I have to say that Shrek definitely has a spot among my favourite movies. Since I had forgotten about so much of the plot in the movies, I decided that I would re-watch Shrek and Shrek 2 tonight, more as a kind of pick-me-up for my weird emotional state than to just to refresh my memory and keep me busy for a bit. Not only are my emotions back up to standard and maybe even a bit better, but it really gave me something to think about that I never noticed before. And I'm not just talking about all the sexual jokes and references.
If you pry them apart, the two movies serve to teach a shitload of lessons. Think about the first movie for starters. Here we have Shrek, a hideous monster who lives on his own and shuts out the world because of how the world has treated him. Man has dubbed him an outcast and refuse to look beyond his labels and physical features. They refuse to get to know what Shrek is really like and instead choose to exile him for what he seems to represent.
I'm sure a lot of people I know as well as I myself can relate to Shrek's problems. In society today, though tolerance levels have increased quite a bit over the years, a lot of people have grown up "different" and have been treated as such. Because of high or low intelligence, physical or mental handicaps, medical conditions, sexualities, fetishes, and even the looks that people are born with, society has found it okay to bully and torment people, all because they are weaker and more vulnerable in appearance. Like Shrek said, ogres are like onions because they both have layers. It may not be a pretty thought, but think of yourself as an ogre. The outer layers of your mental-defense-grid-type-thing is coated in small bits of gossip that don't matter to you. Everyone sees you and sees the way you act in your everyday life and they make assumptions and gather an impression from the first few times they see you. These outer layers are what people gather a first impression from, looking with only their eyes to judge if the onion will prove to be good enough for their social stew. If people find you to be interesting enough, they will try to get your attention and will attempt pulling back the layers to further seek reassurance that you are the right one for mingling with.
I'm not going to go through all the steps to get there, but of course like in an onion there is always a deep, well-protected core hiding in the middle. Most people are too confused to figure out their own cores, and I myself have barely uncovered the vast wealth of secrets about my personality hidden within. The core was given to us and was not created by us; it is the mental foundation on which we continue to build our personalities, and therefore we do not at first know exactly how it works. But in growing and interacting with the world around us, we eventually discover some of the bits that make up our core while also developing layers around us to protect us from those who don't take to kindly to what's inside. An onion's exposed core can cause people to cry, and in turn flaunting your own core a little too much can cause people to become upset and agitated. That's why it's always important to have a couple layers over top to prevent such conflicts with others from happening, though if you put on too many layers you'll lose your own personality and won't be true to what you want. The layers will be too thick for even you to penetrate, and you'll end up believing that you're something you're not. Along the course of the first movie, Shrek was reluctant to allow anyone in, but eventually Fiona and Donkey got past a few of his layers and in getting to know the real him and getting to taste a bit of his core, they were able to become really close and Shrek became much happier and more appealing.
And believe it or not there's actually more than just that in the first movie. Think about how Fiona has her little secret of turning into an ogre every night. She and Shrek don't get along at first but in hearing some personal things about Shrek, Fiona finds it easier to get along with him despite what he is and they soon fall in love. But even though Fiona has come to terms with Shrek being different, she isn't quite able to come to terms with her own differences. This caused a huge fight when Shrek thought Fiona was not all up for such a different relationship and preferred the more normal path of marrying the short guy that fit the picture more naturally in terms of keeping normality. However, Fiona was unhappy trying to be "normal" and Shrek was just as unhappy about being deserted like that. She eventually "came-out" to Farquaad and Shrek and accepted herself for who she was, and obviously Farquaad wasn't accepting of her and only cared about his "perfect" and "normal" lifestyle, so he was naturally furious with the new development. In the end Fiona turned into an ogre full-time and accepted herself and the two were able to live happily ever after with their differences in plain sight. If you don't get how this relates to sexualities and all those other weird differences that a lot of people deal with, then you most likely don't deserve to live.
In Shrek 2, Fiona and Shrek seek the blessings of Fiona's father and are really nervous about how the old coot might react to seeing his daughter stray down an unintended path. Her father wasn't accepting and tried to sabotage their relationship while her mother was able to accept that Fiona needed to make her own choices and that she needed to do what was best for herself, not what other people wanted her to do. The father eventually realized that Fiona and Shrek were meant to be and no amounts of prying and intervention could split the two apart, and he turned away from his old habits and gave their marriage his blessings. Sounds a lot like modern reactions to fetishes and homosexual relations, eh?
Also: why is it so hard for people to accept fellow humans' differences when they can so easily accept donkey-on-dragon action and a relationship between two ogres? It just doesn't make sense.
So yeah...even thought they are enjoyable, immature, and a downright hilarious couple of movies, they seem to get pretty deep and teach very important lessons. But even then, it seems that it didn't stick all too well with the world. Must everything be blatantly obvious for people to understand the point that is trying to be made?
That's about all I have to say on the topic...other than the fact that Puss in Boots is the best character ever and I need to go research his fairly tale now.
7.30.2011
7.29.2011
Sexual Orientation! :D
So, after like five minutes of thought immediately following one of the most depressing nights in a while, I've decided that there's no possible way I can be bisexual. Let's face it: I have the intellect to understand what any gender could see in any other gender, but I don't find anything but homosexual stuff to be a personal turn on.
I think it's safe to say I'm just gay sexuality-wise, but I'm also panromantic. Which means I like only guys sexually, but I can like every other gender romantically.
Adding all that to the list, that makes me: gay/panromantic/demisexual/TB/DL/BF
Wow, that's a lot of things.
...Any questions?
I think it's safe to say I'm just gay sexuality-wise, but I'm also panromantic. Which means I like only guys sexually, but I can like every other gender romantically.
Adding all that to the list, that makes me: gay/panromantic/demisexual/TB/DL/BF
Wow, that's a lot of things.
...Any questions?
7.28.2011
Accounts and such.
Here's a list of accounts I have registered on various sites. Feel free to add me wherever but beware that I am often shy and introverted! My new dA is also included, but if you want my old one I'm not posting it here, you can search for it yourself.
deviantART - http://shadowpangolin.deviantart.com/
Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/shadowpangolin
Tumblr - http://shadowpangolin.tumblr.com/
Google+ - http://gplus.to/ghostarmadillo/
Email - shadowpangolin@gmail.com
Gtalk - shadowpangolin@gmail.com
MSN - shadowpangolin@gmail.com
Yahoo! - devanoverton@ymail.com (very outdated :P)
PlayStation Network - shadowpangolin
Xbox LIVE / Games for Windows LIVE - shadowpangolin
Transformice - Limefox
Skype - shadowpangolin
Raptr - shadowpangolin
That's about all I've come up with now. I know there are some that are eluding me, and some I just never will post due to the content of them. Some of them I was unable to find links for, and some I was too lazy to go through the tedious processes of finding the links. Also the Xbox sites are all down right now apparently...
Anyways, if you don't have me somewhere, feel free to add me, and if you want me on a site that I'm not on, I'm pretty open to trying new things and would be willing to join any sites that you heckle me about in the comments section below.
And with that, I head off to go be productive!
Okay, maybe after a bowl of ice cream...that was some hard work finding all those...
deviantART - http://shadowpangolin.deviantart.com/
Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/shadowpangolin
Tumblr - http://shadowpangolin.tumblr.com/
Google+ - http://gplus.to/ghostarmadillo/
Email - shadowpangolin@gmail.com
Gtalk - shadowpangolin@gmail.com
MSN - shadowpangolin@gmail.com
Yahoo! - devanoverton@ymail.com (very outdated :P)
PlayStation Network - shadowpangolin
Xbox LIVE / Games for Windows LIVE - shadowpangolin
Transformice - Limefox
Skype - shadowpangolin
Raptr - shadowpangolin
That's about all I've come up with now. I know there are some that are eluding me, and some I just never will post due to the content of them. Some of them I was unable to find links for, and some I was too lazy to go through the tedious processes of finding the links. Also the Xbox sites are all down right now apparently...
Anyways, if you don't have me somewhere, feel free to add me, and if you want me on a site that I'm not on, I'm pretty open to trying new things and would be willing to join any sites that you heckle me about in the comments section below.
And with that, I head off to go be productive!
Okay, maybe after a bowl of ice cream...that was some hard work finding all those...
I really need to get productive.
Setting up a new deviantART account with the same name as my new email and such. I will hopefully be posting pictures up there every so often, starting tomorrow. I will post the link in a new blog post once I'm finished setting it up, but be warned; most of the drawings and doodles I post there will be really terrible since I've got absolutely no drawing skill.
Also, I might start writing again. Tonight. An entire plot and everything. I have been thinking about this one for a long time (and I hope it's not ripping on any other stories or anything, seeing as I am really bad at coming up with original content). I am not going to give away any details tonight. This blog will be the first thing to see my snippets of writing, and I will Tweet whenever I've written something and possibly mirror-post or just post a link to one of my pieces on my Tumblog if I deem it good enough. Ew, did I just seriously use Tumblog? Those things are far from being blogs. Moving along...
I think I'll also post links to every account ever that I have made on various sites (except for private things) along with the new dA account in the next journal, just in case anyone wants to add me on something they don't already have me on yet.
Also, sorry for the long, rantish blog post after being inactive for so many days. I am officially keeping myself to a DAILY blog schedule until further notice so that doesn't happen again.
Anyways, that's about all I have to say for this short update, so chow for now! ^^
Also, I might start writing again. Tonight. An entire plot and everything. I have been thinking about this one for a long time (and I hope it's not ripping on any other stories or anything, seeing as I am really bad at coming up with original content). I am not going to give away any details tonight. This blog will be the first thing to see my snippets of writing, and I will Tweet whenever I've written something and possibly mirror-post or just post a link to one of my pieces on my Tumblog if I deem it good enough. Ew, did I just seriously use Tumblog? Those things are far from being blogs. Moving along...
I think I'll also post links to every account ever that I have made on various sites (except for private things) along with the new dA account in the next journal, just in case anyone wants to add me on something they don't already have me on yet.
Also, sorry for the long, rantish blog post after being inactive for so many days. I am officially keeping myself to a DAILY blog schedule until further notice so that doesn't happen again.
Anyways, that's about all I have to say for this short update, so chow for now! ^^
7.27.2011
Video games...and a huge chunk of my life's story. Kind of ranty, too. Whoops.
So, since someone on my Twitter commented on how it was rather greedy that I had multiple handheld devices, I think it's best that people know why I actually have all these devices.
First off, when I was 6 years old, I asked for a GameCube for Christmas and instead my brother and I each received a GameBoy Advance. They were the limited edition silver ones, and since I was only six years old, that thing faced much torment: it fell down the stairs, got taken to the beach, and was roughly treated as back then I didn't know how to care for expensive devices. When I sold it, it was heartbreaking to here that my pride and joy was worth only $8, but I convinced myself I would enjoy the GameBoy Advance SP even more.
I was about 8 at the time when I finally got the new GameBoy Advance SP, shortly after my Mom's then boyfriend won a couple hundred bucks at the casino and used it to finally buy us a GameCube for Christmas. I spent many a year playing Pikmin on it. I still get urges to play Pikmin every once in a while, but it was something I had to give up for newer systems eventually.
At the end of grade 2, my Mom decided to move all the way up to the countryside near Ottawa, about a 6-8 hour drive from where we lived previous. It was an easy move since I didn't really have any friends after only living in Cambridge for half of a year, so I didn't mind it much. Actually, I welcomed the move. I had my GameBoy for the drive, but the power cord for the GameCube got lost in the move and we didn't get another for quite a while. We had to live in a trailer for a while and sometimes slept in my Mom's boyfriend's parent's basement, as the house we were building was on their property. My Mom's boyfriend...I think it'd be easier to refer to him by his name, Joe, even if I hate saying it...had brought along his Xbox and I got accustomed to playing that until we finally got the cable for our GameCube.
Back at my Dad's house, Teri's (my stepmother's) grandparents bought us a PS2 Slim for Christmas. (I think it was during grade 3) and it was probably the nicest system I had ever seen. It was a lot smaller and lighter than the GameCube, but there was one problem: we got barely any good games for it, so we never really played it. After we got about 6 games (Spongebob Squarepants Move Game, some Scooby Doo game, two Harry Potter games, and a couple Eye Toy games that didn't work very well) Teri decided we had enough games to keep us amused and stopped everyone she knew as well as everyone my Dad knew from getting us games for the system. Later on they bought Singstar games for each other and took over the PS2, so I don't have that with me anymore, even though it belongs to both my brother and I.
Right at the end of grade 3, my Mom and her boyfriend broke-up, and instead of getting to go to Playdium for the first time on a year-end trip with my class, I got to endure the same 6-8 hour car ride I had to take every other weekend to see my Dad in Oakville, except this time we were loaded down with all our stuff and headed for a new apartment in the neighborhood. Sometime during grade 4 my Mom got a new boyfriend who ended up buying us our own original Xbox, despite the fact that the Xbox 360 had already been out for a while. It came used with a couple really bad games, and we ended up buying a couple really good third-person shooters when my Mom finally caved-in and decided we could try some 'M' games. The GameCube was still going strong and the Xbox worked fine so we were kept busy for quite a while. I took a huge liking to the Grand Theft Auto series, played Burnout 3 Takedown constantly, and Driver: Parallel Lines was fun to play as well. I liked them most of all because of the variety of vehicles and the variety of different scenarios in which they could be used. The shooting aspect really didn't keep my interest much at that point. We also got DS Lites, but they mostly came out of our own pockets.
In grade 5 we moved in with my Mom's boyfriend Mike to save us having to pay rent on our apartment. My brother and I no longer had to share a room, and we had the entire basement to ourselves for our video games and other nonsense. We also had a really nice desktop computer in the living room that I liked to play RollerCoaster Tycoon and such on, which I became addicted to back in Ottawa when I only had one friend that I barely ever got to hang out with. 45-minute car rides to school every day meant I needed something more than just my DS for entertainment. I soon came to be interested in music a lot more, and my Dad gave me his old MP3 player for my birthday so I had something to listen to music with in the car. The MP3 player died shortly afterwards, and I was distraught.
The summer in-between grades 5 and 6 wasn't much to remember. I spent most of the time going to Christian summer camps and playing on the dirt mountain across the road from our new house. We were now living in the Binbrook countryside within a newer development of houses. It was different being in the Hamilton-Wentworth District, but grade 6 turned out alright nonetheless. My teacher wasn't too bright and as usual I was sort of a teacher's pet, but I found it to be more annoying than tolerable that year. I was getting bored of my outdated gaming consoles and after hearing so much about the Wii, I wanted it so badly. My Dad and stepmother played a trick of buying us, as a family, a Wii, and my brother and I were only allowed to play it every other weekend when we were over there. But like the PlayStation 2, the Wii got boring quick when the only games my stepmother would buy for it were basically the ones with "Wii" in the title such as Wii Play and Wii Fit. She even disapproved of Super Smash Bros. Brawl (at the same time as I was getting into a huge Halo phase) and wouldn't even get us that. Since my friend Brock was talking about Halo 3 so much at school, I decided I wanted an Xbox 360 instead. So Mike finally decided that he'd get us either an Xbox 360 or a PS3, and I instantly chose Xbox 360. I had to part with my old Xbox to put towards the cost of it, so a friend bought it off me and we both went off to the store with my Mom and bought the Xbox 360.
Since my second cheap Mp3 player had broken and I was on my third, and since the DS was getting barely any new games, I traded in my DS and got a PSP. I had to get a used PSP 1000 even though the PSP 2000 was already out because my Mom refused to put money towards it and I didn't get any allowance at the time. The entire cost of the system had to be covered by selling all of my Nintendo handheld stuff, so I sold it all and got the PSP, a memory card, and Need For Speed Carbon. Eventually the analog stick died and another friend offered to buy the PSP and the game with it for $100, and my Mom agreed to put forth the difference to get me a new PSP Slim. That summer I took the PSP everywhere, all the way up to New York City and back by car, and even into grade 7 I still had it. The GameCube was still interesting from time to time but my main focus was on the Xbox 360, and I pretty much refused to play anything at my Dad's house as I had a limit of 30 minutes to an hour a day for all electronic devices. I spent most of my time reading books and finding other ways to be anti-social, so it still didn't work out the way my stepmother planned.
My PSP Slim was my pride and joy at that point. I would use it for music, for games, for videos...pretty much everything. I had Pandora'd it and bought two 4GB memory sticks for it. One day I sneaked out of school to go to lunch at Subway with some friends, as my Mom hadn't yet decided on whether she'd give me written permission to go off school property or not, and my friends invited me. I am not sure whether I took my PSP with me and accidentally left it on a table while ordering my food and forgot it, or whether I left it in my locker and had it stolen as someone had yelled my locker combo out in the locker room a week or so before, but when I came back I knew for sure it was stolen. I was a little heartbroken, and by that I mean the tears started flooding out as soon as I got home. I don't think it helped much that Kelsey, who at the time hated me, said it was a good thing I lost it and it served me right (she didn't even know about me sneaking out for lunch).
That Christmas my Mom got me a new PSP 3000 as my big Christmas present to replace the one I had lost. I loved it to death but it just wasn't the same...it wasn't Pandora-able like my other one, and soon my brother bought his own PSP 1000 and I traded him for it. On a trip to Florida that summer, the flight attendant spilled coke all over the PSP 3000 and some of the buttons stopped working, so my Mom got my brother a second PSP to replace his loss. At some point something happened with his DS Lite as well and I never saw that again. I think he sold it. He also lost his new PSP and never replaced it.
The GameCube had a terrible time in our new house. First the awesome Madcatz turbo controllers got attacked by a sewage flood and had to be thrown out. Then the system itself decided to stop reading disks and the friend that bought my Xbox off me (Delroy) came over and we both smashed the thing to death on the driveway since it was less expensive to buy a new one as opposed to getting it fixed. But it turned out that Brock had his own GameCube lying around that he never used anymore since he had a Wii and an Xbox 360, and he gave me it to replace my old one for free.
Later on I ended up selling it and trading my Pikmin games to Scott along with a wireless controller and in return got Guitar Hero for PS2 and a wired guitar controller. I was borrowing Delroy's PS2 at the time and enjoyed playing Guitar Hero so much that I kinda got addicted to music games.
For Christmas between grades 7 and 8 I got an iPod Touch 8GB instead of the iPod Nano 8GB I had asked for. Since my Mom couldn't afford an iPod Touch I asked for the Nano, but I had a feeling she'd learn about the recent craze over iPod Touches and try to find one on sale somewhere instead. It was an amazing piece of technology and I enjoyed it up until just after this Christmas when I was fed up with it being unable to handle half the games I purchased for it and decided to sell it, among other things, and get an iPhone. A while back I had traded my old PSP 1000 and all the games and accessories I had accumulated for a PSP Go on Kijiji, so I decided to sell my iPod Touch through there. However, it took forever for my Mom to decide whether she'd allow me to sell the iPod or not, by which time all of the ads for cheap iPhones had vanished and all of the more expensive ones had taken their places. While browsing Kijiji for other things I might like, I spotted an ad for a guy selling a practically brand new DSi in limited edition blue with five built-in games for $80. I sprung for it and used the money I got for the iPod Touch to buy it as well as Pokemon HeartGold and Super Scribblenauts. I wasn't disappointed by the lack of an iPod too much as I had won a fourth-gen iPod Nano not too long before by selling the most chocolates in a fundraiser out of the grades 6-8 in our school.
And about a year or two ago, somewhere between all the iPod commotion, I convinced my brother that'd he'd rather get an old PS3 Phat rather than get himself a new PSP with his birthday money. He leaped for it and I contributed some of my old PSP games and a small sum of money. My Mom was furious that we decided to spontaneously buy a game system during one shopping trip and apparently cost her another $100 when she was actually the one who not only prompted us to get the 60GB model instead of the 20GB or 40GB models, but she also expected us to get a warranty, and when we came up short for the warranty and the bigger-sized hard drive, my Mom decided to dish out $100 towards it so that the ridiculous amount of time we spent in the store choosing consoles and trading stuff in wouldn't have been an embarrassing waste of time. She was extremely mad at me for a couple days until I was able to finally make her realize that it was her own mistake that caused us to be short so much money, and it was her own choice to then put forth the money to close the gap. Shortly after getting it I ended up playing it more than I did the Xbox 360 and my brother didn't really like the PS3 much, so I gave him half my game collection and handed over the Xbox 360 while I got in return the PS3 and it's single red controller. Since then I have souped it up by upgrading it to 200GB with my old and dead laptop's hard drive a few months before the power cord ripped and I had to get a new laptop for my schoolwork.
For grad this year my brother wanted a DS Lite because I had so many devices still and he had lost or sold all of his in exchange for money to buy more games for his Xbox 360. So he asked for a DS Lite as an early grad gift. I was a little pissed off because all I got was Green Day Rock Band for my grad gift, and had to wait until like a month after grad to finally receive it, but I played it cool. When we got to GameStop to buy it for him one month before grad, all they had in terms of used DS Lites was a pink one. At that point I was fed up with my brother's reluctance to just accept that he'd have to put up with another colour, and I offered that he could have my DSi if he gave me the DS Lite. He took my DSi happily and I took the used pink DS Lite begrudgingly. I got my Xperia Play shortly afterward as the smartphone had just come out in Canada exclusively for Rogers customers, so my Mom got me that and gave my brother my old phone for his birthday, and my Dad passed his plan on to my brother.
So between my Xperia Play, my iPod Nano, my PSP Go, my DS Lite, and my PS3, I can't exactly afford a lot of new things trying to keep up with getting at least one game for each every once in a while, but I don't really care. Pokemon has followed me all throughout my childhood, and I can't give up my DS Lite for that reason. I also accumulated a GameBoy Color over time which I also use to play all of my old Pokemon games, including my original Gold Version, the first game I ever played on GameBoy. My PSP Go can't go either, as it carries a long chain of history with it and still has Spyro for PS1 on it, the first purchase I ever made online back on my original PSP 1000, the game that I first played on a PS1 at a babysitter's house back when I lived in Cambridge. My iPod Nano has switched ownership between my brother and I when he didn't have an iPod and since I already had an iPod Touch my Mom suggested I give it to him, even though it was the first thing I had ever won and didn't want to let go of it. I eventually gave in to that, of course, and the back of the iPod is all messed up and scraped because he doesn't take care of things. My phone is a partial replacement for my laptop while that remains hooked up to an external monitor at home due to a shattered screen and the lack of money to have it repaired. My Xperia Play is much more personal than my laptop, and I use it for my email, my camera, my music, my social networking, keeping in contact with my friends no matter where they are, and it even replaces my handheld gaming systems when I don't feel like lugging them around in my pockets but still need a quick fix to keep me entertained on the bus. And my PS3 is my main gaming system...not as special as my more personal devices that I take everywhere with me, but certainly still up there somewhere. It has been my main source of entertainment for a long time, introduced me to entirely new ways to game, and it doesn't pick my pocket for any of the services it has to offer. It's given me Netflix for cuddling with a plush and watching, even if I originally used a free trial and now use a friend's account from time to time. It's even given me a bit of a social experience with it's free online play and it's various different ways to keep in touch with friends over PSN. And even though the thing is probably like 5 years old, I have never had a single problem with the system.
So, if you were wondering why I have so many handheld devices, this is it. They carry a lot of history from throughout my childhood. They were huge outlets for me whenever people on the bus or at school would bully me or simply even ignore me in the past and sometimes still in the present. They were things I could always keep with me and take wherever I go, always having them there to fall back on since my Mom wasn't always there to fall back on and my Dad hasn't connected well with me since he married Teri. As geeky and depressing as it sounds, they're closer to me than my friends and family, and I honestly think I'd feel less sorrow if my Mom died than if I was mugged and had my smartphone or something else stolen. While my Mom was busy getting new boyfriends all the time and moving between so many houses, my electronics stayed constant unless I wanted them to change.
That's about all I have to say on the matter. If you actually read the entire thing and still have questions about something, whether it's related to just the video games or not, go ahead and post your question in the comments section below.
First off, when I was 6 years old, I asked for a GameCube for Christmas and instead my brother and I each received a GameBoy Advance. They were the limited edition silver ones, and since I was only six years old, that thing faced much torment: it fell down the stairs, got taken to the beach, and was roughly treated as back then I didn't know how to care for expensive devices. When I sold it, it was heartbreaking to here that my pride and joy was worth only $8, but I convinced myself I would enjoy the GameBoy Advance SP even more.
I was about 8 at the time when I finally got the new GameBoy Advance SP, shortly after my Mom's then boyfriend won a couple hundred bucks at the casino and used it to finally buy us a GameCube for Christmas. I spent many a year playing Pikmin on it. I still get urges to play Pikmin every once in a while, but it was something I had to give up for newer systems eventually.
At the end of grade 2, my Mom decided to move all the way up to the countryside near Ottawa, about a 6-8 hour drive from where we lived previous. It was an easy move since I didn't really have any friends after only living in Cambridge for half of a year, so I didn't mind it much. Actually, I welcomed the move. I had my GameBoy for the drive, but the power cord for the GameCube got lost in the move and we didn't get another for quite a while. We had to live in a trailer for a while and sometimes slept in my Mom's boyfriend's parent's basement, as the house we were building was on their property. My Mom's boyfriend...I think it'd be easier to refer to him by his name, Joe, even if I hate saying it...had brought along his Xbox and I got accustomed to playing that until we finally got the cable for our GameCube.
Back at my Dad's house, Teri's (my stepmother's) grandparents bought us a PS2 Slim for Christmas. (I think it was during grade 3) and it was probably the nicest system I had ever seen. It was a lot smaller and lighter than the GameCube, but there was one problem: we got barely any good games for it, so we never really played it. After we got about 6 games (Spongebob Squarepants Move Game, some Scooby Doo game, two Harry Potter games, and a couple Eye Toy games that didn't work very well) Teri decided we had enough games to keep us amused and stopped everyone she knew as well as everyone my Dad knew from getting us games for the system. Later on they bought Singstar games for each other and took over the PS2, so I don't have that with me anymore, even though it belongs to both my brother and I.
Right at the end of grade 3, my Mom and her boyfriend broke-up, and instead of getting to go to Playdium for the first time on a year-end trip with my class, I got to endure the same 6-8 hour car ride I had to take every other weekend to see my Dad in Oakville, except this time we were loaded down with all our stuff and headed for a new apartment in the neighborhood. Sometime during grade 4 my Mom got a new boyfriend who ended up buying us our own original Xbox, despite the fact that the Xbox 360 had already been out for a while. It came used with a couple really bad games, and we ended up buying a couple really good third-person shooters when my Mom finally caved-in and decided we could try some 'M' games. The GameCube was still going strong and the Xbox worked fine so we were kept busy for quite a while. I took a huge liking to the Grand Theft Auto series, played Burnout 3 Takedown constantly, and Driver: Parallel Lines was fun to play as well. I liked them most of all because of the variety of vehicles and the variety of different scenarios in which they could be used. The shooting aspect really didn't keep my interest much at that point. We also got DS Lites, but they mostly came out of our own pockets.
In grade 5 we moved in with my Mom's boyfriend Mike to save us having to pay rent on our apartment. My brother and I no longer had to share a room, and we had the entire basement to ourselves for our video games and other nonsense. We also had a really nice desktop computer in the living room that I liked to play RollerCoaster Tycoon and such on, which I became addicted to back in Ottawa when I only had one friend that I barely ever got to hang out with. 45-minute car rides to school every day meant I needed something more than just my DS for entertainment. I soon came to be interested in music a lot more, and my Dad gave me his old MP3 player for my birthday so I had something to listen to music with in the car. The MP3 player died shortly afterwards, and I was distraught.
The summer in-between grades 5 and 6 wasn't much to remember. I spent most of the time going to Christian summer camps and playing on the dirt mountain across the road from our new house. We were now living in the Binbrook countryside within a newer development of houses. It was different being in the Hamilton-Wentworth District, but grade 6 turned out alright nonetheless. My teacher wasn't too bright and as usual I was sort of a teacher's pet, but I found it to be more annoying than tolerable that year. I was getting bored of my outdated gaming consoles and after hearing so much about the Wii, I wanted it so badly. My Dad and stepmother played a trick of buying us, as a family, a Wii, and my brother and I were only allowed to play it every other weekend when we were over there. But like the PlayStation 2, the Wii got boring quick when the only games my stepmother would buy for it were basically the ones with "Wii" in the title such as Wii Play and Wii Fit. She even disapproved of Super Smash Bros. Brawl (at the same time as I was getting into a huge Halo phase) and wouldn't even get us that. Since my friend Brock was talking about Halo 3 so much at school, I decided I wanted an Xbox 360 instead. So Mike finally decided that he'd get us either an Xbox 360 or a PS3, and I instantly chose Xbox 360. I had to part with my old Xbox to put towards the cost of it, so a friend bought it off me and we both went off to the store with my Mom and bought the Xbox 360.
Since my second cheap Mp3 player had broken and I was on my third, and since the DS was getting barely any new games, I traded in my DS and got a PSP. I had to get a used PSP 1000 even though the PSP 2000 was already out because my Mom refused to put money towards it and I didn't get any allowance at the time. The entire cost of the system had to be covered by selling all of my Nintendo handheld stuff, so I sold it all and got the PSP, a memory card, and Need For Speed Carbon. Eventually the analog stick died and another friend offered to buy the PSP and the game with it for $100, and my Mom agreed to put forth the difference to get me a new PSP Slim. That summer I took the PSP everywhere, all the way up to New York City and back by car, and even into grade 7 I still had it. The GameCube was still interesting from time to time but my main focus was on the Xbox 360, and I pretty much refused to play anything at my Dad's house as I had a limit of 30 minutes to an hour a day for all electronic devices. I spent most of my time reading books and finding other ways to be anti-social, so it still didn't work out the way my stepmother planned.
My PSP Slim was my pride and joy at that point. I would use it for music, for games, for videos...pretty much everything. I had Pandora'd it and bought two 4GB memory sticks for it. One day I sneaked out of school to go to lunch at Subway with some friends, as my Mom hadn't yet decided on whether she'd give me written permission to go off school property or not, and my friends invited me. I am not sure whether I took my PSP with me and accidentally left it on a table while ordering my food and forgot it, or whether I left it in my locker and had it stolen as someone had yelled my locker combo out in the locker room a week or so before, but when I came back I knew for sure it was stolen. I was a little heartbroken, and by that I mean the tears started flooding out as soon as I got home. I don't think it helped much that Kelsey, who at the time hated me, said it was a good thing I lost it and it served me right (she didn't even know about me sneaking out for lunch).
That Christmas my Mom got me a new PSP 3000 as my big Christmas present to replace the one I had lost. I loved it to death but it just wasn't the same...it wasn't Pandora-able like my other one, and soon my brother bought his own PSP 1000 and I traded him for it. On a trip to Florida that summer, the flight attendant spilled coke all over the PSP 3000 and some of the buttons stopped working, so my Mom got my brother a second PSP to replace his loss. At some point something happened with his DS Lite as well and I never saw that again. I think he sold it. He also lost his new PSP and never replaced it.
The GameCube had a terrible time in our new house. First the awesome Madcatz turbo controllers got attacked by a sewage flood and had to be thrown out. Then the system itself decided to stop reading disks and the friend that bought my Xbox off me (Delroy) came over and we both smashed the thing to death on the driveway since it was less expensive to buy a new one as opposed to getting it fixed. But it turned out that Brock had his own GameCube lying around that he never used anymore since he had a Wii and an Xbox 360, and he gave me it to replace my old one for free.
Later on I ended up selling it and trading my Pikmin games to Scott along with a wireless controller and in return got Guitar Hero for PS2 and a wired guitar controller. I was borrowing Delroy's PS2 at the time and enjoyed playing Guitar Hero so much that I kinda got addicted to music games.
For Christmas between grades 7 and 8 I got an iPod Touch 8GB instead of the iPod Nano 8GB I had asked for. Since my Mom couldn't afford an iPod Touch I asked for the Nano, but I had a feeling she'd learn about the recent craze over iPod Touches and try to find one on sale somewhere instead. It was an amazing piece of technology and I enjoyed it up until just after this Christmas when I was fed up with it being unable to handle half the games I purchased for it and decided to sell it, among other things, and get an iPhone. A while back I had traded my old PSP 1000 and all the games and accessories I had accumulated for a PSP Go on Kijiji, so I decided to sell my iPod Touch through there. However, it took forever for my Mom to decide whether she'd allow me to sell the iPod or not, by which time all of the ads for cheap iPhones had vanished and all of the more expensive ones had taken their places. While browsing Kijiji for other things I might like, I spotted an ad for a guy selling a practically brand new DSi in limited edition blue with five built-in games for $80. I sprung for it and used the money I got for the iPod Touch to buy it as well as Pokemon HeartGold and Super Scribblenauts. I wasn't disappointed by the lack of an iPod too much as I had won a fourth-gen iPod Nano not too long before by selling the most chocolates in a fundraiser out of the grades 6-8 in our school.
And about a year or two ago, somewhere between all the iPod commotion, I convinced my brother that'd he'd rather get an old PS3 Phat rather than get himself a new PSP with his birthday money. He leaped for it and I contributed some of my old PSP games and a small sum of money. My Mom was furious that we decided to spontaneously buy a game system during one shopping trip and apparently cost her another $100 when she was actually the one who not only prompted us to get the 60GB model instead of the 20GB or 40GB models, but she also expected us to get a warranty, and when we came up short for the warranty and the bigger-sized hard drive, my Mom decided to dish out $100 towards it so that the ridiculous amount of time we spent in the store choosing consoles and trading stuff in wouldn't have been an embarrassing waste of time. She was extremely mad at me for a couple days until I was able to finally make her realize that it was her own mistake that caused us to be short so much money, and it was her own choice to then put forth the money to close the gap. Shortly after getting it I ended up playing it more than I did the Xbox 360 and my brother didn't really like the PS3 much, so I gave him half my game collection and handed over the Xbox 360 while I got in return the PS3 and it's single red controller. Since then I have souped it up by upgrading it to 200GB with my old and dead laptop's hard drive a few months before the power cord ripped and I had to get a new laptop for my schoolwork.
For grad this year my brother wanted a DS Lite because I had so many devices still and he had lost or sold all of his in exchange for money to buy more games for his Xbox 360. So he asked for a DS Lite as an early grad gift. I was a little pissed off because all I got was Green Day Rock Band for my grad gift, and had to wait until like a month after grad to finally receive it, but I played it cool. When we got to GameStop to buy it for him one month before grad, all they had in terms of used DS Lites was a pink one. At that point I was fed up with my brother's reluctance to just accept that he'd have to put up with another colour, and I offered that he could have my DSi if he gave me the DS Lite. He took my DSi happily and I took the used pink DS Lite begrudgingly. I got my Xperia Play shortly afterward as the smartphone had just come out in Canada exclusively for Rogers customers, so my Mom got me that and gave my brother my old phone for his birthday, and my Dad passed his plan on to my brother.
So between my Xperia Play, my iPod Nano, my PSP Go, my DS Lite, and my PS3, I can't exactly afford a lot of new things trying to keep up with getting at least one game for each every once in a while, but I don't really care. Pokemon has followed me all throughout my childhood, and I can't give up my DS Lite for that reason. I also accumulated a GameBoy Color over time which I also use to play all of my old Pokemon games, including my original Gold Version, the first game I ever played on GameBoy. My PSP Go can't go either, as it carries a long chain of history with it and still has Spyro for PS1 on it, the first purchase I ever made online back on my original PSP 1000, the game that I first played on a PS1 at a babysitter's house back when I lived in Cambridge. My iPod Nano has switched ownership between my brother and I when he didn't have an iPod and since I already had an iPod Touch my Mom suggested I give it to him, even though it was the first thing I had ever won and didn't want to let go of it. I eventually gave in to that, of course, and the back of the iPod is all messed up and scraped because he doesn't take care of things. My phone is a partial replacement for my laptop while that remains hooked up to an external monitor at home due to a shattered screen and the lack of money to have it repaired. My Xperia Play is much more personal than my laptop, and I use it for my email, my camera, my music, my social networking, keeping in contact with my friends no matter where they are, and it even replaces my handheld gaming systems when I don't feel like lugging them around in my pockets but still need a quick fix to keep me entertained on the bus. And my PS3 is my main gaming system...not as special as my more personal devices that I take everywhere with me, but certainly still up there somewhere. It has been my main source of entertainment for a long time, introduced me to entirely new ways to game, and it doesn't pick my pocket for any of the services it has to offer. It's given me Netflix for cuddling with a plush and watching, even if I originally used a free trial and now use a friend's account from time to time. It's even given me a bit of a social experience with it's free online play and it's various different ways to keep in touch with friends over PSN. And even though the thing is probably like 5 years old, I have never had a single problem with the system.
So, if you were wondering why I have so many handheld devices, this is it. They carry a lot of history from throughout my childhood. They were huge outlets for me whenever people on the bus or at school would bully me or simply even ignore me in the past and sometimes still in the present. They were things I could always keep with me and take wherever I go, always having them there to fall back on since my Mom wasn't always there to fall back on and my Dad hasn't connected well with me since he married Teri. As geeky and depressing as it sounds, they're closer to me than my friends and family, and I honestly think I'd feel less sorrow if my Mom died than if I was mugged and had my smartphone or something else stolen. While my Mom was busy getting new boyfriends all the time and moving between so many houses, my electronics stayed constant unless I wanted them to change.
That's about all I have to say on the matter. If you actually read the entire thing and still have questions about something, whether it's related to just the video games or not, go ahead and post your question in the comments section below.
7.15.2011
Harry Potter 7 part 2 was good.
In other news...
Don't be afraid of Disqus...y'know, that comment system at the bottom of every blog that people seem to never use? It won't bite you. All it requires is a valid email address to notify you of replies at, and maybe a name and a picture to identify your posts as being from you. Or at least that's all I think it asks...but trust me, you don't need an account to use Disqus. No sign-up required.
I got the job! Yeah, that's right, I have a FLYER ROUTE (no Kelsey, you don't need to congratulate me a second time xD). I'm doing 76 houses in my route, which ain't much, but I also hope to juggle it with a job elsewhere. I'm hoping on sending in my resume and an application or whatever sometime over the next week. But for now I've at least secured the one job. Yay for me.
I'm done with math for now. All I have to do is the EQAO and the exam come September. So feel free to bug me about whatever. THE HIATUS IS OVER NOW. Though I most likely won't be doing social things very often. I am really dead tired right now...it's impossible for me to get to sleep, and I end up not falling asleep until 2 or later and not being able to stay awake and do things after dinner. Hopefully I'll be more active once I slip back into my nocturnal habits. I only really ever get sleep during the day anyway.
Speaking of all this, I am thinking of hosting the Pokémon Marathon in TinyChat sometime Monday. I am too tired now and too busy over the weekend to do it any other time. Also, if I do it Monday, that'll give me more time to advertise it, more time to play Pokémon (I hope to remain in the chat long enough to beat the entire game of Yellow, which I may or may not webcam from my actual cartridge), more time to recover from summer school, and more time to socialize. So get ready for Monday...sometime...check back at the blog sometime this weekend for any updates regarding the official start time. If you're going to attend, it'd be nice if you could let me know somehow, either by commenting below or by bothering me with one of your many email or chat services. Though it would be best if you all could just try out that fancy comment thing.
Well, that's it for now. I might get back to write another blog later tonight. But right now I am going to go pester Nick about the vlog he said he'd start.
...Smell ya later!
Don't be afraid of Disqus...y'know, that comment system at the bottom of every blog that people seem to never use? It won't bite you. All it requires is a valid email address to notify you of replies at, and maybe a name and a picture to identify your posts as being from you. Or at least that's all I think it asks...but trust me, you don't need an account to use Disqus. No sign-up required.
I got the job! Yeah, that's right, I have a FLYER ROUTE (no Kelsey, you don't need to congratulate me a second time xD). I'm doing 76 houses in my route, which ain't much, but I also hope to juggle it with a job elsewhere. I'm hoping on sending in my resume and an application or whatever sometime over the next week. But for now I've at least secured the one job. Yay for me.
I'm done with math for now. All I have to do is the EQAO and the exam come September. So feel free to bug me about whatever. THE HIATUS IS OVER NOW. Though I most likely won't be doing social things very often. I am really dead tired right now...it's impossible for me to get to sleep, and I end up not falling asleep until 2 or later and not being able to stay awake and do things after dinner. Hopefully I'll be more active once I slip back into my nocturnal habits. I only really ever get sleep during the day anyway.
Speaking of all this, I am thinking of hosting the Pokémon Marathon in TinyChat sometime Monday. I am too tired now and too busy over the weekend to do it any other time. Also, if I do it Monday, that'll give me more time to advertise it, more time to play Pokémon (I hope to remain in the chat long enough to beat the entire game of Yellow, which I may or may not webcam from my actual cartridge), more time to recover from summer school, and more time to socialize. So get ready for Monday...sometime...check back at the blog sometime this weekend for any updates regarding the official start time. If you're going to attend, it'd be nice if you could let me know somehow, either by commenting below or by bothering me with one of your many email or chat services. Though it would be best if you all could just try out that fancy comment thing.
Well, that's it for now. I might get back to write another blog later tonight. But right now I am going to go pester Nick about the vlog he said he'd start.
...Smell ya later!
Yo.
I got like no sleep last night and unlike other mornings this week where the same thing happened my body decided to actually be tired and stuff. Oh, and quite sore in a lot of places, too. Namely my neck, which has decided to hurt like a bitch just because there's some acne-related bump the size of a quarter near the top of my spine. I probably got sunburned yesterday too, which doesn't help the matter.
Pro Tip: Skip the next paragraph if you don't want to read a rant!
<rant>Don't you just love it when you get yelled at for doing something and then you're told what you should have done, and then next time you follow their advice and something goes wrong and they go back and yell at you again for it? One day this week (maybe yesterday, I can't remember) my dog took a dump in her tiny cage thing and decided to step all throughout it. Having a weak stomach, I was barely able to hold it together just being near the cage, so I decided I wouldn't deal with the mess myself, as I usually don't clean up her crate anyways. So later that morning I get yelled at for not putting her outside to do her thing before doing it in her crate, even though I'm standing there cleaning out the GF being all, "Yeah, that's because it was too late.", and she's all, "Well, you still shoulda put her outside.", and I'm all like, "Fine, I will next time." So today I throw her outside and she is doing her thing and I go upstairs to get my routine shower, and half an hour later I'm being yelled at for putting the dog out unsupervised, which resulted in her digging up the exact same spot she digs up every time she's out there, and even though it doesn't inconvenience us in any way because the grass seed wasn't catching at all and we needed to buy and put down sod anyway, it was still a terrible thing and all my fault.</rant>
Moving along...
Seeing Harry Potter 7 part 2 today! Woo! Okay that's enough of that...
So I'm checking the daily webcomics and I see this. I don't know whether to be confused or to just laugh. I think I did something of both, actually. Not entirely sure on this one...
Hiatus ends today smetime later on. I'll announce it later today.
No seriously, I will. I won't dupe you out of it like I did yesterday's second update. I was too tired after flyers to do anything.
Anyways, gotta go now. I'm out.
Pro Tip: Skip the next paragraph if you don't want to read a rant!
<rant>Don't you just love it when you get yelled at for doing something and then you're told what you should have done, and then next time you follow their advice and something goes wrong and they go back and yell at you again for it? One day this week (maybe yesterday, I can't remember) my dog took a dump in her tiny cage thing and decided to step all throughout it. Having a weak stomach, I was barely able to hold it together just being near the cage, so I decided I wouldn't deal with the mess myself, as I usually don't clean up her crate anyways. So later that morning I get yelled at for not putting her outside to do her thing before doing it in her crate, even though I'm standing there cleaning out the GF being all, "Yeah, that's because it was too late.", and she's all, "Well, you still shoulda put her outside.", and I'm all like, "Fine, I will next time." So today I throw her outside and she is doing her thing and I go upstairs to get my routine shower, and half an hour later I'm being yelled at for putting the dog out unsupervised, which resulted in her digging up the exact same spot she digs up every time she's out there, and even though it doesn't inconvenience us in any way because the grass seed wasn't catching at all and we needed to buy and put down sod anyway, it was still a terrible thing and all my fault.</rant>
Moving along...
Seeing Harry Potter 7 part 2 today! Woo! Okay that's enough of that...
So I'm checking the daily webcomics and I see this. I don't know whether to be confused or to just laugh. I think I did something of both, actually. Not entirely sure on this one...
Hiatus ends today smetime later on. I'll announce it later today.
No seriously, I will. I won't dupe you out of it like I did yesterday's second update. I was too tired after flyers to do anything.
Anyways, gotta go now. I'm out.
7.14.2011
Thursday Update #1
In case you're wondering about the updates, there's nothing special about them. They just give me very vague guidelines for a schedule. It makes it easier for me to remember to update if I keep to one of those, y'know?
Anyways, it seems that it is perfectly normal for me to eat hamburgers for breakfast. My Mom barely batted an eyelash when she came downstairs to see me cleaning out the George Foreman grill. Though she wasn't very happy this morning for some reason. And it didn't help her mood that I accidentally poured grease down the drain. Whoops.
It's funny how I keep thinking of things like this that would be good to post about on Twitter, but then I realize that I cut myself off from it in every way possible. But I haven't broken down yet and Tweeted something. That's a good thing.
Oh, and in case you don't read Sandra and Woo (which I'm pretty sure you don't) here are two very awesome, non-spoiler comics. Read them in order, and remember that this couple almost always gets interrupted before they manage to do anything, and also remember that it's one of like three webcomics where I ship a hetero couple.
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2011/07/11/0289-moment-kisser/
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2011/07/14/0290-the-kiss/
So, that's about it for the Thursday Update (part 1). I will be writing a bit more tonight, but otherwise I am not really going to be doing much. I might end up playing more PS3 or even putting in some drawing practice.
Later!
Anyways, it seems that it is perfectly normal for me to eat hamburgers for breakfast. My Mom barely batted an eyelash when she came downstairs to see me cleaning out the George Foreman grill. Though she wasn't very happy this morning for some reason. And it didn't help her mood that I accidentally poured grease down the drain. Whoops.
It's funny how I keep thinking of things like this that would be good to post about on Twitter, but then I realize that I cut myself off from it in every way possible. But I haven't broken down yet and Tweeted something. That's a good thing.
Oh, and in case you don't read Sandra and Woo (which I'm pretty sure you don't) here are two very awesome, non-spoiler comics. Read them in order, and remember that this couple almost always gets interrupted before they manage to do anything, and also remember that it's one of like three webcomics where I ship a hetero couple.
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2011/07/11/0289-moment-kisser/
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2011/07/14/0290-the-kiss/
So, that's about it for the Thursday Update (part 1). I will be writing a bit more tonight, but otherwise I am not really going to be doing much. I might end up playing more PS3 or even putting in some drawing practice.
Later!
Literature!
I wrote this just now. It's the first part of a longer story I intend to write, but I don't feel like staying up late to work any further than this. Is the tense unbearable? Do you hunger for more? Feedback and constructive criticism are appreciated!
* * *
I sit up in bed, or at least I try to. My head lifts only inches above the pillow before the tubing snaps taut over my face. I take a few seconds to open my eyes a sliver to survey the situation. The light burns my eyes and I quickly close them, but I do confirm that tubes of some sort are crossing my face. Actually, they seem to be attached to it.
My senses seem to be too sensitive at the moment...how long have I been out for? A day? A week? Maybe the accident affected my senses...what accident, though? Why am I lying in what I assume to be a hospital, sucking oxygen through tubes and clinging to the remainder of my life? I seem to have lost some of my memory, which isn’t a surprise seeing my condition, but I have to assess my physical condition before I start asking questions.
Pain shoots up my left arm as I begin to relax. It pulls me out of the few seconds of calm I was able to maintain, causing me to jerk the frail limb around with every new jolt of pain. I can feel it starting in my right shin too, but the pain there seems more intense in a single area, whereas my arm feels like it’s full of shards of glass.
I barely notice the nurse until I go limp by the prick of her needle. I hear a soothing slur of words play out from her lips, and even though the words themselves don’t really register - possibly due to ear damage - the sound of her voice alone manages to calm me down before whatever liquid the nurse shot up my arm takes affect.
I simply lie still, recollecting my thoughts. My left arm and right shin have both had severe amounts of damage inflicted upon them. I have to breathe through tubes in my nose. Both ears seem to be intact with internal damage. I have no memory of what happened, who I am, or what I even have to look forward to after I get out of this hellhole. Life is just so peachy right now.
* * *
I sit up in bed, or at least I try to. My head lifts only inches above the pillow before the tubing snaps taut over my face. I take a few seconds to open my eyes a sliver to survey the situation. The light burns my eyes and I quickly close them, but I do confirm that tubes of some sort are crossing my face. Actually, they seem to be attached to it.
My senses seem to be too sensitive at the moment...how long have I been out for? A day? A week? Maybe the accident affected my senses...what accident, though? Why am I lying in what I assume to be a hospital, sucking oxygen through tubes and clinging to the remainder of my life? I seem to have lost some of my memory, which isn’t a surprise seeing my condition, but I have to assess my physical condition before I start asking questions.
Pain shoots up my left arm as I begin to relax. It pulls me out of the few seconds of calm I was able to maintain, causing me to jerk the frail limb around with every new jolt of pain. I can feel it starting in my right shin too, but the pain there seems more intense in a single area, whereas my arm feels like it’s full of shards of glass.
I barely notice the nurse until I go limp by the prick of her needle. I hear a soothing slur of words play out from her lips, and even though the words themselves don’t really register - possibly due to ear damage - the sound of her voice alone manages to calm me down before whatever liquid the nurse shot up my arm takes affect.
I simply lie still, recollecting my thoughts. My left arm and right shin have both had severe amounts of damage inflicted upon them. I have to breathe through tubes in my nose. Both ears seem to be intact with internal damage. I have no memory of what happened, who I am, or what I even have to look forward to after I get out of this hellhole. Life is just so peachy right now.
7.13.2011
Hiatuses in effect NOW.
Don't try to reach me on MSN, Facebook, Twitter, Gtalk, Steam, Google+, deviantART, or by email. I will be active exclusively on my blog, social-networking-wise. You can text me or reply to my blog posts, but other than that I'm out of reach. Seeya in two days!
Early blog...sorta.
So I didn't blog on my phone like I said I would, but I am updating before Thursday. I think that's a rather large accomplishment, remembering my blog exists two days in a row. I've been busy with a (somewhat-) social life, and of course, quadruple-timing math in summer school. Unfortunately, I seem to be falling behind quota because of the goddamned unit 16/17 newspaper article (what the hell, this isn't English class). This means I will be starting a bit of a social networking and IM hiatus in a few minutes, after I Tweet about it to make it official. If you want to talk to me over the next couple days, there's my phone. That's it. My data will be turned off so I can only receive texts, and I am stopping Twitter from pushing Tweets to my SMS inbox. I will still be blogging, hopefully every day at least once, and I will still be on PSN at times. My email will go unchecked, and the art submissions from all the artists I follow will pile up. Some hiatuses might go on longer than others, but I am guessing that most hiatuses will be ended right before I see Harry Potter 7 part 2 after completing my math credit.
TL; DR: Going on social networking hiatus, I'll be back in a couple days.
TL; DR: Going on social networking hiatus, I'll be back in a couple days.
7.12.2011
Really late update.
So, I meant to update this blog post like last Thursday, but as you can see that didn't happen. Sorry about taking so long to update. I bet nobody knows this thing is active though, so I doubt anyone really cares about how late I update it.
Anyways, I just thought I'd mention that not only am I getting a job, but because my Mom caved in and bought my brother a laptop, I get to keep my two dysfunctional ones! Yay! The first paycheck I get goes towards a new power cable for my "work" laptop - the one that gives me all the nostalgia of being my first laptop, with the added convenience that it's not ideal for gaming, is ideal for music, and contains my copy of Microsoft Office 2010. The monitor on my other laptop will have to wait forever to get fixed though, because at $300 for a new screen and installation, I may as well go out and buy another laptop with better specs for portable gaming stuff.
Yeah, I finally broke down and decided I'd get a gaming laptop. Even if it means paying $300 more to finance the thing for 2 years rather than paying right up front. The initial laptop, the Alienware M11x, is only a netbook (11.5-inch screen) but by far blows everything I've ever owned out of the water. For a couple bucks less than the Macbook I originally wanted, I'm getting a beast gaming PC, with an external disc drive, Photoshop Elements pre-installed, Microsoft Office Home & Student pre-installed, and a couple other little additions to the original $699 beast. This means that I will be like, set for life with a computer for both school and gaming, and if the screen is too small for me, I've got my external monitor...or the LCD TV in the living room...to hook it up to. I think it's a great investment, but it'll sap up at least half of my paycheck for the next couple years. That is, if my Mom allows me to do it.
Well, if I keep writing any longer I'll be late for school, so I better wrap this one up. I might write another blog post or two on my way to school from my phone, but don't get your hopes up. Though I don't actually see why anyone would be hopeful for a new blog post from me, so I'll just say keep a look out for any more in the very near future. Or just put your email in that little bar at the bottom of the blog and be instantly notified of updates. Whatever tickles your fancy.
Anyways, I just thought I'd mention that not only am I getting a job, but because my Mom caved in and bought my brother a laptop, I get to keep my two dysfunctional ones! Yay! The first paycheck I get goes towards a new power cable for my "work" laptop - the one that gives me all the nostalgia of being my first laptop, with the added convenience that it's not ideal for gaming, is ideal for music, and contains my copy of Microsoft Office 2010. The monitor on my other laptop will have to wait forever to get fixed though, because at $300 for a new screen and installation, I may as well go out and buy another laptop with better specs for portable gaming stuff.
Yeah, I finally broke down and decided I'd get a gaming laptop. Even if it means paying $300 more to finance the thing for 2 years rather than paying right up front. The initial laptop, the Alienware M11x, is only a netbook (11.5-inch screen) but by far blows everything I've ever owned out of the water. For a couple bucks less than the Macbook I originally wanted, I'm getting a beast gaming PC, with an external disc drive, Photoshop Elements pre-installed, Microsoft Office Home & Student pre-installed, and a couple other little additions to the original $699 beast. This means that I will be like, set for life with a computer for both school and gaming, and if the screen is too small for me, I've got my external monitor...or the LCD TV in the living room...to hook it up to. I think it's a great investment, but it'll sap up at least half of my paycheck for the next couple years. That is, if my Mom allows me to do it.
Well, if I keep writing any longer I'll be late for school, so I better wrap this one up. I might write another blog post or two on my way to school from my phone, but don't get your hopes up. Though I don't actually see why anyone would be hopeful for a new blog post from me, so I'll just say keep a look out for any more in the very near future. Or just put your email in that little bar at the bottom of the blog and be instantly notified of updates. Whatever tickles your fancy.
7.05.2011
Summer School.
It's actually not that bad sitting in an air-conditioned portable spending half the class texting and still getting 3 days of work done in a single class. Fourth credit, here I come! Summer School is actually much more interesting than sitting around in the basement doing nothing all day. And I can hang out with random people that live in the area afterwards, so that's even betterer.
Tomorrow I might just install a custom bootrom on my phone and root it. The Android OS offers a lot of freedom without having to do anything, but the best way to ensure freedom is to add a fresh bootrom to your phone. I'm not sure what I should go for because my Xperia Play is so new on the market. I'll probably end up Googling around for anything interesting.
I still haven't practiced drawing for at least fifteen minutes like I told myself I would. Nor have I beaten the first level of Halo 2 Vista on Legendary. And I have yet to write anything with my own ideas since, like, months ago, and even then it turned out rather horrible. I'm really failing at getting things done here, but Halo 2 Vista is hard as fuck on Legendary.
Google+ is turning out to be pretty awesome, except for the lack of people on there. Seriously, I only have a single friend on there. The only person I have convinced to try it is my Mom, who absolutely hates Facebook and wants to try anything that might prove as a good alternative. I myself like Twitter the best out of everything and absolutely hate Facebook. Google+ comes in about second or third, I haven't decided yet.
Well, time to stop writing before I get madly off topic. I'm gonna go risk cooking a grilled cheese sammich after I check for updates on various furry art sites. I never really know how to end a blog properly, so bye I guess?
Tomorrow I might just install a custom bootrom on my phone and root it. The Android OS offers a lot of freedom without having to do anything, but the best way to ensure freedom is to add a fresh bootrom to your phone. I'm not sure what I should go for because my Xperia Play is so new on the market. I'll probably end up Googling around for anything interesting.
I still haven't practiced drawing for at least fifteen minutes like I told myself I would. Nor have I beaten the first level of Halo 2 Vista on Legendary. And I have yet to write anything with my own ideas since, like, months ago, and even then it turned out rather horrible. I'm really failing at getting things done here, but Halo 2 Vista is hard as fuck on Legendary.
Google+ is turning out to be pretty awesome, except for the lack of people on there. Seriously, I only have a single friend on there. The only person I have convinced to try it is my Mom, who absolutely hates Facebook and wants to try anything that might prove as a good alternative. I myself like Twitter the best out of everything and absolutely hate Facebook. Google+ comes in about second or third, I haven't decided yet.
Well, time to stop writing before I get madly off topic. I'm gonna go risk cooking a grilled cheese sammich after I check for updates on various furry art sites. I never really know how to end a blog properly, so bye I guess?
7.03.2011
ADS.
There are ads on the blog now. They might earn me money. More incentive for me to blog as much as possible to keep up readership.
Finally got in.
I got into Google+ after staying up all night (I would have stayed up anyways) and working out invites and various tangles of different email addresses. If anyone wants an invite, just email ghostarmadillo@gmail.com for an invite.
Google+
I hate it. Why? Because I spend days trying to get invites, and when I finally gain entrance, it tells me I must be 18 or older to use it! Now back to not hating only Twitter. Until they allow me in, of course.
On an unrelated note, I have developed a large addiction to the juicy electronic music from the Homestuck soundtracks.
On another unrelated note, I now have various accounts open on various sites and social networking thingies, all fitted with my new username. So look out for shadowpangolin on Twitter, Xbox LIVE, Skype, PSN, and various other sites. If I'm not where you want me, throw a link my way and I'll check out the service and possibly sign up.
The blog has also gone mobile, so if you have a smartphone or some other device with both internet connection and an insanely small screen, you can view my blog wherever you go. It's pretty sexy looking if you ask me.
On an unrelated note, I have developed a large addiction to the juicy electronic music from the Homestuck soundtracks.
On another unrelated note, I now have various accounts open on various sites and social networking thingies, all fitted with my new username. So look out for shadowpangolin on Twitter, Xbox LIVE, Skype, PSN, and various other sites. If I'm not where you want me, throw a link my way and I'll check out the service and possibly sign up.
The blog has also gone mobile, so if you have a smartphone or some other device with both internet connection and an insanely small screen, you can view my blog wherever you go. It's pretty sexy looking if you ask me.
7.01.2011
Disqus
I have added Disqus to the blog because the default Blogger comment system sucks large hairy cock. Go nuts.
New Blog
So this is it. my new blog. Decided I needed a new one to match the new email and stuff. Let me cover a few things here.
Firstly, I AM NOT A PANGOLIN. I still (mostly) remain a fox. I just think shadowpangolin is a really cool username. They also happened to still have it open for an Xbox LIVE gamertag, so now it has taken over my old usernames everywhere.
Secondly, I will be blogging regularly. I'll try to keep to a schedule of Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. I may open up separate blogs in the future for projects, since I like to start and epicly fail so many of those.
Third, if you haven't already, you might want to consider adding my new email address and deleting all the old ones you are collecting in your chat clients and other programs that record such things. I will soon be making new accounts on every site I use with the username, and for each one I change I will post a link up here on the blog to add me so that you don't miss anything.
And lastly, this blog shall be a permanent fixture. I mean it this time. Really. So it's going to be up for as long as I live...or at least as long as I still have interest in such things as blogs. I will add an email subscription bar to the bottom of the blog underneath all the posts, so in case you are very forgetful (or just too lazy to check in every once in a while for new content) you can be alerted by email whenever something new comes up.
Oh, and for anyone who has my mobile number: I reset my phone again and the douchy service that backs up my contacts won't be back online until July 7 due to maintenance. So I might not know who you are if you text me before then.
Anyways, I have to go eat food with my Mom and another one of her mysterious boyfriends. Cheers.
Firstly, I AM NOT A PANGOLIN. I still (mostly) remain a fox. I just think shadowpangolin is a really cool username. They also happened to still have it open for an Xbox LIVE gamertag, so now it has taken over my old usernames everywhere.
Secondly, I will be blogging regularly. I'll try to keep to a schedule of Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. I may open up separate blogs in the future for projects, since I like to start and epicly fail so many of those.
Third, if you haven't already, you might want to consider adding my new email address and deleting all the old ones you are collecting in your chat clients and other programs that record such things. I will soon be making new accounts on every site I use with the username, and for each one I change I will post a link up here on the blog to add me so that you don't miss anything.
And lastly, this blog shall be a permanent fixture. I mean it this time. Really. So it's going to be up for as long as I live...or at least as long as I still have interest in such things as blogs. I will add an email subscription bar to the bottom of the blog underneath all the posts, so in case you are very forgetful (or just too lazy to check in every once in a while for new content) you can be alerted by email whenever something new comes up.
Oh, and for anyone who has my mobile number: I reset my phone again and the douchy service that backs up my contacts won't be back online until July 7 due to maintenance. So I might not know who you are if you text me before then.
Anyways, I have to go eat food with my Mom and another one of her mysterious boyfriends. Cheers.
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