Resolutions

     New Years resolutions were always a big thing in my family. We always sat down right after celebrating the countdown or during breakfast the next day and decided on three resolutions each. Normally my sister would choose something artistic, if I recall correctly, and my brother would choose something out of character for him. I never chose things that meant a lot to me because, when I was younger, I didn't have much that meant a lot to me. Sometimes I chose silly things like, "Oh, I will buy a pony." or, "I'll become a weight lifter." Neither of these things fit my personality at all. In my head I was probably making plans to beat my previous year's record of how long I could play World of Warcraft consecutively.

     In the recent years I have acquired passions and aspirations, and now I can choose realistic New Years resolutions. The three I chose for 2015 were:

- Read more

- Walk more

- Write a book

     Some of you may be thinking, 'One of these things is not like the other.' Writing a book is a very big task, and while a lot of writers can accomplish writing a book in a year, I have only written an outline and it's May. I have read that it is feasible to write a book in a short amount of time (short meaning under six months) however a lot of writers fall into the repetitive slum of editing and re-editing. I am one of those people. I re-edit to the point where nothing sound the same at all and sometimes even the plot changes. This is actually how I came to the outline of my book. The original story was completely different - and total crap.

     As for my other two resolutions, I have been reading more. In the past five months I have read more books than I had in the past ten years. The books I've read are:

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

The Blades of Leander trilogy by Jason Halstead

The Cabin in the Woods by Tim Lebbon

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

You're Not Pretty Enough by Jennifer Tress

The Soprano Sorceress by L.E. Modesitt

Books 1-3 of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

Can you tell I like lists?

     Sprinkled among the list are a couple comics, manga, short stories from various forums. I feel quite proud of myself for getting back into reading, as I used to be a very avid reader. Actually, I had started reading again last year, but I hadn't really taken to it. I believe it was because I was forcing myself to read things I didn't really want to read. Now I have stacks upon stacks of fantasy novels and I am slowly making my way through them as I get sucked into each one. At the moment I am reading a book called Fire Drake by Richard A Knaak, it is the first of a series of ten. Perhaps I should put reviews up on this blog of books that I've read. That would be fun.

     The last resolution was to walk more. This was because I gained fifteen pounds while employed at my first desk job. I had always been in retail and if anyone has been in retail themselves they would know that it's not always just standing around helping customers. There is unloading and unpacking the truck, there is restocking, changing displays, moving displays, etc, as well as various and meaningless tasks your manager wants you to complete. When I left my retail job I weighed one hundred and fifteen pounds. I had never broken that. When I left my desk job, I weighed myself out of curiosity and realized I was now one hundred and thirty. So, I stopped eating so much and started walking every day. The pounds slid off. I'm down to one hundred and twenty and debating whether or not I should continue.

     Other than that, my year has been wonderful. We started planning our wedding, I avoided any extreme depressive episodes and I've been sticking to my goals. Here's to hoping the year gets even better.

Video Games

     I play video games. By the gaming community standards, I would say that I am a casual gamer. By society's standards, I'm probably borderline hardcore. I enjoy gaming and have enjoyed gaming since I was very, very, very young.

     A few days ago I decided I wanted to experience the game Alien: Isolation. However, I did not want to spend the money nor do I particularly enjoy "jump scare" games - or at least playing them. I do like to watch others play them though. It makes me less anxious that way. So I Googled Alien: Isolation gameplay and up popped a youtube channel run by a man named theRadBrad. He had played the game in its entirety from October of last year to January of this year. Lucky for me, I was able to watch them in order without interruption (except for sleeping and eating).

    Here is a link to his playlist of the game. I'm sure Rad Brad won't be seeing this blog post, but on the slightest off chance that he does I'm sure he won't care what a blog like mine says. Brad, you're kind of bad at video games. Yes, I am basing this off of the one game that I watched you play. Yes, this is a very unfair thing to do. However, I will provide examples because I have way too much time on my hands and you are a very entertaining person.

     At one point in the game, Brad is directed to take a tram to another part of the map. He is presented with four tram options, two of which are damaged and do not work. He opens his map multiple times, which has labelled the trams and their destinations. The map further indicates exactly which tram he needs to take in a little text blurb at the bottom. If he were to stand in either of two working trams, they would indicate precisely where he were to go if he decided to take said tram, thus using the process of elimination. To top it all off, an NPC in the game explicitly told him where to go before he even got to the tram station. But this is not enough. Brad refuses to believe he is in the right place, and has to edit out the part in his video where - I'm guessing - he looks up where he needs to go. Brad, if I weren't laughing so hard, I would be frustrated for you.

     At another point in the game, Brad is hiding in plain sight underneath a gurney. I understand that these gurneys are put in the game specifically for hiding purposes, however, Brad is avoiding a human guard with a gun. The human comes around the corner, spots Brad under the gurney and states, "What was that?" and "Do I look like someone you should fuck with?" while pointing his gun directly at Brad. Brad responds with, "Does he see me? For real?" The guard then begins to fire at Brad and this seems to convince him that, yes, the man can see him huddled underneath that gurney.

      Aside from these instances Brad fails to realize what some of the devices are used for, dies a lot and misdiagnoses a multiple gunshot wound victim as a chest-burster victim.

      I'm not saying I could do better than Brad, but sometimes I wanted to strangle him. I do want to say thank you to Brad for putting these videos out there so that I had the opportunity to experience the game for myself without having to buy it or put myself through the stress of a jump scare game. So, thank you Brad. Keep doing what you do.

Oh Dear.

     Here I have started yet another blog. A blog full of useless words that have been written before, and whining that has been whined before. I suppose I just want to have someone or something to complain about my problems too, even though I have a loving fiance who always lends a patient ear to me. I have nothing to complain about, other than tiny slights others have done to me wherein I brood and sulk for the day, mustering up choice words and practicing scowls I would have or should have used at the time. All the while the subject of my petty anger goes about their life as if that fleeting moment of our meeting never transpired and they never gave it a second thought.

     For example, today I went out in search of more books by an author that I took a liking to. Her name is Robin McKinley and I picked up a book of hers - it seems to be her most successful as it is the most common one I come across - called The Hero and the Crown. When I first came across this book I believe it was in a Goodwill. The book was 50 cents and the cover was just cheesy enough to entice me into shelling out two big ones (by big ones I mean quarters). I placed the book on my bookshelf and promptly forgot about it for two weeks.

     The reason I shoved this physical book out of sight - out of mind was because I have taking a liking to e-books. You can purchase so many e-books at the click of a button (thanks Amazon one click!) and you can purchase them *cheaply*.  Like this set of 14 (fourteen!) books titled EPIC for a dollar.

    Yes. You read that right. Fourteen books for a dollar. Who cares if they are good, that's a DEAL!

     So I have an addiction to purchasing e-books, and I have an addiction for cheesy fantasy novels, and I have an addiction to books in general. The reason I still purchase physical books is most likely obvious to true book lovers. There is still that feeling one gets when opening a book and feeling the pages slide under your fingers. Feeling the spine fall apart after many sessions of reading and re-reading. Knowing that at some point you will need to break out the scotch tape to repair it so that you will still be able to recognize it once it finds it's place on your bookshelf.

    Another reason is I am vain. I want people to see my bookshelf and think, "Oh, my, she reads. And so many books! She must be so intelligent and wise!" and how wrong they will be! But they won't know because as someone once said 'Better to remain silent and be thought a fool genius than speak and remove all doubt prove them wrong.' and I am very good at keeping my trap shut.

    But back to my book and my complaining. There came a day when I was awaiting my knight in shining armor to vacate the bathroom so that I could blow dry my hair. I plopped down in a chair next to my book shelf and that little book caught my eye. I picked it up and was immediately sucked in. Were I given the time, I would have had it finished by now, but I have been in the process of losing my job and cleaning up after my six fur children, and thus had only few spare moments. Now that I have all the time in the world ("That's not fair! There was time now!") I have elected to complain about my day on a shiny new blog.

     And complain I shall. In preparation for the end of my book, I wanted to line up the sequel. I had done a casual Googling for lesser known book stores in my area and came across The Book Rack and it seemed quaint and was surprisingly nearby. Unfortunately the hours shown on Google did not match the hours shown on their website and I so I called. They informed me that, depending on the weather and traffic in their store, they may or may not stay open. Lovely.

    So I waited until today, a day I knew the roads would be clear and the traffic regular. I set out with my bum leg (my muscles have been cramping up due to womanly issues) and arrived. I parked in their tiny, tiny lot - five spots - and saw it was mostly full. I unbuckled, looked up into their window and saw a sign on the front door. "Closed for Inventory". Well. Not much I could do about that, I suppose. Just a bit of bad luck. I re-buckled and headed down the road to Half Priced Books. After hobbling down a flight of stairs and picking out a cute picture book from their "3 dollars or less" rack I made my way to the Science Fiction section.

    May I just interject on myself for a moment? It has always bugged me that fantasy novels are labelled Science Fiction in this store. There is even a fantasy section, but all of these fantasy novels are in Science Fiction! I digress.

     I found two copies of the book I currently held and two other books by the same author. One of the books I glossed over as it did not appeal to me after using my 2/3's rule and the other book I took was Spindle's End which I took to be a retelling of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. I decided to ask a worker to look up and see if they had any of the author's book in hard back using his computer. He asked if I had looked in hard back and I replied that I had not. I had been hoping he would do a general search for the author, as many employees had done for me in the past, to see if any of the stores carried her work. Instead he gave me a look and silently led me to the hard backed Science Fiction/Fantasy section and slipped a book off the shelf for me. A paper back of The Hero and the Crown.

     To his credit, this book was larger than the others. I thanked him and slid the book back on the shelf after he left. I wandered aimlessly through the store, wondering whether Steven Martin's books would be under humor, biography or media. I guessed at humor and shuffled over to the section. I did not see Steve Martin in that section - whether it was because the M section was full of names that started with T or I was too thrown off by a book titled How to Poo on a Date to concentrate. Eventually I settled on David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day and left the store after paying.

     I wish I could say my day of disappointment ended there, but it did not. I attempted to visit a Barnes & Noble that no longer existed followed by unknowingly parking in a handicapped space while running limping into a convenience store. Once home I sat down with a very graceful old-man groan and proceeded to write this post. Maybe I will just purchase the sequel through the beautiful workings of the internet so that I never have to see another human being besides my fiance again.