You should be reading this: Liar Game

The Players.

Honest people beware, you have just entered the Liar Game.

This manga slapped me upside the head while I was reading my boards. Someone was raving about it, calling it the new Death Note. That made me curious, although being compared to Death Note is at best a mixed blessing. Its over-the-top 30 Xanatos Pileups and a Harajuku gothic veneer made Death Note a good read once through, but it’s not something I’ll ever come back to. Some of the revelations and leaps in logic made me roll my eyes, and the second half of the manga was definitely a lot weaker than the first.

Liar Game, though, makes the back-and-forth mind games not just the best part of its story, but the entire premise.

The story revolves around Nao Kanzaki, a stupidly honest girl, naive to the core, who winds up with more than she bargained for when she opens a mysterious package with a note attached:

Congratulations! You are one of the 1 in 100,000 people who have been entered in the amazing LIAR GAME TOURNAMENT!
Along with the postcard there are 100 million yen in notes. That’s the beginning of the Liar Game. When the game ends, in 30 days, you will have to return your 100 million. If your opponent steals them, he can keep them as a prize, and you will have a debt of 100 million…

Naturally, Nao thinks it’s all a joke at first, but soon she sees how incredibly screwed she actually is. Upon realizing this, she begs for the help of a notorious con man named Shinichi Akiyama. Little does she know that Akiyama has his own plans for the Liar Game…

I read all 83 available chapters of the manga in one sitting. It’s beyond engrossing. Each round of the Liar Game introduces us to a new game and a new set of characters, and every round the stakes are higher. And, as a reader, each game gets better. The games are logic puzzles, and the manga is deeply steeped in game theory. A knowledge of social dynamics and zero-sum games is key to winning the games (and to truly enjoy the manga) and the real joy is to be able to figure out how people are manipulating the games to suit their own ends. And the characters, unlike Death Note, are actually likeable. Nao’s desire for honesty and fair play becomes a pivotal plot point, and everyone has the own reasons to keep on playing. This manga is pure crack. Go read it!

 

This whole blogging thing

I think for the rest of this summer I’m gonna try for a consistent blogging schedule: three times a week minimum Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with each day devoted to a specific subject:

Monday: You Should(n’t) Be _____ing This. Reviews and recommendations from the various media I consume.

Wednesday: Personal blog/poetry.

Friday: Bitching about politics/gay rights/et cetera.

I believe this to be a workable plan and will start tonight for my first post tomorrow. I’ve been listening to new music like crazy so I have a lot stockpiled to rant and or rave about. The only thing I’ve been consistent with in terms of blogging is my utter inability to keep my promises and keep up the pace, but I think a more topical approach will keep me on the ball.

Wish me luck.

 

thunderheist – jerk it on Vimeo

My 100% happy post. These cats are playing in Hamilton soon and I must be there.

more about "thunderheist – jerk it on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

 

Family Day post! <3<3<3

This post actually isn’t going to be about Family Day. People like it, people don’t, people find it absurd. Whatever. I dig the holiday pay.

Minor celebrity sighting today. Dallas Green came to the store. I wasn’t sure it was him until one of the other customers turned around and called him out. He actually looked pretty cute with facial hair. I didn’t say anything to him besides my typical quick “Hi!” and the price of his beverage. No, I don’t remember what it was.

Two of my old co-workers came into the store today, one I like and one I wish would be erased from history for she is the most loathsome hag I have ever had the displeasure of encountering. Now she knows where I work, and she blindsided me by asking for my cell phone number so I could “help fix her computer”. I’m gonna screen that shit like a blood test. How do you politely say: “No, you can’t have my cell phone number, you bitch-harpy”?

Anyway, the main point of my post is that I’m going to stop promising I’m going to post more. Retail sucks the will to write out of me. That’s all there is to it. Blogging doesn’t really count in my books. All of the good, creative shit I should be doing bounces around my head in the morning, usually while I’m making popcorn or small-talk with the customers and vanishes before I get a chance to get it down. Action without stimulus. I’m doing such menial tasks that I don’t have to think about for hours on end and it just fucking kills my creativity. So, I’ll post when I feel like it. Hopefully that will happen more often.

I haven’t post a poem in months. That makes me really fucking sad, actually, even if no one wants to see that shit. I’m going to force myself to write something soon, probably in a specific form of some kind. Maybe another sonnet.

AGH WHY CAN’T I JUST WRITE

 

This is what I get for trying to go to bed early

I would really like to get through a month of blogging without taking a week-long break from it, but once again I failed to have been inspired by much of anything lately. I think this is perhaps symptomatic of my seemingly endless sojourn in quarter-life limbo. I’ve applied to graduate now, though, so at least I feel like I have a real springboard to move on and out, and if I get into that French program it’s very likely that I won’t return for a very,very long time.

A few things I wanted to talk about though:

• Obama backtracked on repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gays serving in the U.S. military. Yet another disappointment for the LGBT down south. Canada not only allows gays to serve openly in the military, but actually allows gay wedding ceremonies to happen on military bases. Get your shit together, Obama. The studies have been done. End the madness.
• A woman was set on fire outside a stripclub in Tarzana. Setting aside any potential feminist issues here, that is just an incredibly heinous act. How cruel does one have to be, how detached from reality, in order to douse another human being in lighter fluid and throw a match on them? This was apparently the result of a personal argument between the woman and two of the bar’s patrons. However, there was also the case of a homeless man who suffered a similar fate in October of last year, which seems to indicate that people will do this kind of thing pretty randomly. Let’s not have this be the start of a new trend, please.
• On a much, much lighter note, tunethousandnine continues its glorious release streak. I plan on busting out a bunch of mini-reviews of albums soon, but it’s been damn hard to keep up with the amount of quality aural candy out there.
• I will be soon be training on the video side of That’s Entertainment, thus solidifying my status in the Bowtie Brigade and hopefully picking up more hours during the week. Make money, save money, leave. It’s all coming together.

 

I suppose I brought this on myself

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No Place Like It

You know how there are places where you just feel right at home? That’s me at the Dance Cave. Some friends and I rolled into the ‘Cave last night and the music was pretty much amazing the whole night through. I got to play the beard on multiple occasions last night (often with hilarious results) and I just danced the shit out of it.

Another place that feels like home is Boom. Best breakfast place ever? Yes. Yes it is. No question. Their Two Egg Breakfast  is THE crowning culinary achievement of mankind. And the rest of the menu stacks up pretty favourably. One day I’m going to bring like $100 of disposable income and just make a pig of myself. Perhaps I’ll bring a friend…to watch the ensuing carnage.

When I made it back home from Toronto today, I felt oddly out of place. My grandparents were over for a visit and I just wanted to vanish into my bedspread for a few hours. Which I did, rudely enough. After the appetizer I went to rest my head and ended sleeping through the main course. Oh well, I’ll make it up on Christmas, somehow. ‘Tis the season, after all.

I already miss Toronto. Soon. Soon I’ll be there and not here.

 

Afterdeath

To what does heaven yield
but the ashen voice
breathing the Rapture
suck in the holy air
gulp down heaven
to soothe your gravel tones
Heaven will yield to
a choking supplicant
one whose worship
is caught in cords
your praise is heard
so rest your weary bones

 

Optimism through ninja melodrama

It’s been another strange couple of weeks, as what usually is a time of settling in has been one of unrest. My lack of employment is causing me stress. In grand Paul-style, I of course shut down and busy myself with other things instead of attacking the problem head-on.

I outright refuse to debase myself in telemarketing jobs, nor will I attempt to crawl back to Shoppers Drug Mart and beg for 10 hours a week of over-priviledged retail hell. I can’t seem to find an environment that I’m comfortable working in. The closest thing I found was probably the Press last year, but I cocked that up royally, so on to other things.

Please, please, just let me find a job that doesn’t have me pandering to fucktards while I restrain myself from pounding my head against the wall. Even better if said job doesn’t start playing “Winter Wonderland” on an endless loop starting the day after Hallowe’en. Christ, I almost wish I could work retail in the States, due merely to the fact that they have Thanksgiving bridging the gap between the Monster Mash and “the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, thus effectively putting off the Christmas music for a precious few weeks.

In the meantime, I’ve been busying myself by writing, hanging out and watching Naruto. Yup, coming out right now. I’m an anime fan. Have been since I was a wee lad and remain staunchly so to this day. Say what you will about the medium, how it’s base, formulaic, ridiculous, but the imagination that the creators of these anime and manga series put forth to the masses leaves me in awe sometimes. Naruto, an incredibly popular on-going series in Japan, has been a favourite of mine because the hero of the story fucks up, loses battles, and still keeps on moving. He’s constantly looked down upon, mostly due to his impetuous behaviour, but continues to strive for recognition from his peers and, I think, from himself. The fact that it has ninjas just adds to the awesome really. And oh man, the melodrama. So much angst it puts every show on the CW right now to shame, and that’s saying something. And yeah, Naruto’s constant push towards his goal is something I’d like to mimic. I want to have that drive. It’s in me somewhere, and I can feel it sometimes…but I lose it just as fast and I flatline completely. So frustrating…

I’m just past the halfway point in Little Women for my 19th century American Women Writers class. It’s a fine line between love and hate, so I’ll just say “it’s okay”. The prose flows nicely and the characters are, while pretty flat, mostly fun. The constant moralizing makes me want to chuck the novel in a paper-shredder and be done with it, but I mosey along.

Oh yes, I’m officially not going to Korea for the moment. My adventures abroad will have to wait until I can cultivate something of meaning here at home. My brother and I will be publishing our graphic novels soon. Come hell or high water, I will finish the scripts for both projects and we’ll have a limited run, unless some publisher sees it and loves it and wants to option it out for a movie or something.

That’s it for now folks. Time for more precious stories about the precious March family and their precious fucking lives (but really, I don’t hate the book. Just a lot of it).

 

A return to form, as it were.

And so begins another semester at Brock, officially, although the relative ease of the one class I’m actually taking has allowed me some downtime to write and socialize a bit. I can’t help but feel optimistic when summer ends and fall rolls around. It always feels like I could become that version of Paul that I should be rather than what I am. Fitter/happier, as it were.

Of course, I’m also in perpetual fear that due to this semester’s low demand, I’ll just slip into the same patterns and not improve myself at all.

There’s gotta be a way to change, right? Fundamentally alter oneself to meet the demands of your life on a physical, psychological and intellectual level. Well, the physical part I’ve done once, but in spite of that, I still sometimes feel like I did in high school: cowardly, sad and perpetually defeated.

I’m considering adding a weekly blog update that will track my progress (with numbers!) as I figure out a workout schedule, a writing schedule and eventually get a new job. What I’m doing right now on a day-to-day basis only passingly resembles a routine and I have to get myself organized.

Blargh. I need a vacation.