eBooks!

I downloaded iBooks tonight to see what kind of content they had in their store. It turns out that there are quite a few free selections that I’m going to enjoy reading! I started Freud’s “Dream Psychology, Psychoanalysis for Beginners” tonight. I’m 30 pages in right now and I think that soon there are going to be some topics that soar right over my head. I’m quite fascinated by dreams and dream-science, so even if it’s a difficult read it should still offer rewarding information. It’s not like Freud to put me to bed. Though under the sheets is when I seem to explore his works.

Also added to my book shelf tonight… Macbeth and The Tempest. I couldn’t help by adding these to the eCollection. I’m sure I’ll continue to find useful texts this year… especially for my theatre history class. Maybe I’ll even save a few bucks?

Oh, it’s possible…

My new iPhone was delivered today, which made me quite happy. I’ve had a really great relationship with my BlackBerry over the many moons I’ve had it, but I too must jump on the iPhone bandwagon. I’ve had a pretty positive day with the new device, but for some reason I cannot seem to hold a wifi connection here at home. Other routers seem to be very happy with my iDevice, but my home router refuses to play with it. After several hours of researching and experimenting I’m nowhere near closer to understanding the problem. You don’t suppose it could be one of those mysterious ghost problems that vanishes suddenly without warning, do you? I suppose I’ll just have to keep an eye on it for now.

I had a very humorous moment to myself in the family room today. I was opening the iPhone and activating it through my provider’s website, and when I was finished it told me to plug the device into iTunes to finish the activation. I stared at the screen and blinked. Guess who doesn’t have a Windows machine in order to run iTunes?? *raises hand*

In my two solid hours of research I found a single product for activating my phone in a linux environment — and the instructions were bogus. After what seemed like ages of stumbling through every possible combinations of settings you could possibly imagine, I was able to activate my device. Today’s lesson: It’s most certainly possible to do just about anything on linux… if you love troubleshooting, problem solving and possess an endless amount of time to dedicate to the issue.

This is real.

Optical illusions are amazing. I feel like a kid when I find something that scrambles my brain the way mind tricks do. I would like to share with you how one particular illusion altered my life, and how that illusion opened my eyes to a reality I had never realized was there before.

Falling asleep at night can be a challenge because the left hemisphere of my brain is always in overdrive. This is the part of your brain that contains that little voice we’re all familiar with. Mine loves to talk. When it speaks it is decisive and calculating. It explains the logistics to a problem, connects the thoughts and ideas together, and illustrates beautiful solutions to overwhelming complexities. When I am physically exhausted from the activity of the left brain I surrender myself to the right brain; the spiritual, the colourful, the creative. I drift into sleep where suddenly I am expansive. I am not confined to my body but can move freely about space. And as I move through space I conclude that I would prefer to be somewhere rather than everywhere, and so now i am standing in a place crafted purely out of the spontaneous nature of my Mind. I can feel cool earth under my feet. The acres in front of me expand overwhelmingly. The universe I am in does not have walls but is as expansive as I am. The lush grass has a smell that only Spring can bring. The warm breeze ruffles my hair and I feel at home, and peaceful. Colours are vibrant here.

I am dreaming.

A year gone by…

It’s very clear to see that I haven’t used this blog since February of 2009, but I swear to all my gods that the reason is good. Without going into too much detail, I was off fighting a war with several large ants, a teapot that could sing you the time and four giant Canadian geese that swore they knew the way to Narnia. Or it’s possible that I simply forgot my account password. To make matters far worse the e-mail account I have attached to this account was deactivate long, long ago. If anyone is keeping track of the score so far, Will was S.O.L. The story of how I recovered my password is both creepy and wonderful. I was eating a very delicious plate of spicy chicken wings, and, while doing this, thought to myself: “Damn these are spicy.” Now picture your favourite movie montage of all time. I’ll give you several moments to complete your thought… … … … Times up. The moment I experienced was just like that — slow moving, with a song by Vanessa Carlton. I remembered that I created my blog password while eating chicken wings with a similar zing. The memory was very vivid, and the password flowed down from my brain to my fingertips and, hallelujah I was able to blog once more! If I were polite, I would send a thank you note to the company that pre-cooked, froze and shipped my chicken wings to my local grocery store, but I’m not that polite. Instead I’ll refrain from ever picking a password that results from the food I’m eating at the time. Better yet I’ll write down my password on a scroll and tape it to my bedroom door. Should a robber ever steal away into my room in the middle of the night he’ll be able to blog for me. Until he forgets my password.

Keeping busy!

I’m back in action this month in my community! I’m currently a volunteer helping out at my old highschool, where I’m the assistant director for a fun little show called “Bye Bye Birdie”. “Originally titled Let’s Go Steady, the satire on American society is set in 1958. The story was inspired by the phenomenon of popular singer Elvis Presley and his draft notice into the army in 1958. The rock star character’s name, “Conrad Birdie,” is word play on the name of Conway Twitty. Twitty is known as a country music star but also was one of Presley’s rock ‘n’ roll rivals.

The original Broadway production was a Tony Award-winning success. It spawned a London production and several major revivals, a sequel, a 1963 film and a 1995 television production. The show also became a popular choice for high school and college productions.” My hours are pretty crazy. I have to be at the school for 8 AM and I don’t usually come home until 6:30 PM. If I have to work at the theatre later that night I don’t usually see my bed until 10 or 11 at night, which means my days are incredibly long. I like doing this though. Right now I’m waiting for a letter or e-mail back from my preferred university, so the faster the days go the better. I can’t wait to hear back! My audition at York University was at the end of January. I had to head into the big city and do a couple of monologues in front of 3 adjudicators and the other students auditioning. It was fairly nerve-wracking but I’m confident that I did well. I’m trying to envision my life surrounded by theatre, so it’s a good thing I’m so heavily involved in “Bye Bye Birdie”. I’ve never put that much effort into the planning of a show. I’ve always been an actor or a temporary aid. I’m looking forward to all of the great experiences that lie ahead. I’m sure as the show progresses into it’s development I’ll be stressed out and crazy… but that wouldn’t be any different than how I act in my day-to-day life. Haha! I had a little moment today where I yelled at the students in the class because they were being extremely talkative. Sometimes it’s necessary to suspend your will to chat, and focus on the task at hand. I hope all of these students realize that in just a few short months they’ll need to be up on stage giving it their all. We’ll see how that goes… !

In other news: I’m so so so looking forward to the nice weather. In fact, I’m looking forward to ‘weather’ period. We haven’t had any this winter. Right now it’s extremely frigid and the grass is showing all over the place. The last time I checked this was still Canada folks. Where’s all the snow? I’ve never experienced a winter quite as green as this. Heck… there weren’t any snow days last semester either. Grumble…grumble…

I’m almost dead!

Oh the woes of turning 20! No longer will I see the days of juice boxes, peanut butter sandwiches, grade school math, piggy backs, 24-hour video game tournaments, mud fights, or constantly nagging adults for the fun of it. Oh the pain! Okay. I’ll shut up. Turning 20 was no big deal, but it did make me realize something. I’m probably a fifth of the way into my life. That has certainly put things into a new perspective. A fifth doesn’t seem like such a long time. With modern medicine and taking organs from my clones I should live to see the turn of the next century. Granted, I will have to give up my stunt driving license and my heavy whiskey addiction… but, hey! According to a vibrantly coloured map on Wikipedia, Canadians are expected to live longer than their U.S. neighbors. Makes sense: The air is cleaner, people are less violent when it’s -40 degrees Celsius, Canadian beer keeps our blood nice and thin and bears, beavers and geese are our friends working together in harmony.

Taking all of that into consideration, I should live to see 2100. Or at least the beginning of December 2012. :r

Oh, also: For anyone keeping tabs on me and stalking my every waking moment (and sometimes my sleepy ones too) this is my first blog entry in about a year. Any wagers on how long I’ll last this time? Stay tuned!

Who are these people?

Although it isn’t ultra-common, once in a while we’ll get 1 user who sends in about 50 support tickets at once telling us their forum has been hacked, or their forum is under attack, or they’ve deleted their forum and need it recovered immediately. I always feel a little guilty when I run across one of these tickets, because there’s literally nothing that I or another member of the Support Team can do to fix the problem. We can offer our advice, but we do not have a magic button that restores a user’s board. I deleted my forum once and regretted it, so it’s not like I don’t understand why these users feel upset and are trying to seek a restoration. I never get upset for that reason. You know what I do get upset about though? I get upset when a user feels like they can send in a gross number of tickets asking the same thing over, and over again. How is that supposed to help? Are they thinking that perhaps if they submit an unignorable amount of tickets that they will be placed in a magic queue for an instant restoration? Anyway, all of this got me thinking about the actual people behind the computer screen.

Are we dealing with immature children? Are we receiving tickets from people who are simply lonely? Are they mentally retarded (and I mean that in the nicest way, medically)? Or are they people who haven’t gotten their way in the past and are now seeking revenge by purposely submitting tickets to annoy? Who are these people? These questions can’t be answered, because we often never figure out who these individuals are on a personal level. The more this happens the more I’m certain that the ticket system will evolve to let Support Staff ban individuals from using the system – and that’s not what we want to do. We want everyone to be able to enjoy the benefit of free support for their InvisionFree or Zetaboards forum, but it sure would be nice if people didn’t take advantage of us.

Now for a positive note: Of all the people who do submit support tickets, 95% of you have great questions that we all enjoy answering. Your postive attitudes and great feedback never go unnoticed, and we even have a discussion in the staff lounge specifically for compiling all of your terrific reactions. So… thanks.

Credit is not Money

A surprise came for me in the mail last week. It was strange lifting the heavy envelope my bank had sent me, mostly because my bank never sends me anything anymore now that I’ve subscribed to e-statements. I opened the envelope and discovered that my bank had sent me a credit card. Earlier this year I sent in an application, but with my current employment situation I was almost positive they wouldn’t grant me such a nifty tool. Although I didn’t believe it to be possible, one fatal error happened when I opened that envelope: I felt proud. Not proud that I could now spend $1,500 on anything of my choice, but proud because I actually had some sort of token of my adulthood. Not having a drivers licence, I cannot purchase lottery tickets or alcohol (or pornography, god forbid I see enough of that everywhere else), and I haven’t voted yet so it sort of feels like I haven’t done anything a person my age has the right to do. Of course, once you feel proud of something you feel the need to tell those around you about it. This is where the problem began.

Normally when you tell someone you’re proud of a particular item or event in your life they congratulate you. If this particular thing is a credit card however, forget it. All you get is a bombardment of warnings. “Be careful!”, “Don’t spend more than you have.”, “Stay out of debt.” It leaves me clawing at the heels of my friends and family, begging them to cease their useless and boring speeches about how one day I’ll be living on the streets because I bought a Mac and couldn’t pay it off. Okay, maybe, um, settle down, please, thanks? I get it. I’m not stupid. I understand how a credit card works.

Credit is not money. Credit is credit. If you purchase an item with credit and wait for the monthly statement to arrive it accumulates fees, such as interest. You must pay interest. Interest can (and will) accumulate and your fees will grow. You will end up paying more money for the item you thought was $1,500. I so very much appreciate the fact my friends and family are concerned about my well being, but a little “credit” for being moderately intelligent would be okay once in a while too. The only person who did actually congratulate me was my boss at work. Very happy to hear those words.

Animal Crossing: City Folk

I was really surprised at the effectiveness of this games for the Nintendo Wii. This is the third Animal Crossing game I’ve purchased in my life time, and it’s even more effective now that it’s been brought into 2008. Animal Crossing: City Folk takes all of the elements that made the original and Wild World great and combines them into one jam packed disc of fun content!

The  basis of Animal Crossing stays the same between the 3 games; you move to a new town, get a new house and begin paying off your mortgage by doing little tasks such as selling fruit, catching fish & bugs or doing favours for your animal neighbors (just to name a few). While you’re doing this you can also donate money (called Bells) to your town in order to upgrade it with little perks, go shopping for cool items in the city or just chill and play with your friends with Nintendo WFC. The aim of the game really hits close to home for many different player types. If you enjoy relaxing, this game is for you. If you enjoy sim games. Get this game! If you’re into collecting things and meeting objectives, you’ll enjoy AC. There’s always something to do in the world of Animal Crossing, and because the clock ticks by in real time…stuff even happens while you don’t play!

I somehow managed to play for 6 hours today…which is abnormal for me. O_O

…

Damn.