Viva Forever

Today was Wilson’s (my bratty brother) 14th birthday. Tim and I got him Final Fantasy XII, after I asked Wilson a few days ago if that’s what he wanted (he’s a huge Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts fan). I’ve always wanted to play tricks on people for their birthdays but I’ve always either been too lazy, or just thought better of it at the last minute.

In a drug-induced haze (read: a cup of coffee) this afternoon, I decided once and for all to give it a go. I whipped out a piece of paper and made my own crappy version of the Final Fantasy XII cover. Compare below (click on the pictures for a better view!):

(Excuse the spottiness on the scanned actual cover; my scanner is pretty crappy) And yes… I had no idea what FF12 was actually about, except that it was “political”. :P I also don’t know what that black creature is, but he looks kinda unhappy. Another caption could’ve been “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

I got out my supplies of scissors, tape, a buttload of old newspaper, wrapping paper and cardboard. I basically cut out two pieces of game-box-sized cardbox sheets, put a folded piece of newspaper between them to bulk it up, and wrapped my “alternative” FF12 cover around it. I then proceeded to wrap it with sheet after sheet of newspapers, while throwing in random balls of scrunched up newspaper to make the shape more ambiguous. Last of all, I wrapped it with Christmas wrapping with the non-Christmassy side up (I was going to buy wrapping, but a non-discounted 2 metre roll costs $7!! What the hell). The before and after are below.

So after dinner when it was present opening time, I handed the “present” to Wilson with the real one hidden inside a bag. Anyway, he was so excited about opening the present! It took him ages to get through each layer, and he got more and more excited as he made his way into it. He was obviously expecting FF12. When he finally saw my version of FF12, his face literally fell and confusion erupted as he slowly exclaimed “what… the hell?”

He then tore the cardboard apart under the desperate hope that the inside bit of newspaper actually hid the CD, but when he opened up the newspaper there was nothing there. My reaction was:

xD !!

His was:

-_-; -> :(

I felt so bad that I whipped out the real game and said to him, “looking for THIS??? :D” and his face just lit up like a Christmas tree on fire.

We then had his birthday cake and tried out the game.

The graphics are AMAZING. And wow it *is* very political. The game starts off with a wedding and a war. Lots of pretty Caucasian people and CHOCOBOS OF RAAAAAGE in the war scenes. Hooray for no more random battles with enemies you can’t see in real time. I might play it after my brother finishes with it. He’s not allowed to play it until his holidays start though (in a week’s time).

All in all, well worth spending the hour or so not doing my Corporations readings. :P

Many thanks to Tim for helping me refine this article.
Here’s something that really jumped out at me the past few months, and I’ve noticed it from people both online and offline. It’s the line:

“I know I <insert bad trait> but at least I admit”

There are variations to that but the message is still the same. Here are examples I’ve heard and I paraphrase:

1. From Uni class

“I’m a commerce/law student, I know I’ll probably behave unethically one day, I know I that I’ll probably put profits over moral concerns, but at least I can admit to it”

2. From casual conversation

“I know I’m homophobic, but I at least I’m not hiding it.”

3. Online forums/blogs

“I know I’m immature, I know I’m mean and pick on people, but at least I admit to it, I’ve never denied it.”

I’m not trying to pick on anyone in particular and I may have done the same thing myself without knowing. But… what do such sentiments mean? Such a reply only ever makes sense when someone is asking, “did you KNOW you hold bad opinions?” Once it’s been answered in the affirmative, what role does “… at least I admit it” answers play? Is… it supposed to be a justification? Surely it can’t be that just because they ADMITTED to the bad trait, that makes it okay, right? I’ve been thinking about this over and over again and all that I’ve come up with is that it’s a feeble attempt to distract the audience from focusing on the fact that they just admitted to holding what would be terrible ideologies to the fact that they’re “honest” and “forthcoming” about themselves. But I don’t see how honesty has anything to do with the type of opinions one hold.

A consequence of such an attitude is the internalisation within the actual person of these ideas. These people might have very well convinced themselves “yeah I hold these values, I know other people don’t, but at least I’m honest with myself” with the heavy preoccupation on congratulating themselves on the latter part, the “I’m honest, yay” part, rather than coming to terms with the actual opinion.

I have a feeling that people who hold such ways of thinking might be tempted to retort with “well would you rather I deny I hold these opinions?” But not only does that just gives a false impression that “it’s either this extreme, or this other extreme”, it once again avoids discourse on the actual opinion itself. Your level of honesty is not the issue. The point is, why you think it’s okay to hold these opinions. Whether or not you admit to being homophobic, or unethical, or immature etc, in the end, this isn’t going to reflect how you behave and colour your actions. Whether you admit to such opinions or not isn’t going to change the fact that you’re going to behave homophobically, unethically, immaturely etc. My question is, why is this acceptable?

Let’s take the first example, because no one likes nasty would-be lawyers. It’s almost like he’s saying that he doesn’t need to be ethical just because he’s told everyone he’s not. It’s the same with the other examples, the implication seems to be, yes I admit I have this fault, isn’t it good enough?

The short answer is “no”. The language of self-help, 12-step programs is everywhere nowadays, and everyone knows the famous line “the first step is admitting you have a problem”. You know how people clap and behave sympathetically at AA meetings when someone admits they’re an alcoholic? In such situations though, the assumption is that such honesty is followed by a change in behaviour. People need to be reminded that admitting you have a problem is not the ONLY step, merely the first. The next question we need to ask these people is, “what are you going to do about it?”

This is a response to Rhiannon’s “obligatory WBB disclaimer” for her Webmaster’s Behaving Badly series. Here’s *my* obligatory disclaimer: this isn’t a “OMFG I hate Rhiannon she’s so mean” post. In fact, I think she writes quite well, I enjoy her reviews and opinions, and she’s on my dailies list. But as she said on her disclaimer, “opinions are healthy, and those who are not afraid to display them in an honest, forthright manner deserve to be commended” so here’s my opinion!
Read the rest of this entry »

In response to the last entry, here are the answers:

Kaylee asked:
If you were given a million dollars, what would you do with it?
Donate a good chunk of it to research, give a good amount to my parents to live off, give another good chunk to them to invest for me.

How did you envision your future as a child?
I can’t remember! I think I may have wanted to become a high court judge at some point… not any more, too much work. I’m not THAT dedicated to law. :P

Amanda asked:
You and Tim seem to have a really close relationship – have you ever talked about making it permanent (e.g. marriage), or even moving in together?
Moving out is likely though I need to finish my degree first (another year to go!) and get a job first. But it would be nice to be more independent. I don’t think either of us hold ideas of marriage being this sacred union of two people… it’s basically just the law recognising your relationship, and financial consequences that stem off that. We would like to get a civil union instead (cos that just sounds way cooler) but I think only New Zealand allow civil unions between heterosexual couples. =/

Chantelle asked:
If you could have your picture taken with any living person, with whom would you choose to be photographed?
Stephen Colbert. :3 If not him, then my grandma from my dad’s side. I haven’t seen her in so long (she still lives in China) and she’s quite old now… it’ll be nice to see her before she dies.

What kind of law (if any) do you want to practice?
Intellectual property or cyber law. I haven’t done the latter yet but I’m so interested in how the internet interacts with our legal system I would love to have my career based around it.

Rilla asked:
If you weren’t doing law what do you think you would do?
I would say psychology because I have a strong interest in it, but I don’t think I’d be a very good therapist; I don’t think I deal with other people’s problems very well. Otherwise, I actually wouldn’t mind a common office job (with friendly work colleagues) that pay okay. I don’t think I ever had a strong interest in massively developing a career, I basically just want enough money to live comfortably so I can pursue my hobbies.

What do you think is the purpose of your life?
To be happy!

Sarai asked:
What was your inspiration for this layout?
I… didn’t make this layout. ^^; Credits in the footer! But I liked it for its simplicity, however, I recently found I don’t like light coloured text on very dark backgrounds at all. I hope to change it soon.

So there you have it. Also I finally installed the threaded comments plugin, so now people can reply to each other! Oh and one last thing, this is the most awesome thing I saw yesterday [source]. It’s in no way practical I know, but… it looks awesome. *__*

They kinda are. :P Here’s a bunch that have accumulated recently.

1. Question Time
I’m probably the 23,482nd person to be doing Amanda’s “ask me a question” meme, but I’m not one for being on time. So yeah, I’m just going to quote her directly, with my modifications:

So, in the interest of allowing my readers to learn more about me as a person, rather than me as a blogger, and because I fear nothing, and show everything…ask me a question. Any question you want, no matter how crude, rude, personal (to an extent), irrelevant. I’ll answer them all in tomorrow’s the next entry (and all people who ask a question get plugged).

2. Blog Day Plug Five Blogs You Read Day
As I said, I’m not one for being on time. :P Here’s five blogs that I admire a lot (and read a lot). In no particular order:

• Void Star – Dee likes Batman and comics (amongst other things) and many of her posts are amusing, educational or both. I’ve always found her blog to be awesome in how it’s coded and set out… it’s got all the necessary features of a blog while being kinda also like LJ. Oh and she draws awesome pictures.
• Jing Wen – Amanda’s articulate, funny and is brave enough to post about topics that some might classify as “too much information” (there’s no such thing!). She also almost posts every day. I think we have a winning formula?
• Oxalic – Sabrina uses lots of big words but I don’t think that detracts from her posts, rather it makes her posts more interesting to read. Many of the posts have a hint of dry amusement about them. And she likes Stephen Colbert too, so double yay.
• Infidel – Kudarania plays DDR too! Woot! I find from reading her blogs that we share a surprisingly large number of opinions, like for reviewing and parenting.
• WordFall – I discovered yesterday that Daimira and I have known each other through blogging from about 2002. In fact, she’s one of the people who I felt encouraged to keep blogging back in the days. Though she does most of her general blogging on her LJ (like EVERYBODY I USED TO KNOW -_-), she’s got a new blog that centres around literary stuff. It’s new and looks very promising. I need to read more books.

Honourable mentions: Everyone else on my dailies list… you guys are all on my feed because I like reading your blogs, even if I don’t comment each and every time.