(no subject)
Oh hi there LJ.
Haven't updated in a long while. So this one will be a doozy.
Things have been hunky-dory recently. Been way more active as of late, so much so that it's cutting into my "me" time. But that's fine for now. I'm enjoying the odd out-of-the-way things I normally don't do. Deviation from the routine is blessedly refreshing.
Where were you, surprise activities and random gimiks, when I was in College? Though, having said that, I still wonder when I'll eventually burn out from all of this - or when I'll totally give up my home-habits like playing video games, sleeping relatively early (12:00mn - 1:00am) on a weekday, and keeping my Sundays sacred in that I only spend that day with the family. I hope it doesn't have to come down to compromising all of that.
There is one downside to all of this activity though. I should learn to save, now that I've finally learned how to spend. Yikes.
---
I tried to write a short story for a friend, as a surprise gift for her birthday. It was about her persona of what she would be like if she were a super heroine.
I never finished it. I never got many details out of her conceptualized character, and I didn't want to concoct new ideas, a back story, a universe, and token villains for her persona to defeat, since it would've become my story instead. I did get five pages of text down after roughly two months of brainstorming, and deciding against to fill out the details.
Not counting actual thinking, I spent a total of one hour or so writing what little I could down.
I figure, after editing it, I would've probably cut it down to three pages.
I got her some odd tchotchke instead, contained in a nice box, where I tried to be a bit artsy in the decoration. I think I succeeded a bit, but it won't be winning any awards.
Oh well, that's the end of that story. Old habits die hard.
---
I maintain a blog in the office, that functions (at least, in my eyes) as something like a work-process questioner, if not a personal shout-box and food-for-thought maker.
I serve things like "Will setting up your keyboard to use the DVORAK layout make you more productive?" and "Neat ideas to help decorate your office desk with" and what little information I can give to newbies to help them pick up stuff faster, or feel less anxious.
It celebrated it's 100th post recently, and I'm proud of the fact that despite it being the youngest internal office blog (we do not have easy access to the 'Net in the office), it has the most number of content posts, the most read, according to network statistics, and the busiest, if we base this on the number of comments made by individuals.
I try to get an article up there everyday from Mondays to Thursdays, though I reserve the right to not write if I don't have the time, am horribly bummed to force myself to write, sick, or it's a holiday. I write during my otherwise bloated lunch hour, because I eat really fast.
Lately, though, I've been in a rut, and I feel like I've talked about everything I can possibly talk about without taking another angle on an old subject.
Forced writing is hard, man. Though it's helped condition an extra writing edge in me. I'm a long way from writing my own stories (see above), but it's nice to be able to write something around 500 words long about a nearly random topic in less than 20 minutes. Even on dragging days, if I get to write something substantial, I feel like I've done something noteworthy, and the day doesn't feel as wasted as it would've been.
---
First it was Mafia Wars.
Then it was Restaurant City.
Then you add the couple hundred-dozen quiz-memes that you just HAVE to answer.
Facebook is killing me.
Very slowly.
I thought I had World of Warcrack Warcraft for that!
Dammit.
---
Oh, speaking of WoW, Cryzz, my pink-haired gnome mage, is now on her 80th season of adventure! Woot woot!
(That means level 80 or max level to you non-roleplay types. Sheesh.)
I'm slowly backing away from organized raiding in WoW, and slowly focusing more on the Player Vs. Player game.
Out of all these changes, one thing's for certain.
I suck at PVP.
But it's added new spice to an old game for me, so I'm happy. :D
---
I watched Kimmy Dora a few days ago. Went with some officemates. It was better than expected, given my negative mindset with local cinema.
But this just in: I still hate excessive slapstick with excessive maliciousness involved, or when it threatens to damage my thinking. If I couldn't get consistent laughter from the 3 Stooges, it'll be hard to expect any other slapstick movie to hit me better.
But at least the acting was great, especially for the single actress who exaggeratedly portrayed the eponymous identical twins of the movie (who also end up dressing exactly alike, which is why the actress had to exaggerate to allow viewers to distinguish who was who), Inday, the unexpected humor source of a maid, and her father, who's straight delivery in a world where everyone's slightly bonkers was another source of comedy for me.
Witty one-liners too, and one plot twist that went below my Tvtropes-powered radar. Wow, TVTropes hasn't ruined my life. It's amazing!
The one "technical" bad part about the movie, even if you remove my dislike for slapstick, was that some of the jokes were drawn out too much.
---
I have also recently watched: UP!, District 9, GI:Joe, and My Sister's Keeper. Some I saw with Eula and Set, some I saw with a lot of officemates.
Because these movies are less fresh in my mind, I will devote only one to two sentences to them.
UP! - A Pixar tale that wins with the storytelling, even moreso than its stellar artistry. Too depressing for kids, if they weren't distracted by the lovable characters and jokes.
District 9 - A movie so good, it made me feel so bad to be human. A not-quite-so-absurd version of Apartheid.
GI:Joe Movie - I saw it for the lulz, and was not disappointed. Not quite a fanboy's wet dream (and I'm not much of a fan), but I laughed all the way out of the cinema as each GI:Joe cliche save the moral-lesson at the end of credits was thrown my way.
Remember kids, "And knowing is half the battle! G.I. Joe!"
My Sister's Keeper - I went in the theater not knowing anything about it, and came out feeling eerily satisfied. It's not an entirely lighthearted tale, but it has its soul pointing in the right place.
---
That's it for me tonight, LJ-land. Thanks for dropping by my rather silent blog. I've got a headache to cure, and a wedding to attend to tomorrow.
Cheers,
Jaime
Haven't updated in a long while. So this one will be a doozy.
Things have been hunky-dory recently. Been way more active as of late, so much so that it's cutting into my "me" time. But that's fine for now. I'm enjoying the odd out-of-the-way things I normally don't do. Deviation from the routine is blessedly refreshing.
Where were you, surprise activities and random gimiks, when I was in College? Though, having said that, I still wonder when I'll eventually burn out from all of this - or when I'll totally give up my home-habits like playing video games, sleeping relatively early (12:00mn - 1:00am) on a weekday, and keeping my Sundays sacred in that I only spend that day with the family. I hope it doesn't have to come down to compromising all of that.
There is one downside to all of this activity though. I should learn to save, now that I've finally learned how to spend. Yikes.
---
I tried to write a short story for a friend, as a surprise gift for her birthday. It was about her persona of what she would be like if she were a super heroine.
I never finished it. I never got many details out of her conceptualized character, and I didn't want to concoct new ideas, a back story, a universe, and token villains for her persona to defeat, since it would've become my story instead. I did get five pages of text down after roughly two months of brainstorming, and deciding against to fill out the details.
Not counting actual thinking, I spent a total of one hour or so writing what little I could down.
I figure, after editing it, I would've probably cut it down to three pages.
I got her some odd tchotchke instead, contained in a nice box, where I tried to be a bit artsy in the decoration. I think I succeeded a bit, but it won't be winning any awards.
Oh well, that's the end of that story. Old habits die hard.
---
I maintain a blog in the office, that functions (at least, in my eyes) as something like a work-process questioner, if not a personal shout-box and food-for-thought maker.
I serve things like "Will setting up your keyboard to use the DVORAK layout make you more productive?" and "Neat ideas to help decorate your office desk with" and what little information I can give to newbies to help them pick up stuff faster, or feel less anxious.
It celebrated it's 100th post recently, and I'm proud of the fact that despite it being the youngest internal office blog (we do not have easy access to the 'Net in the office), it has the most number of content posts, the most read, according to network statistics, and the busiest, if we base this on the number of comments made by individuals.
I try to get an article up there everyday from Mondays to Thursdays, though I reserve the right to not write if I don't have the time, am horribly bummed to force myself to write, sick, or it's a holiday. I write during my otherwise bloated lunch hour, because I eat really fast.
Lately, though, I've been in a rut, and I feel like I've talked about everything I can possibly talk about without taking another angle on an old subject.
Forced writing is hard, man. Though it's helped condition an extra writing edge in me. I'm a long way from writing my own stories (see above), but it's nice to be able to write something around 500 words long about a nearly random topic in less than 20 minutes. Even on dragging days, if I get to write something substantial, I feel like I've done something noteworthy, and the day doesn't feel as wasted as it would've been.
---
First it was Mafia Wars.
Then it was Restaurant City.
Then you add the couple hundred-dozen quiz-memes that you just HAVE to answer.
Facebook is killing me.
Very slowly.
I thought I had World of Warcrack Warcraft for that!
Dammit.
---
Oh, speaking of WoW, Cryzz, my pink-haired gnome mage, is now on her 80th season of adventure! Woot woot!
(That means level 80 or max level to you non-roleplay types. Sheesh.)
I'm slowly backing away from organized raiding in WoW, and slowly focusing more on the Player Vs. Player game.
Out of all these changes, one thing's for certain.
I suck at PVP.
But it's added new spice to an old game for me, so I'm happy. :D
---
I watched Kimmy Dora a few days ago. Went with some officemates. It was better than expected, given my negative mindset with local cinema.
But this just in: I still hate excessive slapstick with excessive maliciousness involved, or when it threatens to damage my thinking. If I couldn't get consistent laughter from the 3 Stooges, it'll be hard to expect any other slapstick movie to hit me better.
But at least the acting was great, especially for the single actress who exaggeratedly portrayed the eponymous identical twins of the movie (who also end up dressing exactly alike, which is why the actress had to exaggerate to allow viewers to distinguish who was who), Inday, the unexpected humor source of a maid, and her father, who's straight delivery in a world where everyone's slightly bonkers was another source of comedy for me.
Witty one-liners too, and one plot twist that went below my Tvtropes-powered radar. Wow, TVTropes hasn't ruined my life. It's amazing!
The one "technical" bad part about the movie, even if you remove my dislike for slapstick, was that some of the jokes were drawn out too much.
---
I have also recently watched: UP!, District 9, GI:Joe, and My Sister's Keeper. Some I saw with Eula and Set, some I saw with a lot of officemates.
Because these movies are less fresh in my mind, I will devote only one to two sentences to them.
UP! - A Pixar tale that wins with the storytelling, even moreso than its stellar artistry. Too depressing for kids, if they weren't distracted by the lovable characters and jokes.
District 9 - A movie so good, it made me feel so bad to be human. A not-quite-so-absurd version of Apartheid.
GI:Joe Movie - I saw it for the lulz, and was not disappointed. Not quite a fanboy's wet dream (and I'm not much of a fan), but I laughed all the way out of the cinema as each GI:Joe cliche save the moral-lesson at the end of credits was thrown my way.
Remember kids, "And knowing is half the battle! G.I. Joe!"
My Sister's Keeper - I went in the theater not knowing anything about it, and came out feeling eerily satisfied. It's not an entirely lighthearted tale, but it has its soul pointing in the right place.
---
That's it for me tonight, LJ-land. Thanks for dropping by my rather silent blog. I've got a headache to cure, and a wedding to attend to tomorrow.
Cheers,
Jaime