Top Right Quadrant

Posted at 20:51 on Monday, 05 July 2010

UNCLASSIFIED If only I wrote content as frequently…

I kind of impressed myself with how long I lasted without redesigning my blog. Historically, I’ve been very aesthetically restless with any property — online or offline — and would regularly tear down the look of something on a whim.

Yesterday (two years after I started this, my first “serious” foray into blogging), I opened up photoshop, hit the little shuffle button on iTunes, locked my door and just went to town. I prepared sketches using my iPad, arranged colour palettes, even re-calibrated the colour on both my monitors. It’s almost as if I had some kind of process or something.

Five hours later, this happened — and I’m very glad it did. The sparsity of everything makes it more pleasant to read and still maintains the feel of the original. I even got a little bit of french into the tagline because I’m obviously quirky and sophisticated. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fucking liar.

Posted at 22:16 on Saturday, 20 March 2010

UNCLASSIFIED As do many other people who are very well aware of their guaranteed demise, I have penned a bucket list.

In case you haven’t heard the term before, a bucket list is an enumeration of things you want to do before you ‘kick the bucket’ — die. Their purpose is, like the common tradition of writing your ideal obituary for yourself, to give you some direction in life. I’m a man of actionable goals, hence my perpetual effort to make myself more productive, so I guess a list like that will do me some good.

I give you my bucket list, in no particular order, as of the time of posting. If I have anything going for me, it’s my determination to see things to the end. And to that end I promise you, as well as myself, I will check off every item on this list before I regret it.

1. Learn Japanese.
2. Visit Antartica, photograph penguins on their famous “march”.
3. Travel across China, visit some of the famous tea plantations.
4. Move to Silicon Valley.
5. Open my own tea shop — the authentic, oriental kind (Something to do when I retire, perhaps)

These lists aren’t meant to be about achievability, or the ability to (as subjective as the term is) ‘live life to the fullest’. It’s about what would make you really happy — aside from the standard “start a family” mundanity, I guess :-).

Posted at 12:24 on Wednesday, 08 April 2009 — with 1 comment.

UNCLASSIFIED It’s not often that I jump on my blog simply to rant… Who am I kidding, that’s exactly what I do! Regardless, this story from Joystiq.com about the upcoming Six Days in Fallujah irked me a bit.

Quoth some guy called Reg Keys in the Daily Mail:

‘Considering the enormous loss of life in the Iraq War, glorifying it in a video game demonstrates very poor judgement and bad taste… It’s entirely possible that Muslim families will buy the game, and for them it may prove particularly harrowing.’

Now, I feel I must preface what I am about to say by explaining that I am nowhere near in favour of any war. Ever. Never should a man pick up sticks to another man, unless the other man threatens him. Nor do I imply that anyone deserves to die when I say that I find it difficult to shed a tear give a shit when one of our paid killers is slain in Iraq or Afghanistan — I want each and every one of them to come back immediately.

But what the fuck. By my count, World War II amassed a much higher death toll by a magnitude of a few thousand and no-one seems to raise an eyebrow whenever the next Call of Duty is released or Medal of Honour #78 hits the charts. Further to this, I’m sure plenty of Call of Duty 4 is played in the Middle East and Eastern Europe despite the protagonist having to kill a load of their fellow countrymen.

I fully expect this man’s ridiculous, selfish demands to be ignored and this game (which I will probably never play) will be released — unless enough people make a stink about it, which has happened plenty of times before.

Posted at 15:42 on Friday, 19 December 2008 — with 1 comment.

UNCLASSIFIED Whenever I mention the name of this new venture of mine, people usually ask: What’s with the name?. A valid question with a multi-dimensional answer.

Some of you may be familiar with the Nolan Chart — a highly unscientific way of illustrating one’s political or social beliefs and values. If you’re not familiar with it, let’s talk in terms of visualisation. Imagine a simple graph, with one’s feelings towards “Economic Freedom” plotted along the x, and one’s “Personal Freedom” plotted along the y. One who strongly believes in lots of personal and economic freedom would himself to be in the top right quadrant of this graph — which is certainly where I lie.

On top of this, it has a very techy, mathematical vibe to it so I thought it sounded cool.