| Snow...? |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|01:07 pm] |
Well, we did get some this morning. It lasted for a few hours then quit, and by somewhere between 11 and noon what'd frosted the grass and fallen onto cars had already melted. However, the sky is still pretty well overcast, so I'm not feeling safe juuuuuuust yet. |
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| Give the gift of sustainable development this year |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|07:55 am] |
Not going shopping today. Oh, HELL no. I hate shopping no matter what day of the year it is. I do not like to slum around malls, wandering for hours amongst the conspicuous consumption that is The American Dream, buying more useless, non-biodegradable shit that I don't need. Why listen to the screaming toddlers who should have been taken home, fed, and put down for a nap rather than dragged from store to store in the quest for fulfillment-by-materialism? And hours and hours of cheesy christmas music? FUCK. THAT. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) flaming_chords, I don't know how you do it. As Daze and I discussed earlier this week, you need to replace the holiday tunage with some Frank Zappa in order to deal with the insanity. Here, have some "Muffin Man."
Instead of participating in the bizarre American custom that is Black Friday, today I am staying safely at home and cleaning the hurricane wreckage that is this house. Depending on the weather I may go to the beach for a few hours while everyone else is busy brawling in Wal*Mart over cheap plastic shit made in Chinese sweatshops.
Rather than buy your family and friends environmental wreckage that they don't need this year, I would like to suggest an alternative:
Heifer, International is a charity that for almost 60 years has provided livestock to families and villages in need. Their model is "not a cup, but a cow." It's a form of agricultural microfinance aimed at sustainable, long-term development. For example, a mother and her four children in Mozambique live in poverty. They have no education, and no way out of the cycle. Heifer will provide them with a few goats and the baseline materials and training needed to care for the goats. The goats give milk, which provides nutrition for the children, and can also be sold for extra money. Goat dung is used as fertilizer for the family garden plot, raising a better quality of food. The goats have offspring, which can in turn be raised by the family or sold. The money means that the family can afford a better quality of housing, and to send the children to school. Education brings job opportunities, and a way out of poverty for the whole family. Each receiving family pledges to repay the gift by giving away one of the offspring to another family in need, perpetuating the cycle.
Heifer practices gender equity in its microfinance to give poor women a better chance at life. They know that when you empower a woman financially, you change the future of everyone around her. They incorporate HIV/AIDS education and prevention training in their programs. They teach agroecology to help poor communities develop sustainable farming and ranching practices. In urban areas in Europe and North America, Heifer helps teach urban gardening techniques, focusing on impoverished, at-risk, elderly, and immigrant communities. We all know that a marker of poverty is lack of access to nutritious food. Heifer helps the poor here at home get that access. For example, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, "Heifer is supporting Revision House in improving its small scale fish farming and organic vegetable production in concert with job skills building programs in a long-term shelter for women who are pregnant or have small children." [from the website]
These people save lives, and are helping to fix the horrific damage we've done to our planet. They're worth supporting. |
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| One more down |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|12:25 pm] |
Rockin' Pretty: completed, at least insofar as clearing all songs (with at least one character) and getting to the end credits. Not like it's a long game.
Fun, though - and even on "easy" mode I'd say there's some definite challenge.
(Note to the friends list: if you didn't read my last post, this is the day it was really meant for.) |
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| Max's Turkey Relief day 1 |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|07:50 am] |
| [ | the knight's heart |
| |  busy | ] |
| [ | the knight hears |
| | Heart - Alone | ] |
Hello and how-do folks. I've got myself a nice little hunk of four days off this week (weekend included), and so here's a little update on my life. For those who're interested.
Sleep was kind of ~crap~ last night for... reasons, possibly because I got a phone call from a friend about a sweet sweet deal on some books he found. Around midnight I met up with him and paid about $40 for something like $113 worth of reading material, and it'll keep me supplied for months, easily. Sadly getting to sleep after the fact and staying so... just didn't work out so well. Bummer.
One side of the family was largely out of town to visit others today, so I visited the other for tons of food and a drop of a bunch of miscellaneous PC oriented items from my visiting southern aunt and uncle. Plus an awesome duster said uncle had in his closet for a long time and eventually decided to pass on. So between all that and leftovers it was like Presentmas came early.
Segueing briefly to the aforementioned upcoming holiday, it is ~now~ permissible for people to start playing that day's respective songs and putting up decorations for such. Those of you who already have are jumping the gun something awful.
So to get back to the kind of thing I was posting about last week, here're a few more things I've been doing with my time lately. Again only for the extremely bored.
Nameless Cults (book)
The complete Mythos fiction of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan and Kull. A good story collection that pleasantly surprised me in that, being a hater of the stereotypical barbarian-beats-everyone-up kind of story you see popping up here and there, I was quite well won over by this man's works and may eventually have to delve into his full length novels. I can see why so many have aped on his style for years - his stuff is pretty doggone good.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night (game)
The game that turned the franchise into the gaming phenomenon that it continues to be, even as a fan of the series I wasn't fully prepared for the epic size of this title. The good thing is that since I've played all the following games that followed in its footsteps I kind of have a feel for how the stages and layout will be, it's hard to imagine how someone new to the series would get anywhere without some serious help. At any rate, while I missed out on it this long (mostly because I started it once upon a time, failed spectacularly, and left it alone since), I'm putting in the effort and it's rewarding me with ~awesome~.
The Big O II (series)
I really dug the first incarnation of this series, and while I feel pretty comfortable saying that the sequel run is like someone took the last episode of Evangelion and stretched it out to 13, I enjoyed watching it. It threw me a flurry of curve balls but at no point did trying to figure out what the hell was going on break my enjoyment of it.Big robots for the goddamn win.
Darkman (movie)
Another film I haven't seen since I was a kid, and another instance of perfectly recalling some parts while others surprised me. It's kind of unfortunate looking back at how easily you could call it a Batman take-off, but at the same time I like to think of it as more of a prototypical 80s action flick. It probably helped that Take was with me for viewing and we were playing with Nerf guns.
...so it seems that, like 2007 (or maybe it was 2006?), winter waited until ~just~ after Turkeygiving to make its presence known with our first true snowfall of the season. I meant to comment on that too - it's been mild even for fall up until the last day or two and I'm bloody well glad of the fact. This time ~last~ year, if memory serves, there were a mere handful of snowy dustings broken by a blizzard on Dec 31st all the way up until the middle of January. We can only hope that this year follows a similar pattern.
Time to get break day 2 of 4 under way. Peace and love, kids.
-Max out. |
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| Turkey day and Black Friday. |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|02:48 am] |
| [ | the knight's heart |
| |  tired | ] |
I made a big oops yesterday that still has me feeling crappy and dumb. I had honestly thought that since I was scheduled 5 AM to 2 in the afternoon, and they switched it to 7, that I would still clock out at 2. I was honest with the CSM who called me back up after I clocked out already. She was all cool about it while the other seemed..meh. I dunno. Despite that, right when we got home I took a two hour nap before doing thanksgiving.
Around 12-ish tried to sleep. Could not get myself to sleep at all and my shift is at 4:45 for this black friday shit, but have to head to work a little early because of how nuts it will be in the parking lot as well as getting in. It annoys as well as nerves me out that customers actually go nuts on this day, and the wally world I work at is gonna have armed cops with those metal fence things that are supposed to control lines. |
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| Early Christmas Warning -- Black Friday Edition |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|10:58 pm] |
So, some of you doing your holiday shopping may be planning to take advantage of Black Friday, both online and off.
So I decided to go ahead and post my wishlist again, early, so anyone doing Black Friday shopping can attack while the iron is cheap.
Or something.
(BTW, skjam, you weren't kidding about the seasoning powder in that ramen. WHOOOOOOOO @_@;;) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|09:11 pm] |
I was so tired that I slept pretty much all day.
I haven't even got much reading done, it's kinda sad.
At some point over the past year or so, I have developed a love of tomato basil soup. Preferably with some tortellini or ravioli in it, and maybe a bit of cream of various sorts. This is yet another food on a long list that I have come to love after disliking them for most of my life.
I still can't stomach whole tomatoes, though. |
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| I give Thanks for GOOD ONLINE GAMES! |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|05:06 pm] |
| [ | the knight's heart |
| |  enthralled | ] |
Well it's Thanksgiving and while there's more serious thing I give REAL thanks for, you know what I give thanks for?
I just finished managing my item boxes and feeding my MAGs in Phantasy Star 0 when Racewing asked if I wanna play some Dungeon Fighter Online, so I'm just about to grab a Nexon card from Walgreens when Parallel Zone Ida asked if I wanted to join her for some PS0.
I've gone YEARS wanting an online RPG that doesn't suck balls, being left in the cold ever since PSO became overrun with hackers and died. And now? NOW?! Now I have TWO! TWO great online RPGs I can enjoy with friends! It's a freakin' miracle! ;_;
...you know I *STILL* haven't done my DFO write-up and I might need to fix that. Coming back after a month long break was bliss.
Not to mention they currently have a sale going until December 1st on Cash Shop items (hence my need to grab a Nexon card). So yeah, if you're not in the DFO groove, now might be an awesome time to join.
I also give thanks for Friend Codes. Seriously. Why? Well...remember the hackers in PSO? Well...TRY AND GET ME NOW MOTHERFUCKERS!!! >:D FRIEND CODES (for the first time in history) FTW!!!
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! ^_____________^ |
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| Sleep... is actually pretty good. |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|12:50 pm] |
| [ | the knight rests |
| | Calgary, Alberta | ] |
| [ | the knight's heart |
| |  RAGE!!! | ] |
| [ | the knight hears |
| | Soma FM - Mission Control | ] |
I have no idea why, but lately I've been getting some good, deep, nourishing sleep where I drift off fairly quickly and don't wake up until the following morning when the alarm goes off. The week before, I wasn't able to, no matter how hard I tried, and I was waking up once every hour. Maybe it had something to do with starting the new job or whatnot.
I just find it strange because now I am barely able to make ends meet. Buying a coffee seems in excess, I won't be able to afford anymore guitar lessons, the credit card is getting up on high and I've limited myself on ho much to eat. I need to buy bulk and cheap, basically, in order not to go hungry, and I dare not say any of this to my folks. I just don't want them to worry.
What's also strange is my lack of regret. It would be honest of me to say that I am concerned, worried even, about my current financial status, but I am by no means regretting my decision to quit Falco Electrical.
While working for them at their location in Southern Calgary, I had to wake up extra early to be there on time for ten to six in the morning and I was not getting the sleep I needed. To get the sleep I needed, I started drinking, a fair amount, mostly rum, just to knock me out. I had two site supervizors there to worry about, with one being so fucking off his rocker nuts that me and Kelly, a journeyman, were nearly fired four times in the first week we were there, I had skeletal muscle stress, and to top it all off, they had no heated place for the crew to eat in when things started to get cold. For breaks and lunches, we were in our cars, burning even more of our gas while the bosses sat in their trailer all warm and crap.
I regret not taking Tayna Nadeau up on her offer for a kiss in the Wood Work shop in high school back in Grade 9. I regret ever getting involved with Jennifer Skelding and being used like a tissue. I regret losing contact with all the friends I'd ever made in Japan. I would regret my time spent in C-ko's Chathall, but I can't, as from there I met pixelphile and csi_tokyo3 , who have been good friends and helped me to become a better writer up to this day.
But quitting Falco? I can honestly say I don't regret that.
And I'll be damned if I move back to Fort McMurray. I swear, I won't go back to that little hole in the ground with all the drunk, alcoholic arseheads there. Hell, I won't move anywhere for a good long time. I am staying in Calgary, and that's it. I am going to build a life here, learn ninpo taijutsu so I can break the absolute SHIT out of anyone who wants to do me or someone I care about harm, and I will find a significant other when I am ready. No more of this moving BS.
Mark my words, I will make this work. I will get into a movie someday in some capacity, and I WILL release Scarlet Steel in one form or another. Things are going to happen because I will make them happen. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|09:27 am] |
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Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|07:19 pm] |
More miracles at work today by me and Jay. Then I come home, get an early christmas present of a bunch of pumpkin bread from my mom, along with the new Codex Alera book and four pounds of chocolate, and now I'm going to go read myself stupid.
...damn, this is good chocolate, too. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|02:27 am] |
was taken out and stuffed with food bites. this is beyond weird um family is strange. >.>;
Currently have about two bars of mental spending energy, spending one to make this post. The other will be spent crawling to my bed. Tomorrow I will rise, but in the meantime happy turkey day and all that.
z.z |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|06:39 pm] |
| [ | the knight's heart |
| |  grumpy | ] |
Radiology results came back - I hate that in medicine, the bigger the word, the worse it its, miracle cure or face-melting disease. There were too many big words in this report. More after I get more testing. Happy Thanksgiving. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|06:36 pm] |
Blegh. My oven has stopped working sometime between last night and tonight. No idea why; the range burners work fine, there's something going on underneath when I turn on the heat... bah. Needless to say, this comes at the worst possible time; I've got a good 6 or 7 meals that pretty much need the oven to be cooked, and I'd feel kinda awkward asking my landlord to fix it since the next time I talk to him it'll be to let him know rent will be a week late at best.
I'll let it sit for tonight and see if it's just temporary, maybe poke at it a bit if it keeps happening. |
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| Banana Stickers |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|07:29 pm] |
 I've always wanted to try NaNoWriMo, but it always seemed impossible -- a whole novel in one month? Implausible. Inconceivable. But, after I finished the "First Age" series and realized that the official limit of 50k words was definitely within reach... I figured I'd go for it.
I'm not a struggling writer. I don't need a push. (Well, I DID need a push, and I periodically need pushes in the years-long droughts between projects, but that's besides the point in this case.) I was a bit worried I had no right to claim this 'no-prize' since I write so fast. That I was devaluing the efforts of others. That I was scum.
Then I noticed some folks in the middle of November with word counts of 165,000 on the NaNoWriMo forums and decided I'm definitely not some sort of all-conquering fiction god and I fit nicely in the middle tier. Comfy and cozy, and deserving.
So, let me start off Thanksgiving by being thankful to whatever it is that has powered this project forward. It's really given me something to look forward to again, other than just beating up dudes in video games and watching detectives detect things on the telly. I'm looking forward to writing more and above all else... thank you for reading. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|05:55 pm] |
I am live and on line, though not yet totally at home with new ergo keyboard (which seems to have a sticky spacebar.)
No email as yet, but at least I can get at it on line. |
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| This is my Worrisome Face... |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|12:51 pm] |
*checks finances*
*checks bills incoming*
*checks rent incoming*
Yup, time for drastic action... |
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| Black Friday Campaign for Region-Free Nintendo Gaming (UPDATED) |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|11:25 am] |
Background:
A month or so ago, in the wake of a Wii system update which was, from all appearances, primarily an anti-piracy mod-breaker, I drafted a letter to Nintendo, attempting to make the case that Nintendo's corporate interests would better be served by allowing cross-region gaming, rather than continuing to fight against it with region-locked systems and an ongoing effort to stop "piracy" by cracking down on modded systems.
That letter is in the body of this post (behind the cut, if you're looking at my main LiveJournal page or I'm on your friends list).
One voice is probably not going to convince Nintendo. I've sent it once already - last night, when I wasn't sure whether their "Contact Us" webform would transfer the whole thing. As far as I can tell, it did; what I'm not sure is whether the customer service representative who reads it is going to pass it up the ladder or not. At the time of this posting, I doubt anyone's even had the chance to read it yet - but I'm posting this so that other people can send the message as well.
You don't have to use the same letter I wrote. Personalize it appropriately; tell Nintendo how long you've played (and enjoyed) their software, how much you like their hardware; tell Nintendo about the games you want to see in America - or if you're reading from somewhere else in the world, in your country. Just remember, the goal is to appeal to Nintendo as a company - this is a business decision, a matter of their corporate profits. It's about Nintendo, not about us gamers.
( Letter and addresses are behind the cut. )
UPDATE: ( I heard back. ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|09:32 pm] |
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I seriously do not know what is up with Cham's luck. In two straight fights, he has been punked by amazing rolls in both of them, on round 1. I wasn't even -trying- to hit him. It just happened. |
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tired