fallacy

I'm waiting for a Mythbusters episode to load. Lola has cornered the TV set again with a "testimonial" about some fruit juice which claims to have magical healing properties. Presented via a cross between an service by some TV evangelist and a noontime game show, it doesn't sound very credible, even with some medical personnel on-board. And one testimonial was about a woman who joined a triathlon without training. C'mon.

If the juice is truly miraculous, why hasn't anyone made a paper on it yet in the scientific community?

And why do we keep on struggling to live longer when in the end we're going to die?

11.50

I deny myself sleep in the hopes that in these moments, something will happen.

I stand alone in a mishmash of words seemingly meaningless. Only few have dared to find me and extricate me from this mess that I currently revel in, and so far no one has succeeded. I don't mind, anyway, it's in this glorious entropy that sometimes i find fleeting solace. But escape seems such a world away and the "it" doesn't make sense when you're in a world that doesn't even recognize you as its own.

I'm letting myself slip from the pre-ordained notion of order and letting my fingers do the typing.

Tick. Tick. Tick. The clock moves in a melancholy fashion, unaware of the seconds that it ticks away and how those seconds may mean forever for some and just a blink for another right now.

15 people online and I'm silent.

Call me incoherent in this last time of the day and/or night and I'll call you blind to sheer lunacy. No, I'm not drunk either. It's just sometimes I just have to write without any reason or purpose; free from the guidelines of proper writing and not giving a damn about an audience. Simply because I'm my own audience; my selfishness getting the better of me again.

Or maybe I'll just get someone to talk to.

Maybe I'll allow myself sleep, in a few moments.

shattered

The blank page taunts me.

"You can't write now, can't you?"

And who am I, not to believe? After all, I haven't believed in myself lately, from seeing the remnants of my so-called principle lying broken among the rocks. So easy to break, like those expensive, perfectly-crafted jars of Chinese porcelain that shatter with just a minute push, falling down to the floor and disintegrating. To think I've built it for so long and just let it go.

So I let out my sometimes intermittent thoughts, and slowly the taunts silenced. But not for long, I know.

emo frogs (?!)

Posting again because of a new skin; I don't have any real title for this. This is supposed to be for Kat, but I like it too much. I'll just make her another one. Photos courtesy of kitchengifts.com (the frog is actually a pic of a cookie cutter) blogs.warwick.ac.uk (the girl with the umbrella), and stonehedgebpl.com for the pavement. The rain effects, well, too many to mention.

walls, elections, and a touch more of fire

A lot happened the past week. Since I want to write but I'm not exactly in the right, almost-possessed mood, I'll just try to narrate what exactly happened.

Thursday the 12th and Friday the 13th. It's 8.30am and I'm already on campus, Form 5a in hand. I got my Math, but not my PE subject; so it's off to the dept. for enlistment. Rachel was with me (Tine was at DECL, so we can't go together) and few of us anticipated that it'd be the start of the hellish summer registration. We then waited for hours at the DEL dept. for the servers to come back up; at 12pm, we left at the suggestion of Frau Neri that we just watch a film instead of waiting at the door. I finished the next day, getting Judo for PE; and meeting up with Sammm, Ayessa and Ahlee later at EDP.

Monday the 16th and Tuesday the 17th. Elections took a whole new meaning in Math 2. Judo got dissolved, and well, since nobody really knew the real pre-rog process I argued with a lot of people along the way. It got fixed the next day however. Sammm was with me, and she was to take the same Sports Climbing class. She got a slot first, but had to cancel it later since ther college in LB thought it was dangerous. *rolls eyes*

Wednesday the 18th. I messed up the traverse in PE, and the push ups too. Math was fine, though. Frustrating, really. >_<

Thursday the 19th. Finally ascended in KoL--as a Pastamancer. Now all I need are the ingredients, and I'm ready to go cooking my own pasta. Adv Saucecrafting+Pastamancery= Meat.

Today, Friday the 20th. So again I messed up on the Finals wall in Sports Climbing; and got to the 6th panel on Molly's Walk. It is really not my sport; should've taken Archery instead. Which made me miss Arnis more; it was so much fun, and well, I was pretty okay.

And looking back, all my previous posts have a touch of fire in them the past week. Probably just the weather--good thing the Math classroom is air-conditioned.

That's it for now.

sniffles

I'm back writing after a 4-day trip to Singapura and 2 days of stress from the fucked-up "computerized" enrollment. I won't be writing much, though--I'm quite sick, with a bad case of the sniffles and should really be resting now. I'll write more about those two these coming days, though.

Now to get a bit of rest.

of bots and pilots

I came upon this post on the PW messageboards:

It's a joke? I'm not laughing. Neither should any of you.

A lot of people have complained about being "hacked" and whine a lot because LU! could not fix it when it clearly shows items were traded between characters. What do you think is the root of all of that? I will tell you: Pilots.

You are responsible for the security of your account just as LU! is responsible for the security of the database. If you use pilots you violate the LU! Customer Support Policies and you expect LU! to compensate you for your own follies?

For shame.

*original post here: http://pwboards.levelupgames.ph/index.php?s=&showtopic=191&view=findpost&p=5936 *

Which is true; however, to quote from hackenslash.net:

Meanwhile, Sheila Paul, chief operating officer of Level Up!, which distributes the games Ragnarok, RF Online and ROSE Online, said their company is supporting "piloting" services in Internet cafés, not bots.

Essentially, "piloting" is when the owner of an online game character hires someone to play the game for him or her. Pilots help in upgrading the characters to a higher level. Sometimes they also harvest items or the virtual money for the current game being played.

*original article here: http://hackenslash.inquirer.net/gamingscene/index.php?story_id=80115*

So what really is the LUG policy on pilots?

It reallly boils down to how they implement their rules. Bots are clearly commonplace in RO. Many have pilots, too; yet do they do anything about it?

Then again, business is business. They'd lose a lot of customers if they enforced that rule strictly, right?

My personal stand on this is that pilots are legal, bots are not. To paraphrase (I can't remember who said this, I'll find it later), with bots you edit the game code itself. This can be considered similar to edited characters. With piloting, there's still someone behind the avatar/character, and the game code is not tweaked.

It all boils down to being responsible for your account. You should be able to completely trust the pilot--knowing each other irl is a great advantage. It's also better that the person whom youre account with has no motive to hack your account--most of those who have borrowed my account also have their own accounts with better equips and higher levels than mine that getting mine won't put them ahead.

I got hacked once (together with my first Gmail, Roseboards, and Friendster account), I have a pretty good idea who did it (since we traded accounts), and so it comes out completely my fault. I could've cleaned his account out too, but I won't stoop down to his level and do what he did. Now, my account is now in the hands of many other people; and I don't really care what happens to it.

And on a parting note, my first CM might be right about the one who was first quoted here.

random thought process

What would it be like, then?
To play as gods?

What would it be like
to flirt
with destiny wrapped
around your pinky finger
on your palm
quivering like a
newborn butterfly

------------------------------->

It's 11.19 pm as I start to write this, and I don't expect to finish soon.

The poem above is getting nowhere--I've written and susequently erased what I wrote; I'm still mildly incoherent. I fell asleep earlier while reading Zelazny's Lord of Light, and woke up to 3 messages tainted saffron while minimized on the laptop screen. Since my proper thought processes take a while to return, I had a shadow of a dinner instead, consisting of a small piece of peanut brittle (I am hooked to this stuff), puto bumbong, and bibingka. Come to think of it, that doesn't sound much like dinner.

Yep, I've been reading that book too much--and I like it a bit too much. I've been quoting it already. Oh, and that poem is inspired by that book.

karmic

Bearer of the Eightfold Rune, I thought you'd be more careful with your words. Yes, she may have done nothing, a sin in itself. But it does not give anybody the right to outright insult her; or rather on a different board, another place. Not in a official messageboard. I hope the moderators would only give a warning over that.

Or maybe because I was in a situation somehow similar to hers' before; when the clan was left to me. It is really hard to follow a path trodden and made by the great, and harder to make a better one still. However, she must admit her failings; I did admit mine, when I gave up the clan.

Asking for help does not damage one's pride.

requiem

I speak with the voice of a vengeful one.

http://roseboards.levelupgames.ph/index.php?showtopic=6815&pid=185808&st=60&#entry185808

Go ahead, just let it die. The way things are going, it's not viable to keep it alive anyway. The game may live on but just as a shell of its former self--yes, it's now just a game already.

I don't think that they would care that all those noobs will take over, play the game for a week or two, then move on. They still pay for load, don't they? And it's no use ranting there because they can always not listen. I'm actually willing to get banned already; it just doesn't make much sense anymore to fight for the game's life. I do feel sorry for the few players that I believe are worthy of a better system.

I will instead post my own soliloquy here; there's no use in adding to the noise when no one is listening.

The best way to forge change is to actually leave. Then when everyone's gone, they'll notice.

And to add: I remember the admin team saying that they'd support player-run events and the like. Well, I don't see that coming--even though the TCG and the guidebook threads got pinned, nothing seems to be happening. It's a bit unfair that Kuya Wins is shouldering everything, and it's not even his game. Yep, he's sometimes too nice.

soliloquy

Yep, I've changed the background again--the same with my Friendster account. Entitled "soliloquy", I like this better than flight--it has a touch more of color and came out exactly how I envisioned it to be. :)

Same credits for Flight; I won't copy-paste it anymore. @_@

missing the rush

I've been staring at my Friendster profile the past few hours, trying to grasp the last threads of inspiration to come up with a new background. And failing.

There's nothing much to say, actually.

Odd as it may sound, I miss having to beat deadlines. It's that sense of "I-can't-not-do-this-because-they're-going-to-grill-me" that becomes a driving force that I miss; for sometimes, when you do things for yourself and being the classic procrastinator that I am, it gets postponed. It gets pushed back to the farthest corners of my finite yet muddy self that it gets soon swallowed by other supposedly more important things, until it sinks into the abyss and never resurfaces.

And I miss the sense of accomplishment whenever I cross out with my red marker an item on my to-do list.

Now to return again to the real world--mom has asked me to do something.

flight

Here's my new layout for the summer--flight. This is my first fully-Photoshopped skin; the earlier one was half done by hand. Took most of the day to make, and it turned out pretty okay.

I'd like to give credit to the following: Scully7491 for the feather and wing brushes, easyelements.com for the swirl brushes, and the stock photo from inmagine.com.

baguio dreams

Just arrived home from a 3-day 2-night stay in the pretty crowded City of Pines where the food is really good and the weather is perfect. I had so much fun that if I weren't living here in Cubao and still studying here in Manila I'd be living there.

Lots of funny stuff happened: from that "action star" on the truck that nearly fell off, to the brooms that flew off the van in front of us, to the PMA "ca-date", and what not. 3 days are not enough to explore the city; there's simply a lot to see and do, from the numerous shops that line the street, to getting free sketches from the Baguio Arts Guild, to simply boating and biking in Burnham Park. And the coffee in the Cafe by the Ruins. Simply goood.

Nothing weird did happen; well, except perhaps for my eerily vivid dreams. The first night's dream was really bizarre--my first crush actually confessing that he loved me, then us getting together, ending up in torrid kissing sessions and almost in sex. Almost. The odd thing about that is I never thought about him up until that night.

The second night was a little less stranger. I couldn't remember how we (me, my mom and my aunt) got to a seemingly post-apocaplyptic version of the Katipunan-Aurora flyover. We were running across the street, I think, being chased by a band of people intent on robbing us. It came to the point that one of those chasing us--a beer-bellied middle-aged man--attacked another woman running with us. For some reason, I turned back, and tried to attack him even though I was unarmed. It ended just as he drew a pocket knife out and was about to sink it into my stomach.

It just might be the weather.