Refraction

“He’s dead, all right. Dead as Pauly Shore’s career. . . . This SUCKS! Like Pauly Shore himself.”

And that, my friends, is what is in store for you if you play A Case of the Crabs. This is one of those point-and-click Flash games, but this one is GOOD.

In general, point-and-click Flash games have one objective: use your wits and the objects around you to achieve your goal. It’s generally escape from some kind of confinement. A quick rundown of all the games of this genre I’ve played:

The Mystery of Time and Space. A very long, good game, but rather difficult. I had to look for a walkthrough for this one.

Crimson Room. Not bad at all, really. It does suffer from some annoying camera movement and “click within a 10 pixel radius” disease.

Viridian Room. It’s the sequel to Crimson Room. More complex, a little freaky, even, but I found it quite random.

Milki W. A little bit TOO straightforward. Entertaining, though, in that sound is really important in this one.

Of all of these, I prefer the Nick Bounty game. It has dialogue, a storyline, and most importantly… a clear sense of direction. You’re never overly lost. You know what you want or need, although you may not be sure how to get it. The steps you take are logical, for the most part. None of this “Oh, let’s use the lighter to burn this hair sample I found for absolutely no reason.” It’s humourous, too, in its dialogue and story. (“Step One: Make sure the victim has hands. Check. The victim has hands.”) The actors did ham it up a bit, but since the game isn’t really serious at all… it worked. The film noir look was very appealing, and it reminded me of the “Detective Story” short from The Animatrix. Except it was funnier, and didn’t have any references to the Matrix at all.

I guess, in short, the Nick Bounty game has personality, and the others… don’t.

It’s been an interesting day or two for me and the Taiwanese band F.I.R.

A few days ago, I heard the very distinctive opening to “Lydia” on the Chinese radio, and today I saw them on some Hong Kong variety show, performing “Lydia.” I love “Lydia”–it’s a great song–but I have to wonder if they’ll be relegated to one-hit wonder status because of it. It’d be a terrible pity, since F.I.R. released a pretty strong debut album.

What struck me the most about their performance was how much like CORE OF SOUL they were. All the ingredients are there: a strong female vocalist, and two guys, one on guitar, the other on keyboards. Fukiko and Faye even seem to command the stage (inasmuch as there was one) in the same fashion. All in all, it was really rather scary.

And, if nothing else, the interview pointed out some obvious facts about “the background” behind “Lydia,” and gave us the story of how this group was formed.

Well. See. I’m a bit of a perfectionist.

So I decided to drop all the tables and do a clean import of my greymatter entries. I still couldn’t get the page to load on my machine (grr… why?!) but I found someone to hit “okay” for me ^_^

Anyway, for my first real entry here… I’m doing a survey!
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And here begins the WordPress blog. Wheeeeee!

I love WordPress.

This is a final test post for Greymatter. See you all later!

This is a final Greymatter test post. See ya!

Hopefully, most fans of Japanese music have heard that Hikaru Utada will be releasing a North American album sometime in October, under the name UTADA.

And being the weird rabid filesharing people that we are… Her first radio single, “Easy Breezy,” was somehow leaked onto the Internet, and since then, things like “Devil Inside” and “Exodus Mix” have been available.

I’m not very fond of “Easy Breezy.” Whenever I hear it, I think of Cover Girl cosmetics. (I guess that means they’ve done a pretty good job with their advertising.) As far as I’m concerned, it’s a below average song that still manages to be annoyingly catchy. I’m not sure it’s such a great choice for her first radio single, either. Cheesy lyrics. O_o; And the microphone business at the end makes no sense.

On the other hand, “Devil Inside” has received more favourable reviews. I’m ambivalent about it, myself; it’s a good dance track, and it’s certainly better than “Easy Breezy.” It seems to me that it’s lacking something, though…

What I know is, this isn’t Hikki from Japan. I’ll still be buying the album, of course 😛
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Sometimes it really helps to read things aloud. Case in point: Harry Potter. I didn’t notice the Diagon Alley / diagonally pun until last summer. Grimmauld Place didn’t strike me as odd until I read a snippet of the Harry Potter Lexicon. “Ah. Grim old place. That makes sense.” The latest in the line of these horrendously late epiphanies? Knockturn Alley / nocturnally. And for a person who’s as fond of puns as I think I am… it’s not a good thing.

This makes me wonder what other puns I’ve been missing… Ah, all the more reason to reread a few of the books, I guess.

I’ve been slip-sliding on our previously-carpeted-but-now-hardwood living room floor. It’s a definite change after 16 years of the same carpet. That being said, the new floor is nice 😀 I don’t know if it’s purely psychological, but the room seems cooler without the carpet. Our bedrooms have been newly carpeted. I don’t care much for it now, but I’m sure I’ll be much more grateful in the winter.

Over the years, we’ve managed to accumulate more and more furniture, meaning our house has become more and more cramped (I look at old photos and wonder where all the space went.) This week, we got rid of our ratty old sofa and armchair, and also an ancient TV. As a result, there’s a lot more room, and… well… I like it. It’s only temporary, though; on Wednesday we’ll be getting more furniture and it’ll soon fill up again. *sigh*

And for my next summer adventure….

I present you with…

\CLEANING!\

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, while I could have been climbing mountains today, I chose instead to clean, sort, and re-organize. The contents of bookshelf one have been crammed into one and a half boxes. Tomorrow, I shall be tackling my desk. And my room. I think I might as well give up now.

Cleaning is one of those things that I dread but want to continue once I get started. I think it’s because a lot of the time, I hide things from myself (or other people), and then later, I forget I ever owned them in the first place. So in a way, it’s like a treasure hunt (I *do* find money sometimes.) Besides, there’s something quite satisfying about throwing out close to two years of French work, which was the only subject whose notes I felt comfortable throwing out. I even kept TOK stuff. I don’t know why; but they’re interesting to re-read once in a while.

Besides, I have way too much junk. My mother is even worse than I am; about two weeks ago I thre out a jar of cheap plastic barrettes I’d worn maybe five times, and she saw it and salvaged it.

“Mom, I’m never going to wear those again.”
“So? Garage sale!”

The garage sale has become her excuse for keeping anything. That same day, I threw out a broken alarm clock. Key word: **broken**. There is no way that that alarm clock could wake anyone up on time. It’s now sitting on a windowsill.

Speaking of cleaning, I also pruned my links list. So if it led to a 404 error, *poof*. I apologize if I removed anyone’s link by accident; comment and you will be added once again.