Exercise - Valentine

I can't find a link for yesterday's exercise on the site at this moment. The short of it was that it needed to do with a heart of some sort. If she puts it back up with a number I'll edit this later.

Exercise ??? (was current on Valentine's Day) - Currently Second Draft.

Valentine

Dak paced around the object as he eyed it suspiciously. He bit his lower lip as he reached hesitantly toward it, afraid of what it could be, or what might be inside. Just inches away from it he jerked his hand back. Idiot, who knows what's in there. He stood up and checked to make sure that he was still alone before kneeling back down. This place must have been a shop of some sort. It certainly would not have been suitable for lodging. There was no way to tell what used to be sold here. Anything that wasn't bolted to the ground was already taken and,  judging by the some of the damage apparent to even casual inspection, some of what had been. Everything, except for this object lying abandoned in a dark corner.

It was small, no more than four inches wide and seemed to be made of metal. It was wrapped in a very thin red paper. There was a curious shape to it, like someone had taken an oval, creased both ends to a point, and then pushed one end in toward the other. That is such an inefficient shape for a container. If indeed it was a container. There was a crease, or at least the appearance of one that ringed the circumference of the object, but it had no discernible hinge. Perhaps it simply opened in to two halves, a top and bottom.

His heart was beating quickly. He yearned to know what this thing contained. He continued pacing, wringing his hands and licking his dry lips slightly. It could be something dangerous, but it could also be something valuable. He leaned over the object, just staring at it intently. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and steeling his nerves reached out and grabbed the object.

He frowned. Worthless. Anything this light couldn't be worth the trouble. Keeping the container at arms length he attempted to pry it open. Surprisingly it came open rather easily. Not a container meant for security then. Inside were four nuggets each in the same shape as the container itself, made of something he didn't recognize. Each one was resting in individual slots that seemed to be shaped specifically to hold them. The slots were all part of one piece that fit the shape of the lower half and seemed to be made of some flimsy brown plastic. Each nugget had a slightly different pattern on them but all were made of some smooth brown substance. Not taking his eyes off of the container he reached in to his pack and rummaged around for a moment before pulling out his blade. He poked gently at one with the tip of the blade, which penetrated the soft exterior with no effort at all. He shaved off a small sliver of the substance and lifted it to his nose.

It smelled divine. It was a sweet scent, with just a hint of bitterness to it, but also some sort of fruity scent. Food?! It couldn't be. This place had probably been deserted for years. If this substance was edible, how had it survived so many years. He smiled and closed the container quickly as he stood up. At this point he didn't care how it lasted so long, he could probably make a fortune trading it to the right people. He stuffed the container in his pack, slung the strap over his shoulder, and strode out on to the empty street and off in to the distance.

Random Writings of a Roleplayer

For those still following me, thanks for staying subscribed, for any newcomers, welcome. It's been a few years and a lot has changed. I'm no longer working technical support at SRS, I've since moved to QA (quality assurance) and am now actually a Software Engineer. The full story of all these transitions I'll have to save for another time. I also now have a son, who will be two in July. My daughter will be five in June and is ready to start Kindergarten. Time really does fly. It's amazing that my daughter is starting school already.

Now more to the point of this post and its title. I want to get back in to writing. I enjoy writing and want to improve so I went and found a site that has writing exercises: http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/writingexercises.html. I decided to do the exercises on this site and that I would post my exercises here for anyone who is interested. I'm hoping this will both inspire me to write more in general and also to keep my blog more up to date. Comments and constructive criticisms are welcome :) By constructive, I don't mean they have to be favorable. I mean, if you don't like it, tell me why, don't just say "sucks lawls".

My first post will be one I actually wrote yesterday, and I'll probably make a few edits, so you'll be getting a second draft of it. I don't know if I'll generally post second and third drafts here or if I'll just keep to firsts. Whichever ends up being more fun I guess.

Let the writing commence!

Yet more lunchtime ramblings.

Well, seeing as I have the time, I figure I should probably start putting something here again. I doubt very many are following this anymore, and considering the 5 month break in posts, I don't blame them.

Anyways, in general life has been good and we don't really have much to complain about. Our little girl has really grown. She is 19 months old now and full of energy. Unfortunately a lot of that energy is focused in to climbing whatever she can and she is good at it. She has already figured out how to climb out of the crib, forcing us to order a crib tent to keep her in. I guess that will work until she figures out how to undo whatever keeps the thing on the crib. Other than that she is well and healthy aside from a little cold she's had for the last week. She's a real joy and keeps us busy constantly.

Back a few months, right about when things really started looking bad for the economy our company was one of the ones doing a round of layoffs and gladly I was not among those let go. It definitely made the holidays a lot brighter not having to worry about where I would be working next week. We had a lot of fun during Christmas. We went and visited family in Idaho. Luckily the weather was very accommodating both on the way up and on the way down. It was good to see family again and I even got to see my friend who I haven't seen in over 10 years, Tim. He's the one who writes the Vagabond blog that I have linked. It was really cool to get to see him again. Both of us are a bit older and a bit heavier than when we last saw each other :) We told each other we'd have to make sure it wasn't a decade between visits again. We'll see how things go.

After Christmas I sold off one of my game systems to raise money to buy a PS3. We've really been enjoying it. We have a couple games for it, Little Big Planet and Ratchet and Clank. Little Big Planet (LBP from here on out) is one of the most creative and entertaining games I have played in a while. I would recommend it to anyone. It has really fun levels but also lets users create levels themselves for others to play, so there is an almost unending supply of levels to play. Warning though, the cuteness of the game is addicting beyond imagination and you'll find yourself wanting to buy the little costumes that are sold for your sack person (if you play it you'll see what I mean). It's one game you don't want to miss out on.

There isn't just that though, the PS3 is also our all around entertainment station. We subscribed to netflix and now we not only get Blue-Ray movies in the mail once or twice a week that we can watch, but there is also a decent selection of movies that can be streamed directly to the playstation. This bascially means if it's on netflix, hulu, youtube, cbs, nbc, espn, or on my computer, we can watch it on our TV. It's a pretty sweet deal. All that and a game station in one system isn't too shabby.

Anyways, back to the kiddo. It's been an interesting time for her. Last year she hit her teeth on the tub and knocked them in. We had to keep seeing the dentist every few weeks until he finally said that the teeth looked like they'd be fine afterall. He said usually when that happens kids lose the teeth they knocked in and often damage the permanant roots. Gratefully though, nothing happened to her. It's fun to watch Erin grow and develop her personality. Kid is a little firecracker sometimes. When something doesn't happen the way she wants it she can start to get upset pretty easily. Hopefully this only lasts through the toddler phase :p

Sveta is also doing well. She has been doing a little geneaology for people here and there and earning a little extra that way. She gets to stay home with Erin, of course, which is a blessing to the family, but a lot of work for her. Erin can be quite the handful. She gets to talk to her parents in Lithuania every day through Skype and Erin enjoys seeing her grandparents on a regular basis that way too.

My brain is a jumble trying to get down the various things that have happened without creating a 10 page post, so I'll just have to post more as I think of it. In closing, I just have to say that I found it rather ironic that on Superbore Sunday, that attendance at 9am church was so low considering that the superbore didn't even start for about 5 hours after church finished. I guess people needed to make sure they were good and rested so they could be attentive and alert for the church of the superbore ;p

Lunchtime Ramblings

Well, it's that time of day again. Yeah, that's right. Lunch time. That time of day when we get to kick back, relax, and shove our faces full of food to get us through the rest of the afternoon.

Here's some of the things on my mind.

Obama vs. McCain. This is scary to say, but there is a chance that I may actually vote Democrat this year. I know!! Crazy! I'm just not entirely convinced that McCain is the one to lead us through the next four years. To be quite honest, I don't know that we really have much of a selection of candidates this year. It almost feels like I'm making a choice between poking my left eye out or my right. It's times like these that you wish you had the ability to look into the future, see what the outcome of the next four years will be for each choice and then vote accordingly. I'm just going to have to do my best to research the two candidates and decide which cliff will be safer to jump off of.

Retake on Crisis Core. Still a fun game, but I have to say, I did get a little bored of doing the missions in the game (which is the only way of grinding/gaining levels by the way) and so I now find myself in a conundrum. The game took a huge difficulty spike right near the end, so I find myself lacking in the levels sufficient to proceed and yet I find myself not really desiring to do any more of the freaking repetitive missions either. One of these nights I'll just need to buckle down and do it just because I want to finish the game. I would still recommend the game to anyone, but just be warned you have to REALLY like the mission part of the game.

Let's see...there must be something else on my mind. Well, I have a rather volitile rant about illegal immigration brewing in my mind, but I think I'll save that for its own post and when I'm feeling particularly awnry about it. Stay tuned...

Oh yes! The Mojave Experiment. When I found out about this experiment, I thought it was hilarious. It turns out Microsoft wanted to prove just how much brainwashed zombies people are when it comes to operating systems. They brought a bunch of people in and asked what people thought of Windows Vista. For the most part people trashed it, regardless of whether they've used it or not. Then get this. They show them this new OS, Mojave and have them play around with it for a short time and then rate it. People loved it, they gave it an average rating of 8.5/10 as opposed to what they gave Vista (4/10). Here's the kicker. They were then told that Mojave IS Vista. It was just reskinned to look different. The people's reactions were awesome and some people refused to believe that what they were just shown was Windows Vista. To experience the lawlness yourself, visit http://www.mojaveexperiment.com.

This just goes to show that far too many people are relying solely on the word of Mac elitist zealouts and Mac smear campaigns. When people get a chance to use it themselves, on average they are pleased with it. I just pray that this same mindless sheepism doesn't carry over into politics and religion. Sadly though, I have a suspicion that it may.

Well, that's my lunchtime thoughts. Enjoy your day :)

Random Ramblings

Well, it appears I have at least a couple repeat readers, so I'll try to keep my blog a bit more up to date, heh.

Not sure what to talk about so here's my thoughts on a few things.

Let's start with Prince Caspian. Don't worry, no spoilers this time. Not much I can say about the movie other than that I liked it. The movie was pretty good but unfortunately it didn't evoke that same sense of 'awe' in me that the first movie did. When my wife described it, she said it didn't have that same sense of "glory" that the first movie had. Basically, I think that the movie was just a bit darker than the first given the situation that Narnia was in. Also, there weren't any scenes that really felt climactic to me. Multiple times the movie came close to giving that feeling of a climactic battle or scene, but never quite got there. All in all though, I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes the Chronicles of Narnia.
I give Prince Caspian 4/5 Lions.

Final Fantasy: Crisis Core. I'm not done with the game yet, I would guess I'm about half way through, but as a fan of the original Final Fantasy VII, I love this game quite a bit. It's just really cool to be playing through the back story of FFVII. You're playing as Cloud's old friend Zack. You get a chance to see how Zack and Cloud met, Cloud's development as a SOLDIER operative, how Zack and Aerith become romantically involved and all that good stuff. I'm guessing that this game is going to take you right up to where Zack is mortally wounded by Sephiroth in Nibelheim (since the last chapter of the guide is in Nibelheim). I'm not actually using the guide to play, since I like to play through the first time without it, but my friend did look through it and pointed out the name of the final chapter of the walkthrough.
Combat in this game is quite a bit different from the other Final Fantasies, but other than the randomness involved in limit breaks and summons, the battle is actually quite fun and fast paced. You can actually dodge attacks and guard against them in real time, giving a bit more feeling of control as far as avoiding damage goes.
Final score - 4.7/5 Buster Swords.

Ooooh, I almost forgot Stargate Continuum. I recently finished my SG-1 collection with the latest Stargate movie, 'Stargate Continuum'. Stargate had already done two back-to-back episodes about time travel and fixing the timeline, so I wondered if this movie would be sufficently different to be worth the expense. I can say that I was pleased with the result. I don't want to give away the plot, but I will say it was a fitting end to the SG-1 saga (barring future releases). Ark of Truth and Continuum together wrapped up the storyline of the longest running sci-fi series ever and did it well.
Continuum gets 5/5 altered timelines.

I think that about covers it for today...and no, not every blog entry is going to be a game or movie review, but if I can't think of something specific to blog on, then those work as well as anything. :)

The Dark Knight

WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!!
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!!

Oh and in cased you missed that...Warning! Spoiler Coming!
If you have not yet seen "The Dark Knight" and do not wish to know the plot beforehand, do not read this post.
You have been warned...



I have to say that "The Dark Knight" was simply one of the coolest movies I have ever seen. I had high expectations and the movie delivered. This movie had everything I feel a Batman movie should have and everything I hoped it would. Darkness, villains who feel like real villains, plenty of action, and lots more. This movie did not even come close to descending into the campiness that previous Batmans either started in or slid quickly into. It started gritty and stayed gritty.

When the movie first started it took me all of about 10 seconds to remember that Harvy Dent is two face when he flips his coin in the car. (I mean aside from the fact that any comic book reading/cartoon series watching person would have known it just from the name). I really liked how they brought in two face and then took him out, because I'm not sure how they would have turned him into the main villain of this newest series of batmans without descending into the campiness I mentioned before.

The Joker...
What can I say about the Joker. He was brilliantly psychotic. Never before in any Batman movie have I said to myself "Oh no...he's not going to..." gulp "...he did..." He actually made me cringe. He was perfectly played in my opinion. The makeup just gave him a gritty and real feel. Something that the Jack Nicholson Joker never had. He felt neither scary nor real. Heath Ledger's Joker was brilliant and cruel and made for a worthy adversary for Batman.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY KILLED OFF BATMAN'S GIRL!! What is up with that? Seriously...though I understand that poor Batman has to live in a solitude of sorts, did they really have to blow Rachel up??? /sigh
I guess they did. That was one of the things that really made me say to myself, "Wow, they're serious about keeping this series dark..." I was just really surprised that they would do that. I don't know if any of the previous Batmans have lost their girls to death (I'll have to look).

Finally, Batman. Cool. Human. Vulnerable. I do agree with my friend about the raspy voice thing, that does get old, but like I said to him, if that is the only thing wrong with the movie, then I think I can live with it. Batman was actually ready to expose his identity to the world, just to stop one villain. He cared about the people who were hurt, he didn't want his influence to cause any innocents pain. They really brought out what Batman is in this film. Not a lapdog vigilante, but the silent protector, an icon, the one it's ok for the people to hate, the Dark Knight.

Something Funny

Sorry, no rant today. Something very funny occurred today however. We got some new gadgets at work today, one of them being UPSs for our computers (no not the Post Office - Uninterruptible Power Supplies). I shut my computer down, hook everything up to the UPS and start my computer back up. Yay, take that possible power outtages.

Well as luck and irony would have it, just before 5 pm there was a power outtage. As the power is going off, I'm thinking, "Awesome, good thing we just happened to get these in today." Then my computer shuts off...

What I had failed to realize is that of the 8 slots, only 4 of them will actually use the UPS battery, and the other 4 are just surge protectors. Yeah, you guessed it. My computer and moniters were plugged into the surge protector side of the UPS, not the battery side.

Let that be a lesson to you. If you get a UPS...and some of the slots say "Battery" on them...it's not for plugging battery operated devices into. :P