Once more, just as before.

Last time I took a week off of work to attend school (that way I get really into it, and also retain the knowledge I’m gleaning from the pages of various textbooks) I had hardly any money at all.  I never realized how much I really rely on the crudly small amount of dosh I make at my job, but without it, it’s hard to do anything!  Currently I want to spend an exorbitant amount on some pieces o’ cardboard with some ink on them (read: Magic the Gathering booster packs) but I can’t afford to buy them and afford lunches at school this week, so I’m forced to find another source of cash.  I can either take an advance on my pay from work, so when I go back on the 17th I’m earning the lunches I ate the week prior, but that’d make it harder to pay my rent.  I could try and find someone’s computer to fix, but I don’t want to call people up and be like: ‘Is your computer working?  No!  I’ll fix it!  Pay me!” (which, incidentally, is the reason I can’t rely on computer repair as a main source of income… sometimes I’ll have a huge rush of work and make money hand over fist, and then I’ll have a 3 month dry spell) and the final way of getting money is to borrow it from my parents, if they can afford to lend me some.  But that’s almost the same as getting an advance from work (it gives me more rent to pay off later) but without bugging my boss, I suppose.

I still have money, just.. not enough money to both buy lunches and the cards I want.  Now sure, I don’t need the cards right now, but I want them right now.   I could always just take sandwiches to school for lunch, but that’d not only be super jenk, it’d detract from the amount of time I can hang out with my friends during lunch.  Y’see, I’m a guest there, so friends of mine like Ty and Quin still have to adhere to their break schedules, and the best time to get some conversation in with them is on their lunch break!  I can’t go to whatever restaurant or coffee shop they frequent and pull out a cheap-ass ham sandwich I brought from home… that just isn’t kosher.

And as if that wasn’t worse enough, me wanting these cards that I know in the end I’ll not even care about so badly… I also need another iTunes card!  I can’t go very long without buying music from the iTunes Store, as every week there’s more and more music Iwant, and I refuse to pirate it… but I’m down to $1.97 on the iTunes store–that’s enough for one song, as I’d be $0.01 short of another after the purchase..  I can’t go over a week with only buying one song.  Damn my consumerist ways!

Currently I’ve paid off one third of this month’s rent… so my plan is to take back that money from my parents, use it for lunches, and then take the money I make next Wednesday and Thursday and.. the Wednesday after that, and use that for my full rent.  (I can’t go back to work after having been broke for a week and not spend some of the money I make on Tuesday.. and the other Tuesday will be the same deal, I’ll undoubtedly want something by then.  I need to learn how to save money!)

The whole reason I’m in this mess is because I spent too much money online the last few weeks… I bought “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” on DVD from Amazon.ca (which I already own via iTunes… just wanted the extra features…) as well as the third trade paperback in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 series of comics, “Wolves at the Gate“, the 3rd trade paperback of the Y: The Last Man series of graphic novels, “One Small Step“, and a new novel in the Magic: the Gathering universe known as “Agents of Artifice“, which insofar is fantastic.  (sidebar: I currently own most of the MTG novels out there, I’m only like.. 6 to 8 short… a few of the ones that came after The Brothers’ War, and the Lorwyn block, as I hated Lorwyn.)

Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough already.  Enjoy this picture of ze books I was just talking about!

Geekdom reigns.

February 8, 2009 · Filed Under Buffy, Journal, Magic, Projects, School, Work

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One Fine Day

Yeah, so on May 1st (last Thursday) I had a great damn day. I took the day off from school, etc, ’cause I had been in a pretty bad mood the last couple of days, and it seemed that every single thing anyone did was ticking me right off, and I could tell that it was going to lead to me yelling at someone, or hitting someone.

So I removed myself from the environment that was causing such problems, and boy did I feel better when I went back to school on Friday.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is to detail why Thursday was such a good day, and what exactly I did on my day off, so here goes:

I woke up at 7ish to my dad paging me over the intercom, telling me that breakfast was ready. We didn’t have much food in the house, as we hadn’t gone shopping in a while, and it was finally pay day, so if I didn’t get up, I wasn’t going to eat ’til after shopping, or even until dinner that night. So I got up.

I went upstairs, had eggs, ham, and hashbrowns, I hung out with my parents for nearly an hour, and then went back downstairs. I had a shower, got dressed, watched an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s fifth season, and then started doing some math homework. My mom went out for a hike with her friend Ada around 8:30, and my dad was home ’til around 11ish. I talked to him a li’l more before he left, but not all that much. Once he had left, my mom came right home, and I asked her how long it was going to be ’til we went grocery shopping. She finally gave in, and said around an hour, so I went back downstairs and watched an episode of Buffy again to kill time.

Finally, I went upstairs, and we left. I had reserved a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV for myself at London Drugs, since I had a hell of a time getting anywhere else to get me a copy. In fact, I had reserved the game at Seaside Video three weeks before it came out, but they never bothered writing it down, so I didn’t get the copy of the Special Edition they had promised me, and instead had to call London Drugs, and just got lucky that they had a copy for the 360 available, and would hold it for me.

Anyway, we stopped by the Bank of Montreal, got some cash, drove all the way into Gibsons, and when I finally got to London Drugs, I bought the game, took it back to the van, and put it under my seat so it wouldn’t get stolen or sit in the sunlight while we were in shopping at IGA Marketplace.

This is the IGA in Gibsons where my dad works, so we saw him in there a few times, and he even helped us find meat tenderizer. Anyway, the important thing is that when I got there, I went to the Pizza Hut Express that they have there, and got myself a medium pepperoni stuffed-crust pizza, and it was easily the greatest thing I’ve ever tasted, ever. Or maybe that’s an exaggeration. Either way, it was damn good, and I loved it.

We finished grocery shopping, loaded up the groceries into the van, drove back to Sechelt, and stopped by the mall to go to Shopper’s Drug Mart to pick up pharmaceutical supplies (shampoo, Q-Tips, floss, etc) and after that, we headed over to Seaside Video once more, and I bought Mario Kart Wii.

After getting home, bringing in all the groceries, putting them away, etc, it was already nearly 4:30, and Smallville was on at 5, so I just spent half an hour with my mom, and then went downstairs to watch Smallville and eat the rest of my pizza as dinner. After that, I finally sat down at my 360 around 6:15, and played GTA IV for the first time. I had been waiting for the game to come out for months, and crying about not having it since the release date, but I finally had it, and I played it ’til nearly 8 o’clock.

After that, I headed upstairs with my Wii, Mario Kart Wii, Wiimotes, Nunchuks, etc, and played the game with my mom for nearly 2 hours. I tried it online, and after a while got bored of it again, and my mom was tired, so I took it back downstairs, put the Wii away, etc, and played a bit more GTA IV ‘fore watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and falling asleep.

The only way that day could have been any better was if I had gotten a tonne of free cash, or won a shopping spree or something, found the secret to eating whatever you want, and not gaining billions of pounds, or had gotten [Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian] without doing the crazy-long quest. ;)

May 3, 2008 · Filed Under Announcements, Buffy, Iðunn, Journal, Projects, School, Ullr

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I, Me, Mine, I, Me, Mine, I, Me, Mine…

Bought stuff today.

Well… maybe I should start at the beginning… *cue flashback effects, and weird harp music…*

Woke up, got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my hea–wait, those are Beatles lyrics..

I got up at around 8:30 AM today. Had a shower, got a chance to use my new “Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner“, and it works well. I decided to clean out my bathroom, and realized I needed some new toiletries. (i.e, shampoo, toothpaste, etc.)

I figured since I was planning on going shopping today anyway, I’d pick ‘em up later.

After all of that, I booted up Mjolnir, and proceeded to watch the last disc of Smallville Season 2. It was pretty good.

I then realized I hadn’t anything to do for a few hours, so I figured I might as well play some Guild Wars: Prophecies. I finished a mission at Fort Ranik, and then logged off as I had to get ready to go out.

Basically, after that, I got dressed twice –Didn’t want to wear the grey shirt again today, went for the pink. Does it matter? –and went upstairs to wait for my mom.

She came home, we had lunch, and then I decided to read up on GW and stuff to kill a half of an hour, since she didn’t want to go out ’til she had taken a break. I did so, and then we headed out to London Drugs.

It took about 40 minutes to get there, due to horrendous traffic, but we were there. We went in, waited around for 12 minutes ’til someone finally offered to help us –Only after I told my mom we needed to look “rich and stupid.” We started thumbing through our wallets, looking at displays for Vista and what not, and put a glazed-over look in our eyes. Immediately someone came over and offered to sell us Vista Ultimate. I said we were just looking for Office 2007 Student and Home edition, they went into the back, said they couldn’t find it, and offered to sell us the Standard edition. They then asked a superior to help them, they checked the stock online, and found that they should have 13 copies of Student/Home there, went into the back and “managed” to find a copy, though it was all dinged up and scratched.

Anyway, we took it. I also went to look at the games, and decided to get Guild Wars: Nightfall Collector’s Edition. It was the only GW campaign/chapter I didn’t have, and I was in a GW mood.

We bought those items, and then left the Electronics/Computer department. After this, we picked up shampoo, soap, toothpaste, floss, socks, bottled water, chips, Tic Tacs, and pretty much everything else we saw. ;)

We finally left, and didn’t have far to go to get to the van, since we had gotten a great parking space beforehand, right outside of the door.

We left, and had a mostly uneventful drive home. Once home, I proceeded to install Office 2007 on Nasir (my lappy! Yay!), Sakura (my mom’s lappy, yay!) and Freya (my dad’s computer, now-a-days…)

Then I had dinner, went downstairs, and booted up Mjolnir again. I installed Nightfall, and by that, I mean I registered the key with my account, downloaded the extra soundtrack, ripped the soundtrack CD that came with it, and added my special “PCGamer Exclusive Minipet and Mission” code that I had gotten ages ago during the prerelease.

I was going to start playing Nightfall, or maybe just stick with Prophecies for now, but Quin was on Skype, and he said Ben had just been on. I decided to call him, and I left a message on his machine. I then decided to watch “The Making of Nightfall” to pass the time ’til he got back.

Half way through he came on Skype, we talked at great length about why Guild Wars rocks, and why he should get Prophecies, etc, etc, and Quin watched clips of Family Guy on YouTube.

We then finally started playing BF2, and continued to do so for many hours. From.. 8PM ’til .. 12:30 AM. Anyway, I made it to Gunnery Sergent, unlocked the Support class weapons, and decided to write this post ‘fore I went to bed. I am le TIRED.

P.S. I also watched Once More With Feeling again this morning. ;)

February 10, 2007 · Filed Under Announcements, Ben, Buffy, Freya, Journal, Mjolnir, Projects, School, Ullr

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The Ballad of Serenity

First of all, a warning: This post contains spoilers about what happens in the television series Firefly, and the hit movie Serenity. If you read it and are currently watching the show, or plan on watching it, certain things will be given away. I’ll try my hardest not to spoil anything for the readers and future viewers of the show/movie, but I make absolutely no promises.

So. I ordered Firefly and Serenity on DVD a little while ago, right? And I said that it came in the mail last post. Anyway, it was … awesome while it lasted, but my feelings about the show were doomed from the get-go.

What do I mean? Well, when I first downloaded the two-hour pilot episode “Serenity” off of Direct2Drive for $1.99, I knew that I couldn’t fall in love with the show. But… after the first gorram episode, I did. I immediately raised a bit o’ cash doing some work, and ordered Firefly and Serenity off of Amazon.ca

The DVDs came. I laughed, I cried, I even got angry when things happened to the crew of the Serenity. But again, I couldn’t fall in love with the show. I did, but I couldn’t fall in love with it as much as I could’ve; if that makes any sense.

I knew that there were only 14 episodes. I knew I had already seen one, and I knew that after that there was a 2 hour movie. After watching the last episode of Firefly I felt awful. Thinking of how the people who had watched it on TV must’ve felt after just being cut off from this wondrous universe. After each episode, I counted how many I had left. I tried to space them apart, make them last as long as possible; but once I only had three or four left, I set aside a day, and I just watched them. All of them, in a row, no breaks, no pauses more than a minute or two to use the washroom or get a drink. And I watched Serenity. And I finally understood the history behind River Tam–though as a side note… they never really explained who the men with hands of blue were, or what part they played in River’s story–and I felt… awful. Some of my favourite characters died, and all the mystery surrounding the show just… disappeared. I might have actually been happier if I had just never watched Serenity at all, because I’d be free to ponder. But now that I know what happens… I just have nothing else to think about. The story is over, the crew of the Serenity are still out there in Joss Whedon’s mind, having new encounters and new problems with the Alliance every day. I’m sure that once and a while, he just sits and writes down a bit of a script, or at least the general plot behind an episode. Hell, he probably still does that with episodes of Buffy and Angel, as well.

But what I’m really trying to say is that all throughout watching Firefly I knew that I couldn’t expect to see a new episode each week, or have another few seasons to watch. I knew I had one small season and a movie that would tie up all the loose ends… but I still hoped, after each and every episode that after watching them I’d go peruse Digg and find a story about Joss Whedon bringing back the show on another network, or something. Didn’t happen of course. Knew it wouldn’t all along, but it felt good to hope.

Anyway, just like any truly good television show, Firefly helped me grow, and further understand the world we live in. It made me think about things, and it gave me happy moments to think back upon. But the warm feeling of pure bliss and joy that I got whenever watching the opening titles before a new episode is just gone. If I hear the theme, it fills me with nothing but sorrow. Sorrow at knowing that I’ll never see Mal shot again, unless I see it coming. I’ll never see Wash make more jokes, and I’ll never find out what Shepard Book really was.

Anyway, (And by the way, I use “anyway” way too much, and I’m aware of this.) I enjoyed it to no end when I watched each new episode, but for now, whenever I look at my book/DVD/CD/game-shelf to grab something, and I see the box with Mal standing on the side looking at me, I’m just going to feel awful.

Finally, if I was to rate the series, I’d give it a 5/5 easily, because of how easy it was to fall in love with the characters. But the movie Serenity? Probably a 4. It was nice to go back into the ‘verse and see the Alliance and the crew of the Serenity (as well as the ship itself) again… but it was just too good at what it was supposed to do. It tied up too many loose ends. It left me with no hope of ever seeing the show again, and nothing to ever wonder about.

But I know that I will go back and watch the series and Serenity over again. Probably every year… at least once, during a boring summer. And each time I’ll get that pure joyous feeling again… but after viewing it, I’ll feel the way I do now again. I do that with many things. I just get too attatched.

Finally, a quote:

Take my love, take my land.
Take me where I cannot stand;
I don’t mind, I’m still free.
You can’t take the sky from me.

Take me out, to the black;
tell ‘em I ain’t coming back.
Burn the land, and boil the seas,
You can’t take the sky from me.

Have no place I can be,
Since I found Serenity
But you can’t take the sky from me…

October 28, 2006 · Filed Under Announcements, Buffy, Journal, Mjolnir, Projects

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One helluvan update.

Okay, so maybe “helluvan” isn’t a word. I refuse to say helluva followed by a vowel. Sosumi.

My first PC Gamer finally came here. It rocks.

I’ve added a new album to my gallery and upgraded it to a newer version. Took a while, but ’twas worth it.

Because I’m too cheap and/or lazy to buy a Flickr PRO account, and zeeble won’t buy me one either, I decided to go back to using G2 for more than just screenshots. So, in short, (or long, rather), I’ve added a Photos album, with at least one sub-album. W00. I also renamed the gallery “TLC_G2: The Gallery of The Lazy Canadian”, just because the weird name that was en francais I had before was… tres lame. ;)

In other news; I’ve really gotten into photography. At least for now, that is. I’m planning on taking a photography course as soon as school is back in session, but there’s always the chance that I won’t get in, seeing as the last two years I’ve applied, but not soon enough. Here’s hoping I get in. (Wish me luck!)

Other than that, my life has been as it always is during the summer: Long.

The last discs of Buffy S4 came, and I watched them.
The last discs of Medium S1 are here, I’m in the midst of watching them.
I got a copy of Azumanga Daioh, and I’ve been watching it.
I bought Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2 for $20ish, and I’m going to watch them.
I rented “She’s the Man” and “Pride & Predjudice (2005)”, and I watched them.
Ranma 1/2 DVDs are in the mail, and I’mm’a watch them.

Basically, other than take photos, and go for hikes/swimming, all I do during the summer is… watch TV or movies.

Boring, yes, but I can’t apply for a job ’til September as well, seeing as Ben apparently has an “in” with one of the places I want to apply at, and if I get a job during the school year, I get credit.

I asked my mom to pick up the “driver’s guide” book… manual… thing, so I can take the first test. Why? Because I’m so bored I’ve decided to learn to drive. I don’t really want to, but what else is there to do? At least this way when I want to go to Gibsons, I don’t have to convince one of my parents to go. (I could take the bus, yes, and I wouldn’t be bored, seeing as I’d have my PSP, but I don’t like taking the bus, because it limits the time I can spend wherever I’m going, since I have to keep the schedule in my mind.)

Eh.. what else (long post, ’cause I haven’t posted in a while.)

Oh.

I still haven’t recieved the free Gentoo CDs that I sent away for. I suppose I’ll just have to wait, but when they get here, I plan on setting aside a week to install it. :X

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on IRC again lately, and I’ve met most of the people that I fell out of touch with again. I must say I’ve missed ‘em.

Anyway, for the last few sentences, I’ve just been trying to check every li’l category box. And while I’m certain I could easily do so, by yelling something out about norse mythology and … uncategories, I won’t. Though now that I have… I’ll check the rest of the boxes anyway. (My Xbox isn’t used much anymore, my dad is taking care of my old computer, I like playing M:TG, uncategories ftw.)

August 1, 2006 · Filed Under Anime, Announcements, Ben, Buffy, Freya, IRC, Journal, Linux, Magic, Mjolnir, Projects, School, Ullr, Uncatagorized

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