July 30, 2013

This entry will probably be short because I didn't have much going on today and I've had a headache all day so I'm trying to avoid thinking too hard. Or rather, whenever I stop to think about things, I become distracted by my headache, so I'm trying to stay out of my head.

Anyway, today at work I finished reading my friend's book, Lark, and started reading Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton. I also worked on my cross stitch for a bit. I enjoyed my friend's book and it kind of reminded me of the Mortal Instruments books, minus the possible incest. It is always good to minus the incest in my opinion. Especially in fictional situations when you have complete control over whether or not incest is going to happen.

Tonight I played some more Half-Life. Still enjoying it but I called it a night when I got to a puzzle that stumped me. It looks like I need to power up a rocket to kill a three-tentacled monster below it, but I'm missing something and just keep going around in circles. I've turned on a giant fan and a generator, which gave me power, but it looks like I need to get the oxygen and fuel to the rocket. I can see the pipes but have no idea what to do. There is a lot less hand holding in old games. They definitely just drop you in the world and expect you to figure it out. I will probably end up looking it up online because I've been over everything several times now and I'm kind of over it.

Now I am watching YouTube videos and seriously thinking about eating some hint of salt Triscuits. Because they're delicious. The Triscuits. Not the YouTube videos. I need to watch more Netflix because I'm not paying for it and I don't think I watched anything this month. Not cool. Maybe tomorrow night. At least an episode of something.

July 29, 2013

Last night I ended up staying up until one o'clock so I could finish reading Under The Dome. Later than I would have liked but I wanted to finish it and it didn't take as long as I had thought because the countdown on my Kindle included all the pages after the book ended, including a preview of one of Stephen King's other books, so I finished sooner than I thought I would.

The ending was alright. Happy-ish. It is mentioned that after the explosion the population drops to thirty-two survivors but the book only focuses on a handful of those and there is no mention of anyone else surviving. I want to know what happened to those other people. I would assume they died because the ones right next to the dome barely survived with the help of fans. But there is a possibility there were other survivors. The book also ends right after the dome goes away. I would have liked a little more exposition after that. At least an epilogue to see some of the consequences of the dome, other than almost an entire town self-destructing and being wiped off the map. Maybe the mini-series will offer that. I haven't decided if I am going to try and catch up with that or wait for the DVD and marathon it. I feel I would probably like it better if I waited for the DVD so I can forget some of the details and not be as disappointed with the changes.

Today I played a little bit of Rage and finally got around to playing Half-Life. It's only fifteen years old. And I've owned it for a year or two. But I Finally started it. And I like it. Even though I never played it, it gives me a sense of nostalgia. It reminds me of old N64 and early Xbox games with the gameplay and simple graphics. I think I played a bit of Half-Life 2 on the Xbox but not much and I wanted to experience the story, so I might as well start with the first game. Who the hell knows if I'll finish it, I'm not sure how long it is, but I'll keep playing it for as long as it holds my interest. Which may have come and gone already. Who knows.

I also played a little Euro Truck Simulator 2. I changed my truck paint job to bright pink and made one delivery. And came in at a lose because I hit a divider on the journey and ended up paying more in repairs than I made on the delivery. Oh well. I might change things up and still take freelance jobs so I won't have to spend extra money on gas and repairs for my own truck. The extra money I make for driving my own truck might be offset by those other expenses. But my truck is still pretty badass.

It has been raining pretty much non-stop all day long. I was hoping I'd get a window of reprieve when I had to go to work but I didn't. And the shoes I wear to work still soak up water like a sponge so when I got to work I immediately took them off, along with my socks, and put them in front of a fan. I planned ahead and brought another pair of socks with me but maybe I should have also brought a second pair of shoes? That didn't really cross my mind. Next time. I'm just glad I thought to bring the socks.

I wanted to work on my cross stitch but when I tried to open them on my tablet I couldn't get the pictures to zoom in enough so show the individual pixels (or stitches). I restarted the tablet thinking maybe that would help and it ended up wiping the pictures off the tablet. Thankfully I still had them in my email inbox so I tracked those down on my phone, turned my phone into a wi-fi hotspot so I could connect my tablet, found the email with the picture attachments on my tablet, and re-downloaded them. All is swell now. I have no idea what happened but as long as there is a solution, life goes on.

After all that, I spent my night switching off between cross stitching and reading my friend's book. I made good progress on my next cross stitch letter and then noticed two mistakes on the border in the last two squares. I was able to leave work whenever I wanted but I stayed long enough to add a bit of the border where I forgot it and tear out the border where I put a stitch in the wrong place. That way I won't forget it tomorrow, and I'll be able to quickly redo it before jumping back into the letter. It'll all work out.

Also at work, an old friend/coworker came to watch a movie and stopped upstairs for a bit. I was in his wedding however long ago and I don't think I've seen him since the reception. He is the third old friend I have seen in the last few weeks. I need to either do a better job at keeping up with old friends or do a better job at making new friends. Kind of a disconnected thought from seeing old friends, maybe, but it reminds me of how much fun it was when I had more friends to hang out with.

July 28, 2013

I finished my day yesterday by reading some more of Under The Dome and the shit hit the fan for real. It has been slowly building throughout the book, sprinkled with horrible things, but I have reached the peak and now I'm on the downward slope. Spoilers, the town went from a population of over 2,000 to just 32. I'm really close to the end, less than two hours to go according to my Kindle. It would be nice to get an actual page number though. I like real books.

Today there was a lot more of nothing. I played a bunch of video games (Euro Truck Simulator 2, Trials Evolution, Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombies, Sonic All-Star Racing, and Battlefield 3). I finally bought my first truck in Euro Truck Simulator 2. I went with a Volvo and I am not feeling any buyers remorse. It is big and bright green (though I am thinking of changing it to bright pink) and it is covered in big lights that are completely unnecessary and look ridiculous. But I'll never lose it in a crowd. Now I need to start saving my money again so I can buy a new garage, more trucks, and hire drivers to drive them. I could always take a loan out from the bank but I'm in no hurry.

I played Battlefield 3 on PC and I still suck quite a bit. I'm not that great on Xbox but I've put in 125 hours and can at least hold my own a little bit. On PC I have put in an hour and a half. It took me forever just to figure out what key to use to spot enemies because I couldn't find it in the key binding menu. It's 'Q' by the way. At least after I got that sorted I felt like I was contributed a tiny bit to my team. I played three games on Metro, the first where we got spawn trapped and slaughtered. In the second game I ended up on the winning team and it took us a lot longer to force them back into their spawn so the game was actually fun. And the final game was even better because even though my team held two of the three flags the whole game, the fighting stayed out of the spawns. I still got my ass handed to me way more often than I'd like to admit but I spotted dudes like crazy.

An update on my eye. It seems to be almost back to normal. I can't really see or feel any swelling and the only noticeable thing is the slight redness underneath my eye. My forehead is still a little red and bumpy in places but that seems to be clearing up to. I'm going to try sleeping normally tonight, not propped up, and keep my fingers crossed that my body is cool with that.

Now I am going to put a little more time into Under The Dome before I go to bed.

July 27, 2013

Not a big day. Just a day off. Around halfway through the day I realized my phone was missing. I gave it a call to see if it was in the house, and I checked my car, but it was nowhere to be found. Which lead me to believe I left it at work last night. I carried it around in my pocket all night and then took it out and put it on the desk at the end of the night when I was putting other stuff back in my pockets. And then forgot to put my phone in my bag. Whoops. On the plus side I was still able to send text messages with my tablet so I texted one of the managers and asked if my phone happened to be there. And it was. So that got me out of the house today. It ended up being a pizza night and I went to get breadsticks at Papa John's and Little Caesars (the pizza was from Papa Murphy's) so I swung by the theater when I was out and got my phone. Hooray.

I exercised a bit today but not a lot because getting hot is still uncomfortable for my eye and whatever is going on with my forehead. But I gave it a try. I am doing a 30-day plank thing, slowly increasing to a five-minute plank by the end of the thirty days. I have no idea what day I'm on anymore thanks to the medical break, but I am up to a minute and a half. Not bad. Five minutes still sounds insane but so did a minute and a half when I first started.

I have yet to buy my first truck in Euro Truck Simulator 2. I am putting way too much thought into it. I have discovered all the different brand dealerships (but not all the dealerships) and I have started test driving each brand by taking short deliveries. I have a few more trucks to go before making my decision. So far I am leaning toward a Majestic truck, which is the knockoff Mercedes truck. It seems to have the best acceleration, which is nice because it sucks getting stuck on an on-ramp going 3mph trying to make it up to the main road. That happens with a lot of the trucks but not with the Majestic. Maybe by tomorrow I can finally pull the trigger and get my business off the ground, not just freelance stuff.

I am really tempted to go to bed now but I think I am going to read a little more out of Under The Dome before I do that. Maybe. We'll see if I still feel the same way when I'm laying in bed.

July 26, 2013

It took me a bit to get settled last night but I did eventually get a pretty good night of sleep. The first in several days at least. It was nice. I ended up getting up fairly early though because I need to take my meds but I got a nap in later to make up for it.

My day was spent watching YouTube videos and playing a bit of Euro Truck Simulator 2. I discovered several more truck dealers by going slightly out of my way on deliveries. I had been to most of the cities or towns before but the dealership was far enough away that it didn't discover it when I made my deliveries. I think I may have one or two more dealerships to find. Then I want to try out each truck back-to-back so I can make a final decision on my first truck. I have driven all of the trucks before but I wasn't really paying attention to the brand of the ones I liked. It would be nice if they had a test drive option but I'll have to actually make deliveries with each truck. I'll get there eventually.

Tonight at work I read a bunch from Under The Dome and watched The Wolverine (in two parts). Under The Dome is quickly reaching a climax. I would say pages away. I'm somewhere past 80% finished and the tension is so close to breaking. I would stay up and keep reading but it is almost two o'clock in the morning and I am tired. Maybe tomorrow. The Wolverine is a pretty good movie. Much better than Wolverine: Origins, at least as far as I remember that movie. I watched the first half during the first set and the second half during the second set. The action was good and there was tiny bit of comedy, although there could have been more.

Also at work, I started my night by fixing most of the movies. Almost all of them were wrong in some way. Five or six didn't have the last bit with the ending cue in it so when it got to the end of the movie the projector wouldn't turn off and the automation wouldn't reset. I have no idea how that happened. Every now and then it'll randomly get dropped off of one movie but not five or six. It was strange. Most of the old movies (ones not opening this week) had one or more old trailers on them. When I made the new movies this week I put on the right trailers but I didn't mess with the old movie trailers because I was doing this Thursday afternoon. Any changes I would have made would have either messed up the movies if I didn't transfer my changes to the individual projectors, or added the new trailers to the movies if I had transferred them. The latter is kind of the point but the new trailers aren't supposed to go on Friday, so it is the job of the person who closes on Thursday night to add the new trailers and start the transfer at the end of the night. There were a couple things screwed up last week and this week there obviously wasn't even an attempt to check the trailers last night. And it was a manager so no excuse there. It's the same guy who has recently become obsessed with making fine adjustments on the picture size and position of every single movie and he was caught up on one last night so he probably forgot all about trailers. He picked the wrong battle.

And now I am going to go to bed. My eye was kind of itchy this morning and a used an ice pack for awhile. Now it is back to being pretty much not swollen, just red around my eye. I am hoping tomorrow it will look even better. And be less itchy. I will find out soon enough. Also, my chigger bites or doing much better. Now they aren't really itchy, just purple. They look worse but feel better. And with that, I'm going to bed so I can wake up and take my meds and eat some Golden Grahams.

July 25, 2013

My sleep was interrupted last night by my chigger bites but it wasn't nearly as bad as the night before. I gave the WD-40 a shot, spraying it on a Q-Tip and then using that to put it on my bites, and I guess it worked. They eventually stopped hurting and I think it happened faster than it did with the Benadryl.

When I woke up my eye looked better than it has in the morning in a long time. It is still red but the swelling is way down. And it continued to look better throughout the day. It has been itching more, which is annoying because I am afraid to touch it. I have no idea what is actually wrong with my eye or what caused it in the first place. That would be nice to know.

At work today a read a bunch of Under The Dome, ingested and built a few movies, and finished the fourth letter on my cross stitch. Life under the dome is getting crazier by the hour. All the new police remind me of the Standford Prison Experiment. Overall the book is an interesting look at potential human nature when they are trapped in a seemingly helpless situation.

My cross stitch is coming along. Only two more letters. And then I'll have to figure out how I want to mount and frame it. That will be “fun”. I just need to knock out those last couple of letters. One of my next cross stitches needs to be a quote by Schmidt from New Girl: “I don't want some janky, fresh water bitch fish.”

Tonight I had the second half of my Chipotle burrito and then went and visited the new volunteer kid for an hour. He has been trying to get a job the past couple of weeks and keeps hitting obstacles. First it was getting a place to acknowledge the fact that he had submitted an application. Sonic finally did that but they needed a photo ID and a copy of his birth certificate. Two things he didn't have. His case worker was able to get him a copy of his birth certificate but he has been unable to get a photo ID. He went to the DMV to get a state ID and they needed two forms of ID. He had his birth certificate but he couldn't use his school ID because he only has one from a couple of years ago. So he can't get an ID card because he doesn't have an ID card, basically. I think he could have gotten a list of eligible ID proof and figured something out but I also think he is tired of all the hoops. And he figures the job opening at Sonic has probably already been filled. So all of that has been frustrating. It does suck when all you want to do it work and you can't get a job.

When I got home I watched YouTube videos and took one delivery in Euro Truck Simulator. I now have enough money and a high enough level to buy a truck but I am going to continue putting it off. And not just because I have a fear of commitment in all aspects of my life. I have only discovered two truck dealers so I want to discover the rest before I make my final choice. I have looked up online where the dealerships are located so I want to make some deliveries there and discover those dealerships so I will have more options to choose from. It would probably make more sense for me to buy an inexpensive truck and start building up my business and hiring drivers so I can make more money and afford better trucks. But I am obviously not doing it that way.

Right now it is late but I don't have to work until tomorrow night so I am hoping I can catch up on my sleep a little bit. And maybe get a full night of sleep, not interrupted by discomfort or pain. That would be pretty sweet. At this point I am tired enough, hopefully.

July 24, 2013

Trying to sleep last night was like a horrendous joke. I probably slept about four hours in two hour increments. It started with trying to find a position to sleep. I have a persistent chigger bite on the back of my right ear which means I can't sleep on my right side or on my back without aggravating it. And I can't sleep on my left side because of my eye. This leaves me with laying on my back slightly tilted to the left. And I was trying to keep my head somewhat elevated to maybe prevent swelling in my eye. Not only is that not my normal sleeping position, it is pretty uncomfortable. But I kind of managed it for a minute or two. And then the chigger bites on my ankles started to hurt. They weren't itchy, they were just painful. So I got up and put some Benadryl on them but that takes awhile to have an effect so in the meantime I read a whole bunch about chiggers.

Putting clear fingernail polish on chigger bites is a myth because that is based on the idea that chiggers burrow into your skin and the polish suffocates them. But chiggers don't burrow into your skin. They just bite you and inject you with a an enzyme that liquifies your insides so they can drink it up. This enzyme also hardens the area surrounding the bite, creating a straw that the chiggers and drink from. Terrifying.

The Benadryl still hadn't kicked in yet so I played some Euro Truck Simulator 2, driving to Paris for the first time. I also have to say that of the places I have gone so far, I really enjoy the the English countryside. It just looks to inviting.

When I finally went back to bed I somehow managed to fall asleep. And was awakened about two hours later when my chigger bites started to hurt again. Apparently Benadryl only lasts about two hours. So I got up, put more Benadryl on, read my book a little, made more deliveries in Euro Truck Simulator 2, paced back and forth for awhile, and eventually got another two hours of sleep. It was a really long and uncomfortable night to say the least.

On the plus side, my eye was only little bit swollen in the morning. Much better than being almost completely swollen shut the morning before. But it was still pretty red and kind of scary looking so I let my mom cover the library in my place. And I was tired as hell from getting very little sleep. Throughout the day the chigger bite on my ear has been a nuisance but my ankles haven't bothered me, so my fingers are crossed that will continue when I try to sleep tonight. If not, I am going to see if I can find the WD-40 because my dad said it works wonders on chigger bites, and I saw this confirmed on the internet. Hopefully it doesn't come to that but I'm willing to try almost anything at this point.

My day was spent taking a nap, playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Trials Evolution and Cube World, watching TV, and watching YouTube videos. And popping pills. At least one of which seems to be having a positive effect on my eye and forehead. Maybe it is a combination of two of them or all three. I will never know. I'll also never actually know what the hell happened to my eye and forehead in the first place. That kind of sucks because I would like to know if it was something I did or didn't do that I could avoid or not avoid in the future.

In Euro Truck Simulator 2 I now have enough money to buy a truck and start working for myself rather than taking odd jobs but I think I am going to hold off until I can get the more expensive truck that I want, which also requires a higher level. I should have more than enough money by the time I reach that level to get my truck, and maybe start hiring other drivers. I'm going places.

Tonight was Chipotle night but I wasn't really interested in making the trip but my sister and her significant other offered to go so I consented. It was pretty good. Then I went back to watching videos and driving a truck. It was a very exciting day.

If my eye is still doing alright in the morning and I get more than a little bit of sleep tonight, I plan on going to work in the morning. So I can go back to reading my book, listening to the radio, and working on my cross stitch. My life continues.

July 23, 2013

I woke up this morning and I looked like Rocky. My eye was almost entirely swollen shut. And not surprisingly, it was very uncomfortable. And the bug bites on my legs hurt. And the one on my ear. It is horribly placed on the back of my ear and it is impossible not to bump it against my hoodie or against the pillow when I'm laying in bed. It is a bother. Possibly more than my eye at times but the eye definitely wins out in the long run. And then there is my forehead which is still red and kind of bumpy. My body is sucking right now.

I texted my manager and let her know I wouldn't be coming in today. I just wanted to eat a big bowl of Golden Grahams and hold an ice pack to my eye. Which I did and it was as great as that scenario can be. I slept horribly last night because of my eye but my the time I finished my cereal it was feeling bearable, maybe the three different pills coursing through my system had started to kick in, and I was able to take a nap. By the end of the day my eye had actually started to look better and now it is still a tad on the puffy side but mostly just red. And mildly uncomfortable. Hopefully it will look even better in the morning, and won't swell all the way up again. If it does look better I might be able to go work at the school library.

In between holding an ice pack to my eye I managed to do a bit of laundry and drove all over Europe in Euro Truck Simulator 2. It's a pretty relaxing game. I put on some Avett Brothers on Spotify and just cruised the open road. I decided to base myself out of Luxembourg because it was pretty much in the center of the map but my last run today finally took me up north to Manchester. It was a disaster. It was my first time using a ferry and I got confused because the navigation system doesn't start working again after the ferry until you pull back out onto the road. This confusion lead me to using the ferry four or five times, costing me over $900 and about eight hours each time. Which in turn lead me to be way late on my delivery. And I got a speeding ticket. But I got to see English on signs and drive on the left side of the road so there is that.

July 22, 2013

Well, my eye is getting worse. We met up at my dad's this morning, loaded up the trailer with the generator and the bench pieces, and then headed out to the lake. We managed to get the benches installed and a railroad tie put in place by one o'clock or so, when we called it a day because it looked like a storm was coming in. A drop or two of rain fell but that was about it. So we probably could have gotten a little more done but we didn't have any stain and staining the rest of the dock is the last major thing that needs to be done on the dock.

When we got back into town we had lunch and sat around for awhile before I came home and made a doctor's appointment. I got in an hour or so later and stumped the doctor. He had it narrowed down to three things but I wasn't fully exhibiting the signs of any of them. There was an eye thing that he had trouble pronouncing but my eye wasn't painful to the touch. The was shingles, going along with the red bumpiness on my forehead but he said that didn't look quite right and it should have hurt as well, and my forehead doesn't hurt. The third thing was just a regular infection. With a remote possibility of poison ivy, although my eye puffed up originally before I got near any poison ivy. To be safe, because he said anything he was thinking about would only get worse if untreated, he prescribed three different medications. One of which cost over $80, after insurance covered over $90, and it was a generic medication. That better be the one that fixes me so I get my money's worth.

I started two of the medications tonight but he wanted me to start the Prednisone in the morning. And while I was at work my eye just seemed to get worse. It became more swollen and became more itchy and I feel a compulsion to close it and when I do that hard enough it hurts a little. Around 11:30PM it started to bother me enough and my eye started watering a little so I decided to go home so I could put an ice pack on my eye. Which I am doing intermittently now. It manages to relieve some of the discomfort but I can't tell if it is the cold or the ice pack or the pressure of me holding it against my eye. Either way, if I don't experience an amazing recovery by tomorrow morning I will probably call into work. Which is frustrating. And I am supposed to work at the school library on Wednesday. I don't want to miss that.

Now I'm going to call this good so I can put the ice pack back on my bed, maybe lay in bed for awhile and see if I can fall asleep. With my fingers crossed.

July 21, 2013

I am exhausted. Today I helped my brother with his Eagle project. Or helped my dad with my brother's Eagle project. We went out to the lake around one o'clock and I didn't do much out there other than vacuuming the dock my brother is fixing up and random little things. My dad, step-mom, brother, and his girlfriend swept and then started to stain the dock. We called it good around four o'clock and it couldn't have come sooner because my brother was starting to get a little grumpy. He got into poison ivy a few days ago and he is really allergic to it so that was bother him and he was hungry and not drinking water and he didn't really want to be there. So we called it good at the lake for the day. But we weren't finished.

The rest of the day was spent staining the benches that are going on the dock. My brother went to the doctor and got more medicine for his poison ivy and spent the rest of the day in the basement playing video games. To be fair, he needed to stay out of the heat but the benches still needed to be finished so they could be installed tomorrow so the work fell to my dad, sister, step-mom, and myself. My dad mentioned earlier in the day that he would have put in the same effort to help me with my Eagle, and I believe that for the most part, but he definitely wouldn't have let me sit inside and play video games while other people worked on my project. I would have been ripped a new one.

There was some worry that we would run out of stain before we finished staining the benches but we ended up having just enough. The staining went pretty fast but we had to wait for it to dry a bit so we could flip the pieces over and get the other side. The hardest part of it all was cutting through two of the 4x4 legs that were a little too long, with a handsaw. That was incredibly tiring and hot as hell. We got everything finished and cleaned up by 9:30PM or so. It was a long day. Tomorrow we are supposed to head out to the lake again at 9:00AM to put the benches in and stain the rest of the dock if my brother is able to get more stain. Regardless of what happens, I have to work tomorrow night so I will be leaving at 3:00PM so I have time to get cleaned up and eat and just relax for a little bit. Work won't be that tiring but it is hot upstairs and tiring in its own way.

Last night my left eye was super itchy and I kept rubbing at it. This morning I woke up and my eye looked fine but underneath it was red and puffy like I had been punched in the face. And it was still itchy but I haven't itched it all day because I don't want to touch it. I am using the eye drops I used last year when my eyes got all gross and would seal shut overnight. I hope it doesn't get that bad this time but we'll see how things are looking in the morning. I think it is an allergy thing and I am hoping this doesn't become a yearly thing. It looks weird and it is pretty annoying.

July 20, 2013

Today I played video games and went to Hobby Lobby. I played more Trials HD and the PC version isn't as good as the Xbox version. There are a lot of framerate issues. It could be due to me having a ridiculous number of browser windows and tabs open, along with Spotify, Windows Media Player, and SnapPea, all while playing the game. But I didn't want to close all that stuff so I adjusted some of the settings and it got better but it still wasn't as smooth as it is on the Xbox. I'll have to close some stuff and try the game again before I make a final judgment. It is still a fun game, when it's working.

I also played Euro Truck Simulator 2. I know that title sounds magical and that is a perfectly accurate description of the game. You drive big rigs across Europe, making money and leveling up your character so you can carry different stuff and earn more money. When you have enough money or if you get a loan from the bank, you can buy your own truck, earning even more money, and growing your business, eventually hiring other drivers. And apparently when you own your own truck you can go drive around town, free-roam style. I haven't decided if I want to get a loan for the truck yet so I've just been taking random missions. It is surprisingly a lot of fun. I started out using the keyboard to steer but that wasn't very smooth so I switched to the Xbox controller. This makes steering easier but I have to take a hand off to use the keyboard to turn on my blinkers or lights or windshield wipers, and to use the mouse to look left and right. Using the mouse to look left and right is quite easy when using the keyboard to steer but when using the controller it makes turning onto a new street very difficult. I need to see if I can switch the looking to the second controller joystick. There is also an option to steer with the mouse which I want to try

The hardest part of the game by far is parking when your reach your destination. You can pull into the spot and call it good or you can get bonus points if you back into the spot like a truck really would. I go with the backing in option because I want the points. And it is hard as hell. I know the basic idea of how to back up with a trailer but my only real-life experience with backing up a trailer is a small one attached to a riding lawnmower. There is a big difference between that and a giant trailer on a big rig, even if it is a virtual one. I cheat a little and use an external camera angle but even with that it is hard to see my wheels and when I try to make tiny corrections they turn into big corrections and then I have to pull forward and start all over. If I keep at it maybe I can get to the point where I can park while sitting in the cab but that is a long way off.

I went to Hobby Lobby because I am on my last skein of string for my cross stitch. I was worried they wouldn't have the color I needed because they have a history of not restocking yarn so I thought maybe that carried over to their string too. Thankfully it did not and I got four skeins just in case. I also got more yarn for my blanket. I didn't want to unroll the blanket and do the math to figure out how much more I needed so I winged it. I got three skeins of the gold yarn because they haven't had that in stock for months. I also got the last maroon they had and two of the light blue. They had a couple different colors of dark blue but not the one I needed. Unless they have renamed it. I need to take a sample next time.

I thought about going over to Hastings to rent some stuff but I told myself I wasn't going to do that if it was raining when I left Hobby Lobby. It wasn't necessarily raining but there was a decent sprinkle happening and I decided that was close enough so I just went home.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos, mostly old Rhett & Link videos, and played a little Cube World. I am finally a high enough level that I can hold my own against some of the bosses. I have come so far. I liked the three games I played today because I could turn the sound pretty much all the way down and still watch YouTube videos. The multitasking makes me feel like I'm not totally wasting my time playing video games. It makes no sense but whatever. I need to bite the bullet and start playing some of the games I have that I need to actually hear. Those far outweigh the silent ones.

Tomorrow I kind of want to go to Target. I need a couple things but I also have a craving for cereal, in particular, golden grahams. A cereal I haven't had since I was a kid and I don't even know if they still make it. But hopefully Target has it. And almond milk.

July 19, 2013

Today turned out to be entirely different than I originally thought. Around 8:30AM I got a text from my dad asking if I wanted to help with my brother's Eagle project. We talking about this a day or two ago and I was on board. His time frame was late morning. Which apparently meant 9:00AM. I bumped that to 9:20ish so I had time to do a brief exercise before my shower and then grabbed a couple granola bars for the road before heading out.

I had meant to check my work schedule before I left but I was a bit rushed and forgot about it. On the way out to the lake my dad asked me about my availability on Monday and I usually work at night but I decided I should check just in case. And I was still feeling like I should check it for today. And my feeling was correct because it turned out I was supposed to open today, not close like I usually do. I would have preferred to have my dad turn around and drop me back at my car or for me to be let out so I could walk back to my car but we decided to be quick about get the measurements we needed for a bench.

When we got out there my brother was already there sweeping and my dad took the measurements and my sister took pictures because documentation is needed for the Eagle project. She also got some pictures of me pretending to take measurements. Then we got back in the truck and headed back to town so I could go to work.

It was pretty close but I was able to make it home, make my lunch, change clothes, and made it to work only about five minutes later than I normally get there. Not bad. And then my day was pretty much the same as a normal day at work. I read a bunch, cross stitched some, and listened to the radio. I have comments on all of those things.

Under The Dome is getting crazy. There were kids having seizures, a double murder followed by a suicide, a near suicide, the examination of dead bodies, a fire, and a bunch of other stuff. I have to read it in bursts so I don't get too overwhelmed by it all. I'll read several chapters and then right when something bad is about to happen, I take a break. It's a system and it works for me.

I made a bunch of progress on my cross stitch. And then I pulled it all out because I made a counting error near the start of my stitching today. And then I made a bunch of progress again, eventually surpassing the initial progress. I think I could have possibly come very close to finishing the letter had I not made that mistake right off the bat. And I definitely could have finished it had I not been reading so much. But I like reading so I'm cool with how I divided my time today.

The last few days I've been listening to the college radio station. They have a better music selection than any of the main radio stations in the area because those stations have the same five songs on repeat. Although the college radio station only has about twenty songs on repeat. But they do throw in listener requests more often so that changes things up. The thing I don't like about the college station is when the DJs try to use what they think is a radio voice. There is one dude who slows to a crawl when he is saying the station name. I remember him from a year or so ago and it was incredibly awkward then and you could tell he thought it was something cool to be doing. He has gotten faster but it is still awkward and very unnatural sounding. There is another dude now that has a political show, which is bad right off the bat because kids talking about politics is always annoying. And on top of this, the dude talks in a very thoughtful (aka – slow) and proper way, which I imagine he thinks sounds professional but it doesn't. It just sounds very put-on. DJs need to have a conversational sound to their voice. That is a lot easier to listen to than someone trying to change their voice or manner of speaking for the radio. It's like these people don't have any friends willing to give them shit for how weird they sound when they're on the radio.

Tonight, also the same old thing. I ate some dinner, watched some YouTube videos, did more research on phones and possibly switching from T-Mobile to Ting, and played Trials HD (because it was cheap on the Steam sale today so I have it on my computer now). The phone thing has been a bother for awhile now. I find my phone to be more of a burden than a positive addition to my daily life. I like that I can text with my friends and family and have the occasional phone conversation but I don't really do a lot of that and I'm paying nearly seventy dollars a month. When I had my phone off for nearly a month I felt great. At least when it came to the anxiety created by my phone. That anxiety has not returned to the heights it once reached but it is still occasionally their and I do wish I could lose the phone all together. But I also don't want to become a hermit and I know that phones are pretty much a necessity in modern society. Unfortunately.

Ting is a fairly new wireless carrier that uses the Sprint network, better phones than pay-as-you-go services generally offer, and they offer a better pricing system than the big wireless carriers. Pricing for talking, messages, and data are kept separate and their isn't actually a monthly plan. There are tiers for each category and as you use up one tier, you get bumped up to the next. The first tier for talking is 100 minutes for $3 and if you use that you get bumped up to 500 minutes for $10 and then 1000 minutes for $18. So if you talk a bunch one month you might be paying $18 for minutes but the next you may only pay $3. And the same goes for texting and data (with different pricing), and those are independent categories are independent from each other. If you text like crazy but rarely talk or use the internet you may be spending $16 for 6000 texts but only $3 for 100 minutes and $3 for 100MB of data. It isn't like a normal phone plan where if you only want a lot of one thing you still have to pay for a lot of everything. There is quite a leap from the lowest tier to the next level, which kind of sucks because I may end up talking just over 100 minutes in a rare month but get bumped up to the next tier with 1000 minutes. But that's only two more dollars so it could be worse. There is also a flat $6 monthly usage fee plus all the other added things like taxes and fees and stuff. Being generous with my estimation of that stuff, plus the $6 fee, and using past monthly usage amounts for my phone, it looks like on the high end I would come in somewhere around $50 a month, which sounds a lot better that the $68 I currently pay. Even if I was paying $60 instead of $68 I'd still be saying almost a hundred dollars a year. And there are months when I could be down in the $30 range, which would be great.

So now I'm really on the fence. The main hiccup is having to get a new phone because they only support Sprint phones which is on a different signal or whatever from T-Mobile. So do I splurge and spend a ridiculous amount of money on a Sprint compatible phone and cross my fingers that Ting is as good as it seems to be? I haven't been under contract with T-Mobile for years now but I am used to them. But if I drop a bunch of money on a Sprint compatible phone, and I end up not liking Ting, then I would probably sign up with Sprint again (which I haven't had since high school because they were rude in the store) to get my money's worth out of the phone. So I need to take the precaution of looking at their plans and see if I would be getting boned compared to T-Mobile. I would really like to just get a cheap phone but phones don't really seem to have a happy middle ground. They're either inexpensive and pretty bad (or at best very hit and miss) or they are expensive as hell and get decent reviews. I still have a lot of research and thinking to do. So much thinking.

Now I am listening to music and I think I might read a little bit before going to bed. It is almost one in the morning at this point but I don't feel that tired yet and I don't want to just lay in bed wide awake. Hopefully my dad won't start texting me early in the morning about building benches.

July 18, 2013

Holy crap, I actually exercised this morning. And it felt great. I really need to do it every day. What was not great, was remembering that I needed to be at work an hour earlier than I previously thought because I forgot we had a kids show today. I got used to the past few weeks where it was at the same time as our first regular show, so I was going to work at the same time every day, not an hour early on Thursdays. Whoops. I remembered right as I was getting out of the shower and thankfully I give myself enough time in the morning so I was able to get to work in time to start the kids shows. Even if I only had five minutes to spare.

We had a lot more kids than usual thanks to several bus loads of Boys & Girls Club kids. While I was talking to one of the managers one of the little girls came up to us and started giving me a funny stare, which I returned in kind. She was a third grader last year that moved to a different school about halfway through the year. She recognized me and I remembered her because she looks a lot like what my friend's sister looked like when she was younger. It was a pretty funny moment.

My day was the same as yesterday. I listened to the radio while switching off between reading and cross stitching. I have probably passed the halfway point on the fourth letter of my cross stitch. Slowly but surely. I also hit 50% on Under The Dome. Only eighteen hours to go. I have only read one other Stephen King book, Dreamcatcher, and I liked it, and I am really getting into Under The Dome, so I should probably read more Stephen King books. They are quite the commitment though. I remember Dreamcatcher being a long book, Under The Dome is one thousand pages, and I have always wanted to read Tommyknockers but I remember seeing that in a stack of books at my dad's house when I was little and it was also pretty thick. I have a collection of scary short stories by Stephen King that I got at a library sale awhile ago so maybe that would be a good start. Low commitment. But first, I've still got eighteen hours left in Under The Dome. The best two things I read today was a Laurel And Hardy reference and one of the characters saying “He's acting like Chief Big Dick of Horny Mountain.” That is pretty great.

After work I ate the second half of my Chipotle burrito and eventually called the new volunteer kid to see if we were going to hang out. Which we were not because he had chores to do and a house to paint. I asked him about the progress on getting his birth certificate and his case worker has submitted a request to get one. The kid tried calling his dad to see if he had the birth certificate but he didn't answer. Maybe he just doesn't answer numbers he doesn't recognize.

With my night free, I was unproductive. Sort of. I watched YouTube videos and played my new favorite tablet game, Hill Climb Racing. I maxed out the jeep a day or two ago and today I managed to unlock and fully upgrade the tank, which is the best vehicle. In my opinion, only having tried the jeep and a double-decker tourist bus before the tank. I found out using the tank on the moon level is the easiest way to rack up points because I can get between 80,000 and 100,000 points per run. Until tonight when I was having very successful runs on the highway level, get over 1,000,000 points per run. I haven't actually timed it so it might be faster doing shorter moon runs, but it is way more satisfying getting 1,000,000 points.

July 17, 2013

Today was a Wednesday and it is summer so it was much like any other day. I decided not to watch anything at work today. Instead I listened to the radio while I worked on my cross stitch and read my book. Progress was made on both fronts. There was one mishap where Pacific Rim was doubled up with itself (the 2D and 3D versions) but labeled incorrectly on the schedule. So the first set I played the 2D instead of the 3D, and no one complained. So the second set I loaded up the 3D movie and got a complaint from a kid who works at the theater. At this point I didn't know the schedule was wrong so I figured I had just loaded the wrong movie and felt a bit annoyed with myself. I went downstairs to check things out and confused everyone. The tickets and computer had the right version but the schedules were switched. And tomorrow's schedule has the versions switched again. In the end we decided that yesterday there was an earlier show but when it was deleted from the schedule, whoever did that, just moved the times over a spot, making them lined up with the wrong version. At this point it doesn't sound that confusing but at the time it took awhile to get everyone's mind wrapped around it.

After work it was Chipotle night and my mom went out with her friends so it was just me and my sister. I showed her several YouTube videos and she laughed at most of them so that was good. If my mom had been there she wouldn't have been into most of them I don't think, so it was probably good she was out with her friends.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos and played Cube World. Shocking. Same old story there, really.

My goal for tomorrow morning is to exercise before work. The past two mornings I have completely blown it off. Not good. Tuesday it was understandable because I didn't get off work until late Monday night. This morning I didn't have an excuse. I woke up several times during the night so I can blame it on that but really I just wanted to lay in bed. I am fairly certain I won't want to get out of bed and exercise tomorrow morning either, and that attitude isn't helping in the least, but at least I'm honest with myself.

July 16, 2013

Today at work I watched Django Unchained. Finally. My favorite scene is still the lynch mob with their ill-fitting hoods. That was pretty much the only scene I saw when it was in theaters and it is still hilarious. As for the movie as a whole, I liked it. Especially all the different music. The music really made the movie for me.

I made a little progress on my cross stitch and I also read a bunch in Under The Dome. But I eventually had to stop reading because all the tension was making me anxious. According to the Kindle counter I still have about twenty-four hours of reading to go before I finish the book. That's a long time. But hopefully I make it and not too many of the people I like will be killed off.

I also ran into two of my high school classmates. One was with his little nephew and the other was with his two kids. My peers are so grown up now. And I am not. I want a wife and kids and a career and a life and all that grown up stuff but I don't think I am anywhere near any of that. Not even kind of. I'm definitely on a much slower and more lackadaisical path than a lot of people my age. And as I always say and never follow through on, I need to work on that.

Tonight, I did not work on any of that. I watched YouTube videos and played a bit of Cube World. And now I am tired but I am back to the being really tired yet unable to fall asleep thing. It is nice laying in bed but it is frustrating when I have to get up in the morning but can't fall asleep. On the plus side, we dropped the ten o'clock shows tomorrow so I get to go in an hour later (at ten o'clock instead of nine o'clock). Soon enough I will go back to waking up at six o'clock. That is going to suck.

July 15, 2013

There is a theory that caterpillars were responsible for the demise of dinosaurs. Caterpillars came into being shortly before the dinosaurs went extinct and the theory is that an infestation of caterpillars chewed up all the leaves so herbivorous dinosaurs had nothing to eat, which killed them off and in turn took away the food supply for carnivorous dinosaurs. Apparently most people do not agree with this theory (or hypothesis I guess) but I think it is pretty interesting. It's up there with the hypothesis that butterflies are actually parasites that live inside of caterpillars, and they compel the caterpillar to build a cocoon, and then use the caterpillar as a source of food before breaking out of the cocoon. If it were true, that would be way cooler than reality.

Not surprisingly, I did not make it to Hobby Lobby today. I did give it some thought but I don't really need the string yet and I have no plans to work on my blanket in the near future. Instead, I started watching old Rhett And Link videos on YouTube. Starting with their Good Morning Chia Lincoln series. And I watched a high school graduation speech that they gave which was probably the best one I have seen. Easily the most memorable. I've been through one graduation in high school and two in college and I couldn't tell you what anyone said at any of them. It was all bullshit and took way too long. Graduation speakers should always be comedians. You still probably won't remember what they say but it would make the hours go by faster.

I also played a little Cube World, discovering yet another ocean biome. They are definitely in abundance on my world. Not a problem for me considering I have spent the majority of my time swimming around in the various oceans. I added a beetle, horse, and chicken to my growing pet collection as well as more food for taming. I think I have enough food to double my current pet count, which is a number I couldn't tell you at the moment. But it's a lot.

At work tonight I read a bunch, finished the third letter of my cross stitch and got a start on the fourth, finished the second series of Sherlock, watched The Watch, and played a game on my tablet. Much like my current pet count in Cube World, I couldn't tell you what game I was playing on my tablet but it has been my new favorite for the past couple of days. It involved a truck that you control with gas and brake pedals, trying to go as far as you can on various side-scrolling maps. The truck is upgradable, which you need to do in order to make it farther on the maps. There are also other vehicles but I have been spending my points on unlocking truck upgrades and maps. I am afraid that if I unlock a new vehicle the upgrades from my truck won't carry over and that just sounds like a long process. I'll try it eventually, after I fully upgrade the truck and unlock all the maps. I like it because it requires some skills, it keeps me wanting to go farther and farther, and it doesn't require me to pay money in order to unlock stuff. That is an option of course, but a big part of the fun is saving up the points for upgrades and unlocks. It would quickly lose its entertainment value if I bought all the upgrades and unlocks. It would kind of take the point away from the whole game.

Anyway, when I got home I typed this up and watched/listened to APL's stream of house music that he was DJing from his bedroom. Outside of MachinimaRespawn, I knew that Mr. Sark was really into the music and that APL was getting into it but I didn't know he was into the DJ thing. And I've got to say I am liking what he's doing. Hopefully the stream will be saved because it would make good exercise music.

I also had a cup of trail mix when I got home and in the middle of it my jaw started to hurt whenever I would take a bite. I have no idea what that's about, maybe I yawned too big, but I'm going to cross my fingers that in seven hours or so from now it will have fixed itself. Work your magic Sleep.

July 14, 2013

Sunday, Lazy Sunday. I spent a lot of time in Gimp today making an outline for each of the standard frame sizes so when I make a cross stitch pattern I can see how big the actual cross stitch will be and which frame it will fit best in. I use sixteen count cloth, which means sixteen stitches per inch, and that makes it easier to figure out with a ruler that has 1/16^th markings on it. It is easier for me to visualize that than fourteen or eighteen count. It was surprisingly harder to make the outlines than I originally thought because I kept getting off by one or two. Especially when I tried to make it go faster and cut an paste lines at a time. I'm probably still wrong on some of them but I'm close enough. Hopefully.

I watched a couple more movies today. The first was It's Kind Of A Funny Story with Zach Galifianakis. It is about a boy who is thinking about committing suicide so he checks himself into the psych ward at a hospital. Zach Galifianikis and Emma Roberts are two of the other patients. It was a pretty good movie and there was a lot of comedy despite the subject matter. I got a strong feeling that Zach's character was supposed to commit suicide at the end but he didn't (as far as I'm aware) so maybe they wanted to make it an uplifting story and not end on a downer. And despite not liking sad things, I think it would have been a better movie had Zach's character committed suicide.

Near the end Zach gets into a group home so he has a place to live when he checks out in a couple days and there is a scene with him talking on the phone with his daughter about how nice the group home will be when she comes to visit. Then there is a going away pizza party and Zach shows up on the outskirts and smiles for a bit and then gets serious and leaves. It appears as if he is happy and then turns sad. The next morning when the kid is checking out he asks about Zach's character and the orderly says he left earlier in the morning. You could take this to mean he committed suicide but they wouldn't have hidden that from the kid, or the rest of the floor, so we have to take it to mean that he checked out and went to the group home without saying goodbye to anyone. Believable but I would like to see an alternate ending.

The other movie I watched was Paul, because I was in the mood for a sci-fi comedy without any suicidal tendencies. It is a pretty great movie. It is crazy that we went from floating rocks on strings and dressing lizards up like dinosaurs, to having a complete CGI alien as a starring character in a movie and it was completely believable. Other than the fact that he was an alien, obviously, but it looked great and hopefully it will stand up to time. Although some day in the future it will probably look like crap. Even if only because it is a non-holographic, 2D movie.

Tonight I played more Cube World and I feel like it was updated since yesterday, although there is no record of it. I mentioned how I liked leveling up in the ocean by killing all the big fish but they rarely dropped loot. Well, tonight I was getting all sorts of loot. Including several new pieces of food to tame animals with. I need to go on a pet hunt soon. I am liking my current one but I want a zoo. I think it would be cool in future builds of the game if you could have a fenced in yard to keep all your pets in that you weren't currently using. Or at least a bunch of shelf space where you could put them as small character models or pictures or something. Time will tell, the game is still in the early stages. Also, along with the loot drops, I ran into several seahorses and lemon fish in boss form, which I have never seen before. And, they are tiny and fairly easy to kill and I think they were the first bosses I have actually killed in the game. All the bigger ones either kill me or I can't knock their health down fast enough so it resets before I can kill them, which is incredibly frustrating.

A little while ago I finished watching the Avett Brothers on Austin City Limits and now I am listening to their music on Spotify. I really need to buy their CDs so I can listen to them in my car. I think it would make good driving music. I have been a fan of theirs for years now but I haven't really bought many CDs in that time. I would buy several a week when I was in high school in college, ending up with a collection of hundreds, but now I throw most of my spending money at cheap games on the computer. And even that is fading because I rarely get around to playing them. I probably haven't even played a quarter of the games I have.

Speaking of games, I beat Candy Crush tonight. And by 'beat' I mean that I beat the last level before they charge you $0.99 for more levels. I don't think I have ever spent money on in-game micro-transactions and I am certainly not going to start with Candy Crush, where there is very little skill and a hell of a lot of luck involved. I know myself well enough to know I lose interest in things quickly and micro-transactions in free-to-play games aren't really worth it because I won't play the game enough for it to be worth it.

Anyway, I don't really have any plans for my day tomorrow other than going to worth a six o'clock. I kind of want to go down to Hobby Lobby and buy more string for my sister's cross stitch because I know I will need more by the time I'm finished. I also want to check on yarn for my blanket. I think they had the yellow yarn last time but I didn't have any pieces with me to double check and I didn't want to buy a whole bunch of yarn that ended up being the wrong color. I have enough random yarn, I don't need to add any more to it.

July 13, 2013

Not a whole lot was accomplished tonight. It was an incredibly lazy day. I watched YouTube videos and movies, played Cube World and various tablet games, came up with a name for my Etsy store, and after this I am going to read a little.

Movies. I finally got around to watching Identity Thief. I saw a lot of it while it was in theaters but never got around to watching the whole thing. It was pretty good. Jason Bateman is great and Melissa McCarthy is always over the top and completely hilarious. I do wish she would lose some weight though. Not for the sake of her image but purely for health reasons. She is hilarious and I want her to be around for decades. Too many people die way too young because they ignore their health.

I also watched Kicking And Screaming because I was in the mood for Will Ferrell. In his comedies he is pretty much the same person every single time but I'm a fan so I have no problem with that. My favorite part of Kicking And Screaming is probably the ongoing bit about coffee. And when he wants a juice box.

In Cube World I discovered more biomes and leveled up several times thanks to the four oceans in my world. I have still found the easiest way to level up is to go after all the big fish in the ocean, including the sharks and piranha now that I am a high enough level to actually do damage to them. I can start attacking them from far away with arrows and more often than not take them out before they get anywhere near me. They don't drop loot that often so that is a downside but I'm in it to level up and it is a lot easier on my wrists and forearms, compared to running away from enemies on land.

I haven't made the full commitment to an Etsy store but I did come up with a name today. If I do decide to start selling stuff I need to get a better camera than the one available on my phone. Maybe. I'm still into the cross stitch thing so I would like to sell some of those but I need to clean the ones I have made and frame them for the pictures. As far as selling them goes I think it would make more sense to make and mount them on foam board and ship them that way, and charge extra if someone actually wants one framed. In the winter months I could also put up hats and scarves because when the weather is cold I tend to go back to knitting and crocheting. And then there is woodworking stuff. I really want to get back into that. So there are any number of things I could make and sell on Etsy, I just need to take the step and get it all started. Story of my life.

July 12, 2013

I got to sleep in today and it was wonderful. And after waking up I continued to lay in bed for awhile just because it feels pretty great to wake up and not immediately have to get out of bed.

After getting up, my day was pretty uneventful. Or normal. However you'd like to describe it. I burned some DVDs, watched YouTube videos, exercised, and played Cube World. In the last, I added a fly as a pet, discovered a lava biome and another ocean biome, leveled up a couple of times, and made a pretty cool crossbow. Fun game.

At work I finished the first season and started the second season of Sherlock. I got to see my favorite bit (which I turned into a series of GIFs after seeing it the first time) when Sherlock beats the crap out of the American dude because he hurt Mrs. Hudson. And I watched the episode with Irene Adler (played by Lara Pulver) and I fall in love with her a little every time I see that episode. The dominatrix thing isn't really for me but she is still hot.

We had midnight shows tonight but I got to go home after they started. This was nice but I was fine working on my cross stitch and watching Sherlock. Instead I lost out on a couple hours of that and a tiny bit of money by getting to go home. Where I did nothing. My room really is a black hole in terms of productivity. I need to work on that.

July 11, 2013

My hope to get a better night of sleep last night was a bust. At 3:49AM I was awakened by a high-pitched beeping noise. It sounded like an electronic cricket. My computer had restarted during the night and was on the log-in screen so that wasn't the problem. And I didn't have any electronics where the noise seemed to be coming from. Which was near the window, like a cricket, but it wasn't a chirping noise, it was a repetitive beeping that was digging into my head. I went and sat in the bathroom with my hands over my ears for several minutes in the hope that the sound would be gone by the time I went back to my room. And thankfully, it was. Whatever it was. I took some ibuprofen and went back to bed.

At 4:34AM, Tanner had another seizure. This was brought to my attention by him crashing into the wall and the other dogs freaking out like they always do. It wasn't strange that he had a seizure because he has always had seizures but it was strange that he had one so soon after the one he just had. Usually they don't happen more often than once a month and he can often go much longer without one. This time he had two within a few days. Hopefully he'll be good for awhile now. His seizures have become normal, like they were with Sam, but they are still disconcerting.

I attempted to watch the Christmas special for the seventh series of Doctor Who at work today but it suffered from the same pausing issue at the other DVDs in the series. On my computer the pausing is only a minor blip but on my portable DVD player it comes across as a full stop. Very annoying. It either has something to do with whatever was going on with my computer while I was burning them, the DVDs themselves (which I doubt because I probably burned them back-to-back and the odds of several DVDs being screwed up in a row aren't great), or an issue with the CD burner. I want to go with the latter. I think I used my external burner and I think that is the issue because when I re-burned the other DVDs in the series using the CD burner in my computer tower they worked fine. My main concern at the moment is how many DVDs I burned using my external burner. I was switching back and forth between the two and I can't remember if I used the external one for more than just the seventh series for Doctor Who. My fingers are crossed that I did not but I won't know until I watch everything I have burned recently. Which will take awhile.

With the Christmas fail, I moved on to Hanna, a movie I have wanted to see since it was in theaters but never got around to seeing it. I liked it. It had a very European feel, and not just because it takes place on that side of the world. Every time I see the main actress outside of her acting I am shocked by her strong Irish accent. She loses it so well in her movies. After that movie I went with the first series of of Sherlock, and very nearly finished it. A handful of minutes shy. Cumberbatch is a genius in how he plays Sherlock. And the dude playing Moriarty is also pretty great. And because I feel like I am just naming characters, Watson is pretty awesome as well. I'm a fan of the show. And of Steven Moffat thanks to his work on Doctor Who.

I also continued work on my cross stitch. I made it to the tricky frilly stuff in the middle off the 'D' and I'm pretty sure it is going to be a pain in the butt and I won't be surprised when I have to tear half of it out and start over.

And I did some work, created by one of the managers mistakes. He was previewing a movie when I got there and when it was over he came upstairs to switch it back to the movie that was actually playing in that theater today. And I accepted his actions because he came and looked at the schedule. But I was mistaken in this trust because he loaded the movie that was in there yesterday, not today. There was apparently a very angry mother when Kevin Hart's movie started instead of Now You See Me. I was able to load up just the movie so they didn't have to sit through trailers again but then the curtain wouldn't stay open. This is the same theater I “fixed” the other day when the curtains wouldn't close to Flat. In that case I had to turn the curtain motor on. Turns out it was turned off to keep the curtains in the Scope position, because when it is turned on, it keeps defaulting to Flat, regardless of what I press upstairs. So I went downstairs and made it to the theater right as a dude was coming out to complain that the movie was showing on the curtains. It took me a couple tries to realize what was happening so the patrons were probably really unhappy (on top of the wrong movie starting) with the curtains repeatedly opening and closing.

Tonight I had a good, forty-five minute visit with the new volunteer kid. All of the job applications we dropped off finally had some results. Or one result. In that he got a job at Sonic. Which is good but also bad because they need a photo ID and a copy of his birth certificate. Two things he doesn't have. It is annoying enough getting a copy of your birth certificate when you can engage in open communication with your parents. It's a whole other level of annoying when you're in foster care. His new case worker is looking into it so hopefully it can get worked out soon so he can keep the job.

The rest of the night I did a lot of nothing. Same old thing really. I got a chance to really try out my new exercise stepper. The best thing about it is that my head doesn't go into my ceiling fan when I am standing on it. The second best thing, is that it seems to give a pretty good workout. My legs were burning after five minutes. Mostly because I am weak but also because the stepper is doing its job. Now as long as the thing doesn't fall apart on me, I will be happy.

July 10, 2013

Last night there was a bit of a storm and two of the dogs were freaked out. I still think they are recovering from the Fourth of July. When I opened my door, Beau bum-rushed me, ran into my room, and jumped up on my bed, getting really comfortable surrounded by pillows. Alfie wasn't as forward but she looked pitiful sitting outside my room so I let her in too. I eventually kicked them out when I wanted to actually go to bed and by that time the storm had stopped. And despite being tired, all I could do was yawn a lot, not fall asleep. So I read for awhile and even after that I probably laid in bed for another hour before falling asleep. And that was off and on throughout the night. I think it was mind related. It was pretty active last night.

Good news, the glitchiness I experienced with the seventh series of Doctor Who yesterday was DVD/burn related. I burned new ones and all was well. So I finished the seventh series at work today. And now I need the next series to get here. When Tennant left they made is ending amazing and I am really interested to see how they handle Matt Smith's departure. I have enjoyed his goofiness. And there is a lot of anxiety involved with the introduction of a new Doctor.

I made progress on the third letter of my cross stitch and I'd say I'm maybe halfway done with it. I noticed that the fourth letter in my pattern is centered one square high in the border. I am hoping I remember that when I get a start on it and start one square lower. I've got a feeling I will forget.

The best part of my day at work was the fact that it was not 90-100 degrees upstairs. I think at most it got up to the mid-80s. Still not great but much better than yesterday.

It was Chipotle day and my burrito was pretty good. After dinner I showed my mom and sister YouTube videos. There were some good ones (they were all good in my opinion) but I definitely peaked last week.

My new exercise stepper thing arrived today and I tried it out a little bit and I think it will work out. It has good resistance which tends to be the downfall of small steppers. It also has resistance band things for your arms and I think they were made with shorter people in mind because they start off pretty low, making for more resistance. Not a bad thing, until one of them snaps and kills me. I haven't actually tried the stepper out in my room yet and my only concern is that it will make me too tall to use it under my fan. I will find out soon enough. But not too soon because I am too lazy to stand up.

I played more Cube World tonight. I leveled up a couple times and discovered another ocean biome. I have found a pretty quick way of leveling up is to take on the giant fish in the ocean. Not the sharks or piranha because they still kick my ass, but the other ones are fairly easy and I get between seven and twelve XP for each kill. Going after them is a lot more laid back than getting chased down by dudes on land or hit by range weapons. It is still a beautiful looking game. It is amazing what can be done with cubes.

It is way too late for me to be up so I am going to go to bed now. Hopefully I will sleep better than last night. But not well enough that morning comes too fast.

July 9, 2013

Not a lot to write about today. It was 105 degrees outside. This lead to it being 91 degrees on the cool side at work and at least 100 degrees on the hot side. And I think the air conditioner gave up because it was just blowing air. Nowhere near cold air. I felt bad for the tech guy who came to work on one of the projectors because because it was at the very end of the hot end, next to the uninsulated wall and drafty door. I gave up on putting trailers on movies because I was sweating just standing in one spot. I was barely keeping an equilibrium by sitting under the horrible excuse for an air conditioner with a fan blowing on me.

While I sat there on the cusp, I worked on my cross stitch and watched DVDs. I finished the second letter and got a good start on the third. Progress. I had to give up on series seven on Doctor Who because the DVDs kept pausing randomly. I thought the sad part came at the end of the series but it came in the middle and it was a little less sad with all the random pauses. At first I thought it was the DVD player but after that I was able to watch 21 Jump Street without a problem. It could still be the DVDs but I haven't checked them yet on my computer. I burned them back-to-back so there is a chance it was something in the burning process or just two bad DVDs. Fingers crossed on that.

For dinner tonight I had fake hot dogs and fake tater tots (in the form of baked cauliflower, which were better than the first time, maybe because I added in a bit of dill). The rest of my night was spent watching New Girl, looking around the internet, reading a bit of Under The Dome, and texting with my brother about guitars. I need to start playing again. And take up the piano again. There are so many things on my list of things I want to do. Very few of them will ever be accomplished because I am too overwhelmed by the size of that list.

July 8, 2013

Yesterday I forgot to mention that I started my day by cleaning out the inside of my computer tower. I have been waiting too long in between cleanings lately. I need to get better at that. It always makes me feel better after I have cleaned out all the dust and made it look new again. Or at least pretty close to new. Some of the dust is very persistent.

Today I watched stuff and played Cube World. I know that I continued watching the first season of New Girl but I am pretty sure I watched something else. Maybe. Or not. I don't know. Anyway, Cube World. I leveled up a couple more times, tamed a badass Leaf Runner, killed a bunch of scary fish in the ocean, and spent a lot of time in a temple dungeon. I have yet to beat a dungeon boss but I do believe I have made significant progress at beating up the minions leading up to the boss. As long as I can keep it to only fighting two or three at a time. When I aggro more than that It gets a bit difficult to kite them around long enough to kill them all, especially when my pet dies. I am really enjoying the game, even if my wrists aren't. It gets more fun as I level up because I don't get immediately annihilated by all the mobs I come across. Only a lot of them.

Tonight at work I nearly finish the second letter in my cross stitch. I could have gotten even closer but I decided I needed a break. And I wanted to type this up before I got home so I didn't have to worry about it. I should be able to finish the second letter tomorrow, fingers crossed, and maybe get a start on the third. I'm creeping up on the halfway mark. I won't be able to keep this pace up when the school year begins but maybe I can finish it by then. That is a big maybe.

While I worked on the cross stitch I watched Blood & Chrome, a movie prequel to Battlestar Galactica that follows Adama (Edward James Olmos's character in Battlestar Galactica) on his first mission when he first joined the military. It was pretty good and it was interesting getting a glimpse at that world before the series. Caprica didn't last but I need to check that out next. I only saw an episode or two when it was on TV but couldn't really get into it because I didn't know what was going on. It, too, is a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, and now that I have watched that, maybe Caprica will be more meaningful.

I also started watching series seven of Doctor Who. I'm not looking forward to reaching the end. I'm sure they throw in some funny stuff but I just remember the sad bit. And I guess it isn't necessarily sad because their is a twist, as there tends to be with Doctor Who, but it is still kind of sad. Especially when you add in the storyboarded post script that wasn't filmed but just makes the whole thing more of a tear-jerker. I'll get there soon enough. And then I think I'll start Sherlock. Keeping with the British theme.

When I wasn't doing all of that stuff, I read a bit from Under The Dome and did some actual work by building a couple movies, minus the trailers because we don't have a trailer list yet. And now I have about twenty-five or thirty minutes before I can clock out and go home. We don't have a ten o'clock show in the morning which is nice because I can get an extra hour of sleep. It still sucks waking up in the morning to the sound of an alarm. Though it is better when the alarm is set to 8:00AM or 8:30AM and it is light outside, compared to 6:00AM during the school year.

July 7, 2013

A classic, lazy Sunday. I caught up on YouTube videos, watched a little TV, burned some DVDs, and played Cube World. I have discovered five biomes and am up to seven or eight pets. Until they add in being able to build a house, my main goal for the game is to get a whole bunch of pets. I just wish I could have more than one out at a time so I could just adventure around with a gang of animals. Tonight I finally got an alpaca, the pet I have wanted from the beginning because they look awesome. And I named him Notallama. I just found an ocean biome and I have the food to tame a Leaf Runner, which kind of looks like an ostrich if instead of a long neck, the head was stuck right on the front of the body. But my next goal is to tame a turtle. That probably would have been my favorite before the alpaca but I saw the alpaca first. To tame a turtle, however, I need a cinnamon roll, which I have not come across yet. Eventually.

The power blinked out tonight while I was playing, right after I collected the food I needed to tame the alpaca and almost immediately after I tamed a bat, and I tensed up for a second, afraid that I lost all that stuff. A bad thing considering that the food only drops randomly and rarely. But I guess the game saves automatically as you go because when I turned my computer back on and got back in the game I was within a few feet of where I had been when my computer shut off. Amazing.

I made a food from Pinterest today. That is probably a pretty rare statement. At least I am assuming. Anyway, it wasn't much of a food, just baked cauliflower, but I still made it. It was supposed to be a substitute for microwave popcorn, something I don't eat because it is a bit much and I prefer entirely plain, air pop popcorn, but I wanted to give it a try. I changed up the recipe but it ended up working out. I cut up a bunch of cauliflower and threw it in a bag with some olive oil, tumeric, paprika, lemon pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. Then I tossed it all around, poured it onto a baking sheet, and put it in the oven for about thirty minutes at 425 degrees. It really did come anywhere close to being like popcorn but it did remind me a lot of tater tots. Like a lot. And it was good. I might make some more tomorrow. Maybe.

Due to catching up on my YouTube videos, tonight I watched other stuff. I started with a TV show, Vexed, a British buddy cop type of show. I originally wanted to watch it because it had Lucy Punch and she was hilarious in Ben And Kate (which got canceled and that sucks). But the first season is on three episodes and Lucy Punch did not return in the second season. So that is weird but the first three episodes were pretty good. She plays more of the straight-laced cop going through some marital issues. And her new partner is a cop who plays by his own rules and doesn't really care what people think. Not the first time that dynamic has been used but I liked it. I'm going to have to check out the second season and see how the new girl is. After that I moved onto a couple movies. First, Revenge For Jolly, a movie about a man and his cousin who go on a vengeful killing spree after his dog is killed. It is a dark comedy and it was decent. There wasn't much of an ending and that kind of sucked but I enjoyed the comedy. Second, Going The Distance, a straight-up comedy after the dark stuff. I'm a fan of the movie and it didn't fail to make me laugh. I ended the night with a couple episodes from the first season of New Girl. Great show. Schmidt is my favorite character, closely followed by Nick (played by Jake Johnson, who looks like he could be the brother of Oscar Isaac, who played the cousin in Revenge For Polly, and the resemblance is a little freaky).

I am going to finish the episode I'm on and then go to bed. I am looking forward to school starting again so I can get back to that schedule. It sucks only getting about seven hours of sleep a night but I kind of like going to bed early and getting up early.

July 6, 2013

Today was a pretty good day off. A relaxing one. I got to sleep in a little bit before the dogs decided it was time to randomly bark at nothing. After getting up and around I spent the first part of my day burning DVDs and watching YouTube videos. I also randomly checked the Cube World website because the open Beta became available in the last day or two but it was so popular that the store kept getting pulled offline. So from time to time I would go back to the page and refresh it until finally it came up and I was able to buy the game.

It has been compared to Minecraft because it is a boxey, infinitely generating, open world game. But Minecraft is more focused on mining and building things. Cube World is more of an old school RPG game, focused on killing random mobs, collecting loot, conquering dungeons, and exploring the giant open world. The graphics are so simple but it is a really good looking game. And a lot of fun. I'm not sure how many hours I put into it today but it was at least several. I went with a Elf ranger with green hair and a giant crossbow. And I have repeatedly had my ass handed to me by spell-casters so I kind of want to try that next. I spent a lot of time trying to take a dungeon, in the form of a giant castle, but it was a complete failure. I would make it past the first few groups of bad guys but the last few groups before the boss were awful. And several times I got hung up on them long enough that when I would die and spawn away from the castle, the first groups would have respawned by the time I made it back. I only made it through to the boss once, and I held my own for a bit but I didn't have any health potions and there wasn't enough time to eat anything. I leveled up due to my efforts and I got a little better at the game in the process so I'd say it was worth it. It would be fun if I knew other people that played games because Cube World would definitely be a lot of fun with a group of people.

Other accomplishments for the day include returning some of my rented DVDs and doing my monthly report for my volunteer thing. So not a bad day. Not necessarily that productive but I got things done. And now it is very late and I want to sleep. So I am going to do that.