Category: IRL

Label graffiti

Sometimes I do irresponsible things.

My time working at Toys R Us was full of them, some more innocuous than others.

For example, at one point during my last few days as an employee there, I took a packet of large labels and wrote on them, one letter per label “BENDER LIVES LARGE AND KICKS BUTT”.

I took those labels, and stuck them on the inside of the freight elevator shaft, just above the door. Since people aren’t supposed to ride the freight elevator, in theory nobody should have ever seen it. But I thought it would be a fun surprise for any irresponsible young lads who might do so anyways.

It’s really too bad I didn’t have an iPhone yet at that point. I would have loved to have photographic evidence of my giant waste of time and also labels.

Anyway, that’s my story. I hope you enjoyed it.

#ThankYouIwata

Yesterday, the news broke that Nintendo’s Global President, Satoru Iwata, had passed away.

thankyouiwata

Now I’m heartbroken all over again. When you think of the CEO of a giant global company, you don’t think of someone like Mr. Iwata. His warmth and sense of humour made Nintendo Directs such a joy to watch, and his contributions to Nintendo as a programmer are legendary.

I couldn’t possibly hope to properly articulate how I feel and why, so here’s a really great write up. One of many that have been posted today. I’m sure that many more still will be written over the next few days.

Edit: Aw, heck. Here’s another one by a fellow Talking Time member.

iwataballoons

Rest in peace, Iwata-san.

In the wake of a Pepsi addiction

Over five months have passed now since my life sort of unravelled, and I’m still trying to stitch it up as best I can. It hasn’t been easy, and there’s still the looming threat of the financial and legal burdens (it’s complicated) hanging just over my head. But! I’ve been doing fairly well, and have made a few little changes to my lifestyle for the better.

All of them revolve around simply being healthier. The first -and this is a big one- is that I’ve cut out soda almost entirely. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a heavy soda drinker. Like, we’re talking a can a day during the worst parts. I know that’s not quite as bad as it could be, but it was still pretty bad (I’m honestly not sure how people who drink multiple cans a day stay alive). There were days when I would sit at work and daydream about getting home to a sweet can of ice cold, delicious Pepsi.

The really fun part of it, is that it wasn’t a struggle at all! Despite my previously unquenchable thirst for fizzy pop, it turns out all I had to do to quit was to say “No, I’m not drinking that.” That’s not to say that I haven’t had any soda over the last few months, but the numbers have gone way, way down. Maybe one can a month? I suppose that I can’t in good conscience say that I had a soda addiction, since my mind made absolutely no effort to stop me quitting.

I’ve had half a case of Pepsi in my fridge since February. I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon. I tried drinking one a couple of weeks ago, and it was awful. I did enjoy the taste and fizziness, but as soon as the fluid touched down, my teeth felt as if they wanted to jump out of my face, and the entire inside of my mouth felt gross as soon as I swallowed it down (and remained gross-feeling all night, even after brush/floss/Listerine). It took the whole evening to finish that can of Pepsi. Previously, I’d have polished it off in minutes.

These days, my beverage of choice is coffee. Usually free of sugar (I do indulge occasionally). At the office, it’s pretty much all I drink. At home, coffee is more of a Sunday morning treat, and my go-to drinks are tea and water. Sometimes I mix it up with a big glass of milk. At a restaurant, it’s just water (a nice bonus is that water is free!). And you know what? I have no cravings whatsoever for soda. It’s really great!

The only caveat to this change is the Slurpee. The Goddamned Slurpee. This is one thing that I cannot part with, as hard as I may try. I’m still on the Slurpee, but I’ve got it down to one a week, at the most. Sometimes I’m able to ignore it, but more often than not I give in to the urge. But I will defeat this foe as well! I’m done with soda, and I can cut out Slurpees too! I just need to find a suitable substitute.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what kind of health benefits this change will incur. I haven’t really read up on the technical aspects, but I know for damn sure that soda is a terrible, terrible thing for the human body. I think that I’m probably less fat than I was a few months ago, but I don’t know how much that has to do with the lack of soda, as I’ve also been making it a point to eat better in general and get significantly more exercise. My teeth are infinitely grateful for the change, at least.

A blast from the past

I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this on the ol’ blog before, but a co-worker of mine e-mailed this drawring to me the other day.

I drew this way, way back in 2011. I guess it’s not that far back, but it seems like forever ago to me. Anyway, it’s the cover for a comic that another co-worker had written and asked me to draw as a gift from the team for the previously mentioned co-worker’s birthday. I’d post the whole thing, but it’s terribly in-jokey and the inside art is a far cry from the quality of the cover.

While it wasn’t my best work, I remain proud of it to this day because it’s a thing that made at least a couple of people very happy. The entire thing has been on my personal drive at work ever since, and I tend to look back at it every once in a while. It’s nice to know that the person I drew it for still looks at it now and then, too.

Makes me feel like I have at least some worth as a human being.

This is what I’ve learned

Apparently WordPress automatically turns text emoticons into smilies? I had no idea. Maybe it’s just the theme? I don’t think I’ve ever actually used one in a blog post before yesterday.

Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I went to work yesterday as usual, even though I was feeling a little snippy (not that anyone noticed). And I spent the evening with my family, so it’s not like I was stewing in my misery all alone. I’ve been fairly good in general, it was just the one big day that brought me down.

It’s new, alright

Hey so it’s been weeks now but check it out, I bought myself a New Nintendo 3DS. Note that it’s New and not just new. I mean, yes, it’s both, but it’s the New that matters. The New is what makes it different than simply being new.

This thing has a terrible name.

mh3ds

Anyway, I’d like to recount the story of how I came into possession of this little gadget first, if that’s alright. I mean, we all know that I’m very likely going to buy new Nintendo hardware. It’s part of what makes me the person that I am; mindless consumerism.

When the New 3DS was first announced for Japan, I didn’t give a spit. Oh okay, sure there’s more stable 3D visuals and a weird little C-nub and it’s got a few more horses under the hood. But really, it didn’t seem like it was important for anything but playing a portable version of Xenoblade Chronicles. Which is a decent reason to own the thing, mind you, but it still didn’t “Wow!” me.

And yet despite this, I started putting a little money away here and there because I knew that I was going to end up buying one anyway.

Months later, it’s officially announced to be releasing in North America, and there was a sweet, sweet Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate-themed version, exclusive to EB Games/GameStop. I figured that special edition 3DSes have always been pretty plentiful, and almost nobody in North America gives a toot about Monster Hunter, so I’ll skip the pre-ordering and just pick one up on release day. WHOOPS. Pre-orders were sold out by the end of the same day, and local EB Games staff were fairly certain that they weren’t going to get any extra units for walk-in customers.

So I booked release day off and got to the mall with the littlest bro before the EB opened. We sat down near the store, not anticipating a crowd. But then a couple other young people stared sitting at adjacent tables and a young woman planted right in front of the door. Another fellow got up and stood behind her, and we quickly followed suit. Not a minute later, a rather large line had queued up behind us.

A single employee opened the store, and we shuffled in to be helped one-by-one. The lady got her stuff, and the guy in front of me (let’s call him Paul) went up to bat. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what was happening, but Paul had a bunch of stuff pre-ordered, though he decided against actually purchasing all of it.

I got up and asked if the store had gotten any extra Monster Hunter 3DSes. The guy said they didn’t get any, but that he had one since one of the items that Paul had left behind was a Monster Hunter 3DS, and that it was mine if I wanted it. I heard a cry of sorrow from behind me. The guy behind me had come looking for the exact same thing, and I had been lucky enough to scoop up the one stray unit.

Think about it: If I had gotten in line mere seconds earlier or later, I would have gone home a disappointed little boy. But the entire friggin’ cosmos aligned that day, and the universe did me a solid. It’s not often that I catch a lucky break like that. A new toy isn’t exactly the solution to the crap I’ve been going through lately, but it certainly takes the edge off.

And look at that. I’ve put down too many words about simply obtaining this thing. Maybe I’ll talk about the actual machine another day. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I’ll forget or just not bother. Who knows? Think of it as a fun surprise from me to you.

And so our story ends

It’s been a month now since my wife moved out.

Everyone who knows me already knows that I put my heart and soul into my marriage. To the exclusion of a lot of other things, even. Having it crumble to pieces broke me pretty hard, and for a while I’d lost the will to do anything at all.

This is why I hadn’t drawn and posted a comic in January, despite having the intent to draw at least one a month for 2015. But that’s besides the point.

I wrote a very long essay about what went down and how it has affected me, but it’s rather personal and I’d prefer to keep it to myself, if that’s alright. Here are the main beats of the story: 1. She left. 2. I was depressed and spent two weeks on my parents’ couch feeling bad for myself. 3. I’m not doing that any more.

To suggest that I’m “over it” would be a bald-faced lie, but I’m sick of feeling like crap because I couldn’t save a relationship that was, though I denied it until the very end, doomed from the start. I’m putting it behind me and getting on with my life. Yes, I am still emotionally tender, and I’m not excited about getting all the legal stuff hammered out, but I’m moving forward.

I’m not entirely sure how to sum up how I’m feeling about this whole situation, but even though this has been the most difficult thing I’ve ever gone through, I’m beginning to see how much of a good thing it’s going to be for me. I still love my wife, but I’ve also accepted that she was so, so bad for me, and that I need her out of my life. It still makes me feel horrible to say that, but I’m free of that darkness now.

It’s only been a month, and that’s not really long enough to gauge my mental and emotional recovery, but there are more good days than bad right now, so I’m taking that for what it’s worth. I don’t have a very clear picture of what the future has in store for me, but I’m hoping that I’ve got some good karma flowing my way.