Today's featured Wikipedia article is on 'Uranus'.
I laughed
Friday, December 7, 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Last Class
First: Something that has been bothering me.
On campus they posted a sign that read 'GIANT BOOK SALE'. I was intrigued. Meandering my way around the circumference of ring road to discover for myself this advertised marvel that was this 'GIANT BOOK SALE' and after a short (though tiring) session of walking I arrived at the destination, the so advertised 'GIANT BOOK SALE'.
For future reference, if you are going to advertise a 'GIANT BOOK SALE', I expect to find GIANT BOOKS. No reader, see what they meant to say was, 'LARGE QUANTITIES OF BOOKS HERE' or something to that effect. Instead, they advertised a sale for giant books and broke my heart yet again.
Every year they do this. I expect to find man-sized versions of 'Little Red Riding Hood' and every year they crush my spirit.
Why, reader why?
To other matters though, today was the last class period for me this year, a moment all very bittersweet for everyone involved.
My classes have been amazing this past quarter. I met so many utterly amazing people in Creative writing, everyone is smart, funny, bombastic and interesting and everything was beautiful. I will miss it greatly.
Then Ngugi's class, I had a chat with him after class and he was magnanimous, accomodating and very down to earth and we had a very nice chat about numerous things. The man actually put a satellite TV producer on hold for me, some random student. The man is an intellectual and folk hero, a Nobel prize consideree, and really really cool. I've learned much about modern Africa's history in this class, I cannot take Masiela's 'The Haarlem Rennaissance and Sophiatown' next quarter but I hope to do so sometime in the future when I don't have to take logic and stupid math requirement classes.
I will miss those two classes. French seems a yearlong boatride of insanity that never ends so we're not quite done with each other yet in those classes. Steven Oliveri's students own the 8:00 French slot, represent bitches.
And oddly enough, today I end with a prayer, or less a prayer than a hope.
Let people love, live, listen and learn
Let them find their happiness and joy, their sadness and sorrow
Let them find their legends
Let them follow footsteps of their choosing
Let them forget not the unstrained comfort of their friends
Let them live, love, listen, and learn
Let them lie
Let them lie swiftly, softly under a sable sky
Let them swing, let them whisper
To a cloud, to a moon, let us sing sweetly you and I
Let us remember to live, to learn, to love
The moment of our lives flies fast
And when the moon sets in the steep starry night
You'll be human in your heart long at last.
I'll miss you peeps, it was everything and awesome
-Viet
On campus they posted a sign that read 'GIANT BOOK SALE'. I was intrigued. Meandering my way around the circumference of ring road to discover for myself this advertised marvel that was this 'GIANT BOOK SALE' and after a short (though tiring) session of walking I arrived at the destination, the so advertised 'GIANT BOOK SALE'.
For future reference, if you are going to advertise a 'GIANT BOOK SALE', I expect to find GIANT BOOKS. No reader, see what they meant to say was, 'LARGE QUANTITIES OF BOOKS HERE' or something to that effect. Instead, they advertised a sale for giant books and broke my heart yet again.
Every year they do this. I expect to find man-sized versions of 'Little Red Riding Hood' and every year they crush my spirit.
Why, reader why?
To other matters though, today was the last class period for me this year, a moment all very bittersweet for everyone involved.
My classes have been amazing this past quarter. I met so many utterly amazing people in Creative writing, everyone is smart, funny, bombastic and interesting and everything was beautiful. I will miss it greatly.
Then Ngugi's class, I had a chat with him after class and he was magnanimous, accomodating and very down to earth and we had a very nice chat about numerous things. The man actually put a satellite TV producer on hold for me, some random student. The man is an intellectual and folk hero, a Nobel prize consideree, and really really cool. I've learned much about modern Africa's history in this class, I cannot take Masiela's 'The Haarlem Rennaissance and Sophiatown' next quarter but I hope to do so sometime in the future when I don't have to take logic and stupid math requirement classes.
I will miss those two classes. French seems a yearlong boatride of insanity that never ends so we're not quite done with each other yet in those classes. Steven Oliveri's students own the 8:00 French slot, represent bitches.
And oddly enough, today I end with a prayer, or less a prayer than a hope.
Let people love, live, listen and learn
Let them find their happiness and joy, their sadness and sorrow
Let them find their legends
Let them follow footsteps of their choosing
Let them forget not the unstrained comfort of their friends
Let them live, love, listen, and learn
Let them lie
Let them lie swiftly, softly under a sable sky
Let them swing, let them whisper
To a cloud, to a moon, let us sing sweetly you and I
Let us remember to live, to learn, to love
The moment of our lives flies fast
And when the moon sets in the steep starry night
You'll be human in your heart long at last.
I'll miss you peeps, it was everything and awesome
-Viet
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Happiness
Howdy reader, it's not been so long now. But that is ony as a function of the readily availible nature of this blog as it is immediately placed on my homepage, as it is. It's dark as it is right now, been raining for a good long while.
Yesterday I played the Sims 2 all day long. I'm not particularly proud of myself, but there you have it. You know people always say i'm going to be okay reader, how do they know? Recently I turned in a story i wrote in a single night, how could you have known that its failing would affect me so greatly? The truth is, the reason i've been playing so much in days of late is because frankly, that fear I mentioned last post is academic.
Yeah it's true, I've not been keeping up with my work. a function of perhaps my own laziness, perhaps but also ... well my friend went through a particularly abusive breakup with her first boyfriend and I had to be there for her reader, you understand.
But it still doesn't change the facts.
I'm several assignments behind in French, i've done close to none of the homeworks, I don't know what's going on in class. All of the late critiques i've turned in for creative writing recently just got sent back to me with 6s for scores because in spite of the amount of work i put into them, they are still late and I don't think Frank has the patience anymore to actually read through them. I don't know what I'm going to write about for my African Lit paper, and looking at the facts streaming through the WGA strike right now, I'm particularly scared about my future job prospects.
Reader, over half of the WGA is unemployed, writers work job to job, paycheck to paycheck and most supplement their writing jobs with alternative employment that they keep well into their later years. Annual incomes can dip as low as 5,000 a year and even when you do write your opus there's no guarantee that some executive won't send you a smarmy little note asking you to add in more 'tits and ass'. Really though it's the money that scares me.
Reader, I do love what I do, honestly. I can't imagine doing anything else at this moment in my life and I love my writing. But this scares me, a lot. Right now another one of my friends - whose parents are unfortunately a lot more traditional than mine - is at the receiving end of the tradition stick for pursuing an english degree instead of her parent's mandate that she be a doctor. In their words exactly, she is a 'waste of money' with an attitude problem and she never thinks about how much she hurts them.
Tradition, what did we learn from you anyways.
I find that interesting about the state of asian-americans in this country, that dedicated adherence to the exact same principles of sacrifice and ... whatever that exists in black and white terms, refusing to adapt or change. It might not be applicable to other ethnicities but let me speak for a moment about the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese community as it exists in the United States is a dying one, doomed to eke out its meaningless and slowly suffering existence until the sheltered dreams of the 70s Saigon boat-people generation vietnamese die slow and miserable deaths. Why so? Because they have refused to adapt.
Two years ago I went back to Vietnam, what did I find? The language and culture had continued to evolve, even as our community leaders had adamantly insisted that 'everything under communism is bad'. They had a word for computer, which up until - well frankly now - my siblings and I had always called 'computer' in a vietnamese phonetic model (i.e. stereotypically vietnamese). The word was 'may vi tinh' translating literally into 'thinking machine' and it represents the problem of the Vietnamese in America right now. What culturally have we invented that is new in America? The Latinos have invented their own pertinent definition of Latino-American that is distinct from the culture of their South American counterparts, what then of the Vietnamese? We have maybe Paris by night, and then what else? Trumped up beauty pageants where over-make-upped beauty queens spout trivialities out of their clown-like faces? A dedicated adherence to a stagnant cultural moment that did not even exist?
So much of what is Vietnamese-American is harkening back to this 'loss of country' as the defining and rallying moment for all Vietnamese-Americans. As if it is our defining moment that we must take back and reclaim our homeland like the returning sons in an epic poem. Perhaps, maybe someday, but what until then? If you ask me how I define myself as a Vietnamese-American I will tell you in food, in religion, and in a trivial conglomeration of disparate details but culturally there has been no evolution within the Vietnamese community. This die-hard adherence to this cultural moment, this myopic paralysis within the community has strangled any and all chances for its new evolution outside of the boundaries of Vietnam.
It is why - I imagine - there is that reported split within the second generation Vietnamese, the characterization as 'valedictorian delinquents'. You create a model wherein those who toe the line with this archaeic social structure reap the rewards of societal support, but what then for those who fail? What the elder members (not all, but most) of the Vietnamese community fail to acknowledge is that even within the earlier society that valued success, those who failed to achieve the defined parameters of success had their place too. But not here in America so that when these teenagers do fail, they turn to the culture that is most immediate to them: latino gang culture.
Where is that vitality of language that would expand and reinvigorate how the Vietnamese-American youth understand themselves? Where are our words for 'computer', 'cell phone', 'video game', and all the other terms that we could define ourselves in? This is the failure to expand beyond this 70s moment that is strangling my capacity to legitimately define myself as through and through, Vietnamese American.
Ultimately I do not think my children will speak Vietnamese. Perhaps they will learn a few words to appease me and perhaps they will take a few classes to learn basic phrases but as it is, unlike the Chinese, Korean, and Latino communities Vietnamese-American teenagers do not speak to each other in Vietnamese. We cannot. We are communicating in a language that has stopped developing (here at least) beyond a certain cultural moment at the end of the Vietnam War and that paralysis is killing any chance that a legitimately seperate, Vietnamese-American identity will emerge.
A Demain mes amis.
-Viet
Yesterday I played the Sims 2 all day long. I'm not particularly proud of myself, but there you have it. You know people always say i'm going to be okay reader, how do they know? Recently I turned in a story i wrote in a single night, how could you have known that its failing would affect me so greatly? The truth is, the reason i've been playing so much in days of late is because frankly, that fear I mentioned last post is academic.
Yeah it's true, I've not been keeping up with my work. a function of perhaps my own laziness, perhaps but also ... well my friend went through a particularly abusive breakup with her first boyfriend and I had to be there for her reader, you understand.
But it still doesn't change the facts.
I'm several assignments behind in French, i've done close to none of the homeworks, I don't know what's going on in class. All of the late critiques i've turned in for creative writing recently just got sent back to me with 6s for scores because in spite of the amount of work i put into them, they are still late and I don't think Frank has the patience anymore to actually read through them. I don't know what I'm going to write about for my African Lit paper, and looking at the facts streaming through the WGA strike right now, I'm particularly scared about my future job prospects.
Reader, over half of the WGA is unemployed, writers work job to job, paycheck to paycheck and most supplement their writing jobs with alternative employment that they keep well into their later years. Annual incomes can dip as low as 5,000 a year and even when you do write your opus there's no guarantee that some executive won't send you a smarmy little note asking you to add in more 'tits and ass'. Really though it's the money that scares me.
Reader, I do love what I do, honestly. I can't imagine doing anything else at this moment in my life and I love my writing. But this scares me, a lot. Right now another one of my friends - whose parents are unfortunately a lot more traditional than mine - is at the receiving end of the tradition stick for pursuing an english degree instead of her parent's mandate that she be a doctor. In their words exactly, she is a 'waste of money' with an attitude problem and she never thinks about how much she hurts them.
Tradition, what did we learn from you anyways.
I find that interesting about the state of asian-americans in this country, that dedicated adherence to the exact same principles of sacrifice and ... whatever that exists in black and white terms, refusing to adapt or change. It might not be applicable to other ethnicities but let me speak for a moment about the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese community as it exists in the United States is a dying one, doomed to eke out its meaningless and slowly suffering existence until the sheltered dreams of the 70s Saigon boat-people generation vietnamese die slow and miserable deaths. Why so? Because they have refused to adapt.
Two years ago I went back to Vietnam, what did I find? The language and culture had continued to evolve, even as our community leaders had adamantly insisted that 'everything under communism is bad'. They had a word for computer, which up until - well frankly now - my siblings and I had always called 'computer' in a vietnamese phonetic model (i.e. stereotypically vietnamese). The word was 'may vi tinh' translating literally into 'thinking machine' and it represents the problem of the Vietnamese in America right now. What culturally have we invented that is new in America? The Latinos have invented their own pertinent definition of Latino-American that is distinct from the culture of their South American counterparts, what then of the Vietnamese? We have maybe Paris by night, and then what else? Trumped up beauty pageants where over-make-upped beauty queens spout trivialities out of their clown-like faces? A dedicated adherence to a stagnant cultural moment that did not even exist?
So much of what is Vietnamese-American is harkening back to this 'loss of country' as the defining and rallying moment for all Vietnamese-Americans. As if it is our defining moment that we must take back and reclaim our homeland like the returning sons in an epic poem. Perhaps, maybe someday, but what until then? If you ask me how I define myself as a Vietnamese-American I will tell you in food, in religion, and in a trivial conglomeration of disparate details but culturally there has been no evolution within the Vietnamese community. This die-hard adherence to this cultural moment, this myopic paralysis within the community has strangled any and all chances for its new evolution outside of the boundaries of Vietnam.
It is why - I imagine - there is that reported split within the second generation Vietnamese, the characterization as 'valedictorian delinquents'. You create a model wherein those who toe the line with this archaeic social structure reap the rewards of societal support, but what then for those who fail? What the elder members (not all, but most) of the Vietnamese community fail to acknowledge is that even within the earlier society that valued success, those who failed to achieve the defined parameters of success had their place too. But not here in America so that when these teenagers do fail, they turn to the culture that is most immediate to them: latino gang culture.
Where is that vitality of language that would expand and reinvigorate how the Vietnamese-American youth understand themselves? Where are our words for 'computer', 'cell phone', 'video game', and all the other terms that we could define ourselves in? This is the failure to expand beyond this 70s moment that is strangling my capacity to legitimately define myself as through and through, Vietnamese American.
Ultimately I do not think my children will speak Vietnamese. Perhaps they will learn a few words to appease me and perhaps they will take a few classes to learn basic phrases but as it is, unlike the Chinese, Korean, and Latino communities Vietnamese-American teenagers do not speak to each other in Vietnamese. We cannot. We are communicating in a language that has stopped developing (here at least) beyond a certain cultural moment at the end of the Vietnam War and that paralysis is killing any chance that a legitimately seperate, Vietnamese-American identity will emerge.
A Demain mes amis.
-Viet
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Secret Secret, can you keep it
There is a secret boon to this blog. and that is this
Recently my mother has taken to blogging.
It's not so much that I dislike her doing so as the very prospect of my mother now actually having access to every intimate thought, personal detail, and humiliating moment of my life is one that I believe could even chill the staunchest of men to the bone. Ask Blackbeard what his worst fear was and he will tell you of the time his mother caught him gawking at the mistresses of the bordello.
Not that there's anything about mistresses in my blogs. Or bordellos. Blackbeard I can't promise he won't be in there.
Jokes aside, I'm scared. Very scared reader.
I fear greatly for my future, or prospective future, and given the amount of work remaining to do i fear greatly still. I'm haha, so ... i'll try my best but I am rather scared at this moment so you'll have to forgive me if i'm less funny than usual. I know you go here for the funny. At least I like to think you go here for the funny. Maybe you go here for the drinks, i'm not sure but while you're here i'll try to make you laugh.
Just, this is all I can manage today readers. I'm slowly unraveling at the seams, haha. Ah, finals will be over soon enough one imagines.
A demain
-Viet
Recently my mother has taken to blogging.
It's not so much that I dislike her doing so as the very prospect of my mother now actually having access to every intimate thought, personal detail, and humiliating moment of my life is one that I believe could even chill the staunchest of men to the bone. Ask Blackbeard what his worst fear was and he will tell you of the time his mother caught him gawking at the mistresses of the bordello.
Not that there's anything about mistresses in my blogs. Or bordellos. Blackbeard I can't promise he won't be in there.
Jokes aside, I'm scared. Very scared reader.
I fear greatly for my future, or prospective future, and given the amount of work remaining to do i fear greatly still. I'm haha, so ... i'll try my best but I am rather scared at this moment so you'll have to forgive me if i'm less funny than usual. I know you go here for the funny. At least I like to think you go here for the funny. Maybe you go here for the drinks, i'm not sure but while you're here i'll try to make you laugh.
Just, this is all I can manage today readers. I'm slowly unraveling at the seams, haha. Ah, finals will be over soon enough one imagines.
A demain
-Viet
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Sims 2
I very often do not write in this. So much so that even in spite of making this posting edition my homepage, i still find very little time to update.
As it is i've not been on the internet much (are pigs flying too?) no reader, it's simply been because of the thanksgiving weekend and my sister's come back down and we all had a grea deal of fun watching the office and just general cajoling with or at her expense. (Fix global warming?) Reader shut the fuck up, i'm not on the internet that much.
(...)
Fine, I concede the point but what I HAVE been doing is playing a great deal of the sims 2
(?)
The sims 2 is, well the sims 2 but since you already know i think i'll just tell you what's been going on.
when everything began it was initially just sissy jimenez, roberto jimenez, her husband, and albert jimenez, her friend. now as it was, I set it up so that she had double chemistry with her friend, and none with her husband which i argue is because he's dyed his hair and failed to keep up his weight.
SO EFFECTIVE was this technique that literally the moment i began playing the two of them hit off an adulterous relation just as the camera zoomed in. A long while after (Roberto was reclusive, he seldom left his room) Roberto discovered the two of them making out and in a fit of rage (his actions controlled by me) he broke off his marriage with Sissy and threw her out of the house. Sissy moved back in, at Albert's insistence and together they had a few good months of a relationship during which time Roberto remained (understandably) bitter that his aspiration of becoming a family man had been dashed before his very eyes.
He cried a great deal.
Finally he (wisely) decided to move out of where his old friend and his ex-girlfriend were banging each night within close hearing range of his bedroom to room with his friend, Seurat Georges the cat burglar. Seurat never quite cared for Sissy, he found her too ambitious.
also she often forgot to install fire alarms. For unfortunately after marrying Albert for a good three months during which time he celebrated his 50th birthday, the malevolent hand of god (me) decided to silently break the fire alarm that could have saved poor Albert from a violent and flaming death. Sissy was very sad about this. But as it was she had a good support network and herself, a loner, she found it very easy to lose herself to her job as a lawyer.
Sissy was in fact, a most fantastic lawyer. While due at times to make mistakes of varying severity she exhibited an incredible resiliency to the pressures of making her way up in the cutthroat chain of modern justice. Many friends, a few teased lovers but no roomates and a rekindled relationship with Roberto kept Sissy afloat during these years, and even long after that when she continued to drink her youth potions, holding an engagement like a doggy treat in front of the ever-needy Roberto who - lured by the promise of starting a family with a woman he once loved - took after his opportunity with gusto.
Yes, Sissy was canny but in her defense, her job was at the utmost of her priorities, and eventually with each excitened and denied sexual urge in all of her male friends and her legitimate connections with her female ones, she worked her way up to be the district judge of SimCity, otherwise known as 'The Law'.
Meanwhile, as Sissy made for herself her ultimate ambitions, Roberto also was grappling with a moral dilemma of his own. His friend Georges was charismatic, outgoing, and ripped to the core with a confidence to show it and a beloved Border Collie named 'Killer' who often took to rolling around in puddles and asking people to play with him. Roberto was none of these things and despite all this Luisa, the maid, still took fancy to him.
A man having already suffered through an adultery, the prospect of cheating on his once-again beloved Sissy with another woman stank of too much irony for the family-man Roberto to endure, and yet he continued. She was kind, he noted, and unlike Sissy she did not much care that he was overweight and largely unattractive. Luisa was a blessing, and each day as she came to his house to clean up he got to know her better and better until one day she began hanging out at Roberto's place with increasing frequency. A moment of weeks later, they kissed. And as the wintertime wore down and the snow began to fall Roberto had his first sexual experience with Luisa, the one he'd been so vehemently denied by Sissy.
Soon after this he began to question seriously how to break off his engagement with Sissy. She was a good girl, yes, but she had cheated on him before. Broken their marriage to run off with his best friend and slept with him (loudly) even while he'd remained in the house. Roberto was hurt. But still, he was afraid to do so directly and having nothing left to do, he invited Sissy over one evening and when he knew that she was within full viewing range, kissed Luisa full on the mouth.
The ensuing argument involved fighting, poking, slapping, and tears that flew violently around the room and by the end of it, Roberto had broken off his engagement with Sissy in almost exactly the same fashion as she had so many years before. He proposed to Luisa immediately thereafter on the spot as Sissy left down the street and as she fumed long away, Luisa blushed bright with happiness and accepted Roberto's marriage proposal. Later that morning they were wed.
As for Seurat, he'd always maintained his mantle of quiet indifference from the madness that occurred around him. His existence before Roberto's arrival was one of quiet tranquility: he awoke each morning to eat, work out, play with Killer, then at night he went his way about the world working his way slowly up the crime chain. as it was though, the nature of his job made it difficult to explain what exactly it was that he did do for a living, but as Seurat rarely ventured outside his house, this mattered not. He was there when Roberto and Luisa began to hit it off. secretly he settled the notion in his mind that there was a great deal more chemistry between Luisa and him than Roberto and her but as Roberto had already had enough of that kind of shit to deal with, Seurat had held back and waited for the next girl to come along. As it was, this next girl came along in the form of the replacement maid they sent in to replace Luisa when she forfeited her regular duties as a housemaid to move in with Roberto and Seurat. While Seurat was quietly not entirely happy with the additional bed that had to be purchased, since Luisa had both her maid's training to guide her and her cleaning neuroses to drive her, there was little that Seurat could do to complain about how thoroughly she cleaned the apartment each day he and Roberto came home.
As for the replacement maid (named Karen) while Seurat was very aware that he had no chemistry with the girl, he was also very aware that he was coming very close to 50, having worked most of his life in poverty he was nearing the age where all one can do is think about how people will be expecting one to retire soon. Seurat had lived a small, enclosed life with few friends and even fewer good memories and in his desperation ( and perhaps wisdom) he threw himself with reckless abandon into pursuing the girl and faced with the presence of a ripped, charming, outgoing young man Karen soon too came to wed Seurat. It was the shared sentiment of the house that the maid they sent after Karen was simply far too homely for anyone to wed. Perhaps the maid service had caught on.
At this moment in our story for Georges and Roberto, all was happy and grand. But as a month past, Killer first succumbed to old age and died a quiet death in his doghouse. Seurat was out of the house at the time, but it is said that when told he mourned quietly in his stoic way, the death of his longest-lasting companion. Both of them seniors now, their younger wives had both taken to prenancy with the hopes of becoming doting parents to beautiful children which they imagined would bring them nothing but joy. The babies they DID bring though, brought about a great deal of sleepless nights and suffering voices that rang for attention and changed diapers. Karen in this situation showed her mettle by neglecting her mother's duties in favor of her work and an ever mindful Seurat took to caring for his newborn child between his naps and his dentures.
Luisa too took care of Seurat and Karen's child, even as her pregnancy progressed day by day she would rock Seurat's child softly to sleep, her maternal instincts strong enough even to inhabit the vacuum of affection created by Karen's irresponsibility. They all tried diligently. Roberto even - embarassed by his wife's coldness - even took to caring momentarily for his child but soon found the task too daunting. Regardless, he still forsake sleep with every baby's cry for food.
It was in this circumstance then that perhaps in a stroke of misfortune, the work of a malevolent god, a fire broke out once again as the result of seurat's growing senility and slowly burned down the house, taking with it Georges, Luisa and her unborn child, Roberto, and even the adopted child that Seurat had accidentally adopted when Karen called the adoption agency to see if they would take back the baby.
Only Karen survived. But returning home to an ashen gutted frame of a house in which her friends and family had all died, she persevered for a day. enough even to clean up the house but as her memories took a hold of her she spiralled deeper and deeper into depression, manifesting in a sad motion of tossing a sack of potatoes into the air as though it were a child. And by the end of a wek a second act of diving intervention had joined Karen with her loved ones. And the house rang empty.
that's it for now folks, everything that I described above ACTUALLY HAPPENED
...
IN GAME
A DEMAIN MES AMIS
-Viet
As it is i've not been on the internet much (are pigs flying too?) no reader, it's simply been because of the thanksgiving weekend and my sister's come back down and we all had a grea deal of fun watching the office and just general cajoling with or at her expense. (Fix global warming?) Reader shut the fuck up, i'm not on the internet that much.
(...)
Fine, I concede the point but what I HAVE been doing is playing a great deal of the sims 2
(?)
The sims 2 is, well the sims 2 but since you already know i think i'll just tell you what's been going on.
when everything began it was initially just sissy jimenez, roberto jimenez, her husband, and albert jimenez, her friend. now as it was, I set it up so that she had double chemistry with her friend, and none with her husband which i argue is because he's dyed his hair and failed to keep up his weight.
SO EFFECTIVE was this technique that literally the moment i began playing the two of them hit off an adulterous relation just as the camera zoomed in. A long while after (Roberto was reclusive, he seldom left his room) Roberto discovered the two of them making out and in a fit of rage (his actions controlled by me) he broke off his marriage with Sissy and threw her out of the house. Sissy moved back in, at Albert's insistence and together they had a few good months of a relationship during which time Roberto remained (understandably) bitter that his aspiration of becoming a family man had been dashed before his very eyes.
He cried a great deal.
Finally he (wisely) decided to move out of where his old friend and his ex-girlfriend were banging each night within close hearing range of his bedroom to room with his friend, Seurat Georges the cat burglar. Seurat never quite cared for Sissy, he found her too ambitious.
also she often forgot to install fire alarms. For unfortunately after marrying Albert for a good three months during which time he celebrated his 50th birthday, the malevolent hand of god (me) decided to silently break the fire alarm that could have saved poor Albert from a violent and flaming death. Sissy was very sad about this. But as it was she had a good support network and herself, a loner, she found it very easy to lose herself to her job as a lawyer.
Sissy was in fact, a most fantastic lawyer. While due at times to make mistakes of varying severity she exhibited an incredible resiliency to the pressures of making her way up in the cutthroat chain of modern justice. Many friends, a few teased lovers but no roomates and a rekindled relationship with Roberto kept Sissy afloat during these years, and even long after that when she continued to drink her youth potions, holding an engagement like a doggy treat in front of the ever-needy Roberto who - lured by the promise of starting a family with a woman he once loved - took after his opportunity with gusto.
Yes, Sissy was canny but in her defense, her job was at the utmost of her priorities, and eventually with each excitened and denied sexual urge in all of her male friends and her legitimate connections with her female ones, she worked her way up to be the district judge of SimCity, otherwise known as 'The Law'.
Meanwhile, as Sissy made for herself her ultimate ambitions, Roberto also was grappling with a moral dilemma of his own. His friend Georges was charismatic, outgoing, and ripped to the core with a confidence to show it and a beloved Border Collie named 'Killer' who often took to rolling around in puddles and asking people to play with him. Roberto was none of these things and despite all this Luisa, the maid, still took fancy to him.
A man having already suffered through an adultery, the prospect of cheating on his once-again beloved Sissy with another woman stank of too much irony for the family-man Roberto to endure, and yet he continued. She was kind, he noted, and unlike Sissy she did not much care that he was overweight and largely unattractive. Luisa was a blessing, and each day as she came to his house to clean up he got to know her better and better until one day she began hanging out at Roberto's place with increasing frequency. A moment of weeks later, they kissed. And as the wintertime wore down and the snow began to fall Roberto had his first sexual experience with Luisa, the one he'd been so vehemently denied by Sissy.
Soon after this he began to question seriously how to break off his engagement with Sissy. She was a good girl, yes, but she had cheated on him before. Broken their marriage to run off with his best friend and slept with him (loudly) even while he'd remained in the house. Roberto was hurt. But still, he was afraid to do so directly and having nothing left to do, he invited Sissy over one evening and when he knew that she was within full viewing range, kissed Luisa full on the mouth.
The ensuing argument involved fighting, poking, slapping, and tears that flew violently around the room and by the end of it, Roberto had broken off his engagement with Sissy in almost exactly the same fashion as she had so many years before. He proposed to Luisa immediately thereafter on the spot as Sissy left down the street and as she fumed long away, Luisa blushed bright with happiness and accepted Roberto's marriage proposal. Later that morning they were wed.
As for Seurat, he'd always maintained his mantle of quiet indifference from the madness that occurred around him. His existence before Roberto's arrival was one of quiet tranquility: he awoke each morning to eat, work out, play with Killer, then at night he went his way about the world working his way slowly up the crime chain. as it was though, the nature of his job made it difficult to explain what exactly it was that he did do for a living, but as Seurat rarely ventured outside his house, this mattered not. He was there when Roberto and Luisa began to hit it off. secretly he settled the notion in his mind that there was a great deal more chemistry between Luisa and him than Roberto and her but as Roberto had already had enough of that kind of shit to deal with, Seurat had held back and waited for the next girl to come along. As it was, this next girl came along in the form of the replacement maid they sent in to replace Luisa when she forfeited her regular duties as a housemaid to move in with Roberto and Seurat. While Seurat was quietly not entirely happy with the additional bed that had to be purchased, since Luisa had both her maid's training to guide her and her cleaning neuroses to drive her, there was little that Seurat could do to complain about how thoroughly she cleaned the apartment each day he and Roberto came home.
As for the replacement maid (named Karen) while Seurat was very aware that he had no chemistry with the girl, he was also very aware that he was coming very close to 50, having worked most of his life in poverty he was nearing the age where all one can do is think about how people will be expecting one to retire soon. Seurat had lived a small, enclosed life with few friends and even fewer good memories and in his desperation ( and perhaps wisdom) he threw himself with reckless abandon into pursuing the girl and faced with the presence of a ripped, charming, outgoing young man Karen soon too came to wed Seurat. It was the shared sentiment of the house that the maid they sent after Karen was simply far too homely for anyone to wed. Perhaps the maid service had caught on.
At this moment in our story for Georges and Roberto, all was happy and grand. But as a month past, Killer first succumbed to old age and died a quiet death in his doghouse. Seurat was out of the house at the time, but it is said that when told he mourned quietly in his stoic way, the death of his longest-lasting companion. Both of them seniors now, their younger wives had both taken to prenancy with the hopes of becoming doting parents to beautiful children which they imagined would bring them nothing but joy. The babies they DID bring though, brought about a great deal of sleepless nights and suffering voices that rang for attention and changed diapers. Karen in this situation showed her mettle by neglecting her mother's duties in favor of her work and an ever mindful Seurat took to caring for his newborn child between his naps and his dentures.
Luisa too took care of Seurat and Karen's child, even as her pregnancy progressed day by day she would rock Seurat's child softly to sleep, her maternal instincts strong enough even to inhabit the vacuum of affection created by Karen's irresponsibility. They all tried diligently. Roberto even - embarassed by his wife's coldness - even took to caring momentarily for his child but soon found the task too daunting. Regardless, he still forsake sleep with every baby's cry for food.
It was in this circumstance then that perhaps in a stroke of misfortune, the work of a malevolent god, a fire broke out once again as the result of seurat's growing senility and slowly burned down the house, taking with it Georges, Luisa and her unborn child, Roberto, and even the adopted child that Seurat had accidentally adopted when Karen called the adoption agency to see if they would take back the baby.
Only Karen survived. But returning home to an ashen gutted frame of a house in which her friends and family had all died, she persevered for a day. enough even to clean up the house but as her memories took a hold of her she spiralled deeper and deeper into depression, manifesting in a sad motion of tossing a sack of potatoes into the air as though it were a child. And by the end of a wek a second act of diving intervention had joined Karen with her loved ones. And the house rang empty.
that's it for now folks, everything that I described above ACTUALLY HAPPENED
...
IN GAME
A DEMAIN MES AMIS
-Viet
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
About Love
I do not believe in fate. Bee would like to believe that people are fated to be together but i've yet to see any evidence that anything in this world is not as a consequence of chance and the decisions we make in our lives.
See, it's nice to think that while you're in a relationship you were always fated to find each other and there's such thing as soulmates and what have you but when you're out of a relationship you realize how utterly bull that is. I mean seriously, this is all due to some cosmic plan? Fuck that. You are where you are not because of fate or stars but because you were lucky enough to find someone and you've worked to keep it working since then. There is no such thing as fate, only such things as people who try their best to get things to work and sometimes they succeed and they like to call it fate. But it's not.
there is no fate in this world, there's only the wily hand of chance that guides every aspect of our lives. To be lucky is everything, but even the lucky can't save themselves from failure. So accept things as they are. They're not the way they are because it was meant to be but rather as a consequence of the things that were and weren't done, the people that were and weren't there, the things that did and did not happen. You are lucky, people in relationships. And if you continue to be lucky it will be something grand. I wish you the best.
-Viet
See, it's nice to think that while you're in a relationship you were always fated to find each other and there's such thing as soulmates and what have you but when you're out of a relationship you realize how utterly bull that is. I mean seriously, this is all due to some cosmic plan? Fuck that. You are where you are not because of fate or stars but because you were lucky enough to find someone and you've worked to keep it working since then. There is no such thing as fate, only such things as people who try their best to get things to work and sometimes they succeed and they like to call it fate. But it's not.
there is no fate in this world, there's only the wily hand of chance that guides every aspect of our lives. To be lucky is everything, but even the lucky can't save themselves from failure. So accept things as they are. They're not the way they are because it was meant to be but rather as a consequence of the things that were and weren't done, the people that were and weren't there, the things that did and did not happen. You are lucky, people in relationships. And if you continue to be lucky it will be something grand. I wish you the best.
-Viet
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Because the wind is high.....
Love is old, love is new.
Reader I am writing fatigued. It might be due to the simple reason that after two and a half straight weeks of writing every day for three hours or more, together of which has produced more than 20 pages worth of material. It could be it. But I am fatigued. At the moment I want nothing more to do with the story, anyone immediately related to the story, or even Joseph Story of Madison California.
What have I been up to? Well, there's the above. 23 single spaced pages do not make for a lot of leeway in creativity or even production of anything remotely creative but we shall yet see. I've been writing every day for the past two weeks and it has drained me utterly and entirely. I've dropped two of my electives, discovered I no longer give a crap about american or japanese comics (though I still hold a special place in my heart for Full Metal Alchemist), and I've taken to playing Team Fortress 2 like a madman.
The world extends very little outside of the few feet it takes me away from my porch and i've grown accustomed to living in this manner, biding my time with Team Fortress 2 and World of Warcraft. But it must be said, this here marks a new beginning for this blog. Readers you may be bored, but as there is nothing going on in my life that's truly worth mentioning i'll be blogging only about matters that are to my interest. It's a shame, but you weren't really reading this blog for me anyhow were you readers?
But there you have it. No more stories from the grey bottom dreckmen from Viet. From now on only smash brothers, Rocket Launchers, Draenei hunters and cattle. Always cattle. I'm writing fatigued and i'm done.
-Peace
Reader I am writing fatigued. It might be due to the simple reason that after two and a half straight weeks of writing every day for three hours or more, together of which has produced more than 20 pages worth of material. It could be it. But I am fatigued. At the moment I want nothing more to do with the story, anyone immediately related to the story, or even Joseph Story of Madison California.
What have I been up to? Well, there's the above. 23 single spaced pages do not make for a lot of leeway in creativity or even production of anything remotely creative but we shall yet see. I've been writing every day for the past two weeks and it has drained me utterly and entirely. I've dropped two of my electives, discovered I no longer give a crap about american or japanese comics (though I still hold a special place in my heart for Full Metal Alchemist), and I've taken to playing Team Fortress 2 like a madman.
The world extends very little outside of the few feet it takes me away from my porch and i've grown accustomed to living in this manner, biding my time with Team Fortress 2 and World of Warcraft. But it must be said, this here marks a new beginning for this blog. Readers you may be bored, but as there is nothing going on in my life that's truly worth mentioning i'll be blogging only about matters that are to my interest. It's a shame, but you weren't really reading this blog for me anyhow were you readers?
But there you have it. No more stories from the grey bottom dreckmen from Viet. From now on only smash brothers, Rocket Launchers, Draenei hunters and cattle. Always cattle. I'm writing fatigued and i'm done.
-Peace
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Brain Drain Game
Reader, I am draining my brain. And while it's not particularly that bad in the wider scheme of things, it's bad ENOUGH, so to speak.
Though it's probably because I'm writing. And when I'm writing the world stops.
For the writing.
I'm sorry readers, this is all I can muster, I hope it's enough. You know I'm well, I hope you are too
Best wishes
-Viet
Though it's probably because I'm writing. And when I'm writing the world stops.
For the writing.
I'm sorry readers, this is all I can muster, I hope it's enough. You know I'm well, I hope you are too
Best wishes
-Viet
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Coitus Interruptus
Yeah reader, no excuses, I know. I've not been writing here as much as I promised I would. In fact, it's only because I've been incredibly busy with other writing endeavors and every attempt I've made to write in this journal has been a case of coming in with the intent to do the deed, but resulting in a failure to go through with consummating the pact.
It's embarassing, yes. But it happens to more men than you can imagine.
All things said and done things have been busy. Busy busy busy. Busier than bees and honeycomb (and that's busy). I've written a 23 page story and now it's in the preliminary revision phase. That's really all there is really. Picked up WoW again, have been playing TF 2 and that game gets off my grudge matches.
I'm not witty today.
Though, as it were, while Talisa would much rather shower the world with her truly fantastic photographs that are brilliantly framed, executed, and have since ascended well beyond the realm of simple 'snapshot' I possess no such skills, and accordingly I can only leave you with this: something I saw this morning.
It's been gray in the skies for a few days now. The clouds hanging heavy in the sky, pregnant with the slow seed of moisture hidden deep in their folds. A damp blanket holding tightly to the California skyline, this morning it broke. at first with the first painter's strokes of clouds breaking up the imperial leadeness of the sky with flashes of white on grey, infusing the monotone pallor of the cloud cover with a shot of brightness, breaking the temperance of the grey-blanket cloud cover.
Well that's all I got.
A demain, notre amis
-Viet
It's embarassing, yes. But it happens to more men than you can imagine.
All things said and done things have been busy. Busy busy busy. Busier than bees and honeycomb (and that's busy). I've written a 23 page story and now it's in the preliminary revision phase. That's really all there is really. Picked up WoW again, have been playing TF 2 and that game gets off my grudge matches.
I'm not witty today.
Though, as it were, while Talisa would much rather shower the world with her truly fantastic photographs that are brilliantly framed, executed, and have since ascended well beyond the realm of simple 'snapshot' I possess no such skills, and accordingly I can only leave you with this: something I saw this morning.
It's been gray in the skies for a few days now. The clouds hanging heavy in the sky, pregnant with the slow seed of moisture hidden deep in their folds. A damp blanket holding tightly to the California skyline, this morning it broke. at first with the first painter's strokes of clouds breaking up the imperial leadeness of the sky with flashes of white on grey, infusing the monotone pallor of the cloud cover with a shot of brightness, breaking the temperance of the grey-blanket cloud cover.
Well that's all I got.
A demain, notre amis
-Viet
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
A Recent Conversation
[15:00] lostintransl87: link is teh dreamies
[15:00] Rosie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king
[15:00] lostintransl87: but he doesn't talk
[15:01] Rosie: oh i don't need him to talk
[15:01] Rosie: ...
[15:01] Rosie: LAWLLLLL
[15:00] Rosie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king
[15:00] lostintransl87: but he doesn't talk
[15:01] Rosie: oh i don't need him to talk
[15:01] Rosie: ...
[15:01] Rosie: LAWLLLLL
Sunday, September 23, 2007
How long has it been
Why yes reader, it has been a while. You must be wond'ring what i've been up to. What has happened to Viet? Where has he gone and where has he gone to? Is it a place with hummingbirds? Numerous gorgeous women perhaps. Maybe a llama.
Alas reader, all of the above are erroneous. Though were they, had they, could that they were true it would indeed have made for a wonderful story indeed. A story in fact, to regale you with mirth and humor and make you smile like you did while you were an infant watching Barney, blissfully unaware that the anthropomorphic dinosaur was an unholy creation borne of The Womb of Satan (c). But all is not the case, I have not been on epic travels, I have instead been refurnishing my room in the most extreme manner possible: with paint.
Now Viet, as many an astute reader might note, wouldn't a more extreme form of renovation be to actually BLOW UP your room? Indeed, but reader what you do not understand about this paint is that it is GREEN.
behold, a green room
And not only is this paint green, it is green only on two walls of the room. Two adjacent walls are green, the other two adjacent walls are also green albeit a slightly darker shade. The last touch was the chinese lanterns purchased recently from San Francisco's Chinatown. Together it transforms what was originally an ordinary room into now an ordinary room that bears a striking similarity to a Japanese restaurant. Astute readers may also note at this point that I just mentioned that the depicted lanterns were purchased in Chinatown, therefore there is no possible way that the room could look like a Japanese restaurant. Fortunately those same readers have been told to shut the hell up and read like the rest of us do.
Other than renovating my room, I too have two products to plug to you as strongly as I can. One is Across the Universe, something that i've been harping for quite a while now but have only recently been able to see. And as all the major reviewers have contributed their opines upon the matter, I feel it is only fitting that as a major reviewer (a lie) I contribute my opinion so that I may be paid exorbiant amounts of money for simply observing other people's works and criticizing it (also a lie).
Across the Universe is a muddled mess of a picture. It is at times eye-rollingly melodramatic, the first reel commits to big-screen release some of the same cliches that brought to life the undead amalgam creature that was Bratz: The Movie. It is uneven, poorly-characterized, and at times so banally literal that you could be as unabashedly vulgar as Seth from "Superbad" and still be more subtle than this movie's interpretations of the Beatles songs.
So why am I recommending it?
Because for all its' follies and flaws, its mediocrity portions and uneven execution, and nonexistent plotting, its triumphs are astounding and utterly mind-blowing. Taymor has created the ultimate love song to the Beatles via their own music, doing nothing with the work but thematically linking them all together in the lives of 5 20-somethings in the 60s. It is not an inventive device, but plot hardly matters in a movie where image, interpretation and spectacle are on display so utterly and entirely.
It is where Taymor brings her own work to the table, be it with an acapella arrangement of singing 20-somethings in a field of grass or a mechanical carousel of morphine-injecting salma hayeks, that the work gains its greatest heights of spectacle, wonder, and amazing visual interpretation.
Scenes like the above mentioned, and various others (none of which spring to this reviewer's mind at the moment) are so utterly enjoyable and fantastic in their conception and execution that it almost makes up for the ticket price of awkwardly written college student dialogue and early drama that ring of nothing but page 309 in the writer's guide to movie cliches
much props to asian-american actress T.V. Carpio for getting so much screen time as a asian-american lesbian from ohio turned hippie playing not a caricature but a fairly believeable portrait of an asian-american citizen. Save for the very odd phenomena whereby parents in this movie are either cliched in speech or entirely nonpresent
So in the end Across the Universe should be treated like your children, should you have or ever have them. Forgive its flaws, appreciate it for what it is, and you will enjoy it. You might return to it someday, but enjoy it for what it is, where it is great. Because when it soars, it soars higher than any musical in recent or past history has ever gone before. So enjoy it where it is, where it will be remembered, and where it'll go soaring Across the Universe.
And seeing as how that's such a frigging awesome ending, i'm just going to call this post quits where it is and call her off 'till later reader. I will see you where the sun rises to the west again.
-Viet
Alas reader, all of the above are erroneous. Though were they, had they, could that they were true it would indeed have made for a wonderful story indeed. A story in fact, to regale you with mirth and humor and make you smile like you did while you were an infant watching Barney, blissfully unaware that the anthropomorphic dinosaur was an unholy creation borne of The Womb of Satan (c). But all is not the case, I have not been on epic travels, I have instead been refurnishing my room in the most extreme manner possible: with paint.
Now Viet, as many an astute reader might note, wouldn't a more extreme form of renovation be to actually BLOW UP your room? Indeed, but reader what you do not understand about this paint is that it is GREEN.
behold, a green room
Other than renovating my room, I too have two products to plug to you as strongly as I can. One is Across the Universe, something that i've been harping for quite a while now but have only recently been able to see. And as all the major reviewers have contributed their opines upon the matter, I feel it is only fitting that as a major reviewer (a lie) I contribute my opinion so that I may be paid exorbiant amounts of money for simply observing other people's works and criticizing it (also a lie).
Across the Universe is a muddled mess of a picture. It is at times eye-rollingly melodramatic, the first reel commits to big-screen release some of the same cliches that brought to life the undead amalgam creature that was Bratz: The Movie. It is uneven, poorly-characterized, and at times so banally literal that you could be as unabashedly vulgar as Seth from "Superbad" and still be more subtle than this movie's interpretations of the Beatles songs.
So why am I recommending it?
Because for all its' follies and flaws, its mediocrity portions and uneven execution, and nonexistent plotting, its triumphs are astounding and utterly mind-blowing. Taymor has created the ultimate love song to the Beatles via their own music, doing nothing with the work but thematically linking them all together in the lives of 5 20-somethings in the 60s. It is not an inventive device, but plot hardly matters in a movie where image, interpretation and spectacle are on display so utterly and entirely.
It is where Taymor brings her own work to the table, be it with an acapella arrangement of singing 20-somethings in a field of grass or a mechanical carousel of morphine-injecting salma hayeks, that the work gains its greatest heights of spectacle, wonder, and amazing visual interpretation.
Scenes like the above mentioned, and various others (none of which spring to this reviewer's mind at the moment) are so utterly enjoyable and fantastic in their conception and execution that it almost makes up for the ticket price of awkwardly written college student dialogue and early drama that ring of nothing but page 309 in the writer's guide to movie cliches
much props to asian-american actress T.V. Carpio for getting so much screen time as a asian-american lesbian from ohio turned hippie playing not a caricature but a fairly believeable portrait of an asian-american citizen. Save for the very odd phenomena whereby parents in this movie are either cliched in speech or entirely nonpresent
So in the end Across the Universe should be treated like your children, should you have or ever have them. Forgive its flaws, appreciate it for what it is, and you will enjoy it. You might return to it someday, but enjoy it for what it is, where it is great. Because when it soars, it soars higher than any musical in recent or past history has ever gone before. So enjoy it where it is, where it will be remembered, and where it'll go soaring Across the Universe.
And seeing as how that's such a frigging awesome ending, i'm just going to call this post quits where it is and call her off 'till later reader. I will see you where the sun rises to the west again.
-Viet
Monday, September 17, 2007
From the Wiki article entitled "Loneliness"
American Buddhist monk Ajahn Sumedho taught: "We suffer a lot in our society from loneliness. So much of our life is an attempt to not be lonely: 'Let's talk to each other; let's do things together so we won't be lonely.' And yet inevitably, we are really alone in these human forms. We can pretend; we can entertain each other; but that's about the best we can do. When it comes to the actual experience of life, we're very much alone; and to expect anyone else to take away our loneliness is asking too much."
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Harold Weis: The Giant James Broland
In 1932 Harold Weis dreamt of becoming a superstar named James Broland. He dreamt it was 1982, he had black hair and a wide-set mustache that covered his face from side to side. He stepped up to the microphone, spotlights glared down upon him from the rafters above. He stared out into the crowd and beheld a giant stadium of empty seats.
Disappointed, he dreamt he moved time forwards into the few hours of the night ahead where he played on his guitar before a crowd of millions and millions of fans admirers and observers who crowded into the open auditorium where he had just hours before stared and beheld nothing. To him it seemed unreal. Behind him his face projected onto a screen 75 times his height and width, a gigantic explosion of his persona onto a canvas larger than any man had any right being. He dreamt he grew to that size, his persona switching with the screen as the screen became his size and he grew to the size of the screen.
Below him his fans still cheered, the writhing, jumping masses of people enraptured, engaged, enthralled by the sound of his playing; James Broland: The Giant.
That night The Giant played as he never had before and never would again in his life. The songs sprung from his hands and lips to the ears of the crowd below and into the heavens above. Harold Weis lost himself to James Broland, and James Broland sang a quiet anthem to the universe above where it registered nothing, except for the tiny movement of an asteroid that felt the vibration from the earth and shifted a pebble in modest applause.
And back on earth James Broland played in his moment, the man 75 times larger than the other men played on his guitar the size of a starship to the crowd below who crooned their sighs and breaths of thanks.
But as soon as it happened James Broland found himself slowly falling, he began to shrink again as the heavens made their ways away from him and while he had then heard the faint trumpeting of the angels at the gates of heaven when he was The Giant, James Broland the man shrank to the empty stage beneath the gaze of the endless universe above him and once more beheld an empty auditorium. His guitar was still his, as it was, unable to float the tiny island of Palau to safety. He was once more James Broland, the dreamt creation of Harold Weis from 1932.
But for a moment Harold dreamt a moment more and as James Broland he stared off into the heavens and looked to the skies for answers to what it meant.
And the universe answered nothing.
Save for a pebble on an asteroid.
Disappointed, he dreamt he moved time forwards into the few hours of the night ahead where he played on his guitar before a crowd of millions and millions of fans admirers and observers who crowded into the open auditorium where he had just hours before stared and beheld nothing. To him it seemed unreal. Behind him his face projected onto a screen 75 times his height and width, a gigantic explosion of his persona onto a canvas larger than any man had any right being. He dreamt he grew to that size, his persona switching with the screen as the screen became his size and he grew to the size of the screen.
Below him his fans still cheered, the writhing, jumping masses of people enraptured, engaged, enthralled by the sound of his playing; James Broland: The Giant.
That night The Giant played as he never had before and never would again in his life. The songs sprung from his hands and lips to the ears of the crowd below and into the heavens above. Harold Weis lost himself to James Broland, and James Broland sang a quiet anthem to the universe above where it registered nothing, except for the tiny movement of an asteroid that felt the vibration from the earth and shifted a pebble in modest applause.
And back on earth James Broland played in his moment, the man 75 times larger than the other men played on his guitar the size of a starship to the crowd below who crooned their sighs and breaths of thanks.
But as soon as it happened James Broland found himself slowly falling, he began to shrink again as the heavens made their ways away from him and while he had then heard the faint trumpeting of the angels at the gates of heaven when he was The Giant, James Broland the man shrank to the empty stage beneath the gaze of the endless universe above him and once more beheld an empty auditorium. His guitar was still his, as it was, unable to float the tiny island of Palau to safety. He was once more James Broland, the dreamt creation of Harold Weis from 1932.
But for a moment Harold dreamt a moment more and as James Broland he stared off into the heavens and looked to the skies for answers to what it meant.
And the universe answered nothing.
Save for a pebble on an asteroid.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Joint Project
Because this has gotten out of hand of late I've joined together with my good friend Rose to run this project to get myself comfortable in my own skin. We've yet to come up with a title but in lieu of thinking of anything honestly truly serious i think i'll go with Project Positive, which I shall only be referring to as (P.P.) henceforth. Thus begins the first in a hopefully productive ego-boosting sessions because if you know me at all you know that I ain't got shit for self-confidence.
PP
My name is Viet, I am 20 years old and I have never been in a relationship because I am waiting to find the right person or rather I am waiting for the right person to find me
I am smart, I am funny, I am sensitive and kind and romantic. I could be there for you when you're sad, be there with you when you're happy and be charming when you need me to be. I can sing, I can write, I believe in pusuing life and love above all other things and I'm worth having, I'm worth being with, and I'm only single because you haven't found me yet.
I could love you the way you're supposed to be loved, I could be everything you dreamed of, minus Paul Rudd and that odd fetish for feet. I am me, and we deserve each other. And it will happen.
Apologies, reader for you having to read this, but it seems a necessary exercise on my part. We'll see if it bears any fruit. (If it does not, this is all Rose's fault)
PP
My name is Viet, I am 20 years old and I have never been in a relationship because I am waiting to find the right person or rather I am waiting for the right person to find me
I am smart, I am funny, I am sensitive and kind and romantic. I could be there for you when you're sad, be there with you when you're happy and be charming when you need me to be. I can sing, I can write, I believe in pusuing life and love above all other things and I'm worth having, I'm worth being with, and I'm only single because you haven't found me yet.
I could love you the way you're supposed to be loved, I could be everything you dreamed of, minus Paul Rudd and that odd fetish for feet. I am me, and we deserve each other. And it will happen.
Apologies, reader for you having to read this, but it seems a necessary exercise on my part. We'll see if it bears any fruit. (If it does not, this is all Rose's fault)
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Happiness is 80 degrees of magic
I've been happier today than I have been in a long long while and it is for a few reasons (listed below)
- I've been able to play the Guild Wars Expansion Pack: Eye of the North
-The temperature in Irvine has been able to drop below the mind-melting high of x>100 degrees
-I discovered where I'm most comfortable and witty when I'm in Irvine (Best Buy, any time any of y'all want to see me at my A-game, it's there)
-New, glorious foam pillow that makes sleeping on anything literally a breeze and a half. Everyone must have one. Now. So, if you want one, leave me a comment and I shall (maybe) send one your way, I've an extra.
-The Happy Fairie hit me over the head with her Happy Stick(tm)
- I've been able to play the Guild Wars Expansion Pack: Eye of the North
-The temperature in Irvine has been able to drop below the mind-melting high of x>100 degrees
-I discovered where I'm most comfortable and witty when I'm in Irvine (Best Buy, any time any of y'all want to see me at my A-game, it's there)
-New, glorious foam pillow that makes sleeping on anything literally a breeze and a half. Everyone must have one. Now. So, if you want one, leave me a comment and I shall (maybe) send one your way, I've an extra.
-The Happy Fairie hit me over the head with her Happy Stick(tm)
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Day 2: The Madness Begins
It has been roughly 3-quarters of the time that I've spent away from Guild Wars and I am beginning to fall silently, but surely into a spiralling morass of madness and wickedness. Do you hear that sound? That is the sound of a man who is left with no more options, without purpose and reason in his life. Only this time last year did my gaming hard drive crash handily into the ground, taking with it several year's worth of downloaded games, and any means of entertainment outside of online gaming. While at the time this was not a crime, I see now that in depriving myself of an entertainment medium devoid of "Rules of Conduct", I may have exhibited some short-sightedness in making ripe the perfect conditions for this travesty against humanity (i.e., my current situation) to have been instigated.
That sentence prior was not particularly well-made, but what can one do. I know this blog has very few readers, it may even have none. But let me say to you readers, reader, or Nil, the existential stranger that by 12 AM tomorrow morning if I have not flown to Australia to brutally murder Alfred Nolan of Sydney Australia, living at 19533 Almond way in the 13th district by the Nuclear Energy facility across from the bay, I will be playing with rapt fascination, Guild Wars.
And it will be good.
And in the event that it's not up by then, Alfred Nolan, I've a plane ride to Australia.
That sentence prior was not particularly well-made, but what can one do. I know this blog has very few readers, it may even have none. But let me say to you readers, reader, or Nil, the existential stranger that by 12 AM tomorrow morning if I have not flown to Australia to brutally murder Alfred Nolan of Sydney Australia, living at 19533 Almond way in the 13th district by the Nuclear Energy facility across from the bay, I will be playing with rapt fascination, Guild Wars.
And it will be good.
And in the event that it's not up by then, Alfred Nolan, I've a plane ride to Australia.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Heat
The heat in California has since gotten so awful that literally I am only able to operate fully at night. It is so hot I can't even joke about it anymore. Meanwhile I am still suspended from Guild Wars. Life is meaningless. Waiting on roughly 2 days from now. Until then, nothing funny. Without my videogames I am nothing but a shell, sans Ghost.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
I'm not gay ( I swear)
Just because I
-Like musical theatre
-Can sing
-Enjoy Dancing
-Have Abba/Cher/The Village People in my iTunes
-Have a rainbow bumper sticker on my car that says "I like it when balls are in my face"
-Insert my penis into other men's assholes
doesn't make me gay.
I think
I'm not sure
-Like musical theatre
-Can sing
-Enjoy Dancing
-Have Abba/Cher/The Village People in my iTunes
-Have a rainbow bumper sticker on my car that says "I like it when balls are in my face"
-Insert my penis into other men's assholes
doesn't make me gay.
I think
I'm not sure
Can't write this shit
I was going to write something to amuse you reader, but this is much simpler.
That's all I've got to say about that
That's all I've got to say about that
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
iTunes
Let's be honest people. Your music is an adequate representation of who you are as a person. And as for me. In my case my soul seems to be 20% japanese, 45% rock and roll, 31.5% rap, and 5.2% Mongolian throat singing.
Also my soul is 142% not good at math.
Also my soul is 142% not good at math.
Lies
Reader, it is my duty to inform you that in addition to writing a professional writer must engage in a number of other duties, several of which do not involve writing. It is a prerequisite of the writing profession that one must be a recluse. Indeed, there are several professions that require this from the hermit to the hermit crab, but only in the writer is the case for some solitude truly unique. Though it is not immediately apparant, being a writer also requires a unique art of the internet, television, movies, videogames, and numerous other entertainment medium. Knowledge of these alternative mediums of entertainment are essential because they all distract from the actual physical act of writing, which is the writer's bane. Indeed, in any given day a writer can only dedicate at most one to four hours to writing. Other hours of the day are given to other scholarly pursuits such as Guitar Hero, perusing the internet, and the obligatory solitary sexual act which is the writer's only outlet for sexual tension.
It is ironic then, that the very people who are supposed to be writing about life are so very often the people who experience so little of it. Confined to tiny rooms, writers are supposed to take in the world around them and express on paper their interpretation of the world. Hopefully their expressions are well-written and may someday be chosen to be placed in an anthology of some kind, a book deal or a writing part in a magazine. Most likely though, the writer will continue working at Kohls or Ralphs or waiting tables at the local Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. , watching as his friends and family move onto bigger and better things. In the meantime, in his insular bubble for one to four hours the writer sits, in between sessions of masturbation, waiting for the muses to come.
When the muses do come, they invariably come in the form of something other than the classical greek portrayals of young lithe, nubile nymphs, for while one can only assume that at some point in human history inspiration did actually come forth in the form of these nymphs, the modern writer in his sexual deprivation would simply just be more moved to perform more solitary sexual acts rather than to write. This is why, now in modern times, there are very few references to the muses appearing in the forms of women, but rather in alternative forms. What in ancient times would have been referred to as the coming of the muses today would simply only be called coming in a wet dream.
Obscenities aside, this is truly the existence of a writer. It is also the reason why it is so difficult to make good writing. For the writer must hang in the delicate balance between experiencing life and translating that life onto paper. The writer's stock and trade in life is expression. Many of the best have lived little outside the confines of their rooms and yet have expressed multitudes and fantastic works within their confines. Expression and the quality of expression is the only thing that matters in the profession that is the writer. It is not glamorous, the hours are shoddy, the payoffs often nonexistent. But it is the life of a writer nonetheless.
I thank you for your time reader
It is ironic then, that the very people who are supposed to be writing about life are so very often the people who experience so little of it. Confined to tiny rooms, writers are supposed to take in the world around them and express on paper their interpretation of the world. Hopefully their expressions are well-written and may someday be chosen to be placed in an anthology of some kind, a book deal or a writing part in a magazine. Most likely though, the writer will continue working at Kohls or Ralphs or waiting tables at the local Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. , watching as his friends and family move onto bigger and better things. In the meantime, in his insular bubble for one to four hours the writer sits, in between sessions of masturbation, waiting for the muses to come.
When the muses do come, they invariably come in the form of something other than the classical greek portrayals of young lithe, nubile nymphs, for while one can only assume that at some point in human history inspiration did actually come forth in the form of these nymphs, the modern writer in his sexual deprivation would simply just be more moved to perform more solitary sexual acts rather than to write. This is why, now in modern times, there are very few references to the muses appearing in the forms of women, but rather in alternative forms. What in ancient times would have been referred to as the coming of the muses today would simply only be called coming in a wet dream.
Obscenities aside, this is truly the existence of a writer. It is also the reason why it is so difficult to make good writing. For the writer must hang in the delicate balance between experiencing life and translating that life onto paper. The writer's stock and trade in life is expression. Many of the best have lived little outside the confines of their rooms and yet have expressed multitudes and fantastic works within their confines. Expression and the quality of expression is the only thing that matters in the profession that is the writer. It is not glamorous, the hours are shoddy, the payoffs often nonexistent. But it is the life of a writer nonetheless.
I thank you for your time reader
Begin at the beginning: A Blog (alternate titles considered: Hogarth, the Hungry Hobo Hungarian)
Reader if I may , I must inform you that throughout my childhood, I was unique among many other children in that I was able to claim that I had attended no less than 5 different schools in a meager 8 years of education. It was not, of course, a function of necessity rather than a consequence of circumstances. In 1st grade my parents got divorced. At the time, within the Vietnamese community this was a significant and horrible taboo. Though I did not notice it at the time, I was later informed by my mother that in those years so strong was the taboo against divorce that strangers would call our house to place curses on us, my mother's children, condemning us to futures of unavoidable suffering and misery.
While I did not yet notice the phone (too preoccupied was I with the wonders of the electric keyboard that played hits from the early 90s such as Rick Astley's "Together Forever") What I did notice were the consequences of the communal rejection my mother suffered at the hands of the larger Vietnamese community (of which I henceforth ascribe the name "The Vmob", a portmonteau of "V" the first letter of the ethnic designation "Vietnamese" and "mob" as in, a mob). The first noticeable thing that I can recall is often my mother would stay up late at night crying, sometimes hugging me close to her while I wondered quietly what was going on, why she was crying, and why was I up at the godawful hour of 10 PM (I tired earlier then).
The second thing that I shall recall for the purposes of this story, which for all sakes and purposes shall be called "A Story", is that in the transfer between 2nd and 3rd grade, there was a shift in the administration at Northwood Elementary School in Irvine, CA 92620 (I feel no need to protect the anonymity of that institution which - though they are just rumors - is purported to have placed lead in the paint of the poor black children) from the previous principal (I've forgotten her name, let us just call her Mrs. White) to a more stringent, more moral, more disciplined sort of administration in the form of a single individual (as i've also forgotten her name, let us call her Mrs. Shit). Suffice to say, Mrs. Shit represented to me, and to the greater of Northwood Elementary School, a cold pall over the (well, let us be frank reader, nothing changed at the school in the first year except for the icy aura that emanated from the new principal. Individuals who have been within 500 metres of Dick Cheney can testify that a human being can in fact emanate such an aura) previously lighter tone of the campus.
While some might point to this description as hyperbolic (in fact the case might be made that the entirety of this blog is hyperbolic), I assure you that at the time, as a 9 year old boy I often took great efforts to crawl beneath the sideboard, out of sight of the principal as to not stare directly into her eyes and be turned to stone. Jokes aside, I did try my best to make like a ninja and be unseen by the principal. She regarded me with such a look of utter disgust and venom that it removed what little warmth there was in my soul and spit it into my face where it burned and metaphorically seared the soft fleshy parts of my eyes. Later, I discovered that this look was informed by bigotry, but we shall return to that point later reader.
As for the principal herself, she - and my 3rd grade teacher - provided the catalyst for my first in medias rex transfer from one school to the next. At the behest of my 3rd grade teacher (who seemingly found a 3rd grade asian child with a vibrant imagination and aspirations of becoming a cowboy as infuriating as red would be to a bull in a bullfighting ring) my mother and I met in the principal's office to discuss certain techniques that could be used to reign in my clear and distinct lack of respect for authority (I was not good at PE, I much rather preferred sitting in the shade thinking about the episodes of Ghostwriter and Wishbone i'd seen the day earlier). The principal suggested that perhaps I was acting out as a direct consequence of my mother's divorce from my father and that a possible solution, for the good of the child was for my mother and father to be rejoined. After all, statistically speaking, single mothers are unfit to raise their own children and their offspring grow up to be delinquents, drug addicts, or worse yet: Democrats.
If this sentiment that was expressed to my mother seems at all harsh and unprovoked, reader, let me inform you of a previous incident that could have, and probably did inform the principal's attitude towards my mother and I.
See earlier that same year I'd been called into the principal's office for some entirely innocent reason. See, somebody had informed me that the F-word rhymed with "duck", and being the super genius that I was, I had run down the alphabet until I'd struck gold with the word. That is why I was in the principal's office. The other thing you must know, reader, is that I was very fond of Calvin and Hobbes. In 3rd grade it was a major pastime of my mother, myself, and my siblings to drive down to the wooded end of Irvine in the appropriately named Woodbridge, by the artificial lake and peruse the Barnes and Nobles, my mother reading the jokes from Calvin and Hobbes to a 9, 7, and 5-year old. One of these jokes involved a punchline where Calvin called his mother a communist. I, attempting the lighten the situation, asked the principal if she was a Communist.
Mrs. Shit, a Reaganite, immediately called my mother in from work to demand to know where her son got the giant cajones to insinuate that the principal was a communist. So, as it was, this previous incident now informed the injustice that was being inflicted against my mother. Suffice to say, it was more than a straw that broke the camel's back, and by the end of 3rd grade plans had already been put in motion to transfer my enrollment from Northwood Elementary School to Westwood Basics Plus, further away from the house. I believe my 3rd grade year was best summarized by my single exclamation at its conclusion. I only had one exuberant sentence for my mother as she came to pick me up from Northwood Elementary School for the last time.
"Mom! I passed third grade!!!!"
While I did not yet notice the phone (too preoccupied was I with the wonders of the electric keyboard that played hits from the early 90s such as Rick Astley's "Together Forever") What I did notice were the consequences of the communal rejection my mother suffered at the hands of the larger Vietnamese community (of which I henceforth ascribe the name "The Vmob", a portmonteau of "V" the first letter of the ethnic designation "Vietnamese" and "mob" as in, a mob). The first noticeable thing that I can recall is often my mother would stay up late at night crying, sometimes hugging me close to her while I wondered quietly what was going on, why she was crying, and why was I up at the godawful hour of 10 PM (I tired earlier then).
The second thing that I shall recall for the purposes of this story, which for all sakes and purposes shall be called "A Story", is that in the transfer between 2nd and 3rd grade, there was a shift in the administration at Northwood Elementary School in Irvine, CA 92620 (I feel no need to protect the anonymity of that institution which - though they are just rumors - is purported to have placed lead in the paint of the poor black children) from the previous principal (I've forgotten her name, let us just call her Mrs. White) to a more stringent, more moral, more disciplined sort of administration in the form of a single individual (as i've also forgotten her name, let us call her Mrs. Shit). Suffice to say, Mrs. Shit represented to me, and to the greater of Northwood Elementary School, a cold pall over the (well, let us be frank reader, nothing changed at the school in the first year except for the icy aura that emanated from the new principal. Individuals who have been within 500 metres of Dick Cheney can testify that a human being can in fact emanate such an aura) previously lighter tone of the campus.
While some might point to this description as hyperbolic (in fact the case might be made that the entirety of this blog is hyperbolic), I assure you that at the time, as a 9 year old boy I often took great efforts to crawl beneath the sideboard, out of sight of the principal as to not stare directly into her eyes and be turned to stone. Jokes aside, I did try my best to make like a ninja and be unseen by the principal. She regarded me with such a look of utter disgust and venom that it removed what little warmth there was in my soul and spit it into my face where it burned and metaphorically seared the soft fleshy parts of my eyes. Later, I discovered that this look was informed by bigotry, but we shall return to that point later reader.
As for the principal herself, she - and my 3rd grade teacher - provided the catalyst for my first in medias rex transfer from one school to the next. At the behest of my 3rd grade teacher (who seemingly found a 3rd grade asian child with a vibrant imagination and aspirations of becoming a cowboy as infuriating as red would be to a bull in a bullfighting ring) my mother and I met in the principal's office to discuss certain techniques that could be used to reign in my clear and distinct lack of respect for authority (I was not good at PE, I much rather preferred sitting in the shade thinking about the episodes of Ghostwriter and Wishbone i'd seen the day earlier). The principal suggested that perhaps I was acting out as a direct consequence of my mother's divorce from my father and that a possible solution, for the good of the child was for my mother and father to be rejoined. After all, statistically speaking, single mothers are unfit to raise their own children and their offspring grow up to be delinquents, drug addicts, or worse yet: Democrats.
If this sentiment that was expressed to my mother seems at all harsh and unprovoked, reader, let me inform you of a previous incident that could have, and probably did inform the principal's attitude towards my mother and I.
See earlier that same year I'd been called into the principal's office for some entirely innocent reason. See, somebody had informed me that the F-word rhymed with "duck", and being the super genius that I was, I had run down the alphabet until I'd struck gold with the word. That is why I was in the principal's office. The other thing you must know, reader, is that I was very fond of Calvin and Hobbes. In 3rd grade it was a major pastime of my mother, myself, and my siblings to drive down to the wooded end of Irvine in the appropriately named Woodbridge, by the artificial lake and peruse the Barnes and Nobles, my mother reading the jokes from Calvin and Hobbes to a 9, 7, and 5-year old. One of these jokes involved a punchline where Calvin called his mother a communist. I, attempting the lighten the situation, asked the principal if she was a Communist.
Mrs. Shit, a Reaganite, immediately called my mother in from work to demand to know where her son got the giant cajones to insinuate that the principal was a communist. So, as it was, this previous incident now informed the injustice that was being inflicted against my mother. Suffice to say, it was more than a straw that broke the camel's back, and by the end of 3rd grade plans had already been put in motion to transfer my enrollment from Northwood Elementary School to Westwood Basics Plus, further away from the house. I believe my 3rd grade year was best summarized by my single exclamation at its conclusion. I only had one exuberant sentence for my mother as she came to pick me up from Northwood Elementary School for the last time.
"Mom! I passed third grade!!!!"
It's been a while, friends
I've not been entirely honest with everyone, 'tis true. In fact for the last few months i've not been updating this damnable thing because frankly there has been so much else to worry about and think about and do. Still, it seems only natural that as a writer (or at least a purported one, speculated but never verified) I would return indoubitably to the source of the writo-nomical-necro-monicon, and write.
But unlike few months prior I now have a story to tell you dear reader.
And a beard.
Prepare dear reader, for this is a beard that will fill and enthrall you, lift, and elate you. And the story's pretty good too, so please, at your leisure, tune into the beard and the story
But unlike few months prior I now have a story to tell you dear reader.
And a beard.
Prepare dear reader, for this is a beard that will fill and enthrall you, lift, and elate you. And the story's pretty good too, so please, at your leisure, tune into the beard and the story
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Gratuitous entrances
Hello, hello, hello, and GOOD EVENING.
This is the obligatory first post of this blog, this blog which I imagine in the far (or near) future will be abandoned to the cold, desolate, bitter winds of the empty internet ever while nobody cares because nobody ever read it to begin with.
BUT NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR NEGATIVITY
Now is the time for action! excitement! and the gratuitous use of exclamation marks!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ah, me the distance between our hopes and our achievements. So bittersweet. ALAS, FOR I AM BUT ONE PERSON AND YOU ARE BUT ONE BEING WITH EYES (so I assume)
But, admittedly reader, i must resist the call of the internet demons that beg and taunt me to turn this into a desolate morass of depressive and broken posts. If such fare is of your taste I'm sure you can find innumerable posts of said tone on other blogs. For here reigns the silly. and the silly demands that I post the following as a formal treatise to the vast army that is laying siege to my house. Ahem,
AWAY VILE SQUIRRELS
its like, a house, in the dark, with the glowy, that I photoshopped!
Bright ideas, more photoshop, and more darknessAnd finally, at this point in this long and rambling introduction reader I feel obligated to tell you that at times this blog will be depressing. It will make you privy to sadder, less exuberant posts of mine, all of which will be accompanied by pictures. But I hope that you will continue reading. For if nothing else i believe that my writing is entertaining enough to possibly be deserving of that inifiniteseminally small time in between studying for that psychology midterm and flipping aimlessly through webpages that you've alotted to god knows what. I hope that in writing out my thoughts and feelings in this manner, i will possibly make your life brighter, happier, better, and in doing so aid in the process of you not forgetting me, for it is a fear of mine.
And Great Danes, i am absolutely terrified of Great Danes. It's a tall order to be sure, but I hope to try it, at least for a while.
And so i'd like to end with a picture, because every so often i'm shocked to rediscover that even suburban Irvine can be beautiful at times:
Streetlights
DREAM DEEPLY
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