Travel (B)log - Week 1

I seem to have found myself in a strange land, or perhaps a familiar land in a strange time. It's as if I'm living in an ancient civilization that is somehow in the future. They write everything using strange, ancient looking, glyphs combined with overly cheerful emoji. The architecture is dichotomous. Some is modern, some ancient;  some efficient some ornate. The technology is incredibly advanced, yet I still see people carrying other people around in hand carts. My chronological device is obviously broken, since it claims that I am permanently stuck in tomorrow, but I'm still in the same decade. I will need to further investigate these anomalies, but for now I will write my findings here in the hopes that they will find they're way back to the world as I know it.

I'm not alone. Five others were transported here with me. Fortunately, one of us is able to speak the language and read the glyphs. The other five of us have learned to distrust him, we are certain that he knows something we don't know. We keep a watchful eye on him, and are loath to let him out of sight. The second day here it rained gratuitously, unable to verify the chemical nature of the rain we thought it imperative that we find protective measures to defend ourselves. I consider one member of our party lucky to have survived the downpour, since he was hesitant to trust the umbrellas we had secured. We were later able to convince him of the error of his ways, I pray we were not too late, and that no ill effects are borne of this.

Once we had a means of protecting ourselves we began our investigation. We started with an anomalous region, that seemed to predate the rest of the architecture by eons. It seems that the new civilization has preserved the ancient, building alongside it, instead of on top of it. This particular region piqued our interest since it starkly contrasted the surrounding region. Instead of a sprawling metropolis of streets and buildings, it was green and lush. As if it was a tiny nature preserve in the middle of a city that does not end. We carefully documented our findings of the region by photographing everything that seemed to stand out to us. Satisfied with our findings we moved on to investigate other regions.

It seems our party leader (the one who is able to communicate with the natives of this time and place) has been here before. He made contact with one of his agents, who had discovered and was able to infiltrate a splinter group that call themselves 'ninja'. Much like the ninja of ancient times, this is a group of assassins that have burrowed deep into the bowels of this civilization, hiding in plain sight. We made our way to the entry of their village, and greeted a sentry. The strange thing was that there was no gate. I say 'the entry to their village', but no entry was apparent. The sentry guarded an empty room, with only one exit, the one directly behind us. Fortunately, our agent had made prior arrangements, or I'm certain this encounter would have gone very differently. The sentry gave some sort of secret signal and a ninja entered the room via a secret passage. I was unable to understand their conversation, but the ninja proceeded to show us into their village, deep within the middle of the city. We were treated to a meal fit for a king. We were barely able to finish what was placed before us, partly because we were famished; but mostly because we dare not find out what would happen if we didn't. Upon finishing the meal, one of the ninjas (I assume the one that our agent had made arrangements with) gave us a demonstration of ninjutsu magic. We were then allowed to leave the village, which was a relief to all of us.

I'm still alive after the first five days. I hope that I survive long enough to make my findings known to the world I left behind. I have begun to learn some simple expressions, and phrases. Not enough to get by on my own. So I will need to keep our party leader around, for now. I've begun to suspect that he is the reason we are all here, I can't prove anything, but I think he knows we are suspicious of him.

The Repurposing of Old and Uninteresting Things to New and Equally Uninteresting Things

The Premise

I'm going to start posting updates about all the dull, uninteresting things in my life here where people are free to read (or more probably, not read) about them. I'll update this every week (but probably not) so that all my friends and family can read it and never have to wonder to themselves "I wonder how Neal is doing?" and that way when we meet on holidays and such you can skip the niceties of asking things like: "How is your job?" or "What have you been up to?" or "Have you gone on any dates lately?" (actually, I'll answer that last question right here: No, the answer is always no. You can stop asking now.)

I suppose this is more akin to a journal, but I think of it as more of a 'captain's log'. I tried to start a new blog with that title, unfortunately that address is already taken by a nice¹ German fellow² whom you can follow here. Congratulations on having an awesome blog name, I kind of wish I could read it, since it is probably far more interesting than this one.

Before beginning I would like to apologize to the current follower of this blog in the event that you receive some sort of notification when I post this, I imagine you had forgotten that you were following this blog since I haven't posted here in a very long time (that's not the apology), I hope you don't feel obliged to read any of this as I'm sure the aforementioned thoughts haven't begun to enter your mind. If they have (this is the apology bit), for that I am truly sorry.

The Actual Blog Post

To business then. Since this is the first post I suppose I have a lot to say to get uninformed readers up to speed. I work as a web-developer for a company in downtown Calgary. I enjoy playing video games when I'm not working. I have been a bachelor for approximately a third of my life, so I've gotten rather good at it. I tend not to leave the house when I don't have to, thus making a potentially interesting blog anything but (interesting).

As of late, I have been playing Destiny on XBox One. Destiny is basically a game where you are pitted in an endless battle of wits against the developers of the game by trying to find ways to exploit said game to make it enjoyable before said developers have time to patch said exploit. This becomes more difficult since the Bungie team have taken to releasing patches weekly and have stated that they will be supporting the game for 10 years. Just the other day some players found an exploit that involved killing me repeatedly until the match was over, this continued for several matches. However, since this exploit doesn't make the game enjoyable (for at least one person), I don't expect Bungie will patch this any time soon. Well done guys, you may have found a loophole.

I have been reading "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" on the train to and from work. I'm currently in part 3/5, my favorite character is Marvin. He is, by far, the most interesting character in the book, and to some extent is the inspiration for starting this blog. Although, I suppose using the words "Marvin" and "inspiration" together in that context is a little ironic.

Like most people, I like to listen to music when I'm actively ignoring the world around me. Lately I've been listening to a band called "Freelance Whales", my favorite song as of this writing would have to be "Starring", although it was formerly "Generator ^ First Floor" as heard in this twitter advertisement.

I played some softball and ultimate frisbee this summer, we didn't lose all of our games, but we came close. I was one of the few on both teams to not suffer a career ending injury, however, I am nevertheless not currently pursuing careers in either of these sports.

I mostly ate perogies this week for dinner since I took a bag out of the freezer and I hate seeing perogies go bad. I did, however, discover that salsa (specifically mango salsa) goes very well on fried perogies, so there's that. Meanwhile the bag of lettuce I forgot about in the crisper has most definitely become inedible, so I think this will be another salad free week, maybe I'll venture into the pasta realm.

One of my roommates had some friends over and played card games last weekend, but from initial inspection it seemed like the one cute girl there was probably in a relationship, I was able to deduce this by the fact that she was sitting between two boys (one of which was my roommate) so the chances of her being single, or otherwise available to be pursued, were rather low so I opted out of joining the game. Also, they were playing President and I'm pretty sure the invitation to join was a poorly masked attempt to climb the social ladder by the player currently filling the role of "Scum". I can't stand social climbers.

In the work world my life is far more interesting. We are going live with a clients site this week that I won't link to, for privacy reasons, probably. Today I wrote a query that will fix the database when the new content gets copied over. Very technical stuff, I won't get into it.

In a feeble attempt to separate church and state, I will not discuss my religious views or endeavors here. I firmly believe that such things should not be discussed on the internet, and that doing so is demeaning to the subject itself. This is the internet, otherwise known as the "Worldwide Cat Picture Sharing Protocol"

Conclusion

There you have it, you are now caught up in what is happening in my life to great detail. Probably more than you cared to know, but I'd rather err on the side of verbosity rather than have people feel the need to ask me questions about my life. If you do have questions about me, or my life, feel free to post them in the comments where I can ignore them. I will write another post sometime next week. However, if you feel the need to never visit this blog again I will feel as though I have accomplished  my primary purpose in posting this in the first place. I'm sure your lives are far more interesting than mine, but would you kindly not rub my face in it every chance you get? Thank you.

Footnotes

1. I don't, in fact, know if he is nice or not. I like to give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he is: nice, funny, attractive, intelligent, and has excellent grammar. 
2. I don't know that the person in question is actually male. So I use all the above pronouns in their generic masculine form such that they apply to both genders, or rather, all genders since it has been established by science and cross-dressers everywhere that gender is not a true dichotomy.

PS. If upon reading this, my tone seems melancholy or depressed, please understand that I think my life is fantastic and I have no complaints, I suppose this is more of a satirical view on the generally unimportant, and uninteresting nature of peoples lives.

Xbox One - A Satire

The Internet is in an Uproar:

The online community seems to be up-in-arms over the details regarding Microsoft's new addition to their series of consoles, and rightfully so!  The fact that I am expected to have internet connectivity at my home at least once a day is completely unreasonable!  I had a hard enough time getting the power company to provide me with electricity in my house under a rock, now I have to convince the internet company to give me the internet! That is where I draw the line! I, for one, will NOT be buying this next generation console.  I am going to boycott the Xbox One, and the internet together.  I'm sure if I convince a few more people to join my boycott that the console (and the internet) won't sell very good, and they will be forced to submit to my demands.  Here are my demands:

Kinect (big brother) must be stopped: I'm sorry, but this whole motion control technology has gotten out of hand.  It has progressed way beyond what I am comfortable with as a responsible member of society.  Most people think that technological advancements are "good" but I assure you, that they are not.  I've decided that as part of my boycott of the Xbox One and the internet I am also boycotting cellphones and computers, or anything that connects to someone else's internet computers.  I cannot sit by and allow a device in my home that will be on all the time, have a camera AND a microphone built-in, and connect to the internet every day!  They say it can read your heart-rate, but what aren't they telling us? Spoiler alert: it can probably read your thoughts too! Also, I am going to be starting a side business selling tin-foil hats, these hats will be functional, *fashionable, and they will decrease brain-wave based thought robbery by *99.9% guaranteed, and they will be reasonably priced at $20 USD.  This is the least I could do for those foolish enough to buy this new console.  You won't be able to stop them from ease-dropping on uninteresting conversations you have in your living rooms about who is dating who, what you-tube video you should watch next, or what prestige level you are in Call of Duty: Ghosts, but you will be able to block them from knowing that you haven't even prestiged in Call of Duty: Ghosts.  You won't be able to stop them from watching you sit in your greasy unwashed underwear playing video-games, watching blu-rays, or cable porn; but you will be able to block them from knowing that you think you are disgusting.

Used Games: This is a no-go for me.  They expect us to pay money for a game that someone else has already paid for?!  That is unacceptable!  I don't know about you, but when I joined the internet, I thought that my days of paying for things was over.  Now it seems like you need a subscription with a monthly or annual fee to get anything on here.  I mean, where is this money going? It's not like making "an internet" costs money! I'm sure the people who make these games are so rich from endorsements from some sweatshop based shoe company that the money they lose from me "borrowing" a game from a "friend" doesn't even register on their radar.  I have an extensive game collection too, most people are happy enough to buy their games from stores, but my entire game collection is built from games that I have found lying around in peoples homes during house parties, or in neatly organized shelves at the same parties.  My biggest complaint is when people don't put the disc back in the case when they're done with it.  I can't tell you how many times I've gotten home only to find an empty case.  Completely unrelated, I have about a dozen copies of Portal 2 that I will be putting up for sale on e-bay, these games are all "as-is", no refunds will be accepted.

That is all, I hope you will join me in my boycott.  We need to get, like, everybody to do this, or the console will actually be kind of successful, and the gaming world will simply just leave us behind and forget about us. However, if we manage to get enough people to do this, we could make the next generation of gaming a complete flop and destroy the industry as we know it, and also the internet, we want to put an end to that thing too.

Thank you.

* actual color and performance of tin-foil hats may vary with use.  However, if you actually buy into the crap that I just wrote, I wouldn't worry too much about people stealing your thoughts.

Weirdest. Dream. Ever.

I was walking around the university looking for a friend when I saw a wheelchair sitting in the hallway. I was like: "that looks like it would be better than walking". Anyway, I apprehend the wheelchair and start wheeling around looking for the particular place we are supposed to meet. When we do meet, I notice that he found a wheelchair too! So we wheel around a bit together and then I realize that my wheelchair is motorized and has a gas pedal. However, shortly after realizing this I see a man who seems appropriately disadvantaged to necessitate the use of such a wheelchair. I stop and ask him: "is this your wheelchair?" He thinks about this for a second before responding in the affirmative. However, I'm a little skeptical from the way he paused so I ask him to verify that it's his wheelchair. Upon verification, I was satisfied to yield the chair to him as I clearly did not need it. As we were leaving one of the security personnel took notice of the fact that I came in a wheelchair as was leaving, well, not in a wheelchair. So he asked if I had stolen that wheelchair. Suddenly concerned that what I did may have been wrong, or worse, illegal (see The IT Crowd - Season 2:Episode 1). I became worried that I would be arrested, or worse, kicked out of school. So I avoided him, and tried to get away. When I noticed he was following me I had the idea to fake a phone call to avoid speaking to him. However, when I pulled my phone out of my pocket I actually received a call from my mother. So, I stopped to talk to her at what appeared to be a large speed-skating arena...at the university. Upon closer inspection I noticed that there was no ice and that this arena worked on the same principle as shuffleboard where, people wear little things on their feet and they slide around on a waxed surface, except people were making intense speed-skating style turns in such a way that their bodies were completely parallel to the surface. This perplexed me as this did not seem physically possible. The security guard, it turned out was more interested in my theft for comical value as he thought it would've been funny. Now looking at the arena he pointed to a set of some available “shoes” and he told me I should try it, but I was hesitant insisting that: “it doesn't seem physically possible”. This was about where I woke, whereupon I was faced with a reality where the university doesn't have wheelchairs lying around or giant shuffleboard arenas. Sad day.

First. Blog Post. Ever. (By me)

So, I figure I owe it to the world to finally start posting my thoughts and feelings about stuff where everyone can read and appreciate (and agree) with them.  You can expect some of the best, most entertaining, interesting, and gramatically correct blogging you've ever read.  Occasionally I may even throw some pictures up from my adventures to come.  However, don't expect me to post about things that have already happened!  What's done is done, there is no point in dwelling in the past and remeniscing about good times had.  I'm moving on with my life and so should you.  Anyway, I'm rambling, which happens to be another fantastic feature that this blog will have, the unbridled ramblings as you've never witnessed before.  There will be no limit to the ramblings I will ramble...well, until my carpel tunnel acts up and my hands and wrists get sore from typing, that will definitely limit my ramblings to a few short sentences.  Speaking of which.

BLOG OVER.