Cookies, Subway and Sadness

This blog ran a little late in being posted... see the Aug 11th entry as to why. No pictures either, but they ARE on the way. I'll let you know. :-) 300 page-views since I started the counter back in January.. amazing!

Aug 11 - Cookies and Stress

Today was a five-cookie day. Nearly ten hours of continuous stress….yeesh! We rolled out an update of one of our major products today, Victoria being the test-market for the rest of the country. Can you say ‘fiasco’ with me? Repeat ad nauseum… it was horrible. Bugs in the program meant that my first customer, who had the patience of a saint, spent 45 minutes in the lobby while I tried desperately to get the product working. It finally did, after a band-aid solution was found to work around the issues. It was like that all day long, and I finished the ten-hour-long day with my teeth gritted in a solid mass. Doesn’t do much for headaches, that – I try not to grind them, which is foolish.

I’ve noticed that stress hits me differently these days. In years past, I would wind up a bad day by ending with incredibly tense neck and shoulder muscles, to which I quickly applied a fantastic Homedics back massager ( looks like E.T. ) – made a world of difference, and I still have it for the occasional use. Now, stress tends to add up over a few days, where I will have a day where its just a struggle to get some energy and focus on things, even relaxing. Different from the end-of-a-single-day stress, and more difficult to deal with, as I don’t get anything done at the end of one of those days – staying focused at work takes it all.

Aug 12 – Reboot Revival / Zeroes2Heroes

One of my favourite shows from the 90’s is Reboot, the first computer-animated television show. It ran for three seasons, as well as having two two-hour movies, which were actually the fourth season cut down a bit when the series was nipped short. Recently, I have discovered that a ‘ReBoot Revival’ is underway. This makes me happy, as I very much enjoyed the series for its characters and its story; the third season was a non-stop thrill ride with an ending that did not disappoint at all. No ‘kiddy show’ by then, I tell you! Too bad the DVD’s are incredibly difficult to get, which I find odd.

A movie pitch was made for a ReBoot idea, on a website called Zeroes2Heroes where anyone can put up their creative ideas… with the possibility that they will be picked up and produced, in some form or another, by a major entertainment company! What I find fascinating is that anyone at all can submit their ideas or art, and the community of registered users will vote on it… to the point where it may be developed! Sure beats the heck out of trying to find an agent and getting them to add your manuscript to the massive piles of slush that are an editors cross to bear daily. Nobody likes slush piles.

Aug 13 - Subway

Work is going to be interesting in the next month, and not in a good way. With the departure of one of my co-workers earlier in the month, and the news that my other co-worker is leaving, I will be the ONLY staff member at my branch – not good. My DM has already asked me if I was willing to cut short my vacation and start working almost as soon as I return from Niagara – since this is the sort of thing that usually happens when I take vacations, I agreed, as it’s either that or close the branch for the rest of the week… seems it IS hard to get good help in a lot of sectors these days, as it’s a buyer’s market. Too many people are staying only for a few months, then hopping to ‘better’ jobs – which is good, as it indicates a strong economy, but bad for employee retention. Yep.

While having a chai tea with my neighbour over at the Cook St. Starbuck’s, I noticed something new going in just down the road: a Subway. Amazing, as that was the only thing that my neighbourhood did not already have – kind of freaky actually, like wishing for a new toy and finding it some months later by the side of the road. Well, not exactly like that, but you get the idea. Made me wonder how careful I should be about wishing for a movie theater down this end of the city… don’t want to wipe out a block of homes! A library might be nice though, as the nearest one is downtown, where I don't usually go. Too much to ask for with all the other conveniences around here, so I'll stick with my own massive book collection.

Aug 14 - Sadness at a Distance

I found out that a friend’s father passed away today, and that he had been sick for some time… damned hard news to take, especially from this far away. Coming from a large Italian family, I can remember much of my youth was spent going to funerals( or weddings )so my feelings are still quite strong on BEING there for people...

Distance and friends are always hard to juggle. Though the internet makes it easy to communicate, it can’t help when you need to BE there for someone – phone calls just aren’t the same, it’s just a voice on the line and not a shoulder to lean on.

I wonder, in this coming age of rising fuel costs, if travel will become a barrier again. I recently wrote an article for Cyberwalker about webcams and videophones, the latter being something we STILL can’t buy down at the local FutureShop as easily as we would a regular phone. You think that someone would come up with a simple, reasonably-priced unit that uses compatible standards so ANY videophone would work with any other manufacturer’s unit… but no. To date, it’s still webcams and fond wishes, which annoys the heck out of me – I had those back in the 90’s, and they’re only marginally better for the non-techie to set up and use, despite a decade of ‘progress’. At least theyr’e cheaper, and no longer suffer ‘pixel burn’ from bright light sources like sun on snow through a window… I learned THAT one the hard way during a call to Mexico one day.

Aug 15 - Writing practice and Civ

In writing this blog, I have been getting in some good practice with my word-skills, and just recently realized than on average I am writing about ten thousand words a month just for this blog alone – surprised the heck outta me, that did. It is also rather difficult to keep this blog flowing along, in terms of never retreading the same topic as well as not just creating a boring play-by-play daily journal on washing socks. No, I try to put in something different, something amusing, every week – my thoughts on various subjects, my observations about Victoria and even the occasional profound thought as it scampers pell-mell through my mind.

I played Civ:Rev for far too long this evening, trying to win the game in specific ways yet being frustrated as usual by random chance that set my plans askew. I have also noticed that the game is not as polished technically as I would have liked for a console game. Graphical glitches, slowdowns, slow access to some features and odd sound-level variances all make me wince on occasion; I hope that Firaxis Games is hard at work on a patch to smooth things out. While the glitches do not interfere with gameplay, they are annoying.

Aug 16 - Overtime and Bad Gameplay

I worked an overtime shift today at another branch, to help out. It always amuses me to work somewhere else, as the regular customers usually ask “Oh, are you new?” to which I always reply “Why, yes!” just to see what they will do. Some of the slightly sneaky ones will try to convince me that they are ‘allowed’ to do something that tries to get around our work policies… which again amuses me, as I let them go on for a bit before snapping them back to the reality of how things really work. It never fails to amaze me how people will try something with a ‘new’ person that would never do with a ‘regular’ staff member. But I guarantee they’ll never try it again when they see me next.

Surprisingly, I had a bad experience on NWN tonight, though in hindsight the stress of work this week perhaps provided a tipping point for my frustrations. Given the unstructured nature of a NWN-run gameworld, every DM running ‘quests’ is there on their own time, volunteering to run people around and tell their own story in the overall framework of things. As an aside, this usually works, but give the ‘catch-as-can’ nature of unscheduled events, some nights there aren’t a lot of people around, and other nights you can miss out on an amazing experience by but a few hours if you are unlucky – annoying, that is.

Well, in a nutshell( before your eyes glaze over )a few friends and I were out to do what seemed to be a simple rescue… but turned out to be a Mexican Standoff. I grew very frustrated at the seeming lack of options, and when the NPC ‘hostage’ was lost, despite our frantic efforts, I grew very angry – the first time that has happened to me in an online game. I quickly cooled down, but this clarified the problem that a lot of online games have compared to well-crafted single-player games: good gameplay structure with MULTIPLE means of problem resolution, most of which are NOT too difficult to distinguish – it should be hard to MAKE the choice itself, not to just SEE it initially. In any case, I logged off after chatting with both the DM and other players, to ensure this sort of thing did not reoccur and so frustrate people who would be less better able to deal.

Aug 17 - Heard the Thunder

I felt a little better about working the weekend through( again today )as the weather was nowhere near as sunny as promised earlier in the week – go figure. Again, the rain here doesn’t last, similar in some ways to rain in Florida: it rains for a few minutes and moves on, though the sky may be cloudy for most of the day. A week of get skies and rain is unheard of here, just like thunder or lightning; some people here have never SEEN lightning before, if they grew up in Victoria.

Amazing, to think that something so common in Ontario is a rare wonder here. Good thing too, as it’s damned dangerous… and that so many fools take so little note of that. I’ll never forget a violent thunderstorm that hit Niagara some years back, while I was staying at the Prince. The winds blew the rain horizontally so hard that it penetrated into the building( since sealed )and managed to cause my bedroom ceiling to partially collapse – we ended up having to move for three months while the unit was repaired, including new carpets. No, what got me was DURING that storm, a family of crazy fools was IN the pool, with lightning strikes flickering in the sky all around. They huddled for shelter, all of them still IN THE WATER and UNDER an overhanging tree as the wind and rain whipped all around. I remember shouting out the window for them to get out of the water, but the noise of the thunder and rain was too much. Incredibly lucky they were, as lucky as they were stupid! Dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long, long time, I tell you... and I work with the public.

At least I do not have an early morning tomorrow; we’ve scaled back our hours on Mondays and Tuesdays, so( for now )it’s guaranteed that I can sleep in, even to 9am, on a Monday – how many jobs can you say that for? Mind you, there’s a lot of other things that balance that out about the job, but since I rate sleep rather highly( never getting enough of it )then anything that increases sleep time is good in my books. Reminds me of someone I worked with, a long time ago: a figure skater, who told me that due to the incredible demands that that sport puts on a person, she needed to sleep at least eight to TEN hours a night before practice or performances – incredible, since I feel logy if I get more than eight hours… or less than six, which shows there’s a balance needed too.

Another week blogged and logged, and that makes TWO weeks without comments... has Anonymous given up? Or is he plotting some fiendish comment campaign the likes of which this blog has never seen before? Tune in next week for another exciting episode...

UPDATE: we have a NEW commentator... a holy figure, no less! Welcome to Comment Christ. We'll find out if he's just cross, or if he can really nail those comments in coming weeks... and thanks Jen - glad you keep coming back for more! Surprising, but welcome!!!

Singing, Shock and Sweat

I am still working on those pictures. There's literally thousands of them that I am going through, so what I am doing is going through this Blog week by week and picking out images that go with each entry. I wanted to do that in the first place, but it was hellish trying to get images properly attached / hosted when I started this blog. Again, I hope to have it done before my trip to Niagara!

Aug 4 – B.C. Day

After work, I headed home for a quick supper and then cycled down to the Inner Harbour area to catch the festivities. The weather was simply perfect: clear skies and balmy temperatures that did not start to feel the least bit chilly until well after 10pm. Part of BC 150 Years, this article gives a great summary of the event.

When I arrived, the crowds were dense but not heavy, with quite a few people content to sit much further back from the massive stage set up in front of the Parliament Buildings. Hundreds were spread over the vast lawn of the Fairmont Empress Hotel. Famous local son Burton Cummings was playing when I made my way to the corner of Government and Belleville St, which was close enough. The crowds were much heavier just the opposite side of the street, covering the lawn completely. Where I was, I could see the stage as well as the two huge screens on opposite sides. I even had a tall guy to my right, who neatly blocked the blinding rays of the setting sun – perfect, in fact.

Burton Cummings was a blast of energy, singing his heart out along with his band. I was sorry I had not got there sooner, as they left the stage not even a half hour after I arrived.

Sarah McLaughlin was next. I was interested to see her, as I'd been first introduced to her music back in my days working at The Brock Press. My editor at the time, Nick, was a HUGE fan of hers. So much so, that he was on a first-name basis with the staff at her record label – he would call them up weekly to see if there was anything new happening with her, which I found amusing. I should also mention that the last Sarah McLaughlin concert I attended was back at the Molson Amphitheatre, when she first returned from hiatus after having a child( I believe ). That was a great show, but I ended up not enjoying myself after the halfway point. I had gone up to the 'cheap seats' rail that separated the grassy seating fringe from the 'paying customer' seating to take some pictures, with my lowly 3-megapixel Olympus C3000 digital camera( but DAMN could it take good low light pictures! ). Amazingly, there are still reviews online of the camera. I barely got two pictures before security dove on me, lectured me about not 'filming' ( ?? )and took away my camera for the rest of the concert. Needless to say, I was NOT impressed.

But back to the concert. Sarah put on a lovely performance, her songs as always making the crowd smile. I noticed 'Aida' seemed to be the most popular, with a lot of the crowd singing along. It was a mixed lot too, with a lot of families and older folk present; officials put it at around 45,000 people all told. Suffice to say it was a relaxed, happy and well-behaved group of people out to enjoy a perfect summer evening with a free show.

Fiest was on after Sarah, with an intermission by a local singer named Shawn Hlookoff. He was energetic, but you could tell by the absent-minded chatter of the crowd that they were really waiting for Feist. There was a small group at the front who would occasionally chant her name during the setup after Shawn, and the roar that went up when the lights came on( low of course )was almost as big as for Sarah's low-key entrance.

And an interesting entrance it was. Fiest had set up a 'silhouette screen' and started off the show singing with her backlit silhouette on that very screen, a theme that continued throughout the show. I did not know any of the songs, but BOY could you hear her – they must have amped the bass ten times over the other performers, as very asphalt was vibrating enough to rattle the gravel. Loud, I guess, is another way to put it – glad I wasn't any closer. Too bad I had to leave before she got to the one song I did know, the Apple iPod commercial-famous "One, Two, Three, Four…" I really wanted to stay for that, but I was just too tired at that point, so off I went home in the gathering chill – I'd not brought a jacket( again )and forgotten how quickly things cooled down here at night. MUCH different than Niagara, where the hot summer nights can make sleeping a chore.

Aug 5 - Weather to Sleep

I almost got to sleep in today… until the garbage truck came at 7am. Very similar to how the landscaping guys used to show up around 7:30 am at The Prince every Tuesday to start mowing the lawn – great timing when you're tired from the night before. Not that I managed to get much done before work, mind you, but that's not the point.

The weather has done a total reversal during the weekend – it's back to sunny skies and balmy temperatures. Only a few clouds forecast for later in the week, so it's back to chilly mornings, sweaty lunchtimes and cool evenings again. Again, hard to get used to needing to bring a jacket, or wear 'layers' of clothes as the locals put it. Makes sense, but I'm so used to sandals, shorts and a t-shirt for summer weather, day and night. At least the need to shower more than twice a day is alleviated somewhat here due to the lack of humidity. Heck, the glaciers on Mt. Olympus to the south see to natural A/C for the city! No sightings of Zeus or other gods though; they must be laying low in the heat.

Aug 6 – Surprise Work Problems

Well, a shocker today: my co-worker was let go from the company. While I cannot go into why it happened, the reasons were a surprise to everyone. It is especially hard when working at a small branch like ours, when there ARE only the two of us there. It's stunning when someone you work with every day, who you have great respect for their abilities and like as a person, is suddenly gone for reasons that come as a hammerblow to the now-revealed-as-fragile-glass gestalt image you had created of them. In the business I am in, one learns to read people very well… but that still cannot ferret out well-kept secrets, and will never restore the blow that you take to your sense of trust. Damn, it sucks. So now our trainee is back, who ironically has the SAME name as my newly-departed coworker( yes, it was very confusing when they were both there at the same time ). Fortunately, we get along great, and we'll both move along from this incident as best we can… a little wiser, and a lot more conscious of how fragile a thing our jobs can really be.

Aug 7 – Looking for Group

I stumbled across a GREAT webcomic, called Looking for Group. It's based off WoW, but not overtly so. The art style is colourful, the writing is decent… and it has a GREAT character or two in there as well( see if you can tell which one I like ). Reminds me of another great comic I've not had the time to read in many years: Thieves and Kings, whose creator was a friend of a friend from quite long ago. Though why the site is in Australia beats me - last I heard, the creator was in Toronto. Hmmm.

On a related stress note, I've been cutting back on a lot of foods lately. Not buying cookies, chips and other snacks has made a difference in my food cravings, though the balance has not yet swung the other way to the point where fresh fruit and veggies fill the fridge. Yet. The one indulgence I still permit is something I discovered at the local Thrifty's I pass twice a workday: the Kilo Bag of Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Measuring daily stress levels by the numbers of cookies consumed has proven both amusing and tasty, so it's something I will continue for a while. Inexpensive yet delicious, the fresh-baked K.B.C-3 is something to look forward too, trivial though a cookie may be in the grand scheme of things. In terms of stress measurement though, the average day at work is about a two-cookie day in the end, with perhaps a half-cookie thrown in for good behaviour or a witty retort. A full cookie if they actually get said retort.

Aug 8 - Where the heck AM I?

I may have posted this already some time ago, but I like it and feel like sharing it again, as people keep adding to it – what's not to like about something continually updated? The 117 Things to Do in Victoria List is chock-full of Goodness for the South-Vancouver Island dweller to dig into. Speaking of which, a little geography for you folks, to clear up something that often confuses people who aren't familiar with exactly where Victoria is. The city is located on South Vancouver Island, which can be confusing as it's over 100 km SOUTH of the city of Vancouver… which is on the mainland well to the north-northeast. Most of Vancouver Island is reserved as forest parkland, with communities mainly situated on the south-east shores, radiating from Victoria north to Sidney. This website in particular has some great info, including interactive travel guides.

Aug 9 - Rain at last

Saturday mornings without cable – has it comes to this? The foundations of my world have become shaky and cracked… no Spiderman, no Robotech – what am I to to?

Oh, right. Work. That's it. How could I forget? I mean, when you take away the PC games, Xbox360, PS2, TurboGrafx, the DVD collection( movies, TV shows, recorded TV episodes ), the several thousand books, the TV available on the internet and those old Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories… there's practically nothing to do here. *grin*

So aside from writing up a few more articles for Cyberwalker.com, finishing up a few story outlines and digging into a few old stories, there's still a lot to do around here. It actually rained for most of the morning and early afternoon here, which was fine by me as I had a lot of laundry to do. Seemed like the perfect time for it too, as everyone else in the building was apparently out doing their Weekend Thing. As I mentioned earlier in this blog, Victoria is FULL of things to do and it seems that especially during the Summer months, there just aren't enough hours even with the longer days.

Aug 10 - Damn, I'm hot!

My apartment gets rather warm with the PC or the Xbox running for any period of time, but as I have mentioned before, the %##@! smokers out the front of the building manage to pollute the air every couple of hours – it seems even more than that, of late. Kudos for not smoking IN their units, but it pisses me off NO END that I have to run to the window to slam it shut when I sniff the foul stench of their killing clouds drifting my way. Even reversing the flow of air does not help; the prevailing wind blows from the southwest, and going against that means I get no cool air – so I either swelter with little airflow, or I have to do a yo-yo act to constantly close the window, wait, then open it again and see if the air is clear so I can get some cool air again. Damn all smokers and their addictions( present friends and family members excluded ).

I played COD4 for a few hours until 5pm, and as usual it was a varied performance. Since my final game of the day was 0 kills / 18 deaths, I took that as a sign to quit before it got worse… as if that were possible? At least I am managing to keep up with my friends, most games - nothing is worse than being the team anklebiter or headshot dummy.

Amazingly, last week's blog was the first one since March that had no comments posted for it. Seems to support my theory that this is the busiest time of summer, when people are packing all they can into the fading daylight hours of warmth.

Compliments, Crusade and Cable

There’s a sea change in weather happening this week… it started with the iron underbelly of clouds a slow-rolling ceiling above everything. Then so…

July 28 - Living next to the sea

The weather here has gone grey. From the shining sun to the dull pillowed fluff of lint found in a dryer, it's an odd shift. The rain here too, does not slam into the city as much as it drifts by, like a sprinkler waved over a patch of garden. No storms, no thunder, no pressure of black clouds crowded with unleashed waters eager to drown the land beneath. No, here Nature takes a gentle hand when the sun hides, moderate in that as in many other things in this city on the coast. The people seem to take the rain in stride as well, for few I see duck for umbrellas as the water falls. Which may explain the prevalent smell of ‘wet’ one notices inside on rainy days among people here in Victoria - odd, but there it is. Especially noticeable when the person next to you in line is wearing a wool coat...

I don't hear the sea here, and I rarely smell it. Since Victoria is not exposed to the full front of the ocean, there are no crashing waves blasting their sound across the shore. Perhaps I might find that soothing at night, but then again I have read stories about how the fury of the waves often pounded onto Dallas Rd here in years past, before breakwaters were built offshore to calm the waters somewhat. The complex workings of Nature can be beautiful, but you still have to watch your fingers; she bites too - this webcam may catch a storm or high winds, if you're lucky.

July 29 - Fionavar

I started re-reading an old fantasy series tonight, the Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. The first book, The Summer Tree, was just as I recalled, full of moments that draw the reader completely into the world the author paints. Some very moving moments in there, beautifully written. I have not read it all these long years, since my high school days in fact, when Prisoners of Gravity did a few interviews with Guy Gavriel Kay. Heck, they interviewed pretty much every decent SF and Fantasy writer there was at the time - over 600! But back to Finoavar... with the drift of years and experiences in between, I can say that I enjoyed the book even more.

July 30 - Blogging and Crusade

Blogger has been annoying me of late, causing my blogs to become much more work than needful. It has been losing( and adding )keystrokes to my work, causing paragraphs to run together or links to be lost, doubling the time I usually y take to create these entries, which is not inconsiderable at all. I'm going to have to write these in a separate text editor, copy it all over and then add the links to the blog, in the hopes that it will save properly - damned annoying for something that was working perfectly up until a few weeks ago. I have suspicions that 'invisible' characters are sneaking in from the blog entries I create on my PDA; if so, I may try to alter the way I create those as well. This week, I am trying to edit it in both Opera and Firefox, as switching between the two seems to 'fix' the formatting problem somehow... grrr.

Watching the B5 spinoff series Crusade has been a treat these last few weeks. I've been watching it in an episode order that JMS preferred, as opposed to the broadcast order it originally aired with - the SciFi channel link above was the only network to air it the way JMS wanted, and I have to say it's flowing a lot more smoothly story-wise than when I recall it on air the first time.

It's a damned shame, a crime almost, that the series was canceled. It is obvious that the cast & crew had a fantastic chemistry and that the show was poised to go places SciFi on TV had yet to dare venture into, much as B5 had done before them. To think that the Network system still revolves on suits with calculators for brains, who wouldn't know( and wouldn't care about )a good story if it bit them on their collective behinds. If there is one thing, and one thing only, that I hope the 'net will do, it is this: to allow creative artists to break free of the chains that corporations and other controlling bodies put on what we see and hear. To allow anyone with an idea and a good story to TELL it, as best they are able, to an audience that would otherwise never have known about it at all. It always amazes me what passionate, driven people with a vision can do with the smallest of budgets, in this day of desktop CGI and YouTube.

July 31 - A Compliment!

I continued reading the Book II of the Fionavar series, The Wandering Fire, in the early morning. The depictions of heroic characters and deeds, the language and all the many tropes of true Fantasy are present in Kay's work. As I read, I found myself lost to the words on the page; the grey skies and leaden feel of the ordinary day here vanished into the flow of the tale, and all too soon the hours had blurred back into time to leave for work in the early afternoon.

The rain today too, elicited comment by both myself and my co-worker. Across the road is a line of dark-leafed trees, with purple leaves. This afternoon, as the rain fell, my co-worker exclaimed "Is that smoke? Can't be, in the rain..." It was the rain itself, as it turns out: the drifts of droplets appeared like a fog or smoke against the dark trees. I had noticed this a few times myself, and wondered that my eyes were playing tricks - now I knew I was not the only one who had seen the rain that way. Smoke, in seeming, blurring the view gently.

Something else tonight: a compliment at work, and a good one at that. A nice customer, who sends money transfers abroad, came in and exclaimed in delight "Oh good, I was hoping it was you working!" She said she really appreciates the fact that I have been "very efficient and fast" while serving her the last few times, without making her feel rushed or in other ways compromised as a person. Not that anyone here is rude, mind you, but she wanted to point that out. In the course of the conversation, it turns out she is a doctor, born in Kenya and will be working for the UN in Africa soon, where she has not been since she was in her 20's. It was enlightening to talk about world culture with her, and so reminded me that some few of those who walk in the door are truly nice and interesting, intelligent people. Goes to show you can get in a mental rut at any job, despite trying to keep an open mind towards people to try and explain their many odd and frankly rude behaviours towards total strangers. Which is hard to take, when you're naturally empathetic and have to fight the urge to solve other people's problems... yeah.

Aug 1 - Lazy Summer Days

Ah, August... my favourite month of the year. This is the time for relaxation and reflection in gentle ways, a time to enjoy the weather and treat each day as a small vacation in and of itself. In years past, August was the time to relax from the frenetic pace of July, when the excitement of finishing school was over and the fact that the summer was half done had sunk in. Early days and late nights were the norm, as you tried to maximize the time you had left and enjoy every beautiful moment, be it with friends, family or just taking in the simple wonders of the day in a hammock on the back porch.

Things change over time, summers begin to blend into the rest of the year as school becomes a thing of the past, recalled sometimes with distaste but the moments and memories that stood out becoming brighter of themselves the further one draws away from them over the years. Working all year long, with a few scattered weeks here and there for vacation, makes those long memories of summer all the more vibrant for the feeling of freedom that they embodied: to run in the summer sun with friends and know that the next day would be more of the same joy. Now, far from friends and those same, somewhat smaller places that I ran those too many years ago, I find myself feeling nostalgic. Not sad, but sorry all the same that I will never know again those lazy summer days, free of cares beyond finding lunch after breakfast, and being home in time for dinner. All the hours in between were mine, to share and spin bright threads of memory that would reach out to me here today, shining with the innocent joy of youth, energy and shared friendship.

A bearable day, overall, and when I finished work in the late afternoon I found myself profoundly grateful to have a weekend off. It was a rough week, in some ways, with a lot of tossing and turning and very little solid sleep – lots of things on my mind, of late.

I also canceled the cable today – it was a surprisingly easy thing to do. Now I have to spend some time getting all the shows I’ve kept on the PVR off the thing, and then give it to my parents – teaching them to use the interactive TV Guide should be amusing but ultimately prove fruitful for their use. For myself, as I have mentioned before, I will have my many DVD movies and TV boxed sets to watch, as well as the vast bounty of the internet at my fingertips. The key will be to find the time, in between my other projects; time to relax can so easily turn into time wasted, as I know from much experience. Cutting out the temptation of the TV tuner forces one to focus on the now, as much as moving out here to BC has cut down on the daily distractions. Here, at the end of the day, when the day job is finished with and the dishes done, there is only me and the work. Anything I do not accomplish can be laid squarely on my own head, for though I may be tired, the work does not care. It simply waits to be done, sooner… or later.

Aug 2 - Finishing Fionavar

I finished reading the last book of The Fionavar Tapestry today. Entitled The Darkest Road, it is beautifully-crafted example of the writer's art. There is symmetry and balance throughout the work, things that are very hard to pull off as a writer unless you plan them beforehand long in advance of setting pen to page. Have a look at the link above; there are numerous discussions and examinations of GGK’s work that provide some illuminating insight into the themes he explores in his work.

Something of note I caught: on the last page of the last book, there is printed the phrase "the wheel of time." Since the Fionavar trilogy was published a few years before Robert Jordan's massive Wheel of Time epic( may he rest in peace )I find that little coincidence rather amusing, since I would eventually read that series as well, courtesy of Matt( thanks dude! ). One little note from Robert Jordan though: like JMS and B5, he said in this interview back in 2002 that he knew the last scene of the last book before he began his series – amazing, given the scope of his writing, with hundreds of characters!

Aug 3 - Shattering Slips

Did a few things today, most of them productive... except for the glass I dropped in the kitchen, which exploded all over the place. It's been so long since I broke a glass, I'd forgotten how they like to spread shrapnel everywhere - and me in my bare feet. After checking to make sure my legs were shard-free, I climbed OVER the kitchen counter and began the cleanup process... it ended up taking an hour, all told, to find every little nasty bit. One trick I recalled from years back was to use a powerful flashlight to catch glints from the sneaky shards that embed themselves in things like floormats and slide under the edges of counters or fridges. Good thing my vac is powerful enough to pull every last one of those hidden ones right out again.

Productive; I mentioned that, right? Well, I typed up two stories and juggled around some website concepts, which took me well into the afternoon - even with a short Civ break( I won! ). In the early evening, I went to visit my parents for dinner, and afterwards we headed up to the ninth floor to listen to the concert that was taking place across the harbour at the Parliament Buildings. Or at least we tried to; the prevailing wind and the shrieking of the gulls settling in for the night on nearby buildings meant we could hear very little besides the general murmur of the orchestra. It was disappointing, and I left well before sundown to come back home... where ironically, I COULD hear the performance, if I listened hard enough. Oh well; we'll know for next year.

This week began grey, and finished sunny - VERY sunny. The forecast is for a week of nothing but sunshine, with low to mid-twenties. How can you beat that, with no smog and no humidity? *grin*

Irony, Illuminations and Characters

All things considered, a fairly pleasant week. Alligator-wresting coming up in August.

July 21st - Sleeping in Light

Opening the store was no chore today; I stopped at Subway for both breakfast and lunch on the way to work, so that was nicely different from the norm. Too bad their 'Breakfast Stuffers' are so greasy... but then, most fast-food breakfasts are just that: grease. Ah well.

After a pleasant day at work, I hauled out my portable hammock to shady spot in the front of the building by a nice hedge, to read and relax. I even chatted a bit with my neighbour Laurel, who spotted me in the tree-shade from her window across the way. Great neighbours here!

That evening, I watched the final episode of the B5 series, "Sleeping in Light" which I have not seen for nigh unto a decade now. It was amazing; the sheer emotion of the actors performances got to me now as much as they did then. It was a long, moving and fond farewell to the series that swept you along, closing doors gently for the last time before the lights went out and we left the place for good. Having watched the entire series from end for the last few months, I was quite moved by the episode. Saying 'goodbye' to those characters, who had been constant companions each day for the last little while, was not easy now or back all those years ago. Which is what I have always loved about the series: that the writing was of such a level that the characters were ones I could truly care about, and not just think of in terms of plot constructs or mere character traits. As a writer, it's just amazing to watch, even for television. And JMS is still going strong on other new projects.

Oh, and did I mention he wrote SpiderMan for 6.5 years? *grin*

July 22nd - See Above...

I re-watched "Sleeping in Light" today with the DVD audio commentary by creator/writer/producer JMS, which was moving in itself. It was his show, his baby if you will, and this was his commentary on letting it go; as he said, he'd not seen it either since it was last aired in 1998( another eventful year for myself, I might add... ).

It was amusing to see JMS briefly play the part of the tech who turns out the lights on B5 at the end of the episode - something he'd apparently wanted to do since the first day of shooting. Poetic, in a way, and touching. Now I'll have to wait a few years to re-watch the series, though in the meantime I have Crusade, as well as the B5 Movies to watch... but in a little while, as I need a B5 Break. Maybe some Alias...?

July 23rd - Weather and Writing

Wow, rolled out of bed with bleary eyes and a loggy head. Could be the weather: we've clouds here for the first time in weeks. Not that it's made much difference to the temperatures; still cool in the mornings and evenings, with a decent patio-level warmth for lunchtime. Just hard to get used to cool summer nights in July; sitting out at the Kilt and watching the beer glass sweat at midnight seems so far away right now... oh wait, it is!

My writing has been progressing nicely, with ideas popping up all the time to be madly scribbled down or typed into the PDA. It's a sign of a relaxed mind, free from idea-killing stresses, when the creative thoughts flit fast and furious at times during the day. I am trying to get in at least an hour of writing a day, be it blog, tech articles, stories or just plain idea-gathering for later.

July 24th - Late Exercise

I was late today for work first time in a long time. Good thing I was opening the store, and only live 15 minutes away at a decent clip on the bike; I managed to get the store open on time with most of my opening chores done properly too... nice when the job experience pays off. Plus, I felt rested for once..

All this exercise seems to be doing me a world of good, as I've lost a fair deal of weight since arriving in B.C. Not that I was all that large to begin with, but since 2005( when I was at my heaviest, close to 200 lbs )the weight has slowly changed to muscle or vanished. Though I am not in 'fighting shape', I am mostly trim and so have a good 'base' to work from, once I get my 'galling' operation late this fall( I think ). After I am fully healed from that, the planned exercise regimen will begin, to get myself physically in line with where I am mentally. Combine that with some intensive improvement in my cooking skills, and I should be 'sitting pretty' by this time next year. Another long-term Goal Accomplished, hopefully in 2009.

July 25th - Dureena and Nichneven

I slept a little better last night, knowing I did NOT have to be up early in the AM. After a leisurely breakfast( not a brekky, sadly )it was to the keyboard for a few hours, typing away at a few story ideas that have floated around in my head the last few days.

Before work, I downloaded an episode of the Babylon Podcast, and listened to it on and off during my shift. The main feature of the hour-long show was actor Carrie Dobro, who played the sexy Dureena Nafeel on the too-brief B5 spinoff series Crusade. While watching an episode of that series today, I was struck by some aspects of her character being similar to my own creation, Nichneven: both are thieves, both have unusual eyes / exotic appearances, and both kick some ass. Aside from that, the characters are not so similar that I feel I've infringed on a JMS creation, but rather that it's obvious some of Dureena stuck with me some 7 years after I last saw the show on-air. Which speaks well of her design and how she was portrayed by Dobro, who apparently loved the character... which was made with HER in mind by JMS. Symmetry!

I also find it amusing that I seem to stumble across these things YEARS after the fact... like discovering that there WAS such a thing as the Babylon Podcast. *sigh* Irony...

July 26th - Luminara Festival

I did the usual morning laundry, getting downstairs early to get the ball rolling before anyone else. A good thing too; I got a call mid-morning from our downtown store that someone had called in last minute and they needed help... for overtime, no less. So I agreed, as it was only a 4-hour shift and I'd be helping them out, besides. Just like back in Niagara; I'm used to it. Turns out it wasn't a bad shift after all, with only a few crazy customers and only one truly obnoxious person... not a total jerk in sight, which surprised me. Maybe I caught them napping today.

Tonight was the Luminara Festival in Beacon Hill Park, so I stopped briefly at home to grab my camera and cycled over to see if anything was still glowing after 9pm, once twilight hit. It was interesting, and quite crowded: thousands of people showed up, many of them dressed in fanciful costumes with various light sources built-in, the most common being glow-ropes. Thousands of lanterns were all over the park, tended by many volunteers to ensure they all stayed lit.

Again, I love the fact that Victoria has SO MUCH going on all the time. I live in a quiet neighbourhood, yet I am only minutes away from downtown and all the events that usually take place there. Heck, I am minutes away from the Provincial Legislature, for that matter - but politics has never been my thing. Did I mention irony already in this blog yet...?

July 27th - Nostalgic Irony

Sunday was another day of relaxation - go figure. *grin* Again, five of us were online for CoD4, which I didn't embarrass myself too badly in this week. Perhaps because I only gamed for a few hours, at which time things came to a sudden stop when three people left suddenly, leaving Lucas and I holding the controllers, so to speak.

Damn but I miss PnP gaming with my friends, despite the downhill slide it took in its last years. The gathering of friends at various homes on a Sunday afternoon, to vest our time in adventure and take on tasks that took us away from the ordinary of the world we normally inhabited - that was special. All geek-ness aside, it was magical at times, funny at other and always different, despite the inevitable slow days and dull spots. Looking back now, I see that I was often an observer, moreso than a lead-by-example from-the-front in the ways I played my characters. I think this was often due to the way I saw each gaming sessions, especially in university: they were escapes from the stress of the day, which often in those days was intense and unrelenting for me. Yet again it was the shared adventure( albeit imaginary )in the company of good friends that engendered the fond feelings I recall to this day. Some of those stories and memories will always be with me, untarnished by time. I hope to write down a few of them, alongside the copious notes I often took, to preserve the joy and fun I felt before they fade o'ermuch.

Then there's irony at work again: this GREAT animated video of a character similar to Nichneven. Someone out there is tweaking my nose, but I'll take it as I enjoyed seeing a creation similar to my own given 'life' through the magic of animation. Though the accent is a bit suspect... *grin*

I have finally found a free image-hosting site( ImageShack.us )whose services are actually simple AND user-friendly, so expect to see a LOT more images in future blogs. I will ALSO be updating most of my previous entries, as time permits, in the next month, to add pictures to them as well - no sense in just writing about things when I have pictures to go with those words too!

Birthdays, Wisdom and Words

If you're reading this, it means you're too close to your screen...

July 14th - Cutting Cable

Once the cable is gone, it will be just the internet for a while, and all the shows I can find there( YouTube? )as well as what I have in my DVD collection. Interestingly, I heard today that NetFlix is partnering with Xbox Live! to offer 10,000 of their 100,000 titles initially to download and watch - coincidence perhaps? I know I will be converting most of my DVD collection to smaller PDA-sized files so I can watch shows in bits here and there, wherever I wish to. Speaking of which, I have been writing a majority of the last few months of blogs on my PDA, where and when I can, just to get a different perspective on things. Cafe's, park benches, on the grass at a park or on slow days at work - each has their own merits, though some make it harder to balance a folding keyboard( with fidgety keys ). Getting the mirror positioned is a pain though.

The short trip to and from work is always a lovely, almost tranquil time for me. I cannot( as yet )convey in words the beauty of the lanes I cycle through to and fro each day. The simple lines of low stone walls, draped by lush green vines and o'er-towered by tall trees by the dozens, in all their many shapes and varieties. The clean scent of honeysuckle bushes, of gardens bursting with colour and smell in every yard I pass. The deep serene lawns of the heritage homes, guarded by silent old trees and gardens that seem wild in their careful tending. Everywhere the eye rests easy on beauty natural, on pleasant views unmarred by stark plain lawns, too-few too-new trees or cookie-cutter homes different only in their owner's choice of siding colour. Here, there is a riot of difference, a glorious jumble of harmonious uniqueness that makes stopping to smell the roses an all-day activity... as it should be.

July 15th - Amazing Grace arrives!

Great news this morning – my good friend Katie & her husband Darcy had their first child at 3am this morning, Annabelle Grace. Fantastic news, and they’re all doing well. My best to you! *GRIN*

Being restless at night is not a good thing - I was up late for some reason, tossing and turning. Most likely some issue or another I've not been able to resolve, some stress that my subconscious hasn't dealt with. Like anyone else, I have more than enough to keep my Id busy for years - hopefully whatever it is, I'll be able to get some sleep tonight.

After work today I went to my friend Carol's place for a small BBQ, my neighbour Laurel being there too. I grilled up some 'Tofurkey Polish Sausages' which I have had before - the spices really make it tasty with a little char from the 'barby. The sun was out, it wasn't stinking hot like too many Niagara summers I can recall, and I enjoyed the quiet peace of the backyard.

Until the squirrels arrived. Well, one actually. Apparently this particular squirrel has been using Carol’s many potted plants to pot peanuts in, pretty often. The discussion turned to non-lethal and / or humorous ways to deal with the problem, from which squirt guns, zip lines and thigh-holsters-ala-Lara-Croft all came to mind. Amazing what a tree rat on the lawn can cause the conversation to shift to.

I suggested a website name, such as www.squirtthesquirrel.com to go along with The Nut-Buster Brigade… incidentally, did I mention that all the members were women? )and the evening took a delightful turn into the bizarre and punny from there. Still got it, though others don’t often get it… or wish they hadn’t.

July 16th - Happy B-day to Moi

My friends Mike, Pierre and Brian gave me a GREAT gift today. More on that in a moment.

I'm 35 today, 1/3 of the way along and 2/3's from the end of the beginning. Some folk may have a midlife crisis at this age; the old show Thirtysomething comes to mind. Myself, I wonder that 40 is now closer than is comfortable, and that I could have been doing the same job since I was 20, which would make for 20 years at the same job... Yeesh.

Who am I? What do I want?

Well, I've learned that I am comfortable looking in the mirror each morning. I've tried to separate the person from the 'career' and I find that who I am these days is someone I'm mostly proud to be - thanks to some good parenting, good friends and good luck. Though I may not be famous, or rich, or admirably good at one thing, I am what I am - that's good enough to let me sleep at night and get me out of bed in the morning. I don't feel the need to rush through life feeling as though I am late for an appointment, to acquire riches for their own sake, or to prove myself to my peers or friends. I've been down in the gutter, so to speak, been places where some will thankfully never have to go, and come through many trials to still be here to tell you about it today - all of which shaped me, tempered if you will, into a more flexible mettle.

I mentioned last week the concept of balance in life; as important is not to be brittle, to 'not sweat the small stuff'. If you hold yourself too rigid, define yourself by standards too tight and unrealistic, then you can be shattered by blows that would only injure or even just roll off other folk who know how to better deal with life's little foibles.

It depends on how you define success. I know for me, that definition is more personal and less professional. I'd rather be who I am, where I am, than be writing this in an expensive home office of a home I may own in another 25 years, with my hair grey from stress and my nights filled with personal regrets for what I had to give up to get there. No, I can look in the mirror a long, long time with a steady gaze, despite a lack of the 'essentials' that some folk expect from life: a wife, kids, a long-term career... All of which would mean nothing if I could not meet the eyes of the man in the mirror.

So… what was the gift that my Three Amigos gave me? A website. An amazing website, they have obviously worked hard on for some time… all in aid of me furthering my career in the Tech Journalism field. With this website, which I will be working on in the coming months( details to follow soon )my articles will be collected in on place, easily readable by a (hopefully) adoring public… or just the guy down the street who needs his computer fixed. What comes, will.

Dinner with my parents was a quiet affair, no singing or cakes or carryings-on. We went to the Ross Bay Pub. Where I course I had a Guinness with my meal… semi-traditional. After that, I finished watching Spiderman… love that film. Heck, the character’s always resonated with me, for that matter. Thanks Stan.

July 17th - Condo Signs

From wisdom to street signs - amazing how a little thing can throw you off. Here, there are no single posts with signs. Rather, there are TWO posts at every street-meet: one, a stop sign, on which is the secondary street name. On the opposite side of the street, the MAIN street name is on a separate sign. This system makes sense, in that drivers always know where to look for a street name, and it uses the same number of poles( two )as every stop sign doubles as a street pole.

Another day off – two in a row! Part of it was spent entertaining my parents: seems that their building is undergoing extensive renovations. Well, the owners of various units are fixing a LOT of things that they shouldn’t have to. To date, 66 owners have had to change their floors due to shoddy workmanship, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg – ironic, given that the place looks like a cruise ship. I’m glad( and so are my parents )that they didn’t buy a unit there; the old adage “Look before you leap” has proven most apt, as I am sure many of the $500,000-plus unit owners are finding out now. It always amazes me that people will pay such huge sums of money for homes or condos, with no real guarantee that what they’re buying is TOP quality… but it can LOOK like it is. I’ve searched, and there is just NO guarantee out there in Canada that what you buy IS top quality. Sure, there are New Homeowner’s Warranties in various Canadian provinces, but sometimes serious problems take a few years to show up. Even when building a home back in the mid-80’s in Port Dalhousie, we ended up being present EVERY DAY to keep an eye on the project, and usually we found at LEAST one thing wrong EVERY visit we made. Gah!

Which again makes my glad that I’m not trying to climb the ‘Property Ladder’ as is so often mentioned in the HGTV show Location, Location, Location… with my luck, the thing will be missing most of its rungs and the wood rotting. No thanks.

July 18th - Walking, Writing, Gaming

I went on a walking tour today, of the Beacon Hill / Fairfield area around where I live. I was most impressed with Beacon Hill Park, as it is a vast greenspace the majority of which has been left in its natural state. Paths wend through the tall grasses, and many rocks poke through the ground cover among the groves of trees. The park is MUCH bigger than you think, even if you’ve been past it or through it via car – the speed of a vehicle gives lie to the SIZE of the space you’re passing. It’s worth getting out and walking around, as there’s many amazing views in the park: trees, small lakes, flowerbeds galore. All of this is in full green mode, bursting with growth.

The tour took a lot longer than I’d planned; I returned home after four hours, though that included a long lunch stop at the Beagle Pub( finally! )just around the corner in Cook St. Village. The place is a LOT bigger on the inside than at first glance, but I was on the patio so that didn’t matter much. The view was great; it’s the perfect people-watching spot on a summer’s day.

I did some work on a few articles and short stories in the evening, followed by some detour-time on NWN. The latest( and final )patch has come out for the game – amazing, considering Neverwinter Nights was released way, way back in 2002. It’s unheard of for a developer to support a game 6 years after its release, but here we are today in 2008. Thanks, Bioware…. even though you’ve sold out to EA, there’s still a soft spot in my heart for you. Especially since NWN runs so well on my 'ancient' 2004-era PC.

July 19th - Robotech Returns

No rain for a few weeks now, and none for another week. The sun has been lovely, and I'd rather have blue skies than gray any day, especially as the temperatures here are in no way sweltering given the abundant sunshine.

I’ve discovered that Space will be running the entire original Robotech TV series again starting today, with four episodes every Saturday – nice! I’ll be making good use of my cheap DVD recorder to get the entire three series on disc – more TV that I can watch at a later date. Of course, that means I’ll have to keep the cable for a while longer… *sigh* Decisions, decisions.

Interestingly, I was going through my notes from TorCon2003, and I ran across a quote that made me smile( though I don’t know who said it – missed that scribble I guess ). It says “Punsters and smartasses can quickly link diverse subjects or topics with humorous results” – exactly how I’ve always felt about puns. Despite a common misconception that “Puns are the lowest form of humour” it’s NOT easy to pun – you have to be quick of wit, familiar with a vast range of topics, and be able to pick through all that knowledge to snap a pun together in a few seconds to make a timely and humorous line. *sigh* Unappreciated in my own time… at least there's a Practical Guide to Puns available now I can browse through for solace. Apparently the Brits appreciate punsters, moreso than any other country...

July 20 - The Week Winds Down

A Sunday off - lovely! I spent part of the day outside to enjoy just relaxing, but that was in the morning. Turning on my Xbox360, I discovered that ALL the guys were online today! We flicked a few msgs around, and ended up gaming until 5pm on COD4. It was great; we haven’t done that for months and months, though towards the end I started to lose my edge… of course.

Somehow I developed a headache( well, hours of twitchy-eyed gameplay may have done it )so I took a break from the TV to rest my brain for a few hours with some housework – gah. After dinner I finished off a pair of articles for Cyberwalker.com, then updated the blog. All of this with the sun peering in around the sides of the blinds in my living room – not helping the headache. I think I’ll get a curtain set up this week, as every evening it’s the same story with me sitting on the couch, trying to dodge glaring ribbons of sunbeam while using the computer or the TV.

Still, it’s sunshine – glorious sun, not drab rain or grey winter skies. I’ll wear sunglasses. *grin*

Until next week, thanks for tuning in! I hope you enjoy all the links I plug into this blog - they're there to enhance your reading experience, to broaden the context of the things I mention here every week. So click on a few...!