Ganked from Ms. J

Two names you go by:
1. JJ
2. Jas

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. “I am Gifted” T-shirt
2. ChefWear work pants

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. The pain from my surgery to go away
2. My headache to go away as well

Two people who will most likely repost this:
1. Yoshi! (cuz if you put a spotlight on the man he does things!)
2. Pandora (If she could Blog at the moment.)

Two things you did last night:
1. Watched old Atlantis Eps
2. Discussed books with Chris

Two things you ate yesterday:
1. Indian Style Stir Fry
2. Tim Hortons Chili

Two people you last spoke to:
1. Christina
2. Janaka

Two things you’re doing tomorrow:
1. Going to work
2. Baking some bread

Two states you’d like to visit: (Confusion and Grace?)
1. Michigan
2. Texas

Two favorite beverages:
1. Homemade Smoothies
2. Green Tea

Two random pics:
1.

An awesome woman and my friend!

Character photo

Swiped from Ms. J via Cipherpunk

The first seven (7) people to respond to this post will get something made by me or something that I find to be personal to me that I am willing to part with.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. I will not take requests.
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It’ll be done this year (2009).
4. I will post a second post that will be screened for addresses and contact info.

The catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well.

The seven people will be confirmed once they have committed.

Ten Years Out

In light of my recent activity on my Blog, the Yuletide Season and contact with some old and dear friends I wanted to take a moment to write something personally about my time online. Also it might give y’all I just met some background! Not that you needed it or wanted it..but here it is anyway.

More than Ten years ago I got a new PC that allowed me to play my very first ever Online Game. It was MechWarrior: Mercenaries. Awesome game, crippled by lag at the time. I joined the GhostBear Clan and they had an IRC Chat Room. I had NO idea what IRC was at the time so I downloaded it, fought with it, cursed at it and finally got it to work.

We had Clan Meetings there to plan Strategy and other things but I noticed there were other things on IRC so in my downtime I took a Channel List and started browsing about. Several Months earlier I had picked up Vampire: The Masquerade as I was (and still am) a HUGE fan of all things Vampiric/Supernatural so when I stumbled upon a Channel called VampCity.

Believe it or not that simple act changed my Entire life. I met my wife there, I met one of my longest, closest and dearest friends there and I retain contact with a whole host of others most of whom hold the title of Friend with me at the very least. I find that I even miss the people that drove me up the walls at the time. I look back now and I can appreciate all that they did to make the games we played the sort of fun that I most enjoyed. I remember spending entire evenings getting to know them all, planning, plotting and otherwise entertaining one another in the time before online games came to rule the virtual world.

It struck me last night when I first had a thought about this Post that I owe these people a great deal and I have only ever met one of them in person. I guess that makes this a Virtual Memorial of sorts to anyone and everyone that I have ever played with on IRC in the last Ten years.

Thank you all for letting me play, create, laugh and even cry with you all over the years.

I wish…

that I could trust my wife.

that she actually wanted to spend time with me.

that she cared enough to notice what she is putting me through.

that she didn’t care more about having fun with others than spending time with her own husband even when I am sitting right there next to her.

that she wouldn’t force me to take up her interests just so I can have some social contact with her.

that it didn’t take me exploding into an arguement to make her see how upset I am.

that I could handle this all better without being depressed and hurt and angry every minute of the day.

You know who you are…

My own medicine eh? *chuckles*

There was no need to apologize, between you and I there never will be. Thank you my very dearest friend from the bottom of my heart.

Long time no blog!

It’s been a busy last few days for us here at the old homestead. All summer long we’ve been planning a trip to Animethon 15 in Edmonton and despite a few nervous moments (the Itinerary for th event was not posted until 5 days prior to the event itself) it did indeed happen this year.

We had planned to go down for all three days of it but the last minute worries made us change our minds and opt only for the Saturday excursion.  We did see an amazing array of CosPlayers who went to alot of trouble to dress up as their favorite Anime Characters.

Of course the highlight for me was the dealer room. I love wandering about and seeing all the different items of Anime Inspired goodness that are to be had. I think we spent a bit more than we had planned to because we ran in to some folks with some really beautiful Jade pendants but I had anticipated us going a little over budget so it wasn’t a panic moment.

My Camera passed out before we got to the Convention so I got no photos of any of the awesomeness. But I did get a picture or two in the West Edmonton Mall.

Galleon I

Galleon II

Skating Rink

Credit to the lovely and talented Ms. J

If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Oh and also if you haven’t already. Check this out, also Credited to Ms. J

Ramblings on a Sunday

It has been an interesting enough week for me, care to share along? Of course you do that’s why you’ve read this far already…away we go!

Purchased a Wii Fit and am surprised at how much fun it actually is though it did ‘crash’ my Wii so to speak last evening and I had to reset it. Not that this was hard to do mind you. Just bears noting.

Made Reservations to Animethon 15 for my wife and I for this August. Poor folks at the Con this year are almost all new so it’s been rough going for them. I wish them the best of luck!

Work has been soso this past week, shifts are getting filled and no ones whining overmuch. One of our Managers is on Two Weeks Vacation beginning today so that will be a welcome absence. She is a dedicated worker but when she is around stress levels are always higher because she likes to find fault. Though I am having to work 6 Days a week again for the moment I am assured this is only to cover for the Manager being absent.

In personal news I found a small place to vent my writing urges on…it is not perfect and on occasion smacks of God Modding but I myself work within the limits I have set and the others playing there are respecting that for the most part. I consider it my obligation to bring a sense of the mundane to their game whenever I am able.

And that’s all I have to say about that. Merry Sunday all!

Lifelike Spam?

I have several Messenger Clients, MSN, Yahoo (old and Vista Beta), Google Talk and of course IRC if that counts. I’m sure most of you do as well but do you ever get offline messages you could swear were real? I’m sure it’s just a totally random fluke but a few times I have gotten messages from Spammers using names and saying things that almost sound just like stuff a that the person with that name might say.

There’s still that moment of suspicion enough to keep me from doing it but the other day I got a message with a link in it from a guy name Kevin claiming he was my old High School buddy and that he and some of the others I hung out with in High School were getting together in town on the weekend to party it up. Included was a Link to what was supposed to be the hotel they were all staying at. That’s where I Red Flagged. The hotel they named is not in this town.

But damn if it wasn’t a terminator-esque impression. Every happen to you folks?

Oh and the genuinely amusing ones are the ones that use my Messenger Handle thinking it’s actually my name…NO one on my Messenger Clients calls me by my Handle, they all are on a first name basis with me. But I still get SPAM like: Hey Dredaras! “Long time no see huh? Check out this cool link I found yesterday!”

Edit: Can’t spell

Debate

Earlier today I got into a little bit of a debate…well not really a debate as such but a discussion over at my friend Yoshi’s Blog. It was about a news report and YouTube video that detailed a Marine throwing a puppy off a Cliff.

Disgusting yes, inhumane yes. I find the mans actions to be reprehensible.

That being said what I did not agree with was several Posters leaping to the conclusion that this one mans deplorable action somehow was representative of the the Marines in general. As you can well imagine many of the Posters are, like myself, animal lovers and were justifiably outraged that a human being could do something like that to a puppy.

Seeing as how my Family is directly related to the Military I am well aware that I am biased towards the Military but I just could not sit by and watch people take a one mans idiocy and turn it into hate mongering for an entire group of people. I know a great many people serving today and I can all but guarantee that every single one of them would be seriously offended by what happened and completely unable to grasp how a human being could do something like that.

You just shouldn’t take the actions of one man and brand an entire group with them, it’s unfair and I’ll speak up about it every single time.

Note: I am not providing any links to this, if anyone wants a link to it I will provide it on a ‘by-request’ basis. I just don’t feel the need to perpetuate this any further publicly.