Whew... it was a while ago, but let's just say... another bullet dodged.

Quote from John ("Dywn"): "So, would you let me play as a multiclass warlock/monk who flies around, blasts people with his eldritch blast, and then pummels them with his fists? ... Name? Vegeta." LOL Dragonball sucks, but it was an amusing quote at one D&D session ^^

... Ware wa... niwa jin dewanai... Ware wa omoitachi no kami desu!

Whew... it's been exactly two months since my last post in this diary. I've started college and all, and find it just as dreafully boring as high school. The curriculum here apparently assumes that all incoming students have led utterly sedentary and socially-lacking lives up until this point and feels the need to teach us things we *should* already know. These would be things like how to talk, how to write, and how to read. Sorry if I sound a bit pompous, but didn't we all learn how to read starting at about age 5? And those of us in "wholesome" families, perhaps earlier? And writing naturally came only about a year behind that, and speaking! By the gods, I learned to speak before I could even form complex thoughts! As did we all, I sincerely hope. Unless you were raised by wolves and recently returned to civilization, that's probably the case.

In any event, I'm having less fun than I hoped and have more free time than I know what to do with. But I'm making progress. I've put the finishing touches on my novel, "Rose Prophecy" and am awaiting only a few proofreading sessions from various family members before I package it up and send it off to publishers, hoping I can get a foot in the proverbial door. But let me tell you, publishers really don't make it easy. All the big ones have the policy, "Don't come to us. We'll come to you," and in a few cases they accept manuscripts from agents, but never from the author. After spending many hours searching the Internet, I found two corporate publishers with adequate information about themselves on their website, as well as an invitation to prospecting authors. A whole two. And this isn't counting the vanity/subsidy publshers and print-on-demand publishers. I need something that doesn't cost money, because that's something I don't really have. I don't mean to make big bucks with my first submission, but if I do, yay for me.

In any case, I'm gonna see where these publishers take me. I hope one of them accepts my manuscript, though the one of them seems to be the type to say, "We'll publish your work as long as you have at least hal a brain." So, I hope I can say to look for my works on shelves soon. Wish me luck, hm?

So I've found this little twit on here who thinks that I'm too stupid to realize a film-ripped image when I see one. I'm busy warning him about it, but he insists that it took him one and a half years to TRACE an image from Cowboy Bebop and post it online. At 14 years of age, nobody has that patience anyway. But this picture, it's just a screenshot from one of the episodes. The little snot didn't even remove the DVD rip artifacts from it; you can see the screen cutoffs! I'm insulted. *fumes at stupid people*

Character reactions:

When faced with a dragon...

Elliaryn: "My soul, come to my call and defend me from this foe!"

NightHawk: "... Rose..."

Kelart: "When a foe is of a size/ that his chest just meets my eyes,/then I believe 'twould be most wise/ to turn around and run away,/ and, as it seems they always say,/ live to fight another day."

Jynx: "Kelart, stop complaining and blast it with your lyre."

When meeting an attractive member of the opposite sex...

Elliaryn: "Greetings, my lady."

NightHawk: "..."

Kelart: "Bathe my soul and light my eyes,/ woe, the legends, they tell but lies/ of thy beauty, O divine!/ I would that thou be one day mine!"

Jynx: "... Kelart, get away from her."

Calculate "t" and find whether vectors g and h are parallel with the equations "g: (x|y|z)= (1|2|3)+ t(0|2|1); h: (x|y|z)= (1|0|2)+ t(1|0|5)".

Elliaryn: "..."

NightHawk: "..."

Kelart: "..."

Jynx: "..."

Kelart (again): "..."

Kelart (yet again): "... ... When a foe is of a size..."

Jynx (again): "Kelart... ... nevermind."

Cures: Headache and stuffy nose
Possible side effects: Headache, stuffy nose, nose bleeding, hemophilia, baldness, blisters, death, brain damage, loss of limbs, rashes, acne, and diarrhea.

For those of you wishing you could see a softer, more serious, and more human side of your good buddy NightHawk, well, this is your jackpot... *sigh* This is another one of my incresingly frequent emotion dumps, so those of you who hopefully don't care, just read over this.
I don't like to do this, as I'm one of those people who almost always has control over his emotions. In fact, almost 98% of the time you'll find me in good spirits. But all that changed when I came on exchange to Switzerland. We were warned beforehand that such an undertaking would be a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but as I've never even been on such a ride before, I wasn't and still am not prepared to face hill after hill. I'm riding one of those rickety, wooden ones, too, so the car bumps and wobbles, and my knee keeps slamming into the side whenever it turns.
Like today was another downhill rush. I don't really feel like getting into the nitty-gritty of it, but I'll probably end up doing so anyway. I had to go to this meeting, and basically, it ended up that I'm a lazy bum who spends too much time doing solitary activities involving English, rather than hanging out with my incredibly loud and sometimes outright obnoxious host family and speaking German, talking about unexciting stuff like the latest law upon which all Swiss peopl recently voted that states that all sidewalks must be kept clean of rubble. Okay, so I exaggerate, but it's basically like that. This old asshole stood up I front of the entire club and told everyone that I'm the aforementioned bum and need a kick to the butt to get me going. That wasn't thrilling.
Then my host father turned all of a sudden into a school-Nazi, saying that the 42 hours I spend every week in a school building simply aren't enough. I need 48 hours of school in order to experience Switzerland's culture. Honestly, if all Swiss culture revolves this way around school, then count me out and get me on the next flight back to King Bushland. America might be filled with people who need to have their heads stuffed into blenders, but at least I wouldn't have to put up with all this instability which is foreign to me. And the school. 42 hours is 7 more hours per week than I spent in class in America.
So, as I usually do whenever I reach the top of the next hill and begin the earthward plummet to the ground (hey, this safety bar is rather loose...), I begun to look at all the other things about myself that bother me. Namely my social inactivity. And my poor skills at building decent relationships with the right people. Namely women/ladies/whatever you want to call the female half of the human race (I've had too many people get pissed when I say "girl" or "woman" that I'm probably going to stop trying and just be a hermit for the rest of my life. Or just a bachelor. A very rich bachelor, and I'll lord it over you all!!!)
So while I'm rushing downward, feeling an acidic wind ripping the skin off my face and hands clenched to the safety bar of this old coaster (my face, however, is NOT wrapped around the bar... though it might as well be. Eh, take it as you will), I'm getting this glorious reminder of everything about myself that annoys myself. But I don't know how to fix these problems. I know myself better than anyone. But I don't know other people well. Sometimes when I meet someone, of either sex, interested in simple friendship, things go well. Other times I realize from the beginning that it's a lost cause.
To put things bluntly, I have to admit that I've gone almost all my life without someone actually caring for me in a way more than just the way friends do (you see, I'll never directly admit to being lonely, I'm STILL beating around the gods-bedamned bush... I think I just contradicted myself...). I've had two "relationships" that I can remember that lasted for more than three days, and neither of them lasted more than two weeks. Believe you me, whatever twisted man who is the matchmaker of this world put me at the bottom of the list. Maybe because he does it alphabetically?
What's worse, I'm terribly afraid to actually go to someone whom I've known for a time and for whom I have feeling for and actually say something to the effect of, "I love you." That is the one phrase that I have NEVER, ever in my entire life said, not to anybody. Don't even bother to ask if there are ANY exceptions. It's such a binding phrase, one that should have more meaning to it than it really does today. I suppose that's rather old-fashioned of me, but I've always felt that love should be the one thing with which one never plays. But along with that feeling comes a fear of actually using it, in case it turns out that I must break such a bond, or have that bond broken upon me. Like over the head with a 2x4.
*chuckle* I think I can hear the groans of many of my female readers at suffering such an encounter with such a weak-kneed young man. Let me know if I'm wrong, because I often am, despite my claims of sentience and intelligence.
Well... I'm looking at the time and thinking of everything else I have to do tonight (nothing), and wondering how long I can go on without bursting a vein or something. For some reason I feel better already, though I'll probably feel stupid later when some really strange (female) person reads this and writes to me, "dont wrry ill be ur tru luv its wut uv ben lookin 4 rite? ~hottstuf" (if this is your actual screenname, don't write to me and complain. It's a random name I just made up. Though if you do complain anyway, I just might find a use for you as a MEAT HOOK TESTER. Copy?)
Then again, such a psychological shock just might be what it takes to bring back the good old, practical NightHawk before I start kicking some ass again. But until I find a way to let out these feelings (remember, I'd NEVER admit to these...), I think I'll just be a whiney, depressed brat.

NightHawk Falconis

"... Rose shall cry."

Thought I'd do something new today. Movie review! "House of Flying Daggers."

There is little more enjoyable in modern-day life than taking a smooth ride on a train into the big city to witness cinematic masterpieces with a friend or two. Despite the high prices of both tickets and refreshments, it is usually an experience that leaves one with a sensation of awe as they become immersed in the myriad of camera shots, bloody war scenes, heart-wrenching romances, and surpriesing plot twists. Then again, there are movies that have both the best and the worst of two worlds. "House of Flying Daggers" is one such specimen to which one must say, "How could they???"
The opening scene of the movie was admittedly rather awe-inspiring as a beautiful, blind Chinese girl twirled an intricate dance, competing with a man who threw beans at standing drums. The contest was to see whether or not she could hit the drums in the same order in which the beans were thrown. The choreography left nothing to be desired, and I was completely drawn into the rhapsody of the beating drums and whirling cloth before this girl revealed her true nature: an assassin who operates for the House of Flying Daggers, a group of rebels dedicated to undermining the government.
This movie was rife with beautiful battle scenes, and the camerawork was nothing short of masterful. However, as I stated previously, this movie had bits and pieces from both ends of the spectrum.
First, I must say that I cannot talk about the plot without spoiling it, but fear not; there is nothing much to interest you here. The entire movie, for one, used about twelve different actors the entire time except for a very short shot of an enraptured audience at the beginning of the movie. Or maybe I was just looking over my shoulder at the time, as we were situated at the very front of the theater. The basic plot of this movie was terribly linear and became progressively worse as the movie unfolded. This blind girl from the House of Flying Daggers needed help in getting back to the northlands, where her guildhouse was situated deep in the bamboo forests.
Oddly enough, she was aided by a man who was a loyal member of the current governmental system. I won't go into the various plot twists, as with every movie made in the Orient tends to be rife with strange flips and double-crossings. But it pained me to see such wonderful battle choreography and terrific acting deeply cut by random love-scenes that had absolutely no place in such a film. After each battle, the two main characters, Jin and Mei, would fall to the ground in each other's arms, though every time, one of the two would push the other away or run off on his/her own as though this were some epic romance saga, which it isn't.
As time progesses and my bladder pains me more and more from the Coca-Cola I quickly imbibed, it turns out that the girl is not actually blind, and that half of the characters thought to be in the Chinese government was actually allies of the HFD. After reaching the HFD headquarters, Mei is told to execute Jin after pushing away her own former lover in favor of the mischievious warrior (she has only been with Jin for a few days). It wouldn't have been so bad if the creators of this film had left it with that--either that she had killed him, or that she had let him go and was returning to the HFD, never to see him again. In such a case, I would never have written a review, because while it was a sub-par film in regards to plot the entire time, the ending was what really pulled everything together--did I say that? I meant the ending was what finally pulled the entrails out of this dying beast.
As it turns out, Mei chases after Jin, but is stopped by her former lover out in the fields as his dagger flies through the air and burys itself in her heart. At the same time, Jin turns around on his horse and decides to ride back to Mei, but he comes across her cold, stiff body several minutes after her former lover leaves. Somehow, she's still breathing and warns Jin that the other man was just about to attack him, and Jin manages to get away.
The following fight scene, while once more wonderfully choreographed, was rife with big, annoying, weirdnesses that one can only expect of a film originating in China. At some point the director took a look at the film and said, "Wa, gnai chai woogawa ni mani engzhou!" which translates into, "Hey, we should put some snow in here just for effect, even though it's still early autumn in the rest of the film!" And everyone else nodded their heads, bowed, and inserted some CG snow intot he fight scene. I suppose it might have been there to represent the coldness in the hearts of these people for making such a plot-empty film, but oh, well.
So it begins to snow as our two warriors happily hack each other to pieces, blood staining the snow as their breath becomes shorter and shorter. Finally, just when it seems that Mei's former lover is about to kill Jin with one of his daggers, Mei, who must have been lying there for several months already, stands up and warns him not to kill Jin. They jibber for a moment in Chinese while I madly read the German subtitles, and basically, she says she would destroy herself if the mand threw his dagger at Jin. Personally, were I one of the two men, I'd have given her such a look and said, "What??! You’re not dead? Die, you demon!" and given her a few good schlags of my sword just to make sure the deed had been done once and for all. This woman was like the Chinese Rasputin, or something, because she just wouldn't die.
So the other man makes like he's going to throw the dagger at Jin, and Mei pulls the dagger from her own heart and throws it out to stop the other dagger. Blood pours out of her heart in slow motion that looks more like Code Red Mountain Dew that's been sitting open for a few days, and only then does she see that the other man hadn't thrown the dager at all. Finally, she falls down for the third time in the movie, and this time, I figure that if she's not dead yet, then she deserves to live just for being such a sport and letting the directors place her in such a movie. It turns out to be a bit of a Romeo and Juliet movie, though it never shows Jin dying. In fact, it leaves several loose ends disappointingly open, as it shows the governmental troops advancing on the HFD, but never shows an outcome, and the movie suddenly ends there. Perhaps they will explain these events in a sequel, but I won't be seeing it anytime soon, so someone with the misfortune of actually viewing the next film will have to tell my how things turn out.
The bottom line is that while there are some good Chinese movies in theaters, this wasn't one of them. The beautiful acting and camera angles were corrupted by the empty and outright strange plot. I suppose that if you haven't seen this movie, it might be good for a rental--if someone else pays for it.
So I will wrap up this warning against a bad movie here and remind you of one key principle in theater movie-going. Always take a friend along so that whenever a storywriter messes up a film with this much potential, you at least have something upon which you can take out your anger--like your friend's head as you schlag them with the armrest you ripped out of the seat.
Thank you for reading, and remember, make good movie choices.

If you don't know D&D well, then you probably won't get this.

"Hey, what are your character attributes?"
*looking over page* "I'm a 10th-level elf!"
... "Um, but what class are you?"
*looks at page confusedly* "I'm a 10th-level elf..."
... "No, no what race, what class are you???"
*looks at page once more* "Race? I'm a 10th-level elf!"
... "You're playing 1st Edition, aren't you?"
... "I dunno, but I'm a 10th-level elf!"
*sigh*

Ach, wow... today's probable just going to be a blogging day LOL I'm totally a mess. tore up my right thigh just before taking a huge splinter in my left foot, and it's probably infected O.o oh, well. Who needs feet, anyway? XD

I've kinda been really bored lately. Like, I'm still doing all this analyzing and realizing of things I used to be amazed at. Even though I'm in another country right now, I'm still in the same world. Gravity still holds me down, water is wet, and the sun burns my skin. Nothing different. The joy at first was like, I was away from everyone I knew, and I didn't know where I was, I could get lost easily. Then there were the new people I met, which was even better, and even now all our relationships are groing each day. But there are some things that... are simply disappointing. Sure I'm somewhere else, meeting new people, and speaking a different language, but somehow, it's still all the same. My friends are different but we somehow have the same jokes here as back home. The land is different, but what the hell does that mean? It's better for photos, I guess. But would something new happen to me? PLEASE?

NightHawk Falconis

"... Rose shall cry."