gaming + toys

random online musings

by m3ntal

i guess it’s been a while since i posted an actual journal entry. talking about my life’s become a bit dull. my life is duuuullll. and i say that while being wholly content, mind you. it’s not a terrible life per se, but my brain is wired to necessitate constant stimulation. bloggings also become the “snail mail” of posting…or heck, even normal email. facebook is now the instant messaging of posting, and blogging has become a novelty. digital media moves so fast now that i can actually make an analogy of obsolescence using other digital media.

anyhoo, aside from still mulling this years forthcoming vacation (drawing a blank to be honest), venturing out to try more places to nosh, and generally trying to liven up my daily tedium, i’ve been filling my free time with a variety of online endeavors (read: games). above is the retardedly pretty tera, which is totally boss. it’s still in closed beta however, so i fill my actual free time with star trek online, which had gone free to play earlier this year. what can i say…it’s totally fun captaining your own ship! below is the uss sympathy (full name “unfinished sympathy“…but it was too many characters!) which actually isn’t my main ship (the uss chaos theory…a fleet escort is), but the shortbus gunboat doesn’t photograph as well as a honkin’ odyssey class.

archive | favorites, photo journal, travelogue

kyotokyo 2011

by m3ntal

ah japan, how i love thee. this having been my fourth time visiting the country, one could argue my fascination with japan borders on fanaticism. and hey, it’s possible. i have no loyalties to my own cultural upbringings, heritage, whatevers…i can love america and taiwan, and still have a profound appreciation for japan.

so having said that, with all my trips to japan ever being awesome, and my last trip there especially being all kinds of awesome, this trip still had to live up to three prior trips of pancaking layers of super. this trip was actually a bit of a last-minute vacation. i had already taken a vacation that year…to beijing. which was meh, but nevertheless still a vacation. my cousin cindy, who i’d kept in touch with since our trip back in 2007 and one of only a handful who was fluent in english (she was raised in new zealand), messaged me saying that she would be studying in kyoto for a year. and since we’d had a prior chat about how i loved japan, etc, she said i should come visit. i thought for about a millisecond, then said “fuck yea” and proceeded to book tickets and hotels. not long after that, word got around my office that i was off to vacation in japan, so the director of communications asked me if i wanted to do a presentation of my vacation when i got back. i figured…sure, why not? a week or so before i flew out, i had a thought tho. slideshow presentations are boooring, and i hate making boooring presentations. so i thought i’d make a time-lapse video while i was there. i’d always wanted to make one, and it seemed like a nice evolutionary step from my usual photo-ing.

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gaming + toys

best of!

by m3ntal

jk…not my thang. but i do enjoy reading other people’s “best of’s”. and kotaku highlighted the best soundtrack for 2011…deus ex human revolution by michael mccann. i couldn’t agree more.  an amazing game with an amazing soundtrack that still gives me the shivers. the trailer (especially the director’s cut) fits the overall theme and ambiance so succinctly. it world-builds like few game trailers i’ve watched lately.

archive | favorites, cin3ma | international

k3loid

by m3ntal

i forget sometimes that i have a blog :p jk…well, not really. but it’s the holiday season, and shit is crazy yo. catching up with friends before the new year, holiday parties, and oh yea…headed to kyoto next week…word!

i posted this to facebook, but it’s probably worthwhile to have it in my blog too (for posterity and all). k3loid, by big lazy robot. a friend of mine i used to work with worked on it. and if his friends are anything like him, then they must be all insane cg gods. enjoy.

journal

matching

by m3ntal

saturday night and i’m at home popping donut holes, chugging a coke, and blasting justice’s “phantom part 2” to (hopefully) piss off my obnoxious neighbors who’ve done the same to me. normally this would be ok…i’m quite fond of relaxation. but lately it’s done nothing but irk me. i’ve been restless today. i actually thought i had something to do tonight…but that went down the shitter, for reasons i’ll go into. you see, i was going to hang with a girl tonight. but sometime between this morning and now, i lost that desire.

i’d actually been on match. dating and meeting people in this vast city can seem daunting, so after being pressed by numerous friends, and having seen the fruitful results of others giving it a shot, i thought i’d give it a shot as well. and hmm, it started off spectacularly. i went on my first date within days of signing on. nothing sparked, but it was still fun. the second date was more fruitful…felt a connection, and was genuinely interested in getting to know her better. we actually continued messaging each other through the week. except the messaging was odd…erratic, and more prone to me consoling and doling out advice than actual conversation. weird, but whatever…maybe some people are just better in person than chatting. i’ll spare the details, but at some it just felt like i was trying to talk someone off a ledge. hmm…k, i suppose this is the ‘getting to know someone’ part, and it’s not looking pretty. maybe this whole time i was fixated on her cuteness and less on her mildly depressing state of mind. was she like this during the date? i can’t even recall at this point.

we were going to meet up to do something tonight, but after another round of waahing and my quickly losing any desire to actually meet up, i sort of just let the last message i received slide to the side, then immediately sought counseling from a reliable (female) friend. the conclusion? girls are weird.

epilogue

maybe i’m attracted to odd girls…maybe only odd girls are in turn attracted to me. finding a normal girl is looking exceedingly difficult. my track record seems less than stellar at this point. as a continuation of the match story though, i went on a third date shortly after the other girl. no connection there either, but we did get a good laugh out of our past dates. i have one coming up monday too…most likely the last in the foreseeable future. i’m hoping she’s normal.