All Too Human - All Too Human

Not exactly "Dancing with the Stars", but...

1/22/2015

I learned a Paso tonight! Now, granted, admittedly, it was a simple phase four paso double, but it was still a paso all the same! I actually found it surprisingly easy to do, once I got the hang of it, though that might be in small part to having previous experience from a few years back doing Paso in competition exhibition to Eye of the Tiger. (And unlike the fighter guy on DWTS, we made that Paso look awesome. For the most part, anyway. We had a brilliant choreographer at the time, and she was able to get the sixteen or so couples to do it in synch. Sometime I might have to see if I can find that on youtube; we won that year for rather obvious reasons. But I digress.)

The night was a good night as far as round dancing goes. It's rather sad that we've been reduced to two couples attending on a consistent weekly basis (the people putting it on, and...well, us), but at the same time it opens up a lot of fun because they're some of the strongest phase six dancers around (the only reason that only a few people like us learn from them though is that they're primarily dancers, not teachers), and while we're sometimes at that level and sometimes not, we're generally fairly high.

So it was a good evening, though it had a bit of a snag in it. Rather, stag. Generally, I sleep on the way home (and the way there for that matter), to rest myself up as to better allow me to better focus once the drive has finished. But as we were nearing home, we nearly hit a dear. My sister asked me after that how I was doing. With only a second or two's hesitation, I had an immediate response for her:
"...Awake."

So there was that, but otherwise, good!

Definitely not time well-spent.

1/22/2015

Buthey, I enjoyed it, so it was worth it. Today's been my Starcraft day. I finished up the sixth Zerg mission, about hunting down the Templar. It took me a while to secure the bases and the resources, but once I did, all I had to do was prep my forces for an assault, and then it was a clean sweep through the entire map. There were a couple of huge assaults in which I actually lost all of my troops, but because they then immediately wasted that advantage, I was able to recuperate my losses and destroy their attack force, rebuilt what was lost, and mount a counter-offensive.

The next mission was also a bit of a pushover difficulty-wise, albeit taking a long time to finish. I basically took the base in front of me immediately, and built my base on it. I then headed to the left, to swarm them and capture their base. It took a lil' save scumming to figure out the best combination, but I managed to make it work, overwhelming them. Interestingly, after their base was already destroyed, they rebuilt it, something I didn't know they did, but it didn't last long; already crippled, a second wave eliminated them.

From there, I had a minor resource disadvantage. I crippled their northeast base, but I couldn't destroy it. So they got to get the crystals there, but it was worth it, because I was getting my Guardian assault force (with Mutalisk assistance) ready. I took the base out before the geyser was depleted--heck, all of the northern geysers had a ton of gas in them, with the exception of that northeast one which was nearly depleted. The zerg apparently are supposed to use crystals more, given how much they used/mined compared to how much I did.

It wasn't difficult, but it was time-consuming. I've basically been playing for five hours for those two missions. I took a look at the guide for the next level, to get a feeling of whether I should start the level and put it away for later, or just put it aside.
...Quite the easy decision. Instantly, in my mind, there was one word and one word only coming to mind: "Nope!"

So probably won't do Starcraft again 'til next week at minimum, and probably will actually use said strategy guide. (I don't really use it that much. I'll use it to get the layout of the map, something which a little save scumming could tell me anyway, but that's about it. Unless I'm desperate. And given the mission description...I'm sure I will be.)

Nothing really happened today.

1/21/2015

I mean, I'm trying to think of topics for conversation, but there really aren't any that are popping into my mind. I had class, nothing to report there. (I'm bad at this whole blogging thing, still.) I had work, where some stuff happened, but basically the most interesting thing was me attempting and failing to fully compose some new music in my mind. (I got distracted, and it takes focus to make.) I went square dancing.

That's...really about it. I haven't really had a remarkably event-filled day. No original thoughts, no breakthrough realizations, no unusual events, if I had to define a day as being "average", than today would be the day I would use because there's literally nothing there.

I learned a new form today!

1/20/2015

...Well, finished up the one I had mostly already learned, anyway. It's a positive thing in TKD. Not so positive was forgetting the top half of my uniform, among other things. Not much else to say, at least, not that I really feel like talking about.

Scheduling? I can do that?

1/20/2015

Apparently! In my mind, just now, I made a schedule of sorts, and I'm recording it here quickly to make note of it. I decided that on all days, I'll be doing stuff, but that for future reference, latenights will have focus on one subject. Sunday is flash games, specifically Kongregate. Mondays will be writing (or, mafia if I've been negligent to my mafia games over the weekend). Tuesdays I don't do anything (aside from light mafia work) thanks to work on Wednesdays, but Wednesdays are schoolwork night. Thursdays can be Starcraft night. Fridays are gonna be family night; I'll be too busy to do anything. And Saturdays are Movie/Anime night.

Anyway, this schedule isn't absolute, but it's a good start! So how about starting...
...Thursday!
Yeah.
Totally no reason for that......*shiftyeyes*

So I went to the dentist today...

1/19/2015

Prognosis: hey, you read this blog, right? It shouldn't be hard to guess what the prognosis was. In a word (well, two), not good. It's always been the cruel twist of irony in our family. My mother used (or might still use) a retainer to fix her teeth; all three of my siblings have done the same and/or had braces to fix theirs. Me? No, not so much. I was born with "perfect" teeth, aside from the one wisdom tooth that tipped over and was a serious surgical procedure to get removed. (In this case, the removal of the wisdom teeth was needed as to allow my teeth to continue to have good alignment; with a tooth tipped over, you can imagine how much it was encroaching and beginning to warp my mouth.)

...And yet, there they are, with the near-perfect hygiene, and here I am...noticeably not. Quite the opposite, my hygiene in general is horrible, and that extends to my mouth. I just...don't take good care of it. I've tried to get into the habit, and at times it has stuck, but I always fall off the wagon again and...lose it.

I was told that it'd be a shame to lose my naturally-beautiful smile, but I just sat there in silence, because that brought forward some dark thoughts. Mainly, well...on the average day, the forces of optimism and pessimism, of idealism and cynicysm do battle in my head. And the cynics have the edge, given my mental health and situation. So the first question to enter my mind is, "What's there to smile about?" Like, I'll smile at random times at random things, but in general, what's there?

Now, obviously, if I think about it for a bit, I'd come up with plenty of things. A long list of things to be glad for, to be thankful for, to have a smile about being there, or even if they're not there, of having once been there. The problem is, I have to think about it for a while to do that. The forces of optimism take time to gather. Whereas the forces of pessimism can launch an immediate strike: "Nothing." And that's the thought which bombarded me.

As evident in this blog, there's good stuff in my life and bad stuff. How much of each I see (and by proxy, how much you get to see me talk about them) depends from day to day, moment to moment. But overall, while there's plenty of good, I just can't will myself to see it in more than I do. I see more bad than good, and I tell myself that while, sure, good exists, that the more I try to justify its existence, the less sincere I am, and the more I am lying to myself. The more I am telling myself something to make myself feel better in spite of evidence to the contrary.

So understandably...it's not something I really like to talk about, but hey, this is a blog, and it's gotta go somewhere. I prefer not to keep things too negative (it makes me look like I am grabbing for sympathy/empathy when I'm not, not to mention that I'm a spoiled rotten little brat though that one's partially true), to keep the emo-self-defeat at bay, but...these things DO happen to me, and ARE happening to me; all of this, with this thought process, happened today.

And it got worse when thinking about what they also said. They said that I had a choice to make. In a sense, they're right. I hold the power of choice, to control my life or let it go. Controlling my life, part of it, would involve getting healthier habits, hygiene included. But it's not that simple. So in the other sense, they're also wrong: it's not an on-off switch that I can suddenly flip.

Like...it's...a struggle. A mental war goes on in my mind. I have to force it each time. Sometimes with success, often with failure. It's probably in part thanks to my bipolar disorder, but...I just find myself unable to muster the willpower. It's not a deliberate decision to fail, even though by proxy it is a decision to do exactly that. I don't feel in control. I never feel in control. I try to be in control. I want to be in control. But I never feel like I hold mastery over my life, not even remotely. And killing bad habits and starting good ones is part of that. I keep trying to maintain brushing my teeth healthily in the dentist-recommended way...and yet I keep on finding myself failing, time and time again.

It's technically a decision each day. (Unless the thought slips my mind entirely, as in I don't for one second think about brushing.) But each time, it feels like I have none. It's just...really, really crushing. It's illogical. What I'm saying shouldn't make sense. (Frankly, if it does, that probably speaks for your own health; nobody should understand what I'm saying without having gone through something similar themselves.) But it's there. It happens.

Like I said...there's a mental war in my head, between what I want and what I fear. Between what I should do and what I do. Serious, serious demons live in there. And the demons controlling my outlook on events and my will to overcome are stronger than the angels protecting them.

I'm just...not in good condition. It should be a simple decision. Heck, it shouldn't even be a decision at all; it should be an automatic task ingrained into my mind as something I can never not do, as it has gotten to be in our culture. But here I am...and it is a momentous task, of epic proportions. I struggle every day with things as simple as this, so imagine how hard the bigger things are for me. I'm...a mess.

Go 'Hawks, I guess!

1/18/2015

So I don't really have that much to talk about. Not for today, anyway. I mean, it was rather humorous how nobody was around after 11:30 this morning (gee, I wonder why), and I could talk to you about dancing stuff, but dancing wasn't really anything special; it's a normal week. As always, I can always describe to you a normal day of square dancing, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. (Hey, I am an amateur. Don't let the four-month archive fool you; I'm just as much an amateur blogger as I was my first day. I may be experienced, but I'm not talented at this sort of thing.)

The only real thing I can think of for today is something I realized on the drive home, part of my psychology, but it's mainly pertinent to the game of mafia, where I noted a parallel in the trait as a little quirk of mine. So while I could talk about it on here, I just don't think I'd be able to make it an effective blog post, because it'd go into the layers upon layers of my play there. Sure, the trait could exist elsewhere (I did note it, after all, during driving, so there are other places it could also be), but right now, the only one I can really think of is mafia, thus, I'm going to revive my thread there for a short musing. (I wouldn't call it a proper ramble--it'd probably be a couple of long paragraph's worth, in other words, the length of this blog up to this point. We'll have to see, come time to actually write it.)

What I CAN do, though, is talk about yesterday's movie night. The first film we watched was Birdman. Loosely speaking, I'd say it was a drama. Now, mind you. When I say drama, usually that has a very negative connotation, be it book, show, or movie. (My dad's even worse that way, but nobody in my family is fond of it.) Typically, my view on drama is that we've got plenty enough in our own lives; we don't need to see a film focused around it. (Unlike my dad, though, I don't mind drama spliced into a book/show/movie that has focus elsewhere. For instance, my dad thought The Incredibles had too much drama in the beginning, which to me is a facepalmingly stupid opinion to hold.)

I also generally just...don't care about the people in the dramas. Like horror, you're supposed to. Like in horror films, you're supposed to feel emotions when they undergo troubles. In horror, it's fear; in drama, sadness. Yet with most drama...I just go "meh". It's poorly done. You can even often tell just by the ads. "Yep. Stupid drama. Not worth my time." And be pretty dang accurate. The actors don't impress me. The plots don't draw me in. Nothing hooks me. They're boring...at best.

...Except Birdman wasn't. Birdman was brilliantly executed. It was absolutely enthralling. I was near-positive I'd be multitasking throughout the whole film, but I wasn't; I watched it almost entirely start to finish. For just a start? All the actors in it were actually acting. Like, not halfhearted acting. Not cheesy over the top acting. Not being-themselves 'acting'. (Well, there might be one case, but if so, it was intentional.) They were actually acting, you could feel them. The dialog was brilliantly written. The minute details were clever. The film was just...amazing, and the style (which made it look as if it was one continuous roll of film) was a neat touch.

Dramas generally aren't my thing, just like horror's generally not my thing. But this movie? Birdman? Oh, it most certainly was. The film was also rather meta, when viewed in the whole, given the premise about it is about acting and whatnot. The demons in the main character's head were also pretty dang realistic, too--watch that film to know what I'm talking about, and then you'll understand when I say that in my head, I have three voices: mine, an internal "good" voice that I banter with and exchange stuff with and who is generally my better elements, and a "bad" voice who tells me in rather blunt, harsh matter-of-fact 'you suck' style speech the truth. (Or sometimes, 'truth', as my good side will then point out.) I've argued with him just like the main character did, and while he is sometimes wrong, sadly, he is often right about me, because he either is--or when not, points out--all my flaws.

And the movie? Portrays that PERFECTLY. (Just minus the "good" third voice. For that, you can generally assume characters around the main character sort-of fill in that role, something that I obviously don't have the luxury of.)

Soyeah, even if dramas aren't typically your thing, I'd highly recommend watching it anyway, because it's a solid film. And I mean actual solid film, not "cash cow, made-to-please-critics" solid like most dramas. It's just...good. And I would watch it again. In fact, the more I think of the film, the more I want to. Not many films evoke that type of feeling.

We did watch another film, a Japanese flick, and at the end, we rather appropriately decided to deem it a "Japanese version of a Monty Python sketch". I unfortunately don't remember the title of the film (it had 'Hell' as the last word and was worded as a question, I believe "Why don't" or "How about" being the start, yet I can't remember the all-important middle), but the basic description of the plot (in the same vein as Search for the Holy Grail is Arthur searching for the holy grail, in that this is rather loose) is that a group of japanese yakuza decide to make a film.

Like Monty Python, the humor is specialized to the culture it comes from, but has plenty of enjoyable moments for even those coming outside of the culture--and more than just humor. There's smart writing and decision-making and whatnot in the film, showing some great skill in creating a good movie. Among its best traits is, obviously, that it is also (albeit in just about the most different way possible, given its bizzarity) extremely meta.

So the general consensus was that it was weird, but still very, very good.

Good night, especially for a writer, former-actor (I loved to act back around middle-school, but stopped taking official acting classes when my favorite acting teacher departed the school), troper, and general moviegoer.

Really telling, where I chose to begin browsing...

1/17/2015

So yesterday, we watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and while the universal consensus was not particularly liking the Fred character (which is apparently a universal trait for the actor), that the movie (albeit highly predictable) was absolutely hilarious, and a good thing to have watched.

I then spent the remainder of the night browsing TVTropes, as my post last night (by which, I mean, early this morning) hinted at. I mainly focused on humanity tropes, starting with HumanityIsInsane and branching out, rather largely, from there. I absolutely love exploring the various aspects of humanity, both the good and the bad. It ultimately gave me a little bit of inspiration for my novel (which very largely centers around humanity, mind you), which I typed up today.

Speaking of things I've done today, remember the tune? Yes, THE tune. Yeah, well today, I thought up ANOTHER variant. This time, it's a violin the entire time as the main instrument--in fact, it sounded kinda piratey when I began composing it. You'd recognize the beginning parts as being the variant on the tune, if you had actually HEARD the tune, but it's not an exact copy of the tune; it's one note short on each measure during that part.

Not wanting to forget it, I actually wrote down the tune. It goes something like this. (I realize you'll only have the vaguest of guesses as to what each sound I'm writing is like when played on a violin, but, well, not much that I can do.)

With 1, 2, 3and- timing, it goes like this:
Buh--da--duda---     Bah--da--duda---     Buh--da--duda---    Buh--da--dudah (four measures, out of eight)
Buh--da--duda---     Bah--da--duda---     Buh--da--duda---    Buh--da--dudah
Duh-- (rest)    (rest)

And at the end of the rest measure, adding a transitional bass-note of 'Bu', and then adding the bass to each measure, repeating the whole thing. Keep the above as violin, while adding in the bass which looks like this (excluding the first 'Bu' transition which'd be the 'a' note on the fourth measure):
Buhn--------------      Bahn--------------      Buhn--------------     Buhn-------------Bu
Buhn--------------      Bahn--------------      Buhn--------------     Buhn--------------
Buhn--------------        (rest)

And during the second rest, adding in marching snares, same on each measure, 1-e-and- 2, 3, 4. Badada ba ba ba. Badada ba ba ba.

This is more or less the THE song part. It should be familiar enough. Snares, bass (albeit more basic than normal), and something else (albeit with one less note than normal). But after going through that time, we get to the tricky part. It goes into sixteenth notes a lot more. No bass, no snare, though on each quarter note there's people clapping instead. It's mainly the violin, 1-e-and, 2-e-and, 1-e-and, 2-e-and (technically 1234, but you'll see what I mean), going like this:
Ba-da-da--Buh-du-do--Ba-da-da--Buh-du-do--     (I called this going up in intensity, but I'm not sure what its musical term would be, maybe an octave up, maybe just playing with greater volume, but it's more emphasized than before)
Ba-da-da--Buh-du-do--Ba-da-da--Buh-du-do--     Ba-da-da--Buh-du-do--Ba-da-da--Buh-du-do--
Doh--------------     (rest)
...And then, repeating it again.

One final note, on each rest note (plus the first note of the ninth measure which technically is never a rest), there's a stomp of the foot, and I'm thinking that's throughout the song but it's definitely there during this advanced part.

I didn't get to finish composing the song, but I was thinking after the advanced part, the basic part would repeat, and then a slower part would come in, as a bridge, and then maybe doing the advanced and basic parts again. (Either two basic with an advanced sandwiched between them, or advanced-then-basic.) With an ending coming after that. So while I didn't finish composing the song, I got fairly close.

Tonight's movie night, so don't expect me to post anything else today.

Past Midnight, Shut Up, I Know XVII

1/17/2015

I am insane, yet I am sane.
I am evil, yet I am good.
I am nothingness, yet I am everythingness.
I am stupid, yet I am a genius.
I am neurotic, yet I am normal.

What am I?
A human. Who happens to have just spent a little bit too much time on TVTropes today.

And by 'today', I mean Friday, in spite of it being past 5 AM and thus technically tomorrow, but see title. I'm going to bed. Proper blog post on stuff to come.

Technically past midnight, I know; shut up.

1/16/2015

So today, I did a little bit of Starcraft. Beat the entirety of the fourth mission. I have to say, I basically soloed it with Kerrigan. With the exception of the major trap, I just sent her in to kill, even if there were missiles nearby, and it was completely effective to do so.

I'm currently on the fifth mission, battling the Protoss. I've secured the resources to my right, though I'm not sure if it's well-defended enough. Against the Terrans, sure, yeah, their dropship would be dead before they got a chance to land, but the Protoss ships are faster and have shields. I guess it depends on whether they approach from the south (solid wall of spore colonies) or the north. My main base is decently defended, but not very well, relying a lot on unit support that I'm building up. My main concern at this point is mainly getting my defenses solid so that they can withstand an assault with only minimal support, while also building up my own forces.

To that end, I know there's some crystals to the southwest, where I want to establish a third base. That's one reason I'm not as concerned about my main base; I'm anticipating that once I build down there, the land attacks will shift towards that base. After all, the Protoss can only attack so many locations at once, meaning that my forces only need to be in so many places. I'm not really anticipating that hard of a level. Once I've gotten two or three resource fields, I generally have more at my disposal than the enemies do, and thus, can afford to muster my forces. The Protoss have shields that are annoying, but the Zerg naturally regenerate and from my understanding are much cheaper overall--thus, in a resource battle, so long as I can keep my losses to a minimum, I'll win this match easily.

In much sadder news, going to round dancing tonight, we learned that the people officially running it, who also serve as our teachers giving us the critiques we need to improve, are retiring. The events will still happen, headed by the people who put the dances together as they have since we joined, but...it's just not going to be the same.

And my browser is being so slow that it's basically becoming unusable. :/ It's really frustrating. It's taking dial-up lengths to load things. SETTINGS for the browser should be near-instant and yet are taking that long. Web pages? Even longer. It's ridiculous.

As of this typing, I'm attempting a fix. Which may have just broken it even worse; hard to tell.

In fact, I think I may have crashed it and lost all my tabs. No biggie, since I can mostly list them off. Furthest to the right was two that're my personal site. Next comes two that are devoted to Rain. Then, I believe it's S&W, followed by Gaia, with Vampire Cheerleaders not far behind. Kongregate after that, with the proxy site. Then comes weebly, for this blog, and that's probably missing one or two, but if it was important, I'd remember it.

Anyway, it wasn't past midnight when I began, but it is past midnight now. That should give you an idea of just how utterly my browser is freezing up, and simply put, it's at the point where I'm giving up on it. Like...I'm typing this up, and considering switching to Firefox from Chrome because of how unbearable it's being. I don't know what changed. Chrome used to be much faster than my other browsers, which were laggy and kinda sucked with their features in comparison. Just in case it was an overuse problem, I got rid of everything--and I do mean everything--I had. Not a lick of difference. It still consumed way too much, so now I'm basically going to Firefox for the first time on my current computer. (It was my original browser of choice for my old computer.) It has memory leak issues, and I don't like that ever since version 4 and onward or so it's been nothing but a second-rate Chrome copy (I LIKED Firefox when it was 2-3; I considered it SUPERIOR to Chrome, and then they had to ruin a good thing).

...But at least it freakin' WORKS right now. I just...can't stand what it's become. Eating up half my CPU for no visible reason is just...unacceptable. So the first browser I used on this computer is officially being retired as far as I'm concerned. I've got ClickerHero backups on my computer which I'm hoping will transfer. I wasn't playing actively any other game except Heroes, which is online anyway. Chrome's dead.

And that sucks, because Chrome's been the best browser ever since Firefox and Opera tried to copy it and failed. When FireFox was its own thing, it was cool. It had its quirks, its uniqueness, its beautiful SIMPLICITY and was easy to navigate, compact, and relatively neat. Opera had a TON of neat features, including tab-stacking which I mercilessly abused. Its layout was different from both Firefox and Chrome, but in a GOOD way. Now both are just worse versions of Chrome, which just broke.

I really, really hate how software companies have such a dominance on their consumers. They can do whatever the heck they want to, and get away with it, because the majority of users simply don't have an alternative available. It's technically not a monopoly because technically they are competitors. But they might as well be as far as I'm concerned given the actions they pull. They dominate the market. They all do the exact same things. They don't care.

If I had my way, there would be an option that would work just as well as the other browsers do, but without all the JUNK that those browsers now have put onto us. If I had my way, this browser would be available for free just like the other browsers are, but would have much more freedom in what could be done. Having some of the quirks of the other browsers at their best, and yet being streamlined and simple and not bogged down in the garbage that causes the current browsers to suck so much.

When it comes to physical things, like, say, where we shop, we generally have a choice. We can choose where to go, and thus, stores have for the most part figured out that they need to be as appealing as possible. Everyone wins--the store gets you as a valued customer and you get what you want from them. Yet in software? In software, it seems to be that you don't have a choice. It is what it is. Everyone uses the same basic templates. If you don't use the common names, tough luck. It's just...

Well, infuriating. Now I realize that whatever happened could have been a fault on my end, but I suspect not, given that this problem only began occurring recently, after Chrome updated automatically. (Which it did after my computer's crash, naturally.) It was like a switch. Before, working fine. After, progressively more and more laggy to the point of being unbearably slow. So I really, really don't think it's anything I did on my end, up until the end when I made one last attempt at fixing things in settings. (Which ended up basically removing all of my tabs, as if starting a brand new session from scratch.) What could it be? Literally everything is exactly the same on my end. The only thing it could be is on their end, and there WAS a marked difference in Chrome, with a "you" tab appearing where it hadn't been before and whatnot. If you have a current version of Chrome, you should know where it is, near the minimize/maximize/close buttons.

Even if this is somehow a screw-up on my end and not theirs, though, worth noting is that my rant is all the same still valid. Market diversity is good; browsers entirely lack it now where they once had it a plenty. And sure enough, the quality of each browser (save Chrome, until just now) has gone downhill as a result. Driven by blind ignorance, by greed, I don't know what, but it's pretty dang clear that the people coming up with these ideas don't have to live with them on a day-to-day basis.

As I write this, looking at Firefox...it's just...wow, is it fast in comparison. Still has a minor problem, in that it's got script issues, but the extra speed should help make up for it. Now, mind you, Firefox apparently doesn't have flash in it, which weebly apparently doesn't need to work and yet which is used by weebly anyway (presumably for stuff like facebook and whatnot which I have no need for anyway), meaning once I install it--and I need to, for my games--it might slow down a bit, but daaaaaaaaaaaaaang, Chrome. You really dropped the ball.