Archive for September, 2007

Ammo

Published September 24th, 2007 in Zowie!, brain and retrospecticus. 1 Comment

Seeing as I still haven’t followed through on my promise to blog, and I’m now at work compiling a ton of brochures for Humber College, I thought I’d blog tiny bits in between brochures.

Some bullet points, if you will, for now. I’m thinking of doing a fall TV breakdown eventually, once I’ve seen pilots, and I may jot some Raptors thoughts before the season starts. Plus actual blogging, about stuff I think about and crap. Yeah.

But for now:

God Bless Technology — a.k.a. “Random text messages from Dart saved to my cellphone”

Occasionally, and not as frequently as I’d like, my phone will beep or buzz, and it’s a text message from Dart. Completely unbidden, often after not speaking to Dart for weeks or months. I wish I had more, so c’mon Dart, do it up. Now here, for your reading pleasure, they are (omitting texts sent for a purpose, like birthday party planning), in reverse chronological order (most recent first):
“I accidentally hit myself in the nuts with my binder”
“I am the greatest says Muhammad Ali”
“Fuck!”
“Championship! Championship! Championship! Championship! Championship! Championship!”
“Maiden!” (with accompanying photo of Iron Maiden playing live)

Box of gold

This past weekend, we did what I can’t believe it took me until now to do. I now have, in my living room, a PVR. This now means that I can tell my VCR to go screw itself, record two shows at once without tapes, record shows with the touch of about 2 buttons, not annoy Beth with all of my Raptors games, and not worry about (sad as it is, I sometimes do, seeing as I’m so caught up with following the shows that I follow, all in the name of honing my TV writing craft) whether or not I’ve got recording set right when we leave the house, allowing me to, well, leave the house a little easier. I’ve already played with it a bunch. How I survived until now, I don’t know. Best of all, since Rogers had been dicking me around and still charging me for months for some channel packages after they moved a bunch of the included channels into their free VIP package, the PVR will be free for a few months with credit, and after that, won’t cost any more than aforementioned channel packages did.

XBOX 360 urge growing … growing

Time at work has also allowed me to work some podcast listening into my day, and G4/IGN tend to be the main places I go, usually filling myself full of hype for nerdly pursuits like games, comics, tv, gadgets, etc. After mildly sating these urges with Metroid 3 (awesome) and slowly working my way through, trying to savour every last second of it, I’m getting more and more hyped for a bunch of 360 releases. I already pimped Mass Effect in my little sidebar ages ago, but now there’s Bioshock sitting on shelves, taunting me, and damned if I’m not getting caught up a little in Halo 3 fever. I’ve never been a huge fanboy of the Halo franchise, but they are very solid shooters, with a decent story and some fun to be had. I’m not a multiplayer man either, but that Forge map editor, and the saved films instant replay, make the nerdlinger inside me very giddy. Halo’s promotion team has been bang-on, too, really stoking not just hardcores in wanting to play, but getting everyone on board. They’re showing that they understand not only how to make a game where stuff gets blasted, but also to put at least a bit of thought into the style and substance of the things. Plus for my little white box of joy (the Wii), there’s still Zack & Wiki, a delightful looking piratey adventure/puzzler, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, with online and an honest-to-God story mode, and of course, Super Mario Galaxy — ’nuff said.
Now I’ve just got to keep scrimping and trading stuff in to put together some fundage for this project…

Household miscellany

We’ve been redecorating, to an extent. Nice new dresser, new lamps (owls and horsies!), looking at chairs, and I’m actually interested! It might not always show, according to Beth, but I’m really kinda looking forwarwd to not living in student-esque squalor, as budget and lifestyle have dictated to this point.
We’re also still acclimatizing our little kitten-y bundles of delight to our home, and they’re (mostly) a treat. When they’re not whining to see us at six in the morning.

I think that’s it for now. Started this almost first thing in the morning, and now it’s 4:00, blogged around work. Enjoy, internetz.

Coming soon: hopefully my TV season roundup, more Flickr fun (free Flickr pro with Rogers internet! Who knew Rogers would actually get something right!?!?), and maybe some gaming discussion (current state of, etc).

Next they’ll be writing credit union ad-copy

Published September 7th, 2007 0 Comments

Watch out Katie, you’ve got some stiff professional competition.

Chylothorax 1, Curiousity 0

Published September 5th, 2007 in retrospecticus and cats. 5 Comments

So long

So how was your long weekend? Nice time at the cottage? Bit of relaxing?

That’s nice.

I didn’t want this to be flippant (and yet my choice of title). I didn’t want this to be angry (and yet my opening).

But she’s gone. And that’s not fair.

It isn’t nearly as unfair as losing a parent, or a brother, both of which have affected dear friends of mine in the not-too-distant past, and I absolutely know we did the right thing, because it is inhumane, cruel, and unfair to the animal to keep them alive for your own emotional security, but there is still a profound part of me that is aching and angry that I had to do this, and do it so soon.

Admittedly I wanted to put off making this choice until it was a little easier for me, as awful as that might sound. I wanted her to know that there was something seriously wrong, as I fundamentally could not kill a happy and unaware, if occasionally uncomfortable, part of my life. I needed to know that she knew what was happening, and that she was ready, but not wait so long that she couldn’t bear it. She fought and she fought, but over the last week, the pieces of her that meant most to us went away. She wasn’t taking any pleasure in things that made her so happy previously. She had to fight to catch her breath if she was moved, jostled, picked up, or towards the end, even just touched. This was not how she had been living with her disease up to the last few days. If I’m most sorry for anything, it’s that we saw the signs of the worst starting mid-Saturday, but held out until yesterday to avoid having to take her to the awful emergency clinic and go amongst all that pain and unfamiliarity, and the ludicrous expense. We needed her to have some measure of comfort in going with us by her side, but also with the vets and staff at Queen West who were so, so good to her, and who seemed almost as broken up as we were (they nearly all came in one-by-one to say goodbye). So we spent the weekend watching a body die around a soul that knew it, and wanted out.

In the end, she could barely sleep, as she was putting so much conscious effort into breathing properly that she couldn’t take a moment’s rest from concentrating, lest she not get enough air. She managed two little naps, with us on the couch, over Monday and yesterday, and her body wracked and shook as she slept so much, yet she was so tired that she was so deeply asleep, that there was no doubt we were doing what had to be done.

But she got to fight as long as she could, we gave her every chance and the best treatment we could, she got to raise one wonderful little sister to be a very loving animal, and she got the chance to meet our two new little additions and to experience one last bit of joy (I really believe her most joyous times were when she could watch and play with little baby kittens, as first with Maeby and now with Flora and Dorothy/Piglet she was never happier than when she got to get on the floor with them) before moving on.

I don’t know what her life was like before us, but if the little nicks and scars, the chipped tooth, the fleas, the worms and the refusal to eat were any indication, I like to think we gave her the best life she could ever have imagined. And I hope, I hope, that in putting a stop to her pain, we helped her find a far, far better rest (to borrow a line) than she could ever dream of. We didn’t even have her for three years, but I hope they were good years.

We loved her. She was the first addition to our little family, and she brought us great happiness.

We will miss her.

So, if you please, cans in the air and pour one off for Kaylee, and for anyone else lost or hurting.

Goodbye, little girl.

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