The word of the week is turmoil.
March 5 - Soak Boats?
When I get stressed, I used to be able to hop into the hottub in the basement; it was always ready at the right temperature and baked the bad away. How nice would it to be to have that comforting heat on the go? A company in the USA has created hottub-boats, which let you cruise around a lake in steamy style with a few friends or even solo! When I was living on Langford Lake, there was a 'mobile BBQ' platform that one homeowner puttered around the lake on with friends on weekends that I thought was pretty cool. This would have been a PERFECT compliment to that, I think… especially given that the 'fixed' hottub at that place I was renting broke down after only a few months. If the hottub was floating on a LAKE, it wouldn't have mattered if it was leaking water slowly or not!!!
I hope my next place can have a hottub... or a jacuzzi tub. Anyway...
March 6 - Render The World?
I mentioned that I scored a new video card for a great sub-$100 price a few weeks ago; it's been great and few of my games even come close to using most of its power. So I've been looking at other things that might harness the raw graphical horsepower sitting under the hood, so to speak; alas, only Nvidia cards can be used to do things like re-sizing videos faster( I didn't know or I might have held off buying this one, an ATI - sigh ). I did, however, find a very curious alpha program, a demo really, that in addition to using a LOT of graphical horsepower proposes something astonishing: it can render almost to scale the ENTIRE SURFACE OF A PLANET. Before you wonder why this is so mind-bending, consider Google Maps and Google Earth: they allow you to view our planet in excessive detail… but still draw on something that is already THERE. With Outerra, developers of games like Mass Effect can use the software to allow players to explore virtually limitless vistas of other planets almost on a 1:1 scale. So in effect, you CAN to wander in the mountains, the forests, anywhere you like, with NO invisible walls holding you back because the designers didn't actually build that part…
March 7 - Still waiting?
There's been no word from EI a month after I applied… despite their claim to process most applications within 28 days. I'm supposed to call this coming week to check on things, again, as well as checking on the Service Canada website( a few times a day ). It's frustrating, to say the very least.
While I wait, I've been doing a lot of things, like cataloging some of my 2000 books. And going through my saved bookmarks; after editing and deleting the old / broken ones, would you believe I still have over 5000 bookmarks? That surprised me, as did FireFox when it garbled an update with the 'new' set of bookmarks that took me the rest of the night and most of the next day, on and off, to fix. Thankfully I didn't lose any of the newer sites from recent months and didn't have to re-install FireFox, but it's still a little wonky. Which simply teaches the lesson to back things up regularly( like I do )and prepare for the inevitable day when Things Go Wrong. So you don't tear out any hair.
Ironically, this also helps when waiting for EI.
March 8 - IKEA house?
In a happier world, I would have been house-hunting for the last few years for a place to lay my head, obviously a smaller place as it would just be me and my small allotment of stuff. Given my lack of resources, it's not going to happen for a while, which is also fine: my main reason for wanting a place of my own is so that I don't have overly sensitive neighbours who complain about footsteps in the night while on the way to do one's business. Sheesh.
I'm not alone in wanting a smaller place; quite a few people are seeing the advantages of having a home that is sized to YOUR needs, not that bank's idea of what someone should be buying. As with my previous blog entries about small-house companies like Tumbleweed Houses, it all depends on your budget and what sort of space needs you're willing to work with. I like the homes designed by IdeaBox, whose Activ model is furnished by IKEA for those who are really into that place of wonder; prefabs seem to fit the spot between mobile homes / RV's and traditional houses, in my opinion. Some smaller houses are still mobile, in that they can be moved from a property fairly easily if not permanently attached to a foundation. I find that flexibility appealing, as it would allow me to 'move' elsewhere without having to sell my treasured home. Unless I needed more space, in which case it would make sense to sell. Life's like that.
March 9 - Project Kara?
I've already spoken about video graphics above, but this deserves a special mention all its own: Project Kara from Quantic Dream.
It's a tech demo from Sony that shows off the incredible power of the PS3 gaming console. The video shows what happens when an android is assembled in a futuristic factory… and doesn't want to be taken apart again. The incredible part is that the ENTIRE video was run solely on a PS3, meaning that this sort of technology could make it into in-game graphics, letting the player experience gameplay JUST like this - no more 'ooh, that was a pretty cutscene, but the game graphics are nowhere near that good' gripes. The emotion conveyed in this demo really pulls at you as well, have a look!
March 10 - Stressing?
It's growing in me again, the Stress Factor. Today it was worse, as I found out my plans to move nearby might not be possible until late in the summer; this means finding an alternate place has just become top priority. Which sucks, as things would have been MUCH simpler with Plan A, but as with all things: plan for the worst, hope for the best. Adding to the stress is EI dragging their feet and a lack of decent jobs for someone with my managerial skill set, so in effect I am floating in a limbo of my own frustrated desires for completion. Not good if I want to maintain my sanity, as well as my financial well-being.
But that's life. It's still a LOT better than if I had stayed where I was at MMart, even in hindsight, so I have to keep reminding myself of that. And of the opportunities and possibilities that ARE opening to me now that I have my 'freedom' albeit one that has no income at present. I'm looking at several ideas of mine for self-employment, including freelancing, so I'll get those further fleshed out in the next several weeks as I wait for EI, KEEP looking for a job, and try to find a place to live that isn't Hell waiting in disguise… so the picture below is quite apt for my state of mind right now:
March 11 - Borderline?
Borderlands, the game, has crept back into my life again this week and I've been quite enjoying it; as with many of my games, I never finished it originally. It's the quintessential buddy game, best played with friends and very, very rewarding. So much so that I had to rest my arms later today, they actually hurt from too much controller-gripping and mouse-use this week, which is unusual.
Back in the day, I never owned an NES, which I've not really regretted in that I've owned so MANY other video game systems otherwise. That's meant that I never played Super Mario Brothers or quite a few other 'classic' games, so I've sort of made up the lack in finding them here and there as flash games online. Word this week reached me of a new mish-mash, made from the ground up to resemble an old NES title. It's called Mari0 and mixes Super Mario Brothers… and Portal! It's incredibly fun to play( on the PC or Mac or Linux )as it perfectly captures the old feel of the NES game while using the mechanics of Portal to give it a wholly new twist. Try it out, it's freeware!!
Another rough weekend; it's hard maintaining a positive outlook in the face of such uncertainty, despite my own constant mental assurances that This Is The Right Path. I think it's being IN limbo that scares me the most; that I'm just passing through on the way to better things is what I have to keep reminding myself of.
