Sunday 28 December 2014

Christmas, Canadians and Consumerism

The word of the week is longevity.

Dec 22 – Longer Days

Summer’s coming.

That is to say, the days are now getting longer and soon Spring will be here and we will see warm weather once again. I found the dark days a little hard to take on occasion, but I haven't had to resort to any light treatment or other means to pick up my mood; having a solid day job really helps. The weekly routine sets a nice rhythm to one's life, at least that I have found so far.

With those longer days, one has to do something.


I intend to be productive this spring, in more ways than one. Finding time… No, scratch that: making time is going to be the order of the day. Relaxation will become a privilege this coming year, even a reward, given to myself when I have the luxury of knowing I've completed one or more of the tasks I've set my mind to for the near future. Working smarter as well is harder on my own projects while retaining the luxury of a well-paying full-time day job( which is also a privilege )will be the backbone of the coming year, where productivity is secondary to enjoyment and lazy procrastination will become something completely unknown.

Who knows? Maybe my blog entries will even get shorter, though there's no guarantee of that.


Dec 23 – Evangeline Lily is what?

Whoa, I didn’t see this coming..

Who knew that Evangeline Lily is a writer first and an actor second?

Not me, that’s for certain. Fascinating, all the same: to think that someone so well-known, lovely to look at, skilled in the ways of Hollywood and a Canadian to boot, is most happy when writing.

Yep. That sent a chill up my spine right there.

The article over at Buzzfeed.com goes into some interesting detail about how Ms. Lily got into the world of acting, of how things seemed to just fall into place for her numerous times to get her to where she is now.


Funny thing is, she’d rather be writing than in front of the camera, or enjoying fame’s fickle attention. Mind you, sometimes things work out, as was the case when Peter Jackson offered her a role in The Hobbit, which coincidentally is one of her favourite books( mine too! )… and she accepted. Again: things working out for her. Here’s what she had to say about writing:

“There are so many reasons why, for me, writing is superior to acting,” she says. “One of them is anonymity. Writers can live relatively normal lives. Most [working] actors can’t. Writers can work from home and be near their family most of the time. Actors usually can’t. Writers expend a lot of intellectual energy, but not so much emotional energy. And I have intellectual energy coming out of my yin-yang, but emotional energy — I am so lazy. I just don’t have a lot of emotional energy to give. I don’t like drama in my life, and I don’t like having to pretend [to have drama].”

I’ll admit, I never watched Lost past the first season. Heck, the only reason I watched the show in the first place was because of Ms. Lily: there was something about her that appealed to me, on several levels… and now I know why.

Writers: they know their own, just like g33ks… and Ms. Lily is both. Huzzah for us!


Dec 24 - Relax, it's Christmas Eve

I can't recall ever having more relaxed day at work than I did today.

There was simply nothing stressful going on.

A few phone calls came in, a fair amount of paperwork was done but overall, the mood in the office( I feel weird saying that, even now that I work in one ) was one of relaxed merriment. Quite a few people had taken vacation days today to coincide with having Christmas and Boxing Day off, meaning they had a five day weekend without loss of pay - quite a sweet deal overall, I think.

It was really lovely to be able to just get work done without any sort of pressured feeling for once. I did what I had to do without being lazy, talk to some coworkers here and there, enjoying my brakes and my lunch and generally just watched the day get about its business without hurry.

My workspace today. Not seen: Christmas music, or stress.

Some of us were allowed to leave work a little early. Finding myself among this select group, I made good use of it by heading down to cook Street village while the sun was still up for a brief time and seating myself on the patio to simply enjoy the decent weather. While it was cold, the sun was out and shining brightly, so I settled back with a pot of tea for about an hour until the not-so-warm fiery orb vanished behind a row of houses and the chill came back full force.

My sister and I spent Christmas Eve relaxed in our apartment, watching a few Christmas specials before we started in on Love Actually… But didn't end up finishing it as we both started to nod off. I'm afraid it was an early turn-in for myself and her, so neither of us saw if Santa drop by.

Good thing though: I forgot to leave out any cookies or milk!


Dec 25 – Family Time

Merry Christmas!

December 25th is always been a day I've( almost always )been able to count on having off, which has at times been a luxurious feeling. While I don’t mind working holidays more often than not, Christmas is the one day of the year( not even counting my birthday )that I just want to do zilch.

Understandably, it's also most often been a busy day with family obligations.

Today was no exception, though it was a much smaller scale than what I was a kid. My Family and I went to the Empress Hotel for brunch, all dressed up and anticipating a lovely time - we weren't disappointed. I was surprised that the room was not as crowded as I thought it might have been, given the nature of the holiday but perhaps the full-on Christmas Dinner was more booked up - I wouldn't know, as we weren't enamored of the exorbitant price or likely to need even half of the foods listed on the large dinner menu list. All the same, we enjoyed our time together in the luxurious surroundings, with great food( no turkey though: dinner only ):

I really do love this place, all the more because I don't visit often.

After brunch, we toured the display of Christmas trees that the Empress puts on every year. Dozens of trees lined the major hallways of the hotel and I took a fair number of photos, each tree impressive and unique in their own right. My favourite was one tucked away in a corner of a lower hall, whose ornaments were exquisitely detailed; have a look:

Stunning!

Family time continued at my parent’s place, where we watched a lovely film that I’ve never heard of before entitled Midnight In Paris. It’s about a writer visiting modern Paris who inexplicably finds she can travel back in time, meeting notable figures from the past who had me Paris their home for a time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to watch it again soon; it was a nice end to the day.


Dec 26 - Boxing Day Bah

Consumerism didn't affect me this year, not one little bit.

Bombarded with the usual Boxing Day ads on all sides, I found my attention wandering to other things, to my surprise. Browsing through the ads idly, I was astonished to discover that when I've gone through every one of them as is my habit this time of year, there was not a single thing I was remotely interested in purchasing, electronic or otherwise. That's how change from last few years really, which have borne witness to my growing disinterest in Boxing Day in general as I've noted in this blog for the last few years.

That realization startled me a bit, as upon further examination in terms of wants and needs there's nothing I really wanted and definitely nothing I really needed. I have a new phone, a nice TV, a computer that works just fine along with a nice light laptop suited for writing… and that’s about all I use. I don't really game any more, so there were no Xbox or Playstation games I was interested in nor was I looking to pick up any PC games for that matter.

If I had minions, I'd send them out today instead of me...

I certainly didn't need to anything for the household; as I've said in previous posts, a reduction of material goods and possessions has been going on for some years now, whittling things down to where the only purchases necessary are replacements for items that have worn out. I'm rather pleased that I have no need of any outdoor gear for gardening or lawn care or house maintenance, nor tools for crafty hobbies I don't have or any other sundry thousand things that people tend to pick up for themselves or their family this time of year.

It's rather liberating to simply dump all of the ads into the recycling and be done with them. I may do the very same thing next year and the year after that, enjoying the feeling of not having spent money unnecessarily and most certainly enjoying not getting up at 5 AM to line up for a sale.


Dec 27 - Reflection

How’s everyone been doing this year?

One thing about writing a blog is that it’s rather one-sided; you hear about me, but I don’t( for the most part )hear back from you folks following along, week to week.

Take a moment and leave a Comment below – it’s easy and I’d love to hear from you.

While I do get an idea from my visitor stats as to how many people visit each post( and Facebook tells me who links in from the Beginnings group )it's still a one-sided equation.

I have a lot of friends, but I don't keep up with enough of them.

Having been told several times that I observe rather than interact with folks more often than not, I'm looking to reverse the trend and train the habit into myself of asking about others first. While that may sound like a seasonal affectation, I'm quite honest when I say that it's something I'd like to change about myself for the better. I've always been extremely interested in everyone around me, even when I don't express it, but if it's not obvious to others, then I'm failing at the task.

Leave me a Comment, please - it'll help me to know you better, even a little.


Dec 28 - Wearing Thin

I'm a little tired.

Being the holiday season, there has been a lot of opportunity to pick up shifts at both of my jobs and I've made the most of it this month. Except for Christmas and two other days, I worked every day this month and I really felt that by the end of this weekend. Which is not a bad thing, as I'm not exhausted, just feeling the effect of working every day without a major break.

Trucks get tired too...

The Staples job was actually rather pleasant these last three days, including Boxing Day. With only one or two exceptions, almost everyone I’ve dealt with was in a great mood this year and that's really made the back-to-back shifts easier to deal with. Despite being somewhat out of sync( and not caring much about that fact )with the details of the job at Staples, it's been a nice month at my second job, with so little stress that I can hardly believe that I'm working at the same place. Given that my position is one of my choosing, in that I could leave at any time, the shoe is on the other foot. A actually feel appreciated as I know the management knows I don't have to be there to help as an experienced employee; I could just have left them hanging this holiday season.

All the same, the feeling that I have to leave Staples sooner rather than later has been growing in me and depending on how my benefits workout, I may just end up leaving regardless. It would be nice to have my uninterrupted weekends back to relax and get some work done on my creative projects. I could even take a day trip somewhere, which I haven't done in… well, ever.

We’ll see what the new year brings.


Things should settle down from this point on, with regular 9-5 weekdays interspersed with the occasional weekend Staples shift. Apart from those two mainstays, it's the usual juggling act of social life and creative output... always a challenge!

Monday 22 December 2014

Games, Gabbing and Good Friends

The word of the week is gravitas.

Dec 15 – Book 2 = whew!

Today was a big day for me, novel-writing-wise…

I showed my first two chapters of Book 2 to my trusted critique-group members, and held my breath.

To my great relief, they liked what I had written! More specifically, the two of them said( and I’m paraphrasing here somewhat ):

“The direction you chose to continue the story makes perfect sense and is well-executed.”

“I have a good sense of who the characters are from the first book and am interested in how their story arcs are developing in this sequel.”

“Great establishment of pending conflict between the various parties involved.”

My group also suggested that I re-sequence the scenes I had written, to better introduce the characters and story lines of the second novel, which upon reflection, I completely agreed with once I had thought over the suggestions.

I had fretted that what I had written would not gel with my first novel, but it seems I had worried needlessly. I have a solid first third of the book written and I can confidently now continue with the rest of Book 2 in 2015 to complete the first draft. I am eager to do so, as I really want to be able to dive into Book 3, with quite a few scenes bubbling in my head that need to be written. To be sure, I have them sketched out so that I don't lose any of the ideas, but I have made a deal with myself that Book 2 must be completed before I can write any scenes for Book 3… a kind of incentive, if you will, to get the work at hand done and not jump ahead.

What's waiting in Book 3 is worth doing right!


Dec 16 – Car Wars!

Tonight I played a game I hadn't touched for almost 20 years: Car Wars.

Created by Steve Jackson Games in the early 1980s, it was a huge hit with gamers around the world. Here’s what it’s all about, straight from SJG:
Car Wars is the game of the freeways of the future, where the right of way goes to the biggest guns. Choose your vehicle -- complete with weapons, armor, power plant, suspension, and body style. Then take it out on the road. You'll come home an "ace," or you'll crash and burn. If you survive, your abilities will improve, and you can accumulate money to buy bigger and better cars.


Two friends and I got together for dinner at my place to play a game of Car Wars. They had recently picked up the simple Starter Set and wanted to try it out; knowing that I was a huge fan of the game, they were eager to include me, which I thought was wonderful. Here’s a video of four friends who were also playing Car Wars again for the first time in 20 years recently:


I was a bit rusty and things started out a little slow, but once we had our cars chosen, information sheets filled out and had gone over the rules, we were ready to do battle!

The arena was simple: the top of my coffee table, the edges of which were out of bounds for our three vehicles. I had chosen a simple design with an antitank gun at the front and moderate armor, trading acceleration for offensive firepower. My two opponents had chosen different strategies, with one of them having a defensive dropped weapons suite and the other a more balanced vehicle.

The combat was restrained at first, with no shots of any note being made in the first five rounds; to be honest, we all rolled horribly and probably couldn't have hit a barn door if it'd been right in front of any of us. More time passed as we all maneuvered to better line up shots and the first exchanges of effective fire shoots in decent roles in our vehicles. Things really heated up when my one friend's defensive weapon( a flaming oil jet )put paid to her boyfriend’s vehicle, toasting his armor nicely on the thin top and bottom facings. Then he chose to ram my vehicle head-on, which could have been fatal to both of us if we hadn't been puttering along at a measly 30 miles an hour each when we hit. Even so, it did a fair amount of damage to both of us. Here's what things looked like, sans the spikes and the grid:

Those are spikes, all right... but we don't need the Grid with a Key!

A sudden turn of events occurred when his vehicle took a shot from his girlfriend straight through his front armor, destroying his power plant and ending his driver’s career messily. It was down to myself and my friends girlfriend, maneuvering for advantage around the edge of the map, which went on for a fair amount of time before I managed to end the game with a solid shot to her vehicle side armor that hollowed out the car nicely for its trip to the scrap yard.

Total game time was approximately 3 hours from set up to finish and we all thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I was quite obviously a static to be playing Car Wars again and I saw that my enthusiasm had certainly transmitted to my two friends, so I am certain will play again soon.

I should have a really neat vehicle and strategy thought up for the next time…


Dec 17 – 6 months to wait?

It looks like I have longer to wait before leaving Staples than I thought.

While talking to HR about my benefits package at my government position today, I was told that it would be six months from my November 2014 start date before my new benefits kick in – dang!

So instead of leaving Staples early new year, if I want to keep myself covered with benefits I will have to stay until sometime around May 2014. It's a little disappointing to discover, especially as I have not been given any information about benefits at my government job, which the lady at HR was surprised to hear. I hadn't even received the standard introductory package to my pension, which she also sent me today.


I looked into what it would cost for me to leave Staples and just pay for my benefits separately, which turns out to be a substantial amount of money every month… meaning there’s no point in leaving, as I pay far less than that as an employee.

Even so, it may be that I lose a major portion of those benefits in the new year, as Staples reviews its employee’s hours-vs-benefits ratio a few times a year. Meaning that I may get a letter in the mail stating that I'm not working enough to qualify for benefits, at least ones that are worth having.

Slightly maddening, but I'll have to figure out how to cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime, I'll be making a few beneficial-health appointments for early in January just in case.


Dec 18 – Interview clips!

I'm so excited today: my interview clips went live!

My friend the proto-journalist finished editing three separate clips culled from my interview last weekend and posted them on YouTube today. Here’s one of them for you to enjoy:


Watching myself in the video, I did notice a few things that I'll have to remember to keep in mind for any future videos. For one thing, I do tend to him and all far too often for my liking, something I don't think that I do in regular conversation: I tend to pause instead. As well, I think I could perhaps speak more clearly to the point of each question, but I think that will be something that has to come with experience in practice rather than simple forethought.

Don't get me wrong: I am incredibly thrilled to have such high quality footage available to use for marketing my books and introducing people to the worlds I am creating. Eventually hope to have amassed enough material to allow floating imagery, transparent backgrounds and so forth to be present in the interviews that are created for my writing.

For now I'll just have to be satisfied with a fantastic job my friend did. Many thanks, Chris!


Dec 19 – Relaxing and Singing!

It was the end of a long month tonight.

Between my two jobs, I've worked every day save one for the last month, quite often doing overtime - my choice, of course but still tiring when you add it all up… on top of my not feeling great due to my recent lack-of-protein dietary oversight. The proof was in the pudding though: with all my hard work this month, I nearly doubled my regular paycheck and that alone put a tired smile on my face: it's nice to get a good bit ahead, once in a while.

It was with great relief that I spent the evening in, watching Singing In The Rain with a good friend, not having a care in the world and thoroughly enjoying the company. She even helped me decorate for Christmas, making my place look seasonally sensational in a short time!

I hadn't actually seen Singing In The Rain since I was a kid nor do I recall seeing it in its entirety either at that time, so tonight was a special treat. I found myself grinning ear to ear at many points, thinking again and again that this was a simple and honest masterpiece of cinema, for good reason. The unmatched performances of all the actors and the sincerity of the films premises still resonate today, enough so that I'd like to see it again fairly soon.

My friend also introduced me to the singing group Pentatonix, whose perfect melodies are instantly addictive… in a good way. Here’s their Christmas album, which I had running in the background as I wrote this week’s blog:


Though I was tired, I couldn't fall asleep until well after midnight and my last thoughts before sleep claim me was that I was really looking forward to tomorrow, my first day off in far too long.

I have a whole lot of nothing planned - gratefully so!


Dec 20 – Carving Art

Ten years is a long time to dedicate to a single task… that’s exactly what one artist did to realize his dream and passion. You can see the stunning results:


Ra Paulette shapes the sandstone caves of New Mexico into magnificent works of art, with just his own hands and no other help. A recently-completed documentary covers the work of this extraordinary artist, following his vision over a decade to leave a ‘magnum opus’ of his art.

I’m a big believer in discovering( and following )your passions and seeing them brought to such stunning life by Ra is reason enough to reinvigorate my own dreams, to see them as achievable. I don’t work in a physical medium like Ra does but the idea is the same: create with passon. 

You can learn more at Cavediggerdocumentary.com which has the movie available on DVD. I’m reminded of the carved works of Petra, or of canyons hewn by flowing water… however you want to look at his work, Ra’s art is breathtakingly beautiful.

Enjoy.


Dec 21 – Holiday Retail!

I had a good time at work today, which was unexpected given that it's only a few days to Christmas and people are busily shopping their little hearts out.

Now THIS is my idea of Christmas shopping...

While it was busy, I didn't find it nearly as overwhelmingly crowded as at other busy times of year I've worked. Most people were in a relaxed mood and smiling, which I found quite refreshing; having worked in retail for several decades now, it's a rare thing to see this time of year. Perhaps people are realizing, albeit slowly, that's materialism isn't the be-all and end-all of this time of year and that they should try to enjoy the season for what it is. Even the single grumpy grinch that walked in right at the end of the day couldn't spoil my good mood and I went home smiling.

Maybe there’s hope for people yet, if they can see past the depth of their wallets?

Since I do like to leave on a high note now and then with my blog, I'll leave you with this little gem I discovered today: a five-year-old girl expresses her opinion of Leia’s outfit while held in Jabba’s Palace in Return Of The Jedi… set to animation! It’s incredibly cute and may surprise you:


All right, it's only a few days until Christmas and I'm more relaxed than I've ever been at this time of year; it's a good feeling! Also, I apologize( a first for this blog! )for not including the Colbert-Smaug link in last week's entry: it's there now for you to enjoy. With that, have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or however else you intend to celebrate the season!