annoyed

Like the genius I am I’ve gone and gotten the mirror filter over my nikon camera sensor smudged quite badly. This is because I assumed ‘lens cleaner’ meant ‘For All Things that are kind of Lens-Like’. Small bits of dust become a huge smudge and I go and look it up because I’m baffled. Looks like I’m lucky not to have damaged the sensor proper (i hope it’s not damaged). I need to go down to the shop tomorrow to get someone to look at it. Idiot.

I get really annoyed at myself when I screw up like this.

Night Drive

I really shouldn’t play Farcry 2 just before I go driving. I had to fight down this terrible urge to veer across lanes and bushwhack through foliage instead of obeying traffic signs. Also I love my parents but a little less input please. Yes I know that is a truck up ahead, I recognise trucks, yes I know it’s bad road etiquette to smash into the back of one, yes I am going around the truck now the truck is gone.

The city is really pretty at night. Lights, lights, lights. I can imagine that I’ll really miss this place. Night drives through empty streets feel so ethereal.

-

I had the oddest thought this afternoon. I can’t remember the last time I was innocent anymore, and it wasn’t a very upsetting thought.

Cultists and Maniacs and Elder Things, Oh My

Arkham Horror is a ton of fun. Got some of the old gaming gang together and gave it a go the other day. Like Army of Two it’s essentially a co-op game, which means it’s a lot more group-friendly than, say, Starcraft or Settlers. There’s a bunch of curious mechanics, like how investigators get to keep the tokens of monsters they kill and trade them in around town for all kinds of stuff, which is interesting because it’s a simple way of seeing who’s killing the most stuff and also because everybody had this mental image of a bunch of guys trudging around town pulling this big old wooden cart loaded up with Eldritch Corpses.

‘Hi, I’d like some stuff do you accept dead things instead of Mastercard’

It’s got RPG-lite elements too. Luke, in Luke fashion, picked the hobo drifter and somehow managed to get half the allies in the deck to follow him. He was a veritable pokemon master.

Shame it’s a bit easy once you have a good team going. Also, there aren’t really that many concrete in-game ways for players to help each other out beyond co-ordinating plans and trading items, which is…a little disappointing.

I think I’m supposed to have a lit test today?

Over paid

Some days, coaching is really enjoyable. It’s kind of like teaching, except without the concomitant responsibilities and you get to swear at the kids more often.

The kids are fun some days, and the days they’re not, you get to throw shit at them.

Not that I, uh, actually swear or throw things. If you’re someone in charge of paying me and you read this.

That reminds me

On a slightly more serious note, I’ve been working with hans, ali and seow on a collaborative site, which is finally up. The idea was that each of us would write an article per person on any topic we want ranging from politics to philosophy to religion on a weekly basis. I’m pretty pleased with how it’s shaping up.

It’s at http://thelookout.wordpress.com/. Take a look. Articles are a bit wordy right now, but we’re still trying to perestroika away from the student days. We tried to strike a balance between complexity and brevity and I think complexity won.

It’s 2 a.m.

I decided to walk all around Orchard on saturday for a couple of hours. Then I decided to eat a crap load of barbecued things.

The upshot is I’m sick now and I’m awake at 2 am.

Way to go, poor decisions Sam.

I wonder how much gaming I can cram into the pre-daylight hours?

Traipsing Around

Met ken and luke for lunch and went Exploring around the Bugis area, on the basis that Exploring is fun provided there is minimal risk of getting lost in some forsaken place and starving to death. I didn’t know there was a row of little indie shops along Arab street, wedged between the main road and the Arab/Indian textiles shops.

The sights we saw were sufficient to astound and baffle. A rug shop selling ‘hand-woven’ rugs with images of AK-47s, tanks and rpg launchers, to add that authentic Afghan-flavour to the abode of even the most jaded tourist. A little bar for stock brokers with little monitors carrying trading prices at every table.

A shop called ‘HOUSE OF JAPAN’ selling, bizarrely, imported second-hand Japanese clothes. Why on earth there’s a significant local market for, specifically, second-hand Japanese clothes is beyond me. Luke insisted they got them off dead people. Also, a record store with big signs and spray-painted declarations on the walls decrying The Man. A prop shop with the Head and Feet of Singa the Lion, so now we finally know what happened to him. A cute little second floor shop selling hand-made anthropomorphic pillows and pencils emblazoned with the names of writers, which I suspect is run by Liberal Arts Graduates who don’t know what the hell to do with their degree.

It’s not very often you get to feel like a tourist in your own city.

Wacky Hijinks

So basically I went down to the library today to read Ulysses by James Joyce to see what the deal was. I got to page 9 before I had to stop. This is perhaps the second most exciting thing that happened this week.

What madcap things will I do next.

The man’s pretty crazy though. Like, for real.

It’s startlingly efficacious!

I have, of late, purchased the magnificent Sam & Max Compilation: Surfin’ the Highway, now in glorious monocolour. It’s great. I intend for Sam & Max to be a formative influence, because I figure it makes more sense to plan your formative influences out ahead of time. For example, I intend to be deeply and life-changingly influenced by Jack Kerouc at some unspecified future date when the sheer disillusioning weight of life crushes my early optimism.

In other news, New York was…great. I mean, wow. I didn’t spend a lot of time taking notes because I was too busy with all the awesome. So really, it’s all dissolved into this hazy recollection dizzying blur of lights, colours, musical numbers, soup (oh man, the soup). It’s a nice place. I bought trinkets.