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 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...

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.

Author’s note: Apparently there are like billions of versions of this story because it’s something like a thousand years old. This translation is mainly based on a version that our teacher read out of a Chinese book, probably a preschooler’s schoolbook or something, for our accelerated college class. Also, I wasn’t quite paying attention for the second half of the story.

Some of the nuances of the story may have been lost in translation, but the important details are there.

The Story

Once upon a time, an orphan boy lived with his aunt and uncle, who were not nice to him. His name was “niulang”, which translates literally to “cowman”. Er, I mean, he had no name. But everyone called him cowman. Because he herded a cow.

This cow was basically his only friend.

Also, cowman is hardworking and a decent guy. This comes into play later.

One day, the cow spoke to him and was like
“hey cowman, if you check out that stream tomorrow, you MIGHT find some ladies that are pretty chill and stuff. for marrying.”

Cowman was pretty unfazed that his cow was giving him dating advice, and also talking. He goes straight there and yeah, a girl is chilling there, just like the cow said. The girl is like some grandchild of the emperor’s wife, and she weaves the skies apparently. Her name is weaving girl.

Anyway, weaving girl knows all about cowman, for unexplained reasons. For example, she knows cowman is a really decent guy and hardworking. So she asks
“hey, lets marry”. This is pretty much a no-brainer for cowman.

YEARS LATER

So they marry and they live together happily for a while, and spawn younglings. The girl loves manual labor, it turns out. I mean she really digs it. When talking about things she loves in life, this would be up there. So they’re happy and the cow is with them too. The cow is totally alive.

But.

Weaving girl is bothered by an uncomfortable worry. Because she utterly ditched Heaven and stuff when she went to marry cowman, she’s worried that her grandmother (the emperor’s wife, btw) will come looking for her.

ANYWAYS

One day cowman finds the cow is making rivers with his eyes (he’s crying). Because cow knows he’s dying. The cow says
“when I die, you should peel off my skin. you should keep it in a safe place, because my skin could be.. useful to you. in the future, that is.”

The cow dies and cowman dutifully peels off the skin. Incidentally, around the same time, Heaven sends some guys to retrieve weaving girl. She’s flying away into the sky.

Cowman remembers the cow’s words. About the skin. He takes it out and it somehow makes him able to fly in pursuit of weaving girl. Cowman is unfazed by this. He puts the childs into baskets and pursues weaving girl.

This is where it gets weird.

The girl’s grandparents find out about this and they draw a river in the sky with a hairpin, to separate weaving girl and cowman. The river is the milky way (which is pretty unrealistic, btw). The hairpin is probably symbolic too. Anyway, people got upset so it was decreed that the two could meet one day a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, by way of magpies making this utterly gross bridge over the river.

THE END

http://www.onlythewindknows.net/gallery

Homewood Cemetery, August 2009. View through an incinerator.

flow is the first project I did for Multimedia Authoring, which was done with a partner (my second project was beatbox). It doesn’t do much, but it does look fairly.. sleek. It was an experiment in site navigation.