The word of the week is propensity.
April 23 - Vacation, Bad Luck?
In the early afternoon, I went for a walk down to Beacon Hill Park,
sunglasses and hat firmly attached. I felt overdressed, as I was wearing jeans
and a jacket, which I'd soon removed( the jacket, not the jeans )and
even then in the sunshine, I was perspiring a little.
I started out at The Empress Hotel at the Inner Harbour, because their flower
displays are always magnificent in the spring, and didn't disappoint this year:
Moving on up the hill, I wandered into the park, heading down the cool green laneways to the tiny Goodacre Lake, where the ducks and the turtles like to hang out:
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| No ducks this time... |
From there, I took in the sights of flowering plants everywhere, surrounded
by green grass and flowing water. It was a peaceful, perfect way to
'officially' start my vacation week, and I lingered in the park, drinking it
all in, for over an hour.
Unfortunately, despite my caution, in the evening while watching a movie( with
the brightness set to low )my right eye spasmed at one point with too much
light, and I had to call it a night - damn! Seems my eye's still
not quite healed from the strain in December 2017, so I'll have to be careful
this week not to push it.
So much for basking in the sunshine all week while catching up on my reading and
editing...
April 24 - Some GOOD luck!
I spent most of today inside with the curtains drawn, in semi-darkness.
Which sucked, because it was GORGEOUS outside, in the low twenties!
I still had the windows open with the breezes pouring in, as the
temperatures got up to the low twenties... and it SMELLED like spring: fresh
air!
In between eye-resting periods, I caught up on some reading and watching a
few shows on Netflix( like S3 of Wakfu, so great! )which didn't strain
my right eye too much. It's damned STRANGE, because the supplements I've
been taking for over a month now have indeed improved my vistion: I can see
fine details of things far off across the street that I couldn't before, like
leaves on bushes, brickwork and the like, even though my glasses are still the
same as 3 years ago.
Yet my right eye's only good from 7am-7pm, at most, if I don't push things.
Perhaps as a sop to my frustration, I happened upon a local ad today that
immediately caught my eye( hah! ): it was for a set of the incomparable
Logitech Z-5500 speakers( only, no control pod ), the same ones I sold
for $300 back in late 2012 when I needed some money... and before I realized
that they'd be hard to reacquire for the same price, given their quality plus
high cost of shipping.
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| Got mine in 2007, some of the best 5.1 speakers made for the price... |
But why was I so excited by this local ad? The guy wanted $20 for them,
total.
Unbelievable, especially as he said they were in perfect condition! Even
without the control pod, they usually go for $30 each or $150/set, plus
pricey shipping due to their weight/bulk, so I jumped at the chance and
zipped over, as I happened to have my parent's van handy today. They were
indeed in perfect shape, so we sealed the deal with a handshake and he loaded
them into my car from a trolley, and I drove off, the doubled sunglasses I was wearing making the trip bearable.
Amazing!!!! Now I can hunt down a pod over the next few years, while I wait
to move into a place where I can turn them up past Vol. level 3...
April 25 - Humanity as Magic?
Years ago, I used to play with magic...
Magic the Gathering, that is, as did many people back when it came out. I
stopped around 2003, though my friends continued, and I even tried my hand at
it again in 2014, though that new group of friends didn't pan out; so it goes.
So I shelved things, and thought that was it for Magic in my life...
At least until I read this article, which as an interesting take on how
Magic: The Gathering is actually a brilliant way to gain insight into humanity
as a whole:
To be honest, while
the concept is fascinating, the article is QUITE long, and I felt the author
dove into it almost TOO deeply... but the concept still merits thought.
Enjoy it, if that's
your thing!
April 26 - Beard Weird?
I'm thinking of trimming down my beard for the summer...
Maybe. I haven't decided yet.
I'll still keep it as a goatee, as I'm wary of going beardless, ever since
my cellulitis close-shave from late summer 2016 - that's going to be with me a
while, seeing as I'm so damn careful with my health.
Still, what's wrong with a nice, full beard, you ask? Well...
April 27 - Avengers... not.
I won't be seeing Avengers: Infinity War for a while - probably a few weeks.
I don't want to risk the eyestrain.
Which is a damn pity, as I'll have to be careful about spoilers during that
time and the internet will probably be full of them: some people are just jerks
that way, and a few are even simply just careless about what they post on
social media.
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| She seems so HAPPY about being a Spoiler Jerk... |
Yet it's the jerks that really yank my chain: the above spoiler was planted
in a FBook article posted by The Weather Channel that had NOTHING to do with
movies whatsoever - the person did it simply to spoil the movie for others.
I don't know what motivates them, but that sort of sick enjoyment of
ruining things for others is a psychological trait I'm glad most people don't
have, including myself, and I imagine it has something in common with bullying,
in enjoying the discomfort of others in order to elevate one's own self-worth.
Anyway... on to neater things - how about this Lego Star Wars moving
diorama:
While it's a one-off, I love the small scale combined with the motion,
which perfectly captures the feeling of the Death Star attack from the first
film, much like this animation:
April 28 - CIBD!
My girlfriend suggested we make the rounds today for Canadian Independent
Bookstore Day, so we headed off in the late morning to do just that!
Our first stop was at Russell Books, which was just getting set up to have
4 different local authors sit in their Bibliotherapy Booth, which was cool. I
didn't find a book there, but then we traipsed on over to Munro's, which was
having a 20% off sale today... and my lady had some major gift cards to toss
around on top of that for the store! She kindly let me purchase some items, and
here was our haul, which still left about $15 on the cards for her next sojourn
there:
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| Most of these are mine! Not pictured: my lady's prize of the day, a Grumpy Cat book! |
We took a break for lunch at Garrick's Head Pub, tucked away in our favourite back
corner with big windows, before heading over to Bastion Books just across the
square. I lucked into a HUGE copy of Ian F. Hamilton's The Reality
Dysfunction from 1996 for a mere $10, which at 1091 pages is a helluva deal
for a stellar space opera story( first of a trilogy! ).
It was a great day, and I was home at 4pm to do a podcast for my Dark
Crystal pals, which only took an hour. I spent the rest of the evening just
taking it easy, resting my eye in semi-darkness listening to music, some
audiobooks and making it an early night. My eyestrain had induced a pounding
headache and I didn't want to take any more medication, as that just seems to
make my headaches more frequent...
But: BOOKS = happy me and my lady!
April 29 - A Walk In The Park
It was a quiet morning for me: my right eye is still strained, though
somewhat less so than a week ago, so I read some of the new books from
yesterday in soft light for much of the morning and was gratified that it
didn't seem to bother my eye at all - success!
Later in the afternoon, my lady and I took a walk at Fairplay Park, a place neither of us had been before. It's a small
park, but with an abundance of blooming trees and shrubs, and has had much of
its meadowlands restored to a natural state, so it's quite lovely:
Also, after I got home, I found I'd missed out on something Babylon 5 this weekend - dang! Due to
my lack of funds this month, I decided not to go to the Victoria's Ultimate Hobby and Toy Fair 2018 this
year, as I'd just be frustrated if I found some cool stuff there that I
couldn't buy( and I went last year, so...
). As it happens, someone ELSE locally found a sealed-in-the-box model kit of
the Babylon 5 station, which are rather rare, going for $100 USD online...
Ah well; I'm not a modeller, so it would have just sat on my shelf for
years until I got around to mangling the build, so at least it went to someone
who'll do it justice. And I can always try to go again next year...
