Personal Crap

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Meaford, ON, Canada
A big lover of all types of media, from Movies to Video Games, Books to Music, Television to Stage.

Disclaimer

BIG ASS HUGE WARNING DISCLAIMER - IGNORE AT YOUR OWN PERIL

Okay, here's the deal: Blogger has been having problems with their counters as of late, specifically with those blogs marked as having adult content. Now, this particular blog was marked as adult content since it is written as a train of thought, including all the rotten language that flows through my head constantly :) As a result, I marked it adult for that, not for having pornographic photos all over the place. So, simply put, be aware that there is language on this blogsite, and if you are offended don't bother complaining because I wrote this so that you'd know it before reading, and it is your fault if you don't believe me and decide to possibly get offended anyway. If language of a vulgar nature might make you upset, go read something by Disney.

2/25/11

Fake Weather Strikes Again

Morning folks.  Turns out, yet another storm that was supposed to dump on Toronto has turned out to be less than awesome, as it seems more of it will be rain IF it even gets here.  I'm writing this over half an hour after the snowfall was to begin, and nothing is happening outside.  After checking the radar on Environment Canada's website, there seems to be a huge break-up in the snow event as it gets to our area, and if the colours are correct it also suggests the warmer southern edge of the storm has moved further north than they said, bringing rain instead of the white stuff.  Really been a hit and miss season this year.

I haven't been writing much recently, as I'm sure any loyal readers out there can see.  If I have loyal readers.  I digress.  Point is, I haven't been writing, and I can't explain why.  TV has been average, but nothing special has stood out.  I'll have to write up an Oscar follow-up on Monday, just because I set the precedent by posting the nominees earlier.  Movie-wise, I'm still not able to see anything in theatres, so reviews of the new stuff which everyone would be interested in reading is a ways away.  No feedback for either of those sites means that I can't tell if anyone is interested in DVD or Blu-Ray news, so I'm kind of languishing there.  My autobiography will be coming in spurts anyway, so that's not unusual, but I do need motivation to write it and that's been lacking lately.  And as for my videogame blog, I haven't been picking up newer titles recently, because at the moment I am trying to do some other stuff with my meagre $500 a month.  Regaling you with my CoD exploits would not be productive, I fear.

So, as a result of all this, my writing has slacked off for a bit.  I know that I have always approached my stuff on a cyclic basis, and when a big upturn occurs people will have trouble keeping up with my posts, as they did in the beginning.  Until the next upswing, you'll just have to be patient.

Take care, Good Readers.  I shall be back anon.

2/21/11

How My Depression Scares Me

Never has there been a more apt title for this blogsite.  This post is truly going to deal with what happened inside my head yesterday, between 2:20 pm. and 2:55 pm. without my permission or acceptance.  In order to get everyone on the same page, I'm going to have to set the scene, and that requires a bit of back-story.  At some point, a more fleshed out version of this will appear on my autobiography blogsite (see column to right for link), but given that I am trying to write that fairly linearly, we're talking over a year before some of the pertinent information would appear there.

Three very important things have happened in my life to cause the freak out that occurred on Sunday.  The first happened when I was about ten or eleven.  I was riding my bike in front of my house, doing lazy circles on the road, waiting for a friend of mine to arrive.  I was bored, and he was late, so I was just killing time.  I started to imagine his route, in a way to explain to myself what could be taking him so long to get to me, and actively began to imagine him turning this corner, pedalling down this street, turning the next corner, and so forth.  As I imagined him turning the corner on to my street, I shit you not, at the exact same speed I was seeing it in my mind, he turned the corner on to my street.  I wasn't filling in details about clothing, or his bike, but it unnerved me enough that I somehow synced my thoughts with his movements without seeing him until that moment.  Freaked me out, and still bothers me a bit as you'll see as we continue.

Second past event that figures into this occurred in the late 90s.  I was semi-seeing my future (and ex) wife at the time, and she was on her way home in her car.  She was talking to me on the phone, and was on her street only two corners away from her house.  She said she'd call me back once she got inside and settled, and we hung up.  I didn't hear from her again for over seven hours.  Lots of things could explain what happened...she got home, and her mother was in need of help, and as a result she forgot to call and fell asleep afterwards; her cell phone battery died and the telephone lines to her neighbourhood were down (this was before e-mailing was a thing, and the internet consisted of dial-up modems and BBSes [Bulletin Board Services] only - AOL was about to make the world change); myriad other possibilities could explain the lack of a phone call, but the fact that after about two hours of waiting I was able to call and wake nobody up, getting the answering machine, concerned me as well.  I, however, focused on exactly one thing: a car crash.  Couldn't get the idea out of my head that just around the corner from her house, somehow she had a car crash.  So what had happened as I learned the next day?  She had a car crash, right around the corner from her house.  She dropped the phone after hanging up with me, glanced down to get it, hit some black ice, skidded and crashed headlong into a cement light standard.  Went to the hospital within the hour, didn't get back home until mid-morning.  Before this event, I wasn't the type of person who thought the worst about things like this, but for some reason that belief stuck in my head, and it was right on the money.  It changed me in negative ways that, as you'll see, still affect me to this day and beyond.

The third incident I need to refer to before explaining Sunday happened a lot more recently.  It involves Andi, and her family.  One day, a Saturday if I'm not mistaken, back in 2007, Andi and I had planned on driving around our area, doing some shopping, and otherwise having a great day.  Then I get a knock on the door with Andi still asleep upstairs.  These two big guys want to speak with her, and they are giving me these evil scowls.  I got Andi up, she went downstairs and greeted them, and then went out to their vehicle and vanished for about a half hour.  When she came back, she packed up some stuff and said they were demanding to take her to her sister's, whether she wanted to go or not.  They were giving her no option to refuse, and were ready to beat the shit out of me if I intervened in any way.  We didn't know what to do, so she left with them.  Of course, since this time we've spoken to the police regarding it, and I rightly considered this a kidnapping and should have blown the whistle on it immediately, but I was concerned for Andi's safety and, after all, this was her family doing this (the guys at the door were not family, they were friends of Andi's father, and are no longer as a result of this incident).  I didn't want to get in the way of her family, despite the pain and worry I was experiencing.

Andi was held by her sister for the entire weekend, one in which I got virtually zero sleep or food, and which ultimately ended with her sister reluctantly bowing to her wishes to return her to the house as long as she promised to come for month-long stays starting the following week.  Never mind whether Andi was working, never mind that Andi and I were in love, ignore the fact that Andi didn't want to.  When Andi and I started to discuss this, the blinders came off her eyes as she realized just what had really been going on from the view of an outsider, and Andi has never been back to her sister's since that kidnapping.  In fact, not long after that she stopped talking to her sister entirely.  It has only been within the last year that my belief that her sister was manipulating her like a puppet on strings was proven to be 100% accurate, when Andi discovered that since before that incident, as far back as 2005, her sister was using her S.I.N. number and usurping her identity in order to rack up bills for utilities and leaving Andi to pay them.  If I had anything to do with ruining Andi's relationship with her sister by talknig her out of following her decision to stay with her for extended periods of time, I was totally vindicated the first time a collection agency called to demand that Andi pay a $2000 bill for Rogers Television services used at a Brampton residence when she was living in Ajax with her aunt.

The reason I include this third event is due to the fact that, out of nowhere, on just an average day, all hell broke loose for a weekend-long worryfest, and I was pretty much powerless to stop it.  Adding to that, the guys who came to the house to collect Andi and spirit her away were, before this happened, good friends of her and her father.  This showed me that, where her sister was concerned, even a close friend couldn't be trusted necessarily.

Which finally brings me to Sunday.  Andi has a friend, Irena (hope I spelled that correctly - if not, when Andi gets up I'll fix it, so the error will only be temporary...and I apologise to Irena if she reads this before that happens), who is her best friend.  Reina, and her husband Grey (see previous bracketed note), have taken Andi out before to just catch up on stuff, no big deal.  The plan yesterday was for the three of them to get together for a few hours, hang out, chat about stuff, and then have Andi back at home around 2pm..  I had no problem with any of this, wasn't worried, had met Irena and Grey the last time they picked her up to hang out, and wasn't concerned at all.  Still, Andi ensured that I knew where Irena's phone number was, and if I needed to for any reason (I'm sure she was thinking medical accident when she was telling me this) I could just call the cell phone and talk to her.  Irena's cell phone, that is.  Anyway, 2pm. came and went, and I thought not a lot about it.  Scott was out doing his usual Sunday running around getting groceries and stuff, and when he got back at 2:20pm he said he had to go back out to get chicken as the weight of what he had already carried made the idea of going to M&Ms a ridiculous notion.  So, he goes back out, and I am now acutely aware that Andi is late and the phone hasn't rung.  Those of you who have been reading closely can now see things starting to edge downhill.

I went to the living room and figured that I'd just give a quick call to Irena's cell, not to demand that Andi get home immediately, but just to check in and say hello, get a revised time for her arrival so I could plan what to do with Scott when he got back from his second short venture out into the big world of chicken breasts, and basically reassure myself that everything was still fine.  My mind was at ease to this point, and at least I believe that I was only calling for the reasons mentioned above.

The phone rang a few times and then went to her answering machine.

I hung up, and decided to just fool around with some CoD on the 360 while I sat there waiting for Scott to return.  No dice, I couldn't put anything together.  This was not me consciously making wrong turns, or not paying attention to what I was seeing - my mind had completely ignored the fact that I was trying to play this game, and my in-game avatar just stood there and got killed twice before I realized that I was useless and turned the game off.  I then cruised my Arcade titles to find something mindless and repetitive to play to keep my mind from going where it was surely headed, and instead could only read the titles of the games, not focused enough to actually play one of them.  Now it was 2:30pm, and I tried the cell number again.  Again no answer, so I left some bullshit message about just wanting to check with Andi if our choice for dinner was acceptable (I had zero ideas for dinner), something deliberately innocuous so that Andi would get the phone from Irena and call me back.  This is because, at this point, my state had changed for the worse.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point my logical mind was locked away, as though behind a door, and my emotional state took over - that part of my brain that can envision car accidents, kidnappings, widespread chaos...all without a second's notice.  I went back to the front room, sat in front of the computer as I am doing now, and fidgeted as I somehow went to both the CTV and City websites to look for news of accidents in the area.  Keep in mind, this is only after maybe 15 minutes of not getting a response on the cell phone, and with Andi being only 35 minutes late than her estimated return.  I was not in control of myself, not in any way, shape or form.  In my state, my brain couldn't get the logic to rule over the emotion at this point, regardless of how much sense I was making internally.  I knew Andi wasn't going far, as she still had her backpack here on the floor in the living room.  I knew she at most took the clothes on her back, her coat, and maybe her purse.  Logic tells me she had no intention of being gone long.  My thoughts then made the illogical jump to the idea that maybe Irena was in cahoots with Andi's sister and she was already in Brampton again, and this was how things were going to crash down around us.  What I am trying, probably unsuccessfully, to explain is that I had absolutely no control over my emotional state at this point.  My brain was on auto-pilot, even though I was inside trying to reason myself calm.  I knew she had seen Irena before, she was no threat.  Andi had given Scott a grocery list for him to pick up stuff so she could make me a fresh soup, you don't do that if you're intending to leave.  I even found her bank card on a table near the laptop in the other room.  No dice, my brain wasn't listening as I attempted to logic my way into control.

Scott got back, and now it is almost 2:50pm..  I'm in the front room again, after nervously circling the living room trying to calm down, sitting at the computer and wishing there was more recent news on the websites than Saturday's.  I start trying to explain what I'm going through to Scott as he stands in the doorway, but I can't look at him due to my being ashamed that my dependable logic functions are non-existent and I am unable to control what is happening to me internally.  I yell at him for looking at me while I talk about it, accusing him of staring at me like I'm nuts, which he probably wasn't doing even though at this point I certainly feel unhinged.  He goes to the kitchen to put away groceries.  Soon, I follow him and start to wander the living room again, trying without success to once again talk to myself out loud logically about what is going on, trying to break through the wall of emotion that has cut me off from thinking clearly.  It was around this time, 2:55pm., when Andi came in through the front door.

I walked to the hall, made sure she was inside, and immediately began to apologise (which I have been doing ever since) and explain what happened.  I am fully aware, as I have been the entire time, that this is not her fault, that a simple connection on the phone would have defused the entire mindset I was in, and that it wasn't her fault the phone was not heard by the three of them when it rang (which is what I was told when she had a chance to speak).  Be aware that I was not angry, not loud, not in tears, nothing.  I was simply regaining control internally over the emotional rut my brain had gotten into.  The worry that something bad had occurred, combined with the knowledge that when I had expected things to happen in the past I had been eerily accurate, came together to imagine the worst and freak out over the possibility that I might be right.  For no reason other than 'hey, it happened before,' my mind was prepared to block all clear thinking and just react to the worst visual and mental imaginings I could conjure on the spot, and given that I'm an aspiring writer, you might think that my imagination is quite good, and you'd be right.  In the space of less than half an hour, I put myself through more stress than I had experienced in the last month, and we've been switching mortgage companies!

This is why my depression scares the shit out of me.  I literally had no control over where my mind was heading, and with such a tiny bit of information had created a scenario that realized the vast majority of my worst fears.  This was unintentional, and seemingly unavoidable, though I did not know that before it happened.  Much like someone wrestling the steering wheel of a car away from the driver, my conscious thought was torn from my grasp and set upon this path without my having any control over it occurring.  This has never happened before (I've worried about people before, don't get me wrong, but freaking out to that extent in less than half an hour?  NEVER.), and I worry about it happening again.  It is kind of like admiring a famous painting all your life, and then one day you notice that the artist's name is misspelled, and suddenly you are aware that the entire thing is a forgery.  I feel completely betrayed by my brain over this incident, and I also feel that somehow the words I'm using to attempt to describe this is falling way short of allowing people to understand what I mean without simply dismissing it as some asshole losing his mind.

Anyway, this post is long enough.  If I haven't described it well by now, more words will not do the deed.  I hope that I haven't come across as too much of a psycho, and I hope that nobody looks at my writings and such with a different eye than they had before.  I already feel freaked out by this happening, so don't worry, I have that aspect covered.  Blogs will continue as usual, intermittent until something worth saying comes to mind.  I was going to write a post on my autobiography today, but I think I covered the urge to do that with this, so it'll have to wait.  Happy Monday everyone, will write again soon.

2/17/11

You Gotta Check This Out

Whether you love videogames, tolerate videogames, or hate videogames - I would like you to check out a new trailer for one just the same.  Watch it, and tell me that emotion can't be conveyed by something as simple as an announcement for a title, never mind the title itself.


Oh, and there is a rather large post on the videogame blog, accessible from the link over there on the right.  This trailer is also part of that post.

Have a good day everyone, and don't forget to wave for the cameras.

2/16/11

Yesterday Was An Eventful Tuesday

A few things to share with everyone today, so let's get to it.

First off, I am now wearing my new glasses!  Yahoo!  Only took 6 years to get a new pair, and my sunglasses are still my old prescription, but still...frames that aren't cracked!  Yay!

What else have we here...oh, yes, how could I forget.  We are now back with Bell Express Vu for our televisual entertainments.  I could, and probably should, write an entire television blog entry about the shit dealings we had with Rogers equipment.  We signed up for their services because the Bell billing department went fucking psychotic when they switched to the One Bill plan back in 2007, so in February of 2008 we went to Rogers.  Literally, from the first week, their PVR refused to record things we had scheduled.  As of this writing, they have yet to fix the problem, through over 5 different PVRs and three different models.  They tried, they boosted our signal strength and such, but to no avail.

Trust me when I say I am only lightly touching on this to clarify what I am about to write next:  Last night, less than 12 hours after getting Express Vu installed, their PVR fucked up in such a way that they can't explain it.  It was meant to record Rick Mercer on CBC HD, but instead we got a half hour of The Weather Network, with the "Rick Mercer Report" description and channel number showing when we pause it.  Figure that one out.  The listed recording in the PVR list says it is Rick Mercer, the pause info says it is Rick Mercer, but it is a recording of The Weather Network.  To top it off, the damn PVR refused to even attempt to record it on the west coast time-shift, because it thinks it already has the program.  Even when not attempting to record the show with the 'new episode' option, the only way the PVR is supposed to skip episodes, it still wouldn't do it.  Tried 'weekly,' tried 'once,' and eventually had to make it a manual one off recording to get it to agree to do it.  Guess I'll see if it worked when I go into the living room.  I'll say one thing though - I'm not paying for this shit again.  I'd rather say fuck television and just buy all the shows on DVD and Blu-Ray than to continue to pay a company to not deliver on their services.  Needless to say, I'm pissed off.

Also, today is the final step on our mortgage switch.  Scott just has to sign disbursement papers saying where the money be going, and all is done.  Finally.  Now, if I could just get a new mattress I could sleep again.  The move of the mortgage isn't as good as it was supposed to be, but the payments are less, and if we can just get one year under our belts without incident we might be able to really start heading in the right direction - south!

Other than that, I see that Yemen protests are continuing, Libya is getting heated, Iran is beating it's protesters, and the United States has gone from demanding that democracy become the norm in the Middle East to denouncing the change of government in Egypt as a way to let radical Muslims take over the country.

So, business as usual.

2/13/11

Mortgages, Egypt, Middle East Protests...What A Week

Morning all.  I have a few things I want to cover this morning, but first I have an apology to make.  I'm sorry about not keep up to date with my blog writings as much this past week as I have in the past months.  There has been a very stressful situation unfolding here at the house, and when I personally am stressed the best way for me to deal with it is unfortunately a 180 degree difference from writing stuff down.  As a result, my posts on certain blogs has been rather anemic (I'm talking about you, Real To Reel), and for that I am sorry.  In addition, I promised a post for yesterday on Telly Vision discussing the three newest mid-season replacements which just started this week, and I never even started typing the first sentence of that one, so for that too I apologise.

To explain, I'll give a tiny insight into what's been going on here in the house.  We are in the process of moving our mortgage.  In order to prepare to do this, Scott called some folks to get us heading down the right path, and these folks forwarded a letter to our current mortgage company putting a lock on the mortgage.  What this means is that for a period of time, can't remember how long, we are stopping payments on the mortgage in order to prepare to either pay it out or move it to another company.  For some reason, the mortgage company ignored this and proceeded to give us by the 15th of this month (ie. Tuesday) to pay it in full or forfeit the house and all equity built up in the place.  So, now we've gone from switching when we are able to rushing before we lose the house.

We have found a place in order to move the mortgage, and papers will be getting signed Monday, but the road to this point has been very rocky indeed.  I won't be going into the situation until the mortgage is completely and 100% totally safe in the hands of another company, but suffice it to say that the week that has passed has been the equivalent of going on a high speed roller coaster without a safety harness.  Try sleeping in that, why don't you?  Then, add to that the fact that even though both Andi and I have been to the dentist multiple times, and our mouths are now cavity-free, we're both still experiencing enough pain from hot and cold foods that we need to go back yet again...and have to wait until the 19th to get this pain relieved...it keeps getting better and better.  Finally, on top of all that, a new friend over at BFG has been having unusually harsh reactions from her mother as she attempts to celebrate her upcoming birthday.  Her mother's, not hers.  I can't really do a whole hell of a lot to help her, other than commiserate and offer my ear (eyes) to her, but that's been bothering me too.  Just a friend concerned about a friend, but there it is.

So what is the end result of all this for me personally, and why haven't I been writing as much?  Well, the movie and television blogs require a little more work than the other blogs I write.  Same with the videogame blog, but not nearly as intensive.  See, when I write the movie and telly blogs, I tend to provide links to actors and such to allow readers to see who I'm discussing.  I have no idea whether anyone at all appreciates this stuff, since I get zero feedback on 99% of my posts across all five blogs, but I do it anyway just in case.  As a result, it takes more time to get a post about a current movie or television show written to my standards.  It is no where near as time-consuming on the videogame blog, simply because I'm not providing links to individual actors and such.  Since the week has given me dreams so upsetting I've been waking in tears, and sleep has become so sporadic as a result that today's awakening at 5:45am is the latest I've slept in without forcing my self to stay awake during the day after less than 5 hours at night, I really haven't had the gumption nor the patience to go on a link-hunt for the purposes of maybe being read by a handful of people who don't bother to tell me the work is in any way useful or appreciated.  If I sound bitchy, sue me.  I still don't know if Blogger records pageviews as someone actually coming to the page or just some random search engine posting the first couple of lines when someone looks for a keyword that happens to appear in my writing.

In fact, I apologise for the next bit, but let's try a test.  I'm going to list a bunch of keywords that we all know (whether we admit it or not) are popular search words on Google, Bing, Yahoo and beyond.  Let's see just how many hits this post gets today, shall we?  Skip to the next paragraph if you didn't really expect the adult warning you clicked through to read this actually meant anything: orgasm, pussy, tits, cock, Justin Bieber, fuck, Super Bowl, North Korea, Valentine's Day, Grammys, slut, Russell Brand.  There, those are some of the top most searched keywords out there, some always in the running, some specific to this week, and I didn't include some because they are in the title of the blog.  Oh, and yes, I did in fact juxtapose two of them together on purpose.  First one to tell me which two gets a lollipop.

Which leads me to the other big news of the week, that isn't about my self-absorbed little world.  I want to give an enormous shout out to anyone reading this from Egypt, or born Egyptian, or knows someone Egyptian, or just cares about the Middle East in general.  Congratulations to you for ousting your 30-year-long oppressor, Hosni Mubarak, and moving forward into a hopefully brighter and fairer future.  I can't help but notice that there are other countries trying to follow suit, and a cautious but hearty cheer rises from me to these other countries as well:  Algeria, Yemen and Jordan.  Concessions towards protestors have already been made in these countries, and I hope that things move forward with a minimum of bloodshed, though honestly we all know that people in power against other's wills do fight to retain what they have.  It is a wonder Mubarak didn't have thousands dead in Egypt before he fled.  Glad he didn't, and hoping the rest of the region follows suit wherever reform is badly needed.

I watched things unfold in Egypt over the week, actually glued to CNN and CTV NewsNet, if it is still called that, watching as Mubarak was expected to step down and then having him basically give a resounding 'Fuck You' for 17 minutes.  I was surprised that violence didn't erupt immediately on the spot in the middle of Cairo's Tahrir Square, and thrilled that the next day it all came to an end so peacefully.  I'm not a source for news here, given this is a blog and not a news agency website, but I just got a tweet that in Yemen the protesters are surrounding the Presidential Palace as I type this.  Additionally, thousands more protesters are flooding into Tahrir Square to continue protests even as the army is moving them out, and my guess is they want reform to happen faster.  Better post this A.S.A.P. so at least one of my posts is current!

I promise to try and back to writing normally in the coming week.  With any luck, if it is in the cards that we are to keep this house until we are ready to move countries, the new mortgage will be signed and in place on Monday.  Will keep you all posted, and until then, have good days Good Readers.

2/9/11

Digging Up Memories

I just finished writing another post for my autobiographical blog, which you can access following the link provided.  I am discovering that I remember a lot more about my formative years than I thought I did.  As I've been writing, I have been going to specific memories that I want to relate, and then thinking about the specifics of those memories is leading me to remember other really sharp images that I then want to relate as well.  It may seem incredible, but for some random guy who grew up in the Greater Toronto Area, I really do have a shitload that has happened to me over the years.

The problem now is that a lot of the stuff I'm accidentally accessing is stuff that depresses me.

Now, my concern is not whether I can get the stuff out onto the computer, or even how terrible it is going to make me feel delving into the shit, but whether the autobiography blog is going to degenerate into the most depressing blog on the internet.  I'm fucking serious.  The more I think about how things progressed, and the more I think about what i should have had but didn't...I'm thinking that if it is bumming me out, just how bad is it going to be for people reading it?

And my biggest problem with the whole thing is that I'm not getting any feedback from anyone I don't already know.  My cousin has dropped a line here and there about certain of my posts across my multiple blogs, as has my wife (though her spelling is killing me because I can't go in and edit what she's posted in the comments section - she isn't as bad a speller as it seems, she just doesn't have the habit of checking her work before sending it), and of course my roommate Scott tells me what he thinks - trouble is, they know me.  Sure, they don't know all the stuff I'm writing, or even half of it, but they know me and I can't help but assume their words are somewhat biased.  What I'm hoping for is that someone who has followed me on Twitter because of an article on my gaming blog, or movie blog, or television blog, actually decides to go to the autobiography blogsite and reads it, and then has something to say.  Andi has already said that people aren't likely to comment on an autobiographical site simply due to it being my personal experiences and nobody can have an opinion on personal history in the same way they can have an opinion about an opinion.  I just hope nobody thinks it sucks.

I do hope people from Twitter are reading all the blogs, not just the ones that they are likely following me as a result of.  It would be great to know that E! Online cares about the person writing the movie blog rather than just the movie blog itself.  I guess time will tell.

Whatever the reason, I do hope my Good Readers stick with me over the coming years (no, I'm not kidding) as I explore the present here, the past there, and entertainment at the other three.  As long as what I write has a wee audience, I'll keep doing what I'm doing.  Even though some of the sites have a long wait between posts, don't worry:  When I have something to say, I'll say it.  Until next time, take care all!

Whoops, one last thing:  I have now gone over each and every blog and added a list of links to the right-hand side to allow anyone visiting ANY of my blogs the ability to see where I've posted most recently, how recently, and what the title of the most recent post is.  As a result, I will no longer be dropping by this blog in order to simply say "Hey, new blog over here" and nought else.  All you have to do is link to any one of my sites, and they'll provide you with up to date information on my most recent posts no matter where they were posted.  Hope this makes things easier for everyone; I know it makes it easier for me.

2/8/11

Back In The Saddle

Morning folks.  I just threw down another gamer blog post, regarding my pet peeves about people playing multiplayer CoD without a brain in their skulls.  If interested, find it here at Confessions.

Other than that, I'm slowly getting back up to speed, so take that to heart in that I am not writing at full steam again quite yet.  I am awaiting the final confirmation of our mortgage being switched to a new company this week, thereby saving us from losing the house (if we don't get this done by the 15th, we're fucked), as well as anticipating (not) my final dentist appointment for quite some time on Wednesday.  Basically, I have a lot on my mind, and it is screwing me up as far as organizing my thoughts on more than one topic at a go.  Sue me.

I'll fill everyone in on what the latest news is when it happens, and with any luck I'll be back on all cylinders soon.  Until then, take it easy everyone.

2/6/11

Lovely Case Of Food Poisoning

Howdy pardners.  So, I planned on doing a bit of writing on some of my various blogsites yesterday, but was forestalled by a wonderful 19 hours of food poisoning.  What that entailed is multiple runs to the nearest bathroom in order to get rid of a lot of water building up in the wrong location, if you catch my meaning, and it made for a horrible day.  I was up at 5am with this, and for those of you following this blog regularly, you'll know just how much fun THAT was considering the lack of sleep I've been bitching about for ages anyway.  Either way, as a result I've been unable to continue writing my autobiography, an article I was going to post regarding Superbowl commercials and how Canadians get gypped each and every year, and starting to talk about the Sega Genesis videogame console, and what I used to tool around with on that device.  I know, I know, hearts broken everywhere...

Tomorrow I hope to get back on the horse and start writing these articles up.  I would do it now, but still feel quite weak due to loss of liquids and electrolytes, so I'm just going to leave it at that for today.  I do apologise to anyone hoping for more this weekend, and I will make it up as soon as I can.

Enjoy the football game, Good Readers, and I shall return anon.

2/3/11

TV Repairs And New Blogposts

Well, our television got repaired today...and you didn't even know it needed it!  When we first got this television, it immediately started acting weird.  When we would turn it on, it would switch on and off a few times before the screen would actually come on and allow us to watch anything.  The number of times it would do this gradually increased to a stupidly high number (around 20 or so) and then came the day that hitting power did nothing at all.  The television was still under warranty at this time, back in June of 2009, so Samsung came and collected it.  After a week, we got it back, and the problem was attributed to a faulty power board and 3 capacitors had been replaced.  Trouble is, the set has 6 capacitors, and in the middle of last month the television started acting weird...

Suffice it to say, the television now has 6 new capacitors and should give us no more trouble for the rest of the time we own this particular set.  Why Samsung acted like assholes is anyone's guess, since they are such a good brand, but there you have it.  Point is, all is well.

As for the new blog post, it can be found on the Confessions site, and involves why certain ancient videogames seem to be wildly better than some of the current crap we are expected to pay for on the newest systems.  Turns out I have three reasons for this, so take a look and turn down the volume - the post contains music!  AHH!

Have good days folks, and I'll be back in the near future.

2/2/11

Snowstorm Blankets Toronto, And Other Stuff

Yeah, it sure is white out there.  Yet another reason to flee to the Dominican Republic as soon as possible, let me tell you.  It came down so bad this morning that we were experiencing thunder snow.  You read that correctly, thunder snow.  Wonderful, ain't it?

The roads are pretty treacherous, so much so in fact that it actually convinced Scott to stay home, realizing he was going to spend so much time just trying to get to work that he'd pretty much have to just turn around and come straight back once he arrived, if in fact he did.  Just not worth the aggravation and loss of time and money, and I certainly second that.  The highway looked just terrible at 6:30 this morning, and I couldn't see myself going out unless an emergency was in the offing.  Since TTC drivers have been getting fired for texting at the wheel, my confidence in letting others take me where I might need to go is at an all-time low as well.  Better to just stay home, shovel out, and wait until tomorrow when the plows have made a dent in the roads.  Course, it isn't as though I personally was going anywhere anyway, so the whole thing for me is pretty much moot.  Ha!

Anyway, I was up fairly early yet again today, and took the time since to write the second in a series of posts explaining why the earlier days of the Nintendo gaming systems are still some of the best days I've ever had playing games, and you can find part two of that series over at the Confessions blogsite.

And finally, congratulations are in order for the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan.  Tunisia for ousting a horrible dictator, Egypt for forcing a horrible dictator to remove himself from the country's next election process and never run again, and Jordan for getting your king to replace the Prime Minister and his government.  All of these changes came about with basically peaceful demonstration, and all should be commended for this could have been a very bloody week.  Lives were lost, there is no doubt, but the scale of what could have happened is so large that it is a wonder that so few were sacrificed for change.  Mourn the losses as heroes, not martyrs, and look towards a brighter future.

Now, the question is whether China and North Korea took any notice?  I know the internet is hugely curtailed in those countries, especially concerning the type of news coming form these uprisings, but wouldn't it be great to see change tear these governments from their foundations as well?  All I personally hope for is peace and a stop of corruption in government causing pain to the people.  World peace is too ridiculously large to wish for, but an end to suffering under corrupt governments, oppressive regimes and war-hungry leaders would be a nice place to start.

That...and strippers, lots of sexy strippers. 

2/1/11

Egypt And America's Homefront: A Spanking

America is always very loud about bringing democracy to the countries that don't have it, but you know what I've learned the most from watching the news over the last week?  That America should look to keeping their own country afloat and let the people in some of those other countries do their own government reorganization without resorting to artillery and smart bombs.  Look at how relatively peaceful the country is overthrowing 30 years of iron-fisted rule...yes, demonstrators have died to the tune of 150 plus, yes the government's party headquarters was torched by Molotov cocktails early in the protests, these things are both readily apparent and glaringly different than if the US had stepped in to preserve their version of order.

Personally I am quite proud of Egypt, and will be very interested to see North Korea in the wake of the inevitable successful ousting of Mubarak (by the way, even the army in the country is taking a step back now, promising no more violence and no more confrontation of protesters in Cairo).  Perhaps the world will be able to see real change brought about the way it should be - not by force over some bullshit excuse by a foreign power, but by political demonstration from within.  First Tunisia, then Egypt...the possibility certainly exists, if the US can keep themselves the fuck out of it.

I'm writing this to explain that I am one of the many who wish the Untied States had never gotten involved with Iraq, at least the second time.  The first time, there was a conceivable threat.  The second time it was about oil, and there isn't an intelligent, reasonable, clear-thinking human being within the borders of our neighbour to the south who doesn't realize that as the infamous truth.  As a result, hundreds of civilians have been slaughtered in the name of ousting a dictator after a president's personal agenda governed the country to the point that intelligence agencies were purposefully lying to each other in order to keep the pretense alive, long after it was clear to people outside the country what was really going on.  Then, they turn it into 'bringing democracy to a country that had none.'  America should be ashamed of letting Bush take their young soldiers into a war without true need, especially the Republicans from which party Bush came from and who supported him the loudest, but they are now too busy calling everyone who disagrees with them Nazis to see the truth.

And what exactly the fuck is wrong with Fox News?  They have the word 'news' built right into the title of their station; one would think that as a result, they might consider attempting to report some of it, rather than simply trying to further the Republican agenda.  Or are they simply there to help Jon Stewart make obviously salient points night after night about how the United States is tipping closer and closer to hell?  Jon seems to know what a lot of Republicans are missing:  There has not been one successful empire in the history of the planet, and America might want to look at itself as it slips over the edge.  China is poised to be the world's new superpower, with all the American debt it is holding, so instead of infighting the Republicans might want to consider unity, if only to keep the country strong for a few more years.

While Sarah Palin laughs off the need for real innovation and discovery within the Scientific community of the US (while getting her historic facts wrong again, as usual), the truth of the matter is that if America doesn't start getting their national debt in check, stop their dependence on OPEC oil, and get their country back to making things within their own borders, I'm afraid we are going to witness The Fall Of The American Empire within our own lifetimes.  Sad?  Maybe.  Inevitable without real change?  A firm certainty.

Oh, and when the forefathers said that everyone had the right to bear arms, they were in fact talking about the muskets of the day, not AK-47s.  Grow up America, and stop with the gun violence.  For a nation so rich in history and so strong militarily, it would be nice if your children stopped shooting each other's eyes out on a day-to-day basis.  Show some maturity and do something that really matters for once.  And by all means, dismiss this blog post as the ramblings of some asshole Canadian who doesn't have a clue.  After all, I've only written an article on the 18th of January this year (section starts at the 6th paragraph and continues through rest of post) regarding the fact that vaccination does not cause autism; "The Colbert Report" had a scientist on last night (Dr. Paul Offit, episode aired January 31st, 2011) talking about nothing other than vaccination and how the lack of it is starting epidemics of Whooping Cough and Measles, both of which I mentioned by name in that post two weeks ago.  I must not have my finger on the pulse, right?  Oh, and I apologise to anyone trying to view the clips from outside the States, as they can't be viewed unless in America.

Grow up America.  You're embarassing yourselves.

On another note, I wrote a new post about my history playing the Nintendo NES, found at Confessions.  Enjoy.