Category Archives: everyday kimli

everything is hard

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.. and for once, I’m not being dirty.

Lately I’ve been boring myself to pieces by having nothing going on, so I decided to fix that by getting back into gaming – specifically, getting back into casting. A group of guys I used to cast with way back in The Day have started covering Return to Castle Wolfenstein again, and as that was always my favourite, I signed up to go back on air after many long years. At least, that was the plan when the games started happening last fall – it may not seem like it, but I’ve been really busy. I don’t exactly know what I’ve been really busy WITH, but there has definitely been something keeping me out of the house and off the computer for the past few months. However, it’s now the rainy season in Vancouver, which means I don’t want to go outside and be social – so finally, I have some free Sundays to dedicate to nerding out really, really hard.

I’ve spent the past week installing games and patches and Ventrilo and all sorts of old things that make me nostalgic for the Good Ol’ Days of the internet. Tonight was Testing Night, and .. goddamnit, Punkbuster is even more annoying now than it was in 2003. I have the game running and the correct tournament mods installed, but I can’t for the life of me get Punkbuster to behave and allow me onto a game server for longer than a minute at a time. Not even all the swearing I’ve been doing is helping a bit, and my usual Google-fu is failing me. Complicating matters is the fact that the companies that made all the mods and anti-cheat tools still in use today have long since stopped supporting the products, meaning I can’t even get the PB console to recognize RtCW as an actual game. I AM FRUSTRATED! I’m using my old Windows laptop, which is making me want to punch things – I kind of really hate it – and between my PB issues, the evil rotten work email I got ten minutes ago, and everything else that’s marbling up my ass I AM NOT IN A VERY GOOD MOOD AT ALL.

I’ve reached out to the community for help, so I imagine I’ll be able to get things sorted out before Sunday. I really hate not being able to fix things on my own, but I’m really at a loss here (and past the point where I should really step away from the computer for the safety of myself and others). So, deep breath. Perhaps I can use this time to dig my old, old, old PC out of the closet and see if she still works – I was joking about finding a copy of my old RtCW config file, until I somehow managed to find a copy of my original Q3 config.

Also, I was hilarious even back in 2003: I used to have F3 bound to “THIS MAP NEEDS MORE COCKS”. Some things will never change.

Once I get all this working, I’ll post links to the broadcast so you can tune in and listen to me be rusty as fuck. I’m looking forward to it, though. It’s been far too long.

i’m coming home.

call me fräulein kimli

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I spent much of last week alternating between migraines and work, so there wasn’t really much of anything to write about. This weekend I more than made up for any lack of interesting existence on my part, by swinging wildly from one unrelated activity to the next like some sort of ADHD monkey excited about Disneyland – in the last 48 hours, I have:

  • Prepared my various computers for my return to the world of shoutcasting – starting next Sunday, I’ll be on air covering Return to Castle Wolfenstein with a bunch of guys from the Team Sportscast Network, way back in the day
  • Discovered the internet’s love affair with James Deen and promptly hopped on the bandwagon: I’ve watched more porn in the last two days than I have in the last decade
  • Had a girl’s night in with some friends, where we tried on each other’s clothes, ate cheesecake, and discussed foreskins (we’re all a fan)
  • Prepared delicate chicken mini quiches for a baby shower
  • More porn
  • Freaked out about attending said baby shower – it’ll be my first, and I’m vastly uncomfortable already. Porn is cued up on my phone in case I need to take a break from all the wholesome baby talk.
  • Sewed up a new skirt that has both lined pockets and no bias tape – I hemmed!
  • Oh, and the skirt is made out of a shower curtain because I am totally Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music
  • It was a really pretty shower curtain, damnit, and I didn’t want to waste the leftover fabric
  • .. which was leftover from our very first Ikea hack, in which we repurposed an Expedit desk setup into an entryway storage unit for our helmets and daily incidentals and a discreetly curtained area for the cat litter boxes

Also, laundry.

It’s been a busy weekend.

Quick, what are some appropriate things to talk about at a baby shower? Maybe I should make some cue cards.

  • Merkins: NO
  • Chapped nipples: YES
  • 8v8 mp_beach strategies: NO
  • Diaper Genies: YES
  • Diaper Rash: YES
  • Adult Diaper Rash: NO

Piece of cake.

might as well jump

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Renee and I went to America today, for socks and scotch (to be enjoyed at the same time). While there, we popped into Forever 21 because we wanted to see how the other half live (and sometimes they have super cute accessories for cheap and we are girls so shut up sometimes we’re into that shit because it can’t be all drupal and software requirement specs all the time). We picked out our various shiny baubles made by children and went to stand in the checkout line, where we witness to this exchange:

Cashier, to girl buying a Van Halen sweatshirt: Oh, Van Halen! I LOVE these guys! Do you have a favourite Van Halen song?

Girl, who’s probably around 14: They’re a band?

Cashier, almost in tears: Oh, no. No no no. You’re going to make me cry. You don’t know that Van Halen is a BAND?

Girl: No, I just liked the shirt ..

Cashier: Okay, Van Halen is a band from California that was formed in 1972. Their debut album came out in 1978, and you probably know that song “Jump”? Well, that was Van Halen. They’re .. <rattles off an impressive amount of information about Van Halen>. Check them out when you get home! They’re awesome, you’ll love it!

—

Renee and I were both horrified, but mostly impressed – the cashier herself couldn’t have been in her mid-20s, but she was clearly a huge Van Halen fan and knew her shit. Our hats off to you, Forever 21 cashier .. and shame on you, random sweatshirt buying tween. SHAME!

Also, socks and scotch totally happened. Success!

inspired

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Inspirational quotes on images are a thing. I think they’re kind of silly. This is an example of a real inspirational image that someone created:

deep. like the ocean.

deep. like the ocean.

Here is another:

quote2

what.

There are thousands if not millions of similar images on the internet, and they all follow the same idea: take an “inspirational” quote or saying, superimpose it on a picture of a sunset or a flower or landscape, then get ready for the feels. Some of them are pretty good, and while I am not at all inspired by italics and mis-attributed quotations, I can see how some would be. Others are just terrible – stupid nonsensical sayings that are badly punctuated and often misspelled. As an upwardly mobile internet expert, I find myself cringing at most of the inspirational images that float my way (usually on Facebook or Instagram) – they’re just .. bad. They hit me right in the feels, except in this case “feels” is really short for “vomit sac”.

I’ve been making fun of them for a week, by releasing my own “inspirational” quotes on images:

IMG_8262

not even once. (taken at whytecliff park)

alternate caption: "drink water like it makes you h2o"

alternate caption: “drink water like it makes you h2o” (sunset in cuba)

so true, you guys

so true, you guys (sunset at spanish banks)

I was having a good time with these, making myself giggle at inappropriate times. Still, I felt I could do more – so I lowered the bar:

they're so great that way

they’re so great that way (macro of ikea fibre optic lights)

I even started handing out terrible advice, dressed in a beautiful photo:

please don't actually do this

please don’t actually do this (sunset in newport oregon)

And yet, I keep getting “likes” and reblogged from the Tumblrs. I know that my friends know I’m just being an idiot, but what about the others? The people who live and breathe by these quotes and share them with their e-hostages? Can I really be sure they get the joke?

original anagram was "you a failure tube" but that was mean not inspirational

original anagram was “you a failure tube” but that was mean not inspirational (cherry blossoms at burrard station)

I .. don’t know. My coworker has accused me of being in too deep – I’ve gone so far into the rabbit hole that the original sentiment has been lost; that I’ve become the very thing I’m laughing at – but people GET it, right? I’m not ACTUALLY trying to inspire anyone, I’m LAUGHING. I giggled myself to sleep last night, but now I’m worried that I’m not obvious enough. Where do I go from here? Do I give the benefit of the doubt, or cry into my collection of scenic photos?

IMG_8318

which is why i hate it when people put the cups on the top shelf (biggest ben)

How deep does the rabbit hole go?

(also, people have asked what apps I’m using to create these. I use Over most of the time (there’s a free version called Overgram, but they watermark your photos boooo), and sometimes I use Swipe (slightly buggy and you can’t crop pictures, but greater word control). I post the images on Instagram and my Tumblrs with the tags #quote #inspirational #wisdom. Go nuts. Make your own. Tremble for humanity.)

new

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The fact that a new year has just started is pretty much coincidental – I didn’t start out with any sort of grand resolution to seek out new things in 2013, it just so happens to be January.

Music: My latest obsession is to turn the TV to the satellite radio channels and leave it there for hours. It’s great background music that doesn’t distract from my other obsession (more on that below), and there are no commercials. My constant is the “Rock Alternative” channel, and only once in the past few weeks have I heard something that made me yell at the TV (an absolutely horrible cover of RHCP’s “Breaking the Girl”). Every once in a while I’ll hear something that grabs me by the girl balls, so I use technology to find the song and download it with iTunes credits I got for Christmas. I’m hearing a lot of new music, am newly obsessed with this song, and given the amount of Florence and the Machine I’ve heard lately, I feel like a true hipster. Success all around!

Games: Listening to music on the TV leaves my hands free for what I do with the rest of my time: play Paper Mario Sticker Star on the 3DS. I received it (along with Scribblenauts Unlimited) from Ed, and I’ve been spending most of my waking moments (and some of my sleeping ones) playing it. It’s a surprisingly huge game (or I’m just really used to iOS titles): I’ve sunk almost 24 hours into it so far, and I figure I’m about 3/4 of the way through. I’m enjoying it much more than I did the last half of the last Paper Mario game I played and it’s been almost refreshing to get Nintendo Thumb after all these many years of iPhone Wrist. Fun stuff.

Also, when I DO get Nintendo Thumb, I just grab my iPhone and play my other obsession: The Grading Game for iOS. It’s literally a game in which you have to find spelling errors and grammatical mistakes in a series of student essays, and I am infatuated with it. It’s not perfect – I’ve actually found a mistake in the game that cost me points – but it’s very fun and totally aimed at word nerds like me. The game can be surprisingly difficult (I’m a speed reader and even I have trouble getting through some of the essays in the allotted time AND because I read so quickly I often glance over a word to absorb it without reading the entire thing and therefore skip a spelling mistake I should have caught), but it’s great. And educational. I now know an awful lot about Political Action Committees, for some reason.

Lighting: Ed’s parents gave us some money for the house for Christmas, so we’ve ordered the ottoman that will replace my favourite chair and also picked up a Hue light kit. We spent most of last night playing with coloured lighting, and will be picking up more bulbs (slowly, as they’re friggin’ expensive) to mood light Sparta to our heart’s content. It’s a neat (if pricey) little system, and I can’t wait to do more with it (rave at my house in March!). I kind of want to replace all our light bulbs with fancy ass wireless LED ones, but a) I am not a millionaire and b) we have way too many lamps that require tiny-based Ikea bulbs. The rest, though – soon there will be colours EVERYWHERE. The Lady Cave is next!

Internet: I’ve reactivated my Tumblrs. I post little things there, like pictures or two-line updates, or things that catch my fancy. Feel free to follow me there (especially if you too have a Tumblrs; it’s the one place I will guarantee a follow back), because everyone totally needs yet another place to see my brain juices.

The Rest: This is our one weekend this month without plans, so we’re enjoying it accordingly. Soon I will have a shower and go buy a flash for my camera, and at some point we will need to get groceries. The transition back into work on Wednesday was smooth and fun thanks to the addition of Sam at the office, so the rest of my life is wrist-deep in the status quo at the moment: I’m pleasantly occupied by my many electronic devices, the annoying and extremely inappropriate crush I seem to be developing on someone, and preparing my wardrobe for the eventual return of the sun.

How’s by you?

best of 2012: apps

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I’ve been asked about my favourites, and since I don’t *really* want to clean the house or think about work tomorrow, here are my picks for favourite apps of 2012:

WM

Waking Mars

Release Date: 02/19/12
Universal
Genre: Plants – in space!
Price: $4.99

Waking Mars topped a lot of people’s “Best of ’12” lists, and for good reason: it’s awesome. It’s a very different kind of game brought to you by the fine folks who created the beautiful and haunting Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, and has you exploring the vast caves of Mars in what starts out as a mission to locate your missing data bot, and turns into something else entirely. I don’t quite know how to genre this game, but it’s highly enjoyable and one of my favourites.

DA

Devil’s Attorney

Release Date: 10/02/12
Universal
Genre: Turn-based lawyer RPG!
Price: $2.99

Devil’s Attorney was a complete surprise, and I loved it. You play Max, a sleazy lawyer who uses sneaky tactics of questionable legality to defend your clearly-guilty clients. Work your way to the top by taking out witnesses, evidence, and prosecuting attorneys by any means necessary. Add in great voice work, a wholly original idea, and the sleek dazzling veneer of the 1980s and you have a fantastic sleeper hit that deserves all the praise it’s been getting. Also: pimp hat. Can’t lose!

   Jack Lumber

   Release Date: 08/15/12
Universal
   Genre: Canadian Fruit Ninja where the fruit is wood and the ninja is a lumberjack
   Price: $1.99

The only thing that could make this game better is if the developers were actually from Canada, instead of desperately wishing they were. Jack Lumber is a blast, and if you haven’t checked it out yet you are doing yourself a disservice.

 

QQ

QatQi

Release Date: 11/14/12
Universal
Genre: DIY Crosswords
Price: Free

I love word games of all kinds, and the more interesting the better. QatQi is a beautiful DIY crossword style game (there are no clues – build words any way you like) featuring a puzzle for every day of the year, broken out into weeks that get progressively harder from Sunday to Saturday. There’s very little in the way of instruction in QatQi, so it can be pretty confusing at first – but the more I played, the more I wanted to play. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re any kind of word nerd, and it’s free so really you have no excuses.

ST

Spaceteam

Release Date: 11/29/12
Universal
Genre: CHAOS AND YELLING
Price: Free

Oh my god, Spaceteam. The most fun I’ve ever had yelling nonsensical randoms at a group of people, all of whom are yelling equally random things back at me. Spaceteam is a multiplayer game (great with 4 people; fantastic with multiple groups of four people) in which you – the Spaceteam – must successfully navigate your way through the perils of space. You each have a console with different buttons and levers, and you are given a command that must be executed .. but the action that needs to be done could appear on anyone’s console. At the same time, the rest of your team are also getting their own commands that could be on anyone’s screen – and everything has to be done quickly, lest your ship fall apart. Spaceteam is an absolute party riot, and I can’t recommend it enough. SO FUN!

Honourable Mentions:

I play a lot of games, so you don’t have to (but you should).

bring on 2013

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I have a sereis of Year End blog posts that I usually write:

  • A recap of the previous year
  • A final tally of iTunes spending
  • A post revisiting the goals I laid out for myself at the end of the previous year, and what I want to accomplish in the year ahead

While looking for my 2011/2012 goals post, I realized I didn’t actually write one: I was too stressed out about losing my job before NYE, and dealing with the aftermath of my cookie adventure in the days that followed. As a result, I completely forgot about my “what I did/what I want to do” post, which is probably for the best: it would have turned into a huge freakout about not having a job and my only goal would have been to fix that immediately. In April, I did just that – did it most spectacularly, actually – and the rest of the year was a great deal of fun, including my much-desired trip to London 2.0. Now that 2012 will draw to an official close in just under 9 hours as of this writing, what do I hope to accomplish in 2013?

  • MORE. ADVENTURE. (you thought that was going to say “more boners”, didn’t you? well, I do hate to disappoint:)
  • MORE. BONERS.
  • Continue to kick ass at my job. I don’t write about work very often because I’m (still, 7 months in) trying not to jinx things: I really, really, really love my job. The work is fulfilling, my co-workers are amazing, I am continually challenged with interesting things, and I look forward to going into the office each day. I can’t believe that I lucked out in getting this job, and I want to do my damnest to make sure I’m a vital part of the team.
  • So, with above in mind: get promoted. I recently realized that I’ve never actually been promoted in a job – I’ve received raises and new titles and so many more duties, but never an official “you were level 8 and now you are level 9 – gratz!” sort of thing. My current title is “Technical Writer”, so my goal is to be a “Senior Technical Writer”. I have no idea what that entails or what kind of arduous quests I will need to complete, but I would like to do it. In 2013. GO!
  • It would be pretty lofty of me to wish for time in London for a third year in a row (but oh how much do I want to be back in London – SO MUCH), so I will aim for something a little more this-continenty in 2013: it’s been way too long since I’ve been to Portland. Also, I would really like to do New York again for realz (without the crazy casting schedule and death in the family this time).
  • Seriously, more adventure. That means getting out of the house more; leaving my comfort zones. I want to see and do new things, meet and do new people, have excellent times that result in epic blog posts (or better yet, the dreaded bullet point cop-out because too much went on to paragraph it all up). Fun: I want to have it.
  • More scooting. The arrival of the Minibator meant I didn’t do nearly as much scooting this year as I have in years past, so 2013 will be a good time to fix that.
  • Um .. eat more veggies, I guess.
  • Be happy!

.. they aren’t the noblest of goals, but they’re what I need right now.

2012, you started out shaky (literally), but redeemed yourself quite nicely. I can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store!

Happy New Year, y’all! Be safe tonight!

 

 

drumroll 2012

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An accidental nap had me awake at 1am, doing some triple-X hardcore full frontal data entry: I calculated my iTunes spending for 2012. This has become somewhat of a yearly tradition, albeit a sad and weird one – there’s anal retentive and then there’s a Beautiful Mind, and I’m one corkboard away from tracking patterns in string.

Without further ado and clumsy metaphors, I present to you my iTunes spending for 2012:

$606.24 (which is really $573.37 plus $32.87 in tax)

Break it down, now:

2012 Spending

pie charts: the flowchart’s homely cousin

I checked last year’s post and realized I never did get around to adding up all my receipts manually; instead relying on a known-to-be-faulty app to calculate it all up for me (according to the app in 2012 I spent over $1100 and it’s checking the same receipts I am .. and actually, I just realized that it’s checking 2011 AND 2012; it may be more accurate than I thought). I kind of feel compelled to go back and do 2011 now – I want to see if I spent more or less in 2012 (2010 was a banner year in ridiculousness), but my preliminary calculations have me at a hair over what I spent in 2011. I will blame the difference on an upgrade to Mountain Lion and buying TWEWY at full price for both iBig and iSmall – those three alone account for almost $60, which nicely covers this year’s spread.

Hooray for Sunday Night Trend Analysis!

what?

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Mom on an unwed relative: “She never married, you know. She’s the Virgin Mary!”

Mom (who is secretly Swedish) knows about Ikea’s plan to take over the world: “Where’s the pharmacy and medical clinic in the new Ikea? I want to buy sweater.”

Mom tires of wearing head-to-toe leather: “Can I borrow Ed pants? I forgot my jeans so I will wear his.” Incidentally, mom is better hipster than you: she wears a long-sleeved shirt under a short-sleeved shirt under a tank top (and then a vest, and then a floor-length leather jacket). My mother is the matrix.

Mom is down with technology: “You stay here and fax Ed; I need to get my tickets.”

Then again: “Call?” “yes press call.” “Call? Do I press call?” “YES MOM, PRESS CALL” “This call here?” “YES MOM” “Call?” “YES” “Why you getting crabby?”

Mom hits the sauce: “Wine with green label is best. Always buy green label wine, it always good.”

Mom worries about my gangland friends: “Keem there’s nothing wrong with leaving a party if it gets too rowdy, just go home if your friends start fight.”

Mom confuses Ed a great deal: “There sure are a lot of bums!” “Where?” “On the road.” “oh.” “You think that’s the underwire?” ” .. I don’t know”

Mom remembers the 70s: “Is that one of those new LSD candles?”

Mom knows that one guy with the disease: “OH I forgot to leave the bag out for the Canadian diabetic!”

Mom steals a banana: “I told them I have diabetic so I need to eat this banana right now even though we tell kids not to eat the banana.” Incidentally, my mother doesn’t have diabetic, or even diabetes. Her doctor once told her she might develop it at some point (and to her credit, she’s no longer in danger of diabetic) so she took that as “HAVE DIABETIC” and now lives her life as someone who has some weird-ass disease that means she can only drink hot water and eat enormous slabs of chocolate.

We took her to the ferry terminal this morning, and she’s home now. It was a good visit, and I only lost my shit once (as seen above when she tried to make a phone call on my iPhone and failed miserably). Her visits are rough on me because she doesn’t like to DO anything – she “can’t be bothered” to see or learn or experience or do, so we end up doing nothing. She’s difficult to have conversations with, because she doesn’t actually listen to me – I could pour my heart out about everything, and she’d come back with a bizarre non sequitur about the guy across the street that doesn’t smile and that she told off (in her mind). It’s .. hard. I wish I had a mom I could have meaningful discussions with, but I don’t. I have this. And I do the best I can.

oh, mom

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Mom doesn’t trust the law or her brother: “Look out for uncle’s dick!”

Mom needs to urinate: “Mummy has to go pee pee!” *leaves the door open* *pees*

Mom is worried about Tom Cruise: “He’s into a very serious religion. It’s very sad, they’re all rich but can’t find true love so what’s the point money doesn’t make you happy.” *buys $50 in lottery tickets* “I sure hope I hit the big one!”

Mom knows something we don’t: “Those busturds, they’ll kill you with no mercy. Just you wait and see.”

Mom is just like us: “I like that Trader’s Joe. So many stuff!”

Mom needs .. something: “Keem, what is that thing I bought?”

Mom channels Wilford Brimley: “Ever since I got diabetics I can only drink hot water.”

Mom wants either rice, vinegar, or an inhaler: “I want basmatic yogurt!”

Day One is complete.