Lucy just said, "Come on, BB, it'll be so amazing!"
That is purely some adult talk coming out. She just came over to sit with me on the couch. She reached up with her little hand, patted my head and said, "You're such a nice dada."
Now Lucy will type.
zelda
lucy
link camping sword shield
"Now you could type on it a little more," is her way of gracefully exiting what has become a boring situation. Then she turns around at a thought that has suddenly entered her head, and says, very nicely and playing at manipulating me through niceness, "Yes, you can type on your computer, and I can play Windwaker." As she says it, BB comes skipping into the room, smiling at the hearing of Lucy saying she's gonna play a game.
The tv had been off all day so far! The girls let me sleep till 9 (they sleep later in the day now that it takes longer for the sun to rise), and they both were more interested in making a fort (going camping) than in the tv. I was impressed. So I kept it off too. Started searching through Craigslist and LinkedIn for available writing jobs.
By the way, you can tell by what she typed above (with my help locating the letters of what she wanted to spell) what Lucy's obsessed with lately. Just like myself, brother, and father. All avid Zelda game lovers and enthusiasts. The camping thing she saw on Curious George and ... some other tv show, but she's been talking about camping just about every day for the past few weeks.
Right now, Lucy's playing Super Smash Brothers Melee, a Gamecube game that pits Mario, Link, and a bunch of other well-known and obscure Nintendo game characters against one another in a sort of very innocent fighting game scenario that is also very well-designed and seemingly endlessly fun, and what she wants to do more than anything is play as Link, then, during the match, set him up in various poses, like jumping, stumbling, making him pose and brush his hair out of his bug-eyed, anime, girly face, etc., pause the game, and, using the ensuing camera zoom and rotate options during the pause menu, to get a near-360º look at him.
She'll be a graphic designer. Can't wait to show her programs like InDesign and Photoshop. Whoa, now she's Metal Link and he's like, all chrome and reflecty. This game is cool. And Lucy, four-and-one-half years old, is getting really good at playing it.
I don't know how old I was when I started playing games, but it wasn't four. It was like, six, or seven. Not to say that it's surprising or unexpected that Lucy would be good at video games at an earlier age than I was, but just that ... it's kind of telling of her personality, her love of control of the game character and the sort of artistic creation side that goes along with it. Her and I are both Pisces. I think. Mine's Feb. 27 and she's March 11. Anyway, something about us is that we like to be constantly creating, to be always artistically fulfilled. Gaming is perfect for that.
Some may say gaming equals little more than sitting on a couch. I say it helps you let go, to become lost in your own thoughts, enticing you to practice finding ways out, but also of diving in, to know yourself, what you like, and also to have some general life tension relieved. It may be somewhat addicting, like a big and bright-sounding and -looking drug, but here's the thing about that: Lucy has self-control. She'll turn the Wii and the tv off after she's gotten bored. Another thing about her and I: we get bored quickly, and we have no problem walking away from something that isn't worth our time and brain power to explore. If there's nothing new there, then fuck it, walk away and get excited about something else.
On that note, I guess now's a good time to say that I just quit my cover band, Metallibüx. Now, as per lessons I've learned from quitting bands and blogging about it before, I won't get into the details. Suffice to say, I wish them the best, they could make it if they found another great lead guitarist, well-versed in the cock-rock they cover, and probably closer to their age too.
Main reason for quitting: life is too stressful at home now to have another band on my plate. Freeze is enough, and that's a great gig because it's just me and another guy, and we practice at my house. No commute time, but no gigs either. We've got a drumset down there to jam on sometimes, and all the recording gear we need. Little by little, we've been building our studio setup.
But—I digress. Yes, things are officially stressful around the home, but you know what it's not due to? Interpersonal tensions. We get along great around here. You want to know what it's all due to?
$$$
Yes, folks, we're burning through money fast around here. Megan works full-time, making a perfectly reasonable amount of money for a good company. You'd think that would be enough to support a family of four, right? Wrong. Not where we live. Seattle is too expensive. Capitol Hill's cool, smaller businesses are closing down, and pricey restaurants and salons are opening. Money is coming in from all over the place. We live, for example, directly north of the University District, one block from Whole Foods Market, which draws a wealthier clientele than your Safeways, QFCs, Albertson's, and Costcos. So that raises prices in the neighborhood, including the price of rent. I mean, who doesn't want to live close to the places they shop? And if you can afford it, you'll make it happen, right?
I saw a news piece on KOMO a week ago that said that the price of rent in Seattle is now equal to that of a mortgage payment. Isn't that shit ridiculous? So we're burning through savings. I recently took up a job as a cook at a theater close to our place. Minimal commute, but it's only going to net me about $500/month, which is half of what I need to be making to get us out of the red every month, and at least treading water.
In the meantime, I'm looking for other jobs. And I'm always thinking about moving to someplace cheaper, like Michigan, closer to our families, but would we be better off, or just in the same situation in another state? Seattle costs more, but there's jobs. There's opportunity. You can do anything you want here, you just have to work hard to get noticed, to stand out from the crowd.
I think it's been more than a little depressing to me that my bachelor's degree, a nine-year endeavor, all things considered, just acquired last Spring, my only real goal besides raising healthy children for the past like, third of my life, is turning out to be a little less than worthless. Here's my rationale for that statement: if it doesn't net you a job, and it costs a shitton to acheive in loans, then is it a net gain or loss to have one if it doesn't net you a higher-paying job after you graduate?
Fuck it man. Megan's been looking into ownership options, dawg. A condo or a small house. Because fuck rent here. We have a lot of space here, but we're paying twice as much for it as we would in Michigan (not Ann Arbor, though, my old haunt, college-town-with-$$$-like-Seattle). Anyway, who wants to be throwing money down an endless pit, month after month? Ownership is where it's at when you've got family.
The American Dream is available. I believe if you work hard enough at it, it can be achieved. So now I'm done typing, you pricks, thank you for reading. I love you all. Back to the job search, the marketing-of-self, the bastardization-of-life-and-love. I dream of rock star life, doing what I'm really good at, making money and travelling everywhere and having pictures taken of me a lot and then starring in a film I have no business being in.
Again, I love you all. Sincerely. My parents taught me this love. Thank them. My dad gave me the razor's edge, and my mom gave me my passion. Sometimes those two fuse together into me being a dick, but inside my brain, when I consider those I know and those around me, those who've come before me and all those will follow, I'm filled with love, not hatred, not anything negative, but a definite warming feeling. Having kids helped, but I believe I've always been this way. A lover, not a fighter.
Though I do love fighting movies. Just watched the third Universal Soldier movie last night. That shit was tight. Modern action movie.
Hey, lookathat, Lucy just turned off the tv!
That is purely some adult talk coming out. She just came over to sit with me on the couch. She reached up with her little hand, patted my head and said, "You're such a nice dada."
Now Lucy will type.
zelda
lucy
link camping sword shield
"Now you could type on it a little more," is her way of gracefully exiting what has become a boring situation. Then she turns around at a thought that has suddenly entered her head, and says, very nicely and playing at manipulating me through niceness, "Yes, you can type on your computer, and I can play Windwaker." As she says it, BB comes skipping into the room, smiling at the hearing of Lucy saying she's gonna play a game.
The tv had been off all day so far! The girls let me sleep till 9 (they sleep later in the day now that it takes longer for the sun to rise), and they both were more interested in making a fort (going camping) than in the tv. I was impressed. So I kept it off too. Started searching through Craigslist and LinkedIn for available writing jobs.
By the way, you can tell by what she typed above (with my help locating the letters of what she wanted to spell) what Lucy's obsessed with lately. Just like myself, brother, and father. All avid Zelda game lovers and enthusiasts. The camping thing she saw on Curious George and ... some other tv show, but she's been talking about camping just about every day for the past few weeks.
Right now, Lucy's playing Super Smash Brothers Melee, a Gamecube game that pits Mario, Link, and a bunch of other well-known and obscure Nintendo game characters against one another in a sort of very innocent fighting game scenario that is also very well-designed and seemingly endlessly fun, and what she wants to do more than anything is play as Link, then, during the match, set him up in various poses, like jumping, stumbling, making him pose and brush his hair out of his bug-eyed, anime, girly face, etc., pause the game, and, using the ensuing camera zoom and rotate options during the pause menu, to get a near-360º look at him.
She'll be a graphic designer. Can't wait to show her programs like InDesign and Photoshop. Whoa, now she's Metal Link and he's like, all chrome and reflecty. This game is cool. And Lucy, four-and-one-half years old, is getting really good at playing it.
I don't know how old I was when I started playing games, but it wasn't four. It was like, six, or seven. Not to say that it's surprising or unexpected that Lucy would be good at video games at an earlier age than I was, but just that ... it's kind of telling of her personality, her love of control of the game character and the sort of artistic creation side that goes along with it. Her and I are both Pisces. I think. Mine's Feb. 27 and she's March 11. Anyway, something about us is that we like to be constantly creating, to be always artistically fulfilled. Gaming is perfect for that.
Some may say gaming equals little more than sitting on a couch. I say it helps you let go, to become lost in your own thoughts, enticing you to practice finding ways out, but also of diving in, to know yourself, what you like, and also to have some general life tension relieved. It may be somewhat addicting, like a big and bright-sounding and -looking drug, but here's the thing about that: Lucy has self-control. She'll turn the Wii and the tv off after she's gotten bored. Another thing about her and I: we get bored quickly, and we have no problem walking away from something that isn't worth our time and brain power to explore. If there's nothing new there, then fuck it, walk away and get excited about something else.
On that note, I guess now's a good time to say that I just quit my cover band, Metallibüx. Now, as per lessons I've learned from quitting bands and blogging about it before, I won't get into the details. Suffice to say, I wish them the best, they could make it if they found another great lead guitarist, well-versed in the cock-rock they cover, and probably closer to their age too.
Main reason for quitting: life is too stressful at home now to have another band on my plate. Freeze is enough, and that's a great gig because it's just me and another guy, and we practice at my house. No commute time, but no gigs either. We've got a drumset down there to jam on sometimes, and all the recording gear we need. Little by little, we've been building our studio setup.
But—I digress. Yes, things are officially stressful around the home, but you know what it's not due to? Interpersonal tensions. We get along great around here. You want to know what it's all due to?
$$$
Yes, folks, we're burning through money fast around here. Megan works full-time, making a perfectly reasonable amount of money for a good company. You'd think that would be enough to support a family of four, right? Wrong. Not where we live. Seattle is too expensive. Capitol Hill's cool, smaller businesses are closing down, and pricey restaurants and salons are opening. Money is coming in from all over the place. We live, for example, directly north of the University District, one block from Whole Foods Market, which draws a wealthier clientele than your Safeways, QFCs, Albertson's, and Costcos. So that raises prices in the neighborhood, including the price of rent. I mean, who doesn't want to live close to the places they shop? And if you can afford it, you'll make it happen, right?
I saw a news piece on KOMO a week ago that said that the price of rent in Seattle is now equal to that of a mortgage payment. Isn't that shit ridiculous? So we're burning through savings. I recently took up a job as a cook at a theater close to our place. Minimal commute, but it's only going to net me about $500/month, which is half of what I need to be making to get us out of the red every month, and at least treading water.
In the meantime, I'm looking for other jobs. And I'm always thinking about moving to someplace cheaper, like Michigan, closer to our families, but would we be better off, or just in the same situation in another state? Seattle costs more, but there's jobs. There's opportunity. You can do anything you want here, you just have to work hard to get noticed, to stand out from the crowd.
I think it's been more than a little depressing to me that my bachelor's degree, a nine-year endeavor, all things considered, just acquired last Spring, my only real goal besides raising healthy children for the past like, third of my life, is turning out to be a little less than worthless. Here's my rationale for that statement: if it doesn't net you a job, and it costs a shitton to acheive in loans, then is it a net gain or loss to have one if it doesn't net you a higher-paying job after you graduate?
Fuck it man. Megan's been looking into ownership options, dawg. A condo or a small house. Because fuck rent here. We have a lot of space here, but we're paying twice as much for it as we would in Michigan (not Ann Arbor, though, my old haunt, college-town-with-$$$-like-Seattle). Anyway, who wants to be throwing money down an endless pit, month after month? Ownership is where it's at when you've got family.
The American Dream is available. I believe if you work hard enough at it, it can be achieved. So now I'm done typing, you pricks, thank you for reading. I love you all. Back to the job search, the marketing-of-self, the bastardization-of-life-and-love. I dream of rock star life, doing what I'm really good at, making money and travelling everywhere and having pictures taken of me a lot and then starring in a film I have no business being in.
Again, I love you all. Sincerely. My parents taught me this love. Thank them. My dad gave me the razor's edge, and my mom gave me my passion. Sometimes those two fuse together into me being a dick, but inside my brain, when I consider those I know and those around me, those who've come before me and all those will follow, I'm filled with love, not hatred, not anything negative, but a definite warming feeling. Having kids helped, but I believe I've always been this way. A lover, not a fighter.
Though I do love fighting movies. Just watched the third Universal Soldier movie last night. That shit was tight. Modern action movie.
Hey, lookathat, Lucy just turned off the tv!
