Heroism

[ARCHIVE: I think this was one of my better articles, and definitely uses The Two Towers to better social analytical effect.]

"What makes a man / is it the power in his hand / is it his quest for glory"

Everybody has a hero. And I'm not talking about the sandwich. I'm talking about a person or entity that exemplifies qualities that one deems great. Usually these include brave, moral, and determined. Some heroes are respected for their wit or strength. But even individuals that are ruthless or tyrannical are sometimes considered heroes by certain parties. But above all, heroes are meant to be embodiments of ideals; people who are above the common man.

Or are they?

A trend has been reoccurring for the last several decades, if not centuries. Heroes are still great, but not all the time. Whereas the stories of old highlighted their feats, they now show the other times, the down times, when she indulges in chocolate, or he has to deal with traffic, or the friend that is dying of cancer. Heroes have become flawed.

Take for instance, Spider-Man. Big time super-hero. Does whatever a spider can, saves lives and defeats evil doers every day. Why is he so popular? Is it the suit? "Sure, the suit's cool." Is it the powers? "Yeah, he's got moves, but so do a lot of other heroes." Is it the girl troubles? "Oh yeah, I can totally relate, like one time my ex-girlfri-"

See what I'm getting at? Spider-Man is a great hero, but what keeps people interested in him is Peter Parker, the guy beneath, the one with all the problems. Think about the movie for a second. Was the funnier dialogue when he was mouthing off to the Green Goblin, or was it when he was learning to use his webbing, spouting different catchphrases? What do you remember vividly, the initial fight with Osborne, or the kiss in the rain with Mary Jane? Who's more of a priority to Spider-Man, his enemies, or his Aunt May?

The common thread in all these is the human element. It's these little things, like having a crush on the girl next door, or being late for the bus that we can identify with. We admire the deeds, but we connect with the experiences. This can have a large effect on how one thinks of a hero. Consider Superman and Batman. In an average informal sidewalk poll, Bats is almost always considered cooler. A main reason for this is that Batman's human. He doesn't have superpowers, just a utility belt, several years of intense martial arts training, and an attitude. The counterpoint to this is that Clark Kent is much easier to relate to. A white-collar worker from the Midwest, versus a millionaire playboy who gets more ho's than a Hostess pastry factory.

So what happens when old heroes are interpreted through this newer filter? Most recently, this was brought up by auchie. He, or one of his friends, pointed out that Aragorn's portrayal was changed. Whereas in the book he is seen as the perfect, if long-lost, king of Gondor, the movie focuses more on his relationships with others. His respect for Borimir, temptered with intolerance for his impetuousness; his love for Arwyn, tested by the distance between them; and Eowyn. Here lies the meat of the question. auchie (or his friend) says that the movie made him conflicted over his attraction to Eowyn. And why not? Played by Miranda Otto, Eowyn is pretty much the same presented to us in the book. The niece of Theoden, she is of royal blood, but has been trained in sword handling and combat. She's also pretty cute. When she meets Aragorn, she recognizes his skills, as well has his heroic nature (there's that word again). Dashing cut of a man that he is, she falls in love with him. The question lies in Strider's reciprocation or lack thereof.

Personally, I didn't see him returning Eowyn's feelings. There was a definite sense of respect, between one fighter and another, but anything beyond that stopped at friendly camaraderie. Never did he flirt with her, or give her a loving gaze. Okay, maybe once before the Hounds of Isengard attacked, but it was necessarily borne out of love. Eowyn, on the other hand, was given several (well-performed) scenes that made her intentions clear. Aragorn's arrival at Helm's deep is a prime example of this. But to me, the movie harped heavily on the relationship between Aragorn and Arwyn. For most of Two Towers his thoughts are about her. Any time he looked preoccupied it was because he was thinking of her. When he was swept away by the river, he had a hallucination about Elrond's daughter. Even when he was walking right next to Eowyn, he was talking about her. Arwyn seemed to be the very definite wedge between Eowyn and Aragorn, the one little detail she would stumble over, that was keeping them apart. She knew she could never be with him because he loved the Evenstar. And that was something that, to me, seemed to be unchangeable. If Strider was torn about anything, it was the decision of whether she would remain on Middle-Earth or sail to the West. Torn because he loved her so, but he knew it was better that she leave, like Rick in Casablanca. And it's that love for Arwyn; that complicated, eternal, and possibly never-resolved love; that's what I see as being the human element in Aragorn.

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LotR: The Two Towers(2002)

[ARCHIVE: I spend too much time talking abut things that, ultimately, I don't even consider in the final score. I think I was still just enamoured with the ability to write about anything, so I didn't always make sure I was writing well.]

I was trying to decide whether to post a review of Two Towers, since it's been less than a week. I'm a big opponent of spoilers; I hate people who reveal details to me and I do my damned best to make sure I don't reveal anything that I feel would give someone advance knowledge that they don't want. But when I went to see it Thursday night, one of the fellows that tagged along in our group (I'd never met him before, he was jsut a friend of a friend that was substituting for someone who couldn't be there) had to be told everything that occurred. This was a college kid who had never read Lord of the Rings, or even seen Fellowship despite it being available for rent for more than five months. His response? "Eh, I'm lazy." He even left in the middle to go to the bathroom. So a big fuck you, you ass-monger. Next time you decide to walk into a movie which obviously demands you have previous knowledge of a sort, sit the fsck down and shut you fscking pie hole. Because if you can't be bothered to educate yourself, don't expect people who are trying to watch the movie to explain what's going on to you.

Where was I? Oh yeah. So, people should go see this movie before reading the review. And if not, consider yourself forewarned.

Peter Jackson's The Two Towers is based on the J.R.R. Tolkien "book" of the same title. I say "book" because Tolkien originally planned for Lord of the Rings to be published as a single one thousand page tome. And as one who has read it as such, I can honestly say that it the only way to truly experience the story. The middle child of the three, it suffers from "Empire Syndrome," wherein the film starts assuming the audience has prior knowledge of the characters and ends without a full sense of closure. Towers highlights the separate adventures that the different factions of the Fellowship live through. Frodo and Samwise meet up with the creature Gollum; Merry and Pippen escape captivity and enlist the aid of Treebeard and the Ents; Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas cross the plains of Rohan, stopping to help defend the peoples from Saruman's attack. Popping around here and there, Gandalf comes back from the dead and changes wardrobes. The film serves primarily to establish a new status quo for the final conflict which will be addressed in The Return of the King.

That being said, I give much credit and applause Peter Jackson for not starting off the film with a recap. Although hinted at with the repeated confrontation between Gandalf and the Balrog, what could have been an unnecessary reestablishment of previous happenings was instead expanded and drawn out into a fantastic mid-air battle. Does Gandalf simply fall? No, he retrieves his sword and catches up to the creature of fire and smoke and continues to pummel him all the way down. And that's the way it should be. Two Towers is not meant to be like a James Bond movie, understandable and enjoyable without previous knowledge of the character(s). Towers is a direct continuation of the story started in Fellowship, and though there were probably studio exec breathing down his neck, trying to make him put a recap in the beginning, Jackson understood that such a thing would only be detrimental. This is one of the times where "Empire Syndrome" works to a movie's advantage.

Storywise, the film is looser with its interpretation of the book. Faramir is characterized much more closely to his brother Boromir, and actually takes Frodo, Sam, and The Ring to Gondor. This is something that didn't happen in the book and really shouldn't have happened, but can be traced back to the one little change of making him easier to corrupt. I didn't agree with it, but I can (somewhat) see what the reasoning could be. If he's of the same stock as Boromir, wouldn't he have the same weaknesses? The correct answer, of course, is no, but since in the end he lets the hobbits go, it's a moot point.

The council of the ents was also changed drastically. Ents by nature are a slow and methodical race. They say things slow, the think about things for a long time, and they are not hasty to act. In some ways, the movie stays truer to their nature. They have ignored all the atrocities and happenings in the world so far, why would the fact that the news is brought to their attention by two halflings, a species they didn't even know about before, change anything? But this is something that's bothered me with the book to begin with. Merry and Pippen show up, tell Treebeard what's going on, and then they attack. There isn't much that the hobbits actually do, rather than just send along a message. For that reason, I accept the fact that Pippen "tricks" Treebeard into seeing the evidence firsthand.

BUT.

Ents are slow and methodical in nature. They do NOT wage war and come at the beck and call of a single ent. Perhaps Jackson was trying to make the atrocities seem that much greater, that it could bring even a level headed and thoughtful race to wrath. But in doing so, it changes the constant and unwavering nature of the treeherders. Had Treebeard spared a few moments to reconvene the council, show them the damage, and make an impassioned plea, then less would have been lost. I can see Jackson's reasoning, but I don't believe it to be the right one.

Another point of contention is Theoden. In the book, it is simply Grima Wormtongue's constant interference that leaves the King of Rohan house-ridden and decrepit. In the movie, Saruman has enchanted him and aged his body with spells. This serves to make Saruman more of a threat, in the same way he was handed responsibility for the snowstorm in Fellowship. While the effect of rejuvenating the king was nicely done (first the eyes, then the skin color, followed by the wrinkles), it makes the Theoden's ailments magical in nature and not the effects of neglect.

Other minor points were introduced/or and changed. Haldir and a reinforcement of Elves meet the Rohirrim at Helm's Deep and actually ends up dying there; Aragorn is lost in a battle with the wolves of Isengard, which results in a long sequence soley meant to infuse the movie with a larger presence of Arwyn; some... other... third thing.

But with all these changes, the movie was still on the whole very enjoyable. The soundtrack was spectacular; big and sweeping the way it was meant to be. The sweeping landscapes were breathtakingly beautiful. The acting performances were on spot and convincing (especially Gollum, more on that later).

A movie like this, with armies of thousands, mind-blowing architecture and fantastical creatures, is going to rely heavily on computer graphics, and it does it well. Gollum is great visually. His body is gaunt and faded from decades without exposure to sunlight. The texture mapping or bump-mapping or whatever they do has the right amount of detail and blurriness. The eyes are huge but highly expressive. The wargs are a grotesque cross between hyenas and wolves, there is enough likeness to remind you of other animal hunters, but the body structure is different enough to look like it's own species. The hair rendering is well done; a far cry from the early days of the Coca-Cola polar bear. The thousands of Uruk-Kai soldiers look believable (although this is probably due in part to Jackson's wise decision not to focus on them for very long or upclose). The ents were a mixed bag. My vision was colored, as I half-expected them to look like the Night Elf buildings from Warcraft III. What I saw was a race of imposingly tall, but somewhat spindly looking beings. Some details were fantastic, like Treebeard's bark-like skin, or the mossy composition of his beard. But for a species that I supposed to look like trees, why are they covered in little to no foliage? A barren tree in the middle of a forest is not exactly a good disguise.

Directing-wise, there was only one thing that seemed very out of place to me, and that is Galadrial's narration in the middle. The last time we heard Galadrial narrate in this omniscient manner, where she dips her sight into all the different threads without being there herself, is at the beginning of Fellowship. So when the movie stopped midway and she begin explaining what was going on, it felt very out of place. This was not the beginning of the film; we had seen the things that she was telling us, so there was no need to remind us. My friend Rasthir pointed out that it was somewhat of an address to Elrond, but it is not established that she is talking to him. The last we saw she was on a boat in Lothlorien, not chilling in Rivendale. Without a definite audience, I could only assume she was talking to us. But again, WHY would she tell us these things that we just saw occur?

What ruined the movie for a lot of people I know, however, was the humor. No doubt everyone can agree that when you saw the movie in the theaters, there was a good amount of laughing at times. And unfortunately, the main perpetrators can be summed up in three words: Gimli, Gollum, and Treebeard. In the matter of Treebeard, the humor was already there. "I don't understand, but then again, you are very small." Lines like these existed in the book, to show how differently the Ent's way of life and thinking were different from Merry and Pippen. We perceive these comments to be funny, and they were written with the intent of being so to a degree.

Gollum is a different case. The scene where Smeagol and Gollum argue and fight for control reminded me of the dialogue between Norman Osborne and the Green Goblin in Spider-Man, which people at my screening laughed at as well. Perhaps this is because I've had friends that fought with their multiple personalities, but I found nothing inherently funny about the exchange. If only heard, the conversation is serious, a truly desperate struggle between the conflicting shards of his being. The conclusion then is that Gollum's appearance was what made the audience laugh. But even that is tenuous, as all possible measures were taken to differentiate between the different sides. Gollum's face was marked with a terrible scowl. His brow was furrowed in anger, and his eyes were focused and smoldering with hate. Seagol's face was soft and complacent, his eyes dilated and kind. And he smiled genuinely, if nervously. And perhaps this contrast is what made people laugh. Had Gollum and Smeagol been two different people (like identical twins or something), I doubt the audience would have laughed. But because they knew it was the same person, they found it hilarious that Gollum/Smeagol was talking to himself. And that can only blamed on the idiocy of the mob mentality. When I saw the movie, I did not laugh at the exchange, so I know that I did not find it funny. And it is my belief that, although the audience was stupid, it was not the intention of the moviemakers that it be funny either.

Gimli, however, has no such excuse. His lines were original (in that they did not appear in the book), they were there purely for humor's sake, and for the most part, they were misplaced. Some parts I didn't have a problem with, like when Gimli was talking to Eowyn. They were making small talk, and both he and Aragorn were obviously trying to lighten her mood. Another one I didn't mind was the "tossing" bit. This was funny because we, as an audience, find humor in the fact that Gimli, who once was too proud to be thrown, understands the necessities of the situation. But the wall scene, where he complained about not being able to see anything, was too much. The battle is about to begin, and the camera surveys the walls of the troops. The faces, young and old, are grim and rain soaked. And then Gimli has to open his mouth. The only consolation is that they made Gimli a funny bad-ass, rather than a funny clown; more like Chewbacca than Jar-Jar Binks, but even that is small consolation. Shame on you, Peter Jackson. There was enough humor in the running enemy count between the dwarf and Legolas, humor that wasn't out of place. Shame on you.

But all these issues were not enough to make the movie unenjoyable. It was thrill to watch, and the movie was very very far from badly done. I don't regret seeing the movie at all, and I recommend that everyone go see it. After you've seen Fellowship, of course. I give this movie 4.75 out of $5.

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Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

[Article: I think this article spends too much time building the author's (my) back story, not nearly enough time analyzing the movie itself]

She made admiral before Picard did? What's up with that?

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. The holiday season is upon us, and you can see the change in the air. The weather is colder, the stores are decked out in decorations, and the movie industry brings out its big guns. Already, the theaters are steeped in blockbusters like 007: Die Another Day, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Equilibrium. Even the comedy genre offers up its bids for your $7 dollars (on average), with Analyze That and The Hot Chick (although personally I would advise against the last one). And it only get bigger, with a wide range of upcoming titles that cater to every taste, from historical crime sagas, to Coincidental Romances, to Leo DiCaprio vehicles with Christopher Walken in them, to Fantasy Epics that EVERYONE wants to see. With all the movies coming out, it means that competition is fierce and that the window of success is small for a movie to make it's mark.

Caught in the middle of it all is Star Trek Nemesis. The tenth installment in the Star Trek movie franchise, and the fourth to star the Next Generation cast, Nemesis has just five days before Two Towers. As an even numbered picture in the series, it is viewed with the double-edged conventional belief that it will be better than the odd numbered movies. The film centers around Shinzon, portrayed by the very capable Tom Hardy (Black Hawk Down), a deprecated human clone of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. What is striking is that he has spent much of his life on the planet Remus, the bastard of the twin home planets of the Romulan Empire. The entire planet of Remus is subjugated to Romulus, the shiny "civilized" side of the Empire, made to do all the arduous work. Think the Morlocks from The Time Machine (I reference the superior book, not the atrocity that is the movie). So when he stages a coup of the Romulan Senate and declares himself sole praetor, his request for peace comes with a healthy does of skepticism from the United Federation of Planets. Captain Picard and the Enterprise-E is sent to represent the Federation in the matters, and from there things get more complicated.

I grew up in a lucky time for sci-fi fans. The Next Generation was in heavy rotation in the syndicated television circuit, and the wide exposure resulted in a widespread interest among the general population. Although "Trekkies" were still considered a socially outcast group, it was not unusual for people to admit that they had found an episode or two enjoyable, even if they did not have a fanatical devotion to the series. I loved it. I was/am a hardcore geek, and I thought the show was spectacular. Here was a show that was well-written and yet still optimistic not only of the future, but of human nature in general. I had the encyclopedia, I had the phaser and tricorder toys, I even had the uniform, which I busted out time and time again on Halloween.

So when word that a tenth movie was being made, my first reaction was nothing short of excitement. Of course, I weighed this against reviews of the previous movie, Insurrection, which was generally panned. I bided my time, not seeking out any additional information about it, so that by the time it was released (today), I only knew of a few basic plot points.

I liked it. It was a good solid movie. Not the best, nor the most exciting, but definitely well executed. It felt like a larger, more expensive version of a TNG episode, and I mean that in a good way. The pacing was very good, unlike Generations, which cruised through the story at ridiculous speeds. There were lighthearted moments and good lines interspersed throughout. The plot had a few bumps in it. In particular, the dune-buggy scene seemed somewhat forced. Hovercrafts have been featured in continuity several times prior to the movie, so why on earth would Starfleet develop a four-wheeled vehicle? The new Romulan ship fired while cloaked, a feat that had not been attempted since The Undiscovered Country, which begs the question as to why we had not seen it employed earlier. One would think that with more than a hundred years between, with the technology obviously surviving during that time span, a case here or there of a cloaked firing vessel would have popped up. And there is a matter of Shinzon's viceroy. But all these are semantics that only require a short leap of faith.

The meat of the story is an interesting concept. What defines a person? Is it your genetic heritage, your life experiences, or both? Presented on the two different sides of the spectrum are Picard and Shinzon, good and bad in respective, simplified terms. One has had a loving and supportive life, and one has known little but battle and hardship. But instead of choosing just one stance, the movie instead touches on the subjects and leaves the answer to the audience. While it is clear that different lives had made different people, is the capacity for evil within Picard, or is it inherent only in his dark clone? To another extent, does the enemy have the ability within himself to be good, or has it been erased by his experiences?

Out of a $5 dollar scale, I give it a solid four dollars (keeping in mind that I was raised on Trek, take that as you will).
[I think my expectations for this movie were just too low, leading to the inflated grade. I think I would give it a three out of five now]

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On Nazis

[ARCHIVE: This was a short explication of a long-standing observation between myself and my peers. I kinda like it, but I'd probably have to put in a lot more references and citations to make it a real article. Also, I am not saying the Nazis weren't evil, just that they are so readily and unquestionably accepted as so.]

Last Wednesday, I was playing the new Wolfenstien for a good number of hours. It's a lot of fun, and a good stress reliever. I play both Allies and Axis, and usually I tend to be Axis, since my chosen player class (Medic) is better suited for defensive work. But for that particular gaming run, I found myself on the side of the Allies the majority of the time. And though I did pretty well (not an l33t m4st3r, but not a newb either), I got myself frustrated sometimes. And when I got particularly emotional, I found myself spewing insults like, "Die! Die, you elitist Aryan fucks!"

So after that I watched The Twilight Zone (the new one, with Forest Whitaker). The premise was that this woman went back in time, and became Adolf Hitler's nanny. She has this one opportunity to kill the child and save the future lives of millions. She spends the entire episode trying to justify to herself killing a baby. In the end, she grabs wittle Adolfie and jumps in the river, drowning herself and the child (apparently, she doesn't know how to swim). The kicker is that the other housekeeper sees her, and instead comes back to the Hitler household with a baby she bought off a homeless Jew on the street. and that's who Adolf Hitler was.

And I thought to myself, "Man, the Nazis were the greatest thing to befall fiction."

Now, hear me out. Current American society is trying to vilify Iraqis as "evil." I mean really, we all know that's what Dubya is trying to do, so he can go forth with "Gulf War II: This Time it's Personal." But even with all that propaganda he's trying to push down our collective throats, different viewpoints are still considered. There's enough journalistic material in magazines, newspapers, and websites that, at the very least, pose the idea that not all Iraqi's are evil, just a very vocal/powerful minority. Which is as it should be. In any conflict, all sides should be presented, no matter which side you're going to choose. And sometimes, as in the present case, this makes people consider the shades of moral gray, when it could be easily (thought wrongly) cast in strictly black and white.

Except Nazis. Think about it. When a story calls for a group of human villains that are undeniably evil, you get Nazis. More creative writers have employed other groups, like a ragtag band of ex-soldiers-turned-mercenaries, or psychotically deranged cults. But the easy way out has always been Nazis. Nazis are universally understood to be inherently bad, except when thought of by other Nazis. This has been tenuously proven by media reports. Consider the medias vilification of games such as Counter-Strike and Soldier of Fortune. These games have been constantly cited by the media as violent games that desensitize children to violence. But Wolfenstien has been less than a footnote in such articles. Why?

Angry Jerry Falwell: "These games our corrupting our nation's youth! Look at this: weapons of mass destruction, blood everywhere, it is unforgivable. How can you condone the massive amounts of death?"
Activision: "Well, you shoot Nazis."
Angry Jerry Falwell: "Oh. So what's the problem?"

Okay, so it's not exactly like that. But just think for a minute. How many people would contest that the Nazi regime was evil? (Except for that one wacko who keeps trying to prove that the holocaust never happened).

[07:57pm] Wed, Dec 11th, 2002
To followup on the previous post, I got this excerpt from an Activision Press release, which illustrates my point rather well (said point being that everybody finds death and destruction to be perfectly acceptable as long as Nazis are the targets).

"For fans of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and new players alike, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory gives gamers an entirely new opportunity to devastate the forces of the Fatherland," said Larry Goldberg, executive vice president, Activision Worldwide Studios.

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The Two Towers (PS2)

[ARCHIVE: This is an old post I wrote up about LotR: The Two Towers PS2 game. It was right in the middle of the trilogy's release, so demand as well as supply was high. I think it's the first "article" I wrote up about a video game.]

So to kind of retouch on the issue of epic video games from a few posts back, I bought The Two Towers video game over break. My video game library had been stagnant for a while, so I picked it up on a whim.

NOT an epic game.

Imagine Dynasty Warriors. Now imagine Dynasty Warriors set in Middle Earth. That's the basic jist of Two Towers, in nearly every aspect. With a few minor exceptions, you play as Aragorn, Legolas, or Gimli starting in the last half of Fellowship up through the battle at Helm's Deep. It's very much an action game through and through. There's a rudimentary level system, in which you receive experience in accordance with how much finesse you dispatch enemies with. You can then trade in experience points to buy new combos and moves.

Graphics wise, the game is pretty good during gameplay. The problem is that the cutscenes (at least, those that are not supplied by movie footage) are also done in engine, and while the results may have been acceptable in years past, they don't stand up to the standards set today in lifelike body language and facial detail. This is compounded by how heavily the game relies on movie visuals to move the story forward. All the character and set designs are taken almost directly from the movie, and a majority of the cutscenes are just clips of the films yoinked out. This makes the in-engine scenes look even less unpleasant. The camera stays a fair distance away during play though, so the visuals are passable enough to the eye.

Unfortunately, the all too-familiar problem of camera placement rears its head here, although it's more aggrivating than usual. The POV is a mixture of predetermined angles and player tracking, which works surprisingly well most of the time. But sometimes the camera will continue tracking you, even when the view is completely blocked. But the biggest gripe is the angle switching. At one point in the game, the camera flips complete 180 degrees when you pass a certain threshold. This caused me to switch back and forth between two angles many times, because down was forward in one screen but back in the other. Most of the time, the camera does a fairly good job. But when it's bad, it's really bad.

The controls are fairly straightforward. You have quick and fierce attacks, as well as ranged weapons, finishing moves, and parries. A noteworthy innovation is the use of the right analog stick for attacking purposes. Horizontal movement will result in quick attacks, while vertical moves are interpreted as fierce attacks. I'm fairly certain this was an attempt to employ a method similar to the sword control used in MGS2, although far less developed. In my opinion, they should have cribbed it directly so that you could actually control the direction of your blade.

A nice addition would have been some sort of targeting system. Many times I tried to stab a downed opponent, only to smite the dirt next to him. It would have been nice to have some sort of guarantee that my attacks were directed towards an opponent at all times. Since this is a melee style game, I can understand why it's important to be able to pivot and engage multiple enemies at one time. And while I agree that having a totally tunneled field of damage would be detrimental, some sort of either soft or optional lock-on system would make the game a little less frustrating. Past games like Kingdom Hearts and to a lesser extent Eternal Darkness have executed such a system with great success.

The strength of the game is in gameplay, and the strength of the gameplay comes in the level designs. There are no jumping puzzles to be found here. The level challenges (so far) have been fairly well thought out. In the first stage, the only way to damage the Naz-Gul is with a lit torch. The first battle at Helm's Deep requires you to not only to dispatch the attacking orcs, but to kick down their scaling ladders. Playing through the levels is pretty fun.

The game is also rather fair about keeping the player well equipped. Your heath is running low? An orc will drop a health vial. Need arrows to get past the next few enemies? You'll find an extra quiver in the next treasure box. So only by playing very poorly will you ever die during the levels. But interspersed every now and then are boss battles, which suck the fun out of the game and cause the momentum to come to a screeching halt. The bosses all have a certain particular pattern to be exploited or they will be impossible to beat. So the battles are not challenging in a rewarding sense but in a meticulous, boring, wearing down sense.

All in all, the game is fun to play, if not particularly groundbreaking. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a three out of five.

[Looking back, I think I'd rather change my rating to two out of five.]

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Penny

[ARCHIVE: This is the pinnacle of any positive output that came from all of my emo-ness (well, so far anyway).]

This is a story, like any story worth telling, about a girl.

Penny was a film enthusiast. Her parents were producers at Paramount so she had grown up in the industry. She wasn't directly involved in the business, so she didn't hob-knob with celebrities all the time. Not that she would. In a business that was primarily about image, Penny was surprisingly genuine. Sure, she was happy and excited to meet celebrities like Chris O'Donnell and Rachel Leigh Cook, but she never presumed that they were her friends.

That's always been one of the things that I've loved about her. She always looked to the inside of a person. That's not to say that she didn't find guys like Ben Affleck attractive. I mean, c'mon, he's Ben Affleck. But she never bought into the posse philosophy of friendship (surrounding oneself with many casual acquaintances). Her companions, although few in number, were fiercely loyal, carefully chosen, and always close at hand. Some people had different associates for different activities. For Penny, there was only one activity: life.

But to Penny, life wasn't tragic or hectic. She wasn't a supernova, trying to live fast and die young. Nor was she lawless, always looking for new and dangerous stunts to pull and deaths to cheat. Life was simply a constant progression towards an uncertain end. Penny didn't want to taste every spice of existence; she just wanted to live while she was alive. There's a certain word for being totally at ease with life. Buddhists call it Enlightenment. Christians call it Salvation. Penny just shrugged her shoulders and called it a given.

Me? I can't claim the same. If Penny was Galadriel from Lord of the Ring, I was Dante from Clerks.

I also grew up with movies. But while Penny got to have lunch breaks with Tom Hanks on set, I had to wait in line like every other theater-goer to see Philadelphia. Movies have always been my chosen form of entertainment. Instead of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Muppet Babies, I spent my Saturday mornings watching rentals of Ferris Beuller's Day Off and Short Circuit. There were the occasional crossovers, like Transformers: the Movie, but I knew more about Lloyd Bridges than I did about He-Man.

I've always been a consumer of pop culture. In my early years I limited myself to movies, but as I grew older I began to appreciate other media, especially television and music. By the time I was ten, I had abandoned popular music in favor of older performers. I sang the praises of the Beatles and Journey, ignoring New Kids on the Block and MC Hammer. In high school, I parlayed my love and knowledge of music into a part-time job at the music store. This proved to be a mistake, as the inundation of countless inane opinions and customers turned me off. I quit my job and didn't even turn on the radio for a year. I couldn't stand to listen to music for music's sake, but I continued to watch films. In my college years I got a job working in a movie rental place.

The video store and the music store are two very different entities. Music is more easily accessible, so you get to sample all types of preferences, from the narrow to the discerning to the vapid, but all of them very opinionated. In the video store, however, people's tastes are much broader and less defensive. The businessman you lend Chinatown to one night could be back the next week to take out Girls Gone Wild: Spring Break Edition (discreetly, of course). Arguments over film merit were more conversational and less territorial than musical disagreements. People can easily admit that they enjoyed watching Road Trip but concede that it was not a shining example of cinema. Unlike the music store, I enjoyed my job at the rental place. And that's how I found myself working at the video store when Penny walked into my life.

It was a Friday; things usually happened on Fridays, when patrons would come in seeking something to entertain them for the weekend. I tried to work enough hours during the middle of the week so that I could take Friday night off without serious financial repercussions. This particular night, however, was the birthday of a not-so-very close friend, and I needed an excuse to skip out. At the time, it seemed like a viable alternative, dealing with many annoying people for small increments of time, rather than spend an entire evening pretending to be interested in my acquaintance's yammering. By ten that night, though, I was tired, hungry, and out of patience.

So when a dark-haired beauty came up to the counter, I didn't even look up. "Which of these two movies would you recommend?" she asked me, holding up two boxes. Her voice had a lower register, as if the wisdom of ages was hidden inside her slight frame. In any other set of circumstances I would have given her the once over and dismissed her as an Untouchable, one of those women who were beyond the reach of guys like myself, relegated to eye fodder and observed only from afar. But in my place of power (behind the register), and with my wits already strained, I could have given even a young Audrey Hepburn the cold shoulder.

"I don't watch movies," I replied, not looking up from the latest of issue of X-Men.

"You mean to tell me that you haven't heard anything about either of these two movies?" she retorted. To the uninformed bystander, she sounded agitated, ready to launch into a low-customer-appreciation tirade. Later in our relationship, after a lot of experience, I would be able to discern when she was more amused than angry. But I didn't even know her yet, so she still came off as another unruly customer.

"I find it's best to stay out of other people's affairs," was my monotone rejoinder.

Undaunted, she brought her hands down and turned away. Quickly, she faced the counter again, brandishing the two boxes. "Well how about these two?"

"Oh they suck." I didn't bat an eyelash.

"These are the same two movies. You weren't even paying attention."

"And I hope it feels good."

"Of course. Nothing thrills me more than pointing out the shortcomings of others." At this I looked up. Most patrons never picked up the reference (Clerks) and stormed away in a huff. Instead, she had taken my line and turned it on me forcing the ball into my court. The rest of the conversation was a blur of which I remember only that I was smitten by her already. Beautiful, witty, and a Kurosawa fan. She was definitely of a very unique breed. After a lengthy discussion, she didn't rent either Dude, Where's My Car or Rashomon, but The Breakfast Club, and I was left preoccupied for the rest of the night. Not that it mattered; after taking one hour serving that one customer, all the other renters avoided my register.

In a romantic comedy, that particular "scene" would have ended with an encouraging smile from her and a phone number in my hand. But real life works differently. It was a week and a half later that I saw the girl again. It was a Wednesday, and the movie was Almost Famous. I had been a fan of Cameron Crowe's small body of work for quite some time, and although I had hated my record store job, I still had a deep appreciation for music. I was alone that night; my usual cohorts were either socializing in the downtown club scene or covering for me at the video store. Except for James; he was working the ticket booth. Somebody had to let me in for free, right?

So I was in the booth, killing time with J-dogg till my showing. And there she was, standing in line. Two things happen to me when I see a girl that is a potential prospect. One, the initial euphoric feeling, as my heart gets lighter and I smile unintentionally. For me, there's always a second phase, where half a second later my mind takes a complete 180° turn and my fantasies are dashed against the rocks of reality. In this case it was the rather large guy standing next to her in line, chatting her up like there was no tomorrow.

I tried to avert my eyes, to get involved in a conversation with James, anything to keep myself from obsessing over the situation. I had only seen the girl once before; I had no claim over her. So what if she managed to look attractive in a baggy sweatshirt? So what if I didn't remember anything we talked about last time, except a sense of surprise and awe at her refined taste in movies? She was already taken. Story of my life. I was so successful at not looking that my ears started making out their "conversation." I put that in quotes because in no measure could their exchange be considered a discussion. This brute was spewing pick-up lines like the future population of the world depended on it (and they were rather bad ones, too). When I looked up at them, I finally saw that she actually didn't know this guy at all. She was smiling, but her eyes were disinterested. You could tell by looking at them that she desperately wanted to get away.

I can't explain what possessed me at that moment. To this day, the idea of what I did is horrifying and completely out of my character. My history is filled with enough examples of passed opportunities and overlooked chances. But instead, I grabbed two tickets from James and went outside. I approached the two nonchalantly, full with a confidence I couldn't replicate today. Her eyes darted in my direction casually, the way your attention is drawn briefly when someone passes you on the street. You may not know this person, but you look anyway, just to size them up, to fully take in your surroundings. When it was clear that I was walking toward her, she turned her head completely from her admirer.

"Hey hon, didn't see you in line. I got the tickets already. Wanna go in?" I held out the tickets and offered a noncommittal shrug. My heart was racing, even if my body language was casual. The thug's face was frozen in bewilderment, his territory impinged upon by a shorter, thinner, obviously less athletic twerp like myself. Luckily for me, we never had to put it to a test.

She grabbed my arm with both hands and kissed me, standing on tiptoe to reach my lips. It was a move that took the oaf, not to mention myself, by surprise. His face reddening, he mumbled an apology and excused himself to the end of the line where a few of his friends were laughing uproariously (at least, I assume they were his friends by the way he started punching them in the shoulders). Once he was out of earshot, she started giggling, and I soon caught her infectious laughter. "Hi, my name's Penny." And that's how we started dating.

Almost Famous was a great movie. It was wonderfully personal, yet accessible at the same time. True, it was Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical story about his youth, but the themes throughout it were familiar to everyone: pubescent alienation, rock star dreams, the "friend zone." And the soundtrack was amazing. It was as if Cameron Crowe had a list of my favorite classic rock songs and simply played them all. Afterwards, I suggested that we go to the local Denny's; we ended up staying there until three in the morning, discussing the merits of new and classic music. As I walked her home, I started to sweat. I really wanted to see Penny again, but she hadn't even breached the subject of getting together again. When we reached the door, I stuttered my way through a request for her phone number. She gave me one of her relaxed, half-smiles, "You don't need my number," then she kissed my cheek and walked inside.

The rest of the week was a waking hell. Over and over I replayed the rejection in my mind. It's not a secret that guys will overanalyze a situation that is not under their control. If things are fine, we don't sweat it. But if the situation is not satisfactory, we think about it way too much. So I kept reliving that night over and over in my head. I was thinking about it in class, at home, I was thinking about it at work. How had it started out so promising and still ended up as nothing in the end? Had she just used me? That was entirely possible; she had needed a way to escape that annoying jock. Maybe she had just chosen the lesser of two evils.

Thinking about it in that way made me sick. I had been a nice guy as far as I could tell. I didn't try to cop a feel, or stick my tongue in her mouth. I hadn't even tried to put my arm around her. And yet, I was still the same in her eyes: another horndog trying to get into her pants. My friends were right. Being a nice guy never got you anything. Or maybe she had expected me to be more forward and transparent. Maybe I had kept my desires so hidden that they were imperceivable, so that I got prematurely thrown into the "friend" category. I felt dumb and rejected. I didn't know why I had even allowed myself to hope. Blarg. I went through the motions of life, not paying attention to what I was doing, so much that I almost missed the Post-It note stuck to the back of a dollar bill the video patron paid with. "Superfresh. 8PM." I looked up and caught the back of Penny's head as she exited. I glanced at the clock; it was 7:45. I talked to Matt, got him to close for me that night, grabbed my coat and left.

As I walked over, my head was a traffic jam, different trains of thought colliding into each other. I decided that I would just have to be straightforward and honest. So when I found Penny in an aisle, I walked up to her and just started talking. "Look, I have a lot of questions right now, and before we do anything else, I think they need to be addressed." She turned and stared at me blankly. "No, just let me finish. I don't know what you think of me, but please believe me when I say that my intentions are not purely physical. I would be lying if I didn't say you were beautiful, but I like more about you than just that. I think we connected with each other, and I think we could continue to connect with each other, and that we should. Because it's so hard to find that these days, y'know? And like, what's going on? I mean, if it was just one date, that's fine, but why the note? And meeting in a supermarket? What's up with that?"

She gave me a look of amusement. "Are you finished?" Dumbstruck, I simply nodded. "Good. What kind of soda do you want?" Numbly, I picked out a six pack of Dr Pepper. As we walked to her place, she apologized for her confusing behavior. "I was afraid. I could tell that you liked me, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to be responsible for someone's happiness. Something similar happened to me with my last relationship, with me caring too much in the end. I thought it better to be rude than to get into something that I would regret."
Silence hung between us, punctuated only by the shuffling of wet leaves under our shoes. "So what changed your mind?"

She turned and smiled at me. "When I realized how much fun I had had."

That night was one of the most surreal nights of my life. We acted as if we had been together for years. Our conversations were filled with playful teasing and intimate moments. We made pasta for dinner that night, working perfectly in tandem. We watched American Beauty, her head resting on my shoulder, my arm around her. Afterwards, we stayed up laughing at horrible reality dating shows until we fell asleep. It was entirely mundane and unexciting. It was perfect.

My relationship with Penny was never dramatic. We didn't do exciting/crazy things, like skydiving, or spend winter break together in a ski lodge. Our most exciting excursion was when we drove to a Billy Joel concert. The concert was in the next town over and we had no cars between the two of us. The local trains were also closed that weekend, so our only option was to borrow a car from one of our friends. This was fine in theory, but what we got was an oversized pickup truck (he was from Texas). We had never driven a vehicle that large before, so getting in and out of parking spaces was an adventure in itself. Added to the fact that we got lost only fifteen minutes into the trip (although we quickly recovered), and we had a lot of stories to giggle over later on.

But it was the typical things that I remember more. Like the one night she came in upset. She was having an anxiety attack about her grades, so to calm her down and take her mind off it, I made frozen pizza and we watched Fantasia 2000. There was nothing memorable or significant about that night, and yet that's the night I remember most vividly. We never tired of each other's company. We would spend entire days just reading on the couch. And it wasn't because we had a lack of things to say; we were just that contented with each other. It was a comfortable silence, like when you lay in bed with somebody before falling asleep. Sure, you could strike up a conversation, but just having them at your side is enough.

So what went wrong?

We had been dating for about six months. In that time, we had only had two, maybe three fights, all of them about very minor things. And the fights themselves were very small, never spilling over five minutes, and never brought up again as ammunition in future conflicts. We were intimate, both physically and emotionally, closer than I had ever been with a human before. So one night, as we lay basking in the afterglow, I let the words slip, "I love you." And then I said, "Forever."

You must remember that I watched a lot of movies. Because of that, my definition of love was, and still is, a bit more classical than that of the common college male of my time. Love wasn't a buzzword I threw out to keep a girl on my booty call list. I used the word sparingly because it represented a feeling that couldn't be duplicated. When I thought of love, I thought of the classic movies, like My Fair Lady and Top Hat; I thought of the original stories of having a "one and only."

The problem with love is that no one seems to understand its value anymore, so they overuse and underrepresent this word that's supposed to describe the most exceptional of emotions. The word love has been cheapened; it doesn't mean love anymore. It's just a step up from really liking something. So I try to use it rarely, to preserve what little significance it has. So when I said "I love you," I didn't mean it in a "Wow, this Burger King Whopper, with its flame broiled patty, sesame seed bun, and tasty slice of American cheese is an oral sensory overload of really really really really ridiculously great goodness," way. I meant it in a "Every moment I spend with you is better than all my other days combined, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you" way. And I meant it. I was long past the stage of uncertainty, so my feelings were not only genuine but also deep-rooted. I loved Penny, and so I told her.

One week later, she dumped me.

It was a Friday. I had gone to morning classes, and decided that instead of sitting through more class during the afternoon, I would take Penny out for lunch, and then we would waste the rest of the day in bed. I went back to my place to drop off my books, stopping to chat with my roommate for a bit. As we were talking, Penny came in, her face calm and searching. Most people would have thought she was just preoccupied. But I knew her well enough to recognize the signs of worry; the twitching of her mouth as she subvocalized her thoughts, the habitual way she tugged on the skin at the base of her neck, the slight uncertainty in her step as she walked.

I tried to ask her what was wrong. She only asked for my help in fixing her fire alarm. I didn't want to push anything so I went along with it. I figured she would tell me when she was ready. We walked back to her place, where I immediately recognized the problem. The battery in the alarm had run low, so it was emitting a high-pitched beep every thirty seconds. A long enough time to give the illusion of silence, but frequent enough to drive normal people crazy.

As I grabbed a chair and went to work, she sat down on "The Ottoman," her blue floral print footstool. She had picked it up at a trendy store in an effort to diversify the furniture of her place. Her friends, including me, had teased her incessantly about it, but in the end we had all grown attached to it. I popped the cover off the alarm, the blinking red LED light flashing in my eyes. Unfortunately, without a replacement nine volt battery, the only thing I could do for the moment was to take the thing down. The entire time I had been chattering away, trying to cheer her up. By the time I had finished, she was still sitting on the ottoman, watching me attentively but not interacting actively. I asked her again what was wrong, and she replied, "It doesn't feel right." There was no context to the sentence. And yet, by the subtle clues, the shift in her eyes, the way she was pulling at her hair, I instinctively knew what she was talking about.

I argued with her for a few futile hours, gaining no ground. It seems that with my revelation, I had placed a burden of guilt on her. Before, it was just about fun. Now, it was about emotion, something she couldn't handle or reciprocate. "Do you know how it feels to be responsible for someone's happiness?" I thought about my previous girlfriend, but kept my mouth shut. "It's like this, this, this enormous pressure. Everything I do, I second-guess. I, I can't deal with thought that I might do something that makes you sad. It's too big for me, I can't do it, not right now."

I tried to convince her that I didn't care, that it wasn't important to me that she "return" my feelings as long as I could make her happy. But she remained obstinate. "You say you don't care, but every time you do something nice for me, it makes me feel even guiltier. I can't make you feel as good as you make me feel. I, I don't deserve this kind of treatment." It's strange how in any other context, that would have meant something entirely different. "Look, it's just better to cut it now, before it someone gets hurt." Too late for that, isn't it? I fell back on my last option and tried to get her to let the relationship keep going until she could return my feelings. But she called my bluff, pointing out (quite truthfully in retrospect) that despite my best efforts I would grow to resent her for not feeling the same way. As I walked out the door into the rain in my black trench coat, I remember thinking that John Cusack had nothing on me.

For months I was miserable. Every lousy pop song spoke to me; every romantic comedy I passed could stop me in my tracks; I didn't even leave my room for the first few days, sustaining myself on Gatorade and Cup o' Noodles. I lost myself in movie binges, watching my DVDs over and over again, trying to find the old uplifting feelings of hope I used to feel. Nothing. The only movies that I could take anything from were Fight Club and The Killer. I had hit my bottom. It wasn't a self-mutilation or tempting-death-thing like Tyler Durden explained it, but the sudden loss of direction was brutal but one as idealistic as me. I don't remember when I got better. One day I just woke up, took a shower, and continued on. I was far from okay, but I was moving about.

We don't talk anymore. We can't. A year later she transferred. I didn't get her new address or phone number, but I didn't want them. Like a shadow across my life, she came in and left just as quickly. It's probably better this way, though, that it's a story with an exact start and beginning, a well defined subquest of life. But not a day goes by that I don't think about her. It's not as bad anymore, not a heavy weight that sits in the middle of my chest. Now it's just like a memory of the past, one that I look upon as a one of the proverbial "better times." I can laugh and joke again, even goad my friends into relationships themselves (James is currently pursuing his own conquest). But Penny is never discussed, never referenced, never mentioned.

Sometimes it's hard to believe she even existed. She was only the best I ever had, but I don't have a picture, a keepsake, a forgotten pair of underwear. And yet I still have a Valentine's bear, still in its plastic bag, next to a copy of Singles, still waiting for an owner. But really, that's what I got out of love. It's not the gifts I gave her or even the kisses we shared that are important. Love isn't the deeper connection between two people. It's the potential for that connection. And finally understanding all this, I'm trapped by my own words. I meant what I said. And even though I'll never see her again, I'll always love her. The movies taught me, but Penny gave me the experience, that love is, and should be, something that is meaningful and nigh-unchangeable. I'm sorry Penny, wherever you are.

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On Current Society

[ARCHIVE: This was supposed to be an "Final Fantasy VI is awesome" post but turned into something bigger]

So I've reestablished my rapport with video games. But what it took was a rediscovery of my gaming roots. There were just no new games out (at present) that could grab my attention and rivet me in front of the television. So like a librarian trying to enjoy reading again, I went back to my game library and picked out a tired and true classic.

Final Fantasy VI. Considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time, and thought of by most as the benchmark against which RPG video games are compared against. This is the closest thing to Lord of the Rings that the gaming media form has, and I say this fully aware of the claim that makes. The game is epic, masterfully done, and riveting. The cast of characters is diverse and captivating. Everyone can identify with a favorite protagonist from the cast. The story ebbs and flows, with moments of action and tension, as well as wonderful moments of intimate characterization. It is an epic.

(yeah, so I'm a bit Tolkien crazy right now. So what?!)

It worked like a charm. I've played the game through several times, and though I know what the next step is, though I know what town to travel to, I find great satisfaction in working my way through the story. And I've put in less than ten hours of gameplay so far!

The game is so ambitious that it includes an opera scene. Granted, it's a midi-format, synthesizer-driven version of the music, but somehow you get past all that, and you see a genuine story, told as well as could be told with the limitations of the technology of the day. This is provable, because certain scenes, like the aforementioned opera, were revisited and redone with full motion computer graphics, with phenomenal results.

But anyway, I replayed the opera scene. There is a little mini-story, about love denied and fought for, very reminiscent of a classic Romeo and Juliet tale. There's two warring factions, the East and the West, and the war-torn lovers, in this case Draco & Maria, although here there are both Westerners. It is the Eastern Prince that is from the East, and interlopes in their relationship. It's not the first time I've played the scene, but this time when I played through, I was immensely drawn to it. I felt an entire gamut of emotions flowed through me. Hopelessness. Forlornness. Surprise. Renewed faith. Everything that I felt over months of my life was suddenly compressed into ten minutes.

And suddenly, I realized that this was part of the reason why I'm so fscked up. Granted, that's a very opinionated view of how I am, but sans judgment, I'll still put forth that it's affected how I've grown up.

Most people think that if you grow up with video games, you grow up with a very nineties mentality. You're jaded and cynical. Your mind is supposed to be realistic and grounded. You don't dream of idealistic things like love or heroism. You work in the here and now, surrounded by corruption and grays. You're a product of popular media. And they're right.

But.

They're in the thick of it as well (they being the psychologists and social commentators). The problem is that they're older. All they see within us is corruption and Columbines waiting to happen. They see the extremes, the things that appear on the news. To their credit, they're called in usually to analyze the problem kids that make the evening news. They see the terrible/tasteless things that are in modern day media, like Dave Mirra BMX XXX and Cool Devices. If there's one bad thing that could influence our development, it must be the only thing that we're watching and being affected by. They forget.

They forget the great stories that we also see. They forget that we too can have heroes and morals. We may live in a modern world, but the modern world has its own mythology as well. We have Spider-Man. We have Star Wars. We have stories that can transcend social boundaries. We have ideals and beliefs that we can get behind. It's not quite as clear cut; good and evil aren't as black and white as it used to seem/be presented. But it's still there. I still believe that things will turn out for the better in the end.

But that could be because I, too, am in the thick of it. I've grown up exposed to the good and the bad. But the stories that speak to me are not the ones that incite discourse, but the ones that relate the great things in life; courage, perseverense, love. I choose to be optimistic; not necessarily for how things will turn out for me, but in general. I hope that my story will happy, but I don't expect it to. So even though I know something won't work out, I always have that small little corner of myself that's banking on the one in a million chance. It's unrealistic, but as someone who is perpetually optimistic, I can never stand to kill it off entirely, even when I know I'm being unreasonable. It's a state I like to call "General optimist, personal pessimist."

Why do I not extend the same hope I have in humanity to myself? As a people, I believe that our race has individuals who can and will rise to the occasion when called. But I do not see that for myself. I see myself as one of the faceless masses, one of the ordinary people who never rise into prominence. But still hope that it won't. I think that history will pass me by. But that doesn't mean that I don't wish that it wouldn't.

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To Be Asian: A Meditation Borne From Xanga

[ARCHIVE: I wrote this a week after getting a xanga site. The only thing I don't like about it is you can tell I'm trying too hard to legitimize my computer knowledge (actually spelling it n00blet, typing fsck). The xanga site's still there, and updated regularly. It's mostly offhand remarks and such though.]

Xanga is pretty much your typical personal blog portal. Most of the pages housed there are personal in nature, rather than being sprawling pr0n entertainment sites or dry news pages. It ranges from the average to the emotionally typical to the intellectually offensive*. I'm not really sure where I fit in/would be categorized. But one thing I can say is that I at least try to sound competent when I speak. I mean come on, would you honestly want to look at an archive of your website (as one might look upon an old diary) and see:

"skool was boring hahaz umms cold and freezin haha i got a sore throat now =( wellz its frum every1 else hahaz"

I mean really. Kill yourself. You'll die of embarrassment later if you don't so just save yourself the trouble. Content is different. Content I won't judge or touch with a forty foot pole because it's the discretion of whoever's site it is. If you deem it appropriate, more power to you. But at least write it at a higher English level than an AOL n00bie. It's the equivalent of the congenial idiot who holds his gun sideways for no reason other than because he thinks it looks cool.

I guess I'm one to talk. I'm Asian, after all. Or something. My race is the largest perpetrator of this brand of idiocy. It's not the gangsta wannabes, or rather it IS, because a great deal of the gangsta posers are what? You guessed, ASIAN. I mean what's that all about? Since when did being Asian mean acting like you're an inner city child despite being raised in a comfortable suburban life? How did Asian Culture begin to mean that your entire wardrobe had to consist of clothes that were solid black, white, brown, or shades of the three? Who decided that to be true to your Asian roots, you were limited to having only Asian friends? Come the fsck on, people. There's a difference between being Asian and being "Azn," and while they aren't exclusive to one another, it doesn't mean they're totally inclusive either.

I bring this up because it's affected me directly. There have been times that Asians have shunned me because I dress more like a skater than an "Azn." It's true; they gave me this condescending look, and muttered insults, calling me "Twinkie" and "Banana." The terms are for Americanized Asians, who are yellow on the outside (skin color supposedly) but white on the inside. While the labels don't offend me anymore (it did for a while), I still feel a certain amount of bile rise in my throat whenever a similar situation presents itself. What right do you have to judge people that way? Can you speak your native language fluently, not just chide people who can't? Don't you think it says something about yourself that you prefer to date white girls? Is it really that bad to hang out with friends that aren't Asian?

Now, I've used the terms Twink and Chink myself, but never in a derogatory, exclusionary way. It's a term of affection between me and my friends, like the N-word that people use. And anybody who's spent at least five minutes... okay, ten minutes... fine, an hour with me knows that race is never something I discriminate with. And thankfully, I've met many people that don't buy into the whole "Fly Azn" stereotype. But every now and then, I see the Azn entourage walking across campus, with their snooty looks and their elitist ways, and it makes me want to take a metal bat to each and every one of their heads.

*[Some of the linked blogs have since changed/shut down. I actually like Cosmic Log now. Does that say more about the blog, or about me?]

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Singles (1992)

[ARCHIVE: This was a mini-review I snuck into a post way back in the day. I guess it stands up okay, but I think it speaks too broadly for such a short article]

There are a few movies in the world that speak in a believable tone. Many ask you to suspend belief to one degree or another, to accept that a woman's jilted boyfriend is still the bad guy, or that aliens do exist, or that a man who wears his underwear outside his tights wouldn't be ridiculed. And then there are those that are so true to life, are so believable and relatable that we simply smile and agree when somebody proclaims that it is a good movie. Chasing Amy. Reds. High Fidelity. And now, Singles.

An earlier film effort by Cameron Crowe, Singles is, in a sentence, about the young adult dating scene in Grunge-era Seattle. But underneath the dry back-of-the-box description is a film without any dishonest emotions. There is no devastatingly handsome alpha male, nor is there a brainy beauty-in-disguise. The characters are all well rounded and believable, if somewhat eccentric (in the case of Debbie). A woman falls in love and considers marriage within a week, only to be disillusioned shortly thereafter. A man psychs himself up for a night of phone number hunting, only to lose the nerve to call even one of them the next day. His friend insist that he plays no games, only to be told that playing no games is his game. Every piece of dialogue is stacked with layers of emotion. He may say one thing, but you see in his eyes and on the expression on his face that he is trying to convince himself just as much as the audience. With such a popular topic as relationships, one would be wary, not wanting to see another derivative movie. But the pacing of the story and the honesty with which it speaks keeps the viewer's attention. There will be many moments while watching this movie that you will think "Wow, that's exactly what I did, that's how I felt." I strongly recommend this movie to everyone. It's even got cameos by Pearl Jam.

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Mark's Story

"So my friend had a bad weekend, because she was out on a date with a guy she's been seeing. So on the date, he's upset becasue the day before, a girl stood him up. This was a little awkward for her, seeing as how she was going out with this guy, and he was complaining about how this other girl stood him up, but she figureed that he was just seeing one of his friends. Perfectly legitimate, if weird. So whatever, that day ends, and she's talking to him the next day, and he spends the whole conversation complaining about how this girl stood him up again, the next day. At this, she gets a little upset, becasue she's being nice enough to spend all this time with him, and he's just complaining about how this other girl isn't spending time with him.

"So she's here, dating a guy who complains about how he can't get any play, outside of her. So how is it that decent guys like me can't get a girl?!"

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