silentYak

Peace

RRI — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:17:46 +0000

Apology

RRI — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:45:38 +0000

That’s alright, Comcast — I trashed your August 14^th email after barely a glance. No apology necessary.

Mount Rainier

RRI — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 05:02:41 +0000

Japanese Garden

RRI — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:30:17 +0000

Vampires, Ghosts, Immortals

RRI — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:02:15 +0000

There’s something very fishy about this business of so-called immortals that I see in movies and books. I mean, they don’t seem very smart, given that they’ve stuck around for hundreds or thousands of years.

There isn’t really a happy ending to these stories. If he happens to be a bad guy, he’ll invariably get himself killed in some rather stupid way, like allowing someone to put a stake through his heart. If he’s a good guy, he’ll live a long lonely brooding life — that is the essential romance of the plot – until he kills the bad guy in some stupid way, like putting a stake through his heart. After that he’ll happily continue to live a long lonely brooding life.

On a side note, I don’t recall having seen many good gals – woman as the protagonist — in these kinds of stories. I guess they just aren’t suited for such depressing roles, or maybe that stuff just isn’t marketable. I’m not sure how many actresses other than Kate Beckinsale can pull off the “depressed-yet-cool” act.

So now that we’re on the topic, how smart are the immortals anyway? The last time somebody asked, I couldn’t remember what I had for dinner the previous week, but these guys – the immortals – always have flashbacks of ancient memories popping into their heads at some crucial times and lending the audience the much-desired “aw..” moments. I mean seriously, just because these guys live forever doesn’t mean they remember everything, do they? Even R. Daneel Olivaw had to have his memory-banks archived to tape (in a manner of speaking) on a semi-regular basis.

And then of course, there’s the mechanics of it all that’s interesting, to say the least. Take ghosts, for instance. I think it’s fairly well-established that ghosts retain their souls but not their brains. On the other hand, even religious people will agree that the brain does the thinking, even if the higher aspects of humanity – free will, consciousness etc – may be controlled by the soul. So what’s doing the thinking and the remembering for ghosts?

Or maybe — is that why the don’t-do-anything-stupid switch is turned off?

Chapati Face

RRI — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:46:54 +0000

So I took a spoon to the dough, and it ended up growing a face. But is it art? I’ll let the audience decide.

Mumbai — Seattle

RRI — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:45:53 +0000

Oregon Beach

RRI — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:47:01 +0000

Rose Garden

RRI — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:57:17 +0000

Unfinished Games

RRI — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 05:40:10 +0000

You wouldn’t believe how many chess games I’ve begun but not played to completion. Part of the problem stems from the fact that I only play (or rather, start playing) human-versus-computer games. Humans playing chess (not world champions, of course) add some kind of ‘flavor’ or personality to their game, and not all moves are completely logical. Computer chess players, on the other hand, tend to…win, with cold precision. Now I could tweak the difficulty level of the game, effectively asking the computer to make occasional mistakes, but how could someone play an honorable game, knowing that the opponent was not giving a hundred percent?

Now that my 25th-week resolution is to play chess more seriously, I guess I should hunt for humans to joust with me. Any takers?