![\"Still](\"http:\/\/www.darkmirage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/30_glados.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hello, it’s been a while.<\/p>\n
Some people have been emailing me asking if I am still alive. Yes, I am. Life has been uneventful and empty recently. The mundane tedium left me somewhat creatively challenged and unable to write. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about life and my future, and I most certainly have not been wasting my time away farming Icecrown Citadel<\/a> for loot<\/a> in World of Warcraft<\/strong>. Derp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the brief time I have cut myself away from the real world<\/span> blogosphere, many things have changed. Naoto Kan<\/strong> became the Prime Minister of Japan. Arizona passed SB 1070<\/a><\/strong> and attempted to take immigration enforcement into its own hands at the risk of racial profiling. WikiLeaks<\/strong>‘ profile blew up overnight with the release the Apache shooting video<\/a> and a database<\/a> of Secret-classification US ground reports in Afghanistan. HP<\/strong> bought over Palm<\/strong> for WebOS<\/a>. Singapore’s Orchard Road<\/a><\/strong> shopping area experienced its first flood in three decades. Avatar the Last Airbender<\/a><\/strong> scored an insanely low 8 out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes.<\/p>\n It’s frustrating to see the world changing and feel like you are being left behind. That’s part of the drudgery of everyday life as a nobody, but National Service<\/a> brings it to a new mind-numbing level close to par with imprisonment (or so I imagine). I can feel something inside me withering away with every passing moment as each tick of the second hand takes another eternity. I had long since emptied out, emotionally.<\/p>\n For the longest time (well, not that long…I’m just being dramatic), I had been finding it difficult to be entertained and, as a result, difficult to be inspired. A younger me could find the words to respond to even the most braindead episodes<\/a> of Gundam 00<\/strong> (which is saying a lot) and the motivation to patiently put those words together one at a time. But for the past few months my vocabulary has been limited to a few shades of grey. It was difficult to find anything worth writing about and even more difficult to find the right words. And of course, one of the universal laws of blogging is that a prolonged hiatus<\/a> is as fatal (for the blog, not the blogger) as it is long, proportionally speaking.<\/p>\n That said, as I now stand much closer to the end than the start of this phase of my life, I am beginning to feel some vestige of passion and hunger stirring inside me.<\/p>\n Most recently, Inception<\/strong> almost made me care enough to write a review (but it was overrated) and Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu<\/strong><\/a> actually managed to single-handedly renew my hope in anime as a form of entertainment. The final push probably came from Volume 10 of Kimi no Iru Machi<\/strong><\/a> which, in my fanboy opinion, represents a new high in author Kouji Seo<\/a>‘s relentless efforts to create a shounen<\/em> romance that is indistinguishable from shoujo<\/em> (other than the pink covers). Reading the latest ups and downs of Haruto and Yuzuki made me spend a sleepless night reviewing my own life in high school. I felt entertained and inspired. Sweet tears of joy made me feel human again.<\/p>\n Writing this blog had been one of the greatest pleasures in my simple life so far and I really want to find my Muse again. Of course, there’s no way for me to immediately, if ever, go back to my old rate of almost one article every two days, but I hope that this is a start. I’m not sure how many of you out there are still subscribed to this blog (or if the RSS feed is still working), but whoever you (yes, all three of you) are: I am still alive!<\/p>\n There was a time in this blog’s history when its popularity grew to the point where I felt pressured to pander to my audience, and I now think that it was a mistake. The future is uncertain, but for now I am going to try to get myself and this blog back to reasonable speed at my own pace. Hopefully, the end result, however long it takes to get there, will be something more consistent with my personal goals for writing and still provide some interesting read.<\/p>\n Anyway, I am working on an article right now. I don’t want to give a deadline, but it should be Done Soon\u00e2\u201e\u00a2. In the meantime, please enjoy this video.<\/p>\n