The Boring Games.

Like the previous series, this too was referred by a friend. Not being such a big fan of young adult anymore, I still decided to give them a read, since he couldn't stop talking about how epic the movie would be. I am completely lost as to why people even think it's a good novel. 

Let's start with the concept first, if you are an avid reader or even an avid movie watcher, I'm sure you would have heard of "Battle Royale", it's a Japanese graphic novel(manga). All though Collins maintains that she hasn't even heard of the book, I can't help to think that it's just a baldfaced ripoff of the manga. Who hasn’t heard of a fight to the death? The idea is entirely overused, so unless the author can breathe life into such an antiquated concept, it’s an idea best left alone. Suffice it to say, Collins’ take was completely uninspired and unoriginal. 

The book is written in present tense, which many writers opt out of, but that's probably one of the good things about the book, it helps with the world-building of post-apocalyptic North America throughout the book. All though I just wanted to stop reading it after I had just finished 40-50 pages, I somehow managed to painfully finish the first novel and reach a conclusion that, Katniss(the main protagonist) is just a dumb idiot. There is nothing out of the ordinary in her character and she fails to see most of the plain and blatant things, which according to her hunting prowess in the game, she should be able to. Collins fills Katniss up with all the stereotypical qualities of every female heroine ever and tries to make it work, but sadly it hardly creates a spark. 

The story and the world are really engaging and its what holds the book together until Collins decides at the end  that she would make it a trilogy and bore us even more. The ending is built up very nicely and and all I expected was that Katniss would commit suicide with Peeta, although again unoriginal(read Romeo and Juliet) but it would have made for a big explosive ending leaving the readers with so many open ended questions to answer with their imagination, but unfortunately Collins has this master plan of making them political targets and in the sequels she utterly disappoints and they are not worth a read at all. 

All though The Hunger games wasn't a waste of time, the world building and sticking to a pretty tight story, helped finish the book for me. But calling it awesome, excellent and brilliant is just ludicrous. The only reason I might like Katniss more, is because she can rock a fire suit and probably beats Bella at everything, yes I mean even at being miserable and pathetic. All in all, read the first installation of the series, but the other two are just a waste of time. These are just my opinions and I'd like to know what you all think about the books too and why you think so? 

HumtY-

A Song of Bulls and Shits.

Ok, so, I started the series on the recommendation of a friend, and I'm disappointed so far, having finished book number three. Said friend made the rather grand claim that George R. R. Martin was the new Tolkein, and since we share many similar tastes in books I decided to give them a read. Problem is, I've now finished what my friend says was the last of the really good books, and I can't even begin to see what it was he was talking about.


Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the books. There are two characters I actually give a fuck about (Arya and Jon), and a number of characters that I find intriguing, even if I don't really worry about what might happen to them (Tyrion, Daenerys, and Stannis). I like low-magic fantasy settings, and Westeros is certainly a good fantasy setting by my standards. The books have managed to keep me interested enough to finish them, so they're not complete wastes of time. My problem is that at best this series has managed to fall somewhere towards the "mediocre" pile. See, the series so far has three big strengths,  A big cast of unique and varied characters, a bit of political deviousness, and a good setting. Unfortunately, it fails to excel in any of these areas.


In terms of characters, there are some interesting ones lying around in the series. Unfortunately, they seem to be wasted a lot of the time. I was looking forward to seeing how Robb handled Roose Bolton and kept him loyal, and how their relationship developed. The lord of the Dreadfort was interesting when he was, to put it in simple terms, an evil character working for the good guys. I was hoping that a character as interesting as he would end up doing something a little more original than simply backstabbing the good guys. Aside from him, a lot of the rest of the cast is just outright annoying. Bran, Theon, Catelyn, I can hardly stand the chapters from their point of view. When Catelyn was killed, it was the single most pleasing moment for me in the entire series so far. Then the ending of A Storm of Swords ruined that. At least she can't speak anymore.


Then there's the supposed political intrigue. Except, when it all comes down to it, it isn't very intriguing. Basically, everything can be summed up as "Littlefinger did it", and political intrigue just isn't fun when, first, the main characters are all completely unable to keep up with the guy pulling their strings, and second, when the political stuff just gives way to open war. See, Daughter of the Empire by Raymond E. Feist (and for the record, I don't even like Raymond E. Feist's books) made for better political intrigue, because there the characters had a framework of rules and traditions to clamber around in, with a main character that was actually good at it. In A Song of Ice and Fire, the first inclination of every character seems to be to raise an army and go to war. It's like watching Alexander the Great with the Tsortean Knot. There's no point to it if no one's going to bother playing by the rules.


Speaking of those battles, the fact that nearly every battle either happens off-screen  or is largely glossed over gets on my nerves, especially when the sex scenes are described in such vivid detail. I mean, more detail on Daenerys's attack on Meeren (as a blow-by-blow account, instead of a flashback) would have been a lot more interesting to read about then details like how Cersei was on her period when she and Jaime reunited over the corpse of their dead son. Honestly that one scene was nearly enough to make me stop reading. I did not need a blow-by-blow account of their incest, but I would not have minded a bit more information on one of the various battles. Robb was supposed to be this genius in the field, but you never see him in action and he always comes across as thoroughly incompetent when he isn't fighting. Since all you actually see of him is him being incompetent, it's hard to feel sad when he's then killed as a consequence of being unable to manage without his mother.


As I mentioned before, the setting is the best part of the series. It's still hardly the best setting I've ever read though, and it's honestly being increasingly ruined by the rising presence of some great evil coupled with the growing presence of magic. If I want a grand and epic war against the forces of darkness, I'll read The Wheel of Time (which I tried, and come to think of it, that series has better political intrigue than A Game of Thrones as well, from my point of view). It seems as if it's trading in everything that made it unique and interesting to begin with an attempt to become a poor imitation of books that have already done this stuff better.Nobody can fault a fantasy series too much for wanting to have a grand confrontation with a malevolent evil, but I was honestly hoping for something more from what my friend had described.


On an unrelated note, I really enjoyed the TV series, quite a bit more than the books, but I think most of that was because Sean Bean is awesome. Again, the books aren't bad, but they're a far from amazing, and certainly not the new Lord of the Rings. So, with that in mind, I was curious. What do other people think of the series? Enjoyment of books is thoroughly subjective, but I would like to know what people see in them all the same.

Explorer.

The air was hot,
Her fingers wet,
from her vulnerability of desire,
Blessed was this moment
of unbearable satisfaction.

As she imagined to herself,
Stay still he grumbled,
As she flinched, ticklish,
His hands mapping out the small feminine body,
That had become his world,
And his preferred place of worship.

Smooth planes, gentle yet well endowed hills,
With their accompanying valleys distracted,
Making for such pleasant and scenic travels.
Lost on silk roads that shivered,
Under inquisitive fingertips.

He had always dreamt of being an explorer,
A new world to explore, he had at his disposal.

HumtY.

Dark Fantasy (Choco Fills)

An exquisite combination of luscious chocolate filling enrobed within a perfectly baked rich cookie outer. An offer that fully epitomizes the brand promise of "Pure Indulgence".


Waiting in his room behind a cigarette, all he could think was if he'd like to eat outside or at home. He couldn't wait any longer. It had been a long day, running around to get the forms and registrations for his new semester done. He had just scooped up some time to get back for a bath before he could go over to meet her. "When will she call damnit?" he exclaimed to himself, putting the cigarette out in the corroded Therptin box he used for an ash tray. He turned over and turned up the volume to some Tool and began to slowly drift away, with the smoke filling the room. The new neon green bulb he had bought had been more than just a psychedelic friend to me. "Looks like she ain't gonna call today." he thought to himself, at the same time wondering if the Net had gotten any better. Seemed like a cold, boring night ahead if the net didn't get any better. Everyday he prayed, Valve were such gods to have created DoTA 2, all though S2 were the one's who were getting him through the wait for it. He wasn't quite certain where or what he would be exactly when DoTA 2 would come out, with his college just getting over and the requirement of a Job to facilitate his present survival. 


The mattress, like time, had slowly slipped away under him, as he ashed the joint. 2 hours had gone by and he had been lost in the snow with K, wondering if he too was as alienated and if the bureaucracy(CBS) would let CHAOS air again, even though they were futile and endless goals. The matter for the present was neither the Net had gotten better nor had she called. A matter of utmost concern, at once a joint needed to be rolled and smoked to spend the time thinking what should be done about it. "Was there any food at home?" he stormed into the kitchen, there was rice, some daal, Murukus(ty blasphemiester), OREOS. That is where his vision stopped, he reached out and ripped the cover open, and popped 2 of them straight into the mouth.  It was only 1130 PM, at 2 AM the Net would get better. Tomorrow's class was only at 11 in the morning, if sleep did knock on his door today, he could squeeze in 4 games to make it to the class on time. Somehow, he knew this, and that made him smile. He retreated back to his room, wondering whether K would ever understand the pointlessness of his pursuit. He looked at the grass and sneered "I will not fight you!", the grass replied, "Give yourself to the Dark Side. It is the only way you can save your brain. Yes, your thoughts betray you! Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for... Me. So, you have a bored mind. Your feelings have now betrayed it, too. Your sanity was wise to hide you from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, then maybe it will... ". Unlike Star Wars, there wasn't an epic light saber battle going to ensue in his bedroom, but a simple cut,crush and mix procedure followed by a roll it and smoke it policy. 


"Whhhhhheerrreeeee Weerrreeeee Yoouuuu, Whheeeerrreeee The FUCK were youuuuuu." he sang with his stoned mind telling him he sounded like David Gilmour. While winamp switched to the aching cries of Maynard James Keenan " Who are you to raise your finger?" he was drawn back to K still chasing endless avenues. He checked the time on his laptop, it read 1:42 AM, which destroyed all the patience he had for K, bundling his pillows he turned to his laptop to wait the last 20 minutes out. "OH NOES!!!" the DvdRip of Paul was out, he was at a new crossroads this time, Paul or HoN. Tough question indeed. Paul would take an hour to download, and that would be enough time to spend with Eric and Hyde in the basement, or getting yelled by Red, "Dumbass!" while smoking a joint, and while he joined Paul later he could download The Tree of Life. The opportunities were endless, whereas playing HoN would lead to either pathetic games on semi-lag and over heating gameplay, or amazing games on semi-lag gameplay. But listening to Red about conspiracy theories last night, "I just think it's a little suspicious that right after we finished our Japanese-made dinner at the restaurant, our Japanese-made car malfunctioned!", had floored him for a good 10 minutes. He decided to download Paul and join Red for some fishing. 


The phone buzzed with Peter singing M.C Hammer's "You Can't touch this", disturbing Red halfway through a discourse on Parenting. It was her, she wanted to meet MaryJ, it was clear from his face that he didn't want to drive but he couldn't really get himself to say no either. He put on his jeans and sweatshirt, and closed the main door behind him. Who she was, and where she lived I do not know. He didn't come back that night, neither did he the next morning, he had taken his college bag and MaryJ with him. I had never left this house nor spoken to him, he did not know I existed, or so I believed. But I'm sure, he had at times looked straight at me and seen me for who I was, I was powerless then, unable to do anything but stare right back at him. Wondering if that was how I looked.


HumtY- 

Good Day

Abundance, goodness, indulgence and now unrestrained joy all in a Good Day.


There are times when you wished that the glory days lasted forever, that summer of 2009 was a summer to be remembered. We were all crazy little dumb-asses wasting away our lives. I always have wondered why haven't I put this up on the blog, that summer of 2009. 


It all started with Sadism, Orion and Mental having no place to stay for the summer. I had already made sure I had a place, I was staying with Astala. Mental being the most enterprising between the three made sure he got a place to stay at Diablo's place. What were we to know that Diablo's place would end up being "THE PLACE". The days were good, attending classes and praying to the lord Shiva, nights involved DoTA and more prayers and so on and so forth. We always did have difficulty finding enough players for a proper 5x5 game, but this summer was different. We had the right amount of people and the right kind of them. All of us crazy to play as much DoTA throughout the night as possible. Lets take a roll call now, Diablo, Astala, Desolator, Sadism, Norulz, Mental, Orion, Kau, Virgil & Myself. Often visited by Merlyn. All of us had laptops except Astala and norulz, well that was taken care of, we got their desktops to Diablo's place and set up a LAN, and we were ready to go. The nights were crazy, we started playing more than just DoTA, things like tower defense maps and deathmatch arena's became vastly popular among us procrastinators. 


We played every night, harder than the previous, prayed even harder. But this summer was here to stay. But the only thing that made this summer memorable was a fine sunday morning. After a really long night of DoTA and prayer, in the early hours of the sunday, we had planned to go to river-view ( a restaurant here in hellore) for breakfast. But nobody had the strength to get up and do anything. Astala was irritating everybody to go for breakfast. I was lying half dead in the hall, and couldn't care less. Everyone else in the small bed-room, half dead and half way to passing out. Astala was sure he wanted to go, so he started packing his desktop, and asking Diablo to drop him and his desktop off at home. Orion was beside him trying to unplug his laptop from the spike too. Astala reached for the spike, halfway through a dialogue to unplug his computer, when all of a sudden he started screaming "HELP! HELP!", and all of us were just looking at him in shock, well more in surprise because we had no clue what had happened. What seemed to me was that, the spike had somehow attached itself to his hands and wasn't coming off. Orion was the closest, he tried to beat the spike off him with his laptop, but in vain. Astala was still shouting "Help! Help!" and none of us did really get up to help him, and he got rid of the spike by himself and ran out of the bedroom, and into the kitchen. I was still lying in the hall watching this, being in the hall meant I could see both the kitchen and the bedroom.


Astala ran into the kitchen, and fell down on the floor. Orion followed him and tried to see what was up. Everybody else was still in the bedroom lying on the beds, and me still lying in the hall. Orion then goes back to the bedroom and announces " Dude, smoke is coming out of his mouth! Come see! *Chuckle*" and we all burst out in laughter in unison. Suddenly I see Diablo, Kau and Mental getting out of the room and Diablo heads straight towards the main door, while Kau follows him and Mental runs into the kitchen. Everybody else follows suite outside and slowly Astala is given water to drink and then he starts explaining what happened. Before he can, Kau exclaims "One Life Gaan! Macha One Life Gaaaan!", everybody bursts into laughter once again and this time it's Diablo in a very priestly voice " Today, we have almost lost a very dear and near friend, Astala" and once again we burst into laughter. Astala himself is laughing the episode off, he tells us he was getting electrocuted back there and he didn't know what to do and hence started shouting "HELP! HELP!" the weirdest part in the whole thing was, he didn't start shouting as soon as he held the plug or his hands got glued to the spike, he started shouting it awhile later, which made it look really funny, and the part where Orion ran back into the bed room saying 'Smoke is coming out of his mouth, Come see!" was just a cherry on top to give us the energy we needed to get up and start making fun of everything around us once again. 


We did finally go for the breakfast in River-view that morning. Never really enjoyed a breakfast there like that and a couple of more incidents where we could have lost Astala occurred, like slipping on the ramp for the disabled, pointing his butter knife towards himself and almost spilling hot coffee. To add to the whole episode, we reached back home and weren't feeling sleepy at all. A small prayer and ritual was performed and we started playing tower defense to better our time and wait for that ever awesome message at the end "You have won". Although it might seem like a very ordinary episode in anyone's life. That summer was the glory days. When all we cared about was DoTA and nothing else, ofcourse a little bit about the rituals we still perform. But DoTA none the less. 10 people living together because of their will to play DoTA was a crazy idea and that summer was nothing short of crazy. However small it seemed, it was a good 2 months of our lives. One that none of us who were there would ever forget. 

Nostalgia

I’ve lost before,

I’ve lost you in time.

I took the light through the silence,

Reaching out in your desperation,

I knew the waiting had been done.

My legs tread constantly and without boundaries,

Running along the rivers of time,

I wished I had lived again.

Following your footsteps,

The endless river,

To a time where  I would have found you again.

Your sweet and splendor,

Surprising yet, delightful.

Where have you been,

Reminding others

They are such fools.

Welcome, my son

You are just what I need.

Don’t tell me to go home alone,

It was Us not them,

Who had fought the cold,

In this shimmering light.

You ran free,

As the days looked by

Through the roofs,

Watching.

You were holding someone

Who was burnt and broken?

In this sea of change,

Its dark and slow,

While you ponder on

To all the dangerous and mystical places,

I knew the moment you came,

The clearing passed and

You came to life.

A thought, incepted by a song,

Lost in time,

With a greeting happiness,

While you were hanging from someone,

Afraid of what you were,

You found me. 

DoucheBaggery!

To begin with, I have been a douche myself to people, and have been on the receiving end towards the most part of my life. I like to think that I have a certain amount of expertise in this so called way of living. Yes lets put it that way. I've hung out with boys, men, uncles like forever. I have been surrounded by so many dicks, it surprises me that I'm still straight. But the company did lead to so much information and psycho analysis of the eternal douchebag. I'm disturbed by this because, there is always a point in ones life where you say I've had enough, even I want to be a douche. I'm sure of all the things I am and its certainly not any of things I am talking about here. Well just to be sure, I've tried being a douche to people and failed miserably, I enjoy being the omega or delta man in a group, of course enjoying the attention from time to time, but never would want the limelight. 


Okay moving on, their most simplest and easiest traits to recognize are of a bully. Why are they a bully? It would be way to easy to say they pry on the weak just because they are dicks. Oh no! They are way more complex than that. Don't make the mistake of letting them know you understand them or you know them, because your mind will be blown when they go about doing retarded douchebaggery just to make you feel you don't understand them at all. You see they behave douchey for one of three reasons, 

1. Underneath all that male bravado and superiority, there is an insecure little girl just banging on the closet door trying to get out. (Yes I am blogging from a secure location and I will not be subjected to douchebag assailants)


2. Their brains are under-developed, therefore unable to exercise self-control. So they act out aggressively in their own way, need not be physically at all times, every douchebag has his way. You just need to recognize it. It could be as blatant as physical violence or as insidious as manipulating friendships.


3.  They have a small weener. Yes this is reason enough to act out the way they do to compromise for the size. An ego as large as the empire state building does make do for 3 inches of the retractable sexual organ they want to put to use at a moments notice.  


Experiencing these at first hand has always been a treat and a source of unending entertainment. The world would not be complete without the existence of such mortals. Don't hate them, accept them. You never know when you have been a douche to someone and he/she probably thinks the same of you. I love how Kanye has brought back douchebaggery, but its not been a fun run on the receiving end of it all. All though i must say that  being surrounded by such idiocracy since a very young age certainly has filled in a lot of hate towards them and I despise them with all of my heart, if any of it is left. I'm surprised that I had nothing more to say, and I should have included a picture hand-book with this post for the message to sink in for the real douchebags. Cheerios. 


HumtY-