Author Archives: kilcher

未来につぁE

23 Thursday Oct 2008

Posted by in Books, Geekdom

≈ 4 Comments

And it’s best if you know a good thing is going to happen, like an eclipse or getting a microscope for Christmas. And it’s bad if you know a bad thing is going to happen, like having a filling or going to France. But I think it is worst if you don’t know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing which is going to happen.

…

And whenever I thought about the future I couldn’t see anything clearly in my head and that made a panic start. So Siobhan said I shouldn’t think about the future. She said, ‘Just think about today. Think about things that have happened. Especially about good things that have happened.’

– Christopher Boone in Mark Haddon’s Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

***

Finally, I finished a book. Halleluiah.

* 未来につぁE

Let’s Go Marathon

22 Wednesday Oct 2008

Posted by in Geekdom, Life Oh Life, TV/Movies

≈ 7 Comments

…and by that, I don’t mean the real marathon. I’m talking about movies, man. Eversince I finally completed my mini home theater*, I’ve been watching a lot of movies (aside from the host of TV shows that I still have to watch) coz I felt like I’ve been missing out on, well, movies in general.

Day 156 : Movies Galore

Okay, the following items (in no particular order, coz I don’t really remember the order I saw them) are those that I’ve watched since Suzie Derkins (my CPU) and Kim Samsung (the monitor) came into being:

High Fidelity

This movie’s about a guy — a record-store owner, who’s also a compulsive list-maker. Throughout the movie he recounts his top five break-ups, including one that is ongoing. John Cusack plays Rob the record-store owner with Jack Black ocassionally stealing the show as his employee. Catherine Zeta-Jones is also there somewhere. The tagline (according to IMDB) is “a comedy about fear of commitment, hating your job, falling in love and other pop favorites”. Despite the word “comedy” plastered in there, this movie was quite the trigger for an intense emotikon session (private, of course =))).

Anyhoo, this movie is alright. It also doesn’t hurt that it has an awesome soundtrack — of course it would have to be awesome, a movie with music geeks wouldn’t be complete without an awesome soundtrack.

Wall-E

Well, sorry, I really can’t wait for December (yes, that long) so I just scourged over the web for a copy. It’s been eons already since this Pixar film was shown in other parts of the world and it’s taking, like, forever to get here. Booo!

What did I get from the movie?

1. Last-dialog-syndrome. I’ve been blurting out “Eeeevvuh” and “Wall-Eeeee” in what could be passable as a robotic voice since that movie.

2. My sound card’s mic input is already making my voice sound like Wall-E. Drat.

3. A few minutes nap while watching the movie. Yes, I was half-asleep while watching Wall-E. Maybe because it was really late (around 330AM) or maybe I just got bored with all the “Eeeevuh” and “Wall-Eeeee” dialogs.

4. Aaaackk! All the fat people in space just lie around with screens in front of their eyes and just let the machines take care of their needs. I’m suddenly very very afraid, really afraid. I lie around all the time and I’ve made couch-potato~ing look like an art but I don’t wanna get bloated like that!

The Cinderalla Stories

[t] Hey napanood mo na ba yung A Cinderella Story?
[i] Ha? Yan ba yung may sumasayaw?
[t] Lahat naman ng teeny-bopper movies may sumasayaw!
[t] (Pause)
[t] Omigod, napanood mo rin yung “Another Cinderella Story”?
[t] Wahaha, yun may “Mary Santiagoooo”?
[i] Ahahahahahaha. Oo. Inferness ang galing niya magsayaw ha — yung Mary.
[t] Favorite ko yung nasa likod ng one way glass-mirror si vavae at parang mirror-image (malamang) yung steps nila ni lalake.
[i] Ay oo.
[t] “What’s your name?” “My name’s Joey Parker!” hahaha. Potek bakit ba alam ko yan?!
[i] Alam mo pa ang lines wahahahaha.
[t] Eh pero hindi yun yung tinatanong ko sa yo, tinatanong ko yung A Cinderella Story.
[t] Chad Michael Murray saka Hilary Duff nubuzz.
[i] Wahahaha.

Moral of the Story: Sadyang napakarami nang Cinderella stories sa panahong ito. Sheesh.

The Prince and Me : Trilogy

Yep, trilogy siya. Akalain mo yun? I remember watching the first one. It starred Luke Mably and Julia Stiles. Paige Morgan (Stiles) is a local farmer’s daughter attending Wisconsin University who falls for weird Danish exchange student Edvard (“Eddie”). Later on she discovers that he’s actually the crown prince of Denmark.

The second installment seemed to be released only in Australia and still had Luke Mably in its cast as the Prince but Paige Morgan is, well, not Paige Morgan anymore (or rather, Paige Morgan is not Julia Stiles anymore). It was about the royal wedding, I think. The third one was about the honeymoon in some remote European country covered in snow and ice. I suddenly couldn’t wait for snowboarding season to start.

.
.
.

(Uh oh, I can’t continue this no more coz I got a lot of stuff to code and I’m already losing my head so, I’m just gonna list those movies that I’ve watched …)

21 : Jim Sturgess+ Kate Bosworth+ Math = quite a viewing pleasure. Yeah, I know, nerd na kung nerd.

Wanted: (for the nth time). One word = AWESOME!

College: Three high school seniors visit a university and pretend to be college students.

Garden State: Zach Braff (JD from Scrubs) plays a depressed brooding guy who goes back home because his mother died. He meets Manic Pixie Dream Girl Natalie Portman in a sort of hospital (forgot what kind coz I wasn’t really paying attention). And well, ya know, typical stuff happens. Guy meets girl, girl makes an impression and helps guy get out of his emo whatever shit, and they sort of live happily ever after. I dunno why but this movie didn’t connect to me better than Elizabethtown did.

Don’t Mess With The Zohan: I’m 1/4-way into the movie.

… and others. I forgot about the rest. Might continue this later when I get home.

*** *** ***

*Mini Home Theater Specs:

[x] 22″ Samsung 2253BW widescreen monitor. Specs
[x] Logicool X-240 2.1 stereo speaker set. Specs
[x] Logicool wireless mouse and keyboard.
[x] A Frankenstein (read: assembled) CPU with the following innards:
[x.a] Gigabyte GA-G33-DS3R motherboard .Specs
[x.b] Video card (on board — for the meantime).
[x.c] Intel CoreTM Extreme Quad-Core.
[x.d] 4GB DDR-800 RAM.
[x.e] 500GB HDD (wahahaha — for now).
.
.
.

Spartak Season Starts

17 Friday Oct 2008

Posted by in Sports

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Via rein-kar-nation, found out that Spartak (Sue, LJ,  and Taurasi’s Russian team) already started their EuroLeague season.

First victim — Famila Schio. [ Game Notes ]

The Bird Watch — 15 points, 5 rebounds, 9 assists in 35 minutes.

The Dee Watch — 12 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists in 24 minutes.

Up Next — 22.10.2008 vs. TEO Vilnius 18:45 (Russian Time)

16 Thursday Oct 2008

Posted by in Life Oh Life

≈ 5 Comments

For the first time in a long time, I have nothing to say, nothing in my mind worth blurting out, nothing, nothing, nothing.

What the hell’s wrong with me?

*** + ***

So I guess, I’ll just blame the following for the apparent lack of sensible entries in this blog:

①　Work. Work’s been draining lately. Never mind that we don’t seem to do OTs or whatever, it’s still draining just as hell.

② TV Shows. Bajillions of them. I’ve only been able to follow four series this season (How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Gossip Girl, and Grey’s Anatomy). I have to back-watch several other series (Pushing Daisies, Weeds, True Blood, Heroes, … ). It’s getting too tiring though.

③ Movies. I’ve been catching up on movie-watching coz I realized that I’m a little behind (only a little — oh come on!).

④ Chika time. Seriously — who would want to write when you can effortlessly just talk about what’s going on in your head? (But everything has an exception so …)

⑤ Sleep. Again, seriously — who would want to write when you can just sleep instead? 😀

⑥ Sports. I’ve been dabbling with tennis, futsal, table tennis, and badminton for more than a couple of weeks already. My weekends are always cramped with game skeds >_< . But I like it though. At least now I’m not just couch potato~ing my way through the weekend. ETA: can’t wait for January — Snobo Season yeaaaah!

⑦ Looking forward to my trips. ‘Nuff said.

⑧　Plurk. Addicting.

⑨ Blogger’s Block. The default reason.

*** + ***

Oi, it’s October 16 pala! Happy Birthday to my favorite Point Guard in the planet — Seattle Storm Guard Sue Bird. Yay!

以上です.

Peripheral Vision

11 Saturday Oct 2008

Posted by in Muzzak, TV/Movies

≈ 4 Comments

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Fallen for you
Did you ever see me,
Watching from periphery?
I was playing another game
I hoped you catch on all the same.

But I was wrong, so wrong
That was just another song you wrote, for another girl
And I hoped a day could be
When you’d write a song for me.

#####

I just watched High Fidelity and my mind’s a little messy right now so I don’t think I can blog about that. I’ll just post this song instead.  Someone already told me about this months ago but I just re-discovered it now after watching the movie and checking out the soundtrack. It’s awesome in a woe-is-me-emo-kid kinda way.

No Reason. At All.

01 Wednesday Oct 2008

Posted by in Geekdom, TV/Movies

≈ 13 Comments

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Leonard: What do you mean, you’re moving out? Why?

Sheldon: There doesn’t have to be a reason.

Leonard: Yeah, there kinda does.

Sheldon: Not necessarily. This is a classic example of Münchhausen’s Trilemma. Either the reason is predicated on a series of sub-reasons leading to an infinite regression, or it tracks back to arbitrary axiomatic statements, or it’s ultimately circular, i.e. I’m moving out because I’m moving out.

Leonard: I’m still confused.

Sheldon: Leonard, I don’t see how I could have made it any simpler.

– The Big Bang Theory, 2×01 “The Bad Fish Paradigm”

#####

The next time someone rebuts me that there’s a reason (however whacked that maybe) for everything when I don’t really believe there’s one, I have an explanation ready.

Münchhausen’s Trilemma, people, Münchhausen’s Trilemma.

(1) All justifications in pursuit of certain knowledge have also to justify the means of their justification and doing so they have to justify anew the means of their justification. Therefore there can be no end. We are faced with the hopeless situation of ‘infinite regression’. It is progress ad infinitum — all proof requires some further supporting proof, and so on to infinity.

For example, reasonOne is backed up by reasonTwo; reasonTwo is backed up by reasonThree; reasonThree is backed up by reasonFour … and so on and so forth.

[x] Why d’you have to buy a new pc?
[y] Because my current one cannot support the apps that I need to run.
[x] Why can’t it support those apps?
[y] Because it’s so slow.
[x] Why is it slow?
[y] Because its processor is old.
[x] Why is the processor —
[y] — OMG, STOP ASKING ALREADY!

(2) One can justify with a circular argument, but this sacrifices its validity.

Define circular: it’s the beginning of the end of the beginning of the end …

Like when asked, “why do you do that thing you do?”, you answer, “because I do that thing that I do.” And like what Sheldon told Leonard in dialogue, “I’m moving out because I’m moving out.” Or to continue with my example above, “I’m buying a PC because I’m buying a PC.”

I’m not sure if we can consider the following an example though:

[x] Why are you here?
[y] Because I’m not there.
[x] Why are you not there?
[y] Because I’m here.

(3) One can stop at self-evidence or common sense or fundamental principles or speaking ‘ex cathedra’ (Papal Infallibity) or at any other evidence, but in doing so the intention to install certain justification is abandoned. It means you’ll have to have a break of searching at a certain point, which indeed appears  principally feasible, but would mean a random suspension of the principle of sufficient reason.

[x] Why are you buying a pc?
[y] Because my current one’s old ergo it’s slow and annoying as hell.

*** I know I’m hasty generalizing with the old = slow thing but I’m too lazy to think of other examples right now.

#####

“…certainty is impossible, but that it’s best to get as close as we can, while remembering our uncertainty”

— Fallibilism of Karl Popper and Hans Albert.

#####

I cannot understand any of the above. What the frick was I thinking? :)) Damn you, TBBT, damn you!

Keepers' Union

28 Sunday Sep 2008

Posted by in Japan Stuff, Life Oh Life, Sports

≈ 13 Comments

i'm a keeper

The first time I played Futsal (ya know, the indoor version of Football/Soccer), I immediately tried my hand at being the Keeper (goalkeeper, not the Keeper of the Underworld — Sword of Truth series, you wait, alright, Imma finish your Goddarn last installment in the next hundred years).

Anyway, I have more respect for Keepers all over the world because it’s frakking hard to be one. Imagine being the last point (not even a line, sheesh) of defense and you gotta bail out your team by not letting the opponents’ kicks convert into goals. The pressure is ginormous, I know, but heck, it’s boring if the ball just stays at the midfield.So I also want to run around the field like a headless chicken but still play defense. So I guess, I’ll just play Keeper when I run out of breath or something (damn you, stupid lungs). Until then, I’ll be part of the defensive line.

(All of these nonstop and rubbish ramblings only serve to point out that I’ve always liked playing defense more than offense — in almost, if not all, of the sports that I tried playing, and in almost, if not all, of the aspects of my life.)

~~~~~~~~~~

PS — Inferness, ang sakit pala sa pagkatao maging Keeper. Literally and figuratively (bahala na kayo kung alin sa mga multiple meanings ang gusto niyo isipin — most prolly tama yan lahat, hee). Anyhoo, kaya nga pala sila may gloves ano — para kapag binlock mo using your hand yung bola, hindi masyado masakit. Amfufu.