I think I’m coming up to my one-year dry spell mark, but to be honest, I’m not sure. I used to tease Trolley about his dry spells, but now, well, yeah…heh.

I’m aiming for four. We were watching a dating show on the Life Network once, and they were trying to set up this guy who had a full out four-year dry spell. On his actual date, he couldn’t stop talking about how his family had an intervention concerning the amount of time he spent on the internet. He kept going on and on about how his parents wanted less than two hours a day but he was adamant on keeping at least four. My theory is that anything past three years does damage to the brain. I want to be able to document every disintegrating part of my intellect Charlie Gordon style. I’m dying to find out if it’ll be a gradual process, or I’ll just suddenly wake up one day without my sanity.

I got the idea from Dave, a guy on the floor in res in first year. He was in the reserves, so he always told us these crazy stories about when he was serving. One time he had to stay awake for three days, doing nothing but eating and defending/digging a trench. After the 30th hour he started started hallucinating. After that, Pita and I made a pact to pull a simultaneous three-nighter, just to see if we’d start to go insane, but I keeled over in my room at about the 23rd hour. I had never pulled an all-nighter before then.

This time though, I’ve had a bit of practice. Not three years practice, but practice. I want to go for as long as possible, sort of like server uptime.

I was on gaming hiatus for a few months (my longest yet), but now I’m back into the old swing of things with Soul Calibur 2. I didn’t play much of it before because I didn’t know anyone else who played it, but Aaron and Jessie have been addicted since the beginning of the month. Now I actually feel like I can invest some time into training a character and learning their fighting dynamics. The game is so deep and involved that I can practice for weeks and weeks and still be considered a beginner. I mean, Virtual Fighter 4 had a pretty involved system, but SC2 extends past the “basic” guard>attack>throw>guard with added sidestep>vertical attack>horizontal attack>sidestep, and mid-guard>high/mid attack and low-guard>low/high attack, not to mention the options that open up with soul charging and unblockables.

The problem is that SC2 has so many cool characters that I want to use. There’s something about using a character that matches the personality. It’s like a projection of the self in a fantasy world. Whenever I do RPGs, I usually create a character that’s like me (although with height modifier +6 when the option is there). That’s why I never use the “evil” characters in fighting games.

I started SC2 with Kilik since he had the most recognizable traditional Shaolin fighting style (my favourite), although Xianghua’s and Yunsung’s moves have fairly obvious Chinese roots as well. Kilik ended up being too boring for me (no personality, predictable moves), so I switched to Yoshimitsu, cause he’s really cool and sneaky, but his moves ended up being too awkward. I realize that this is how Yoshimitsu is supposed to be played (with off-timing balance), but the character didn’t click for me.

Right now I’m using Raphael, who happens to be the most interesting character move-wise, but also the biggest pansy out of all of them. He can go in and out of stances easily, with several attacking options in each stance, making him an offensive, but difficult-to-master, character. He has amazingly variable combos, and in between hits, his foil guard-impacts, just like a fencer. He’s unlike any other character in the game, and I have to applaud Namco for coming up with the idea and making him so realistic.

My nerdyness is coming back. The same nerdyness that used to say, “Why make out with you when I could be playing a game?”.

On a side note, I’m also back into big breakfasts with bacon, sausages, and milk tea on the weekends. My arteries hate them, but I forgive them and love them all the same.

What is it about mosquito bites that makes them so damn satisfying to scratch? It’s like a higher form of itching, which turns into a higher form of scratching. I’ve always had bad reactions to insect bites; when I was young, I had one that was almost the size of my head. It covered up all of my kneecap and I decided to get medical help when I couldn’t walk without feeling like I had an extra 27 layers of skin bunching up on the joint. I know I shouldn’t touch them, and I’ve since gained the self-control, but something just makes me want to jab my fingers in them and claw them until they bleed.

The new me doesn’t please you, and the old me didn’t care.

Not everyone gets what they want.

I woke up this morning, and the sun was hidden behind the dismal morning sky, like a post-apocalyptic calm in the atmosphere. It all felt numb, and I put on a bittersweet mix, hoping to awaken my torpid senses. Every song hit me for a few bars, then faded into the background.

Heavy thoughts on a heavy morning. Heavy music for heavy rain.