it's the question that drives us

anivad — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 16:53:28 GMT

two children's books whose titles continue to elude me:

1) a picture book about a girl in a big house. I think she was alone, or at least explored on her own, maybe to get away from others. I vaguely remember a brown-toned picture of her going through a trapdoor into an attic; perhaps there was a secret passage at some point. it was all very peaceful and yet mysterious and exciting. all I know is that I loved that book - I love the concept of discovering secrets in big houses - but IIRC it was a library book that my grandmother borrowed more than once. I remember reading it at her house while the grown-ups were finishing dinner. I can't remember the story, but the feeling of the book seeped into my subconscious and has influenced every single thing I've ever written about characters wandering around large houses, which seems to pop up a lot in my writing.

2) that blasted series about the kiwi, one of which had him meeting up with a pink car that cried tears and then wiped them off with its windshield wipers, and its doors opened and the kiwi went in and the doors closed and idk what happened but I think the kiwi got kiwinapped, but then it became friends with the car in the end or something and it was all ok. I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THIS TITLE FOR YEARS TO NO AVAIL. The books kind of creeped me out when I first read them, but they were such a formative part of my childhood literature. We actually owned the books and I read them a bunch of times even though the sentient car creeped me out, but maybe they were given away at some point because they are now nowhere to be found. again, huge influence on my writing.

I get this feeling that if I ever locate those books again, I'll uncover some great answers to life the universe and everything.
although I guess it's just as possible that finding them would ruin the magic, because children's books are never the same when you go back to them as an adult.

anivad — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:02:37 GMT

Replaying Portal 2. :D It's been a long time. About two years, I think.

Doing it on my own this time, without my brother giving unasked-for solutions or telling me to stop wasting time admiring the glorious sets. :|

It's been long enough that I don't remember how I solved various test chambers and have to work them out again, but I haven't had to resort to walkthroughs yet, either, which makes me proud of myself.

anivad — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 14:17:11 GMT

i'm feeling happy right now and am a bit wary that it probably won't last.

anivad — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:27:46 GMT

omg Rachel McAdams was Irene Adler in the US Sherlock movie and Regina George in Mean Girls?

I DID NOT NOTICE THIS. MY MIND IS BLOWN.

anivad — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 15:22:56 GMT

10,555 visits to WINM yesterday; that's about 10 times the normal.

THANK YOU, REDDIT. :D

*continues going through and answering various questions Keanu left unanswered*

KEANU REEVES ANSWERED MY QUESTION OMG OMG OMG

anivad — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 21:00:40 GMT

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ouqge/keanu_reeves_ask_me_if_you_want_almost_anything/ccvuf1y?context=3

OMG OMG OMG OMG
OMG
OMG
OMG OMG OMG

*falls over*

omg omg omg

THIS WAS WORTH WAKING UP AT 3:45AM FOR

KEANU KNOWS I EXISTTTT

:D :D :D :D :D

his posting history is here

2013 will always be the year in which I notified ZQ and Keanu of my existence, and also got to see MJF irl. :')

anivad — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 02:34:10 GMT

yay Yuletide!
I never sign up because I'm terrible with commitment and obligation. I usually just go through the prompts+letters and write for whichever I want, then submit it under Treats, like this BTTF fic last year, which is one of my favourite things I've written. :D
'tis more fun that way. plus there are always lots of great stories to read, so I don't feel like I'm missing out on that side of it.

Also wow, NaNoWriMo is coming up soon.

anivad — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 16:21:04 GMT

Google Maps directions for Singapore locations aren't very efficient.
There are easier ways to get to places.
Why would I spend 15 minutes (IRL prob about half an hour) walking from next to an MRT station to another MRT station *one stop away* WHEN I COULD TAKE THE BLOODY MRT.
I don't even know what it thinks it's doing, other than saving me 10 cents*, which I suppose is nice of it, thank you, google maps.

*Singapore public transport fares are awesome. An MRT ride is usually 73 cents minimum, increasing with distance, but it's lower if you're transferring from a bus, which I would be. Total trip cost = 93 cents. I was horrified when I first went to the US and learnt that it cost about $4 to take the BART.

anivad — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 04:37:44 GMT

omg, WINM is now the first Google result for 'keanu reeves fansite' and 'keanu reeves fan site'. :'D

and now, the weather.

anivad — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 15:26:02 GMT

When in NYC I got to use an iPhone for the first time (used to be my mother's) and it came preinstalled with a weather app, which made me happy because I love the weather and used to sit through news just to get to the weather report.
anyway
I still have the app configured to display NYC's weather along with Singapore's one, and the discrepancy in weather consistency is kind of hilarious:

like, why do we even need weather reports for Singapore. it's always hot and humid with a good chance of rain.
when I was in NYC I'd check the weather every morning to figure out how many layers of clothing I would need and if I should bother to bring an umbrella
whereas here it's... completely pointless. it gets a little hotter in May (25-32) and a little colder in January (23-30), but that's about all the excitement we get.

i miss being excited about the weather. :(
LOOK AT ALL THAT VARIETY IN ONE WEEK IN NYC. the temperature ranges all the way from 9 to 33 degrees celsius! IN ONLY SIX DAYS.

anivad — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 14:51:11 GMT

OMG OMG OMG WE JUST GOT WORLD IN CONFLICT: THE COMPLETE EDITION
it was on sale at Steam for US$9.99, and I hadn't yet got my brother a birthday present, and we both really wanted this, so I bought it for him :D :D :D

BEST GAME EVER I MISS IT SO MUCH EVER SINCE OUR COPY STOPPED WORKING
I love it so much I even had an LJ tag for it
...wow the last entry on that tag was almost 3 years ago D:
and this is the complete edition with the Soviet Assault expansion pack, which we've never had before. :D

this is perhaps the only game I've ever played where I can get into the 'zone' - in which I'm almost on autopilot and everything flows perfectly and everything is beautiful
(I really loved Age of Empires 2 back then too, but somehow I never got that same kind of high from it. in competitive AOE2 I was only mediocre; my team got into the finals in a Singapore competition, and I was the top scorer for the prior round, but playing online on international platforms I got routinely thrashed. but it was still epic.)
whereas for WIC, I used to be among the top 15 players in Singapore. which admittedly isn't that impressive, because there were only like 200-ish competitors, but still. I was really good at this game, and there's a special kind of joy in playing a game you're really good at.
my goal was to get into the world top 500 (out of 27k-ish active players), which I still have yet to accomplish. I think the best ranking I ever got was #589. at least, that's the one I saved a screenshot of. my brother was a more hardcore player than I (he's played 13+ days vs my 8+), and I think he was ranked in the #400s at one point. he's won a higher percentage of matches and got more medals than me. and he has a 1.20 kill-death-ratio, vs my pathetic 0.88. >_> I have a higher average score, but that doesn't really count for much other than showing off.

and now I will have something to do whenever I'm feeling restless, instead of picking fights on the internet. which would be a great improvement.
there were fights on WIC too, and I guess lots of frustration at noob players who did stupid things and/or selfishly refused to cooperate, going to do high-point-scoring things for themselves which did no good to the rest of the team (WIC is a very team-focused game; if someone on the team is a jerk and doesn't work with the others, you're almost guaranteed to lose). and gamer demographic is heavily dominated by adolescent males of the sort who like to taunt their opponents by calling them girls or gay, which isn't fun either until I get the top score and go 'hah, guess what...'

but the great thing about that is that once the game is over, you usually don't have to see them again, and the next game it's a different team of people unless you specifically search friends out.
sadly I seem to have forgotten all my skillz, but they'll come back eventually.

until then I shall go get stuff done before the game is downloaded and installed and becomes a distraction. >_>

anivad — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 05:24:27 GMT

MARTIN FREEMAN IS 42 YEARS OLD TODAY AND I COMPLETELY FORGOT ;___;

ALSO HE HAS A DOG NAMED ARTHUR OMG

anivad — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 17:24:44 GMT

that surreal moment when an lj user has been using one of my icons for so long that i've come to associate it with them and completely forgot i made it until i went browsing my icon folder.

anivad — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 15:49:56 GMT

an American on the internet, regarding the date 7/18/13: There's a typo - there's no 18 months in a year.

*facepalm*

anivad — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 13:24:41 GMT

omg my brother's ringtone is the Mos Eisley Cantina thing

anivad — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 17:35:00 GMT

I just saw someone on the internet spell 'medieval' as 'mid evil'

WHY

anivad — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 15:38:55 GMT

conversation with my brother in a NYC Chinese restaurant

David: Shall we get the Singapore Fried Noodles?
Me: No.
David: Why? We'd never find it in Singapore.

in the end we did get it.
it tasted pretty good, but like nothing I'd ever eaten in my life.

anivad — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 16:07:11 GMT

i am, generally, not a poster person, but this is now adorning the wall above my bed.

this is the first poster i have ever had in my room. :')

home!

anivad — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 01:57:23 GMT

\o/
Arrived yesterday noon, jetlagged like whoa. blueberlin and _pyroxene and merilynt and quipex and gooday picked me up. Slept 11 hours last night. Am better now. :) Rest of family arrived this morning because there was no space left on my flight.
Attempting Internet hiatus for a bit while I deal with the mound o stuff I have to do.
Also I shall start weaning myself off tumblr. ;_; it sucks up so much time.

anivad — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 05:02:24 GMT

there's a drink called Tequila Mockingbird omg

as well as other things

my life is now a little bit more complete

anivad — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:53:08 GMT

I've found responding to spam email to be an effective, healthy outlet for my anger.
sometimes I feel bad that there might be a real person at the other end

but if they insist on repeatedly spamming me with insulting stuff (offering SEO services when, if they were any good, customers would be flocking to their site and they wouldn't need to spam; saying they've been to my site (whoaisnotme) and have suggestions for improving my business model, which in itself proves they haven't been to the site, because wtf kind of business model would a Keanu Reeves fansite need; offering copy-editing services when their entire email is bursting with spelling and grammar mistakes; insinuating that I have a tiny penis, and so on), it's hard for me to sympathise much.

the follow-ups are the worst, when they email to ask why I haven't replied and if I'm okay

and how at the end of each email there's usually a 'disclaimer' about how they are not spammers. YES THEY ARE.

restoring faith in humanity :')

anivad — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 02:26:34 GMT

"Everyone saw the biracial Cheerios commercial, but kids saw it differently"
http://www.dailydot.com/lol/kids-react-cheerios-commercial-race/

whee

anivad — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 22:21:16 GMT

redesign + coding took only about 7 hours from start to finish. :D
I learnt some new CSS tricks along the way, which makes me happy.

http://www.sam-rockwell.com

I ditched the forums because it had a total of like 8 posts from a year ago. It just made the site look bad.

ahh crap, a spambot got into the (dead) forums. gah I'll have to work on security stuff then.

one day I shall clean up the rest of the now-extraneous pages, still full of old coding.

anivad — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 15:27:49 GMT

"I can't believe I went my whole life drinking fat-free milk. Whole milk is, like, infinitely better."
- random housemate, having a very profound discussion on her mobile phone

Astrophysics question!

anivad — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 00:37:59 GMT

Is it possible to see in space? E.g. in most scifi space movies they show spaceships very clearly visible when floating through space, but would this be the case IRL? If you were hypothetically floating in space, would it be pitch black, or would the distant stars provide enough light to see by? How close (roughly) must you be to a star for things to get light enough to see by? What about a planet? Would spaceships need to have something like headlights to avoid bumping into other spaceships when in deep space?

I need this for accurate scifi writing reasons. Thanks in advance!