Cancelling the Apocalypse

So there I was, on the night of the freezing rain. It was past midnight and my eyes were droopy.

I took care to switch off all the lights and adjusted the thermostat down. Didn't want to bake myself.

I climbed into bed and got comfortable. Double pillow beneath my head, I was all set. Third pillow was there for me to clutch. I drifted off into dreamland, content as can be. Time for my imagination to run wild.

I soon placed myself in the siege of Bastogne. I was huddled in my blanket with the continuous thunder of artillery in the background. Little did I know how close that situation was to reality.

Eventually the "artillery" sufficiently roused me from consciousness. Not fully awake yet, so imagination still had quite the hold on me compared to rationale. I thought myself to be hiding in my room, as a mob hammered on the door. I recognised the siege of Bastogne as fantasy, but believed this to be reality instead.

A combination of drowsiness and fear perhaps kept me frozen in my bed, unwilling to meet the enemies at the door.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash and some unintelligible yells. The hammering stopped. I was wide awake at this point, the yelling faded into background noise. I was keenly aware of all the sounds of the apartment. Heating, plumbing, refrigerator. I reached for my phone and it informed me "4.49 AM".

Now more aware of my surroundings, I began to take in the yelling. "Get out of my fucking face!" was the very first thing I made out. The voice of a man. "Let me in!" was the immediate reply of a woman.Listening on, it seems the man had told the woman "Never to come back". The woman protested "Where am I supposed to go?". More verbal lashes from the man, all to similar effect of "Go away, never return". Heavily punctuated by various permutations of "fuck" of course.

The woman replied with a variety of protests. Among them being "I need to get my clothes", "I was sick", "I didn't mean to do anything" and "Can't you just let me in?". This went on for some time. I went to take a leak at one point, careful to leave to door open so I could hear well.

According to my trusty phone, it was around 5.24 AM that things started to die down. The foot stomping had become less frequent and the voices more muffled. The time had come for me to return to bed.

Later in the morning while I was jovially taking another leak, this shrill beeping noise burst out of nowhere. It triggered a flashback, suddenly I was back in Bastogne. It took all of my self control to finished the leak
in an orderly manner. I chose to believe in myself. I readied myself to open the door. I was going to face the monsters and bring the fight to them. I turned the doorknob. Today, I was going to cancel the apocalypse.

Mass Effect : How It Could Have Continued

Mass Effect,one of my favourite game series but with a disappointing conclusion to it.How I wish that there would be another one or two installments to justify the horrible ending that Mass Effect 3 had.I had an idea that I shared with a friend that could be a continuation of the Mass Effect series by making another game rather than just a DLC; I'm referring to the Leviathan DLC. That DLC was a revelation and it was so important, I feel it could have been a new game by itself. Here's what we came up with :

Backstory: The apex race,calling them Leviathans to simplify things,were the most advanced species of all time.So advanced that they not only manage to dominate this galaxy,The Milky Way,but they dominated other nearby galaxies as well.Being a race so advanced,the Leviathans forced the other less advanced species to work for them and join their Empire (since it was told that things tend to repeat themselves in every cycle,this also happened with the Prothean Empire).But with every Empire there will be a rebellion against it.This rebellion,the Sympathizers,is lead by Leviathans who disagree with the Empire's mission to make servants of the intelligent species that they find.

Leviathan

The Sympathizers seeing the Empire's cruelty towards other species,decided that a race too advanced with overpowering technology is a danger to all other life in the universe.So,they plan to destroy the Empire and also to harvest and preserve life at the same time.The Sympathizers managed to synthesise themselves with technology,life meets machine,to form the Reapers.The most powerful of them was the Harbinger,who was the leader of the rebellion.The Reapers with the help of the other species then waged war with the Leviathans.The Leviathans tried to fight back. They managed to overthrow the Empire, killing and harvesting them to form more Reapers.After that,the Reapers turned on the other advanced species who were helping them,harvesting them too then lurking into the centres of the galaxies,hiding and waiting for the next cycle.

After Mass Effect 3: Harbinger managed to escaped to our galaxy before Shepard set off the Crucible.And because we are not the only galaxy with Reapers,Harbinger has called the Reapers from other galaxies for aid as Harbinger is adamant to continue the cycle.Now a larger force of Reapers,with a whole lot of different assimilated  species from other galaxies as foot soldiers approach our galaxy and with our defenses already diminished,we have to look for more help...

 The New Game: Desperation creeps in,and with the Crucible destroyed, we're working non stop to find something that can help us against the new Reapers.News comes that a species is discovered to have taken down a Reaper..(the Leviathan DLC comes in).We have to get the Leviathans that were in hiding to our side,doing whatever we can to make that happen.Everyone prepares for the inevitable final battle...

3 ways the game could start (depending on your choice at the end of ME3) :

1.Destroy ending(Red) Shepard survives the Crucible blast.Get to continue playing as Shepard.Reinforcements are low.
2.Control ending(Blue) Shepard sacrifices himself to control the Reapers within the vicinity of the galaxy.Get to play a new character(though this sounds like a bad idea) or maybe one of Normandy crew.Have the Reapers controlled by Shepard to fight alongside you.
3.Synthesis ending(Green) Shepard dies,same as the Control ending.Technology merges with life.Able to have better weapons,upgrades and powers but no controlled Reapers to help.

There ya go,this is just an idea far from perfected.

Second Day of New Year

So today was an interesting day. It all started to get interesting around 5.30 in the evening, when I went out to meet my parents for dinner. That's when I encountered a Rucking Fetard in the wild.

Me in blue with the smile all the way to the eyes. Complete with slit eyes as is accurate.

As you can see from the photo I took, I was minding my own business, and had just started crossing the road at a crosswalk. At about the same time, this woman and her daughter does the same from the opposite side. Then RF comes bumbling toward us. I notice she's kinda fast so I stare/glare at her as I walk. Woman and daughter sort of pause because of her. RF eventually realizes she's gonna ruin her car if she hits me so she slows to a stop and lets off a honk. At this point I turn to face her but keep walking. She then jumps her car forward nearly a feet. A poor attempt at intimidating a far superior being. I stop walking now and turn to face her, take my hands out of my pockets, wave em in the air and the beginnings of 'What the fuck?!' are forming in my mouth. I glance at the woman and her daughter. Woman is frozen, terrified that she might see a car absolutely destroyed in a collision. I keep walking, RF speeds off, woman still frozen and the drama ends. In hindsight I should have let rip with the WTF. Probably with some more angry gestures if necessary. Probably should have stood in front of her car and gave her an earful about how she nearly hit me and was endangering the life of a little girl. 'Think of the children!' I should have said. But it was not to be.

I reach the next crosswalk where I stop because it told me to stop, unlike the previous one where I had right of way. This man comes up to me asking if I knew of a place to eat nearby. Terrified, I try to stall and get him to provide his own answer by asking him what kind of food he's looking for. He mentions that he heard that there's an Earls nearby. I immediately latch on to that, telling him that it's just another block down the street. I feel so the proud that I successfully helped someone.

Later, my parents and I decide to try this tiny corner Indian place called Spice Grill. I had misgivings, but it has the best tandoori chicken I've ever tasted. It was glorious. He was primarily a takeout place, but we decided to eat there, so he put a lot of effort into presentation. I later learnt that he had a son who was a professional chef. Another customer told him that, he was the real chef, not his son and I have to agree. We tipped him well and I'm sure to go back many times.

While waiting for the bus back, this drunk asks me if I want to fight. I ignore him. He then approaches me and tells me that his name is Jason and that he is 280 pounds of kickass. He also tells me to hit em right in the nuts, get's em everytime. He also told me to call him whenever I needed someone to be fucked up. He gave me a fist bump and then I escaped onto the bus.

Black Ops 2 (Singleplayer Review)

Bald Guy

Since I rarely see any reviews on the singleplayer campaign of Black Ops 2 and it's basically judged for its multiplayer experience,here's a 2 month late review of the campaign.

The Storyline/Experience - The earlier parts of the campaign are quite confusing (maybe I'm just a potato) cause it was jumping all over the place ;present then past then present back again,Section with Woods then he is suddenly somewhere else and then back with Woods.Good overall with twists here and there with a few choices to make that ultimately decides the ending I suppose.I do not think it has the best story but maybe the best experiences in-game that I had of all the Call of Duty games.

To kill or not to kill?

Aww yis fooking horses

Best part of the campaign for me - JETS!

To kill or not to kill? The choice that decides a big part of the ending.

Horrible controls with the horse but it was still fun.

Really fun! Though it was too short.

The Characters - Characters from the past still awesome but the new characters ;Salazar,Harper and Section are mehhh.They are not as memorable as the characters from other Call of Duty games but the main antagonist,Raul Menendez is quite badass.

Section - not so badass

Harper - "funny guy"

Menendez - freaking immortal

Woods - grumpy old man

Hudson - manly tears were shed 

Fun easter egg at the end though with Menendez and Woods playing a song with Avenged Sevenfold.

Overall I would give the campaign for Black Ops 2 a 7/10.

Siberia

This post is about Canada and winter and has as much to do with Siberia as Obama has to do with you getting retrenched.

Growing up in an oven, I had a healthy dose of Western media so I still had a pretty good image in my mind of what winter was like. Whenever I went for short trips to visit other countries in winter, it sure was cold and everything. Never really had much experience with snow however, it tended to be too early in the season or it had only recently snowed when I got there.

Then in '07 I went to Toronto. Damn, that was a massive slap in the face for what winter was like. Black ice, sleet, windrows; the whole nine. I enjoyed myself there and didn't freeze because I was a snugly wrapped burrito.

I thought I had conquered winter. I knew all its tricks. I was the boss, the man. I did not fear some silly season. I came over last year to finish my high school education and it still didn't hit me, because I stayed in a boarding school where class and dorm were one and the same building.

In Fall of 2012, I began my first semester in university in Edmonton. Winter is that feeling when you have an 8 am class and a midterm at 9 am. You're awake at 7 am, all ready to go. You look out the window and it literally looks like shit. Literally. Already you're not feeling too well. Then you check the temperature because you already learnt to beware of the chinook. Forecasts say it's a solid -24 for the next 6 hours. So you sit there and say I'll prepare for the midterm instead of going to class, weather might improve. But then you curl up in bed until 8.30 just wishing it wasn't cold and snowing and everything horrible. Conditions have in fact, worsened. -26 and now some really strong winds blowing from the east. Procrastination has screwed you again. You actually start mentally calculating how damaging missing a midterm would be. In the end I go anyway because I am paranoid.

Point is, winter makes you want to be not there. Now Canada is a really nice country but geezus the land is shitty. It's such a hostile place.

Winter has been so deeply ingrained into me that now I cannot watch a 'winter' scene in a movie and not give a little shiver.

It's cold.

It was very difficult watching Colin Farrell and co in Siberia during the initial part of The Way Back. I was almost glad when there was a change of scenery. It's a great movie by the way.

Checkpoint Reached

Inactivity for over a year, nearly two. Radio silence, like we vanished off the face of the Earth.

We have all moved past our secondary level of education, causing us to lose interest in this blog as we got caught up in our lives. Personally, practically everything I have put down on this blog in the past I consider absolutely laughable. But that's a good sign. If you look back a few months and find yourself to be perfectly acceptable, it means you've stagnated and you're not growing as a person and learning new things.

I checked out a blog the other day. I found myself still logged in and that led to me checking out our blog again. I thought, "Let's give it another go". The three of us are so far apart, maybe this is a way of staying close.

That's enough sappiness for now. We're back.

Sleep

My hero.

Sleep.

To quote wikipedia :

"Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles.^[1] It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than being in hibernation or a coma. Sleep is also a heightened anabolic state, accentuating the growth and rejuvenation of the immune, nervous, skeletal and muscular systems. It is observed in all mammals, all birds, and many reptiles, amphibians, and fish."

To me, sleep is a state of complete unconsciousness and indifference to reality, a time for indulgence in dreams. Sleep is an awesome period of time in our lives that I personally think that we can never have enough of. I hate using the word awesome, but there really is no other description.

As I've mentioned a long long time ago, sleeping actually burns more calories than simply sitting around. So, when in doubt, sleep. It will help keep your weight down and allow your body time to grow.

When it's raining or just very cool in the morning, I really feel like staying curled up in bed. Yes, I curl up in bed like a baby. When it's hot and blazing in the afternoon/evening/whatever I just feel like my only escape is to sleep. When it's late at night, my internal clock kicks in and I naturally feel tired and go to sleep. Basically, I sleep all the time. ALL THE TIME. EVERYDAY.

EVERYDAY I'M SLEEPING!

I don't shuffle.

Convulated

The lack of visual stimulation in my recent posts bothers me immensely. Care to do anything about it? Nope, insufficient time.

Living in Malaysia, at an age where I still go to school and have friends of all types, at what point is something not worth saying? This blog was mine, created as a mixture of fun and serious talk. The serious talk has dried up. No hiding it.

I just feel so stifled. Everything I wanna write about, I can think of plenty of reasons not to. Think too much, and I'm out of time. Any potential rants are bottled up for the good of myself and people I know. I need to get out.

Actually I need to go finish up my Additional Math project but that's not so important. If I don't write this, the stifling feeling might, just might boil over.

VISUAL STIMULATION !

Badass of the day/week/month

Katniss Everdeen.

On the ultimate badass scale, she's probably a 7 or 8. Very badass. Completely fictional, the main character of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The target demographic was probably 14-17 year old girls but I enjoyed it nevertheless. At least she didn't mope around about frigging vampires.

/sidebar start/ That's why I liked the movie Priest, because it portrayed vampires how they should be and also I saw some fan(or anti-fan) fiction somewhere called bella the vampire slayer and absolutely loved it hahaha. /sidebar end/

She's the breadwinner of the family, a protective sister+daughter, a hunter, an archer, a rebel, a non girlie girl and generally an all round badass.

25/6/11

As you can tell from the title, I'm feeling very imaginative today.

I got a band score of 8 in IELTS!

9 for listening, 8 for reading, 7.5 for writing and speaking.

The maximum score is 9 by the way so my aural skills are impeccable. Reading's not bad either but I have excuses ready for the other two. I excel at free writing with ample time. Not 1 hour to write a social study essay and a summary. Plus, I wasn't really sure of the format. I was nervous during the speaking test. Enough said.

Thanks to my friend flooding 47 minutes of britney into my phone, I can only say that I still don't really like her music but it has got worse over the years. She's become so obsessed with synth and autotune that her songs have become very generic dance club music. She's lost it. Added to the fact that she actively lip syncs during performances nowadays, I think she's really past her prime.

I also would like to express my distaste for Twitter. #&^%*$(*&%@ There, I've explained myself.