Shriek Elegance

Guess it’s been a while. Sorry.

Nothing huge has happened. We got a new furnace last Friday. Took mostly all day to install. Hilariously enough, they had to rewire our doorbell in order to do something, which made it so that the doorbell only worked when the furnace was on… d’oh. Dad spent two days getting the wiring back to something that works. I think it works always now. Unfortunately, it just dings, instead of ding-dongs. Anyway. After that was… someone coming over? I can’t remember. Nor can I remember what happened on the weekend. Monday was D&D and it was hilarious. Supaa-so. The window guys started coming on Tuesday. Back to waking up at 8am whether I want to or not. Kind of annoying to have so many people here making a mess all the time (good God it’s a disaster) but whatever. They finished today. I spent a couple of hours scrubbing down the bathroom and dusting/vacuuming/cleaning the basement (sans Dad’s desk). Stubbed the shit out of my toe because I’m stupid.

Got into a huge and upsetting fight with Dad over dinner last night. Asked Cam if we could hang out at his place instead of here so I wouldn’t have to be in the same house as Dad anymore. So we (me, Cam, Danny) went to his place and Danny and I played Diablo II with Nick. Still upset today over last night’s events + additional assholery, but I’m slowly becoming apathetic. Which means that I should be maybe feeling better by tomorrow. Unless additional assholery ensues. It might. Whatever.

Did some job hunting on Tuesday and Wednesday. I guess all I can do now is wait. And then harrass them. Or something. Who knows. We’ll see.

Other than that, just been playing DDS. I could have finished the game today, but my completionist nature won’t let me finish it without beating the sidequest bosses. For which I need to grind. Sigh. Anyway, when I beat DDS, I’m thinking Persona 4 is next. I’m in the mood. Although, I’m kind of in the mood for P3 since I don’t know anything about P4. So I’m hoping P4 fits the mood. Anyway. Rambling.

Gotten all of my marks except for Shaxpur. Still waiting on it. They’re good so far, though, so that’s cool.

Mom bought me a skirt as a really early birthday present. It’s blue. And flowy.

Yeah that’s all I got for now.

[10:03pm]

SARIKA- my friend’s girlfriend, Kim, would like to take us to get our piercings next week because… well, just because. She knows the guy and everything. So… fyi. XD

[12:10am]

I’m so… stupid and I think I’d like to cry about it. If only.

[1:11am]

I am thoroughly upset over the mass slaughter of all of Egypt’s pigs by their government. It’s fucking stupid and uncalled for. Pig genocide. I hate people.

What we really need is another black plague.

It’s been a nice, relaxing day. I’ve taken to reading before getting out of bed now, since I’ve got the time. It’s nice. I’ll only read a chapter or two because usually I have an overbearing need to pee that I can only keep at bay for so long (lolololtmi?). I read for a bit after breakfast. I’m working on trying to get Twilight out of the way. Oh man, that book is so ridiculous. I don’t know how many friggin’ times she has called his chest “perfectly sculpted” or his skin “cold as stone” or his breath “sweet and intoxicating”. I mean, seriously, after 300 pages, you don’t need to keep telling us that. We get it. That’s just… bad writing mechanics. Think of something new to say. Focus on something else. That’s how writing works. Lordy. Yet I cannot stop reading it. It’s addictingly… addictive. And bad. Oh man.

Played DDS for the rest of the afternoon.

My chest has started to hurt whenever I cough, which is strange. Usually it’s my tummy muscles, but the cough hasn’t been constant enough for that. So now when I cough, it feels like my sternum is splitting in two. I would like for this to end now kthxbye.

[2:26am]

Finished Twilight. Man. I’m an entertainment finishing machine lately. Super awesome. Now if I can finish Toyminator in the next week or so, I’ll really be on a roll. It’s nice to be in the middle of only two books now, though (Toyminator, Blood and Gold). Huzzahs!

‘A call for me?’ called Eddie. ‘I wonder who that might be?’
‘Chief Inspector Bellis,’ called Tinto in reply. ‘Jack’s just been. . . Now, what would that be?’
‘I give up,’ called Eddie. ‘What would it be?’
‘It’s a five,’ called Tinto. ‘Like two is a double and three is a treble and four is a quadriplegic.’
‘Four is a quadruple,’ called Eddie.
‘Well, it’s whatever five is,’ called Tinto.
‘Quintuple,’ said Eddie.
‘That’s it,’ called Tinto. ‘He’s just been arrested for quintuple murder.’

I love Robert Rankin <333

Am coughing up a ridiculous storm. It hurts. A lot.

Got me allergy shot today. It hurts, too.

Started reading both of my books again today, too. I picked up Twilight again right when I woke up, ’cause I was feeling lazy and I really didn’t want to get out of bed yet, so I figured it would keep me occupied. Besides, I needed a laugh. I also started reading The Toyminator again, since I was halfway through that, too. Man I love this book.

Played a bit of DDS today. Of course.

Brianne came over tonight and we did our usual thing. We also watched The Spirit. Hilariously hilarious movie. I love noir stories. So awesome. She also borrowed Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse because she asked what I was reading today and I explained Toyminator to her and she needed something new to read. So I lent it to her.

That’s all. :]

So it’s been a while, eh? I just really haven’t felt like updating. Chuuuuh.

Soooo… I guess the last time I posted was the day before exams? Holy. Uhhm. They went okay I guess. I don’t think I did particularly well on any of them, but whatever, they’re over and done with forebahs. To celebrate, I’ve been playing video games every chance I get :] I managed to beat Dark Cloud 2 on Sunday. I didn’t do the bonus dungeon because it doesn’t add much story, and the story that it does add isn’t very interesting. Also, it’s a huge, tedious dungeon and I really don’t feel like putting myself through that again (there were enough dungeons as it was). So I’ve deemed the game complete. I might go back and do the bonus dungeon someday, but not right now. Yesterday, I bought flOw in the morning and finished it in about… two hours or so. It was a cheap little fun play. Then in the afternoon, I started playing Digital Devil Saga. I like it so far. Having played Persona before helps immensely because all the spell names are the same (zio, agi, bufu, etc.) and there are a couple of different ones (tera, zan, etc.) but they’re simple enough to figure out. Also, a lot of the enemies are past personae, so that’s neat. Everything runs really smoothly because of the animation style. Fighting as a demon is super fun, and you eat your enemies after you kill them. It’s a neat game with interesting concepts. I like where it’s going.

Speaking of yesterday, we were supposed to start getting our windows installed. So we took down all of our blinds and stuff and moved the furniture out of the way. Well they get here yesterday morning and OH, THE GUY WHO ORDERED OUR WINDOWS FUCKED UP. All of our windows were wrong except for our sliding doors. Which means the poor installation guys booked up the next four days to install our windows but they had no windows to install. So they installed our sliding doors at least (which are super nice, we can already tell the noise reduction). Our new windows will be in on Tuesday, so they’re gonna come back and do them next week. Which means we have to go a week without blinds ;-; I FEEL SO EXPOSED. Also, Dad scheduled the furnace guy to come on Friday, so we’re getting our furnace replaced, too. PHEW.

Speaking of Friday, BinaryChaos get together at my place. Seems to be about 10 people coming. Should be good times.

Last night, Danny and I went to Cam’s place to hang out for a while. Danny and I played WC3 for a while, while Cam played some MGS4. Then they played RE5 for a bit and I went home early (midnight) ’cause I needed to get up early today.

Back to today- I went out with Mum to take Lee to the farm and do her errands with her so that I could stop by the school to sell my books, get my new uPass and pick up my portfolio (WHICH SHE SAID WOULD BE OUTSIDE HER DOOR BUT WASN’T). I’m starting to think we had to schedule a meeting with her ’cause I saw a sheet on her door, but she didn’t say anything about it, she just said they would be outside her office. So I’m a little annoyed about that. Thesen just keeps losing points these days. So I’ll have to schedule a meeting with her in May to pick it up if I still want it (WHICH IS WHEN SHE SAID WE WOULD HAVE TO SCHEDULE A MEETING). Grr. Anyway. It was a nice day overall. Mum and I had a lot of time to talk. We sat in Timmy’s for 1-1.5 hours talking about Dad’s family and her wedding XD Some hilarious stories. They got married on the McMaster University campus at the chapel that was there and the guy there was supposed to marry them, but something came up and he couldn’t do the wedding anymore, so he had his friend do it instead. His friend was an Anglican Bishop of the something something something Church something in Hamilton (So… like… the Pope XD). Anyway, bottom line, he’s like one step away from being Catholic. My mom had to do some stuff so she couldn’t meet with him, so Dad did instead. The bishop asked Dad if there was anything specific he wanted him to wear (like a suit or whatever) and Dad made the mistake of saying just wear whatever you want. So Mom walks into the room during the ceremony, and in her head she was like, “OH MY GOD, IT’S THE POPE” ’cause the bishop was decked out full in his bishop robes and Pope hat. She was absolutely bewildered throughout the entire thing, that when the bishop mispronounced Dad’s name, she mispronounced it just like him ’cause she was in shock. XD Lawdy. Hilarious wedding.

In other news, I found out which members of the family are crazy and which aren’t. And just what happened to make my grandma hate Mum so much. Apparently my uncle Vijay, who I’ve never met, was Gramma’s favorite son because he was the youngest (Rekha was Gramma’s favorite daughter, also the youngest daughter). Ironically, Rekha and Vijay turned out the worst out of all the kids and Dad and Jayshree are the most responsible and better off. Funneh. And now my great uncles… lawdy. Apparently, my g. uncle Ravi was married to a white woman for a while and then eventually had a mental breakdown (he was in the army and took place in the insurgence that was going on in Kenya at the time, so he was suffering from post-traumatic stress on top of whatever else), so the whole “marrying a white woman” was a bit of a stigma ’cause they kinda felt she might have contributed. So they divorced. Eventually, he ORDERED a wife from India (seriously, he sent for an Indian wife, she was literally mail). She stayed with him for like… ~25 years, until he eventually went crazy again and she left him, too. My g. uncle Suresh is a whole other story. He’s been shifty forever and is very two-faced. Apparently, while acting nice to my Dad and Mom, HE was the one spreading bad news in Kenya to his family about my mom and that marrying a white woman was bad news. So when Mum and Dad got to Kenya before they married to see his family and stuff, everyone was already leary about her, which put the whole visit in a funk. Then, later, Dad wanted Suresh to be his best man, even though usually your best friend is. He refused to believe that Suresh was bad news. So Dad’s friends organized his bachelor party and everything (which is usually the best man’s job, but Suresh didn’t have to do anything) and all Suresh had to do was show up. So they call him to find out where he is, and he says that he can’t make it because something has come up and he’s going to that instead. Ouch. So apparently Mom called him up and positively reamed him out for being an asshole. Then, during the reception of their wedding, he shows up with Yeshu (his wife, who stayed quiet the whole time because she was the wife and often didn’t agree with anything he said because she thought he was a dolt- she eventually divorced him) and he starts walking around to everyone at the wedding, all close friends, saying that this marriage was a mistake and that they shouldn’t have gotten married at all; that it would come back to bite Dad in the ass. Holy asshole much? So I now know why Mom hates Suresh so much, and why I’ve never heard of Ravi (Dad stopped talking to him for like 15 years because of how crazy he was). I know why Jayshree is so sympathetic toward Rekha (Rekha took care of my cousins in Kenya when she was running around working because unca Rafiq was kind of a freeloader). Even though the rest of the family thinks Rekha’s a tool and needs to fuck off and stay in Egypt forever.

Phew! So anyway. Dad’s family is pretty colorful. I’m sure she told me more stories that I’m just forgetting to write here, but whatever, you’ll have to do with that huge, confusing, jumbled paragraph.

Good day!

I was browsing a Facebook group called “Do you believe Soldiers are heroes? A mature discussion” for… well no reason in particular, I was just curious what most people would say. I expected a lot of “yes all soldiers are heroes they protect our freedoms blah blah blah”. Though I expected some saying the opposite as well. I ran across this neat little example and I wish that more people would understand the intent and meaning behind it:

MAN:

I’ve got a scenario here for people, please tell me if you would consider this individual heroic or not.

He gets up early in the morning, sometimes not realizing where for a few minutes. He might shower, he might not, because he knows he has to get a job done. He is away from his family and wants nothing more than to see their faces again, but he knows he has to be where he is, for their sake. His life is in danger every day, he could get shot at anytime and he’s “just doing his job”.

Is this man a hero?

WOMAN:

Yes he is a hero. This person sounds like my Husband and he is a hero to me and my family!!! I support all of our troops…

MAN:

Well don’t take offense to this, but when I was writing that paragraph, I was thinking of a drug dealer.

I wish patriotism didn’t blind people.

[10:34pm]

AWESOME. Mrs. K is thinking about forming a group for alumni. I AM SO THERE. Waiting on Kimmy to contact me about specifics.

A bumper sticker just for Tyler. Now he just needs a car and a licence.

In other news, I find this amazing and I would really love to do it myself.

Family is home. Good and bad. Good because it’s forcing me to buckle down and study, else face the prental gazes of disapproval. Bad because Lee is annoying. Ah well. Them’s the haps. It’s nice to have Mummy home. :] Anywho this means that Dad can fix the TV (not that it’s a huge deal, not like I watch it very often) and the dryer. It would be nice if the dryer could get fixed. I am running out of clothes. Wah. Ah well.

—-Oh hey, TV’s fixed. That was fast.

So I only need to do one more exercise for my portfolio. I had done a couple of exercises early on in the term back when I was being a super keen student, and I actually like how one of them turned out, so I’m going to use that. Which means I just need to write one more and try to make some more edits to Murder at Sunset EVEN THOUGH SHE STILL HASN’T GIVEN BACK HER CRITIQUE FOR IT AND IT’S BEEN ALMOST FOUR WEEKS NOW. WHAT THE HELL, THESEN, I NEED THAT FOR MY PORTFOLIO, GIVE IT TO ME.

I’m hungee. Hrm.

Holy shit, Flower is amazing. Granted, this is not a game for everyone, and it only takes approximately two to three hours to complete. But it’s sooooo gooooood. Last level is, obviously, my favorite. I was not a fan of the end of level 4 because it creeped the shit out of me and… well it was really fucking creepy. The same went for level 5, except that that one was a little harder and I kept thinking that I was dying at the end, but apparently it was supposed to just fade out like that. Anyway, I’m super glad that I got it. It was worth it.

My mom left me some Cadbury Mini Eggs in her drawer for Easter. One of them has POPROCKS IN THEM HOLY CRAP AWESOME POPPING CHOCOLATE.

Well I guess that’s all. I should really, really, really do my creative writing now.

[2:51am]

It has come to my attention that I really, really want to play the Shadow Hearts series. So uh. Someone should buy it for me, k? And yes I need all three games. Like, right now. Plz. And thankyou.

I’ve made good headway on Dark Cloud 2. I’m on… the second last chapter, I think? This is both good and bad. Good, because after having the game for, oh, I don’t know, something like four years, I’m finally coming close to being able to say I’ve finished it, bad, because instead of studying, I’ve been playing it. Very bad. Bad, bad, bad. I officially cannot afford to play video games anymore. I have three whole days left to study for my exams and finish my portfolio. Dawn, you moron. YOU FOOL. Yeah, I know, I knew I was going to be pissed at myself the moment I picked up the controller today. But I just couldn’t stop myself.

Yeah… I suck.

Family comes home in approximately twelve hours. I’m not excited. I wish they were gone for another five days. That would be just delightful.

I need to email Nina about that collegium business. I also need to remember to pick up my new U-pass.

And now I am going to go to bed and hope that I dream about Flower, because that would mean that I would have the coolest and most peaceful dream ever. Goodnight.

I am bloggging at 3 in the morning because I am waiting for a download to finish on my PS3 so that I can turn it off. Because apparently background download doesn’t work if you’re playing a PS2 game (or so I gather). And that’s just SILLY. If anything, it should be easier ’cause there’s less to process. Shut up I’m right D<

So anyway. Uhhhhm.

Thursday. Thursday went well. Tyler came over early, alas he had not much to do because Danny was borrowing his laptop for the day since his died and he couldn’t pick up his new one until Friday. We mostly sat around. We played some Wii Play for a bit, which was actually kind of lame when you think about it. It’s like a game designed strictly to teach you how to use the Wiimote or something. Ah well, it was still fun. Mum watched us for a bit and lol’d frequently. After that we tagteamed some Mario Galaxy. It’s way easier to play when you’ve got someone else collecting your star bits for you. Anyway, the rest of the kids came eventually and we hit up the realm of D&D again. Sarika cleverly wrote her take home English final exam while we D&D’d, as well, which was impressive. Good times were had. I went from a pair of wolves to a pair of wolves plus a pair of badgers. But that changed almost instantly because we found a tiger, so I traded in my wolves and badgers for a tiger. And now it is either the strongest or second strongest (would be second to Antsy [God I love that name]). Anyway. Awesome. I’m going to stop talking about D&D now because I feel like even more of a loser than I already am :B OH YEAH. Nick backed his car hardcore into my ditch when he was leaving. I don’t even know how he got it in at that angle. It was super ridiculous. Tyler insisted on everyone lifting the back end. I kept telling him that once a car is in that ditch, it’s in the ditch unless a truck is around. And since, y’know, my parents are out camping, obviously, they have the truck. He eventually conceded after they tried to lift the car once (it failed horribly). Nick had to dish out for a tow truck to give him a lift out. Adventuuuuures. My ditch claims yet another. I really wish we could reconstruct our driveway so this would stop happening.

50%. 15 more minutes and I should be allowed to go to bed.

Friday… Yesterday. What happened yesterday? Oh yeah. I slept in. Really late. I was really tired. And I took my sweet time waking up. Got up at about noon, threw some CDs in the upstairs CD player, turned it up really loud, made some breakfast, took a shower. SHAVED MY LEGS. Yes, this is a huge deal. I keep doing it sporadically. It’s getting warm, time to get back into the routine. As much as I hate it. Wah. ANYWAY. After that, I just had a few hours to fart around. I don’t even remember what I did. Then I went out at around 7pm to go see… dunununununu Dragonball: Evolution. I honestly don’t even know what to say about it, seriously. It was so bad, it was hilarious. KIND OF how Twilight was so bad it was hilarious, except that this was even moreso because I grew up watching DB/DBZ/etc. First of all, 85 minutes (or whatever) is not nearly enough time for them to do what they tried to do. Yamcha was pretty much unnecessary. They made Bulma too useful (she’s just a genius, not a shoot ‘em up gunslinger). Roshi wasn’t old, slumped over, and bald enough. I don’t actually have many complaints about Chichi except that she wasn’t bossy enough. Casting James Marsters as Piccolo was like casting Spike from Buffy, only dyed green and without the hair. Though I really can’t complain about Piccolo. They even had him wearing the parachute pants, and that’s hilarious. The Dragonballs didn’t feel like they were quite important enough when I was watching the movie. They should’ve felt more… significant. Justin Chatwin is still a horrible actor (I was hoping he would say “broken” sometime in the movie). However, I will admit that when they were trying for humor, I did laugh. I’m not sure if it was because it was actually funny, or if I was already in high spirits because it was so hilariously ridiculous, but I feel that it was funny. So I’m gonna say that yes, the intentional humor worked. Long story short, I might actually buy it when it comes out on DVD and gets cheaper, strictly for the lulz. Kind of like how I will buy Twilight when it’s cheaper. FOR TEH LULZ. Definitely need to start a lulz category in my movie collection.

K so I kind of got off track ’cause of DB. Uhhh. After the movie, we all (Cam, Danny, Tyler, who I picked up on his way home from work) came back to my place so that we could tackle the issue of his old hard drive. After fighting with the screws on his laptop forebahs we finally got it apart. Hooked it up to Lee’s computer with the IDE adapter only to find out that Danny’s HD was a master drive and Lee’s was a slave. D’OH. THAT’S THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE WANT. So we were like hokay, we’ll just make Lee’s a master and boomboom fixy. Except that the drive didn’t indicate which pins were master like it was supposed to. So Tyler sat there forever trying random combinations until he finally got it on sheer luck. Then he managed to make Danny’s drive a slave. And then we spent hours transferring his crap over the wireless onto my exernal HD (because Lee’s computer is so old that it doesn’t have any USB ports. HURRRR). Anyway. I got everyone home by… 2am-ish, I think. I feel bad ’cause Tyler had to get up for work at 7. Ah well. At least it’s finally done. Now I have Danny’s demolished laptop sprawled all over the table. He’s got some perfectly useable RAM, which I was going to use, until I had a looksee and realized that my RAM is 2-512s instead of 1-1gb, as were his. HOPES AND DREAMS, DASHED. If my dad can’t use it in his laptop, or just doesn’t want to, then I guess Danny will have to find someone else to give/sell it to. He also has a perfectly useable hard drive now. Dunno what he’s gonna do with that. Probs sell it. It’s not that big, but whatevs. Anyway, that was my night last night.

TODAY! Well to tell you the truth, I really just didn’t feel like doing shit today. I wanted a day all to my little lonesome, just me and my vidja games. So that’s what I did. I downloaded PS Home out of curiosity. Will probably never use it again. Don’t see the point and you have to pay to get anything out of it. Maybe if everything was free, MAYBE I’d use it. Maybe. I also downloaded Flower (LOL ACTUALLY THAT IS WHAT IS DOWNLOADING RIGHT NOW… and actually just finished when I typed that, awesome). I am eager to try it out. But not tonight. It’s already too late. Maybe after I do some homework/studying tomorrow. Maybe. Other than that, I’ve been playing Dark Cloud 2 all day. Because I seriously need to finish that game. I’ve been playing it for way too long, it’s too ridiculous. Going on years now. Unacceptable. I’m glad I’m using a guide for all the photo ideas/scoops, otherwise it would be a royal pain in the ass.

I like how my parents took their cell phone with them and when I called it, no one answered. So I left a voicemail. And no one has called back. This was two days ago. I mean, seriously, I know you might be somewhere that just has no service, such is the way of camping, but really? I’m sure you’d go somewhere with service eventually. What if I was DYING? Ouch, guys, ouch. I’m sew ridiculous. I don’t care that they haven’t called back. I was just telling them about messages. Although, one is regarding a fax of Shane’s lease, so I kind of care about that. But it’s Easter weekend, so it won’t matter if they don’t call back for a bit.

Tomorrow is officialy the start of my studying. We’ll see how it goes. I’m hoping four days of solid studying will do. I mean, it’s only three exams. And I can’t even really study for Shakespeare. I really only need to study for Japanese and Romantic Lit (UUUGH ROMANTIC LIT WHYYYYYY ;-;). Blargity blargity, this is a really long update.

One more whole day alone in the house. Fam’s back Monday afternoon. It was super, super nice while it lasted.

Ta.

This family is crumbling because of him and I don’t think he even sees it.

Last day of classes yesterday. Went decently. Japanese listening quiz wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I didn’t do 100%, but I think it was okay. I went out to pick up Tyler to meet Danny at Futureshop at 7:30pm-ish in order to pick up an HP laptop we looked at the day before. The money he needed from his dad transferred over in time. Unfortunately, they sold the last one that morning (what are the chances?) so now he has to wait until Friday when they get more in. So instead of transferring his old laptop’s files like we originally planned, we came back to my house anyway and just played Warcraft. Tried out some new hero and tower defense maps. When the family leaves this afternoon, I’m going to install the game on Dad’s computer so that if people need to, they can play on it. It’s on Lee’s, but if too much action is going on, it starts lagging. I also need to scan in that picture that Brianne drew for me. She wants a copy for her portfolio.

Just got my GST tax credit. Totally forgot that we get those. Hello, $98.54. You have no idea how much I needed you.

Just spent like… four hours looking up various job listings and stuff for Kelowna. Found out that there’s a publishing job at the school this summer, but it requires that I am familiar with Dreamweaver. It was so perfect. Until the Dreamweaver. I’m sorry, I don’t build webpages. I’m too poor to spend $400USD on a program. Frustrating. None of the other summer jobs posted for the university are doable for me. I applied to one position as a desk clerk at the Westbank Remax, although it had been posted for a week or so, so the position is probably gone.

I really don’t know what I’m going to do. I wanted to avoid retail again, but it looks like I’m not going to get out of it this time.

I handed in my sociolinguistics term paper tonight. Decided it was as edited as it was going to get. I didn’t wanna read it anymore.

I’ve come to the realization that I am probably going to have to move to Vancouver in one to two years. I’m not sure what the chances are of me getting a job here. I’m not really stoked about this. I dunno. I’m not up for being an adult.

Anyway. Uhhhm. Fringe is on again. Yay. Although I’ve only partly followed it, I still like it. Walter makes me titter.

I should go to bed early tonight. For teh sleeps. Harhar.