Death, Dumplings, and the Woes of Terajima Ryoko.

So this guy I used to lift weights with, Mason, was hit by a bus, yesterday.It killed him, and because the News Team here works in backass nowhere, there's been a huge uproar over it.Perhaps it'll take people's minds of the Mosque?
I didn't know him well, but he liked my labcoat, and he seemed like an okay, if not loud, person. I felt kind of guilty because everyone was in a grieving fit and here I am, popping into the gym to lift still.

I think Paul might have taken offense to that.

On the other side of the moon, though, I made some leek dumplings when I got home. They were delicious. I served them up with a sauce made from rice vinegar (which I've had a bottle of for about a year now, but no excuse to much of) soy-sauce, and chili-peppers. It was pretty nice. Moreover, none of them burst when I steamed them up, so when I fried them up to give them that chewy texture everyone likes, leek-bits weren't swimming around the pan.













Also, I got into a discussion about why I always take the Big Stupid Hammer (B.S.H) route in Vidya. The answer is because they always get dealt the crappy hand, on the idea of fairness. Do you know why Kite, the main character of .hack//, uses knives and not Terajima Ryoko's Axe? Because knives swing faster, and late-game, when you have a powerful knife, that makes Kite a key member of the Party for his ability to hit 9999's in six-chain combos, as opposed to Terijima, who will hit a lone 9999 (perhaps earlier in the game than Kite, mind you.) at the speed of a snail's brisk jog...
Game Damage is usually limited to 9999 to prevent a group of people swinging Hammers to simply all swing at once at a really big target, and kill it instantly' at the same time, the ability to hit beyond the 9999 mark, which their faster comrades will reach in due time, is the only thing that limits the Hammer User's effectiveness. Perhaps if that lone Hammer hit for 10,200 instead of 9999, more people would use them...

Such are the woes of Terajima Ryoko.

The Twenty-Somethingth Anniversary of Oppenheimer's Child

Happy Birthday, you know who you are.

I know I'm belated, and I'm sorry.

Hope your shift at work doesn't spoil your festivities.

Keeping it short, because my belly's grumbling.

Had a bizarre dream.

Dez was walking in a field in the opposite direction as me. Traffic was speeding through the grass, and I was almost run-over. I had a blanket on my shoulders, and I shared it with her, and a friend of hers so that we could keep warm. We arrived at a community center where we found everything was in shambles, and zombified. We got onto a bus to leave the area, but eventually came to a stop where in I left to coax some other people inside.

Yue, a wandering merchant, was outside, arguing with a military guy who had a surgical mask stretched over his face. She refused to come in, and I think a fleeing car upturned the bus by hitting it. I woke up abruptly.

As-Salaam Alaikum.

Wa Alaikum As-Salaam.

There has been an uproar of deep-seated prejudice in the town I live in over the request to construct a Mosque across from a small park. I'd mentioned it to my family, and they seemed rather steady on the matter:

My Father made no bones about disliking Muslims.
My Sister said that the people attending are doomed to Hell.
My Mother told my sister she was wrong, but said she wouldn't go with me if I decided to visit the Mosque for prayer.

I've decided that, when the Mosque is open, I'd like to attend a prayer there, and perhaps see if I may purchase a small Qu'ran as is customarily for sale and hand-out at a lot of Churches. I've been struck with a healthy interest, and my inhibitions have been very few after praying outside Iglesia de Dios. Perhaps I'll see what the Imam or Mullah has to say of my life, and how I can better lead it. And if nothing? I can applaud their efforts to hold Islam strong in a community that is misinformed and uneducated on the Islamic Faith by offering to be lead in prayer.

I'm nervous - perhaps I will offend the Imam with my unfamiliarity?
I can only home he will not bare down upon me for being foreign to it.

I went out to eat at a small Chinese restaurant called "Chu's", which is kind of amusing. I ate quite a bit of Kimchee and Mushrooms. It was nice to have something other than instant noodles or a sandwich. I keep my fortune cookies and adhere quite sternly to them - today's is: "You are an artistic person - let your colors show", with the Lucky Numbers 14, 16, 19, 37, 47, and 49.

It feels good to be able to relax.
To be able to be at ease.

I've not been writing many postcards, forgive me for being so preoccupied.

Bathrobes, Vidya, and Tension.

I was at the Gym today, when I started the other lifters on the topic of bathrobes. Sparrow owns this big, poofy bathrobe. Like, Looks Like an Angel's Toga big and poofy. If he smoked a pipe, or sat across a grand fireplace in it, it'd be the ultimate deal-sealer for awesome. We got rolling with the topic, just sitting there, going on about materials, why you'd wear one, and even some neat childhood stuff from not-just-me.

I wish I had more conversations like that. Most of the time, it's just people grunting and lifting metal, though.

Awhile back, though? We got this guy named Teriq started on Black Hole Theory. I was astonished - you don't expect a sweaty lifter to explain Schwarzchild Radius to you. I actually clapped for him, and then we sat back, laughing at the term, "Spaghettification", which is a recognized scientific term for when objects seem to stretch infinately as they pass the event horizon of a black hole. We both agreed it to be "The George Bush of Space Terms".

I miss punching the crap out people in Fallout. Someday, doctorly as I hope to be, and regardless of the brutal sciences described earlier, I'd love to pick New Vegas up after all its hype's died off, and fisticuff the daylights out of Nevada.

I've gotten the first offer on my computer - a nice $300. I'm pretty certain I'm going to take it, because you just don't get offers like that, and it ups my current funding to $450, which is nice for having just payed out the nose for a few birthdays. Hello, New York Hotels. I feel good, especially, because $300 is the price-tag on a Yugo I saw for sale awhile back - my experience driving is almost non-existant and I'm a hazard on the road, but I'd love to own a terrible crappy car, someday. Like a Trabant.

Also, embarrassing and overly-open as it is, I finally got to squeeze in some "relief" today. I have been essentially sleeping when I get home and take care of dinner, which has been a reoccuring statement and running problem, lately, because people play very loud music at 9:00 PM - 11:00 PM here, with the addition of drunken company in my home as of late. I've been getting pent-up with my sleep-early-prioritizing, and trying to ignore the fact that every flirty remark I get makes me excited enough to please several sailors and a fraternity ward, but finally, I've gotten to square it away, and now I'm almost certain I'll sleep a little easier without grinding my sheets in desperation...

In a blunt change of topic, I've been having bizarre dreams. In almost all of them, I'm savagely beaten, and then left to ponder what to do. I had one where someone who had these brass knuckles on just punched the daylights out of me. (Probably Nevada, getting revenge in my dreamscapes.) I don't remember why, but I remember they had those ones with the big, square lettering, so they look sort of like a set of rings? And they had something written on them, but I couldn't read it very well, because after they punched me, the imprints on my skin were mirrored...

I didn't know what to do - It was like that one where the woman smashed my bones with the shotgun's stock, I just kind of sat back and contemplated the possible ways of getting treatment, or if I'd even broken anything at all.

Someday, a dashing Nurse's Cap will treat me of all my ailments, and cherry blossoms will breeze by, too. I know these dreams are pure fiction, so long as Doctor Pyonta is on my side.

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Hurried, Hurried Writing.

Less an entry, and more of a headspill.
Just going to say a bunch, before I bail.

The Demonic Harem beneath Jerhyn's palace in Diablo II frightened me - I was about ten or so when I picked it up. If this track played during your trek through that level, I think I would have been so unsettled that I'd have quit playing.

I've been fantasizing over odd milk-products, like Kumis, Kefir and Soy-Milk.
I want to try some.
Got to pick up Coca-Cola sometime, too. I want to drink one everytime I get out of the shower.

Fell far behind in my College Government, after missing a few pages on Ex-Post Facto Law.

The weather sudden climbed a metric bunch of degrees. It's really uncomfortable to go outside unless it's morning. Did we get a warm front from Canada? No way, I don't believe it.

Got to write an amusing, rhyming Doctor Suess-style paper in request for Scholarship money. We'll see how it goes. Falling behind with these, too.

Starting to worry Matt Griffith with my odd sleeping habits. He doesn't understand that an extra two hours every morning has been given to me, and I'm Still rushed.

What do you get when you cross Kogasa with Wriggle?
A scarab. (Go on, say it aloud.)

What do you get when you cross Ichirin with Wriggle?
A praying mantis.

I suppose Utsuho and Wriggle make a Radroach, too.

No amusing story or insightful comment with today's doodle.
It's a quicky.

Daylight Savings Time.

So Daylight Savings Time has come around, once again, and I love it. Without adjusting my clock, it allows me to wake up at 5:00, while technically waking up at 4:00.

This leaves me two hours to tape up my broken work-clothes, paint on old sheets, shower, finalize reports for College Government, find out why my headscarf isn't fitting as snugly as I'd like, reinstall my Paint tools, draw for the Blog again, make coffee, make tea, make breakfast, and such.
This sense of extra time was momentarily cut short, today, when I realized the bottom lock to my home is broken, and spent two hours looking for a way to get indoors before it got dark -- dark is a dangerous time of day.

Applying for Scholarships is proving to be a bit more of a task than I've anticipated.
I've done eight and I need to reach a quota of twenty. This is particularly frustrating when the councillor I was fowarded to has no time to handle my petty requests for an opportunity to boil-down Iona College, which has proved to be a bit sketchy with its details. I have to leave a big, drawn-out "Uhhh..." anytime an application asks for the price tag on my post-secondary education, and they're piling up fast in my portfolio...

What's worse is, the Councillor is proving to be a bit unprofessional. She only today told me, after the put-together of my portfolio, that I need to hold the entirety of it together solely with paperclips, or the schoolboard will not handle it. I told her I'd already used staples, and she waved me off, saying I need to just reprint the forms elsewhere. I told her it was a big inconvenience, with my printer being low on Ink, as well as theirs, and that printing the thirty papers gathered so far would cost me a few slim dollars at the local library. I asked her why the information was so last-minute.

She said, "We'd forgotten."

"We'd forgotten"?
That doesn't work for me, when you make me sign a legal document to create this portfolio.

...I'm making it seem much more epic than it was, I'm really just miffed that my portfolio's been tossed into a recycle-bin until I can get to the public library...

In closing, now that I can use Paint again, I've drawn you this peppergun.
I was trying to decide why it's my favorite weapon to use in non-lethal takedowns for Deus Ex, when I suddenly imagined spraying Unzan into someone's face like Pepperspray, or throwing a Tear Gas Grenade, and having Unzan fill the room like, "Don't mind me - don't want to be a burden", while corrupt Secret Police cough and wheeze.

It seemed like a good idea at 4:00 AM.

Why I'd Like to be a Doctor.

Up until this point in my life, I'd found myself questioning why I wanted to be a doctor. I'd managed to feel-out a few of it's origins in a few things when I was small - I was always told that Medicine is the greatest career, aside from Archetecture, that I could pursue. I was kind of eager to live as a traveller when I was eight or so...

I read about the Amazon and places like it, and I decided I wanted to trek through there, and see animals nobody's heard of, and eat fruits you won't find in a supermarket...

When I grew older, this changed to the Former USSR, and I imagined admiring the austere skylines of Kremlin, or watching traditional welcoming dances in Croatia.

Then, I read the acclaimed Copypasta, "Damaged Goods".
It's a journal of questionable authenticity in which an anonymous Nurse somewhere around Washington lobbies for the custody of a young girl he'd come into the care of while working in the field of geriatric care.

Supposedly, he's since adopted her and vanished from the web as a father, the last entry stating she's fond of video-games and he's found himself very busy.

I spent three days reading that. One sitting, no less.
I was so inspired by it that I saved it all, lest I ever forget it inspired me...

It's easy to attribute your choice in careers to your parents, or from things you read when you were fourteen. It's very easy to play it aloof, and say you don't have any input beyond that, but I stopped and I thought...

There was a moment I've yet to forget. I was visiting extended family in Oklahoma - I've never been fond of the company of my Grandparents on either side, so I went to sleep at my Cousin, Jarad's. Jarad's father, Charlie Bly, is really fond of me, and I like him because he's so old and kind.

I had been watching Jarad planning to purchase a lizard, and parakeet, and playing games, and I remember I'd cleaned his room, which kind of embarrassed him. Suddenly, it was 3:00 AM. He went into the sun-room, because Charlie Bly is kind of wealthy, and he went to sleep on the Sofa. I was sitting there by him while he slept - he left the television on, and the video to "Handlebars" came on.

That was really profound. I didn't know why it was, at the time, I just new that it defibrilated something in me, and that the part was working, and has always, since. I'd kind of left it latent, knowing that it was working, but not really knowing what it did or why it was there - Y'know, kind of like your appendix or your tonsils.

I was playing Deus Ex earlier. I exclusively use Police Batons and Pepper-Spray to handle people who'd love to kill me...

Then, it hit me.

Nukes, Bombs, Tanks, Anti-Tank Rifles, Regular Rifles, Handguns, Handcannons, Hands.

Some of the earliest human skeletons found have arrowheads in them.

We're really creative at destroying eachother.
It kind of dictates politics - it determines which 'Superpowers' are worth negotiating with.
We're poised to blow a nation up, from the Cold War, and that's why we're likely having such a difficult time in the Middle East, where we're trying to keep civilian casualities down.

The battlefield is a parade of human ingenuity.
Isn't it a shame that it's so brilliant?

$1,600,000,000,000 is spent in Military Products globally, not counting research.

We've manufactured enough explosives destroy the world four times over.

That's a brutal, brutal science.
Terrifying statistics.

I don't want to be part of it.
I'd rather be the other portion of innovation.
I'd like to help people, not because I like people, but because I'd rather not hurt them. I feel gratified when someone doesn't feel worse because I was around to say, "My Journal of Medicine says to do this", or "This is why you're feeling like this". I want to impliment the ingenuities that keep people alive, that save lives.

Suddenly, I don't give a damned if Medicine is Socialized.
I just want to know people will feel better because I've given them my time.
I don't know if I could be a surgeon...
It's suddenly something to look into.

Today's picture is from Pyonta. It is a step by step guide to drawing your very own aspiring doctor.

The Profane and The Profound.

Organized Religion is an oxymoron. Even in the Religious Texts in which you read about them, they misunderstand some divine proverb, or begin practicing Dogmatics with little concern for such banal matters as "Morality". Organized Religion is any respectable Demagogue's personal outlet, provided they have the qualifications to preach. A licence to preach - can you imagine such a thing? It's out there. Essentially, that means if you adhere to a curriculum or rubric long enough? You can wind up behind a podium with an eager-to-please crowd on the opposite side, that applauds to whatever you say as it believes you're on a higher spiritual plane than it.

As such, I've never been a very "religious" person in the traditional sense.
Rather, I have always believed in the existence of the "Profane" and the "Profound".

The "Profane", whenever used in a non-secular sense, has come to mean "Dealing with Worldly Matters", but has this sort of negative connotation. Fortunately, I've read some Ayn Rand, and I know all too well that this is not the case. I can stand to be the Man who Loved the Earth. I love living - without tea, lovely people, cooking, music, culture, myself... Well, actually, just imagine all that were gone.
Isn't it such an empty thing?
A common theme of "Spirituality" is the seperation of the flesh from such Wordly Things.
And why?
We're told that if we do not enjoy them in this life, we'll enjoy them tenfold in the next, or be treated to something better, or reincarnated as someone who can enjoy such things.

I disagree.

I've been given access to these things, and I refuse to let them gather dust. This is a world for me to enjoy, and I will cater to my own senses. I will cater to the senses of others, because I love them, and I will do so shamelessly. I am, for all extents and purposes, a very "profane" person. I even love the misfortunes of life, for I can fix my mistakes and I can relish the flavor of loss amongst the people who will be beside me when it comes to me.

But let us talk, next, about the profound.
Were I to take the place of a presumed Demagogue at a Pulpit to spout off the prior discussion of the profound, people would be outraged. They would say that I'm a heathen or something of the sort, and that all my earthly pleasures exist beyond the world in a "higher" sense, in some promised Heaven or Samsara.

But, every so often, you will come across one of these people doing something extraordinary. A Buddhist, stone-faced, as he burns alive without regrets at a streetcorner to protest injustice. Templars who are wrongly murdered, whos executioners are plagued by misfortune soon-after. People somehow blessed with a moment of super-human strength, or lucky beyond luck and seemingly favored by some higher entity.

I cannot explain these things, and for that reason, I would simply rather acknowledge them. There exists something higher, I believe, and I don't exactly know what it is. I don't know if there is an "Afterlife", but I know there is something higher in this world than itself. Beautiful flowers can grow out of desperation, faith, plea and need.

I don't neccesarily like the idea of attaching a name, or people, or religion to any of it. I'd rather just see it, and know it exists in some form or another, and pay my respect to whatever it calls itself by living my life in the "Good" that seems to warrant it.

I think that's just kind of how I live.
I love the religiously-condemned Earth - Myself, Friends, Senses, Places, Foods, Weather, Failure - all of it. And I do it all carrying a moral compass, for I know that a miracle may be needed someday, and people are better off for having met you if you help them.

I'd pray outside an Icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Iglesia de Dios just as soon as I would pray at a Buddhist Monestary, were one here. It's not so much "Religious" as it is "Profound". I wish my friends to be auspicious, and inspired, and lucky - I will speak my desire for it in a place where one is supposed to.

I can't quite word it well - I was raised to believe that one shouldn't walk around daring serial killers and monsters to whisk you away, because the more you talk about things, the more-real they become. I think that's how prayer is - Speak it, so that it may become real.

...Rereading some of this, it doesn't exactly look professional, but I've just climbed out of bed, and taken my second dose of super-antibiotic...Excuse it, if you will.

The antibiotic doesn't seem to be working very well - There's an appointment to size-up my head for tubes soon.

PATHAKAsleep.

So, my headscarf has arrived. I've been wearing it for a solid three days or so. It's very comfortable because it's warm when it's cold, and cold when it's warm. I've begun my job-hunt, and once again, I'm making liberal use of my Inside Sources. Ever better, this time around? I've found a Writing Portion. They wouldn't let me paste the same resume I've been whoring to Scholarship Committees and Colleges into their submit-box, so I wrote this short, to the point deal about my qualifications. I think it's much better than telling them I want to be a Doctor, and my chest is ablaze with manly, manly lovin'. Speaking of chests, or rather torsos, I've also decided to work on my abs. There was a fashion magazine lying about, and I slit out a "Guide to Killer Abs" with the utility knife I carry for opening boxees. Whether following these instructions leave my midsection looking more like a Serial Killer's or Yuugi's has yet to be determined. I've been sleeping an absurd amount, too. Like, I take a nap before I sleep? And then I go to bed. I catch more Z's than Sanae does V.D.s. My bed is the hardest-working thing in my home. Before I sleep, though, I play the Omega Boost soundtrack. When I was eight or so, I was a huge fan of Eiffel 65, and I remember my parents buying me their album for my birthday, as Torrenting and such had not yet really struck-out for gold, yet. Have you ever heard "My Console" by them? Essentially, it was the Playstation-Anthem. I had played all the games he'd sung about in the song, with the exception of Omega Boost. I never forgot that, and last Saturday, I was sitting here thinking, "...You know, I don't even know what the hell Omega Boost is." I looked it up, and found it to be a widly praised Macross-Style Giant Robot Game. Apparently, it had a great soundtrack, which has become something of a collector's item. With my technologies a decade in the making, I torrented the soundtrack, and I've been listening to it throughout my day. "PATHAKA" has the coolest title, but "SPARK OF DRUM" and "ATTACK IN WAVES" are probably the best tracks on the album. In closing, while catching a ride from Biomed to West Haverill, a man fell asleep on me. It was kind of nice - I know a lot of people would be kind of put-off or angry if a stranger fell asleep on them, but he wasn't a drunk or anything. Just lying there with his Coke-Bottle Glasses, snoring on my jacket. Someone I presumed a friend of his, a little embarrassed, nudged me to wake him after thirty minutes or so, and he pressed his glasses down and thanked me for getting him up at his stop. I'm kind of hoping to treat a friend or two to that snooze-worthy shoulder. Mark me down as fond of Public Transportation. Sometimes, you meet neat people that way.