MurderHobo.Club

Category: Real Life

  • Quick Warning to Office Staff

    Earlier today, my partner went into her office to attempt to do some things that she was unable to do while working remotely. It took her several tries to get the systems to work correctly. This was of course because of the office gremlins.

    Normally, they are fairly benign and will primarily interfere with printers to gather space materials to line their nests. Especially if someone was helpful and took the paper recycling out recently.

    They are known to sleep on routers and other machines that are left running, as they enjoy the warmth. As anyone working in IT can attest, a gremlin sleeping on your router can cause some irregularities in the signal strength, especially if you get a restless one who keeps shifting position. Occasional they’ll dislodge a power cord, or bump the power button, but in most cases these deactivations are temporary, due to their preference for the warmth.

    They are also known to hoard office supplies, stealing pens, tape, staplers and other things that they can easily carry off. Little is known about the purpose behind these thefts, as no obvious use of the supplies has been observed. Further study has been attempted, but the cameras that were deployed kept going missing.

    However, since everyone has been working remote for the last six months or so, they’ve gone a bit feral. They’d grown comfortable on their diet of leftover donuts and other assorted desk snacks, including the large bowl of candy that somehow often seemed to be in need of refilling, despite nobody ever observing anyone eating from it.

    So, just a quick warning, prepare for extra time when attempting administrative tasks after the return to the office. Either that, or bring a box of donuts and tuck it somewhere out of your line of sight.

  • 2020 update – August

    Back at the end of June, I was finally able to get in to see an eye doctor for a post operative care appointment. My vision is now confirmed to be 20/20.

    Since then, I’ve bought some nice sunglasses. A few pairs of Goodrs. I like them. Maybe I’ll post pictures.

  • 2020 Status update – early March

    For Christmas, I received a handmade gift certificate for eye surgery from my family. My father had worn glasses most of his life, until cataract issues resulted in his vision improving, and he decided he wanted me to have that experience.

    After a decent amount of research, visits with a few different doctors and some planning, I settled on getting my eyes done over the March break, as I can ensure that I’ll have someone able to drive me and take care of me during my recovery.

    While getting prescriptions related to the surgery, I took the time to get weighed. I’m sitting at 340lbs, down 6lbs from October. I’ve been both lower and higher in recent years, and given the amount of exercise I get over the winter, it’s slightly better than I’d expect.

  • Conversations of the solo variety

    Yesterday, I thought twice about buying a foam case for this laptop, so if I dropped it, it won’t get damaged. Then, last night, I dropped it in the parking lot and chipped one of the corners. No real damage, it just looks a little roughed up now. Not quite as slick as it did before.

    I’m sitting here, listening to Weird Al playing on the apple tv, after having run some random errands. Last night, I fell asleep watching black mirror, apparently missed the end of the Striker’s episode. Then I got comfortable, and slept for about 6 hours. That’s pretty unusual for me, since lately I’ve been waking up every few hours to take a leak. I went back to sleep, and slept til 11 or so. In theory, I should reactivate that sleep tracking app on my cellphone to capture some data to go along with the data that the CPAP is already capturing. Especially since their data isn’t exactly easily accessible at this state. Some of the other CPAP machines have automatic syncing with their own online services, but this loaner doesn’t have that feature. My next appointment is next Thursday, at which point some of the issues will get addressed. I suspect instead of the basic nasal hose mask, I need a full face mask, since I suspect I’ll still be breathing through my mouth, which reduces the effectiveness of the CPAP.

    Tonight, a group of us are going to go see Brightburn, partially thanks to some free tickets I won via Facebook, from Tazmanian Comics. Which is nice, since it’s one that Dee had wanted to see. I’d been interested in it since it was James Gunn, and he’s generally been pretty entertaining. From what I’ve heard, it’s pretty solid.

    Recently, I got a message from someone overseas about one of the writings I’ve put up on another site, one that I hadn’t published here. It was strange. Somehow she found the piece, and it resonated with her. I’m debating moving a copy of it over here. Though it’s not quite the same tone as anything else here; it’s got an odd flavor to it. And it’s got a few errors that need to be cleaned up. I’ll probably do that later this week.

    Polka is strangely happy music, especially when it’s Weird Al converting modern music into Polka.

    Lately I’ve been playing Persona 5 on the PS4, slowly working my way through that strange slice of student life. I’ve fallen off playing Warframe, for some reason. Possibly because I installed it on the PS4 and the Switch, and while most of my progress is on the Switch, the PS4 looks just that little bit better and loads so much faster. Especially since I swapped the regular HDD on the PS4 with an SSD. (Those two acronyms have always bothered me. Hard Disk Drive, Solid State Drive. Of course HDD used to be HD, before High Definition became a thing.)

    In theory, I’m also playing Final Fantasy XII : Zodiac Age, on the switch, as well as a half dozen other switch games that I’ve bought that I’ve started and not made much progress in. Including Civilization VI, a game that I continue to bounce off of. I think it’s because I find it hard to judge how I’m doing, both relative to previous attempts and to my opponents. The majority of the game, I feel like I lack that feedback to figure out how to improve.

    I haven’t played many board games recently, played a couple of kickstarters when they came in a week or two ago. Towers of Arkanos, a cute little dice drafting game that perhaps deserves it’s own review. And we played Tiny Town, which is a city build that reminds me of the bear game, Triple Town. You are placing blocks in shapes that convert into a single space building and then block one of those spaces. So the trick is to build the buildings in a way that they don’t block the other building layouts.

    I really should get a haircut. I’ve just let it grow out and become shaggy, since there isn’t any real reason not to. But with the head straps, the hair gets in the way. On one hand, I’d like to get it cut into something stylish, take advantage of the fact that it’s longer. Then again, I don’t have a barber anymore, and it seems like a simple cut might make life easier.

    I’m not sure what the purpose of these longer rambling entries is, since very little of the information is useful or helpful or meaningful to anyone. Though I suppose it’s good to have notes, with my memory being what it is lately.

  • Recaps – conflict and consideration

    In theory, I should have been writing up Shadowrun recaps and posting them to the blog. Rocky wrote up his, and they definitely have his voice.

    The game continues, thought recently it’s occurred to me that we might have a problem that I’ve been minimising, in how one of the other players treats the rest of the group. The player and I have personal history, so it makes it hard for me to be unbiased, or even compensate for my bias.

    A couple of years back, he was the supervisor who asked me to sign a document saying that I agreed that I had violated the attached code of conduct, that I understood that further violations would result in my termination, despite the fact that the copy didn’t actually have a written code of conduct, certainly not one that was attached to the letter I was being asked to sign.

    Prior to that, he was a coworker with a tendency to make jokes and slack off. Then again, pretty much everyone who worked there had a tendency to slack off and try to do as little as possible. It’s been a few years, and I’m not sure how accurate my memory is, but that’s my impression of the place now.

    After I refused to sign the letter, a friend of mine offered me work in film since I was frustrated with the way the office was being run. The original plan was that he’d put together the code of conduct and I’d sign it. In theory, this also ensure that other people in the office would be held to those standards. Strangely enough, that didn’t happen, and I worked in film for a bit. The long hours were a bit of a problem sometimes.

    He’d been in a group with us in the past, when we’d done Shadowrun. I’m having trouble remember much of that campaign. I recall we had some difficulties with people flaking out.

    But, as he’d been part of the group in the past, when we started up again, he was one of the first to respond to the question on Facebook.

    His previous character was a stealth infiltrator, I recall that much.

    His current character is a bit of a tank, a big heavy troll who can absorb a fair amount of punishment. To the point where it’s a bit disruptive to the game, trying to have anything show up that would be able to threaten him, that won’t just kill the other party members.

    At the same time, he’s also been antagonistic to the other players. Mostly in character. A few sessions ago, his character choked another player’s character, due to being frustrated. His character also has anger issues, some sort of berserker rage, though it hasn’t really been a factor yet, directly, though indirectly it’s been used for justification as to why the character should get his way.

    Though two characters have been replaced, one of the ones he was in the most conflict with, has switched out for someone more social. The other character was more of a character issue.

    Two of the players seem concerned about it, one of the players was absent for the choke and doesn’t seem to have a strong opinion, and I’m restricting myself from having an opinion, since I think it’s tainted by personal issues. Though some would say, with that history, why would you be playing with that person in the first place?

    One obvious solution is to start including an X card. Basically, it allows players to signal that they are uncomfortable with content, without it needing to be a big deal. But that’s mostly because of my concerns some of the content the other day, with the snuff films that they were trying to track down.

    The biggest issue with the internal violence, is that it feels like it isn’t quite severe enough, that it’s something that can be ignored. And that’s uncomfortable in it’s own way.

  • CPAP and a Nap

    Picked up the CPAP machine, grabbed tickets for Brightburn tomorrow night. Got home, got the machine set up, watched TV for a bit while breathing through it. Eventually fell asleep. Woke up several hours later, mildly disoriented. Hard to judge the quality of the sleep.

  • new book, who dis?

    Well, somehow I managed to kill the LCD panel on my old chromebook, the one I’d been using for as long as this site has existed, and even before, when I was taking classes at Douglas.

    I remember I bought it because my old white macbook didn’t have the battery life to do much. That chromebook survived various projects, going strange places. It’s what I used for the couple of live blogs that I did and for the few interviews I did. And it went cross country with me, though I wasn’t blogging much then, so it was just a bridge between the SD card and the portable hard drive that I was storing all the dash cam footage on.

    It was $400 Canadian, to buy it from Costco, or another Canadian site, and it would have come with at least a two year warranty. Buying it on Amazon.com, as a refurbished machine, with a 90 day warranty, it was less than $200 Canadian.

    In many ways, I’m not sure if I am who I was when I start this site. Some aspects are the same, but the life choices I’ve made and the world that I’m attempting to ignore have somewhat changed.

    Currently, I’m finding myself falling asleep randomly, far too often, while also having insomnia and trouble falling asleep at other times. It’s left me fairly drained, which isn’t helped by spending my days running errands and being patient.

    Tomorrow, I’m getting a loaner CPAP machine, after the set of tests I’ve had. In theory, it’ll be one of those life changing things, where I get my energy back and start being able to actively do things, start loosing weight again, building up stamina, etc. In practice? Well, I’ll have a little more energy, I’ll be less likely to fall asleep randomly, but I’m not sure what else it’ll change.

    Either way, people have said they want to see more of my writing, so I guess I should be writing more. It’ll help justify the expense of this laptop.

    Thinking back, I think I should see about enrolling in Douglas again. It would give me a structured reason to be out of the house for a while a couple of times a week, and maybe I’d meet some new people. Of course, I’d feel even older than the last time.

  • Why did this go dark so long?

    About two years back, I stopped working for the place where this blog had been hosted. And with the future of the hosting in question, I lost some of my motivation to maintain it. I’d made some efforts to get it moved somewhere better, but until recently, those efforts hadn’t borne any fruit. 

    Well, now they have, the site’s future is “secure” or at least it should be. 

  • New digs

    The site has now been migrated to a new host. 

    Maybe that means it’ll get worked on again. 

  • Today’s Summary.

    So, I got frustrated today, and ended up not coming back from my lunch time walk. I had been tempted to do that the day before, but I forced myself to go back in. Today, I wasn’t able, or perhaps willing, to do that. Instead I took a longer walk. (more…)