Blogging is a difficult business, full of surprises, discoveries, and revelations. Of course, in the end, what I write here is for me and me alone, for my introspection and betterment, for my own personal history of achievement and failure. Unfortunately, as of late, my real-life liaisons have made good, old-fashioned straightforwardness prohibitive: one person wants her name removed because she is afraid that any association with her past might somehow tarnish her future; another person wants his name removed because he wants to cut all ties with his past and craft his future according to very specific (albeit self-deceptive) criteria; yet another person wants his photo removed, and I respect his wishes because I respect him; I remove another photo, but not out of respect - because I do not want conflict with a relation of a higher-up; I remove another name, because I am a pariah in that person's world; I get a distressed message, about not putting up photographs of another person, because that person feels unneeded. I would laugh, but this shit just isn't funny.
I suppose, in light of my recent diatribe on self-censorship and self-deception, I am doing pretty well, compared to those surrounding me. However, I still find it hard to talk about myself. A person asks me in an e-mail how I am; I write two paragraphs and then I retract my thoughts; I delete them. Fine, I say; how about you? It costs more time and energy to explain that which cannot be expressed anyway. Perhaps this is a new era for yours truly, as he realises that to talk about himself is a waste of breath, because, needless to say, everyone is riddled with his own problems and asking about others' well-being is, as I am now finding out, a truly perfunctory atavism, even from the closest of people - which is a pity, because, when I ask someone how he or she is, I actually mean it.
So here we are, and no one wants to hear that Mikey is suicidal, because a chemical imbalance in his brain is telling him he has nothing to live for. No one will comprehend that Mikey has to dial the Tokyo English Lifeline at 03-5774-0992, and talk to a perfect stranger, a girl from England named Isabel (Heh. Do you want your name removed, Isabel? Do let me know.) and to explain to Isabel that he has it all: an apartment, a great computer, a nice job he enjoys doing, a slow, but sure repayment of his gargantuan student loan, a position at a new, local magazine, and that he hates himself, loathes himself, despite having no rational reason to do so - this time because some middle-aged fuck at the printing company printed the magazine forty to fifty percent lighter, wholesale, just because he thought it would look better.
Did Isabel understand? Did you? Why are you reading this, reader? Do tell (comments are invited). For when you ask me how I am, reader, you do not listen, and yet you are here. There is something fundamentally wrong with this world, if such a break in communications can occur between individuals; and yet, here I am, and here you are, reader. What would be the point of bitching and ranting (yet again!) about irrational, uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts, if Mikey would just be told that everyone has a tough time dealing with life and that he should just suck it up and shut the fuck up? You tell me, reader. Well, enough about Mikey. Let us to other tragedies: As you probably already know, Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11, at the age of eighty-four (more here), following such greats as Hunter S. Thompson, Robert Sheckley and Stanislaw Lem. What can I say? I really thought Vonnegut would stick around for a while longer. When I was younger, circa 1998 or 1999, I sent Vonnegut a Christmas card, care of one of his publishers. I hope he received it. Here's my favourite quote from the man: "''If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts." So it goes.
To more cheerful things: I recently watched George Carlin's "Life is Worth Losing" and "Complaints and Grievances" (B- and A-, respectively); that guy is great. (By the way - what the fuck - IMDb now has a "Post September 11 2001" keyword, complete with its own related-keyword cloud. L'esprit du temps, ladies and gentlemen, is upon us. ;) anyway, speaking of comedians, I was recently shocked, when I heard John Steward say the word "irregardless" on one of his shows. As you may or may not know, "irregardless" is not a word (though Herr Merriam-Webster apparently acknowledges this, but still insists otherwise). Don't get me wrong; this is not my professional snobbery speaking; it's that the realisation that Mr. Stewart is just an ordinary Schmoe is staggering (this reminds me of the time he made his viewers aware of his audience's handlers, and the other time, when he was talking about the writers of his material). Now I have to wonder whether other leftist "personalities" are also merely someone else's mouthpieces, and whether I'm just wasting my breath on them...
On to some rapid-fire film reviews:
Nuovo cinema Paradiso C+ Fucking hell...not another two-hour saga. The protagonist is a loser; period.
Сталкер [Stalker] A It gets better every time I see it (though I still wish the stalker would be stronger in character, as per the book, and that everyone would stop quoting so much poetry).
Night at the Museum C+ I'm going to make a category for this type of film: "Palatable Feel-Good Trashfest, Carried by a B-List Actor" (PFGTCBA, for short). ;)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch A- It actually was not as good as the first time I saw it - but still great, nonetheless.
eXistenz A- It's pleasant, yet somewhat underworked, as per my original review.
Click C+ One hundred percent, unadulterated PFGTCBA. ;) As a side note, it is curious how Adam Sandler looks like Al Pacino, when he is aged using make-up.
The Contract F Mhumm. I think I'll make up a category for this film as well: "Unpalatable, Discombobulated Action Trashfest, Carried by a B-List Actor" (UDATCBA, for short). John Cusack, what are you doing...
Hannibal Rising C- This a beautifully-shot and well-acted film that has no plot to speak of. The characters are flat and their relationships are underdeveloped and hard to believe (especially the relationship between Hannibal and Lady Murasaki). Also: why?! What revelation was gained by lending the audience an insight into the making of a psychopathic killer? Perfume tries to make a point, whereas Hannibal tries to make a quick buck on the infamous, fictional cannibal's franchise. This is painfully obvious when one examines Thomas Harris's bibliography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Harris): out of six novels, five are on Hannibal. 'Nuff said.
No, wait, I was actually pretty pissed off by the gratuitous, visual dovetailing of the Japanese armour mask to the Silence of the Lambs mask; the attempt to connect this fiasco to the first film (which was of an entirely different calibre) through such crude methods was sickening to me. On the upside of this mess, I share my Russian, diminutive name, Миша [Misha], with Hannibal's sister, which, I guess, can be a female name in Lithuania (or wherever the fuck they're supposed to be from).
Speaking of fuck-ups, what the hell is happening to the Japanese yen?! On April 27, it was 1:106.746, in relation to the Canadian dollar; last time I checked it fell to 1:108.362. You might think that eight yen don't make a difference, but, believe you me, this small rate adjustment has already impacted my student loan furikomi money transfer (I just typed "monkey transfer," heh). My father tells me that the yen is not actually falling, but that the Canadian dollar is on the rise, but this is not good news for me, since I get paid in JPY either way.
Back to some rapid-fire TV show reviews:
"Sealab 2021" B- Not bad...but not great, either.
"Lost for two more years? Heh, something tells me that I just might win that bet I made with myself about the show's outcome. I mean, god, they already told us that they're all dead - what else could that amazing twist (that they've been promising us for years now) be?! Bring out the orangutan.
On to a few rapid-fire game reviews:
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl kicks ass. A- The environment is incredibly realistic; the Russian version is perhaps the most rewarding FPS/RPG combo I have ever played. It supposedly took the company seven years to make it - I guess it was time well spent. The only downside of the game is that it's massive, in terms of resource consumption. What's the game about? cf. Сталкер, but really, just go check it out. For those who already have the game, here is the just-released 1.0002 Russian patch; cracked EXEs for this version, as well as the older, English version (1.0001) are available on GameCopyWorld.
Night Watch B This is a solid, turn-based RPG, with a tolerably-good, home-grown graphics engine (which does, unfortunately, cause a few navigation problems); also, the game get pretty hard, pretty fast. I now wish the film, that the game is based on, would have had as much canon in it. However, I read that Timur Bekhambetov (the film's director) actually disliked the magical or supernatural elements in the original book, and thus toned them down greatly in the films. I think this was a stupid move, but there it is.
Jade Empire B- The whole, damn point of an RPG is to leave the player's success up to his strategic, not real-time martial art, abilities. The game is very lightweight, in terms of graphics, but it's painfully clear that it has been ported from a console version and, as such, it's damn hard. Oh, and what the hell is up with those vertical-scroller segments?!
All right! I finally managed to segue all the way to computers, which brings me to some really great news: my brand-new, Hyper Family 100Mbps fibre optic Internet connection. Yes, ladies and gentlemen; I finally have all-you-can-eat Internet: no caps, no limits; just sweet, sweet speed, at ¥7,539 ($69.57 CDN; tax included - as it always is, in Japan) a month. Bow down before me, mortals, for I am your Lord and Master!
Unfortunately for the Lord and Master, higher bandwidth soon posed a storage problem; something had to give, and, soon enough, one of my seven hard drives (the 320GB Western Digital, WDC WD3200JS-22PDB0, to be precise), that kept giving me I/O errors ever since I got it, finally started to show signs of failure. I rescued the information, sold the drive to Hard Off, and bought some beer. Now, I've got to start thinking about JBOD, RAID and Windows Home Server, which, when it will come out, will be pretty damn sweet.
Speaking of storage: as of late, I've been obsessing over getting a Blu-Ray drive. Needless to say, its format war with HD-DVD is far from over, but the benefits of 50GB per disc (dual-layer) and hard-coating are just too damn sweet. Right now, there are two main contenders on the market: the Lite-On LH-2B1S Internal Serial ATA 2X Blu-ray Disc Triple Writer (BD-R 2x, BD-RE 2x, BD-ROM 2x; DVD+R 12x, DVD+R DL 4x, DVD+RW 8x, DVD-R 12x, DVD-R DL 4x, DVD-RW 6x) and the Sony BWU-100A Internal Blu-ray Disc Rewritable Drive. Both appear to cost about $500 CDN right now, so the moment the price drops by a hundred bucks, I'll be all over this shizzle. (Of course, the price of the media itself has to drop at least down to $10 from the current $25-35, for me to consider buying into the format.) I wonder how long it would take them to come out with a reliable BR/DVD/CD/LightScribe drive... Speaking of burning shit (man, I'm segueing like a pro tonight!), here's the torrent for Nero 7.8.5.0.
On to more warez news: Adobe CS3 studio is here (sort of). The short of it is that not all the editions have been released yet, but the two main ones, Design Premium and Web Premium (the significant difference between the Design and Web suites is that Web has Fireworks and Contribute and lacks InDesign) are already available in one handy-dandy torrent, courtesy of Magnitude (here is a crackfix, and here are some keygens from ZWT, for Design and Web). The Production Premium suite is not out yet, but, when it will be, it will include new versions of AfterEffects, Premiere, Soundbooth and Encore, all of which I am very excited about.
One more item from the world of software: DivX Author seems to be a very interesting program (it's so new that I couldn't find any torrents of it yet). To quote the DivX people,
[...] DivX Author lets you manage every detail of the video creation process including the design of advanced features from professional-style animated menu screens to chapter points, multiple subtitles and audio tracks [...] complete with [...] advanced features like interactive menus, subtitles and multiple audio tracks, right on your TV, portable video player, DVD player or any other DivX Ultra Certified device. Of course, videos created with DivX Author will play perfectly fine on DivX Certified DVD Players and other devices as well, just without all the advanced features.What's so exciting, you might say? Well, bigger and better optical storage (and, by extension, large, high-quality media) might be all the rage, but improved container files are just as exciting to me, mostly because of their versatility(hey, .MKV made me cream my pants not so long ago; hell, a stand-alone .MKV player would be the most awesome thing ever).
Alright, let's wrap this bitch up. What else have I accomplished this Golden Week? (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_%28Japan%29) My co-workers and I moved all of Wise Academy's stuff (in one day, no less) to the new office, next to the Hirata Station. I shaved my beard (but kept the mustache), so now I look like some sort of hillbilly. I wrote a bunch of poetry (one totally crazy one) and painted another one of those freaky-deaky paintings (I'll post those things soon, since they have to be utterly perfect, as always; I always save the best - and hardest to finish - for last). As always, I'm back, baby.
P.S. Wow. This post is possibly the longest yet, coming in at about 2,500 words! High-five, reader. ;)
P.2S. Motherfucker! The North Americans have adjusted for Daylight Saving Time again! (Japan has no DST and my friggin' server is in New York somewhere). I had to set all the entries posted after March 11, 2007 2 AM back by one hour and set Movable Type to UCT+8. Bloody hell...
P.3S. What the fuck?! Movable Type does not convert Unicode characters to HTML entities anymore! I had to do it manually, using this website.
And a High 5 back to you!!!
Holy shit! I haven't even finished adding photos to the article, and you've already read all that shit? Mein Gott! I think a gold medal is in order here! But seriously - thanks, man. ;)
P.S. On an unrelated note, tell me, how do you keep track of mig81.com updates? Are the RSS feeds doing me any good, or should I look for other ways to get noticed?
Yeah, Ummm sometimes I actually have too much time at work. I actually use a RSS reader to track updates. You can also use Facebook's import from a blog feature http://ubc.facebook.com/editnotes.php?import where you enter the address for your RSS feed and it will automatically update and import everytime you add something new to your blog
Cool! ;) Yeah, Mite already told me about that feature, but I don't know if I want to intertwine mig81.com with Facebook to that extent.