incoherence.net

It was about time. I've been in a limbo for a month - site maintenance-wise - trying to figure out if I should keep on updating my v4 blog or move onto my v5 one, which I had set up a month ago and have shamefully ignored since in favor of a barrage of video games plus my new iPhone.

But I've really wanted to write posts, so I'm moving everything over to the v5 redesign, which is a misnomer as I'm not rewriting my blogging software from scratch but rather using Wordpress and developing my own theme; well, looking to develop one. It's rather bare-bones right now, but I did spend some time integrating pictures onto the main site and ported almost two years worth of posts over. I've also redirected the main URL at incoherence.net and the RSS feeds here over to using those on V5, so this will effectively be the last post on my enduring, weary blog engine.

Now, onto the new!

Ah, always a sucker for figurines, I am...

Doesn't help when Square Enix opens up a merchandise store, it seems, specifically to cater to people like me who don't mind overpaying for a chance to reminiscence. So despite only launching for a few hours and having to pay for $18 UPS Ground shipping from Illinois, I got my hands on some goodies.

Pictures of which you can find in my gallery here - you're looking at a Tonberry, a Bahamut statue, and a Knights of the Round statue, plus a bunch of older toys I have lying around.

My office is fun!

College life can drain the TV out of you. Well, it did out of me anyway, one of those monthly bills I neatly trimmed from my expenses in favor of traveling the cybertubes. Even now, I don't think teevee is cost effective unless I have a lot of shows I want to watch, at my pace. (i.e., TiVo) It is nice, though, that more and more of those shows are available online.

Nonetheless, I miss that pleasantness of nothingness which comes from channel surfing, the same way one endures a favorite song on the radio, despite having played it to death on one's iPod for two weeks straight. Nowadays, though, the only time I have access to cable television is when I'm at Sui's (the programming tends to be Chinese-family-friendly), or when I travel, either on the plane or in the hotel room.

While I was patiently waiting out a 2.5 hour takeoff delay, in between the Food Network and Comedy Central, I found a pretty interesting program on the History Channel called Human Weapon. The premise is that two fighters go around the world learning different styles of martial arts, get a little feel for the history and culture, and after a week of training come back to fight a champion of said art.

Entertainment value obviously comes from watching the hosts get beat up in the ring, but I've found the training and history lessons to be informative and educational, and there are some pretty cool computer graphics illustrating how the moves are supposed to be done and the math/physics beyond the motions. You know it's special when a popular media program uses, appropriately, mathematical integrals (the same holds true, of course, for The Simpsons).

Jeff has the executive summary of this story; read on for my long-winded version.

It was a foggy day, but certainly most days in Daly City are foggy and a hint ominous. Jeff was throwing a housewarming party, and in the name of good impressions and high partying standards we dropped by Costco to pick up much-needed culinary provisions (i.e., food). As Jeff was backing out of the garage, I noticed a little ball on the ground in the driveway, curled up and somewhat chilly.

Giving him a tap of my foot, I expected the mouse to get the message and run home. He was very tiny, and I didn't want to accidentally crush his long tail with my foot nor allow 3000 lbs. of Scion the same opportunity. Contrary to expectations, however, the little guy didn't budge, and a few more pushes ensured he was out of the blind vehicle's rampaging path. He remained hunched low to the ground and his lowered eyes betrayed none of his intentions.

"Look, a little rat."
"What? Oh, that's so cute. Take a picture?"
"Yea, I'm not sure what happened; I had to push him out of the way and he doesn't seem to want to move."
"I wonder if he's injured."

Yet off we went; Costco closed early, and I didn't want to have to fight the weekend crowds. Just as we turned the corner, I noticed a UPS truck approach the other way...oh, it's that damned XBox 360 return box; "Mr. Thung" (great listening skills, outsourced Asian customer support) needed to fix his console's issues and despite specifically asking for a return box to be sent to a work address, Microsoft felt sending another box wouldn't hurt. Well, maybe it's not for me, and even if it was, I didn't need the extra box anyway. Along the trip we speculated upon the fate of our little Jeffy (not to be confused with Scion-driving Jeff).

At some point we decided Costco's bulk items were excessive and Safeway would provide more reasonable portions, but Jeff wanted to first rendezvous with Jeffy on the driveway. We joked about a few worst-case scenarios en route, but we really just expected him to be gone, looking for food elsewhere. Sadly, among the bushes, where the UPS guy might have walked around in search of a safe deposit for an empty and unnecessary box, were a pair of eyes looking up in the sky ... lifeless ...

By the next day the bushes were clear, nothing remained.

Save the above picture.

And the impression, however temporary it may be, on two guys just going about their daily routine.

It was a while since I bought any videogame-related toys and collectibles, and my upgraded room started to fill a little empty with all the unused shelf space, devoid of the paraphernalia which adorn most geeks' bedrooms.

Of course there are a ton of sites who love people like me that go on random spending splurges, and video games are enough of an enthusiast hobby that almost any piece of branded crap can be sold for massive profits. In particular, anything imported from Japan (at great shipping and handling costs) for some reason is especially cool. NCS Is one such company.

So this solar mushroom thing looked pretty cool, and for good measure got this cute Mario plush to make the shipping costs worthwhile.

And two weeks later, Sui gives me something cute she found in the hobbyist store next to her work...