What I Got (Watching)

New look blog! Or at least, until I decide to change it again. The background seems to be the hardest thing to decide on. So expect further changes, as I am indecisive.

I've had all these posts rushing around in my head, so I'm going to try and combine them into a rapid-fire short-form-list of what I've been watching/reading/listening/Apping.

Is Apping a word? It is now.

Warning. Excessive linking ahead.

WATCHING With my longer commute, I've finally been delving into things I've had on the HDD for months, including Transformers Animated, Justice League, Teen Titans, and Transformers Prime. All are highly recommended, for different moods. T:A is arc-based, like Justice League, so it's great to watch the stories unfold when you can watch 3 or 4 episodes in a row. TT is much MUCH more episodic and far less serious (they even have a special Japanese version of the awesome PuffyAmiYumi theme song as a signal that it'll be a silly show). Transformers Prime is as if Beast Wars, War For Cybertron, and the Transformers film series had a crazy LAN Party/threesome which made beautiful shiny robotic baby, and then had it raised with the G1 series as a nanny, which is a strange image and I want you all to forget it. Thing is, I know the first half-season of ALL these shows are not the best. Persevere. They will Grow The Beard. Promise. Also, seeing all these awesome shows has made one I previously loved look a bit shallow. Batman Beyond was always my favourite of the DCAU, and compared to Justice League, frankly most of it seems a bit shallow (but I could listen to the theme song all day long). Oh, and the first season of Batman: The Animated Series sucked. Like a lot. At home, since we've run out of Castle, Modern Family, & Community (which we still love), and Big Bang Theory, Chuck and 30 Rock (which we're starting to wane on, due to Flanderization and Seasonal Rot), we've been looking into movies. The arrival of Netflix Instant streaming into our house caused an evening of Emma/How To Marry A Millionaire (which showcased examples of Politeness Judo & Ship-To-Ship Combat in the former and MegaNekko in the latter). It's also caused me to find the Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic. It's also caused an overabundance of choice, which has led to occasional BSOD moments when deciding what to watch. Happily, there's always Firefly. My podcast watching has slowed ever since I took a few weeks off watching Podcasts while trying to sort out my music library. Then they piled up and suddenly I have 14 episodes of FrameRate, 10 of NSFW, 42 of the Totally Rad Show and 17 Diggnations. Funnily enough, I was about to keep up with Destructoid, Appjudgment, Death Battle, and Bytejacker due to their shorter run times. Though Bytejacker is now on hiatus, which makes me sad.

Oh, crap, that took 34 minutes to write. I might need to pick this "What I Got" thing up later, as I must get ready for work.

Waiting in the cafe.

This blog entry was composed in the Moleskine™ App. However, this app is a bit flawed, in that it lets you export to email, Twitter, or Facebook, but not to Blog or Notepad. Also, none of the pictures or in-app markings export out, just the text, which is irritating. So it’s a beautiful app, just needs some tweaking. So I screenshotted it. See?

Forced typesetting

I spent most of today (well, the parts not spent having brunch and walking back from brunch) locked in the spare bedroom, writing an assignment.

"But Lucas!" I hear you posit. "You aren't taking an courses or classes! What gives with the assignmenting?"

That's true. I'm actually finishing assignments for a course put on by work that I began in early 2008. It's a course whose last assignment was due in May of 2009.

Now, when it came to assignments in school, or university, or the various tertiary courses I've taken (be it work-based, or my advertising stuff at TAFE), I alays try to be my best. One memorable work-based-course-presentation was supposed to be 10 minutes. I overprepared and went for 25, although if they hadn't had a stopwatch, I don't know if they would have noticed (no bragging, that was my feedback). I like being able to pit my brain against something and put a project together.

But I don't know. Something happened with this course. I liked the presenters, the subject matter was relevant to my work, but somewhere along the line it stopped being important to me to do the assignments. I got the knowledge, I participate in class, I took notes, but once I was home, I had no motivation or drive to complete things, let alone complete them well. The last assignment I turned in late, incomplete and didn't think about it again.

That is, until the presenter showed up at work in June with a paper full of notes and corrections with a big legend across the top saying "Not Competent". I took it, saying I'd try again (I couldn't even lie and say I had tried. We both knew I had half-assed it).

I put the assignment on my desk at home and there it sat for 8 long months. I didn't think of it again. I'd occasionally look at it, but the only emotion I could raise was a sort of impotent anger towards "fake assignments about fake meetings" that even I know what bogus and childish.

Eventually, as they were wrapping up the course (they're revamping it next month), the presenter got around to marking some of my old assignments and emailing me the results, full of glowing praise about my written composition, the structure of my arguments, and my in-class participation. I do not pretend that ego did not play a part in what followed. Guilt was also there. It had snuck without paying while the show was starting and snuck in a bag out outside peanuts to throw at the screen.

I responded to the email, thanking the presenter for his marking my paper, and complimenting him on his new beard that I had seen him sporting.

Should have seen it coming.

He responded with thanks, then... "Oh, by the way, I'm still waiting on Module 8, as well as parts of Modules 4 & 6. It's been months If you don't turn them in by the end of this week (it was Monday), we'll be forced to mark you not competent and you'll need to start the course over again."

Well, shit. Part of my new slacker personality wanted me to just go "Fuck it, let 'em fail you." but there was enough of the old overachiever in me to respond in the affirmative, asking for a list of what I was missing from each assignment, so I could sort them out by the end of the week. Yes, by Friday.

The presenter responded by explaining that I'd missed out on small-to-medium bits of 4 & 6, but all of 8 needed to be redone, preferably using his notes.

"No problem", says I. "I still have the copy you gave me in June." He took the opportunity to tell me that he was rather disappointed in me, since I was clearly good enough to do this, and I was the first to hand the assignment in, and now the last to finish. Thanks, Dad.

So Tuesday night, I sit down and I clear off assignment 4. Then I prep assignment 6 to do later at work (since that assignment is about meetings and one-on-ones and I had based my prepartion and reflection on imaginary meetings, the part I was missing was, you know, the meetings).

I also noticed that I couldn't find the copy that the presented had returned to me with his notes. I also couldn't find the book of data from that lesson that was necessary to do the report. Non-plussed, I emailed the presenter, saying that if he could, could he bring me a copy with his notes and another booklet, or I could go pick it up before work.

Felt good about myself.

So good, that when I came home from work Wednesday night, I sat down with Tanja after dinner and watched a bunch of Madmen. I remarked on the way to bed that I hadn't done any assignment work, but it's okay, I'd do the hard yards Thursday night, and hand it in to the presented on Friday, right on time. I put the stuff I'd finished into my bag to bring to the presenter at the other office in my lunch break sometime this week. He hadn't emailed me about the booklet/notes, so I sent him (and another presenter, for good measure) another email saying that if he wanted the assignment done by Friday, I was willing, but I needed him to help me out.

Oh yeah, and did I mention? On Wednesday I got a flu shot.

Thursday I was sick. Really sick. Like wake up at 4 am to throw up kind of sick. II didn't go to work, I didn't think about the assignment, I just laid in bed and literally (with no hyperbole, superlatives, or exaggeration) cried, and willed myself to stop hurting and not die.

Friday arrives. I've shaken the flu. My immune system for the freaking win. I go to work and find an email from the presenter saying "Hi Lucas, yes, you can come get the booklet and my notes whenever you like." Also, the second presenter that I'd emailed, whom I've known for longer, stopped by the office to needle me about the assignment, um, I mean, to say hi. Actually, I'm making it sound callous, he was actually really nice and cool as he always is, and just gave a gentle reminder that these assignments should be a snap for me (again, ego). I called the first presenter and said I'd be over in my lunch break to get the booklet & notes. I head over there (about a 20-minute walk, in the rain. He calls when I'm just outside his office to say "Don't worry, I'll be over at your office, I'll bring it."). So I get the details from him, and give him assignment 4, completed. I make an offhand comment about how it's really quite tough filling in the blanks on an assignment I did in June of '08, and frankly, didn't give my best effort to then. I found it hard matching the more-complete answers with some of the sketchier stuff I'd put in earlier."

Should have known that was laying it on a bit thick.

"Well, you know, Lucas, I'd prefer if you you didn't write stuff out of context. I mean, if you need a few more days to rewrite it all and make it good, then that's fine."

*deep breath*

A FEW MORE DAYS??!

It's okay, I'm calm. He put the guilt boot in a few more times, and I left.

I wrote up his comments in Lucas-speak on Saturday, so I'd know where to start. I would have done more work, but Tanja had decided she felt like cleaning and was doing this thing where she talks to what she's cleaning. "Oh, well, that's no good, is it. It's so dusty!" It makes it hard to concentrate.

Also, I was distracted by internet.

Anyway, wrapping up, I sat down today and did it. The whole thing. And it was fine. Actually, now that I knew I was writing for content, I expounded a bit more than I usually would on a business-report-style format. The questions that had frustrated me previously were much easier, thanks to the practice I have now with handling metrics and strike rates at work. Frankly, as I said to the presenter, I'm a different team leader now than I was then. Admittedly, the math I used was different to what they wanted, but I got there in the end.

So now I'm in a frenetic writing mood. I left two loooong and one longish comment on blogs, and now I've written one of my own. It's not too long, though.

...


...


What?!?

Gah! I'm all sappy!

After looking through my blog-stalking list, I found the following entries. And thewy made me feel all clucky and broody and sappy and emotionful:

"Zoe" by Neil Gaiman (from his Journal on neilgaiman.com)

"The Owl of Bryant Park" By Kevin "Johnny Johnny" Gamble (from Naked Sponge)

"In My Own Image" by Annika Barranti (from Through The Looking Glass)

And just a cute one, "Eight Months" by Stephanie Whalen (from Four of Two)

I read on someone's Twitter that smart Twitterers and Bloggers were part of the "Douchenozzle Offset Program". This made me smile.

Falling behind

Ack! I've been meaning to update this thing for the last week. First I wanted to blog about the terrible morning I had, then about how I tend to subconsciously boobytrap myself when I'm stressed, causing me to try to grab things, misjudge, and knock other things over, stressing me more. Then after a few days I still wanted to blog about the morning from hell and was starting to wonder why I wanted to blog about that so much. Then I thought about blogging about how I tend to hang onto bad experiences, turning them over and over in my head. But I didn't.

So now I'm blogging about how I didn't blog about all that.

The fires in Victoria are terrible beyond belief, and watching the newscasters hovering like vultures waiting for someone to step out of the wreckage to say how it feels to have all your belongings burnt to a crisp makes me a bit sick. On the plus side, I found a bottle of Gold Wasser which tastes lovely and will allow me to make Duck and Covers.

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"

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)!

 

...

...I was going to blog about something this morning.

Really.

I was all mentally up-in-arms about something and I needed to speak on it.

But now I can't remember.

Fuck.

Halloween, but not Hallowe'en.

So it’s Halloween (I always hated putting the apostrophe in between the e's. It was a thing they only did at school). And for the second year in a row, I’ve done nothing. Admittedly, last year I came to work dressed as an undertaker, Craig came as Zoidberg and Rick came with a knife through his head. But we were the only ones. This year I didn’t even do that. The extent of my Halloween dress-up was to wear these shoes to work. They made my feet greener, and me taller but really weren’t all that Halloween. Sigh. On the TikiBar forums, people are posting Jack O’Lantern Tikis and on Neil Gaiman’s blog, someone posted a photo of a Neil O’Lantern. I miss punkins, even though watching them get gutted makes me throw up.

Tanja and I drank some fancy beers on the weekend. I had the idea after watching too many Diggnation episodes. We went to Vintage cellars and got some beers (mostly Belgian, one British and one German). The list was as follows:

-Two bottles of a random German doppelbock of a brand that we’d had before. Ok, not spectacular.

-Two bottles of Chemay Trappist White : A Belgian Trappist blond beer. Quite floral, but very dry as well. 8%, which is getting towards proper beer strength. Good. Thumbs up.
Two bottles of Chimay Trappist Blue : A Belgian Trappist dark beer. Quite sweet. 9%. Fuck yeah. Got the seal of approval from both me and Tanja for the next time we’re there.

-One bottle Delirium Tremens Belgian Strong Pale Ale . Apparently, the shop only gets in one case of it at a time. It’s 9.0% strength and cost $8 per 330 ml bottle. But it was smooth as silk, floral, and just really really nice. Plus the bottle was opaque ceramic. Which is awesome. Plus, it’s named after the shakes that hit when you’re detoxing. Cool.

See what happens when you try new things?

Colbert: "Kids won't stand idly by. They'll go home and blog it."

For some reason Digg won't let me blog this.

So go here:
http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Colbert_Todays_kids_dont_know_how_0920.html
Make sure you watch the video at the bottom.

Is it ironic that I see an article about how people need blogs to express opinions, and my first instinct is that I need to blog it?

A new chapter, sort of.

I've been meaning to make this post for like five days, but life kept getting in the way. Well, I say life. I mean work. Anyway.

I read an article in the paper about Experimental travel, and loved the idea immensely. The soul and centre of it is that you travel (or walk or pub crawl) with a fairly odd and random set of rules in your head, and these rules allow you to see the area you’re in in a new way. It was apparently developed as a way to combat the sort of tourists who can take a Contiki bus tour of Europe, and then check it off their life-list and say “There. I’ve ‘done’ Europe. No more adventure for me!” I had first glommed onto the idea from Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul in which Dirk Gently performs the Zen method of asking for directions, most of which involves following someone who looks like they know what they’re doing (I‘ve done this. You end up in the oddest places). So anyway. The article refers to the Lonely Planet Guide which will come out in four weeks.

I waited patiently (well, patiently for me, which means I check every damn day I’m at work, but don’t tell anyone what I’m doing, similar to what I’m doing now for the Futurama Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection that’s been ‘in transit’ for two weeks) and borrowed the book. It was full of wonderful ideas, and things others had done, which I wanted to do.

Things like taking a train ride across Russia, and once an hour (when you're awake) taking a picture at the same angle out of the same window and writing down your thoughts at the time.

Or taking alternating directions (left, right, left, right) until you run out of places to walk.

Or Dog-Leg travel, where you Zen-ask-for-directions people walking their dogs, and whenever you meet another dog you must switch and follow them.

Or Ero-Tourism, where couples travel separately to a new city, make no arrangements to meet, then try to find one another (that one sounds dangerous, at least for me).

Or Barman's Knock. Go to your favourite pub and order your favourite drink. Ask the barperson where their favourite pub is and what they drink there. Go there and order their recommended drink, and then repeat the exercise with whoever serves you, and so on.

The easiest, at least for me, was Mascot Travel.

Mascot Travel:

Hypothesis: See the world through the eyes of a mascot.
Apparatus: A mascot of your choice and a camera.
Method: Pick a personal mascot and take it on your travels with you, eg a stuffed toy, pet rock or garden gnome. Take its picture outside famous landmarks and record its other experiences with a camera. On your return home, consider making a photo album of your mascot's travels. Show it to your friends. The album should look like you were never there.

Like Amelie and the garden gnome!

I chose my iPod as my mascot of choice. So far, I’ve only done one experiment, but more shall arrive soon. So anyway, here it is:

Travels with iPod: A Mascot Travel Experiment

Frustration

Damn it. Why do good movies always get released JUST after I buy something. Last Samurai, 28 Days Later, Army of Darkness, Undercover Blues, Fight Club, Shawshank Redeption, all the Crow sequels.... They're all under 20 bucks. Then they've released the El Mariachi-Desperado-Once Upon A Time In Mexico box set for 35 dollars. Dagnabbit! Don't these people WANT me to have money?

I'm drowning my sorrows in Shaun of the Dead.

"Aren't you gonna thank me?"
"What for?"
"Tidying up."
"It doesn't look that tidy."
"Well, I had a few beers when I finished."

Also, Blogger seems to be playing up and not letting me post new entries. It freezes when I try to load the update screen. And of course, now that I say it's doing so, it works. Typical.

Warning!

simulcast from Marathon Men:
"T-Minus 12.5 hours until Lord of the Rings Special Edition Marathon Begins. Aw fucken' yeah. that' going to be 11.5 hours of Peter-Jackson-y goodness. And it'll be the best kind of Peter Jackson-y goodness. The kind where we don't see Peter-Jackson."

Yes! Tis true! Der Marathon begins tomorrow morning! Fear us! Fear for us!

Simultaneous postin', baby.

See, that title makes more sense if you hear Isaac Hayes singing it.

Anyway, from right now, all my posts from me journal will be simulcast in http://lokified.blogspot.com, http://www.blurty.com/~loki_nb , and crazy peoples' teeth. This is a regime that has broken others, but will not break me! Ha ha!

On a side note, it smells like it's going to rain, drumming along to Alkaline Trio's Bloodied Up with your fingers makes your fingers hurt, and I have dishes to wash.

Yo.

Look, ma! I have a Blogspot thing now. No more anonymous for me! No sir!

...

Stupid lack of anything good to say. Not that it's ever stopped me before.