In praise of diction

A tribute to my absolute disability to enunciate my “r”s.

When you write copy, you have the right to copyright
the copy you write, if the copy is right. If however,
your copy falls over, you must right your copy. If you
write religious services you write rite, and have the
right to copyright the rite you write.

Very conservative people write right copy, and have
the right to copyright the right copy they write. A
right wing cleric would write right rite, and has the
right to copyright the right rite he has the right to write.

His editor has the job of making the right rite copyright
before the copyright can be right.

Should Tom Wright decide to write right rite, then
Wright would write right rite, which Wright has the
right to copyright. Duplicating that rite would copy
Wright right rite, and violate copyright, which Wright
would have the right to right.

Drop Bush, Not Bomb

No, I’m not going to go into an in-depth discussion about the US-Iraq situation. The above quote is just something I saw in Lyndon’s latest post at Hell’s Kitchen.

Check it out, and drool over that super chio bass guitar he just acquired. Whoa.

Slackers @ DreamDestiny.com

You’ve already seen his Chinese New Year greeting… now check out the rest of his webcomic. Begun as a solo project and now evolving into a core team of creators, Slackers is a funny, well-drawn webcomic that looks set to become another great production of our island. Check it out here.

Dreams

I’ve always been a “dream victim”, usually experiencing a lot more in my dreams than in my life. As some people might know, my favourite dream (and most well remembered), was the one in which I was an international superspy (a la James Bond) and my mission - should I choose to accept it - was to rescue a super-chio Korean babe from the cultches of the enemy. Needless to say, I took full advantage of her while in a high-speed elevator up a two-hundred storey skyscraper. Unfortunately, with my luck, the ride took less than ten seconds, she got away from me and I couldn’t go after her because my pants were at my feet. Naturally, that was when I woke up.

My worst nightmare is too horrible to recall here, but before that, was the one where I got shot at point-blank in the chest, then forced to relive the seconds-long scene over and over again. Go figure.

I dreamt again last night, as well as the night before, suggesting that I’m not getting enough sleep, or that I’m not having a decent outlet for creativity. I think it’s the former, because I keep dreaming about school (the first in a mass comm class and the second among my JC classmates - in a convent, no less). Argh.

For Honour and Glory

No, despite the title, this is not going to be a post about the elite arm of the Singapore Armed Forces.

I completed, for the first time since buying it four years ago, the 1998 First-Person Shooter Klingon Honor Guard on Medium difficulty. You see, the game was ahead of its time and my poor PII 400 couldn’t handle it, especially since it was using the very demanding Unreal engine. So now, with a new l33t computer and a proper 3D graphics card, I picked up the game and completed it, in about 2 weeks.

For non-Star Trek fans, Klingons are basically a humanoid alien race with bony ridges on their foreheads and an fiery attitude to match. Though born a warrior race, they still maintain a code of honour, reminiscent of the bushido code of the Samurai. They also happen to be my favourite aliens in the whole Alpha Quadrant. Naturally, that gives me great incentive to play the game, which also features Klingon close combat weapons such as the d’ktahg dagger and the two-handed bat’leth sword.

In the game, you are the newest inductee into the Honor Guard, the elite commando unit of the Klingon Defence Force. You’re sent to investigate an assasination attempt on Chancellor Gowron, the leader of the Empire. During the course of the battle, you discover you’ve just landed yourself in the midst of a major conspiracy involving one of the highest ranking Klingons. However, thus lies the dilemma (for me, at least). You as an honourable Klingon, are bound to the code of honour, one of the commands being, “Always meet your enemy face-to-face”. In the game, however, there will be opportunities to sneak up on your opponent and cut him down without him even knowing you were there. Naturally, you’re encouraged to do that, since that’s exactly how they’ll be treating you if your back is to them.

And so I went through the game, sneaking around, sometimes utilising the sniper rifle for fun (I’m not too big on sniper rifles), but usually always acting when their back is turned. How else was I suppose to win the game? And thus, I’m led to learn that life (as in computer games) are such that you shouldn’t be bound by a certain set of rules, especially if your opponent(s) aren’t strictly adhering to the same rules. Kill, or be killed. It’s a dog-eat-dog world.

Power. Love. Knowledge. The Price you Pay.

Pander is a webcomic that at first glance, seems a lot like what I intended to do with The Sound of Silence… it’s got supernatural references, homoerotic themes and even the “badass dude with shades” character. It’s freaky, actually. Who would’ve thought that someone halfway across the world would have the same inspirations as I do?

What’s even scarier though, is that the guy has done over 100 strips in the span of more than a year and he hasn’t even got to the main story yet. In his own words, “The prologue isn’t over yet.” Unfortunately, he seems to have been on hiatus since December 2002, so there are no new updates since then. Nonetheless, I do challenge you to take a look. WARNING: Pander contains frontal nudity and homosexual situations. Not to mention graphic killing and cult depiction.

Afterthought: astronaut mailed me last night, but I consider it the best Valentine’s Day present in years.

Volleyball

Let’s talk about Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball today. For the uninitiated (where have you been?!?), it’s basically an excuse to see some of the most well-endowed women in the computer industry today having a simple bit of fun on the beach. Move over, Lara Croft.

The premise is simple, the gameplay is exquisite in its execution and the graphics (with the small exception of the hair), is flawless. The support site is incredible - it has all the details found in the manual, but in full brilliant colour, with screenshots designed to make you want more.

Unfortunately, that’s all there is to it. A simple game, utilising all the desires of the average male aged 15 to 35 to garner sales. The gameplay gets repetitive, the storyline’s convoluted and to top it off, you’re treated to a boring, clichéd ending which serves no purpose and doesn’t reflect your accomplishments during the game.

And when you think about it, the world is like that sometimes. It promises a rich, wonderful future, filled with perfect people just having fun playing a simple game. The adventure is lost, the challenge is lost and the joy of revelling in your own uniqueness is displaced by the desire to reach the epitome of “paradise”. For as long as television, games and movies continue to feed us this fairy tale life, we will keep on striving towards that perfect goal, earning loads of money and allowing nothing to get in the way of our “happiness”.

Petey’s Note: Also, check out this article on UGO.com!

Moving on…

A wise man once said, “Perhaps you just aren’t the friend to them you make yourself to be. If so, move on… move on.“

This afternoon I had a long SMS conversation with astronaut - nothing new here, our best dialogues are hosted by mobile phone. We talked about several things, as you would expect two friends to and to be frank, I was very happy to just communicate with her. One of our mutual friends think it’s love on my part and maybe it is. She doesn’t know about it, though. As far as she’s concerned, I’ve been over her since last year and that’s actually paved the way for a closer friendship.

To me, it’s not enough.

Recently, I’ve been very afraid that I could die and astronaut wouldn’t know because she never checks in on me. I’ve initiated almost every conversation we’ve had since forever. It’s always felt like my effort the only thing driving this friendship and today, I realised I couldn’t go on like this. She doesn’t like me, she never has and I have to recognise that fact. It leaves my heart heavy and my spirits weak but it’s a fact that I’ve been denying ever since I knew her.

We’re still friends, but how long will I have to wait before she decides to initiate contact?

It looks like Valentine’s Day’s gonna be another day alone. Well, at least this time around I didn’t screw up.