Ugh, so I’m older again. This time the number is 27, and it’s about as sucky at 26, in that virtually nothing has occured in the intervening time. Alas

So what did I get for my birthday (I’m such a kid):
I got some kitchen implements, towels, utensils, odds and ends, from my parents. Further, they got me Mario Kart, which was my brother’s idea. It’s pretty fun, I kind of sucked at it at first, but using a heavier class of character compensated for my lack of steering skill. My parents also picked up an extra wheel as they thought it didn’t come with one. But it all works out, since it’s useful for the second player to have one as well. And given my penchant for external harddrives, they got me a shelving unit to store them all.
My brother and his girlfriend Amanda got me a new alarm clock, an ipod mount (that only cost $5, it was a bonus prize), and a waffle iron. Yes, a waffle iron.. I asked for it. I dunno, I just felt like waffles.

Alicia unfortunately got me Mario Kart as well, which I think is the first time that’s happened… so she did a little emergency shopping the next day (I was quite prepared to give her an extension, heh). We met up later for dinner and movie. She got me novelty door hangers for work, the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (which goes to the top of the reading list, and is now 5 books long), I haven’t read any of it yet so I can’t give any insights. She got me a bottle of Magnotta sparkling ice wine, which is a new one for me. It’s presented in such a way that it’s obviously something you drink on a special occasion, so I’ll be hanging onto it for a while.
The last gift she got for me was a game called Okami, and it’s really a stunning game. The whole game is presented in a cel-shading japanese parchment look, and one of the main gameplay dynamics is the ability to freeze the action and paint symbols on the screen, like a line for a slash or a little bomb to create one. It is, however, just a tad talky. We wanted to head out with 15 minutes to spare, and so I started playing it just to get a taste. 18 minutes later, the initial backstory and intros and endless textboxes were done and I gained control of the character. Wow.
Also, I have one of the game boxes with the cover having the IGN logo, pretty funny.

For my brother, I got him a Barbecue, they wanted one for the balcony. It looks quite nice.

Anyway.. I haven’t posted in a while, work has been even more all-encompassing than usual, but I’m at the threshold of sleep. And in september I’m part of a group staging a trip to Greece, but we haven’t finalized quite yet.

Until next year.

It’s that time again, I’ll just post a few links to a couple flash games I’ve played recently that I’ve enjoyed.

Music Catch - Minimalistic but soothing little game, collect the shapes for points, get a high multiple, avoid the bad shapes… all set to a nice bit of piano music. Pity there aren’t other songs. Not really that challenging or exciting, but a nice wind-down game.

Chronotron - Collect the time item and return to your Tardis, but of course, you can’t, so you need to revisit yourself in the past and have your past selves help you. This idea has been done before, but this version is pretty neat. But buggy, since your past selves sometimes fail to do what they once did.

5 Differences - Given a left and right panel, find and click on the 5 differences. Seems pretty boring, but the artistic qualities are engaging, for me anyway.

6 Differences - The sequel, which adds really nice sound, new effects, weird mirror image rounds, generally kind of spooky (for some reason, it reminds me of Egyption Jukebox, imagine that with “spot the difference"). Art here is really interesting too, it’s like the game is trying to tell a story, but I’m not sure what it is. Some of the differences here are frustratingly subtle, or are so dark (on my monitor) that it was quite frustrating. But for a “spot the difference” game, this is one I’ve played more than once, as seemingly silly as that sounds.

Procrastination would have be my middle name, but my parents never got around to it.

I found this but can’t remember where, and nothing is on it to indicate whom to credit, so I’ll just say I didn’t draw this, but it’s hilarious. The context was something about internet dating, but it applies to me since I often start my courting process using the net, to disasterous consequence.

The image after the jump
(more…)

Hurrah, I get to look like a 16th century peasant again.

I have a cold sore, on my lip, and it’s huge and ugly. Haven’t had one in years to my memory, or rather, one right on my lip in such an obvious and disease-infested-looking way.

I used to get them on my lip a lot, but then it just sort of stopped, and for a while, I thought I was lucky. But a few things have happened in the last week. One is that I was starting to get sick. Alicia was getting over a cold, but I’m pretty sure I was starting to feel lousy before our first encounter during the vacation, so it’s probably not from her. Two, on Friday I got sunburned a bit, including on my lips, which is a factor for triggering the cold sore. I think it’s probably both.

So yesterday evening my lip kind of tingled, and when I got home I saw a single bubble forming. This morning I woke up, and it was just hideous. At work, it just got more and more irritating so I went to the bathroom and popped as much as I could. Now I look like I’ve been punched in the mouth or something, which is mildly preferable. But up close, you can still see the bubbles and raw red flesh and general badness. When I got home I put a drop of Purel on it, just to see… it was quite painful, and reverted back to Polysporin.

But, in my experience, I usually go the classical length of time no matter what I do. 14 days.

May my immune system one day learn to cope

Well, alas, the final day of the vacation. And this one was the least vacous, again in the two senses. I got no cleaning done, but I did go out and enjoy some of the uncharacteristically good weather.

Alicia and I were originally planning to go to the ROM, but after seeing how nice it was yesterday, we decided instead to head for Center Island. We were sort of thinking on hitting Centerville since I had never been, and Alicia had been when she was younger. So at 2pm we headed down to the ferry, and even that we weren’t sure if it was running. But luckily it was and we have a fairly empty boat-ride over.

Unfortunately, Centerville was still closed down from the off-season, which was sort of expected. We walked through it anyway, which was kind of spooky, it was like a ghost town, since it was meant to resemble a little town, and of course, was empty. We went to the little farm-animal area, since they can’t shut down the animals in the off-season, and looked at the horses, a donkey, and some playful rams. On our way out, however, we encountered a far more aggressive animal.

There were geese all around, but mostly keeping to themselves, but keeping a watchful eye on the various people strolling around. But when Alicia and I were just about out of the area where we came in, a fairly large goose came down and was really displeased to see us. I have to figure that there were ganders, chicks or just general nesting nearby and this one felt threatened. It basically landed right in front of us, approached, and started to hiss. yes, these bastards hiss, and it was more alarming than anything else it did, since when I think of a bird, I don’t think of hissing. Snake, yes, goose, no. Then it charged at us. In a strange twist of fate, the jean jacket (well, actually a denim shirt I was using for a jacket) was slung over my shoulder, and also the cellphone that had been in the breast pocket I had moved to my pants pocket for no really particular reason. But I was able to quickly give it a little twist (like with a towel) and I whipped the bird in the face. I’m not sure how much of a connection there was, but I wasn’t actually trying to hurt it, just scare it off. If it hadn’t worked, I probably would have been forced to hit it in the face or grab it’s neck to keep it from nipping either myself or Alicia, as those beaks are capable of moderate damage. But it backed off and we were able to walk away, but I looked behind me a few times, and it was standimg there, keeping an eye on us. I’ve never had to fend off a bird before, it was an interesting experience.

After that, we walked at random, but generally veering in a single direction, walking on the sand and looking at things along the way. We started from basically the mooring point at Center Island, and looking at google maps, I can see that we nearly ended up at the airport, and Hanlan’s Point Ferry. At the time, we didn’t know where we were, but I could see the gap in the water between the landmass we were on, and what I now know to be Muggs Island, meaning there would be no bridge back, so we turned around and headed back to the main part of Center Island. I don’t know how far it was because google maps can’t give me a damn driving estimate on Lakeshore Ave or anything else on the island, but it looks pretty far. I feel justified in my sore feet now. Something else that’s off-season are apparently the washrooms. Everywhere we went it seemed the washrooms were “Closed for the season". In the end, the only restrooms we found that functioned were in a restaurant, and the ones closest to the Ferry… the Ferry itself have washrooms. What the hell is the point of that?

We had dinner at a nice little restaurant on the island, mostly empty since the season hasn’t actually started yet. I had a Steam Whistle beer on account of mistaken identity, I thought it might have been a beer I had before. It was quite unplesant, but I was so hot and thirsty, it was finished fairly quickly. We rode the Ferry back, had coffee and I walked her home. It was a very nice outing, and I think I got some sun, perhaps too much sun. At this point in the seasons, it’s hard to even imagine putting sunscreen on, but perhaps I should have.

So tomorrow will be vacuuming and mopping. And perhaps a little work-work. But as my vacation comes to an end, I increasingly feel the desire not to do that. Actually, as I count the weekdays off as being the vacation, I guess the Vacuous Vacation is now at an end.

To the next

The first part of the title, Vacuous, had two meanings. One was to imply that it was a vacation where nothing of interest went on. The second was about how I was cleaning the whole time, including vacuuming. The former was broken today, the latter has not yet come to pass.

So I continued cleaning last night, into the wee hours. I did some of the bathroom and more kitchen, and a minimal amount of dusting, but alas, I haven’t gotten around to the main events of vacuuming and mopping.

But today I did go out, I woke up quite late and got invited to a drinks outing near Scarborough Town Center, which is a bit of a jaunt on the TTC. Went to Boston Pizza with a few people for drinks on the patio and dinner, and then home. But getting there, the event, and getting back took quite a while, and I was quite dehydrated by the end of it, and had a headache. So I recovered a bit and decided it was too late to kick on the horrendous noise of the vacuum.

I’m also going out tomorrow with Alicia to the Toronto Islands, just slouching about, enjoying the last of the week’s vacation. Hopefully I’ll do the rest of the cleaning on Saturday, and then do some of the work-work I desperately need to do on Sunday.

And then work from home on Monday when the TTC strikes.. aaarg, they lost the better part of my sympathy last year when they pulled the wildcat one. I’ve decided not to try to walk to work again, it wasn’t worth it really. I can work from home for a while I suppose, but if it drags on, measures will be taken.

And thanks to Ian if he’s watching

Not much went on today. Cleaning continues. Threw out a number of bags of garbage, and finally, for the first time, it actually looks like there is less stuff in the apartment.

Did laundry, and I went through my ‘laundry couch’. That’s what I called the mid-sized couch on one side of the living room. No one ever sits there, and for about a year now there has been an increasing amount of stuff on it. I thought it was mostly bedsheets and the like, but it turns out a good number of shirts were hiding under that. I knew it was all washed, but I didn’t know what all was there. So I put away all the sheets, changed the one on my bed with the one I used to have on (and this one actually fits. The other one was just barely large enough to keep slipping off a corner each night.) I folded everything else up, and did all the rest of the laundry, including comforter which is always fun. There’s actually a sign up in the laundry room from Phelps, the new coin-laundry people, but now it’s cards, and even if it wasn’t cards, the prices are more in the realm of paper money at this point… but yes, a sign, listing about 8 things you must not wash in their washers and they accept no responsibility for ruining. Comforters is on there. Oh well, it came out okay. I don’t know why they don’t just put on shirts, pants, clothings, material, pets and everything else on that list as well.

Tomorrow, as long as nothing else comes up, will be for vacuuming, mopping and dusting. I’m guessing I’ll vacuum first, which kicks up dust, then dust, which falls on floor, and then mop, which will get the dust too. Not sure. The bathroom will be it’s own adventure I think.

It’s been a working vacation… but not in the usual way.. but something tells me I’ll be paying for not making it that way very soon.

I continued cleaning today. Went to Shoppers to get some more cleaning supplies, rubber gloves, another bottle of Sprite to mix with boozes, etc. Tossed out a lot more crap, but it still looks like I haven’t done anything. Well, the kitchen is a little better. I’ve been washing virtually every plate, utensil, and cooking implement, because they pretty much had all been used. One nasty thing occured… in one of the cupboards there was, well, a board, for cups, that was just above my ability to see the top surface. I had put a glass that I washed up there, wasn’t quite dry yet. I moved it a little later, and found it resisted a bit, like it was stuck to something. I took everything down and then the board as well, and it was revolting. I mean, even the board has some gunk attaching it to the side of the cubboard. It’s as if the people who lived here before me (or before them, or before them, infinitum) had used that board for putting USED glasses. It was covered in brown… like, this thing was white, but there was virtually no part of the surface that was still white. I used a lot of Fantastic and a scrubber sponge, and washed it down. It’s better, but apparently still stained beyond my ability to clean. The bottom board, that I can see the surface of, wasn’t like that… I can only imagine the status of all the other ones, ugh. At least I can say that, in this one regard, I made the apartment cleaner than it was when I moved it.

Jen, a co-worker, said that she reads this blog. I have no idea how often, or how carefully, but that sort of surprised me. See, I trust in people’s boredom, I trust them to be so bored with my little scribblings that they won’t bother to read them. I have friends, who’ve I’ve talked about in here, and I don’t generally worry, because I trust that they won’t bother with this blog and find out. My old journal was quite quite personal, and, well, devestating, for me. I’ve learned that ‘taking about it’, no matter what ‘it’ may have been, assume it’s something bad and painful, but in any case, ‘talking about it’ never really helps me. The old journal was shut down when I wanted to make this website a little more public, in that, I could tell my friends about it. For a long time I didn’t have a journal at all, but then I wanted to write some general stuff again, so I installed Wordpress and started a new journal. But, as it wasn’t to contain the very overt personal stuff, I decided to call it notjournal, a name that still survives on the button. With the old journal, I used to just overthink things and find new and exciting ways to express my horrible, horrible feelings. And you know, when I stopped writing it down, and stopped telling my friends about it (or, as was more likely, one friend) about it, I actually seemed to get better.

Obligatory Douglas Adams quote: “It is of course perfectly natural to assume that everyone else is having a far better time than you. Human beings have a phrase ‘The other man’s grass is always greener’ which describes this phenomenon. The Sheltenack race of Brupekedrin 13 had a similar phrase, but since their planet is somewhat eccentric botanically speaking, the best they could manage was ‘The other Sheltenack’s jupleberry shrub is always a more mauvey shade of pinky russet’ and so the expression soon fell into disuse … and the Sheltenacks had little option but to become terribly happy and contented with their lot - much to the surprise of everyone in the galaxy, who had not realised that the best way not to be unhappy was not to have a word for it.”

Yesterday in my other adventures I picked up the box set of the entire Dr. Katz collection. I rather stupidly had bought the Season 1 and Season 2 DVDs at earlier points. After buying the second one, I looked it up online to see when Season 3 was due to be out, to discover that they weren’t going to do that, they had released Season 1, Season 2, and then everything in one box set. Bastards!. Anyway, so I got the whole thing and have been watching them in between cleaning and Super Mario Galaxy.

I figure Wednesday I’ll gather up all the clothing and crap I’ve got around and do several loads of laundry and get all that squared away. Hopefully get around to vacumming and then mopping the floors finally. And at some point I’ve got to get a testplan done, since there’s no way I can get it done in the single actual work-day remaining. I suck as estimating.

I took a week-long vacation, and it started today. Work has been particularly trying at late, for a variety of reasons. But ultimately, I’m just getting really tired, fatigued, and generally sick-feeling. I wake up and get to work so late, so I work late to compensate, which means I’m up late, and do it the next day and so on. Weekends seem to screw me up more, not enough time to reset.

So a friend of mine suddenly decided to take this week off, and I thought, yeah, that’s an idea, and I put in my request as well, but I admit I wasn’t expecting it to be approved, since basically there won’t be a time until after summer that is a ‘good time’ for a vacation, but I got it. Maybe she and I will get together at some point during it.

This first day (I’m not counting the weekend, just ‘cause) I got some materials to enjoy the vacation with. I got some groceries and some alcohol to drink myself to death with. Actually, I fear I might not have gotten enough, but I haven’t actually bought for myself for quite a while. Normally the only time I buy booze is when going to a cottage or a friend’s party, so I never expect to drink it all myself anyway.

The grocery store near me was about 5000% busier than I would have expected for a monday afternoon (about 1pm), it was packed with people. I wanted to yell (why aren’t you at work). Curtis and I discussed this once, and the general sense was that there is a large enough population that during any given day, a certain number of them would be off either due to shift work, rotating working weekdays, or on vacation themselves. Of course there’s the non-working husband or wife and the old folks.

There was a heavy concentration of old people actually, in two places; The lottery kiosk, and the LCBO. Both of those are kind of depressing. There was a constant buzz around the lottery kiosk, people going up for a ticket, going off to the side to do whatever they need to do to it, and back again. I’ve never bought any lottery ticket or scratch card myself in my life to my knowledge. I’ve received them as stocking stuffers, usually my brother wins $5, and I win nothing. Since that can be expected, and I had a 50/50 chance to get the scratch cards with the $5, which is far better odds than anything I’ll ever see anywhere else, and I still lose… well, that was my sign never to play those things. Maybe I will once I’m on a fixed income too, but it seems an even worse bet there.

In the LCBO, it’s quite an eye opener seeing these little old ladies with their walkers buy larger assortments of hard alcohols than I am, or indeed, have even heard of. I bought a bottle of Triple Sec, Banana liqueure and a vidal Icewine. The last stands on it’s own, and the first two are mixed with sprite for generally pleasant effects. The little old lady in front of me was buying like 8 bottles of stuff. And that’s not my only sample point, there were others of similar temperment in the store.

Back home I managed to do a little cleaning. My bedroom is approaching a displayable status. The livingroom needs a bit more work. The kitchen and bathroom need to be hosed down with acid I think. Hopefully I’ll make progress over the course of the week.

And hopefully eliminate this fatigue

My First (and likely last) Restaurant Review

My friend Curtis writes lots of restaurant reviews, some of which I’m featured in (as Male Friend mostly, except I think once where he referred to menu as, or as not, ‘Shawn Friendly’, making reference to my many food aversions). So I thought I’d do one of my own.

The Restaurant I’m reviewing is called Bamiyan Kabob, it’s near Don Mills and Overlea. It serves Afgani food, and I’ve been there a number of times for lunch.

The place itself is kind of crappy, it’s a small place, tables are close together and I find it kind of clausterphobic, difficult to move around. That wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t as popular as it is, with quite long lineups and we often get there early for lunch because of it. The tables are quite small given the foodprint of the trays and baskets, we often put the plates on the table and dispose of the trays immediately.

The ordering is done first, and then you sit and wait for your number to be called. With the ambient noise level, it is sometimes difficult to hear if your number has come up. A little led-light sign would do a lot to make this less irritating.

The food itself though, I find quite good. I can only speak for the chicken kabob, since that’s what I always get, but I beleive the others who’ve ordered beef and lamb based kabobs have enjoyed them, given our repeat visits.

The chicken kabob itself is off the skewer and layed out next to salad, a small dollop of salsa-like food, sometimes rice, and with it comes a little basket with naan. The chicken I’ve always found to be flavourful and, this is the interesting bit, I have no problem eating all of it. Normally when it comes to meat, any meat, I’ll trim and trim and trim, sometimes significant percentages of meat are removed along with the gristle (whether it is merely perceived or real). It reminds me of a Barbecue that Alicia held several summers ago, she made kabobs, with chicken ones for me, and I really enjoyed them. Of course the spices were different, but I was still reminded of them, probably because that’s the only other time I had kabobs to that point.

The Salad that comes with the meal is sort of tacked on, it’s nothing particularly good, just lettuce with basic dressing, I often don’t eat it since usually the rest of the food is quite filling and the salad is the best candidate for dismissal. The naan is probably the best part of the meal, it always seems very fresh and warm and compliments the meal nicely. The only thing that’s missing is something to dip it in, but maybe that’s just a travesty, heh.

That’s what you get with the lunch, which comes to 8 dollars which is kind of high for lunch perhaps, but it’s worth it. The dinner is actually the same thing with quite a bit of rice. That comes to something like 10 dollars which doesn’t seem worth it either, but the rice is actually quite good and makes it a very filling meal.

So I endorse it heartily, it’s got good food but is suffering the effects of being a dinky little location that is overly popular for it’s size. Cramped conditions, moderately slow service, but food even I can eat. I call that a win.