People tweet at me all the time; sometimes even on purpose. I don’t know what it is about my name, but I get a disproportionate amount of people mistaking me for someone else – an entire legion of recovering alcoholics think I am one of them, all of Thailand thinks I am some sort of bible show host, and now some kid thinks I ate lunch with him in San Diego:

I am pretty sure I was not in California last week, but what do I know. I could have ignored the tweet – I usually do – but this time I was curious as to whether or not I had a good time, so I asked him if I had fun.

Apparently, that was creepy of me:

just because my avatar makes me look insane doesn’t mean i’m creepy :(

Yeah, the kid took a screenshot of my reply on Twitter, then Instagram’d his dismay that this creeper actually responded to him.

I really want to have some fun with him, but he’s actually right – he didn’t use my name in his post, so the very act of my finding his Instagram of my tweeted reply meant I had to manually look him up to check out his photo stream.

And that’s kind of creepy.

So, yes. I am a creeper. If you tweet at me thinking I am someone else, or if character limits chop off your friend’s Twitter/Instagram name and you end up with me instead, I will reply. And then I will Instagram your Instagram of my reply to your tweeted Instagram.

I’ve seen how deep the rabbit hole goes.

it goes this deep

I’m full of orders lately – play these games, adopt these cats – but seriously, it’s all for your own good. Now do it.

Jack Lumber

Universal
Genre: Canadian Fruit Ninja where the fruit is wood and the ninja is a lumberjack
Price: $0.99 (launch price)

I downloaded this game this morning, and I am utterly in love. This game is FANTASTIC – challenging, funny, so very Canadian (I don’t actually know if the devs are Canadian or not – if they aren’t, they secretly wish they were), with an intriguing back story. Seriously, this is what iOS gaming should be all about – having a good time with a kick-ass game. Bonus points for the lack of zombies, and for giving the often overlooked Lumberjack some much-needed love.

If my words don’t convince you to buy this app, check out the trailer. Even the TRAILER is awesome. Get it now!

Puzzle Craft

Universal
Genre: Static Match-3 farming
Price: $0.99 (launch price?)

Tired of matching jewels for nothing more than points and a tiny bit of personal satisfaction? Do you also enjoy creating civilizations, one flock of chickens at a time? Then Puzzle Craft is the game for you! Build your town up by collecting food and building supplies using match-3. Build homes, hire people, collect taxes – Puzzle Craft is a game you’ve played before, but not quite like this. It’s surprisingly deep, doesn’t require IAP to play well, and will keep you busy for hours. Just don’t name your town “Boner Town” .. that name is taken. By me. Long live Boner Town!

10000000

Universal
Genre: Sliding Match-3 dungeon crawling
Price: $1.99 (made by 1 guy in his spare time before his first baby came along, so buy the game and support incredible indie devs)

Puzzle Craft is great, but you can’t kill things. If you miss killing things, then 10000000 (the game is really hard to find – if you’re searching, just look up “eightyeight games” instead) is what you need. It’s another matching game, but one that allows you to slide the rows and columns to make your match. How fast can you get to 10 million points (I did it in 5:05)? Match weapons, gold, and building materials to earn your freedom. The sliding mechanic will mess with your brain until you get the hang of it, but for all the swearing you’ll do you’ll have a great time so get it already.

Shoot the Zombirds

Universal
Genre: Save the pumpkins from dead birds!
Price: $0.99

Ignore the kind of dumb name and get this app. It’s got great style, zombie birds, and dumb little pumpkin babies you have to keep saving because they’re not smart enough to get out of harm’s way. All that being said, the game is actually a lot of fun – I love the look of it, it’s challenging without being impossible, and even though it has zombies they’re not PEOPLE zombies so that’s okay (people zombies are so played out). The game is definitely worth a look, and plays great on both iSmall and iBig devices – grab it for a buck and save the day. For some anthropomorphic pumpkins. They’d do it for you!

Happy Street

Universal
Genre: The closest you’ll get to Animal Crossing on iOS
Price: Free

Animal Crossing 3DS keeps getting pushed back, and now it sounds like we won’t see it in North America until 2013. If you are like me and this fills you with blinding hot rage, turn that frown upside down by getting Happy Street. It’s been out in Canada for a couple months, but just launched in the US store this past week. While it is heavily IAP-driven, it’s possible to play without spending a cent – you just need to be patient, and also do whatever the weird guy in the blue hat tells you to do. I’m 18 levels in and still playing (add me to Game Center if you want to visit my town for free game-money: Drunk Bettie), and it’s been fun so far. And no, I don’t know what’s up with the white fecalphiliac cat. I try to ignore it.

It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so these should keep you busy while you wait for the next round of cats to adopt and for the Paralympics to start. Go now!

It’s always a good morning when I can get sucked into controversy on Twitter before 9am.

Reports out of Ottawa today reveal that the new plastic Canadian $100 (which, as a poor person, I only see on TV) originally had a vaguely Asian-looking woman on the back, but focus groups had a problem with that:

One person in Fredericton commented “The person on it appears to be of Asian descent which doesn’t rep(resent) Canada. It is fairly ugly.”

If ever there was a good time to *facepalm*, it is now – so many what the fucks.

• Canada is multicultural – featuring someone who isn’t Caucasian on one section of our 6 coins and 5 bills isn’t multicultural ENOUGH, but it would have been a great start.
• If you really want to get nitpicky (and apparently, people do) the woman being vaguely Asian or not wasn’t the POINT – it was supposed to celebrate medical advancements in Canada
• Why the fuck does the release of new bank notes require a focus group? It’s money. Make it available, and we’ll spend it.
• How much did that focus group cost? How much did the emergency redesign cost?
• Was ANYONE from that focus group from the West Coast? We aren’t nearly as afraid of Asians as they seem to be in NB and QC.
• They removed the offending vaguely Asian threat and replaced it with .. the singer from A-ha:

taaaaaake oooooon meeeeeeeee .. taaaake meeeeee oooon

What the fuck. What the fuck all OVER the place.

Not happy with the decision the Bank of Canada made to de-Asian the bill, I decided to Asian it back up again on my own:

aww yeah

Finally. Money that represents MY Canada!

Jerks.

It’s no secret that I am in love with my iPhone. It’s never more than a foot away from me at all times, and I have been known to make special provisions to my day to accommodate exciting iPhone happenings. Since the 3G was released in Canada in 2008, I’ve been on the front line of Team iOS and a bit of a rabid fangirl about the whole thing. I upgraded to the 3GS, then the 4, then the 4S, all without hesitation, and looked forward to each new launch with a full bladder and an empty wallet.

And yet .. the rumours swirling around the iPhone 5 are causing me all the angst ever.

Until the official launch event in September, no one is really sure what the deal is with the iPhone 5 (or if it’ll even be called that). I’ve read rumours that it’ll be bigger, smaller, faster, slower, made from glass, look like water, have tentacles, give you reacharounds, smell like cookies – too much conflicting information to properly get an idea of what to expect. Most sites reporting on the rumours do agree upon two things, though: the new iPhone will be bigger, and will use a 19-pin connector instead of the 30-pin that’s been the standard since 2003.

Well, fuck.

Having to get all new cases when I switched from the 3GS to the 4 was a pain in the ass, but secretly I didn’t care – I change the look of my phone as often as I change my mind. That being said, I don’t particularly want to do it AGAIN mostly because when I like something, I like it a LOT:

i like iphone cases, okay

I think that’s all of them – all the ones I could find, at least. Most of them are cosmetic, but a few serve very specific purposes and get used often, and replacing them would be expensive. In this, the dawn of my New Fiscal Responsibility, spending many money on plastic shells (even if they do awesome things) simply isn’t in the cards: I *want* to upgrade my phone; I’ve budgeted for it – but I may skip it altogether, because I am just that annoyed.

All the cases I have are one thing – the new connector is another marble in my ass entirely. Off the top of my head, we have at least ten 30-pin connectors in the house and they all get used regularly. It’s not even a matter of simply replacing them all; Ed has 2 iPhone 4 devices he has to use and we share cables where we can. Needing to buy new cables, even the bare minimum to keep me seeped in full battery goodness at all times, will run into the hundreds and that just plain sucks.

Why you gotta do it, Apple? Why you gotta break my balls like this?

Yeah, I know this post is a text book example of First World Problems and Whining, but cut me some slack – it’s a slow news day, I’m working from home without any Diet Coke, it’s roasting in the Lady Cave, and I can’t leave because I’m waiting for FedEx to arrive with my PAX passes. Also, it’s Hump Day. I should go find someone to hump so I’m not so annoyed at this hypothetical iPhone situation.

I am to be applauded for the amount of restraint I am showing in NOT adopting every single one of the kittens that need a home. Honestly, it’s only the vague, probably not real promise that I may someday get a pug that is keeping me from MOAR KITTENS. If I had more money than I knew what to do with, I would rent an apartment and fill it it cats then go hang out there for days at a time.

Adopt these cats for me so I can come visit them:

I WILL GET IT

Elora and Sheer Khan are sister and brother. Elora is the sensible one of the two; preferring to look adorable and be loved for it. She has a wee tail, is house broken, has had all her shots and is spayed – basically, she’s perfect and she needs a home. It would be lovely if you could adopt her with her brother, but even if you can’t, she will be a fantastic edition to your home and heart.

hello i am the prettiest

Sheer Khan (I do not get that name – is there a reference I am not seeing? Is Khan suddenly see through?) is energetic and awesome. He is always on the verge of attempting to GET IT (the IT changes every minute or so), and loves to play. Both SK and Elora are gorgeous tabbies full of purrs and adorable cat love that will inevitably melt your heart and turn you into a babbling, cooing puddle of goo.

gonna get it gonna get it gonna get it

Like his sister, SK is read to go to his new home where he will keep you busy and entertained as you try to keep him out of all the places he shouldn’t be (but is just so proud to be there that you won’t have the heart to stop him). Both kittens are also microchipped – they’re practically robot kittens, and that is just really cool. Adopt Elora, Sheer Khan, or both of them today (before my resolve breaks and I come home with a basket full of kittens).

Perhaps you have a specific colour scheme in your home, and wish to colour-coordinate your pets to match. Well, we have you covered – take a look at Darragh:

please take me home :(

Darragh looks very sad in his picture, because some heartless asshole abandoned him in a MAILBOX. Luckily, he was found and rescued in time and now he is playful, affectionate and loving. He would do great in a home with other cats, but is also ready to be your best friend forever. He’s had all his shots, and is neutered/microchipped/house broken .. all he needs is you.

LOVE ME

If you are made of frickin’ stone and none of these gorgeous kitties do it for you, you might consider adopting Shelley:

mew!

Shelley is a soft fuzzy kitten waiting for you to adopt her. She can be shy at times; retreating into her cat shell when frightened or sleepy, but Shelley is affectionate and purrs like a motorboat when petted. As with all cats, there is a slight risk of Shelley actually being a pizza-eating ninja who fights crime in the sewers at night, but rest assured that if that happens it will be both radical and totally tubular, dude (and may or may not be soundtracked by Vanilla Ice).

All of the above cats were photographed by Ben Johnson and can be adopted by contacting the HomeFinders Animal Rescue Society. Do it! Do it now! Do it before I can, because if I adopt more animals Ed will kick me out and I will be homeless and need rescuing myself!

I may have been a little too glib about the amount of burning I was experiencing due to my mishandled jalapeno peppers – I pretty much burned NON STOP until around 10am the next morning. I was in a significant amount of discomfort to the point of giving some serious thought to .. well, I don’t know what. It seemed a ridiculous thing to go to the ER for, and I hate being laughed out of emergency for my imagined ailments and Patient Zero symptoms. I spent a lot of time fantasizing about swimming pool sized vats of sour cream I could stick my arms in (which, as I later learned, wasn’t too far off from what I should have actually done), and eventually settled on an appropriate course of action: flopping around the house, moaning dramatically about the burning. THERE WAS SO MUCH BURNING! It just wouldn’t stop! In fact, if I stick my finger in my eye, it still burns. And when I chew on my fingernails, they’re burny. It’s been over 48 hours, and I now know what it would feel like if I lit myself on fire (hint: not good at all).

Even though I was burning from the inside out, we left the house just before midnight on Saturday night to collect Josh and go see some meteors. We drove up Cypress Mountain past my favourite lookout to a picnic area away from city lights, and set up a small camp for watching. At the time I felt very proud of myself for being smart enough to wear pants and thigh-high socks to thwart the mosquitos, but it turns out pants are completely fucking useless: mosquitos got me anyway (I am delicious), through my many layers of clothing. I didn’t discover the bites until much later (thankfully after I had finished burninating), but I am annoyed about them. I WORE PANTS! What more can I do to avoid bugs? See, this is why I never go outside. I rarely get bitten by anything inside my house, and I don’t have to wear anything let alone stupid pants.

I tried to take some pictures of the meteor shower, but I’ve reluctantly concluded that my camera sucks. I’m on my second entry-level DSLR (after my k200d died I bought the K-x), and I kind of wish I hadn’t taken the leap from bridge camera to grown up camera. I used my trusty Canon S5 IS for years, and I loved it – it took the most awesome pictures; some of my favourites ever. Hell, even the pictures I took with the k200 were pretty good .. but the K-x I just can’t get behind. It feels cheap, it’s a battery hog, and I don’t like the images it takes (which is much more my fault than the camera, but still). I’m tempted to find my Canon and bring that to London instead of my DSLR – between that camera and the iPhone, I should have enough picture-taking devices on hand. And in the meantime, I will research new bridge cameras but absolutely not buy one. See? I am being RESPONSIBLE!

Less than 6 weeks until LONDON!

how high? real high coz I’m just so fly

It was less “Michael Douglas on a rage bender” and more “Kimli can’t walk and read email at the same time”, but last night there was falling and there was down and now I walk with a limp. I turned my ankle, banged up my knee and dropped my phone (which thankfully came out unscathed), but that’s nothing compared to the invisible injury: I apparently scraped the hell out of my wrist and hands, but didn’t discover it until I was elbow deep in chopped jalapenos for a salsa party. My skin feels like it is on fire. I do not care for it.

Tomorrow there shall be much eating and a variety of television-related festivities at SPARTA. It should be good fun, and as the weekends roll on we inch ever closer to our trip to London (I can officially start packing in 12 days!). I am all kinds of excited about all things – work is great, there will be meteors tonight, and I’m about to go make muffins – things are good, and I find myself wanting to share the good with those around me.

good.

I’m sorry, but this made me laugh really, really hard.

Um, spoilers and stuff.

Courtesy of Comics Alliance and some hilarious people!

My iMac lives!

I dragged it to the Apple store on Tuesday night in the hopes that they would be able to fix the various things that had gone terribly, terribly wrong. I had been able to get into the machine earlier thanks to some advice on the internets, but the machine was still all kinds of broken. Still, I managed to get into Disk Utilities and determined that whatever had exploded was not caused by a dead or dying hard drive, which was a huge relief. I packed up my machine (hooray for hoarding original boxes), and was off.

My assigned Genius was as good as his title, and quickly determined that my problems were caused by a corrupt government operating system. Unwilling to give the thumbs up to a fresh installation there in the store, I opted to buy a 500GB USB drive so I could manually save my data, having long since disabled Time Machine (a mistake I won’t be making again). The Genius installed a good copy of Lion on the portable drive so I could boot off of it, and sent me on my merry way. Total cost of repair: $80 for the USB drive. Hooray! Love for Apple!

I’ve spent the last two nights setting things up again (wisely moving my machine into the living room so I can squat next to the router – the Lady Cave is wi-fi only which makes for slow downloads [108 hours and 24 minutes remaining on your Lion download lol]), and this morning I successfully transfered the entirety of my iTunes library back onto my iMac for an extremely easy sync of my iPhone. I was worried about losing all my music – I lost 20GB of music in last year’s tragic hard drive crash – but I was *terrified* of losing all my apps. Yes, I could just download them all again from my various Apple accounts, but at last count there were 1348 apps in my mobile directory. Even if only 504 of those are actually installed on my phone, that’s a lot of downloading that I didn’t want to have to do. And I don’t! I love successful data restoration!

Tonight I will install the remaining items I need for day-t0-day life, then move back into the Lady Cave. Once all my information is back on my hard drive, I will use the USB drive for daily Time Machine backups in case my OS explodes anew (which better not happen – I do NOT want to go back to Windows, damnit). The time, stress and $80 I spent on my machine was a small price to pay to have everything back in working order, and I am grateful for all the advice and support I got both online and at the store.

Happy endings: AWESOME.

Now, back to work. I have 10 days to get all the hilarity out of my system before I need to be Very Serious for my next project – no snark allowed, no matter how tempting.

In honour of World Cat Day (seriously, that’s a thing), I give you .. KITTENS!

photo by cindy hughes

This is Dapper Charles. HE IS A KITTEN! It’s Kitten Seasons, and there are too many kittens in shelters waiting for a home. Black cats are usually the last to be adopted, for reasons I do not understand – LOOK at this guy. He is gorgeous! Charles is playful and affectionate, and would do well in any kind of home – dogs, other cats, small humans, or even as an only cat (but no one should ever have only one cat). If you would like to celebrate World Cat Day in style, consider giving Charles a home. He’s currently being fostered via HomeFinders Animal Rescue Society, so please contact them to arrange your destiny of ADOPTING KITTENS RIGHT NOW.

photo by cindy hughes
charles is also delicious

If you were raised in the 18th century and are afraid of black cats and women wearing pants, perhaps Denny is more your style:

photo by cindy hughes

Denny is a shy boy who needs a little coaxing to come out of his shell. He’s soft and fluffy, and has had all his shots and his baby-making-parts removed – he’s ready to go to a good home that will love him madly. He’s playful once he feels comfortable, and would do well with other cats or on his own. Plus, SOFT AND FLUFFY. Denny needs someone to be his champion, because the shy kittens are often overlooked for the more outgoing ones – but he’s full of love and adorable kitten beans. Like Charles, Denny is being fostered via HomeFinders Animal Rescue Society – contact them to meet this gorgeous ball of fluff today.

photo by cindy hughes

ADOPT THESE KITTENS FOR WORLD CAT DAY!

CAPITAL LETTERS!