Went to Six Flags with a bunch of church friends and Jes yesterday. I fought against going as my first reaction towards "crowds + walking + expensive food" was horror. Soon after getting there, I realized those things were the least of my worries as a hermit who hadn't left the home in over two weeks.


Because of my screaming feet (ended up with small blisters on my pinky toes), and the cold winds of 8 PM, I gladly sat out the last ride to help keep an eye on assorted bags, an expensive DSLR camera, and a pair of the children that came with us. The youngest, a darling four-year-old, is the second most cutest girl I'd ever met (my baby sister doesn't count). She's shy, adorably so, and still has the lisp of a very young child that made me think of Junior Asparagus from Veggie Tales. Needless to say, I squee-ed whenever she came into my view.

I may have came on a bit like a lolicon to strangers (and her mother).

Heh, after doing a "Do You Have OCD?" type quiz, I wanted to share my obsession with organizing. The funny thing is that I'm not a totally neat person in real life--at least until a certain point where I just have to clean and sort everything up because I can no longer see the ground/table (around every 4-6 months).

But with things like digital files and folders, I can be a little bit obsessed. Sometimes I think I can be content with a job that does nothing but file away data. Case in point, my bookmark folders.

This is actually a pretty clear glimpse into my online habits, but I don't believe I have anything to hide. Except maybe "she reads Harry Potter fanfics!?". In my defense, my OTP for that series is James x Lily so lamentably it's a short list. (Boy do I have a weakness for love-hate ships...)

Some folders may even seem redundant, but believe me, I'm just being precise.

Click to see the full picture, it's a very long scroll to the bottom.



There has to be someone with a much more elaborate bookmark filing system out there...

Neat Video Trick of the Moment: Tilt-Shift video of Switzerland trains. This is the first I've seen that isn't stop-motion-ish, so the effect is awesome. Interesting to note, I've seen this type of effect as an error in a couple of landscapes/matte-paintings where the artist is trying to convey a sense of vastness but somehow ends having everything look like a miniature. It's the shallow depth-of-field that's causing this effect, as it's a technique associated with small objects (macro-photography is a good example). Some artists make the mistake of, say, detailing a huge structure but blurring the fore and backgrounds, and with it the illusion of distance and space is gone. I think I may have done this myself, but then I suck at backgrounds anyway, heh. XD

Heh, trying to stay awake, I decided to make up shirt slogans over at TypeTees. Vote for any that you like, if you like any at all, but know that I'm partial to the Sound of Music one. (/musical geek)

I'm itching to do a bit of fun designing with a couple of them, having strong images of their graphics in mind, and might just get myself a shirt at those print-on-demand places. I'm definitely going to get myself the sobriety one if I can one day...

Foreign Video of the Moment: 30 Years of Kasou Taishou. It's amazing how many creative variations you can do on "human(s)+costume = awesome".

This is something I've brought up again and again, but never really clarified.

After reading many entertaining list humor concerning heroes and villains in entertainment (Top 5 of the Best/Worse/Stupidest/Smartest/etc. Heroes/Villains and such), I realized that I would give more leeway to stupid heroes (or heroes that make stupid decisions) than stupid villains--not because of the inherit "rightness" of rooting for the good guys, but because stupid villains does not a good story make.

To be a hero, you don't necessarily need to be a genius, or have a genius on your team, but I would consider a good hero simply someone who steps up to, or even beyond, his/her calling. And has luck. Lots, and lots, of luck. An indecent amount actually. (To which I attribute to God's justice, or cosmic justice to those that don't believe. Or the occasional lazy writing.)

But to be a villain--say, maybe even a super-villain--you need to be smart.You need to be an evil genius. Bad guys that aren't smart end up as thugs or the puppet of that shadowy adviser guy who always happens to disappear when smelly things hit the fan. They wouldn't make it up to a dozen satisfactory evil interns, let alone a whole Cabal of Evil complete with Cyborg Armies of Doom.

And as a villain, it's a given you don't need to be constricted by a pesky thing called morality--not like the hero. Your way can always take the low-ground. As long as you play your politics right among your evil cohorts (no one likes a backstabber or a complete lunatic--it's just bad practice, not evil), who's going to complain if you use a myriad of ruthless, blood-chillingly effective, and maybe occasionally creative, ways to destroy your enemies?

Yes, a lot of evil villains have some sort of personality disorder, making it quite difficult to achieve that pinnacle of world-domination before being defeated by the hero pouncing on some personal weakness. After all, if a person is completely sane, he/she wouldn't be an evil villain in the first place, I guess.

Even so... there's no way I can fully enjoy a serious good vs. evil story if the supposedly ultimate-evil does things that a low-level manager won't do. Worse, if the hero team still find it difficult to defeat such a paragon of evil-without-competence. It just makes the heroes look dumber. And if the story isn't a comedy of some sort, I'll be feeling even dumber than both sides because I'm the one sitting there watching a bunch of idiots run around narrowly dodging explosions and spouting empty one-liners.

The great thing about the scarily competent evil villain is that his actions will force the hero team to constantly rethink themselves, their motives, and their actions. It doesn't have to be something stereotypical like forcing the hero to either save the heroine or the super Deus ex Machina Object, but the very basic of what to do when your enemy fights so dirty that keeping strictly to the moral high-ground will result in defeat and innocent lives lost.

In real life, debates about what's "right" or "wrong" in war happens throughout history--especially in recent times where we're supposed to be completely civilized even if the opposition isn't. Well, in entertainment, I find I like it better where most of the conflict is internal for the good guys fighting an evil that might necessitate a greater sacrifice of their heart rather than something physical. Losing a limb for good? Sacrifice. Going against your very morals, willing to bloody your hands so that others don't have to, and then live with the consequences... yes, I would think it's a sacrifice as well.

And if you're the evil villain, I imagine it would just be an added bonus to completely mess with your enemy in ways no weapon can do--simply by being your evil-self.

When a writer tells me a person is the ultimate evil-genius villain (note that this doesn't apply to all antagonists, just the ones in the super evil-genius category), I would be expecting someone who can only be stopped if he's 100% dead with no chance of resurrection. Someone who manages to make the heroes fight themselves as much as they fight him/her. Someone whose defeat can be truly called epic and a triumph for the forces of good.

My super villain moto? Don't become an evil super-villain unless you're determined that the only way to stop is irrevocable death.

Or at least before checking your plans against the Evil Overlord List.

(Yes, sometimes I do check my evil character's ideas against the list. It gives me a devil of a time figuring out a way for the heroes to triumph, but at least it's good creative writing exercise. Man, I probably need an "evil" tag for how much this topic appears in my blog. I can totally write a whole book on it.)

Ning, one of my maids in Indo, died a week ago. I just found out yesterday, and apparently it was because of some kind of surprise miscarriage--they didn't know she was pregnant as she was using contraceptives with her boyfriend.

Ning was one of those energetic, cheerful, girls that could be friends with anyone and was fiercely loyal to my step-mom and sister. I remember going to Dufan (the Indo version of Disney) with my step-mom, sister, another maid-nurse, and her, having fun and taking photos together just like any other friends--race and class lines were nothing in light of her natural brightness.

During dinner, when the family gathered downstairs, my parents would tease her and she would spar right back, leaving a many nights full of laughter. She would always complain my room was like an ice cave, marveling that I can survive at snowy temperatures such as 22°C. She would pop in at random hours checking to see if I needed anything to drink/eat especially when I was engrossed with something and neglected to consume anything for the day. I remember it took her a while to get used to me fridge-raiding with no intention in mind, preparing my own snacks/drinks, or even cooking, as I was used to doing some things myself. After the first year she would finally go back to sleep whenever I pop into the kitchen after midnight to make noodles, rather than standing around looking sleepy and fussing.

The tradegy of her death is that she was so young. I'm not certain, but she is either younger than me or we're very close in age. She had her whole life in front of her--maybe it's a quiet village life in her future, like so many other Indo maids, but a potentiallly fullfilling life still.

Ning was still smiling and laughing the morning and evening the day she died. My step-mom reported that she left with her boyfriend near midnight when sometime afterwards her "womb broke" and she started bleeding heavily. As they discovered she was pregnant, I guess it meant she had a very bad sudden miscarriage.

The hospital couldn't stop the bleeding--or she didn't get to it in time, I don't know the details yet--and her low blood pressure dropped her into a coma. Five hours later she was gone.

Understandably her parents were in shock and her village in an uproar. They even suspect my father of "pake ilmu", or using sorcery, as Ning's death was considered very unnatural. (In a way, the dangers of pregnancy is very real and natural in a woman's life--but still it shouldn't have caused such a young and healthy woman her life so early in it.)

The constantly doubting part of me, conditioned by too many crime entertainment, wonders about the boyfriend and the causes for the "breaking" of her womb. Such sudden and heavy loss of blood in a pregnancy that's at most three months (Ning was slender and petite, everyone would have known she was pregnant if she was along any longer), is that possible without trauma?

I don't want to suspect anyone of foul-play, it maybe might have been an accident, as her boyfriend had been there for years and to my knowledge a fine young man, but the uncertainty just makes one question. Death always makes one want to understand, I think, or it becomes too alien and frightening. I wish they had done a proper autopsy, if only for her parent's peace of mind.

Through this all, I worry about my baby-sister, just recently turned seven. Ning had been with her almost all her life and I wonder how Chia-Chia is taking her first death of a person close to her. I'll call them later tommorow morning when everyone's home.

It'll be weird going back without Ning there. I even find myself constantly having to backspace as I keep writing about her in present tense.

One of the saddest things was that she was interested and receptive to the subtle encouragements to be a Christian. I can only pray for God to have mercy, and for Him to support her loved ones that she left behind.

Good-bye, Ning, we'll miss you.