Saturday, August 09, 2008
I'm Home Moment #4856
It was very weird today to be sitting in our favorite diner, munching on a burger and hearing the radio go off about the Olympics and the first day of the event. Mostly because the Wife's eyes kind of bugged out upon hearing the results and realized that her new home country is one that actually stands a legitimate chance of bringing home an Olympic medal, something that is essentially an impossibility for Singapore due to its tinier population and almost total apathy towards athleticism.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens when she becomes a citizen and realizes that during elections she can actually vote for more than one party.
It was very weird today to be sitting in our favorite diner, munching on a burger and hearing the radio go off about the Olympics and the first day of the event. Mostly because the Wife's eyes kind of bugged out upon hearing the results and realized that her new home country is one that actually stands a legitimate chance of bringing home an Olympic medal, something that is essentially an impossibility for Singapore due to its tinier population and almost total apathy towards athleticism.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens when she becomes a citizen and realizes that during elections she can actually vote for more than one party.
Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Icky Couple Stuff
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Quiet Celebrating
It was the Wife's birthday today, which was barely acknowledged at her request. Laundry was done, burgers at the local favorite diner were consumed, and a little bit of comic writing and Gran Turismo 5: Prologue was played. I'm quickly becoming a fan of Audi cars because of this game. Too bad they're hideously expensive, but they really hug the road.
It was the Wife's birthday today, which was barely acknowledged at her request. Laundry was done, burgers at the local favorite diner were consumed, and a little bit of comic writing and Gran Turismo 5: Prologue was played. I'm quickly becoming a fan of Audi cars because of this game. Too bad they're hideously expensive, but they really hug the road.
Labels: Creating Comics, Games, Icky Couple Stuff
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Scariest Hour Of My Life
In retrospect it was actually not that big a deal, but today I had the worst period of time in the entire period since I've returned to Canada. While doing the laundry, my wedding ring slipped off and ended up in the machine. I didn't know this at the time of course; all I knew is that while we were walking down the street to our favorite diner, I suddenly noticed that as I was unconsciously rubbing my pinky against my 4th finger, it felt different, and realized to my horror that my wedding ring was gone. We theorized that perhaps it was indeed in the washing machine, but we ate first, waiting for the machine to finish and I was absolutely miserable. Suddenly losing that little piece of metal was weighing very heavily on my shoulders and I have a difficult time explaining why.
In the end, the ring did indeed end up in the machine and I found it once more, as well as an enormous sense of relief that likes of which I don't recall having experienced this strongly.
In retrospect it was actually not that big a deal, but today I had the worst period of time in the entire period since I've returned to Canada. While doing the laundry, my wedding ring slipped off and ended up in the machine. I didn't know this at the time of course; all I knew is that while we were walking down the street to our favorite diner, I suddenly noticed that as I was unconsciously rubbing my pinky against my 4th finger, it felt different, and realized to my horror that my wedding ring was gone. We theorized that perhaps it was indeed in the washing machine, but we ate first, waiting for the machine to finish and I was absolutely miserable. Suddenly losing that little piece of metal was weighing very heavily on my shoulders and I have a difficult time explaining why.
In the end, the ring did indeed end up in the machine and I found it once more, as well as an enormous sense of relief that likes of which I don't recall having experienced this strongly.
Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Icky Couple Stuff
Friday, February 22, 2008
Walking With Fossils
Today we dropped The Coffin off at the nearest Purolator courier center, all expenses paid by Sony. If we're very lucky, we'll have a new PS3 by the end of next week. It also happens that the nearest Purolator center is within a brisk walk to the Royal Ontario Museum, which has been holding a big ol' dinosaur exhibit. While it's still likely not going to hold a candle to anything found at the Tyrrell museum in Drumheller, it's still a pretty cool exhibit, and for the Wife, fulfilled a life-long dream of finally being able to see a decent dinosaur exhibit. Unsurprisingly, she went a little shutter-bug crazy during the outing, but since no one wants to see 200+ pictures of fossils, here are a few choice snap shots from the trip. You can click on them to enlarge:
Today we dropped The Coffin off at the nearest Purolator courier center, all expenses paid by Sony. If we're very lucky, we'll have a new PS3 by the end of next week. It also happens that the nearest Purolator center is within a brisk walk to the Royal Ontario Museum, which has been holding a big ol' dinosaur exhibit. While it's still likely not going to hold a candle to anything found at the Tyrrell museum in Drumheller, it's still a pretty cool exhibit, and for the Wife, fulfilled a life-long dream of finally being able to see a decent dinosaur exhibit. Unsurprisingly, she went a little shutter-bug crazy during the outing, but since no one wants to see 200+ pictures of fossils, here are a few choice snap shots from the trip. You can click on them to enlarge:
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff, Mean Streets Of Toronto
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Boring Geek Valentines Day
Valentine's Day has ceased to be the least favorite day of my friends because they knew they'd have to deal with all the venom, spite, jealousy and outright hatred that I would spew on that day at them as a result of my insane envy over them being attached and me not. However, having been comfortably married for a few years now, Valentine's actually doesn't really hold much meaning anymore either. We celebrated the day by not getting each other gifts, satisfying a craving for dim sum, playing Final Fantasy XII together and watching Aliens.
Yes, we are sad.
No, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Valentine's Day has ceased to be the least favorite day of my friends because they knew they'd have to deal with all the venom, spite, jealousy and outright hatred that I would spew on that day at them as a result of my insane envy over them being attached and me not. However, having been comfortably married for a few years now, Valentine's actually doesn't really hold much meaning anymore either. We celebrated the day by not getting each other gifts, satisfying a craving for dim sum, playing Final Fantasy XII together and watching Aliens.
Yes, we are sad.
No, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Stamps & Envelopes
In addition to the usual Rock Banding and Ratcheting, there was a bit of helping the Wife put post cards into envelopes for sending off to potential clients. This, apparently, is what professionals do.
In addition to the usual Rock Banding and Ratcheting, there was a bit of helping the Wife put post cards into envelopes for sending off to potential clients. This, apparently, is what professionals do.
Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Games, Icky Couple Stuff
Monday, December 24, 2007
Merry Christmas
First Christmas in Canada for the Wife, meaning that it is the first White Christmas of her entire life. And how do we spend it? Spending time together doing the Endless Setlist AGAIN on Rock Band. Why? Because we can.
Yup. Life is officially good. Merry Christmas to the rest of you.
First Christmas in Canada for the Wife, meaning that it is the first White Christmas of her entire life. And how do we spend it? Spending time together doing the Endless Setlist AGAIN on Rock Band. Why? Because we can.
Yup. Life is officially good. Merry Christmas to the rest of you.
Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Icky Couple Stuff, Rock Band
Friday, October 19, 2007
Anniversary Tonkatsu
Today was spent in a remarkably Japanese way. Never mind the fact that we woke up at our usual obscenely late hour that would probably have qualified as morning in Japan anyway, the Wife decided that since we'd been satisfying many of her Asiatic cravings (such as proper Dim Sum) It was now time to do the same for me. Although I don't actually many Asian cuisine cravings, one thing in particular I developed a fondness for in Singapore was a dish known as Tonkatsu Curry, which is essentially breaded, deep fried pork cutlet with rice and some of that unique Japanese curry that does NOT kill my tongue for hours afterwards the way normal Singapore spices do. Back in Singapore, there was a little restaurant in the basement of the big Japanese department store Takashimaya, and they happened to have Tonkatsu Curry as their house specialty, offering it both as a dish with rice and as a sandwich. It was VERY tasty, and I'd obviously not had any of it since coming back to Canada. It turned out that further into the downtown core was a restaurant that had Tonkatsu, and they even offered Japanese curry as a side order, it just never occurred to them that this particular combination was, in fact, an actual dish in Japan. So though they were mighty confused about my wanting both, when we arrived, they did indeed serve it to us. It wasn't as good as the stuff in Singapore, but then you have to make allowances when you eat Asian food in the West.
Other than that, the Japanese theme continued with playing some Gran Turismo Prologue (now that the demo for this game is finally available in Japan; thank you internet, and thank you Sony Playstation Store dummy account) and it's good. And HARD. It would probably help if I had a steering wheel, but we'll worry about some other day.
The only other thing of note is that I finally have an IGN article out that you don't have to be subscribed to IGN Insider in order to read. Whoo hoo, I'm finally in the free, "normal, mainstream content" channel. The article is essentially just my impressions after finally getting a chance to play Rock Band on the Playstation 3, a particular concern for me since I obviously have one, and I wanted to see whether or not the game was going to be butchered on the PS3 the way Guitar Hero III has been (it looks like the Xbox 360 version is the one to get, Neversoft/Activision have pretty much given The Finger to owners of Sony consoles past and present) and it turns out... IT'S NOT! Whoo hoo, Harmonix still has a place of respect and affection in their hearts for Sony consoles, so I was relieved when I tried it... and it didn't suck.
The full article is here.
Today was spent in a remarkably Japanese way. Never mind the fact that we woke up at our usual obscenely late hour that would probably have qualified as morning in Japan anyway, the Wife decided that since we'd been satisfying many of her Asiatic cravings (such as proper Dim Sum) It was now time to do the same for me. Although I don't actually many Asian cuisine cravings, one thing in particular I developed a fondness for in Singapore was a dish known as Tonkatsu Curry, which is essentially breaded, deep fried pork cutlet with rice and some of that unique Japanese curry that does NOT kill my tongue for hours afterwards the way normal Singapore spices do. Back in Singapore, there was a little restaurant in the basement of the big Japanese department store Takashimaya, and they happened to have Tonkatsu Curry as their house specialty, offering it both as a dish with rice and as a sandwich. It was VERY tasty, and I'd obviously not had any of it since coming back to Canada. It turned out that further into the downtown core was a restaurant that had Tonkatsu, and they even offered Japanese curry as a side order, it just never occurred to them that this particular combination was, in fact, an actual dish in Japan. So though they were mighty confused about my wanting both, when we arrived, they did indeed serve it to us. It wasn't as good as the stuff in Singapore, but then you have to make allowances when you eat Asian food in the West.
Other than that, the Japanese theme continued with playing some Gran Turismo Prologue (now that the demo for this game is finally available in Japan; thank you internet, and thank you Sony Playstation Store dummy account) and it's good. And HARD. It would probably help if I had a steering wheel, but we'll worry about some other day.
The only other thing of note is that I finally have an IGN article out that you don't have to be subscribed to IGN Insider in order to read. Whoo hoo, I'm finally in the free, "normal, mainstream content" channel. The article is essentially just my impressions after finally getting a chance to play Rock Band on the Playstation 3, a particular concern for me since I obviously have one, and I wanted to see whether or not the game was going to be butchered on the PS3 the way Guitar Hero III has been (it looks like the Xbox 360 version is the one to get, Neversoft/Activision have pretty much given The Finger to owners of Sony consoles past and present) and it turns out... IT'S NOT! Whoo hoo, Harmonix still has a place of respect and affection in their hearts for Sony consoles, so I was relieved when I tried it... and it didn't suck. The full article is here.
Labels: Games, Gaming Industry, Icky Couple Stuff, Journalism, Rock Band, Writing
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Thursday Of Dullness
A little bit of work, some IGN related e-mailing, and an otherwise quiet day. Don't expect much in the way of a post tomorrow either. It's the Second Anniversary, so it'll be just me and The Wife, being boring and hanging out together. Not like we don't do that all the time anyway, but now with a specific occasion in mind...
A little bit of work, some IGN related e-mailing, and an otherwise quiet day. Don't expect much in the way of a post tomorrow either. It's the Second Anniversary, so it'll be just me and The Wife, being boring and hanging out together. Not like we don't do that all the time anyway, but now with a specific occasion in mind...
Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Icky Couple Stuff
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Gobble Gobble Mark II
It was not too long ago that the last of the Thanksgiving turkey for Canada's Thanksgiving celebration was finally polished off, and I thought that would be the end of the turkey flavored saturation for the rest of the year. Now, I find I am wrong. What I failed to take into account was that the In-Laws, now celebrating their American Thanksgiving next month, would suddenly invite us down on a trip to Maine to see what their American rural Thanksgiving celebrations will be like. And we have accepted. Meaning there is more turkey in the offing.
I'm actually curious to see what it's like, having never actually had an American Thanksgiving dinner, and having never been to Maine before. However, there is also a potential dilemma in the offing.
It has recently come to my attention from my talks with Harmonix representatives that Rock Band will not, in fact, go on sale in Canada at the same time as it does in the USA. The reason for this is somehow they forgot about the bilingual requirement for Canadian packaging and are now sorting that out, but the end result is, they now have NO estimated date of sale for Canada although they are "shooting for as close as they can get." In addition to this, they refuse to comment on what the price will be in Canada. Although the US version has already been confirmed to ship on November 23rd, at $170 for the full bundle, Harmonix won't comment on whether or not their pricing will take Canada's stronger dollar into account, or simply play it safe and do the usual gouge of pumping up the price For No Damn Good Reason At All Now, as still happens with DVDs and games.
Which leaves me with a situation where I am now perfectly aware of the fact that I will now be in America at the same time that Rock Band goes on sale. I won't be reasonably near a game retailer (the town in the in-laws live in is close the New Brunswick/Maine border and has a population of less than 4000), but thanks to the miracle of mail order, GameStop has an overnight delivery policy which, if you splurge for it, guarantees you get your game on the same day that stores do, provided you are shipping somewhere in the continental USA, which Maine just barely qualifies as.
So now I have to debate risking the possibility of a defective Rock Band set which I might not be able to rectify should that scenario play out, or wait for it to arrive in Canadian stores, which--if the Guitar Hero I fiasco for Canada was anything to go by--could take upwards of five months, as the game went on sale in November 2005, and some places in Canada didn't get it 'till March 2006.
I gots me somes thinkin' ta' do...
It was not too long ago that the last of the Thanksgiving turkey for Canada's Thanksgiving celebration was finally polished off, and I thought that would be the end of the turkey flavored saturation for the rest of the year. Now, I find I am wrong. What I failed to take into account was that the In-Laws, now celebrating their American Thanksgiving next month, would suddenly invite us down on a trip to Maine to see what their American rural Thanksgiving celebrations will be like. And we have accepted. Meaning there is more turkey in the offing.I'm actually curious to see what it's like, having never actually had an American Thanksgiving dinner, and having never been to Maine before. However, there is also a potential dilemma in the offing.
It has recently come to my attention from my talks with Harmonix representatives that Rock Band will not, in fact, go on sale in Canada at the same time as it does in the USA. The reason for this is somehow they forgot about the bilingual requirement for Canadian packaging and are now sorting that out, but the end result is, they now have NO estimated date of sale for Canada although they are "shooting for as close as they can get." In addition to this, they refuse to comment on what the price will be in Canada. Although the US version has already been confirmed to ship on November 23rd, at $170 for the full bundle, Harmonix won't comment on whether or not their pricing will take Canada's stronger dollar into account, or simply play it safe and do the usual gouge of pumping up the price For No Damn Good Reason At All Now, as still happens with DVDs and games.
Which leaves me with a situation where I am now perfectly aware of the fact that I will now be in America at the same time that Rock Band goes on sale. I won't be reasonably near a game retailer (the town in the in-laws live in is close the New Brunswick/Maine border and has a population of less than 4000), but thanks to the miracle of mail order, GameStop has an overnight delivery policy which, if you splurge for it, guarantees you get your game on the same day that stores do, provided you are shipping somewhere in the continental USA, which Maine just barely qualifies as.
So now I have to debate risking the possibility of a defective Rock Band set which I might not be able to rectify should that scenario play out, or wait for it to arrive in Canadian stores, which--if the Guitar Hero I fiasco for Canada was anything to go by--could take upwards of five months, as the game went on sale in November 2005, and some places in Canada didn't get it 'till March 2006.
I gots me somes thinkin' ta' do...
Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Icky Couple Stuff, Random Blargh, Rock Band
Friday, October 12, 2007
The Days Of Sandals Are Over
The weather finally cooled down enough that I actually needed to once again don shoes when we ventured out to do a little bit of shopping around the neighborhood. The trees are still mostly green, although a few of them are beginning to show some reds and yellow, so it's gonna' get awful pretty looking here in the next few weeks.
Aside from that, the only other thing of note was that we got a card from The In-Laws wishing us a happy anniversary, which will actually be next week. That kind of floored me for second because these are the kinds of things that I normally associated with having to buy for your stuffy old relatives, and now I pretty much have to admit that as emotionally stunted as my growth is, we could still very well qualify for that description ourselves. Except that I play video games and write articles and comics, and the Wife draws comics and other assorted neat things.
I have also realized, after checking out Amazon, that buying Rock Band from either Amazon.ca or the original Amazon.com is a no-go. For some puzzling reason, the Canadian version of Amazon is only offering the game, not the full bundle with all the peripherals, whereas Amazon proper is currently ignoring the official retail price of $170 and charging $200 for it.
Looks like it's time to place that pre-order with EB Games. Unfortunately, it's doubtful that we'll be able to get the game on the same day as our neighbors in the USA for the simple reason that the Harmonix rep I spoke to at the Sony Holiday Preview Event told me that they were still working out some design/legal problems with the packaging, 'cause they forgot they needed to stick French on there somewhere, and this is slowing down the plans for distribution in Canada as they take this into account. BLEAH.
The weather finally cooled down enough that I actually needed to once again don shoes when we ventured out to do a little bit of shopping around the neighborhood. The trees are still mostly green, although a few of them are beginning to show some reds and yellow, so it's gonna' get awful pretty looking here in the next few weeks.
Aside from that, the only other thing of note was that we got a card from The In-Laws wishing us a happy anniversary, which will actually be next week. That kind of floored me for second because these are the kinds of things that I normally associated with having to buy for your stuffy old relatives, and now I pretty much have to admit that as emotionally stunted as my growth is, we could still very well qualify for that description ourselves. Except that I play video games and write articles and comics, and the Wife draws comics and other assorted neat things.
I have also realized, after checking out Amazon, that buying Rock Band from either Amazon.ca or the original Amazon.com is a no-go. For some puzzling reason, the Canadian version of Amazon is only offering the game, not the full bundle with all the peripherals, whereas Amazon proper is currently ignoring the official retail price of $170 and charging $200 for it.
Looks like it's time to place that pre-order with EB Games. Unfortunately, it's doubtful that we'll be able to get the game on the same day as our neighbors in the USA for the simple reason that the Harmonix rep I spoke to at the Sony Holiday Preview Event told me that they were still working out some design/legal problems with the packaging, 'cause they forgot they needed to stick French on there somewhere, and this is slowing down the plans for distribution in Canada as they take this into account. BLEAH.
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff
Monday, October 08, 2007
Gobble Gobble
This was the first time in over a decade that I was actually in Canada to celebrate Thanksgiving day, and for once, there was plenty to be thankful for. We got a gracious invite from The Downstairs Neighbors to join them for their dinner, so it was the first time The Wife actually got to have a sit down with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce and have it be a genuine time and a genuine place to eat all this stuff. It was a bit of an aberration for me in at least one sense; the weather. Here we are, into October, and the old seasonal cycle I had grown up with in Edmonton was totally out of whack. It should have been cold. There should be frost and even the occasional snow-fall by now. Instead, we were outdoors, it was sunny and it was actually 30 degrees.
That aside, it was a quietly satisfying moment for me, because I was, of course, thankful for the cool neighbors that allowed us to share their dinner. But I was also thankful for getting to see The Wife actually experience this holiday, thankful that we were together at all, and thankful that we were now in Canada where somehow, after all this time away, these little holidays that I ignored--like Canada Day, and now Thanksgiving--actually mean quite a bit more to me.
Guess I'm not as jaded and as cynical as I'd like to be these days...
This was the first time in over a decade that I was actually in Canada to celebrate Thanksgiving day, and for once, there was plenty to be thankful for. We got a gracious invite from The Downstairs Neighbors to join them for their dinner, so it was the first time The Wife actually got to have a sit down with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce and have it be a genuine time and a genuine place to eat all this stuff. It was a bit of an aberration for me in at least one sense; the weather. Here we are, into October, and the old seasonal cycle I had grown up with in Edmonton was totally out of whack. It should have been cold. There should be frost and even the occasional snow-fall by now. Instead, we were outdoors, it was sunny and it was actually 30 degrees.
That aside, it was a quietly satisfying moment for me, because I was, of course, thankful for the cool neighbors that allowed us to share their dinner. But I was also thankful for getting to see The Wife actually experience this holiday, thankful that we were together at all, and thankful that we were now in Canada where somehow, after all this time away, these little holidays that I ignored--like Canada Day, and now Thanksgiving--actually mean quite a bit more to me.
Guess I'm not as jaded and as cynical as I'd like to be these days...
Labels: Friends, Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
No Major Post
Because the Wife is down with the flu, meaning lots of bed rest, fluids, vegetable soup, movies and games.
Because the Wife is down with the flu, meaning lots of bed rest, fluids, vegetable soup, movies and games.
Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Icky Couple Stuff
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Last Night
Just watched Clerks II and strangely feel as if I've grown up a little bit by watching it. But I loved it.
And this is the last night without The Wife. She got on her plane hours ago (or so goes the theory) and should be enduring the most horrific part of the flight, crossing the Pacific. If she's very lucky, she'll manage to get some sleep, something I was unable to do.
I'm looking forward to this, since, in a clear sign of my weakness and co-dependency, it feels really, really, really weird without her around. Now as along as I remember to bring that hat, scarf, pair of gloves and coat to the airport, she might just survive the trip across the frozen arctic wastes of the Pearson International parking lot...
Just watched Clerks II and strangely feel as if I've grown up a little bit by watching it. But I loved it.
And this is the last night without The Wife. She got on her plane hours ago (or so goes the theory) and should be enduring the most horrific part of the flight, crossing the Pacific. If she's very lucky, she'll manage to get some sleep, something I was unable to do.
I'm looking forward to this, since, in a clear sign of my weakness and co-dependency, it feels really, really, really weird without her around. Now as along as I remember to bring that hat, scarf, pair of gloves and coat to the airport, she might just survive the trip across the frozen arctic wastes of the Pearson International parking lot...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Movies, My Life
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Respect Your Elders
Tonight was one more in a seemingly endless parade of dinners and get togethers that have been converging ever since it was announced The Move was happening and was not some fake, pathetic, plea for attention or, a petty way to try and get people to convince us to stay with offers of more money and better party invites. This particular dinner was with The Wife's grandparents and, as you might expect, I kind'a had to rein it in and not be as obnoxious as normally could be.
It's always a bit weird for me in situations like this. I don't live the typical Expatriate Lifestyle (that is to say, full of maids, money and more or less hanging out with other white people and experiencing the High Life while the locals madly scramble about to appease my every whim) and I don't live the local life either (that being, scrambling to appease white people, or, on lucky occasions, coming into enough money that you can pretend to be a white person). Actually, I think I probably live that most rare of things in Singapore, the non-wealthy Creative Life, which mostly entails doing some kind of creative work, but actually relying on it to make a living rather than being a hobby to kill time while waiting for your white husband to come back from the office.
But anyway, so yeah, The Wife's grandparents. It's interesting to see what the old fashioned Singaporeans are like, because this is, in my opinion, a far more genuine take on The Real Singapore than what you normally get if you try to read the pamphlets and brochures. I mean, these people were alive (albeit as kids) during the Japanese occupation of the island in WWII, and they were already adults when they witnessed their home go from British trading post to sovereign nation. More importantly for me, however, these people didn't grow up having cellular phones given to them at childhood, having maids accompany them to school to carry their books, and laugh at poor people, citing either idiocy or an innate genetic inferiority on their part on their part for their economic condition. I am sad to say that most of the Well To Do in Singapore (or at least their children) have PRECISELY these traits and characteristics. So it's nice when you meet some people with experience and history who have worked hard for what they have and actually appreciate what it can cost to get those luxuries their children may take for granted.
Of course, they usually also think them crazy hippie artsey types are bad for the economy which is why I had to be on my best behaviour and, when asked what it was I do, I replied with the half truth, "Uh... I'm a... Journalist. Yeah, that's it." Somehow, that goes over slightly better than "I bitch about games on the internet."
Still, it was an interesting snapshot view of The Wife's outer satellite ring of family orbits. And her grandfather has a Jaguar. That's the first time in my life I've ever sat in one of those things, and he wasted no time in showing off the thing by taking it from zero to 60 in about 6 seconds. I also paid one last visit to the Boys & Girls of GameScore, my all time favorite gaming store in Singapore. They actually didn't know that I was leaving, so there was the usual round of goodbyes and "keep in touch, man" and all that other stuff which I find endearing and at the same time vaguely depressing and painful.
Oh well, just a few more days now...
Tonight was one more in a seemingly endless parade of dinners and get togethers that have been converging ever since it was announced The Move was happening and was not some fake, pathetic, plea for attention or, a petty way to try and get people to convince us to stay with offers of more money and better party invites. This particular dinner was with The Wife's grandparents and, as you might expect, I kind'a had to rein it in and not be as obnoxious as normally could be.
It's always a bit weird for me in situations like this. I don't live the typical Expatriate Lifestyle (that is to say, full of maids, money and more or less hanging out with other white people and experiencing the High Life while the locals madly scramble about to appease my every whim) and I don't live the local life either (that being, scrambling to appease white people, or, on lucky occasions, coming into enough money that you can pretend to be a white person). Actually, I think I probably live that most rare of things in Singapore, the non-wealthy Creative Life, which mostly entails doing some kind of creative work, but actually relying on it to make a living rather than being a hobby to kill time while waiting for your white husband to come back from the office.
But anyway, so yeah, The Wife's grandparents. It's interesting to see what the old fashioned Singaporeans are like, because this is, in my opinion, a far more genuine take on The Real Singapore than what you normally get if you try to read the pamphlets and brochures. I mean, these people were alive (albeit as kids) during the Japanese occupation of the island in WWII, and they were already adults when they witnessed their home go from British trading post to sovereign nation. More importantly for me, however, these people didn't grow up having cellular phones given to them at childhood, having maids accompany them to school to carry their books, and laugh at poor people, citing either idiocy or an innate genetic inferiority on their part on their part for their economic condition. I am sad to say that most of the Well To Do in Singapore (or at least their children) have PRECISELY these traits and characteristics. So it's nice when you meet some people with experience and history who have worked hard for what they have and actually appreciate what it can cost to get those luxuries their children may take for granted.
Of course, they usually also think them crazy hippie artsey types are bad for the economy which is why I had to be on my best behaviour and, when asked what it was I do, I replied with the half truth, "Uh... I'm a... Journalist. Yeah, that's it." Somehow, that goes over slightly better than "I bitch about games on the internet."
Still, it was an interesting snapshot view of The Wife's outer satellite ring of family orbits. And her grandfather has a Jaguar. That's the first time in my life I've ever sat in one of those things, and he wasted no time in showing off the thing by taking it from zero to 60 in about 6 seconds. I also paid one last visit to the Boys & Girls of GameScore, my all time favorite gaming store in Singapore. They actually didn't know that I was leaving, so there was the usual round of goodbyes and "keep in touch, man" and all that other stuff which I find endearing and at the same time vaguely depressing and painful.
Oh well, just a few more days now...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Musing, My Life, Singapore Stupidity
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Drills, Del Toro & Dinner
The Wife is currently harboring the opinion that Singapore, now realizing we are about to escape its grasp, is now doing everything in its power to make our final days as annoying as possible.
Case in point, waking up at 10 am on Saturday morning to the sound of drills and hammers tearing out chunks of wall of the apartment below you.
The odd thing about this is the Wife actually heard the noise from this sudden renovation yesterday and, duly alarmed about it, went down and asked the superviser of the fun whether this would continue over the weekend and was told, absolutely, positively in no uncertain terms, NO, there would be no construction over the weekened. But then you have to remember that in Singapore there is a tendency to simply tell people whatever they want to hear, rather than get into a conflict about it, so everyone agrees with everyone else verbally, but then continues to actually screw each other over in action and fact. This resulted in a hasty coffee and then retreat into town for the afternoon. As you may have already guessed, the afternoon was spent catching an evening sneak preview of Pan's Labyrinth. Of course, for people in North America, this is hardly a sneak preview since the movie's been out since December, but I'm still currently living on an island where V For Vendetta was heavily censored to keep it from giving anyone the wrong idea about government, remember that.
Still, after watching it, I liked it a lot. I didn't love it, though I can completely see why it has garnered so much critical praise. There's a little something in the film for everyone, and the script is very tight, the story is well told, the parallel narratives nicely balanced, and the performances are universally excellent all around. The imagery (particularly the fantasy elements) were gorgeously composed, lit and shot, and there were some very significant themes, both politically and socially. It's an extremelly well put together movie, and I cannot for the life of me understand why I don't unabashedly love it, despite the fact that I have nothing but good things to say about it. I see many parallels here between what Del Toro did in The Devil's Backbone, his other movie that takes place in the Spanish Civil War era that also centers around children, paranormal events and military instability running concurrent with the occult plot. This film however, was a much more elegant and mature attempt and what he had done in the other movie, and I generally prefer it more, though I like both.
In a weird sort of way, I'm beginning to think that the way Del Toro manages to weave the supernatural, macabre and humanistic story elements all into one movie might actually make him a good contender to do a worthy Death and/or Morpheus/Sandman movie. His visual sensibility is very poetic and I could see Dave McKeans visuals sliding quite nicely into Del Toro's methodology.
And finally, there was a nearby eatery which had recently opened, and the Wife and I have been dutifully ignoring it until tonight. It's a "steamboat" restaurant, which, if you're not Chinese, means that every table has a small gas stove sitting on it. When you sit down to eat, they give you a big pot of chicken stock and turn on the stove so that the chicken stock can simmer. You order assorted meats and vegetables and then toss them in when the stock approaches boiling and thus, just keep adding to the soup and heaping more into your bowl as you see fit. Simple, filling and decent tasting. Also likely the first and last time we will ever eat this place.
And now, after all this pedestrian blogging, I'm going to be even more boring and scamper off to watch My Neighbor Totoro again. It's been years...
The Wife is currently harboring the opinion that Singapore, now realizing we are about to escape its grasp, is now doing everything in its power to make our final days as annoying as possible. Case in point, waking up at 10 am on Saturday morning to the sound of drills and hammers tearing out chunks of wall of the apartment below you.
The odd thing about this is the Wife actually heard the noise from this sudden renovation yesterday and, duly alarmed about it, went down and asked the superviser of the fun whether this would continue over the weekend and was told, absolutely, positively in no uncertain terms, NO, there would be no construction over the weekened. But then you have to remember that in Singapore there is a tendency to simply tell people whatever they want to hear, rather than get into a conflict about it, so everyone agrees with everyone else verbally, but then continues to actually screw each other over in action and fact. This resulted in a hasty coffee and then retreat into town for the afternoon. As you may have already guessed, the afternoon was spent catching an evening sneak preview of Pan's Labyrinth. Of course, for people in North America, this is hardly a sneak preview since the movie's been out since December, but I'm still currently living on an island where V For Vendetta was heavily censored to keep it from giving anyone the wrong idea about government, remember that.
Still, after watching it, I liked it a lot. I didn't love it, though I can completely see why it has garnered so much critical praise. There's a little something in the film for everyone, and the script is very tight, the story is well told, the parallel narratives nicely balanced, and the performances are universally excellent all around. The imagery (particularly the fantasy elements) were gorgeously composed, lit and shot, and there were some very significant themes, both politically and socially. It's an extremelly well put together movie, and I cannot for the life of me understand why I don't unabashedly love it, despite the fact that I have nothing but good things to say about it. I see many parallels here between what Del Toro did in The Devil's Backbone, his other movie that takes place in the Spanish Civil War era that also centers around children, paranormal events and military instability running concurrent with the occult plot. This film however, was a much more elegant and mature attempt and what he had done in the other movie, and I generally prefer it more, though I like both.
In a weird sort of way, I'm beginning to think that the way Del Toro manages to weave the supernatural, macabre and humanistic story elements all into one movie might actually make him a good contender to do a worthy Death and/or Morpheus/Sandman movie. His visual sensibility is very poetic and I could see Dave McKeans visuals sliding quite nicely into Del Toro's methodology.
And finally, there was a nearby eatery which had recently opened, and the Wife and I have been dutifully ignoring it until tonight. It's a "steamboat" restaurant, which, if you're not Chinese, means that every table has a small gas stove sitting on it. When you sit down to eat, they give you a big pot of chicken stock and turn on the stove so that the chicken stock can simmer. You order assorted meats and vegetables and then toss them in when the stock approaches boiling and thus, just keep adding to the soup and heaping more into your bowl as you see fit. Simple, filling and decent tasting. Also likely the first and last time we will ever eat this place.
And now, after all this pedestrian blogging, I'm going to be even more boring and scamper off to watch My Neighbor Totoro again. It's been years...
Labels: Anime, Icky Couple Stuff, Movies, My Life
Sunday, December 31, 2006
The Inevitable New Year's Post
So here it is, New Year's Eve, and once again, for the fourth straight year in a row, I am NOT writing out a hateful, spite-filled mass e-mail that insults all my friends and indulges in my once a year explosion of venom and envy over the fact that they are happy and I am not.
Having been with the Wife now for four years (although this was the first as a married couple) I can safely say that the jealousy I experienced over the happiness my friends had being with someone is long dead and gone.
So this is about something else entirely. I already got a chance to write the GameAxis editorial page, the first and last time I will likely to do that, and it's simply because it was my chance to say goodbye to magazine and its readers in my capacity as the main staff writer. But one of the things that I mentioned in the editorial is that this particular New Years that is being rung in (at least, in this time zone, obviously Canada has yet to experience it) is that I'm very much living the typical cliche for this time of year; that being out with the old and in with the new.
2006 is my last year in Singapore. After just over 10 years, the island that I more or less landed on by whim and accident is finally being left behind with one Wife, two cats, many, many books, comics, CDs, DVDs, games and one plastic guitar. 2007 becomes my first year in Canada after all this time. It kind of floors me to think that I have never, ever set foot in my own home country since the new millennium dawned on us. When I left, the internet barely existed, DVDs didn't at all and there was no such thing as an online transaction or free communication via online cams, headsets or instant messaging systems. Blogs didn't exist. iPod didn't exist and people still had carry around either a portable CD or tape player if they wanted to listen to their music collections. Global Positioning Systems weren't available to the mass market and Starbucks, Wal-Mart and other big American conglomerates had yet to set foot on Canadian turf (at least, in Edmonton, where I lived).
Now, in this new year, not only do I have a different part of the country, a different city to adjust to, but a different kind of lifestyle entirely. I left Canada as a university graduate and come back to it as a writer who's done just about everything you can with the English language for money. I come back to a country far more technologically advanced than it was when I left it, and I come back with some pets and, most importantly, a Wife.
So while the New Year is certainly filled with a lot of unknowns, there's a lot of excitement and promise, even in the midst of the uncertainty. And, as schlocky and disgusting as it sounds, I'm not at all scared or massively worried about what the future will hold, because after being away from Canada for so long, and being in a country where free speech, other political parties or even pornography simply don't exist... I have a lot more appreciation for what Canada has to offer. Especially to people in the creative industries. In Canada, you don't have to worry that what you say will get you arrested, you only have to worry about whether it's good or not. Trust me, that doesn't seem like a big thing, but after having had to butt heads with the Singapore government in one form or another over the last couple of years, believe me, it really DOES color your point of view about what to say or not say when you know that you may pay for it in a very Official Capacity. It will be nice to know in Canada when you say something that is true, no one in the government can arrest, fine, or otherwise harrass you for it.
The other thing of course is the Wife. We have a good thing going and I really, truly love her a lot. Tons even. And everything seems bearable or even conquerable as long she's around. And no matter whether things get very good, or very bad, or merely very complicated, all of these things are easier to live through with her beside me. And more fun too. And I'm looking foward to seeing what happens with her when we get to Toronto. For me, it is a home coming, and even though Toronto is unfamiliar, Canada with its cold, its creativity and its very, very unAmerican sanity and compassion, is not. Everything will be new to her, and I'm interested in seeing what Canada will be like through her eyes as she experiences so many firsts, like, unfortunately, snow and sub-zero temperatures.
Of course it won't be easy, but then is any kind of positive change ever a walk in the park? There will be new things to get used to, she will have to adjust to being a very busy artist, and I still have a few projects that are brewing which I can't yet talk about, but hopefully those will keep me very, very busy in 2007. And also extremely happy and geeky. So I dunno whether 2007 is going to be a better year than 2006, but it certainly is going to be a LOT different. And perhaps more fun.
So that's it. My final New Year's Eve in a place where you can actually break into an unpleasant sweat while standing around outside during the countdown because of the stifling heat and humidity.
And as for those of you not in Singapore, well, Happy New Year in advance. This'll be the last time I beat you to it...
So here it is, New Year's Eve, and once again, for the fourth straight year in a row, I am NOT writing out a hateful, spite-filled mass e-mail that insults all my friends and indulges in my once a year explosion of venom and envy over the fact that they are happy and I am not.Having been with the Wife now for four years (although this was the first as a married couple) I can safely say that the jealousy I experienced over the happiness my friends had being with someone is long dead and gone.
So this is about something else entirely. I already got a chance to write the GameAxis editorial page, the first and last time I will likely to do that, and it's simply because it was my chance to say goodbye to magazine and its readers in my capacity as the main staff writer. But one of the things that I mentioned in the editorial is that this particular New Years that is being rung in (at least, in this time zone, obviously Canada has yet to experience it) is that I'm very much living the typical cliche for this time of year; that being out with the old and in with the new.
2006 is my last year in Singapore. After just over 10 years, the island that I more or less landed on by whim and accident is finally being left behind with one Wife, two cats, many, many books, comics, CDs, DVDs, games and one plastic guitar. 2007 becomes my first year in Canada after all this time. It kind of floors me to think that I have never, ever set foot in my own home country since the new millennium dawned on us. When I left, the internet barely existed, DVDs didn't at all and there was no such thing as an online transaction or free communication via online cams, headsets or instant messaging systems. Blogs didn't exist. iPod didn't exist and people still had carry around either a portable CD or tape player if they wanted to listen to their music collections. Global Positioning Systems weren't available to the mass market and Starbucks, Wal-Mart and other big American conglomerates had yet to set foot on Canadian turf (at least, in Edmonton, where I lived).
Now, in this new year, not only do I have a different part of the country, a different city to adjust to, but a different kind of lifestyle entirely. I left Canada as a university graduate and come back to it as a writer who's done just about everything you can with the English language for money. I come back to a country far more technologically advanced than it was when I left it, and I come back with some pets and, most importantly, a Wife.
So while the New Year is certainly filled with a lot of unknowns, there's a lot of excitement and promise, even in the midst of the uncertainty. And, as schlocky and disgusting as it sounds, I'm not at all scared or massively worried about what the future will hold, because after being away from Canada for so long, and being in a country where free speech, other political parties or even pornography simply don't exist... I have a lot more appreciation for what Canada has to offer. Especially to people in the creative industries. In Canada, you don't have to worry that what you say will get you arrested, you only have to worry about whether it's good or not. Trust me, that doesn't seem like a big thing, but after having had to butt heads with the Singapore government in one form or another over the last couple of years, believe me, it really DOES color your point of view about what to say or not say when you know that you may pay for it in a very Official Capacity. It will be nice to know in Canada when you say something that is true, no one in the government can arrest, fine, or otherwise harrass you for it.
The other thing of course is the Wife. We have a good thing going and I really, truly love her a lot. Tons even. And everything seems bearable or even conquerable as long she's around. And no matter whether things get very good, or very bad, or merely very complicated, all of these things are easier to live through with her beside me. And more fun too. And I'm looking foward to seeing what happens with her when we get to Toronto. For me, it is a home coming, and even though Toronto is unfamiliar, Canada with its cold, its creativity and its very, very unAmerican sanity and compassion, is not. Everything will be new to her, and I'm interested in seeing what Canada will be like through her eyes as she experiences so many firsts, like, unfortunately, snow and sub-zero temperatures.
Of course it won't be easy, but then is any kind of positive change ever a walk in the park? There will be new things to get used to, she will have to adjust to being a very busy artist, and I still have a few projects that are brewing which I can't yet talk about, but hopefully those will keep me very, very busy in 2007. And also extremely happy and geeky. So I dunno whether 2007 is going to be a better year than 2006, but it certainly is going to be a LOT different. And perhaps more fun.
So that's it. My final New Year's Eve in a place where you can actually break into an unpleasant sweat while standing around outside during the countdown because of the stifling heat and humidity.
And as for those of you not in Singapore, well, Happy New Year in advance. This'll be the last time I beat you to it...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Musing, My Life
Sunday, December 24, 2006
The Most Pathetic Christmas Eve Of All
Spent with the Wife, talking, eating pizza, being happy together, discussing future projects online, possibly watching bad, BAD movies (or dinosaurs), and doing Super-Uber-Nerd-Geek-Loser things like working on websites, writing TV scripts or, most losery of all, reorganizing a blog thanks to the new tag functions that Blogger has recently upgraded to.
Merry Christmas to all. Yes, I know we suck. We've made peace with that.
Spent with the Wife, talking, eating pizza, being happy together, discussing future projects online, possibly watching bad, BAD movies (or dinosaurs), and doing Super-Uber-Nerd-Geek-Loser things like working on websites, writing TV scripts or, most losery of all, reorganizing a blog thanks to the new tag functions that Blogger has recently upgraded to.Merry Christmas to all. Yes, I know we suck. We've made peace with that.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Official Proclomation From The Wife
For the first time ever, an iron-clad, non-negotiable , set-in-stone rule has been laid down upon me by the Wife and it is this:
In the highly unlikely event that we decide we want to start a family after all and the infant is a boy, I am not, not, NOT, NOT, NOT under any circumstances allowed to name him "Mucho."
Nor am I allowed to give him the middle name "Macho."
Nor am I allowed to introduce him as "Mucho Macho Santos" with a grin of perverse pride on my face.
Man, that just about killed 90% of my incentive to even have a family right there...
For the first time ever, an iron-clad, non-negotiable , set-in-stone rule has been laid down upon me by the Wife and it is this:
In the highly unlikely event that we decide we want to start a family after all and the infant is a boy, I am not, not, NOT, NOT, NOT under any circumstances allowed to name him "Mucho."
Nor am I allowed to give him the middle name "Macho."
Nor am I allowed to introduce him as "Mucho Macho Santos" with a grin of perverse pride on my face.
Man, that just about killed 90% of my incentive to even have a family right there...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Random Blargh
Thursday, November 16, 2006
I Now Know
What a Canadian Permanent Residency pass looks like. The Wife picked up her passport today which has her nice, shiny PR immigrant status laminated into it. To no one's surprise it feature the maple leaf, and had an anti-countefeit holographic watermark in the shape of mounties on a horse.
Nope, that ain't cliche at all, not one bit...
Still, it looks like things are finally underway. And moving FAST. We might actually be out of here and back in Canada just in time for Christmas. Destination now looks like it might be Toronto. It's actually cheaper than Vancouver, but the job situation--it being a big city and all--might be a little easier for an illustrator and a writer. Maybe we'll head over to Vancouver once we A) make tons of money when she's a famous illustrator and I'm a published novelist or B) Vancouver becomes unpopular again and that starts driving rent and property prices down. Although I doubt that will happen unless the San Andreas fault finally goes kablooey and sinks a good portion of the west coast...
What a Canadian Permanent Residency pass looks like. The Wife picked up her passport today which has her nice, shiny PR immigrant status laminated into it. To no one's surprise it feature the maple leaf, and had an anti-countefeit holographic watermark in the shape of mounties on a horse.
Nope, that ain't cliche at all, not one bit...
Still, it looks like things are finally underway. And moving FAST. We might actually be out of here and back in Canada just in time for Christmas. Destination now looks like it might be Toronto. It's actually cheaper than Vancouver, but the job situation--it being a big city and all--might be a little easier for an illustrator and a writer. Maybe we'll head over to Vancouver once we A) make tons of money when she's a famous illustrator and I'm a published novelist or B) Vancouver becomes unpopular again and that starts driving rent and property prices down. Although I doubt that will happen unless the San Andreas fault finally goes kablooey and sinks a good portion of the west coast...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Travel
Thursday, November 09, 2006
I Am Officially Married To A Canadian Permanent Resident
So the Wife got a notice that a piece of registered mail had arrived for her and was sitting at the post office. We went in today to get it and saw that big "Canada" font on the official looking brown envelope. After opening it, it was revealed that Canadian immigration now requires a few more documents for confirmation and they will issue her Permanent Residency visa.
So it looks like it's now time for us to start seriously thinking about the move over, calling up various international movers, settling the discussion once and for all about Vancouver or Halifax (still haven't made our minds up) and start the process of closing things down here. MAN am I ever glad we didn't go looking for a new apartment to live in now...
So it looks like 2007 will be the year I go home with foreign bride in tow, except that she's more talented than I am and has a better head for business.
Whoo. I'm goin' home!
So the Wife got a notice that a piece of registered mail had arrived for her and was sitting at the post office. We went in today to get it and saw that big "Canada" font on the official looking brown envelope. After opening it, it was revealed that Canadian immigration now requires a few more documents for confirmation and they will issue her Permanent Residency visa.
So it looks like it's now time for us to start seriously thinking about the move over, calling up various international movers, settling the discussion once and for all about Vancouver or Halifax (still haven't made our minds up) and start the process of closing things down here. MAN am I ever glad we didn't go looking for a new apartment to live in now...
So it looks like 2007 will be the year I go home with foreign bride in tow, except that she's more talented than I am and has a better head for business.
Whoo. I'm goin' home!
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Travel
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Scripts Finished
At least until the next round. Which leaves more room for Final Fantasy XII. The Wife has already taken a liking to it, and is happily grinding away, raising the levels of the characters even when I'm not playing, thus keeping things progressing at an extremely rapid pace.
At least until the next round. Which leaves more room for Final Fantasy XII. The Wife has already taken a liking to it, and is happily grinding away, raising the levels of the characters even when I'm not playing, thus keeping things progressing at an extremely rapid pace.
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff, RPGs, Television Production
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
So 365 Days Later
Wow, has it already been a year since my friend Aerin showed up for the Wedding I Never Thought Would Ever Happen In A Million-Buzillion Years But Somehow Did? At the time we were living in another apartment (still in the same general neighborhood) and the Wife was still working a job in an office that was slowly bleeding away her will to live. Now I'm the one that's going to an office (that's slowly bleeding away my will to do Real Work; come on getting paid to play and write about games is a juicy job) and she's happily--if somewhat busily--drawing the hell out of herself with all kinds of jobs, including children's books, kid's comics, and maybe, if the fates smile upon us, our own collaborative comic book, if Slave Labor Graphics actually likes it.
The day after tomorrow will be our first wedding anniversary, though in actuality it will have been our fourth year together. Being diabolical and lazy, I actually staggered out key critical moments in the relation so they all fell on the same day, that way I'd never have to keep track of any dates. the day we became a couple, the day I proposed and the day we got married all fall on October 19th, so I'm totally covered on "YOU NEVER REMEMBER THE MOST IMPORTANT DATES OF OUR LIVES!" front. Then again, I'm safe anyway, because she never remembers the dates...
There may or may not be posts over the next few days depending on the mood. We'll be flying off to Krabi in Thailand, which is one of those places with water so ridiculously blue and beaches so ridiculously tropical that they look like something out of a Leonardo DeCaprio movie, and, in fact, are.
It's been a good year. Then again, the previous three before it were also good, so I'm going to be incredibly boring and pedestrian and say that, at least in this case, getting married has definitely made me a lot happier than being a bitter, angst-ridden, hateful cynic that carried an irrational hatred for anyone that was happily attached, but that's 'cause I was jealous as hell.
Now I don't give a damn, 'cause I gots my girl, I gots my writin', I gots my cats, and I gots my gamin'. And my priorities go pretty much in that order, unless you count Guitar Hero, then that might come before writin'...
Wow, has it already been a year since my friend Aerin showed up for the Wedding I Never Thought Would Ever Happen In A Million-Buzillion Years But Somehow Did? At the time we were living in another apartment (still in the same general neighborhood) and the Wife was still working a job in an office that was slowly bleeding away her will to live. Now I'm the one that's going to an office (that's slowly bleeding away my will to do Real Work; come on getting paid to play and write about games is a juicy job) and she's happily--if somewhat busily--drawing the hell out of herself with all kinds of jobs, including children's books, kid's comics, and maybe, if the fates smile upon us, our own collaborative comic book, if Slave Labor Graphics actually likes it.
The day after tomorrow will be our first wedding anniversary, though in actuality it will have been our fourth year together. Being diabolical and lazy, I actually staggered out key critical moments in the relation so they all fell on the same day, that way I'd never have to keep track of any dates. the day we became a couple, the day I proposed and the day we got married all fall on October 19th, so I'm totally covered on "YOU NEVER REMEMBER THE MOST IMPORTANT DATES OF OUR LIVES!" front. Then again, I'm safe anyway, because she never remembers the dates...
There may or may not be posts over the next few days depending on the mood. We'll be flying off to Krabi in Thailand, which is one of those places with water so ridiculously blue and beaches so ridiculously tropical that they look like something out of a Leonardo DeCaprio movie, and, in fact, are.
It's been a good year. Then again, the previous three before it were also good, so I'm going to be incredibly boring and pedestrian and say that, at least in this case, getting married has definitely made me a lot happier than being a bitter, angst-ridden, hateful cynic that carried an irrational hatred for anyone that was happily attached, but that's 'cause I was jealous as hell.
Now I don't give a damn, 'cause I gots my girl, I gots my writin', I gots my cats, and I gots my gamin'. And my priorities go pretty much in that order, unless you count Guitar Hero, then that might come before writin'...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Another Work Night
With a script that needs to be out by tomorrow, another that needs to be finished the day after that, and a few more reviews that need to be trotted for the magazine, plus TWO production meetings that need to be attended tomorrow, a possible OTHER script for the video game documentary depending on how one of those meetings goes tomorrow, a Woody Allen movie on Saturday afternoon, plus the possible acquisition of two more Playstation 2 games...
OH AND DID I MENTION I'LL HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR A FREAKIN' YEAR NEXT THURSDAY?!?
We're going to be going to Thailand for a few days to celebrate. I'm reeeeeeeally looking forward to that. Unless I still have to work on a script or something even while I'm there, which would suck.
Y'know what? People who say that productivity is cool are idiots. It's a lot easier to be in your happy place when you're a lazy bum with nuthin' to do.
Sigh. Back to work...
With a script that needs to be out by tomorrow, another that needs to be finished the day after that, and a few more reviews that need to be trotted for the magazine, plus TWO production meetings that need to be attended tomorrow, a possible OTHER script for the video game documentary depending on how one of those meetings goes tomorrow, a Woody Allen movie on Saturday afternoon, plus the possible acquisition of two more Playstation 2 games...
OH AND DID I MENTION I'LL HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR A FREAKIN' YEAR NEXT THURSDAY?!?
We're going to be going to Thailand for a few days to celebrate. I'm reeeeeeeally looking forward to that. Unless I still have to work on a script or something even while I'm there, which would suck.
Y'know what? People who say that productivity is cool are idiots. It's a lot easier to be in your happy place when you're a lazy bum with nuthin' to do.
Sigh. Back to work...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Journalism, Television Production, Travel, Writing
Friday, September 01, 2006
Tech Day
It was one of those weird days where things only got partially accomplished. Some work was done on articles and a trip to Funan Center (Dubbed the IT Lifestyle Mall) led to a few minor accomplishments. The Wife has now ordered up a new PC rig for herself with some very respectable specifications, thus allowing her to be more efficient in her digital artwork since the PC (Hopefully) will no longer be lagging out with incredibly slow, jittery operation and framerates when she works on really big pictures with a high dpi.
I myself really only did two things, the first being I found out the conclusion to my favorite sci-fi RPG series, Xenosaga, will be available for pick-up tomorrw. Conveniently, the Wife's new rig should also be done then. The other thing I did was to FINALLY remember to pick up the third trade paperback of The Invisibles by Grant Morrison, which is one of the most bizarre stories I've ever read, and reminds me a LOT of the Illuminatus! trilogy I read years and years ago by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Either Shea and Wilson are major influences on Morrison or else they're just incredibly good friends, I'm not sure which, but the Invisibles invokes much of that crazed, humorous, free-spirited, "The world is not what you think it is and is in fact for more horrifying, sexual and psychedelic than you think it is" vibe that I got from Shea/Wilson's trilogy.
It was one of those weird days where things only got partially accomplished. Some work was done on articles and a trip to Funan Center (Dubbed the IT Lifestyle Mall) led to a few minor accomplishments. The Wife has now ordered up a new PC rig for herself with some very respectable specifications, thus allowing her to be more efficient in her digital artwork since the PC (Hopefully) will no longer be lagging out with incredibly slow, jittery operation and framerates when she works on really big pictures with a high dpi.
I myself really only did two things, the first being I found out the conclusion to my favorite sci-fi RPG series, Xenosaga, will be available for pick-up tomorrw. Conveniently, the Wife's new rig should also be done then. The other thing I did was to FINALLY remember to pick up the third trade paperback of The Invisibles by Grant Morrison, which is one of the most bizarre stories I've ever read, and reminds me a LOT of the Illuminatus! trilogy I read years and years ago by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Either Shea and Wilson are major influences on Morrison or else they're just incredibly good friends, I'm not sure which, but the Invisibles invokes much of that crazed, humorous, free-spirited, "The world is not what you think it is and is in fact for more horrifying, sexual and psychedelic than you think it is" vibe that I got from Shea/Wilson's trilogy.
Labels: Comics, Icky Couple Stuff, My Life, Neat-O Gadgetry
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Scary Grown Up Stuff
So the Wife's application for Canadian Permanent Residency was submitted a while ago, and we got a letter back saying that the initial phase (Whether or not I was suitable as a sponsor) has been approved and her application proper is now being processed.
Of course that's going to take a while, but in the meantime, bizarrely adult considerations have to be made like "Where the hell are we going to go?"
Not having a ton of money at the moment, one extremely odd alternative has popped up.
The maritime provinces.
A good sized house there sells for 20,000 Canadian. This can be reasonably handled with our fairly limited savings. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna' happen for sure, but knowing real estate is so cheap out in the middle of nowhere does have its appeal from a financial survivability viewpoint.
Of course the sanity viewpoint is something else, but heck, this is all speculation at this point...
So the Wife's application for Canadian Permanent Residency was submitted a while ago, and we got a letter back saying that the initial phase (Whether or not I was suitable as a sponsor) has been approved and her application proper is now being processed.
Of course that's going to take a while, but in the meantime, bizarrely adult considerations have to be made like "Where the hell are we going to go?"
Not having a ton of money at the moment, one extremely odd alternative has popped up.
The maritime provinces.
A good sized house there sells for 20,000 Canadian. This can be reasonably handled with our fairly limited savings. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna' happen for sure, but knowing real estate is so cheap out in the middle of nowhere does have its appeal from a financial survivability viewpoint.
Of course the sanity viewpoint is something else, but heck, this is all speculation at this point...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Travel
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Saurophobia
Probably better recognized by more colloqiual "Lizard-O-Phobia".
I was actually looking forward to watching my editor get skewered today on TV. A local station that's been promoting cartoons called Animax had decided to do a program concentrating what is undoubtedly a segment of their viewer population, gamers. Since there are only three gaming magazines in Singapore and only two of those are actually legitimate, GameAxis was selected to front the "Gaming Journalism" in Singapore section.
Unfortunatley I got a call from the Wife, in hysterics because one of the cats, Uno had finally given into her baser instincts and was toying with a very tiny lizard. The Wife is pretty much almost text book phobic when it comes to lizards, especially small ones. So watching our cat bat around a baby lizard, but refuse to eat it, then toss it around in the air some more in some sadistic game drove the Wife to the bed (Uno was doing all this at the bedroom door) and kept her there where she couldn't move.
I got the call just as the TV people were arriving (strangely enough, they're with the same company that's hiring me on for the new TV series project) and was playing host while my editor arrived from whatever meeting/schmooze thing it is that editors do that I am thankful I don't have to do. The Wife was more or less screaming and crying and it was pretty hard to actually understand what she was saying at first, but once I got it, I waited until the editor arrived and then told him that I needed to go home, which he let me do.
Upon arriving home I saw the following things. 1) Tiny dead lizard at the entry to the bedroom, almost entirely intact, only a bit of tail missing. 2) Uno the cat sitting a short distance away from said dead lizard, alternately staring at it, then me, as if to say "I BRING YOU THIS OFFERING, MIGHTY ONE, PLEASE ACCEPT YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT'S PITIFUL SACRIFICE FOR THE BOUNTIES YOU HAVE BESTOWED UPON ME!" 3) The Wife, in upright foetal position, hugging onto a pillow.
Oh well, so much for a quiet day...
Probably better recognized by more colloqiual "Lizard-O-Phobia".
I was actually looking forward to watching my editor get skewered today on TV. A local station that's been promoting cartoons called Animax had decided to do a program concentrating what is undoubtedly a segment of their viewer population, gamers. Since there are only three gaming magazines in Singapore and only two of those are actually legitimate, GameAxis was selected to front the "Gaming Journalism" in Singapore section.
Unfortunatley I got a call from the Wife, in hysterics because one of the cats, Uno had finally given into her baser instincts and was toying with a very tiny lizard. The Wife is pretty much almost text book phobic when it comes to lizards, especially small ones. So watching our cat bat around a baby lizard, but refuse to eat it, then toss it around in the air some more in some sadistic game drove the Wife to the bed (Uno was doing all this at the bedroom door) and kept her there where she couldn't move.
I got the call just as the TV people were arriving (strangely enough, they're with the same company that's hiring me on for the new TV series project) and was playing host while my editor arrived from whatever meeting/schmooze thing it is that editors do that I am thankful I don't have to do. The Wife was more or less screaming and crying and it was pretty hard to actually understand what she was saying at first, but once I got it, I waited until the editor arrived and then told him that I needed to go home, which he let me do.
Upon arriving home I saw the following things. 1) Tiny dead lizard at the entry to the bedroom, almost entirely intact, only a bit of tail missing. 2) Uno the cat sitting a short distance away from said dead lizard, alternately staring at it, then me, as if to say "I BRING YOU THIS OFFERING, MIGHTY ONE, PLEASE ACCEPT YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT'S PITIFUL SACRIFICE FOR THE BOUNTIES YOU HAVE BESTOWED UPON ME!" 3) The Wife, in upright foetal position, hugging onto a pillow.
Oh well, so much for a quiet day...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, Random Blargh
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Probably Too Much Information
But there was some minor excitement. Initially I thought it was going to be what is quickly turning into the weekly Thursday Monster Hunter Freedom session with my friend Eugene (Since we're both married geeks, only he doesn't play nearly as many games as I do since he doesn't contribute to a gaming mag), and it ended up getting cut a little bit short as I had to go home and see the Wife. She wasn't feeling well and so we ended up going over to the walk-in clinic at a nearby hospital to get her checked out. So she's got a finicky case of urinary tract infection and is now trying to keep working despite it. Oh well, at least it wasn't anything major serious...
But there was some minor excitement. Initially I thought it was going to be what is quickly turning into the weekly Thursday Monster Hunter Freedom session with my friend Eugene (Since we're both married geeks, only he doesn't play nearly as many games as I do since he doesn't contribute to a gaming mag), and it ended up getting cut a little bit short as I had to go home and see the Wife. She wasn't feeling well and so we ended up going over to the walk-in clinic at a nearby hospital to get her checked out. So she's got a finicky case of urinary tract infection and is now trying to keep working despite it. Oh well, at least it wasn't anything major serious...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Friday, June 09, 2006
One Of These Days...
I will post something a little more substantial, once the novely of having a PC that is game worthy wears off. As it is, I have about 3 RTS games, one fantasy TBS game, two 1st person RPGs, one simulation and one adventure game all sitting on the hard drive with a couple of FPS games to join the collection imminently.
The scary thing is, you'd think I'd be sick of all this gaming, but it keeps not happening. You'd also think the Wife would probably take issue with this, but since work is getting done, the job at GameAxis is about playing games anyhow, and she's similarly sucked into Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I don't even get nagged about this habit. I guess it also doesn't hurt that there's always the standby argument of, "I'm staying at home, not getting into trouble, not hanging out with the guys, not getting drunk, doing drugs, or hitting on other women. How is this bad for you?"
I will post something a little more substantial, once the novely of having a PC that is game worthy wears off. As it is, I have about 3 RTS games, one fantasy TBS game, two 1st person RPGs, one simulation and one adventure game all sitting on the hard drive with a couple of FPS games to join the collection imminently.
The scary thing is, you'd think I'd be sick of all this gaming, but it keeps not happening. You'd also think the Wife would probably take issue with this, but since work is getting done, the job at GameAxis is about playing games anyhow, and she's similarly sucked into Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I don't even get nagged about this habit. I guess it also doesn't hurt that there's always the standby argument of, "I'm staying at home, not getting into trouble, not hanging out with the guys, not getting drunk, doing drugs, or hitting on other women. How is this bad for you?"
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff
Saturday, May 06, 2006
It's Official
I am feeling guilty about leaving.
The Wife has managed the neat trick of occasionally waving and saying "Bye-bye" in just such as a way as I feel like I just stepped on a raft, found out the ferryman is named Charon, and I have just pulled a coin out of my mouth and am standing on the raft as it pulls away into the depths of the underworld while the Wife continues to wave at me from the shore.
Oh well. At least I know I will be missed...
I am feeling guilty about leaving.
The Wife has managed the neat trick of occasionally waving and saying "Bye-bye" in just such as a way as I feel like I just stepped on a raft, found out the ferryman is named Charon, and I have just pulled a coin out of my mouth and am standing on the raft as it pulls away into the depths of the underworld while the Wife continues to wave at me from the shore.
Oh well. At least I know I will be missed...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
It's The Wife's Birthday
So no post or remotely interesting things to do or say today.
So no post or remotely interesting things to do or say today.
Labels: Boring And Insipid Posts, Icky Couple Stuff
Monday, March 27, 2006
You Know You Married The Right Woman When
You spend an entire weekend playing a video game and not only is she okay with it, she frequently takes over. Then when you go to the office and think to yourself, "I can't wait to play some more," you meet up with her and she tells you, "I grinded the party up a few levels and killed a boss. I saved it just before the story developments though, so you can still watch them play out."
Right. Back to gaming.
You spend an entire weekend playing a video game and not only is she okay with it, she frequently takes over. Then when you go to the office and think to yourself, "I can't wait to play some more," you meet up with her and she tells you, "I grinded the party up a few levels and killed a boss. I saved it just before the story developments though, so you can still watch them play out."
Right. Back to gaming.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, RPGs
Monday, December 26, 2005
Boxing Day
In which no boxes were actually tossed, but pasta (In the form of the ultra-rare--at least in Singapore--ravioli) was consumed, coffee was drunk, and generally much hanging out clients--the Wife's--was done, while I either eulogized about my thoughts on the future of the gaming industry, or simply showed off my Christmas gift and thought smugly to myself, "I am no longer a gaming loser! I have a PSP," which in itself, signifies that I am a real life loser, but oh well...
It's black and shiny and sexy and I didn't expect to get one dammit, so I'm pretty darn happy.
Of course this wasn't a one sided affair. I also got the Wife gifts which came in many forms, from a clock, to a lava lamp, to a general art reference book that spanned ancient civilizations to contemporary installation pieces, to a ring, to a necklace, to a, believe it or not, video game for the PS2, because this particular game, Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga is part of the Shin Megami Tensei series of games which tends to explore deeply philosophical themes like Nihilism and the possiblity that the Christian God is an evil sadist that delights in randomly inflicting suffering upon people for his own amusement, and the Wife likes twisted stuff like this, so surprisingly, it was a big hit, rather than turning into one of those Homer Simpson-esque moments where I say, "Well, if you don't want that bowling ball, I'll just use it myself so it doesn't go to waste."
But now that Boxing Day is done, it's back to work tomorrow (Remember kids, Singapore isn't predominantly Christian, so Christmas only really entitles you to a long weekend, not the entire week off) and I've already started up on a script for Nanoboy that I'll have to try and finish by Friday. Normally, this is easily doable. But the allure of Wipeout Pure keeps calling out to me and I find it increasingly difficult to resist its siren call...
In which no boxes were actually tossed, but pasta (In the form of the ultra-rare--at least in Singapore--ravioli) was consumed, coffee was drunk, and generally much hanging out clients--the Wife's--was done, while I either eulogized about my thoughts on the future of the gaming industry, or simply showed off my Christmas gift and thought smugly to myself, "I am no longer a gaming loser! I have a PSP," which in itself, signifies that I am a real life loser, but oh well...
It's black and shiny and sexy and I didn't expect to get one dammit, so I'm pretty darn happy.
Of course this wasn't a one sided affair. I also got the Wife gifts which came in many forms, from a clock, to a lava lamp, to a general art reference book that spanned ancient civilizations to contemporary installation pieces, to a ring, to a necklace, to a, believe it or not, video game for the PS2, because this particular game, Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga is part of the Shin Megami Tensei series of games which tends to explore deeply philosophical themes like Nihilism and the possiblity that the Christian God is an evil sadist that delights in randomly inflicting suffering upon people for his own amusement, and the Wife likes twisted stuff like this, so surprisingly, it was a big hit, rather than turning into one of those Homer Simpson-esque moments where I say, "Well, if you don't want that bowling ball, I'll just use it myself so it doesn't go to waste."
But now that Boxing Day is done, it's back to work tomorrow (Remember kids, Singapore isn't predominantly Christian, so Christmas only really entitles you to a long weekend, not the entire week off) and I've already started up on a script for Nanoboy that I'll have to try and finish by Friday. Normally, this is easily doable. But the allure of Wipeout Pure keeps calling out to me and I find it increasingly difficult to resist its siren call...
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff, My Life, Neat-O Gadgetry
Saturday, December 24, 2005
You Know You're Married When
Even though you haven't set foot in a church in years, you end up going to Christmas mass because it is, after all possibly the last time you'll be able to have Christmas mass in Singapore with your in-laws.
I guess I'm just lucky that at least I have a Catholic background so I knew what to do, sort of, though I was told I do the sign of the cross differently than they do, which really puzzled me. Also went back to the In-Laws to collect more presents and sit down and have an actual conversation with my Father-In-Law. I am told this is an unprecedented event, and that he must really like me to have an actual conversation with an exchange of information and everything, so he must have already resigned himself to the idea that he's stuck with me.
Merry Christmas and all that...
Even though you haven't set foot in a church in years, you end up going to Christmas mass because it is, after all possibly the last time you'll be able to have Christmas mass in Singapore with your in-laws.
I guess I'm just lucky that at least I have a Catholic background so I knew what to do, sort of, though I was told I do the sign of the cross differently than they do, which really puzzled me. Also went back to the In-Laws to collect more presents and sit down and have an actual conversation with my Father-In-Law. I am told this is an unprecedented event, and that he must really like me to have an actual conversation with an exchange of information and everything, so he must have already resigned himself to the idea that he's stuck with me.
Merry Christmas and all that...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Friday, December 23, 2005
The Eve Before Christmas Eve Post
Did nothing, hung out with the Wife who got outta' work early because they were having fire drills in her office tower during the afternoon, so the entire company decided to call it a day.
Other than that, went shopping and sat around in a hair salon playing Final Fantasy IV on the Nintendo Dual Screen.
That is all.
Did nothing, hung out with the Wife who got outta' work early because they were having fire drills in her office tower during the afternoon, so the entire company decided to call it a day.
Other than that, went shopping and sat around in a hair salon playing Final Fantasy IV on the Nintendo Dual Screen.
That is all.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Monday, November 21, 2005
Lazy Monday
So I ended up not doing anywhere near enough of the work I was supposed to today.
After getting the air conditioner well and truly repaired for real this time, I ended up wasting far too much time with the Sims 2 on the Xbox and then met the Wife at her exhibit, which is a truly monstrous thing that looks terribly expensive. After that, it was dinner and then just hanging out and spending time together (Something that's been in short supply pretty much since the wedding) and a quiet night at home, watching enraged British people kill each other in 28 Days.
I promise I'll get my work done tomorrow.
So I ended up not doing anywhere near enough of the work I was supposed to today.
After getting the air conditioner well and truly repaired for real this time, I ended up wasting far too much time with the Sims 2 on the Xbox and then met the Wife at her exhibit, which is a truly monstrous thing that looks terribly expensive. After that, it was dinner and then just hanging out and spending time together (Something that's been in short supply pretty much since the wedding) and a quiet night at home, watching enraged British people kill each other in 28 Days.
I promise I'll get my work done tomorrow.
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff, Movies, My Life
Thursday, November 10, 2005
The Last Post From Home #1
Internet connection won't get up and running at the new place until Saturday, and even then I'm not sure if I'll have dug the computer out by then to hook it up, so...
I'm too nostalgic. The Wife tells me this all the time. Like tonight, the majority of the packing got done, leaving just some stuff from the bedroom, kitchen and a few odds and ends like power bars, posters and knick knacks here and there. There is a truly impressive pile of boxes in the middle of our apartment.
It was a good apartment.
This is the first apartment we rented together. The first time I ever lived with someone who wasn't a room-mate I only saw on occasion. We decorated this place, got things like our first rug here, rescued our second cat and kept her, rescued many kittens. I wrote novels and scripts here, she made art here. We used to walk around this neighborhood late at night scavenging for food from 24 hour hawker centers or, more recently, the McDonald's that went 24 hours.
I know life goes on, and that things will most likely get better. Change is inevitable, and hell, we're going to be relocating to Canada in several months anyway...
But this was still our first place. It's where our life started together. We walked into this apartment as a hopeful boyfriend and girlfriend, lived in it as fiances and now we're leaving it as husband and wife. I keep thinking in some gentle way, maybe some psychic residue of that life has been worked into the fabric of the walls, the floor. Definitely the cigarette smoke anyway. I'm smoking a last one here. The Wife let me get a pack since the move is so stressful anyway, and she didn't see the harm in indulging it, I behave myself the rest of the time.
I'm not going to weep dramatically or anything. There's an emotion there, but nothing that over the top. I just keep thinking to myself, "This is where our life together started, and now we're leaving it."
It was a good apartment for two psychotic artsey types to just be that with each other.
I'm going to miss it.
Internet connection won't get up and running at the new place until Saturday, and even then I'm not sure if I'll have dug the computer out by then to hook it up, so...
I'm too nostalgic. The Wife tells me this all the time. Like tonight, the majority of the packing got done, leaving just some stuff from the bedroom, kitchen and a few odds and ends like power bars, posters and knick knacks here and there. There is a truly impressive pile of boxes in the middle of our apartment.
It was a good apartment.
This is the first apartment we rented together. The first time I ever lived with someone who wasn't a room-mate I only saw on occasion. We decorated this place, got things like our first rug here, rescued our second cat and kept her, rescued many kittens. I wrote novels and scripts here, she made art here. We used to walk around this neighborhood late at night scavenging for food from 24 hour hawker centers or, more recently, the McDonald's that went 24 hours.
I know life goes on, and that things will most likely get better. Change is inevitable, and hell, we're going to be relocating to Canada in several months anyway...
But this was still our first place. It's where our life started together. We walked into this apartment as a hopeful boyfriend and girlfriend, lived in it as fiances and now we're leaving it as husband and wife. I keep thinking in some gentle way, maybe some psychic residue of that life has been worked into the fabric of the walls, the floor. Definitely the cigarette smoke anyway. I'm smoking a last one here. The Wife let me get a pack since the move is so stressful anyway, and she didn't see the harm in indulging it, I behave myself the rest of the time.
I'm not going to weep dramatically or anything. There's an emotion there, but nothing that over the top. I just keep thinking to myself, "This is where our life together started, and now we're leaving it."
It was a good apartment for two psychotic artsey types to just be that with each other.
I'm going to miss it.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Monday, October 24, 2005
The After Action Report
Okay, now that things have calmed down somewhat...
So. I am married. Whoo hoo.
The wedding night (Since it took place in the evening) was for the most part, the kind of wedding I've always wanted to attend, but thus far, haven't; small, intimate, and surrounded by friends with a nice ambience, good food, lots of conversation, and no hordes and hordes of relatives, strangers, and co-workers, cousins, vague acquaintances that I was only remotely familiar with. The ceremony itself took place in our actual hotel room, which was a suite at the previously mentioned Gallery Hotel. The only people in attendance besides me and the then Fiance were her immediate family--consisting of her mother, father and younger sister--my friend Aerin, who flown in from Canada to see the wedding and see a country she'd never been to before, and Eugene, a friend of mine who--in tandem with the Fiance's mom--was acting as witness. And of course the guy that presided over the ceremony itself, the Solemnizer.
The ceremony was brief and relaxed, and I think it may have barely grazed past the seven minute mark. I didn't bother with writing vows (The mercenary part of me figured since I wasn't being paid to, why bother...) and so we just fell back on the standard vows the Solemnizer had on hand with the usual sickness, health, richer and poorer clauses, and then there were the "I dos" the kissing of the bride, and that was that. It was over and time for the inevitable round of pictures. My new mother-in-law hugged me and I could hear the choke in her voice as she said, "Take care of her."
After that, the wedding party left the hotel and crossed the street for the book cafe where exactly one guest of the 20 invited had already shown up and claimed a seat. Eugene and the Wife's family comprised a sizeable chunk of the other guests, with a few friends on both my side and the wife's to fill it out. The Book Cafe has an area with couches and coffee tables which they'd cordoned off for us, and then the "light supper" we'd ordered started to arrive and we realized there was nothing light about it. It was good food and there was lots of it, a fact that some of the guests bemoaned as they'd read "light supper" on the invitation and so had gotten something to eat in the meantime, thus depriving themselves of valuable stomach space with which to stuff obscenely stuff themselves. C'est la vie.
It was a totally cool reception. The Wife and I flitted to the appropriate tables to talk to our various friends, and the tininess of the event really made it a lot of fun. It's nice to know everyone there, and mostly have everyone know everybody else. And the few people on my side that didn't know each other were sufficiently conversant in gaming anyway that they quickly bridged the gap and became friends fast as the inevitable topic of World of Warcraft came up, and they found common ground. But as all good things must, this came to an end, and we retired to our hotel room for the night.
The days since then have mostly been us playing tour guide for Aerin. So far we've subjected her to the Esplanade (Or as I like to call it, the Bug Eyes), the central business district, the shopping district of Orchard Road, our own neighborhood, which is going through Ramadan right now, the Singapore zoo, and even the SPCA and a columbarium (For those of you that don't know what that is, it's a "graveyard" for the ashes of the cremated).
Things are getting kind of busy now again though. The Wife now has an exhibition at the Singapore Design convention to oversee, I'm wrapping my mini-series, starting on an animated series, and getting involved in another documentary, we are moving very shortly, and there's still the little matter of putting in her application for Canadian permanent residency.
All in all, a happy and productive last week. Except that I didn't start on a new novel, but oh well...
Okay, now that things have calmed down somewhat...
So. I am married. Whoo hoo.
The wedding night (Since it took place in the evening) was for the most part, the kind of wedding I've always wanted to attend, but thus far, haven't; small, intimate, and surrounded by friends with a nice ambience, good food, lots of conversation, and no hordes and hordes of relatives, strangers, and co-workers, cousins, vague acquaintances that I was only remotely familiar with. The ceremony itself took place in our actual hotel room, which was a suite at the previously mentioned Gallery Hotel. The only people in attendance besides me and the then Fiance were her immediate family--consisting of her mother, father and younger sister--my friend Aerin, who flown in from Canada to see the wedding and see a country she'd never been to before, and Eugene, a friend of mine who--in tandem with the Fiance's mom--was acting as witness. And of course the guy that presided over the ceremony itself, the Solemnizer.
The ceremony was brief and relaxed, and I think it may have barely grazed past the seven minute mark. I didn't bother with writing vows (The mercenary part of me figured since I wasn't being paid to, why bother...) and so we just fell back on the standard vows the Solemnizer had on hand with the usual sickness, health, richer and poorer clauses, and then there were the "I dos" the kissing of the bride, and that was that. It was over and time for the inevitable round of pictures. My new mother-in-law hugged me and I could hear the choke in her voice as she said, "Take care of her."
After that, the wedding party left the hotel and crossed the street for the book cafe where exactly one guest of the 20 invited had already shown up and claimed a seat. Eugene and the Wife's family comprised a sizeable chunk of the other guests, with a few friends on both my side and the wife's to fill it out. The Book Cafe has an area with couches and coffee tables which they'd cordoned off for us, and then the "light supper" we'd ordered started to arrive and we realized there was nothing light about it. It was good food and there was lots of it, a fact that some of the guests bemoaned as they'd read "light supper" on the invitation and so had gotten something to eat in the meantime, thus depriving themselves of valuable stomach space with which to stuff obscenely stuff themselves. C'est la vie.
It was a totally cool reception. The Wife and I flitted to the appropriate tables to talk to our various friends, and the tininess of the event really made it a lot of fun. It's nice to know everyone there, and mostly have everyone know everybody else. And the few people on my side that didn't know each other were sufficiently conversant in gaming anyway that they quickly bridged the gap and became friends fast as the inevitable topic of World of Warcraft came up, and they found common ground. But as all good things must, this came to an end, and we retired to our hotel room for the night.
The days since then have mostly been us playing tour guide for Aerin. So far we've subjected her to the Esplanade (Or as I like to call it, the Bug Eyes), the central business district, the shopping district of Orchard Road, our own neighborhood, which is going through Ramadan right now, the Singapore zoo, and even the SPCA and a columbarium (For those of you that don't know what that is, it's a "graveyard" for the ashes of the cremated).
Things are getting kind of busy now again though. The Wife now has an exhibition at the Singapore Design convention to oversee, I'm wrapping my mini-series, starting on an animated series, and getting involved in another documentary, we are moving very shortly, and there's still the little matter of putting in her application for Canadian permanent residency.
All in all, a happy and productive last week. Except that I didn't start on a new novel, but oh well...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Friday, October 21, 2005
Things You Didn't Expect To Do When You Got Married
Smash your fist into your wife's fist, making sure the rings make contact and saying "Wonder Twin powers... ACTIVATE! Form of... GEEK!"
Smash your fist into your wife's fist, making sure the rings make contact and saying "Wonder Twin powers... ACTIVATE! Form of... GEEK!"
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Still Busy But...
I don't feel married. I'm told that this is apparently a good thing.
I now have in-laws.
And the season one compilation of Battlestar Galactica.
That is all.
I don't feel married. I'm told that this is apparently a good thing.
I now have in-laws.
And the season one compilation of Battlestar Galactica.
That is all.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
The Night Before
Aerin got picked up at the airport by me this afternoon. She walked right past me, but then I can attribute that to jet lag, since she did just spend something like over 24 hours in various modes of sitting on a plane, or waiting for a plane. We took her down to the edge of downtown for a quick Turkish lunch, and then wandered past the Esplanade--personally known by me as The Bug Eyes--the Singapore equivalent of the Sydney Opera House, and then she went off to crash, as she was vaguely sure that she'd only catnapped on the plane.
In less than 24 hours I'll be married. I barely slept a wink the night before, only managing to lose consciousness sometime after the sun had come up, so I'm probably nearly as jet lagged as Aerin is.
There's no stag night, there's no hen night, there isn't even hanging out with friends. It's just me and the fiance, passing the time, and I think now it's time for dinner. Or late supper. Whatever you want to call it.
Right. Food.
Aerin got picked up at the airport by me this afternoon. She walked right past me, but then I can attribute that to jet lag, since she did just spend something like over 24 hours in various modes of sitting on a plane, or waiting for a plane. We took her down to the edge of downtown for a quick Turkish lunch, and then wandered past the Esplanade--personally known by me as The Bug Eyes--the Singapore equivalent of the Sydney Opera House, and then she went off to crash, as she was vaguely sure that she'd only catnapped on the plane.
In less than 24 hours I'll be married. I barely slept a wink the night before, only managing to lose consciousness sometime after the sun had come up, so I'm probably nearly as jet lagged as Aerin is.
There's no stag night, there's no hen night, there isn't even hanging out with friends. It's just me and the fiance, passing the time, and I think now it's time for dinner. Or late supper. Whatever you want to call it.
Right. Food.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Destination: Total Unconsciousness
Man, I sure hope I actually get to sleep tonight.
For the last two evenings, I haven't been able to sleep. The night before last, I know that I was completely up all night, straight on through morning until I finally got out of the bed. Last night, I think I may have dozed off for a few minutes at a time, only to wake up for long stretches before finally winking out momentarily as a break from the involuntary sentry duty.
There could be a few reasons for this. The night before last, I made the mistake of watching The Ring 2 before bedtime. We have a TV at the foot of our bed, and I have a phobic reaction to ghosts, so this was an exceedingly bad decision to make just before bedtime, and I harbored this mortal, terrorstricken certainty that someone with long hair was at the foot of the bed just waiting for me to break the sacred childhood rule of Poking A Body Part Out Of The Blanket. Because, as any sensible child will tell you, as long as you're under the blanket, you are completely safe. It is only when your extremities expose themselves to the night air that those precious inches of cotten, stuffing and linen can no longer protect you from every evil the world might throw at you. So it was I spent most of that evening starting to relax, then feeling my foot be exposed to night air and suddenly returning to alertness to pull my toe, hand, head back in so that bad ghost girl with scary long hair wouldn't get me.
As for last night, beats the hell out of me. I boldly faced my fear and stuck my limbs out, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't sleep, despite not actually experiencing any fear. My brain simply didn't gradually shut down and eventually switch off, instead, I suppose, simply going into brief interludes of unconsciousness as the exhaustion accumulated from the night before kicked in, only to be restored to a cranky kind of consciousness minutes later.
Heck, maybe it's just pre-wedding jitters. I haven't felt the least bit anxiety stricken about the Big Day in the least, and am actually looking forward to it, so maybe this is just my body's way of trying to experience the normal marital nervousness that's supposed to come at the prospect of being legally obligated to sleep in the same bed with a woman for the rest of your life.
Oh well, I've still got some scripts to finish...
Man, I sure hope I actually get to sleep tonight.
For the last two evenings, I haven't been able to sleep. The night before last, I know that I was completely up all night, straight on through morning until I finally got out of the bed. Last night, I think I may have dozed off for a few minutes at a time, only to wake up for long stretches before finally winking out momentarily as a break from the involuntary sentry duty.
There could be a few reasons for this. The night before last, I made the mistake of watching The Ring 2 before bedtime. We have a TV at the foot of our bed, and I have a phobic reaction to ghosts, so this was an exceedingly bad decision to make just before bedtime, and I harbored this mortal, terrorstricken certainty that someone with long hair was at the foot of the bed just waiting for me to break the sacred childhood rule of Poking A Body Part Out Of The Blanket. Because, as any sensible child will tell you, as long as you're under the blanket, you are completely safe. It is only when your extremities expose themselves to the night air that those precious inches of cotten, stuffing and linen can no longer protect you from every evil the world might throw at you. So it was I spent most of that evening starting to relax, then feeling my foot be exposed to night air and suddenly returning to alertness to pull my toe, hand, head back in so that bad ghost girl with scary long hair wouldn't get me.
As for last night, beats the hell out of me. I boldly faced my fear and stuck my limbs out, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't sleep, despite not actually experiencing any fear. My brain simply didn't gradually shut down and eventually switch off, instead, I suppose, simply going into brief interludes of unconsciousness as the exhaustion accumulated from the night before kicked in, only to be restored to a cranky kind of consciousness minutes later.
Heck, maybe it's just pre-wedding jitters. I haven't felt the least bit anxiety stricken about the Big Day in the least, and am actually looking forward to it, so maybe this is just my body's way of trying to experience the normal marital nervousness that's supposed to come at the prospect of being legally obligated to sleep in the same bed with a woman for the rest of your life.
Oh well, I've still got some scripts to finish...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Monday, October 10, 2005
No Man's Land
Better known as the Cosmetics Department of the Takashimaya department store.
Stepping into this place is like stepping into a weird, shiny, plastic version of the world where everything is made of glass, smells very nice, and comes in shades and colors you hadn't previously known existed. It is a space where Women's Insecurities are exploited to the hilt in the same way that a man's might be when he steps into an auto-dealership. Everything here is designed explicitly to make you uncomfortable and painfully aware of just how far you stray from the Beauty Ideal so thoroughly plastered on every plasma television screen, marquee display and lit sign.
It is into this warzone of self-confidence that I wandered with the Fiance as she looked around for make-up for the wedding.
One of the things that really freaked me out about the place was the insane amount of Image Engineering and Marketing Research that gone into the place. The cosmetics department is not merely a place where make up is sold, it is a frightening exercise in brand recognition. It's not like walking into, say, a video game store where you simply look at the shelf and there is a Konami game right beside a Square-Enix game, right beside an Atari game. Instead, the area is divided into zones. Estee Lauder over here, Uemaru somethin'-somethin' Japanese over here, Bobbi Brown over there. They each have their counters, sporting their distinct corporate color, their distinct corporate logo, and their own unqiue marketing aesthetic and architecture for the counter, displays, and chairs, and of course, the salesgirls.
Man, I freaked out.
Estee Lauder, for example, has girls dressed smartly in black blouses and black skirts, black hose and black shoes. I imagine this is because they are trying to be as French as possible and French is obviously all about the black. On the other end of the spectrum, you get a company called Biotherm or something to that effect, and I suppose because their corporate name sounds healthy, their girls are all wearing white track suits, as if they just hopped off the treadmill and didn't break a sweat, their rosy, painted cheeks still glowing with artificial allure. Clinique, on the other hand, due to the super-scientific sounding name they have, sport women in lab coats, looking very prim and scholarly, while some other company who's name totally escapes me, has girls smartly dressed in business jackets and slacks, making me assume they are the "corporate cosmetic" company for women that want to look good, but hit that glass ceiling on female salaries as quickly as possible.
It was unbelievable to me that amount of work that these various cosmetics companies put into establishing a very specific look for their counter girls, and yet all of them uniformly blended into a rouge-kind of blur due to the fact that they all looked like they'd thrown into a whirlpool of blush and foundation.
Cosmetics departments also seem to be where women let the venom really come out.
There were a lot of examples of women showing just how much they hate each other, but one conversation in particular that stuck out--while the Fiance was patiently ignoring all this and trying to find make up didn't look so obviously make-up-y that the only conclusion you can draw about the user is that she's a hooker, ie, most of the staff there--was a conversation between one Heavily Made Up Rich Girl and her friend that she seemed to have randomly run into.
Rich Girl 1: HIIII!!!
Rich Girl 2: HIIII!!!
[They air kiss]
Rich Girl 2: What are you doing here?
Rich Girl 1: Oh, you know, shopping for stuff. I'm thinking of getting this mascara, what do you think?
Rich Girl 2: You know, that's perfect!
Rich Girl 1: You think so?
Rich Girl 2: Oh yeah, you've got those dark marks under your eye, this really helps to blend them! Makes them look good! What about this lip stick here, I was thinking about it.
Rich Girl 1: Oh, that'll be great! Yeah, with big lips like yours those really bring them out!
[They giggle and depart after extremely fake good-byes]
And I'm left standing there thinking, "My God, do you two even like each other?"
Women are amazing in how subtle their levels of viciousness towards each other can go. I think I'll just stick to video games where if someone doesn't like me, they just shoot at me. You can't get much more straightforward than THAT.
Better known as the Cosmetics Department of the Takashimaya department store.
Stepping into this place is like stepping into a weird, shiny, plastic version of the world where everything is made of glass, smells very nice, and comes in shades and colors you hadn't previously known existed. It is a space where Women's Insecurities are exploited to the hilt in the same way that a man's might be when he steps into an auto-dealership. Everything here is designed explicitly to make you uncomfortable and painfully aware of just how far you stray from the Beauty Ideal so thoroughly plastered on every plasma television screen, marquee display and lit sign.
It is into this warzone of self-confidence that I wandered with the Fiance as she looked around for make-up for the wedding.
One of the things that really freaked me out about the place was the insane amount of Image Engineering and Marketing Research that gone into the place. The cosmetics department is not merely a place where make up is sold, it is a frightening exercise in brand recognition. It's not like walking into, say, a video game store where you simply look at the shelf and there is a Konami game right beside a Square-Enix game, right beside an Atari game. Instead, the area is divided into zones. Estee Lauder over here, Uemaru somethin'-somethin' Japanese over here, Bobbi Brown over there. They each have their counters, sporting their distinct corporate color, their distinct corporate logo, and their own unqiue marketing aesthetic and architecture for the counter, displays, and chairs, and of course, the salesgirls.
Man, I freaked out.
Estee Lauder, for example, has girls dressed smartly in black blouses and black skirts, black hose and black shoes. I imagine this is because they are trying to be as French as possible and French is obviously all about the black. On the other end of the spectrum, you get a company called Biotherm or something to that effect, and I suppose because their corporate name sounds healthy, their girls are all wearing white track suits, as if they just hopped off the treadmill and didn't break a sweat, their rosy, painted cheeks still glowing with artificial allure. Clinique, on the other hand, due to the super-scientific sounding name they have, sport women in lab coats, looking very prim and scholarly, while some other company who's name totally escapes me, has girls smartly dressed in business jackets and slacks, making me assume they are the "corporate cosmetic" company for women that want to look good, but hit that glass ceiling on female salaries as quickly as possible.
It was unbelievable to me that amount of work that these various cosmetics companies put into establishing a very specific look for their counter girls, and yet all of them uniformly blended into a rouge-kind of blur due to the fact that they all looked like they'd thrown into a whirlpool of blush and foundation.
Cosmetics departments also seem to be where women let the venom really come out.
There were a lot of examples of women showing just how much they hate each other, but one conversation in particular that stuck out--while the Fiance was patiently ignoring all this and trying to find make up didn't look so obviously make-up-y that the only conclusion you can draw about the user is that she's a hooker, ie, most of the staff there--was a conversation between one Heavily Made Up Rich Girl and her friend that she seemed to have randomly run into.
Rich Girl 1: HIIII!!!
Rich Girl 2: HIIII!!!
[They air kiss]
Rich Girl 2: What are you doing here?
Rich Girl 1: Oh, you know, shopping for stuff. I'm thinking of getting this mascara, what do you think?
Rich Girl 2: You know, that's perfect!
Rich Girl 1: You think so?
Rich Girl 2: Oh yeah, you've got those dark marks under your eye, this really helps to blend them! Makes them look good! What about this lip stick here, I was thinking about it.
Rich Girl 1: Oh, that'll be great! Yeah, with big lips like yours those really bring them out!
[They giggle and depart after extremely fake good-byes]
And I'm left standing there thinking, "My God, do you two even like each other?"
Women are amazing in how subtle their levels of viciousness towards each other can go. I think I'll just stick to video games where if someone doesn't like me, they just shoot at me. You can't get much more straightforward than THAT.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Monday, October 03, 2005
Blogger's Back And So Am I
Whew.
After being out of the loop since Wednesday, I can finally post again.
For whatever reason, when Blogger underwent some kind of database upgrade last week, it made it impossible for me to create any new posts. Now, inexplicably, I can again. Go figure.
I tried reconstructing what I wanted to post on the days when I couldn't, so there it is below with pseudo-dating to show what was supposed to go there on those particular days. Oh, and I finally managed to finish Indigo Prophecy. Definitely one of the more fun Adventure Game experiences I've had in the last few years. It's no The Longest Journey, but then that's a hard act to beat. Still, in it's own way, it managed to provide a different, and very engaging story, that kind of falls apart with some inexplicable tangents to it's story line in the last act.
Today, I picked up the wedding invitations.
The Fiance made them. They're not really invites, since we've gone and asked anyone we wanted to attend to do just that. They're actually more keepsakes, and "tickets" for the invited to flash at the Book Cafe where the reception is taking place, so that the staff there will know for sure that no one is gate crashing.
Damn. I'm getting married in 16 days. That's freaky...
Whew.
After being out of the loop since Wednesday, I can finally post again.
For whatever reason, when Blogger underwent some kind of database upgrade last week, it made it impossible for me to create any new posts. Now, inexplicably, I can again. Go figure.
I tried reconstructing what I wanted to post on the days when I couldn't, so there it is below with pseudo-dating to show what was supposed to go there on those particular days. Oh, and I finally managed to finish Indigo Prophecy. Definitely one of the more fun Adventure Game experiences I've had in the last few years. It's no The Longest Journey, but then that's a hard act to beat. Still, in it's own way, it managed to provide a different, and very engaging story, that kind of falls apart with some inexplicable tangents to it's story line in the last act.
Today, I picked up the wedding invitations.
The Fiance made them. They're not really invites, since we've gone and asked anyone we wanted to attend to do just that. They're actually more keepsakes, and "tickets" for the invited to flash at the Book Cafe where the reception is taking place, so that the staff there will know for sure that no one is gate crashing.
Damn. I'm getting married in 16 days. That's freaky...
Labels: Adventure Games, Games, Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Thursday, September 22, 2005
DVDs, Wedding Stuff & Outlines
In what is an unabashedly geeky moment of pure SF Joy, I saw the review on IGN for the Battlestar Galactica season 1 set. I was expecting the review to be good and it was. But what's more important is that the review means the set is now available for shameless mass consumerism, and that means it will be available in Singapore at some point in the near future, and I want this set BAD. I haven't wanted a DVD set for a television series this badly since Babylon 5, but then from what I've seen, Galactica has the potential to equal, and perhaps surpass what I saw in Babylon 5, so I'm a happy little nerd bouncing around the island hoping that some day reeeeeeeeeeal soon, I'll be able to walk into the store and see that DVD set up there so I can squeal like a pig and roll around on my back until the foaming at my mouth stops.
In other news, yesterday the Fiance and I met up with the Solemnizer. I'm not sure how the others work, but this guy wanted to meet up with us and have a little talk first, to discuss the wedding plans, who we were, why we wanted to get married, how long we'd known each other, and stuff like that. He also needed to meet us so that he could sign some form saying that he had legally and voluntarily given us his operating number as a Solemnizer so that we could file for the marriage registration online, but have black & white proof of his having given us the number when the time came to pick up the physical documents. We also ran into his wife, the JOanne from my previous hunt, who wished us luck and once again expressed her okay-ness with the rather bizarre set of circumstances regarding why she was unsuitable for the wedding.
And of course, the mini-series continues apace. I'm hoping to have the outline (Or at least my end of it) done by tonight. The rehearsals have been going to some very weird places, but as it's for the benefit of the actors, and to give us some idea of what their character is like (and because everyone is aware of the HUGE difference between television and stage work in Singapore and what is acceptable in either medium) we don't expect to use everything, nor could we really. Some of the stuff they do is either well into the red zone, or financially impossible to pull with the budgets of local television. It's really a shame. They're generating some very nice moments, and there quite a few character pieces I'd love to use, but they are just impossible to pull off because the humanity they portray is in direct contrast with the reality that the broadcasters are obligated to present.
It's inevitable, I think, that the final product is going to be grossly watered down. I just hope that the people in charge are aware of that, because it's something me and the other writer always have in the back of our heads, and we also know that the company that's providing the equipment for this has had enough experience with the Singapore broadcasting system to know what they are going to say "NO" to when they see the scripts and episodes start rolling out.
Oh well...
In what is an unabashedly geeky moment of pure SF Joy, I saw the review on IGN for the Battlestar Galactica season 1 set. I was expecting the review to be good and it was. But what's more important is that the review means the set is now available for shameless mass consumerism, and that means it will be available in Singapore at some point in the near future, and I want this set BAD. I haven't wanted a DVD set for a television series this badly since Babylon 5, but then from what I've seen, Galactica has the potential to equal, and perhaps surpass what I saw in Babylon 5, so I'm a happy little nerd bouncing around the island hoping that some day reeeeeeeeeeal soon, I'll be able to walk into the store and see that DVD set up there so I can squeal like a pig and roll around on my back until the foaming at my mouth stops.
In other news, yesterday the Fiance and I met up with the Solemnizer. I'm not sure how the others work, but this guy wanted to meet up with us and have a little talk first, to discuss the wedding plans, who we were, why we wanted to get married, how long we'd known each other, and stuff like that. He also needed to meet us so that he could sign some form saying that he had legally and voluntarily given us his operating number as a Solemnizer so that we could file for the marriage registration online, but have black & white proof of his having given us the number when the time came to pick up the physical documents. We also ran into his wife, the JOanne from my previous hunt, who wished us luck and once again expressed her okay-ness with the rather bizarre set of circumstances regarding why she was unsuitable for the wedding.
And of course, the mini-series continues apace. I'm hoping to have the outline (Or at least my end of it) done by tonight. The rehearsals have been going to some very weird places, but as it's for the benefit of the actors, and to give us some idea of what their character is like (and because everyone is aware of the HUGE difference between television and stage work in Singapore and what is acceptable in either medium) we don't expect to use everything, nor could we really. Some of the stuff they do is either well into the red zone, or financially impossible to pull with the budgets of local television. It's really a shame. They're generating some very nice moments, and there quite a few character pieces I'd love to use, but they are just impossible to pull off because the humanity they portray is in direct contrast with the reality that the broadcasters are obligated to present.
It's inevitable, I think, that the final product is going to be grossly watered down. I just hope that the people in charge are aware of that, because it's something me and the other writer always have in the back of our heads, and we also know that the company that's providing the equipment for this has had enough experience with the Singapore broadcasting system to know what they are going to say "NO" to when they see the scripts and episodes start rolling out.
Oh well...
Labels: Battlestar Galactica, Icky Couple Stuff, My Life, Sci-Fi Television, Television Production
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Solemnizers Are Not Called "Jo"
I still get kind of freaked out by the Singapore title for people legally empowered to marry others off. I mean, "Solemnizer"... It sounds like a professional mourner or something. Somebody that stands there with a dour face and makes deep, throaty grunts with a quick nod or shake of the head and a penetrating gaze that looks into the pit of your soul and says, "You're going to die soon."
However of course, that is not the case. Well, it might be depending on your outlook of marriage. I suppose if the impending nuptials are run by an angry father who wants to make sure his carefree daughter gets married BEFORE her belly starts to show visible signs of pregnancy, then such a ceremony, with resentful party guy and devastated good time girl would be a solemn occasion indeed, and no one would be especially happy with that day of days. Of course, that's not our situation, so to me, having someone be all solemn to officiate the wedding just strikes me as weirdly baroque, and something that would better fit in an Anne Rice novel with people bemoaning--or outright challenging--destiny and the cruel fates it has in store for everyone.
So anyway, today my search for a Solemnizer finally ended. I had about three pages worth of listings on people who were licensed to do it, and I went through it in rapid succession with many, many, MANY "No's" because it seems like quite a few people require this same service on this particular day, or the people who perform Solemnizations had decided to leave the country on that particular day. As I kept scratching off more and more names and feeling the noose tighten, I finally managed to luck out with a nice woman on the other end who, contrary to all previous expectation, was completely available, ready, willing and able. I promptly signed her on and told the Fiance "We got one!" only to have her horrified reaction a moment later when I told her the woman's name was Joanna.
This apparently is not on, because my future Mother-In-Law has an extremely phobic reaction to people who's names begin with "JO". I don't know the full details, and I'm not even sure I want to know, but apparently after a consistently bad run with men and women who have "JO" in their name, my mother-in-law to be has more or less refused any and all interactions with people that have those two dreaded letters in that particular order, and so there was NO FREAKIN' WAY, that she was going to allow her daughter to be married by such a hideous person.
Right.
So I called her back and told her we needed to cancel on grounds of Warding Evil, which she graciously accepted, albeit with a lot of puzzled laughter. The Fiance was apologetic about the whole thing, but we got saved when the woman called back to offer that her husband was also a legally empowered Solemnizer and his name was Gary, so that's all right then, isn't it?
Apparently it is.
So after a couple of days of frantic searching, we now have someone that is willing to marry us on the appointed day at the appointed time. We just have to meet up with him so he can discuss a few ceremony-ish things, and sign the approrpiate forms that can be submitted to ROM (Not the Space Knight, but the Registry Of Marriages) and then we'll be all nice and legal for October.
My only concern now is that the person who was arranging the venue for the ceremony itself was a woman named Jontel. But oh well, I guess we'll just see whether that's just cause for a trauma in the future or not...
I still get kind of freaked out by the Singapore title for people legally empowered to marry others off. I mean, "Solemnizer"... It sounds like a professional mourner or something. Somebody that stands there with a dour face and makes deep, throaty grunts with a quick nod or shake of the head and a penetrating gaze that looks into the pit of your soul and says, "You're going to die soon."
However of course, that is not the case. Well, it might be depending on your outlook of marriage. I suppose if the impending nuptials are run by an angry father who wants to make sure his carefree daughter gets married BEFORE her belly starts to show visible signs of pregnancy, then such a ceremony, with resentful party guy and devastated good time girl would be a solemn occasion indeed, and no one would be especially happy with that day of days. Of course, that's not our situation, so to me, having someone be all solemn to officiate the wedding just strikes me as weirdly baroque, and something that would better fit in an Anne Rice novel with people bemoaning--or outright challenging--destiny and the cruel fates it has in store for everyone.
So anyway, today my search for a Solemnizer finally ended. I had about three pages worth of listings on people who were licensed to do it, and I went through it in rapid succession with many, many, MANY "No's" because it seems like quite a few people require this same service on this particular day, or the people who perform Solemnizations had decided to leave the country on that particular day. As I kept scratching off more and more names and feeling the noose tighten, I finally managed to luck out with a nice woman on the other end who, contrary to all previous expectation, was completely available, ready, willing and able. I promptly signed her on and told the Fiance "We got one!" only to have her horrified reaction a moment later when I told her the woman's name was Joanna.
This apparently is not on, because my future Mother-In-Law has an extremely phobic reaction to people who's names begin with "JO". I don't know the full details, and I'm not even sure I want to know, but apparently after a consistently bad run with men and women who have "JO" in their name, my mother-in-law to be has more or less refused any and all interactions with people that have those two dreaded letters in that particular order, and so there was NO FREAKIN' WAY, that she was going to allow her daughter to be married by such a hideous person.
Right.
So I called her back and told her we needed to cancel on grounds of Warding Evil, which she graciously accepted, albeit with a lot of puzzled laughter. The Fiance was apologetic about the whole thing, but we got saved when the woman called back to offer that her husband was also a legally empowered Solemnizer and his name was Gary, so that's all right then, isn't it?
Apparently it is.
So after a couple of days of frantic searching, we now have someone that is willing to marry us on the appointed day at the appointed time. We just have to meet up with him so he can discuss a few ceremony-ish things, and sign the approrpiate forms that can be submitted to ROM (Not the Space Knight, but the Registry Of Marriages) and then we'll be all nice and legal for October.
My only concern now is that the person who was arranging the venue for the ceremony itself was a woman named Jontel. But oh well, I guess we'll just see whether that's just cause for a trauma in the future or not...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Monday, September 19, 2005
My Precious
This is something of an amazingly uncharacteristic post. Mostly because it's so domestic. Most of the time with a male blog, you'll find almost no mention of an impending marriage simply because I suspect it's too embarrassing for most men to deal with and it's regarded as a girly thing. Not being a particularly masculine guy to begin with, I'm not having this problem.
So we did wedding stuff today. Well, we did it this afternoon. My morning was spent talking to the other writer about the upcoming project. The talk mostly consisted of us staring at each other across a table, shaking our head and muttering, "What the hell are we going to do?" and then not knowing for several more minutes until the entire meeting had elapsed. Productive, no?
Once that meeting and the ones with the producers and directors was over, we went into town to look at possible places to hold the wedding. The Fiance's parents have decided to be nice to us and splurge a little on the traditional Singapore Wedding Night At A Hotel, so we were looking at nice little small spaces that would be a little more in line with the kind of thing that we like and where a small group of people could assemble for what in Singapore is referred to as the Solemnization. The way it works here, because of the different religions, is the LEGAL recognition of a wedding must be "solemnized" before an appropriate city representative/justice of the peace type. Then the Real Wedding can take place. Unless of course, you're a Godless heathen, in which case the solemnization IS the wedding.
We have settled on the Gallery Hotel. Not only is it kind of neat and designer-y looking, but the bar out back, the Liquid Room, happens to be where we first laid eyes on each other, even though we wouldn't actually talk or get together for a few years after that initial awareness of each other's existence. And just across the street is the Book Cafe, which is one of my favorite cafes in the entire island anyway.
We have also picked up the wedding rings. This all went surprisingly fast. The final selection of rings is vaguely Elvish in design, at least with the swirly bits on the top, so I suppose you can't go wrong with forces of Tolkien moving you towards your destiny. I'm kind of amazed that these two processes were so quick and painless. A wedding venue, and the rings all picked up in one afternoon. Not too shabby.
Annnnd I've got an article for my video game magazine gig that still needs some finishing up, but at least it's mostly done.
This is something of an amazingly uncharacteristic post. Mostly because it's so domestic. Most of the time with a male blog, you'll find almost no mention of an impending marriage simply because I suspect it's too embarrassing for most men to deal with and it's regarded as a girly thing. Not being a particularly masculine guy to begin with, I'm not having this problem.
So we did wedding stuff today. Well, we did it this afternoon. My morning was spent talking to the other writer about the upcoming project. The talk mostly consisted of us staring at each other across a table, shaking our head and muttering, "What the hell are we going to do?" and then not knowing for several more minutes until the entire meeting had elapsed. Productive, no?
Once that meeting and the ones with the producers and directors was over, we went into town to look at possible places to hold the wedding. The Fiance's parents have decided to be nice to us and splurge a little on the traditional Singapore Wedding Night At A Hotel, so we were looking at nice little small spaces that would be a little more in line with the kind of thing that we like and where a small group of people could assemble for what in Singapore is referred to as the Solemnization. The way it works here, because of the different religions, is the LEGAL recognition of a wedding must be "solemnized" before an appropriate city representative/justice of the peace type. Then the Real Wedding can take place. Unless of course, you're a Godless heathen, in which case the solemnization IS the wedding.
We have settled on the Gallery Hotel. Not only is it kind of neat and designer-y looking, but the bar out back, the Liquid Room, happens to be where we first laid eyes on each other, even though we wouldn't actually talk or get together for a few years after that initial awareness of each other's existence. And just across the street is the Book Cafe, which is one of my favorite cafes in the entire island anyway.
We have also picked up the wedding rings. This all went surprisingly fast. The final selection of rings is vaguely Elvish in design, at least with the swirly bits on the top, so I suppose you can't go wrong with forces of Tolkien moving you towards your destiny. I'm kind of amazed that these two processes were so quick and painless. A wedding venue, and the rings all picked up in one afternoon. Not too shabby.
Annnnd I've got an article for my video game magazine gig that still needs some finishing up, but at least it's mostly done.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Back In The Saddle
Oh those whacky pre-production meetings...
So on top of the fact that we've decided to get married and now have to find a new replacement place to live in November, we're both monstrously busy. I'm still pounding away at that Kiddy Non-Fiction book (Hopefully I can send off draft 2 by Monday) and on top of this, the same people who hired me for that are also putting me through the initial paces of this 8 episode mini-series they're doing.
I just came back from one of the pre-production meetings. There's an awful lot of documentation going on, one guy flits around from one corner of the meeting room to the other with digital video camera, taking down everything for posterity's sake, or potentially some DVD extra, or documentary about the making of show, which, of course, I can't talk about.
I think I am safe in mentioning however that there is a strong element of improvisation involved, which is why my position as one of the writers is tricky, as it means having to adapt and work with whatever is given to me, as opposed to giving the material to the actors and letting them worry about how to execute what I just made up. Now I'm in their position.
This will keep me occupied for the next couple of months, and will involve a lot of sitting around in rehearsal spaces watching actors do their thing and then walking away thinking, "Crap, what do I do with this?!?"
Scary. But should also be fun.
Oh yeah, and there's still a children's book to write. So to take stock, I am looking at my plate and what I see is:
1) Finish commissioned kiddie book.
2) Work on mini-series.
3) Get married.
4) Find new place to live.
5) Start on children's novel.
6) Worry about what's happening with The Pale Summer
7) Get the Wife (As she will be next month) her Canadian PR.
8) Look to the horizon for the Canada move.
Hm... Okay, that seems to be enough for now. Dear Life, no more surprises please, I'm quite good with what I've got...
Oh those whacky pre-production meetings...
So on top of the fact that we've decided to get married and now have to find a new replacement place to live in November, we're both monstrously busy. I'm still pounding away at that Kiddy Non-Fiction book (Hopefully I can send off draft 2 by Monday) and on top of this, the same people who hired me for that are also putting me through the initial paces of this 8 episode mini-series they're doing.
I just came back from one of the pre-production meetings. There's an awful lot of documentation going on, one guy flits around from one corner of the meeting room to the other with digital video camera, taking down everything for posterity's sake, or potentially some DVD extra, or documentary about the making of show, which, of course, I can't talk about.
I think I am safe in mentioning however that there is a strong element of improvisation involved, which is why my position as one of the writers is tricky, as it means having to adapt and work with whatever is given to me, as opposed to giving the material to the actors and letting them worry about how to execute what I just made up. Now I'm in their position.
This will keep me occupied for the next couple of months, and will involve a lot of sitting around in rehearsal spaces watching actors do their thing and then walking away thinking, "Crap, what do I do with this?!?"
Scary. But should also be fun.
Oh yeah, and there's still a children's book to write. So to take stock, I am looking at my plate and what I see is:
1) Finish commissioned kiddie book.
2) Work on mini-series.
3) Get married.
4) Find new place to live.
5) Start on children's novel.
6) Worry about what's happening with The Pale Summer
7) Get the Wife (As she will be next month) her Canadian PR.
8) Look to the horizon for the Canada move.
Hm... Okay, that seems to be enough for now. Dear Life, no more surprises please, I'm quite good with what I've got...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life, Television Production
Friday, September 16, 2005
The Reality Check
In light of this morning's events, it looks like a November move to Vancouver probably won't be possible.
I had to go down to get my passport renewed and squared away anyhow (Which was as bureaucratic as the last time, but with fewer hiccups) and while I was down there, the fiance tagged along to see about how we would go about getting her the legal capacity to stay in Canada.
It turns out that the two step process of 1) Become a permanent resident, and 2) Spend a certain number of years as a permanent resident before becoming a citizen, must first be followed by an approximate 6 month period. That, apparently, is how long it takes for the Singapore and Canadian governments to process a request for PR status for a Singapore citizen, if they are a married/common law partner to a Canadian national.
Which means, obviously, that November is totally out of the question, and a move in spring is definitely more feasible. That seems to be the new plan.
However, to make things a little easier, I have an announcement to make:
We are getting married in October. The 19th, it looks like at the moment.
I know that is horrifyingly short notice, especially for friends in Canada who had told me for years that they dreamed of the moment of my wedding when they could rub my face in it and tell me I was dead wrong... but all I can say is, the chance is there, it's just that you've got just a little over a month to see to the arrangements.
It's going to be a very a small, intimate thing, no big reception, and it might even take place just at home, with only a few friends present (We'll need to two legal witnesses, the Fiance has already picked hers, leaving mine up in the air) and then... maybe just go to a restaurant or something, or even sit back afterwards and just have conversation and coffee... But that's kind of the way I'd always hoped my wedding would be; a small thing with only people I counted as friends present, and no big hoopla afterwards.
Obviously with our financial status, there won't be any big hotel stays, or even a honeymoon at this point (That will have to wait until we're not scrimping and saving for the Canada move) but I don't really feel the lack. A vacation is nice, but being finally hitched to The One is the most important thing, and since I'm getting that, what the hell else can I complain about?
So the score thus far:
Vancouver in November: No go.
Wedding in October: Hell yeah.
Gentlemen, start your engines.
In light of this morning's events, it looks like a November move to Vancouver probably won't be possible.
I had to go down to get my passport renewed and squared away anyhow (Which was as bureaucratic as the last time, but with fewer hiccups) and while I was down there, the fiance tagged along to see about how we would go about getting her the legal capacity to stay in Canada.
It turns out that the two step process of 1) Become a permanent resident, and 2) Spend a certain number of years as a permanent resident before becoming a citizen, must first be followed by an approximate 6 month period. That, apparently, is how long it takes for the Singapore and Canadian governments to process a request for PR status for a Singapore citizen, if they are a married/common law partner to a Canadian national.
Which means, obviously, that November is totally out of the question, and a move in spring is definitely more feasible. That seems to be the new plan.
However, to make things a little easier, I have an announcement to make:
We are getting married in October. The 19th, it looks like at the moment.
I know that is horrifyingly short notice, especially for friends in Canada who had told me for years that they dreamed of the moment of my wedding when they could rub my face in it and tell me I was dead wrong... but all I can say is, the chance is there, it's just that you've got just a little over a month to see to the arrangements.
It's going to be a very a small, intimate thing, no big reception, and it might even take place just at home, with only a few friends present (We'll need to two legal witnesses, the Fiance has already picked hers, leaving mine up in the air) and then... maybe just go to a restaurant or something, or even sit back afterwards and just have conversation and coffee... But that's kind of the way I'd always hoped my wedding would be; a small thing with only people I counted as friends present, and no big hoopla afterwards.
Obviously with our financial status, there won't be any big hotel stays, or even a honeymoon at this point (That will have to wait until we're not scrimping and saving for the Canada move) but I don't really feel the lack. A vacation is nice, but being finally hitched to The One is the most important thing, and since I'm getting that, what the hell else can I complain about?
So the score thus far:
Vancouver in November: No go.
Wedding in October: Hell yeah.
Gentlemen, start your engines.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Sunday, July 31, 2005
The Genius Thing My Fiance Said At The Bookstore Today:
"Why don't they ever give you a decent cover until you're dead?"
Classic.
And I've got soooo much writing to do...
"Why don't they ever give you a decent cover until you're dead?"
Classic.
And I've got soooo much writing to do...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Retroactive Pride
It's a teensy bit dated, but nevertheless, I feel compelled to pimp the Fiance with a recent interview with her that appeared here.
You will note that trying to stalk her on the Internet not only yields far more substantial Googles than what you get with me (Then again, anything is more substantial than "I played Forza Motorsport a lot and liked it"), but in multiple languages even. I think the Spanish like her, but I can't say for sure...
It's a teensy bit dated, but nevertheless, I feel compelled to pimp the Fiance with a recent interview with her that appeared here.
You will note that trying to stalk her on the Internet not only yields far more substantial Googles than what you get with me (Then again, anything is more substantial than "I played Forza Motorsport a lot and liked it"), but in multiple languages even. I think the Spanish like her, but I can't say for sure...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Cereal Hoarding: Discuss.
Can you tell I'm writing a book again?
This sort of thing seems to happen when novels are in progress as I feel like I want to keep on writing, yet don't want to stare at the page and wait for my fingers to transcribe the movie in my head, so I jump over to something else, like e-mail, or the ol' blog...
The fiance for whatever reason, went to bed at the amazingly late hour of 7-8 pm, and so I've been tinkering away, doing research, looking for new words to define a group (And finally settling on the French "Cortege" which also has associations with a funeral procession. Trust me, it'll all make sense...) and of course, adding more dialogue n' such to the novel (Now entertaining a debate to give in and just make it a two parter, so I can tell a 600 page story instead of worry about cramming it into 300-450 pages), but before that, we went shopping!
For breakfast cereal.
The brand in question is Post's Selects: Great Grains Whole Grain Cereal, which contains raisins, dates & pecans and is supposedly "Inspired by the taste of home-baked raisin nut bread." I know the minutae of the box copy because it is sitting beside me for reference.
Anyway's, the fiance has taken a new--and in my opinion--wholly obessive attitude towards this cereal as it is one of the few breakfast cereals she enjoys and at some point a few months ago, for reasons still unknown, it was taken off the shelves, with the only explanation being some kind of product recall. Lo and behold, it eventually returned, but now is completely sealed in plastic, making me suspect that perhaps another round of poisonings occurred somewhere and this is the cereal equivalent of "If you find the seal broken, please bring it to the attention of your retailer."
However its return, while wildly welcomed by her, was by no means a regular occurrence and in the ensuing time, more "droughts" of this cereal have occurred. This has kicked in the stockpiling/hoarding instinct in her somethin' powerful and even though she had three boxes of the stuff lying around, she was unwilling to open them, and today, upon finding a grocery store that had more stock, picked up another four boxes and briefly, seriously contemplated simply cleaning out their remaining stock and asking the manager if they had anymore in the back.
Rationality prevailed (Well, not really, it was more like the promise of looking in other stores and pointing out that she'd be denying other Post Select Grains fans their fair share) and decided to leave it at that, but now every time I open the kitchen cupboard, I now find SEVEN FUCKING BOXES OF THE SAME DAMN CEREAL STARING ME IN THE FACE.
I'm thinking that Post needs to do a new advertising campaign borne of the desperation these "cereal embargoes" have created in their customer base. Something along the lines of people mumbling in the streets and weeping in pitiful heaps in dingy corners of alleys until a Post truck shows up the people hurriedly collect it and then it gets trafficked on the streets while the customers look around with darting eyes before saying "Come on, man, you promised! I need it..."
Once they get their cereal, they retreat to their squalid one room apartments and eat it while Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" plays in the background and they sit at their kitchen table drooling and slackjacwed while the cereal high takes them. Commercial fades to black with "Great Grains: You don't want it, you need it."
Y'know ten years ago, if someone had told me, "One day you're going to get engaged to cereal junkie" I would have said "Yeah, right..."
Good thing I didn't make any promises to eat, crow or any other grossly inappropriate objects.
What I'd Like To See In A Comedy Sketch
Camera starts on some woman that seems to be manning a booth, going through some forms, minding her own business, just doing her job.
A man enters the frame looking completely forlorn.
Cut to reverse angle, you can see just how broken and pathetic he looks staring with wild hope at the woman in the booth.
Reverse angle again, she's still preoccupied with her forms, but finally notices him and looks wary.
"Yes?" She asks.
Reverse angle. "I can't take it anymore," he says. "I admit it. I stole all that money from the company. And I lied when I told my wife I'd never strayed. And when my kid was four years old and bent down to pick up a toy, I kicked him and laughed then blamed it on the dog. And the ring with the emerald on it when Grandma died that everyone assumed some janitor at the funeral home had stolen? It was me. And I was the one that farted in the movie theater and said my kid did it. I'm sorrrrrrrrrrry!!!!!"
Reverse angle. The woman blinks in total confusion. "Why are you telling me this?!? What do you want me to do about it?!?"
On the man, close up. His lips tremble as his eyes widen and he bursts into tears.
Cut to long shot showing the woman is manning a booth with a big sign that says in small letters "Coupon" and in massive letters "Redemption."
Meanwhile the man throws himself at her desk, weeping and pounding his fist on it.
Can you tell I'm writing a book again?
This sort of thing seems to happen when novels are in progress as I feel like I want to keep on writing, yet don't want to stare at the page and wait for my fingers to transcribe the movie in my head, so I jump over to something else, like e-mail, or the ol' blog...
The fiance for whatever reason, went to bed at the amazingly late hour of 7-8 pm, and so I've been tinkering away, doing research, looking for new words to define a group (And finally settling on the French "Cortege" which also has associations with a funeral procession. Trust me, it'll all make sense...) and of course, adding more dialogue n' such to the novel (Now entertaining a debate to give in and just make it a two parter, so I can tell a 600 page story instead of worry about cramming it into 300-450 pages), but before that, we went shopping!
For breakfast cereal.
The brand in question is Post's Selects: Great Grains Whole Grain Cereal, which contains raisins, dates & pecans and is supposedly "Inspired by the taste of home-baked raisin nut bread." I know the minutae of the box copy because it is sitting beside me for reference.
Anyway's, the fiance has taken a new--and in my opinion--wholly obessive attitude towards this cereal as it is one of the few breakfast cereals she enjoys and at some point a few months ago, for reasons still unknown, it was taken off the shelves, with the only explanation being some kind of product recall. Lo and behold, it eventually returned, but now is completely sealed in plastic, making me suspect that perhaps another round of poisonings occurred somewhere and this is the cereal equivalent of "If you find the seal broken, please bring it to the attention of your retailer."
However its return, while wildly welcomed by her, was by no means a regular occurrence and in the ensuing time, more "droughts" of this cereal have occurred. This has kicked in the stockpiling/hoarding instinct in her somethin' powerful and even though she had three boxes of the stuff lying around, she was unwilling to open them, and today, upon finding a grocery store that had more stock, picked up another four boxes and briefly, seriously contemplated simply cleaning out their remaining stock and asking the manager if they had anymore in the back.
Rationality prevailed (Well, not really, it was more like the promise of looking in other stores and pointing out that she'd be denying other Post Select Grains fans their fair share) and decided to leave it at that, but now every time I open the kitchen cupboard, I now find SEVEN FUCKING BOXES OF THE SAME DAMN CEREAL STARING ME IN THE FACE.
I'm thinking that Post needs to do a new advertising campaign borne of the desperation these "cereal embargoes" have created in their customer base. Something along the lines of people mumbling in the streets and weeping in pitiful heaps in dingy corners of alleys until a Post truck shows up the people hurriedly collect it and then it gets trafficked on the streets while the customers look around with darting eyes before saying "Come on, man, you promised! I need it..."
Once they get their cereal, they retreat to their squalid one room apartments and eat it while Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" plays in the background and they sit at their kitchen table drooling and slackjacwed while the cereal high takes them. Commercial fades to black with "Great Grains: You don't want it, you need it."
Y'know ten years ago, if someone had told me, "One day you're going to get engaged to cereal junkie" I would have said "Yeah, right..."
Good thing I didn't make any promises to eat, crow or any other grossly inappropriate objects.
What I'd Like To See In A Comedy Sketch
Camera starts on some woman that seems to be manning a booth, going through some forms, minding her own business, just doing her job.
A man enters the frame looking completely forlorn.
Cut to reverse angle, you can see just how broken and pathetic he looks staring with wild hope at the woman in the booth.
Reverse angle again, she's still preoccupied with her forms, but finally notices him and looks wary.
"Yes?" She asks.
Reverse angle. "I can't take it anymore," he says. "I admit it. I stole all that money from the company. And I lied when I told my wife I'd never strayed. And when my kid was four years old and bent down to pick up a toy, I kicked him and laughed then blamed it on the dog. And the ring with the emerald on it when Grandma died that everyone assumed some janitor at the funeral home had stolen? It was me. And I was the one that farted in the movie theater and said my kid did it. I'm sorrrrrrrrrrry!!!!!"
Reverse angle. The woman blinks in total confusion. "Why are you telling me this?!? What do you want me to do about it?!?"
On the man, close up. His lips tremble as his eyes widen and he bursts into tears.
Cut to long shot showing the woman is manning a booth with a big sign that says in small letters "Coupon" and in massive letters "Redemption."
Meanwhile the man throws himself at her desk, weeping and pounding his fist on it.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life, Random Blargh, Stupid Scripts
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Yup, It's The New Year Blog
After a long hiatus, it is time to once more foul the airwaves with the rather undramatic events of my life, dramatized with much narrative license so as to make myself sound more interesting.
But first off:
Why I Have Been Silent
Truth to tell, mostly because I didn't have much to say, nothing much interesting was going on, and I was distracted with games. Lots of games. Tons of games. In fact I'm still playing games at the moment, the current one being the amazing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, but I'll save that for a bit a later. Suffice to say that I was going to make an entry at a regularly appointed time when blogger suddenly went through a spate of eating my posts (There was an entry I had typed out about how I felt David & Goliath was actually handled by Hassidic PR managers that spin doctored the entire affair, I was rather proud of that...) that got sucked into the ether of the 'net and shall remain unwritten unless someone bugs me to do it again. I've always been a sucker for requests...
Anyway, after having a few such posts eaten, I got a little fed up with blogging for a while and decided to take a break, which got swallowed up into months as work, gaming, DVD viewing, movies and of course, the girlfriend all took up their appropriate hours and days. But here's what you've been missing, which is, admittedly, not much.
The Impossible Has Happened
On October 19th, of 2004, I proposed to my girlfriend and she said yes, so for people that have known me since childhood, or, worse yet, highschool, I am now in a position to have never been so happy to have been wrong. There is at least ONE person on this planet that doesn't vomit at the thought of spending the rest of her life with me.
No actual date has been set for a wedding, it's one of those things we'll probably just sort of do when we feel like it. However, after having lived together for over two years, it's a safe bet that there won't be any unpleasant surprises we'll discover about each other that most couples only come across after they're married and are forced to see each other everyday. We've been doing it for quite a while now and so far no major problems have cropped up.
As a special note, I'd like to add that to childhood friend Francis, I must remind you that I am a man of my word. We once made a bet that I would never get married, and if I ever did find someone crazy enough to do it, you would find yourself $1,000 richer on my wedding day. Well, I'll pay up to be sure, but since we're not exactly the richest couple in the world, you'll have to collect on the bet sometime in distant future, but don't worry, you'll get it. That's $1,000 I'm glad to give away.
On Work
Things professionally have been moving slowly but steadily. I still write reviews and other articles for the Singapore gaming magazine Hardware Zone. Some writing has been met favorably, such as my article on the history of Nintendo. Others have been met not so favorably, with one angry reader calling me a "Moronic Halo fanboy" for giving Halo 2 a perfect score. Oh well, can't please everybody. I'd be interested to see, however, if the fellow who made such a comment would be willing to say it to my face with other people around, but that's the 'net for ya'...
On the Computer Animated series, things are gearing up. We're working on some early production stuff--and no, I STILL can't talk about what it is exactly--and for once, it looks like my skepticism about the project may be wrong and that it will actually see the light of day. We're still going to need a ton of work before we have anything presentable, but it looks like 2005 is the year of the CGI cartoon. I'm curious about how it'll all turn out. I always said I thought it would be neat to work on such a series and now that I am, I'm finding that my production experience in television over the last few years has actually proved marginally useful. Hopefully by next year there will be more talk about it on the internet and I can actually discuss here what's been going on, thus dragging in a whole new legion of geeky readers who will want to throw in helpful suggestions on how to improve the show such as "Make it cooler!"
On Writing
Sadly, this has taken a turn for the not so great, but there is still hope.
The novels got turned down by Ace Science Fiction, on the grounds that while they were well written, they were a bit risky as a publishing venture because A) They were huge, B) The storylines felt a bit too "complex and metaphysical" for readers to readily accept.
This greatly amused me--and confounded me--since I had thought the plots were entirely too simplistic what with guys jumping 30 feet into the air shooting lasers out of their eyes and all, but it would seem that first Tor and now Ace Science Fiction have both felt that the story, while interesting and well told, is not mainstream enough to guarantee the sales they'd feel comfortable with.
Oh well, my agent continues to peddle the books and after comments like that (Nice read! Too weird!) I have a feeling they will eventually see the light of day once marketing trends swing the other way around and people are looking for something a little different again.
On Games
I have to admit, I may be losing some steam in the Star Wars Galaxies department. I haven't regularly played it in a month or so, despite the fact that I got the Jump To Lightspeed expansion, which was very fun. Perhaps it's my antisocial tendencies taking hold once more, but I've found myself of late really enjoying console and offline PC games. Vampire the Masquerade was a novel experience. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater may have the best ending for a video game I have seen to date. And trying to get 100% completion on Final Fantasy X-2 has reminded me of how much I love Square and RPGs in general. But the big kahuna, the one that may very well be the single best game the PS2 will ever see is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The sheer scope, brutality and relentlessly vicious humor of this game has elevated the game to near god like status in my eyes. One of the big draws of the GTA series in general has always been the idea of a big, living, breathing world that let you be an amoral bastard who ran amuck and wreaked senseless death and destruction everywhere. Only GTA let you get a sniper rifle, park yourself at the top of a car park, wait for the lunch time crowd of business men and secretaries to start gathering, and blow them all to pieces.
San Andreas takes this to whole new levels. Now I can go to the airport, steal a Lear jet, fly over to the next city, say Los Venturas (ie, Vegas) jump out of the plane to skydive, then parachute onto the top of a building, pick people off with the sniper's rifle, run from the cops, steal a bike, drive to an abandoned airfield, grab a jetpack, hop over to San Fierro (ie, San Francisco) grab something to eat from the local burger joint, then meet up with my girlfriend to take her dancing go back to her place for sex, then steal someone else's car to beat up hookers before going back to the casinos to gamble or maybe shoot some pool.
It is, frankly, amazing what you can do in this game.
And that is the update of the rather mundane events of my life. Unfortunately, due to the fact that life is pretty okay right now, my world is monumentally boring, devoid of really good Gothy angst, but that's the price you pay for waking up in the morning and being more or less okay with the world.
And YES, I will be updating the blog again more regularly, this won't be another hit and run post that will sink into obscurity for a few more months...
After a long hiatus, it is time to once more foul the airwaves with the rather undramatic events of my life, dramatized with much narrative license so as to make myself sound more interesting.
But first off:
Why I Have Been Silent
Truth to tell, mostly because I didn't have much to say, nothing much interesting was going on, and I was distracted with games. Lots of games. Tons of games. In fact I'm still playing games at the moment, the current one being the amazing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, but I'll save that for a bit a later. Suffice to say that I was going to make an entry at a regularly appointed time when blogger suddenly went through a spate of eating my posts (There was an entry I had typed out about how I felt David & Goliath was actually handled by Hassidic PR managers that spin doctored the entire affair, I was rather proud of that...) that got sucked into the ether of the 'net and shall remain unwritten unless someone bugs me to do it again. I've always been a sucker for requests...
Anyway, after having a few such posts eaten, I got a little fed up with blogging for a while and decided to take a break, which got swallowed up into months as work, gaming, DVD viewing, movies and of course, the girlfriend all took up their appropriate hours and days. But here's what you've been missing, which is, admittedly, not much.
The Impossible Has Happened
On October 19th, of 2004, I proposed to my girlfriend and she said yes, so for people that have known me since childhood, or, worse yet, highschool, I am now in a position to have never been so happy to have been wrong. There is at least ONE person on this planet that doesn't vomit at the thought of spending the rest of her life with me.
No actual date has been set for a wedding, it's one of those things we'll probably just sort of do when we feel like it. However, after having lived together for over two years, it's a safe bet that there won't be any unpleasant surprises we'll discover about each other that most couples only come across after they're married and are forced to see each other everyday. We've been doing it for quite a while now and so far no major problems have cropped up.
As a special note, I'd like to add that to childhood friend Francis, I must remind you that I am a man of my word. We once made a bet that I would never get married, and if I ever did find someone crazy enough to do it, you would find yourself $1,000 richer on my wedding day. Well, I'll pay up to be sure, but since we're not exactly the richest couple in the world, you'll have to collect on the bet sometime in distant future, but don't worry, you'll get it. That's $1,000 I'm glad to give away.
On Work
Things professionally have been moving slowly but steadily. I still write reviews and other articles for the Singapore gaming magazine Hardware Zone. Some writing has been met favorably, such as my article on the history of Nintendo. Others have been met not so favorably, with one angry reader calling me a "Moronic Halo fanboy" for giving Halo 2 a perfect score. Oh well, can't please everybody. I'd be interested to see, however, if the fellow who made such a comment would be willing to say it to my face with other people around, but that's the 'net for ya'...
On the Computer Animated series, things are gearing up. We're working on some early production stuff--and no, I STILL can't talk about what it is exactly--and for once, it looks like my skepticism about the project may be wrong and that it will actually see the light of day. We're still going to need a ton of work before we have anything presentable, but it looks like 2005 is the year of the CGI cartoon. I'm curious about how it'll all turn out. I always said I thought it would be neat to work on such a series and now that I am, I'm finding that my production experience in television over the last few years has actually proved marginally useful. Hopefully by next year there will be more talk about it on the internet and I can actually discuss here what's been going on, thus dragging in a whole new legion of geeky readers who will want to throw in helpful suggestions on how to improve the show such as "Make it cooler!"
On Writing
Sadly, this has taken a turn for the not so great, but there is still hope.
The novels got turned down by Ace Science Fiction, on the grounds that while they were well written, they were a bit risky as a publishing venture because A) They were huge, B) The storylines felt a bit too "complex and metaphysical" for readers to readily accept.
This greatly amused me--and confounded me--since I had thought the plots were entirely too simplistic what with guys jumping 30 feet into the air shooting lasers out of their eyes and all, but it would seem that first Tor and now Ace Science Fiction have both felt that the story, while interesting and well told, is not mainstream enough to guarantee the sales they'd feel comfortable with.
Oh well, my agent continues to peddle the books and after comments like that (Nice read! Too weird!) I have a feeling they will eventually see the light of day once marketing trends swing the other way around and people are looking for something a little different again.
On Games
I have to admit, I may be losing some steam in the Star Wars Galaxies department. I haven't regularly played it in a month or so, despite the fact that I got the Jump To Lightspeed expansion, which was very fun. Perhaps it's my antisocial tendencies taking hold once more, but I've found myself of late really enjoying console and offline PC games. Vampire the Masquerade was a novel experience. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater may have the best ending for a video game I have seen to date. And trying to get 100% completion on Final Fantasy X-2 has reminded me of how much I love Square and RPGs in general. But the big kahuna, the one that may very well be the single best game the PS2 will ever see is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The sheer scope, brutality and relentlessly vicious humor of this game has elevated the game to near god like status in my eyes. One of the big draws of the GTA series in general has always been the idea of a big, living, breathing world that let you be an amoral bastard who ran amuck and wreaked senseless death and destruction everywhere. Only GTA let you get a sniper rifle, park yourself at the top of a car park, wait for the lunch time crowd of business men and secretaries to start gathering, and blow them all to pieces.
San Andreas takes this to whole new levels. Now I can go to the airport, steal a Lear jet, fly over to the next city, say Los Venturas (ie, Vegas) jump out of the plane to skydive, then parachute onto the top of a building, pick people off with the sniper's rifle, run from the cops, steal a bike, drive to an abandoned airfield, grab a jetpack, hop over to San Fierro (ie, San Francisco) grab something to eat from the local burger joint, then meet up with my girlfriend to take her dancing go back to her place for sex, then steal someone else's car to beat up hookers before going back to the casinos to gamble or maybe shoot some pool.
It is, frankly, amazing what you can do in this game.
And that is the update of the rather mundane events of my life. Unfortunately, due to the fact that life is pretty okay right now, my world is monumentally boring, devoid of really good Gothy angst, but that's the price you pay for waking up in the morning and being more or less okay with the world.
And YES, I will be updating the blog again more regularly, this won't be another hit and run post that will sink into obscurity for a few more months...
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff, My Life, Television Production, Writing
Friday, July 16, 2004
Peter S. Beagle = Genius
So I made the mistake last night of watching the animated movie The Last Unicorn with the girlfriend.
Now I've seen this movie before, and often. But it was when I was a lot younger, and I think probably the last time I watched it was when I was 15 or something. High School anyway. Over the years I've learned a few interesting things about it. Like the fact that even though it was produced by an American company (The "Stick More Songs In It Than You Can Shake A Stick At Rankin-Bass JR.) it was actually animated by... wait for it... STUDIO GHIBLI! Well, they weren't called Studio Gimli back then, but yes, the same guys that brought us MY Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and my personal favorite Nausicaa And The Valley Of The Wind we also the ones who were responsbile for completely nailing the sadness and fraility in the eyes of the Unicorn/Amalthea.
Summary O' Plot
Originally a novel written by Peter S. Beagle (Who then went on to adapt it for both stage and screen) The Last Unicorn, at least the animated version, is kind similar in its dialogue/acting choices to The Princess Bride in that even though it's clearly a period fantasy setting, the dialogue often comes out as very modern with modern references sprinkled throughout (IE, a butterfly singing I'll Be Home On The A-Train).
The story concerns one of the immortal unicorns, living her immortal life in the forest of her choosing and generally being blissful and ignorant of the occurrences in the outside world, until she overhears the conversation of a pair of hunters. One of the hunters proclaims that she is the last of the unicorns, all the others having disappeared mysteriously, and shouts out into the forest before they depart that he advises her to stay there and keep the forest perptually green and enchanted.
This of course, gets her attention and like most people who are told not to do something, she goes ahead and does it, seeking an answer to whether or not she truly is the last unicorn left.
I won't go into much detail of the rest of the plot since this is one of those timeles stories that everyone should experience for themselves. But I will say that this is one of those few stories that is close to, if not completely, perfect.
I'm not talking about the animation which was done in the 80's and so quite primitive by today's standards. Or the obvious cuts that were made throughout the film, so obvious in fact that you can even hear the music jump where the cut was made. But the story and characters themselves are ones that I think lovers of story can respect, and all writers should take lessons from.
What struck me the most about it on this viewing was how multi-layered it was. While concessions such as comedy relief, some minor slapstick and the usual action sequences have been thrown in to keep younger viewers enthralled, there's also an amazing amount of intelligence and heart in this story and these characters. No one is really stupid in this story, all of them drop at least one one-liner nugget of wisdom about life that can be endlessly quoted and thought upon, and all of them have very complex motivations that can be either understood and respected, or understood and pitied.
The acting is also completely amazing. Christopher Lee as King Haggard brings an authority and resonance to his character that makes it difficult not to fear him. Angela Lansbury puts in an amazing (And totally unrecognizable performance) as Mommy Fortuna, a deranged witch who comes off as a true psycopatch, Alan Arkin as Schmendrik gives an intelligent and melancholy turn to the character that perfectly nails his sad eyes.
But the two most outstanding performances in the story have to go Mia Farrow as the Unicorn, for the delicate turn of phrase that is both unearthly and achingly frail, and Tammy Grimes as the broken scullery maid who was content in her having lost hope until she saw the unicorn and realized perhaps she'd given up hope too soon.
Watching all these elements weave together in a cartoon of all things really made me wonder at how surprising art can be sometimes. I know many will disagree but for me this little animated feature made in the 80's says some of the most important and significant things about life, ambition, love, imagination and desire that we often forget. From Schmendrik's desire to become a true wizard, to Haggard's obsession with keeping only things that make him happy around him, to Lear's innocent love for Amalthea and Molly's tragic rediscovery of hope when it is almost too late for her... All of them have moments where they say something about human nature that everyone would be a lot better remembering from time to time.
And of course the ending is the killer, and one that I've tried aping in my own writing. A happy ending of sorts, that comes at great cost to the people involved, and often does more harm to the heroes in exchange for doing the greater good for many.
So I got kind of kicked in the head again last night after watching it. And of course the girlfriend was monumentally depressed afterwards and could only say "It's so sad. It's so, SO SAD..." because this move was another one of those key influential moments on her emotional life, and she can't watching it too often without becoming pyschologically damaged...
So I made the mistake last night of watching the animated movie The Last Unicorn with the girlfriend.
Now I've seen this movie before, and often. But it was when I was a lot younger, and I think probably the last time I watched it was when I was 15 or something. High School anyway. Over the years I've learned a few interesting things about it. Like the fact that even though it was produced by an American company (The "Stick More Songs In It Than You Can Shake A Stick At Rankin-Bass JR.) it was actually animated by... wait for it... STUDIO GHIBLI! Well, they weren't called Studio Gimli back then, but yes, the same guys that brought us MY Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and my personal favorite Nausicaa And The Valley Of The Wind we also the ones who were responsbile for completely nailing the sadness and fraility in the eyes of the Unicorn/Amalthea.
Summary O' Plot
Originally a novel written by Peter S. Beagle (Who then went on to adapt it for both stage and screen) The Last Unicorn, at least the animated version, is kind similar in its dialogue/acting choices to The Princess Bride in that even though it's clearly a period fantasy setting, the dialogue often comes out as very modern with modern references sprinkled throughout (IE, a butterfly singing I'll Be Home On The A-Train).
The story concerns one of the immortal unicorns, living her immortal life in the forest of her choosing and generally being blissful and ignorant of the occurrences in the outside world, until she overhears the conversation of a pair of hunters. One of the hunters proclaims that she is the last of the unicorns, all the others having disappeared mysteriously, and shouts out into the forest before they depart that he advises her to stay there and keep the forest perptually green and enchanted.
This of course, gets her attention and like most people who are told not to do something, she goes ahead and does it, seeking an answer to whether or not she truly is the last unicorn left.
I won't go into much detail of the rest of the plot since this is one of those timeles stories that everyone should experience for themselves. But I will say that this is one of those few stories that is close to, if not completely, perfect.
I'm not talking about the animation which was done in the 80's and so quite primitive by today's standards. Or the obvious cuts that were made throughout the film, so obvious in fact that you can even hear the music jump where the cut was made. But the story and characters themselves are ones that I think lovers of story can respect, and all writers should take lessons from.
What struck me the most about it on this viewing was how multi-layered it was. While concessions such as comedy relief, some minor slapstick and the usual action sequences have been thrown in to keep younger viewers enthralled, there's also an amazing amount of intelligence and heart in this story and these characters. No one is really stupid in this story, all of them drop at least one one-liner nugget of wisdom about life that can be endlessly quoted and thought upon, and all of them have very complex motivations that can be either understood and respected, or understood and pitied.
The acting is also completely amazing. Christopher Lee as King Haggard brings an authority and resonance to his character that makes it difficult not to fear him. Angela Lansbury puts in an amazing (And totally unrecognizable performance) as Mommy Fortuna, a deranged witch who comes off as a true psycopatch, Alan Arkin as Schmendrik gives an intelligent and melancholy turn to the character that perfectly nails his sad eyes.
But the two most outstanding performances in the story have to go Mia Farrow as the Unicorn, for the delicate turn of phrase that is both unearthly and achingly frail, and Tammy Grimes as the broken scullery maid who was content in her having lost hope until she saw the unicorn and realized perhaps she'd given up hope too soon.
Watching all these elements weave together in a cartoon of all things really made me wonder at how surprising art can be sometimes. I know many will disagree but for me this little animated feature made in the 80's says some of the most important and significant things about life, ambition, love, imagination and desire that we often forget. From Schmendrik's desire to become a true wizard, to Haggard's obsession with keeping only things that make him happy around him, to Lear's innocent love for Amalthea and Molly's tragic rediscovery of hope when it is almost too late for her... All of them have moments where they say something about human nature that everyone would be a lot better remembering from time to time.
And of course the ending is the killer, and one that I've tried aping in my own writing. A happy ending of sorts, that comes at great cost to the people involved, and often does more harm to the heroes in exchange for doing the greater good for many.
So I got kind of kicked in the head again last night after watching it. And of course the girlfriend was monumentally depressed afterwards and could only say "It's so sad. It's so, SO SAD..." because this move was another one of those key influential moments on her emotional life, and she can't watching it too often without becoming pyschologically damaged...
Labels: Anime, Icky Couple Stuff, Movies, Musing, Writing
Friday, July 09, 2004
There Is Only One Thing That Could Possibly Bring Me Back Here
I can't play with my Jedi.
Bleah.
I'm kind of astounded that I haven't made a post here since last year, but it would seem that once I got access to Star Wars Galaxies and started "To Live The Greatest Saga Ever Told: Yours (tm)" it got its grubby little claws into me deeper than a Crack Monkey named Louis with Adamantium claws.
Yes. I have been playing SWG that long.
Yes. I got a Jedi character and get to play with a lightsaber. It took months to do it.
No. The girlfriend didn't dump me. Amazingly, she even played it for a while.
But to recap everything that's happened since nearly a year ago when the SWG madness began in quick succession. Oh, heck, let's do a Q & A session...
Do you still have a job?
Incredibly, the answer is yes, I do. Although it's not with the video game magazine that I was formerly with. Things got pretty ugly there, and so there's no reason to drag names out and sling mud, suffice to say the short form is, they weren't paying (An occurrence that seems to happen to me a lot despite the fact that for some reason people seem to think I'm a necessity...) and in desperation (And with the help of an enraged girlfriend) I held the magazine for ransom and wouldn't hand it over until I got paid, then promptly quit once I got my rent money and they got their issue.
For the past little while I have been writing reviews now for competitor of that magazine. Anyone curious to see what kind of stuff I've been cranking out can find it here. There's usually something put out by me here every week or so.
The other thing I've been doing is working on an animated series. I can't say anymore than that really if I want to keep my job, but it's ideal since it lets me stay out home, stay out of offices, avoid a tie and harrass my cats. It's still in the initial stages with me doing the script and concept work, but presumably if it actually ever goes to air, then I can talk at length and ad nauseum about what is a decidedly odd ball project. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
Fantastic. How are you and the girlfriend?
We are fine. Things are still, much to my stunned disbelief, peachy keen between us and everything is smooth sailing. She has recently started going back to school (fine arts) and is picking up a cynicism for modern art interpretation that does me proud. It's gratifying to know that I'm not the only one that believes a blank canvas with a tag explaining its meaning roughly the size of Mt. Rushmore is not necessarily genius artwork. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
Hey, are you two married yet?
No, we're not, but that's a foregone conclusion at this point anyway. Quit putting ideas into her head. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
How are the cats?
Zero and Uno are fine. Uno has grown fat with domestic bliss and Zero is just as paranoid about total strangers as ever. We recently rescued yet another hapless kitten! This one was a little black thing with a meow that sounded like a dying infant vulture. When asked what to name it, I replied "Uh... Ragamuffin?" which promptly got shortened to "Muffin" on the grounds that it was cuter and would make said kitten easier to adopt. After three days of having two miserable cats, some gal who worked with the Singapore Zoo adopted said kitten and the cats are once more back to their usual neurotic selves. We have also unofficially adopted a stray cat that is an orange tabby and so was, in a stroke of creative genius, named "Orange." This one now hangs out near our building, meows once, quietly, when it sees us and runs up to us then promptly remains silent until its fed, we get bored and ditch it on the street till the next day. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
Hey, didn't you have a couple of novels pending publication?
Well, there's some bad news...
Sadly, after a little over two years, the publishers who were considering it finally said NO. The books--according to my agent--are now in the hands of another publisher who hopefully doesn't read at the rate of five sentences a day and will come a decision faster. Still waiting on that, and probably won't get more confirmation for a couple of months yet. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
So what else are-grk*...
Ah, I'm so glad you asked. Star Wars Galaxies... A chance to go back long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
For months I have been slowly navigating my way through that game, making friends, seeing some pretty spectacular things, participating in everything from big game hunts for Rancors to fighting against the dreaded Empire... all the time really just trying to figure out how to become a Jedi Knight and then going about doing it. After months, the wholly uninspired mystery was revealed; master a whole bunch of different professions within the game and once the ones on your "secret list" have all been completed, you get a new Force Sensitive Character that is all ready to swing a saber. I promptly went at it for several months and earlier this year finally attained my goal; a character that is strong with the force, pure of heart, full of justice, and able to kill anyone that looks at me funny with some carefully applied force lightning or a saber slash to the brain pan.
Since that time, things have been slowing down somewhat in the game since my Ultimate Goal was achieved, but the real reason I am posting now instead of playing is that due to some bizarre changes made to the game and its internet infrastructure recently, I can no longer play it. That is to say, when a change to the game is made, a patch must be downloaded and integrated with your existing game before play can resume. I don't know whether it's Sony Online Entertainment, my Internet Service Provider, or maybe even the building I live in, but for some reason, I can no longer download these patches, and thus, can no longer play.
If you are thinking that this is a like a Crack Addict who suddenly finds out his dealer has been arrested, you are not even remotely close to understanding my grief, but that's a good start.
In a pathetic bid to ease the pain, I even resorted to trying to play another game, Lineage II, but after realizing that game is impossible to play unless you have an armada of bodyguards to protect you from all the player killers in the game, I quickly gave up on it after a couple of days of trying to play, only to get ganked the second I set foot outside of my starting area by other players with such witty retorts as "Die, fu*king noob! I pwnz j00!"
Not quite as dramatic as "Give into your hate and join the dark side!" but I guess we can't all be literate. Unless you're a glutton for punishment, or don't mind being the pawn in someone's deluded attempt to have a virtual dominance to make up for their lack in real life, I strongly advise against playing this game. It's obviously for people who enjoy making others suffer, and I am squarely NOT in this category.
Oh well, the pining away for Tatooine continues...
PS: If any kind readers out there are technically inclined and familiar with the intricacies of Internet connections, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share some techno-wisdom with me, as Sony Online Entertainment has described my problem as "experiencing packet loss" and failed to further elaborate. Damn you, faceless multinational corporations that step on the little guy! Damn you to heeeeell!
Please let me play Jedi, oh please... I'm asking nicely. Good SOE. Nice SOE. Let us have our precious back, we wants it, oh yeeees, we wants it...
I can't play with my Jedi.
Bleah.
I'm kind of astounded that I haven't made a post here since last year, but it would seem that once I got access to Star Wars Galaxies and started "To Live The Greatest Saga Ever Told: Yours (tm)" it got its grubby little claws into me deeper than a Crack Monkey named Louis with Adamantium claws.
Yes. I have been playing SWG that long.
Yes. I got a Jedi character and get to play with a lightsaber. It took months to do it.
No. The girlfriend didn't dump me. Amazingly, she even played it for a while.
But to recap everything that's happened since nearly a year ago when the SWG madness began in quick succession. Oh, heck, let's do a Q & A session...
Do you still have a job?
Incredibly, the answer is yes, I do. Although it's not with the video game magazine that I was formerly with. Things got pretty ugly there, and so there's no reason to drag names out and sling mud, suffice to say the short form is, they weren't paying (An occurrence that seems to happen to me a lot despite the fact that for some reason people seem to think I'm a necessity...) and in desperation (And with the help of an enraged girlfriend) I held the magazine for ransom and wouldn't hand it over until I got paid, then promptly quit once I got my rent money and they got their issue.
For the past little while I have been writing reviews now for competitor of that magazine. Anyone curious to see what kind of stuff I've been cranking out can find it here. There's usually something put out by me here every week or so.
The other thing I've been doing is working on an animated series. I can't say anymore than that really if I want to keep my job, but it's ideal since it lets me stay out home, stay out of offices, avoid a tie and harrass my cats. It's still in the initial stages with me doing the script and concept work, but presumably if it actually ever goes to air, then I can talk at length and ad nauseum about what is a decidedly odd ball project. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
Fantastic. How are you and the girlfriend?
We are fine. Things are still, much to my stunned disbelief, peachy keen between us and everything is smooth sailing. She has recently started going back to school (fine arts) and is picking up a cynicism for modern art interpretation that does me proud. It's gratifying to know that I'm not the only one that believes a blank canvas with a tag explaining its meaning roughly the size of Mt. Rushmore is not necessarily genius artwork. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
Hey, are you two married yet?
No, we're not, but that's a foregone conclusion at this point anyway. Quit putting ideas into her head. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
How are the cats?
Zero and Uno are fine. Uno has grown fat with domestic bliss and Zero is just as paranoid about total strangers as ever. We recently rescued yet another hapless kitten! This one was a little black thing with a meow that sounded like a dying infant vulture. When asked what to name it, I replied "Uh... Ragamuffin?" which promptly got shortened to "Muffin" on the grounds that it was cuter and would make said kitten easier to adopt. After three days of having two miserable cats, some gal who worked with the Singapore Zoo adopted said kitten and the cats are once more back to their usual neurotic selves. We have also unofficially adopted a stray cat that is an orange tabby and so was, in a stroke of creative genius, named "Orange." This one now hangs out near our building, meows once, quietly, when it sees us and runs up to us then promptly remains silent until its fed, we get bored and ditch it on the street till the next day. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
Hey, didn't you have a couple of novels pending publication?
Well, there's some bad news...
Sadly, after a little over two years, the publishers who were considering it finally said NO. The books--according to my agent--are now in the hands of another publisher who hopefully doesn't read at the rate of five sentences a day and will come a decision faster. Still waiting on that, and probably won't get more confirmation for a couple of months yet. When are you going to ask me about Star Wars Galaxies?
So what else are-grk*...
Ah, I'm so glad you asked. Star Wars Galaxies... A chance to go back long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
For months I have been slowly navigating my way through that game, making friends, seeing some pretty spectacular things, participating in everything from big game hunts for Rancors to fighting against the dreaded Empire... all the time really just trying to figure out how to become a Jedi Knight and then going about doing it. After months, the wholly uninspired mystery was revealed; master a whole bunch of different professions within the game and once the ones on your "secret list" have all been completed, you get a new Force Sensitive Character that is all ready to swing a saber. I promptly went at it for several months and earlier this year finally attained my goal; a character that is strong with the force, pure of heart, full of justice, and able to kill anyone that looks at me funny with some carefully applied force lightning or a saber slash to the brain pan.
Since that time, things have been slowing down somewhat in the game since my Ultimate Goal was achieved, but the real reason I am posting now instead of playing is that due to some bizarre changes made to the game and its internet infrastructure recently, I can no longer play it. That is to say, when a change to the game is made, a patch must be downloaded and integrated with your existing game before play can resume. I don't know whether it's Sony Online Entertainment, my Internet Service Provider, or maybe even the building I live in, but for some reason, I can no longer download these patches, and thus, can no longer play.
If you are thinking that this is a like a Crack Addict who suddenly finds out his dealer has been arrested, you are not even remotely close to understanding my grief, but that's a good start.
In a pathetic bid to ease the pain, I even resorted to trying to play another game, Lineage II, but after realizing that game is impossible to play unless you have an armada of bodyguards to protect you from all the player killers in the game, I quickly gave up on it after a couple of days of trying to play, only to get ganked the second I set foot outside of my starting area by other players with such witty retorts as "Die, fu*king noob! I pwnz j00!"
Not quite as dramatic as "Give into your hate and join the dark side!" but I guess we can't all be literate. Unless you're a glutton for punishment, or don't mind being the pawn in someone's deluded attempt to have a virtual dominance to make up for their lack in real life, I strongly advise against playing this game. It's obviously for people who enjoy making others suffer, and I am squarely NOT in this category.
Oh well, the pining away for Tatooine continues...
PS: If any kind readers out there are technically inclined and familiar with the intricacies of Internet connections, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share some techno-wisdom with me, as Sony Online Entertainment has described my problem as "experiencing packet loss" and failed to further elaborate. Damn you, faceless multinational corporations that step on the little guy! Damn you to heeeeell!
Please let me play Jedi, oh please... I'm asking nicely. Good SOE. Nice SOE. Let us have our precious back, we wants it, oh yeeees, we wants it...
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff, Massively Multiplayer Online Games, My Life, Them Crazy Kitties, Writing
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Awwwww...
You know it must be love when the girlfriend plays Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance with you till 7 in the morning and keeps taking all the gold. But sometimes she splits a rejuvenation potion with you.
I'm a lucky guy...
You know it must be love when the girlfriend plays Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance with you till 7 in the morning and keeps taking all the gold. But sometimes she splits a rejuvenation potion with you.
I'm a lucky guy...
Labels: Games, Icky Couple Stuff
Thursday, February 20, 2003
No Footprints On The Sand
The reason for that being the girlfriend and I were feeling slightly cabin feverish, and so went out for a walk on the beach just in time to catch the sunrise. Naturally, we intepreted it in two radically different ways. She was just happy that it was the two of us on a relatively empty beach with the sky being lit up in the rosey hues of dawn, a clean stretch of sand ahead of us with nary a footprint to be seen. I preferred to think of it as we were the last human beings on Earth, the wreckage of various freighters strewn across the water as their crew horribly died of radiation poisoning, while the sky slowly burned with the radiation of North Korean Nuclear missile attacks that had started a nuclear conflagration around the region.
When she pointed out that the freighters still had their lights happily glowing away, I wittily responded, "Shuuuuuuut uuuuuuup!"
Not my most eloquent moment, I grant you.
We also saw a huge group of elderly Chinese people out for their daily bout of Matrix Calisthenics, ie, Tai Chi. The lingering after-effects of GTA: Vice City still held a firm grip on me and I once more, 'cause this is the kind'a romantic guy I am, felt compelled to romantically declare that it would be neat to wander into the middle of them with a molotov cocktail. I love the smell of burning geriatric in the mornin'... to paraphrase Apocalypse Now.
Which led to breakfast at the golden arches, chasing after stupid cats that wouldn't let me pet them, and finally back here, where I have put away a few more pages of Serial Jen and bumped it up to six. Not bad for a few hours work. I'm pretty pleased with that. As usual, the characters have taken a life of their own and are probably not going to do what I tell them to. One of these days I need to write a story with an S & M masochist character so at least she'll just say to me, "Tell me what to do, Master..."
That was supposed to be whole point of being a writer, that control thing. Man, even my characters don't give me no respect...
The reason for that being the girlfriend and I were feeling slightly cabin feverish, and so went out for a walk on the beach just in time to catch the sunrise. Naturally, we intepreted it in two radically different ways. She was just happy that it was the two of us on a relatively empty beach with the sky being lit up in the rosey hues of dawn, a clean stretch of sand ahead of us with nary a footprint to be seen. I preferred to think of it as we were the last human beings on Earth, the wreckage of various freighters strewn across the water as their crew horribly died of radiation poisoning, while the sky slowly burned with the radiation of North Korean Nuclear missile attacks that had started a nuclear conflagration around the region.
When she pointed out that the freighters still had their lights happily glowing away, I wittily responded, "Shuuuuuuut uuuuuuup!"
Not my most eloquent moment, I grant you.
We also saw a huge group of elderly Chinese people out for their daily bout of Matrix Calisthenics, ie, Tai Chi. The lingering after-effects of GTA: Vice City still held a firm grip on me and I once more, 'cause this is the kind'a romantic guy I am, felt compelled to romantically declare that it would be neat to wander into the middle of them with a molotov cocktail. I love the smell of burning geriatric in the mornin'... to paraphrase Apocalypse Now.
Which led to breakfast at the golden arches, chasing after stupid cats that wouldn't let me pet them, and finally back here, where I have put away a few more pages of Serial Jen and bumped it up to six. Not bad for a few hours work. I'm pretty pleased with that. As usual, the characters have taken a life of their own and are probably not going to do what I tell them to. One of these days I need to write a story with an S & M masochist character so at least she'll just say to me, "Tell me what to do, Master..."
That was supposed to be whole point of being a writer, that control thing. Man, even my characters don't give me no respect...
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life, Writing
Saturday, February 15, 2003
Oogh
Last night I made the girlfriend cry. It was not for a good reason, and it wasn't even for a bad reason, it's just one of those things that seems to evolve naturally from a seemingly innocent point of conversation and suddenly starts opening up doors in the heart that should stay closed until a more approriate time.
Of late I have been waxing rebellious over at the William Gibson blog forum, because some local there, calling himself Big.Brother, started up a thread claiming to be an inhabitant of what Gibson, in an essay for Wired magazine called, Disneyland With A Death Penalty. Basically Wired gave him a free trip here about ten years ago, just to get his written impressions of the place. Since this Big.Brother seemed to have no compunction about blasting the place, I gleefully joined in. In a--in retrospect anyway, at the time I was totally caught off guard--not so surprising twist of fate, it turns out that the guy I attended film studies with at the U of A, who got me here and who I consequently stopped speaking to a couple of years later, was also tooling around on the forum (He's a big Gibson fan himself and, like me, is very influenced by his writing, though I was influenced by it at 14, he was influenced by it at 28 or something), and started to take issue with all the slamming, though he responded to Big.Brother's posts, not mine. I didn't want to get into a flame war, and so never directly responded to his posts either, but the gist of it is, since he came here with useless history degree, white skin and the usual attitude that locals come to expect from caucasians, he found paradise. He called himself a writer, and thus instantly became one here, found a nice Chinese girl that gave him none of the attitude of the girls back home, and found a job and a people more willing to accept his genius than he ever could back home. So he was mighty offended with people who actually picked holes at what he referred to as his "private utopia".
This, to say the least, invoked the wrath of Big.Brother who called his posts deluded and myopic, but then he doesn't know the guy is white. Since then, a flame-war has been simmering between the two as Big.Brother and "Ebo" (The name of the main character from his first abandoned novel, actually it's Eboman) started trading posts and snippets from other websites either praising or damning Singapore, proving that other countries have the same problems that Singapore does, so leave this island paradise alone.
What does all this have to do with the girlfriend?
What started it all was when Ebo made an effort to play peacemaker and said something to the effect of, "The only problem that Singapore has is rude cellular phone users."
In retaliation, Big.Brother posted a hot spanking new story (Still, unsurprisingly, not covered by the press) about 6 protesters being arrested by the police for attempting an anti-war demonstration. In addition, they were interrogated and it was found that the source of their motivation was an SMS message urging people to demonstrate. Doubtless whoever made that initial SMS is already detained. Here's the story.
I mentioned this to the girlfriend and she was quite incensed. So incensed in fact, that she needed to rant about it on her own blog. Then she read Gibson's article, and she got very upset indeed.
I have always hated this place from the perspective of someone who is used to a certain vibrancy, texture and freedom, who is pissed that I am denied that here. I'd never really come face to face with someone who's emotions equalled my own, but came from being intelligent enough to realize that she'd never even had a taste of what I had enjoyed and was incensed about no longer having.
I really got a sense of just how much she hates this place tonight. She said a lot of striking things, the most memorable images for me all centering around her feelings of betrayal about this place. She grew up here, constantly being fed by the propaganda machine of how important, worldly and sophisticated Singapore is. And she was really disheartened when reality set in. She likened it a couple of ways. Like when you're one of the rich kids at schools, and all the other kids say stuff like, "My dad comes from a family of 6 generations of weatlh." "My dad made his money as high powered lawyer, putting criminals away in celebrated cases." "My dad is the CEO of a company that produces polymers found in every electrical appliance." And when it's your turn, you say, "My dad won the lottery."
But what really drove the point home for her was when she had a chance to travel and found herself away from the machine for a while. All that talk of Singapore's significance in the region and in the world evaporated in the face of real places that were more concerned with things other than having a World Class Airport. No one cared whether an airport was world class or not, and if it was, they didn't see why it should be important. All the reassurances of the importance of Singapore were suddenly, acutely absent and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. She said it was like having a braggart father, that was always coming home talking about how important his job was, what a contribution he made to the company that day, how it was so tough being the head of his division, and when she finally got out of the house and visited the office, he was just a pencil-pushing, mid-level bureaucrat with a cubicle by the watercooler, occasionally mentioned whenever more toner was needed for the photocpy machine.
It bothers her that Singapore needs to praise itself so ardently because it really just emphasizes to her how insecure it is. And it really bugs her that she's from this country and that stigma will always follow her to some degree, that she's from a country that is in love with its own airport.
So she was talking about all this, pausing, starting, and having to stop again when the tears came. I think I watched decades of frustration just come pouring out tonight, and for her, this attempt to snuff out freedom of expression is just one more nail in the coffin, since it runs counter to Singapore's sudden need to have radical, innovative thinkers... provided they don't shake things up and just make lots of money. The fact that Ebo actually defends this point of view and deems it necessary for order (He ascribes to the As Long As The Electricity Works and The Streets Are Clean, I'll Tolerate Anything ethos) is just another signal to her that people are essentially materialist animals that will do anything as long you keep their bellies full and give them a compliant, adoring, warm body to fuck. Well, that and she's even less impressed with white people than she was before. A guy that couldn't hack it in the Real World and retreated here to let his skin do all the talking rates very low in her estimation. The fact that her own country eagerly embraces such individuals and rewards them for their "cheat," just downright depresses her.
But it was still an enlightening and even kind of touching experience to see just how deeply she feels about all this. If I respected her before, it's just gone up a couple of orders of magnitude after last night's conversation.
Last night I made the girlfriend cry. It was not for a good reason, and it wasn't even for a bad reason, it's just one of those things that seems to evolve naturally from a seemingly innocent point of conversation and suddenly starts opening up doors in the heart that should stay closed until a more approriate time.
Of late I have been waxing rebellious over at the William Gibson blog forum, because some local there, calling himself Big.Brother, started up a thread claiming to be an inhabitant of what Gibson, in an essay for Wired magazine called, Disneyland With A Death Penalty. Basically Wired gave him a free trip here about ten years ago, just to get his written impressions of the place. Since this Big.Brother seemed to have no compunction about blasting the place, I gleefully joined in. In a--in retrospect anyway, at the time I was totally caught off guard--not so surprising twist of fate, it turns out that the guy I attended film studies with at the U of A, who got me here and who I consequently stopped speaking to a couple of years later, was also tooling around on the forum (He's a big Gibson fan himself and, like me, is very influenced by his writing, though I was influenced by it at 14, he was influenced by it at 28 or something), and started to take issue with all the slamming, though he responded to Big.Brother's posts, not mine. I didn't want to get into a flame war, and so never directly responded to his posts either, but the gist of it is, since he came here with useless history degree, white skin and the usual attitude that locals come to expect from caucasians, he found paradise. He called himself a writer, and thus instantly became one here, found a nice Chinese girl that gave him none of the attitude of the girls back home, and found a job and a people more willing to accept his genius than he ever could back home. So he was mighty offended with people who actually picked holes at what he referred to as his "private utopia".
This, to say the least, invoked the wrath of Big.Brother who called his posts deluded and myopic, but then he doesn't know the guy is white. Since then, a flame-war has been simmering between the two as Big.Brother and "Ebo" (The name of the main character from his first abandoned novel, actually it's Eboman) started trading posts and snippets from other websites either praising or damning Singapore, proving that other countries have the same problems that Singapore does, so leave this island paradise alone.
What does all this have to do with the girlfriend?
What started it all was when Ebo made an effort to play peacemaker and said something to the effect of, "The only problem that Singapore has is rude cellular phone users."
In retaliation, Big.Brother posted a hot spanking new story (Still, unsurprisingly, not covered by the press) about 6 protesters being arrested by the police for attempting an anti-war demonstration. In addition, they were interrogated and it was found that the source of their motivation was an SMS message urging people to demonstrate. Doubtless whoever made that initial SMS is already detained. Here's the story.
I mentioned this to the girlfriend and she was quite incensed. So incensed in fact, that she needed to rant about it on her own blog. Then she read Gibson's article, and she got very upset indeed.
I have always hated this place from the perspective of someone who is used to a certain vibrancy, texture and freedom, who is pissed that I am denied that here. I'd never really come face to face with someone who's emotions equalled my own, but came from being intelligent enough to realize that she'd never even had a taste of what I had enjoyed and was incensed about no longer having.
I really got a sense of just how much she hates this place tonight. She said a lot of striking things, the most memorable images for me all centering around her feelings of betrayal about this place. She grew up here, constantly being fed by the propaganda machine of how important, worldly and sophisticated Singapore is. And she was really disheartened when reality set in. She likened it a couple of ways. Like when you're one of the rich kids at schools, and all the other kids say stuff like, "My dad comes from a family of 6 generations of weatlh." "My dad made his money as high powered lawyer, putting criminals away in celebrated cases." "My dad is the CEO of a company that produces polymers found in every electrical appliance." And when it's your turn, you say, "My dad won the lottery."
But what really drove the point home for her was when she had a chance to travel and found herself away from the machine for a while. All that talk of Singapore's significance in the region and in the world evaporated in the face of real places that were more concerned with things other than having a World Class Airport. No one cared whether an airport was world class or not, and if it was, they didn't see why it should be important. All the reassurances of the importance of Singapore were suddenly, acutely absent and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. She said it was like having a braggart father, that was always coming home talking about how important his job was, what a contribution he made to the company that day, how it was so tough being the head of his division, and when she finally got out of the house and visited the office, he was just a pencil-pushing, mid-level bureaucrat with a cubicle by the watercooler, occasionally mentioned whenever more toner was needed for the photocpy machine.
It bothers her that Singapore needs to praise itself so ardently because it really just emphasizes to her how insecure it is. And it really bugs her that she's from this country and that stigma will always follow her to some degree, that she's from a country that is in love with its own airport.
So she was talking about all this, pausing, starting, and having to stop again when the tears came. I think I watched decades of frustration just come pouring out tonight, and for her, this attempt to snuff out freedom of expression is just one more nail in the coffin, since it runs counter to Singapore's sudden need to have radical, innovative thinkers... provided they don't shake things up and just make lots of money. The fact that Ebo actually defends this point of view and deems it necessary for order (He ascribes to the As Long As The Electricity Works and The Streets Are Clean, I'll Tolerate Anything ethos) is just another signal to her that people are essentially materialist animals that will do anything as long you keep their bellies full and give them a compliant, adoring, warm body to fuck. Well, that and she's even less impressed with white people than she was before. A guy that couldn't hack it in the Real World and retreated here to let his skin do all the talking rates very low in her estimation. The fact that her own country eagerly embraces such individuals and rewards them for their "cheat," just downright depresses her.
But it was still an enlightening and even kind of touching experience to see just how deeply she feels about all this. If I respected her before, it's just gone up a couple of orders of magnitude after last night's conversation.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff, My Life, Singapore Stupidity
Thursday, January 23, 2003
The Guilty Party
For anyone who's interested or cares, here's the blog of the one who just bit me.
Psychotic girlfriend Blog
For anyone who's interested or cares, here's the blog of the one who just bit me.
Psychotic girlfriend Blog
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff
Ouch! Awww...
Hey, my girlfriend just bit me in the ear.
IT MUST BE LOVE! Or lurve. Something like that.
Next time: Girly Sex & Monkey Sex and the difference between the two. Maybe.
Hey, my girlfriend just bit me in the ear.
IT MUST BE LOVE! Or lurve. Something like that.
Next time: Girly Sex & Monkey Sex and the difference between the two. Maybe.
Labels: Icky Couple Stuff
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