Good afternoon.

    I have a friend -- let's call him Steve -- who plays and DMs Dungeons & Dragons, the pencil-and-paper roleplaying game.  If you're unfamiliar at all with D&D, now's probably a good time to stop reading.  Now, when it comes to D&D, I don't mind admitting I'm something of a Rules Lawyer, and even a slight bit of a Min-Maxer.  I wouldn't go as far as to say that I'm obsessed with stats or munchkin'ing out my character, but suffice it to say that I can build a pretty fucking mean Fighter or Ranger in 3.5th edition.

    Anyways, I digress; I play in Steve's D&D campaign, which is a 3rd Edition campaign with some 2nd Edition rules, one or two 3.5th Edition rules, and a weighty chunk of his own House Rules. If you're at all familiar with D&D, certainly by now you're raising some eyebrows -- let me add to your overall concern thus far. First of all, he uses entirely 3rd Edition rules for character creation, which means, in a nutshell, that Rangers and Monks are terribly, terribly, terribly nerfed (by example, Rangers don't have a choice on combat specialization, they just get Two-Weapon Fighting and Ambidexterity).

    Now, let's top that off with some of his 2nd Edition rulings: first of all, firing into melee:

When firing into melee you take a big chance of hitting the wrong target. Count the number of combatants within the threatened area of the intended target. Assuming all are of the same size, there is an equal chance to hit each one. Roll to hit and then roll a die corresponding to the number of combatants (d2 if there are two, d3 if three, etc.) and assign each potential target a number. Whatever number comes up is the one who gets hit, assuming the attack roll overcomes his or her AC. If there are combatants of differing sizes this must be taken into account as it is more likely you’ll hit a troll than a Halfling. Take the smallest combatant(s) and assign him or her a value of 1. For every size category larger that the other combatant(s) is over the smallest, add 1. Total the numbers and roll an appropriate die to see who gets hit (assuming the attack roll overcomes the AC).

    So of course, at this point, you might be saying "Well, you could simply take Precise Shot to negate the effects of this unfortunate house rule!" Wrong: Precise Shot doesn't exist in Steve's campaign -- it's effectively useless.

    Ah, but I haven't even got to the best part -- here it is, the ultimate in House Rule fumbles; the worst possible House Rule I've ever seen in play:

If you go for an attack of opportunity against somebody moving through your threatened area while you are engaged in melee, your opponent similarly gets an attack of opportunity against you because you are, in effect, taking your eyes off the ball and leaving yourself open.

    Allow me to put this house rule into context for you, veteran players: let's say, by example, that Merrick, a Fighter, and Thorm, a Ranger, are fighting against Steeb, an Orc. In the first round of combat, Merrick charges in and engages the Orc in melee. Then it's Steeb's turn, so it attacks Merrick in return. Now, it's Thorm's turn -- so, Thorm rushes past both Merrick and Steeb to flank the Orc from behind, provoking an attack of opportunity at the same time by running through Steeb's threatened area -- the 5' area surrounding where Steeb is standing. Steeb, of course, notices Thorm trying to rush past him, and so takes the opportunity to attack him. Merrick, who is currently engaged in melee with the Orc, gets a free AoO against the Orc at the same time, and so trips him -- now Steeb is tripped, and cannot follow through with his AoO against Thorm, who finishes his turn by getting behind the now-prone Orc, flanking him, and attacks him with his longsword.

    Let's follow through with this already-awful example: Now it's the second round of combat, and Merrick goes first again. The orc is already prone, so Merrick attacks it again, at a powerful bonus to hit because the orc is now prone. Now the orc goes, and stands up -- this provokes an AoO from both Merrick and Thorm, who, of course, take them, hitting the orc. Now that the orc has stood up, he attacks Merrick again. Now, it's Thorm's turn, so Thorm takes a five-foot step to the left, and then another five-foot step to the right, effectively provoking an AoO from the orc, who takes it -- but of course, since the orc is engaged in melee with Merrick, this provokes another AoO from Merrick (who, for sake of arguement, has Combat Reflexes and can make multiple AoO's per round), who unfortunately misses, but Thorm has Dodge and Mobility, and so is practically impossible to hit on AoO's, and to finish his turn, Thorm once again attacks the orc with a flanking bonus, killing him.

    Do you see the problem with this system?

Regards,
---Karl

Good afternoon.

    It's been a long time coming -- and putting off, and coming, and putting off -- but it's finally upon us; I am moving back to Vancouver. As of April 1st, I'll be living in a 3-bedroom apartment quite literally across the highway from the Lougheed Town Centre with Wes, Jen, and Adam. I'm pretty damn excited about this, to say the very least, and I thought it needed posting to my otherwise-neglected Livejournal, dear readers.

    It's been long-delayed but I'm glad it's finally happening, for sure. I've been in Vancouver since the 3rd looking for a place to live and a job for when I move down here and I'm going back up to Vernon this Saturday to wrap up loose ends, finish packing, and get in a few weeks' more shifts at work before I saddle up and mosey down. I'll be 25 this month and I think it's only fitting that I return to Vancouver on Fool's Day (no, this isn't an elaborate prank).

    Anyways, I'm super, super, super stoked for this and I look forward to seeing all of my Vancouver friends on a much more regular basis. I hope you'll all get in touch and you can come by and rock out some Guitar Hero or Rock Band with me, or just come hang out for a while -- it'll be great to see everyone again.

Regards,
---Karl

Good night.

    It's already well past halfway through January of 2008. Even now, major events are looming ever closer; no longer beyond the horizon, these eventualities are soon to become realities. Come March of this month I'm bound for Vancouver for a week or two to house-hunt for a place to live for myself -- and three roommates: my current roommate, Wes; my girlfriend, Jen; and my good friend, Adam. The logistics of moving from Vernon to Vancouver are starting to become mind-boggling; somewhere in the next few months, I need to find the time and money to take time off work, head down to Vancouver, try to find a 3-bedroom house for rent within our price range, pack, rent a UHaul, and get my ass down to Vancouver with it (and somehow also get my car down at the same time). The eventual deadline for this event is April the 1st -- maybe April 15th, if necessary.

    Apropos (and, perhaps, due to this staggering change so rapidly approaching), I've been sitting stagnant for quite some time, readers. My creative output is almost entirely stunted; not only have I stopped DM'ing Dungeons & Dragons, but, as I'm sure you can plainly see, I haven't updated LiveJournal in over 5 months. My time has been spent working, playing videogames, and watching movies... Which isn't without its' merits, let me tell you, but it's beginning to take its' toll, to be certain (and oh, I could tell you all about my exploits in World of Warcraft, but I could go on for hours about that game and I really don't think anyone cares).

    With this move -- this glorious return -- to Vancouver, however, things are bound to change. Steve Armstrong's expressed a desire to start up a new D&D campaign, and I've got plans for one of my own, as well. On top of that, arkwulf and I have plans for a downloadable Podcast; a sort of 'peanut gallery' overlay to play as the audio track on your favourite films. Steve's got some business ideas of himself, and it sounds like between those creative endeavours, whatever job I land myself in Vancouver, and readjusting to city life, I'll have my hands full for the rest of the year.

    To my friends -- and family -- in Vancouver: how I've missed you! I've anticipated my return to the Coast for almost as long as I've been living up here in the interior. I wait in tense fervor for the time when all of you are but a phone-call and a skytrain away at any given time... Back to the halcyon days and clarion nights of Vancouver summers. Here's to 4am Denny's misadventures, roadtrips to Abbotsford minigolf, all-night arcades, public transportation, movie marathons, downtown shopping sprees, public swimming pools, megaplex theaters, overnight parking, cheap bars, Burnaby hilltops, hooker counting, summer fireworks, and easy access to anything, anytime, anywhere. I'm coming home, friends and dear readers. I'll be a quarter of a century old and just as unsure of what to do with my now as I was when I stumbled out of the city 3 years ago, coke-addled and penniless. The only difference is this time, I'm coming home to stay.

Regards,
---Karl

Good evening.

    Did you guys notice I was gone?  No excuses, I'm just lazy and uninspired, and posting about the events of my life sometimes ends up being more of a chore than anything particularly worth doing, and let's face it, I write this journal for kicks.

    So speaking  of kicks, I'd like to regale a little story relating to my past experiences here in Vernon with The Roommates From Hell.  I don't know if you'll recall my post back around December of last year when I was talking about a couple that I moved in with to a house here in Vernon (Let's call them Beth & Jimmy)...  In a nutshell, their living habits were laughable and their pets destroyed the household -- the cat, in particular, took a great fancy to peeing on everything in the house.  Anyways, after Beth got canned from work, Jimmy followed suit and they begot a month-long binge of playing World of Warcraft (and that's about it).  After a month of that they up and left out on the lease they had with the landlord, leaving me high-and-dry (he later evicted me) and fucking over the landlord for a few months' rent.  Ironically I found out after the fact that they were paying $900/month for rent and asked me for $450/month in rent, which means I was paying the lion's share of rent -- but hey, who's holding it against them, right?  Me!

    Long story short, when they left (in a hurry), they left all of their garbage (and I stress this, ALL of their garbage) and unwanted furniture behind, which was nice, in a way -- I looted through it in a respectful movement for the landlord and bagged/tagged everything for disposal, and in the process my friends and I came across some delightful bounty, including (but not limited to) several brand new watches, and a very old compass.  Turns out the compass was a family heirloom of Jimmy's -- his granddad's from WWII, to be specific -- and Jimmy's been aching to get it back from me.  I'll grant him, he's been awfully polite about the whole matter (and really, I've never had any issue with ol' Jimmy, it's his bi-polar psycho-neurotic fiance that I can't stand) and I've even gone as far as telling him that I'd mail it back to him CoD, but I'm just really really really lazy and I haven't gotten around to going to the post office yet.  Honestly it's not high on my list of priorities and I'm sure I'll get around to it -- one day.  That being said, ol' Jimmy's started resorting to threats in his e-mails, which, I guess you could say, has piqued my interest: they live in Edmonton, for God's sake, and they have no idea where I live (5523 20th Street, for the record), so I'm really curious as to what extend he's really willing to go in order to get his compass back.  He's said it's worth much less of my time, energy, and money to just mail him the watch.  I think he may be confused; since I'd mail the thing CoD anyways, I think it'd be worth much less of HIS time, energy and money!  Let's do the math:  Driving from Calgary to Vernon is about 600 kilometers, or nearly 2 tanks of gas (so, $80.oo), and then BACK is about the same, that's about $150.oo for his grandfather's priceless compass.
   
    But seriously, I"m a nice enough guy, I'll get around to mailing the thing.  The real kickers' been that he's audacious enough to threaten me for it, and that's gonna be the nail in the coffin.  Ol' Jimmy can expect his compass in real short order -- Cash-On-Delivery Super-Overnight-Express-Most-Expensive-Means-Possible-To-Ship.  I may even throw in a brick or two off of the old house we lived in together just for nostalgia -- and by nostalgia, readers, I do mean increasing the weight of the parcel in order to level off the price of shipping to around $150.oo. 

Regards,
---Karl

Good evening.

    I'm sitting at work doing Floor Support-type stuff, which is really a lie; I'm completely fucking the dog. I've smoked quite a bit of dope over the last few days and the effects are hitting me now -- a kind of a hazy fog in my mind that's really sapped my motivation to do anything. Mind you, the fault is entirely mine: nobody held a gun to my head and made me smoke weed... I did so of my own volition. The occasion's just arised several times over the last week and I felt socially obliged to partake; first it was Monday morning when I drove out to Richmond, and then subsequently every 2 hours thereafter -- the man is a smokestack! It wasn't again until just last night, in commemoration of hanging out with Robbie, Courtenay and Brenden for the first time in nearly a month. But I'm not about to hand off the blame to anyone else (still, I must say, smoking 3 bowls in one day with Joe has given me a newfound realization into Joe's life -- that's a fuckton of weed to smoke in one day, and I'm sure he continued going strong after that). Anyways, I'm hoping that by sitting myself down to the task of writing, I'll clear my head at least enough to be functional for Dungeons & Dragons tonight.

    Major bummer. I actually wrote an entire other entry a few days ago briefly mentioning PAX, but I'm not sure where it disappeared to. I wrote it at work as well and I seem to recall e-mailing it to myself, but I just haven't bothered to look for it at home since I sent it to my e-mail address. If I find it I'll post it, as well. Suffice it to say that PAX was a blast; the Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame was really exciting as well. We saw a lot of really great shit at both places: the designer of Assassin's Creed demonstrated the gameplay for us with a demo; Rock Band looks amazing; we played Mario Kart DS with Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher from Star Trek:TNG), listened to some really great panels and live concerts (Freezepop sucks live, FYI); saw Luke Skywalker's lightsaber and severed hand, Indiana Jones' hat, whip, and leather jacket, Darth Vader's costume, a floating cop-car from Blade Runner, the Alien Queen from Aliens... I could go on and on. It was a stellar trip. There are some great pictures up on my Flickr account.

    I also had an opportunity to meet up with my ex-girlfriend, Elaine, while I was in town. Elaine & I dated for a year and a half, back when I was living in Vancouver, from the age of 19-21. It was by far one of my best relationships and I still look back on a lot of the memories fondly (there isn't a place in Vancouver I can go to without remembering some wild antic or anecdote that Effie & I got ourselves into), and we broke up on amicable terms back when I was becoming a cokehead, right before I moved up to Salmon Arm to get straight. She blocked me out of her life for a good while -- as a means to get over me, she later explained -- and so I really hadn't spoken to her or heard from her for almost 2 years when we first started getting back in touch a few months ago. It was really great seeing her (and her parents!) again, and we really hit it off again, like we hadn't missed a day. The same old running amok and wild antics -- minus the sex and cocaine, of course. All in all it was a really great day spent with her, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her again the next time I come down to visit. She's still as great a friend now as she was when I first met her, back when I lived in Vancouver.

    So, speaking of Vancouver, it's been a long time coming but I'm beginning to plan and prepare to move back home to the Lower Mainland come March 2008. I actually had the good luck to run into William Mah, an old trainer from the eBay program here at Sutherlands -- he works for the Vancouver eBay offices and I spoke to him at PAX about the possibility of getting a foot in the door job-wise and working for them once I move in March. He said it was totally doable since he already knows I'm qualified and able to do the work without the need for training or anything like that, and the pay's really very reasonable: $12/hr plus benefits and they give you a free lunch and parking every day. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. That being said, I just need to find a place to live down there... Burnaby sounds like a good place to start looking.

    Sadly, I think I'm feeling a really big denouement following the epic adventure that was PAX 2007. It's the event I've been looking forward to since last year at PAX06 and we've been planning and preparing for it since January, and now that it's come and gone there's this huge void left behind by it and I'm now back doing the same duldrum shit I was doing before we left: working at a call center, playing World of Warcraft, and waiting in anticipation of the next big event in my life -- moving back to Vancouver in March 2008. Right now, at this very moment, I just feel like I'm living in a void, standing in limbo, in breathless anticipation of the return trip home. I can prepare and save and wait for it but almost everything feels like filler; grey fog seeping in to occupy the space left behind by my last big road trip. I find myself taking solace in the little things right now: my roommate and I are doing really well together and there's really good synergy around the apartment, and having spent time with (and keeping in touch with) Effie after last weekend is a refreshing bit of nostalgia in and of itself. I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. Or I'm just in a rut because I just got back from the great big high that was PAX07. Burnout's a bitch, huh?

    Yeah... I'm also worried about the return trip. I've got to save up a good chunk of cash to prepare for the move and that doesn't really concern me so much but I am worried about finding a place to live in the Lower Mainland. I don't really know what the market is like but it's looking like Wes, Adam, Jen & I are going to be looking for a place together and that pretty much means either a 3-bedroom apartment or a sizable townhouse/house/duplex. If that's the case I think we'll have a hard time doing it, just because we're sort of a mish-mash group, but I guess that's something we'll have to worry about in January or February. And then there's re-applying at UBC to continue my Psychology degree... But hey, them's the breaks. I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.

    Oh; I wrote a letter to a friend a few days ago talking about the benefits I've been seeing from my Psychology courses in University -- both down in Vancouver and up here in Vernon and Salmon Arm. It wasn't until I dropped out of college in North Vancouver that I really started realizing the practical application of my Psychology courses, and then returning for more third-year programs up here in the Okanagan Valley has really rekindled that mental conflagration. Those courses have really helped me to understand the subtleties of human interaction -- the nuances, the hidden messages, reading between the lines. Body language, behaviourism, subversion, displacement; they're all like secret windows into the mind, where the subconscious manipulates and guides one's actions and words. It's like a code waiting to be cracked -- decrypting the underlying message in the everyday mundane.

    Ultimately, though, I suppose this sort of pseudopsychoanalysis of others leaves one open for the same cross-analysis. My motives and subversive nature should be called into question just as often as I profess to pressing others for their own agendas. Even now I'm sure I'm somehow projecting some hidden ideal from my subconscious somewhere in this prose. But of course, questioning that brings into play all sorts of concerns about bias and self-doubt and my own slew of personal demons about insecurity and seperation anxiety, so we won't go there. Furthermore, I spend a good deal of my time insisting that overanalysis of others' actions and behaviours is really a road best left untravelled.

    Even so, I think there's something to be said about a fair balance between the two: everything in moderation. I use a little Psychology all the time in my daily interactions, be it roommates or customers or co-workers or friends. Suffice it to say that it's certainly helpful to be aware of these sort of subliminal signals and conscious of others' points-of-views (but let me be frank in saying that I am a hypocrite for even beginning to mention consideration of others' feelings -- believe me, dear readers, when I tell you that I am always, first and foremost, thinking of myself). I think the folly lies in taking this analysis to the next level -- rapid assumptions, emotional bias... Overanalysis. Of course I'm guilty of this as well from time to time. Truly it's a major pitfall in any situation, though. Insecurity plus overanalysis equals anxiety over time. I'm sure there's a mathematical algorithm or formula to properly demonstrate how those factors are proportionally related.

    Frankly, I think this whole missive begs the question: where am I going with this lengthy tirade? To be honest, I really don't know. I began this Livejournal entry as a means to cathartically expunge a foggy-headed mush-brain feeling that's sort of permeated my day. That being said, I haven't yet accomplished that goal and I'm still feeling about as medicine-headed now as I did when I started this entry two hours ago. Curse you, wavering willpower.

    For the sake of getting out of this sort of self-referential loop I'm starting to get into regarding Psychology and overanalysis, I'm going to arbitrarily change the subject: tonight is Dungeons & Dragons night. The party is still split up from last session: Richard, Noel, Neil, and Josh are underground at the Ratqueen's nest. Jen, Mike, and Charlie are topside, trying to find their way away from the World Tree and towards the cliffside to reunite with the rest of the group. There are ancient ruins buried in the eastern cliffside of the crater. The only remaining ruins above-ground are the crumpled remains of a larger building (a temple) and a handful of surrounding smaller buildings (dormitories for the monks). Exploration of the temple grounds will reveal an encounter with some monsters and part of the building will collapse to reveal an underground passage... If the players don't discover the ruins they might also stumble into the underground passage by way of a violent earthquake that erupts if they travel without purpose for long enough. Noel's group may also chance to stumble across active rivers of magma underground -- exploration of this underground river for any length of time will reveal a passage marked by the alphabet of the ancient race that built the temple above-ground. It ought to be an interesting session, to say the least.

    I'm also supposed to work a fight with an adult green Dragon in there somewhere, as well. In fact, it's been such a highly-anticipated event in the game so far that I may actually have to sideline this session plan I've got going so far and pull it up afterwards -- perhaps the players can engage the dragon in aerial combat and when they finally manage to slay the beast, it'll collapse on the temple grounds and reveal the ancient ruins... I'll work something out.

    Everything works out the way it's supposed to in the end, right?

Regards,
---Karl

Good evening.

    Just when you thought it was safe to play World of Warcraft again, the ienvitable happens -- guild drama has broken out. This is never pleasant, readers, but it's always just the ultimate result of being in a guild with enough players; eventually, someone pisses somebody else off.

    Case in point... Our guild was running the usual Friday night dungeon crawl through the tower of Karazhan, and we were just getting ready to take on some stagehands in the Opera house. I'm the raid leader, things had been going smoothly, and I'd been taking the opportunity during the raid to distract and pickpocket the stagehands before we were pulling them. I was in the process of sneaking up behind one such fellow in order to do so, when the other rogue in the raid distracted the mob -- to face me.

    Now, granted, he may not have done it on purpose (it's remotely possible that he distracted the mob to lock it down in place so the tank could pull it), but suffice it to say that the stagehand looked right at me, hit me once, and killed me outright. I said, disdainfully, "Thanks a lot, dude," over my headset, and then, in-game, said "you jackass :P". In officerchat he says "don't fuck around in kara", and I try to privately message him to talk about it, only to find he's got me on ignore. All fine and dandy, I suppose, so I let it ride for the rest of the run.

    So, once the raid is over, I go onto the guild forums to ask him what his beef was. I tell him (paraphrased) what's the deal with distracting that mob on me and /ignoring me, you basically got me killed, what's your problem... And he replies in the thread with (paraphrased) pickpocketing mobs in kara is fucking around, don't fuck around or you'll waste the raid's time with rezzing you, and you're on ignore cos you called me a jackass, this isn't the first time you've pissed me off in a kara run, I'm never running another raid with you EVER.

    Frankly, I think he's blowing this shit out of proportion -- we're a casual raid guild, and as far as I'm concerned, it's my prerogative to pickpocket mobs in Kara or any other raid -- if I get caught, I die, yeah, but the odds of failing on a pickpocket are like 1/10 -- whereas if another rogue distracts a mob to FACE ME that's pretty much GUARANTEEING my death, so who's 'fucking around'? There was this one time a couple of weeks ago that I took off all my armor, put on a 'tuxedo' cloth set, and ran up to one of the bosses in Kara on purpose, just to get killed (the guild thought it was hilarious), and so I guess he's pissed cos I'm wasting the raid's time, but he's never -- ever -- ever -- said anything to me about it before. I personally don't have any beef with the dude at all, and I don't dislike him at all (really, the only time I ever see him is when we're raiding, cos what 5-man group needs two rogues?), but I still think he's being a total fucktard about it.

    And that's the whole situation. I'm going to take a two or three-week break from running the Kara raids, because our guild needs a few more people to be keyed and geared up for it (we're hurting for healers), plus I'd like to spend some time leveling my alt with Jen, who's been rolling up a priest for a few weeks now. Besides, Moroes dropped my Emerald Ripper last raid, so I'm pretty well set for Kara loots for the next little while.

    ...Anyways, besides World of Warcraft, life is good. The Penny Arcade Expo is rapidly approaching -- it's less than three weeks away! Wes, Jen, & I are all gearing up to go; Jen's got a brand-new Macbook that she'll likely take with her and Wes is bringing his ultra-awesome-super-digital camera, so between these two pieces of amazing technology, and the writing talents of Yours Truly, you can expect us to blog the shit out of PAX this year! Stay tuned.

---Karl

Good evening.

    It's an uncharacteristically slow day at the office today, readers, so I thought I'd break an otherwise long-running absence on LiveJournal and update with the recent goings-on in my life. I'd say this is going to be brief, but who am I kidding? I'm as long-winded as I am arrogant, and that's saying something. So, in no particular order, here's what's new and exciting.

    Work is still work -- I'm still providing phone support for otherwise helpless geriatrics and Southerners who are experiencing problems with their antivirus software, through no fault of their own. The sad truth is that these folks are paying out their noses to fix problems with a second-rate anti-virus program that crashes at the slightest speed-bump or hiccup in a computer's configuration. It's a sordid job but it pays well for the little amount of work that I have to do. There's been word getting around about another call-center opening up here in the Vernon area, though...

( But work's work, really... )

    World of Warcraft has been occupying the lion's share of my time. I've gotten heavily involved with a guild, Idle Hands, on my server, Cenarius, and we're a lot of casual raiders that've just started getting into Karazhan, one of the end-game dungeons in the Burning Crusade expansion pack. It's gotten to the point where we now have two groups of dedicated raiders that raid twice-weekly, and I'm in charge of the newest group. We're working really carefully to make sure that both groups are progressing regularly through the dungeon (with no one group being significantly 'better' than the other -- that's where big divides start showing up in the guild), and so far it's been going really well. Couple that with my occasional side-questing to help my friend Josh, and my girlfriend Jen level up their new characters, and I've been real busy in the virtual world of Azeroth.

( Except there's always drama... )

    Speaking of Jen, things are going well with her, as well. Unfortunately enough, about 5 weeks ago her mother asked her to take a Leave of Absence from work here at Sutherlands in order to help her out with the family's concrete business, but nothing ever came of that -- her mother never really hired her to work at all, and so after several weeks of being unemployed, Jen become rather penniless and was forced to move back to Armstrong, and out of our place in Vernon. I don't have the opportunity of seeing her every day anymore but I am fortunate in that we still see each other at least 2 or 3 days a week, which is great -- it's difficult to take time with her for granted when I don't get to see her as often.

( But, of course, there's more to it than that... )

---Karl

Good evening.

    No, I haven't fallen off of the face of the planet; I've simply stopped updating Livejournal in a good long while. It's sort of indicative of other things occupying my time, but that's neither here nor there -- I'm due up for an update, and a long one, at that.

    Things have finally settled into something of a nice routine for me once again. Work's going well (as well as work can go in a call center, I suppose), and I've finally received my pay raise to $11/hr, which was one heck of a retroactive payraise, by the time Sutherlands got around to giving it to me. On top of that, seems I'm one of the eligible candidates for a promotion to Floor Support, if I play my cards right -- but, chances are I won't, since I spend most of my idle time reading comics while waiting for inbound phonecalls instead of showing any initiative and helping out my team. I just can't be bothered! Work's a fine place to catch up on my reading, and I've got lots of that to catch up on. I've read through the entire series of Transmetropolitan in the last few days, as well as Kingdom Come, Superman: Red Son, Watchmen, The Big Fat Kill, A Dame to Kill For, and That Yellow Bastard. Today I started in on Frank Hebert's Dune -- the novel, not a comic book. All of this reading has gotten me interested in going out and buying more graphic novels, and that's probably exactly what I'll do this weekend.

    Outside of work, things are great. Wes, Jen, & I now live together in a nice two-bedroom fourplex in Vernon, which is really coming together. We've got it nicely furnished out and we keep it quite clean and tidy, and Jen keeps the kitchen well-stocked with delicious foodstuffs. Jen has also adopted a beautiful black-and-white female kitten -- which, as of yet, remains unnamed -- which is remarkably well-behaved and house-trained. It's terribly adorable and extremely affectionate (not unlike its owner, I might add) and for that reason I love it very, very much.

    I've been occupying most of my spare time outside work with either World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, other assorted videogames (Odin Sphere! Awesome game, check it out), and, of course, spending time with Jen, which has kept me busy enough that I don't have time for much else -- which is exactly how I like it. Jen & I have been working the same schedule at work so there's been more than enough time to spend with one another and still keep our own interests and time for ourselves, though that's been changing around a bit lately; her family's concrete company has been falling on hard times lately, what with their employees going missing, so she's been going to Armstrong every few days to help out with their contracts. This week she'll be leaving tomorrow morning at 7am for work out there and probably not returning until the following Monday. At least I'll have the kitten -- maybe -- and WoW to kill time with.

    I've got a tenative trip down to Vancouver planned for July 19th - 21st, and I'm hoping to visit Steve & Mike while I'm down there, as well as my parents, who just moved back down to the Lower Mainland (Port Moody, to be specific) earlier last month. The Penny Arcade Expo trip is still a go for the last weekend of August, and that vacation looms overhead like a giant and colourful hyperactive drug-zepellin, promising deliverance from the duldrums of my day-to-day job with road trips, hotel rooms, valet parking, shopping, videogames, live bands, and, of course, the Penny Arcade boys. I am excite.

---Karl

Good evening.

    More boring training, dear readers, compoounded by a severe stomacheache, brought on, I suspect, by eating stew that was let over on the stove uncovered for a night. I thought heating it up and eating it the next day was a good idea, and I suspect that's why I'm cringing and curling over in pain in this training room at the moment. But then, I've been wrong before -- maybe my appendix has burst. Riiiiiiiight.

    I've been coming to these training classes for our new program here at Sutherland Global Services for the past two weeks and a bit, readers, and every day, when I show up in the morning, I say to myself, "I wonder what we'll learn about today." Eight and a half boring, slow, dull hours later, I turn around, walk out of the building, and say: "There is no possible way tomorrow's class could be any worse than today's." And, invariably, every day, they prove me wrong.

    I learned more about Winsock APIs and LSPs today; how they can sometimes cause problems with Internet connectivity because our client's product inserts its own LSP into the Winsock layers to analyze Internet traffic. That's all I've learned in three days of work this week. Oh, that, and tidbitsd of gossip about the Floor Support positions that are opening up in June...

    Floor support staff -- effectively, the team leaders and troubleshooters extraordinaire for the program -- will likely be selected from the first two training batches... Which is to say, one of the two batches that I'm in. I'd like to think I'm a good candidate for this position, considering my aptitude with computers, but I suppose it remains to be seen; I'm not exactly the most patient or sympathetic individual, nor am I much of a keener for added responsibilities. I've got the past experience with customer soft skills and the technical savvy for the job, though, and it'd come with a pay raise. I'd be doing myself a disservice if I didn't at least try for one of the positions.

   Hah... Last night, when I got home, I had the beginning of this stomachache. I started playing some World of Warcraft while preparing myself something to eat but I ultimately ended up heading to my bedroom around 8 or 9pm to take a nap before (hopefully) waking up before Midnight to go back and pick up Jen from work that night. It wasn't until I heard the boisterous voice of Charlie Fitt coming from the living room that I woke up and came out of the bedroom; that's when I saw that Chaz had dropped off Jen from work and I'd slept in well past Midnight already. Charlie & Jen had been taking bets that I'd forgotten to pick her up because I was playing WoW... Honestly! I may love the game, but not to the exclusion of my responsibilities! No, readers; I blame the stomachache. I'm really hungry today, though I still have those stabbing pains in my abdomen. I've been considering going home early, just to try to get something to eat and relax. Green tea, perhaps, or ginger ale.

---Karl

Good morning.

    Yesterday, while experimenting with some of the products that our new client offers, we were instructed by our trainer in class to uninstall our existing antivirus software -- the Enterprise edition of McAffee -- and try installing, poking around in, and uninstalling several of our client's antivirus and system protection products. Unfortunately for us (or, more likely, part of the trainer's scheme to force us to troubleshoot errors), many of our client's products are extremely invasive in how far they dig into a system's registry when they're being installed, and the 'ghost' of those former installations can cause serious problems when attempting to install other products.

    Sometime over the course of all of this installation, uninstallation, troubleshooting, error messages, and reinstallations, the terminal I'm using seems to have contracted a virus. Nothing spectacular, just a couple of self-replicating randomly-named folders in the root of C:\ with \sp1\ folders in them. The folders themselves are inaccessable, but they seem to contain some .dll files that create new copies of themselves whenever they're accessed by any process, including our client's antivirus scanning software. Incidentally, scanning these suspicious files crashes the software. I'm presently running an online virus scan through our client's website, in the hopes that this'll find and remove the threat.

    If I were at home, dear readers, I would have never installed any of these products in the first place. As I've already said, the client software is extremely invasive and difficult to remove, not to mention it has a severe impact on a computer's performance. Similar -- if not better -- antivirus protection can be obtained through freeware antivirus programs available on the Internet, and these free programs don't bury skeletons in the closet of your registry; nor, for that matter, do they charge $69.95 for technical support when their product invariably crashes, fails to install or update properly, or encounters conflicts with existing anti-virus or anti-spyware programs already installed on your computer. But I digress; I'm more surprised than anything else that one of the computers in the workplace was able to contract a virus over the brief 24-hour period where no antivirus software was installed at all.

    After work today is Star Wars at Josh's place, right at 4pm. Later tonight, around 7:30, I'll be meeting Travis & Robbie for movie night; tonight we're watching Annie Hall. That'll pretty much monopolize the entire day, and tomorrow after work I'm heading to Boston Pizza at 3:30pm with some of my co-workers from training, and that'll be followed, of course, by Dungeons & Dragons sometime around 7:00 or 8:00pm. Spider-Man 3 is also coming out this weekend, so I'm thinking I'll probably try to get out and see it Saturday night. Wes & I also need to head to Fabricland to buy material to make curtains for the house this weekend! Busy, busy, busy.

---Karl