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I wrote this last week and meant to post it then… oops!

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I think it’s blatantly obvious that art mimics life. I think what might be a little hard to see is that life mimics art, but that too is quite obvious once given some thought. The ebb and flow of these two things is pretty fucking cool.

While typing the above it hit me that what is considered art is also a somewhat limited. I believe when many people think about art, they stay in the realm of things like paintings, sculptures, music, movies, etc. In reality, art goes much deeper than these. A running back spinning and twisting and turning 40 yards into the end zone is a work of art. Really clean code (programming) is art. A well written book on economics can also be a piece of art. Art seeps into every facet of everyone’s day to day life.

Knowing this makes it easier to understand how life mimics art. Micheal Jordon, the Da Vinci of basketball, was (like Da Vinci) imitated by quite probably millions of people around the world. There was a time when I tried my hardest to pick up Jackie Chan’s acrobatic skills. And the Billionaire Donald trumpet even has his own TV show (that gets broadcasted here in Taiwan) so even I can enjoy the trials and tribulations of an apprentice.

And what do you get when you look apprentice up in the dictionary?

1 a : one bound by indenture to serve another for a prescribed period with a view to learning an art or trade b : one who is learning by practical experience under skilled workers a trade, art, or calling
2 : an inexperienced person : NOVICE

Not all arts are trades, but all trades are arts.

LIFE The Video Game

The ramblings above are all linked to a new game I’m playing, Oblivion. I bought this game when I bought my Xbox because of the high rating it received, but shortly after I sold it because I didn’t like it. Something inside of me has recently been telling me that it is a really good game and I just didn’t understand it. Last week I had an opportunity to purchase it used, so I scooped it up.

The interesting thing about this game is that you have TOTAL freedom in what you do, and there are probably thousands of things to do in the game. There’s the main story line, which is what I tried to follow the first time, but then there are TONS of side quests. On top of all this freedom is the ability to customize your character and choose an occupation. This just adds another layer of complexity to an already complicated game.

Well, all this freedom made it hard for me to focus. I just kind of ran around doing a bit of this, a dash of that and a taste of the other thing. Enjoying myself, but not really making any progress forward. After doing this sort of “aimless” gameplay for a bit, I noticed that I really liked thievery. I found myself spending almost all of my time breaking into houses and selling the goods. The character I chose wasn’t really good for thievery, so I decided to start a new game and choose to be a thief. Once I knew what I wanted to do in the game, it was really easy to progress forward. I did numerous missions and have gone up many levels.

This game pretty much directly reflected life. In the game, if I tried to be an archer, a magician, a thief and a knight all at the same time, I’d just end up sucking at all of them. But if I choose one trade (thief for me) and progress in that field, it’s really easy to move forward. It’s also easy to try other fields once you’ve established yourself in a main one already (because at that time you have more gold and items availible.)

Anyhoo, it’s a really cool game and the first I’ve played that has mimicked life this way (and done a good job of it.)

Three Cheers for Beer

In an "unfortunate" turn of events I ended up going out three times this week (last week 10th, 11th and 12th. ) Wednesday night I had free tickets to a dance club. Thursday night was the Forumosa Happy Hour.

And Friday was the ritual beer night with the homeboys. I noticed I was looking a little rought Friday morning (haven’t trimmed me beard in a while.) What do you think?

This is why I’ve been an “absentee” poster for a bit.

I don’t have time rant about international free trade, unemployment, or any other economical misfortune that plagues the planet.  But I will today, because it’s relevant, mention the fact that I’m becoming more responsible with my alcohol consumption.

We all know that drinking and driving is "bad", but many people do it (I am/was on of the many.)  Well today I start drinking responsibly.  No more scootering to the bars.  Now I’m on the MRT, Taxi, bicycle, or will foot it.  If I do happen to scooter, I’ll be sure to leave it, or drink no more than "two."

That’s all for today.  The wife had her boss over, so I had to entertain and stuff.  First I played Xbox with the son, then the daughter came bye later looking all "I’m too old for this shit grouchy."  "The Terminal" is on and it’s cool watching them laugh at the funny parts.  I like how the humor crosses culture.

I’m minutes away from taxiing to a new and exciting drinking adventure

Wow.  It’s only been 10 days since I last blogged.  A year or two a go that wouldn’t have even been considered a break in "usual" blogging activity, but now, people have asked me (WHAT UP MONSTER!) "Dude, everything alright?  Why haven’t you been blogging lately?"  Well there is a reason (a combination of some things.)

A.  Oblivion (an Xbox 360 Game)

I actually have another post that I wrote a fews days back sitting on my computer that will go into a bit more information about it.  This is an RPG (role playing game) set in medieval times.  That means you get to run around doing magic, swinging swords and robbing fools.  Now take a look at this picture:

(image from tomshardware.com)

You see that mountain in the background?  The grayish looking one kind of in the middle of the screen?  If I wanted to, I could run all the way out to the fucking mountain and slash a frolicking deer, do some pillaging and drink an ale on the way.  If that wasn’t cool enough, you can do WHATEVER you want to do in this game (whenever you want.)  It has a linear story (that I haven’t even started yet), but it’s also jam packed with side missions and frolicking deer to slash.  I’ve been logging a lot of hours on this recently.

B. is for…

Beer.  You’ll notice that my last post was on Monday of last week.  Tuesday I cracked out playing Oblivion, then Wednesday night was all-you-can-drink night at Wax (and a friend hooked up entry), followed by a Forumosa happy hour on Thursday, then my Friday night drinking ritual.  The weekend brought me back to A (cracking out on Oblivion.)  All in all, good times.

I’ll keep this one short.  I guess this is like an I’M BAAACK! post or something even though I didn’t really go anywhere.   There’s also a lowercase c.

c.  Reading Again…  Wait.  Nah, fuck that.  It’s uppercase.

C.  Reading Again

I took a break from daily reading a few weeks back.  I think my brain needed to digest all the new information.  I just recently finished: "Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One"

(publisher site | link to Amazon)

And I’ve just recently started "Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics" (link to Amazon.)

I’ll save ranting about economics for another day (I hear Oblivion calling…), but understanding economics is something I wish I could just inject into people.  Or I wish I had some kind of economics pimp glove that I could slap niggas with when they didn’t recognize.  I’d be like *SLAP*  "It’s called economics BITCH!  YOU BETTER RECOGNIZE!!"

OK, I always have something to do, but now, for the most part, they’re little somethings (in my mind.) So little that they’re practically nothing. This past Saturday all I did was surf the net and play video games. I never even left the house. What’s so special about this? Nothing!

The special part is the fact that I had absolutely nothing on my mind, hanging over me. Usually playing video games is a “break” in between two somethings. I, for example, might tell myself “OK self, we can play video games for an hour or so, then we have to [Insert the bazillion things there usually are to do.]” I also didn’t make up something to do because I had nothing to do. That false busy. Any way, it was nice.

You Can Find Me at Game Club, Bottle Full of Bub…

Look hommie i got the time,if you need an English sub
I’m in there having fun I and eatin’ up some greasy grub,
So come to Game Club, if you’re into gettin’ drunk

OK, that was a rewrite of a 50 Cent song. Actually, I’ve heard the song before, but never seen the video. Also, I’ve never heard the clean version. The dirty version is:
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What you’re about to see is about 31 minutes of couch assembling action, zipped up into about 2.5 minutes. I only increased the speed, nothing was cut out (except for about 2 seconds in the beginning.) I think it turned out OK. Below the video is some of the dialogue (it’s hard to understand because it’s sped up.)

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