Duels

For the longest time I’ve been dreaming of living in the Victorian era. The country houses, the lavish balls, the pretentious mannerisms; surely it must all fit me. Alas, I’m stuck here in the mundane present where people gyrate in smoke-filled rooms instead of waltzing in chandelier-lit ballrooms. Not to mention they don’t even bow or curtsy when asking for a dance. Oh, for humanity’s sake!

Indeed, I had written off society as a cesspool of moral deprivation. Thus imagine my astonishment when Mr. Pang challenged me to a duel. How quaint, thought I, but how much pleasure it must surely afford. “Rapiers or pistols,” enquired I, adding that my second would meet his to arrange the time and terms of the duel.

“Neither,” replied he, “Warcraft III will do fine. And no seconds.”

No seconds, no pistols, no rapiers. Unheard of, thought I, but I soon decided that these could be overlooked. History was, after all, in the making, or rather, re-making.

Thus began the fateful duel to the death…

To those unfamiliar with Warcraft III, the first order of the day is to choose a race and a hero. Now, my worthy opponent chose the savage Orcs, which, in my opinion, while possessing fearsome combat abilities, possess even more fearsome eating habits. Indeed, their table-manners, or lack of, still send a chill down my spine. However, though reluctant, I had to, in the spirit of fairness, choose the same race as my opponent.

I chose the Far-Seer as my hero, an obvious choice seeing he was the only “mounted” hero. Sure, riding on a wolf is not exactly the same as riding a horse, but it was better than running around on foot. Why, I may have gotten my boots dirtied.

Once properly equipped, heroes start “Creeping,” an activity almost analogous to hunting. Heroes look for prey to hunt and gain items and experience in the process, but unlike the rabbits and foxes in the gentlemanly sport of hunting, creeps bite back. They really ought to know their place in society. Appalling manners really.

But their indecorum was soon eclipsed by the behaviour of my opponent, Mr. Pang, who soon arrived at the grounds where I was hunting creeps. Etiquette dictated that one should wait one’s turn when hunting. I was there first, and I naturally expected him to find his own creep but, to my great shock, he promptly shot at my prey! How rude, thought I, and just as I was about to confront him, he attacked me!

What an utter lack of decorum! What an affront to civil society!

Disclaimer: For those who don’t get it, this post is meant to be farcical. The truth is that I got pwned by the better player, and I don’t see any shame in that. Kudos to Terence, and subsequently Wan Yuan.

English Accents

This morning, while surfing through the Jon Stewart videos, I found a recent clip of Keira Knightly appearing in his celebrity interview segment. Ten minutes later, I found myself hopelessly infatuated by her golden tresses, her winsome appearance, her sharp wit, and most of all, her British accent. Of all the accents in the world, nothing appeals to my aural senses more than the vocal inflexion of an Anglo-Saxon, but hers was even more special.

It is on such occasions that I curse myself for not applying to Oxbridge. Indeed a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

Bad News for Bush

These make my day.

Bush's popularity reaches new low
Libby's trial to be prolonged
Brown is more incompetent than originally thought

With any luck, control of the Senate will revert back to the Democrats during the 2006 mid-term elections, giving liberals the power to kickstart investigations regarding the Iraq debacle. This isn't quite the blame game that the Republicans like to accuse the left-wing of, but the issue of accountability (which incidentally is the phrase Republicians touted almost ubiquitously during the Monica Lewinsky scandal).

In 2000, Bush ran on the electoral pledge of "restoring honour and dignity to the White House." Well, with any luck, they will be restored in the White House, but perhaps not quite the way Bush had expected.

GOP

And the tides have once again shifted to favour the Democrats, courtesy of a bold manoeuvre by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (the person shown above) had this to say. "This is an affront to me personally. This is an affront to our leadership. It is an affront to the United States of Amserica, and it is wrong."

Or, if I may summarise, "I've been owned."

Republicans have been crying foul over this development, calling it a stunt designed to draw media attention away from the recent White House nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. While some may consider this to be hypocritical as the said nomination came a few days after what pundits described as "Bush's worst week," we must conclude that this cannot be so as only Democrats pull stunts; Republicans are way too honorable to stoop to the same level as their liberal counterparts.

Yessir, the GOP stands for accountability, honour, and ethics, except when it came to Katrina. And Plamegate. And Tom Delay. And Haliburton. Yessir, the GOP stands for all these values, except when Republicans are involved; but on all other occasions, you can count on them to be beacons of moral rectitude and deliverers of justice.

Cooking To-do List

Recipes to try in November:

1) Potato and Leek soup
2) Tomato Gazpacho
3) Mushroom Pasta
4) Dijon Chicken

Stanford

The deed is finally done. My Stanford application has been submitted, signalling a close to a year of constant preparation and a month of intense essay revision. Yet strangely, the attendant emotions were neutered; to be sure, I felt a sense of relief and happiness, but nothing close to the rapturous euphoria one would expect. Anti-climatic, to say the least but probably understandable, given my growing pessimism about my admission chances.