while watching darkness falls at midnight: one of my new favorite quotes

"First time shouldn't taste like blood."

a post about erin bean

So Erin is here at my house and she's disappointed that there probably isn't a post about her on my blog. Therefore, this is a post about Erin, to ensure that the only thing I've ever said about her on the Internet isn't that she's not as pretty as Halo 2.


Erin Bean is a much better friend than Halo 2.

i wrote a sestina

Sometime, let’s ride the night-time ferry
Its lights stretched out on rippling water.
The windy mourning of the seabirds
Will guide us through our lonely journey
And tell of great and unnamed sadness
Awaiting in the dim horizon.

And when we reach that dark horizon
We’ll cast our souls off of this ferry
And drown in oceans made of sadness.
But tears are nothing to this water
And, at the end of our death-journey
We’ll find only the countless seabirds.

Oh, how they keen and cry, those seabirds!
They know what’s there, at the horizon
That makes us carry on our journey.
For what is this, our night-time ferry
If not a shrine on pitch-dark water,
A testament to all our sadness.

We can’t see limits to this sadness
And so, distraught, we ask the seabirds,
Who all reply, “There is no water,
“There’s happiness on that horizon
“If only you’d step off that ferry.
“Put to an end your foolish journey!”

But nothing’s left to us save journey,
Return’s prevented by our sadness
So we’ll forever ride this ferry
Plagued by the lying of the seabirds.
We know what’s there, at the horizon
For there begins the endless water.

Eternity on unlit water!
The ancient promise of this journey,
The light we see on the horizon -
Is it not better to know sadness?
Or to give in and join the seabirds
That skirl about the grand night-ferry?

The water here gives way to sadness
Here ends our journey, where the seabirds
Leave our night-ferry: the horizon.

sometimes

late at night the internet is trying to send me messages

Did you ever get the feeling that God is trapped somewhere inside there, and he occasionally reaches out a tendril to try and struggle for freedom?

p.s. Knuuuuddel!

i will fucking kill microsoft

Imagine that there is a game you enjoy playing on the Xbox. That game will not be playable on the 360. What will be, however, is Drake of the 99 Dragons.

And, of course, nobody cares about backwards compatibility.

my arch-nemeses

Ranked from least to greatest (sort of), my Arch-Nemesis List is kind of odd. But it seems to be worth recording, if only for remembering who they are. My Not Worth My Contempt List is much longer.

Patrick True
Technically, he shouldn't be on here any more. But he has really annoying Magic decks, so he stays.

Interplay
Once, I ordered the expansion for Icewind Dale from them and it arrived about two days later. Not even Amazon delivers that fast. They pretty much went bankrupt last year, so I guess I don't have to fear them any more, but they managed to take the rights to most of my favorite RPGs down with them.

Warlocks
I have had bad experiences with warlocks. Firstly: They used to be able to kill me without even stopping, just by putting a few choice curses on me. Secondly: They tend to use fear on monsters even when they're in a group and are in no danger of dying. I don't want to chase down the damn ogre because you're scared of going down to half health, and I sure as Hell don't want him bringing all his friends with him as he runs back. Thirdly: If I'm the party leader and someone needs a teleport, and then you complain that you don't want to do it because of some stupid reason, and I tell you to do it, leaving is okay. Sending me tells for 5 minutes complaining about how immature I am is not.

Square Enix
Somebody must have sold their soul to the Devil somewhere along the line. Nothing else could explain why Final Fantasy is popular. I understand that FFVII was a good game. But was it really good enough to justify a series of perpetually less-inspired sequels? And crappy spinoffs like X-2? And Advent Children? Grim Fandango is pretty much my favorite video game. If they ever made a movie that did to Grim Fandango what Advent Children does to FFVII, throwing together a shallow and disjointed plot and relegating all of the minor characters to gratuitous cameos, then throwing in the dead villain at the end for no reason other than that he's popular, well, I probably wouldn't like it. I might even hate it. I certainly wouldn't gush over it like every Final Fantasy fan ever does for Advent Children. I like to believe there's a special circle reserved in Hell for Japanese RPG developers.

The Great Japanese Empire
Probably the least competent military venture in the 20th century. The story of Japan in World War Two is alternately depressing, infuriating, and comical, combining baby-stabbing, rape, horrifying propaganda, and unnecessary nuclear detonations into one nice little package. It wouldn't be quite as bad if the Japanese wouldn't keep pretending like it didn't happen. At least I can get my revenge on them by playing Pacific Assault.

Bicyclists
Bicyclists pretty much think they're the best people in the world. They don't drive cars and don't pollute the environment, so they can be all smug and drive in the road while ignoring stop signs. And they're faster than pedestrians, so they can pretty much zoom by you hazardously without so much as a by-your-leave. Would a by-your-leave be too much to ask for?

Undead Rogues
Please stop stabbing me. I can understand if I'm near your level, because then it's fair. But if you're 20 levels higher than me, you've got nothing to gain. And don't kill me while I'm fighting a monster, either. That's just rude.

Otaku
The use of the word "otaku" to describe American Japanophiles is rather ironic. In Japanese, it translates roughly to mean someone who likes homemade stuff. It might be nerdy and uncool, but at least it's Japanese. Cat ears? Unnecessary use of catchphrases? Idolizing Pocky? Drawing everything with big eyes? Can't you just admit that your subculture is culturally bankrupt, unable to contribute anything new, cursed to forever imitate people and styles far more creative than you? Somewhere in Japan, I like to think that there's an equivalent culture, made up of people who worship mediocre American animation and comics. At the very least, it might lead to some amusing New Mutants fan fiction.

Irony
Irony is a clever foe. It is now bloated and obscene, nearly impossible to defeat. You people took irony and ran it into the ground with your endless T-shirts and your stupid haircuts and your tight pants. Now you're going to pay.

The Sun
No enemy could be greater than this celestial body. It's too bright, it's too hot, and it's impossible to escape. I dread blue skies; I feel that the world is much better with clouds. You people who like it so much? Remember that it's essentially just a giant nuclear reactor beaming radiation down onto us. Clouds? They're what keeps our skin from frying off.

Level: Final

I finished all my finals today in a rather grueling four-hour block. After I was done, I was walking back through the plaza at sunset, with the cherry blossoms beginning to bloom and the birds singing all around me.

It occured to me that such a golden-lit Victorian pastoral/neo-classical scene might make a good setting for a video game.

Edit: Fuck yes! String implements Comparable! I didn't fail that bit!