grumpy about portals

Posted in angst by

We have almost every console imaginable in this house. PS2, PS3, PS4. Xbox 180, 360, One. At least 4 Nintendo DSes in varying states of 3D. Two Gameboys. A PSP. There’s a Dreamcast in the closet, and a Sega Genesis in storage. We have a Wii in a box, and I think there’s an NES in a bag somewhere. Basically, lots of consoles. Almost every console. Tremendous consoles. Only two are hooked up, though: the PS4 and the Xbox One. We don’t have 19 TVs, you see. The others are in the bedroom, holding up shelves. We keep them mostly for nostalgia, and because nothing in the fucking universe is backwards compatible.

For each dusty console taking up floor space in the bedroom, there’s a shelf of games to go along with it. Throughout the purging over the years, only the absolute favourite of all games have survived: for example, we’ve only got one Xbox game. Normally I’d just let the console go and reclaim the 15 square feet of floor space, but the game is Jet Set Radio Future and it’s my ultra super favourite so .. we have to keep it. Same with the PS2. And the PS3 games are still great (and most likely not finished), so we have to keep the system.

I woke up wanting to play Portal 2. It’s a cold, rainy, grey Sunday, and I have nowhere I need to be until tomorrow morning at 9. The house is stocked with food, there’s Diet Coke for days, and even though my ice machine is dead (RIP) the freezer has enough to last me a couple hours. A perfect gaming day!

I own Portal 2, but it’s for the PS3. PS3 games can’t be played on any system except the PS3, because Sony is evil. I don’t want to hook up the PS3. It’s big and I don’t know where all the cables are and I don’t want to wait through 14 hours of system updates to play a game offline. The Portal series is super popular, so surely it’s available for download, right? Nah. Doesn’t exist for Playstation outside of the PS3. Super.

Okay, Xbox. Maybe it’s available for the One? Ooh, it is – but I can’t download it on the console itself, I have to use a computer. Sure, that makes zero sense. About as much as my buying a game I already own – twice I think, I just remembered I bought it on Steam a while ago. Download says 360 only. What. Try to load it up – the One comes with a 360 emulator of sorts. Weird, but okay. Finally! Now I’m thinking with portals!

The lack of backwards compatibility is a ridiculous, unfair monopoly. Screw you, Sony.

I should just buy a fucking PC and be done with it.

WAH. First world problems, and all that – I just want to buy a melon.

these are their stories

Posted in everyday kimli by

DUN DUN

Homicide: “Cause of death was clearly blunt force trauma, but we can’t find the murder weapon.”

Forensics: “Body’s been here for at least 4 hours. Probably died around 4pm.”

Officer: “We’ve interviewed everyone in the house, no one saw anything. The body was discovered in the basement when the host went down to get more wine.”

Detective: “Okay, tell me what you were doing tonight and how you came across the body.”

Me: “We were having a dinner party with some friends. We had finished up dinner and moved into the den to play some board games. We ran out of wine at one point, so my husband went downstairs to get more and that’s when he found the body.”

Detective: “Do you know the victim?”

Me: “Only in passing. He lives in the building, but I don’t know his name.”

Detective: “The security tapes show that he followed you into the parkade with his car this morning. Do you remember seeing him?”

Me: “That was him? I know a car followed me into the parkade – which is against the rules – but I didn’t know who it was. I stopped my car so he couldn’t get in, but he drove around me honking and gave me the finger.”

Detective: “Interesting. Okay, we’ll be in touch. In the meantime, here’s my card – call me if you think of anything else.”

Me: “I will. Thank you, detective.”

Detective: “By the way, it smells great in here. What did you serve for dinner?”

Me: “Oh, thank you. We had Murder Ham!”

DUN DUN

2778 words about ireland

Posted in adventure, everyday kimli by

I KNEW there was something I was forgetting to do – write about the trip. I’ve been incredibly scattered (more so than usual) since we got home, for reasons I am vaguebooking about. All will become clear soon, but in the meantime: hey, we went to Ireland!

Our flight(s) there were long but uneventful, with the exception of some EXTREME TURBULENCE between Toronto and St. John’s. Seriously, I have never experienced turbulence like that. It was fucking terrifying. People screamed, like in movies! Me, I almost ripped the back off the seat in front of me because I was gripping it so hard. Scary stuff. F——, would not turbule again.

We arrived into the Dublin airport just after 7am local time on Friday morning, and made our way through customs. Because of the early hour it was easy to grab a cab – lucky for us, since there was a bus strike going on and options into the city were limited. We were at the door of our AirBnB around 8:20am, perfectly on time.

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a series of unfortunate events

Posted in adventure by

Instead of getting ready to board our flight from Toronto to Vancouver, I’m currently sitting in a dark hotel room just off the freeway in the Dublin county of Swords, waiting for 2am to arrive so I can head back to the airport.

Don’t get me wrong – our trip to Dublin has been awesome and we saw so many really cool things and experienced awesome people and I tried very hard to drink beer – but right now I’m feeling kind of petulant and sorry for myself on account of this terrible cold and the fact that I’m in this hotel room at all.

We arrived at the airport just after 6 this morning, and were greeting with a departure board telling us our flight had been cancelled. Why we weren’t notified of this earlier I’ll never know, but it turns out a nasty storm in St John’s grounded our flight and there was no plane to take us home. Since the Westjet’s Dublin/St. John’s flight is a once-a-day thing, we were screwed. Double screwed, even, because it’s not like they could just bump us to the next flight as that would then displace everyone else and it would be an endless cycle of shit with no one getting home.

Westjet shuttled us all to a hotel in the middle of nowhere, gave us some food vouchers, and told us to call the airline to see what was going to happen. Turns out it’s this: they’re bringing in a plane for us that’ll leave Dublin at 0350, getting us to St. John’s around 5am local time. We sit there for 7 hours, then leave for Toronto at which point we’ll have 45 minutes to make our connecting flight to Vancouver. On paper, we’ll get home 22.5 hours later than intended. Whee!

I do know that they’re making the best of a bad situation, but the fact that our hotel friggin’ LOST POWER an hour or so ago isn’t making things any better. My brain is fogged over and it won’t let my body sleep. I’m sitting here in the dark, tethered to my phone and burning through data, with all my batteries (both literal and figurative) draining away, trying to breathe through all the rustic Irish mucous I’ve collected, and wondering if we’ll make it home. I’m out of Diet Coke, ice cubes, Advil, and patience. And clean bras.

We’ve had an awesome time in Ireland, but thiiiiiiiis suuuuuuuuucks. It’s also expensive, as I’m petulantly shopping on Etsy to pass the time.

I miss my kitties and bed and ice machine.

oscar wilde and eduard vilde both agree that, while things could be worse, this has turned out to be a most unfortunate day.

oscar wilde and eduard vilde both agree that, while things could be worse, this has turned out to be a most unfortunate day.

hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrin

Posted in everyday kimli by

My leg has no odor.

This morning while talking to Ed, I was distracted by all the pretty lights and colours and shiny things. My morning routine had been derailed by a variety of Events, and I was scrambling hard to catch up and head into the office to collect my new iPhone work really really hard.

Also, I had dry skin.

I grabbed what I thought was the spray-on moisturizer that I use in emergency situations, and applied it liberally to my leg. At some point, it dawned on me that the bottle was blue instead of the usual yellow, and instead of being moistened, any scent my leg may have had had been neutralized.

I coated my left leg in fucking Febreze.

I do not like the smell of Febreze.

WHY IS LIFE SO HARD

 

PSA: check your backseat before getting in the car

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“I dare you!”

“No way, that’s so immature!”

“Yes way! If you don’t do it, you have to pick truth – and I’m gonna ask you what you and Billy did behind the tree last year!”

“UGH okay FINE.”

The giggling momentarily increased, but the girls grew solemn as they arose and tip-toed, single file, into the darkened bathroom. The cheap fluorescent light of the rec room (which was wood panelled like all good rec rooms are) streamed in around their shoulders, providing just enough light to see their dim faces and shiny sugar-crazed eyes in the large mirror above the sink.

“You know the rules, Sarah. When we close the door you have to face the mirror, close your eyes, and say the words.”

“And we have to be able to hear them!”, shrieked Katie, who was way more into this than she should have been.

“Yeah, and we have to hear you! No whispering. If you do everything right, and the Veil of Spirits –“ Janet paused here to wiggle her fingers in a poor approximation of spookiness. “ — is thin enough, IT’LL HAPPEN.”

The other girls helpfully made “OooOOOooOo” noises like in old Halloween cartoons, but it was less scary than ridiculous. Honestly, who’s dumb suggestion was Truth or Dare, anyway? They were 13 years old now, officially teenagers. This was a baby game, Sarah thought. But it’s Janet’s party, so I have to do what she says.

“.. and said her cousin totally saw it and she went CRAZY. So it’s totally true. Aren’t you scared?”

Janet finally wrapped up her long story about something that didn’t happen. Sarah scoffed at her and said, “I’m not scared, because nothing’s going to happen. It’s just a dumb urban legend!”

“Well, try not to scream too loud, or you’ll wake my parents!”

The giggling resumed as the girls filed out of the darkness and into the bright, warm light of suburbia. Sarah longed to follow them, but didn’t particularly want to admit that nothing had happened between her and Billy – she tried to kiss him but he ran away, horrified. She’d much rather keep quiet and pretend he hadn’t be repulsed by her, and if she had to do this stupid bathroom dare to keep that fantasy, she’d do it.

The door was shut with a grating thump, and all light disappeared. Not even the tiniest ray of light could penetrate the room, because say what you you will about half-assed construction projects that start and end in the basement, badly warped doors wedged into cheap drywall could create a lot of dark.

Sarah reached out in front of her to confirm she was facing the mirror (or to steady herself, she wasn’t quite sure). She took a deep breath, and someone outside hush-whispered “HURRY UP”, accompanied by shushing and giggles.

“Okay okay”, Sarah muttered. She took another deep breath, and closed her eyes. Opening her mouth, Sarah loudly recited the words that rounded out this dumb exercise.

Nothing happened.

Feeling more brave than foolish, Sarah chanted the words again in an exaggerated sing-song.

Still nothing.

Sarah opened her eyes (she thought, it was really very dark in there) and smiled triumphantly. Releasing the breath she didn’t know she was holding she yelled out “SEE, I TOLD YOU NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN” – but didn’t get past the S bubbling in her throat.

In the mirror
Over her shoulder
Out of the darkness
Bathed in a red light
A faint response, growing louder

“.. And baby my heart could still fall as hard at 23
And I’m thinking ’bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe just the touch of a hand
Oh me I fall in love with you every single day
And I just wanna tell you I am
So honey now
Take me into your loving arms ..”

Sarah couldn’t make a sound.

She scrambled for the door, but it wasn’t there.

The mirror wasn’t there.

Nothing was there.

Just her
the warm wetness blossoming on her pyjamas
the studio audience
and special surprise guest
Ed Sheeran.

HE MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COST.

book it, danno

Posted in adventure by

BOOK ALL THE THINGS IN ALL THE PLACES

So, we’re going to Japan in April. It’s gonna be awesome. I booked the trip this past weekend, and some accommodations. We’re going with a group, so there’s been a lot of back and forth about what we’re doing – but it looks like everything has been planned, and haha we’re going to Tokyo (and Kyoto and Takayaka and Miyajama). There’ve been a lot of discussion about what people want to see – Tokyo Disney, castles, temples, sake tours, cherry blossoms – but there are really only 3 things on my list:

We arrive on April 1st. The Penis Festival is on April 2nd. Gosh, I wonder how that happened.

Before I can truly get bat-shit excited about Japan though, I’ve got something a little closer to be excited about: we’re going to Dublin later this month. I’ve spent the evening booking adventures for us in Dublin: we’re gonna rent a car and go look at some creepy-ass statutes, drink some beer (if I have to drink an entire pint anywhere in the world, it might as well be a Guinness right from the teat), fondle the Oscar Wilde statue, then rent a car again and go roaming the Irish hinterlands armed with little more than a camera and Google Maps.

I AM EXCITED FOR ADVENTURE!

I am also incredibly amused that most of the internet says “If you can handle the long drive, the coast of Ireland is a sight to see” – the “long drive” they speak of is 3 hours. A 3-hour car ride must be a daunting trek to a European, but I’m from Canada – I’ve driven more than three hours to get to the good Denny’s, instead of going to the terrible one. A 3-hour drive is nothing. We should have ample time to stop a million times for a) ridiculous scenery and pictures, and b) peeing a lot.

This is all very awesome and I feel so lucky that we can do this, but I am sort of sticking my fingers in my ears and not looking at the credit card. Go away, reality. I have fantastic adventures to plan.

Besides, I just got a raise. That extra $1.25 an hour is gonna pay for SO MANY AIRPORT IMPROVEMENT FEES!

Oh, and I’m not doing the Remote Year. I have a Grand Plan that is pretty much just a fantasy at the moment, but once my near-future solidifies a little bit more, I will know what I am doing. In the meantime, I’m going to bask in planning and maybe just maybe have something else brewing up my voluminous sleeves for the fall.

Did I mention that I’m excited?

maxresdefault

fully expecting shibuya station to look exactly like this, graffiti soul and all.

 

the purge: out of the closet, onto the floor

Posted in everyday kimli by

I hate our bedroom closets, violently. I finally managed to talk Ed into getting a consultation for redoing our closets into something a little less likely to drive me to homicide, and now some woman is coming out on Thursday to judge us in a multitude of ways. This is what grown ups do for thrills, right?

In preparation for the visit, I’m purging my dress closet. I know one of the things causing my rage is that there’s just too much shit in there – I have a pretty powerful addiction to buying fabulous new dresses – so I’m trying to make room for common sense by getting rid of dresses that do not meet the new arbitrary standards I’ve laid out for myself. Also, Ed is helping. He’s not the greatest at grading my outfits as we have wildly different tastes, but it’s better than playing Fashion Show by myself.

Maybe I should have Twitch’d this shit.

Anyway, these are the outfits that have thus far not made it back into my closet:

  • Slutty Pregnant Toddler
  • The $2 Goth
  • What the fuck this dress is made out of couch
  • Perfectly Okay but seriously I have too many dresses for a mere “okay” to survive the cut
  • Klingon Fetish Club
  • Too Long Yet Too Short Plaid Lumpy Times
  • Executive Perfume Saleswoman
  • Goddamn That’s a Lot of Red
  • Slutty Postpartum Toddler
  • Why Are These Sleeves So Puffy I Am Not Anne of Green Gables
  • Cool Mom Likes Star Wars and Extreme Couponing
  • The Empire Waist Strikes Back
  • Maleficent (that is not a cute name, it’s literally the dress Torrid made as a tie-in for the movie)
  • 1992 called and wants the literal faux-velvet-skull-and-rose-embossed-baby-doll-dresses (yes, plural) back what the fuck were you thinking you have GOT to stop shopping at Hot Topic
  • Hey There, Panda Tits
  • I Secretly Wish I was Steven Tyler
  • Cute Dress, Terrible Sleeves (They’re Like Little Nubblins) (Ed named this one)
  • Jesus Christ I have a THIRD Slutty Child-Baring Toddler Dress Still in the Plastic

Looks that were on the fence but have survived this round:

  • Complicated Slutty Clown
  • 1960’s Goth Opera
  • Pumpkin Spice Circus Tent
  • The Vaguely Asian Maxi
  • The Sole H&M Dress I Own (aka once I shopped like a normal person)
  • Houndstooth No Boobs
  • Saucy Giraffe Milk Maid
  • The $3 Goth
  • The Space Bathing Suit
  • Latin Nights at a Drag Show
  • Saved By the Bell Sleeves
  • I’m Not NOT Hiding Drugs in These Sleeves
  • Yep, This is a Black Dress
  • The Woodstock Gang Bang
  • Hey, This is a Beach Cover Up! (someday I might go to a beach)
  • The Asian Cosplay
  • I’M SO SPOOPY! TOO SPOOPY FOR YOU!
  • This Dress Literally Has DNA On It. Wanna Add More?
  • Rainforest Madame (Ed hates this dress but I think it’s hilarious so I’m keeping it)

Not bad. Stay tuned for The Purge: Pick a Card(igan), in which I go from owning 150 near-identical cardigans to a much more manageable number. Oh, this life I lead!

Also, if you’re holding a garage sale anytime soon, can I piggy back on it? Most of these dresses are in excellent condition (if not actually brand new and unworn) and totally adorable (just ignore my naming conventions), and I’d love to try to recoup even a tiny bit of money for them. Or, if you’re local and could use some new clothes and are not an axe murderer and also wear size 16-20, email me! Perhaps we could “work” “something” “out” *wink*.