There is a 0.1% cohort who doesn't experience Death. This mysterious 0.1% includes several ethnic groups such as undeads, annoying in-laws, and the best DoTA players ("OMFG!! I HIT HIM 7 FUCKIN TIMES AND HE JUST WON'T FUCKIN DIE!!! WTFOMGBBQHAX!!!!").
But this isn't answering the question. Answering the question is not my intent. :P
Sometimes, some laws, some rules, are just illogical. Take for example, the minimum age for buying alcohol in Singapore: 18 years old. Then the minimum age for a guy to go for NS: 16.5 years of age.
So, a 17-year-old kid joins the army. His girlfriend leaves him while he's in basic training because she "met this guy who's such a good listener". During the course he gets bullied by the other recruits who are much older than him. Finally he gets out for a weekend and wants to drink it all off. Sorry dude, you're underage. But the minimum age for sexual intercourse is 16. So his friends bring him to a whore. Sorry dudes I don't know how to do it. I've never seen a porno film because I'm not 21 yet.
Of course, that's out of point. The point is that they're telling us that by 16.5 years old you're old enough to kill but not old enough to drink! Where's the sense in that? I kill better when I'm drunk, for goodness' sake! Especially with a car!
But sometimes we are given no alternatives. The law is the best we can make, so far, in a world like ours. A world where the right thing to do isn't always the right thing to do. The right thing to do is to tell your girlfriend she's getting fat when she really is. That's honesty! That's the correct way! Or is it?
It's like trying to build a room within a sphere of space with straight walls. It will never be a perfect fit, but if we can just make those walls as small as we can, we may be able to build an almost spherical room. We will just have to amend and refine the rules.
Of course, many logical things can seem illogical, if you can see them from the right angle. Take the hospital for example. You aren't allowed to smoke there, but morphine's fine. Or computers. We use computers to email, instead of writing on papers, so that we won't kill as many trees. If only you know how much pollution making computer parts causes. And the pollution from creating the electricity you're using.
But people only want to see what they want to see. That's one way Man can define reality. What they do not want to see simply stops existing. This may not seem right, but undeniably, so far so good.
In the end, I can only be sure of one thing: only the perceived truth is important, but it will always be a fragile world that we live in.
One sign of overwhelming piracy will be that more copies of softwares getting returned than are actually sold. In other words, negative sales.
There is nothing wrong with gay marriage. I say all homosexuals have the right to suffer as we do!
A succubus is a demon that sucks the life out of healthy men. I was once a healthy man. (This works better if you're married)
I admit that some of the things here have appeared elsewhere. But if they aren't pissing anyone off, I'm cool with it.
If anyone reads the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, and reaches the end of the last book, I recommend that you stop reading after the epilogue, when the author tells you to stop. It's a beautiful ending if you just keep the last scene outside the Tower as the end of the story, but the "real" ending after the epilogue may really ruin your experience. Seriously. But the curiosity will probably push you to flip the pages, like I did. And then, you will regret it, like I do.
But there are those who say that good endings are blasphemy. Or something like that. I find good endings more satisfying. Everytime I find a bad ending where the main character(s) die, I think " Bugger just want to make more money by making half-assed sequels." The best sort of ending for the author would be those that makes the story start all over again. Doesn't give the warm and fuzzy feeling but you can take it as an ending, or not.
Right now in the series titled " A Song of Ice and Fire", half a dozen "main characters" have already died. I'm almost confused about who the hero is supposed to be. LOL!
Suddenly, some bad guys don't seem so bad anymore, but some good guys are turning out to be bad. For example, in the first book, the guy I took for the "hero" of the series dies at end. And the supposed advisor and friend he has turn out to be a bad guy who can be bought by the highest bidder. And later I find that this guy isn't really as bad as I thought- he's not a pawn, but is playing the game in a totally different way from the others!
This series is the best series I have ever read. The story is incredible and I couldn't stop reading till I find that I had to read the same paragraphs 2-3 times before I understood what I was reading.
And unlike the Wheel of Time series, where all the women eventually turn out to think and talk alike in many ways, characters in this series are unique. Yes, you will be disappointed when that guy you were rooting for dies suddenly, or the villain who really pissed you off turn out to be a better guy than you thought! But that's exactly what makes it so unpredictable, so different from other books in the fantasy genre. And everything that is mentioned in the book are important! All the small little details you'll probably forget later on will come back and make you think " Hey isn't this guy mentioned somewhere earlier?"
But if you want to read something less complex, something about humanity, the Sword of Truth is a pretty good series too! It's all about the human spirit, as some reviewers say. It doesn't have as much magic as Wheel of Time but it makes up for it with the possibility that it will touch you if you're really deep into the book.
And if you want to be touched to such a degree that you will weep, I suggest the Runelords series. The first book is ownage in terms of its ability to touch your heart. The rest aren't as good as the first book but are still pretty good.
The author did attempt to use the same trick in the later books but the first will always be the saddest. The series may seem to have ended at Book 4 but in fact, Book 6 is coming out soon! Thank goodness! The end of Book 4 was impressive, but not truly satisfying.
And 3 years ago, it was announced that a movie was going to be made from this series. Unfortunately it didn't seem to go too well. But the movie rights have been sold to Wasatch Films in August last year. Woot!
Of course, all readers of the fantasy genre want magic! More magic, more fun! The Wheel of Time is full of magic. Every book is full of magic because almost everything being done takes magic.
But the author lost his knack to impress gradually in the series. Book 1-3 were very good. Book 4-5 were pretty cool. After that it was just the addiction that kept me going. Book 9 did show his attempt to salvage the remains of his reputation, very nice, but Book 10 is crap all over again except for its end. He tried to make the later books very detailed, the way Tolkien did. But readers no longer want to read such useless details like the laces on the sleeves and such...
No, we want details that will help with the plot later, like whispers heard but ignored, and later turn out to be clues to who the true villains are. Like what George R. R. Martin is doing with the Song of Ice and Fire. It's true there isn't much magic in the series but the amazingly twisted plot more than offsets it.
Mixed nuts = acne pwnage
I have actually shrunk my appetite to 2 small meals a day! Yay! Now to the next step of the plan: exercise. Bleh...
No comments:
Post a Comment