Five Years is a Long Time

On Thursday at work we needed to make sensor springs for a certain product. Basically, you take a crap load of gold (colour) wire, spin it a million dimes around a drum, and then cut down them all off, so you have a many wires of a determined length. Then you take this old teal wireless screwdriver, put a special shaft on it with an opening, insert a wire into the hole, bend it over, and spring the whole thing around the shaft until you have a spring that's 1/4inch long. The trick is to get each wrap to be flush with the one before it, so that there aren't any gaps. Anyways, I'm one of the only people in the company who knows how to do it, and I got through a hundred or so of these things before The Powers At Be got one of the junior staff to take over. He'd never done it before, but he's a pretty smart guy and fairly mechanically inclined. So I showed him how it was done, and then handed the drill over while he sat at my desk and I chugged away at whatever it was I was working on. The next half-hour was full of him muttering "crap", "f*ck", "sh*t", with the odd "is this good enough?" to break things up.

I thought about when I was the one that learning how to make those cursed springs. It was actually the very first task I did on my first day of work. I don't remember much about the first few weeks - it's all kinda hazy, and full of half-memories. But I recall making those springs. Cursing - not in such a vulgar matter, mind you - and throwing fistfuls of screwed up sensor springs into the garbage.

It's getting pretty darn close to the five-year mark since that happened. I graduated in June and worked part-time at a mini golf/miniature train theme park outside of a major tourist trap near where I lived. Towards the end of the summer I had my heart crushed into itty-bitty pieces, and took a couple weeks off (now that I'd lost my job at the tourist joint, as it closes for the fall/winter). I remember bumming around home a lot. I remember long walks in the cool autumn air, and sitting at the computer occupying myself with... I can't remember what game. Probably Counter-Strike Source, Day of Defeat Source, Battlefield 2, or a concoction of all three. Concoction. What a weird looking word.

Anyways, the weeks rolled by and I applied for work here and there with no luck. I got my first car, purchased with a loan from my parents - a red 1986 CRX Si, with standard transmission. Which I didn't know how to operate. I got a job as a vacuum salesman, believe it or not, where I learned how to drive stick under fire. Including the commute, my day went from 6AM to 10PM. Two weeks went by where I realized that the job wasn't quite as elegant/lucrative/easy as the three-day training had made it out to be. I was making a late appointment in a nice neighborhood at 8/9PM - my last of the day. It was raining, and I was standing there with a vacuum in one hand and a kit of necessary props for making the pitch in the other. I was tired and wet, and I'd been spending more time in my car than actually talking to people. I rang the doorbell and put on a smile. A mid age couple answered, I could see some kids in the back of the house. They didn't want to see the demo, of course - not even the free gift (kitchen knives! Wow!) would get me in the door. But rather than the cold, yet polite, refusal, they talked to me for a bit. About... Me. Who I was, what my plans were. I said I wasn't sure what my goals are, but I'm working towards saving for school. Then something weird happened. They told me to go home. They said I could do better than hawking vacuums all day. Maybe they knew or recognized something I didn't know was there. Or maybe they just knew how to screw with a fatigued and naive kid, in a soaking dress shirt under the late-night glow of a porch light with rain pattering all around. I quit the next day. I mean, yeah, I knew the job wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, but that event pushed me over the edge and give me the courage to make the jump. I meant to send that couple in the nice house a card or letter of some sort, but I never did.

I made about $250 with that job, a gross fortune less than the hours or effort I put into it. I went and got a job with a large telephone computer-support center in town. Everyone knows about it, and no one wants to work there unless they really have to. I got the job (they were hiring ANYONE), at a whopping $10/hr. I was thrilled. I went through training for two weeks with a collection of pretty good people. I wasn't particularly thrilled by it, but I figured I'd manage. The one or two calls I did live scared the crap out of me, though. It came down to the last week of training, and my mom said that my uncle was looking for someone to come do basic labour at his business in the next province over. Sure, I wasn't too comfortable with my current job, but I wasn't sure if I hated it enough to pick up and leave home just yet. So I sweated over it for a few days and decided a change of location might work out for the better.

To tell the truth, this was largely fueled by the desire to pick up and get as far away as I could from She Who Broke Hearts. So a day before I graduated from training, I quit. I left my second job in as many weeks. Before I even finished training, no less. I felt like a scumbag. But I rolled with it. Said my goodbyes, packed up my computer, and hopped on a Greyhound Bus. I ended up winding sensor springs less than 24hrs later.

So I worked and saved. Assembled kits and products, swept floors. A few months later I learned my CRX bit the dust - there was unrepairable rust on the frame that made the car undrivable. I felt bad because a) My first car had been a failure and b) I ended up stiffing my folks who said they'd hand the car payments. At work I moved up to doing some graphic design - something I'd dabbled with in high school. Did the odd graphic here and there, taking a bit of the load off of the boss. Started doing it more and more, eventually I was doing the creative and rendering for print advertisements and doing product photography. I had a $1000 bursary from graduating which expired within a year. I sent a letter in and got an extension. The next year I bought a grey 1996 Civic CX and moved back home. Hauled everything I owned with my over the Rockies in my lil' Honda. I used up the bursary (and a good chunk of my own change) to take some general studies for two semesters. A bit of business, music, graphic design, and communication theory. I'm not sure if any of it ever became useful. I look back on that year, spending the time not in school by bumming around the house, as a waste of time. I got so little accomplished and spent so much money. I'm not sure what came out of it.

Then I went back to my uncle's business for the summer, intent on going back to school to take... something. But the end of the summer rolled around and I stayed. For a year or two. Moved out of my uncle/aunts house, and in with some co-workers and friends. Applied at art school, got accepted, and was freaked out. Bought a green 1997 Integra without taking my time to really think about it, ending up with a car with a fistful of reliability problems. Did my first year of studies, and worked harder than I ever have in my life. Learned how to throw away all sorts of personal interests for the sake of being productive, even though I wasn't having a whole lot of fun. Finished the first year, applied for the Bachelor of Design program so I could pursue Graphic Design, got accepted, and got freaked out. Three more years of hard work ahead of me, apparently. Worked 50-60hrs/week during the summer between years one and two, where I sat at a desk typing while a 19-year-old straight out of high school is cursing at the little gold wires that contort themselves around a teal cordless drill.

Looking back, that rainy evening by porch light seems like a lifetime and a half ago. Five years. Five years. But at the same time, it can't be that long. How can that much time pass by so quickly?

This summer we had a family reunion. Lots of grey faces I don't recognize. My grandmother is moving out of the family home, though. They're going to sell the house my father grew up in, which will probably be bulldozed along with the meticulously kept garden in the back yard. People are getting old. My parents are getting old. And that means I am too, which freaks me out more than a little. Look at me, I work overtime and renew my car registration and plan out my second year of education. I'm not 15 or 16 or 17 any more, and I never will be again. Time is such a brutal, relentless beast.

It makes me wonder what I have to show for it. My musical/instrumental skills, something I used to cherish and practice so intensely, have gone all to hell. Same as the relationships with the people I went to elementary/high school with for 9 years. But I can kinda draw now. I can build a computer from scratch, and replace a dead car battery. I know how to use selective colour in Photoshop to balance out the inherent magenta hue from the florescent photo table. I can use writing to be long-winded and cathartic. I can work 80hrs a week for 15 consecutive weeks. I can... Flawlessly wind hundreds of sensor springs without screwing up a single one.

Is that it? Is that all I've got to show for myself for 1/15th of my life expectancy? And me, here, now. Is this the best I can do for being 1/3 of the way through my existence? Where are all the glorious adventures and exciting experiences and all-around awesome things I expected to be doing by now?



Looking back at me of five years prior, it's so easy to point out how dumb and clueless I was. It's harder to admit, though, how dumb and clueless I still am. Especially over the last year or so it's become obvious how little of the world I can see and understand, even comprehend. It's like I'm wearing horse blinders or something. Walking around in a fog. Driving a 20-year-old Honda around in the dark and rain, straining to see the unfamiliar road ahead through the streaks left by old and decrepit windshield wipers.

It's a crappy realization to stumble upon. One part disheartening, two parts frightening. I'm a male in his mid-twenties. Shouldn't I be on top of the world, having all sorts of adventures, conquering whatever gets in my way and forming a foundation for a happy future? Foundations need terrain to excavated before they can be laid down. Some days it feels like I'm just diggin'.

There's still lots of time to have adventures, right? So what, maybe I'm pissing away what many consider to be the best time of a person's life. I still have the majority of my life ahead of me, and I can turn things around and make things alright. The world will keep rolling, so maybe I should roll with it and take things as they come. Maybe things will get better. Maybe they won't. Maybe I just oughtta shut my trap and keep on keepin' on.
-Cril

The pages of the calendar
Are flyin' off faster as I get old
And if I had a second take
I'd wanna make the same mistakes
Except for the clothes

And the part about the one that got away
When I was blind I fell behind
And here I've gotta stay

And I'm lying here wonderin'
Is it finally sinkin' in
To my weary heart, my foolish pride
And my stubborn head

I woke up on the right side, I woke up on the right side
On the right side of the wrong bed

Smash Mouth - Right Side, Wrong Bed

Cruising Altitude - Games and Such

And now, a break from your regularly-scheduled angst/anxiety-ridden blog posts.

One of the great things about being a video game enthusiast is that the medium still in a period of rapid growth. I hesitate to say infancy - it's certainly come a long way from even five years ago, but there's still an unbelievable amount of potential to unlock and distance to travel. But witnessing the strides this form of entertainment makes can be so engrossing and rewarding. Every once in a while, you can't help but say "WOW!" And I'm not talking about some lame old MMO, either. Moments where, if you hadn't been sitting down (as you tend to be for playing games), you'd be knocked clean off your feet. It's not where you think to yourself, "Huh, that's pretty neat" and move on. It happens when you legitimately have a hard time believing what just transpired in front of your eyes as a result of a finely-crafted experience and the direct input of you, the player. It's a rather rare sensation, but for me at least, it comes along infinitely more often than I find in literature or cinema. I think it has to do with the immersion created by the constant input and focus needed to partake in games. But the whole books vs. movies vs games topic is it's own beast. My point is that there are moments in my digital adventures and travels that I stumble on something that truly amazes me - as a credit to fine craftsmanship and/or technological developments.

Earlier in the year I stumbled across Wings of Prey - a great WWII combat flight sim. Because of my deep-routed addiction to all things WWII (particularly pertaining to the aircraft of the time), I quickly fell in love with the game. While I really wanted a sequel to Jane's WWII Fighters (a title I was particularly smitten with while in high school), Wings of Prey turned out to be fantastic. Sure, the DRM is garbage and it sucks that I needed a separate gaming e-commerce service in addition to Steam installed to run it rather sucked - I wish I would've researched it before the purchase. But aside from that? What a gorgeous game, with solid mechanics, and, most importantly, a great selection of planes that are meticulously detailed. Anyways, on to the point.

The Eastern European theater, 1944, flying a night mission for the Soviets in a Ilyushin Il-2. Me and my squad started off quite a ways from the hot zone, so on the way I took the leisurely time to climb up to about 15,000 feet before leveling out. Set course, and cruised for a while at around 300KM/H. It was dark and overcast - the odd snowflake drifted by, illuminated by the partial light cast from an obscured moon. Engine thrumming along. Hypnotic. Relaxing, even. Then 1-2-3 - beams of light are cast up vertically from the ground. 5-6-7, they keep appearing. "That's pretty neat," I think. I watch the search lights comb around the sky, darting this way and that. I'm so high up I can't even begin to see the ground below around the nose of the plane, so I roll over to see if I can spot where the beams are coming from. And just like that, FWOOSH! The cockpit is absolutely bathed in light. I'm totally blinded and can't make out anything on the dash while the projected shadows from the canopy supports move across the interior. "Wow, just wow." So, like an idiot, I take a second to let it all in - the dynamic lighting and small details, like how the light makes the tiny scratches and grime on the windshield so obvious. And then the flak starts. At first it's an odd pop here and there - I roll over to see what's going on, and watch the explosions burst against the dark sky. Pops turn to thuds as the AA fire is closing in. Looking out to starboard, I can see that my wing and fuselage is making a massive cast silhouette against the search light that is still following me. "Well, that'd explain the flak." Pitch the nose down and punch the throttle. I dive for a few seconds and then level out. The searchlight is frantically tracing it's way to my current position, being anticipated with aggressive flak closing in. One more bursts right ahead - the plane rocks, the side of my canopy is scarred, and there seems to be a smoking at the base of the right wing. Ok, enough screwing around. Lord only knows where the rest of the flight is, but I put the nose down, all the way down, and punch the engine into WEP. I go hard. I'm pressing 400KM/H before I know it, and the altimeter looks like it's having a spasm as the number it displays starts to shrink. 470KM/H, 11,000 feet. Keep going. 550KM/H, 8000 feet. The wind is screaming around the torn up metal of the wing. 680KM/H, 6000 feet. The whole plane is starting to shudder and vibrate. Acceleration is dropping as I get closer to my terminal velocity. I don't want to find out how fast that is. Wrench back on the stick and cut the throttle. The plane growns, and I keep pulling back. I finally level out around 2000 feet, and I'm slowing down to cruising speed. I look around and there's nothing but black. The lights are gone, along with any bearing on where my squad is. All I see are vague, morphing silhouettes from the scattered moonlight. Wow. Just, wow.

The rest of the mission was slightly less remarkable, but good nonetheless. The clouds parted, and there was a dogfight with planes against a full moon. Part of it was a rodeo to shoot down German transport planes before they reach their landing strip. It can be tough hunting in the dark, but when the moonlight reflects off the shiny metal wings your position is immediately broadcast.

After that initial waltz with the searchlight and flak I realized I was clenching my teeth. Man, that was good - and intense - stuff. It was hard to realize I had witnessed all that from home, sitting in a desk chair.



The next 'wow' moment happened in Battlefield Bad Company 2. A quick word about the game - the single player campaign was decent, but fairly unremarkable. It was trying WAY to hard to be Modern Warfare. Some of the characters, while a bit cliche, were pretty amusing though. The multiplayer, is well balanced, and I mean tight experience. I think it's the best multiplayer experience I've had since Team Fortress 2. I'd take it any day of the week over CoD multiplayer, which seems like a mediocre deathmatch in comparison. Anways, on with the show.

I had been playing off an on for a month, logging in maybe two or three hours every other week as I could squeeze them in around homework. Anyways, I was playing with a friend, and we were defending this barnhouse come hell or high water. Nothing could shake us loose. At one point the other team changes tactics, and they start to divert, perpendicular to our location, across to an alternate objective. I was in the loft/attack with my assault rifle, and I was taking quick pot-shots out of this small window that was positioned just high enough to be uncomfortable, restricting my line of fire. The terrain outside was hilly with lots of brush - I didn't want to go down a floor and lose my vantage point. If only I could make that window a tad bit larger... Well, duh. So I stepped back to the opposite corner of the room, took out my grenade launcher, and blew myself a gigantic hole where that old, tiny window was. PROBLEM FIXED. Of course, along with this (now unrestricted) view at an ideal vantage point came the problem of being more exposed to incoming fire. But I made do with my handiwork, and I was able to mop up a squad or two that was crossing the battlefield.

My wow moment occurred right when I walked up to the gaping hole in the wall I had just put there seconds earlier. Sure, the game looks good - the explosion was purdy, what with debris and smoke and all. But I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "This changes EVERYTHING!". Think of it in terms of gameplay. Previously video game environments had been immovable, static obstacles. And manipulation of this was either carefully planned cinematic events or rather gimmicky mechanics for expanding a line of sight. Now, though, the player can (in a way) tailor the environment to suit his immediate tactical needs. And, of course, the ramifications are obvious. As soon as you make that hole and use it, you've immediately traded off line of sight for protected cover. It's a most simplistic balance that makes it that much more effective as a multiplayer element. Prior to that, sure, I'd seen lots of environment mutilation in the game. I thought it was gorgeous. But there, in the loft, it clicked. As I stepped back to take the shot I thought to myself, "No, are you serious? This couldn't possibly work..." I don't know what else I could've expected - I knew quite well what a 40mm grenade launcher will do to the side of a house. But it wasn't until I fired and surveyed the damage that it really struck home what power this had to really change how the game is played. It's an axis of exploration I had no idea was plausible - I'd never really seen it done in a game before. But there it was, and it's like I could see this extra dimension to gameplay that was previously invisible.

Aside from Starcraft II, which while decent didn't have its own wow moment, the only other significant game I played this summer has been Assassin's Creed II. As a whole, I don't have a lot to report. I was a fan of the first title, and I found this one to be an incredible refinement on the formula. There weren't any huge eye-opening features, but it was such a fantastic evolvement of the series that just felt... Perfect. Well, like all games it has its faults, but overall it's a great title. Anyways, my wow moment came from recognizing my surroundings. As odd as that sounds.

I had an amazing professor for my first semester of Art History. She was incredibly enthusiastic and had the best asides and random anecdotes. She talked fast, painfully so as far as taking sufficient hand-written notes are concerned, but her class was so entertaining and engaging. She told a story of how she once went to Florence, and arrived at night exhausted and suffering from jet lag. They logged into a hotel, and went to bed. In the morning, she went to open the window, and right outside was this white statue against a blue background. It was part of a series that lined the entire building. She freaked out. This was some famous hospital/orphanage by some famous artist/architect of the proto-renaissance (what can I say, I'm a terrible art history student. I do great on the exams, but once they're over the information I've memorized vaporizes and is never heard from again).

So there I was, plugging away at Assassin's Creed II in Florence. I was on some assassination mission (as assassin's tend to do), and had just killed the target and was fighting off half a dozen guards. Then I realized, "Hey, those small white statues on blue backgrounds with the shuttered windows sure look familiar...WOW." It hit me that I've seen this place before. It's a real place. I've studied it. At some point I even know what it was called and who designed it. It blew my mind. It's the last thing you expect to find in a video game. Sure, some play tribute to real life locations, such as GTA and Liberty City/New York, but as a whole you grow accustomed to roaming around entirely fictitious environments. This faithfully recreated real-life location felt like a smack upside the head. One of the reasons I fell in love with the Assassin's Creed franchise is that, in addition to the engaging alternate/dystopian story, the games explored lesser-used settings. What's the last game you played that took place in Middle Ages Middle East or Renaissance Italy? But that moment where I realized I was battling and running around the rooftops of a faithful digital replica of an authentic real-world location kinda blew me away.

While not a game, the other noteworthy piece of entertainment I partook of this summer was seeing Iron Man 2. Kidding, that was total crap. Inception, on the other hand, was great. I don't know if I had the same kind of "WOW" moment, but I can say that by the end I was pretty amazed at what had just transpired. The same kind of effect I got from seeing The Matrix or Fight Club for the first time - you feel like the world has just been turned on its head, and you know you just witnessed something unique. The concept was cool, the score was fantastic, the action was well done, and the story was original. There wasn't one single thing that blew my mind into itty-bitty parts, but I was really engaged from start to end. It felt like I was holding my breath the whole time, the whole movie was so incredibly suspenseful. I found the dreams-within-dreams to be quite straight forward, but some of the mechanics involving the dreamer/architect seem a bit fuzzy. Whether or not "reality" is actually a dream is an intriguing notion, which was obviously implemented in such a way as to foster debate. Overall, it's the best movie I've seen this summer. Sorry Toy Story, you were really good too and gave me some funny allergies that resulted in some misty eyes and an odd lump in my throat. It's hard to compare the two movies. They have next to nothing in common. But Inception really left me feeling like I had just seen something really special.

The only other thing that comes to mind, entertainment-wise, is that I played through Left 4 Dead 2, which felt much like Assassin's Creed 2 in regards to the prequel. It's a finer, better tuned experience that feels more flushed out. No big "WOW" moments here (Valve, baby, you know I still loves you, right?), but it was a solid game. The bots can be kinda dumb ("WHY WON'T USE PICK UP THE MEDKIT?!") and I kinda like the cast of characters from the first one a bit more. Ellis is pretty good, though.

And with the summer coming to a close, I probably won't get to make my way through anything else for the next four months. I kinda wanted to try Mass Effect. I got it for cheap on Steam, but I don't have the time to play through a whole game before school starts, so I won't bother. I also tried Red Faction Guerrilla, which was optimized so poorly it was barely playable.

Hrm, this is pressing 2500 words. I should prolly call 'er quits. Please excuse the poor spelling/grammer. I've corrected quite a few, but I have the sneaking suspicion it isn't anywhere near enough.
-Cril

God is an Astronaut - Ascend to Oblivion

Sitting by the fire and watching it burn

And so it starts. The back-to-school pit in the stomach. More like a weight, if you ask me. But yeah - I'm at the two-and-a-half week mark to being back at school. Bleh, not looking to it forwards to it too much. Well, truth be told, I got in phases. "Yeah, I think this year will be alright." I won't be working on the side, so I should have time to make things happen. And "I'm not so sure about this... Can I do it?" Five studio courses. FIVE. Thirty hours of classes a week. Last year, a design studio had about 5-10hrs of homework for each class. And I won't be working. How am I going to get by? So many variables and IF equations, so few solutions or formulas. I was offered a peer tutoring position, which I kinda want to accept. It'll make me feel useful. But do I have time? How will I manage? Ugh.
/anxieties

My last week, entertainment-wise, has gone a bit like this. Play/finish Starcraft II (aliens vs marines), play a round of Alien Swarm (aliens vs marines), watch Aliens II (aliens vs marines and Sigourney Weaver). Lots of aliens and marines within a 72hr period. I don't really have a point to this, I just thought it was an interesting coincidence - something I hadn't planned at all.

So... Starcraft II... I'm simultaneously satisfied and let down. Good story, that's for sure. Great universe and plot events with intriguing characters. Cool visuals and art direction, solid gameplay. On the other hand, it's the same solid gameplay I've seen ten years ago with the first Starcraft. It's VERY similar. The script/dialogue is kinda... Weak. There's no finesse or subtlety - everything feels very deliberate and obvious so that the play knows what's going on. As for the climax and end of Wings of Liberty... I feel that some parts weren't quite fleshed out and I'm feeling a bit unsatisfied. But I want to know MORE. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? Overall, I got lots of mixed feelings. As someone who's primarily in it for the single player campaign, I feel safe in saying that $60 doesn't quite feel appropriate for the experience. It's a good game, but not THAT good. Something is lacking. I suppose the multiplayer is supposed to be the big draw, but that ain't quite up my ally.

My laptop is acting kinda weird. When I boot it up, even before it hits Windows, I get a quick blue screen. Then it takes me to a screen where I can choose to analyze the issue or go straight to Windows. I analyze, and get absolutely nothing of use. It mentions that I should disconnect and new hardware I've added. Which is nothing. I wonder if it has anything to do with the hackintoshing. The only thing I can think of is that I had to enable hardware virtualization in the BIOS in order to install OSX. Bleh. I just don't know. I can't really bring myself to figure it out. I'm just so fatigued. I'm thinking I should maybe use the $900 I saved by not getting a Mac, and find a cheap-o used Macbook Pro in the classifieds that I can use for a semester or two before selling it. I just don't got a lot of fight left in me these days.



I finished up my ABC's. There might be a half-dozen letters I'm not quite happy with, but as a whole I think I produced some good stuff. If nothing else, it totally gave me enough fuel for drawing, period. It's amazing, after I finished the alphabet set, drawing became such a chore. I have such a tough time deciding on what to draw. But I did, eventually, finish my 100 sketches. Not that you can tell by looking at my Flickr feed - I have a bit of a backlog to upload. I need to stop being so lazy.

But, to my credit, I've had a productive couple weeks at work. I got through a big project on my own, that I anticipated would take much longer even with the help of some coworkers. But it's all done. And I bought some shoes and jeans yesterday too. Did I mention I hate shopping? Le sigh.

I'm done Starcraft II, and I'm not going to draw anymore past the 100 sketches, unless I feel particularly inclined. I think I'm entering the 'totally petrified of losing my mind' phase, and I'm pulling back a bit where I can. Two and a half weeks before it all goes to hell anyways. Why bother? Anyways, hopefully I can get some other odds figured out before the end of the summer. Need to figure out my laptop and parking, among other things. Upload the rest of the sketches. Play with the new camera. Play some music, write some more, go for a run, laser the laptop.

The time. She ticks.
-Cril

You break a few bones, you break a few nails
It's like you set me down when you set your sails
You send a few letters but they're never enough
It gets rough, every time you leave me alone

I don't do so good on my own
I need a telescope, not a telephone
Stray cat strutting through a snowy backyard
It gets hard, every time you pick up and go

Joel Plaskett - Every Time You Leave

Playin' with this bow and arrow

I just went for another run. I don't know why, but I did. And you know what? This exercise thing kinda works. My breathing and stamina were significantly better this time around than last week. It's rather surprising how much of an improvement there was, even considering I'm only out there for a half hour or so. Maybe there's something to this whole "getting in shape" thing you keep hearing about these days.

Summer is winding down, and it's like a weight on my shoulders. Pressing harder and harder with each day. So much to do. At work I'm in charge of merging content from one, larger website into an existing smaller one. It's straight forward - there are some bugs and hiccups along the way, but you learn to recognize and tiptoe around most of the pitfalls. The work itself is easy. But it's too easy. Incredibly monotonous and boring, even to the part where I find myself falling asleep. So I've found a secret weapon - WATCHING TV LOLOLOLOL. Once everyone leaves for the day and it's just me left, I put some Daily Show/Colbert Report on one monitor, and chug away. And I kid you not, it feels like my productivity jumps through the roof. It's probably one part keeping my brain stimulated/alert and one part working extra hard to offset the guilt of watching TV while I'm on the clock. But the last two or three days I've done this I've moved incredible amounts of data over. I can't believe how effective it is. It's keeping me distracted from the fact that I'm otherwise bored out of my mind or tired or overwhelmed by all the other crap I need to get done once I get home.

Speaking of which, I've knocked one thing off my list - hackintoshing my laptop. Just completed that today. It took me a good three or four hours, but most of that involved figuring out how VMWare ticks. If something is royally screwed up and I have the need to do it all over, I could probably accomplish it in under an hour. It's surprisingly simple. Mind you, I've used OSX for all of ten minutes. Enough to find out that my wifi works (yay!) but not my sound (boo!). There's probably a lot of other troubleshooting to do, and I'll need to install some standard Adobe programs to see if they work at all. But to be honest... I have zero interest in using it. I just couldn't care less - I have it installed, can I just forget that it's there?

Actually, this is the case for my whole laptop. I don't like it. Well, I do like it. It's a great unit, and I can't wait to laser it and put it to good use once I start school. But maybe it's the old grumpy man in me, but I don't like having a laptop. It's definitely a useful contraption, but... I like my computer. Two big screens, a proper keyboard and mouse, etc etc. I dunno. Just the concept of owning a laptop fails to excite me.

I'm in desperate need of new jeans and shoes. My shoes are being held together by no less than 4 different kinds of tape at the moment. But I cannot describe the absolute empty void for where my enthusiasm for shopping is stored. I can't even stand buying stuff online these days. So much crap is peddled to my face, so little of it I actually want. I don't care if it's for games or technology or toys or tools, there isn't a store I want to go to right now. I checked out the Lego store the other week, just because I've never seen one before. Neat place. The idea of going into a mall with the intent of spending money makes me want to vomit, however.

My brother is in the process of shopping for cars. I'm terrible at car shopping - I always do it in too much of a hurry. But I find it kinda fun. There are so many POSSIBILITIES. Sure, sifting through classifieds and different sites can be rather tedious, but there's something about entertaining the idea of a new car you stumble across. Opportunities investigated and passed, and opportunities seized that leave you wondering what if? Remind me, I should tell you about a certain BMW 325IS some time.

One of the only two air-worthy Avro Lancasters was in Calgary the other day. Its flightpath for landing at the airport was directly over the office. My word, what a gorgeous sight and soul-shaking sound. You see something like that, and you know that you just witnessed something special. Something you'll never forget. Such a beastly, yet elegant, image. Seeing something like that really alters the foundation of your being. It's the kind of thing best left to the poets and dreamers of the world to describe. But it certainly makes you wonder what it would've been like to see formations with hundreds of Lancasters flying overhead. The sound must've been incredible. And now there's only two left.



Anyways, that's all I got for now. I've actually completed all my ABC's, but I have quite the backlog to post to Flickr. I'm getting near the end of my goal for 100 sketches by the end of summer, but now that the alphabet project is done it feels like I've lost a lot of steam. How frusterating. I'm this close to not having to draw for the rest of the summer. And then I start again in three weeks. Yeehaw.
-Cril

From this time unchained
We're all lookin' at a different picture
Through this new frame of mind
A thousand flowers could bloom
Move over and give us some room, yea

Portishead - Glory Box

Demons for Every Day

I did something odd yesterday. I went for a jog. In the rain. During a thunderstorm. The weirdest part? I went for a jog. I can't say that I've ever gone for a run of my own accord - the last time I can recall doing such a thing was in Grade 11 for Physical Education class. Ah, bad memories. I wonder what brought me to do it all of the sudden. It felt good, in a hot, sweaty, twitching and sore muscles kinda way. Maybe I should do it again sometime, so I can pretend I'm not morbidly obese. I'm kidding about that last part, of course. It's so I can pretend I have some sort of muscular matter draped over my scrawny frame.

I'm standing in a precarious position at the moment. I'm stuck between trying to get more hours in at work so that don't go broke in the middle of school versus spending some time at home and trying to knock items off of an ever-growing list of To Do's. On one hand, I think that logging more time in at work and keeping my head down will make the transition back into school less jarring - I'll already be in crazy-go-nuts work mode. On the other hand, I'm worried I might end up stuck just with the crazy-go-nuts part. I'm feeling like I'm stretched out too far as is, and I'm worried if I'll crack sometime during the next five months. I can wait for Christmas, right? Even then, won't I want to take the Christmas break to get some work in? Where does the cycle end? Where does it begin, for that matter? I haven't worked a standard 40hr week since I was in the spring semester and doubling up work with classes. "The dog days of summer". Heh.



One of my goals for the summer is to complete 100 sketches. The sketch-a-day has gone all to hell, but this one thing is attainable and won't leave me feeling too guilty once the fall rolls around. Right now I'm up to sketch 78 - I have a bit of a backlog to upload to Flickr. Anyways, to help me stay focused and keep banging off those sketches I'm working on a series. THE ALPHABET! Of things I like, one for each letter. I just finished up P, and tomorrow I do Q. Which is a problem, because I have absolutely no idea what to use for that letter. I'll need to think on it tomorrow during work.

I stumbled upon an interesting article this week. The entire thing is a good read, but I found this particular quote of interest: "Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test." This articulated something that I really struggle with. I have managed to wire my brain for tests - I can soak up and recall a lot of accurate information in a short time span. After my exam is done, though, I lose 90% of it. Which is a bit of a bummer - I learned a lot of neat stuff in Art History over the last year. But I've retained very little of it. Just little snippets and half-ideas. It rather worries me. But now I know it isn't necessarily an abysmal memory, but just one that's rigged to work a certain way. Which is a shame.

So, I went to a family reunion last week. A few days before, my flew into town so we could hang out a bit and then drive down together. Except my car died. His flight just landed, so I locked up the office, got in the car, and.. Nothing. Several jump starts later (from my uncle), we went for dinner and then home. Trickle charged the battery over night, and in the morning... Nothing. Got a jump and drove to Canadian Tire. Bought a battery and a decent set of jumper cables (one of those things I should probably own), and went out to the dead automobile. Of course, my crappy little emergency kit had an imperial socket set and the car was metric. So back into the store to throw $50 down on a basic imperial AND metric set. Go out, replace the battery, and it works fine voila. I figured I hit two important milestones. First, the rite of passage for any motorist - I made a repair in a Canadian Tire parking lot. The second, is that I bought tools. Yes, that was my first time buying tools evar. I know, It's all sorts of pathetic considering how old I am and have never bought hand tools before. Anyways, some $200 later the car is fixed and made the road trip just fine. S'all good.

School starts in... Exactly a month. Oh boy. And the last hours of the weekend have already withered away. There's so much to be done, and summer's already gone. What am I to do?
-Cril

When I counted up my demons
Saw there was one for every day
With the good ones on my shoulders
I drove the other ones away

So if you ever feel neglected
And if you think that all is lost
I'll be counting up my demons, yeah
Hoping everything's not lost

Coldplay - Everything's Not Lost

Persistance of Memory

I just got back from a Family Reunion that happened this weekend. It was... Interesting. Aside from my immediate family (Grandparent, uncles/aunts, cousins), I can't say I remembered any faces. Well, I vaguely recalled a great uncle and aunt, but that was about it. This reunion was in the same location as one I went to fifteen years ago. It was pretty surreal. I didn't remember faces or names so much as... Snippets. I recalled watching The Lion King in the house, playing in the sandpit, and fetching some alcohol when I was really after some pop. Is that normal? Do people usually remember places and things rather than names and faces?

Anyways. I was sitting at work, plugging away at some website content. Got to Get You Into My Life (by the Beatles, of course) popped up on my iPod. I love the wind instruments in the song. A bit of trumpet fanfare backed up by a repeated theme on the sax. At near the end, everything fades out and back in around a quick guitar solo. So I have musical reasons for having it in my collection. But I was sitting there, something was niggling at the back of my brain. Like I had an itch in my memory. So as I tend to do so well, I sat there and scratched it. I pulled up some window that made it look like I was waiting for a file to save while I sat at my desk and pondered this song. I didn't even know what I was looking for. But whatever it was, it wouldn't come. So I got up to fetch some stock from the warehouse, and BAM! GRAPE JELLY ON RICE CAKES!

No, seriously. That's what I was searching for. Waaaay back when I lived on the northern BC coast, I listened to that song from my dad's collection (I can picture the cassette tape in my head right now) while eating a rice cake slathered in grape jelly. Back then I was allergic to lots of things. Wheat, potato, corn, yeast, milk, you name it. But not rice. So I ate a lot of rice in its various forms, including cakes. And grapes, being one of the few fruits I was simply less allergic to, I'd have as jam. I don't even remember liking the stuff, to be honest. But I guess you have to go with what you got. Also attached to that memory is looking out of the smallish dining room window as it rained, watching water pour downhill on the dirt road. I may have even been wearing hand-socks (for those of you less knowledgeable with such fine garments, when I was a wee kid I used to wear socks on my hands when my skin was particularly bad. Something about covering up the nastier spots felt more comfortable. It's probably why I usually stick to long sleeves or seldom wear sandles to this day).



So the obvious question is... Why? This memory seemed to be dropped on me like a ton of bricks. And the sudden fascination with uncovering it when that song played, I couldn't just put it out of my mind until I had it figured out. And why did it come to my mind then? My iTunes library says I've already listened to it some 70 times. Does it have some kind of meaning for whatever I'm doing now? Is it just because I was about to leave for the family reunion anyways? It really, truly baffles me.

This weekend that great uncle I semi-recall told me about the last reunion at that place, in 1995. I wouldn't have even been 10 by that age. He said he remembers how bad my skin was, and how it broke his heart to see how much it tormented me.

But what does it all mean? It's kinda funny - hearing my great uncle tell it to me like that kinda broke my heart a little bit too.
-Cril

I was alone, I took a ride,
I didn't know what I would find there
Another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there

Ooh, then I suddenly see you,
Ooh, did I tell you I need you
Every single day of my life

You didn't run, you didn't lie
You knew I wanted just to hold you
Had you gone, you knew in time, we'd meet again
For I had told you

Ooh, you were meant to be near me
Ooh, and I want you hear me
Say we'll be together every day

Got to get you into my life

What can I do, what can I be,
When I'm with you I want to stay there
If I'm true I'll never leave
And if I do I know the way there

Ooh, then I suddenly see you,
Ooh, did I tell you I need you?
Every single day of my life

Got to get you into my life
Got to get you into my life

I was alone, I took a ride,
I didn't know what I would find there
Another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there

Then suddenly I see you,
Did I tell you I need you?
Every single day...

Beatles - Got to Get You Into My Life