Belief, BYOB and Beaches

The word of the week is determination.

February 4 - Focus

There's a lot of things running through my head lately, most of which have to do with money. Money that I had, money that I've wasted and money that I'm trying to make.

Right now, I'm not bringing in any money. My family has repeatedly stated that while the situation isn't great, they're there for me for as needed until I can get my feet under me and support myself. My pride right now has been taking a beating, as you can imagine, but I'm determined to make something of myself even if nobody else out there is willing to take a chance on me - their loss. They missed out on hiring a NINJA!

There's too many distractions going on, which are easy to come by when your day is your own to make. I'm not a person to fritter away time uselessly and yet it seems that when I look back on each of the days for the last few months, very little concrete seems to have been accomplished by my books. Perhaps I'm being a little too hard on myself but I do know that I have to stop chasing fireflies around the room and instead pick just a few candles to light and focus on for the next few months. 

If I don't, then I'll just keep wandering around in the dark for too long.

February 5 - Striking out… on my own?

While I was job searching this week, I was also researching taking on my own job - as in, creating my own company to employ myself.

It's not so far-fetched, really. Considering the luck I've had so far in finding ANY job, why not make my own?

I'm not talking about freelancing as a writer here, by the way; that's going to happen alongside this company thing. No, what I've done is found a possible need and I'm going to fill it, as rapidly as possible, with myself as the sole person who can provide the service to various companies. At a price that's a deal for them and a modest, growing income for me.

I'm researching it this week and by next week, I should have a basic business plan in place. Fortunately, from what I can see, the startup costs will be minimal - I already have web space and can create a basic professional site myself without too much fuss. Getting the legal and contractual things into place will take longer, as that's more along the lines of what I need to research. There's many reasons to BYOB( be your own boss )not the least of which is discovering how to fill needs that other people haven't found ways to yet.

Stay tuned, it's exciting!

February 6 - Going rogue: Anime Pirate Captains

Speaking of striking out on your own…

Space Pirate: Captain Harlock is coming in Fall 2013.

This is a CGI film made by the director of Appleseed, based on an old anime series by the creator of the Star Blazers / Space Battleship Yamato show. Which just so happens to be a favourite corner of mine off the anime world. Check it out:

Now, I haven't yet seen most of the old Captain Harlock series, but I have started to watch it on Crackle.com for free. It's dated( 1977! )but it's still very watchable. I especially enjoy the many visual aspects it shares with Star Blazers, which was made at the same time by Leijii Mastsumoto. Space harpoons away!

February 7 - Fortress Idaho???

Speaking of filling a need…

Apparently some people feel that a return to the Middle Ages is nigh and want to live inside a literal fortress community:

Where's the fields to grow FOOD, people?

Myself, I think this is silly. It's a knee-jerk reaction to the various threats that a modern society faces: instead of FIXING the society, you retreat from it and lock the door.

It's the same as the gun control debate; it's a complex, long-term issue that needs to be addressed by all sides. You can't just take away the guns, because that gives the criminals free reign. You also just can't keep everyone armed, as that leads to the horrific incidents we see in the news from the USA almost daily. There's a middle ground, invisible to most right now, that needs to be found. And fast.

Nobody wants to live in a world of fortresses full of trigger-happy people.

February 8 - Wasteland2

Back in 1987, the original Wasteland game on the Apple IIe was a breakthrough: it took players head-first through the looking-glass into a world devastated by nuclear war… and dealing with the aftermath. Sure, it was extremely simplistic by today's standards, but it was a FUN world to explore and that was what mattered.

Click to read about the year 2087!

A successful recent Kickstarter campaign in 2012 has resulted in Wasteland2 getting underway for development and it's fairly well along in its progress. Check out the video below for some gameplay footage:

The video really captures the 'feel' of a post-apocalyptic world, I think. Dangerously dark, menacing and full of nasty things ready to shred your character's faces. It's fun in a modern 3D RPG-heavy way, which I love; running and gunning in a FPS is less and less interesting to me, as those games tend to be massively multiplayer and inhabited by people whose collective IQ is an inverse function of their reflexes : the fastest gun and dumbest commentary wins. What I want right now and for the foreseeable future is to really enjoy a game on my terms and not someone else's.

I'm excited to see Wasteland2 released by the end of 2013!

In the evening, I went to a party with some of the same friends that I had played magic with some few months ago. It was a little awkward, as the place we were at was formerly the home of two of said friends who had just broken up a few weeks ago. I had thought that there might be some animosity or stress, as the host and their former partner were both at the party but I was thankful to see that there were nothing but smiles all around; these were good people and we all had a great time. It was lovely to give my social circle a push yet again and to get out on a Friday night.

February 9 - Dictatorship

Today I started using Dragon Dictate again, after finally sorting out the microphone problems that I've been having even after I purchased a new headset. The Turtle Beach X12 I picked up a few months ago for a song on sale now works perfectly, after some fine – tuning that I did this month. I'm happy to say - literally - that the speed in recognition accuracy of the program is now at the point where I can substitute it for typing on a regular basis. It may weird my sister out a little as I talk to the computer for hours at a time each day, but I can already feel the difference that the rest has been making for my wrists. I'll  really be ramping up the speed once I learn just how well the program can keep up to me and I'll even tested in a few typing programs in the next little while, just to see.

The really exciting part will be to make the jump from simple dictation to voice command, where I'll be able to automate some functions of operating my computer, especially in the area document creation which is hard on hands as he uses a lot of mouse time. At some point I'll have to work in an office with a closed-door, so that I don't drive everyone nuts as I'm working. It's kind of like a one-sided voice conversation that you overhear when someone's talking on their phone nearby in public; apparently that's one of the easiest ways to drive total strangers nuts.

But that's for the future; for now, I'm just going to make the most of this finally–functioning tool at last.

February 10 - Winter?

Watching the news about the massive snow dump that happened this weekend on the East Coast, I can't but feel grateful yet again for living in Victoria.

I haven't seen more than a sprinkling of snow all winter here.

Growing up in Niagara, winter was always something one had to prepare for daily. Putting on your heavy clothes and stepping into your boots, then making the sometimes-slippery trek outside was always done with a little trepidation. Especially if multiple snowfalls had made roads and sidewalks into patchwork quilts of icy layers that caught at your feet and made you wish your car had snow tires that year.

I don't miss the cold or the wet or the white fun stuff that turned a 10 min. walk into a balance challenge while your nose was freezing. It's been enervating to spend this winter in particular here looking out my front window at the never changing Vista of green grass greeting me every morning. I can see why many people move to warmer climes and never look back, despite the things they leave behind.

If I could leave my worries behind as easily, I'd be on a beach somewhere right now.

This last week has been rather a bust, as I've had no real job leads and no traction when it comes to doing more than just applying. The idea of becoming a freelancer and / or starting my own company is really a lot less stressful than searching for job, when you think about it. Long hours of hard work at home on my own schedule seems to be far preferable to throwing my resumes away every time I send them out to employers. I'd rather end up with employers looking for me instead; that's a far more appealing picture, I think.