Pony Aliens

This:

Now that I have your attention, that is indeed a My Little Pony gone Alien.

There's an awesome artist doing pony versions of popular culture

figures, ranging from Batman to Marilyn Monroe, go check out

Sippo on DeviantArt!

Amnesia

It's been around for a while, but I haven't talked about it so I will now. I'm gonna recommend Amnesia: The Dark Descent. And if you're not going to play it, or am too much of a wuss like me to play it, I'm going to recommend watching Day9 play it. It's not only very amusing, it's like a crash course in fantastic game design, and fear.

I found it very interesting, on top of getting to "play the game" through him, to see my own reactions together with his and see where they overlapped and stuff. It's obviously very different playing the game and watching someone else do it, but watching it is as much as my nerves can take (I am a huge scardycat in games) and I knew from the earlier games from the company that they are absolutely awesome at what they do - which is to slowly, gently, carefully wrap you in dread and leave you standing in front of a door going "no, fuck this, no, no no I'm not gonna open it, no".

It also struck me that you have to accept the conditions of fear to actually feel fear. It becomes very obvious in a game or movie, because you can go "this is just a game, those are just pixels, I'm not going to care" and kill the whole game, pretty much. It's harder in a game because you're going through the motions, which fools your brain into thinking that it's actually happening more than just watching a movie. And it can still freak you out once or twice, but only because nobody's completely immune to surprise. However, most of the game builds of dread, and dread only works if you play along with the conditions. I am scared as fuck in games because I can be scared as fuck in games, it's okay. In real life a little fear is a good way to protect yourself, but being scared out of your mind is mostly detrimental to the effort, so I try to cast off the conditions as best I can. Neither of those two are chosen; it's just how my brain has decided it should be, so I can't play scary games and I dismiss most real life fear within seconds - the more abstract the harder to dismiss. I'm trying to figure out exactly what the conditions are; it's clearly something about wanting a certain outcome, like survival, and being only partially or only under the illusion of control of the situation, yet not leaving it completely to chance, and that there must be a chance of success however small.

Anyway enough rambling. If you're going to ignore both recommendations, go look up a "best moments of day9 playing Amnesia" on youtube or something because it's really too good to miss.

Why gays make perfect parents (but lesbians don't)!

Boys apparently need fathers to show them what it really means to be a man. I'm quite sure I had a mother, in exact terms I have two; although one is absent that clearly does not remove a father's label so it shouldn't hers. But can someone please explain to me what it really means to be a woman? I think I have a better idea of what it means to be a man, in fact, which I find an itsy bitsy bit amusing. Maybe our fathers are supposed to educate us on that matter too? Since they're all-knowing on the subject of manliness, they should reversely know what is womanliness, since it's all about polarization and stuff. No pressure, boys. It's not manly to get nervous, or have insecurities, or fail. Even women know to teach their sons that.

How to hijack a me.

Just saw a cute variant on the "bringing a knife to a gunfight" saying; "bringing a cop to a superhero fight" :D

I had like twenty things to say when I opened my browser, but after my daily Twitter, Gmail and GReader round I've been overrun with new stalker pictures of Jaejoong, the news that my CD is now on the way, and some very sweet comic pages. Wiped everything else. What did I do before that? How did I get here? Who am I?

Cute!
My personal favorite is the baseball guy. Look at that S-line! And nothing beats shorts and knee-high socks!

Learning a new language

i -- 1. (particle after subject or object word) 2. this 3. (particle after verb or adjective to make adverb) 4. tooth, teeth 5. two, 2 (hanja) 6. lice 7. person (particle after younger/same age person's name) 8. with 9. ear 10. different


do -- 1. (particle after noun to add meaning of 'as well', 'too') 2. district, province 3. principle, doctrine 4. drawing, picture 5. degree (angle or temperature) 6. (particle after word to add meaning of 'but, however') 7. group of people 8. island

si -- 1. hour, time, o'clock 2. (particle in verb to add politeness) 3. (particle in verb to make polite request) 4. city, town 5. (particle in noun to add meaning of 'in-law') 6. poem 7. to see (hanja)

:<

A regular day's concerns

"If you stick to the roads, you´ll meet less mosquitos, just like in World of Warcraft."

I was playing The World Ends With You today, where there´s a bonus boss that´s insanely difficult because of one single thing; he stomps the ground all the time which interrupts casting healing and shields, which I´ve been relying on a lot. I was staring at my Nintendo DS wondering how on Earth I would be able to kill it, and thought, "but hey, Chingling, my pokémon, is immune to ground moves".

>.>

In other news, Loki now knows two tricks: high 5, and uh, licking my hand, well it´s a trick because he does it on cue. I´m sorry, three tricks, the third being leaving live mice all around the apartment. Yesterday I found one right inside the door and anther severely bleeding beneath my suitcase. I´m a little worried that he´s put a dead one behind the stove because something smells -.- His free-roaming privileges have been revoked.

It's Cut Your Own Hair Day!

It doesn't take guts, just the determination to get past the first steps.

There's the "Stop staring at the mirror and pick up the scissors" phase. Now that I've done it a couple of time I spend a very short moment there, compared to the agonizing first time.

Then comes the "Maybe I should've planned this before I started" phase. Unless you're an organized, sensible person, and not like me who, in the case of haircutting, is all enthusiasm and no thought.

Closely after this comes the "Oh but this works, this is kinda fun and easy" phase. This is the point you want to get to. If you chicken out before this, then you didn't give it a proper chance. This is also where your grand plans completely take over your head and you start cutting like Edward Scissorhands, and your sensible self clasps its hands and pray to preferred divinity that the result will be something you want.

The funny thing is that after this point, you kinda stop looking at yourself and what you're doing until you're done. When you think you're done, you reach the "Hey this is alright... oh my god what have I done I'm ugly forever"-phase. Depending on how dramatic your haircut is, this phase's graveness varies, and don't worry it's just a reaction to the change. I cut seldom but a lot, so I tend to have a big inner psychotic break over what I think is the disaster of a lifetime, before I pull myself together into the "I can fix this" phase.

In this phase you poke things, cut maybe a hair here or there, and take the time you spend on silly pointless minor adjustments to get used to your new look. It works as a transition into the best phase of all, the "Oh hey, I'm fucking hawt... dude I'm so awesome"-phase. For some reason, between the panic phase and this phase, although you haven't really changed anything, suddenly it's your vision come to life that's staring at you from the mirror. Now enjoy this phase. For a little, precious while you're the catwalk queen, the rock star, the southern prince or oriental princess.

Then you realize that it's just hair, and you look just like usual, with shorter hair. Congratulations. You're done.

If anyone's a bit more serious, here's a couple of tips that work for me:

1. Think of it like a sculpture. The shapes and lines you want. And remember there's some limitations like where your hair likes to part of itself, respect those. Hair has a tendency to fall in the same places, so if you want a v shape, just cut a v shape.
2. If you want something done in the back that requires any form of precision, don't do it. Ask a brave friend or pay up.
3. Don't cut your hair while it's wet. I don't know if cutting it wet might be better for the hair or something, but I leave the whole "let's guess what happens when it dries" up to professionals. I actually like to fix the hair up before I cut it, because then I see exactly how it'll be.
4. Remember that it's easier to cut a little at a time, than try to paste it back on! :) Let it take some time. 
5. Don't be a nitpick. Hair consists of a myriad of straws, it's not a piece of wood you can carve. It'll move, it'll grow. You can definitively make it look good, and shape it as you want, but chill. If you wanted perfectionism you should've gone to hairdresser school. Or opened that fat wallet.
6. Give it a week. For some reason, it takes a few days for the hair to settle (or maybe it's your head that needs to settle) and you'll fine some straws here and there that you missed, and even if you were initially disappointed you might look at it a different way.

Alright buds, cya out there! How did my hair turn out? Well... it's shorter than it's ever been ;) and I'm SO HOT! AND SO AWESOME! Okay so maybe I haven't finished the last phase yet...

Ladies in capes

Going through my stash and found a couple of pictures I saved for being epic and awesome, and that should be shared. However by now I don't remember where they originally came from, so... don't sue me please, kthxbai.

First: one of you have probably given me this to begin with. It's an excellent start.

Then a couple of awesome avatars from forums... again, sorry, I can't credit because I don't know! Tell me if you know, and I will. Just don't kill my cat.

(By the way, Blogger doesn't handle pictures very well. EDIT: previewing this tells me that Blogger absolutely fucking sucks at handling pictures. I tried to get them all in one row and this is the best I could do, after a lot of clicking and dragging and bashing the keyboard in frustration.)

This, however, is the best avatar I've ever seen.

 

And finally, the image that changed my view of those annoying bathroom signs that assume all women wear skirts:

Ta mates!

I'm Batman!

Suggestions for caption for this picture?

 

 (I stole it from a video here.)