But alas, life doesn't always turn out the way you expect it would! I woke up in the dark, refreshed, and stretched out my right arm to get my handphone. I flicked it up, and looked at the time. WTF!?!?! 11.47pm?!?!? I couldn't believe my eyes, so I went out to look around. Sure enough, my mum was still hard at work in front of my bro's 20+ inch wide screen LCD monitor (She sleeps at around 1-2am).
Holy Shit! I thought my lack of sleep will help me get through the times when my body is becoming accustomed to staying awake, namely 12-4am. But no, it didn't help. So I decided not to sleep in the morning, not to sleep during the new sleeping hours of my body clock (10am), not to sleep in the afternoon, and held on till evening. With help from 3 packets of instant tea (yep I'm sensitive to caffeine, thanks to my abstinence from coffee and tea, and my rare contact with Coca Cola)
So I'm still quite awake, even if it's been 17 hours since I came awake. I totally couldn't mug after I woke up last night, so I played till 7am. Neverwinter Nights: Mask of the Betrayer. Then since my mum wasn't up yet, I decided to cook some breakfast for myself to make myself stay awake with the energy input and the work (not because of hunger). Surprisingly, sleep deprivation doesn't make me feel hungry. Yes my stomach does growl at the appropriate hours but I don't have the motivation to eat. My mouth stays as dry as normal times even when I see food.
So I cooked a heavy breakfast again. Didn't care about my bro. He microwaved last night's leftover fried rice when I went to the kitchen. Anyway he wouldn't want to eat such evil stuff that I was planning to cook anyway. Asked him once, yesterday morning.
Felt like eating bite-sized buttered toast, so I need to cut them properly. With crust, because the crust makes it more crunchy and gives it more "substance". Or else it'll feel like chewing on air.
Yes, that's my "chopping board". I had to balance the paper plate on the round cap and still cut the bread as softly as I can. Turned out pretty good, eh? The usual area where the chopping board is placed is occupied by a pile of vegetables that my mum bought. She didn't expect me to use that space.
And the beef patties. The main course. The almighty processed meat. Of course I didn't cook 10. Managed to tear out 2 frozen patties, whole, and put the rest back.
Eggs. Natural, chicken eggs full of wholesome goodness. Fresh enough to eat raw, but not too fresh that I can still smell the chicken vagina. Not that I'd be able to recognize the odour even if I actually did catch a whiff of it, of course, but you know what I mean.
The toasts, buttered before toasting, and toasted to a state of post-perfection. Man, it was only 4mins at 230 degrees Celsius!
Closer look at the better ones. What did you expect? It was 7am and I was damn bored!
The final product. Note the broken yolk of the upper egg and that the two patties are stacked. Also note the black patches on the top patty. The taste of the patty wasn't affected by the black patches. It may look more seriously burnt in the pic because of the colour contrast, but it wasn't that bad. But the broken yolk was unforgivable! Those eggs were fresh! Theoretically.
That was what I ate this morning and I washed them all down with a huge mug of iced milk tea.
Moral of the story:
a) if that didn't look appetizing to you, never, ever ask a sleep-deprived gamer to cook for you.
b) if that looked delicious, try cooking it! It's easy. Substitute patties with bacon strips to make it even easier.
Finally read the article of "ethics of file sharing" on Wikipedia. I like this reason especially:
A further argument in favour of file sharing is that not all of its users would buy all of the material that they download. In other words, one illegal download will not immediately translate to one lost sale, as many anti-piracy groups maintain. No study has yet been done to ascertain the proportion of users that would buy any of the material they download, if downloading were not available, and there is no currently available method to determine the number of sales that are represented by a given number of downloads.
This is so true. If there were no PS2 games available online or being pirated in the streets back then, no one would have even bought the console itself! They were so damned expensive! Who would have bought Xenosaga Episode 1 for a price that exceeds S$50? Well, other than the die-hard fans.
Then for the opponents, they have:
Opponents of file sharing argue that not only does sharing files decrease the income of the actors and bands; it especially affects the staff that works for them. For the film industry, the set builders and makeup artists take the fall. If someone downloads a movie from the internet, that person may not go to see the movie in theaters or buy the DVD. If that happens then the production studios make less profit or may not be able to recuperate the high costs of production. This leads to salary decreases for employees. It also leads to less financial backing for both mainstream and independent filmmakers because investing thousands or millions of dollars in a movie becomes even riskier.
This is, in my opinion, not exactly true. Think again.
First, do movie stars really deserve the millions they make just for one movie? Do certain singers really deserve the millions they make just by singing about 13 songs that are really digitally enhanced to make it sound better than the crap it really was?
In my opinion, no. They are not contributing to society as much as people like, say, doctors in your neighbourhood clinic. Heck, even mushroom farmers are contributing more to the world than actors. Imagine a world where mushrooms are incredibly expensive, then imagine a world where movies are not affordable by the middle-class people. Which is worse?
Second, if a singer can't sing and requires digital enhancements to sound good, if a movie has no plot whatsoever and relies purely on special effects to attract its audience, should the singer be paid more than the guy on the controls and should the actors be paid more than the special effects specialists?
In the first case, the singer is merely selling her looks. The songs could have been sung by someone else, and with enough digital enhancements they will sound like her voice, only with better singing technique. So, if people refuse to admit that they buy her albums for her looks, then they cannot deny that the guy who improved her songs should be paid more because he's the one who made what they say they're buying it for - the songs! The singer should be paid less, not the employees.
In the second case, what makes the movie sell? The actor or the explosions? Take the latest Die Hard sequel as an example. Without Bruce Willis, the movie wouldn't have sold well. Without the stuntmen, computer effects experts, explosives specialists and etc, the movie would have sold in the first week and gain notoriety for being shit by the second week. Just like Snakes on a Plane. So if anyone should take a pay cut, it definitely isn't any of them!
Third, when it comes to investments being riskier, that's bull! In the first place, they shouldn't even invest in shit movies like Meet the Spartans! They degrade the intelligence of American civilization. Yes, it sold pretty well, but what does it say about the viewers who support this kind of film? And it sold well only because it wasn't released in the holiday seasons, when the good movies are out.
If investors become less willing to take risks, perhaps they will have stricter criteria on what to invest in. Perhaps Hollywood will stop flooding the world with shit. Perhaps they will even hire scriptwriters who actually have this apparently close-to-extinction-among-scriptwriters talent called creativity. Maybe, just maybe, Hollywood will even produce its own original horror movie, instead of the run-of-the-mill gory thrillers! What a dream!
And speaking of that, I think Hollywood is doing to the U.S. exactly what the Coliseum had done to Rome. Back in the past, the Roman Empire had many problems, like rebellions in its newly conquered states. These generated other problems like the huge amount of money needed to be spent on its military, and etc. But with widespread and very accessible entertainment for the masses, the public remained happy or satisfied with their world. Kind of like a drug for the people.
And that is what Hollywood is doing now, it seems to me. By flooding the American minds with harmless, mindless entertainment, the people forget their troubles more often while filmmakers make massive amounts of money helping them do that.
If it very risky to make movies, then why are there so many box office flops these days? I mean, why do so many people want to try bad scripts and gamble that they will sell? It's risky! Isn't it logical that they should think more about it before spending millions of dollars on it?
So if it gets riskier, will they not read through the scripts a few more times, do more research on the directors and etc before making the actual movie? Then won't we get better films more often? Then won't people stop downloading so many movies because more movies are actually worth the ticket prices??
Anyone can tell you that watching a film at home can never beat watching it in the cinema. The main thing that stops people from paying for the movies that they don't believe they are worth the price of the tickets. Is it not true that the price is determined by the customers? If the price is not worth the product, potential buyers will not pay for it.
So if more and more people download movies, doesn't it just mean that the movies aren't worth the current ticket prices? Ditto for song albums.
So my argument is that if more people are turning to illegal downloads, it's only because they are willing to sacrifice the quality of the experience so that they won't have to pay a price that they don't believe to be worth it.
You know, I believe I've said something very similar long ago...
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