Monday, January 31, 2011

Drifting Sand, Hidden Meaning

WARNING:  The following audio is a Japanese song called Mizutamari ^^





Of bright flames reaching,
Seeking and fleeting
Red rose unearthing,
Hesitant and lurching
Balancing a candle,
Burning in the water
Above the mantle,
Never the hotter
Of rain so shallow,
But daggers and bullets
Cometh falling cowl,
Returning thy cullet
Enduring the tides,
Making them crimson
Continue a bide,
Or open its prison

Even though I can tell I have a whole lot to learn about poetry, and look forward to it, I do feel this poem is pretty good given my goose egg poetic foundation.  I guess I'll go ahead and explain the meanings next entry or something, as I'd like to thereby do my poem some justice.  I'd like to hear some of your ideas though.  That means you! =D

I wrote up this poem on a whim just now, took about twenty minutes.  Please tell me what you think!  To be honest, there's A LOT of hidden meaning in most of it, though it's not all that deep.  At least it's far deeper than any of the poems I wrote for fun in high school, not that those were necessarily illegitimate.  I haven't actually studied poetry yet besides hearing some stuff in class, but from the few classes I've had so far, I've learned quite a bit about various sects of English and felt confident enough to give this a try.  I'm aware that my line breaks are *probably newbie, too much like normal prose.  I hope you'll let me know what kind of symbolism and general idea you see in this poem.  I don't think it's all that hard to figure it all out; if anything, it's probably still too simplistic compared to poems like The Tyger.

WAN...MOA...SING!

Does anyone agree with me that it's kind of shitty that some of us get marked in school, in university no less, for remembering random people's names??  Not even a history course!  I hate having to memorize/study useless things.  I'm talking about the kind of names I'll never ever have to refer to in any way for the rest of my life.

Ever.

WAN...MOA...SING!

Tonight's class was almost completely focused on the poem The Tyger.  These classes are so abstract and vague, it makes my head hurt.  It seems like even though the prof is doing a good job of teaching us and explaining everything - no complaints there - all of my classmates and I time and time again find ourselves confused and stupified<--With emphasis on 'stupi'.  Well, I'm exaggerating, we're doing our best and contributing a lot of interesting (but often too shallow) conceptions.  Mr. M is totally correct in his perception of us as a detail-oriented class, seemingly dull in terms of imagination, or at least our ability to visualize the verses of poetry and prose.  And here I thought my imagination was great.  Mind you, I've gotten the hidden meanings right in some of the discussions, but once or twice he must of misheard me, having corrected me with the exact same thing I had just said.  In such instances, as long as my peers continue to turn to meet my eyes with dignifying glances of comical sympathy, it's all good.

Mr. M is a really sharp-minded old dude, I must say.  His hearing is not bad either, contrary to what I must have implied ^^  I'm happy that he thinks I'm the best or one of the best in the class when it comes to grammar.  He mentioned this on two occasions so far, and seems to have made note that I'm putting in a lot of effort.  Tonight, for example:  I was the only one out of the entire class who handed in all the work sheets/mini tests assigned last class.  Although I may be obscuring his exact words, he said, "Even you had at least a few mistakes in here.  It's strange that no one's handing these in for correction when their grammar is worse than yours."  Even though I'm already aware by now, it still feels good.  Gives me a feeling of confirmation that the next four, five years may, no, will go smoothly!

WAN...MOA...SING!

I became more than a little irritated today upon realizing that in order to most easily succeed in this kind of course, I must be familiar with not only Greek mythology (which I don't mind, I'd be almost happy to brush up on a bunch of fun myths), but also the bible...  Bible=need to know=*knows nothing about it at all, and doesn't care (no offense to those who do)=destroyed person.

Solve for I.
E=MC^2, therefore I=destroyed person.

WAN...MOA...SING!

Bye for now! Sayounara~

Sunday, January 30, 2011

-Mini Post #3-

So...




I went ahead and changed the look of the blog - a complete makeover.  My brother said it was hard to look at, and at the very least, I thought the sand background was unappealing.  I switched the background for something cool, refreshing and simple: Water, and matched face by tweaking the blog title.  I'm still happy with the blog title and it doesn't clash with my epic first blog post.  What do you think?  Is there any detail of this blog that you disagree with?

Just a tiny little Pokemon update right in the middle of today's post --> I think I really like the ice type.  I've gained a bit of an urge to raise up an ice-themed team, but there are some clear drawbacks.  For one thing, Hail does not pump up the team members very much, only activates some mildly appealing abilities such as Snow Cloak and Ice Body.  It's nowhere near as powerful as Swift Swim, Sand Throw or Chlorophyll, which are activated by rain, sandstorm and sun respectively.  There are some cool ice types I've always wanted to use, like Lapras, Furiijio (5th gen.), Jynx and Cloyster, not to mention Weevile.  However, I'm really not a fan of Abomosnow - a Pokemon with the ability Snow Warning, which whips up a hail storm and is a must for any ice team.  Oh well...

So anyway, I've been reading Sunwing, and it's been quite enjoyable.  I started a couple of days ago but just from reading it in bed, I'm nearly finished.  It drew me in quite powerfully.  I've decided to read a lot more in general so that one day I can become a successful author.  By the way, do you know of any good fantasy fictions written almost as though they were poetry?  I thought up this writing style, but I had no idea it actually existed.  ~Zannen datta na~~~

I played a quick little game on KGS today because my online student never showed up, and wow do I suck.  I'm sure if I practice for a few weeks I can get some power back, but man, oh man...  Well, I'm probably still CGA Fifth Dan, but...  That may change soon, and if it does, then that's IT!!  I'll have to do something about it, won't I?

A reminder to myself  --> Buy a huge booklet of lined paper!  -->Once I have it, trail-blaze it with prose!

Whenever I've written story ideas on keyboard, I've gone a bit slow, but I've gone amazingly fast on paper, so that's what I'll do!  The hard part is forcing myself to write just one story, rather than thinking about my other, what, nine well-developed story ideas?  Sometime or another I'll take a crack at writing *deep* poetry, the kind we analyze in my class.  Although I need to focus on my school stuff, I would like to complete a novel within the next 2-3 years.  Guess my New Years Resolution's already out the window ^^

Oh yeah...  I should start working on stuff now, byebye~

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Drifting Sand, New...Pokemon?

Hey!

Well, as I've said before, I love games.  Card games, board games, video games, I love them all!  I especially love rpg games such as Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda.  I guess I'm pretty loyal to Nintendo.  Although it may seem a steep contrast to my other posts, allow me to go ahead with a Poke-post.  I'm a bit anxious to receive my copy of Pokemon White version, which comes out in early March.  Thus, I've been preparing for it by doing some [labourous!] breeding and training in my Platinum version, preparing to shift it all over.  I would just like to post a few lists and details for my own reference.  Hopefully someone else who plays Pkmn will see this and find it mildly interesting.  Having finally finished a pile of school papers, consisting of drills, lessons, practice tests and other things to that effect, it's time for a break!  Hence this post!

Main Team~

Well, yesterday I came up with a bit of a team formula and decided to divide my team into six themed slots, but without strictly adhering to said themes.  Each slot contains one main battler, one substitute battler, and then either another substitute or a special circumstance battler.

Slot 1 - Fire Type

Main~ Arcanine[fire]
Sub~ Ulgamoth[bug/fire]
Special~ Vulpix[fire]

Slot 2 - Water Slot

Main~ Starmie[water/psychic]
Sub~ Tentacruel[water/poison]
Special~ Wartortle[water]


Slot 3 - Grass Slot

Main~ Scizor[bug/steel]
Sub~ Serperior[grass]
Sub~ Doredia[grass]

Slot 4 - Electric Slot

Main~ Jolteon[electric]
Sub~ Zoroark[dark]
Special~ Pikachu[electric]

Slot 5 - Flying Slot

Main~ Gengar[ghost/poison]
Sub~ Dragonite[dragon/flying]
Special~ Zapdos[electric/flying]

Slot 6 - Miscellaneous Slot

Main~ Chillaccino[normal]
Sub~ Doryuuzu[ground/steel]
Sub~ Bronzong[psychic/steel]

This list pretty much confirms My Style once again:  >>Fast Pokemon >>Slightly special attack oriented >>Balanced >>Using favourite Pokemon, not strongest

It should go without saying, but my battling team at a given time will consist of one Pokemon from each Slot.  Below, each Pokemon choice and purpose will be explained...

Arcanine~ My favourite Pokemon, learns a variety of great attack moves such as Flare Blitz, Flamethrower, ExtremeSpeed, Wild Bolt, Close Combat, Crunch, Dragon Pulse and more.  Although his speed is not so impressive compared to other prominent fire types, his attack power can be as high as three hundred and fifty, with decent special attack power and HP remaining.  He also has the useful ability, Intimidate.  I like to hook him up with the Focus Sash item.  One of his greatest assets is his almost exclusive move ExtremeSpeed, which is a Quick Attack with double the power, perfect for finishing unfinished business.

Ulgamoth~ One of the big hits of the coming Fifth Generation.  His speed equals that of Charizard and Ninetales, and this fire bug boasts an impressive four hundred and five maximum special attack power.  With the amazing new move Butterfly Dance to raise speed, special attack and special defense in one go, Ulgamoth is truly a force that cannot be questioned.

Vulpix~ My favourite unevolved Pokemon, and within my top four overall, Vulpix will be one of my 'Little Cup' team members.  I plan to use Vulpix in regular, non-LC battles when battling an unskilled player.  Bred with the table-turning sleep move, Hypnosis, Vulpix has the potential to cause upsets.  I plan to equip it with the fifth gen. hold item, Evolution Stone, which increases both defenses of an unevolved Pokemon by fifty percent.  I believe it is one of the cutest and beautiful Pokemon, like Ninetales and Milotic.

Starmie~ Starmie has been one of my favourites ever since the First Generation games, Red, Blue and Yellow.  Even as far as the games have come since then, Starmie is actually one of the top Pokemon because of its great speed, great assortment of special attacks, and useful move Rapid Spin.  This move is really important for removing Stealth Rocks, Spikes and Toxic Spikes from the field.  My move set is Rapid Spin, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt and Psycho Shock (a move that applies Sp. Atk damage to opponent's Def stat, making Starmie harder to 'wall').  Psycho Shock can be replaced with Surf or Hydro Pump, which makes up the usual set for Starmie, I think.

Tentacruel~ Tentacruel is decently fast, has decent special attack power, and marvelous special defense.  Not only can he use strong strategic moves such as Toxic Spikes (which, if used by the opponent, is eliminated when he is sent out), he can also use Rapid Spin to clear the friendly side of the battle field.  He's a useful Pokemon in various ways:  A special wall, a spinner, a hazard producer and a special attacker.

Wartortle~ Within my top three Pokemon of all time, Wartortles stats are not as bad as one would expect of a Pokemon in its second of three evolutionary stages.  As for his move set, I've concocted an interesting plan: To get some "free" damage on the first turn with Fake Out, which forces a flinch, then hit as hard as he can or use a strategic type of move.  Even when he's about to be knocked out, he can get an additional "free" hit using the priority move Aqua Jet, which nicely contradicts his slowness.  With the amazing Evolution Stone item mentioned about my Vulpix, his defenses can both receive a fifty percent increase.  In Wartortle's case, it means his defense can be higher than four hundred!  This means that he's completely superior to Blastoise in terms of defense.

Scizor~ Scizor is one of the greatest forces in the current meta game.  With nearly four hundred attack power, high defense, and all the resistances of the steel type, Scizor is very versatile.  With the ability Technician, his priority move Bullet Punch is pumped up, which helps him with his slowness.  The move is of course also powered up by Same Type Attack Boost.  With U-Turn he can hit and switch to another Pokemon, with Super Power he can deal some enormous fighting type damage, and with Swords Dance he can double his attack power to eight hundred!  After one Swords Dance, he becomes hard to 'wall'.  Speaking of walls, he himself makes a decent physical wall.

Serperior~ The grass type starter of the Fifth Generation's Unova region.  His speed is great and defenses more than decent, and with the amazing ability Perversity, which he can obtain through the game's Dream World, all changes to his stats during a battle have opposite effect.  This means one thing and one thing only:  The powerful move Leaf Storm, which normally severely cuts the user's own special attack power, instead doubles it!  Serp does heavy damage and hugely increases his power at the same time.  After just one of these, even grass-resisting Pokemon can receive heavy damage, and after two of them, he can often sweep an entire party of Pokemon.  He use a huge and scary threat that acts fast!  Serperior's only con is the lack of type coverage of its available moves.

Doredia~ Doredia is a beautiful Pokemon, which appeals to me.  It's part of my style to use Pokemon that look cute, beautiful or cool, but not ugly.  On its own, Doredia is usually not as much of a threat as Scizor or Serperior.  It's stats are not amazing, but they're respectable.  Decent speed, above average defenses and great Jolteon-level special attack.  The biggest selling point is its almost exclusive move, Butterfly Dance, which pumps up its speed, special attack AND special defense in one go, as mentioned earlier about Ulgamoth.  Although Doredia has about the same lack of type coverage as Serperior, it has access to some excellent strategic moves, such as Aromatherapy, which heals the status ailments of all the party Pokemon.  In  sunlight, Doredia's Chlorophyll ability doubles it's speed, so with the right support, it's even more of a force to be reckoned with!

Jolteon~  What can you say about the good old speedy Jolteon from the first generation.  He's one of the fastest in the game and has great special attack power.  Even his special defense is quite decent, and with moves like Thunderbolt, Volt Change, Charge Beam, Shadow Ball and Signal Beam available, he's certainly a force.  His greatest selling point is his amazing speed.

Zoroark~ One of the most interesting Pokemon of Unova.  He has the unique and exclusive ability, Illusion, which causes him to take on the name and appearance of the last Pokemon in your party.  Your opponent will normally have no way of knowing that your Pokemon is actually Zoroark, so you can trick them into using moves they think will be super effective, but are actually neutral or don't even affect Zoroark at all, such as Psychic!  Your opponent also won't know about the moves Zoroark can use until it's too late, such as Dark Pulse and Flamethrower.  His special attack is even higher than that of Doredia and Jolteon, and his speed is greater than that of an Arcanine, Charizard or Salamence.  His attack power is also decent, his only poor point is his defenses.  Paired up with the right Pokemon in his party, such as Gengar, Zoroark definitely finds his place and is a lot of fun.

Pikachu~ The mascot we love, I just can't resist using him.  I would like to obtain a Surfing Pikachu, one that can make effective use of the powerful water move, Surf, but I'll just talk about a normal Pikachu for now.  He wins the cuteness prize, and with special Pikachu-specific hold item Light Ball, his offensive power goes over four hundred!  It's assumed that this item was created to replicate the powerful Pikachu from Pokemon Yellow, or in other words, something like Ash/Satoshi's Pikachu.  His moveset is decent, stuff like Thunderbolt, Volt Change, Volt Tackle, Grass Knot and Signal Beam are all advisable.  As expected, his defenses are terrible, but his speed is the same as that of Doredia, so he's a really fun Pokemon to use when battling a player who has room for improvement.

Gengar~  One of my favourite Pokemon, another badass from First Generation.  His speed and special attack are quite high, and he can learn a great variety of special attacks such as Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt, Focus Blast and lots more.  He also has some other useful moves such as Destiny Bond, which causes the opposing Pokemon to faint if they make Gengar faint, and Gengar's speed takes full advantage of this tactic.  One of Gengar's main selling points is his use for switching into enemy attacks, with the ability Levitate preventing him from receiving ground type attacks, and his ghost type preventing affection by normal and fighting type moves.
Can't argue with Gengar, very strong and useful and can replace a team's flying type necessity.

Dragonite~  The defensively bulkiest of the Dragon 'brothers', Dragonite is always a force to be reckoned with, considering his huge attack power of over four hundred and access to the move Dragon Dance, which increases his attack and speed.  In the Dream World, he can now obtain the ability Multi Scale, which cuts the first damage he receives by half.  His move set is great and he can serve a variety of purposes powerfully well.

Zapdos~ A legendary Pokemon, but not considered 'Uber', that is, banned from the main battling tier.  Although I don't like to use legendaries, I do like Zapdos, so I'll keep it in store for certain occasions.  Zapdos has decent, Ninetales-level speed and good stats overall, but the main attraction lies in its maximum special attack stat of three hundred and eighty three.  Personally, I think it's really useful that Zapdos can be taught the powerful fire move Heat Wave, which is really great for an electric type.  Zapdos deserves its 'legendary' status and won't serve as a "weak link" on any team.

Chillaccino~  The evolved form of Chillarmy, Chillaccino is one of the cutest Pokemon of Unova and is a lot stronger than Pikachu, despite its similar cuteness and size.  Although a Jolly natured (+spd -sp. atk) Chilla's attack power doesn't quite hit even three hundred and its defenses are low, it makes up for it in various ways. For one thing, it's as fast as a Starmie, which is saying a lot.  That means it's faster than Gengar, Espeon, Latios and even Serperior.  Besides its speed, it's strong points are its ability Skill Link, which causes multi-hit moves to always strike five times, and its move set.  Its best moves include Bullet Seed (grass, power 125 with Skill Link), Rock Blast (rock, 125), Aqua Tail, U-Turn and last but not least, Sweep Slap.  Sweep Slap also has 125 power after Skill Link's effect, but it's also pumped up by Same Type Attack Boost, since Chillaccino is normal type.  This boosts the power by fifty percent, bringing it to 187.5, and with the hold item Silk Scarf, it can be boosted to something like 205.  Normal jewel, a one-time use hold item that boosts normal moves' power by 50%, would bring it to around 280, which is well above even the power of Selfdestruct!

Doryuuzu~ A popular Fifth Generation Pokemon with huge attack power whose speed doubles in a sandstorm.  Even without a sandstorm, Dory is pretty decent, so I have him in place as a solution for fighting against the now-popular sand teams.  I like to equip him with Choice Scarf, allowing him to out-speed pretty much anything at the cost of move selection.

Bronzong~  Although I've never actually put him into practice, he seems like a really useful Pokemon for acting as a wall, and setting up Stealth Rocks, a move that damages Pokemon the opponent sends onto the field (and acts as rock-type damage).  Both of Zong's defenses are great, and even his offensive power seems respectable.  He can also make use of his low speed with moves like Trick Room and Gyro Ball, which can be deadly!  With great defensive abilities such as Levitate and Heat-proof, his weaknesses are pretty much cleared.  I don't know, that seems pretty strong to me.


Over and out!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

-Mini Post #2-

For a night owl to go to sleep early and successfully succumb to the moon's will is easier said than done!
Feeble nocturne, wouldst not thee gain thy effect through the drowsing power of literature?  I will give this a try.
No, I have never studied old English.  I don't even know if that right there was the time to spell it 'olde'.  One more thing I need to delve into I suppose.

Okay, off to read...

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

-Mini Update # 1-

Yo!

I have to leave for my 6:30pm Lit class soon, as in about five minutes from now, so I'll make this quick.

Having stayed up super late and right into the morning, I decided to sleep in really late too.  I thought sleeping until right before my class might give me the mental energy needed to survive being talked at for over two hours. This class is really abstract, and really difficult in that respect.  It seems like everyone in my class is completely confused and pwnd, and this is a class of 45-55 students.  I guess it's about time to get going.  No, it didn't take me five minutes just to type this tiny paragraph, I was just distracted ^^'

BY THE WAY!

Please let me know anything about this blog that should be changed!  Anything you don't like about the way the blog looks or the way it's formatted can be changed easily!  I didn't spend very much time fixing it up.
Any suggestions about anything to do with my blog will be taken seriously.

See ya!

-Crimz

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Drifting Sand, New Journey

Hello, reader.

My name is Crimz.  That is not my real name, it's an alias.  Ahem...  I hope to be referred to as Crimz.

Up until, well, now, I've made updates about my life and my thoughts on my Live Journal page, Duelist Domain.  Gaming was the intended theme, as most of the content was focused on the game of Go - one of my greatest passions.  Having just begun my literature course in the University of Toronto's Academic Bridging program and put Go somewhat aside, I've that decided a new blog befits a new beginning.  So there we have it, my new blog.

So you might wonder why I've named the blog 'Drifting Sand'.  I was thinking about the way my life's been going, with all the sudden changes and all of my supposedly whimsical thoughts about how it should be lived.  You've probably heard a ton of metaphors about the course of one's life, and an hourglass is probably one of them.  All the sand in the hourglass is initially concentrated in the upper half, but slowly funnels its way down into the bottom half.  I was thinking of that process as a straight and narrow kind of life, imagining the glass itself as the way we limit ourselves based on an understanding of our environment.  What would happen if the glass weren't there, one might wonder.  But of course, the sand would be carried off by the wind.  The thing to remember though is that many of us have full control over the direction and velocity of the wind.

As the whole thing explained above hopefully suggests, I'm one of those people who values their free will; their philosophy; and their dreams.  When it comes to choosing my paths in life, I'm pretty outgoing.  Up until around the beginning of ninth grade, I wanted to become a martial arts master!  I've always been an idealist, realism made the world seem dull.  I've always tried to view the world with a tint.  It's not as though I was overly naive, I just preferred to live inside my own imagination whenever it was mostly inconsequential.

During the first half of high school, I wanted to become a personal trainer.  You see, it all started in elementary school.  Because of my overly childish and clown-like behaviour, among other things, I didn't have a whole lot of friends.  I never conformed to things I didn't like, even if they seemed beneficial.  This way of thinking had a powerful connection to my own eventual discrimination at school, thus I was only able to befriend the kids that were in the same boat.  Things got a little better in juniour high because there were a great number of kids who loved to play video games and card games.  What can I say, I loved those, and still do.  Anyway, all the pent up angst of being isolated and picked on was still growing.  Something about all of that torment combined with stepping into puberty boiled together in a powerful way, invoking a lot of motivation for change in me.  I spent the entire summer before high school putting myself through rigorous physical training.  Back then, my will power was pretty unbelievable.  By the time high school had started, my physical fitness and strength seemed to have multiplied.  It wasn't long before I became known for my physical strength all around the school.  It seemed the only rivals I had in that respect were a select few of the seniours.  Yes, back then I was far stronger than my current, twenty-one year-old self.  However, I feel that those experiences have granted me a new level of will power inside.

That little recap above might as well be my life story, for it was one of my really amazing accomplishments.  However, little did I know that my life was about to once again change in a big way.  In the eleventh grade, I started playing Go.  Go soon became my greatest passion ever and completely took over my life.  I made a lot of new Go playing friends and the sands of my life were blown in a new direction.  I learned a lot of important things from my Go playing friends, and I was able to reflect on myself a great deal during my time in Limbo.  That is, the time I spent out of school after graduating.  I even traveled to South Korea by myself to join a Go school, an amazing experience that I will never forget.  I learned Go for about three years and reached the level of Fifth Dan in Canada, and I've currently been playing for about four and a half years.  I've learned all sorts of interesting things from Go:  Rationality, reasoning and logic are just a few.  I was always an underachiever in school, having failed a bunch of courses and gotten lots of fifties and sixties.  However, I was so passionate about the unbelievably difficult and amazing game of Go that I became quite studious about it.  That, in turn, affected me in a big way.  In my final years of high school I achieved mostly eighties and nineties with ease, something I had never come even close to in all my prior years of education.

I eventually stopped improving so quickly at Go and had great difficulty trying to make the transition to Sixth Dan, and I became impatient with the sluggish flow of my life.  It was as though I had become frozen in time, my clock had stopped ticking and I ceased to take any steps forward.  When it came to jobs, I could only get the crappiest variant, and I hated them.  So eventually I finally let go of my dream of becoming a professional Go player, which was unreasonable to begin with, and decided to go to school.  One of the many tools I've extracted from Go was the ability to make sacrifices for 'the greater good', so it was as though I was given this as a test in my life.  I'm not the type to give up on a dream easily, but I'm also not the type to let myself become blinded by the idea of 'fighting spirit' or anything like that.  I've finally realized that although that kind of value can bestow the power to persevere, it can also blind one's sight of the great plethora of paths that lay afoot.

I Just need to get 73% or higher to become a true student of U of T!

So here I am, here I am.  I truly feel like a transformed being, but of course still far from perfection.  Humans are so ironic.  We seek perfection, something so unthinkable.  Yet at the same time, our satisfaction is fleeting. No, it's not fleeting, we run away from it.

Signing off,

-Crimz