Fatigued Augustian Welcome

With yesterday's entry, that means only one thing: July is over. Seven months down, five to go, and thus far, all deadlines have been met on time. Let's celebrate the start of August with a well-to-do entry that I'm sure you'll like! (At least I'm sure you'll like it.)





CURRENT MUSIC:
Joe Hisaishi - "On a Clear Day..."
Kiki's Delivery Service Original Soundtrack

Quite a calming piece from this rather elegant soundtrack. Kiki's Delivery Service will hold a permanent place in my memory as the first Studio Ghibli film I ever saw, and the music will share a similar experience. The music in this movie was fantastic and flowed with a sense of carefree adventure that lulled me into watching the movie.


Incubus - "Megalomaniac"
A Crow Left of the Murder...

A long time ago I explained how Incubus was one of the bands responsible for getting me from liking "just techno and video game music only" to "just about anything that can be called 'music' these days." As "Megalomaniac" was the opening track of the album, I encountered it a lot whilst playing Counter-Strike on my cousin's XBox.

Like I said before, I initially responded almost hostilely to this sudden introduction of music and then gradually warmed up to the idea. Good thing, too - that opening part with the "static" that played (along with the rest of the song) made excellent "opening fight sequence" music material.

Works well - assuming I wasn't picked off by a sniper early in the round. *shrugs* Nobody's perfect.


Shouji Meguro - "Iwato Dormitory"
Persona 3 Original Soundtrack

One of the more relaxed ambient themes of the famed Atlus RPG game, "Iwato Dormitory" plays in the resting areas of the game - specifically, the dormitory where the player resides in. It's relaxing and has a jazz-like sound to it, and that's perfectly fine with me.



"Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written."
- Walter Benjamin

As an artist, it's quite common to run into some kind of mental drought when it comes to ideas. When this happens, I recommend revisiting old work - completed, backburned, scrapped or otherwise. Sometimes a chance encounter occurs where a past idea ends up triggering a thought process that begins to improve upon both the idea in question and the thoughts themselves.

In short: sometimes the old helps chart the way for the new to expand. That's the meaning I got from Walter Benjamin's quote here, and I have to say that it can be reworked so that any artist can replace "writing" and "written" with appropriate verbs for their artistic field(s)




Welcome, one and all. Today marks seven months in a row that I've posted a blog entry here on a daily basis, and this entry also serves as the first of the eighth month, August.

So let's hop to it and get this first entry up and going! I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what textual adventures await you and the others who read this. Well, allow me to show you!

*shines spotlight on today's entry*





Finishing the Burger Experiment
(Because someone had to make sure that Double-Double didn't spoil...)

(Author's Note: This section was typed up roughly after 0010, when I finished the second Double-Double.)

As I waited for the clock to strike midnight and switch over from Sunday to Monday, my stomach began to growl. I'm going to be honest - I ended up eating part of the burger a minute or two before midnight. Hey, I was hungry and work was killer. It happens, and I needed energy in the form of a delicious fast food burger. So when the clock struck 0001, I took a bite of the remaining half of Double-Double #2 and found myself exposed to a higher concentration of deliciousness that I had not expected to encounter.

The Verdict:
Double-Double #2 indeed tasted better than Double-Double #1. Though I'm not quite sure if it's due to already-registered belief in the "food tastes better after midnight" theory, the fact that two duplicate burgers tasted oh-so-differently to me kind of has a profound effect.





Drinking With the Dolphins *hic*
(A case on why sleep deprivation mixed with alcohol can be bad...ly funny.)

I've always been one to perform an all-nighter for whatever reason. From school projects to writing muses that just keep inspiring me to write to a marathon of some random TV show or movie series that I just happened to want to watch... it could be anything.

Now, as explained the night before, I decided to pull an all-nighter because I figured that falling asleep at around 0330ish and waking up barely three hours later would be severely pointless. From research and first-hand experience I found that it's worse to operate with under three hours of sleep than it is to just go through the night without sleeping.

Between yesterday and working at Target and today and having to endure a road trip to Los Angeles and back (amongst other things), I've had a grand total of one hour of sleep - distributed amongst one thirty minute nap to LAX, one ten minute nap back home, and the last twenty minutes dispersed amongst numerous bouts of microsleep. As if that weren't enough, I'm adding alcohol to the mix. Thus far I've had a screwdriver, some vodka juice and a bottle of Guiness.

Surprisingly, though, I feel almost fine - kind of as if I've been perpetually stuck at 0230ish, where I have enough energy to press on but enough fatigue to feel like calling it a night. *checks watch* And as it's nowhere near midnight, I can't shut down. I will press on to celebrate my friend's safe arrival from Japan to the United States. Wai~!





Wallets, Old and New
(But does the old have to be replaced by the new...?)

So today as we were at Los Angeles, my friends and I decided to drop by Little Tokyo to browse for some things. Good thing, too - my wallet's slowly beginning to become torn and frayed.

My current wallet as of late 2008 through Summer 2011.
Good ol' The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

I got this wallet back at Pacific Media Expo 2008 - my first year working as Security in my very first convention experience. For nearly three years it's been in service with me through thick and thin, keeping my plastic cards, paper bills, random trinkets and other shenanigans safe.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever.

While it's served me well, the only problem it's had recently was with my wallet chain getting snagged onto things (most notably the driver seat of my car) and pulling on the Haruhi wallet's chain loop. With enough force, it either snaps the chain in half (fixable, yet takes time) or creates tension on the chain loop, which leads to the situation I have now with the broken chain loop.

Insert The Legend of Zelda "item obtained" music here.

I ended up procuring this wallet at a shop, and have deemed it to be my Haruhi wallet's successor. It's cool-looking, has a reinforced chain loop (much stronger than my current wallet's) and has something on the design that I support.

However, that's not to say that I'm going to retire the Haruhi wallet right away. It still has plenty of usability, but this new Zelda wallet does have its obvious perks (a stronger wallet chain and a reinforced chain loop). Maybe I'll alternate. Maybe I'll even use both at once. o.O





All I know is this:

• I'm somewhat tipsy.
• This month's gonna be epic.
• I'm a tad rusty on Mario Kart Wii. That, or it could be the alcohol.

So, until the 'morrow, everyone! Have fun with what's left of your Monday!