I can’t eat anything nowadays. Y’see, roughly two weeks ago, I suddenly lost interest in food. Now my primary motivation in stuffing consumables down my throat is just to stave off the ill-effects of malnutrition.

Among the foods I can’t stomach anymore:

• dumplings
• man tou (饅頭) or any kind of bao zi (包子)
• tofu
• rice
• bread
• most vegetables (including broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, green beans, peas… anything green…)
• most fruits (strawberries, cantaloupes, honey dew melons, grapes, bananas, peaches, apples…)

I can still eat pasta with pesto sauce without resorting to force-feeding to some degree, as well as some varieties of breakfast cereal with soy milk (as long as it’s in moderation). But I’m afraid my only legitimate solace now is nonfat yogurt. I’m still fond of fruit yogurt, strangely enough.

No pun intended, by the way.

You know what? I would love to be a classically-trained singer. The greatest auditory pleasure in the world, in my opinion, consists of operatic female vocals layered on top of fast percussion and the thrumming and screeching of gloriously distorted electric guitars. There really is no other more epic, more beautiful, or more transcendent sound in the world. And groups like Nightwish did that (until their lead vocalist was fired, and replaced with a non-operatic singer, as evidenced by their latest studio album).

Master!
Apprentice!
Heartborne, 7th Seeker
Warrior!
Disciple!
In me the Wishmaster…

Please keep in mind: the sole purpose of this entry was to bring my scant readership up to speed on several of my deservedly un-fascinating vagaries, not to serve as anyone’s entertainment. I can be infuriatingly dreary sometimes, too.

And I’ll punish myself later, just you wait.

Addendum: Joe Biden? Way to follow the status quo, Obama.

INTERNET ACCESS DIATRIBE: As Fa has been infelicitously Internet connection-less for more than a year and has relied on the capricious munificence of the public library system for all of her cyberinformation exigences, and due to extenuating circumstances on the weekend following the commencement of the 2008 Summer Olympics (and the fact that no library opens its doors in the dead of night), she, unlike the millions of bloggers who already take this (personally) historically inaccessible luxury for granted, was not able to blog about the aforesaid 2008 Summer Olympics in a more timely fashion than conflicting library hours and various nettlesome errands could possibly allow.

The humble author also wishes a malediction upon those who churlishly snigger at Fa’s tragic privation.

Now on to the main course!

Olympics, Olympics, Olympics! NBC, our national television network here in the U.S., has devoted practically all of its broadcast time to coverage of Olympic events. I’ve always been somewhat disdainful of organized sports, but competitions between athletes from around the globe? Displays of sportsmanship transcending cultural and political barriers? Commentary that for once doesn’t pertain to that odious testosterone-fest known as American football?? I am all over this one, baby.

In addition, that opening ceremony was a glorious splurge. Incredible! Over 15,000 individual performers! The choreography, the training! The sheer engineering involved! If you haven’t seen it, WATCH THE FRICKIN’ CEREMONY AND PREPARE TO BE AMAZED. If you don’t… well, then you’re an effing pariah.

Commentary on the Parade of Nations: I actually stayed up to watch the entire procession — no problem when one loves seeing and learning about different nations and cultures. What was especially of interest was the reception of the various teams, measured by political sentiments and the volume of cheers/boos. The U.S. probably got the noisiest and most sustained cheers aside from the Chinese. Australia and North Korea also received warm welcomes. Iraq was cheered surprisingly loudly, in direct contrast with Iran, the only team I remember that was booed. And there were some tense moments when Team France filed out into the stadium, but the audience applauded them just as loudly as for the others. No jeers or violence from ultra-nationalists.

And is anyone else slightly ticked off that Taiwan is being forced to participate as “Chinese Taipei“? I looked this up online, and apparently this is nothing new. But still. They’re not even permitted to use their own flag! WTF.

Also check out NBCOlympics.com for more streaming video and insanely extensive news coverage.

On another note, the ongoing armed conflict between Russia and Georgia that’s escalated to war… does not look good.

Haha. I recall nearly killing myself last year with the overweening complexity and the 40+ classes I had to code for my AP Computer Science final project. Overkill, yes? The final product was quite amusing, however. It was a rudimentary text adventure-type game (where the player inputs commands in a text console to explore some imaginary game world), and it all revolved around the highly mindless slaughter of Korean boy band members.

A sample session might include the following output (user inputs in bold):

:: Dungeon Cell ::
The light emanating from the torches on the walls dance across your surroundings, casting a sinister glow upon the stone. With the aid of the light, you can just barely make out the old, dark stains on the walls and floor. The place bears the unmistakable signs of death and prolonged torment. Who knows what you'll find in this godforsaken place...
Obvious exits: north south east west
        Micky Yoochun is standing here.
        A cantaloupe lies on the ground.

HP: 100/100 > kill micky
You charge at Micky Yoochun!

HP: 100/100 > <*****> jab
You jab at Micky Yoochun, causing 13 damage!

HP: 100/100 > <**** >
Micky Yoochun girly-slaps your face with all of his strength, but misses!

Anyway, I implemented a truly kick-ass battle system. With multiple threading. Those DBSK members can move around freely in the dungeon, ambush the unsuspecting player, initiate pointless small-talk with the player (when they’re feeling slightly less hostile), and of course, engage in real-time combat. They drop their possessions when they perish, and the player can pick them up, scavenger-like (although as of yet I’ve not made them usable). Oh yeah, and interspersed throughout each confrontation with a Korean nancy-boy are classic battle quotes like “Your love is all I need…” and “Will you be my girlfriend?”

Sadly, I was a bit harried at the time, so I was only able to create five Korean boy band characters, more specifically the members of that odious group DBSK. I was thinking of expanding the dungeon and putting all thirteen members of Super Junior in there as well, and knowing nearly zilch about them, I browsed the Web today for their names and some basic biographical illumination.

Silly Super Juniors

Shindong — Shin-dong??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What an unfortunate lad…
Donghae — I think any Korean who calls himself “dong” should merit our wholehearted empathy.
Ryeowook — Ru-yeh-wook? Ru-ye-oh-wook? Doesn’t that sound like the perfect appellation for a Wookie?
Kibum — I nearly thought this was a name for some body part. Like coccyx. “He rubbed her coccyx and she cooed with pleasure.” “I kissed her on her kibum.” I’ve been reading far too much Vladimir Nabokov…
Eunhyuk — “Hyuk” is the sound I make when I hiccup. Hyuk, hyuk. Hy-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuk-uweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeegh-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh…

Basically, if mispronounced the right way, any one of those Korean misnomers could cause me to laugh my head off. Silly Koreans. Silly nancy-boys.

So, uh, what does my dear reader think? (Bonus points if you mention Koreans in your angry comment!)

I had the strangest, most disconcerting dream a short while ago. I was ensconced on my recliner, sleeping in a rather uncomfortable position, and I had one of those dreams where I dreamed I was awake… or rather, waking up. Waking up from the recliner, trying to raise my head… and then finding that I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed. Oddly enough, that situation was exactly like this rare and unexplained condition that I had heard about on Radio Lab a few months ago. So I opened my eyes (still dreaming), tried to get up, and found that my limbs simply weren’t listening to me. My mind was in a panic. Move, I entreated my fingers, my arms, my legs. For some reason, I also couldn’t speak.^* A strange black-and-white bird was perched on my elbow, tugging at my sleeve with its beak. Get up, get up, it said. I couldn’t. Gradually, though, as my mind wandered through the possibilities in that distorted daydream, I recalled that Radio Lab program… I fixed my eyes on my hands, and concentrated on the thought of moving them…

As it turns out, that particular Radio Lab program described a man from the UK, Ian Waterman, who had completely lost his sense of touch… or rather, the “sixth sense” that makes a body aware of itself, called proprioception. Involved scientific explanation aside, proprioception is what allows people to move their limbs without consciously thinking about it. Waterman had woken up one morning with the complete loss of sensation — proprioception — in his body from the neck down. Incredibly, during the course of the next twelve years, he found a way to move again, in the manner I described — he had to look at whatever part of himself he wanted to move in order to move it, and he had to keep himself perfectly focused on it. Distractions were dangerous; if he took his mind off standing or walking for one moment, he would fall to the ground. Same with darkness; since being in the dark would cause him to lose his visual feedback, for twelve years, he has never once turned off the lights in his house.

It sort of gives new meaning to one’s sense of self, doesn’t it?

When I woke up for real and found myself on the recliner, I immediately made for the kitchen and crammed several gigantic handfuls of Strawberry Chex cereal down my throat… to calm myself… to assure myself that I could still move. Then I came here to the library.

You should really listen to this. Here’s the link. Scroll down to “The Butcher’s Assistant.” There’s an embedded audio clip there where you can listen to that segment. If you’d like to listen to the entire episode (which I recommend — it’s an excellent program), that particular segment starts at 27:07 into the show.

^* That bird wouldn’t quit pecking at me, so I opened my mouth to tell it to lay off, except no sound came out… I finally managed a weak whisper after I realized I had to mentally form the words I wanted to say in my mind first… like one reading silently to oneself. It was bizarre.

Well, it’s back to music reviews — for the moment, anyway.

J-Pop wonder Hikaru Utada released her fifth Japanese studio album, entitled HEART STATION, earlier this year on March 19. Long before that time, I had officially shed all interest and ties to the few pop artists I had formerly enjoyed (finally realizing the stupidity and vapidity of the genre), so I did not exactly salivate at the news of Hikaru’s release. Which is why I’m reviewing the thing now, roughly three months later, as opposed to being extremely slow on the uptake.

A telling tidbit, at any rate, since an admirable or merely respectable musical endeavor would not have prompted any sort of mention here.

Why do I dislike HEART STATION?

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