Only The Wind Knows

So the reason there hasn’t been a post for six months is because I couldn’t log in. That’s right. Time to uncurl your stomachs for some heartwarming laugh-it-up.

The entire site domain had changed before. I’d dismissed this as the issue because site was working just fine using the new URL. But I had never tried posting anything during that period, so when the problem did crop up, the URL change didn’t seem like a candidate.

If this problem sounds familiar, save yourself some misery. Read this, or go to the wp-options table in the blog database and update two fields to match your new URL: “siteurl” and “home”.

I’ve officially graduated from Carnegie Mellon SCS!

Eleven years ago, I was in a game store, playing the beginning of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The Great Deku Tree was a creepy and oppressive dungeon, in the best way. I remember waiting in that dark cavern with those soft pools of mist at your feet, before Gohma, the first boss, emerges..

I was ten.

The box art was spare and plain, so unlike the gaudy covers of other games. And yet it was incredibly evocative. I must have pleaded with my parents to buy the game, but I didn’t own an N64, and there was no special occasion that warranted such a large purchase. Driving home, I clearly remember staring out the window, my mind still filled with that dungeon..

Eventually I did get the N64. Renting the game, I played through Link’s childhood at least four times, and the Forest Temple at least twice. But that’s as far as I was able to get with the limited time I had. For reasons forgotten, I never actually bought Ocarina of Time — until a year ago.

Upon revisiting it, lost was the luster of childhood and the sheer novelty that had once awed a ten-year-old boy.

Still, the Forest Temple was wild and strange, and the Windmill Song sad and sweet, just like I remembered. And today, I finally finished what I had started eleven years ago.

Sheik: A thing that doesn't change with time is a memory of younger days...

I’m a sucker for pretty pictures and a good story. The following webcomic collections are some of the best I’ve seen on the internet:

Gunnerkrigg Court
My absolute favorite webcomic to date. The characters are compelling, the artwork is great, it’s often hilarious, and everything is mysterious in the right way. I read it until some unholy hour the day I discovered it.

Encouragingly, Tom Siddell (the author) has stated that he does have an overarching plan for the story, so it seems unlikely that this webcomic will regress. This is a good thing.

If you do get hooked, note that the first 14 chapters have been published in a book.

Rice Boy
There are two story arcs here: Rice Boy and Order of Tales. Rice Boy’s storyline has already been completed. Its plot isn’t always as cohesive as I’d like, but the visuals are amazingly surreal, and it’s a very enjoyable read. Order of Tales is currently ongoing, and has the same knack for artwork and a potentially stronger storyline.

Mister Bookseller
The artwork and the story are incredibly evocative. The original author’s livejoural is currently suspended, so unfortunately I can only link to some random blog. If the link doesn’t work, just google it.

The Devil And The Monk
The last page gives me shivers.

The Island
Eleanor Davis, the creator, hasn’t updated her site for a long time now. But this little story is a gem.

FLEEP
An intriguing tale.

Vulcan and Vishnu
A nice adventure with no dialogue. Excellent visual storytelling.

The site’s gallery has been revamped, and several new albums have been added.

http://www.onlythewindknows.net/gallery

I’m technically left-handed, but surprisingly enough, I almost always use my right hand for more physical activities. Recently, another left-handed person I know attested to this behavior as well. It’s not ambidexterity, but it is a pretty interesting phenomenon. Seems as if my left hand is the smart, sensitive one and my right hand is.. the guy who knows how to play sports. Well, they both have their subtleties.

Left handed

• Writing and Drawing
• Eating (Forks & Spoons)
• Billiards

Right handed

• Baseball, Basketball, Ping Pong, Frisbee, Tennis
• Using a Computer Mouse
• Brushing Teeth
• Trombone
• Aiming Things (i.e. Archery)
• Arm Wrestling
• Carrying Large Things

My Chinese name is Qi Sheng Yang, the first part being the family name on the father’s side. Phonetically, Qi has several meanings in Chinese, but my version is roughly equivalent to “chess”. Sheng, as I’m told, is an admittedly immodest term describing a sage or a master. And Yang is to rise, to fly higher.

“Rising chess master”? Clearly there is an agenda here, and unsubtly so. Both my dad and grandfather wanted me to be a great Weiqi player, which is a board game that falls under the umbrella of “qi”. As it turns I’ve sort of neglected that particular destiny, though I do know how to play.

One year when we went back to China, we were visiting Tiananmen Square when we came upon a peddler in a tunnel who offered to write our names in a variety of elegant ways. I must have expressed some interest, because my mother and aunt seemed like they would’ve been happy to ignore him. After my mom explained which characters were in my name he produced a number of heavy-paper cards and started scribbling on them with a silver gel pen while the two women stood watching skeptically.

He explained the myriad ways he was writing the name. Backwards. Forwards. Vertically. The white one was special: it was upside-down and reversed, so that you’ll see the characters if you hold it vertically looking at the back through a light, while simultaneously resembling a western signature in the horizontal orientation. It is a little mind-boggling. And presumably he knew how to do that for any arbitrary set of Chinese characters (there are a lot!).

Finally he handed them to us, and even my mother and aunt admitted that it was a good job. So perhaps it is not always so bad to take a chance with a peddler in a dark and lonesome tunnel.

I have made a page on this very weblog, a page that is brimming and replete with quotes. Being that it is a page, it will not move from its deep and unshaken residence at http://www.onlythewindknows.net/blog/quotes, free from the unjust and mercurial youthocracy of the main blog area. You can find it under “Pages” in the sidebar.

Did you know that using ‘quotes’ as a noun is actually incorrect? It should be ‘quotations’, only no one’s that uptight. Thanks for another useful thing that I know, Ms. Strizhak.

Cittàgazze has launched! It’s a website, like all the cool kids are visiting.

Let me know if something is broken, unless you have any flavor of Internet Explorer. In which case the navigation, as if beset by some sort of witchcraft, disappears when you try to use it, but inconsistently—as if playing host to some unseen and malevolent force. I am not even kidding, you can try it.