psycho

bored at work again. i find a topic on the forum about a cannibal allegedly living happily ever after in freedom with his family, namely nikolai dzhumagaliev. i follow the link, read the stuff in wikipedia, google a bit more and think to myself 'hey, the dude is a cross between hannibal lecter and... darn! what was the red dragon's name again?'. so i look up thomas harris. yeah, it was fracis dollarhhyde. of course i diverge into articles on blake's paintings and various other characters in the novels but meanwhile i am caught up reading all about hannibal. the article states that dr. lecter is not a sociopath as he only displays two of the three symptomes. sounds interesting. i click the link, here i am reading on psychopats. there's a link at the bottom leading to the article about fictional portrayals of psychopaths. i warmly recommend it. check this out:

In the past fifteen to twenty years, psychopaths, comedic or otherwise, have increasingly been portrayed in popular movies as caricatured exemplars of a kind of aggressively "hip", permanently jaded, ironic, postmodern sensibility of cool. This type of fictional psychopath assiduously cultivates and promotes his deviancy amidst a pervasively cynical and nihilistic pop-culture wasteland. The postmodern psychopath necessarily exists in a chaotic, fragmented environment — one devoid of any authentic values and feelings, saturated with banal consumerism and ephemeral mass-media simulacra, and informed by what French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard has called "an incredulity toward metanarratives". Hence, extreme anti-social behavior becomes the normative method for negotiating one's way through all of the violence, confusion, vacuity and absurdity that abounds. It is by remorselessly and efficiently committing crimes with depraved deadpan indifference that the postmodern psychopath attains the nihilistic grace of self-referential coolness which is his calling card.

The appeal of postmodern psychopaths in the current popular culture is not entirely clear, but it is quite possible that they are meant to reflect and cater to the narcissism, hostility, jadedness and cynicism of a certain portion of the contemporary audience which prefers to experience garish displays of violence and criminality unencumbered by the implied moral framework of the classical "grand narrative" pretext that is traditionally grounded in the Aristotelian teleological imperatives of justice and catharsis.

errrrm. according to the above quoted and underlined (well, bolded)... aren't we all a bit psycho?

the article then proceeds to analyse psychopaths in iconic works of fiction in literature and cinematography, namely a clockwork orange

It follows that Alex, the rampaging delinquent who abuses his liberty through violent crime, is just as inauthentic a person as Alex the good citizen, who has been coercively rehabilitated by unnatural means and thereby robbed of any free moral choice. Regardless of whether Alex is actively anti-social or passively complaisant, his behavior is ultimately as overdetermined and mechanized as that of a wind-up toy — i.e., "a clockwork orange". In this sense, Alex DeLarge certainly qualifies as a kind of post-human dystopian psychopath

and do androids dream of electric sheep?

The film raises the question of where the moral agency of conscience-endowed humanity ends and the amoral automatism of psychopathic inhumanity begins.

ok, so maybe we are not psychos. for how many of our choices in life are... truly our choices? in how many cases do you by your own accord and free will abide by the rules set to you (and these rules multiply by the day) and in how many do you do it because the repercussions for acting otherwise (i.e. according to your heart's desire) are too high a price - from social exclusion to detention in state or mental institutions. constant acting on my feelings would probably make me passable for the label, though i still have issues with the 'lack of remorse' criterion. anyway, this one dude here strikes a chord with me:

The Marvel Comics vigilante known as the Foolkiller has been depicted in several incarnations, usually as a reactionary crusader. Whom he kills depends on whether or not that person fits his private definition of a fool. As a result, he has killed in cold blood not only criminals, but also average, ordinary, law abiding citizens if only because their thoughts, words, or actions deem them fools in his eyes.

errrrrm. psycho trait. yup. my 'humane' side fights a constant battle under the motto "they are human too. they have a right to live as mother nature made them" with my foolkiller side. errrrrm. i'll let you know if and when the switch burns through. i'm off to practice my psycho glance :)

and if you want to have some fun, check out this page. how psycho are you?

birthday blog

i've been told i have to write one of these.

now, i have just begun the post and i already have a vital question. what the heck am i supposed to write here? how i've spent my day? just like any other, except i got flowers. how i feel today? not different from yesterday. so i take it that the only thing left to do is... draw a line and sum up. and i hate that. i am a chronic sufferer of high expectations so i always screw up, no matter how high i've reached it's never high enough, and the worst part is i don't even know how high i want to get.

that being cleared... i'm 25 and i feel like i'm 52. i feel i have seen it all and god knows i haven't. i feel like nothing can surprise me and if something extraordinary happens, i'm likely to greet it with a raised eyebrow and spoil everyone's fun about it. there's this romanian poem that goes 'i don't shatter the world's corolla of wonder'. well, i do, with every thought i think. i imbue every thought with pessimism and sarcasm just so i can be prepared. and then i get the satisfaction of i-told-you-so's or of sighs of relief.

i shatter the wonder of each new day with my sarcasm and my lack of faith. in god, in the world, in truth and justice, in people, in myself. interactions tire me to exhaustion - from the paper vendors, to people at job, to family, to close friends - i only pay enough attention to throw in two lines. i don't really care about what they say, what troubles them, what they ask of me. i just want to lie down and be. just like that - standing still in space and time. i've built a double scale of appreciation of people and things according to that. on the one hand: anything that doesn't bother me in any way - good; anything that interferes with my stasis - bad. on the other hand, i know that this is so fucking wrong and such a waste of life and breath. and the part of me that knows that has another measure of value: anything that lets me indulge in this slug-like existence - bad; anything that kicks my ass into movement once in a while - good.

and i want and don't want to get out of this. and if i force myself to think, to really think things over i come to the same results over and over again. and i go back to my shell and yet again start counting time. hours till i go home, days till my next day off, weeks till the holiday, years till retirement. and i realise i am counting my given days away, counting myself nearer to death and... god, i'm only 25. happy fucking birthday.

image: bloddy-earth

time capsule

there is a feeling i get sometimes when i use means of public transport. firstly, i don't use public transportation much, be it train or trams or buses. when i need to go somewhere, i either walk or get a ride if it's far or the weather is nasty, be it by my dad or by cab. secondly, i only get out of the house without my mp3 player when i walk the dog or take out the garbage. otherwise, my headphones are always on, be it when i walk or on the rare occasions i take the bus.

so today, there was a double exception. at some point during a long day i took a bus home. and before i even got to the station, the battery on my mp3 player had died out. all my spare ones were obviously in the other bag. *sigh*. there were plenty of emtpy seats when i got on, so i sat down, for i was loaded with stuff to carry. and then, the thing happened again.

it's... sort of like a detaching from self and a dissolution in the bus. like i float somewhere above, deconnected from everything that occupied my mind seconds before. i have nothing to focus on so i catch a bit of everything. in front of me, two teen guys, talking. loudly. laughing. loudly. a sort of rowdy laugh. to the left, a guy with a headphone only in his right ear. lucky dude, his batteries didn't give up on him. he's wearing a manowar t-shirt. behind me, a chick is talking on the phone; i don't like people using mobiles in buses, especially when they talk loud so everyone can hear. behind and a bit to the left, a guy was telling something to a girl. then, there are other signs of presence too... someone next to me rustles a bag, inspecting what they have bought. the screeching of the bus. bags being opened and closed.

i look around at the faces. some are attentive at stuff outside the bus, i can see their eyes moving as they follow what's going on. some are looking intently at a spot right in front of their eyes, lost in their own world or maybe avoiding eye contact. others are checking out passengers, one by one.

i register all these things pretty automatic, like a recorder. i don't give it much thought and i don't feel in any way about anything. i also register that i register them. that i am not thinking of all the things i've thought before, in fact that i have no thought i hold on to and spin to its end. just glimpses. of sounds, of images. of course, at some points, glimpses of me mix with the glimpses of others. that would make a nice photo. that's my bag rustling. this would be something for my blog tonight. but i register them just as i register details of everyone else.

the fact that outside it's getting dark certainly helps the feeling. it's much easier to shift into this mood then. the world outside is semi-shrouded and here we are, a bunch of people for whom i notice totally insignificant details, little universes compressed into a capsule filled with yellow light, moving through a vast, darkening world. time passes like in slow-motion, while outside it continues in its usual rhythm. and somehow, each of these little universes squeezed in this yellow lit capsule travelling through the dark wishes to get off and expand to its normal dimensions again.

i for one am relieved to get off and get hit in my face by a gust of chill evening air. it breaks the hypnotic state i was in. whoaaaa. imagine what telepathy would be like. i am definitely not a crowd person. tomorrow i'll be back to the sanctuary frontiered by my headphones where the only turmoil is that of my own thoughts. no more time capsule.

reminiscing old loves...

oooookay. i know that a football blog is definitely not something you would expect from me. well... i am not sure this is a football blog, but it definitely bears resemblance to one :) actually... it is a blog about heroes... one fallen, one standing.

now, i can't say i'm a football fan... don't think that term ever applied to me. still, when i was in highschool, in the 10th to the 12th grade, i was an avid watcher of the champions league. and i love(d) english teams. my love was especially steered towards chelsea fc and manchester united, but i supported any other english team in the competition, unless they played against these. oh my, actually, i think i still have my sticker albums from that time... if i haven't thrown them away the last time i did a thorough cleaning of my room. i'd have to check.

anyways, in those days, when champions league season was near, you might have had a chance to spot me with the names of chelsea and manU, written on my forearms with waterproof markers. red for the devils, blue for chelsea of course :D. thank god my mum forbade tattoos, otherwise... heaven knows, i might sport those names on my skin even now :)

so, what happened? not much, actually. it's just that... i'm a usually calm person... whenever i can. now, as any footie watcher out there might know, you just can't stay indifferent when your favourite team is out on the field. honestly, the tension was just too much for me. i started watching less and less and was content with just checking the results. eventually, i gave up on that too. however, in conversations about football, i'd always maintain that those are the teams i support.

so, tonight is match night, knockout rounds. for rookies out there, that means there are sixteen teams left in the competition, they play two by two now in two legs, winner goes on. eight teams qualify, eight teams leave the competition. tonight, chelsea and liverpool moved on past porto and barcelona respecively. tomorrow night, i hope arsenal and manU do the same against lille and psv. which would then mean there will be four english teams in the last eight standing.

now, considering all this, i was reminded by highschool celeb crushes in the footie world. every team just had to have a player i favoured. well, for chelsea at that time it was the norwegian tore andre flo (when the presentor spoke his name, i always understood torean de flo, lol). easy to spot on the field, too, the guy. he was like... the lampard of his time :) i've just checked wikipedia to see what has happened to him in the meantime... apparently, after a return to norway he came back to the british isles and as of january this year, is playing for leeds united. woo-hoo.

as for manchester... do you venture a guess? who? david beckham you say? when he wasn't yet spaced out.... hm... well, guess again :D nope, actually, it was australian-born goalkeeper marc bosnich. he later played for chelsea too. now, on looking him up in wiki, i wasn't that delighted anymore :( bad seasons, relegation to second, then third choice keeper for his teams, relationship break-ups and a dangerous bitter-sweet topping of ice-cream and cocaine, leading to his sacking from chelsea and a nine-month ban from playing. the guy has basically fallen from football hero to a mess.

i am pretty sure "regular" people take falls like these once in a while. but their stories don't make the media and they don't leave the same trail of broken hearts and disappointed faces behind them. and maybe it is not fair, but i think their personal tragedies are greater than others'. i am darn sure you don't get on top without loads of work, not in this field and what can be worse than your un-doing by your own hands? he claims he started doing drugs to help out his then girlfried with the problem. for every line she did, he did one too. i doubt that helped much, since they broke up later, due to his becoming violent. apparently he still does it and while not happy about it, says he's still convinced he started it out for the right reasons. talk about good intentions poorly handled gone bad...

anyways... this whole manU-chelsea-flo-bosnich thing has such an aura of nostalgia about it. it's some remain from a time when the world was still in order. and it is something that should've remain untainted. yet... ah, well. heroes fall. still... yeah, i know this is the anthem of liverpool, but...

Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone.

neverwinter nights nights part II

Ok, I promised I'd be back. Don't suppose you are all to keen, but now I am curious about the blunders our little friend from bella online has made :) I've long since given up on her, if I ever get stuck I just check the walkthrough from gamebanshee.com, at least those people know what they are talking about. I am well into chapter three now, so let's take a look at two.

Well, nothing new on the henchman side, the title still reads six, they still are the same five. Names, classes, races and the likes all jumbled up. She keeps mentioning titles of books you find, though might find others, or totally different items and she keeps believing quest givers become merchants after you quench their hearts' desires...

Port Llast and surrounding areas

Kendrack is the head of the Merc guild, and offers a bounty for the ears of criminals. He'll give you 300g apiece for the 5 criminals.

Quick note... this quest never happened to me :-s. I didn't ask the dude about it in the first place and the next time I went there, his daughter was already rescued, which means the criminals had been slain. Someone must've been there before me I suppose :P. I am only sorry for the lost XP but... ah, well.

Terran is a sweet talking person who says bandits stole his brother Neva outside Charwood. He offers 300g reward. Turns out he is just trying to lure you south to kill you. Ah well, can you trust no one?

Elaith Croolnober was a smuggler and wants to go to Evermeet. He wants you to steal 3 gems to help him go. Sorry, but no.

Errm... the first character is actually a chick. And the second dude... hey, he wants his daughter to see the native lands of her ancestors. How can you be so cruel, bitch?! 'sides, you get one gem anyway, from the witch in Neverwinter Woods. You get reward in gold and XP for each separate gem. And don't tell me you missed out all of Wanev's quests because you didn't enter his house?!?!? You do his quest and get the gem for it... only the third one needs to be "stolen". Which I didn't do, I just chatted the woman up and she wanted a date in her room. I agreed and demanded the gem. Left her broken hearted but hey, that'll teach her about throwing herself in the arms of strangers met in inns :P.

Note if you use your Stone of Recall you end up at a Tyr temple with Neurik. He asks you for help with a werewolf. You get 4 silver charms to help out with Sir Karathis and 3 boys. Calindros is here and will heal you. To return via the portal costs 150gp.

Errrrm, not really. Neurik does the healing and the trading. The other dude is attending the portal.

Visit Gerrol again and give him Dergiab's head for 150gp and 250xp. Give the gold back. Talk about his wife and he gives you 150gp and250xp. Again, give the gold back. You're now set with this area for now.

Errrrm... why? Oh. Good points. I forgot. How do you ever buy equipment? And just what is your alignment? Super-lawful, over-good, I presume...

Now the 2nd golum - read the scroll then talk to him. He lets you in.

You mean golem, right? :)

Janis is to the side, he needs his son, Revat. [..] OK, now to the dig site.

Actually, Janis needs her son. But it's rather the other way around, her somewhat moron of a son is looking for her. Which you would've know if you had cleared the surface area before jumping headfirst into the first cave you saw...

Find Dregin, the guard that won't let you past yet.

Why would I? If you just walk into the camp, he's the last one you should meet. By now you would've talked to the Arch-Druid and he'd let you pass. No problemo.

Once you get all 3 druids, kill yourself at the shrine. You'll go into the Spirit Realm.

Pssst! You talked about the druid in the spider's cocoon in a cave and the one caught by the Nymph, but you forgot to mention where the third is. Namely in the house of the witch Selate. She asks you for the mirror of the Nymph and will let you free the druid in return. Oh, and give you the gem for the elf you chose not to help ;)

Constance is there. Convince her that Erik loves here, and then pay her 400g to get the brooch. Go to Erik, give him the brooch and you get 500g. You can't refuse it for some reason.

Errrrm.... maybe because you've just paid 400 gp for it and the game is somewhat idiot-proof? Hmmmmm....

I overwrote much of my dungeon notes. I also overwrote my graveyard notes.

Thank God. Heaven knows what you might have come up with otherwise :) Quick note on the graveyard and the undead arcane brother. He has a rod of terror, so you and your henchman might be stricken with fear and not be able to react until he finishes you off. Get some protection from mind spells - items, amulets of will to increase your saving throws, potions of clarity etc. Also, invisibility helps - either the spell or the potions. He activates the spell as soon as he sees you but if he doesn't, that would be a bit hard :)

Luskan and Host Tower

OK, go to Lady J and persuade her that Erb will be hurt. She'll give you the ring. Go to the slum buildings to the north and find Galrone. Buy the child for 1000g. Give Erb the ring for 500g and 150xp. Give Yvette the baby plus 250gp and get +7 good and 150xp.

Or else, persuade her that keeping the ring is illegal. Worked for me :D. Also, I got the child for far less, 400 gp, I think. And because the dude was such a bastard, I charmed one of his dogs into coming with me. For the umpth time, you get the XP from Yvette anyway. I didn't give her any money, but this is the one occasion when I refused the bounty, that was 3 or 4 good points.

From a circle building in the SW is a route through sewers with bugbears. You come out by a statue in a new map area. [...] THere's a big battle with six strong guys - one is 'hero'.

Fallen hero to be precise. And the new map area you just stumbled in is the Luskan docks, from a sneaker entry.

To the northeast is Baram's Lair. He says he'll release the kids if you bring him Kurth's head - that Kurth is with the Auril Priestesses. When you bring him Kurth's head he laughs and says he ate Londa's children. Lovely!

I talked to Kurth first. Actually, if you talk to the two High Captains, you can play their offers out against one another, they each want to other dead and you'll convince them to give you more gold. I killed Baram first, he was the bigger ass :D

OK, at the pinnacle. You find a corpse with a note indicating he was Aarin Gend's spy trying to protect Lady A. Ah well. Go down the stairs and in Maugrim's lair you'll get his yournal about the words of power. You're done in the tower, head back to Aarin.

Oh really? How about the lizardfolk you fight after Maugrim, Aribeth and Morag teleport away? By the way, I did encounter the bug mentioned in the gamebanshee walkthrough, but the solution didn't work. I tried something else with success - I attacked them with ranged weapons through the closed doors, that triggered the script - the doors opened, the leaders fled and the lizards attacked. This is a print screen of the character somewhere in the Host Tower of Luskan.


All in all, the chick's notes got messier and messier, I think she was by now mighty bored of the game. Good news is, I'll spare you the third chapter from her, seeing that even though I'm playing it right now, what I've read about the bits I've done hardly makes any sense. She must've given up halfway through the game, cause there are no notes on the fourth chapter. Or maybe she has overwritten them. With the Pony Princess Notes or something. Ok, I'm mean, I know.

out of tune with times

i have an issue with the times i live in. they just don't seem the right ones for who i've come to be. or maybe it is me who wasn't tailored right for the times that were meant for me. i keep telling myself the little tolkien mantra for the occasion...

'I wish it need not have happened in my time' - 'So do I. And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.'

but that is of rather small comfort. sometimes my cynical self gets the better of me and i am convinced i am way ahead of my time. because i can't help considering the way some people think and speak and act... well, narrow-minded and retarded. it's the blunt truth, though you must be fed up by my arrogance by now.

on other occasions, however... some of my ideas about people, the world, how things should be and how they should work... i seem to have taken them from past centuries. for instance, i continue to be amazed at the lightheartedness and superficiality with which people treat relationships. with which they treat each other. taken off the shelf, used, replacesd with a newer/better/brighter/more fashionable/gadgety item. it's like the consumerism of the age has spread over to relationships.

don't get me wrong. i don't vote for the virgin till marriage policy. i advocate sexual freedom to any extent that doesn't hurt others. but... this is the point. one night stands are great if you're into it; sex-only relationships are stressless and convenient and suited for the age; open relationships are perfectly ok... as long as both partners agree to that. it's as simple as that in my simple-minded view.

what i cannot understand, however, is (a) putting up a pretense of a relationship in order to keep a convenient sex partner around and (b) maintaining a relationship because it is a convenient thing to do - financially, emotionally, for getting chores done or out of habit - while not being into it or worse, cheating. i'd consider it immoral even if the partner in question knew about it and consented. but then at least it would be by choice. otherwise though... it's called taking advantage of someone's trust and that's almost as bad as you can get in matter of selfishness.

i don't know, really... i suppose it's because i've never really been there, but i don't think i could ever do it. i'm a horrendous liar. i can't even pretend to care well enough to maintain a relationship in the 'hardly satisfactory' area; i'd probably just let the whole thing die out and kill it off if it won't go peacefully. but i am almost entirely convinced i could never ever cheat. i am not built for that.

as said, the lightheartedness with which people talk of cheating, of maintaining several 'relationships' at the same time and juggling them, of hooking up on the spot and breaking up several spots later, the perception of romance as a race to displaying conquests, the ease with which 'loving', 'flirting', 'being turned on' and 'getting laid' are interchanged without them perceiving any change in the meaning... it absolutely scares the shit out of me.

sorry folks, i am really not built for such times. i refuse to be dragged into such a 'race' i have no chance to even finish and where i'd puke myself all over three times a day. i'll retire in dignity, at the risk of ending up alone and bitter like a dried out prune... but retaining some sense of self worth for not selling myself and my principles - old-fashioned though they might be - over to a trend of some misfit times.

lord knows i am no frank sinatra fan, but...

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!

images by: salvador dali, bogdan h. and gisaiagami