Lunchables, Looking Back and Letting Go

Huzzah, huzzah...

Aug 24 - Health A-Z

Darn it, I wish I’d remembered the A-Z of Awesomeness about a month ago, when they finally got to the letter Z ... can you guess what they used? Think beards, sunglasses and classic cars – funny, since I was talking about them just this week. Goes to show you that coincidence has good comedic timing, or something.

On the health side of things, I’m back to eating normally, though I’m still not partial to beef or really fatty foods like deep-fried or whatnot. I’m finding my digestion tends to vary from day to day, so I’m really watching my intake of fibre and the like to ensure I’m not ‘skipping’ a few days in a row – William Shatner had the right of it. Plus, I am still not sure what sets off the nausea: it could be lactose solids, gluten, or some other as-yet undiscovered thing... all I know is that some meals are perfectly fine, while others cause discomfort. So I’m writing down exactly what does what, and slowly building an idea of what may be causing problems... it will take time.

Which means I won’t be eating from vending machines in the foreseeable future... but it seems that now you can get almost anything from a vending machine. Especially in Japan, where they’re so numerous that someone has developed vending camouflage to help people avoid being mugged.

Aug 25 - Old Shows and PS2

I spent most of my day off writing things for my NWN project, in between recording episodes of Shadow Raiders from my parent’s DVR to clear some space. Made by the same people who created ReBoot, the show rose above its origins as a selling point for some rather shoddy toys and developed some great characters along with stellar storytelling. Numerous fan sites dot the ‘net, as do even more for ReBoot – I enjoyed watching the episodes again, especially because just like ReBoot, the show is impossible to find on DVD. A rarity these days, as companies will release almost anything on DVD to make a buck. In such cases, I don’t feel bad about searching for Torrents online of the show, since it’s been close to 10 years now and still no sign of a DVD release...

Also worth looking at is my revamped PS2( actually Rene’s, thanks bud! )which thanks to Nigel’s kind donation of a Composite cable connection( and many free games too! )looks just stellar on my big screen – I’ve watched a few more episodes of Alias on it this week, and the detail is super-crisp. I’m still dubious on getting a PS3: I worry that only some versions of the thing are backward-compatible with PS2 games. I have enough consoles stuffed under the TV as it is, without trying to find room for another... plus I just love the PS2, which I have been impressed with ever since my friend Andy P. showed me his then brand-new PS2 way back in the day. Too bad its online multiplayer games are just so hard to set up, as I loved playing Ratchet & Clank with Brian and Mike... ah well, I’ll have to ‘settle’ for the Xbox360 Arcade games. Anyone for a game of Bomberman Live?

How I so love io9.com... they brought me this bit of news! Can’t wait until November... but again, they’re right about letting go of the things, as mentioned last week. Sometimes it’s so hard, when you’ve enjoyed it so much...

Aug 26 - Scotch that TV

After searching in vain today for a Scottish-English translator, I did stumble across this little gem: a Scottish Vernacular Dictionary. Now you can forget years of associating with those of Scottish descent in order to understand the brogue from the more stereotypical fantasy-novel dwarves – simple pop up the SVD and there you go! In case you want to explore the world, including Scotland, from the comfort of your own couch, you can click on GoogleSightseeing.com, which although not associated with the Info Monster does use a lot of said technology in its pages. Worth a look.... unlike a lot of what’s on TV these days. Yet...

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years from TV, is that it’s hard to get info about how shows are made – such tidbits of knowledge are doled out in miserly ways by a show’s producers. Especially since they can pad their DVD releases with such things, though it’s worth noting that the producers of Stargate: Atlantis did a fantastic job of stuffing each season’s disc set with tons of great behind-the-scenes features. But before all that, it was Levar Burton and Reading Rainbow that brought the house down for going on-set with Star Trek: TNG – hard to believe that a kid’s show back in the day did more in less than 20 minutes than any contemporary on-air special of the time. Go have a look at it, and try to forgive the poor-quality VHS tape video.

Along those lines, may I present: 8-bit Trip, which is some retro video-game goodness... done in Lego. Amazing that it only took the creator 2 years to put together! I know I mentioned it last week, but it's too cool to talk about just once.

Aug 27 – Flu and You

Does anyone out there remember Lunchables from Schnieders, which got their start in the early 90’s? I remember trying them a few times and being disgusted by the awful processed meat and dry, crumbly crackers. They tasted as cheap as they were, and kinda put me off buying Schnieders products for a while. Someone has twigged to the new Lunchables that are on the market being a whole lot better than the ones from a decade past, and has posted a rather readable blog here... I wonder though, what’s next for the Lunchables line? Sushi? Or... bacon?

I downloaded Shadow Complex on the Xbox360 today, which is a 3D take on the old side-scrolling platformer games of the 80’s. Everything in the game is 3D, though the paths you can take are predetermined – I like that, as it still allows for a lot of exploration without that “Oops, I just got lost again” feeling that too-large 3D game worlds can engender. Along with the “Geez, this place is TOO big... I’m getting bored running continuously from place to place, why can’t they make things closer together?” feeling, among others. The brief trial I played was very enjoyable, though the cutscenes were... cumbersome, to be kind – believable human emotion from 3D avatars is still something game companies are struggling with, though BioWare seems to lead the pack with games like Mass Effect. Next up is Arkham Asylum, which has been getting rave reviews... not to mention having the voice talents of Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamil as the Joker – both reprising their roles from the animated TV series beloved by millions, myself included.

This week has seen me work a lot, again... we’re short-staffed, and it just seems like it will be that way until well into the new year – there’s just not enough people to go around if anyone gets sick. And since the Cold & Flu Season is almost upon us, we have that to worry about... not to mention the fact that the H1N1 virus is spreading far more rapidly that predicted. The most eye-popping fact from that article: 40% of those who contract Swine Flu are healthy young adults, who die from a viral fever within a week – yikes! So wash your hands, sanitize your countertops and hope that the production of vaccine will eventually catch up to demand... right now, they’re saying five years until 2/3 of the planet is inoculated. Ouch – better read this Special H1N1 Edition of the Ottawa Citizen, its got a ton of useful info you can use to protect yourself and those you care about.

Aug 28 - Top TV

Today was another long day – opened the store, did a lot of paperwork, yadda yadda. I was all set to go & catch the bus into Victoria at 3pm... but when I tried to cash out, I discovered our computer had conveniently lost a transaction to the tune of $800.00 ... so I had to find & fix that before I could leave. Took me 30 mins more, making me miss one bus but I was on the road finally at 4pm, heading to our Cloverdale location to host an ‘open house’ for any Head Office employees to drop in & learn about our new Gold service... and there was but a single person there today. So I got some more practice in, checking on the 6 gold rings that she brought in to test. All told: all were gold, so in the end she received nearly $200.00 for her trouble, plus we discussed some of the more amusing points of branch-level vs Head Office experiences with the company.

The ever-enjoyable io9.com released a great list today: The Top 100 SciFi Shows of All Time. Included on the list are many of my favourites, such as B5, Futurama and Firefly, along with choices like Transformers and Airwolf – even ALF made the list! A corollary to that story is the Top 20 Shows Fox Cancelled before their time ... topped by the live-action Tick, of course. And who could ignore the Top 10 Memorable Monsters from Red Dwarf, which challenged its writers by decreeing from the start that NO aliens would ever make an appearance on the show, to make it more ‘realistic’ for viewers. I have high hopes for this fall’s SciFi offerings, though I just heard that the new ‘V’ series has been put on hold... not, I hope, in order to cast someone to play Elizabeth the Starchild. Seeing as I just picked up the entire 80’s series of ‘V’ on sale from F.Schlock this week, I may have time before the new one comes out to re-watch it... though I may have to get through Season 3 of Alias first. We’ll see; for now, I’m just tickled that someone else has mentioned how cool Space: Above & Beyond was for its day, back in the 90’s...

Aug 29 - Grumpy Sunday

I did some writing, on and off, today – mostly for my game development project for NWN. I was still feeling tired today, and that made me grumpy... which meant that when my COD4 games today stank, I got even grumpier. So I took a break for a while, sat on the back deck and soaked up some end-of-summer weather with the laptop humming away... that helped. It was also nice that the( inevitable )people in the park next door were, for a wonder, quiet and consider – actually enjoying the peace and quiet of nature, go figure!

Not much else to say today – I suppose if my brain wasn’t buzzing with a zillion things, I could have put myself down for a nap to see if that helped. Funny how you can drop off at a moment’s notice when you’re younger( or much older )but the skill seems lost in the middle years. Too many things to worry about, most likely... not like a toddler’s simple needs, and not like an elder’s acceptance that some things just don’t matter as much anymore.

Well, we passed 2700 hits today, and I’m still figuring out how I’m going to convert this blog from weekly to semi-daily( if such a thing exists )... supposedly that will attract more readers, though I’m still fuzzy on the details.