Offseason Camblings, Part Four: 'Tis the Season

Ah, Christmas times, when I forget to remember what people want and end up just getting them food or gift cards for Christmas. Actually, that’s not an entirely accurate statement, I actually didn’t get anyone any gift cards this year, or books. Books are things I was getting for the brothers pretty regularly but with Tanz in Aussieland and Jord just about to pull the trigger on building his computer, I figure I can safely get Tanz nothing ’cause I’m a jerk and Jord something computer related… Considering he does read these I probably shouldn’t have said anything but I’m pretty sure I already told him that I’ve got it, he’s planning on performing the build on Friday Night, so I’ll be on standby as technical support…and he may very well get the thing then and there. I’ll probably do some post-christmas shopping online looking for miscellaneous things I’ve been after that I constantly forget to remember to tell people. Stuff that I can’t even exactly remember right now because I just spent like 5–10 minutes reading random stuff on Reddit. Yes, it is slow enough to be doing both a new post and a delving into the depths of Reddit. 

 

Now for something completely different. Imma talk video game for a bit, so folk who don’t care can skip this paragraph. With that warning out of the way, now comes “Past and present favourites, why and how; a discussion of entertainment and appeal.” …I really like that title, I should make that a recurring things. Anyway, for the first instalment we’re gonna go way back, so far back that I doubt anyone will remember this. It’s one of my first gaming memories and it took place on an old Macintosh Apple computer, the type that used the big (in girth, not memory) floppy disks and used an old joystick. I can’t remember the name of the game in question right this second, so I’m gonna see if google knows what I’m talking about. … … … Alright, I’m like 90% sure that it was just called “Bruce Lee” and while I remember it playing in black and green I can’t seem to find any images online of it with that specific colour combination. *Shrug* Oh well. Anyway, it mostly consisted of running around, avoiding traps and kicking/avoiding enemies as you made your way through a series of increasingly difficult levels/maps/screens/boards, whatever you want to call them. It ended up looping around back to the start but it took a while to figure that out due primarily to the trial and error approach that the game forced you to take in order to progress. I did eventually get to the point where it looped around and after doing that a couple times I got bored of it and don’t recall ever touching it again. As far as I can tell, the primary appeal to me was to just see how far I could get while avoiding danger from all over the place, learning new things and figuring out how to overcome obstacles, it was all about besting the challenge laid before me. It was quite a while before I figured everything out, having to start back at the beginning after failing… I don’t recall if there was a lives system, I think there was but I’m not sure. Regardless, after I did eventually figure out everything and got back to the first screen I’m pretty sure there was either a sense of disappointment or bewilderment, resulting in me going through it again just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. After that was exhausted I was done with the game, I had proven that I could do it repeatedly, there was no need to do it any more. That being said, it could very easily have been what started my love of challenge in games, to overcome the obstacles laid before me and prove that I could do it leading me down the road to Dark Souls and Monster Hunter eventually, which are similarly action based games about overcoming challenges. I don’t know if that’s the oldest game I remember playing, but it’s definitely one that left an impression on me. It also might be the one that I was playing this one early friday morning in December/November when I declined delivering paper and my mom had to do it and I constantly feel super guilty about it when it pops into my head (which happens more frequently than I’d like), sorry mom, I was a dumb kid. 

 

…Well that happened, I could probably make that a regular thing, considering I barely remember it and I wrote a good chunk about it. But yeah, slow day in a paint store, I haven’t seen a customer in several hours, ’cause who the butt wants to buy paint right before Christmas? Nobody in their right mind, that’s who. After today I’m off ’til the 27th, which is nice, and I expect that day/week to be pretty well completely dead, so that’ll be a fun week, especially since Cheesefest ’16 is happening that week and for whatever reason I’ve been informed that I’m not allowed to ever miss a Cheesefest. Something about being my “brainchild” when all I said was “I wanna try a whole bunch of different cheeses some time, maybe get a bunch of people together to do it with”…which actually is pretty much exactly what it is, though with the added “pair them with wines” due to Ma not being able to enjoy cheese without wine, plus it turned out it’s pretty interesting to see how the combination of flavours works together. That being said, I still can’t stand alcohol so I tend to not partake in the wine part of cheesefest, but boy do I enjoy the cheeses. I’ve learned a decent amount about the pairings by proxy, but no personal experience. Hmm, come to think of it, Lish would probably enjoy that sort of thing, I wonder if she’d be interested, I should ask. I’ll probably forget to do that though, ’cause as soon as I finish typing these things they’re straight gone from my brain. It’s weird, people bring up things I’ve said in these posts and I just stare at them blankly, wheels in my head slowly turning trying to recall if I even said that. I think it’s probably ’cause these posts are so much like my actual thought pattern, and who actively remembers what they were thinking about 2–3 days ago? No one that I know, that’s for certain. 

 

Unrelated, the darkness has begun to recede as we pass by the solstice signifying both the official start of winter and the coming of light, that is to say the sunset will slowly start getting later, which is good ’cause It’s currently 5pm and super dark out there. Oh, speaking of evenings, a couple days ago, I wanna say Monday, it was like the perfect winter evening. Not too cold out so my face wasn’t freezing off, smell of wood smoke in the air signifiying the use of fireplaces and mentally representing comfort and warmth, a beautifully clear sky with stars and the moon making their presence known, I really enjoyed that walk home, I may have been a little hopped up on caffeine… regardless, it was a lovely evening and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I do love this time of you, and it’d be nice to have someone to share it with, hence blog post. I mean, I’m normally an intensely private person due to a combination of “why would anyone care about this dumb stuff” and “People frighten me (really/not really, I’m just super introverted)” but there are definitely times when I find myself wanting to share moments that strike me as either beautiful or exciting but lack people to share them with. I know I’m not a great communicator, and that’s something I want to work on, so that’s probably a big part of it and if we delve too deep I’m liable to lapse into unnecessary sadness, so we’re gonna go ahead and avoid that. Also I’ve gotta close soon, so I need to wrap this up anyway. 

 

Cheers, and Merry Christmas,

 

~Cam

Offseason Camblings, Part 3rd of ???

Round 3, type-type-typing away at nothing, watching the snow fall down softly while internally grumbling about knowing I’ll have to shovel it again before my shift is done. It’s a very snowy day, which leads me to believe I won’t see anyone today which is good for convincing the company to not be open on Sundays in the winter (which is an idea panned by everyone we’ve discussed it with) Hopefully they don’t keep this up much longer, it’s been really dumb, they’re definitely losing money on it. 

 

Enough whining, let the rambling commence! I still can’t figure out how to do a proper paragraph break without more editing than I’m happy with in this app, needing to copy and paste some html code every time I want to add some spacing is rather tedious and annoying, especially since it apparently didn’t keep the previously copied piece of code in the clipboard for…3 or 4 days. Bleh, oh well, I’ll just have to work around it. Side note: I need additional caffiene if I’m gonna stay awake for the next few hours. Time for some Earl Grey. *proceeds to make tea* Ah, I do love the smell of Mr. Gray in the…any time of day, really. 

 

Alright, so what to talk about now? I dunno, probably snow ’cause that’s very present right now. So snow, this soft fluffy frozen water that lightly floats down from the sky and coats the world in a layer of white, muffling sound and making walking more treacherous whilst perturbing those who have to remove it from walkways with shovels and ice melter. Mixed messages, sure, but I have mixed feelings about it. I love the look of it and the silence it brings is vastly different from other weathers, but as a guy who walks everywhere it makes life more hazardous and being a tall guy shovelling it has a tendency to aggravate my lower back. I’m probably doing it wrong, or not using the right type of shovel, but I don’t do it that often except at work.  I do prefer my Christmases to be covered in snow over not snow and just dead brownness, makes things cozier and gives us reason to stay indoors spending time with family. 

 

Speaking of, I’m SUPER BEHIND on my Christmas shopping. That’s a thing I’ll have to do in the next couple days (which I have off because my schedule’s weird [I blame exam time of a coworker]) so I guess it’s time to come up with ideas… in the next couple days and not online, ’cause I like surprises and for people to not actually know what I got them unless they specifically ask for them. Alright, mental note set, I’ll do that tomorrow/later.  

 

*Customer shows up, ruining plans of $0 day*

 

Drat, I was really hoping that I'd sell literally nothing today. Still at a net loss by quite a bit for having me even be here, so that's something. I've also already done two crosswords and a sudoku, and put away a bunch of paint and shovelled the sidewalk, so that says something too. I should work on those creative writing thingies I've got cookin'. I don't really have anything else to say about anything anyway. Nut much happens to me in the span of less than a week...or months...or years really. As I tell a lot of people, I'm not an exciting person. 

 

Anywho, I'm off for now. Cheers!

~Cam

Offseason Camblings, Part the Second of ???

Here we are, once again wandering down the dusty road of “so much time so little to do” as I hang out at work literally not doing anything* and having the sun reflect off the window DIRECTLY INTO MY EYE YOU JERK, STOP THAT.  Seriously, right straight to the face but I can’t have my back to the store so I’m just suffering through it. Bah, I’ve had worse, I can tough this out. Earl Grey will get me through, make me strong like oxen.

 

That reminds me… So here’s a fun fact, my default non-english accent has in recent years become Russian, and I have no idea why. It used to be French, ’cause that was really the only one I was decent at, but for whatever reason my Russian accent grew in power… which is phrased weirdly but surprisingly correct, leading to a “new default” situation. So now whenever I feel the need to express myself in a different accent (which happens pretty frequently, again, no idea why) out slips the Russian. I don’t even know if it’s good. I mean, I think it’s solid but that’s a similar quandary to the “do other people really exist?” quandary that people have been struggling with since conscious thought first emerged. I’m no philosopher though, so I don’t really give any of that too much thought. They’re just flashes in the so-called brain-pan, here for a second and then gone the next, just like most of the topics that I ramble about.

 

Unrelated, I’m gonna have to do a double check on whether or not breaks are showing up properly, I had to do some weird structure editing last time I posted with this app. That being said, I do prefer the formatting on this app over the official Blogger app. It’s a combination of “I can see more of my post” and “options are more readily available” and “I can type up drafts offline to any of my apparently 5 different blogs I’ve got.” Yes, I have 5 different ones. No, I haven’t really done anything on the other ones yet. One’s my defunct WoW blog, the other three are creative side projects that I haven’t even done anything official with yet, it’s all just up in drafts. Creative writing is much more different/challenging than just spewing brainw-ords and thinky-thoughts into paragraphs. You’ve gotta actually consider pacing and flow and explanations and reasons for doing things and types of motivations and how to convey stuff without just punching people in the face with exposition ’cause I don’t care for that nonsense personally.

 

——–Singular but very particular customer that takes up a lot of our time showed up——— 

 

What was I saying? Oh, right, creative writing. I’ve got a couple of creative irons in the fire, ready to burn a hole through my keyboard as I type up a storm in a burst of creativity strong enough to set my fingers ablaze. Side note, that sentence would probably translate very poorly into other languages, idioms and whatnot clogging it up so good…

 

 stares blankly into space

 

I entirely just lost any sort of train of thought that may have been happening. Dead stop, end of the line. I’ve hit a writing block while writing literally anything that pops into my head. That’s a serious case of “no thought” that just happened. Like, stopping a freight train in time to not hit the baby carriage that got stuck sort of dead stop, it was impressive just how much of a stop it came to. 

 

Anywho, I should wrap this up now, I’ve gotta do closing stuffs. Yay time-killing exercises!

 

Cheers!

 

~Cam