slow downs that I was experiencing earlier. Either Google fixed the scripts for the editing box, or Mozilla did something about the way they are running the scripts. In either case, it is a good thing because now, what I type is no longer taking forever to be shown.
Alright, enough updates for now. Till the next one.
Alright, enough of the blathering. What's new? Recently, I made a trip out to a state park in Indiana to pick up a cache that was placed there in the year 2000, one of the oldest caches that I have physically logged. The previous old cache was circa 2001 and in Singapore, so it was an interesting find. The cache was rated as 3/4.5, but I think that the terrain is at most 3. Maybe the terrain difficulties in the early days were less extreme than what we have now, which made the 4.5 terrain level justified, or it could very well be the case that I am more or less near the physical prime of my life, which made hiking through the state park a breeze, even though the trails were rated as being ``very rugged''. Of course, John and I speculated that there were some legal reasons to over rate the trails, just in case of an accident.
While on the hiking/geocaching trip, I actually come to realise the truth about combat boots---they are the all-round most mediocre boots to be hiking with, but they still trounce any sneakers that are used for the same activities. Unlike ``proper'' hiking boots, combat boots don't have that much ankle mobility, which makes long term walking tricky, but more importantly, the treads of the combat boots are not that well suited for moss-covered rocks or rocks that are generally slippery from say water. They work extremely well in mud due to the thickness of the tread (the tread pattern is basically islands of quadrilaterals, which work on a similar principle as say caterpillar tracks), but since the end of the treads do not have the smaller ``grips'' that are present in hiking boots, we find that walking over moss and/or wet rocks just does not work that well. Unfortunately, most of the hiking over in North American deals with non-muddy situations, so the combat boots are not the best way to go about. Come to think of it, I actually do own a pair of hiking boots that I wear on days that I choose not to wear my Vibrams---I treat them like sneakers, but they are fairly comfortable to walk in. But I still stick with my combat boots for the single awesome property of being waterproof up to two inches above ankle height, a very useful property when trying to ford streams while simultaneously avoiding being wet. For that purpose, a pair of tightly laced combat boots works wonders.
Strange enough, as I am typing stuff here on Firefox 16.0, I'm not facing any of the slow downs that I was experiencing earlier. Either Google fixed the scripts for the editing box, or Mozilla did something about the way they are running the scripts. In either case, it is a good thing because now, what I type is no longer taking forever to be shown.
Alright, enough updates for now. Till the next one.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
NVIDIA Optimus BSOD
If you own an Alienware m11xR2 like Eileen, and are playing Torchlight II with frequent blue screen of deaths after around 20 to 40 minutes of game time, there is a fix for this. According to the pooled sources that I have found, this is related to the shader clocks being on the high side. A working solution is to download MSI Afterburner, enable the ``Legacy GUI'', and shift the clock speed of the shader down by around 50MHz. I usually run this tool after launching Torchlight II to ensure that I am indeed running on the NVIDIA GT 335m graphics card as opposed to the integrated one.
After quitting the game, I always reset the clock rates. No harm doing that, really.
After quitting the game, I always reset the clock rates. No harm doing that, really.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Rue
To thine own self be trueA maxim of life, it seems, is to be true to oneself. Being true to the self connotes the notion of actually knowing what one truly wants and then working towards that goal. It suggests the preternatural ability to exercise judgement, preferably good, with respect to one's interest and self-preservation.
---Polonius, Hamlet, by Shakespeare
Interestingly, I think that I am severely lacking in good judgement these days for some reason. I cannot tell if this is physiological (something fundamentally wrong with my brain from the few blows I have suffered over the last couple of years from taking the breakfalls from some throws really badly) or psychological (something fundamentally wrong with my mind/world view from the increasing levels of cynicism that has developed from the general withdrawal from intimate social contact for one reason or another). In either case, it seems that my last few years of judgements are relatively questionable, and it seems to be time that I started to rectify them, one step at a time.
I have been wondering to myself for quite a while. The aspect that I thought was my major strength (a man with no past) is fast catching up with me in the present, where I realise that since I was a man with no past, my roots are mostly lacking, and the lack of a root was starting to become a liability on my psyche. From which position are my actions stemming from is a question that does not have a ready answer, and it scares me.
Yes, there is something that scares me. When I realised that, I was rather surprised myself. I wasn't known to be that afraid of things, but here I am feeling fear. Pure unadulterated fear.
I keep escaping from it, of course, like what someone said to me, a coward. I still don't know how best to face my fears, considering that I do not have a strong enough base to face them with. I used to rely on my friends a lot, but they all... have problems of their own and are out of reach. The new friends I make just don't know me well enough to be of any use, and in addition to that, they are not that close to me anyway. And my family... I don't really want to trouble them. I feel that they have been through enough for me, and so perhaps I should just suck it up and do it myself.
And so I am sucking it up. And suffering greatly from it. So terribly greatly.
I wake up each morning feeling a sinking feeling deep within my chest, rousing myself somehow to get to the office. I pass the day reading papers, thinking more or less aimlessly, working on homework, running to and fro classes, watching my life fade away. When I go to bed, I would collapse only when the night is deep, and then would suddenly be wide awake at three in the morning.
Fear is a powerful emotion. I don't fear the real---it is the abstract that gets my goat.
There are days I have thought of just sitting there and ending it all somehow, either disappearing from contact forever or well heh just disappearing completely. But they will solve nothing, obviously. I hate myself sometimes for thinking about them in the first place.
Oh well. Life sucks.
Time to suck it down and move on.
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