Pointless potential

So I’m mostly just doing a test here to see if I can post through my Wii. If you’re reading this, I totally can!

Proofreading from here is going to be a bitch though. The Wii’s tiny little text input window was totally not meant for this kind of work. So if you notice lots of little typos of the “jsut” and “anythign” variety, assume it’s a post written from the comfort of my bed. Which might make this worth it. Now unless I need to post an image, I have one less major reason to turn on my computer. Poor, neglected compy.

In related news, I’m on my third Wii console now. Not because I’m Nintendo’s bitch and keep buying each new colour or anything, but because Netflix is a horrible Wii murderer. Well, maybe it’s not Netflix, but all the evidence points to that conclusion. Let me start from the start.

Once upon a time, little Ryan was super excited that he got a message from Nintendo (via WiiConnect24, which is otherwise useless) that said he could now download a Netflix channel for his Wii. Little Ryan downloaded that channel with all the gusto, and immediately dove in. The first movie that queued up, completely by chance, was Confessions of a Nymphomaniac. Little Ryan felt a different kind of excitement and watched it. His love for Netflix bloomed instantly. Life would be wonderful from now on.
After watching more movies on the Netflix channel for hours, Ryan turned the Wii off and left to do other things for a while. He came back even later on, but when he turned on his Wii, it showed a horrible message:

“System memory has been corrupted.”

Little Ryan was devastated. His best friend had suffered from an apparent brain aneurysm, and he didn’t know what do to. The next day he turned on the Wii, just to see, and to his delight it worked! Little Ryan jumped for joy! For a while, everything seemed perfect, but then the Wii stopped working for real. It did not recover from the memory corruption, and had to be sent away to be replaced with a new console.

Little Ryan was depressed for the two long weeks his Wii was gone, but he was ecstatic when it returned, still loaded with all his Virtual Console and WiiWare purchases. Only while the license to download them was retained, they refused to play on the new console. Little Ryan set about re-downloading them all, painful a task though it was. At the end, he downloaded the Netflix channel again, and set about to watch him some River Monsters. Man, Little Ryan loved him some River Monsters.

Days and weeks went by uneventfully. Little Ryan and the Netflix channel were living happily together until one morning Ryan woke up and his Wii said

“System memory has been corrupted”

Little Ryan was devastated. Again. His Wii was dead again! But it pulled through the crisis, and Little Ryan continued to Netflix. Over the next few months the error came up again. At first it seemed to happen randomly, but as the fall set in, it started to happen every time Little Ryan tried to turn on his console. He eventually gave up and sent it in for repairs.

When Little Ryan received the second replacement Wii, he vowed to never download the Netflix channel again, because it was the devil. Four years, Little Ryan and his original console had spent together, and never had a problem. Now Little Ryan and his third Wii get along just fine, and there is no Netflix to be seen.

The End

So yeah. That’s what happened in a nutshell. The really sad part is that I loved the Netflix channel. Yes, Canadian Netflix lacks most of the AAA movies, but who cares? There’s so much on there to watch anyway! I felt like a kid in a candy store every single time I booted that channel up. I always found something to watch, and ended up watching tons of stuff that I’d have never even heard of without it. I owe Netflix a great deal, and I’m sad that I can no longer use it through my TV.

I do still subscribe to Netflix, and occasionally use it through my iPhone (mostly during workout time), though I’m a little skeptical about loading it up on my 3DS. Who knows what it’ll do? I’m certainly not signing up for Xbox Live Gold just for Netflix. One monthly fee is enough. I intend to find a cable that can make my iPhone do TV-out soon so that I can watch stuff on my TV, but it’s still not the same. The Netflix Wii interface was a little clunky, but it was nice. Better than the iPhone interface anyway. Oh well, those days have passed, and for now I live with Netflix being more a fond memory than anything else.

It’s just a box

SPOOOOKY!

Tim Horton’s has had many themed timbit boxes over the years, but I’m going to go ahead and say this one is the best. It’s just so adorable! The ghost’s mouth is strawberry jam! I don’t know if they’ve used it before, as I don’t usually take note of this kind of thing, but I just couldn’t resist taking a picture of this one. Also I am reading The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, and it is so great. I don’t do much reading these days (which really is a shame), so you know I’ve got something special if I find it worth mentioning. So good.

Wow, it’s been quite some time since I’ve blogged about anything Tim Horton’s, hasn’t it? Reading those old posts from when I used to work there really takes me back…

Gentleman, yes. Scholar? Not as much.

I had a job interview today. It was for a position that seemed like it would fit me to a tee. And the interview went well! I’ve done a lot of them this year, so I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at the art of talking myself up. Prolly not going to be getting it though.

For as good as I think the interview went, there was one big sour spot in the middle which I think really killed me. Like in many interviews before, I could feel the interviewers give up on me as soon as the subject of education came around. It’s not even that I need a degree or whatever. The education requirement is two self-study courses, and they would give me time to complete them if I got the job. You know that look in someone’s eyes when they know they’re not going to hire you? I’m getting to know it a bit too well, and I’m pretty sure I saw it this morning.

I made sure to note that I was more than willing to enroll in the courses though! So hopefully that will save me. And for the first time I’m not stressing out trying to figure out how I could honour that commitment. The basic courses are less than $1000 combined, with some rather expensive optional study tools available. I’d have six months to complete the harder one, and 18 for the easier of the two. The passing grade of both exams is 60%. This is something I could absolutely do. Even if I don’t get the job, I’m considering taking one (or maybe even both) of them just so that I can put something in the “education” portion of my resumé. It would be my best spent $1000 in quite some time.

Worst case scenario, I just keep hoping that Great West Life will hire me (not that I’ve put in an application). I have no issue with Cambrian (lack of promotions aside) and fully intend to continue my career with them, but I’ve heard from multiple sources that GWL pays incredibly well for work that untrained chimps would be overqualified for.

In other news, the old posts that I’ve been uploading seem to be a little quirky where lines are concerned, and I’m pretty sure that’s due to the fact that I was writing them up in Angelfire’s page editor. At least, that’s my current best theory. If you’re looking at archived posts between July ’04 and January ’06 (I’ve only re-archived up to October ’04) and you see funny line breaks, help a brother out. It takes like five seconds to post a comment that says “there are funny line breaks here.”

180

I posted before about my weekend of being told how great marriage is and that it’s the best thing I’ll ever do and that more people should be doing it. Today I was re-posting some archive stuff, and came across a blog post with a link to a site called Don’t Marry. I was thrilled about it back then, because at the time I had a firm belief that I’d be single forever, and a website telling me that marriage is dumb anyway made me feel better about my solitude. Clearly I no longer agree.

The original link is broken, but I did find a new address that contains some very familiar content, I’m pretty sure it’s the same thing. I actually took the time to read through the first few paragraphs and skim the rest, and I’ve gotta say that I’m disappointed in myself for ever thinking that this is a good website. It’s not giving smart reasons not to marry, it’s basically just a page of calling women uptight spendthrifts. It victimizes men, though not in a prticularly reasonable way. The writer makes the assumption that every woman is a huge bitch, and will leave her boyfriend/husband if he doesn’t spend enough money on her. He says that women will, without exception, throw away their careers and make the husband support the family. It goes on an on like that. It’s just terrible.

This fellow must have either really deep mommy issues, or he got dumped and hates all women for it now. I know that out there, women like the ones he describes do exist. There has to be at least one. I know one woman who is a terrible example of a wife. But the thing is that not all women are like that. Surprise! Stephanie likes to spend money, and likes even more when I spend money on her. But she’s otherwise responsible with money; she has no debt, and always makes sure to have enough money for bills. The very last thing she wants is to be a stay-at-home wife/mom. I know this could change with time and kids, but I have a feeling it won’t; she loves having a sense of purpose and would go crazy being at home all the time. Our parents are other great examples or marriage done right.

Go ahead and read it yourself, but unless you hate women, I think you’ll probably stop reading in disgust before he starts to make his second point. The whole thing makes out women -and western society on the whole, for that matter- to be selfish, materialistic monsters. I hate the usual relationship double-standards as much as the next guy, but us men have them too. Really, the dude who wrote this is just as, if not more selfish than the women he’s describing. Marriage is supposed to be you sacrificing your life to your partner and vice versa. Or something like that, I can’t describe it properly.

No relationship is going to be perfect, and I’m sure that for every point this fellow likes to make, a woman could counterpoint with a reason men don’t make good partners. That doesn’t mean marriage is a bad idea! If you meet someone who thinks ill of you because you aren’t spending enough on them or they want you to do all the work in the relationship, maybe that’s a hint that you should find someone new. Marriage is only a bad thing if you’re getting married to the wrong person.

I suppose I’m being unfair here in that I didn’t read the entire article, but it’s far too long. It comes off as mysogynistic right away, anyway. I just feel really bad that there was a time in my life where I would have touted this as the most brilliant, forward-thinking website I’d ever seen. It’s not. It’s dumb, and marriage rocks. At least I really hope it does. But I’ve heard good things! And my wife-to-be is the best, so I can’t imagine that being married to her could be anything but awesome.

In summation, don’t write off marriage. Not until you’ve failed at it a few times, at least. At that point, you might be able to start considering that marriage may not be for you. I guess if you really want to live your life for yourself, that’s fine, but I’ve found that life is so much richer in every way (except video game time) now that I have someone to live for.

November reigns

Well sir, I’m gonna have to call it: November 2011 is going to be the best month ever. I’m sure that my wedding day will still be the best day of my life, but May is going to have to work really hard if it wants to compete for month.

Oh, and by the way, I’m basing this on the fact that the new Muppets movie is in theaters on November 23rd. Officially I’m very excited, but I also can’t help but wonder who opens a movie on a Wednesday? That’s just crazy. Nobody goes to the movies on a Wednesday. I’ll likely be too absorbed by Skyward Sword to remember to go right away anyway.

Anyway, The Muppets. I can’t imagine that it’s going to be a bad movie; the trailer alone is awesome. Especially that first one from a long time ago, where they faked you out into thinking it was a romantic comedy and then Kermit showed up. And it’s co-written by Jason Segel, which should be more than enough. If you watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall (and there’s no reason not to have), you’ll remember the Dracula puppet rock opera. I still wonder why that hasn’t been adapted into something bigger. That little five-minute scene is more than enough reason to sit through the whole rest of the movie. If you still can’t make the commitment, look up “A Taste for Love” on YouTube.

I don’t have a taste for musicals. Every time I watch a Disney movie and the characters stop what they’re doing to sing a song about how it’s awesome to be completely irresponsible (The Lion King) or how much they yearn for true love (anything with a princess), I get annoyed and wish I could skip to the next scene. Somehow, the Muppets always manage to get around it. I’m not sure why I’m so much more open to music on film when Muppets are involved, but I am. Maybe it’s because they do it so well. Head back on over to YouTube and poke around there for Muppets music video covers. There is tons of it, and for the most part, it’s all golden.

So now, really, the only way I can think of that could make November even better would be for there to be no snow. And/or for me to be able to find some time for (non-portable) video games. Things had been so good over the last few months, but in October I think I’ve logged maybe two hours in Darksiders. That’s it. 🙁

Sacramental

Marriage Preparation Weekend was pretty fun, actually. Even though it ate up almost the entirety of said weekend, I don’t feel like it was a waste of time.

The majority of the weekend was listening to speakers about what we’d need to consider and how to handle the changes in our relationship once we’re married. Things like finances, communication, family planning, and (quite hilariously) sex were all discussed at length. There were a few worksheets that we filled out between presentations, but they were all just to stimulate conversation between the couples. It was kind of like taking a really, really short semester of university without any tests.

Being that it’s a church-mandated course, there was of course a way for God to fit into everything. And that’s cool with me. I actually feel kind of bad that I neglect my faith as much as I do. The really nice thing that they did though was to really demystify some Bible-related stuff. I learned a lot about what really goes on in there. Turns out it’s not nearly as restricting as the loonies want you to think. Most importantly of course, is that God intends for a husband and wife to really enjoy each other, if you know what I mean.  The Bible’s a lot easier to stand behind now that the Catholic church has mellowed out and uses it as a way to help people enrich their lives, and not as a tool to control them.

I feel that I probably shouldn’t be getting to into that kind of stuff here. I don’t feel like making myself an even bigger target for intolerance than usual. The end result of the weekend is that we’ve taken in a lot of information, and certainly have a few more things to consider within the next few months. Also, sevenish months is starting to seem like it might not really be that far off. We’re just working on little things at a time for the wedding, as the big stuff (dress, venues, photographers) is all taken care of, so it’s not really a concern whether or not we’re prepared for the celebration itself.

What I’m fretting about is our living situation. We’ve decided that we will not flush away money and live in apartment, so it’s condo or house for us. Condos seem to come and go very quickly though, and houses are in pretty high demand in the areas we’d like to live, driving bidding wars up by tens of thousands of dollars (or so I’ve heard). I’ve been poking around some real estate websites over the last few months, but we haven’t started looking for a place in earnest yet. Which is okay for now, because the stress of just thinking about it is almost more than I can bear.  Still not as sacry as babies though.

Oh well. I knew getting married was going to bring with it a few complications. It was just nice to have a weekend of people saying that despite those complications, it’s the best decision I’m ever going to make. Also they fed us like royalty. That was awesome. Best weekend course ever.

NB: Despite how this post may sound, I’m very excited for both marriage and moving out. I just wish they were a little easier.

You want an update? You can’t handle an update!

So I’ve been powering through my archives whenever I can find a few spare minutes, and now the entirety of 2003’s news posts have been carried over. There’s an exception for a single post that was one sentence stating that I’d uploaded a new article, but that’s the only omission. Course, I still have to finish with aught-three’s article and Chat Radios and whatever else, but I’m getting there!

Holy crap this is a news post from 2003. Let’s talk about something other than blog stuff.

I’m going to be spending the bulk of this weekend (seven hours a day) in marriage preparation class. I have no idea what to expect, and no idea how many other couples are going to be joining us. I like to imagine that it’s going to be all fun partnership-building activities, but I feel like it’s probably going to be considerably more boring. I actually know someone whose sister took the same (or a similar) course, but keep forgetting to ask about it. At the very worst, it’s two free breakfasts and lunches.

We also got our engagement photos back… sort of. They’re in an online album on our photographer’s website, but we’re still waiting on the disc. They turned out pretty fantastic, and I’m glad to report that I don’t look nearly as fat in them as I feel. Hooray! If you want to hit them up, go to the website half of BlairJPhotography.com and click on the “clients” tab. I’m not sure if sharing the password with the whole internet is OK’d on our contract (Why wouldn’t it be? Because photographers have lots of retarded rules about what you can do with the pictures they take), so just shoot me an email if you’d like to se them. They’re pretty great!

Go Green Machine!

Over the last month or so, I’ve been trying to sneak in an episode or two of the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon in whenever I get a chance. I own all the DVD sets after all, so I should probably actually watch them.

Now, I hear a lot of people groaning, and I stop to wonder why. I’ve heard many people who used to love the old TMNT get a hate-on for it these days, and all these people are stupid idiots. The most common reason I’ve heard for ex-fans no longer liking the show? Because the Turtles use an excess of 80’s slang and are therefore out-of-date. Here’s the thing about that: they don’t.

If you actually stop to watch the show, you’ll notice that the Turtles and the majority of the characters around them don’t use slang very often, if at all. And none of it is particularly dated. Leonardo’s vocabulary is often very proper, even eschewing contractions here and there in an effort to sound more mature and leader-like. Donatello is very similar, only he doesn’t have the air of superiority that Leo does. Raphael is the Ninja Turtle Chandler. Or Chandler is the Raphael of Friends. There are two exceptions to this rule:

1. Michaelangelo. Yes, he uses an excess of slang. But it’s not really just random 80’s slang popped in there to be cool  rad. It’s 80’s surfer slang to be specific, and it’s there because that’s a part of the character’s personality. He enjoys extreme sports, surfing in particular. 2003 Michaelangelo is the same way, but using 2003 lingo.

2. When people are referencing Michaelangelo. This is always prefaced by an “As Michaelangelo would say…”

So eat that, kids; your detraction doesn’t hold water. Maybe stop to watch an episode or two of the show before you make criticizms. But I do sort of understand. The problem is that the marketing for the show really pushed those slang terms. It was (and still is, to a degree) rare to see a piece of Turtles merch that isn’t plastered with words like “Cowabunga!” and “Tubular!”

As for me, I really like the show! (As I should, given how much money I’ve exchanged for all those DVDs.) The animation steadily improves with each season, and voice/colouring flubs happen considerably less often after the first season. There have been many instances when a one-liner has actually made me laugh out loud. More surprisingly, the lion’s share of those LOLers have come from Krang of all people. Brain people. Brain monsters. For example:

Rocksteady: Do we really have to ride in those [modules] again? All we do is go up and down, up and down
Krang: Sounds like a perfect job for a couple of yo-yos.

Fantastic! Sure, it’s not exaclty the wittiest stuff ever written, but it’s pretty damn good for a cartoon for children. And the narrative is pretty impressive for a kid show too; the entire first season follow one big plot thread, and the second season’s episodes can generally be split between two major storylines. Season three is pretty much 80’s Transformers (Turtles/Autobots stop Shredder/Megatron’s zany plans to steal an energy source), and I haven’t gotten any farther than that.

And yeah, if it degenerates into a “crazy caper of the week” type of show with only a semblance of an overall story, that’s still been more than enough for tons of other shows. Like Trailer Park Boys. Think about it. Each episiode is another one of Ricky’s wacky adventures, and each season begins with the boys getting out of jail, and ends with them going back in. That’s not how every season rolls out, but it’s the basic template. TMNT is the same: Turtles go on a wacky adventure each episode, each season opens with Krang berating Shredder over their latest failed assault with the Technodrome, and the Technodrome returns and then gets transported to a new nowhere land (Earth’s core, Arctic Ocean, etc.) at the end of every season.

Needless to say, I’m still a fan. It’s not the best old cartoon out there, but it’s certainly a contender. Mostly I just wanted to address the outdated slang issue. There are plenty of things that you could pick at and not like the show for, and if they’re reasonable arguments I’ll let you be. But picking on TMNT because of a vocabulary issue that isn’t actually there, I cannot abide.

Lights of Ecstatic Species

November is going to be the bestestist month ever. Super Mario 3D Land and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword come out a week apart from each other, and the latter comes bundled with a CD of the Zelda 25th anniversary symphony tour and a gold Wiimote. But besting even my insatiable lust for Nintendo games (and swag, and VGM), I’m going to see Matthew Good in concert.

If I had a bucket list, seeing Matthew Good live in concert would be damn near the top of my bucket list.

Van Halen might have been the first act I really liked, but Matthew Good was the first artist I ever truly got into. After getting Beautiful Midnight for a birthday or Christmas or something and listening to it every night for months, I was hooked. Napster hit the scene not long after, and I was able to listen to some of Matthew Good Band’s older tracks, but was constantly put out because I wasn’t able to find their previous album, Underdogs, no matter how hard I looked.

Back then I was still fairly green as far a music goes, and I was unsure about asking for the follow-up album, The Audio of Being, because I hadn’t heard any music from it (a trait I still have). I really wanted Underdogs, but I ended up getting The Audio of Being for Christmas in aught-one, and I may have listened to that one even more than Beautiful Midnight. I know that for several months, I not only put it on to listen to as I fell asleep, but also listened to it repeatedly as I whiled away my after-school hours on an emulated copy of Picross 2.

Over the years I’ve lost the vigor to keep up with new CD releases, so whenever I see a new Matthew Good album on store shelves, it’s like a tiny little Christmas for me. The two that really got my blood pumping though, were In A Coma and Live at Massey Hall. He actually did a tour to support In A Coma right after it’s release, but it was a bar show, and since I was afraid of bars at the time, I didn’t go.

In A Coma, by the way, is the gigantic 3-disc collection of not only his best work, but new material as well. The first disc is essentially the “greatest hits” disc, with a few new and unreleased songs thrown in for good measure. The second is part acoustic versions of old songs, part Loser Anthems (a limited edition EP), and half B-sides. The last disc is a DVD filled with music videos (with commentary), and some behind-the-scenes stuff. It’s essentially the physical manifestation of a wet dream for me.

Live at Massey Hall is exactly what it sounds like, and the reason I’m so excited to actually go to a show. I listened to both discs of that album every day that I got a chance for at least a month and still make time to listen to it on the long trips to and from work. So yeah, I’m pretty pumped. I thought new Zelda was going to be the event of the year for me, but I think it’s been topped. If the show is anywhere near as wonderful as the live album, I guarantee that I’ll be walking on air for weeks afterward.

So yeah, just wanted to share that. November 7th can’t come fast enough. </fanboy raving>

UPDATE – I just got an email from Chapters that’s going to make Novemeber even better. Way, way back in May or June or something I pre-ordered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Ultimate Collection Volume 1 as a birthday present for myself (as it was due to release mid-September), which is a collection of the first seven original TMNT comics, plus a bonus Raphael issue. But then, less than a month before the shipping date,  I got an email saying it was delayed to January 2012. Sucktastic. Today’s email however, says it has been un-delayed to November 22! Hooray!

I’ve never been really into comics, but I’ve always wanted to read through the original TMNT series. Even if they never produce another one of these, I’ll be glad to have the first few. While searching for that image, I found out that Kevin Eastman headed up a new TMNT comic series in August (issue #1 promptly sold out), and that Nickelodeon is producing a new animated series next year. Oh, 2012 is going to be a good year. New Turtles cartoon, new Nintendo console, end of the world. I feel like I’ve forgotten something important though…