Lukewarm's LiveJournal

The essence of Beckett

2010-03-24T14:58:21Z

Our special little creature, Beckett, had one truly defining moment in the weeks we tried to mend his poor mind.

Meg's been known to leave things on the stove. She'll cover it, sure, but Beckett is resourceful.

She made some Kraft Dinner one night, and while you may think you know where this is going, it has a twist that is pure Beckett. I'd just come home from eating at The Keg with my family to celebrate my brother's time in the Brier. I'd brought a bag with a cut of prime rib that my father hadn't been able to eat, and I set it on the stove next to the KD.

In the minute it took me to say my greetings, Beckett had snuck in, and went after the prime rib. This is no surprise, but there wasn't any place for him to sit on the stove. What to do?

Beckett Logic was a remarkable thing. We found him with his front end in the Keg take-out bag, and his back end in the macaroni. He had removed the lid to make room for himself, and cheerfully settled his ass in the pasta.

This morning hit us with the painful proof that while we could heal his tail that he had savaged over a month ago, his mental state was never going to improve along with it. He would live either in a state of unnatural sedation, or constant panic and misery.

I can't express in words how lucky we were to know him. I can't even imagine the past 3 and a half years without him, and the thought of the future without him is the only thing that tempted my selfish nature to hold onto what was left. In the end, we set him free, and I will accept what grief I must to give him the peace he deserved.

I don't use LJ much, but I wanted to thank those of you who offered such kind words through my wife's journal in these past difficult weeks. It means a lot to us.

How I'm Going to Get Rich - Pt 48

2009-08-18T20:30:04Z

I'm an "ideas" guy, which is what men say when they don't want to say "I'm lazy".

The good news is that my ideas are brilliant, and will make me a very rich man if I ever get around to implementing them. Of course I won't because, as I mentioned, I'm lazy.

I've shared some of my better ideas with people like Berny. He's great because he just adds more fantastic ideas to mine. I'll never forget the superhero restaurant we plotted out in Michigan one summer. Others, I'm keeping for myself.

It was on a recent 8 hour car trip that I began to formulate my most recent scheme: I'm going to make my own Space Camp for children and young adults. You may be thinking that this would cost a lot of money up front, and require the input of people more highly educated than myself, but the brilliant part about this Space Camp is that it really won't. This is not any ordinary Space Camp I'm dreaming of, but one that will have as its target market the offspring of concerned, overbearing, under-informed parents. The entire purpose of the camp will be to indoctrinate young people so that they come out believing that space is far too dangerous, and that they should never go there.

I'm going to call it Abstinence-Only Space Education.

I will not teach any theories on rocketry, aviation, zero-grav safety, or practical astronautical skills. I will purchase a one-room schoolhouse, a whiteboard, and an overhead projector (do they still make overhead projectors?). With these tools, I will instill my campers with a deep sense of fear and mystery about the horrors of space, so that by the time they leave, they'll never want to go there and fact-check my program. There are plenty of things that are scary about entering an airless vacuum in nothing but a explosion-propelled tin can and a pressure suit, so I won't even need to make things up for the most part, but if there are some hold-outs, I will invent terrible medical conditions such as "space-pox" to close the gap. I will stress that you can contract space-pox even if you only go into space one time. I haven't decided on the symptoms, but they will have to be some mixture of plausible, and scatological.

I should note that this is NOT a political statement, or a critique of modern western society. It's just a scam that I think could totally work. I might even get a government grant, which will go straight into my pocket, because as I said, I'm not going to purchase any equipment. I'll probably just get some sucker to donate what little I do need.

I know there is a chance that someone may see this some day and steal this amazing idea, but I'm willing to risk that to share it with you. By the way, if anyone wants to get in on the ground floor of this, and owns an overhead projector, please call me.

Moar like... uh.. LAMEbook! am i rite?

2009-07-17T22:24:12Z

The photo sharing from the Simms' wedding has, at least for the moment, re-ignited my interest in facebook. If you'd like to add me, and you're a friend (old, new, net, meatspace, whatever) I'd be happy if you'd comment here or send me a message and I'll tell you how to find me. Obviously my facebook's a bit less "anonymous" (if you can call this anonymous) than my LJ, but I'd be happy to add, as long as I know who you are.

Vroooom

2009-04-19T21:09:54Z

Here's my grandpa's old car, which is now mine. Clearly it's not THAT old, but I guess it's old enough to be from a time when people purchased cars made by Chrysler.

Zing!

1000 posts, bitches

2009-04-18T12:16:58Z

Nothing says "wasted opportunity" and "unapologetic inanity" like my (and almost every other) Livejournal. So I would like to celebrate my 1000th post with this, since the song has been in my head all morning:

Get off the roads

2009-04-16T01:10:13Z

I can now legally drive. You have been warned.

Giant frogs, giant frogs

2009-04-13T20:09:38Z

It's 5 degrees Celsius out, and hailstones are bouncing off the office windows.

I'm thinking of repenting.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-09T21:17:24Z

It looks like I'll be in Newfoundland this summer for at least one wedding. My cousin's getting married the weekend of August 9th, so I'll be in Corner Brook for that. I may even travel with family to St. John's for the week after.

I'm still trying to make it in July too, but we'll have to see how money is.

Ouch...

2009-04-09T21:00:16Z

Wow. Doing icon cleanup, I found that I still had my "Is Chris Benoit gonna have to choke a bitch?" gif.

I guess it's not quite as cute now as it was in 2006, huh?

Get on stage, and entertain me

2009-03-17T02:32:40Z

Last week was busy for us. We had two concerts to go to. On Thursday, we saw Great Big Sea at the Metro Center. Always fantastic live, and I highly recommend looking them up if you're one of the unfortunates who haven't been introduced to them. Spirit of the West opened for them, which gives me a great excuse to post this video. Our performance had far more Gumby-like dancing from the lead singer.

Monday night was Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe taping. Yes, I listen to CBC. He was fun, but his musical guests got the biggest responses. Meaghan Smith's been touring with him, and she was good enough that I'll pimp her quirky single. I dig the video.

The real star of the night was Matt Andersen, whose impossibly rotund frame barely contains his stockpile of weapons-grade talent. He's a New Brunswick blues artist, and he fucking annihilated in front of a crowd primarily made up of middle-aged-and-up public radio listeners. I can't find a worthy video of him performing "Ain't No Sunshine", so this original tune from the same tour I saw will have to suffice. This is "So Gone Now". He sold me a few iTunes song that night.

No I'm not cutting that. I'm going to bed, and your scrolling finger could use the exercise anyway.

A place for my stuff

2009-03-11T20:52:36Z

As I "grow up", I find that the only way in which I actually mature is by becoming more aware of what a doofus I am.

Does anyone else only enjoy shopping when they have NO money?

Shopping with money is nothing but stress for me. The mall is a nightmare of choices, and options, and things just beyond my reach. But with no money, there are no choices to make! I don't have to make one purchase, but sacrifice enough.

When I have no money, I buy whatever I want. If someone asks what I got at the mall, I say "Everything!". If they ask where it all is, I reply that it's back at the mall, and will go back and pick it up later.

When I'm broke, I'm not only so rich that I can buy everything I want, I can use the whole mall as my own personal storage space.

We're Science. We're all about coulda, not shoulda.

2009-02-09T23:38:43Z

An attempt to create the worst music in the world through "scientific" studies of what kinds of music people hate. EDIT: Now with 100% less fail

Disclaimer: My not actually contain music and/or science.

Video Game crap

2009-02-01T14:19:35Z

Finished Persona 4 a lot faster than I did 3. I think the more bite-size dungeons kept me from burning out. There was some JRPG obligatory ham-handed symbolism and tedious navel-gazing near the very end, but they kept it to a minimum and the story is more cohesive for it.

This Kotaku feature pretty much says it all, so I'll stop there.

I'm sitting here trying to decide on my vacation for the year. It's not going to be a trip-heavy year, so I've got some days to play with. I think I'll just take random week in June, and spend some time around town.

Thank God

2009-01-26T21:39:28Z

Now I may finally be able to get through this fucking book.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The book Jane Austin would have written, had she the technology to do so.

This will be the greatest improvement since Greedo shooting first.

siln @ 2009-01-14T22:48:00

2009-01-15T02:49:47Z

Geez, Patrick McGoohan AND Ricardo Montalban are both gone?

Is some sick entity striving to wipe out people who my generation has no business ever having heard of, but know anyway?

Sad panda.

Does this bowl-cut make me look fat?

2009-01-14T02:47:53Z

BRB, Persona 4 is owning all my free time @_@ I think it's also harder than 3 so far. So much grinding must I dooooo.

Get on the list

2008-12-19T22:28:16Z

It struck me as just a little bit pathetic that, while I get lots of emails wishing me Merry Christmas, a large amount of them come from video game companies from whom I've bought shit.

This got me thinking about mailing lists, and my wife mentioned that she once was on a pagan mailing list called "The Witch's Voice". I asked if "The Witch's Voice" ever went "Eeeee-Heee-hee-hee-hee-heeeeeee!"

Then I got an idea. I'm going to start my own mailing list.

My mailing list is called "The Ninja's Voice": You sign up once, and then you never hear from it again.

Feel free to sign up to my new list. All you have to do is email ninjalist@gmail.com.

Just don't expect a confirmation mail.

Won't you be my cube-mate?

2008-11-27T21:15:54Z

With the winter weather, I keep my nice shoes at the office now, and slip into them when I arrive, and out of them when I leave.

The odd thing is that it leads to this Mr. Rogers moment at the end of the day when I slip them off and put my sneakers on. I always hear the music playing in my head as I do that, and I feel like I should smile, and wave at everyone.

I'm not sure if that makes me harmless-weird, or serial-killer-weird.

I get the feeling that if it's the latter, my co-workers will be the first to find out.

ribbon filmography

2008-11-27T11:40:28Z

And now, your moment of zen.

Pickles

2008-11-18T01:09:01Z

Today I opened a pickle jar. It is the manliest thing I am likely to do this week.

As it ever was

2008-11-15T04:04:58Z

With WoW and EQ2 breaking new expansions this month, and LotRO apparently coming out with one soon, it's good to see Penny Arcade can keep it all in perspective.

I lol'd

The mailman luvs me!

2008-11-14T21:05:33Z

Thanks, Emi, for my first Christmas present of the season ;)

The books arrived safe and sound! I look forward to finally getting around to reading Terry Pratchett.. I'm such a negligent booknerd.

Expansion time!

2008-11-13T23:59:18Z

Yes, it's that time again, expansion mania is here, and we get new MMO content!

Yes, that's right, the new EverQuest II expansion hits on Tuesday!

PS, Does anyone remember that Warcraft MMO? Is that still going? I hear they haven't had an expansion in like, 3 fucking years.

HAR HAR, I'm so clever... :D ... O_O ... *runs away*

So, citrus.. we meet again.

2008-11-11T21:38:17Z

I am locked in deadly combat with a can of Five Alive.

So far it has me down by two rounds. I knocked it off my desk while moving the cat and made a mess on the floor. Juice is sticky, but I attacked swiftly with paper towels and a wet mop. I managed to save most of the juice.

After that, I sat down and went to take a sip, but the can had turned around in the scuffle, and I nearly poured it all down my shirt, trying to drink out of the wrong side.

It's a crafty can.

My wife asked why I had to keep full cans of liquid near the edge of my desk. She seems to think it's inviting disaster.

"Because," I explained, "there's no room for it anywhere in the MIDDLE of my desk."
"Then clean off your desk."
"I need everything on my desk."
"What about the tissue box? Does that need to be right on your desk?"
"Yes. I might need them if I spill Five Alive off the edge of my desk again."

Girls turn funny colors when I use my air-tight logic on them.

siln @ 2008-09-14T23:29:00

2008-09-15T02:30:14Z

Futureshop had Rock Band 2. Happy day!