For the last few months, I've been mixing up the friendship circles a little bit, and have come out with at least four new friends, all of them gamers and anime fans. Unfortunately, they're all console gamers, which I am not, such a pity.
I found a way to challenge them on a fair playing field (console v computer) in Call of Duty, but that requires more computers than I currently have at my disposal. So I'll need to get my hands on a few cheap laptops which run Windows 7 and can play the game. Probably take a little while to achieve, and then I'll have all these spare laptops, but eh, why not? Can you ever have too many spare computers? My exploits on that adventure are documented on tiberath.com, which I've since redesigned again over the past couple of days. The design I'm using wasn't actually intended for that purpose, it wasn't intended for any purpose really. I quite literally got drunk and woke up the next morning with this and went from there. It's nowhere near finished, but it's in a working state. The Shana banner is of course only filler until I come up with something better. Probably a decent photo of myself doing something abnormal.
Speaking of Call of Duty, I still can't seem to stop playing World at War. I do have a copy of Black Ops, but I've found it's just not my thing. I don't know why, perhaps I'm just more geared towards World War II than the Cold War. I also prefer the Co-Op of World at War, as I've previously mentioned: It's the single best Co-Op experience I've ever had in a game, and at the end of the day, that's really all I'm looking for.
I've recently again tried to quit smoking. I'm on day 5ish and decided to approach it a different way. Instead of avoiding all situations where temptation might appear, I've been giving myself nothing but temptation. Day One, I sat in a room of other smokers and turned down all offers. Day two I spent on my own. Day three, I had the single worst day at work you can imagine. Day four was a better day at work, but still quite stressful and then went and spent time with the aforementioned smokers. I'll admit, I spent a great deal of time absent-mindedly staring at a pack and the idea of taking one was certainly very strong. Day Five I spent on my own again. And this is day six, with a pretty bad day at work on the horizon at 2pm. I know it's bad, because Tuesdays are always bad.
Aside from that, I really need to get out of my current working environment. It was certainly fun for the first year, but seeing as I haven't had a week off in over a year now, and when I attempted to do so they denied me and approved someone else who has at least had a week off this year, I've found I'm completely burned out and just resent going back to that place. I wonder what kind of website one would have to make in order to earn a decent weekly salary via Google Ads or something. I read somewhere that BYOND makes roughly 40k p/y on ad placement (this was before this current website mind you), and that's 10k more a year than I make. So I guess it'll have to be something which pulls in at least 50,000 user registrations over a period of six years (and that's with only two semi-popular games collecting this data, so probably at least six times that amount in actuality).
I suppose I could try making a popular web-comic, I do have a graphics tablet, but I'm as artistically inclined as a three year old, and can colour in to that same extent. I could give it a shot as a writer and write a web-story, as I've attempted too in the past. But I lost my mojo on that project and it ultimately died. Though it's an avenue I'd like to explore again, only less journal-like and more story-like. Maybe sometime this year when I get a week off (if only).
And now for a rant: The Australian liberal and national parties rushed a bill to mark Easter Sunday as a trade day, and even worse, it's not a public holiday. They in fact fought tooth and nail to make it a trade day and NOT a public holiday, despite the SDA's (retail union) efforts. So my Easter break is also non-existent. I'll probably get Easter Friday and Easter Monday off as normal, but Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday I will be working. This is very annoying, I don't care for religion, but it was useful in giving me a day off here or there.
And although I honestly don't think much of Julia Gillard, I certainly wont ever vote for a Liberal or National party ever again, no matter how awful the Labour opposition is. So she's already won my vote without having to do anything. Good on her.
It's surprising, in two months of offline activity, I really don't have much worth talking about. I get up, go to work, depending on the day I may stop by a mates house before going home, go home, eat and go to bed. That's my life in a nutshell. It's quite a sad little rut and it really needs to change. Having money is awesome, working for it in the manor I do is no longer fun, which is quite odd. I'm generally the kind of person who if I enjoy something, I'll love it to death for a very long time. Just like CoD. I've been playing the same Co-Op missions with my best friend, every Thursday for several, several months, on the hardest difficulty, having finished it all several times. But yeah, the work is no longer fun, and the job market in Portland is just as bad as it was in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. So quitting is just not an option for me right now, which sucks so very, very much.
On the anime scene, I've watched several new titles, most of which the names I can't remember. I really do need to give them proper write-ups, but for the time being, the series which names I remember I'll recommend:
- Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom
- Speed Grapher
- Black Butler
- Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations
- Tsubasa: Spring Thunder Chronicles
I've seen more than that over the last two months, but these are the only titles I can remember off-hand. Currently watching Chrome Shelled Regios. I made it to episode three before I passed out from fatigue.
I think that covers me for now. I'll try and get those write-ups out over the coming days. They are good series, each one of them, in their own way.
