The word of the week is gormless.
March 12 - Rinse and Re-Pete
Another "No thanks, we declined to choose you" email came today at work.
It was an especially damning one, as a trainer for my current office that I
felt I was well-suited for and for which I'd carefully crafted my application
letter.
Nope. Didn't even make it into an interview, thanks-so-much-for-applying...
Despite the bone-deep weariness of yet another 'Nah...' in a year without a
single interview, I've been here before, and I'm refusing to dwell on my 'failures'. Rather, I'm sticking out my chin and getting feedback on every Not
You, Sorry response. Nobody's going to get me out of my current job except me,
though I'm fighting the feeling that nobody cares about my current position
either, at that.
That's a hard one some days: am I really capable of getting a new
position, or just fooling myself, given my lack of specific skills and
experience?
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| I do all of these... |
It seems every day I am also reminded that things could be worse. I see
people on the street here who are obviously having a rougher time of life than
me, and still going on. I saw a severely disabled man in an impeccable suit putting
one bad foot in front of the other, moving his canes with a curious grace to
move through the sidewalk crowds, and I wondered how he dealt with his daily
challenges... and if I would have it within me to show the face I saw today to
the world.
I wondered if he's ever felt like he was just marking time, like I do?
March 13 - Watch this!
Ah, calculator watches... how I miss you.
Since I could first wear watches, I'd always wanted the high-tech ones,
with all sorts of graphs and meters on their LCD faces. Once I'd got a bit
older and realized that most of those watches were sports-centric timers, my
interest turned to watches that were mini-computers, storing and manipulating
data - cool!
Of all the watchmakers in the 1980's and early 90's, Casio was far and away
the best at creating innovative watches. Incorporating calculators and data
storage, they predated the rise of PDA's and much later smartphones, which is
why I loved Casio so much. Here's a small sample of some of their watches from
that era:
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| Top left was mine! |
I had a few calculator watches, but my favourite by far( which I still
have )is my Casio DBC-150 Databank, which has a TON of useful features that
I used daily: a timer to multiple alarms to a segmented scheduler to
storing phone numbers and a dozen others at least - here's a brief video going
over some of those:
The functions of the Casio DBC150 meant I could keep most of what I needed
of a day on my wrist while in school or working; the schedule and phone numbers
were especially handy as I could store a combination of 150 of the two, hence
the model name. There were more expensive versions that held far more numbers,
or had touch-sensitive screens, but the DBC150 did all I needed until the era
of full-colour PDA's... and even then, I still wore my trusty Casio well into the
early 2000's.
That's a long time for a 'simple' calculator watch to last!
March 14 - Losing Hawking and Pi
Today's 'g33k holiday' of Pi Day took on a somber note with the loss of
preeminent physicist Stephen Hawking, who passed at the age of 76.
Along with many others, I have long held him in the highest esteem for
several reasons: his incomparable brilliance of intellect, his indominable
will, and his sense of humour all spoke to me about the best of the human
condition, of what we CAN be if we choose to be that way.
You likely already know about his intellect, on a par with the greatest of
human minds such as Einstein and Newton, Hawking's brilliance showed at an
early age, and only grew with time. It was undimmed by the progression of the
disease that wasted his body away, ALS, which by all odds should have killed
him in his mid-twenties. His determination to survive, along with excellent
medical care and a good bit of luck in how the disease progressed meant he
spent fifty years longer than anyone expected on this earth... for which
humanity benefited. If you're not sure exactly what Hawking contributed, have a
gander at this:
Yet it is the retaining of his remarkable sense of humor despite being
trapped in a body no longer under his control that remains so astonishing, and
inspiring, to me. His wit and enjoyment of life blazed like a star even from
his wasted frame, and that is something I hold tightly to when my own dark days threaten to overwhelm me: to find the humour in life, no matter what, and to
laugh when you want to cry. Also to Never Give Up:
It is with sincere thanks that we bid farewell to Dr. Stephen Hawking, who
more than earned his place at this table of history:
March 15 - Are You Ready?
Years ago, I used to fall asleep reading.
Yet I haven't been able to for at least a decade or more, as the light I needed
to see kept me awake; for a while now I've kept things low-key, using red
lights and screen-colour filters on my devices to keep my biorhythms happy as
bedtime neared.
Still, the need to fall asleep to a story has never left me, which is why
last year I started to listen to audiobooks on Audible before bed. This has the
advantage of letting me set a timer, and also gives my eyes a rest, as they've
still been twinging of late after a long day - I've made an appointment with
the eye doctor again this week.
For the last month, I've been listening to Ready Player One, narrated
by Wil Wheaton, who does a great job. As a bonus, there's something about the
tone and cadence of his voice that lulls me to sleep most nights, which helps.
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| This is my fave 'variant' RPO poster by far! |
The movie adaptation of Ready Player One comes out in two weeks
time, and I'm chomping at the bit to see it, as Steven Spielburg is directing:
from all accounts, he's pulled out all the stops visually and the story closely
adheres to the book. Unfortunately, given the 'nostalgic' nature of the story,
there were a TON of licences that had to be secured from hundreds of
intellectual properties, and a few were missed, of which Star Wars is the
biggest omission. Apparently Disney just wasn't willing to play ball, which is
their loss, especially given the furor with which the latest Star Wars films
have caused from their 'new direction' taken.
SPOILERS BELOW: if you've already read RPO, then the video below
won't spoil anything and it's SO DAMN GOOD, a homage to the 8-bit 80's set to
music from the band Gunship, who'd I'd never heard of until now but will be
checking out ASAP:
March 16 - Vomiting Cash?
Money's still tight for me in 2018, but I'm managing to stay afloat, with some help.
As I've already noted above, getting a better-paying position of just a few
hundred dollars more a month would make ALL the difference to my finances, but that's
been a year of banging my head on a plexiglass ceiling.
I suppose I could always go looking for Ambergris( whale vomit )on
the beaches nearby, as I live only a short walk from the seashore, but that's a
needle-in-the-haystack chance. I suppose if I spent the time I would be writing
on the beach instead every morning and evening, I guess I'd improve my chances,
but I'd be removing any chance of my actually finishing my novel.
Then again, at around $50,000 USD / kg, it would pay a lot more - hmmm.
This train of thought also led me to an older recurring thought I've had:
How much money IS there in the world, more or less? Answer: lots...
March 17 - Not-ComiCon
There's a comic convention in town, but I'm not going.
Capital City Comicon is taking place this weekend here in Victoria, but I'm
not planning to attend, for a few reasons, first and foremost being cost: I
need to save money, and even if I just attended for the $35 Saturday pass,
what's the point of walking around in the crowds and window shopping without
being to get any of the cool stuff? I was in much the same situation when I
went to Arizona in 2013 on a shoestring budget so tight that I got back home
with $2.00 to my name, with a week to go until my payday. I did budget $40 USD
to buy something and I found some stellar Star Wars posters by Ant Lucua(
signed! )so I didn't come home empty-handed... but I walked by so much cool
stuff that I'd have loved to have, but couldn't bear to stop to examine further
because it hurt to pass it by.
Secondly is health: I'm still not in any shape to spend a few hours on my
feet, especially in a crowd: while my anxiety seems to have gone dormant, I'm
in no hurry to test that, given the stress I'm still operating under right now.
Also at CCCC is, of course, cosplay. Which, to be honest, I can do a better
job of seeing online thanks to the magic of social media than wandering around
in person. I'd love to attend in-costume, but given that the only costume I
have( my Aliens USCM from 2
years ago )still isn't what I consider finished( and the rifle's
malfunctioning, too )there's no point, as I'd just overheat - I don't want
that.
Instead, I'll just dream about the costumes I might create at some
balance-point in the future, like this one:
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| My dream cosplay - SOUNDWAVE!!! |
Inspired by the above cosplay, I messed around online and stumbled across the perfect voice changer to make Soundwave's voice! Called RobotVox, this simple free Android app is the closest I've ever heard software come to synthesizing the unique wavetones of everyone's favourite Decepticon - cool!!!
Now all I need to do is get every other aspect of my life together so I can get to work on creating a costume to go with the voice - no sweat, right?
- - -
In the late morning today, my lady and I met our friend Roz at the Victoria
Butterfly Gardens, where we spent a nice few hours wandering around the lush
greenery inside, marveling at the hundreds of insects roaming free. There were
also turtles, parrots, beetles and even flamingos! Check out some of the
amazing pictures:
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| See my FBook profile for the full album! |
We then lunched at the excellent and eclectic Zanzibar Cafe nearby,
which we'll be visiting again soon, to be sure, as they have a stunning rear
outdoor patio - the place is a hidden gem!
In the late afternoon I spent a few hours at Sookjai, writing my blog,
before heading out to the 5th-annual St. Patrick's Day Extravaganza at my
co-worker Jen's place with my lovely lady Michelle. We arrived when it was
quiet, spent a few hours chatting people up, including a rousing conversation
about world economies, AI, UBI and similar high-level topics, then left as
things got louder, as is our usual SOP.
March 18 - Uplift
Today was a 'Perk Peter Up' day, which I appreciated!
My lady and I started off with a late breakfast at the Hawk and Hen, which
we've come to love as it's never crowded and the food is excellent. We then
scooted north to wander around the Glendale Gardens, again with our friend Roz.
I was particularly taken with the Japanese gardens and their bonsai trees, for
the way tha nature is encouraged to grow within the greater plans of the
gardens, but not trimmed to within an inch of its life like a traditional
English garden would be:
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| Relaxing and zenlike... |
As we'd had a late breakfast, we skipped lunch to head into town to meet
with other members of Victoria Verse to talk poetry for a few hours inside the
mostly-tranquil Atrium. I got to read my old winter poem The Snow Queen, which
was well-received, and the others there shared some of their excellent work
that I provided a few pithy comments on here and there; good times. My lady and
I left a few hours later to kick back on the patio at Moxie's down the road,
where to my delight I discovered they had Granville Island Maple Cream Ale on
the menu, which I haven't been able to find in years locally! We chatted about
all sorts of subjects under the sun, literally, just enjoying the semi-balmy
weather as we had the patio to ourselves, and not wanting the day to end as the
sun dipped lower...
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| I was SO happy to discover this again - delicious! |
Mission successful: Peter was most definitely smiling by sunset!
It's a short 4-day workweek for me, and I'll be plugging away at editing my novel among other things, including( I hope! )having my GlowForge shipped to me. Tally-ho!
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