I grew up eating congee in Singapore. It’s a savory rice porridge that, in my humble opinion, is best served with sliced ginger and steamed fish, garnished with spring onions, and with some youtiao on the side. White pepper and soy sauce to taste. I’m no doctor, nor do I have any qualifications or knowledge… Continue reading A Bowl of Congee
Puzzles
I like puzzles. Which should be obvious, if my ability to write an entire post on a silly crossword joke is anything to go on. It’s why I enjoyed math in High School: What is a complicated problem but a puzzle you gotta use the right equation to get to an answer? A lot of… Continue reading Puzzles
Endings Are Hard
It’s remarkable the effect an ending can have on a story. A really good ending leaves you feeling fulfilled. Consider Casablanca, where Rick’s last-minute change of heart is the culmination of his character throughout the film as his cynicism fades. Or Inception, where the uncertain top drives home the question of reality that has permeated… Continue reading Endings Are Hard
Interactive Art
I first played Transistor about five years ago. If I remember right, it was on sale on Steam so I grabbed it, having heard great things about it. Playing it on my laptop was not ideal, the controls didn’t quite work on a keyboard and gameplay felt awkward. Not the game itself, mind you, rather… Continue reading Interactive Art
Where It Works
Being the Esteemed Man Of Culture that I am, I subscribe to the New York Times Crossword and make a point of doing it every day. I’ve gotten quite good at it in the last year! Anyway, there’s often a bit of humor in them, maybe be it the wry puzzles of Thursdays or an… Continue reading Where It Works
The Power of Mordor
My love of The Lord of The Rings is well documented, heck, I just reread the books over the summer (with my glorious hardcovers). There’s a lot I like about them, like how they marry a beautiful world to an epic quest, and how that epic quest is a story of vanquishing evil not through… Continue reading The Power of Mordor
A More Diverse Past
On the recommendation of a few friends (and in want of something to have on on the background while playing Civilization VI) I checked out Bridgerton some time ago. I went into it someone with very little familiarity with Regency-era England outside of general pop culture osmosis and the card game Marrying Mr. Darcy, so… Continue reading A More Diverse Past
A Sore Arm
Hey there. I’m exhausted today, but that’s probably less because of World Events and more because I got my second Covid shot yesterday. Not to say things have gotten much better from last week, with another two mass shootings in the US happening since then that really call into question the 'normal' we’re returning to… Continue reading A Sore Arm
Exhausted
This past Tuesday, a white man bought a gun and went on a shooting spree in the Atlanta area, killing eight people — six of whom were women of Asian descent. There’s so much more to the story than just this, so much more to unpack. The shooter claimed that his motivation was to remove… Continue reading Exhausted
365 Days Later
Hey. It’s been a year since quarantine started, which, in a moment of magnificent serendipity, was when I was really getting into Death Stranding. But that was quite literally 365 days ago, and I gotta say, this is not how I saw this past year going. Back in July, I started making a tally of… Continue reading 365 Days Later
Essays, Not Rants! 