I have to stop…

The past month, I have been engulfed in the obsession with auction houses. It hasn’t gotten into online yet but I’ve been bidding on surplus equipment and items from local police departments and authorities.

So far this month, I’ve spent about $1000 on everything. A bit (if not a lot) than I expected but the savings have been either marginal or really good. Despite being cosmetically damaged or “battery life/stamina is unknown”, I fear there might be some other defects. Something defective that the employees at the auction house won’t inspect for; big example being the lens and camera body I bought. I bought a Canon 50mm and a T6i for well under the cost of even used, but on close inspection there are some imperfections. For a camera system, these imperfections are borderline close to damaged. A smudge on the reflex mirror or a hairline scratch on the lens, these would annoy me especially if it’s noticeable in the image or on the viewfinder. As satisfied as I am with them, I feel scared at the fact that I have little to no idea how the quality by just a few images and testimony from the auctioneer.

At least now I have the opportunity to get a replacement iPod Shuffle. Mine’s water damaged but at least I can have one that works with superficial damage. But that’s what’s been going on with me this past month so far.

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Off to Auction.

Recently I’ve received a new debit card, replacing the old one with a degrading chip. Of course my bank went through the whole dog and pony show. Of course now I have a bit of money so I think I can start buying a few things online.

After a bit of online browsing, I found a small site that auctions odds and ends from tools to electronics and clothing to miscellany. Thus far, I haven’t won anything. Luck of the auction I guess, but I’m starting to consider to auction snipe. At the last minute, I should just place a bid just to win it. Guess it’s one thing about online auctions, anyone can bid on anything and just force people to bid higher until no one can pay for it. So it’s just smarter to bid at the last minute.

I’ve been looking through Amazon as well. So I might buy a few things on there if there is something I want and it’s a better sale there than locally. I doubt it with shipping cost, but I’m hopefully I might find things I might need or would use.

It’s getting close to the end of summer and I’ve been prolifically taking photos. With Instagram now, I’m really picking stuff I want to share. Which is tough since there is much I want to reserve to try and license. As of yet, 500px has yet yielded a single purchase from me. So I have uploaded a lot with nothing to show, but I don’t want to give up yet.

I’ll work on it. For now, just take photos.

#6 – “Stay”

Hey,

We both know the first time we’ve met. Somewhere in the world with a smirk and a smile. You standing there with an honest blush on your face. I never really told you when I first fell in love with you.

It was one of our dates where I took you to the cinema; as simple as it started, it was just the best way to remember. We stay in the dark and watched the drama unfold. Through it, I felt your hand drift into mine. Your head softly lean on my broad shoulders. I looked over to find your hand holding mine. I was still unsure if you would end up like every woman in my life, upped and gone. In the darkness, you reach out and squeezed almost telling me there is someone there for me. I squeeze back, hope you understand what that meant to me.

Though after the movie, I was regretting we watched the last show. I remember taking the train with you. The entire way to your stop, you just held me and I could only hold you back. In our embrace, the world didn’t seem to matter. Time didn’t even seem to matter. As we walked home in the street light, you asked me to come in; of course, I could never say no to you (except playfully). As I close the door behind the stone path leading to your house, you kissed me and pulled me up stairs. Dragging me towards your bed, you made your intentions known. I told you I was tired. You held me down on your bed and kissed softly, you laid me down and cuddled into my arms. I didn’t resist but insisted.

“Stay”

It was enough to know you wanted to be loved. I do; I love you.

Eric

Fading.

I came home after just a few weeks away. Coming home to the city is feels weird. I’ve been away from home many times before, but this time it feels different.

As I drop my bag off in my room, the years I’ve spent here feel so alien. It is like coming to live in a stranger. Turning on my computer, typing; it feels like I’ve have never done this. When I came home, I tried to do some day to day things I did weeks ago. I went out for a movie and have dinner. When I went out alone, I felt abandoned. Felt like I was alone in a new city, much like any traveller has passed through my town. Going through my old haunts, I felt like the world is a bit different. Felt like I didn’t belong in this mall or this restaurant feels out of place. I sat and noshed as I looked on and saw people on a Friday night, curling up with their loved ones as I sat alone.

Coming home has given me insight on the person I am. I’m an odd person however it is what I am. The shy and rooted explorer or the closeted down to earth nomad. Perhaps all this time, I’ll step out of my shell after all this work gets completed.

We’ll see.

Once More?

My schedule is an erratic schedule, not just the things I impose on me but my work is always a unplanned success.  At first I use to take my time to foot around what I do in real life, recently the vagueness comes naturally.

With just a week away, I’m doing my best to prepare for the unlikely chance I might put my social media things on hiatus. So this blog, my YouTube channel, my Twitter; pretty much anything not tied down physically will go dark for about a few months until I return home. I really don’t like pre-planning for things when they don’t come because it rubber bands into a lot of procrastination. In any case, I do what I must.

Which is a bummer since on my YouTube, I started a a new playthrough for Filthy Lucre. Actually it’s two concurrent ones and so far my serial editing habits are showing. I have been having trouble maintaining which video to publish since everything goes up and I see everything as a list. Also I built two playlists; one being just a straight playthrough, the other is a bit of a challenge to complete all the objectives per missions. I even started playing with audio tracks and stuff during editing, I’m pretty impressed of what a free program can do now.

As for the photography things, I’m still trying to check out the rest of the festival with just under a week before I depart. So far I’ve seen a lot just from taking a stroll around town but I still want to check off what I have on the itinerary I’ve set aside for myself. I’m still picking up my camera. I recently swapped in for a different lens and forcing myself to learn to take photos with a prime lens. Definitely a challenge since it’s a fixed length, but I’ve found what my little ditty can do. I also came around and completed the trifecta of lenses I want for my DSLR, all I need is a gear bag and a a tall tripod. Well, I can just use the tripod but I’m out of space to keep everything clean. I’ve put a lot into this new hobby and yet I have so much to do. I still want to learn to play my decade old used guitar, I want to be able to play more airsoft which my stuff is collecting dust. Maybe this summer I can knock down the whole guitar thing, that’s going to be a loud month either an electric guitar.

For now and until next time, I have to get back to writing next week’s post in case I leave this place.

Inspiration from Others

This past weekend, I’m starting to participate in some local festivals. Of course a good way to start is a photography festival. And this past weekend I had the opportunity to see a couple things for the day.

Went to a seminar about self publishing hosted by a few mildly successful artists. It’s given an general idea of what it takes to really put my own work out there. Which explains why small runs of books and zines are popular unless it’s funded before publication.

After an hour long seminar about printed matters, I took a stroll to the closest gallery for a peak at some photographers using Fujifilm Instax. The product is very nostalgic to the old Polaroid film. Yet the colours still remain so vibrant and detailed . Though the small format of the Instax film makes it feel very compact to really observe any detail. So I guess it’s worth it for landscapes or portraits in bright light or with the built in flash.

The plan for the upcoming week is to check out more exhibitions and galleries until this festival is over. This is a great event I managed to stumble upon. I can’t wait to discover more.

Expectations Of Adulthood

As children, we are given an idea of what it is like as an adult. From parents to teachers, we usually find our own way into the world. As incredible as it sounds when we reach to “adulthood”, we look back and realize childhood was such a simpler time.

Though I am still youthful in my days, I have to admit I yearn for the days I wish I have nothing to do but at the same time I yearn for a bit of something worth doing. Call me strange but I’m in between being a child and and adult. People all around me can say I should grow up while we’re all chasing the last vestiges of our own youths. To me, it’s how you feel and what you do to express your youthfulness is what counts. In a way, my life is balanced between staying young and growing old. Though time can age me, adulthood would never scar me. I would like to play all the video games in the world, but I would like fulfilling work which can in turn give me more time and hardware to play. I want to feel perpetually carefree; I want to do all the adult things but have enough to just be a kid.

In a way I want to be a big kid with a monitor so big I can play video games on my bed with my wireless mouse and keyboard I bought. I want to fall in love with a girl who shares the same so we can have our entire place a adult playground  when we move in together (That sounds, guarantee you that’s not). I want to eat all the foods I like as a kid; of course in moderation since candy is bad and fried things make you fat.

Until next time, growing up doesn’t have to mean leaving things behind. Sometimes growing up means reconnecting with your past self.

Crowdfunding, Space and STD’s – Random Thoughts

I’m off the wall this week. I’ve been getting active and creative recently which has been churning out some random thoughts. Once again, I would like to be open about them regardless how random, dark or silly they are; here we go again, sit tight folks!

I am starting to think those people who want to never age are very self centred. You probably know some people  who go out of their way to say “I want to live forever.” First off, bad idea to go around to say that because I would get judgemental. Secondly, why would you ever want to wish immortality on yourself? To each day of your life at one age as others die around you. Your friends, family and pets; they will move on and you will be stuck as yourself at one state for the rest of your life. In this hypothetical if you were to live every day normally and remember everything, you will still be the same as you are forever. So in 60 years you will look like you and have the same vitality but at the same time, everyone you known and loved have passed on. You would become the loneliest survivor of death. What if everyone lived forever? That would be even more catastrophic. Considering the world and its resources, you have about 9 billion people on the planet all wanting the same things. They all want food, materials and shelter; what if they give birth to the next generation. Assuming the entire population was at adulthood and was split fairly between gender, we would have 4.5 billion children wanting the same. That would be 13.5 billion people wanting food! I don’t even think we have enough space at the moment to feed everyone let alone 13.5 billion. If we lived forever, our food demand would increase and it would be exponential. If immortality was existent, I wouldn’t want it because either my future will be lonely or crowded.

With all the conflicts and arms proliferation in the world, what if we took all the money which bought our weapons and war machines and put it into scientific pursuits? What can we human accomplished if we put money into developing new technology? Would be be able to solve our famines with science? Could we build space travel technology within the next 50 years? Perhaps viability for our first warp drive? If we had the money from all our recent wars put into colonizing Mars, would we even be there already? I am still optimistic about our society doing bold and amazing things if we tried hard enough to put aside our differences and do something to help us all. That’s how societies and nations are created, why can’t we just all get along and solve the problems with science?

There has been a lot of gadgets for PC developing at the moment, mostly toward immersive virtual reality. I’m all for VR for video games but I still like the tactile controls of mouse and keyboard; perhaps the occasional controller since most games don’t support controllers on PC. I’m still baffled on why can’t we just consolidate on one or two devices for PC. I have 3 attached to my computer for user input. Of course some manufacturers unify their devices to work on one port. I’m talking about have the one device that can do most if not all the input. I wouldn’t mind having a a device the size of a controller have keyboard functionality with a joystick that can be used as a mouse. When not for work, this nifty gamepad can be my game controller for games that require it. With smartphones, it’s a definite proven fact we can type with our thumbs. I think there may be an untapped market in having an all-in-one device for PC which is you keyboard and mouse and when combined turns into a nifty controller. Someone get on it!

I realized recently I’ve been looking through crowd-funding website for games. You can literally crowd fund for a lot of things now, want a shirt? Crowd fund! Need a video game idea come to life? Crowd fund! Really weird porno? Crowd fund! What about something big and huge, could we crowd fund a space program? Could we crowd fund a cure for cancer? I’ve read article of people having a go at space travel from homemade means. I wonder if they went public and allowed people donate, how much money would they gain from crowdsourcing a space program? I wonder what the rewards would be; if 15 bucks gets you a t-shirt, what would you get for 15 million? Perhaps a seat on the maiden voyage? What about stretch goals, would there be something worth doing as a stretch goal? Science is always trying to find new and cheap ways to do more science, maybe someday I might want to get on board crowdfunding a mission to the Moon or even Mars.

When I was a kid, I was into the first Matrix movie. The idea of plugging in and experiencing a network through firs person. At the time, the notion sounded amazing because then video games become very realistic. Looking back, maybe realism shouldn’t be so realistic. It should suck to die repeatedly in a video game. With my luck, I would sprain my ankle or get shot up like swiss cheese. If I remember correctly, if you get hurt in the Matrix then you get hurt in real life. With the current state of the Internet, I wouldn’t want to “jack in” to the world wide web. For one thing, the trolls; so many trolls that the beauty that is a city would be vandalised. Lastly viruses, there’s a lot of computer viruses. What if we have this technology and we have malware that can infect the brain. What would be the repercussions of of having your brain infected with rogue data and information? STD’s are scary enough, would you want a System Transmitted Disease?

This has been another random thoughts. Until next time, keep being random!

#200 – Woop woop!

I intentionally wanted this as my 200th post. This is technically 201, sorry!

Huzzah! I have written over 200 posts on WordPress over a span of a few years. Though I quietly celebrated 100 posts, I think 200 is a bigger accomplishment. On the occasion, I want to reminisce back on the last 200 posts and give you folks the view on this side of the Internet.

Origins

When I started this blog, it was for a few reasons. During the time, I was a pretty angry person. Just pent up with anger that I just needed an outlet. I didn’t really have anyone to vent to; the only times I ever felt like I was myself and calm was when I was writing. Not just journal writing, but a medium where someone will read it and maybe people can share or chime in. I wouldn’t say my blog is a success story, but I can say I’m calmer because of it.

I tried vlogging a few times, all failures. For one thing, I had to edit them intensively. Devoting an hour of unpaid work for a few minutes was not feasible for me, not even now. That and also I find my voice and face pretty unattractive. Maybe some day, I will vlog.

So I decided to blog, choosing the host site was problematic since there were a lot of blogging site. For awhile a was milling about having it on Blogger. Just before I had this blog, I was still in high school if you can believe it. One of the classes had me create a Twitter, I never update the thing after I got out of the class. Microblogging  like Twitter is not as appealing as a medium that doesn’t restrict you on the amount of content to can put out. Sure I can have parts to a tweet; but if you ever read my long posts, you will know this isn’t very scalable. Tumblr was pretty hip during the time, but it’s seemed very much of a popularity contest to get content features. I’m not funny or an adorable cat so I couldn’t really be sucked into that drama. WordPress seemed to be a good choice since the community was somewhat inspiring and the interface was and still is very understandable and not super user friendly. One thing I like is the fact I have control over a lot of things on my blog.

As I said, I was pretty angry so I thought to let it all loose. Every time I had something to say it would be a long rant. At the time, my free time was a warpath in video games. I was playing up to 8 hours a day, “hooked” would hardly describe it. You think it would make me violent or more angry but it helped me calm down a bit after a day of before the day starts.

“One Post a Week”

This was my mantra and usually still holds firm. At the beginning I feared I might burn out if I put out a blog post every day or every time I finished one. So I thought to release one every half week, but I still thought  burn out was pretty short. So once a week sounded pretty reasonable; weekly content and I can think about each topic and prep a good list of topics to hit on before I publish it. Aside from this, it allows me to supplement with new content that might be relevant for the week. For those who have followed since post #1 would know sometimes I publish one or two more for the week. I sometimes I have a different topic I wanted to touch on before I forget it. But I try to stick to a schedule of one a week even though sometimes I might be early or late on a post date. I do this on my free time which at the moment I have plenty of; if I drop names, I drop it because I like it not because I’m not being paid for it. Yeah Allahweh, I’m talking to you; name dropped.

That ADHD!

I’m never up front about my mental condition since society has a monopoly on taboos. People don’t really know how it feels to be ADHD or try and play it up as “well, you’re just lazy” or “why can’t you sit still for 5 seconds?” It’s very tough to explain from my point of view if someone asks how it feels. The way I put it, it’s a good thing if you can control it or at least manage it and a bad thing if it’s slowing you down. In a way, it’s a gifted curse. I allows me to broad my horizons and learn things in general, but academic performance would vary. I may not hold many post-secondary qualifications, but I can study bits of it and get what it’s about. People will tell me it’s not right, not normal. To me, being right or normal is never the point of living. If it was, everyone would be perfect and boring. And if you know me, perfect isn’t normal. Perfect is an idea and not a way of life. Life is imperfect and in itself, is unique between everyone. In short, being imperfect makes you a more unique individual.

Randomly Yours

If I could somehow let you into my mind, you would see some crazy stuff and maybe hear some very random ideas. It’s not a hallucination, but it would be all the stuff I daydream and think of from a day to day basis. I always wanted to put it in perspective for those who don’t really know how it feel like you have a lot to say but no necessary outlet – or you just forget about it and when you remember, you say “Dang it!” So here I go to emulate in words of stuff in my mind.

I got to email this guy. But first, Chrome –> Youtube, Facebook, WordPress. I wonder if anyone still uses writes “Facebook” as “FaceBook”, I use to remember a few people who did that. Same with YouTube. Was WordPress use to be known as WordPress? Gotta watch this video, watching this video linked here. I wonder if there are any Facebook update. I wonder if those bloggers have anything new posted – tab up! Note to self: write blog post. I got ideas right? Well, probably come to me when it comes to me. Crap, I got to pack for that trip. Huh, the more I think about it my neighbourhood is pretty good to hide in the zombie apocalypse. Assuming each building houses an average family and most buildings are detached so they can’t jump and get me. Being a Canadian, so firearms are going to be hard to find. Unless someone on my street secret has a firearm or a police car happened to stop right there before the end of the world. Though it would be semi-likely to find a cop car within 4 blocks from me. If there isn’t a cop car, there are a couple school nearby. I could raid the janitorial closets for a shovel or something. Maybe fashion myself a spear with safety scissors. Hah! Most people would say large populated areas are pretty bad for a zombie apocalypse so the local malls are out of the question which sucks since there’s just a large gold mine of materials to loot if it came down to it. Probably for the best is to gather food and materials and go self-sustaining.The local supermarkets sell seeds so get a small wind turbine or something steam powered for an underground or backyard greenhouse and surplus power for anything interesting. There should be a game like that. Just a video game where you gather junk and craft it into barricades and stuff to survive a zombie apocalypse. There use to be a television reality series on Discovery, The Colony. If there was a video game, it should be closely to that. Huh, I remember there use to be a season 2 of that show; did they every make a third? Google it! Well, I spent a good 6 hours on YouTube and still nothing done today. I feel like playing video games.

Without reason or provocation, I would sometimes have some good ideas and sometimes my head feels like it’s riffing random thoughts and things I should do. I can’t stop myself aside from drowning my thoughts with music or just trying to hang on working on one task. Even with that, my mind can permeate through the noise. Whatever you want to call it, right or wrong, that is me and that makes me unique.

Going On, Going Strong

After 200 posts with almost 80 subscribers, I can say it’s fairly unexpected anyone would hear a lowly voice. Starting this blog had only one goal in mind, an outlet. I always come up with ideas and opinions that strike serendipitously and the forays into games which lead me to this very point where I am content with what I have. It’s small following, but no doubt I am very thankful I have this very opportunity to share to the world at large what I think about it and what I think about myself. I don’t expect to possess the best material on WordPress, but I do want to try and aim for the best material I can ever provide. As for number 200, lets celebrate it by bringing back my old Twitter account? Yeah, why not!

Thanks for those of you following, liking, and subscribing; here’s to 200 more posts!

It’s on me, folks!!! (Pssssst…it’s a giveaway…)

This is a shout out to Bolawan@bolawon in game for suggesting convincing me to do another giveaway in Star Trek Online. Also I’m getting my DS9 Bundle this week, so I thought I would celebrate by passing off some stuff to your guys.

I’ve been trying to think of what I could do this time around, so I’m planning on doing a bunch of things beside tossing freebies at your faces. Here’s a couple things I kind of want to do for the giveaway (events aren’t going to be in order, just stuff going around the game)…

  • Give stuff away (duh)
  • AMA (ask me anything) session (PG 13 please!!)
  • Storyline missions teams
  • Chat sessions
  • Bum fights?

The Giveaway

Of course the first bullet point is easy, I just want to be damn generous and give people stuff. This ranges between stuff for your ships or stuff for yourself. I’ve arranged them in these packages (Quantity):

  • Ground pack (1)– Mk XII weapon, a stack of hypos and energy cells. If you are too low level to use the weapon, you’ll get an another stack of hypos and energy cells or a ship console (I’ll ask you in game).
  • Ship pack (1)– A stack of Shield, Weapon, Auxiliary batteries.
  • Stack of 20 energy cells (3)
  • Stack of 20 hypos (4)
  • Random Mk X and up ship consoles
  • Random amount of Energy Credits (ranging from 100 – 100,000)
  • Other stuff (Placeholder for stuff not related to the stuff above, no lockboxes of course…)

This is kind of a first come first serve, but it would be pretty random on what you can get. One prize per account, just so everyone gets a chance for a bit of something. If you like, you can give away stuff to other people. Just trade with them or mail it to them.

Ask Me Anything/Chat Session

One thing I kind of want to do is an AMA like Reddit. Also I’m lazy for Reddit, so doing it in STO for the sake of doing it in STO. I’ll have a channel up and we’ll meet up, info on the bottom. Of course you don’t have to be in the zone with everyone else, but I kind of like to see where everyone is at in game in terms of customization and stuff. You can use this time to just address random thing about STO or my blog. Of course certain rules apply to the AMA and the chat session:

  • Questions should be PG 13
  • Show some respect; no racial, harassment, spam.
  • No spamming for giveaway prizes (because that’s spam too…)

Currently I think socials zones have a cap of 30-ish people or something, so people getting into the same zone to check me out might be hard to do.

LFT’s

Of course Star Trek isn’t Star Trek  without getting a team of people together and doing stuff. So I’ll announce accepting LFT’s, 5 random players will be selected to join me to go gallivanting around the galaxy. From killing Klingons to obliterating the Borg. Though a few ground rules:

  • No fleet actions, STF’s and Vault events.
  • If you leave after invite, you’re place is taken by a random person.
  • I get a say out of the missions people want to do (If they want to do a mission, help them out. You might get some loot at out of it).

Ye Olde Fisticuffs (AKA Bum fights)

From my last giveaway, I had some time to look around Andoria. So I’m thinking, lets do it again. This time no weapons or abilities, just straight up punching each other. You may even receive a prize from me if you show me your prowess in pugilism. Some ground rules so we can try and get some legitimate PvP going:

  • You may keep your armour on
  • No healing and no weapons (not even melee)
  • Prizes award randomly for the sake of fair giveaway-ness

Information – Where, when, how, what

When is the event?

Starts at 5 PM Eastern Standard Time and will continue like an epic party! (Woop woop!!)

Where will this giveaway start?

I’ll be at Starfleet Academy, wandering about and chatting to people on our private channel.

Oh em geez, private channel. How can I join this channel?

Right click your chat bar and go to your Channels tab, from there type the channel name and click Join. I’ll post the channel at the end of this post. You will need this channel for AMA and any info of where I am in game…and to chat with people doing the same thing.

Hey, can I get something?

Come on Friday and see if you can walk away with a bit of something.

TIME: Friday October 5, Starts at 5:00 PM EST and ends until I pass out or get sleepy

WHERE: Starfleet Academy and other places (ESD, DS9, and anywhere you can beam down and chat)

CHAT CHANNEL: RomeosRompRoom

HOST: Romeo@Shooter-90 (That’s me!)

 

See you all on Friday!! Warp speed…awwwwaaaayyyyyyy!!!!!