grrr...

I am not a happy kitty tonight. Rant time, kids.

It’s been a real struggle lately to get everything done. It feels like I’m trying to live about three different lives and be at least that many people. While there are definitely benefits to that, it means that nothing gets done quite as well as I’d like it to.

Tonight was my last chance to get shots of the SCA fight practice for my photography assignment. One roll from last week got trashed, which leaves me only one to work from. Not enough. Despite the weather being utter shit (two days of fog gave way to five minutes of pouring slush) I went to pick up Joe.

I made it about two blocks down Summit.

It’s level where I live, but slants steeply downhill after that. The steepest place is by the 7-11, but I wasn’t even that far when I completely lost control and slid, gaining speed on the slope. I stared directly into the headlights of an oncoming pick-up truck, which was also out of control. I helplessly pounded the breaks and calmly wondered, “Is this going to hurt?”

The woman driving the pick-up threw it into reverse and managed to get half onto the sidewalk. I thudded into the snowy curb, unscathed but rattled, literally an inch from the right side of her truck. Both of us thought we’d impacted, though her first words were, “Oh, it’s okay honey. Don’t worry about it.”

I stood there shaking, and she lit up a cigarette. We watched another car hit the same patch of ice she had, sliding to within two inches of the truck. Anyone coming up or down the hill probably figured it was a three-way collision, which made it almost funny that we hadn’t so much as touched bumpers.

I wasn’t entirely sure my legs were going to hold me, but didn’t want to let that on. So I dug out the family cell phone. I’d half expected to get stuck at the bottom of the hill on my way back. Hadn’t even occurred to me I wouldn’t make it down.

While I phoned my father, which I regretted about five minutes later, I watched a car reach the point I’d lost control. The car spun, shuddered, and then did a complete 180. Backwards, it skated gracefully into the sidewalk below us. The next guy made it past by driving on the far sidewalk, but the one after twisted and got stuck in the snow.

I’m not sure how many people were stuck. Ten or so cars with flashing lights visible just on the visible curve of Summit. The occasional person was still sneaking through, but those of us on the sidewalk and road had to keep dodging skidding cars. At some point, a city bus put its flashers on and gave up. I called emergency city services, who said a sand truck couldn’t get through… because there were too many cars stuck in the way. Hello, irony.

I got out my camera and loaded it with the film I’d packed for the SCA. Not easy to do with frozen fingers. Then I shamelessly wandered through the snow, taking pictures. I really doubt anything looks like more than a bunch of blurs. Nothing I could use to replace the shots I’m not getting tonight, at any rate.

Instead of calling a damn tow-truck like I asked (as if one would have made it) my father walked down. The man has the survival instincts of a fucking lemming. But he thinks he’s immortal, or at least so damn good that he won’t get hurt. Never mind the permanent limp. When he casually crossed the ice slicked road in front of an oncoming car, which wasn’t in control, another woman covered her eyes and said “oh, Jesus…”

He decided, despite the protests of everyone around… including the owners of the truck and car I was tangled with, that he’d drive up on the curb and around the car. The truck had been pushed back enough to allow people to walk between them. Not much more than that.

I tried to talk him out of it, but got yelled at. Everyone kind of shut up at that point. Not going to argue with the pissed off old German guy who isn’t hearing shit, I suppose. He managed not to hit anyone, which was a bloody miracle, and made him disgustingly smug. I didn’t want to get in the car, but it’s not like I had a choice in the matter. He pulled into the bumper-car ice rink that Summit had become – ignoring my plea of “but there’s a car coming!”

I really hate him sometimes. And not just because he was a complete asshole to me when I was a kid. I hate him because he’s still a complete asshole.

Then had just had to make the comment; “See? You need more experience to drive in winter.” Like I’m sixteen or something. I kind of lost my temper at that point. His driving scares the hell out of me on a good day, and he wrapped that same car around a streetlight last year. But of course, if I do the same thing, it’s because I was careless or driving too fast.

So now I’m stuck at home, feeling more trapped than ever, and sulky about the missed photo opportunity. I don’t know what I’m going to do for photography class. I have maybe three useable shots from last week.

*growl*

Sorry Joe. I know you wanted to go play swishy-poke with the rapier fighters. If Eileen gives me an extension, we can go next week. Meanwhile, I’m going to listen to really loud goth-metal and pretend that I’m not indulging in teenage angst.

snow

Now I remember why I fled to Victoria when I was 18.

(I looked at the list of pros and cons for each post-secondary I was accepted at, saw the one that said "no snow" and said "y'know what, I'm going there." Seriously. I hadn't even seen the ocean in my life at that point, but the coast was looking really good while I shivered in Kamloopsian winter.)

It's been a really mild winter so far. It's not even all that cold... which is kind of the problem. When it started snowing, the flakes hit the road and dissolved. Then it started stacking. At least, that's what it did here. I live about half way up the hill... it probably was raining downtown and icing over in Aberdeen. The roads were slippery when I drove my brother to the autism meeting tonight. By the time we left, the roads were practically undrivable.

It took at least half an hour to get home, stuck in a car with my brother, with whom I am not close. I had to put the blinkers on and creep up the hill, skidding as much to the side as forward, fighting for every foot of the way up Summit. People with 4 wheel drive got to barrel up the middle of the road, while the rest of us crept upwards, hoping to god no one would stop and cost us all forward momentum.

In a word, sucky.

But snow is pretty. And it feels nice, crunching under foot and gathering in my hair. I'd planned to go to Ruckers, but since I wasn't willing to drive again, I took my parents' dog and went for a walk.

Or tried to. I think we need a new dog. This one is broken. He bounced along, in that way standard poodles do, until we got out of sight of the house. Then he sat down in the snow and absolutely refused to budge.

Totally freaking useless. I tried to coax him forward, yanked on the leash, pushed him, cajoled him, and even tried to bribe him. He just sat and looked up at me with mortally sad eyes. While he's probably better behaved than either of his poodle-predecessors, he's a sad disappointment as a snow dog. Casey was always up for a snow fight, and Marcus used to steal my mittens and roll in the snow. Lucas... Lucas just sat down and waited for me to take him home.

At any rate, I now have had my fill of snow. Less than three weeks till I can visit Victoria and get away to a place that has the decency to rain.

geek culture

I feel like I lost a day... Monday isn't supposed to be tomorrow.

Of course, the way the migraines are going, I pretty much did lose a day. I'm on stuff that's supposed to help prevent the migraines (pills incidentally make me mildly allergic to sunlight) but in the last week or so, I've had two hospital-worthy headaches.

If you know any good folky stuff for treating headaches, send me an e-mail. Chances are I know it already, but I'm willing to try just about anything at this point.

Despite a very rough night yesterday, I did manage to put in more hours than I'll ever own up to on my webpage this weekend. I'm cautiously proud of the result. I like webdesign... it's mathematical art. I wrote a lot of fluff for it, but didn't have a lot of pictures, and I think my layout compensates nicely. I'd like to do more on it, but maybe there'll be time for that later.

While I was mucking around trying to find a good quote about being geeking to fill a blank spot on my page, I found a blog story about the commodification of geek culture called Geek Culture, Geek Girls: Crippling Homogeneity. Interesting thoughts... and the part about girl geeks is true in a cringe-worthy kind of way. We tend to get shoved into the sidekick/mommy/trophy role. However, slagging Think Geek, even indirectly, gets a resounding "booooo" from me.

gomen nasai!

Yeah, I know I don't update often enough. I keep meaning to do a substantial kind of post, but then I'm always so brain dead it falls to the side. My friend Joe, however, has been doing some interesting stuff over at his blog End of Times. If he ever moved away from the hard sciences and concentrated on writing, I fear I would be seriously outmatched.

Current projects include a webpage, a story on autistic kids in school, and a bunch of editting. I'm also starting to get anxious about getting an internship. I'd really like to use that as a way to get back to Victoria, but I know first-hand inhospitable the job market is there. Plus UVic has it's own J-School, which means all of those students will have an edge. That means I have to think about moving again or trying to stay here.

Anyway, enough whiny stuff. I'm going to be spending most of the weekend in the school lab, trying to finish off my absurd webpage and the autism story. I'm too much of a perfectionist about it, I know, but I'm assured this sort of thing builds character.

an update

My computer is working again, though it’s a little depressing feeling as though I’m using someone else’s system. Without all my bookmarks and settings, it’s kind of like having a favourite pair of shoes replaced by ones that don’t fit as well.

Fortunately, most of my important files were saved, though I lost a fair chunk of mp3s along the way. I also have to download and reinstall a lot of software. It’s so easy to take things like Quicktime and Winamp for granted till you don’t have them. I’d also have to go through lengthy install times to put City of Heroes, Dark Age, ATiTD, or FFXI back on the hard drive. However, I don’t think I’ll bother. I haven’t had time to play games since before midterms, much as I miss my gamer friends in Victoria.

Digital Times is the publication we put together in Online Journalism. I did the weak little shrine (er… digest) about anime and the blogging thing. Oh well. It’s better than the unspeakable thing I built at Geocities during the off hours at Core Games. Definitely not as good as Squibbles site back when he was updating it. You can still find some of my craptastic reviews from years ago. You can blame me for the zen rating system.

For the next issue of Digital Times, I’m doing more anime and probably something on local autistic kids. I’ve also got a story on the SCA underway. They’ve been wonderfully cooperative and friendly towards me, even threw some armour on me and handed me a sword. Wenching sounds like fun, though I think I’d rather hit people with sticks.

computer problems

My computer randomly stopped working today while I was out. I'd been out swimming, and when I came back, and the monitor was blank. After some fruitless poking, I got my brother (the autist savant type) to look. He proclaimed the registry to be corrupt.

Now, I'm not much on computer tech stuff. But I know enough to understand that's really, really bad. All my creative writing efforts, plus most of my journalistic endeavours are on that harddrive, along with several years worth of collected art and "teh funney."

I'm in a state of surly mourning at the moment. Since we can't find the recovery disk, I'll be getting professional help tomorrow. Needless to say, this couldn't come at a WORSE time... I have so many assignments on the go right now that extensions won't help, because they'd extend into time I need for other assignments.

I hate the world today. Growl.

blogging

Here ya go. One story on blogging. When I get time (this week is extremely stressful for me) I'll fill in all the hyperlinks that got lost in the cut-and-paste.

Blogging: Pop Culture Communication

For Arjun Singh, it started as a way to record a trip to India so that friends and family could share his experiences. A year later, his personal blog, Chunky Ji’s Journal, is still his “online playground” and has readers from all over the Kamloops area.

Singh’s blog now touches on local politics, international affairs, and personal reflections. Unlike a professional news site, Singh doesn’t just report the facts. He discusses them, offers his view, and encourages response from his readers. He also provides hyperlinks to the sources that help him form his viewpoints. Most importantly, to Singh, the comment feature allows conversations to develop about the subject.

It’s the personal touch of blogging that appeals to Singh. “[Blogs] are essentially
very human. A good blog does not sound at all fake or contrived… Traditional media is becoming perhaps too formulaic and stiff. A good blog is like a good column. There is some colour to it and lots of personality.”

To express his interest with technology, Singh also created Friendly Technology, a blog focused solely on technological innovation. The uncluttered way Singh discusses technology makes it accessible to all types of people, and has lead to an international readership. Further, it has resulted in some interesting offers. “[I’ve been] approached a couple of times to write for larger technology blog projects. And that has been a little humbling.”

Marvin Beatty, a former UCC student, also blogs regularly. He describes his blog as a way of expressing his creativity. InstaMarv, features golfing news, commentary on the local environment, and personal insights. He uses both text and pictures to convey his view of the world.

Beatty says, “I didn’t appreciate [Kamloops] as much when I grew up here but now I do. In a sociological sense, I do post info about day-to-day activities like my recent job search, fishing trips, etc…so a bit of a Kamloops ‘feel’ must rub off on the site.”

Beatty’s goal isn’t to attract crowds of viewers, though he enjoys having an audience. The creation of the blog itself is satisfying. “It is simply an outlet for creativity. I enjoy playing with the layout of it and seeing what other bloggers do.”

Using a site like Blogs Canada, or a generalized search engine like Google, it’s a simple matter to find thousands of blogs on a vast range of topics. Some are online diaries, while others focus on a concept. The most popular blogs are a combination. Personal comments make it easy to see the writer as a real person, even a friend, unlike the impersonal figures who report for the newspaper or television.

Further, while a magazine or book is unresponsive, most blogs allow comments and e-mail access to the writer. It’s such humanity that makes blogs popular, and it’s the ease of making one that’s allowing their numbers to rapidly increase.

While many people use blogs as a form of creative expression, celebrities can also use blogs as a way of reaching out to their fans. Michael Moore started a blog to document his thoughts and experiences on his “Slacker Uprising” tour. He includes some personal notes, as well as the expected political rantings, and pictures taken along the tour. Actor Wil Weaton has been maintaining a blog since 2001, and author Neil Gaiman uses his to keep in touch with his fans. Blogs allow them to step outside of offical media channels and communicate on their own schedule.

From the Christian blog site Bene Diction to the cooking blog Kitchen Geek, blogs use the internet to spread information, ideas, and foster communities across distance. Politicians use them for propaganda, celebrities use them as a casual way of interacting with fans, and writers of all types use them to express their interests. Some blogs even feature music or photography as the major draw, instead of relying on text.

Blogs can be a way of connecting with friends, or communicating with like-minded strangers. Blogs often relay the kinds of personal perspectives that are left out of offical news reports. You can find news blogs, political blogs, personal blogs, even blogs with a distinct Kamloops flavour.

Starting a blog is easy, with free sites like Blogger and LiveJournal to hand you both space on the web and a template to display your words or pictures. Web design skills can help you personalize the appearance, but aren’t a prerequisite. Once you’ve got your blog template in front of you, pristine as a blank page in a notebook, only one question remains; what are you going to fill all that space with?