tsukineko - that dreamless horizon

The Million-Year Picnic

2009-09-23T19:53:18Z

From tarzanic -- Brisvegas covered in a miasma of red-orange dust. All over - country highways, Storey Bridge, the ferris wheel at South Bank.

And then, Jimbo was the Martians.

recipe!

2009-09-03T11:46:35Z

I'm very proud of the garlic-tarragon bread I just baked, so here's a picture and the recipe!

Farmer MASTERFOODS's Traditionale Garlick-Tarragon Brede

INGREDIENTS

Garlic (1 1/3 cloves)
MASTERFOODS’s garlic powder (1/2 teaspoon)
MASTERFOODS’s dried tarragon leaves (2 BIG tablespoons and then some)
MASTERFOODS’s roast chicken seasoning (1 teaspoon)
MASTERFOODS’s dried parsley leaves (1/2 teaspoon)
Pepper to taste
Butter (75 grams)
Half a loaf of bread (The thicker loaves (bâtards, flutes etc.) are perfect for this – lots of space for lots of garlic-tarragon seasoning)

METHOD

Preheat oven to 230C. (I put the bowl of butter on top of the oven so that it’d melt)
Press garlic into bowl.
Add pepper, parsley, and roast chicken seasoning to garlic butter.
Slice bread at approx. 45 degree angle, and place onto foil.
Stir tarragon into the now-melted garlic butter + pepper roast mixture.
Liberally spoon the mixture between slices, occasionally pressing it against each slice.
Wrap in foil and then bake for 25 minutes, flipping it over after 15 minutes
Unwrap, serve, and share!

The fresh garlic, it melds well with the butter, and makes for an uncomplicated, hearty experience! Gives each bite a bite too (hur hur). This makes the tarragon work since we get a subtle undertone of anise, which then matures into an appreciably more pronounced aftertaste.

tweetesque

2009-07-09T12:16:09Z

   I've had two papers accepted by A rank journals over the last month, one of which is freely available here. Along with the M/C piece, that's three peer-reviewed publications to my credit. I think I'll reach my target of six this year. I do so want to get out of Singapore.

  I'm now working on a short (1500 words) piece. I *could* be more utilitarian and actually work on the Code Geass paper, but the production process is fun. A painful sort of fun, admittedly, since I'm currently stuck, but fun nontheless. Not that the other paper won't be (painful) fun too.

  What els--oh yes, I ponied up US$20, and am now a SomethingAwful Goon! It are a great and wonderful privilege to be a Goon! The entry fee and strict moderators keeps social undesirables (the posters of 4chan, Gamefaqs etc. out), and I can now participate in discussions about my favourite animuus and tabletop RPGs. Then there's also that I'm part of a community which produces erotic A Song of Ice and Fire fanfiction. Yay! ^_^

  One last thing: I am now the proud owner of

mediumcat is medium.

sick

2009-05-10T05:41:23Z

   *HAAA-CHOOOO!*

  So guess who's down with flu?

  Guess who can stay home to finish work and blow snot all over tissue paper? As opposed to, say, going out for lunch at *Tampines*. Which, as far I am concerned (and rightly so!!!), is so far away that it's a different country. FUN FACT: Malaysia is closer to my house compared to Tampines.

  I have never been so happy to be sick in my life!

  *sneezes happily*

zerotonin @ 2009-05-10T01:47:00

2009-05-09T18:07:42Z

There's a family function which I *have* to attend tomorrow afternoon. Not 'have to' as in 'this is awesome!'. More 'have to' in the sense of, well, 'have to'.

The function'll be over at the other end of the island. So that means I'll have to set out a bit before lunch, and will only be back just before dinner. If there aren't any (very probable) delays along the way.

Tomorrow's a rather bad time. I have two abstracts to submit by Tuesday, so I want to finish the current essay-ette ASAP. I am, admittedly, over the essay-ette's word limit. That's normally a *good* problem, but in this case I find that I haven't yet gone into my argument proper. Provided background and a research question, yes, but little else.

So that's why I'm still up. No sleep for me tonight. No swimming for me tomorrow morning.

4am will be a time of merciless editing and reshuffling!

zerotonin @ 2009-05-08T03:22:00

2009-05-07T19:28:42Z

me: if you google "feminist mentor", TSM is the first few results.

xin: well. she's certainly moved up 72 pages.

(Video cynically LJed for my future reference.)

466/1500 words --now to find out what line of inquiry my essay will take.

TANGENTIAL: Malaysia arrests terrorism manhunt target. This made me LOL. He should have hid out in Indonesia instead! But ...April 1? It's already mid-May!

TANGENTIAL 2: Block mozzarella is so much chewier and stretchier than the shredded kind! (Which is plenty chewy and stretchy anyway.)

zerotonin @ 2009-05-01T18:18:00

2009-05-01T10:56:50Z

  Bacon in miso soup is very nice! It adds a lower, deeper tang to the broth, bulking it up into a hearty delight! A caveat: it's damn fattenning, so it's best in small doses. A single rasher should be enough for even those who go RAAARR! FRESH MEAT!!! with every meal.

  In the soup pot tonight:

- bacon, cut rough
- bonito flakes
- nuts
- wood-ear fungus
- shiitake
- red cooking wine

  Later there's Wolverine & the X-Men! Then: revise the M/C paper, work on bear-related project, sleep early for run Saturday morning.

  Bacon miso noodles, yesh!

-------------------------

  Road trip with K? Heck yeah! But 4 days only? Where to? Has to be somewhere near. Probably Vietnam. I liek pho very much.

  COMEDY OPTION: BURMA.

-------------------------

  Hmm. Touring Burma may be morally justifiable afterall. Avoid government-recommended hotels, and spend one's money in the private economy as much as possible.

  And it'd make a good story at parties!

  Still... four days (including travelling) in a place where tourist attractions we visit will have to be (out of moral necessity) off the beaten path. This with me ~~bad~~ abyssmal at directions too. =(

zerotonin @ 2009-04-30T23:25:00

2009-04-30T16:08:46Z

  $25 of photocopying done today. My eyes still sting from the flash, and I have no doubt that the brrr-zneouuu of the photocopier will reoccur in my nightmares tonight. They didn't have Bob Stam's Subversive Pleasures (alas!) but there was Abercrombie and Longhurst's Audiences, which I will bind and read tonight as recommended by my reviewer.

  They're showing Code Geass on Central now, the episode after the one where M and I were loudly cheering Diethart for being so devoted to sensationalism that the Rebellion got really really good press. Subs look grammatically OK. Though I wish there was an option for English audio. And I now have a reason to stay home on weeknights --Central begins broadcasting Wolverine and the X-Men at 7.30pm tomorrow!

-----------------------------

  I was randomly googling names, and found this. It'd be an understatement to say it made my day. Narcissistic image of the self and all that. (And the first Quirk! My methods and madness are undone!) But ...'Dr.', eh? Still a long time before that happens. Still so very much to learn.

  Got the call-up for military reservist training today. 'S initially a retraining session from the morning of 13 August till midnight of 15 August. Then moar government-mandated fun times afterwards. Very loooooooong fun times. Oh! little document thoughtfully telling me in bold that I will end up in the wrong part of my old workplace if I don't attend! why did you have to come at a time when I've given singularly serious thought to doing my degree overseas if possible? Where my research will not be disrupted by two weeks of me having to do basic medical procedures (very inexpertly) to (very unlucky) conscripts.

  Alas! impertinently official reminder slip! why did you have to arrive now? The advantages of going overseas initially were a) possibly having J and L as supervisors and sharing a ceilingcat-guarded office with S, b) no need to deal with NUS's red tape, c) wisdom being better when it comes from a long way away, d) being able to conform to peer pressure to screw off (it is NOT funny that so many in my little social circle--more like half-circle, actually!--are leaving the island, and e) ADVENTCHUR!!!TM in a distant wold. Now to add to all that, there's f) no need to disrupt my work to serve a cause I don't believe in, nor wear a uniform that is irritatingly thick and tight.

Silly, confounding, :psyducky: piece of paper! You've just made NUS less attractive!

sleeeeepy

2009-04-29T15:56:53Z

Wow.

It's a wonderfully progressive idea, and I can't help but remember MSTU classes where J would *insist* that we dissect the flaws of THEORYNAMES, nevermind that we were undergrads, and nevermind that we might be inaccurate. It's the spirit of *questioning* that matters, not the dogmatic clinging to THEORISTNAME for all seasons.

zerotonin @ 2009-04-27T23:25:00

2009-04-27T15:55:01Z

  I know this guy, E, from my IH days. Top bloke. Loves to chillax. Great with people. The kind of dude you want at a party.

  He was in law school when we first met. Wasn't enjoying it much.

  So he took a semester off, and drove all over Queensland evangelising for beer. (And fine wine byproducts too. But mainly beer.) He'd drive into rural villages with his truck full of merrily sloshing bottles ...and he'd come out half an hour later with a much lighter truck and a much heavier wallet. I remember his room. Crates of XXXX everywhere. The installation of a minibar in his bathroom only meant that there was another raised space to stack beer cartons on.

  He was generous with his beer too. He'd be like *waves hand dismissively* "Yeah, take as much as you guys want."

  "Y'sure it's OK?" we'd ask.

  "Look around, man. I've got heaps! 'S cool. All cool. You want goon with that? There's some by the fridge you can grab. "

   E just MSNed me. He's all the way over in Tokyo now. Got a contract teaching English to grade schoolers. He's damn happy with his life now. Playing with kids for 4 hours a day, reading manga in the toilet till it's time to knock off work, touring all the cool places in the city at night and on weekends. Fun, life-experience-accumulating stuff like that.

  I didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure he hasn't finished his law degree yet. And I'm really really happy for him. He might have been a decent lawyer, but he'd definitely have been miserable at the job.

  Verily, rocketh on, E!

  (hadoken)

OBJECTION! to bakuretsu10shi's defence!

2009-04-26T17:35:05Z

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: You should send Phoenix Games an email.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: OBJECTION!

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: Maybe thats how they get inspiration!

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: I wonder why they haven't made an Ace Attorney game yet. It's a bad sign for the company when (I'm checking now) no one wants to torrent your games.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: I recommend the game title be Ace At Turney! -- Help Ace, wannabe lawyer for innocent criminals and mafia bosses, as he meanders through his budding career at Turney Courts while his childhood rival Blue, the best persecuter in town, fights him at every turn! Collect all the witnesses and never forget to fight justice!

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "The best persecuter"! YES YES YES! I cannae ...stop ....laughing...

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Innocent mafia bosses!

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: "It is OBVIOUS they are INNOCENT," said Ace. "Mario "The Butcher" Lambogeeni would NEVER hurt a fly if it was flying BEYOND the reach of his beefy arms!"

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Arguments like this are how Ace will become the best defendant ever in Turney!

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: That was the best option of the three choices!

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Indeed!

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Ace's typical workday = loitering around Turney Courts.

9 am - Ace goes into the lift, then randomly chooses a button.

11 am - Turns out he's been riding the lift up and down for the past one hour and a half.
(He got distracted for half an hour by the shiny button on his lapel so he had to go into the cleaning closet for a bit to properly admire it.)

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: (That's a minigame.)

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: ACE WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE CLOSET??? BLUE IS AT THE COURTROOM NOW!

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: ...said his beautiful assistant, the slightly psychic Christian agnostic, Maggie, who thinks her dead sister Mara possesses her every night to go gallivanting with Mario and Bros.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Then begins a new minigame when you have to open the doorknob. Without being smacked in the head by inconveniently placed cleaning implements in the darkness.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: Maggie helps Ace find nonimportant courtroom details to stumble Blue with. She is annoying but very sexy.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: But one day Ace injures his arm in a tragic reading accident! Will even Maggie's mastery over red tape be enough to stop Blue now?

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: How will Ace win arguments with red tape alone? Will poor Mario be sent to jail by the villainous Blue?

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Play the next stage, Red vs. Blue, to find out!

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: (Plot twist: Ace learns how to point with his other arm! So the following cut scene has a Mysterious Masked Man injuring Ace's other arm.)

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: So Ace has to find a prosthetic robot arm from Dr. Oriam. Which sets up the final stage - Ace At Turney: The Long Arm of the Law!

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: Alternatively, the trick is to find Ace's ace-in-the-hole, Mario's pet pinkachoo "Peaches", which had run away from the scene of the crime when the murder of Bowzzer Bowls took place. Peaches saw the true face of the killer, and it WASN'T Mario!

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: Ah, the twists and turns of this game.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "So. Gentlemen. LADIES. Blue has used EVERY trick in the book to persuade you ALL that my client KILLED the dearly departed Bowls. POSITIVE DNA matching. FINGERPRINT samples. SWORN testimony from a member of the Most Holly Order of the Sacred Woods. A LOGICAL layout of how my client has PROFITED from the sale of illegal mushrooms now that Bowls is deceased."

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "All UNDERHANDED and slimy TRICKS, those!"

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "And USELESS!"

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "!!!"

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "For I have saved THIS for last!"

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: <cue dramatic music>

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: *flourishes*

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: *whisks cloth off birdcage*

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: *Blue's smirking face turns pale*

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "For here is PEACHES! Bowzzer's OWN pinkachoo! She was the LAST PERSON to see Bowser alive! And she gazed upon the VERY FACE of his TRUE KILLER!"

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Blue: "Im ...Impossible!"

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: *court gasps*

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: Blue: "Objection, your Honour. This witness was not included in the list we had agreed on!"

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: <Ace shakes head, smiling>

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "Now TELL EVERYONE! TELL EVERYONE who murdered Bowzzer!"

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: *game crashes* OUTOFFDAOUTOUTATAOFFataERR

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Unfortunately this was the last ever installment of Ace At Turney. =(

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: WHO KILLED BOWSER BOWLS???

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: haha classic.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Yes, the series became a cult classic.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: And is held up, even today, as a misunderstood gem which showcases the brilliance and metalevel game design philosophy of Phoenix Games.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Numerous fan theories naturally have tried to pinpoint mafiaso Mario as the murderer. This is because Bowzzer's remains show signs of trauma consistent with Mario's odious operandi

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: viz: third degree burns, boot prints over the torso, and skull fractures which appear to have been caused by contact with a heavy but soft object.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: Nah, too obvious.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: The geniuses at Phoenix would never do something so obviously superficial!

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Other fans prefer an alternative explaination - that the courtroom scene was all a huge drama set up by Blue in an attempt to get Ace out of the closet. They point to the presence of the Godot figure as a Bretchian acknowledgment of the artificiality of the so-called 'court' setting, and further argue that glaring inaccuracies (how is Maggie able to function without her mushrooms? how is it that Blue is initially holding up a placard saying "I love you, Ace!") make a straight reading of the court scene impossible, or at least hard to swallow.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: But alas! we will never know!

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: As the creator of the series became disillusioned with his marvelous story and went back to creating less popular but "honest" games like Iron Chief, Cooking Master Mama, and Furry Tales 4 - Return of the Wolves.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: That said, there was a glimmer of hope when they adapted "The Mona Lisa Mysteries", and turned its protagonists, Nancy Draw and Jeff Hardy, into a paranormal investigation term.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: A term? Hahahhaha.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: I...I meant 'a tern'.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: They turned it into a term cos the names were copyrighted, and had no choice but to make oblique references to them, such as bypassing the use of a spacebar altogether: Nancydrawandjeffhardy.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: For Phoenix Games was just fresh off the success of Furry Tales 0 (a prequel which details the dark days of the Fursecution), and wanted to reuse art assets in loving homage to their magnum opus.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Indeed, The Mona Lisa Mysteries recieved praise for its unrelentingly accurate portrayals of squamous horrors, and multilayered plotline which drew the Vatican, car crashes, and a mystical 'Gold Compass' into a coherent whole.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: OMG hahaha. This is a multi-galaxy game; multiverse doesn't cut it anymore.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: The retro-inspired mise-en-scene also recieved praise, with the slow transformation of Nancy and Jeff's MYSTERY-MACHINE into the MYSTERY GEAR SOLID being interpreted as 'an uncompromising vision of the future'. Sir Father Patrick McKellen's final speech was also hailed as 'a defining moment in the "The Mona Lisa Mysteries" movie genre'.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: "I have seen things ...you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser gate All those moments... will be lost... in time, like tears... in the rain.Time... to die...."

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: The Mona Lisa Mystery was known for its secret ending, which required the player to collect all the Ban Drown tomes hidden in the Vatican. In this ending, all the unexplained hauntings were revealed to have been Father McKellen all along.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: (He was hiding under a sheet, and had a Walkman which made spooky 'woo-woo' noises.)

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: Understandably, this plot twist was not well-received by the gaming community, which demanded the more modest, more reality-based science of Cooking Master's Mama and Sleep Walker 2.

one hundred =^..^= s of solitude says: The Mona Lisa Mysteries franchise was discontinued. Yet, a glimmer of hope. Recent revisionist scholarship resoundingly agrees that 'The Mona Lisa Mysteries' is the best entry in 'The Mona Lisa Mysteries' canon.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: >_<

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: My goodness.

?CHERYL? falling down; is all that I've ever known says: Sounds like a game I wouldn't mind downloading off piratebay to try!

one for one

2009-04-25T11:11:01Z

  Media/ Culture just accepted my French theory + pro wrestling paper for publication.

  It's the first time ever that I'm getting published. I'm happy, so very happy.

zerotonin @ 2009-04-24T13:39:00

2009-04-24T05:40:05Z

"Some people are so heaven-minded that they are no earthly good."

zerotonin @ 2009-04-22T19:51:00

2009-04-22T12:00:09Z

  Went over to G's today. He's pretty happy about being posted to NUH for housemanship. Less workload, and he's allowed a bit more time to treat each patient.

  Chatted also with catatonic_cats about the pointlessness of life, inconvenient existential crises, and all that other good stuff. 'S nice to have someone to talk to about all that. =)

  Work still not done. In fact, it's going so unswimmingly that a plan B article about the use of the carnivalesque in Enchanted seems good. I even came up with (what I think) is a catchy title. Sex and the Sleeping Beauty.

journal rank update

2009-04-21T03:50:41Z

  A follow-up to my previous post re: the impact factor of the Nebula e-journal.

  According to a list from the Australian Research Council (and since I'm angling for a place Down Under, their opinion is worth quite a bit to me), Nebula's actually very decent. Ranked A in a A*-A-B-C tiered system. ImageText, which was the unnamed journal I compared Nebula to, isn't. Ahhh, life's little ironies.

  (I heartily recommend the first link to anyone working (or curious about working) in Australia, BTW. Comphrensive database and a pleasingly minimalist site design)

  Thanks to all the kind people that responded to my initial query!

zerotonin @ 2009-04-19T21:39:00

2009-04-19T13:44:57Z

  It is most disconcerting when someone whom you respect a lot brushes you aside so happily. Most disconcerting and very dissappointing.

  Ah, fuck it. You *knew* she didn't think much of you anyway. But you just didn't want to admit it. Better this happpening now than at some essential hour.

zerotonin @ 2009-04-19T11:43:00

2009-04-19T03:45:15Z

  Five hours. FIVE HOURS negotiating paperwork and dead links for admission to NUS, U Hong Kong, and U Auckland. FIVE HOURS.

  ...and there's still more to go.

NB: I wanted U Calgary since the area's the home of great pro wrestlers, but they want a Masters =( As do Stanford and Fordham. O, ceilingcat, please let me go to East Anglia ~~for free~~ on the cheap.

  Oh, and NUS? From their application forms, emphasis theirs:

The referees’ reports, to be made on the prescribed forms, must be forwarded to you in sealed envelopes bearing the signature of the respective referees across the flap of each envelope. These envelopes must be forwarded, unopened, to our Division with the other supporting documents.

------------------------------------------

I think this highlights the importance of education in the Singaporean context, and that PhD students are correspondingly thought of as more than human (hahahasigh). Hence the tabloid-y diction in this report.

me: The A*star scholar streaking down Holland V with her bf is a damn interesting piece. The reactions of people that is. Like, there's quite a bit of anger from the portion of the public who identify as not being 'elite' (which as a term is a very problematic binary). Now the 'non-elites' have someone who -heh-embodies their displeasure with the state of Singaporean affairs.

AC: I saw badly written blog posts. Well, I mean, we're biased here ourselves. But feh, drunken stupidity is drunken stupidity. Anyone's capable of it. (I dunno if they *were* drinking, but it's Holland V at night, y'know)

me: (I'm of the opinion they were high.)

AC: You can argue that the whole naked thing is a face issue. Because like, scholars are supposed to represent the best of Singapore. And give face to Singapore and such. And thus a scholar losing face and doing shameful things ...is shaming the nation.

me: ?

AC: You could turn it into an elite/prolitariat thing. Or you could view it as A-Star scholars being something more than just people.and therefore the nation as a whole somehow has something invested in them. And when they fuck up, it's more than a personal fuck up. 'S like: you have brought SHAME to the family.
me: I AM QUOTING THIS TO MY FRIEND WHEN HE GETS BACK. YOU ARE MORE THAN HUMAN! HAHAHA!!!!!

AC: I think it's troo tho.

me: Not saying it isnt. Then also can tie in the whole anxiety about Chinese ladies marrying ang mohs.

AC: Hahahahah. Which hits out at the masculinity of the nation. Sort of the corporate 'maleness', even, the abstracted masculinity, not just the personal impotency. =D Masculinity in -discourse-. The country does not want to be female and shamed!

9.40 am!

2009-04-15T01:40:55Z

  Review 2 done! It was a pleasant read too! Now for breakfast, and then a nap. The Bukit Panjang library now has From Mouse to Mermaid in stock, so I reckon I might as well see what's good over at the mall proper. I do feel like a Macca's breakfast, but it's not value for money. And then, home to nap until dinner. Then I can hitch a ride to NUS. Must return Mechademia 3 and j-random thesis before fines start piling up.

  Sky's seven shades of grim. I'd better head out as soon a

UPDATE: I paid my library fines. Ow. I now have the mermaid book. My first thoughts upon holding it were "it's the wrong size for photocopying. Too long and too short in all the inconvenient places." Ver' telling, those thoughts. The library had a copy of The Ladies of Grace Adieu, so that was an unexpected bonus. Oh, and I bought a little jug of sake in anticipation of a successfully published article.

zerotonin @ 2009-04-14T06:22:00

2009-04-13T22:28:28Z

Re-reading my material on risk now so's I'll be able to make informed comments for the review. Wondering if I've a book anywhere that deals with male communication vs. female communication, specially the stereotypical view that male communication is hierarchy-based whilst female communication is consensus-based.

Refreshing my memory on risk, heh. It's good for when poor acyl gets back and we can write The Holy Code Geass Paper.

cheshire puss trailer 1

2009-04-13T18:22:20Z

A wild Bayonetta appears!

"Even naughty little angels deserve a good spanking!"

zerotonin @ 2009-04-12T18:47:00

2009-04-12T10:52:21Z

Another Sunday, another afternoon printing out documents at Dad's office.

  Next week looks to be busy. Two reviews to do for <JOURNALNAME>, and M wants to meet up too.

  Tonight: finish the 1st review, play some Fallout. (The sledgehammer is fun because you can play golf with your enemy's head, but I still prefer the frenzied punching of Unarmed.)

you must defeat dormin to stand a chance!

2009-04-08T10:06:31Z

  I liked Shadow of the Colossus a lot. Wonderfully haunting art direction and narrative - there was this slowly dawning realisation that the Wanderer's motivations are very very selfish. And yet, I empathised with him *more* after that.

  A Shadow of the Colossus movie is now in development; storyline to be written by the luminary responsible for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.

--------------

I found all the Planescape sourcebooks ever released. Awesome awesome steampunk fantasy setting where belief can move worlds and *anything* can change the nature of a man. One of the books even had a picture of a pensive-looking dinosaur with a backpack. My productivity will be seriously curtailed once the torrent finishes downloading.

EDIT: In light of the forthcoming Planescape nerdout, I've contacted the editor of <JOURNALNAME> re: my Chris Jericho + jouissance piece. The new issue is supposed to hit e-press in less than a month!

i cooking gud

2009-04-07T18:04:45Z

Making my own pizza is not that much cheaper than calling 2353535. Relatively.

The sausages alone are $2. The crust, cheese, and mushrooms are $1 each. The other garnishings add up to another dollar. So that's $6 for a personal size pizza compared with the $10 deals that Pizza Hut now has. Worse when I used salami - I stopped because the one I bought was expensive ($2 per serving) and tasteless. Tacky salami, heh.

However, I *do* put a lot of each individual topping on each pie. You know how Pizza Hut pizzas are mainly bread? My pizzas are half bread, half miscellaneous liberated-from-the fridge-and-larder goodness. I'm disproportionately full, and this is six hours later. So home cooking *would* be cheaper if I went down the path of least ingredients.

I love the opportunies for experimental baking that pizza affords me! The first one I made was nice, but could have been better. It a) tasted of its component cheese, sauce, and bread, b) was watery, c) and had a soft undercrust. But that's all (mostly) solved as of tonight's Mark IV effort! I made the crust crisp and flavourful by adding sesame oil underneath it, cooked the mushrooms beforehand so they wouldn't leak out so much water, and preheated the home oven to its max of 270 degrees Celsius.

I admit that my efforts don't compare to the UQ pizza. Nor to sweet sweet Sarpino's. And short of buying a speciality pizza oven and learning to knead my own thin style dough, they never will. But each pie doesn't take that much time to prepare, and hey, I *like* putting whatever I want on my pizza. In fact, I'm trying rambutan once my capsicum runs out. Juicy and fibrey like pineapple - it should be nice. Or thinly sliced bananas, since I want to achieve that caramelised sugar taste.

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I’m re-reading the essay on Disney-centric consumerism and adaptation titled “Everyone Wants a Piece of Pooh.”. It is a very Discworldian essay not simply because the title is a pune, or play on words. There’s a wonderfully academic deadpan humour in the way that it points out how calculatedly byzantine the constant reimaginations of the Winnie-the-Pooh trademark is. Clearly, it is enough to make a bear of very little brain forsake his exalted place in the technicolour whirlpool of mass media, and to seek anonymity (and perhaps a poultry-related military career) under the name of Saunders.

The majority of complaints from British audiences are expressions of dissatisfaction with Pooh’s “Americanisation” and concern over a perceived supplanting of English heritage. Is “Classic Pooh” an evocation of Pooh’s lost Britishness and an acknowledgement of his Disneyfication? More precisely, is the manufacturing of a schizophrenic Pooh a veiled apology to British nationalists and Milne/ Shepard fundamentalists?

Winnie-the-Pooh. Has to be put in a soft room for his own good hahahahaha.

my face! my beautiful face is ruined!

2009-04-04T02:52:13Z

  I spent $100 on Street Fighter a few Sundays ago. $90 on Street Fighter 4, and $10 on Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.

  It could only have been Sheng Long's will! For did He not say "ROUND ONE!"? (And then there was "FIGHT!"?)

  :spoiler: Yes He did! :endspoiler:

  Thing is, I had been searching for the game for about a month. It had been sold out everywhere I looked ...then I serendipitiously happened to pass by the IMM Sony store. And there the game was, a plastic-wrapped promise of hadokens, dragon punches, and lightning legs. I promptly bought it. I can now use any one of its three grotesquely fat men to beat up another grotesquely fat man. Life has new meaning.

  Then later that Sunday we were supposed to see Watchmen. But there were no night screenings, so we caught Legend of Chun-Li instead. The less that is said of it the better. Poor G had fifth year med. school exams Tuesday, and he wasted an evening and $10 on it. I think the only positive result of it was that I got to share the horror with bakuretsu10shi, among other unfortunate souls.

  Anyway, the main news of note is that I've discovered that consulting with potential PhD supervisors pre-PhD application is not exactly vital in the NUS context. There's about a year to decide while I'm doing the coursework component. Ah well, but I lost nothing by asking, so I'm not complaining, OK?

I need to sleep now. Another all-nighter reading up on very worthy censorship theory and China's inferiority complex-derived need for mian zi.

more china

2009-04-02T23:02:18Z

  This is the first time in my life that I've wished my Mandarin was better. SARFT's mission statement is buried somewhere in that morass of tl;dr Chinese words.

  It's not exactly essential. I can predict what it'll say. That we the CCCP are protecting the peasants from Western slander and disinformation (curse the West, they always pick on our glorious Middle Kingdom!), and changing the false consciousness of foreign programs to better reflect the inherent resilience and nobility of the descendants of the dragon. But quoting and translating it would lend authenticity to my argument, more so than relying on second-hand reports. I do think that SARFT's lack of an English site is a wonderful strategy though: why give more ammo to foreign critics?

  Maybe the statement's done in Li Bai's yue fu couplets:

A treacherous trick, this pirate lord
Impunging our character with his pointy beard
With our phoenix scissors we save the noble people's minds
And our comradeship grows big and proud.