A Whiff o’ the Irish

I bought this deodorant some time ago in a moment of desperation. The store I was at did not have my usual brand, and I didn’t feel like travelling farther to get the right kind. Days later, I ended up purchasing the correct deodorant as well.

Yesterday, I ran out of the normal deodorant again, and had to use this back up stick. The memories of why I haven’t been using it came rushing back to me before long.

The Irish Spring Speed Stick smelled nice in the store. Also it was cheap. Sure. Great! But what I could not have hoped to realize in the store is that the scent is very powerful and I would be smelling it constantly, all day long. After a couple hours, the smell becomes significantly less pleasant. So I guess I had better quit being so lazy and go pick up some of the good stuff tonight.

And that’s my story for today. Are you dissatisfied? Would you have preferred yet another post about video games? I’m trying to diversify here!

Half-hearted-oween

Halloween may be my favourite holiday. Not to the extent that Dinosaur Dracula and The Sexy Armpit love it, but it’s definitely the annual occasion that plays to the most of my interests. You’ve got candy, you’ve got monsters, you’ve got pumpkins. All the best things that modern life has to offer. Also, it takes place in autumn, the best season of all.

And yet, I feel like in 2016, I’ve really pooped the bed in regards to celebrating Halloween properly. The fact that my house remains undecorated is more of a by-product of me not knowing if I’d still be living there come October 31st, but I could certainly be dabbling in other ways of showing my appreciation for the best season of all. That said, it’s time for a play-by-play of all the Halloweeny things I’ve done so far.

Foodstuffs

  • I’ve eaten more Oreos over the last six weeks than throughout the rest of the year, and while most of them were Pumpkin Spice flavoured, which is only mildly Halloweeny, there was a pack of actual Halloween Oreos in there. You know, the ones that are just plain Oreos, but with the amazing neon orange filling? Pretty great.
  • I bought a pack of Pillsbury ready-to-bake Pumpkin Spice cookies. While they were maybe not quite appropriate for the holiday, they were the amazing.
  • There are two packs of Pillsbury ready-to-bake sugar cookies in my fridge, and they are in the spirit of the season. One has pumpkins, and the other black cats. I intend to make them next weekend.
  • I bought a box of Coffin Crisp to keep at my desk at work, but that’s been it for Halloween-themed candy. It seems like interesting ‘Ween editions of established candy is getting harder an harder to find. At least here in stupid Canada, where fun junk food is illegal.
  • While at a craft show, I purchased a pack of skull-shaped cookies. They were frosted in an assortment of neon colours, and they were delicious. Not really $1-per cookie delicious, but as a one-time thing, not a bad buy.
  • There is a box of Spookylicious Pop-Tarts in my cupboard that I have yet to break into. I am under the impression that they are regular chocolate fudge Pop-Tarts, but with orange frosting and fun bat-shaped sprinkles.
  • My mom bought me a single box of Franken Berry, which I appreciated greatly. But during all of my travels, I haven’t been able to find another box, or any of the other monster cereals. What awful luck I have.

Media

  • I have played exactly one good horror-themed video game so far this season, and that is Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location. And really, if you’re only going to play one scary game, it’s… decent enough. Like, I think it’s a great game, but there are many more substantial options.
  • I also played one terrible scary game, and it’s called Haunted Hotel. It was garbage.
  • There’s still time to pop in a couple quick horror games, though. I do intend to make a run at the first Silent Hill, as I can reliably finish it in a single sitting. Really, I should have put Paper Mario: Color Splash on the back-burner this month and focused on one of the many horror-themed Steam games I’ve not played.
  • The Shallows and Black Mirror: White Christmas are dramas that lie somewhere on the ‘frightening’ scale, but don’t really fit the spirit of Halloween. But I don’t think I’d feel quite right watching the latter as a Christmas movie either.
  • Emelie and The Invitation are a little closer to the right kind of spooky, as they don’t take place on a beach or during Christmastime, but they still aren’t overly Halloweeny. Definitely a disturbing pair of films, however.
  • I did watch Creepshow and Creepshow 2 back in late September, which are A+ as far as Halloween spirit goes, but honestly, I wasn’t crazy about them. A couple of the stories were really good, but others bored me to tears. I’d recommend looking up “Something to Tide You Over” and “Old Chief Wood’nhead” independently, rather than watching the entirety of both anthologies.
  • The VVitch was really great! So good that I wrote a number of words about it!
  • I really, really watch to watch The Babadook, but just the Google image results have been giving me nightmares for weeks. I don’t think I can hack it.
  • Other movies on the docket, that I probably won’t find time to watch: Hausu, Alien, Burying the Ex, Zombeavers, etc, etc…

Other?

  • I suppose it falls under media, but I choose to note that I’ve been following the Purple Stuff Podcast in this section because it’s a little empty otherwise. Anyway, Matt and Jay have put out a couple Halloween-themed episodes this year, but not nearly as many as they did in 2015. Maybe I’ll just have to listen to those old ones again.
  • My house is so sparsely decorated this year. It’s sad. There’s a weird aluminum pumpkin by the door, and a lights-and-sounds door knocker… on the wall downstairs. That’s it. By the time I knew I’d still be living in the house for Halloween, I had already given up on decorating.
  • I do have a candy corn-scented candle that has been out and lit. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a very strong scent, so it’s more about mood lighting than anything else.
  • My search for better Halloween candles has come up empty-handed. Of course, I haven’t been looking especially hard, but you would think that this kind of thing would just be jumping off the shelves at you during this time of year.
  • I don’t have a costume or plan for Halloween night. I’ll probably spend it the same way I do every other Monday night: at my parents’ house, watching The Bachelorette Canada. Which, you know, is totally fine by me.
  • I haven’t even been to the Spirit store this year. I am the worst Halloween fan ever.

Other things that happen

I’m fairly well-known as the kind of person who doesn’t like to do things that require effort and/or pants. But last weekend, I did a whole lot of things! New(ish) things! Including but not limited to:

  • Talked to the greeter and took the time to craft my own burger at McDonald’s
  • Ate at McDonald’s on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (I’m not proud of this one)
  • Went on a late-night Pokémon Go expedition to the zoo
  • Met and played with a new puppy
  • Checked out an annual craft show for the first time
  • Bought expensive artisanal mustards
  • Was disappointed that I didn’t find a candle that I liked
  • Performed an “Irish Goodbye”
  • Helped my grandparents move into an apartment
  • Went through a regular checkout lane instead of the express checkout at Safeway because I wanted a specific cashier

What an exciting life I lead!

Sap-tember

September is my favourite month of the year. Obviously, it has something to do with the fact that it is home to the anniversary of my existence in the world, but also I just really like this time of year.

Summer is winding down, so the weather is often more cool and tolerable. That lovely autumn air starts to seep in more and more consistently. Back To School is out and Halloween is in. Pumpkin Spice is everywhere. It’s all so beautiful and perfect.

It has also become so bittersweet for me. I have some particularly treasured memories from September of 2012 that make me feel so warm and fuzzy when they come on, but then quickly bring about a sense of sorrow. At that point, I was really just settling into the idea of truly building my own life. Married, living in my very own home, and working toward a real career. That was the absolute happiest point in my life.

It wasn’t long after that, that everything went out of control and started to crash down around me. But, I still like to look back on those days, and remember how good they were.

Even in the face of the self-doubt and hopelessness that I feel nearly every day, I think that someday I can be that happy again. And that maybe next time, it will last.

It’s my birthday. I’ll be wistful if I want to.

Somber

Sometimes it really bums me out to look back on the Articles page.

It reminds me of a time when I got excited about pretty much everything.

Now I find it incredibly difficult to genuinely give a damn about anything.

Where has my joie de vivre gone?

Also sometimes it shocks me to read the monstrous things I wrote as a youth.

A month with Pokémon GO

Pokémon GO hasn’t been out in Canada for a while month yet, but due to some sneaky sneakiness, I’ve had it for a month now. I was totally enamoured of it for the first few days, but how about now? When it comes to phone games, I often get very excited at first and then cool on them just as quickly. Did Pokémon GO avoid that fate?

The answer is both yes and no.

While I was very excited about AR Pokémon times at first, the massive load on the servers made the experience very touch-and-go. So I did sort of let my infatuation with it fade, as it was always a gamble whether I’d actually be able to play or not. Things seem to be getting better, as the game is locking up significantly less often now than it did even two weeks ago. Then again, I might just be getting lucky.

As is often the case with multiplayer-focused games, the actual “game” part of Pokémon GO seems like a massive waste of time for me, and not worth the trouble. There’s the subset of people who will invest all of their time in the game and dominate it, leaving those of us who play casually with no hope of even a temporary victory. And of course, since this is a phone game, folks with cash to burn can also just pay to win. I put a couple dollars in to buy a bag upgrade because I found myself constantly running out of item space, but that’s all I’m ever going to spend on it. So it seems completely futile for me to even try to play the gym battles when they’re stocked with Pokémon at levels that I can’t fathom.

However, I do find it fun to simply wander around and catch Pokémon. The thrill of the hunt is enough for me right now, but I’m sure that it’ll wear off before long. Exploration options are pretty limited when your only method of travel is by foot and you’re also quite lazy. I feel like before long, my Pokémon GO experience will dwindle down to walking around with the app open to hatch all those eggs. That seems to be the real best hope of catching them all.

It’s no secret that I’m a bit of a contrarian, and as weird as it is, I’m a little put off by the massive hype surrounding the game. I should be ecstatic that more people are into something Pokémon-related than ever before, but for whatever reason I find it making me want to distance myself from the phenomenon until it dies down a bit. I know it’s ridiculous, and I hate myself for being such a hipster douche.

So yeah, time will tell. I was one of the few who were incredibly excited about PoGo before it launched, which makes it odd that I’m not as over the moon about it as so many others. Maybe a couple updates with new features will truly rekindle my flame for it, but for now, it’ll just be a thing I may or may not boot up when I go for a walk. Full disclosure: It’s probably going to get booted up more often than not.

Also I still inexplicably want the stupid bracelet. What the heck is wrong with me?

Feel the burn

Should you happen to follow me on Facebook, you probably already know that I’ve taken up running as a way of trying to get into better shape this summer. In my case, it’s really closer to awkward jogging, but that still a lot better than my usual zombie-like shambling. I’m putting a lot of effort into it, too. I try to get out at least every second day, and if I really feel like I can’t push myself that hard, I’ll still make sure to go for a walk, just so that I’m doing something.

Results are mixed thus far. While my legs are pretty much constantly sore from being put through the most activity they’ve seen since I was a child, I do typically feel really great after a run. Oddly enough, despite my massively increased exercise and not eating any differently than I used to, my belt is actually feeling tighter. Which sucks. I’ve also gained a couple kilograms, but I’m going to chalk it up as muscle (I’ve also been working my dumbbells harder than ever). If I accepted it as fat weight, I’d instantly lose all motivation to keep going.

Also, when I was out yesterday, I slipped in a puddle of sludge and tore up my knee a little. I didn’t realize it right away, but it got pretty bloody! Check it out!

Continue reading Feel the burn

Junk Food from Solo Market

solomarket

Some number of weeks ago -I’ve forgotten already because I’m a senile old fart- I had taken a vacation week off work. And when the cards of fate line up so that my parents and I are on vacation at the same time, that can only mean one thing: a day-long road trip to some places around rural Manitoba.

“Day-long” may be puffing it up a bit, though. It’s more like half a day at most. Truth be told, we all get bored of seeing a whole lot of nothing fairly quickly.

This year’s road trip began with a tasty brunch out at a funky little place just outside of the city. I don’t remember what it was called, but it’s squirreled away behind two golf courses. It was so pretty and rustic and woodly, I immediately brought up how I felt like I had wandered onto the set of Gilmore Girls. To which my father let out an exasperated sigh, and the rest of us enjoyed the rest of the day making Gilmore Girls references.

That’s not really relevant to this post though. I just needed an excuse to bring up Gilmore Girls.

Continue reading Junk Food from Solo Market

Pokémon makes me Go places

I’ve had it for only a matter of hours, and Pokémon Go, the new mobile AR game from Niantic, has already persuaded me to explore a little and check out places I never would have gone otherwise. Since the game encourages you to check out local landmarks (historic sites, parks, murals, statues, etc), I’ve already seen a few things around my workplace that I haven’t noticed in the four years I’ve been here. It’s even cooler when the associated landmarks have little blurbs about them, to add learning to the fun and exercise.

Good on you, Pokémon Go. Good on you.

I’m still not gonna buy that massively overpriced bracelet, though. I want it, but even I cannot justify the cost.