Category: IRL

Dreaming I was Al Capone

I spent the day at the beach today. Bad idea. The beach is fucking torture for me. On the plus side, I got to watch a couple hot girls play tennis for an hour (boing boing). I also finally got a tiny litle sunburn. I say “finally” because I’ve spent a good chunk of time this summer just basting under the sun, and I hadn’t burned at all. I’m pretty much immune.

As far as the site goes, my productivity here is probably going to go down the crapper. I’ve doubled my workload over at Coozy For Hire by deciding to publish two comics a week, and basically what that means is I’m going to be double annoyed by having to write articles. I’ve still got a handful on the back burner that I’ve been putting off for months now, so maybe I’ll get one or two of those up in the coming weeks. Or maybe the ramped-up comic production will push article production even further down my priority list.

Now, I’m not just putting out a second CFH strip each week, either. On every Saturday, I’ll be drudging up a comic from days past, drawing (pun!) from my gigantic collection of comics written about my high school shenanigans. The art quality will be a little less than I shoot for when I do a CFH strip, but considering the source material’s quality, it still looks about 100x better. I think that’s about everything I needed to go through today, so I’ll be off now.

Only wanna dance with you

There was something I wanted to link to today, but being a Boy Of Very Little Brain, I’ve forgotten what it was. I can’t find it again, whatever it was, so to make up for the lack of a link, I’ve moved over a couple more old articles from Angelfire to the dot-net. Someday they’ll all be moved. Probably the day before I decide to give up on this internet crap, but it’ll happen. Anyway, I have to do some rambling on a somewhat deeper level right now, so just ignore the next paragraph unless you’re really interested in me. That means you, stalkers.

While I was rummaging through my old junk, I found a rather personal hidden document that was written by me circa 2002. What that document was about, I’d rather not say. I know that there are a couple people out there who’ve stumbled onto other secret documents of mine, and I can assure you it’s not what you think. I do bring it up for a reason though. After reading it thoroughly, I can do nothing but smile. Why? Because it makes me happy to know that I’ve become happy. I think maybe I was more troubled as a youth than I remember, and I’m very pleased to know that things have gotten much better. I’ve clearly grown as a person, and I like seeing something that really shows that, even if the contents of said documents fill me with shame. It also makes me wonder how much growing I still have to do. I know that there are still some personal issues and hurdles to overcome, but I’m kinda looking forward to the day I can. Damn, I feel like I’m some kind of sullen hero having his cliché self-acceptance moment. And no, that wasn’t my link. It just kind of fit. So yeah, I guess that’s everything. I’m not great at writing about stuff like this (some may argue that I’m not too good at writing about anything), and truth be told, I’m a little embarassed to be publishing it to a public place. I guess that’s really the reason I keep this blog though, so I can write about junk and know that someone, no matter how random, might read it. I would never want to talk about this kind of stuff with anyone, but the idea that someone might know what’s going through my head is actually rather comforting to me. And look at that, I managed to drag it out some more. Well, this is the real end. It’s probably best you just ignore everything in this parapraph. Except the link. It’s pretty funny.

TE’s Hat Collection!

I’m not really one for the world of fashion. Hell, most straight men aren’t. I usually don’t bother with much other than a t-shirt and jeans, but there is one type of accessory that I simply adore. Hats. Yes, hats. I’ve always been quite fond of wearing hats of all shapes and sizes. Sadly, my head is gigantic, so most of the time I look silly with a hat on. So I took that to my advantage, and now I’ve become quite an avid collector of silly hats.

Well, maybe not so much a collector, but I do have a penchant for acquiring unusual headwear.

You know who else wears a wide variety of hats? Kirby. And there are even more similarities than that between me and the little pink marshmallow. See, when Kirby puts on a new hat, it bestows him a power that is somehow represented by that hat. My hats have similar qualities, only slightly less fantastic. My hats don’t make me a master swordsman or allow me to breathe fire. No, those abilities are constant.

That’s far more than enough of a preface, don’t you think? Yes, I’ve rambled a bit too much, so let’s get on to the hats already!

The cowboy hat

The first hat is the cowboy hat. This cowboy hat actually used to belong to my dad, but it was handed down to me a couple years ago after I expressed how much I enjoyed wearing it. Sadly, it spends the bulk of its time as a decoration rather than as a hat.

The cowboy hat not only gives me the skill to wrangle various types of cattle and ride bulls with the best of them, but it also does an excellent job of bringing out my inner shirtless hunky cowboy. This trait is key in scoring with hot models and your mom.

The plastic top hat

I’ve always wanted a top hat. I’ve made it clear to everyone I’ve come in contact with in my whole life ever at least once. While I’ve yet to get my hands on a real top hat, a couple years ago my mom decided that it would be funny to get me a plastic top hat for New Year’s. The thought was appreciated, but the plastic top hat was thrown to the wayside soon after the event. Now it is used mainly as a bucket that holds my bank statements and crayons.

The plastic top hat is a favourite of Party Ryan, though it is still only used on very drunk occasions. It provides me with the power to be funny and to ring in the new year with a plastic hat. Then again, the funny might just be a side effect of the booze.

The novelty pimp hat

This hat is probably the least original of the bunch, being a dime a dozen. Or… 24 dollars a dozen, given the fact that the carnival games that you win these hats cost like two bucks a play. At any given carnival/amusement park, you’ll likely see folks young and old sporting these hats en masse.

This hat affords me no extra ability, as my pimpin’ skillz are as top notch as they’re gonna get.

The adventure hat

Also known as “the fedora” and “the Indiana Jones hat”, the adventure hat has a very special place in my heart. I bought it during my latest trip to Walt Disney World, and it is the only hat I wear day-to-day. While a fedora is usually reserved for old men, I think it suits me quite well, and it matches with my sweet suede jacket.

The adventure hat’s effect is a little more subtle than most. It enhances my adventuring and relic-finding skills to near god-like levels. Like the cowboy hat, it also adds to my innate studliness, though the effect is slightly less than that of the cowboy hat.

Bonus!

As a neat little extra, apply aviator glasses and a goatee to the mix and BAM! you’re Adam Savage. The illusion is seamless.

The reindeer antlers

Alright, I’ll level with you; the antlers aren’t really mine. We bought them for my dogs to wear, but they turned out to be too big for the dogs’ tiny little noggins. Obviously, it was a big small to get around my enormous cranium.

As the antlers aren’t mine, nor are they even intended for human use, they don’t induce any special effects.

The horns

Okay smartasses, make your greenhorn jokes now and get it over with. The horns were purchased before one Halloween because I had no costume ideas and I was pretty much picking up anything I could to make a hodgepodge of novelty items.

The horns don’t do a whole lot, really. Their main use is making small children afraid and cry. Everything else is simply aesthetic.

The X-Buster

It was ten bucks okay. You know I’ll buy anything with MegaMan stamped on it.

The X-buster, to sum it up quickly, doesn’t do a whole lot when placed on my head. It most certainly doesn’t summon seagulls like I hoped it would. When placed on my hand, however, it allows me to fire small foam darts with almost no accuracy or power.

The mask

A treasured construction toy of my past, I discovered that I still had my bucket of ZAKS only a scant few years ago. While fooling aroud with them, I also discovered that most of the manual was intact. And what was the coolest thing in the manual? The ZAKS mask of course. It looks kind of like a gorilla head from the right angle.

The ZAKS mask, like the horns, does an excellent job scaring small children. Other effects include making people think I’m really smart because I was able to fashion an entire helmet (including a removable neck protector) out of triangles and squares.

The Dallas Cowboys cap

This hat actually used to/might still belong to my dad, but I do wear it from time to time, when the adventure hat seems like a little too much. I’m pretty sure it’s mine though, because he has another hat and never wears this one.

This hat grants me the special ability to look like I play far more sports than I do. It’s useful for getting into the pants of those girls who only like jocks. When paired with sunglasses, it also allows me look a lot older, possibly even enabling me to pass for a slightly shorter version of my dad. These abilities do wonders for camouflauge in populated areas.

The Bomber Bolts

The foam novelty accessories are a staple of sporting events, and I’m not the kind to not jump on every bandwagon that passes by. The cliché giant foam hand was my first pick, but since it wans’t available, I had to go with the headpiece. Unfortunately, I’d outgrown it long ago, and now I can’t get it on my head without fear of tearing it in half.

The main effect of the bolts is making me holler like an animal while watching the game. Also notable is that they change people’s opinion of you based on how well the Bombers are doing in the current season.

The Conan

So it’s not a hat. Big deal. I’m including it and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s not a perfect replica of the Conan, but it’s as close as my hair is ever gonna get. It’s pretty similar to “the Steve” as well, it’s just parted differently.

While sporting this “do”, I don’t gain the daywalker traits of Conan O’Brien, but it certainly does attract attention.

And that concludes the list of my hats and the various abilities I gain while wearing them. Maybe one day when I’ve collected more hats, I shall show those off as well, but for now this is all.

Woah, I feel it! I feel the cosmos!

I’d love to get an article up tonight, but I squandered my afternoon, and now I won’t be able to get on the computer where it resides until mucho later. It’ll probably be up tomorrow around noonish, but maybe overnight?

Anyway, did everyone have a sweet Canada Day? I know I sure did. We went out to Lac du Bonnet for a (craptastic) parade, a (a good as you can hope for) fair, and (very good) fireworks. Since we were out there already, we spent the day at the cottage, and there plenty of drinking, shooting, and steak ensued. What more could you hope for? I also managed to snatch a great little item that will be reviewed in a week or two. I won’t say what it is, but I’ll say this: It’s definitely a site staple.

I also need to tell you a little about the aforementioned fireworks. You see, we go out there every single year on Canada Day for the fireworks (only recently have we made the fair a yearly thing), and normally they’re pretty average. This year was darned impressive, if I might say so. And you must realize, I’ve seen all the fireworks spectaculars that Disney World has to offer. So this year they decided that to amp up the excitement, they’d integrate music into the show. It was poorly done, to say the least. Firstly, there was no coordination at all. That’s the whole reason for music. Secondly, the songs seemed to be plucked straight from my personal library. Among the various bands included were Loverboy, Nazareth, Heart, and Styx. It’s all music I love, but it’s not fireworks music. Not in the least. Music issues aside though, it was a great show, and the bar is definitely raised.

Now I’m here, think I’ll stay around

So I’m watching Firewall (Which, by the way, was so-so. I liked Hostage better) last night, and around 1AM my brother decides to go out for a walk with his girlfriend. These kids are fourteen, mind you. My parents object, but fail to do anything that actually stops him, so he’s gone. The movie ends, it’s about quarter after two, and my mom is unhappy that he’s not returned. My dad tells me to go and track him down to see what’s going on. Always eager to pretend I’m a ninja, I accept, slip on my sneakers, and leave.

I walk down the street a bit and hear voices, so I jump in the bush. I peer out, seeing that it’s only people chattering on their front step. But then there are voices behind me. I’m only covered from the front and sides, my back exposed. Surely they’ve seen me. I crouch down and hope for the best. The voices pass, I am safe. I peer up and see that it’s my quarry that unwittingly got the drop on me. Had this been a real game of cat and mouse, they would regret their poor attention to their surroundings.

I let them go and dodge behind the nearby senior complex. Unfortunately, it has a fenced-off yard, and hoping to avoid any unwanted attention, I have to travel the rocky shore of the lake behind said senoir complex. Letting my focus slip for a split second, I misstep and get a shoe full of water. I haven’t accomplished my mission yet, so I keep on truckin’. The shoreline is unfortunately littered with small birds, and they raise a bit of a racket, but I’m still in the clear. I get out from behind the complex and slowly make my way through the paved field of parked cars, not knowing if my targets are ahead of or behind me. I slowly creep out, and see that they had made excellent time. They must have run at some point, as there’s no way they could have gotten as far as they did as fast as they did at a normal walking pace.

As they amble through a parking lot, I quietly sneak along a fence, keeping just enough distance to make an easy getway should they turn an notice me. My poor luck came into play, as the brightly lit parking lot offered little cover or darkness for me to keep a low profile in. I had also neglected to dress appropriately in my haste, so shadows would not have likely helped too much anyway. I continued my hunt anyway, and was able to find shelter behind a garden shed and some bricks. They stopped just under a streetlight, and proceeded to… fondle… each other. It was mildly disgusting, but I had to keep watch to see what was up. My intuition was telling me that they would simply stop here to say goodbye and then part ways for the night.

Ten minutes later, they were still… at it… and I was ready to pack it in and cut my losses. Then, from behind me, I heard voices approaching. A couple of no-goodniks were walking down the sidewalk, and when they spotted me, they figured it would be funny to blow my cover. They never stopped moving though, so I was able to escape before my brother caught on as soon as they passed by the shed. I quickly fled the scene, using the sparsely placed trees and tall grass as cover, hoping that he hadn’t noticed my presence.

As soon as I reached a rather dark shadow, I crouched down and assessed the situation. My brother was slowly on his way back, but I had plenty of time and room to make my way back unnoticed. But it wasn’t over. Since my return would be easy, I took the sidewalk, and that turned out to be a foolish move. I noticed three figures coming down the street towards me. They seemed to be all dressed in white. I immediately assumed the worst and that I was done for. I knew they had seen me, and trying to hide would only make me a more interesting target, so I continued walking. As they drew closer, however, I noticed that they were not in fact dressed all in white. They were not dressed at all! The naked figures continued their march right past me, and I turned my head so as not to get an eyeful of anything I didn’t want to see (knowing all well that I could have gotten an eyeful of exactly what I did want to see. Which is boobs). As they passed, I quickly picked up my pace, hoping that quickness would help me avoid any other oddities the night might want to throw at me.

I got home unscathed and my brother followed shortly, blissfully unaware that I had been following him.

After my little adventure, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: If you have kids, or when you do, don’t fucking let them go out after a certain time. Midnight or so should about do it. You know all those stories your mom told you about how all the freaks come out at night? Well they’re true. It doesn’t matter how safe you think your neighbourhood is. After nightfall, anything could be lurking around outside. So do your kids a favour, and no matter how much they pretend to hate you, just keep them inside at night. You may very well be saving their lives, or at least saving their eyes a good washing. That’s your article for next week, by the way.

…

j/k. Relax, guy. It should be up on Sunday this time, assuming nothing distracts me too much over the weekend.

TE’s mortal enemy – The Boyfriend

If spending the better part of my life playing video games and watching TV has taught me anything, it’s that everyone everywhere has a nemesis. A mortal enemy, a lifelong foe, a not-so-friendly rival. It wasn’t many years ago though, that I realized that I had no such foe. I thought about it a little and after some research, found that everyone I knew did (at that point in time at least) have a rival of their own. This made me feel a bit left out, and it was really getting me down.

There was clearly only one solution: find my own enemy. But who could this person be? I was pretty sure that you don’t just point out your mortal enemy as the next person that walks by. It couldn’t possibly be that simple. Sadly, after a many great yet failed attempts at earning myself an enemy, I was left right back were I started, with nothing but friends. I was beginning to feel that it was hopeless and that nobody would ever dislike me. So for the time being, I gave up the chase and forgot about it. It was the only way I could press on and live a close-to-normal life.

Little did I know that only years later, I would not only encounter my mortal enemy, but I would also learn that having my own foe is not all the fun it’s cracked up to be. No, as fate would have it, I was matched with a rival that is not only competent, but even smarter, handsomer, and (somehow) more charming than me as well. Enter: the boyfriend.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking. You’ve probably all encountered this enigma of a person at least once before. He does well in letting the rest of the world know that he’s a conniving little asshole, so you’ve probably taken a bit of a disliking to him. Amplify that disliking by a hundred trillion jillions and you’ve got how much I hate him. Just think of it this way: he doesn’t even harbour any real hatred toward you. He’s my mortal enemy, and that just makes it that much worse for me.

The boyfriend is a cheeky little bastard, never failing to get in my way and keep me from my goals. He slips in unnoticed and then once my guard is down he appears and serves me a big plate of defeat, often turning others against me during the process. He seems to always be two steps ahead of me, and I’ll never be able to understand just how he does it. It’s not like he follows me around to learn where he needs to be ahead of me next. Besides, even if he did, I always keep any information that he might use against me to myself. It’s all stored in my head, I never write anything down, and rarely even talk to others about such things. But the fact that he still manages to one-up me at every turn can only lead to one conclusion: he’s psychic.

This could cause me my biggest problem yet, because there’s no way you can beat a psychic rival. They know every move you’re going to make, and there’s no way you can stop them. I looked up information on psychics, and since the world is pretty convinced that they don’t exist (fools), there was no listed way to defeat the crafty bastards. I, as resourceful and brilliant a chap as I am, have only been able to come up with two possible solutions for this problem. Since he bases his strategy on learning my thoughts and getting one step ahead of me, the best option would be to think things that will throw him off the trail. That way, I can keep the boyfriend from getting ahead of me and charming others into working against me.

The only other option for me is to… wait. You’re probably reading this now, aren’t you Mr. Boyfriend? Well I may have slipped up and revealed one of my plans to usurp your position, but I’ll not be foolish enough to type the other. Ryan never makes the same mistake twice. Not in one day. Your jig is up, you big smelly doo-doo head. I’ve got the key to nullifying your psychic advantage, and once I work on my people skills, you’ll have very little to hold over me. I will become the better of us, and then I’ll never be defeated at your hands again. Your days of taking everything that should rightfully be mine are over.

The boyfriend has proven to be a worthy enemy, and to this point has made me almost regret ever wishing for a rival of my own. While I detest him for all his victories over me, I do appreciate that my losses have taught me to be more aware of him, since his sneakiness has been key to his victories. I don’t know what the future has in store, but I warn the rest of you to be careful. Once I do find the key to defeating him, he will most likely find that I’m too good an opponent for him, and he may move on to haunt another poor individual. All I can say is to keep your guard up, and make sure you have a widespread intelligence network so that you can keep tabs on his dealings at all times.

Everything is better when I’m not around

So I think I’m dying. Or really malnourished. I’m not too sure. Anyway, time for more important matters.

The new New Super Mario Bros video is up. It’s really looking good, but upon closer inspection of the bottom screen, the levels seem to be a little short. Let’s just hope it ends up being as good as Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World.

I shouldn’t have to remind you, but E3 starts in a week. It’s gonna be an awesome show, because we’re finally going to see some Revolution Wii games. Hearing all this talk about Red Steel and Madden 2007 (which sounds like it’s going to be really sweet) is all well and good, but I need something I can really sink my teeth into. Like maybe a video or two of the new Super Smash Bros game. Anything from Nintendo would be nice, really. This is going to be even better than the E3 where they showed off all the Gamecube stuff. It’s bringing back memories of the time before the GC was released, where my friend and I would just sit at IGN and refresh every minute in hopes that some new screenshots or videos would be added. Ah, good times. Good times.

In other news, I may have an article tomorrow. I may not. Depends on how I feel today. And also if I spend the whole day sleeping, like I have been for the last 4 days. Damn overnight shift broke me good. Thank God it’s almost over.

We’ve had our fill of Heaven

Okay, good news. I’ve found solutions to all my problems. Some less great than others, but at least… you know what? Only one is a good solution, and that’s deciding to get my own webhost. Currently, I’m leaning toward Topclasshost, but it’ll still be a few days before my cash transfer will be complete, so if anyone spots a better deal in the next 4-5 days, don’t be afraid to give me a holler.

The next thing I’ve decided is about the site’s future. I’ve come to the conclusion that my last blog post was kind of like a mid-life crisis for the site. As such, I’ve decided that since the site is three-and-a-half years old, I will continue with it until it’s at least seven. At that point, it’ll be up in the air, but I promise that I will continue to provide half-baked entertainment until December of 2009.

Lastly, since I’m really not digging the night shift as much as I thought I would (read: at all), I’ve quit my job. It’s sad because I like the work, but I really hate the hours. I don’t feel so bad though, because my cousins go through jobs like Russians through vodka, and me only quitting one job because I don’t like it doesn’t seem so bad in comparison. Anyway, I’ve already come up with a respectable list of places that I know I’d love working at, so we’ll see how that turns out.

But enough about that shit. I’ve got good news! I’ll be posting a good many articles soon after I get set up with wherever I’ll be hosting my site from, with one being a real movie review. Not one of those lousy quickies. Also a handful of video game reviews, including Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without A Pulse, and a review of the Tales of Eternia anime series (Because I’m a Tales whore. Seriously. I’m considering getting a PSP for the ToE port, even though I swore to myself that I’d never buy one of the damn things). All this along with some very overdue articles and the rest of the Comedy-Napalm articles. So while there’s been a little slump this month, things are going to get very much better soon. At least for a while. Did anyone suggest the return of weekly articles? I just might consider it…

Argh… One last note: due to inactivity and the whole webhost fiasco, the CN Forums have officially been abandoned. They’ll still be around for a couple months or so, but after that, they’ll be dead. Not like mine, which are still floating around out there somewhere…

The streets are filled with regret

There are three reasons I’ve neglected to post anything over the past week. Firstly, and most dominant of the trio, is that one way or another, I’m going to be moving the site again. Mike has gone and found a new web hosting service, and that means if I’m going to keep blogging on his dollar that I have to move with him. However, I’ve been seriously considering finding my own web host. I’ve been looking around for a bit, and I’ve found one that seems to have all the things I need, so I may very well take my web-fate into my own hands after three and a half years of relying on someone else.

The second reason is that I’ve had no will to write at all lately. I’ve been devoting most of my computer time to Coozy for Hire, and I don’t feel like working on anything else on the computer. I’ve got plenty of things I want to write about or at least give plug in the blog, but this whole graveyard shift business is really taking it out of me. Was everyone who told me it was a bad idea right? Yeah, probably. I still love the work, but the hours are really starting to get to me. Not to mention that I have to start half an hour early every day and manage to get clockblocked for at least twenty mintues every weeknight. That’s just not cool.

The last thing that’s been keeping me astray is thinking about the future. And not just the overall future, but the future of this website. Like what the hell am I going to do with it when I’m done? Will I just let my hosting run out and let it become nothing than a memory? When am I going to decide to call it quits? Am I going to be able to let go or will I kep updating until I die because I don’t want to just throw away something I’ve invested so much time and effort into? Why do I bother doing it all anyway? I get no significant pleasure from writing, and nobody really visits anyway. These thoughts are driving me bonkers, and have helped chop away at my zeal for webmastering. So I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but likely I’ll get a rush of enthusiasm if I get my own webhosting, like I did when I escaped the clutches of Angelfire. Anyway, we’ll just see, and you can expect that I’ll update you whenever something related to any of these issues happens.