Casual Scrabble

I've been alright at Scrabble against my friends- until yesterday. I asked a friend who I had never played against before to verse me, and I got destroyed by about 80 points. Actually, that's not too bad, since I was about to play my "Q" for 60 points... So I only lost by about 2 turns... But I've never lost at Scrabble that hard. It was probably one of the most infuriating games ever.

To start off with, my tiles were generally crap. Stuff like "LULUDRR" was not very attractive. But that's okay, because there's no way I could get crappy hands ALL game. EXCEPT MY OPPONENT SEALED OFF THE BOARD. She's one of those people who'd make more than one word at once to get more points--- and that's fine, but at some point it just closes the board off, until all you can do is add an "s" to the end of a word if you're lucky. And then we have this giant block of letters in one corner of the board, with a v protruding and no way to continue unless someone makes a 8 point move to open the board. Except none of us wanted to relent.

So yeah I lost pitifully because I had the wrong tiles at the wrong time. Most of the hands I had weren't that bad, but the board was atrocious. Then of course I had those pitiful hands where I'd consider it an achievement if I scored over 10 points.

Anyway, because of the sore loser I am, I demanded an immediate rematch. And my opening hand... no vowels. Alright, since it's the opening hand, I guess I'll just swap some tiles... Swap 3 tiles--- for 2 of the letters I swapped, I get back exactly what I threw out. And the last one? A "y". I guess that's... useful. 

I can see my second worst game ever coming up...

Real Life Sucks

I received this giant envelope through the mail today- and I was mildly excited before I opened it and revealed its contents. It was just a giant stash of paperwork regarding enrollment and whatnot. It was a painful reminder of real life- I'd forgotten about the need to go to university, and I was content to spend my days idling.

So I grab a pen, and try to crunch through the paperwork. Usually if I find enough motivation to start, it turns out alright. Except this time I fell flat after writing out my name in squigglier-than-usual-lines. My inner voice is crying "I don't want to do this" and I'm quite inclined to just drop everything and roll back into bed. 

I can feel my internal stress-o-meter building as I get closer and closer to the start of the term. Housing, packing, travel, enrollment--- oh gawd. I have a vague idea of what I'd like to take with me--- but I feel so horrible leaving all my books behind--- half of which I haven't bothered to read. I feel like I should just kick myself into a frantic reading mode, and finish reading everything so that I'd have no regrets. But if I start to read--- what am I going to do about all my games, which I haven't had a chance to properly play yet? *horror break down*

I remember wanting to fast-forward through college, because college was hard and painful- and now I feel like I'd love to fast-forward through my university years because I no longer give a shit about the student life. I've tasted how good it is to have a job--- you go to work day after day, and fairly soon it becomes routine- you get paid, so you always have some money to spend, and you don't have to worry about whether a $10 dollar meal is going to leave you enough money to buy yourself a pen to use for the next exam. As soon as you get home there are no obligations, no left-over work, and you can play games til you drop without thinking about your next exam, essay or seminar--- and there's no ongoing revision. Well, I'm not saying that's the case with every job, but even if you have to work overtime at least you get overtime pay... No one is going to pay you for overtime study or high grades...

I still think being good at school is so horribly overrated. Wish I was good at sport or something you can show off without seeming like too much of an asshole... See if I kick a goal in say, soccer, people would be like, "OH ZOMG THAT'S AMAZING", but if I get straight A's it's like, "well fuck you you're Asian you probably study all day and have no life".   

I remembered my friend asking me, "what would you like to do in life, if there was NOTHING stopping you? Say you wanted to be a singer and your voice wasn't an issue (oi, real subtle there, by the way)" What did I answer her? I said I wanted to sit at home and make money off stocks (because skill wasn't the issue, right?), then I'd free up my time to read, drink tea and walk around beaches like I've always wanted. It's like... I want retirement before I've even finished schooling.

If only there was such a profession which guaranteed happiness for life, and there was a course which could get me into it. I hear that doctors and teachers are the two professions which score high on "self-satisfaction"--- I can only hope that it means it'll make me a happier person, as opposed to something which takes my ego up for another hike. Though I suppose my ego is inclined to do that regardless...

Well, there's not much more I feel like saying, but I just thought I'd draw your attention to the poll I put up. It's on the front page of this blog in the top right corner. It's something I've always wanted to know, because seeing my view count go up each day is a little unreal. I'm suspecting that someone's just twitching their fingers and hitting F5 on my page for whatever reason... at least it makes me feel good. So uh, if you had the patience and time to read up to this point, you can definitely spend another 5 seconds and vote to sate my curiosity. That is all.

Ace Attorney

Last night I started playing the first Ace Attorney game again, because I vaguely remembered that the last case of the game was my favorite case of all time. If you haven't heard of Ace Attorney before--- it's essentially a game where you play as a defense lawyer, and try to find flaws in witness testimonies which damage your client.

I still remember my first play through (what happened, who the murderer was in the end), but I had forgotten all the finer details. The fact that I remembered what to do most of the time gave me a lot more room to observe--- and I have to say I hated it. During court, I kept on thinking "wtf is wrong with this judge, is he retarded", and was reminded of this article I had read, which said that it was insanely easy to become a judge in a local court- no qualifications required, only need to take a multiple choice test--- which can be retaken as many times as you like. I hope that article was a fake, since I read it on an entertainment website. Otherwise... my faith in humanity has been lost again.

Then there were the witnesses in that game. OMFG THE STUPID FUCKING WITNESSES. They made me so mad. Most of the time they forgot some crucial detail about the crime--- and then the rest of the time THEY JUST BLATANTLY LIED. Then in the end it's like, "oh dayum, I guess I didn't see the murder happen at all, but I just thought it'd be cool to be a witness". Made me want to strangle something, because that witness had spent so long trying to accuse someone of murder- when it had nothing to do with them.

Yeah yeah, I know that I'm getting super-worked up about this game, and it's just a game--- but sometimes it horrifies me to think that this probably happens a fair bit in real life. You think it's all exaggerated--- but it isn't unlikely at all that the witness will forget what they saw, and invent something in its place. After studying the nature of memory in a psychology class, and watching 12 Angry Men, I'm a little scared by the whole idea of witnesses...

Ehh, I'll get over it. It's just a game. Too bad I've grown all pedantic about games since I last played--- maybe I was just in a better mood two years ago (I wouldn't be surprised). I'll be looking forward to the new Ace Attorney release though. 

Currently bored

Boredom is perhaps one of my most familiar feelings- and it's also one of the worst. I'm sitting in front of a perfectly good computer- fully functional- connected to the internet at a game-playable speed--- and I'm bored. I have the sequel to a good book which I've just finished reading, but I have left it lying on my bed after only a few chapters. My art book still has many unfilled pages, and I have the right sort of pencils and pens to draw whatever I want--- but I don't want to.

My 3DS? Well, I'm bored of Kingdom Hearts even though I must say it's a good game- and I just don't have enough will power to keep on grinding through Pokemon Black 2. Every single goddamn battle bores me, and makes me wish I could escape. I don't just mean trainer battles, either--- wild encounters with pokemon, too. I mean, I could spray some repel and stay out of the trainers' line of sight--- but then, why the fuck am I playing this game? For the story? Pokemon stories are horrible. If I wanted a story in a game, I'd just read a goddamn book. Sure, a good story always makes a game amazing (Devil Survivor 1 and 2, TWEWY etc.), but it's just not an expectation of mine. I play games because I want to mindlessly kill some monsters for a couple of hours- not because I care about what one character has to say about another.

Now I'm sort of playing with the corner of my Japanese textbook, pretending to study but really I'm just typing this blog post. I'm having great difficulty saying "160 yen" in Japanese, for some reason, and I feel a little self-conscious repeating "toire wa doko desuka" (where is the toilet) to myself. But hey, it's one of the most important phrases if I ever want to go to Japan, right? Though I assume they'd have English signs pointing to places...

You know, in my opinion, it's kind of pointless learning to say stuff like "my name is" and "how are you" when you start a new language. My list of "things that should be taught first" would include:
-Go fuck yourself
-Where is the toilet
-Please feed me
-I find you attractive
-I want to have sex with you
-----------and lastly but perhaps most importantly:
 -I want a discount

Well, what could possibly go wrong, after you have the above terms under your belt? I'm sure there's an appropriate response for every situation in there somewhere...

And thus, my boredom is alleviated.

The Beautiful Weather

There was a thunderstorm last night, and that crashed the summer temperature right down--- and I loved it. See I like summer because it's not winter, but other than that I have nothing positive to say about it. I hate sweating, I hate feeling I'm overheating (because then I can't think properly), I hate all the bugs that come with summer, I hate how the temperature causes all my electronic appliances (and I have a lot) to burn, and I hate driving around in the car. Our house doesn't even have air conditioning.

Autumn would be nice--- I can start wearing long-sleeved shirts and jeans again. The only thing I like about summer is how I can wear shorts. That's about it. I don't know why, but shorts just seem to give me a sense of freedom. Oh gawd, I sound like that creepy youngster in Pokemon, don't I?

Anyway, it's no longer stinking hot, and I wish the temperature would stay at 20 degrees, permanently. It'd be kinda cool if it rained again- last night when the rain fell, the wind blew it all against my window, and my window got a good clean. Now if only the dried spider carcasses weren't trapped in my window, I'd be thrilled.