Saturday, January 30, 2016

My Saturday

I don't post much personal stuff as I used to. In a way, my LEGO and gaming videos, technically, are my creations, ergo, personal stuff. But who am I kidding, right?

I watched Kung Fu Panda 3 with my younger sister. Her treat. I really like this movie. I think it's better than the second movie, story wise. It also made several callbacks to the last two movies and every character here have more speaking roles as the previous movie. So it's safe to say this is the last Kung Fu panda movie and a great send off.

I initially planned on sending my two bags of donations to Goodwill after the movie, but I fell asleep at home. I woke up at 7. Donation hours ended at 5. So might as well eat dinner.

Hot House Sake

Fried Buffalo Wings with Spicy Mayo Dip

Sashimi

I'm done.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Snowtorious B.L.I.Z.Z.A.R.D. 2016

Total snowfall in our area: 28.8 inches. This timelapse is 59 minutes worth of video from Friday. It actually took us 2 hours to clear out the the whole driveway. I also cleared out about a foot of space on the grass each side to acommodate snow drift. Good thing we have a snow blower.



I'm done.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Nanoblock - Pokémon (Pikachu)



Kicking off 2016 with this timelapse build of the 2013 Limited Edition Nanoblock - Pokémon (Pikachu).
  
  
Pika Pika!

I'm done.

Monday, January 11, 2016

David Bowie - Lazarus

I couldn't think of a better exit from this world than this one. David Bowie's last music video for his just released album.




Friday, January 8, 2016

Xanga Nostalgia

A friend posted on Facebook about her day off and how she was bombarded by solicitors at home that don't sell girl scout cookies. I remembered an old comic strip about religious solicitors that I shared on my blog awhile back and wanted to find that specific image.

So I fired up my dying 4 year old external hard drive to find the picture. Instead, I found my archived Xanga posts and photos. Even better.

It was no use. Clicking on the html files shows the bare writing without my original Xanga layouts. So that reminded me of the Wayback Machine.

I searched for my original Xanga URL - xanga.com/stupid_systemus. The earliest archived post was from 2005. This is what it looked like...


This perfectly sums up what I'm going through now. The Wayback Machine only took a few snapshots of my Xanga, but it was enough for me to binge on nostalgia. I 've always prided myself in having near perfect recollection of past events, but I've read accredited claims that when you remember past events, you're actually remembering the last time you remembered it. So I either have perfect recollection or my memory of past events keep changing.

Going through my posts, I imagined what I was like at the time.

Why I wrote that post...
Why I chose that layout...
Who commented the most on my posts...
How I wrote the way I did...
Was I generally happy, sad...
Was I hiding something...
What happened to me now...

In 2005, my subscribers were mostly college friends. My updates detailed college courses, weekend activities and sharing stuff I found online. That time period was formative for most people new to blogging... or the Internet for that matter. We were still trying to find our online identity/persona... or ourselves. My awkward phase in high school didn't really prepare me to much socializing online and off. I'm ways better now at public speaking and witty banter. Still, speaking is not as suave as the articulated mind.

At the moment, I feel like everything is at a standstill. I'm going through the motions of life... wake up, shower, get dressed, work, lunch with co-workers, head out, shopping, home, dinner, TV/Internet, sleep... repeat. I enjoy the company of my co-workers. At times, I feel so disconnected. It's as if everybody else has their life all mapped out. I had lunch with my co-workers at the office lunch room and I caught myself zoning out. Physically, I was there, but my mind was elsewhere.

Not to cheapen the experience of loss, I went through the same thing for a year after my break up 7 years ago. At the same time, my mind is probably exaggerating everything. It is, after all, past 2 AM (HIMYM reference). Time for some shut eyes.

I'm done.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

On Rushing Creative People


HBO's President of Programming recently said in an interview that he takes the blame for the critically panned second season of True Detective. He rushed the creator of the series to meet the air date deadline last year, resulting in a mishmash story with great potential and poor execution.

Recently, George R.R. Martin (GRRM) wrote on his blog that the 6th book will not be released before the 6th season of the TV series. He planned on finishing the novel early 2016. He tried, but he just couldn't do it. He said he won't set himself up like that again.

My first exposure to A Song of Ice and Fire was from the TV show Game of Thrones. I haven't read all the books released for the series, but I'm going through the first book right now. The way the books are set up is that each chapter based on a specific character's point of view. The chapters are titled as each character's first name. One thing I noticed that many people probably haven't picked up is that GRRM meticulously words each chapter to convey how that specific character would think, speak or describe something. When you read that chapter, it doesn't feel like GRRM is speaking. So imagine writing a book written with multiple POVs in mind and work on it so everything makes sense. Most of the books I've read so far are 1st person POV or 3rd person omniscient POV. I've read 3 POV character books, but they're usually narrowed down to a few people.

In gaming, big studios have adapted two ways to publishing their flagship franchises. The "Activision/EA/Ubisoft" method, which is releasing a game sequel every year; or the "RockStar/Bethesda Softworks" method of releasing their next game sequel as an event. Only big companies with multiple game development studios around the world can tackle yearly sequels. It keeps most fans happy. However, it oversaturates the franchise. Sure, each game has been in development for 3-4 years, but they end up using the same technologies and techniques as previous games. These games end up being similar, except for a few small game mechanic tweaks. Other companies take their time, building a game from the ground up. This builds hype and anticipation from the fans. Case in point, The Force Awakens.

There's this never ending tug of war between creator and consumer. As a consumer, be it movies, books, comics, TV shows, games and others, you always want more of what you love. You gobble up everything in your path like Pac Man. As a creator, besides doing what you love, you're also catering to your fans and want to deliver a product to be best of your ability without disappointing them (unless you have a Twitter account and get into arguments with critics and fans, then forget what I said).

Putting my rational consumer hat on, I can always find something else to get into to pass the time. Putting my rational creative hat on, as GRRM said, "it will be done when it's done."

I'm done.