Beginnings, Barbarians and Bright Sides

The word of the week is trepidation.

December 31 - Star Wars... Organ?

It's New Year's Eve, and I stayed in.

Mainly because I'm just still so damn tired and alcohol won't help me get better. So I snoozed, I watched a few of the celebrations on TV and in general relaxed. For once, I didn't dwell on the year gone past or wonder about the future, but instead took the moments as they arrived and tried to enjoy them along with the rest of the world as 2012 came to a close.

I also surfed the web a long bit, feeling a little bored which is unusual for me. I came across this beauty, a gem of a LEGO creation that took a LOT Of planning and effort to create. It's a hand-cranked organ, laid out as a cylinder depicting numerous scenes from the various Star Wars films, rendered in loving detail AND according to a precise pattern. Said pattern allows a set of arms positioned to one side to 'read' the organ and this play the Star Wars them song as the cylinder is rotated. Brilliant!

My thoughts? Build one of these depicting New York City and have it play Auld Lang Syne at New Year's, which I'll bet you didn't know was a poem written by none other than the great Scot, Robbie Burns!

January 1st 2013 - Another New Beginning

The year has turned and it's now 2013; a lucky year for us all, I hope.

The good news is that I'm no longer coughing and that I've been able to get out of the apartment for the last few days, albeit for short jaunts and not walks longer than ten minutes. I'm still seriously lacking energy but I'm definitely on the road to recovery, helped by the fact that we've kept the place warm and I've done little but rest most days. I hope the flu season is behind me and I'm being VERY careful.

That said, the bad news is that my sister and I are still both jobless. I've been working diligently to apply to as many jobs as I can with targeted flair, sometimes two or three a day. Now that I'm able to get out of the apartment and not cough constantly while trying to speak, I'll be FINALLY able to go to a few places in person to try to make an impression. The next few weeks should be very busy for us both.

January 2 - Car of the future?

Since I'm looking to the future this week, why not dream a little?

I've mentioned before that I like alternative vehicles, small cars or electric, that appeal to my sense of tech and less to my sense of not really needing a car - yet. It's slightly affected my job search in that I can't apply for jobs that require 'full mobility' across the lower part of the island, but that's minor.

What caught my eye today was the Tesla-S, a next-generation electric vehicle that's just being released for sale in North America. It's packed full of electronics, can do 0-60 VERY quickly and has a range of 300 miles for the high-end model. It's sleek, sexy and something that I'd love to have in my garage… if I HAD a garage, that is. Unfortunately, the high-end model is a bank-busting $80K USD, so I'll have to be swimming in success in a few year's time in order to afford it. Still, since petroleum isn't getting any cheaper, I think full-on electric is the way to go even moreso than jumping on the hybrid bandwagon.

January 3 - Robotech: Valkyrie Project

Fans of the 1980's series Robotech number in the millions, from all over the world. Some of the things they have created in homage to Robotech are astonishing, from costumes to art to little painted figures with incredibly realistic detail.

Fan films are also out there and one of the best is also one of the most recent. The Robotech Valkyrie Project hails from Argentina, of all places, and is as breathtaking as it is short. It illustrates what today's F/X artists can do on modern computers, working with very little resources yet being able to create extremely realistic effects. Have a gander and check out some of the other Robotech fan videos once you're finished gaping in awe( use the CC button for subtitles ).

January 4 - Dave The Barbarian

It's come to my attention that though I've mentioned the Great Little Show that is Dave The Barbarian a few times in my blog over the years, I've never devoted an entry to it by itself. So here it is.

Dave The Barbarian was a too-brief animated series that debuted in 2004 and sank swiftly into oblivion for the usual reasons( ie. stupid network execs ). I was lucky enough to catch it when it aired and recorded roughly half the episodes, which is VERY lucky as it's never been released on DVD - nor is it likely to be.

The show is a parody of the Heroic Fantasy; there's a solid summary of it here at TV Tropes.org for you. It's a show full of jokes, puns and gags, only half of them lowbrow and all of them funny. Fortunately, a few people have collected ALL the episodes and made them available on YouTube - I'll be slowly going through them again to see the ones I don't have to cheer myself up in the coming months. Yes, they're THAT good. Start your own Chucklefest by watching the intro and then the first episode here:

January 5 - Rain, Rain and more Rain.

It's now well into the rainy season here in Victoria.

From November through February, it rains here a LOT; we get 2/3 of the rain for the year during this time. While there are sunny breaks here and there, for the most part it's grey and cloudy when it's not actually wet outside - not conducive to staving off a cold, I have to say. On the bright side, during the summers Victoria is the driest city in Canada and we get more overall sunshine per year than anywhere else in the country; I'm sure I've mentioned that before.

Which means that I've been making good use of my sunlight-lamp while stuck inside for the last month. I won't get a tan from it but it's certainly helped keep me on an even keel with the lack of actual shiny rays from the sky. It's been hard to stay focused AND upbeat since finishing my novel's second draft in October, given the total lack of response to my job search.

The weather, in other words, isn't helping.

Nor is the season; now is the time when all sorts of seasonal workers are being let go from their busy-during-the-holidays jobs. Meaning I've got even MORE competition to overcome in the next few months, which doesn't make me feel any better. But I'll just have to buckle down and be better than all of them to land a job.

Soon.

January 6 - Restless Worry

I managed to get out again today, during the morning when it wasn't raining - yet. It was nice.

What isn't nice is the itch I feel to be DOING something, all the time, of late. I feel as though I've lost a month of precious time in December to the pneumonia and it's coming back to haunt me. I'm finding myself unable to relax for very long; reading or playing a game of some kind very quickly leads my thoughts back to finding a job or worrying in general. All the games I've put on my PC this week have gone untouched, which is unusual for me - another sign that my subconscious is being strained.

I did pop online briefly to visit friends in NWN, but as they were having an 'evil' quest of dark elves / drow, I bowed out early. I don't like playing a drow, as it's always about intrigue, selfishness and backstabbing. Not my style and not relaxing for me, especially in my frame of mind of late, unfortunately.

To bed, to begin a new week in a new year, with positive thoughts.

My wrists have been bothering me again this week, I'm not sure why. I've done little to aggravate them over the last month, staying off the Xbox and using the PC's mouse or trackball fairly sparingly. Perhaps since I've started to use the latter more this week that's caused a complaint to spring up; I don't know. At least I'm feeling better and I hope that by this time next week some of my missing energy will come back and I won't get dizzy from standing up too quickly any more. Rest, proper food and exercise will complement a determined mind and strength of will to persevere over the coming few weeks.