I have several good reasons:
1. Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (Official Throne Room Book of the Month): I am on the first page. The first two words, if truth be told, but they were tough words to memorize, OK?
2. Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver: I currently have two copies – one I bought at amazon and another my bro sent me from amazon for my birthday. Unfortunately, I do not have two toilets so I cannot put them both to use in the pimpest way imaginable, that is, placing identical reading materials in multiple Throne Rooms. One copy goes to my brother I guess, although I suspect a conspiracy on his part since he knows I love Neal enough to go as far as playing CS for two years as “hiroprotagonist.”
3. William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition: My first Gibson on actual paper media. (Anybody who hasn’t read Neuromancer on-screen is missing the entire point. Although if available, I would buy a boxed set of all his works printed in silver solder on recycled circuit boards to appease my inner Otaku.)
4. Mark Cerasini’s 24 The House Special Subcommitie’s Findings at CTU: A novel that fills plot gaps and background in the first series of the TV show 24 (which leads into the other reasons I am a Lying Liar who Lies; see below)
5. 24, Second Season: Well, Nena was half the reason I liked the first season so much and I didn’t think they could top it overall, but the second season is pretty good too. Although I do have to say that the appearance of a cougar (factoid: In Japanese, cougars are called “American Lions”) was the most pointless bullshit this show has yet produced.
6. ALIAS, First Season: Not as good as 24, but fascinating in that I spent the entire time trying to figure out if Jennifer Garner (who plays the shi-roprotagonist, Sydney) is pretty in real life or not. No, I do not mean in magazines or on TV, but I mean in real life. My woman and I got a kick out of watching her character’s de-facto fight move (reverse jumping spin kick) in the fight scenes. Thug w/Glock? Reverse jumping spin kick. Multiple baddies with kung-fu grip shankin action? Reverse jumping spin kick. Asian torture dude with dental assistant aspirations? Reverse jumping spin kick. Yes, she is a kickboxer made for television. And the hallmark weakness of traditional kickboxing (lack of uppercut) is made very apparent in this series. In fact, barehanded combat is shown as very weak so far – I don’t recall anybody being taken out without some serious combinations being landed. This makes for flashy fight scenes (although Sydney’s partner Dixon knows exactly ONE effective move taken straight from the Green Hornet series) , but what ALIAS really needs right now is the Tiger Uppercut. If I were the producer, I would send the whole cast to training sessions at the CAPCOM/WU-TANG School of Fighting Prowress and Cultural Sensitivity and wouldn’t let them back on the show until they could defeat masters Dhalsim, Blanka, and ODB at the same time. I mean, I would basically like them to be able to show Van Damme what a Razor Kick is all about, ya know?
7. Battlefield 1942 – Secret Weapons of WWII: This is a better expansion pack for BF1942 than the first one, Road to Rome. I mean, the Germans have a (non-functional) UFO for chrissakes! The jetpacks and jet gliders are pretty fun, too, and the Allied flying wing-type jet mounts rockets instead of machine guns. Tight! On some levels, the engineers have really useful alternate weapons. The Allied engineers have (auto?)shotties instead of Springfields and the Axis engineers have rifle-launched grenades instead of potato-mashers. Oh, and knives can be thrown (and used up) now, although it seems like heresy every time I chuck my Fairbank Sykes at an unsuspecting Kraut. The maps for BF1942 are getting really sweet – this is still one of the best-looking FPS titles in the killkillkill/capture the flag category.
8. Counter-strike: Just plain ol’ CS 1.5; Version 1.6 is still down. That is to say, the Steam servers are blocked or down. No more FAMAS (25-round mag sucks but I really like how this gun sounds. Tri-burst setting is representative of real life, I feel – totally unnecessary. It’s all about trigger [button?] control.). No more GALIL (I like this gun but I find it funny that it’s so cheap in this game. Almost half the price of a bread and butter AK? Kewl.) No more Ballistic Shield (and accompanying Shield-fu CT moves). Wah! At least I played a good new map (de_airninja) as well as an old stand-by (starwars) on 1.5.
BTW I am contemplating starting a CS blog because I really like to contemplate doing shit for which I have absolutely no time. Or negative time, even. My projects start out in the red. And spiral down into lighter and lighter shades of pink until…POOF! For instance: I could take the time I’m not spending on my moblog and invest it on starting a CS blog complete with daily screenshots (i 0nZ j00!)… But I would eventually have to split stocks on that as well in order to fund my next project…
9. I am a lazy bastard.
Curiously enough, the reasons I listed above are either listed reversely in order of importance, or are listed completely at random. I finished #6 above, am two hours away from finishing #5, will probably never finish #7 or 8, and will get back to you about thoughts on #1 – 4 when I’m done. After all, I’m thinking of making various reviews my next project…
Category: Site News
Bloggage
I am so tired of procrastinating… This weekend, I promise new entries and a bit of sitework too. Last night I got home before 10 pm for the first time in a month or so… So I spent it watching the first season of ALIAS, which came from amazon yesterday along with a couple books… But I will cover this in full this weekend. I promise.
Roadwork
As you can see, I have devoted what little time I could spare into redesigning this weblog instead of posting… I’m far finished from tweaking, but it’s starting to look a bit more like home. The moblog column on the right has me excited, and now it’s a matter of tying into the service that will enable updates from my cellphone. All credit will be given due when I’ve figured out what exactly I will use from where…
First MT Post
MT is up and running. Unfortunately, I am too busy to post… But don’t worry.
Somebody will be watching the house until I get back.
Adam’s Blog
I set my little bro up with his own blog and now it’s up to him to write, write, write. I hope we will be a family of writers as opposed to linkers.
That said, check out Higo Blog (named after his town’s official flower).
Movable Type
…has been chosen as Cosmic Buddha’s main blogging software and installed on the server. We are now at the tweaking stage. Unfortunately, this is the stage I tend to get hung up on in my quest of bettermentification. I want to do it well enough so that I need not touch the core design for at least a year. I can pretty much predict what will happen once I get all the pieces in place and add decent content: One or all of the packages will be updated with an “URGENT SECURITY FIX – INSTALL IMMEDIATELY” notice that I will bring my site down with trying to implement. I could do without that, this time around.
Just to let you in on my grand scheme, my plans include:
– Redesign of the cosmicbuddha.com front page
– Semi-update of the cosmicroot.html page (that has so many broken links, its an official ode to what once was)
– MT-powered blog & moblog. The most recent pic in the moblog will be displayed and automatically updated on the front page of the main blog
– Reinstatement of Gallery for my photos
– Blogs for friends and family who promise to update more than I do (Why have any requirements at all?)
– Reinstating of the house-for-sale pages (need a home?). So much cooler than hawking warez on ebay or kimchee on rakuten
– And much more. Maybe even a webcam in my parking lot to pinpoint which stray cat has been shitting under my wheels at night
I gave up on Typepad
Now that more information has been made public about the feature set and restrictions, it is quite clear that it is not what I want. I think I’ll just go with Mov(e)able Type and try to adapt it to the moblogging system I enjoy with my Yapeus account.
Yapeus has two main flaws: HTML cannot be edited, and the servers are frequently overloaded. I don’t even mind using a different domain name so much. But I want better accessibility and more control – I can’t even make links with Yapeus.
I might install Gallery again as well. It was nice when I had it running on my prior hosting account. Of course FeaturePrice fucked all that up, but I won’t get into that now – feels like picking at old scabs.
Haven’t updated my static pages yet either. I think I’m waiting for an inspirational moment. Funny thing is, I’ve been waiting for this one for a long, long time.
I’m also waiting for an aftermarket racing parts company to market a bolt-on hovercraft kit for my car. And for a sweaty Paraguayan spy with blood dripping down her forehead to knock on my door wanting to swap valuable textiles and a rare talking ape for my greyscale Powerbook 190. I’d do that deal in a second, because you don’t need opposable thumbs to type…
Dammit, Blogger is pissing me off.
Yeah, archive this, you oppressive buggy software-providing asswads! I somehow think this UnknownHostException error I sporadically encounter is NOT MY SITE’S FAULT. But every time it reappears I spend a long time trying to work around it anyway, because I want the gratification of instant publishing when I put in the effort to write a post.
Methinks the only thing more depressing than bad software is software that’s almost good enough. Dammit!
I’m leaning toward TypePad for my permanent blogging soft, although with the luck I’ve had with my site this year this MT-based package will probably end up pulling a disappearing act after languishing awhile in beta testing purgatory. Ah well… Gotta have faith and all that.
A flash from the past: Internet browser wars. Netscape taught me not to love any program too much (although I must admit I still cannot replace most of my favorite freeware, especially for macintosh).
By my own admission…
Well, I must admit that I am slacking on the work that needs to be done on my site. Thank you all for pointing this out. Yes, I need to update the static pages at cosmicbuddha.com. Yes, I need to post here more often, but more importantly, I need to make a decision on a permanent blogging platform AND GET THE SHIT RUNNING. Yes, I need to slap those fools at yapeus.com for letting their servers get overflooded every other day and making my free moblog account unavailable. I have an explanation for my slacker (McFly!) ways: It. Is. Too. Hot. And. HUMID.
This week, the weather gods have determined, is the turning point from hot, humid, rainy days – to hot, humid, merely overcast/sometimes sunny days. Is it true? Can Japan’s “fifth season”, the rainy days of “tsuyu”, already be over? It only lasted a week this year, maybe there is a god! As long as I refrain from washing my car on Friday, is there a possibility we could actually have a rain-free weekend? Will I be able to get new tires on Saturday without having to worry about hydroplaning? These questions and more shall be answered in my next post.
BTW, I will continue to update the moblog at yapeus (see url in post below) and the temp blog here, but will be experimenting to determine my next blogolutionary (<– Adam, I made a new gege word!) step at the same time.
Too many emcees
The reason I have not been updating here lately is that I am trying to figure out the best blogging system to move to from Blogger. Moveable Type? City Desk? Radio? pmachine? Too many MCs, not enough mics.
In any case, I am updating my moblog fairly often:
http://www.yapeus.com/users/cosmicbuddha/
I’m happy with yapeus even though I usually shy away from free services. I have only one complaint: Sometimes it is several hours between mailing a new post from my phone to the time it’s tranferred to the yapeus webserver. Oh well, free services come at a price, I guess, and no one else supports Japanese and offers as much at this time. I know because I researched it for a whole ten minutes and compared services for another five.