Norman Lee

This is probably a good enough place to stop. Facebook has, more or less, supplanted LiveJournal as a means of keeping in touch with people, including journal entries, and keeping in touch is the whole reason I felt compelled to start this. I don't know if anybody even still reads this who doesn't just see the same content imported into my Facebook notes, but if so, you can find me on Facebook here.

I felt like checking out IL-2, so on a whim I decided to add it to my shopping cart on Steam. When I went to purchase it, however, it told me that I already owned the game. Somehow, I must have already bought it at some point, and then never played it and thus completely forgotten that I even owned it.

I should probably stop buying so many games.

I saw a girl on the bus this morning talking on one phone while texting on another.

Kids these days.

When I recently moved into my new apartment, my parents drove up to help with the family car. And of course, they brought a lot of food with them, even though I always insist that they don't have stock my refrigerator for me. Since my grandparents live between here and home, trips back and forth are usually punctuated by a visit to their house. I didn't see my grandparents myself this time--my parents were the ones who went from socal to norcal and back, while I stayed in Berkeley--but part of the food I received was a grocery bag filled with several packs of instant ramen, which my grandmother apparently gave to my parents to give to me.

My grandmother passed away yesterday. According to my relatives who live closer to them and make more frequent visits, she sat down in a chair and dozed off, and when my grandfather went to wake her up, well--she didn't. She was 88.

It feels very weird to be writing about this right now, since my last entry from about a month ago was also about death, albeit that of an old family pet rather than a relative. I recall what I said--wondering how I'd feel about the death of a close relative--and I feel pretty rotten, like I might have jinxed it. Unfortunately, my grandmother was not a very close relative, and I am again stuck in that sort of half-mourning, where I'm not exactly suffering from grief like I think I should be, and the awkwardness of the situation probably overshadows the actual sadness. It's almost like I'm still in shock from the whole thing, except I suspect that, a week or two down the line, it's not going to suddenly hit me with full force.

I wish I could say that I had a stronger relationship with my grandparents, but when you only see them two or three times a year and usually for only a few hours at most each time, how much of a bond can you build? Especially when considering the cultural gap that exists between me, born and raised in southern California, and them, a couple from Taiwan who only came over to America when they already had five fully-grown children.

Worse still, I feel like a huge bastard because I was planning to fly back home to attend Anime Expo in a few days with high school friends, something I haven't done in years, and now I probably won't be able to, as my parents want to drive up as soon as possible, and figure out funeral arrangements, and all that jazz--and I'm just sitting here thinking about what a coincidence it is that a death in the family would occur at the one time in the one summer where I can finally start doing this yearly tradition with friends again.

It's all got me a bit dazed. I'm not really sure what's going to happen now, particularly with my grandfather, since he and my grandmother were living alone in a house. It probably won't be possible or even desirable to have him living by himself, especially after what just happened. And when I look at that half-empty (or is it half-full?) grocery bag of instant ramen in the kitchen, my mind just starts to wander again.

My sister called me earlier today to tell me that our dog, who was about 15 years old at this point, had to be put to sleep. She was understandably broken up about it, since she was the one who wanted to get a dog in the first place, back when we were still kids. I was pretty shocked too, but I feel somewhat guilty for not taking it nearly as badly as she was. In fact, reflecting upon his life--and I'm trying to say this in the gentlest way possible, with no animosity--it's almost a relief now that he's finally gone.

He was never housebroken, so we kept him in the backyard. Over the years, this amounted to a sheltered life, never interacting with us unless one of us stepped out back, and we ended up getting the occasional complaint from neighbors when he would start howling at night. When it was cold, we couldn't do much besides add some bedding to his doghouse; and when it got extremely hot, as southern California is wont to do, we couldn't really help to cool him off, at least not for long. Frankly, he lived a pretty miserable life. No matter how well my sister tried to take care of him, staying in the backyard didn't allow him much of a joyful existence.

Nevertheless, acknowledging all this, I feel that I'm being overly insensitive and should be more upset about the passing of my dog, particularly since my sister has been so affected by it. Strangely, this is the first time a living being close to me, human or animal, has died. Maybe it's morbid, but I can't help but wonder how I'll end up taking the death of a close relative. Hopefully I'll be able to show a little more emotion than for the death of a pet.

It's strange how four to six weeks can feel like an eternity as a kid, when you're waiting for that free toy after mailing in those cereal box proofs of purchase; yet now, a semester of college--longer still--can pass in an instant.

I was never able to really get into Peggle or Puzzle Quest, two casual games that seem to strike a chord even with "hardcore" gamers. However, I decided to check out Obulis on a whim, picking it up on Steam for less than half its "retail" price (a misnomer, given its solely digital distribution). For some reason, I've really been enjoying these intricate puzzles, which require both lateral thinking and precise timing. The level designs are remarkably calming, coming in themed sets featuring a translucent windmill arm passing over the screen periodically, or out-of-focus blades of grass gently swaying in the foreground. Combined with the gentle, though just slightly repetitive, background tunes, it's hard to get too frustrated with a particularly fiendish puzzle.

The swoosh of the marbles into their respective pots and the victory jingle may not be as extravagantly celebratory as Peggle's trademark fireworks and "Ode to Joy," but figuring out how to perfectly swing and throw marbles into each other so as to initiate an almost Goldbergian sequence of bounces offers immediate feedback on how my actions influence the playing field. I suppose I simply don't enjoy the random element in planning out shots two bounces ahead at most and hoping to land in the free ball bucket, or lining up a meager three-in-a-row and watching the incoming pieces give the opponent the perfect opportunity to take a significant chunk out of my life.

These past few years, I've yet to tire of the raw and soulful acoustic rendition of Gavin DeGraw's first album in the "Stripped" re-release--especially the title song "Chariot" and his cover of Sam Cooke's historic "A Change Is Gonna Come"--but I didn't particularly like his self-titled second offering of pop-country-rock. I need to find more music specifically along the lines of "Stripped," but any recommendations connected to DeGraw almost invariably lead to more pop music, of which I'm currently in no dire need to hear.

There are two things I've noticed about the temperature in the Bay Area: 1) it consistently feels about ten degrees warmer than it really is (i.e., 60 degrees here feels like 70 degrees back in socal) and 2) it's actually cooler in the shade, to the point where I can feel warm in the sun and cold when shaded.

A friend once passed this morsel of sage advice to me: all your taste buds are on your tongue, so it makes sense to hold most food with toppings "upside-down" such that its intraoral orientation maximizes the flavor experience.