knic84's public diary

We gamers of the northernmost north have to wait a little longer for our new releases. Today, after a breathless wait by Canada's 10 fans of the game, DDRMax2 for Playstation 2 finally hits store shelves. As a major fan of the series for the past year and a bit, I'm pleased, and will soon scoop up a copy of my very own to love. For those not in the know, please get yourselves out to an arcade after this briefing. DDR, short for Dance Dance Revolution, is the game "where you use your feet." With a special dance pad controller, mine being of the $150 US, ebay-bought variety but with much less expensive variations available for the less hardcore, you have 4 arrow panels you're meant to step on in time with the scrolling arrows on screen, but this is not as simple as it may sound. The challenge gets insane at the highest difficulties, and you'll be honed to inhuman degrees of shin-jarring physical fitness in no time.

I remember going in to work last year literally limping on my sore ankles from being driven by the DDR demons to play 5 hours straight the night previous. Ah, fond memories of pleasant pain. I would waste my work's bandwidth being captivated by videos of some of the world's best at ddrfreak.com, and surfing ebay for the cheapest-yet-not-apparently-shitty metal pad available... then ordered it. And waited. And waited and waited while they apparently disassembled it at the border for what was presumably a terror-fearing bomb check. Thank you UPS internet tracking, I knew within a mere week's approximation or so when my baby would finally arrive. That's a lot when you're anticipating something with every fiber of your being.

Anyway, it's off to buy the game I go, hopefully it will be worth the purchase from this somewhat waning fan.

(no sign off today, I'm in a hurry)

Can it be true? 5 whole days since I bothered to make with the typing here? Any readership I once had should, as good sense and plain ol' sanity would dictate, have moved on to greener pastures by now. But then I wouldn't want to insult anyone, you nutbars.

On with the post. Today was freebie day, in that I got a FREE sub and a FREE 7-day game rental. The sub was tasty and I'll soon know whether Shenmue II is any good, hopefully better than the first one which I own. Which isn't to say it was a bad game, it wasn't very good mind you what with all the running around and asking random passerby, "Have you seen a man in a black car?" for the first 2 hours of the game. Yip. I'll never forget.

I also got a PS2 game, new release by the name of Chaos Legion from the fine folks at Capcom. They've got their craft back under control it seems with this game in the same vein as Devil May Cry, but amplified to frantic hack n' slash extremes peppered with the tiniest bit of strategy to keep the mix fresh. There's often in excess of what's got to be 35 enemies onscreen at once, no word of a lie, and factor in whatever legion you might be using and its associated attacks, and you've got one hell of a mass melee on your hands. Splendid. The game's not particularly steep in the difficulty department, granted I am on easy difficulty and I have died a couple times over pathetic things. Bosses are pretty intimidating in stature and follow a classic-style movement pattern and have the standard weak spot, so that's to say they're not too tough. So far it's looking good, will report again later.

The sub I had for dinner is long digested and the stomach is crying out for sustenance, so with a loud earth-shaking gut-growl I take my leave for food then sleep. See you later.

knic84 shut down at 12:04 AM. Damn, now it's been 6 days.

Too bad it wouldn't make any sense to put a 'y' in the title, but you get the drift. If you don't, let me spell it out for you my dull-witted friend: at the Highbury road Microplay this evening me and my brother happened upon among the most sacred pieces of gaming lore, nearly complete and oh so holy. (FANFARE HERE)

YES! Final Fantasy, the original, the classic, in preowned, grey plastic glory. This is Squaresoft's holy grail, a prized possesion for any collector produced in 1987 in Japan and launched in 1990 here. Whoever traded this in kept their collection near-complete with its original kaboodle.

Yup, all the original materials minus box for a cool $CAN 29.99. The maps, delicate parchment rivaling the age of the Dead Sea Scrolls, were falling apart along the undoubtedly makeshift seams of a young gamer who couldn't fold maps, so it was imperative they be repaired with copious amounts of trusty Scotch tape. The world and dungeon maps list a beastiary and weapons, magic and armor list on their reverse for the complete package. As a bonus, the massive Explorer's Handbook manual is also in French. What more can you want?

Square knew how to do the extras for the humble crowd of the time, and evidently not much has changed besides newer frills being in cloth in the case of maps (which is bad by the way, as the ink printed on it often reeks of toxic fumes and the cloth has the feel of sandpaper) or hardcover in the case of books (which jacks up the price nicely, thank you Working Designs). Let's hear it for the oldies and simpler times.

Now I'm not the big fan of this one in particular, I've played it a bit and all I can say is that the real thing will probably bear much more nostalgic weight (even if I've never played the cart. Let's not argue semantics people). Here's the proud owner.

The place also had a Sega 32x, which in years past I would've snatched up immediately at 30 bucks but now the games' scarcity wouldn't warrant the purchase. Their selection of Saturn and SNES was alright, but way too sports-oriented for my tastes. Ah, to be young again...

knic84 went weeeee all the way home at 9:05 PM.

According to the news according to my sister, it's "Talk like a Pirate Day" today. I only have 2 more hours to soliloquize in the swashbuckling lingo! Better make good use of it.

Them scurvy London Knights were a-playin' their first round against the Peterborough Petes (that be a fine sailor's name) tonight, and me and me trusty crew went to watch 'em. Arrgh, they was a-swabbin' the rink with each other much more than need be, the landlubbin' dogs. Yo ho ho, parlay parlay parlay. Me and the mateys battened down the hatches early, but our fellows seemed to be a-fairing a might bit better than them poor sods. Many a time did they walk the plank straight to the penalty box, those dishonorable scum.

Damn, that was kind of harder than I thought it would be. I need to watch more Peter Pan. Or Pirates of the Carribean. Or read Treasure Island, and a bottle of rum. Or... eat more Captain Crunch... shut up?... ay ay, Cap'n. It only comes once a year. I hope there's a Talk like a Cowboy day soon.

I haven't gone so looooony since last time I went to a spectator event. I miss that, it's fun to just derangedly cheer for the away team, ask the players "Are you ALRIGHT?" in my loudest possible drawl after they've beaten the living snot out of each other, and just generally disrupt the game for the masses. I even got the hiccups from laughing so hard at anything and everything - I mean, what's not funny about the London Knight mascot jumping into a CONVERTIBLE ON THE ICE and grooving to some unheard music, then throwing T-shirts into the audience at random? And the miniature Good Year blimp isn't to be missed either. Yes, I don't often let that giddy moronic side loose, but how fun it is.

So otherwise, the day caps off a nauseatingly wretched week with a little glimmer of hope. Linux works, I got to laugh my week's worth of a thousand mindless, restrained giggles, and the order of the universe is restored. For now. Bwahahaha.... guffah.

knic84 walked the plank at 10:32 PM.

Well I've caved, and I'm hotlinking from those bastards now. If you can just access the image from the url I'm giving, but they just don't like the fact that you're clicking an off-site link, what's the point? Sorry Geocities. The pictures... I mean, text files work now.

Also, you probably wondered at the first line in the first marble-related entry. I said

No word of a lie, I wrote it like that the first time then erased it, but then I realized haxx0r is still in. Isn't it?

This was because at first the title read, "College, w33k 3". Then my article morphed into something infinitely more interesting than college.

Let's see. I've got a cold now. I don't know what else to say, except that I was going to try to write this like my nose was plugged... dike by nos was pulugged. See, that's why I decided against it.

knic84 sneezed at 7:52 PM.

I was getting so caught up in nostalgia last night that I couldn't just leave yesterday's marble-blabathon as is. So in an exciting follow up, here are pictures of my PRIZED COLLECTION! It's only somewhere around 200 overall which was a paltry sum compared to that of most people I knew. Some kids had 500 or more of the things, filling entire tin boxes, but how many of these were store-bought or pity-given instead of skill-earned was always in question. I know I had a big bag of about 25? 50 I split with my sister? plainsies to start way back when, and if memory serves, due to the fact I couldn't play them for anything good I got some chinese later on. Not a lot mind you - I earned my way. My one cousin in Quebec did bestow me with a veritable goldmine when I was about 10 and no one cared about the things anymore, but all that aside, looking at these things brings back years of memories. The mutual inspection of a competitor's offering, the clinking of yours and theirs together before a match, seeing one literally fly apart when it was hit too hard, the grief of losing and the quiet victory of a good win. Recess drama at its best. I bet some of the original decade-old-plus grime from my child-hands and those of countless others still remains unseen on the little beauts. Not to mention the sand, dust and inevitable chewing gum particles from a few long-forgotten schoolgrounds and classrooms. We played the things indoors weather-permitting, with modified rules as there was no hole-like depression to even aim for. But without further ado, here they are...

As you can see, I towed my hoard in a stylish waist pack type thing in a charming-if-glaringly retro, late 80's-early 90's color scheme. I had more marbles at one point than should fit in something of its capacity, so one of the dividers is torn inside. Most people had velvety drawstring bags for bringing their loved ones to school, but that way you couldn't keep your different sizes organized like I did.

They're divided by type there, and I would go through and name them all but I kind of did in the last entry. Suffice to say they're in an approximate order of increasing value. Another shot shows a little less-obsessive clustering of all of them together. Glorious.

One type I forgot to mention were the pearls, which came in blue and white and were fittingly named for their resemblance to sea treasure. It took only 2 of these in mint condition to play for a plainsie crock or better. They were some of my favorites.

Here they are divided by size, and from another angle. I proudly managed to keep my apple juice and potato chips out of all of these shots. Speaking of chips, I was reminded how badly beaten, warped, and chipped the glass of some of my marbles is. These were worth decidedly less on the playing field, and when half of one was missing it was foolish to try to disguise it from your opponent, as the minute these things started rolling they usually stopped, planted firmly in the dirt on their flattened side. Not that I ever tried that...

Not pictured in any of these shots are the cheap plastic ripoffs I distinctly remember my cousins having that contained pop culture effigies like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on plastic circles, forever trapped inside their transparent prison. I kind of wanted these but they never played for as much as the real dealio. Not only was it about collecting, it was about playing.

There's a little more to chew on for you. I hope it hasn't been brain-curdling for the couldn't-care-less readers. Remember, if your eyes are bleeding or your brain is hemorraging, I claim absolutely no responsibility and I will not see you in court. You read at your own risk.

knic84 found out she had 2 king cobs at 2:34 PM.

No word of a lie, I wrote it like that the first time then erased it, but then I realized haxx0r is still in. Isn't it?

I was rolling pennies and to my credit finished 1 roll with approximately the 50 pennies it's supposed to contain, but gave up after losing count for about the 5th time on my next attempt. We've all been there. Damn this blog is a waste of time, haha.....

There was a nice earth-ravaging hail of giant marble-sized... hail, earlier this evening. The sky went dark and the air went cold, and then the clattering... oh, the clattering! It started up out of nowhere while I was playing Dragon Warrior and even from the depths of my abysmal basement, it sounded like my dishwasher had gone haywire and was overflowing dishes onto the ceramic kitchen tile. That's how loud it was. It's a weird thing, hail is... it's like nature's vomit. You know something's wrong when it hails on a warm day...

With all that talk of counting and marble-shaped ice balls, I'm reminded of my beloved marble collection and its many go-rounds on MarbleWorks. Remember MarbleWorks? Earliest memory of that I think was when I somehow got in trouble for playing with it in Kindergarten. But I loved my home set. I used to count my total spherical collection on a regular basis and organize them by their types, then equally disperse them and even went so far as to enact weird little 'classroom' type scenarios with them... I was an odd little child. I guess I thought of MarbleWorks as a field trip for my inanimate best friends. I was lonely too.

At the schools I went to, they were always a little differently named. There were always the Plainsies, which were lowest of the low, with the horsehair, beachball, cat's eye and assorted other varieties being a little less worthless. Then you had the Gasies - the transparent, empty varieties with names derived from sodas, food and marine life - root beers, blue whales, frosties (which were great little balls of frosted glass), 7ups (I think), clearsies, and too many more to remember - each was more valuable if it had a coveted oil stain on the surface. Then there were the Chinese, the toothpaste, bumblebee, devil's eye, panda, speckleds... constellational names like galaxies and milky ways... rocky roads, ballbearings (yes, we used those)... the various condiments like mustards, relishes, ketchups and risque bloody marys... so many... all in a variety of sizes.

The whole hierarchy was so incredibly complex it could only have resulted from years of playground refinement. A crock was worth about 4 small marbles, and 4 of those were in turn worth about a cob, two of which or so were worth a king cob. There were jumbo jets in between crocks and cobs, and I believe a queen cob, slightly smaller than her royal counterpart. These things were huge, and games of Keepsies took on a world of importance. No one got anywhere by playing Funsies.

There was an unwritten rulebook governing play as well, like an unspoken proper size of the pot, anything bigger than which was considered a cheater's pot. You had your 'stamped it, no erasies' rules with surprisingly sexual connotations like knocking, kissing, and rimsies, and on the more mundane side, dragsies which denoted no dragging your finger and marble before shooting, snap crackle pop for the real losers who wanted 3 shots a turn, and even a once-in-a-lifetime rule called helicopter or something where you got to try to drop it directly into the pot once in a game. I don't remember what black ball beats them all did, if anything - what kid knew what that meant back then?

Games of marbles were an amazing gambling opportunity in the schoolyard. Teachers tried to dissuade us but we persisted in our games, and even with our code, I sometimes got shortchanged in my victories... and sometimes begged for marble mercy and got back ones I rightfully lost (if you're reading this, Kyla Howlett, thank you)... but I loved marbles and I want to go play them right now. NOW. And reminisce in their glassy, orbulastic glory.

knic84 sank a cob at 10:17 PM.

Just not putting the same feeling into these titles as before am I? Well, I owe all of my 2.5 readers an entry, so here we go.

I saw Akira last night and what can I say, the movie was weird. Kinda cool really, I can say with confidence that those who believe anime has gone downhill in sheer quality since CG became so integral to it have a point. The animation was really superb, especially if you stack it up to other productions of the 70s. And though I watched the English dubbed version, the story was pretty well delivered and conceived. Only problem is it went pretty late, and my brain doesn't massage (I really wanted to use that word) complex ideas into good form when that tired.

Well, I'm going out with a friend who's come back from university for the weekend so I'll be getting going gone now.

knic84 scampered off at 4:17 PM.

The second week of college has come and gone, yipee skipee. The past couple days have been tough-going on lil' ol' me... first I'll rattle off my complaints. The valiant effort to get Linux working on my laptop in this virtual machine emulator software called VMware, ended today. I've got to get it working some time, so naturally this won't be the final fisticuffs between user and operating system. My teacher seems to have me branded as a bad seed in a bad apple eaten by some black sheep in his class. Do sheep eat apples? No matter, it's for metaphorical purposes. He's kinda like the butler guy in Mr. Deeds, if you've seen that, the way he gets up real close real fast and you're just like, uh oh, caught. It must be some kind of estrogen lock-on mechanism in my program, because I'm surely not the only one not focusing every ounce of my will on his lecture. Blarghahasahha. And i;enadsadkjse. I'm just trying to get Linux into some workable form for the course after all, but there's not enough expertise to go around and for the quiet type who tries not to make waves and figure out their own problems, there's even less help. Sigh and groan.

He's a good fun teacher all around though but I don't think the respect is mutual, and I have a hard time respecting those who pick on me. So watch it there, Butler guy.

Yes, it has been another week flushed down the shitter. I'm going out to Rogers video now, so I'll come back to post something more uplifting later. Hahaha. Maybe.

knic84 jumped ship at 8:42 PM.

It looks like the pictures on my Virtual Boy entry don't want to come up. I guess it's better suited to being on an actual web site than in a blog, so I'll copy what I have and put that on my poor old neglected site. Maybe make it into a regular feature.

EDIT: Thanks to a little bit of filename trickery, now the pics WILL show. But I do feel kind of bad for taking advantage of Geocities like that. They've never cancelled an account on me unlike so many other pickier free hosting services. Tripod once did me in over a 1 MB .avi from the game Lunar, which is just unfair, and fortunecity once deleted me cause of some ROMs. So I'll guiltlessly only link to pictures from now on. Well, on with the show.

Now for something more blog-able. Every year for the first week or so of September, the Western Fair descends upon my hometown, bringing roller coasters, tilt-a-whirls, and crooked games galore to the fun-hungry public. It's a bit of a gauge, and pretty noisy, stinky, and crowded, but somehow the lure of the fair is too much for any mere mortal to resist. I'm a mere mortal, so I went to the fair and had me some fun a couple days ago.

First ride I went on was the hang glider thing I missed the name of. I think I've been on it in years past, and it's a tame offering fit for those fearing a reversal to their digestion. You're to lie on your front on a 3-person hang glider, and the ride does the rest, circling and tilting you up, then down. It's pretty fun.

The next was an old favorite, the Wild Mouse. I'm not actually fond of roller coasters really, as I don't get a rush from the feeling of bile rising into my throat. The first drop is probably the steepest of any ride at the humble fair, and delivered an ample blow to my unprepared internal organs. It isn't the most gut-clenching roller coaster, very far from it, but I felt a little woozy at this point and my head and stomach cried for mercy. I wasn't about to give yet.

On to the Hot Wheels ride. It's like a centrifugally-charged carousel in cars, on an ondulating track. Round and round, up and down, then backwards, whee. The G-forces on this baby cause whoever's on the outside to be crushed in no time, so it's best to have the lighter person on the inside if possible. In truth, this type of ride isn't all that pleasant, as the operators feel it would be oh so much more fun if they have a blaringly loud speaker pump out oft-crappy music and a siren whose volume exceeds even that of said loud speaker. Still fun though, in that way only a fair-goer understands.

I think next was the bumper cars, but not just any bumper cars. These were the slowest things I've had the experience of maneouvering in quite some while. The cars themselves were cool-looking, and I of course gravitated to the one that said "Ninja" on it. But if you were to get stuck in a pileup at any time, you couldn't count on the cars mustering enough power to break out of their electric gridlock. Maybe it's cutbacks due to the blackout, and while energy conservation is good in theory, I wish they wouldn't touch my bumper cars.

Next I believe was a horrible and pointless ride that has somehow become a yearly staple - Crazy Surf. A giant bench goes around and around here. Not much else to say about this ride, except that this time I pushed in the shoulder thing that comes down to keep you from flying into the stratosphere too far into my stomach, effectively pinching it in half. After this ride, I had the simultaneous sensations of at once weighing what I would on the moon and feeling like the very air was putting pressure on every cell in my body. This was about the last straw before the invariable deviation to the ticket-sucking carnival games, where your astronomical odds of winning a teensy plush toy are offset by a few seconds of skill-testing amusement.

I like the crossbow, and it likes me. You shoot at a piece of cardboard with a 3x3 grid of stars. But my aim was about half an inch higher than the center star's bullseye this time and you only get the prize if it is dead center. Grr. The Tweety birds they were giving out this year were fuzzy unlike the one I got a couple years ago so I was kind of disappointed, but not entirely needing a second yellow cartoon bird plushie, got on with life.

The best part of the evening was possibly the $5 ride on a Tonka monster truck. With seating on the top and seatbelts that I hope work better than they look, this dangerously unregulated attraction was nonetheless quite fun. Sitting on the outside of a spin was arguably the best part since you were pretty high up and not very secured, and the tight circles it was doing were seat-grippingly fuuuun. I often find that with these rides a sort of claustrophobia sets in, in that you can't just get off when you've had your fill or are starting to freak out. You're trapped there till they let you go, and any attempt at escaping is futile. I didn't feel too safe on the truck, but this one was well worth the money. Helps that I wasn't paying ;)

That's about it. See ya next time.

knic84 nodded off at 10:24 PM.

I've got a bit of an article in mind for you today (and if no one reads it, at least I'll have had fun writing it). This blog seems to be shaping up rather erratically - while some days the theme leans toward melancholic self-analysis, today's is a bit of a shiny penny in that murky fountain. I was bestowed a godly bounty of electronic goodies last night courtesy of my super cool pal, Wyatt. Hi Wyatt! I've proceeded to play with possibly the most obscure and unusual offering of the bunch, with photographic evidence for the skeptical proving it did indeed exist. Behold... The Nintendo Virtual Boy, a niche-market contender that took a swandive into the scrap heap of failed systems post haste following its release in 1995. But this was an interesting one for several reasons. First of all, just look at the thing - maybe the rear view would be helpful here:

This is the holographic eyepiece the dubious player is to peer into while playing. Only those 7 years of age or older need apply - this is the only console I'm aware of that had an age restriction placed on it, and this was due to the 3-d projection being bad bad bad for little kiddies whose eyes weren't finished developing their depth perception, or so is my limited medical understanding. I played this for my first, and if memory serves, only time in a store, the game (which I believe was a pack-in with the system) was Red Alarm or Red Alert or something, a wireframe-ish corridor shooter, and I was kind of impressed. The gimmick here is that the 32-bit RISC processor, the technological high point for new systems of the time that usually pumped out the first at-home polygons, is put to unusual use: we're presented with a multi-plane black-and-red display that creates the illusion of depth in a holographic manner. That's the best technical jargon I could muster. The graphics aren't anything noteworthy in their gloriously few shades of candied apple, but the tricks they play with your vision are something an emulator couldn't possibly replicate. Staring into the game is like looking into a more affordable virtual reality helmet, hence the Virtual Boy.

The controller is also a point of interest, looking like a crossbreed of the then yet-to-be N64 controller and to a lesser degree the Playstation controller. In a blatant display of trying to confuse the Hell out of customers, the thing had 2 directional pads. I don't know how that would work for a game that used them, but it's a little mind-boggling to consider. I'm assuming the right one would be good for aiming while moving in an alternate direction with the left one.

Where ambition and radical ideas have taken the wheel in the video game industry, they have often crashed in a fiery explosion of failure. The Virtual Boy probably remains Nintendo's most deviant entry in gaming, and the world wasn't ready for it. I can see where the pitfalls lay for our ill-fated friend - the thing is bulky and heavy and not at all portable as the 'Boy' portion of the name might suggest. It runs off an A/C adaptor that connects in a most novel way by routing through the controller, so that namesake suggestion of portability further misleads. Also, it was fairly pricey at launch - in the realm of 200 dollars Canadian if I'm not mistaken. And the wee ones, historically the most lucrative demographic for the Nintendo brand, couldn't play unless they wanted permanent vertigo for life. I really can't say why it failed with much authority, or that it is lesser known or remembered than the more successful systems overall. It seems the ones that 'fail' are fondly remembered by more than really ever played the thing for themselves, and while I'm not sure this is the case with the Virtual Boy, it deserves recognition for its oddity alone.

What I can say is that the stand height doesn't seem to be adjustable in any conceivable way, so the closest I can get to playing the thing in a comfortable position is having it on my old kitchen table while I hunch my hunch-accustomed spine over in my seat. Not a big problem mind you. There is a slidebar to set the Focus and a dial labelled "IPD" on the top which seems to shift the picture. The game I have been lent is Mario's Tennis, one of the many mascot-casted sports titles from Nintendo.

The cart is bigger than an old Game Boy cart, but thinner as well. Its connector is unusual too - it's the 'female' end of what looks like a longer and skinnier paralllel port pin connector, whereas with most carts the chip-like things ending the board come in contact with the pins inside the cartridge slot. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Trying to take a shot through the visor of in-game action proved more trouble than it was worth. The flash kept going off and producing a lot of plastic red reflection from the lenses, effectively blotching up the shots. It's a cute albeit simple game, with a variety of tennis courts and characters that embody Nintendo. You have the ability to swing, though I'm unsure if the A and B buttons differ in respect to what type of swing, and move. Different sound effects and animations result from hitting the ball from different locations on the court. One stage has a blimp floating by with a flashing marquee of 'VB!' scrolling across its side. Too bad my mind has been tainted with Visual Basic and that acronym sends me into relapses.

I guess that's about all I should write about this if I want to keep your attention any longer. Which incidentally won't be a concern if I stop writing about it here. So now you might know a little more about this little known artifact of gaming lore. Feel proud.

knic84 had to vacuum at 3:43 PM.

What a day. I really have no reason to bitch, but this week has been somehow indescribably wretched. Today my list of intangible complaints is long and boring, not the least of which is that my brain feels like a rotting piece of fruit and has acted accordingly. My head just aches from fatigue and weighs down on me in some cruel joke by gravity, not aided by the fact I barely ate today, stupid me. I lost the battle between mind and body in C++ class, with my attention span weak as it was turning to any possible distraction - namely the magnifying glass on my laptop. It must've been pretty apparent to at least the professor that I was in an alternate dimension because he singled me out for the analysis of the day's extremely super fun in class exercise thinger, the Unified Modeling Language's first-place winner for shortest time taken to either put you into a coma or drive you to insanity: the Use Case Scenario. He must've seen I was writing it for the group, and in all my half-alive glory, correctly assumed I wasn't engaged by the lecture. So he came all the way to the back of the room and used the fact that I didn't have Word open to create a public spectacle of the fact that I wasn't following along, where before it could only have been known to even the least perceptive in my immediate vicinity. It really < sarcasm > helps < /sarcasm > that I'm one of the only females, all 2 self-inclusive I believe, in a sea of male faces in that class so I'm extra easy to form a personal opinion of, though I've had this teacher before and did very well in his class. But in assignments I'm but a number, so no one can know who it was with the 91% grade or whatever the Hell it was. My achievements are consistent and give me enough of an illusion of self-adequacy most of the time, no recognition required; it's when my rare but very visible foul-ups occur and are broadcast to the masses that I feel cornered and hopeless. Let's not even begin on my minority in the program, as it is so infinitessimal that it appears I am the only girl taking all the courses in my section and no percentage would be small enough to accurately reflect how outnumbered, overpowered, and overwhelmed I feel when I think about it.

I talked to the new secretary at my chiropractor's office today. Turns out she graduated from the business division at Fanshawe, my college. She seemed < sarcasm again > very very optimistic < /end sarcasm > about the direction of her career, but Hell, I asked when she obviously knew better than to tell as even the emotionally rock-solid would have been a little shaken by her pessimistic reaction to my inquiry. She said the college's programs have a good reputation, but that I'd better look at the website directly after graduating and take the co-op stream if I wanted to enter anything related to my studies. Thankfully I'm in the co-op stream and I'm always on the internet so it's impossible for me not to look at their website even by accident. Now I'm going to email my consultant and MAKE DAMN SURE that my boring as hell work term was good for more than a few bucks that I'll just waste on trinkets trying to make myself happy.

Ever wonder if there was an opposite for 'depressed'? Not happy or manic, but a TRUE opposite. I think being that happy would be dangerous. Superpressed. You would surely bring about the destruction of the world.

Yes, it is a deep sea of trouble upstairs, and I'm so bloody tired of it all. I'm sick of worrying and caring, about things good and bad. Everything's turned to mush in my head, where I can barely pick out what makes me happy anymore. I'm sick of putting on charades... it's going to be depressing knowing me. I don't know how I'm ever going to be happy again. I feel like this is the last chance I'll have to do anything meaningful with my time on this planet and yet I have no motivation to act on that, which is a ridiculous sensation, I know, seeing as I'm a ripe old 19 years of age. But I still can't shake it. Writing this is at least a little therapeutic, I'm glad my brain's co-operating enough to comply with this outpouring. I actually feel much improved now.

So, that is all but a bit of old, mouldy, crusty old weight off my chest. An offshoot of my chronic depression, a branch on that decrepit, twisted tree. There is so much more, much more than anyone in their right mind, not wanting to tumble right down into the shifting morass of emotional destitution right after me would want to hear. I don't think most would understand anyway, my reasons run long and deep and mysterious.

knic84 kicked shell at 5:38 PM. Pizza power.

First week back has felt waaaay longer than it should have. I'm bothered overall by an implaceable angst that I wish would shrivel up and die. Not entirely implaceable but not something I would want to confess to a public blog, so for simplicity's sake let's call it that. And this is despite having a great morning due to a short first period resulting in a 3 hour lunch break, that I used to go downtown, eat those deviously delicious hotcakes at McDonald's for the first time in years (coinciding with the first time I have been awake for their breakfast in the same number of years), and playing arcade games including Dance Dance Revolution, which I haven't had so much fun with in a long time. Yes folks, I expect too much.

I've thought of some weird stuff to put on here to keep it interesting:

Ever think how it's kinda strange that we have certain names for people we use over and over? Think about it. There are possibly millions of people running around the world with your very name, right now. Doesn't it make you feel insignificant? How many people have you known with the same name as you? Everyone is different but you get called the same name as a bajillion other people alive right now or who've lived since they thought up your moniker. I started thinking about that over writing my damned SIGNATURE. Frickin brain's definitely overactive...

You know what else? I hate the word "no." If it were up to me, you'd never have to use it. The world would be a place where you wouldn't. It's the ultimate definitive negative response, no matter how you use it. It's always a little sad to hear "no," unless it's in the affirmative sense in agreement with a negative statement you've made. Do I sound crazy yet? Something about all the negativity around is terribly noticeable today... and everyday...

I think broadcasting has to be a really empty job. Most of what you do is relay the negativity of the world to the homes of millions, having no control or permission to put any opinion into it, unless you're one of those biased types with a similarly-interested network. Sometimes I hate those talking heads that just coldly ask the "tough questions", with no feeling... and who tell you what to think by giving one side of the coin. They're all so perfect, too, no representation of reality there. What an all-around selective view of the world.

And what original thoughts. I know it must've all been said a billion times by equally pessimistic people... what a waste of a blog... well, I'm just upset. I'm not talking sense. That's all for today.

knic84 batted an eye at 5:27 PM.

First day back for most people, luckily mine was of the 3-hour, virtually instructionless variety with a nil concentration requirement. Just sat through some course introductions and looked absently at some boxscans courtesy of the Video Game Museum, after my attempt at reading the Cadbury Egg Tribute on X-entertainment.com failed due to me having to hold back the nigh-uncontrollable laughter that would assuredly result from any more talk of bunnies clucking like chickens. It's going to be tough resisting the site's comic charms for fear of cracking up in class, but what the Hell, some people were sending around links to videos of cats swinging from ceiling fans last year, so I've got a bit of precedent to cover me.

My computer seems to be taking notes from my last loaner by buggering up on me at the first given opportunity. My fault for installing a DOS program under Windows XP I suppose. But I don't see how that would cause a device to experience a critical failure, or however the word-mincing MS guys put it. MSN Messenger also chimed in to report my version was a security nightmare. I really shouldn't complain about the comp yet as it hasn't had the chance to truly prove its hard drive-crashing volatility. Thing still works, and hasn't experienced any of the physical pitfalls that I know at least one person has reason to be upset about. Time will only tell.

I've reconsidered posting the vacation journal just because it's really that boring, and I have too many pictures of too little of value to really justify having it here. That and I'm too lazy to bother, even if I have typed up a good deal of it. So let's chalk it up to me not wanting to share. I think it may be something I just keep for my personal enjoyment, and with any luck I'll have something better to write about later on. I should get a digital camera of my own to take around college and make observations on my daily routines, or in case anything really interesting should ever happen there. So in other words, just the observations.

knic84 made a funny at 12:33 PM.