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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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11:26 pm - The more important separation
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Something I think many people fail to understand nowadays, is that in certain settings like business transactions or a courtroom, the formal language and rules of conduct are not, in fact, just for show, nor are they just some sort of old-fashioned relics. They are there to separate business from everyday life, professional from personal. It enables people to conduct official or legal matters with acquaintances or friends, while still remaining both unbiased as well as without harming the personal relationship. A judge is addresses as "Your Honor" not just as some sort of honorific title, but to remove personal feelings from the courtroom setting. You're not dealing with your golf buddy, you're dealing with the Court. The same way that you speak casually to a friend when at the bar to indicate you're not in a professional setting.
Unfortunately, many people fail to understand this at best, and disregard it at worst. And then they wonder why things seem so corrupt nowadays, where officials risk being suspected of favoritism and corporate executives blatantly exhibit unprofessional behavior. There is a time for change, yes, but as many things are there for a reason, it is well to consider why they are there before ignorantly ignoring them.
  
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| Sunday, November 15th, 2009
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12:12 am - To fly, one must accept the risk of falling
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It always amazes me, how much trouble people create for themselves by failing to take a little initiative or responsibility, by not even attempting to communicate or negotiate. Instead they seem to assume that everyone should simply somehow know how they feel or what they want, and that everything is the fault of someone or something else, and that circumstances conspire against them. All this while believing that they are somehow due and owed whatever benefits they feel they want or need, regardless of whether they have earned them or have otherwise reasonable cause to receive them. Not to mention completely ignoring the costs of what they demand, because there is always something that must be given in exchange, whether material or no.
People shirk responsibility, wanting someone else to take the blame, wanting no consequences for their actions, clinging to a false sense of freedom. They uphold double standards, pridefully excusing their own behaviors while accusing and condemning the same in others. Claiming to have no flaws, and at the same time falsely finding them elsewhere in anything that is inconvenient to what they feel they desire. They make no true effort to better themselves, and yet cry foul on those who have benefited from doing such. They envy without acknowledging either what they have nor what others have fairly gained. More often than not, they turn a blind eye to that which does not align with what they wish to believe, regardless of any truths. They clamor for choices while disdaining the outcome.
True freedom is such as standing at the brink of a canyon, deep and wide, with no wall nor rail before you. There is nothing at all to hinder your choice, yet, in equal measure, there is no net nor line to save you from the consequence of what you may choose.
For without consequence, there is no freedom, and choice is but an illusion.
current mood:  thoughtful
current music: Yoko Kanno - Fish ~ Silent Cruise
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| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
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11:01 pm - Watch me spend it playing videogames
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| Sunday, November 8th, 2009
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10:09 pm - Brought to you by the one person who LIKES sunset at 5pm...
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I've realized why it is I dislike daylight savings time so much. That is, other than all the hassle of resetting clocks and the general ridiculous idea that you can "save" daylight as though it makes any difference in the hours of the day, but.
The problem is, it's not natural. When daylight extends so long into the evening (by the clock, that is) it makes it significantly harder to get to sleep on time (again, by the clock), not to mention waking up at a reasonable time. Because it doesn't get dark early enough, and by consequence doesn't get light again early enough, the whole sleep cycle is thrown off. Thus it's not that you're just "losing" or "gaining" an hour the one time, but in fact, you've "lost" that hour for the entire time DST is in effect, because every night you're off by one hour, according to the natural daylight cycle.
Of course, this may all just be me, but I haven't noticed that I do much, MUCH better sleep-wise during the winter months than summer, and I'm starting to suspect that there may be a very particular reason behind it. And not to mention, much as people say they'd miss an extra hour.... no, not really. DST ends in the time of year when we have short evenings, it's not like it'll be getting dark at 6pm in the middle of summer whether we have it or not. So in that sense, there really isn't any point, anyway. Not to mention, people would really only notice any difference because they're already used to DST; if you took it away, after enough time nobody would really find it strange at all.
And that is my rant on daylight savings time in a nutshell.
   
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| Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
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10:46 pm - You'd think it was the end of the world or something....
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| Sunday, November 1st, 2009
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1:18 am - And returning from accidental hiatus...
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It's probably rather telling that my last entry was the one mentioning suddenly getting a new position at work and starting much earlier than anticipated due to shortages, really.
Possibly related, but I had the strangest dream last night. Or really, a good example of how weird my dreams typically tend to be. I distinctly recall something to do with work, possibly a meeting or such that I didn't seem to care for, as well as having to rush to catch the bus and subsequently running through several blocks of downtown. (It should be noted, mind, that both these areas, while definitely identifiable, where rather larger and more detailed and grandiose than they are in actuality, which may or may not say something about me.) Also involved was some sort of fair like a state fair or such, though the details were unclear, as well as the ren fest and biking between the two events. I also recall a bit with a bookstore or stand of some sort, particularly noting there being a number of titles by some author who was apparently a big deal and all controversial or something like that. There was also looking at a very nice tea set, and the last thing I remember was something involving getting turned into dragons.
.....really, your guess is as good as mine. The really amusing part though is that this is only slightly above average for my dreams. The only remarkable thing about it is the sheer amount of stuff stuck together, I have dreams like this all the time that I hardly ever bother making note of. ^_^;;;
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| Monday, October 5th, 2009
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11:23 pm - Are you ready guys??
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Originally, I was going to mention how I was hired for a Senior Court Clerk position at my work and would be starting at that in oh, probably about a month or so. That is no longer true, however, as apparently I am now starting tomorrow.
Go go staffing shortages.
In other news, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) hisbikeahorse get, which also means I no longer have to keep my mouth shut and can thus subject you all to rambling about the amazing-ness that is the Sengoku Basara anime.
( I will, however, spare your friends pages my rambling )
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| Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
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11:30 pm - This icon has never been more appropriate
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| Saturday, September 26th, 2009
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10:50 pm - Some Suikoden geekery
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| Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
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11:46 pm - I think "argh" about sums it up
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...totally forgot about getting my drivers license renewed. Fortunately that is fixed now.
Need to remember to run to the store tomorrow morning, though. >_<
In other news, well, see the local news. And keep in mind where it is I work. S-sigh.
edit: RANDOM PET PEEVE people linking journal posts and failing to take the ?mode=reply bit off the end. >/
...yeah I'm going to bed now.
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| Friday, September 18th, 2009
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11:28 pm - Musings on gaming
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| Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
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11:11 pm - The last week really flew right by
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I am very fortunate that I managed to wake up a full half-hour before my alarm went off this morning, as well as realize that I couldn't remember actually resetting it back to the time it was supposed to be yesterday. Because it does me no good having an alarm set for 11:30 when in fact I need to be up at 6:30.
dorkupthenet is either back in England or on her way there by now, it was fun while she was here. Other than a few videogame/anime/movie marathons, we went to the renfest last Saturday (which was fun, but exhausting, as usual), and spent Monday going to the Mall of America, Minnehaha Park, and downtown Minneapolis. I also managed to accidentally get her hooked on another anime series, whoops.
Meanwhile, I have realized that I have way, way too many RPGs I need to play, as my attempts to actually update my backloggery has shown. Which speaking of, I am terribly disappointed at the fact that I can't go obsessively level just all my job classes at the point I am in FF3 at the moment. And I just got five new ones, too. :<
Completely unrelated to any of the above, but I will be a quarter century this coming Sunday. I feel I should do something, but half the family's out of town so we're postponing stuff until next week, so... anyone in the area free? I'm sure we could think of something.
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| Saturday, September 12th, 2009
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11:03 pm - *ded from renfest*
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| Thursday, September 10th, 2009
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11:25 pm - Marathoning movies and videogames is always so much fun
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Point the first: Who Framed Roger Rabbit is still just as amazing and hilarious as I remember it.
Point the second: Beating a boss in a game in only one turn is so much fun. Especially when you didn't necessarily set out to do so.
Point the third: There's something inherently amusing about introducing two people with the same name to each other. |D
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| Saturday, September 5th, 2009
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4:18 pm - Someday I'll post something actually interesting
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So... anyone in the area interested in getting together to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit, say, next Thursday evening-ish? Because it's been ages since I last saw it and I just got the DVD, so. Open invitation if you're in the area, just let me know so I know who all to expect.
Somehow, this does not surprise me in the least. Although it was amusing explaining to a coworker what a "palantir" is and why the name was appropriate.
In other news, brother's birthday tomorrow, and mine two weeks after, whee.
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| Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
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11:02 pm - This is mostly filler
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| Monday, August 31st, 2009
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11:48 pm - And I still haven't finished cleaning my room...
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So of course it figures that the clerk finally hauls down all the hundred+ files and literal boxes of papers that need to be put in said files on the week I'm on filing papers duty.
Looks like I'm gonna have a busy week at work whee~
Also, one week and counting until dorkupthenet gets here. Which reminds me... vicemage, are you free any time next week (i.e. after Labor Day)? We should get together for lunch or something. Or maybe you can come over and watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit with me, since I went and ordered the DVD as we lacked a decent copy of the movie. ^_^
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| Saturday, August 29th, 2009
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10:49 pm - This is a videogame rant
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Sometimes I'm very, very glad I learned Japanese.
Now, I like a wide variety of videogames- I used to play Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog all the time when I was younger, plus things like Streets of Rage, Banjo-Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Zelda... really the only things I never got into were the sports games and the shooters, I think.
The games that really started to grab me, though, were the RPGs. And not just any, but the story-intense ones in particular. Final Fantasy VIII and Chrono Cross were some of the first I played, for example, and I was drawn into them pretty quickly. Later on, the second disc of Xenogears convinced me that I'd enjoy visual novels as well, as the game started drifting into more of a story-intense format like that. And, in fact, I did.
The thing is, however, that these kind of games tend to be something of a minority here. Graphics and gameplay are often emphasized and praised over story. While story has been getting more recognition in recent years, it's still kind of an afterthought. I remember looking up some information on a PS2 RPG on wikipedia once, for example, and in the sample reviews quoted in the article, one very specifically criticized the game for "forcing" the story on you and thus allegedly taking away from the combat.
I realize that obviously there's different styles of and preferences in gaming. Some people like shooters, or platformers. Some like to take hours mastering a difficult character's moveset in a fighting game. In some cases the technical challenge of the gameplay might be most important. However, obviously, gameplay isn't the only thing that can make a good game, so it's frustrating that it seems to continue to be emphasized so much. An RPG that isn't sufficiently "balanced" in its combat system will be faulted for being "too easy", without acknowledging the fact that the particular game may have simply emphasized the story and had other features to keep it interactive, the way a fighting game might be technically very detailed in gameplay but feature relatively minimal story.
And of course, not to mention the fact that many of the games that lean towards heavy story tend not to be brought over in the first place. It's getting better now, games like Time Hollow showing up in English is indicative of this, but it's still an uncommon occurrence in comparison to the sheer volume of such games in Japan. Yes, they might have more to translate in them, but some might be very worth the effort, if handled well. On the other hand, though, the culture of gaming here is somewhat prohibitive. A lot of "gamers" don't really seem to care much beyond the next new shiny thing for their Xbox, and companies end up catering to that. It creates a sort of neverending cycle, though, as people can't be exposed to games from other genres if those games never see a widespread release. But mostly, it's irritating that there's such a pervasive attitude that games that lack much interactively are somehow subpar. I don't fault your taste in preferring plotless action games, so don't fault my preference for story-intensive RPGs.
Until people get a little more sense, though, at least I can import.
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| Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
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11:31 pm - "Seriously, what do you see in that guy?" "He makes me laugh."
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Earlier today, while letting my thoughts wander idly, I happened to think of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. More specifically, as I thought back on it and my impressions of it when I was younger versus when I watched it later, I realized something interesting. Back when I first heard of the movie (and was too little to be allowed to watch it) I apparently was somewhat unaware of the meaning of "framed" in the sense of setting someone up to look suspicious; instead, I very distinctly remember thinking of it in the sense of the animation term "frame".
I'm not really sure how I had come to know animation terms like that when I was that little, but apparently I did. Apparently I've had a geek-ish streak for a very, very long time.
I have to say though, while on the subject, that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one excellent, hilarious movie that everyone should see, if they haven't already. It's just, well, classic, and well put together, and way, way ahead of its time for blending animating characters with live action. Not to mention being downright hilarious with an entertaining plot, at least. Oh, and classic cartoons being classic cartoons, with a bit of a twist to keep the older audiences amused, too.
Really, they just don't make movies like that anymore. More's the pity.
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| Friday, August 21st, 2009
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9:54 pm - Now I want to figure out how much potch would be worth
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I have decided that if I ever run a multifandom RP that involves characters just showing up somehow from their respective universes, I will make and maintain a list of currency exchange rates between as many different series as reasonably possible. And possibly occasionally change them as in-game stuff causes rates to fluctuate. Just because.
Continuing on similar subjects of geekery, out of curiosity, what do you (yes, you) look for in a fan encyclopedia/database on a series? Particularly in character information. For example, is keeping everything written in an out of universe style better, or just sticking to in-universe chronology preferred? Or maybe a combination of both? And similarly, how much detail is applicable for a character's description and history? Obviously it'd be silly to detail a character's entire story, but how major does an event have to be to be mentioned? And so on. Personally, I lean a little more towards a more traditional encyclopedia style sort of entry over the typical wiki model, but I'm kind of curious what people think in general...
Related to the above, I think Lynn and I are now officially insane. >_>
And on another note entirely, there is something amazingly satisfying about a Scholar doing four-digit damage from the back row. :)
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