I suddenly have a LOT more wall space at work (long story slightly less long: we’re being shuffled around, and I ended up with the WORST SPOT IN THE WORLD. To give myself some semblance of privacy, I annexed some cabinets that weren’t being used and made myself a goddamn Fortress of Boobitude), so I came home with a laundry list of things I want to put up on my new walls. I’ve avoided nesting, because I know what happens when things get out of hand .. but I’ve been there for a month now, and the time for nesting has come.

Among the things I want to put on my new walls are the Rapture posters that came with the collector’s edition of Bioshock 2. I knew the posters were somewhere in my Lady Cave, but I couldn’t find them. I tore the room apart and eventually located them, but I ALSO found something I had previously dismissed as being in another place (a poster tube inside a larger poster tube). Momentarily sated but wildly curious, I pulled out the small tube and opened it up to see what was inside.

I found:

• A poster depicting the lifecycle of the Pacific Salmon
• Three rubber ducks
• Two cat-shaped swizzle sticks
• A candy necklace

WHAT THE FUCK?

Even for ME, that’s really fucking weird. Unsettling weird. Creepy, smiling-old-man-rubbing-his-hands-together-and-drooling-slightly-as-he-stares-vacantly-at-fabric-softener weird.

I am afraid of myself.

Ultimately, I failed at my (rather audacious) goal: complete Diablo 3 over the long weekend. I failed because I was weak; needing sleep and human companionship and groceries and a Mexican Scramble from Deacon’s Corner. Still, between Friday and Monday evening I managed to log an impressive (and somewhat disgusting) 23 hours and 16 minutes of game time even while having a semblance of a real life and a nasty migraine to deal with. I haven’t done a marathon gaming session in years, which is why I needed to take an occasional break now and again – but I managed to make it to the final boss before I grew tired of having my ass handed to me repeatedly, and I gave up my weekend quest. I could have kept going and probably eventually beaten the game, but it was hard enough to get moving this morning – I can’t imagine how late I would have been for work if I continued to make my way through the Corrupted Gates of Anguish and Despair.

For a short while, I thought the game ended after Act III. I had forgotten the extremely linear Rules of Diablo: there are always four acts, and each act will always take place in these environments in this order:

• Act I is in a backwoods town surrounded by fields and some distance away from a cathedral or sprawling estate on top of dungeons of a surprising depth
• Act II is in the desert where the Big City is, and will alternate between said desert and the sewers of the Big City
• Act III is at a perpetually snowy keep that doubles as a battlefield swarming with demons
• Act IV is in an alternate dimension: space, heaven, your mind’s eye, etc.

Given my history of hating sequels, I was pleasantly surprised that the basic mechanics and feel of D3 had not changed, or changed for the better. I appreciate that enemies can drop health – no more surviving battles by sheer mashing of your potion slot alone – and the triumphant, if short lived, return of the Butcher (the only Diablo character to ever give me the wiggins). You’re no longer reliant on scrolls for identifying items or returning to town, and mana (sorry, “arcane power”) regenerates itself at a healthy rate; blue potions are a thing of the past. When you die (at least on normal), you don’t lose all your gold and gear (I used to have full on foaming rage fits at dying mid-battle then having to wade back into the fray basically naked to retrieve my weapons and armour) but rather take a 10% hit on the durability of your stuff; easily repaired at any merchant. It makes it a little easier for the novice to deal with – and if it’s too easy, then play on Nightmare or Hell or Hardcore mode.

I am pleased at an entire weekend spent being unkempt and nerdy!

I could use another four showers, though.

And um I promise this will be my last post about Diablo 3 for a while, okay?

The house is an unmitigated disaster, we’re out of food (both cat and human), my sleep patterns are completely fucked up and most of my last half dozen meals have come out of a bag, BUT: Diablo 3 is *awesome*.

I am really, really glad this is a long weekend.

Add me: DeeAy#1420 !

We’ve placed an actual moratorium on any gaming today until the house is in order and we have food again, so I better go get started so I can spend the evening happily skipping my way through the Halls of Unending Agony and Suffering.

Hey, people of Tristram: Diablo is much less likely to unleash cataclysmic evil upon you if you stopped naming things like “Fields of Misery” and “City of the Damned”. You’d also likely rake in more tourist dollars if you went with “Field of Sunshine and Kittens” as opposed to “Tortured Swamp of Kicks in the Balls” and “Den of Stubbed Toes”. Do you really think anyone would waste time sending leagues of demons to “The Rainbow Lollipop Church of Hugs and Puppies” or “Happy Time Cheerful Inn”? Think about it, and maybe hire some PR for crying out loud. I am tired of shooting hell bats in the “Misty Crotch of Andora’s Anguish”. Just once I’d like to save the world by fetching a comfortable pillow from a candy story owned by playful butterflies.

Right. Errands. I’m off (to the Tormented Pet Store of Discomfort and High Prices)!

It took me a lot of convincing to get Ed to join the social media party, but like with everything, as soon as he starts he’s immediately BETTER AT IT THAN I AM.

Tony Hawk held an Instagram contest, asking his followers to caption this photo:

i am good at sports, so i know this is a skating board.

Out of the 4200+ comments, Tony Hawk liked Ed’s comment the best:

yay for ed!

He wins the signed skateboard from Tony Hawk, which is pretty fucking awesome. Also, the skateboard has Justin Bieber’s fingerprints on it:

ed peed himself with glee when he realized the implications of this photo

This isn’t the first time Ed has won at social media: within his first month or so on Twitter, he won an autographed Edler jersey.

Ed is good at winning!

Last night, Heather and I went to a Screenprinting Workshop at Blim!

I’m not so big on the t-shirt so I screened a bunch of scarves, while Heather did a variety of wearable items as gifts. We had emailed our chosen images to Blim to be printed on transparencies for the burning process – I opted to stray from my usual MO, and went with a video game theme:

so unusual for me

I was pretty happy with how my images printed, as it took some doing to get them black enough for a solid transfer – I had one of the graphic designers at work tinker with the JSRF image for me to make it awesome, and I used a stencil-making site to turn Vault Boy into a flat black image (that turned out smaller than I wanted, but still cool). Heather went with cute: her image was a grid of nine cube animals, which looked great when printed. We settled into the class, and after a slow start, it was time to make giant messes.

My first pass was the most successful, and I ended up with a gold print on a teal scarf:

shiny!

We quickly lost both our inhibitions and our fears of fucking up, and started experimenting:

washing the screen in between colours is for pussies

I did actually fuck up a print and made it way too ugly to even be worn ironically, but such is the beauty of printing on scarves: I simply hacked the ugly end off, and kept going.

Things even got a little fancy:

olive, magenta and silver on white

It’s a good thing I really, really like Jet Set Radio Future.

I almost ran out of time, but I did manage to screenprint Vault Boy onto a couple of things:

thumbs up for thumbs!

He looks particularly dapper on a yellow scarf, but then I just went crazy:

he kind of makes me dizzy

Also, here is a goose:

lonely goose missing a mate

Screenprinting was a whole great big pile of fun, and I want to try different paints and items and images and eeeeeeeeee. So fun! I put things on things! As soon as I figure out what I want to make next, I’m gonna do a drop-in session and make more stuff – who wants a scarf? Scarves for everyone!

I had a great big review half-written for my Samsung Behemoth, but I scrapped it – I didn’t like how my finger words were coming out. I will instead sum up my thoughts in one sentence (followed by some additional sentences):

I like my Apple devices better than this particular Android device.

If you’re looking for a reasonably priced device to get into the App World, the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0/5.0 is a good choice. You can get an 8GB 4.0 (the only difference is the screen size) for $150CDN, which doesn’t SOUND much better than the comparable 8GB iPod Touch – until you realize that the Player has a microSD slot, allowing you to add up to an extra 32GB to your device.

You’ll have to trade features for features: if you want a device to take pictures, get an iPhone or iPod Touch. The Player’s 3.2MP camera is not even in the same universe as the 8MP camera Apple devices have. However, if you loathe iTunes, you’ll want to go Android: load your device by ye olde drag and drop, and you can use Winamp. Remember Winamp? It still really whips the llama’s ass, which made me all nostalgic for 2001.

Display: Apple’s Retina display is gorgeous, but as long as you don’t hold the two devices next to each other and nitpick the imagined flaws, you’ll never notice.

Basically, this –

Samsung Galaxy Player Wins:

• Expandable memory
• Android developers constantly trying to prove they’re better than iOS developers; will work harder to give you cool shit
• Much more reasonably priced
• 5″ screen option excellent for anyone who doesn’t want to drop $500+ on a tablet

Apple iPhone 4/4s/4th Gen iPod Touch Wins:

• Display makes angels weep
• Camera is amazing
• Staggering number of apps available
• Is not the size of a mini van

It all boils down to what you want to do, and where your fanboy allegiance lies. There’s room in my life for both devices, but my iPhone will always be number one with me. Your mileage may vary – decide what is important to you, and do your research.

Tonight I am going screen printing!

I just sold my 5 3-day PAX 2012 passes to a co-worker.

I am a sad, sad monkey.

It’s for the best – vacation days are at a premium for everyone, we just bought a new car, I don’t want to impose on Doug and Ali to house my band of merry men during the ‘con, we didn’t really enjoy last year, I can use the money for London instead.

It still sucks ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF SLOPPY DONG, though. The only thing that will get me through this brutal blow to my nerd cred is to grit my teeth and think of England: eventually, I will appreciate having more spending money in London than I would a 3-day nerd orgy with my favourite people.

*sniffle*

• Friday is payday (my first full payday at new job)
• It’s a long weekend
• The sun is shining, and promises to do so for a while
• Sunshiny times = super awesome scooter riding
• Don’t wanna ride solo? MINI MINI MINI MINI MINI MINI MINI

I should be excited about all or any of the above, but I’m not – I’m too busy being excited at the thought of holing myself up in the Lady Cave  on Friday evening with 12 litres of Diet Coke, a bag of Bachelor Chow, and DIABLO FUCKING THREE.

I *love* the Diablo series. Until last night, I had avoided all trailers and screenshots of the game; not so much out of suspense but more out of fear: what if they changed it super lots and now it sucks? There are few things more heartbreaking than the release of a sequel of a beloved game, only to find that the gameplay experience has changed too much and it just isn’t as fun as the previous version. It’s happened more times than I can count:

• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was amazing; Prince of Persia: Warrior Within featuring New Angry Prince was terrible
• Fallout 3: One of my favourite games of all time; Fallout: New Vegas gave me negaboners
• Katamari Damacy/We Love Katamari – the first two games in the series were riddled with bugs, but positively oozed hilarious good times. Newer Katamari games are hard and feature a mean King of All Cosmos which makes me sad.
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS was groundbreaking and awesome; The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks put me to sleep
• SSX games before Blur: hours upon countless hours of fun. SSX Blur and onward: oh god why
• Little Big Planet: super awesome. Little Big Planet 2: super annoying.

I’m sure there are others, but I can only think of one game off the top of my head where this formula worked in reverse: Jet Grind Radio was good, but Jet Set Radio Future was AMAZING.

I’ve been trying to avoid getting ridiculously excited about game sequels, because I’m almost always disappointed. Logically, I know it would be hard or impossible to recreate the exact moment in time that made something so memorable for me, but I never keep hoping that I’ll be able to recapture the fun I had previously in the new game.

I had insane amounts of fun playing Diablo I/II/expansion pack, and I’ve been looking forward to III for years. Last night I finally caved and watched some of the Character Class videos online, and .. well, it looks like the Diablo games I’ve known and loved. Reviews are mixed all over the internets, but I’ll wait to form my own opinion: on Friday, I’m picking up a PC copy (for Ed) and a Mac copy (for me), and I plan to stay a while and listen.

It’s been a long, long time since I was this excited about a video game.

so mighty

So, we kinda bought a Mini Cooper S:

:D :D :D

My name suggestion of “Minibator” was shot down in favour of “Cini Mini”, but that’s okay. She’s a 2005 Mini Cooper S in British Racing Green with a 6-speed transmission, dual sunroof (it took ten years for me to get one), and is so much fun I could – and do – squee all over myself when we drive.

MINI !!

It all happened really fast. On Tuesday, Ed forwarded me a link to the car – we had been talking about getting a new car for a few years, but more seriously in the last couple months. The ad for the car was almost too good to be true, but we decided to go take a look at it after work that evening. One thing led to another, and yesterday morning at 11 we signed many papers, shook many hands, and drove off in our new (to us) Mini.

the ‘s’ stands for SQUEEEEEEEEEEE

Yesterday was the kind of day people wrote sonnets about: we picked up our ridiculous new car, spent the afternoon at Whytecliff Park and Cypress Mountain, then had 15 pounds of Anton’s pasta to celebrate Shan’s birthday; all while enjoying Vancouver at her most glorious. Today? A repeat of yesterday (but maybe with less pasta) – as far as weekends go, this one is a keeper.

Sadly, we did have to trade the Mazda 3 in as part of the deal. We don’t need two cars (truthfully, we barely need one), so we had to say goodbye to our beloved Mazdabator. It was a fantastic car for us, and I hope it goes to someone who will love it as we did – farewell, Mazdabator. You were an extremely good egg.

In memorandum of the Mazda 3, here’s the poem I wrote for it several years ago when I had nothing else to blog about:

Ode to the Mazdabator

White 5-door hatchback
There’s only one catch that
Keeps my marbles abreast

Where’s my moon roof?

You wanted white
I caved without a fight
I only made that one small request

Oh, Mazdabator
You’re not a scooter
Or a Lexus Hummer Escalade
But I do appreciate your namesake:
Sticky hobo marmalade.

.. but secretly, you’re TOTES ADORBS (whatever the fuck that means; I was going for “cute and useful”):

cute, damnit.

Truthfully, I loathe the trend of putting pink flowers and crap on everyday items then marketing them to women, as though a woman would never have use for a normal man-hammer (but if you shrink it for delicate woman hands and cover it in roses it’ll be exactly what I need; bonus points if it’s shaped like a goddamn shoe [because wimmen and shoes, lol rite?]). My rage has nothing to do with my issues with hammers but rather everything to do with the incredibly offensive idea that women need to be catered to on such a basic, idiotic level before we can do anything at all. There are so many things wrong with that line of thinking that I could easily spend days on my soapbox; ranting into the wind .. but this post isn’t about adorable little screwdrivers covered in posies; it’s about that thing up there that is totally great.

It’s a portable battery charger for the iPhone, and it’s TINY. It weighs next to nothing, and in an emergency it would charge your phone up nice and solid for making calls or taking Instagram photos or playing Sky Gnomes repeatedly. It doesn’t require cables; there’s a 30-pin connector right on it to connect your phone to.

People, I am in love with this thing.

You see, I have a problem: I absolutely cannot be separated from a power source for my iPhone at any cost. I start to friggin’ panic when my phone dips below a 90% battery – not normally an issue because I have chargers strategically placed throughout my life, but if I am ever OUTSIDE then I am kind of stuck. I am sure there is some kind of fancy name* for this syndrome of mine; one that sounds science-y but still makes you aware that I am a loony: but I need to charge my phone always. A charged phone is a happy Kimli.

Enter the portable battery charger! I had one while I was in Europe last year, and it was the most brilliant thing ever. Plugging my phone in could really only happen at night with a complicated series of weird pronged items, and I used my phone as a camera every three steps or so. My battery drained quickly, and often – so being able to top myself up whenever and wherever I wanted was a sheer delight. Since then, I’ve routinely carried the portable charger with me when we’re doing things that don’t involve my being tethered to a wall, but it’s too sizeable to be carried around on a regular basis. I also had to upgrade to a different charger this year, because my old one doesn’t work on the iPhone 4s – I gave it to Ed, and purchased one off eBay. It works great (and has adapters so I can charge many things in addition to my phone), but it’s even bigger than the old one: I’ll happily carry it all over London later this year, but I don’t want to tote it around daily.

Today while out looking at things, I stumbled upon the Power Mate Plus: a tiny, 1000mAh 5v charger. It’s much smaller than my eBay one both physically and batterically (5000mAh vs 1000mAh), but it’s perfect for tossing in my bag for emergencies. I’ve been carrying around the standard Apple charger and two cables (just in case), but I might actually be able to lighten the load a little thanks to this ridiculous pink flowery battery thing – I’ve seen many, many portable chargers in my day, but never one as small (or as flowery) as this. It works with the iPhone 4s, too (it won’t work with an iPad; those require 10v to charge). I may be in love.

*: the closest syndrome I could find was “range anxiety”, but that’s generally used for electric cars and the fear you won’t make it to your destination/home/closest charging station before your battery runs out. I should probably try to coin and trademark a phrase for my condition soon, because The Man is cracking down on batteries – before long, people everywhere will be terribly afraid of being caught with a dead battery and no means to charge up. Kimli Syndrome? Red Battery Phobia? What-if-I-miss-an-Instagramable-moment-itis? Dead Zone Anxiety? That might work, actually – I don’t much like areas with no cell service or Christopher Walken with psychic powers, either.