My feet have been exceptionally well-behaved over the past few years, and I’m not really eager to change that any time soon.  Yes, they still get sore – but I’m actually able to walk and I’m rarely in pain to the point of tears after a day of heavy marching. I was able to wander all around London last year, and only needed to take foot breaks on our last full day there. This is a vast, vast improvement from even 5 years ago, when we kept a pair of crutches handy in case I needed them to get from the car to our front door. I know this makes me sound like some kind of broken-down old lady, but my feet were really, really bad.

So, things have been great for a while. I can walk and frolic and dance (when no one is watching). Hooray!

Except .. I think I may have broken my left foot.

It’s really hard for me to walk (heh) that fine line between hypochondria and laissez-faire. If I freaked out at every little twinge or crack or sharp stabbing pain, I’d be at the doctor’s office all the damn time. I know I’m prone to stress fractures, and I know there is Shit Fuck All that can be done about them when they happen. My “doctor” (still just a glorified walk-in clinic doctor who is terrified of my vagina) would go “huh” and send me off for eventual x-rays and MAYBE refer me to foot specialist (hopefully not the one who GAVE UP ON ME because my problem is too complicated) (or the other one who dismissed me, insisting my problem was my non-existent diabeetus); neither of which would do much to solve my immediate issue of “ow ow ow ow ow ow ow”.

And that’s where we are now: I hurt. At first I thought I was just experiencing muscle soreness from prancing around town in bad shoes, but the pain has gotten steadily worse and now I can’t put any weight on my left foot. I’m limping around pitifully, and each step makes me wince and swear and cry. I don’t much care for this at all – but how MUCH do I not care for it? Wait-and-see enough? Two-Advil-and-hope-for-the-best enough? Or actual, serous ER-enough? If I’m being honest, I’d have to admit that it’s kind of really past annoying-hurty and is forging bravely onward to worry-hurty to sell our children’s organs to zoos for meat and go into people’s houses at night to wreck up the place. Is this just an exciting new chapter in pain and suffering? Or should I ignore that inner voice that tells me I shouldn’t bother doctors with my stupid little problems and get myself checked out?

In 60 years or so, I’m going to be the one having the heart attack and asking the Web 5.0 what I should do about it instead of summoning an ambulance with my mind.

My mother called while I was out for a million-hour brunch with friends. I jokingly asked one of them to answer the call, and they all – a little too eagerly – leapt at the chance. I had to wrest my phone away from Gill so I could force the call to voicemail. It’s not that I don’t want my friends to talk to my mother; rather, I was saving myself from the inevitable 3-hour conversation later this evening trying to explain to her who those people were, why they were talking to her, and just how did they know about the bucket.

Being the dutiful daughter I am, I will return my mother’s phone call now that I’m home for the afternoon. Here are some things I predict my mother will say to me when we talk:

• Do your best
• Hard work never killed anyone
• You never know
• Just pray to daddy
• Go slow, don’t be in a rush
• Hard work doesn’t hurt
• Pay your mortgage

.. you know, this would work better in another format:

the prize is a bag of half-empty miniature liquor bottles from 1973

Now I can’t WAIT for our phone call – I wonder what would happen if I yelled out BINGO! halfway through our conversation.

Between the wedding, my new job and the annoying need to sleep now and again, I’ve had very little time to get into trouble. What free time I DO have has been more or less completely occupied with the following:

Bullistic Unleashed

Universal
Genre: Angry Birds with blood and guts
Price: $0.99 (possible launch price)

For all the carnage you bring down on those smirking asshole pigs, there’s very little blood and gore in Angry Birds. Enter the Bulls – they’re pissed off (at the mall, for some reason) and they’re going to Fuck. Shit. Up. Fling the bulls around and cause as much damage as you possibly can to advance, punch shoppers in the face if they get to close, and have sex with saucy girl cows. Yeah, there’s cow sex. You know you’re curious. The game is a blast, occasionally frustrating, and absolutely worth the dollar. Get it now, so the developers will release new content!

Siege Hero

Universal
Genre: Angry Birds with fair maidens
Price: FREE (sale price)

I know there are a million and one Angry Bird clones out there, but Siege Hero is one of the best – I like it far more than the original. It’s got a massive amount of content, and right now it’s FREE – go get it, save some maidens, and give the dastardly villains their due. It’ll keep you entertained for hours, which is a pretty good deal for the low low price of absolutely nothing.

Sky Gnomes

Universal
Genre: Gnome Racing!
Price: $0.99

Tired of flinging things? How about dropping gnomes out of the sky instead? Sky Gnomes is an online racing game with daily tournaments to enter. Race against others, mod your vehicle to take advantage of the environment, and earn coins and spare parts to upgrade your power-ups. I’ve been having a great deal of fun with Sky Gnomes, and can’t wait to see what they’re going to come out with next. It’s a really well done app, great for fast play, and before long you’ll find yourself purchasing in-app bonus packs so you can come out on top because I HATE LOSING. That may be just me, though. It’s completely playable without the IAP; I just .. like giving my money away.

Swordigo

Universal
Genre: RPG with flaming swords!
Price: $1.99

To be perfectly honest, Swordigo is a Zelda clone. However, it’s a very GOOD Zelda clone, and is worth a play if you like RPGs (and only communists don’t like RPGs). Swordigo is a side-scrolling RPG with quests and magic and that noise from Zelda that played whenever you found something useful. Keep an eye out for sales if $2 is too rich for your blood, but it’s definitely worth the asking price based on length of gameplay alone.

Saturday Morning RPG

Universal
Genre: An RPG based on Saturday Morning cartoons from the 80s
Price: Free to download and for the first episode; subsequent episodes will be $1.99

This game is awesome. It’s immediately nostalgic – your inventory and profile is in a Trapper Keeper – and is really funny (one of the quests is to stop all the downloadin’). A lot of thought and detail went into this game, and it’s a blast to play. Combat is a little clunky at times, but it’s rarely noticeable because you’ll be having too much fun choosing your weapons and power-ups (you can injure enemies by transforming into a big semi truck. Gee, I wonder why I like this game so much?). Even if you don’t want to pay for episode 2 and later updates, it’s free to play the first chapter and is a great way to keep yourself out of trouble for a little while as you wait for your Doomsday device to charge up. Go get it.

There, those should keep you busy for a while. Have at them! I’ve got sports ball to learn!

The story of how Josh and Shan met is a complicated one, with more than half a dozen people taking credit for their relationship (myself and Ed included). Shan wanted to tell the story of how they met at their wedding, but it’s very hard to follow if you’re not Rain Man .. so I did what I always do when something is complicated: I made a flow chart.

tech writers gotta tech write

Shan wanted a flow chart in the style of the VC Andrews ones I’d done, and I was happy to oblige. Unfortunately, the “how we met” portion of the evening was forgotten amongst the excitement of the wedding day, but the flow chart was available for viewing during the post-wedding brunch and has been posted on Josh and Shan’s wedding site, Facebook, and now here.

I like flow chartin’.

If you love me, you’d nominate me for Best Personal Blog over at the West Coast Social Media Awards. Nominations close Friday April 27th at noon, and it sure would be swell if I got nominated.

Why should I be considered for the Best Personal Blog award?

• I’ve been blogging for over 11 years
• I post a minimum of five times a week, often much more
• My blog is incredibly personal – I’ve taken the lot of you through my many highs (both literal and figurative) and lows (so many lows); always trying to inform, entertain, and occasionally educate (making some people uncomfortable is just a fun bonus)
• I can haz ethics: I’ve never sold anything commercial or accepted money for anything I’ve ever written
• I’m a West Coast girl through and through – my blog may have started in Calgary, but my heart (and since 2004, the rest of me) has always been in Vancouver
• Seriously, I’ve written over 5000 original, unique blog posts – I should get some kind of award for that alone
• Everyone likes to feel appreciated

Nominees will be announced on Monday April 30th. If I manage to get nominated (please please please), I’ll be bugging you to vote for me – but that’s step 2; let’s get through step 1 first. And I promise the bugging will be entertaining, and involve bribery and boobs and candy. You like candy, don’t you? Well, nominate me and you’ll get candy. You can’t lose!

Um, if you do happen to nominate me, you’ll need my phone number for some dumb reason. Email or DM me for it!

Okay, back to work. A post with a good deal less shameful begging shall follow this one (the trade off: additional shameful self-promotion. I’m great! Get on board with it!).

An Ode to Command+Option+M

Two point five days
I searched for you
Wore out my arm
On the slow-ass ribbon-based click through

Why were you so hard to find?

It doesn’t matter from here on in
I’ve got you in my clutches
I’ll never settle for +9b +6a again
Because let’s face it, +3b +3a is so much more attractive and gives you more room to work with on your page – what kind of sadist puts uneven amounts of space around text and images?!

embrace the keyboard shortcut. love the keyboard shortcut.

Words aren’t really necessary, at this point. Two of my best friends got married to one another, and I couldn’t be happier for them – I love Josh and Shan, and I hope their wedding was everything they wanted and more.

From the general policies page on the company wiki:

“Educate them on phone etiquette. In short, we don’t answer the phone.”

so smug.

Hello from shiny new space!

I am many words behind – several thousand need to be dedicated to this past weekend and the wedding – but here is a quick check-in with all the important stuff:

• New office space is gorgeous
• Hello there, MacBook Pro!
• Ice Cube Situation: trays in the freezer; they don’t appear to be used often so I may be on my own
• Diet Coke: will have to be manually provided; there’s a pop machine but it’s only got Coke, Coke Zero, and Other Things that are not Diet Coke
• Bussing downtown again after 5 months is weird
• As will be working in the same building as Ed
• Each bathroom stall is equipped with a sign featuring the following Enemies of Good Taste:
  • Cutesy pee-related poetry
  • Clip art
  • COMIC SANS
• My job is to WRITE :D :D :D :D

Yay!

damnit