Fantasy @ MindSay

Why so serious?

It's just after 3 AM.  I've just gotten home from a screening of the Dark Knight, so I'm buzzing a bit and don't really want to sleep.  Heath Ledger's performance lived up to all the hype - the hype before his death and the hype after it.  Haunting.  Not surprising, the character was written brilliantly.  An enigma, playing by his own rules with no care for the schemes of other men.  Anarchist.  No background, no explanation, constantly licking his lips.  Creepy, quiet  and memorably scary.  It was the most impressive comic book movie to date.

Before the movie they showed a trailer for Watchmen.  It looks quite stunning.

I answered a personal ad recently.  No surprise should come to anyone reading this that I'm... unsatisfied with my social life.  I hate to sound like a stereotypcial sex-obsessed male, but I do need to get laid.  For years I thought I wasn't worth anyone's time and now I just think I'm underacheiving.  Not capitalizing on my potential, as they say.  It's funny, because I was only browsing the Craigs List Women Seeking Men section for a laugh, a chuckle at the expense of others' folly.  So then I see this ad, nerd-girl seeks nerd-guy.  Don't like to paint myself as a cliche, but if there's one I fit it's that.  So I dropped her a line trying to by shy and modest and clever, rattling off my nerd credentials.  I haven't heard back and I have no idea whether I ever will.  Ah the love the could have been.  Well I don't know, maybe she's huge or deformed or something, but she seemed very sweet from her suggestions that we could watch random movies, play video games, read comics, go for a drink, do nothing, and relax.  Maybe she's that modest, mysterious type (an attitude as much as a body type) I like so much.  Maybe I'll never know.  What I do know is that I have nothing going on right now, and I'd like to.

I had this dream last night.  After investigating a murder, I met a blind girl at a newsstand.  She was very charming and we hit it off.  I think that sums up even imaginarily how things seem to go.  Not that she'd have to be blind, just that she'd have to not quite be normal.  Boring, I suppose.  Anyway, I got her phone number, but her mentally-handicapped boyfriend didn't seem to like that.  That part was just weird.

Tomorrow is another day during which I will underachieve.  If I set that as a goal, I think I can actually succeed.  It's a funny little puzzle,. but it fits.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Music: Memories ~Ritsuka~ - Loveless.
Mood: Happy.

Final Fantasy III or somethin' else?

Hm...

De grens tussen Ancelstierre en het Oude Koninkrijk wordt gevormd door een muur. Aan de kant van Ancelstierre wordt die grens zwaar bewaakt, want in het oude koninkrijk waren ook de doden nog rond. De Abhorsen, een krachtige magiër van het pact, bezweert met zijn zwaard en zijn bellen die doden en zorgt ervoor dat wie dood is, dat ook blijft. Sabriël is de dochter van de Abhorsen, en is opgegroeid op een kostschool in Ancelstierre. Op een dag ontvangt zij het zwaard en de bellen van haar vader. Daardoor weet ze dat hij in gevaar en mogelijk zelfs al dood is. Zij moet hem in het Oude Koninkrijk en waarschijnlijk tot in het Dodenrijk gaan zoeken. Haar zeer gebrekkige kennis van het Oude Koninkrijk speelt haar parten, zeker als blijkt dat haar vader is verwikkeld in een gevecht met een vijand die macht heeft verkozen boven het leven.

Ik ben er vrij zeker van dat ik dit ooit al een keer heb gelezen. Van het verhaal kon ik me weinig herinneren, maar er waren een aantal scenes waar ik heel erg een gevoel van 'deja vu' bij had. 't Zouden natuurlijk de memes van het genre kunnen zijn, maar daarvoor waren het te specifieke beelden: die muur, het dodenrijk als een rivier met poorten, de bellen. Nu nog eventjes deel 2 en 3 lenen, want het is tenslotte fantasy, dus trilogie.

While tidying up around the apartment I turned on the TV and came across Oprah doing a show on past-life regression. Eric makes fun of me whenever I confess to watching Oprah because I'm always complaining about how she drives me crazy; my defense is that if the current show's topic is interesting enough, I can put aside my dislike for the host and watch it anyway (the same applies to Dr. Phil).

Anyway, the topic of today's show, as I mentioned, was past-life regression. A therapist was leading patients with unusual phobias into what he claimed were past lives to help uncover the supposed source of said phobias. For instance, a woman with a lifelong fear of sharp corners and having her neck touched discovered that in a former life she had been slain by an Indian warrior with a spear to the throat.

The skeptic in me finds it very interesting that what seems to be 98% of patients who undergo past-life regression therapy report having been something akin to a member of royalty or a Babylonian high priest in a previous life. Remarkable, given the percentage that people of such status would have occupied in the general population. Why is it that no one seems to regress themselves into unglamorous identities, like chief stall-mucker or lonely Victorian widow? One of the patients did suggest that the therapy has a "fantasy" element, which lends even less credibility to the whole past-lives thing. I also found that the questions the therapist was asking had a definite "leading" quality.

Maybe it doesn't matter if the therapy is reality-based or total hocus-pocus -- if it helps the patient, maybe that's all that really matters. No doubt past-life regression therapists will have to break out the waiting lists now that they've received Oprah's coveted stamp of approval.