Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Nintendo and personal schedules (reposted from The Lucas Letters)

"Dear family:

These last few days have been a bit odd for me. Tanja has gone up to the Blue Mountains to help out her mother around the house (Gabi had a hip replacement and is having some trouble getting around). This has left me on my own since Sunday night. Not that I'm helpless, of course. What I've noticed, though, is that I tend to not sit still when left to my own devices. I'll put on a DVD, but then I'll walk around doing other things, like checking stuff on the computer, or going up to the kitchen or (with worrying frequency) standing watching the DVD instead of sitting. I guess we don't realise that when we live with someone, we structure so much of our day-to-day around that person. I think that because it is so rare for me to go an entire day (let alone three) without seeing Tanja, I automatically drop into short-attention-span-mode. Hence the standing. Also, since Tanja's been gone, the cat has been acting very needy. I think she missed Tanja too. Awww.

Last night I invited Craig, Adrian, Ted, Casey, and Craig's new girlfriend Mel over to watch movies. I also cooked, making beef ossobuco and managing to get through the evening without stressing out too much. I did, however, understand the plight of the host as I was running around on my feet for a solid hour getting everything ready. It was a good night, though.

Work is good today because I was asked to be an ATL (acting team leader) for today. That means keeping an eye on a team and helping them out. The best part though, is that the team has a retro theme to their area, which includes a TV and a Nintendo system. I've been playing the original Mario game all morning. Surprisingly, I still remember where all the secrets are and which bricks to hit. I mean it's been nearly 16 years since I played this. Ah, for the simple days when beating a boss just meant jumping over him and hitting the axe that broke the bridge under his feet.

That's all for this week. Ta ta!

-Lucas"

Monday, August 25, 2008

Updated: Marathon Men

We had a fairly short marathon last night, involving MST3K (Pod People, The Movie, & Cave Dwellers) and RiffTrax (Jurassic Park). Check it out. Adrian brought his eeePC and we blogged from the couch, without wires!

My head hurts a little today.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Sensory cocktails?

Strange, but interesting.

Check it out.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Maiden Voyage (reposted from The Lucas Letters)

"Dear All and Sundry Family Members:

So this is my new blog. I hope it'll be a way for me to keep in touch with you all while saving on postage. No, of course it's not that. I think it's more that with emails, it's easy to say "I'll answer that tomorrow." and tomorrow becomes a week. If I can stick to this, I'll be updating at least once a week. I've even rigged it so I can update from work, that way using time when I technically should be working.

So what have I been up to? Well, today was actually a pretty big day, because Tanja and I went to the registry and officially stated our intentions to get married. You have to do that at least a month and a day before you plan to, I'm assuming to put a handle on the Britney-Spears-style-52-hour marriages. After standing in five lines and holding several tickets, we spoke to the right people and it's settled: we're getting married. Tanja even sprung on me that she's decided to take my last name. She'll be Tanja Brown. Which is nice. :)

Work has been, well, work. People call in and give me a piece of their minds about their internet bill and I try and make them stop shouting long enough for me to fix their problems. Things have been extra-stressful because they introduced a new computer program that's meant to "solve all our problems". This of course means that it causes a whole new set of problems itself. It also means that none of us are sure what we're doing half the time. The last couple of days have been nice, though, because I've been able to do back-of-house work. That means nobody calling, just me going through orders and fixing them.

Tonight I had my hands full with our new cordless phone and the programming thereof. Originally Tanja bought it last week, but got it all the way home only to realize there weren't any batteries in the box. So I dragged it back after the marriage place but before work and got it replaced. Now we have an inbuilt answering machine that says our names instead of the robot one Dad hates.

Well, I'll keep this post short, as I'm tired, so until next time.

-Lucas"

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Alright, fine.

I got an email from my father today. He rather abruptly accused me of cutting myself off from my family in Canada. His example was that my little sister had sent me an email last week and I had not, as of yet, responded. He also said that my responses to anyone's emails were sporadic at best.
 
To be frank, he was mad, and he was a bit rude about it, saying that I was basically saying "fuck you" to my family.
 
This is not the case. I wrote him a calm email back.
 
His email gave me an idea that I stewed over all the way to work. The idea started as a mailing list and then evolved into a new Blog. Letters. A weekly-updated blog, written in a letter format, detailing all the ins and outs of my life.
 
They want me to share? I'll share.
 
The idea isn't completely spiteful. Part of the problem I have discussing the facets of my life with my family is that they're so far removed from my day-to-day that it would take too long to explain all the background needed for them to understand.  For example, if I'm happy that I've gotten back-of-house work all week, I'd have to explain what BOH was, how it relates to my job, why it's better than my usual job and yadda yadda yadda.  With this blog, I can readdress things, build on comments made in previous weeks, and generally let them into my world a bit. I'll add pictures, maps, the whole shebang. Plus, it'll be nice for my little sister.
 
Still, I think what he did was a bit mean. I mean, my contact with Dad has been the occasional phone call and email, most of which are about how great he's doing, which, on the phone, I'll congratulate him for and, in the email form, send a reply to. There will then be nothing for weeks. Then I'll get an email like today about how he's wondering if he's on "the bad list." It's frustrating.
 
So now, it'll be up to them to keep abreast of my day-to-day.
 
*sigh*
 
Sincerely, Internet's...
Lucas Brown
Now completely legal (in the states he's not banned)!
 

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Watch List

Tanja's been working on her big giant assignment for her law course today, so I was relegated to the spare room and spent the majority of the time that I wasn't working on my assignment reading scans of World War Hulk. I got all the way to the end of the scans, all the way to issue #35 when I realised something. WWH is 38 issues long. Bugger. I had to read the ending on the Wikipedia.

Oh, and I've been listening to the new Grates CD. It's musically more sophisticated that their debut. Plus, their sound is more coherent, but it's missing the wacky sense of oddball fun that was what initially attracted me to The Grates. Half the songs seem almost deadly earnest, making them sound like a junior Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I like it, but not as much as I hoped I would. Maybe it'll grow on me.

And I bought Bender's Big Score and The Beast With A Billion Backs on DVD today (NOT from Sanity, after their anti-High Fidelity Moment). Haven't watch TBWABB yet due to the Tanja assignment, but I will soon.

Oh, and thanks to my attempted download of the Rifftrax version, I now have the original Star Wars Holiday Special on my iPod. And there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Oh yea, oh yea.

And tomorrow is my first day on the phones in a month.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

So I was in Marrickville Metro getting groceries today.

I decided to stop by Sanity to see how much they were selling the new Grates and Beck CDs. I couldn't find either in the rock/pop section, so I went to the counter and asked. The emo-looking guy looked up Beck first, first looking confused as to who Beck was. He went and got the single copy they had, which was in the back of the store and scanned it to check the price. $29.95. "That's a bit much" says I. "Well," says he, "with stuff like this we only get like 3 copies and it's not worth marking down. It's not like we'd sell a lot of this." Tamping down my anger, I asked after the new Grates CD. "Oh, we have tons of that one." spake the tool, walking up to a huge promotions rack, where the Grates CD was selling for 22.95. "We never have a problem selling that, so it's on special. Isn't that nice?" I paid for the Grates CD and left.

It took me a while to realise why it made me mad. I was High Fidelity'd! For asking for BECK! What the fuck is this world coming to?!?