Wednesday, May 21, 2008

What I'm Listening To: Lithium

Lithium
Don't want to lock me up inside
Lithium
Don't want to forget how it feels without
Lithium
I want to stay in love with my sorrow
Ohhhhh woahhh
But God, I want to let it go

Come to bed, don't make me sleep alone
Couldn't hide the emptiness, you let it show
Never wanted it to be so cold
Just didn't drink enough to say you love me

I can't hold on to me
Wonder what's wrong with me

Lithium
Don't want to lock me up inside
Lithium
Don't want to forget how it feels without
Lithium
I want to stay in love with my sorrow
Ohhhhh ohhh

Don't want to let it lay me down this time
Drown my will to fly
Here in the darkness I know myself
Can't break free until I let it go
Let me go

Darling, I forgive you after all
Anything is better than to be alone
And in the end I guess I had to fall
Always find my place among the ashes

I can't hold on to me
Wonder what's wrong with me

Lithium
Don't want to lock me up inside
Lithium
Don't want to forget how it feels without
Lithium
Stay in love with me
Ohhh ohhhhh
I'm gonna let it go

I feel all a Twitter!

So my friend Onnawufei introduced me to this thing called Twitter. It's over on the right side of The Sanctuary, now. It's like a mini-blog that can be updated on the fly, for times when I want to update but don't have time. Don't expect anything particularly interesting, however.

Oh, and by the way, I'm aware of how cheesy/corny/gay the title of this entry is. I haven't had enough coffee yet to get my pun mechanisms churning, all right?

Monday, May 19, 2008

Pika Pika!

So I'm looking through the parcels that have been delivered to me, and I come upon a small package, only a few inches in diameter. As I do not recall ordering anything of this size, I immediately suspect it was shipped in err, or that it is some sort of method of my destruction. Wearily, I open the box, ready for anthrax, a bomb - just ready for anything.

Imagine my surprise when this was the face staring at me:



Knowing I hadn't ordered this adorable little mouse, I was still nonplussed. It was only after reading the accompanying slip that was inside the box, that I was able to understand that I had won third place in a contest sponsored by Armour brand meats that I had entered months ago and promptly forgotten about.

Needless to say, I was suprised. This was the second time within a month I had won a toy of some sort (the other one will be published in an upcoming entry), when usually my luck with winning anything is slim to none, and slim's left town. Could this herald a change in my fortune, or is it just random.

Monday, May 12, 2008

REVIEW: The Simpsons Episode #419: Mona Leaves-a

I have been a huge fan of The Simpsons since its first season, although I do not recall if the first post-Tracey Ulman show episode, Simpsons Roasting On an Open Fire, was the initial episode I had viewed. Even after many fans have abandoned the series, I have continued to attentively watch every and every episode multiple times.

This past Sunday's episode was a bittersweet addition to the series' canon (or what can pass as canon); the return of Mona Simpson, mother of Homer - and her subsequent death. Yes, The Simpsons still proves it's as ballsy as every, by killing a main character's mother on Mother's Day.

The story opens at Springfield Mall, where after Marge tricks Bart and Lisa into becoming the recipients of incredibly uncomfortable sweaters. Bart, Homer, and Lisa pressure Marge into going to three separate locales within the mall before leaving, but Marge decides to do something Maggie would like: go to the "Stuff and Hug", a thinly veiled parody of the "Build-A-Bear Workshop" franchise. Following an adventure in which Bart angers Homer by recording rude taunts onto talking plush hippopotamuses, the family returns home to find their front door open.

Equipping "The Defender" (a makeshift weapon made from a chain and a cinder block), Homer attempts to get the drop on the burglar... until the smell of apple pie piques his interest, and he realizes the intruder is his own mother.

Mona attempts to reconcile with her son, but Homer declines her gesture of goodwill, hurt after the decades of her absence. When he decides to make amends, it is unfortunately too late; Mona has passed away. The scene in which Homer discovers that she has died is possibly the most sad and touching moment in Simpsons history.

Mona's funeral is attended by Seth and Munchie, the hippies from "Do'h-in in the Wind", and an elderly man of whom I did not catch but a glimpse. Abe delivers one of the better lines of the episode, in which he indicates he had always planned to dance upon his estranged wife's grave, but does not feel the urge to do so any longer.

Unfortunately, this is where the episode begins to dip in quality. Upon viewing her video will, the family is left with specific possessions: Bart gets a Swiss Army Knife, Lisa is given the intangible gift of her grandmother's rebellious spirit, and Marge is left a hemp handbag. Homer, however, is charged with the task of spreading his mother's ashes upon a specific mountain at a specific date and time. Upon doing so, her ashes clog the launch mechanism within the mountain, which is to launch a missile Mr. Burns is planning to aim at the Amazon Rainforest. To Homer's dismay, Mona had recruited him to help her pull "one last hippie mission". Homer is captured by Burns' guards, but the family uses the gifts Mona left behind to help him escape (Lisa uses the rebellious spirit, presumably, to swipe a diamond earring of Mona's that was left behind on a nightstand - which is also used in this rescue mission).

Following his escape, Homer comes to terms with Mona, and a montage of scenes involving her plays to the song "Mother and Child Reunion" by Paul Simon - a song which deals with a mother and her child, separated by death, who hope to be reunited in the afterlife.

Despite its lulls in storytelling and humor, Mona Leaves-a handled the death of a character much better than season eleven's "Alone Again, Natura-Diddly", which, although was a more humorous episode than this one, was very tepid in the manner of Maude Flanders' death. Mona Leaves-a also gives us two very genuinely touching moments - Homer's realization of his mother's passing, as well as the ending montage. Serious, sad moments are more common in Groening's other series, Futurama, so their inclusion in The Simpsons was a pleasant surprise.

Strangely enough, as of this writing, Mona Leaves-a is the Simpsons episode with the lowest viewership ratings - despite it being one of the best of the season.

Final Verdict: B-

Thursday, May 8, 2008

It's kind of Bright at this House

Monday, May 12th, a co-worker of mine, Issac Bright, will appear on the FOX TV series House M.D., also known as "House". I'm not certain who his character is, but I found a screenshot of him in the show, which you can see below:






Image courtesy of Spoiler TV.

Wait, who's a ninja now?

As the only method of video capture that is currently in my apartment is a very shoddy webcam (it works well enough for person-to-person conversations in Windows Live Messenger, but it is not built well for photographs and footage), it may be a while before the first true episode of The Corporate Ninja appears.

What exactly is The Corporate Ninja? A nickname amongst friends and co-workers of mine is "Ninja", or some variation thereof, due to my practicing of ninjutsu and fondness of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When a co-worker, Elman, was giving out e-mail addresses to a domain he owned that was related to an inside joke here in the office, I decided to take the name "corporateninja@....."

Months later, when Elman was out of the office, some other co-workers decided to use the webcam in his iMac to film a short skit show titled "The Elman Show", as the videos were left on his desktop and they addressed him directly within the video.

At one point, I had brought my ninja hood to work and decided to film an episode as The Corporate Ninja. This video is one of the two available on Youtube, which you can see below:



The video was moderately popular on Youtube (three months or so old and over 300 hits at this point... not exactly viral, but better than I expected). One of my co-workers suggested I create a Corporate Ninja spin-off.

I later voiced The Corporate Ninja in a short cartoon my brother made, which is in the process of being posted on Youtube. I began to realize that there might be something to this character after all.

The Corporate Ninja format has yet to be truly decided; maybe a video log with a healthy dosing of humour. Although I am not directly basing any of the show on the very popular "Ask a Ninja" series, there is no doubt that it will in some way influence the show, as I am a huge fan of said series (I in fact recently purchased the Ask A Ninja DVD).

So there you have it; the history of The Corporate Ninja. Are there any comments ye have on said topic? Any suggestions for the show? Do not hesitate to let me know!

Namasté,
~The S

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Yes, I am alive.

So I've decided to formally abandon my old Livejournal account - the last post was in July of 2007 . Since a plethora of people I respect, admire, and/or communicate with have blogs here on Blogger/Blogspot, I've decided to move it here.

Now, therein lies a problem; I rarely keep up with my blogs at all. This is due to disinterest, busyness, laziness, or just the fact that there are occurrences in my life I would rather everyone on the internet to know about. Not to mention, that my previous blogs did not exactly have readers on any sort of a basis.

So who am I? For the uninitiated, I am The S. The story behind said moniker is long and complicated, and I may write a separate entry on its origins in the future. I am also known by many other names, including Corporate Ninja, Samael, Koji Suzuki, and El Lobo.

I am in my early twenties and reside in Washington state. I work as a Fraud Analyst for an anti-phishing company. I have practiced several martial arts for many years, including contemporary ninjutsu, Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryuu, and taiji quan.

I wholly admit, without shame, that I am a die-hard Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan; despite them being a fictional creation, have led me guidance on my life. In addition, the TMNT and Bruce Lee were my inspirations to follow a life of martial arts.

My other interests include horror movies, especially Japanese ones (aka "J-horror"), my favorite of such being films in "The Ring" series. I also enjoy Hellboy, Lost, Heroes, CSI, video games (both playing and design), and to a lesser extent than in previous years, anime and manga.

In closing, I would like to thank anyone who comes across here for taking the time to read this. Perhaps in the future, I might have a regular reader or two.

Namasté,
~The S