Part I
I suppose I read all over. All around the house, angled all sorts of ways, sitting on my bed, laying off the side of it. It draws me in, like there's a bubble between the book and the rest of the world, so I wouldn't really say it's something I do socially. I wouldn't really call it private though, since it's not like I read to get away from people, or read out of sight. I definitely don't care what people might think about me when I read, unless there's something stupid on the cover somehow. If worse comes to worst, I can just cover the book's front cover. I share passages from books every now and then, but most of the time it doesn't occur to me.
Interestingly enough, I would compare reading to really anything, whether I like the book or not. Anything that's well-paced and suits your tastes suckers you in and is hard to leave/put down. Books are usually harder to pace, because of how slow and fast different people read, but they also allow the most room for little details, since they don't have any time or length constraints.
Part II
Three of my friends and two of my other friends openly hate each other, and they were all former friends. I've tried to act as an in-between, and still plan on it in the future. Neutrality is an strange perspective in a fight. It's a game of cat-and-mouse trying to get them together. Both groups are fine with me being friends with the other group, and there's no tension on the surface, but they are taboo topics to each other.
Part III
I can't really remember anything with perfect clarity, and my sense of smell is horrible. I'll think of something later.
Let's see if the time is still shot on this one.
30 June 2009
29 June 2009
Perks Response 2
Dear Friend
Being kind of on break, watching my brother play Halo, joining in every now and then, is an interesting time to think. Halo is a pretty interesting mindset on its own. Being stupidly trigger happy is rewarded as often as it goes punished. You're usually okay if the idiots on your side outnumber the idiots on the other side, but only if everybody on both sides is an idiot. Four idiots are going to lose to three idiots and one person that's on top of things. A whole team of people that know what they're doing is just unfair, but it doesn't happen too often. Something like 50% of Americans play videogames in one form or another, and it feels like 80% of Americans that play blockbuster hits are too stupid or too rude to have enough friends to become coordinated.
It's a riot when you get a team of idiots that look like they know what they're doing, though. It takes a lot of luck, too. None of the idiots can be competing with each other, doing the same thing, or you get just enough confusion to metaphorically shoot yourselves in the foot. My friends and I were pretty lucky. Most of the time, each of us was just adventurous enough to have options when our favourites were taken, to take a gamble when it might be rewarding or at least funny, to remember what we were supposed to be doing in the middle of everything.
We had a habit of piling into a friend's basement, with a TV or two, an XBox or two, a copy or two of a few games. Halo happened the most, because it was the most fun and the least one-sided. Every now and then, one of us that sucked occasionally pulled a miracle out of nowhere. My favourite miracle happened in a game that didn't revolve entirely around kills, which was pretty good for me because my aim sucks. I still don't know exactly how it happened. We were all in the same room, and lucky on top of that. Ambitious in all the right ways, everywhere that we needed to be. Out of 25 points to go around the entire match (territories on Snowbound, before they took out some of the shield-doors), we had over 20. That IS most rounds being complete shut-outs. On top of that colossal victory, our worst player ended up taking MVP. It's probably never going to happen again, but it was great while it lasted.
Later on that same day, too. I don't remember anything else about the round except it was CTF on Zanzibar's bastard child of a map. One huge thing went wrong, and so many little things went right to fix it. We'd let one of them take the flag. I was right there in a Warthog. Fighting was going on just close enough that he probably didn't notice the little red dot on my name. I was signed in as a guest, so if he was paying attention, he didn't care that I was talking. The most important thing, though, was a brilliant, ridiculous, proven strategy from Halo 2. "EphY, go up to him and honk." It was perfect. I honked to get his attention as soon as I was headed in his direction, I turned to let him in as soon as I was close enough. A perfect sitting target. We the pinnacle of teamwork and luck. were boundless, infinite. A group of inspired idiots that could take over the world. I wish we still had time for that.
Write you again some time,
EphY
EDIT: Something is just screwed with my time settings. The first one was posted at like 10AM, this one was posted around 5:26. It's set at GMT-7 every time I check, maybe daylight savings has something to do with that, but the time is still all over the place.
Being kind of on break, watching my brother play Halo, joining in every now and then, is an interesting time to think. Halo is a pretty interesting mindset on its own. Being stupidly trigger happy is rewarded as often as it goes punished. You're usually okay if the idiots on your side outnumber the idiots on the other side, but only if everybody on both sides is an idiot. Four idiots are going to lose to three idiots and one person that's on top of things. A whole team of people that know what they're doing is just unfair, but it doesn't happen too often. Something like 50% of Americans play videogames in one form or another, and it feels like 80% of Americans that play blockbuster hits are too stupid or too rude to have enough friends to become coordinated.
It's a riot when you get a team of idiots that look like they know what they're doing, though. It takes a lot of luck, too. None of the idiots can be competing with each other, doing the same thing, or you get just enough confusion to metaphorically shoot yourselves in the foot. My friends and I were pretty lucky. Most of the time, each of us was just adventurous enough to have options when our favourites were taken, to take a gamble when it might be rewarding or at least funny, to remember what we were supposed to be doing in the middle of everything.
We had a habit of piling into a friend's basement, with a TV or two, an XBox or two, a copy or two of a few games. Halo happened the most, because it was the most fun and the least one-sided. Every now and then, one of us that sucked occasionally pulled a miracle out of nowhere. My favourite miracle happened in a game that didn't revolve entirely around kills, which was pretty good for me because my aim sucks. I still don't know exactly how it happened. We were all in the same room, and lucky on top of that. Ambitious in all the right ways, everywhere that we needed to be. Out of 25 points to go around the entire match (territories on Snowbound, before they took out some of the shield-doors), we had over 20. That IS most rounds being complete shut-outs. On top of that colossal victory, our worst player ended up taking MVP. It's probably never going to happen again, but it was great while it lasted.
Later on that same day, too. I don't remember anything else about the round except it was CTF on Zanzibar's bastard child of a map. One huge thing went wrong, and so many little things went right to fix it. We'd let one of them take the flag. I was right there in a Warthog. Fighting was going on just close enough that he probably didn't notice the little red dot on my name. I was signed in as a guest, so if he was paying attention, he didn't care that I was talking. The most important thing, though, was a brilliant, ridiculous, proven strategy from Halo 2. "EphY, go up to him and honk." It was perfect. I honked to get his attention as soon as I was headed in his direction, I turned to let him in as soon as I was close enough. A perfect sitting target. We the pinnacle of teamwork and luck. were boundless, infinite. A group of inspired idiots that could take over the world. I wish we still had time for that.
Write you again some time,
EphY
EDIT: Something is just screwed with my time settings. The first one was posted at like 10AM, this one was posted around 5:26. It's set at GMT-7 every time I check, maybe daylight savings has something to do with that, but the time is still all over the place.
23 June 2009
Perks 1
Dear Friend
I am writing to you because I heard you listen, and I need someone to vent to. Someone to complain to without hearing anything about myself back. I just need to know that there are people out there that at least pretend to care until I'm over myself, and worried about myself again. I think you of all people would understand that because I heard that you listen because you used to vent, to throw your anger and your sorrow and happiness and laughter out for someone else to help you digest.
So this is my life. And I want you to know that I appreciate this. I think a lot of things and keep a lot of what might be secrets and get lost in myself a lot. The reason I wrote this is because I have a lot I'd like someone to listen about.
Write you again some time,
EphY
I am writing to you because I heard you listen, and I need someone to vent to. Someone to complain to without hearing anything about myself back. I just need to know that there are people out there that at least pretend to care until I'm over myself, and worried about myself again. I think you of all people would understand that because I heard that you listen because you used to vent, to throw your anger and your sorrow and happiness and laughter out for someone else to help you digest.
So this is my life. And I want you to know that I appreciate this. I think a lot of things and keep a lot of what might be secrets and get lost in myself a lot. The reason I wrote this is because I have a lot I'd like someone to listen about.
Write you again some time,
EphY
16 June 2009
Part I
The Pull of the Earth seems like an interesting book. It starts off slowly, and hits a number of somber and pessimistic notes. I spend a disproportionate amount of my free time being somber and pessimistic, so I can feel something good slowly creeping up. The end of the first chapter is dramatic, and it starts off with the slow yet immediate immersion into a world that I always enjoy. The first few chapters are pretty good, and distinct enough that the different eras should be easy enough to tell apart.
Part II
It was something my friends and I did, it was always an experience; the subtle contours of the plastic, fitting perfectly into a hand, warming up as you and it became more comfortable with each other. The resistance of a trigger, a button, the way movement went from rocky and jagged to as smooth and subtle as silk. The cheers when something amazing happened, the disappointment when it happened to you. The insistent beeps, harbingers of defeat when arriving with other sounds, heralds of victory when you still stood afterwards. The way the lack, the complete understanding, of competition paradoxically made the competition even better.
Part III
"... what the truck sounds like ripping through the morning air," - page 19
I like the word ripping, like it's tearing through, breaking the silence.
"When Reese looked up, Tom was silhouetted, tall against the darkening sky, like an angry god" - page 17
Powerful imagery, and then it may be implying something about Tom.
"It was sunup when they met, and the fields were quiet as a graveyard, aside from a cold wind coming from up from the south." - Edited from page 13
"Tom's father was killed there, crushed under falling slate like a rabbit in a wolf's jaws." - Edited from page 12
Part IV
It's truly a mountain road, all the way up to the campsite. Mountain, in the sense of the word that only people living on and around mountains can understand. In stark contrast to the sheer, barren cliffs surrounding them, there are small lakes, and rivers around, with small boats, rafts, people. They're probably big, and close enough for their hidden and deep blue to be more real than the post-cards that shelter them from the rest of the world. They're far away though, minute, as if they were separated into a world removed from the road. Even when the rusty tan of rocks that hug the road gives way to trees, that mismatched quilt of autumn colours is still so far away.
The Pull of the Earth seems like an interesting book. It starts off slowly, and hits a number of somber and pessimistic notes. I spend a disproportionate amount of my free time being somber and pessimistic, so I can feel something good slowly creeping up. The end of the first chapter is dramatic, and it starts off with the slow yet immediate immersion into a world that I always enjoy. The first few chapters are pretty good, and distinct enough that the different eras should be easy enough to tell apart.
Part II
It was something my friends and I did, it was always an experience; the subtle contours of the plastic, fitting perfectly into a hand, warming up as you and it became more comfortable with each other. The resistance of a trigger, a button, the way movement went from rocky and jagged to as smooth and subtle as silk. The cheers when something amazing happened, the disappointment when it happened to you. The insistent beeps, harbingers of defeat when arriving with other sounds, heralds of victory when you still stood afterwards. The way the lack, the complete understanding, of competition paradoxically made the competition even better.
Part III
"... what the truck sounds like ripping through the morning air," - page 19
I like the word ripping, like it's tearing through, breaking the silence.
"When Reese looked up, Tom was silhouetted, tall against the darkening sky, like an angry god" - page 17
Powerful imagery, and then it may be implying something about Tom.
"It was sunup when they met, and the fields were quiet as a graveyard, aside from a cold wind coming from up from the south." - Edited from page 13
"Tom's father was killed there, crushed under falling slate like a rabbit in a wolf's jaws." - Edited from page 12
Part IV
It's truly a mountain road, all the way up to the campsite. Mountain, in the sense of the word that only people living on and around mountains can understand. In stark contrast to the sheer, barren cliffs surrounding them, there are small lakes, and rivers around, with small boats, rafts, people. They're probably big, and close enough for their hidden and deep blue to be more real than the post-cards that shelter them from the rest of the world. They're far away though, minute, as if they were separated into a world removed from the road. Even when the rusty tan of rocks that hug the road gives way to trees, that mismatched quilt of autumn colours is still so far away.
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