The word of the week is trepidation.
Dec 5 – Dwindling
Thank you for sticking with me.
A few years ago, there were close to 100 people
in my private blog group; that numbers down to 68 now, and while I don't like
to see people leave without knowing why, there's no reason to stay if what I'm
saying doesn't interest them.
It still hurts a little to see the numbers drop
over time, but that's life.
Every Monday, before I go to bed after my day, I
check in to see who might have stopped by to read the blog, as well as to edit what I've written the night before to catch any errors I might have made if I was tired( as any good writer should ). As you can see from
the stats below, I don't get a whole lot of traffic, but every person who does
drop by is important to me:
You're here, you're interested, and you're
listening.
For that, I'll always be grateful, for when I was
first writing this blog I was doing so from a place here in BC where I knew
almost no one at all; I'd left my entire world behind in Ontario for chance to
start fresh. While the road since then has been just as rocky and rough at times as the
road leading up to the shift from ON to BC, this blog has been a source of strength
and stability for me, to tell the world how I'm doing.
Thank you for dropping by, to have a look in
while I travel.
Dec 6 – Being More Creative
Where do you get your ideas?
This is a question quite often asked of creative
people by those curious as to where ideas form from... and the answers are as
varied as there are artists out there in the world.
In the main, however, being creative in the first
place is the hardest part: how does one go from ho-hum mundane to Superstar
Creative Idea Space?
John Cleese has some thoughts on the matter:
And to summarize:
It's a simple breakdown of what can be a complex
and challenging thought to follow: how does one come more creative, to produce
more and keep the cycle going? You can read more of the article here, and get
creating on your own.
Dec 7 – Bob: Boom To Bust
It was the hottest new thing on television in the
mid-1990s.
ReBoot, the wonderful CGI
animated kids show was nothing like anything that had come before: every single
thing we saw on screen existed only inside a computer, which was the entire
conceit of the show... and that made it special.
Yet few people know the full story of how ReBoot
made it onto the air, and how it failed in the end.
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| What could have been... concepts by Matt Rhodes |
I've always wondered how such a great show could
simply fall by the wayside, and the Canadian studio that spawned it go from everybody's
darling to something that nobody wanted to bother with anymore, and that
vanished altogether a few years later.
You can read this fascinating and detailed article about how Mainframe Entertainment made ReBoot into the darling of
children's television, and how they squandered their opportunity to do more...
and eventually imploded, which is a shame,
as it meant there would be no more stories set in the ReBoot universe.
That makes me sad.
Dec 8 –
PC Top 100?
I have many, many PC games languishing on
my computer, as well as on my shelves.
Some of those will remain unplayed until they're
re-released by places like G0G.com, with remastered editions for five or
$10 that will work with modern operating systems like Windows10. Others will
see themselves dusted off once a year or so for me to have another go at either
beating them, or more likely just to have another go through to relive some of
my fonder gaming memories.
But which ones belong in which category?
This week, the industry old man PC Gamer released
the best 100 PC games you can still play today, which contains some
interesting, and nostalgic, choices. Going over the last, I see many of my
favorites, but many more are missing, and in reading the article, I get the
feeling that it was written by people in their 20s who understandably grew up
with console gaming systems that are just as capable as PC systems... which wasn't
at all the case when I first got into video gaming.
Have a look at the list and see if you agree with
what they came up with.
Dec 9 –
Dino Tails?
People find the most amazing things - under their
noses sometimes!
Just this week, and incredibly well-preserved
dinosaur specimen was discovered, in all places, in a market in Myanmar. The
specimen is that of a dinosaur tail preserved in amber, but not just any tail:
this one has feathers!
It's concrete proof that the prevailing theory of
feathered dinosaurs is in fact correct, and a fascinating point to begin
re-imagining what we know of these ancient giant's appearance.
Of course, someone's going to have to remake Jurassic
Park with feathers now...
Dec 10 – Deal of the Decade!
WAHOOOOO!!!!
After looking for over a year, I finally got lucky this week!
For some time now, I've been looking for a plasma
television locally, to hook up to my laserdisc player. Unlike LED / LCD
televisions, plasma TV's are eminently suited to displaying laserdisc pictures:
their black levels are a TRUE black( when the plasma pixel's OFF, it emits no
light! )and the extremely bright colors of the plasma elements make the
usually muted colours of the laserdisc really pop.
However, plasma TV's were never popular, due
to several factors, the primary being heat and weight. Plasma screens
are power-hungry and thus generate a lot of heat, and to ensure a good image
the picture elements are quite substantial, such that 42-inch TV's usually
weighed around 60 pounds or more.
Weight also meant that I could forget buying one
on eBay: shipping costs would be insane, not to mention the high likelihood of
damage to fragile components in transit.
Still, I looked. Finally, my long hunt paid off and I found a plasma
TV locally... for a mere $50.00!!!!
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| The irony: using the HOT plasma TV as a fire, in FRONT of a fireplace! |
Incredibly, the TV was in great shape,
owned by a retiree in Langford who had just replaced it after years of ownership
with a new, larger curved LED screen. He had a wall mount for it, plus the original
remote and manual... and it was in perfect working condition, with no
'burn-in' of the pixels that early plasmas were known for. I was so happy I
almost danced a jig right there in his living room... but I didn't want to have
him suddenly raise the price, so I contained myself to just a silly grin. The
stunningly low asking price was due to the fact that the TV didn't have a stand, due to
being wall-mounted for all those years... which is likely why I was able to snag it
before anyone else. As well, most of the local plasma TV's that I've seen have
been listed for $200 or more, which is way above my budget right now.
My lady generously helped me a lot the ungainly
TV( 84lbs!!!! )to the car, athankfully short trip that I managed with my
still-somewhat-achy leg, and we carefully transported it to my parent's place
for storage in a safe spot in their living room until such time I can find the
space for it here. That will also give me time to source a replacement stand,
though I have a feeling I'll end up going with a universal one, which I hope I
can get for around $60.00 on sale sometime in the next year or so.
Ending with: Happy, happy day!!!!!!
Dec 11 – Winding Down
Finances are pretty tight right now.
My sister's hasn't been working a day job since
the summer, and while this month is a three-pay month for me, it's still not
all that fun to keep adding budget numbers and see the lower totals-than-usual staring at me from the page. It's a good thing that my family's not that big, nor really into
the material side of Christmas, or I'd be writing out a fair number of IOU's
this year.
However, you have to look at other factors than finances, to
see the better things.
My sister's far, far happier than she was
at her previous job, and her current endeavors will certainly lead to as-good( or better )income in the future. While
the now may be somewhat unnerving day to day, it's the future that counts.
For myself, I'm pulling back( as I've already
mentioned in previous blog entries )to enable me to focus on a few things
to get 2017 off to a good start in a few weeks. I'm doing just three things in
the next few months: completing work on the fourth draft of my first novel,
putting the finishing touches on my business website details for my GlowForge,
and buckling down to send out some solid resumes to apply for better( or
even lateral )positions in government, on the advice of a few people in the
know who are telling me that now is the best time to be doing so.
Other than that, I won't be up to much in the next while: it's all
about focusing.
I'll leave you with this amazing video mashup
combining super Mario with TMNT, which really tickled my girlfriend's nostalgia
funny bone:
For some unknown reason, the older lady upstairs
has decided that a nice quiet Sunday night is perfect for moving all sorts of
stuff around.. and her footfalls are the quietest to begin with. Normally I
just put on my headphones and ignore things, but after an hour straight I
turned on the stereo and upped the base just enough so she would know that
we're listening to music at a good volume down here, which we almost never do.
After about 20 minutes, she finished doing whatever she was doing and I went
back to my headphones again. Hopefully that's both the first and last time that
has to happen, as she's normally a lovely and considerate lady, albeit one with
extremely strong ankles from the way that she walks around, which makes it hard
to edit inside my apartment sometimes.
