37 posts tagged “myself”

On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you sing?

3

I had Friday off because I worked Labour Day Monday... actually, I may as well start with Wednesday since that seems to be when my birthday celebrations started.

Beatles: RB came out Wednesday, and Kathie had the entire week off for vacation (she booked it off a long time ago figuring we'd both have the week off, but A] I ran out of vacation time and B] I couldn't get it off anyway cause a coworker already booked that week off) so she said she'd pick it up.

So Kathie arrives at my place and brings in the big box and I ask how much it came to, and she hands me a birthday card which basically says her, Wayne & Steven chipped in to get me the set for my birthday.
I was like, "it's too much money!"
Kathie goes, "it was only $160" which I knew was way cheaper than it should have been, it's supposed to be $250
and I look again at the box and I'm like, "... you got the wrong one"
!!

There's 2 box sets for Beatles: RB... the Special Value Edition and the Limited Edition. "Special Value" is really not a deal - it's drums, guitar and mic, yes, but they're all Rock Band 1 instruments - wired guitar, wired drums, the ones I already had. Basically they're trying to get rid of RB1 instruments because they're never going to sell on their own. And they try to hide that fact because nowhere on the box does it show what instruments or say what instruments:
Special Value Edition box art

Whereas the Limited Edition has the Beatles instruments - basically RB2 (wireless) drums but with a slight decorative change, a Beatles (wireless) bass guitar, and a mic.
Limited Edition

So here it is, 5pm on day of release, were we going to find the Limited Edition set anywhere? I called Futureshop and only 2 stores in the lower mainland had any copies left. So we put one on hold at Scott Rd in Surrey and Kathie and Wayne went to pick it up.

They get back, we put the instruments together and start rocking out. It's just the 3 of us and none of us are singers so it's me on drums, Kathie & Wayne on guitar & bass. We already have a Beatles: RB day arranged for Friday, so this is just to play it on day of release.

As we all know and agree on, The Beatles are awesome. Rock Band is awesome. Put the 2 together and you got double awesomeness.

I think there's only 2 real changes between Beatles and regular Rock Band - for the drums, activating star power is much more ... in line with the game play, it's just an extra green note instead of an entirely separate drum fill section. The other change is that you can have up to 3 singers, and they incorporated harmonies, so you can get "double fabs" and "triple fabs" if, when harmonies are available, all vocal parts hit 100% for that section. As I said though, we didn't do any singing on Wednesday.
But we did do a lot of playing, finished the game. There's 45 songs I think in the game, so we finished in about 4 hrs, but we did take a break for food and to show each other a few other arcade games.
Kathie & Wayne left around 11pm.

Sam & Nikki knew I was getting Beatles the day of release but they opted to wait to play on Thursday instead of us all juggling instruments and singing on Wednesday because really only Nikki is willing to sing. Think we started playing around 8pm.
We had probably played 1/3rd of the game before I decided I wanted to try and sing backup. I discovered it was quite fun and cool, so kept singing backup on songs I knew, since I was still drumming and couldn't watch the lyrics.
Of course we had to beat the full game that night as well, for Sam's achievements (there's an achievement for beating the game within a 24 hour period).
Sam & Nikki left around 1am I think.

Friday I had off and we planned to get the Beatles: RB going around 1:30pm. I invited Kathie, Wayne, Kevin and Blair. Blair's a singer, so we knew we had a main singer.
Blair ended up having to work that day, so he didn't show up till around 7pm, and he also brought his girlfriend Adriana. So we then had 6 people, which meant we could fulfill every possible position - drums, guitar, bass, lead singer and 2 ppl for the harmonies. Pretty damn cool.
Kevin had to leave and so did Adriana, so around 9pm we were down to 4 ppl again.

Since of course Blair needed the full game achievements, and we took breaks for food and showing off other games, it was quite late when we finished the game for Blair. But we were all willing to play more (Wayne had discovered a love for singing Beatles), so we were working on getting more achievements. We played until like 3am, it was crazy.

This one achievement we were SO CLOSE to getting... 1,000,000 points on one song. It took us a good while just to find a song that it was feasible to get such a score - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Our first attempt we got 957,000 points - so freakin close! Our 2nd attempt we got around 890,000 - worse! So we tried upping the difficulty on a couple positions, and scored horribly. So we switched around instruments. Then we switched around singers. Then more switching. Then more trying different difficulties... finally we decided what our best shot was, and again we got to 957,000 points..! We must've played that song like 8 or 9 times (in a row) and we never got more than on our first attempt! And I totally blame myself cause I pretty much never improved... I was always getting 97% and always messing up in the exact same spots, it was so frustrating. I was the one that called it quits because I was so annoyed with myself.
We figure fatigue had something to do with it as well, so. Hopefully another day.

Kathie slept over as we were going to spend Saturday together anyway. Saturday I got a haircut (probably 2 weeks overdue!), we had breakfast, then picked up Steven in Surrey, Mark (Kathie's new boyfriend) in Langley, then headed to Castle Fun Park in Abbotsford for some mini golf. It wasn't until we got there that Kathie and I realized we had been there before, lol. Musta been 2 or 3 years ago with Trevor and Erin. Pretty funny.

We did the outdoor mini golf course - there were spiders in their webs everywhere, it was disgusting. One time my ball went off course and I was helping Steven retrieve it and I almost freaked out cause of all the spiders so close to me. But we did see a bunny rabbit twice and a beaver in the little creek. Unfortunately it was getting dark and the beaver was pretty far away and basically not moving, so neither the pictures nor video turned out of the beaver. =P But I did get a pic of the bunny.

So that game, Kathie & I tied for first. I got a hole in one and Mark got a hole in one on separate holes. Mark also hit Kathie with his ball once, that was pretty funny. He whacked it, it bounced off a wall and hit her in the leg.

There were also flying bugs everywhere =P it was nice to get inside. We checked out the arcade section (it's basically the equivalent of Scandia in Kelowna), played a couple games, and wanted to try their mini two lane 5-pin bowling, but it wasn't working =P We tried our hands at pool though... of which we all suck, but Mark was best. It was Mark & Kathie vs Steven and I. Mark & Kathie won.

We then played a 2nd game of mini golf, cept an indoor course this time. I got a hole in one and I swear to god got ripped off on 2 or 3 more hole-in-ones. Mark got a hole in one as well... he might even have gotten 2. In the end, Mark won over me by 1 stroke. Doh!

From there we went to Denny's in Langley so I could get my free birthday meal. Denny's is the best choice for a free birthday meal since they don't do the lame Happy Birthday singing to you. We all found it weird though that they don't do caesar salad. What restaurant can't make caesar salad?? But they're also the only restaurant I know with refillable hot chocolate, so that's bonus points.

Then we dropped Steven off in Surrey, parted ways with Mark, and I slept over at Kathie's cause we had plans for Sunday.

Sunday Kathie had a work event - a picnic barbecue thing. It started at 11, but of course we didn't show up till almost noon. Mark was with us as well. So there's all these people I obviously don't know, and Kathie barely knows anyone herself because like no one from her branch (she works at a bank) were there. There were supposed to be games, but nothing was happening yet, not even food. There was a clown for the kids, he was making balloon animals. We went and walked along the river for a bit and when we got back food was ready, so we made our burgers and found some shade to eat in. The clown was now doing tricks for the kids. Basically most everyone was crowded around the clown... and thank goodness, cause I really don't know what else people would have done, seems no one knew anyone, there was barely any interaction at all. They were probably all like us - just there for the free food, lol. So we left at 1:30pm cause they still hadn't started any games, and the clown was wrapping up his act and I really didn't want to use an outhouse.

From there we went to the movie theatre and saw 9 which is a new animated movie that I hadn't even heard about. But it was the only movie playing at 2pm that we were willing to see and Kathie was interested in it. It had good animation and good voice acting... but IMO the story was weak and full of holes and wasn't very compelling. I don't know why it's rated so high and I will probably never watch it again. In other words, only rent it if you must.

We parted ways with Mark after the movie... he's a nice guy and all, and I'm happy my sister's happy with him, but I wasn't sad to see him go because I didn't plan on spending 2 days with my sister's boyfriend if you know what I mean. That's the stupid thing about new relationships - the couple's always joined at the hip.

Then it was some much needed grocery shopping, some True Blood and Canada's Next Top Model, then Kathie left around 10pm.
I can't believe Linsay didn't win Canada's Next Top Model. They picked the damn typical blonde model that no one's going to notice or be able to pick out in a crowd. Lame.
And True Blood is f'in whack man. Like totally whack. They better get some normalcy in Season 3.

So that was my super busy 3 day weekend. Super busy. Basically any computer time was spent on Farmville. And I didn't bring my charger to Kathie's, so my phone was dead all of Sunday.

Oh and my parents forgot my birthday, so that was awesome. I got a regular text on my birthday, no mention of my birthday at all. Then Sunday I got another text apologizing for forgetting my birthday, and Mom left me a voicemail (since my phone was dead).

But it's all good. I don't like to advertise my birthday cause I'm getting toooooooo damn old now. Although I'll probably still get carded 99% of the time, just because they don't know how old I am doesn't mean I don't know how old I am. =P Cept for those times I forget and have to think for a few seconds. haha

Bottom line, Beatles: RB is the shiznit. Probably my best birthday present evar. Now I have to preorder Halo 3: ODST because that's what I thought I was getting for my birthday!

super super crappy.... but it turned around and ended well. played a bunch of Puzzle Quest with Kelly, who I don't get to play with much, so that was fun. good & addictive game.

can only have positive thoughts about tomorrow - Beatles!!

If you had to give up either email or the telephone for the rest of your life, which one would your forgo?

I'd scrap the phone. I'm really not a phone person.

What are you doing to save money during this economic downslide?
Submitted by Jenn.

I'm actually not doing anything, because I'm horrible with saving money. I have my standard of life that I'm going to maintain unless I don't have an income. Thankfully, my lifestyle is fairly cheap, seeing as the most expensive thing I do is go out to a sit-down restaurant about once a week. Most of my money goes towards food, and spending money goes towards videogames. I just haven't bought much lately because I have a lot of good games that take up my time already.

I am quite proud of myself though - I recently realized I've put a nice dent in my debt, which is on top of me buying a new TV for Christmas, PLUS I'm not making as much money at this job as I did at my previous 2 jobs, so all in all I think I'm doing pretty good.

Well I gotta get up in about 5 hours to get back to work. I did end up calling in sick for Monday as well since Sunday night was pretty horrible. But Sunday I stayed off of drugs, stayed upright much more, and drank more water (instead of mostly tea) so I'm sure it all helped. Thanks Amber for your advice!

So today was pretty good, I actually left my apartment (not my building) for the first time since Thursday and got a load of laundry done. I could move and not hurt and my nose wasn't constantly running. It felt like a miracle because it seemed like I'd been sick forever and would be sick forever.

It's weird for me to experience cabin fever, and while I didn't quite get there, I am looking forward to getting out and interacting with people tomorrow.

The only game I could manage during these plague days was Animal Crossing: City Folk since it's the epitome of a leisure title - it didn't require thinking or concentration and could be played in a prone position with one hand. Saturday (my worst day) just holding up the wiimote made my arm ache so I was trading arms now and then. Simple game, but it's still weird to play left-handed.

I'm now really regretting my schedule change for Feb of having Wednesdays off... cause now I have to work Monday and so only have 1 day left to recuperate. I already called in sick Fri & Sat so I really don't want to call in sick for Monday. =(

And it seems like just a super bad cold... although my muscles ache, even my jaw muscles... but my throat's not sore, I'm not coughing, I don't have any earaches... at times my ears and throat get itchy but that's it. Friday night I puked right after eating chicken noodle soup, so I thought I had upgraded to something worse, but now I really think it was just bad chicken noodle soup - like what are the chances of that? Lucky me. So I basically starved myself after the puking incident cause I obviously didn't want to puke any more, till I finally caved and tried some dry toast and man did that taste good. So I had more dry toast. Then I had rice, then I had soup & a biscuit from Timmie's. So I can eat, thankfully.

Kathie came over Friday night and tonight, bringing me drugs and sugar and milk and food and stuff. Lifesaver. She took my garbage out when she left tonight. I dunno if she'll come by tomorrow (meaning today).

I've gone through a full box of kleenex and my nose is so raw... my sneezes are vicious and they hurt cause of the movement and my eyes are always watering.

Today was worse than Friday... and I was on Advil Cold & Sinus most of the day, it's like, wtf? Didn't seem to help at all. Only time my nose isn't an endless faucet is when I'm flat on my back. I seriously wonder where all this damn snot can be coming from.

Friday was probably better because I slept so much... I was awake between 9am - 11am (after going to bed at midnight) and then I slept again till 5pm. Today though... I got up at 10am (fell asleep on the couch at 1am, woke up at 3am and moved to my bed) and stayed up the whole day... I think it's cause just lying around I don't feel tired. I only get off my couch to go to the washroom and to make tea if Kathie's not around.

So it's now 3am... Kathie left at 2am (after repeatedly dozing off) after I asked if she's spending the night or not and I still don't feel tired, just bored. So I took a nighttime Buckley's pill thing and will head to bed... I hope I sleep and sleep and sleep. I'm really not looking forward to Monday.

I hate being sick. Way too easy to feel sorry for myself. I just hope I feel decent enough to do laundry tomorrow cause I have almost no clean clothes.

I'm thankful for Kathie... and Steven also offered to drop off anything I might need, so that was nice.

What do you love most about your job?

A HUGE reason I took my current job is simply because it revolves around websites/web design. So I like it when I can help a customer with an HTML or web design question/issue... especially when it involves me having to code and trying things out myself to see if it will work, and then show them the example. It's also interesting to try and figure out what's wrong with their coding that's causing their page to be messed up.

What are you most looking forward to this week? What are you least looking forward to?

I'm least looking forward to tomorrow, lol, cause I work at 7am which means I have to get up at 5:30am... basically in 6 hours from now. Plus, it's FREEZING outside, tomorrow will be -15 with the windchill. effin hell.

Mom arrives Saturday so that's what I'm looking forward to.

What do you see yourself doing on this day next year?
Submitted by Beautifully Broken.

Hopefully not mulling about how much debt I have!