Recovery, Retro Trek and Remembering

The word of the week is conundrum.

Sept 5 – Thunder, Thunder...

The recovery continues.

I haven't been using much of the RealHeal ointment this week, as I've discovered that the active ingredient( hemp oil )makes me nauseus. That's a shame, as it really seemed to work the last couple weeks, but the last three times I put it on, my stomach has not been happy for hours afterwards, so it's a no-go now. I've got a different ointment I'm using on recommendation from a lot of online research for people with plantar fasciitis injuries, so I should still be able to continue my healing this week.

Getting out of the apartment occasionally also helps, though I can't hobble too fast or too far. Cabin fever has been on my mind and thankfully my girlfriend has seen fit to take me out for the occasional dinner or brief outing lately.

I *love* this art style of the Thundercats!

One of the outings this week was to a local pawn shop, known for its sizable selection of inexpensive Blu-Rays and DVDs. Not that I need any more, but there's always the possibility of finding something I've been looking for on the cheap - and today I succeeded! I managed to pick up the complete first season of Thundercats for a mere $12, less than I've ever seen on eBay and no shipping charges on top, either!

I watched a few episodes and grinned like a kid again... it felt great.

Sept 6 – Ask and ye shall receive

Well, how's that for timing?

No sooner did I mention my desire last week for a How To Cosplay At Home book, and one appeared - on Kickstarter, at least.

They know what they're doing over there in Spain...

The page's English translation of the page looks a bit rough, but the actual content looks like it might be worthwhile.

As well, it's funny how often you find what you need when you stop looking for it. It seems to be the opposite end of the spectrum from searching for something, but in this case it was simply a "Hey, that'd be great..." thought I had. Then, lo and behold, exactly what I was looking for appears on Kickstarter. I also find it coincidental that they chose to use the exact same music in their video that I liked and used for my re-recording of a video from a few years ago...

There's quite a few cosplay books due to come out soon according to Amazon as well, but none of them have reviews yet, so in my opinion I don't know if they are worth the money for the content yet.

Kinda like this cosplay Kickstarter, so I'll see how it goes: there's 19 days left in their fundraising.

Sept 7 – Minimums

Well, it's a start.

Minimum wage in BC is increasing this week from $10.45 to $10.85 an hour, though it's nowhere near what it should be to keep pace with inflation.

As someone who has recently been paid minimum wage, I can say that even working full-time won't pay the bills, especially in a city like Victoria where it costs quite a bit more than an average for rent or mortgages. The recommended living wage for this city is almost $19 an hour, and that's just to ensure that the basics such as rent, food and utilities are covered.

AB has dedicated itself to $15 in the next few years - nice!

Taking the minimum wage up to $15 an hour will be a good start, as recommended by antipoverty groups. A statistic that made my eyes pop and that I can really relate to was that of the over 90,000 people in BC who are earning minimum wage, almost half of them are over age 25.

That's no wage with which to be working towards a decent retirement.

Sept 8 –  I'm a Mystery?

I saw a specialist today, and confused him.

It was a referral appointment to see if there was any causal relationship between my recent tendon issues and rheumatic / hereditary factors, which could have a role in explaining why simple activities( at least for other people )cause me major issues on occasion out of the blue.

Unfortunately, nothing conclusive came out of the meeting, so getting a second opinion seems to be the only option to continue this line of investigation.

On the bright side, nothing in my blood work shows that I have any abnormal factors to worry about in terms of joints; according to the specialist today, I have an excellent range of motion and show no signs of joint deterioration - hooray! In addition, the specialist was rather taken aback with all the medical-related things that happened to me in the last three years and was impressed that I was still mainly functional, apart from the recent tendon difficulties.

So it's back to square one.

I'll just focus on recovering for the next month, taking no chances. When I walk any distance for the next month, I'll be using a cane( partly for balance at this point )and ensuring that I go no further than the 15 minutes to work and back again. Slowly but surely all get back on track, as I can already feel the lower levels of energy from my lack of aerobic exercise this last month.

Once I'm back to being able to walk unassisted, I'll take it from there - slowly.

Sept 9 – ST: THOS Animated

Ouch...

It seems I'm not quite as far along in my recovery after the last three weeks as I thought. Even walking short distances yesterday with a cane( from home to the bus stop, to the doctor’s office, and 10 minutes downtown to another bus ) has caused my hamstrings as well as Achilles tendons to flare up, and I'm paying for that today. Damn.

At least being home, I'm able to put ice packs on the backs of my legs while reclining on the couch for 30-45 minutes at a time throughout the day, which has helped to reduce the inflammation and soreness considerably. Unbelievable.

So, while I was literally cooling my heels, I caught up on Star Trek: The Animated Series today. It was one of the few times I've binge-watched anything on Netflix, as I'm normally too busy... but today, my energy level was as low as my pain level was high.

It was a good binge, though!

I actually own the series on DVD, but have never got around to watching either of the two seasons to date. Netflix makes it easy: just queue up the next episode and let 'er rip! I was quite pleased with the quality of the video as well, in that there was almost no speckle or dirt whatsoever in any of the episodes, which was quite a surprise for animation that was made in the early 70s - well done!

As well, I noted that the series was made by Filmation, who would go on to create the massive number of episodes for the He-Man TV cartoon series in the early 80s. It was amusing that so many of the camera angles, animations and musical sequences were identical to He-Man, so much so that I smiled to see all the similarities.

By days’ end, I made it all the way through the first season, and was impressed. While not every episode was as good as I'd hoped for, enough were of such quality that I look forward to seeing the rest of the series. Some of the episodes were excellently written, exploring aspects of the original Star Trek universe that for various budgetary or political reasons the original show couldn't. It was a brilliant idea to use animation as a vehicle for those stories to be told.

It was also a great way to take my mind off things today.

Sept 10 – Cheap Crossfire

Hooray for local sales sites!

As you likely already know, I am an expert bargain hunter, at least from my couch. I prowl the local sale sites( VarageSale, UsedVictoria, Kijiji, Craigslist )hunting for used bargains on a weekly basis in order to stretch my monthly budget further for things that we need... as well some of the things I'd like to get but are far too expensive to buy new.

Case in point: upgrading my computer.

The last few weeks of putting my system back together as shown me that it's really getting long in the tooth, having been most recently upgraded in 2012 - an eternity in computer years. While I'm by no means a cutting-edge gamer, as I've mentioned recently my frustration with MWO is mainly due to the fact that the computer can't keep up with the game's action and so I tend to die a lot more than I should.

I do tend to plan ahead, and one of the features of the motherboard I bought back in 2012 was that it supports having two video cards, so that I could add one at a future date. Most people who go that route tend to buy less-than-cutting-edge cards in order to save a substantial amount of money, because putting two identical cards together gives quite a bit of performance for not-a-lot of dollars. Considering that I got my current video card on super-sale in 2013 for $130, soI think I did well. But finding that same card again for a bargain price has proven rather difficult - until today!

Four years later, the puzzle piece is found!

Tonight I spotted a used video card for sale on UsedVictoria.com for a mere $30( !!!! )and it was equivalent to my current card. I immediately sent an e-mail to the seller and he confirmed that it was working, so I arranged to pick it up( thanks to my lady! ) - score! After I tidied it up a bit( it was quite dusty )it looked brand-new and I'm excited to be able to get it working later this week, as all that was missing was the cable to connect the two cards together in my system. As the chart above shows, the two cards together should be comparable in performance to an Nvidia 760 card, cheap! The MSI card is still listed for over $100 on various sites - plus shipping and taxes. But having bought used AND locally, neither which I had to pay! BONUS: it's from the same maker as my motherboard!

Bargain hunters, eat your hearts out.

Sept 11 – Laserdisc 2112

I spent a good deal of today tidying up loose ends.

It's my last day before I go back to work tomorrow, and while my left foot's not fully healed, it only feels tight underneath rather than shrieking-sore with every careful step. I've been using my back massager on the underside of my leg( gently and only a few times a day )which has helped to loosen things up without pain, as a few runner's health sites have recommended.

I've managed to accomplish a fair number of things these last few weeks, though regrettably I didn't get nearly as much writing done as I'd hoped due to my constant yo-yoing from standing to sitting that sapped my lowered energy steadily. Neither did I get a lot of reading done to dig into my backlog of nearly 50 books that are sitting unread on my shelves, not to mention the various movies and TV series that are on my lists. It's rather difficult to watch a show or read a book while watching where you're going in a small apartment, moving around on your feet carefully with a cane.

All the same, I got enough done to feel like I haven't been wasting my time, though I certainly don't feel like I've been productive - understandable, I think.

During my down time, I did mean to watch a few laserdiscs, but I've not managed to get around to that either. What I did manage is to run across this extraordinarily amusing clip from a show I've never heard of called Regular Show - and I probably would still be unaware of its existence if it hadn't been for this particular episode, which perfectly sums up how laserdiscs fit into the world today in a hilariously over-the-top manner:

As well, today is the 15th anniversary of 9/11... that shouldn't go unremarked, nor shall it, at least not in my mind. Having been to New York a few times, once before and once after the tragedy, I'm always aware of how quickly our world can change. 

Hopefully, after 9/11, we can see to changing it for the better.

That's about all I've got for this week, as I'm going to try to get some early shuteye tonight in preparation for my first day back at work tomorrow - wish me luck!

Ceramics, Cosplay and Cabin Fever

The word of the week is fortitude.

Aug 29 – Emulating Nostalgia

Emulators can be fun, but are usually frustrating.

At least they used to be. If you're not sure what I'm referring to, I'm talking about software that lets you play older console +video games on a modern computer, with the physical hardware of the old systems being 'emulated' completely in software.

This is important, in that oftentimes the old hardware has died due to age or other complications( ie. your mom tossed it? )meaning that you can't play those old games that meant so much to you anymore without somehow locating new hardware for an exorbitant price on eBay.

Enter the emulator: Savior of the Casual Nostalgia Gamer, like me.

With a little time on my hands this week, I've been installing and playing emulators on my android tablet, seeing which ones do the best job of emulating the old hardware - specifically my TurboGrafx-16 console and my Amiga computer.

While there's no one single software solution to play both, I did narrow things down to two apps: ColEm for the TG-16 and UAE4all for the Amiga. I spent a few hours this week playing through some of my old favorites on the TurboGrafx, and realized that I'll need to find an inexpensive wireless gamepad to use with the Android tablet, as using the on screen control pad is really hard on the hands after a short time. The Amiga emulator was less successful in testing, but I'm working on it; no rush.

Overall, the experience brought a smile to my face this week: Devils Crush rocks! :-)

Aug 30 – Signifying Nothing

Annoyance and frustration still dog me, in that I'm all gimped out here at home and can't write because of my foot's persistent ache needing regular attention.

It all comes crashing down sometimes, the bad waylaying the good.

I was doing so well a month ago, then BANG out of nowhere this crap happens - again, just like it has before. Eating right, exercising, working hard at the job... apparently not in the right combo, because I injured myself.

It's maddening.

Four years ago, I started writing my novel, and a year ago I was derailed by a random deadly illness and still haven't made significant writing progress since. I'm not working myself into a froth here, but really... I fight through 8 months of panic attacks to get myself back to being steady and WHAM: foot injury out of nowhere. I'm limping around my house, unable to sit or stand more than 30 minutes at a time, out of fear it will make things worse, I can't get the massage therapy that would help me RECOVER because I can't afford it and my FRIGGING WORK INSURANCE WON'T COVER IT BECAUSE OUR PLAN IS 'WEIRD' ... according to the rep I spoke to on the phone - twice.

*deep breath*

None of the above helps. Yet I can't just smile it all away: the physical pain is there, right along with the frustration. So I pick off what I can from my daily To-Do Lists, ensure I eat and sleep right( propping up the foot )and entertain myself... then do it again the next day. At least I'm getting paid for the time off from work, but it feels like I'm cheating, and I HATE that feeling too: I want to work for my pay.

Writing about it in the blog here helps, and keeps me from triggering on all the small, silly daily frustrations: I can keep perspective, but it's hard.

Anyway. On with the week...

Aug 31 – Cosplay Lack

There's a definite lack of 'low-budget' cosplay advice out there. It seems most of the people doing cosplay these days who make more than one costume every six months have a superior set up for doing so to a large degree. By that, I mean that they have dedicated space for costuming, even if it's only a corner of their basement where they can keep their supplies and do their work on a regular basis.

For many other people, myself included, this isn't feasible, not the least because I don't happen to have a basement - or a third bedroom / den to work in, unlike this talented cosplayer( ZonZonZonbi ):

I think there's a healthy market for someone to create a "Costuming For The Average Cosplayer" guide or something to that effect, covering how to create decent costumes using your kitchen table and some basic materials. I've seen quite a few YouTube videos where the costume instructor is showing how to build whatever item they're talking about while surrounded by thousands of dollars of supplies and equipment which most people watching won't have access to - it's like showing someone how to build a toy inside a fully-equipped factory.

In any case, I think I did a dang good job on my USCM costume this year( especially with the significant help of my family during last week of preparation! )but there's no way that I can put together something like an Ironman suit that looks credible enough while painting surfaces by just using my bathroom as a workspace.

Progress is needed, but I'm not movingn aytime soon, so it's a moot point for now.

Sept 1 –  Insulating News

New month - good news!

Today my building's superintendent passed on a bit of good news: new high-efficiency windows are coming coming sometime in 2017 - yay! About time too, as I've been in this place for four years now and quite honestly the road noise is beginning to wear daily on me. The new windows will make all the difference in both terms of cutting down significantly on exterior noise infiltrating apartment as well as eliminating the drafts from the 1960s-era glass slabs that we currently have. I'll still likely have to put up some insulating film over the two front windows this winter, I think, in order to keep things warm.

My place's windows are on the left.

This is indeed significant news, since moving anywhere else in Victoria would be extremely difficult due to the current ultra-low 0.6% vacancy rate as well as being EFFING expensive! There are bidding wars taking place now on apartments all around the city, with the average two bedroom now going for around $1400 for a so-so place without more than the basics and in passable shape. Add in things like granite countertops or stainless steel appliances and you can bet that your monthly rent will be significantly more than most people take home in a paycheque after taxes - not a good thing in terms of the city's livability rating.

We're also into the cooler weather now, with the extreme heat of the last few weeks now giving way to cool winds blowing off the ocean along with rain, which is quite welcome after an extremely dry summer on the Island. I have to say that I find it easier to keep a place warm then try to keep it cool, and it doesn't hurt that we have free heat and hot water in this apartment either.

Sept 2 – Another Week?

A visit to the doctor today and some more frustration.

According to him, I have to spend another week housebound while trying to give my foot time to get back to normal. I'm not spending the whole day with my foot up, but rather alternating 30 minutes with it elevated and then about 15 min. of walking around in order to stretch the tendons ever-so-slightly without damage.

The total lack of massage therapy hasn't helped either. I should explain that my 'weird' health plan, while good for Dental( only every 9 months, which is indeed weird )will not cover the first $600 of massage therapy... making it a moot point to try to use, as each massage session is over $100. So I'm screwed that way for de-tensioning my hamstrings.

But I'm doing what I can; a friend recommended that I use a golf ball to roll under my foot, which I think is a good idea as long as I do it to gently and not often during the day. I can feel that my hamstrings are still extremely tight, moreso on my left leg, which has always been less flexible due to my breaking my femur when I was eight - one factor among many, I guess, in my current health puzzle.

At least I'm done fixing my computer and it's all set up the way I want it; better than before, I daresay. This week has seen me tweak it as I add little thing here and there to improve the functionality even more, but it's basically done, for which I'm grateful as it was a huge time sink last week.

Sept 3 – Getting Out

I think I'm getting a touch of cabin fever.

It hasn't been all that bad, I think, in that I've kept pretty busy these last two weeks, at least mentally. But staying home this much without getting out of a day to a different only serves to remind me that I'm not well and feeds right back into the cabin fever mentality.

So today my amazing girlfriend and I went to see The Secret Life Of Pets, to get me out of the house and pack in a few laughs while we were at it. No spoilers below, either.

The movie was quite funny and over-the-top ridiculous at times, to the point where my lady mentioned that it strained her limits of believability. I responded with the simple credo that it was an animated movie and they were allowed to stretch the bounds of reality a little more than usual for a laugh - which they did!

I really liked the energy of the film, which was a fun-filled romp from start to finish without telegraphing any of the plot points or expected moves that you might think would come up: it was really a surprise almost at every turn. I laughed quite a bit, as did the audience, in all the right points and really had a good time, which I needed.

Afterwards, we went for a drive along Dallas road to take in the sights. It's truly a breathtaking series of scenic views, with the incredible Olympic Mountains rising in the far distance above the clouds near their peaks across the far stretches of the azure-blue ocean. We even went up to the top of Mount Douglas just after the sun had set and I hobbled out to the railing to enjoy the view of the city spread out far below in the fading light: truly spectacular.

We're very lucky to live here.

Sept 4 – Mugging Myself

It was a cold morning, and I was feeling a bit down.

My mood the last few days has been somewhat mercurial, and while it's easy to think "I'll just focus on all the positives" the mood doesn't just wash away with a flood of positives: part of it is that my body chemistry is off due to a lack of exercise and elevated stress hormones, among other things.

Thankfully, my lady invited me out today to a ceramics workshop with some of her poetry friends and I accepted, just to get out of the house... and to spend more time with her too, for that matter - there's been too little of her company these last few weeks.

We went to Fired Up! which is a lovely little corner ceramics studio with room for several dozen people at the various tables inside. Having never been to one of these paint-your-own places before, I wasn't sure what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised by not only the selection of paintable ceramics, but the relaxed atmosphere: everyone was here to create, and it was as quiet a studio as I've every worked in.

We picked our items and quickly got to work.

I chose something simple: a mug, though one with a unique shape, and while I had to shift around regularly while I sat painting, I was able to concentrate on my work enough that I didn't feel frustrated at the total lack of artistic skill in my hands. I chose to create a Babylon 5 mug to complement the one already in my cupboard, with a B5 and Earth Alliance logos along with a phrase from the show.

After a few hours, I think my initial work turned out pretty well:

You can't really see the letters on the bottom, or the 5 on the other side - yet.

The mug's not finished, as there's still a lot left to do: I have to come back to paint the entire background of the mug black. It'll probably take another few hours again, as I have to do several layers in order to give a thick enough coating that it will look glossy once it is fired, not to mention the painstaking task of filling in around the yellow lettering of the phrase on the bottom.

We left for a delicious relaxed dinner at The Penny Farthing, and then I headed home, as my foot was starting to bother me again, having tightened up from a little too much sitting. So frustrating, and I can't really work on stretching it all that much as it's still tender underneath, even after two weeks of rest.

Though tomorrow is a holiday, I don't feel like I'll be relaxing much: I have to dig into editing my book's draft this week, working around my foot frustration as best I can in order to get some real work done and take my mind off my minor aches and pains.

Nobody wants to hear about a bad week, I know... sorry. I've had a lot on my mind - as always - and this foot thing is really bugging me, one more Distraction on my already-crowded Road Of Life. It's a great metaphor: full of potholes, detours, wacko drivers and all the other things that keep you from doing a little more than the speed limit towards your intended destination... but I persevere, because it looks really good up ahead.

Replacement, Recovery and Resting

The word of the week is enumerate.

Aug 22 – Sitting, not Sweating

Well, it's cooler out this week, and my foot's still acting up.

Both of those things are good, however. Weather-wise, the high heat of last week has given way to perfect weather in the mid-20s with sunny skies and I only have to close the blinds in the afternoon to keep the sun from baking me on the couch.

I've been making sure to get up and walk around at least every half hour, in order not to exacerbate my hamstring issues any more than they already are by staying still. Starting off the week, my left foot( as mentioned already )is tender but not nearly as painful or swollen as it has been even two days ago. It still hurts to move it up and down or to put any weight on the ball of my foot, but other than that it seems to have settled down somewhat, though I can feel the tension still. I'm putting on a new anti-inflammatory product called LivRelief twice a day in the morning when I get up and when I go to bed, which seems to be keeping the swelling at bay. I haven't had to ice the foot since yesterday, which I think is a good sign, as the ice will just make the hamstrings contract again.

On the topic of health, I surprised myself when looking through my backup files on my home NAS( Network Attached Storage )system and discovered that I had multiple backups from the last three months of all my files. I guess I'm smarter than I thought, in that I set the backups to occur nightly, so I didn't lose a single thing, just the programs I had installed and that had to be registered immediately in order to have valid licenses for giveaways.

I made this pic, I was so impressed with the service! Not the SSD though.

So I've got a lot of data that's ready to be restored as I get to it. As well, my replacement drive arrived today from Toshiba( who now owns OCZ ): a brand-new OCZ 240gb SSD they sent me to replace the one that failed. The speed and efficiency of the warranty replacement was amazing, in that I mailed off the bad drive on Friday and I got my package via UPS today( over the weekend! )along with a whole bunch of e-mails tracking every single step of the process. Kudos to you, Toshiba!

It looks to be a good week ahead.

Aug 23 – Back Me Up On This!

Lots of g33ky tech-stuff going on today; read on if you dare, I promise to be brief.

After finishing most of the software installation and configuration yesterday, I spent a good chunk of today going through my files looking for duplicates of things like photos or videos to reduce space.

Surprisingly, one of the biggest offenders was my GoogleDrive: there were TONS of duplicate photos in there! I managed to clear out almost 30 GB of data, one third of my total space allotment, which will make a huge difference in usability for the near future in not running out of space and having to pay for more.

BONUS: after cursing for the umpteenth time at not being able to get at many of the standard desktop functions of my NAS box running the antiquated first version of Windows Home Server, I'd had enough and dug into the Internet again to find a solution. To my utter delight after only a few minutes of complicated search inquiries, I ran across the perfect thing: a plugin that would open up the FULL power of the NAS box by allowing full access to the desktop and even the Admin menus! I installed it, rebooted the NAS and reveled in the control I finally had over administering the system after nearly 2 years of struggling with it. It made me really happy to be able to just get in there, shut some things off( see ya, McAffee! )and generally tune the thing up ever so slightly beyond what can be done through the pokey WHS program - which I'm glad still runs under Win10, mind you!

After the installations and the cleanup were complete, I started a back up in the afternoon and went off to do other things. Checking on it in the late evening, it was only 25% done after eight hours, running rather slowly for some reason.

Incredibly, it took almost 24 hours to complete, which is a new record for slow backup speeds. I have a gigabit LAN switch and gigabit network cards on both machines, but for whatever reason it was running around 1 to 3 megabytes per second, which for a system with 6 terabytes of data means a lot of copying.

But that's the point this week: get my system configured just I want, back it up, and keep backing it up so that if anything happens, it's just a restore-copy away.

/endg33kstuff

Aug 24 – Perfecting Your Job

I saw this today and just had to share it...

There's being good at your job, and then there's these fellows, who have taken it to the next level and then some in terms of figuring out exactly how to do their job with an economy of movement that is stunning to contemplate:

I wish I could say I was at the same point with my writing this week; unfortunately, my computer restoration has been taking most of my time and energy in order to get things right, so I've only been able to get a little writing done.

That should all change next week, once my tools are properly set up and my foot hurts less.

Aug 25 – Mastering MWO!

Okay, I've been a little remiss this week, I admit: I've played some games.

In the process of restoring my Steam games to my system, I dug into my MechWarrior Online game again and found myself playing it for an hour or two each day this week.

Now, I've mentioned before that my system isn't really suited to playing MWO, in that the frame rates get knocked down to around 10fps or less in really heavy action as the video card gets maxed out: it's just not able to keep up. I've toyed with the video settings in order to improve it, but the bottom line is that I need to play it at a marginal resolution in order to get anywhere close to a buttery smooth 50fps or more. Maybe I'll upgrade late next year, when the new Zen processors and the RX470 video cards from AMD are out, but for now I have to just deal with it.

It may not mean much to you, but those later games are TONS better!

And deal with it I did! I managed to improve my game considerably just this week, by paying much closer attention to how my matches were won as much as the rewards that I garnered. I learned from a little research as well that it's much better to back off and not bang my head against a wall if I'm on a losing streak, but to walk away: best to stop after a few good wins then a whole bunch of losses that will bring my score back down again in a hurry.

This one week, I managed to progress two thirds towards the next tier of play( from 4 to 3, hopefully in a month or so ) meaning that I'll be with a much better caliber of players... which is kind of scary, but to be honest I'm getting tired of hanging around with a random bunch of bumbling lunks who are shooting up the scenery as much as the enemy half the time.

Anyway, long story short: I really enjoyed MWO this week, moreso than almost any time in the last three years that I've been playing it! Something has clicked with me and the game, probably from just paying close attention to it all this week being stuck at home and I'm really happy that such a thing happened, even if meant my foot's not feeling the greatest this week...

But, it will get better, just like my MWO game!

Aug 26 – Karma Knocks!

What a great day - two really great things happened!

First off, my next-door neighbor knocked on my door and handed me an envelope, telling me to open it with a smile in my face. Mystified, I complied and the fell a $100 gift certificate to a local restaurant! As my jaw fell open and I gave him a stunned look, he proceeded to explain.

He said that a friend had given it to him just the other day, and since he was leaving to return back home next week for the winter, he couldn't use it: it expires at the end of 2016. So he thought of me and my girlfriend and immediately popped over to see if I was home; as luck would have it, I've been home all week! This is one of the many reasons that I love my building: in among the people who smoke like chimneys or argue on their balconies late at night, there's also some really wonderful people who do nice things for others just because they can. My next-door neighbor's one of them; I've helped him over the years with his computer systems without expecting anything in return and I'm tickled that he thought to pass on this lovely gift to my lady and I today!

The second thing to happen was a surprise sale!

As most of you may know from reading the blog, I started dabbling in cosplay early this year, creating a set of USCM armor from Aliens for the Emerald City ComiCon back in April. The costume's in storage right now, as I've been waiting for the opportunity to finish weathering down and sealing up the paint. Unfortunately, the one product that would be perfect for the job is hideously expensive: called Liquitex, it's praised by cosplayers for its ability to remain flexible after drying, but lamented for it's sky-high prices and lack of availability.

I'm a determined guy, so I've kept my eye on the price of Liquitex, checking in a few times a week with various sources to see if there's any sales that might bring the price down to a reasonable level. As luck would have it, today when I checked in on Amazon, I saw that all the Liquitex products were on sale AND the biggest tub( nearly 4 litres of the stuff! )was discounted an eye-popping 69% off!

I wasted no time in grabbing a tub, and in retrospect I should have bought to, because the price doubled overnight( see pic above ). Even though it shows a 'discount' still, it's more than twice what I paid and I still can't believe that I got it for that much, as I've been looking for six months now and never seen it for that good a price... for all I know, it was a computer glitch, but I"ll take it!

So in summary: today was a really good day!

Aug 27 – Custom Playsets!

This is too cool!

I'm a really big Star Wars fan, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, though I have neither the money( nor the space )to collect anything significant of note.

And I can only dream of being able to do what one Star Wars superfan does: he creates his own Star Wars playsets from scratch!

These are only SOME of the playsets, with his own box cover art too!

Apparently this guy works for years on the design of each playset, so it's not like he's just putting them together in a month or so with his mad CAD skills and piles of money spent on 3D printing gear. Each one is a labor of love and I'm fascinated see what he'll come up with next: as a kid, I remember being disappointed with some of the playsets that did come out to and wondering why other ones were never created a popular scenes from the movies or even the Expanded Universe.

Now, thanks to another Star Wars fan, we can all live the dream together.

Aug 28 – Sale Dud

Sometimes I wonder...

As my foot's been slowly healing this week, I've been waiting to hear back from a seller on VarageSale.com( a Canadian company! )who had posted that they had an Air Cast for sale: perfect for immobilizing my foot to keep it from moving around inadvertently during the day.

Those Air Casts normally run about $150, and while there's a few for sale currently locally, this seller was offering there's in perfect shape for a mere $15! However, after the initial contact, I didn't hear anything whatsoever despite several follow-up e-mails and today I gave up, sending the message and 'removing' my I Am Interested flag from the posting. I was a little miffed that the seller hadn't bothered to read any of my emails until today, nor respond... and then I was even more annoyed that they de-listed the item( again without a response to me )meaning that they likely sold it to someone offline, instead of me. Which is fine: just TELL me the item's not for sale, so don't waste a week hoping that you'll get back to me instead of buying the only other left-footed AirCast for $50, located inconveniently outside of town instead of just around the corner. So, if you ever come across this Marie Hayward: you can kiss my injured foot( which I mentioned in one of my emails )which may just have healed faster if you could have been bothered to be a decent person and VarageSale seller. It's just too bad there's no provision for me to leave feedback for a non-sale...

I should also mention that several of the pictures in this week's blog are composites that I've created myself, as I do several times a month when I don't find quite the image that I want for what I'm trying to convey. It's fun and doesn't usually take me all that long, considering my lack of Photoshop skills and I like to ensure that my pictures match my words.

That's about all I've got for today. It’s been a busy week off and I’ve so much yet left to do…

Sunday Foot update: still tender, and I get odd tingly 'twinges' if I move it the wrong way, even though I'm being extraordinarily careful. Still, it doesn't feel like it's swollen underneath any more, so I believe I'm on the mend and should be fairly well back to normal by the end of next week as long as I don't overdo ANYTHING, meaning I’m pretty much housebound – even limping from a cab to a small store is a bad idea, for now.