The word of the week is renewal.
Nov 17 - Back To Normal
Not much happened this
week, surprisingly.
I was back to work today
and got through it all right, feeling only a touch tired by day’s end. Seeing
as a good portion of my job on phones is relating information to people and advising
them in a general way about policies and procedures, there's not a lot of
mental gymnastics going on, which I appreciate. I certainly don't leave for
home feeling like I've been put through a wringer, even on the busier days and
that really helps to preserve my creative energies.
My writing group has become
a familiar fixture in terms of sociability, meeting every few weeks on Monday
nights like tonight. However, this evening I actually had off, as my critique
group has decided to take a break for November and December and regroup in
January. I'll be sending them sequential chapters from the first draft of Book 2, which makes sense considering
the feedback I've been receiving on the third draft of Book 1: I want to ensure that I am continuing the story in the same
footsteps and not missing anything vital from the reader's perspective.
So far, the feedback on the
third draft has come in only from a few folk; out of the 13 copies I had
printed, I've received detailed notes from only three people. It’s my hope that
sometime early in the new year that I will start to get feedback from the rest
of the folks I sent the book out to this past August.
Until then, I'll just keep
plugging away at my writing – Muse permitting.
Nov 18 – INTO THE FIRE, AT LAST!
I never thought I'd see
this day!
Beyond hope, a lost
treasure from the past has appeared on the Internet! The playable Alpha demo of
Into The Fire, the unreleased Babylon 5 space combat simulator from 1998,
was posted publicly for download today!
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| I have a treasured mousepad with this image on it! |
This game was supposed to
be the ultimate space combat simulator of its day, created by the then
much-vaunted Sierra Studios… who for the most trivial of reasons cancelled the
game mere months before it was released. They went into a long decline after some bad decisions and only recently came back to the industry. It’s a sad story, made more so because
the studio refused to sell the rights to the game long after it was no longer
worth anyone's time to try to pick up where the designers had left off more
than a decade ago and so the game vanished into history.
Until today. Have a look
at what could have been:
I’ve downloaded the demo and
have yet to install it, as I'm working through the instructions to ensure that
I don't mess anything up: it’s an Alpha build and as such there's a few things
to get straight before I can play it. However, it doesn't look to be too
difficult to pull off and I'm itching to play a game that, to be honest, I
never thought would ever be loaded on my computer.
How's that for wishes
coming true?
Nov 19 – That’s … small!
This is perhaps the
tiniest apartment I've ever seen.
Located in Paris, this
apartment is less than 100 ft.² in size but it packs everything that a single
person can need for life in the City Of Lights. Considering how costly living
in Paris is, minimizing one's living expenses is vital to actually being able
to enjoy life there.
After watching the video,
I did wonder why the apartment’s owner didn't have any shelves above head
height on the bare walls, to make use of even that much spare space for
storage. I would think that even with minimalist lifestyle, there would still
be a need to have as much storage as possible, otherwise it would be more like
living in a hotel room than one's own home. You can read more about the project
from its designers here; I did pick up a few more tidbits, like the fact that
if you live alone in a small apartment in Paris, the government will actually
give you a not-inconsequential subsidy – not bad, for those who like their
solitude and tiny apartments!
Too bad I don’t speak the
language; to live in Paris, well… c’est tres bon, non?
Nov 20 – Fan Fest and Workshop Photos
Sorry about the delay.
I’ve finally put together two photo albums of my trip to New York last
month and figured out what I wanted to do in order to share them. Here they are:
It's taken a little
longer, because I wasn't sure what photo sharing service I wanted to use. I
needed something that would allow me to easily upload pictures AND add
descriptions to them, which you can't do with simple Dropbox links. I also
couldn't link to the almost-identical FBook albums that I've created, as my
privacy settings don't allow those to be viewed publicly.
In the end, I decided to
go with Flickr, for several reasons: they offer 1 terabyte of free storage and
the rights 12 pictures remain with me, the originator. For some time, I've been
concerned that any photos I uploaded to photo sharing sites could possibly be
used for commercial purposes without my consent, as that consent would be
implied by the site’s Terms Of Use.
Flickr does make it quite clear about the photo rights remaining with their users by default and I was
comfortable enough reading that to create the albums today. I might end up
creating some more albums in the future, as the massive free space Flickr offers
as well as the simple interface means I can share quite a few photos easily
rather than trying to post them through Fbook or other, clunkier interfaces.
Enjoy the
photos!
Nov 21 – Dollhouse, Phones and Clones
This was supposed to
happen last week, as I was feeling rather unwell, I pushed things out until
tonight.
But I'm getting ahead of
myself: I should mention that work today was rather slow. Our computer systems
were being upgraded, meaning that save for myself and two other people
answering phones, nobody else had access to the databases, so it was a skeleton
crew in a mostly-empty office today. Our phone message indicated that we
wouldn't be able to do much for callers, so we had a vastly reduced number of
people actually ringing through and for the most part I dealt with mail today
rather than people on the phone, which was a nice change of pace.
Heading home, I tidied up
the place a little, as I was having company over tonight. A friend of mine
wanted to introduce me to the underrated TV series Dollhouse, which as one of Joss Wheden’s works I'd of course heard
of but not really had make it onto my radar.
Fortunately, my friend had
noted this lack and as a fan of the series they insisted that I tried out for a
few episodes while they sat nearby and tried not to explode with glee as they
watch my reactions - positive ones, as it turned out. While I found that Dollhouse had some similarities to the
earlier Alias series by J.J Abrams, these
were only superficial and Dollhouse definitely
has its own vibe. I'm quite excited to see what the rest of the season has in
store and it looks like my Friday nights are going to be well-spent,as I also introduced my friend to The Clone Wars, much of which I haven't seen myself.
It's good to have friends
like that, don't you think?
Nov 22 – Retail Workaday Redux
It was another day at my
old job today - a really nice one, as it turned out.
Seeing as I missed last
week’s Saturday shift due to my fun with sugar, today was my first full shift
at Staples in over 2 months. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I was
pleasantly surprised when the day passed both easily and quickly, in large part
due to the fact that I was extremely relaxed on the job compared to how I was
in early 2014. The place was extremely busy for a few hours at a time, not
unexpected for this time of year and as usual I managed to get all too little
done apart from dealing with customers, but that was actually alright as I
really enjoyed just interacting with people and garnered quite a few compliments
today for my efforts.
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| This is probably having TOO much fun at work... |
It really is strange in
some ways to work in retail. Apart from my legs aching due to being on my feet
for hours on end which I'm unaccustomed to now, not really giving a fwoof about
meeting sales targets or goals set by others allows me to actually enjoy the
job for all the positives that it can bring when one isn't stressing out about
being let go for some silly reason. Not taking it seriously is one thing, but
setting aside the inconsequential for the social is perhaps the best way I can
describe how I feel about the position now. Working only a couple of times a month
also has summoned to do with it: I am a little out of touch with things. While I'm an experienced employee, I am in no way pushing the envelope in terms
of my job performance anymore - it's barely a second job that I'm keeping, for now.
I'm okay with that.
There was no gaming
tonight with my Pathfinder group, so I spent a few hours visiting with my
parents who came into town to help me run a few errands. It was great to catch
up with some, reminding me of our early days here in Victoria when I'd spend a
few hours with them every other day or so, having dinner or shopping for
necessities or just being social. Now that I'm regularly employed and don't
have to worry nearly as much about my family’s well-being, I hope that I'll be
able to spend some more time with them on a regular basis, working around my
busier schedule socially and professionally to make better use of my time to
visit with them.
That's important to me; it always has been, really.
Nov 23 - A New Week Is Nigh
It's time to say goodbye -
to my old phone, that is.
My sister has decided that
she'd like to try out my old Samsung Galaxy S3, to see if it can meet her
needs. I did warn her about its unusual hunger for batteries: with the main
battery and a spare as well as a handy charger, she believed she can make it
work for and it would be a substantial upgrade in hardware from her Samsung
Galaxy S2 model, which is almost 4 years old by now. So for a little while this
morning, I ‘scrubbed down’ my S3, removing almost 200 apps and resetting a lot
of its functions; I didn't want to Factory Restore the phone, as that would
have meant a lot of unnecessary updating as the unit still works just fine
overall, apart from the known thirst for power - electrical, not political,
thankfully.
I took the afternoon off
to visit a friend on the other side of town, cycling into a rather brisk
headwind and enjoying the exercise in the unexpected sunshine. We chatted on
their patio, a pleasant spot off a secondary road, sharing our writing
experiences and generally g33king out. Tea and low-sugar treats were enjoyed, laughs were exchanged and a good time was had by all, even after the sun dipped behind a building and things went all chilly fast-like.
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| It felt like this, really... |
All in all, it was a good
day off. I'm definitely feeling centered now, able to get through a workday
without carrying anything with me into the evening or the weekends. I hope that
any day now my Muse will stir, tapping me on the shoulder and tell me that it's
time to seriously dig into writing again. It's been a very long dry spell these
last few months, with little actual progress on my trilogy and once I hear my
characters knocking at the doors inside my head, wanting to talk again.
That should be any day now.
The week ahead looks to be a busy one, where I have something going on every evening after work - very unusual for me, especially as not a one of those things is writing-related. I should end up hitting the weekend at a run, hopefully to relax again!
