A Bygone Era

It's a little odd that my daughter's first obsession with a show was Thomas the Tank Engine. I've never ridden on a train in my entire life. Considering I see them tearing up old tracks constantly it's extra likely that she won't ever ride in a train as well, unless it is older-looking one for attractions and such.

They've been tearing up the tracks on one of my paper routes out in the country. Early this morning when I came through I stopped and grabbed one of the railroad spikes from the pile they'd left. I'm not entirely sure why, but I thought Emmy might like to see it. A souvenir I guess.

When she was talking about it with me she said she would never be able to ride on a train and I had to explain to her that trains still exist but she will likely ride on a very different kind of train. They won't use metal spikes pounded into huge blocks of wood, but all metal tracks.

Part of me wants to find the oldest train still running and get my family onto it before they break it up for scrap metal. It's not even nostalgia, just a weird sense of regret over the passing of an era in transportation. Things get old and lose their usefulness, man. It's kinda sad.

Um, uh, you know, like

Earlier when the power went out for three and a half hours, I used the time to edit a podcast I'd recorded with a friend more than a month ago and had been sitting on. Most of the time when I record a podcast it is only me. I sit down, talk about five different bands, and then stop. After I cut out the large gaps of silence where was thinking about what to say about the next song the entire thing is maybe five minutes. I do a little bit of editing to cut out any egregious moments of awkwardness or long pauses, but for the most part I just make sure it sounds good and start to edit in the music.

This time, though, it had been so long since we'd recorded and we were a good six minutes over the normal length of my podcast, so I decided to go through the entire thing and cut unnecessary stuff as I went. I've gotta tell you, I was not expecting to discover just how stinking much I say, "Um." It's a lot. Like, a lot a lot. If it isn't um there is also a healthy peppering of "Uh," "you know," and the occasional "like." It's pretty awful.

I knew I filled in gaps with those annoying words, but going through a half an hour's worth of my speech over the course of several hours just threw a magnifying glass on exactly why I do it. When I talk my mind wanders ahead of my mouth and I get side-tracked. The "Um" fills the gap between the time I realize my brain has gotten off course and when I get it back on the path. That's pretty clear because the other annoying habit I have that makes for more editing work is leaving significant gaps in between words.

If I'm going to be recording and editing more talk-centric episodes of my podcast I really should learn to stop trying to fill in these gaps. My first idea was shock collar based but I'm not sure if that would help keep my brain on the right track. I'd likely just be thinking about getting shocked the whole time.

Ice Storm

We've had some interesting weather on account of Michigan not being able to figure out what season it is. After a few days of a warm 60 degrees and sun, it plummeted back down to the 20s and started raining. For the most part I hate freezing rain and ice storms as they've become common here and are usually awful to drive in, but this one wasn't too bad. It did still bring with it the one thing I like about ice storms: all the beauty of ice-covered nature and objects. Something always struck me with that, so I thought I'd take a bunch of pictures this morning while feeding the horses. Now, I'm not a photographer, and I only used my phone's crappy 3.2 megapixel camera, but maybe you'll enjoy them as well.

The slippery walkway to the barn.

The ice-covered tree in front of the barn.

Out by the horses the rain apparently froze as it bounced off the ground.

The ice had weighed down the electric fence significantly. I had to yank the bottom rung up from the ground and put it back on the plastic holder, which snapped off as I tried.

The water running off the roof made an icy mess of this corner.

A close-up of the tree branches.

And the old truck.

Interview with Emmy #2

I've gotta catch up on my One A Day posts, so I put it to Twitter to ask Emmy some more questions. This time I recorded her responses. Commence with your "Aaaaawwwww"s and such.

I Apologize for Filler

Doing this One A Day thing has left me completely without ideas sometimes. So, I just write some filler content and call it good. I'm not proud of it, but it gets the day done.

I've had this personal blog for as long as I've had Cerebral Pop, and even longer than I've been writing for Bitmob, yet, it mostly sat unused. Something would happen to me, or I'd want to get my feelings about something off of my chest and into words, and I would procrastinate doing it until the words had long since passed me by. 

When I started writing it was entirely for myself and it made me feel good when I was down in the dumps. But as Cerebral Pop grows its stopped scratching that itch, as I have weekly features to tackle and reviews to write and deliver back to PR companies. So, over time I've stopped thinking of writing as something I do for myself to get things off my chest, and something more like a job (even though it has yet to pay me).

Signing up for the One A Day Project was my way of forcing myself to stop procrastinating and actually write about personal stuff as it happens to me. That being said, I have a boring life. Sometimes I have no idea what I can write about. I stared at the screen for hours last night trying to come up with something and I only ended up with those two sentences of pure filler. I guess I could just write about video games or something, but I always envisioned my One A Day posts as being completely about my life or how I feel about other things going on in the world, and if possible I'd like to keep them that way.

That might mean that I write pointless filler sometimes because I'm out of ideas, but the simple fact that I have to write every single day means that when something actually does happen I'll have it cataloged. I'm proud of a lot of the posts I've written for the One A Day Project. Not because they are expertly written, because editing and grammar is the last thing I care about on this blog, but because they are a still frame of my life. They capture a moment that my stupid forgetful brain would normally just let fade away. It's like a public diary; Even if no one else is interested, I'd like to look back at this stuff in the future.

So, if for some reason you're also interested in my personal life and feelings about things, then I apologize for all the filler. At least a couple times a week I tend to write something that I'm really glad I put to words, and maybe you'll enjoy that as well. In the future, I'll try to keep the filler a bit more relevant by peppering in things like "Things Emmy Says" or an "Interview with Emmy." Something that doesn't require a lot of thought, but I can still look back on and get something out of it.

Sue Me

I've starting trying to write my one a day article at about 6 pm. It is now almost 9:30 pm and I haven't written a thing. I might be out of ideas. I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Away

I spent almost the entire day off of the Internet and without Twitter on.

That was weird, huh?

I mostly worked on a car. Like, I was manly or something. Don't worry, I don't get it either. I'm just gonna go to sleep now.

Pooping

I enjoy sitting down to take a load off just as much as any other man, but I might go overboard sometimes. Often, I sit on the toilet until my legs fall asleep, reading a magazine, playing a handheld game, or surfing the Internet. When I got my laptop, there was a good month where I refused to have it cross the line into the bathroom with me. Eventually, I broke that rule, and I've never looked back.

Now I have the entire world at my fingertips while I expel the evil from my rectum. I just hope none of the process transfers from my fingertips to the entire world.

The only bad thing about pooping is the clean-up process, and that's the part I like to put off for as long as possible. It's like prolonging an orgasm. I sit down and have an immensely satisfying poop, then I put off the unsatisfying part of it until the act of putting it off actually becomes a nuisance. When the tingling in my legs is too much, the cleaning up of my bottom no longer seems that bad of a task.

Look, we all know that you watched that episode of Home Improvement where Tim Allen shows of the Man's Bathroom and thought, "Hell yes!" Don't even try to judge me.

By the way, I wrote all of this while I was putting off the clean-up process. Now, to get to work.

Not Enough Time

I barely have enough time to do my online duties these days what with all the car stuff going on, so this is going to be extremely short and completely random.

Emmy opened her little mini-trampoline tonight. She seems to like it alright.

Um, I'm just going to go to bed and regroup in the morning. I'm sorry you had to read this.

The Handheld Wars: Which to Choose?

It used to be I never played handheld games. Nowadays it's much easier for me to play a handheld game than it is a console game, given my work schedule, the child, and everything else I've elected to do with my free time. It's so much easier to be able to play a game on the couch, on the can, or while walking out to the kitchen to make sure Emmy isn't making a mess than it is to confine myself upstairs for an hour or more.

Only, my PSP-1000 is broken, and my old, ugly, fat DS leaves much to be desired, and is also falling apart. So this year I want to spend my Speedway Rewards points, or maybe a small part of our tax return, on a new, shiny handheld to do my gaming on. Problem is, I can't decide. Here are the pros and cons of all the possibilities I've thought about. Feel free to help me decided by adding your own perceived pros or cons in the comments. If I agree, I'll add them. HELP!

Nintendo 3DS

Pros
Concrete price that I can manage.
Should have enough Speedway points by the time it's released.
New. Shiny.

Cons
The 3D might annoy me until I turn it off, making it pointless.
No games in launch window that I need to have.
I didn't actually buy and play a lot of DS games with my DS Fat.
$40 - $50 games is something I'd always avoid. I'd wait for them to be $20 and then forget.

Sony NGP

Pros
Newer. Shinier.
I loved my PSP because of the downloadables. $6 PS1 RPGs were great.

Cons
My 30-40 UMD games will be useless.
If it's more than $250, I'd feel like shit for paying it.

Used PSP-3000

Pros
I already have a ton of UMD games, many that I haven't played.
Cheap.
Tons of cheap UMD games I never bought.
Can still play new games put up on PSN.

Cons
Not new. Probably not shiny.

iPod Touch

Pros
Possibly cheap if I buy used old model.
Bunch of super cheap games.

Cons
I'm completely sick of having to get my current iPod fixed.
Unlike some people, I like having a full-blown game experience on a handheld.

Interview with Emmy

As I was sitting here trying to think of what to write about, Emmy was pestering me to watch videos on YouTube of that talking dog, Mishka. So I thought I'd just ask her some questions and write down the results. Bonus questions from Twitter!


What's your favorite color?


I can't tell you.

Why can't you tell me?


Because.

Because why?


Because I can't.

Is it a secret?


Uh uh, it's a surprise.

What's it a surprise for?


It's for that we come up and give somebody it.

Um ok, can you tell me your favorite toy?


Um yes, my favorite toy is a duck. A present duck.

What's the difference between a boy and a girl?


I don't know.

You don't know?


Uh uh. Please can I watch the dog talking?

OK, fine.

---

Twitter Questions

Why can't you look at the sun?

Because it's dark.

What is a Unicorn made of?

I don't want to say a unicorn!

Why not?

Because.

You don't like unicorns?

I like some but not a lot.

What's it like to be happy?

What's more awesome, bunnies or kittens?

Why? Bunnies or kittens. I don't know.

Where do fairies come from?

No one.

Emmy Pics and Captions

I have a lot of pictures and videos of Emmy. Like, more than 365. So I figured I'd cheat a little and just share those today.

Just after she was born. She's only a day old in this video.

I'm reminded of that one scene from A Christmas Story.

"A citizen in distress! I'm off!"

"My toupee looks like what?"

"Why of course I'll give you a hug, Mr. President! There's no need to give me an award."

TV Remote pictured with baby, for size comparison.

"You're only just now feeding me this?!"

"CAN I GET A PRICE CHECK ON A TRANQUILIZED BABY ELEPHANT?!"

"Know what I mean? *wink* Hold up, gotta sneeze."

Sunday Free Writing: Sub-Zero and Long Games

I never have anything good to write about on Sundays, and even when I do it gets lost in the deadzone that is weekends on the Internet, so I'm going to do free writing most Sundays from now on. It's nice and easy because then I have an excuse to jump between topics seemingly at random. Plus, I never edit these one a day posts anyway.

Last night it was -13 degrees Fahrenheit almost the whole time I was delivering papers. It was cold enough that my car couldn't seem to handle the cold and puttered a little bit at stops until a ways through my route when it had more time to warm up. My father-in-law keeps saying I should already be thinking of trading it in for another car, just over a year since I got it. What with all the abuse I put it through doing papers it might be a good idea, but I just can't wrap my head around getting another car before I've even paid off the loan on the one I own. I tend to hold onto my cars until the last part falls off. But then, I haven't really liked this car since the day I got it, so I wouldn't mind getting a new one so soon.

I've finally started that one resolution to make a dent in my backlog of games and popped in Dead Space. I'm enjoying it, but was a little put off when I realized that it's been taking me about an hour to get through each chapter in the game, and according to the trophies there are 12 chapters to finish. I wrote about having trouble finding time to play games the other day, so I'm kind of worried I'll get bored with the game if I can't beat it quick enough. Most people take a week or two to play through a game of that length, but with my sporadic gaming schedule it can take me more than a month sometimes. Now that Emmy is older it's a little easier, but sometimes I feel like the last 3 or 4 hours in a game is just a slog to the end that I'm not enjoying, I just want to finish it. Hopefully I can put a bow on Dead Space before that ends up happening.

Podcasting Professional

Yesterday I officially released the first episode of my own real podcast. Yeah, I know, everyone has one of those, but it still feels kind of cool. Think of it like a personal goal of mine. A small goal. It wasn't a life goal or anything, just something I thought might be cool. You know?

Back when I started papers I had to find something to help pass the time. For awhile it was music. I'd download several albums a day, but finding stuff that I liked enough to keep listening to wasn't as common as finding something that was exhausted by the end of the day. So I moved onto audiobooks, which worked for awhile but on the weekends when I was tired they just weren't cutting it for keeping me awake.

The day I discovered podcasts was like the day Stone Cold Steve Austin discovered the Bible. I was hooked. If it wasn't for podcasts I would have quit my job out of pure insanity long long ago. So it wasn't long before I started thinking about giving back to the podcasting world. After guesting on several other podcasts the urge to create my own grew.

Now that I have my own, I'm kind of addicted. I've been thinking about several others that I could make. I should probably just settle for the one right now, but we'll see how it goes.

P.S. You can subscribe, rate, and heap praise upon my podcast via this handy iTunes link right here, or this handy link to the write-up of the first episode.

Weekend Freewriting: Reddit Time Killing

Pete Davison commands, I obey. Let's try out this "freewriting" he speaks of.

Ready?

GO!

So I've been staring at a blank page for quite awhile and not really sure what to write about. I have several ideas written down, but I don't think I can do them justice on the weekend when I'm tired. Plus I'm out of the writing mood right now.

I've been killing a lot of time on Reddit lately. The funny section provides endless lawls. It's actually kind of amazing how many really smart people there are over there. I mean, for the Internet. A lot of times the actual link will be mildly amusing, and the stream of comments that follows will just escalate the hilarious. Every subsequent comment is even funnier, and just when the well of funny has run out the thread of replies ends. I find myself continually shocked that some moron doesn't shove his stupid joke in there at the exact wrong spot and kill all the funny that everyone else had built up.

And when I say smart, I mean on top of all the stupid humor that I find hysterical. They get in long debates over grammar, while at the same time mocking each other in the stupidest of ways. Someone posted a Facebook status update of a guy who spoke in an extremely pompous manner, and the first comment was pointing out a grammar mistake he'd made. From there, someone else pointed out a grammar mistake that they had made, and someone else pointed out one that that person had made, for about 6 people deep. It was pretty amusing, and no one ruined it.

I'm just a little intimidated to actually start commenting more myself. I mean, I can handle somebody pointing out a mistake I've made, but I feel like there is such a tightly wound community of people there, and they have so many in-jokes, that whatever I say will be turning on a bright beacon light to let them know what a n00b I am. Oh well, I don't really need to comment to enjoy all the hilarious stuff I find there.

New Laptop Help?

So here's what I've got from the Dell website. Can any tech people help tell me if this is good or if I should be adding something better. I'm going to be using it primarily for writing and Internet surfing, but I might dabble in audio/video editing, as well as some light gaming (Portal, Torchlight, etc.). I'd love for it to last me a good 3-4 years, if not longer, without the need of any major upgrades.

What I have right now is $599.99, which is about my price range, but feel free to explain to me why I need a better whatever and why I'm overpaying for a whatever.

This is the one I started with, and the only thing I changed was bumping up the video card to the next tier: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dndozm2&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19

PROCESSOR	Intel® Pentium® Dual Core™ T4400 (2.2GHz/800MHz FSB/1MB cache)	edit
OPERATING SYSTEM	Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English	edit
	Dell Recommends Transfer your data, music and photos to your new PC with the Belkin Easy Transfer cable. Upgrade to Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English, with Belkin Easy Transfer Cable [Add $29.99 or $1.00/month1]
WARRANTY AND SERVICE	1 Year Basic Service Plan	edit
	Dell Recommends Extended Service Plans cost less when you buy now with your system! Upgrade now to a 2 Year Basic In-Home Service Plan* *Important Info Upgrade to 2 Year Basic Service Plan [Add $69.00 or $3.00/month1]
MEMORY	4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz	edit
HARD DRIVE	320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)	edit
BATTERY OPTIONS	6-cell battery	edit
	Dell Recommends Be Mobile Longer with a Stronger Battery! Upgrade to 9-cell battery [Add $45.00 or $2.00/month1]
INTEGRATED WEBCAM	Integrated 1.3 MP Webcam	edit
WIRELESS CARDS	Dell 1397 Wireless-G	edit
VIDEO CARD	256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330	edit
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE	8X CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)	edit
SOUND OPTIONS	High Definition Audio 2.0

In the Interest of Accountability

I think I need some organization in my life, or more specifically, my writing. So, here is the schedule I will attempt to stick to. Please, feel free to hold me accountable if I should deviate from it.

With the intention of finally getting some of the countless ideas I have on my clipboard of notes fleshed out into full articles, and keeping my name in the video game journalism realm of the online world, I'll hopefully unleash a new article each Monday. This will give me the whole week and weekend to pound out a rough draft and then revise many times, which should help my writing. These articles should go on both Cerebral Pop and Bitmob, and I'm going to have to get better about then submitting them to sites like Reddit, Digg (If it'd ever work for me), StumbleUpon and N4G.

For now I am going to continue doing The Kongregate Mob over on Bitmob every Tuesday, but I hope it will pick up some momentum in the coming weeks.

Every Friday I'll do an Insufficient Funds post at Cerebral Pop, hopefully in the morning for maximum hit potential before the weekend crawl.

Mixed in between those three assignments, I'd like to post at least three articles on Examiner and this here personal blog. At least one in each place, and an extra for whichever has more activity that week -- my personal life, or the video game news realm.

So there you go. Keep in mind, all of this is on top of Backlog Brigade, and my as of yet unannounced Bitmob project. Though, I can't guarantee I won't fall off the wagon a bit during the weeks when both of those things hit.

Wish me luck. Oh, and I'll try to remember to do a song a day on my Tumblr each and every day as well.