Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Grab Life by the Nostrils

That title would be better fitted to a different post, but I couldn't discard it once it popped into my brain.

Today was the first day at Sears. As per my policy, as always, I'm not going to give a lot of details. But I will say that in an amusing and potentially confusing twist of fate, both my boss and my supervisor are named Terry. (The third guy I met? Barry.) So that'll be fun. We're still setting up the department, and I've yet to undergo sales training. I'm excited for my real job to start. Electronics are awesome. I've always been pretty satisfied with my parents' bulging CRT that we bought in...oh, I don't know, 1997 maybe? But spending so much time around those sleek Plasmas today has corrupted me somewhat. I'm gonna want one. Soon. Which is just what I need - another expensive item to add to my growing list of material must-haves.

I've got a pretty exciting week planned. Tomorrow night the plan is to hang out with my long lost high school amigos Andrew and Rose. On Friday, I may be catching a bus to Toronto again to catch a live performance by turntablist Kid Kaola. To take advantage of the holiday Monday, my gang is also tossing around the idea of going to see fireworks at Niagra Falls on Sunday night.

The moderately repulsive title of this post was inspired by the way I feel about my current lifestyle. The "success" level is kind of hit and miss. It's like, ok, I have 2 jobs. Great. I'm doing lots of cool stuff with my friends. Double great. But I could still be doing more. I keep starting projects that are doomed to die. Like that thing with Alex that I told you to bug me about? Puh-lease. Died long ago. For about a week I was also practically obsessed with the idea of creating some cover versions of my favourite Muse songs in OS X's beloved GarageBand. With Kat's impressive vocal talents, I planned on making duets out of Starlight, Bliss, and possibly Time is Running Out. Never mind the cost of buying a USB microphone, the technical complexity of re-creating a song entirely with little onscreen keyboards is a more-than-daunting task to a GarageBand novice like myself. I personally hope this project can still continue on somehow, but in what form remains to be seen. There have been other projects as well, and sadly they were so briefly imagined that I've forgotten what they were. The most recent one is Pete's nostalgic mission to create an unofficial sequel to our favourite side scroller from back in the day, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. Doing so is possible using the boundless powers of Flash, but such powers would be entirely Pete's to wield. My role in this would be to write a compelling back story that continues off of the almost non-existent plot line of the previous games. Fun stuff.

Screen cap from Pitfall. Harry Jr. is telling some croc who's boss.

Also, on a totally random note, I'm seriously considering getting an Xbox 360. The urge to be a true gamer again has been growing stronger by the day. It would be expensive, but I feel deserving of such a reward. It would be the first real compensation I've had for all the work I've done so far this summer. Saving money is good and all, but you've gotta live a little, right? If I got one, the games I'd want to get are Guitar Hero II, Gears of War, and Oblivion to start with. And when Assassin's Creed comes out: Oh baby. Please don't ask me how I'm going to afford all this AND a new PC that can run StarCraft II, AND the game itself, AND, y'know, rent. Because I haven't figured it out yet. I definitely want to work part-time during the school year though, so that's a start.

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3 Comments:

At 10:41 PM, Blogger Sarah Katherine said...

I demand that our little music project come to fruition in some form. Also, if you get GH for the 360, hurrah, just don't whine that I can only beat you because the controllers are different. ;)

 
At 10:49 PM, Blogger Dave said...

They're similar enough. Just gimme a little time to L2P and then I'm going to rock your potatoes.

 
At 10:38 AM, Blogger Pete said...

Dude the pitfall sequel is definitely still in the works. I need to do some flash animation tests as well as looking up 2d sidescrolling code that I am sure can be found all over the internet. You need to get cracking on the story dude, It should be like indiana jones meets Tarzan meets Conan the barbarian. That would be sick.

 

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