I prefer to think it reads “Man, please bring back the key” as if the employee who scribbled it down was about to hit the despair event horizon because of all the men’s room keys that were never brought back. As it is, I guess it’s just an artifact of having a staff roster without a single native English-speaker on it. It also kind of boggles my mind that there exists a Subway with locked bathrooms. I figured that was just a gas station thing, but I guess when you’re downtown, anything goes.
Alternatively: Bs aren’t that hard. I’d hate to see this person try to deal with a Q.
So there’s a very slim chance that you’ve noticed that I haven’t blogged at all in the month of November. 90% of that is because I have nothing to blog about. Most days I go home from work, have dinner with my wife, and then play Skyrim or Pokémon White 2 until sleeping time. It’s a simple existence, and one that I wouldn’t give up, but it doesn’t lend itself too well to writing.
The other thing that’s keeping me from blogging is NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month, if you need it spelled out. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s a “contest” that challenges everyone who signs up to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I signed up on a whim this year, and currently… well, here’s a printscreen of my statistics page.
Yup, we’re just about halfway through the month and I’ve barely even started. I only even have any words at all because yesterday I decided to slap some words down on a page so that at least I could say I tried.
The truth of it all is that I don’t have anything to write about. I had a story idea before I started, but the more I think about it, the stupider it seems and the more I hate it. Anything else I even try to get off the ground ends up being derivative and boring. I don’t really want to write a novel, I just liked toying with the idea that I could.
So how does this tie into blogging? Mostly because every time I open WordPress I feel the guilty pangs, reminding me that if I’m writing, it should be my novel. Then I decide I don’t want to do that and navigate far, far away from WordPress.
Wow, its been a while since my last post. Not a record by far, but almost two weeks is a long time in the current TE era. I’ve been pretty good about slapping something up every few days for some time now, even if it’s just a dumb photo that I found entertaining for a few fleeting moments.
In an effort to start getting though my gigantic backlog of books – Wait what? Books? Yes books. I have a lot of them, but I haven’t read most of them. Anyway, I’ve decided I want to read more, so this week I’ve been making an honest effort to always have a book with me on the bus. Whether I’ll keep going once I’ve finished my current book, I don’t know, but here’s hoping!
The lack of blogging around these parts can be attributed mostly entirely to Pokémon White 2. Obviously. I blame Game Freak for working in a rather extensive achievement system. For every objective you clear, you’re presented with a medal, and when you get so many medals, you get a rank up. It’s not actually deeper than Xbox achievements or PS3 trophies, but the fact that the game makes such a big deal out of the medals makes them that much more appealing to collect. Too bad some of the requirements are completely ludicrous. Check out the list here.
I’ve been working on a big new post over the last little while. I think it’s going to end up being this month’s article, if just to fill the hole. Unfortunately, it is about video games. But it’s a little different in that it’s something of a history lesson with a little review packaged in for those interested. I don’t know. It’s not something I care about enough to link to on my Facebook page or anything, but it’ll have to do.
I’ve been reading Monster Planet this week, the last of a trilogy whose first two parts I’ve already talked about at length. I said that I thought Island and Nation would make great movies, because both of them are pretty briskly-paced and feature a fairly original take on the zombie genre. However, Planet takes it up to eleven and goes into full-blown crazypants video game territory. Now, instead of the occasional smart zombie who can control the mindless masses of undead, there is a whole cadre of liches, each with a unique magic power. It’s gotten kinda ridiculous, but I’m already two-and-a-third books deep, might as well git ‘r done. Full write-up coming soon!
Speaking of spooky things and video games, I’ve begun playing Silent Hill 2 again to half-assedly get into the spirit of Halloween. I thought I was going to do it right this time, playing alone in the dark, but I messed that up. Since I’m playing the HD Collection edition, my experience is being totally controlled by achievements, and as such my current playthrough has been paired with some extensive map-making and step-by-step instructions on how to get through the game as quickly as possible. At the very least, by the time I’m done with it, I’ll have become a master of the game.
I borrowed my brother’s copy of Cubivore to round out my October gaming palette. While the camera is awful and the overall experience is a little shallower than I’d hoped, I think it’s good enough to slake my thirst for Tokyo Jungle. For now.
Have you watched the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon yet? It’s fairly good! Not quite as good as the new TMNT comic series, but it’s definitely worth watching. I will admit that I’m a little disappointed that its demographic skews considerably younger than the 2003 TMNT series. I blame Nickelodeon. Though I suppose the best way to revive a franchise is to make sure it’s what all the li’l kids want for Christmas. A world where Turtles are plastered on every damn thing again would be a world I’d love to live in.
Xbox Minecraft got a big update recently, which is enticing. The price didn’t get cut though, so I’m still not buyin’ it.
I’m bad at getting into the Halloween spirit. I haven’t watched a single cheesy 80’s slasher flick yet. I feel like I’m failing pretty hardcore as a nerd. The Wife is forcing me to take her to Paranormal Activity 4 this weekend though, so I guess that’s at least one “scary” movie for the season. I just have trouble committing myself to 90-120 minutes of uninterrupted watching.
I don’t have nearly as much trouble watching TV or Let’s Play videos. Over the last two weeks I have watched both seasons of Better Off Ted, most of Arrested Development‘s second season, and Brickroad’s Metal Gear LP. Ted is… well, it’s okay. I enjoyed it as much as I did because it co-stars Portia de Rossi and Andrea Anders, both of whom I find very funny. The list of actresses (or even actors, it’s not a sexist thing) I really like is pretty short, but those two are definitely on it. It should be obvious that I much prefer comediennes to “serious” actresses. I also love the way de Rossi pronounces the word “anything.”
I don’t think there’s anything else relevant I can say so that I can add another tag to this post.
Hey, so does it mean you’re old when just the air can cause waves of nostalgia to wash over you? Because I’m totally getting that right now. It’s been a beautiful fall day, and the first real one as far as I’m concerned, because it’s just got that feeling to it. I love this weather, and it brings back memories of everything I’ve ever associated it with. I have no way to properly convey these feelings in words, but I can feel them in my heart and I need to get them out somehow, so I kept a running list of every memory that came back to me today because of the cool autumn air. Here’s what I got:
Trick-or-treating in general
Beating Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes for Nintendo 64 one Halloween night
Playing Silent Hill for the first time
Daily visits to the Heath Sciences Center
Watching Criminal Minds on Stephanie’s laptop in my car
Guitar Hero 5
Visiting a small corner store downtown that smelled like curry, and buying Pepsis at said store which also smelled of curry
So I’ve been watching this new Disney cartoon lately. It’s called Gravity Falls and it is the best kid show on TV. That’s a pretty bold proclamation, but I’m willing to stand behind it. And that’s competing with such wonderful things as Adventure Time and… well, pretty much just Adventure Time. Does Regular Show qualify as “for kids”?
Yes, that’s the image I’m going to use to try to sell this. Do you have a problem with it? I don’t. Pants are terrible and should be abolished.
Anyway, Gravity Falls. The show is about a pair of twins, Dipper and Mabel, who are sent off to the eponymous town of Gravity Falls to spend the summer with their great uncle Stan. I should note here that he is referred to as “Grunkle Stan” and that “grunkle” is quite possibly the best word ever. Take that, pickle. In Gravity Falls, weird stuff abounds, and most episodes so far have had a sort of creature-of-the-week vibe to them, but it’s pretty clear that there’s more going on here, and that should it make it to a second season, things aare going to get a lot deeper. Kinda like Fringe. No, exactly like Fringe. Which is good, because that’s a really awesome show too.
One of the things that I really love about Gravity Falls is the level of detail in the show. There are coded messages in the end credits, crazy single frame inserts, creepy recurring men in the backgrounds, and loads of tiny continuity things. For example: in one of the first few episodes, Dipper is chased onto the roof of Grunkle Stan’s Mystery Shack, and ends up knocking the big S over. In every subsequent episode, whenever there’s a shot of the Mystery Shack, the S remains slumped over. Also, apparently some characters have four fingers and others have five? You may think it’s an animation flub, but Dipper finds a mysterious tome in the first episode, and on the front cover is an image of a hand with six fingers. Mysterious!
Part of what drew me to the show in the first place is the silky-smooth hand-drawn animation. Check it out!
You just don’t get that level of beauty with butt-ugly Flash animations. I honestly can’t wait to buy the inevitable overpriced blu-ray set so that I can enjoy it in full HD goodness.
And since we’re sort of on the topic, my other favourite part of the show is Mabel. She is adorable, wears a different sweater every episode, and is Goddamn hilarious. Every time she opens her mouth, I invariably end up laughing out loud. I don’t know the last show that made me laugh so much, never mind a single character. The rest of the cast is great too, but Mabel makes Gravity Falls. If I ever have a daughter, I hope that she ends up with a little Mabel in her, because that girl is charming like nobody’s business. Even Abed from Community cannot hold a candle to her sheer lovableness. She does a Legend of Zelda “item get” spin at the end of the first episode, for crying out loud!
If you want to know more about Gravity Falls, go torrent you some episodes. It is so so so worth it. But don’t take my word for it, here’s a link to the Talking Time thread for it, where I done stole that movin’ picture from. Read up while you’re waiting for your torrents to finish.
If you’ve been around here long enough, reading that post title may immediately lead you to think that maybe I’ve started working on the increasingly-obsolete CD Archive. Or at the very least maybe I’ve made a WordPress-style page for it. No. No I have not.
It’s probably a slightly more interesting story in reality. Probably.
I have a long work day. It consists of a 40-minute bus ride to work, eight-and-a-half hours in the office, and then another 40-minute (if traffic is light) bus ride back home. So I listen to a lot of music via my iPhone, not unlike many other downtown-based drones. I’ve noticed that over the last few months I’ve been falling back on one or two albums to listen to for so long, until I pop a new one on there and it replaces one of the old ones.
Not a huge deal in itself, but I feel bad for neglecting the other 95% of the music on there, so I decided to do something radical. No, I did not hit the shuffle button, that would offend my OCDishness far too much. Instead, I decided that for the past week, I would listen to one album for each letter in the alphabet, in alphabetical order. It’s not really the best way to spice up my listening tendencies, but it’s something.
I might also mention that the mix of music on my phone is a little past eccentric. I’ve got everything from classic rock to nerdcore rap to classical. From Ke$ha to Hawksley Workman to Ghost Hounds. I have both the Xenoblade Chronicles soundtrack and Dustin Kensrue’s Please Come Home on there. It’s varied, and while it’s not all in the best of taste, it’s all squarely in my taste. So go suck and egg if you don’t like it.
Because I will take any reason to make up a list, the results of my project and some musings are after the jump.
I have this app that teaches me a new Finnish word every day. It’s mostly useless, because you really can’t learn a language one word at a time. Not efficiently, anyway. Plus I actually have to launch the app every day and manually choose to save the daily word, or else it’s lost to the ether. Sometimes updates will stealthily remove large swathes of words. It’s rather inconvenient and I sometimes wonder why I let it continue to eat up space on my phone.
At the very least though, it’s proven that twenty-one is the worst number ever.
Speaking of spooky things and video games, I’ve begun playing Silent Hill 2 again to half-assedly get into the spirit of Halloween. I thought I was going to do it right this time, playing alone in the dark, but I messed that up. Since I’m playing the HD Collection edition, my experience is being totally controlled by achievements, and as such my current playthrough has been paired with some extensive map-making and step-by-step instructions on how to get through the game as quickly as possible. At the very least, by the time I’m done with it, I’ll have become a master of the game.
