The Purple Tux
With just enough education to perform.Wednesday, January 30, 2002
Whoever invented TopText links deserves to have his ear bitten off by Mike Tyson and his knee bashed in by Tonya Harding.
A whole week without writing. Hmm. Can't say I've never done it before. I do feel a little bad for letting down my one or two fans, though. After getting back from the awesome, awesome, men's retreat with Cru last week, I've just been having kinda a rough time. It's probably just the devil trying to drag me down after I survived my mountain experience (ask me about my mountain experience...). So I've just been barely hanging in there, you know? Sort of like going through the motions, doing whatever. And have a lot of work too. Let's see, Sheynis is getting unjustly kicked out of the dorm (!@#$ Judicial Affairs and bureacracy- TOTAL CRAP) there's the FAFSA crud I gotta start filling out, gotta start looking for a place to live next year, gotta find people to live with next year, gotta write a 7-12 page short story (which I have not started yet) in under 2 weeks or so, gotta play Street Fighter, gotta wake up early for early classes, gotta study and do other homework... It feels like I have more homework this quarter, too. Ah well, I guess I needed more work. I did discover that going to the library is conducive to getting work done. So yeah. Like Slic Ric says, I'm beat down physically, emotionally, and mentally. Or something like that. I think I'm doing okay spiritually, but hey, I think everyone could always do better.
Well. That's enough of an update on what's been down with me. (Yeah, I know, who cares, huh?!)
Lately, I've also been doing a great deal of thinking (you're not surprised, are you???). I've been thinking about how most people overanalyze way too much. Like that little story I wrote the other week, for instance. People kept coming up with these weird analyses. They were like, "Dru, is that autobiographical? Is that what you think about mothers? I understand the symbolism between breakfast cereal and justice and freedom, that was incredibly brilliant! What was the meaning of the bum? Is there any connection with seducing my mom and making mean faces to little girls? etc" Bah. It was just a story. The meaning of Myopic Rabbits is that people overanalyze too much and like to come up with too much meaning.
I'm all for people coming up with their own ideas and finding certain aspects of a story that they can "feel," but I do think that in every English class I've been in since taking the honors courses at Lowell, people just freaking made too much of every single minute freaking detail. Those freaks. A great man once said, "Mr. Davis put the ANAL in analyze." I believe that analysis is important, but there's a certain limit where once a (smart) reader figures out the author's theme/message/etc., then that's enough. We don't NEED to overanalyze once we've got the meaning of it all. I don't find overanalysis to be edifying in any way, shape, or form; quite the opposite, in fact. I find overanalyzing only causes me to dislike a story more.
I don't know if you're familiar with the Hemingway short story "Hills Like White Elephants," but the other week I think certain classmates overanalyzed it. (You can find the online text of the story at http://www.fti.uab.es/sgolden/docencia/hills.htm and don't worry, it's short.) After we discussed the story, some girl said something about how the bead curtain represents that the man and the girl are separated from thinking about everything else except for their situation. At that point, I was rolling my eyes, so I piped up and said we were overanalyzing. I asked, "How do we know Hemingway just went to a train station, noticed bead curtains, and decided to include them in his story for realistic detail? Sheesh." I think a lot of people had a problem with that. That's the problem with students these days. Many people in this place are idiots. They think that just 'cause teachers like analyzing, we can never analyze enough. So what? Teachers aren't supreme masters of knowledge, they want discussion, but they also don't realize how ridiculous it sounds to be inventing rather idiotic notions about symbolism from obscure, random details and such.
But it didn't stop there. The girl who brought up the subject of the bead curtains decided to counter me by saying, "My previous English teacher said that when reading a story, an author's life shouldn't matter, because if the story is TRULY good, it'll be universal." So stupid. First of all, I have to say that the teacher who said that is a frikkin' IDIOT. And she isn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box for accepting everything teachers spoonfeed her. Crap, there better not be a blackout or anything before I print this. But I digress. To a certain degree, I do agree that good stories are universal. But universal in that readers from anywhere can relate to the story, or learn from it, or just "feel" it somehow (there is an intangible element to all artwork, anyone who disagrees is a ninny). An author's background and experiences, though, contribute a MAJOR deal to their work. What the crap do you think most people write based on? Their feelings, idiot. If readers knew where an author was coming from, readers would have a more accurate time interpreting the author's work. And contrary to popular belief, an author's own interpretation of his own work is very important.
Take almost any good pop song, for instance. Of course most artists aren't gonna say, "Yeah, the fans' interpretation is totally off the mark, they are all freaking stupid." No way. Instead, you hear them say, "I'm glad the fans gleaned a happy feeling from this song. However, I did intend this song to have more of a bitter, sarcastic tone, but whatever people make of it is fine." You think many people want to buy records from a guy who calls his fans doofuses? U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind album had a track called "Peace On Earth." Before September 11th, most people thought it was just a hopeful, almost sappy song. However, after September 11th, Bono did say in an interview something about how "Peace On Earth" was meant from the very beginning to have a bitter tone, and until after September 11th, no one really thought about that.
Don't just accept my views, though. You should do your own thinking about this as well. However, I would consider you highly uncool if you were to disagree with me on this subject.
Dang. Imagine how much homework I could have done in the time it took me to write all this!!!!!!!
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
I'm alive. I've just been pretty freakin' busy lately. No, I haven't been playing Street Fighter all day or anything. (Okay, I admit I played some...) I've had a lot of work and studying and reading and all this educational stuff to do. So I haven't been able to devote as much energy to this. Of course, I COULD just write some little ditty on some random subject, but I'm not really in the mood for randomness right now. There's plenty of deep subjects I'll bring up soon, but right now I don't think I could do those topics justice with some lazy five minute jot. I'll be back, in good time. In the meanwhile, check out http://www.gamegen.com/fightgen/characters.html
It's got great art.
I don't know why I'm not writing anything even slightly meaningful. Maybe I'm not brilliant like Josh and Marcus.
:pwned
Friday, January 18, 2002
Yo. I'm about to leave for a men's retreat with Cru today. We're going to someplace near Fresno, I believe. Have a good weekend, faithful readers (haha, did I just type that? Who's a faithful reader? If you are, I give you props and I'll treat you to a free game of MvC2 sometime, just gimme a shout-out.).
Before I forget...
I think we overanalyze WAY too much in most English classes. I believe that as long as we get the main point the author is trying to convey, there isn't really any need to analyze every single little superfluous detail, trying to find unimaginable, unlikey forms of symbolism. Too much stretching of facts is useless. And also, to foolish people who say that author's life if irrelevant to the meaning of his story: (time to quote Gen) "You are BIG fool." I want to write more on this subject, but I'm sorta in a rush right now. So I'll just leave this short story I wrote (for English 5F). Read it, and tell me what YOU think it means. Then I'll tell you what it really means, hahaha, I bet no one will get this story. But give it a shot, and if you can understand this story, I'll give you TWO free games of MvC2.
Myopic Rabbits
He couldn’t figure out where the chapstick was; truth be told, he wasn’t even entirely sure whether Safeway sold the product or not. On one hand, he could have asked a worker. That’s what they’re there for, right? But on the other hand, he didn’t want to seem like a dainty little fairy asking for CHAPSTICK, of all things. Tugging his cap down over his brow, he surreptitiously glanced around the area, hoping no one he knew caught him standing in the women’s beauty products aisle.
Let’s see, he thought, moving to another aisle. I’ve got the apples, bananas, oranges, kiwi, avocado, carrots, cabbage, eggplant, broccoli, and tomatoes. I’ve got the wheat bread and the jam, the catfish and the bottled spring water. Why can’t mom ever ask me to buy some GOOD food, like Ramen noodles, chocolate-coated milk duds, or Cheetohs Brand Flamin’ Hot chips? The cereal aisle loomed before him. Mumbling quietly, he pushed his cart along. Well, this is the last item. A tiny girl sitting in her mom’s shopping cart made a rude face to him. Irritated, he glared back as harshly as he could with his meanest “evil-eye” face. The girl’s lips trembled, her eyes started to water, and she cried out for her mommy. He instantly looked away, playing innocent, and looked at the multitude of cereal boxes on the shelf in front of him. As he stared zombie-like at the cereal boxes, he wondered what had possessed him to do such a thing. Casually turning his head in the girl’s direction, he noticed that the mother was only interested in making the poor child be silent. The mother didn’t seem to be concerned about what had made the girl cry in the first place. She only wanted her daughter to stop “making a scene.”
He took a moment to ponder this. Why did mothers have to be like this? Why did his mother have to be so selfish? Telling their toddlers to shut up in public, guilt-tripping their teenage sons to go grocery shopping- it’s all the same thing. As he was brooding over this, his eyes fell upon a sharp red package on the top shelf. “Trix.” For some reason, he remembered the rabbit commercials which always ended in the catchphrase, “Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!” Either through sheer poetic genius or through massive insanity, he felt a brotherly bond with the Trix Rabbit. The injustice of it all inflamed him. Just because the Trix Rabbit was a rabbit meant he couldn’t have any Trix? He reached up and yanked two boxes of Trix, gently laying them in his cart. An aisle over, the little girl was crying even louder, and her mother continued trying to shush her rather harshly, which didn’t soothe the child at all.
Finally, he was almost done with his chore. Only 3 more people were ahead of him in the line. As we waited his turn, he read the tabloid front pages. “President’s Mother Arrested In Drug Bust!” “Mother Theresa Still Alive And Well In Indonesia!” “101 Surefire Ways To Seduce Your Mama!” Everything revolved around the concept of mother. The bag boy asked, “Paper or plastic?” and ended up doing both.
A haggard homeless man greeted him outside the supermarket, proclaiming how the end was near and how the government screwed him over and how he wished he had a mama to look after him and how he could sure use some spare change right about now since the end was nigh and no one would need any spare change when Armageddon arrived. The boy didn’t really want to give a crazy guy any money so he gave him one of the boxes of Trix. The homeless guy thanked him and told him that he was a good boy.
Wednesday, January 16, 2002
"Good game."
People at the arcade say that a lot. Not THAT often, but players usually say "good game" after those sweat in your hands close battles. We don't usually say "good game" after we whoop on a guy, though. I guess it's because of some unspoken code of conduct or something. If the guy we beat was too easy, it wasn't really such a good game, since playing easy guys usually doesn't boost our skills. It's kind of the opposite in a game like basketball. People say "good game" all the time, whether the game was close or even if some tall guys whooped on smaller Asian guys like me. It's just polite, I think. Basketball players don't say "good game" if the guys on the other team were jerkwipes, though.
However, we Street Fighter players, I've noticed, don't always seem to understand the "polite" aspect of the phrase "good game." All too often, after a match, the winner says "good game" (or maybe he doesn't; either way...) and then presses his start button and proceeds to beat the snot out of the loser's dead character. I myself do that all the time, as well. But if you think about it, isn't that rather offensive behavior? If it were really a "good game," isn't it unsportsmanlike to beat on the dead guy's corpse?
Think about it this way. In real life, imagine you got into a real fight with some dude, and he beat the crap out of you, and you were like barely conscious, bleeding on the floor and everything. Then you give up and the guy who smacked you down bends over and says, "You fought well. I was honored." You'd kind of expect him to give you some first aid, right? But nope, what if he said that you fought well, THEN he did a jump kick, which bounces your body 7 feet in the air, then chases you and does a light jab to keep your body in the air, then shoots 20 pink laser beams down your throat. Not cool. But that's what a lot of Doctor Doom users do. It's like some crazy thing, when the guy is dead, you just wanna combo his dead body, since it changes like the way moves combo, sort of. Like when you launch the dead body, it doesn't fly as high as it normally would, and this makes for some unique combo properties.
So it's like beating on dead guys is an art form now. "Good game" doesn't really mean much, except perhaps you could take it to mean "That was a close game, but I won!! Haha, sucker, now look at your dead body, how you like that, punk sucker? OOH!! Man, look at that punch mark! Bwahahaha..."
When I win, one of my favorite dead body attacks is just using Sentinel, and then just standing across the screen and doing his roundhouse Sentinel Force, you know, the one with the slow drones that drop bombs? So the other guy hears "Deploy" sees slow little drones flying over his body and then they drop some bombs and there's hecka little explosions. And if I got time, I toss in a rocket punch, and that Afghan bombing really annoys the other guy. It's also fun to taunt people rapidly, especially when you have a guy like Iceman (who says "Yeah!" in a HECKA sarcastic and funny style) or Captain Commando (who busts out cowboy clothes and a guitar from a subspace pocket or something).
I don't know why videogamers are so sadistic.
Monday, January 14, 2002
Tuxedos and purple bow ties.
I recently noticed that the designs on this site form a purple-trimmed tux. Kind of strange. I didn't really notice it before, I just picked this layout because it had black and purple. I forgot the deep thoughts I was gonna write today. Doh.
Sunday, January 13, 2002
Today, I finally threw away Danny's (my roommate's) half-full carton of chocalate-covered milk-duds (Whoppers, I think they're called. Ma knows what I'm talking about). Finally. He's had them since before Thanksgiving, maybe even since around Veterans' Day. I don't know how often he ate those, but after the first week I stopped eating them. I haven't even looked inside the carton for over a month, I'm kind of repulsed by it, actually. Those milk duds were only good when I was REALLY hungry, but when I was full and they were many weeks old, I thought they were just a little barfy, even for Iron Stomach Tan. Man, you don't know how great it feels to finally throw that carton away. Every once in a while someone visits my room and sees it and asks, "Hey, can I have some?" And I gotta be all like, "Uhhhhh, they're only x weeks old..." And then my visitor is disgusted and leaves the room.
My roommate is playing Starcraft again. I don't understand how someone who plays so much can be so weak. Ma says Danny's too weak 'cause he keeps playing lame infinite mineral maps and crud.
Friday, January 11, 2002
Loud music.
Big Ma man is telling me how his neighbors are totally thumping some nasty "music." It was so loud, when Ma when to the bathroom, the toilet was rattling. Now I don't know whether he took a crap or not, but I'd say it'd feel rather strange to be sitting on a toilet trying to take a dump while your butt jostles around to the rhythm of some nasty teen pop and other such weak stuff. I know it can be annoying living in the dorms when people in the building play their music too loud, especially if it's music you don't like. Actually, to tell the truth, sometimes I play my music pretty loud, loud enough so that I can listen to my MP3s while I'm in the bathroom, but I haven't done that in a while. I'm trying to be more respectful of the other people. Some people don't like good music and will never know what good music is, so no matter how loud I play my good music, they are not gonna like it, so I may as well extend my speakers' lifetimes.
Right now, I'm even using headphones. My roommate is doing homework (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) for once. And get this: HE IS SITTING AT HIS DESK DOING MATH PROBLEMS, AND HE IS NOT PLAYING STARCRAFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is about the third time in my life I have seen this happen. Usually when he "studies," he's 90% playing Starcraft. Is this a sign of the apocalypse???? If this keeps up, I might feel guilty and start doing some of my own homework. Dude.
Yesterday, I finally figured out what the old R.E.M. song "Losing My Religion" is really about. I found this brief interview online with Michael Stipe, and he explained how the phrase "losing my religion" is a southern expression which basically means "I'm at the end of my tether." He wrote the lyrics in an attempt to write the most obsessive love song ever. Hunh. Pretty genius. Or maybe just I-n-S-a-N-e. But either way, it all makes sense now... mostly.
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
Recently, I've finally been able to beat some of the crazy guys at MvC2. It might take a few tries, but I actually beat a couple crazy guys twice in a row. I find most of my success when I use Blackheart/Sentinel/Cammy or Spiral/Sentinel/Cammy. Those are pretty good things, even when Cammy is last (wo)man standing. Can't underestimate the Killer Bee, one combo can do about 40% damage. I'm also learning to make better use of my throws, which actually does help. Throwing gives me the momentum, surprises the other guy, and usually puts me in a better position, or lets me regroup at least. Plus, every pixel's worth of damage helps me out. It can also be hard to stop BH from running away and raining demons when Cammy's AAA covers so well. And It's tough to deal with Spiral's swords and the Sent drones. They say the more crap a character can fill the screen up with, the better the character is... hmm... that theory may have merit. Haha!
Oh yeah, and the other afternoon I saw the jerkwipe playing MvC2 against a crazy guy, one of his friends, I think. What a hypocrite. He got pissed at me for doing all sorts of chip damage and trapping on him, yet when I saw him play, he did 5 of Thanos' Power super in a row in a vain attempt to chip the other guy to death. I guess doing chip damage only constitutes as "cheap" if the guy who does it wins. Laaaaaaaaame.
In other breaking news, the winter quarter has started. Not too shabby so far, but I have a lot of classes (Three!) on Tuesday. I have a feeling it's gonna hurt to have two 1 hour and 50 minute back-to-back classes. Hmm, I guess that's all I care to say about school. Let's go back to more pressing matters, such as MvC2.
One of these nights I'm gonna go to the MU to practice with people I'm not that proficient with, especially Storm. Sam and I were trying her out the other night, she's very good but I have to get used to her. I like how she can be used for crazy rushdowns and cross-ups yet also play one of the best games of keep-away. She's the Queen of the Sky. Some dudes at the DC last night were handing out little cards about some frat party thing on Wednesday night (8:30PM-12AM), at the MU. They promise free arcades. I got an early class on Thursday, but oh well, I'll probably still go. I mean, free MvC2, how can anyone beat that? There might be weak people so I can practice my combos and boost my ego.
Next time the crazy guys aren't there, I'll have to experiment with Iron Man/Sentinel/Doctor Doom and Storm/Cable/Psylocke. And maybe Cable/Blackheart/Captain Commando. Yesterday, some dude was using Cable on point with Blackheart's Inferno assist to play keep away, a clever tactic but not often used. He beat me the first time because my joystick got stuck in the middle of my Magneto rush, and I couldn't block and just, well, died. Of course the next round, he must have been feeling really cocky because he didn't really do a good job of protecting both of his assists (BH and Doom), and my stick didn't mess me up as much, so I put him in his place. Haha. Now that I know the crazy guys are beatable, I don't worry about anyone I face. No more of that psychic intimidation crud, nope. Skills can only improve. But maybe I should get a job, spending a dollar a day gets kind of crazy without a job.
Boy, I sure wrote quite a bit. There better not be a blackout or anything before I post this, or I will be pissed. Peace out. And Ma, take care of your head. Or you might grow those two bulges you had in 8th grade (remember the freakish yearbook photo? Dude...).
Sunday, January 06, 2002
Toptext links piss the CRUD out of me. How can CxxxRxxxAxxxP be a freaking toptext link. I hate the jerkwipe who invented those links. Piss me off like heck.
Thursday, January 03, 2002
Losers.
Today, after I bought my textbooks, I obviously went for some rounds at MvC2 and CvS. (Hey, the arcade is directly next to the bookstore!!) Well, I was there for several minutes (long enough to beat MvC2 against the CPU), and then I played CvS and beat a guy, then proceeded to play the computer. While I was at CvS, some guy and his friend started playing MvC2, so I gave my CvS game to my friend and played against that guy at MvC2. He'd just beaten his friend two or three times in a row, and he was using Spider-Man/Jill/Commando. I picked Spiral/Cable/Sentinel for the heck of it. At first I was pretty surprised, I was about to go easy on him but he probably came from the Sherwin school of Spidey users, he did a couple of actual combos on me. So I was like, alright, that's cool, I'll do whatever to win. So I did the Spiral/Sentinel Wall Of Swords tactic, you know, call Sent assist, call swords, jump up and throw swords, rinse, repeat.
Now this really pissed this guy off. He couldn't do anything to touch me. I mean c'mon, he was using SPIDER-MAN for crying out loud!! What can Spidey do to get around the trap??? Maximum Spider his noggin into a knife? (Of course, one could always call an assist to take some hits and try to break free, but this guy didn't have the brains to do that.) Eventually the guy started saying crap to me. You know, lame stuff like, "Oh what the hell is this sh!t? F*ck this, man, play like a man, etc." I started getting pretty pissed, too. Of course when I play at the arcades I'm used to people getting mad and swearing and stuff, but this is probably the first time a guy wasn't afraid (or well-mannered enough) to insult me, personally, to my face. So I kept doing the Wall of Swords until Spiral died, then it was turn for Cable's turn to play. By this time, I killed Jill and Spidey came back with some life left, and I was about to AHVB x 3 Spidey, but he died after the second one. That HECKA pissed the guy off some more, he started saying more crap to me. After I won, the guy said loudly to his friend so I'd hear, "That f@ggot was gay, he played hella cheap, that motherf*cker, etc." I know people say stuff like that to their friends all the time, but I've never heard anyone be so brazenly puerile about it.
So I turned and looked at him, raised my eyebrows, nodded towards him, and kinda smugly said, "What's up, dude?" He was pissed, but I think he was kinda surprised I confronted him, and he was like, "That was gay sh!t, man, you play f*ckin' cheap!" So I was all like, "Dude, WHAT did I do that was CHEAP?" And, of course, because no one is ever sure exactly what "cheap" is ("cheap" is whatever winners do to win), he stuttered something about "Your f*ckin' launcher took up the whole screen and sh!t, hella gay!" I was highly perplexed, what the crud? My LAUNCHER??? I clearly heard him say that word. I don't remember launching him at all, and how could Spiral's launcher take up the whole screen? He's gotta learn his terms better. I don't know if anyone in the arcade heard us or was looking at us or anything, but people like that piss me off hecka lot. It's MvC2, one of the greatest competitive one-on-one videogames of all time, but it's still just a freaking game, no need to offend and insult people and get personal and crap like that. Shoot. People like that take the fun out of videogames.
How does this story end? I decided that was enough playing for the morning, so as I left the arcade I sarcastically patted the guy's back and said, "There ya go, man. Since I play so CHEAP, here, have a FREE GAME." Of course, I went back to the arcade in the afternoon.
After all, hey, it's me.
Wednesday, January 02, 2002
Steve Z can palm a basketball.
So he says. Yeah, right. A Nerf basketball, probably. And even if he could palm a regulation-sized ball, what would he do? He can't palm the ball into the basket. He can't fake out any defenders. He needs to learn how to dribble with his left hand before he can brag about his skills. Hahaha!! I love beating that guy at Street Fighter and basketball. Last week, I had this bad dream, and as it ended I literally screamed "No!!!!!" so loud that I woke up my mom, who asked me if I had a nightmare. What I really dreamt was that Steve Z and I were playing a round of MvC2 and then... He beat me. Hahahaha!!
