IRL – Page 29

Coming up for air

OK, I’ve spent pretty much all the time I’ve been home today up until now immersed in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. It’s a really, really, really awesome game. Fuck Halo. You can’t turn into a ball in Halo. There aren’t any zombies in Halo. Sure, you can hold two guns, but my gun is 5-in-one. Plus, Samus is a babe. (If you need proof, search up the ending pics for Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission in the VG Museum)

But no, I didn’t come here solely to bash Halo, though I do take pleasure in the activity. No, I have much more important stuff to discuss. Like what I did with last night. You see, I got the most excellent opportunity to hit the opening night concert for the MTS Centre. Possibly the biggest thing that’s ever happened in Manitoba ever, this was a pretty important event. Not only have we been craving this new arena for decades, but it was the first freaking anything that happened there.

I’d like to go into a lot of detail, but Aether calls, so I’ll have to keep it short. Short-ish. Basically, the new arena is awesome. It’s way fancied up, and it’s got like statues and shit all over the place. One thing I noticed that was really cool is that the lights under the stairs cast a cool glow on people either ascending or descending them. Sadly, the trough is gone, and that means lines for the men’s bathroom. If you’d never been to our quaint old arena, the men’s bathrooms had pissing troughs. Seriously. It was awesome. But never again. Oh well, I guess they made up for it by having every seat made the same, and not giving the big spenders the comfy ones.

So what about the show? Well, it started with a gymnast doing some seriously wicked shit on a couple of like… big… drapes. I have no idea what they’re called but it was impressive like nothing else. At first I couldn’t tell if it was a chick or a guy, but then we got the ass shot. That was the definitive moment. Totally a chick. Now I was impressed and aroused. Not a bad opening act. Then the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra played some stuff and it was cool. Then another gymnast who was notably less impressive, but very, very flexible. Finally, we got some more WSO, and then the show really started.

Our first big name act: Randy Bachman. You know, from BTO and the Guess Who. There was some “Takin’ Care of Business”, a little “Let It Ride”, and an ineffable performance of “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”. Of course, he did some of his own stuff too, and even busted into Neil Young’s “Keep on Rocking in the Free World”. It would be quite the act to top. And the next guys didn’t quite do it for me. Some young country group going by the name of Doc Walker. Never heard of ’em before, and I’m not gonna go and start hearing of ’em. They weren’t bad, but you know. They were following up Randy freaking Bachman. While they did put on an enjoyable show, they were without a doubt the least entertaining of the 5 major acts.

Oh, did I mention that the thing was hosted by Fred Penner? Yeah. It was cool. Funny guy. He did little skits and stuff between acts to show off all the cool stuff in the new arena, like the Moose locker rooms (which, by the way, must be what Heaven is like) and the giant loading dock. Also highlighted were the dining hall and the suites. Oh, and the arena itself. But back to the show.

The third act, and what I thought would be the most disappointing, was Chantal Kreviazuk. You see, I didn’t realize that she’s smoking hot. Turns out she’s a pretty talented pianist and singer too. And she kept heckling the lighting guys to do stuff for her, but they wouldn’t. It was funny. The only thing I didn’t like was the fat idiot sitting two seats over that kept yelling things to her, even though we were sitting way up at the top of the world. Yeah, we were in the very highest seats, but as the Penner man pointed out, there isn’t a bad seat in the house.

After Chantal packed it up and Fred and co-host Adam Beach did their bit, on came my personal favorite act: Tom Cochrane. Booya. Kickass rock and boatloads of showmanship to boot. He was the only guy to actually get the people in the floor seats up and dancing. Somehow, he managed to sing all songs that I don’t know, except for the token “Life is a Highway”. I think if Tom Cochrane ever played a concert anywhere and didn’t do “Life is a Highway”, the world would implode or something. But I digress, this was the highlight of the show for me. But as a collective, we the audience had a huge surprise waiting for us.

Me, I had no idea who I was going to see, I just took up the offer and went. But apparently, nobody in the audience knew that Burton Cummings was gonna be there, based on the uproar that uprose when Fred announced that he would be the last act. Indeed, Burton did not disappoint. He did a few songs accompanied by the WSO, and then it got even better. Randy came back and then they did “No Sugar Tonight”. And then a bunch of Guess Who stuff from back in the day. The crowd was certainly pleased, what with more applause, whistling, and hollering than I imagined could possibly be contained inside a single building. I was entertained as well, even if it was mostly stuff I’d never heard before. I can’t say I’ve ever really listened to a lot of the Guess Who or, for that matter, anyone who performed last night, but I was able to pick out quite a few songs, and I knew everyone who played (with the exception of Doc Walker, of course), so I wasn’t totally out of the loop.

And that was it. It wasn’t straight up my alley (some parts were, but some weren’t), but I can’t deny that I enjoyed pretty much the whole thing. Only one or two songs total did I find annoying or disagreeable. A sweet-ass concert for sure, you’re sorry you missed it. I don’t care if you hate all the stars that showed up, it was a huge event that really defied musical preferences. I really don’t have much else to say. I can’t stop thinking about the Echoes.

On a totally different note, I got the new Rammstein CD today. Kinda goes without saying that it kicks ass. And that’s the end of my show. DONK!

I miss the orange already

Remember that article I had originally planned for Saturday? I finally got it done. I’ve literally been working on it until like five minutes before I started this post. It’s real long. 4000 words, 2 pages. And just you wait until you see what it’s about. When you see that, you’ll be terrified just thinking about how long the article devoted to its bigger brother will be. Heh heh heh. And only now do I realize I owe you a review of either Paper Mario or MegaMan Zero 3. Oops. Maybe next week. I’m pretty booked until then.

Otherwise, I went to my yearbook signing last night. It was nice to see the old crew again, even if some of them were missing. And when I got home I realized that I do actually care that I’ll probably never see some of them again. Maybe something does beat in this hollow tin chest of mine after all. But I was able to leave a lot of them with an original bit of art, so I’ve made enough of a mark to be content. I also got everyone that mattered (and then some) to sign my book. This also adds to the contentment.

I don’t have any idea who I want to use for Band of the Month yet, so that won’t be up for a couple days still. I don’t have anything else on my immediate agenda either, so don’t expect any non-bloggish posts for a while. So just read that there article, and then click on some of these links here.

The Big 5 Personality Test – I’ve always loved taking surveys and tests like this, and I’m pretty sure most everyone else does. So here’s another one. And if you wanna see, here are my results.

DontMarry.com – “Why marriage has become a raw deal for men”. If you read GorillaMask, you’ve seen this one. Otherwise, read it. I tend to agree.

RockMan.EXE Stream media – Ryouko has captured both MP3s and movie clips of the intro and outro for the new RockMan.EXE anime series. I love the credits theme, and the videos are really well done. Someone should totally make a visualisation thing out of one part of the credits video. The part with the binary streams. You’ll see.

Working: is it really worth it?

Since I’ve been working for over a good month now, I think that I’ve got the experience to properly go over the good and bad points of working. I’ll also go and pick apart why working at Tim Horton’s can be either absolute Hell or an enjoyable experience.

Firstly, we’ll tackle the biggest question. Get it done right off the bat. Is working really worth the money? Well me, I’m a lazy ass, so I’d say no. Particularly at low pay and crappy job. I’m sure it will get better once I’ve moved onto a more enjoyable job that pays better. There isn’t much to be expected from a first job at a restaurant or coffee shop, but such is the way of the slacker career.

And then there’s the fact that working can actually take up all of your time. When I work in the mornings, I still get some time in the evening to go about my business, and still have time to sleep. Truly, the morning shift is the optimal shift, even if I do have to get up early. The evening shift is Ryan time murder. You see, since I have to start getting ready to leave by one, I get maybe three hours of time to do stuff. and after working until 11, I like to get right to sleep. This allocates pretty much all my not-work time to sleeping time. But it is a much better shift, because it’s pretty much dead all night, and I just get to goof off all day.

Tom Horton’s isn’t a bad place to work. Not at all. It’s just a bad place for me to work. I hate anything requiring movement, and I have to stand up for almost 8 hours straight each day. Sure I can take it, but it’s not my preferred way to spend my day. At least if I were carrying stuff and putting it on shelves I’d be doing something, but at the Timmy’s I just stand there all day. That’s not the only thing that angers me about the job.

You see this coin? I hate it. I hate it with every inch of my being. Yes, we had some, but the vultures pounced and took them all within two days. A week later, we got the next shipment, and $500 worth of these things were gone in 4 HOURS. And everyone who comes to the damn till asks for them, even though we have a sign saying we’re all out. Then I have to tell them we have none, and they get mad at ME. I have two sayings for everyone who has and will ask me for these: “fuck off” and “don’t shoot the messenger”. It’s not my fault we have none. It’s not my fault people are crazed about these stupid baubles. I don’t see what the big attraction is. Ooh, it’s got a poppy in the middle. Fuck a doodle doo.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to mention how stupid people are. We don’t take interac or any sort of money cards. It says so on the doors, the menu, AND on the till machines. Three places that prospective buyers are bound to look. Yet they can’t figure it out. Every day I get idiots who come up, order, and get their food, then pull out some sort of card. I say “Sorry, we take cash only” and they say “What? Are you sure?”. Then I ask why I’m not allowed to hit idiots. Also, I must stress that at least half the population cannot read. It’s a “cruller”, not a “curler”. It says so right on the display. You stupid, stupid people. The last point here can’t really be helped, but I detest having to help those with really thick accents. They’re terribly hard to understand, and I just can’t stand it. I mean, there’s this mute guy who comes in every once in a while, and he’s so much easier to serve.

Now let’s get to the co-workers. I work in a place populated almost 100% by females. It’s both great and terrible at the same time. In any case, everyone’s nice and such, and tries to get along with me. So much nicer than back in the days of school. Unfortunately, I’m not all that social, so it seems like I’m kinda rude, but I am trying. While I’m on the topic, have you ever just despised someone, but had no real reason to do so? I currently have that problem. There are a couple girls I just can’t stand, but have no reason to feel that way. They’ve done nothing to cross me, so I don’t really get it. Oh well.

I guess I should mention some good things about working. I certainly have learned some things I never would have cared to figure out otherwise, like how to do laundry. I’ve also picked up the good habits of always keeping my wallet and a timepiece with me. I’ve made a bunch of new friends at work. Something I never really expected to accomplish. But as it is, I get along quite well with pretty much all the girls I work with on a regular basis. And I even went out with a bunch of people from work last weekend, which is totally not something I (or anyone else) would see myself doing. Plus, having income is great. It’s not much (since I’m putting half away for school), but it’s enough for me to buy stuff I like, so it works out.

And easily the best part of working is that now I have work stories to tell! I’ve never been much of an anything-doer, but now that I work, I have plenty of tales to spin. Like the time where I was so bored I balled up a waxie and bent a stir stick and played hockey on the counter. Heh heh. That was fun. Or the time where I wrote “Caution: T-Virus” on one of the coffee pots. Sadly, nobody who understood the reference came in before it was washed off. Indeed, there are plenty of crappy points about working, but I think that overall it’s probably a good thing. That being said, I have to go shower. For work is at three, and I’m nowhere near ready.

Talk about your mix-ups

Well, I knew I would be busy today, but it turns out I was a lot busier than I had previously expected. Long story short, I decided that buying a set of drums was a foolhardy and premature idea, so I didn’t. And then I went to watch my obligatory yearly hockey game. You see, the older two of my bros play hockey, and I have to go see one game for each a year, and I got one out of the way today. I did get dinner, coffee and Fun-Dip out of it though, so it wasn’t a total waste of my night.

Anywho, this means that the review will be postponed until Monday. Otherwise, everything is still moving pretty smoothly. I get to wear a costume to work tomorrow, and since I really have nothing else, I was thinking along the lines of shirt ninja. I’ve got a shirt, and a toy sword, so it should come together nicely.

That’s really all I had to do, explain why the review isn’t up yet. I got the pictures and stuff done, just need to write it up. And fortunately, that’s the less boring part of the process. Oh, and I saw some review of the Sims 2 on TV today, and my mom was watching too, and she thought the idea and process of “WooHoo” was absolutely hilarious. Plenty of great car ride funnies too, since I spent the greater part of the day in the van with the family. Oh boy, today was a hoot. Thank God I didn’t end up having to work after all.

I just ate Pop-Tarts. …I’ve got nothin’

One, I don’t have much time before I have to get ready for work, so this’ll be a short post. Two, it’s not going to be very interesting. Three, I’ll be writing and hopefully posting an article tomorrow between cartoons and work. Four, I won’t tell you what it’s about, but there is a very subtle hint here.

So yes, I’ll be doing that. And on Sunday morning, I plan to make a drawn-out post about the ups and downs of the working world. Particularly the working at Tim Horton’s world. After that pillow fiasco and not posting for eight or so days, I think it’s time I gave you a little real content and a side order of real life observations.

In other, less important news, I’ve been buying stuff online. Mostly crap that only I would like, but it has been done. By me. The only trouble is that it takes eight days for the moneys to get from my bank account to my PayPal account, and then the shipping and such takes weeks, so it’s a very very long process. As you may know, when it comes to getting material objects, I’m not a very patient person at all. Speaking of which, less than a month until I get my Nintendo DS. Woot, I say. Woot. Finally, I get a portable version of Super Mario 64. (Which just happens to be my favorite game of all time)

Just a blog. About a new blog

So I’m at work the other day, and I’m on my break. It’s generally pretty boring, with nothing but solitaire and the john to keep me occupied. So I decided to start fooling around with the break room PC. And boy, have I reached a new low. I found an old version of FrontPage sitting around, and decided to check it out to see how the old version works. At first I was confused and afraid, but figured out a little bit how to work it. So I was practicing my HTML, and eventually, I had the start of a blog. So I’ve decided that every couple days or so, I’m going to write in this work blog. It’s not much, but it’s a way for me to while away my breaks. Maybe when I feel it’s done, I’ll put it up on the site and disguise it as something that might be interesting.

On the other hand, my PC is on the brink of totally screwed. My brother keeps downloading crap loaded with spyware, and I have to cleanse it at least once a day. We’re almost at the the point where we need to reinstall Windows again, and I’m dreading having to do that. On the upside, it seems that my Internet Explorer is broken, and not just the internet, so Opera’s working out just fine for me.

I’ve got a lot of things right now that I want to review, but I’m not sure if I’m gonna get around to doing them all. Firstly is the review of my CD collection, which I want to do only to rival my brother’s half-assed attempt. That one I’m doing for sure. Eventually. Some others I’m cosidering are reviews for MegaMan Zero 3 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Both awesome games that deserve reviews. I’ve gotta get back to finishing the Disney World saga, and thankfully there’s only one more entry to go. There aren’t even any pictures in the next one, so I’ll have a tough time remembering everything. Though, I can’t say I did too much on the last two days. Damn. Now that I think about having such a good time there, I feel the need to go back. I wonder how long I’ll have to save with my current salary….?

If you hadn’t checked in a while, I updated the “Who Runs This Thing?” page a couple weeks ago. I’ll be putting up the final episode of Chat Radio on Wednesday or so. I plan to use tomorrow morning to edit it good, and it’ll be up the next morn. Oh, yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that I’ve been moved to the evening shift, so morning posts will be more common in the next while. Unless they decide to put me back on mornings after this week. So, to summarize, I’ve got a lot of little projects to do, and I really want to do less blogging in the next while and more actual content. The blog form is easy to do, but it rather boring for readers. Particularly when I maunder about what’s happening at work and such. So I’ll quit writing this now, and get to work on some more interesting stuffs. Like additions to the gallery.

Bugged out

As I get more and more accustomed to spending all of my time sleeping and working, it’s getting harder and harder for me to put aside time for work on the site. And no, this isn’t the “I’m giving up on the site” speech we’ve all been expecting to hear for almost two years now. No, I’m just saying that I’m unhappy that I can’t devote whole days to writing articles anymore. And the fact that my computer is going nuts at the moment is exacerbating things quite a bit.

Time for an explanation, methinks. Well, for one, it’s a struggle to just get the damn thing to boot up. It’s got this problem where Windows breaks while loading and immediately restarts right as the error screen comes up. This produces an endless cycle of restarting, with no way to know the cause. And once that gives up and lets me sign in, it seems that my profile has contacted some sort of bug. Oh, and not just any bug. It’s a real annoying little bastard. You see, it makes it so that if I even so much as think about opening a web browser, the whole damn thing grinds to a halt. I’ve sat through this once, and it seems that it’s just taking a real damn long time to load, but everything else is slowed like hell too, so it’s not like I can even do anything else while I wait. I have no idea what caused this problem, because it was working fine a day ago, and only just in the last 10 hours has this problem arisen. Also curious is the fact that I hadn’t done anything questionable in the last while, unless using BitTorrent to download anime and burning CDs can screw the hell out of a computer.

On the upside, I can still use other profiles to work the internet, so I can still update. But it’s going to be real annoying for me to do anything else I use the computer for, like downloading anime and video game soundtracks. The fact that I can’t access my files and use the internet at the same time is going to really piss me off after about 5 minutes, so I’m going to have to get to the bottom of this one quick.

In other news, I finally got my PayPal account set up. Hooray for me, I can finally buy things online. Only the goddamned Homestar Runner store doesn’t accept PayPal. Or it does and I missed the option. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. I’ll have to check again after I’m done typing this. I really want a Trogdor hoodie.

“Boo!” and such

As you can see, I’ve slightly altered the site to look more in the spirit of the Halloween. I don’t really have any Halloween-type articles or reviews in line, but I’ll see what I can dig up. I’ve got almost a whole month, so it should be enough time to get at least one spooky bit of writing out there. I do have a review for a zombie movie in mind, and that’ll be done on Thursday. Why Thursday? Because I like writing on Thursdays. While you’re waiting for me to pull something out of my ass, make sure to visit I-Mockery and X-Entertainment for all your ghoulish needs.

As for work, it gets a little better every day. I’m becoming more accustomed to actually serving people and understanding those accents that just aren’t made to be understood. I’m also finding myself to be happy while I work (which I never expected), particularly in the last couple hours when the people I’ve made friends with start working. And on a similar note, being the naive and hopeless kind of guy I am, I’m very confused about some recent events. Can anybody tell me if I’m charming at all? Do I have what it takes to make someone particularly enjoy my company? Would it be an accurate statement if someone were to to call me handsome (I’m still pretty sure it was jokingly though)? I once thought I was totally undesirable, but now I’m very, very confused… But you don’t want to hear about this crap. It’s sounding too much like a real blog.

Now, let’s see. What kind of entertaining spiels can I come up with on the spot? Oh yes. Much like I would, I bought a couple of the MegaMan NT Warrior action figures. (You must realize that it’s the collector’s spirit. I don’t actually play with these toys.) They’re of solid construction, and have some neat features. The only problem is that there is one little point of articulation missing in the arm that just skews the glory of being the ultimate toys that they would have if the elbow were there. On the upside, they look awesome posed on my dresser along with my other MegaMan toys. Oh yes, and they all came with battlechips, which makes the little PET game so much easier. If you’re into collecting toys, or you’re a fan of the blue bomber, I totally suggest you pick up a couple of these guys. Sure, they don’t look quite as cool as some of the Spider-Man figures out there, but you just cannot resist the awesomeness that is ProtoMan.

Lastly for today is something very important to me. I don’t remember if I’ve ever linked you to them before, but you should totally go to OC Remix and download The Atomizer and Haunted Hell. Easily two of my favorite remixes ever, and they blend in perfectly with the season. So yes, that’s going to be it for today. I really need some new concluding phrases. These ones I’m using are getting real stale.

Good riddance to bad work

I’ve been thinking it over, and I like my job, but I detest working. Full time, anyhow. It’s just way too much for the guy who’d never worked a day in his life to take in all at once. But I’m not going to give up because it’s a little rough, that wouldn’t be like me. Not anymore. I guess it’s time I started facing reality and stopped running from everything that showed even a slight sign of hard times.

But enough of my whining and revelation crap. I’m gonna start sounding deeper than I actually am. Ugh. So the band of the month isn’t decided yet, and I haven’t made the September archive either, as I’ve been working all morning and napping until like 20 minutes ago. Naps are great. They make me feel happy. You should totally try them out. All the cool kids are doing it.

I’ll have the BotM up either Sunday evening or some other time around then. as for the archive, that’s easy, so I’ll do it up now… or not. But first, there are important things to take care of. Things like links.

SuprNova.org – It’s not the site you need to see, but some things the site provides. Do a search “Mario Big Band” and download the result. It’s a sweet live performance of a bunch of Mario and Zelda tunes. Just the Wind Waker theme alone is worth downloading the entire package.

Halloween X-E – Matt’s favorite time of the year has come around again, and that means another Halloween countdown along with it. That’s one article – albeit a short one – a day. No wonder I idolize the guy.

GameFAQs – Character Battle #3 is nearing it’s end, and it’s looking to end up much like it did last year – with shitty results. Don’t let that weener Cloud win again. Help fight the good fight by voting for anyone else and telling your friends to do so as well.

Shopping for Danger – The third installment in the best G.I. Joe parody ever – Cheat Commandos! How could you possibly resist? Rock, rock on!

There you go

Yay for me! Yay for a day off! I’m gonna make $564 every two weeks (before deductions)! It may not seem too impressive, but it’s $564 more than I was making before. And that’s if I don’t take any extra shifts. And speaking of that, it turns out that my shifts on both last Saturday and Sunday were extra, so I could have had the weekend off, but I didn’t really have a say in the matter. They just told me to come in on those days.

In other news, I finally did that article I was supposed to do last week. This is just my first day off since Friday, so I’ve had a lot to do lately. You can find it here. Or at least I hope so. I have a history of bad links.

I also bought Donkey Konga. God damn it’s fun. And I’ve become more accepting of certain musics. A lot of the stuff on there is poppy or not what I would normally listen to. The only songs I can’t stand are “Rock Lobster” and the children’s songs. I mean, they have “Bingo” on there, and it’s remixed in this “funky” new way with the kids yelling stuff like “Go Bingo, go Bingo” and “You can do it Bingo!”. You can do it Bingo? Geez, he’s Bingo, not Lil’ Brudder. He lives on a goddamn farm. He doesn’t need encouragement. Stupid Bingo. On the upside, there are some great songs on it like “Rock This Town” and the “Kirby: Right Back At Ya!” theme. And, it took me this long to figure it out, but the Pokémon theme is a kickass song. Sure, it’s a song about Pokémon, but it’s got a sweet guitar solo and, well, just awesome music. But yes, overall awesome fun to be had. Even the one of my brothers who doesn’t do much gaming at all thinks it’s a brilliant idea.

I guess that’s it for today. It’s been a nice little break, but it’s back to the grind tomorrow, and Saturday. Ugh, Saturday. So damn busy.