Day 28 - Come on, put some back into it!

It really is amazing how habits collapse after one failure. I was going to skip it tonight, but then I thought about it - come on, I'm not ready to let this die. It's not time yet.

Did an AMA on Reddit about Magic rules reviewing. Someone asked if I wanted to write about Magic for his website (and be paid for it). Also received something for FAQ construction, with a mid-templating expected in a few days. Weird how it all comes in a clump...

Had an awkward conversation with Efrain about Sylvia. He let a relationship collapse in the past, and regrets it. I don't know how similar this is. Denial? Particularly interested to observe myself, and how uncomfortable I find this kind of emotional conversation.

It's late. Time to sleep.

Day 27 - Red Robin again!

Huh. My first failure at this - I wasn't able to write yesterday. I was bamboozled into babysitting all evening with no computer. Please don't let this jeopardize the habit. Probably won't be disastrous, since I've gone almost a month now.

On the spur of the moment, took advantage of a commitment-free evening to hang out with Derek. We ate at Red Robin, and passed a very pleasant couple of hours chatting about everything and anything - how his girlfriend's going to try being religious again (I compared it with taking up smoking); differences in culture and language and religion, and whether they're good (world diversity) or bad (cliques); how awesome it is to be a game developer; how to set up a website for Swym (Derek reckons Swym got me this job - which is cool, since it lost me the last one); Neal Stephenson books; etc.

Very pleasant.

Also, posted cards for eBay.

Day 25 - Red Robin, Spider Man, and Swimming

Spent too much money today. Hope we don't have a problem later in the week.

Anyway, took the kids to Efrain's place and played on the Wii for a bit. Michael didn't really get how Wii Sports worked. I guess that's not such a bad thing. Then we went to the Red Robin for lunch, excellent as always; then got a fantastic chocolate crepe for pudding, from Cafe Crepe on Granville. Mmm.

After that they had a bit of a nap, so I popped into the comic book shop they have there, and browsed for a bit. Considered getting Munchkin Adventures 2, but it was very expensive and to be honest, I don't get that much mileage out of such games. Bought a discounted Spiderman book instead. $6 is more my price range...

Finally, took them swimming. All in all, a pretty enjoyable day, in fact.

My Lotus Cobra finally sold on eBay. Packed it up in cardboard ready to send, but forgot to bring it with me. Oh well, tomorrow will be good enough.

Day 24 - Zelda

(writing this the morning after, again. Shape up, lad.)

Looked after the kids all day. Oh, they're fun but soo tiring. Michael spent the whole day complaining that he wanted to use the computer to send text messages to Grandma. I'm sure she'll appreciate them.

Sylvia complained the house was a mess when she got back. Which I think was thoroughly unfair, it wasn't that untidy, and I was actually in the process of cleaning it.

In the evening, tried Zelda: Twilight Princess on Efrain's Wii. Kinda boring, wandering around this little village with no particular quest to achieve. Nothing I was doing mattered; and in the end, stopped playing because I couldn't work out what I was meant to do next. Then I tried the original Zelda from 1987 - Man, what a difference! They had it all figured out back then.

Without a single piece of explanatory text, it was clear that here I was on an epic quest, first collecting a sword to fight off the wildlife, then exploring a dungeon, finding my first piece of the Triforce (what's that? Doesn't matter, it's clearly a golden mcguffin), finding a Bow (don't have any arrows yet, but I can see where to get them)... holy shit. They should make modern game developers play this and learn where they've gone astray.

Simple gameplay (no tutorials necessary), self-explanatory situation (no cutscenes necessary) = genius instant-appeal game, regardless of 1987 graphical quality.

Day 23 - Volver

Sylvia picks the best movies. Watched a Pedro Almodovar movie called Volver with her tonight. It's just so well written. Gave me lots of little flavours to put into Skyward. It's starting to come together, I think.

At work, got all my Closed Beta 2 bugs polished off, ready for Monday. This basically amounted to switching our lobby to run at 1024 x 950. Mark my words, in a few weeks we'll be redesigning the tabs to go down the left-hand side...

Now looking at the Urza's Saga FAQ. Mark says it's huge... yummy.

Day 22 - Aliens vs Predator! Aliens vs Predator!

So, yep, managed to post Misty Rainforest, and buy envelopes. Relisted the other cards - hopefully they'll sell this time. Reduced the price.

Played the new Aliens Versus Predator demo at lunch. Awesome stuff, though I was disappointed by the way the aliens jumped. Hardly any distance at all, really.

Bought and ate dinner by myself for the first time in years.

Day 21 - oops, too late

Writing this the morning after. Dang.

Anyway, a pretty good day - Greg was very happy that I could prototype new screen layouts so fast. :-)

Do Not Forget: Must post Misty Rainforest tomorrow. Er, today, that is.

Day 20 - Silent Night

Today was roughly 1000% better than I expected it to be. Not that my expectations were especially high.

Anyway, I think I see, for the first time, that this is not going to be the end of the world as we know it. Separation has almost the opposite effect - it means that we can no longer simply be passively together in the house, doing our own things. It would feel wrong - why am I there, instead of here? So it actually makes us far more conscious of our time together, and we relish it all the more for that.

An unexpected healing force.

Day 19 - If this were the last day of your life...

Ok, so I'll write what I want to write, but I won't publish it right now. At some time far in the future nobody will be upset to learn of the events of today.

And here we are. I packed a suitcase with my few meager clothes, stuck my laptop in its bag, and moved out to Efrain's house. I'm not being a good roommate, though. Hopefully we can get to know each other and make this a nice arrangement.

It's frustrating that the words are coming out so bland. My head is swimming, every sentence is taking me 5 minutes to write, and yet all I'm managing to say are the dry facts. I was avoiding people all the way here, lest my red eyes disturb their pleasant evening. It occurred to me that, for Vancouver, the weather was a disappointingly light drizzle tonight. Hardly reflective.

I don't want Sylvia to call. It's too painful.

Day 18 - Babysotten

(...or whatever the correct verb form is for having had someone babysit for you.)

It was a pretty tough day (Michael was tired today, and he's relentless even at the best of times). Took them out to Capilano Mall and bought Michael new shoes; also bought the worst box of frozen chicken fillets I've ever seen. Each one is basically a breadcrumb shell filled with air, with a thin chicken lining to satisfy the Trading Standards Agency.

But I made it through to 5:30, took them home, and Sylvia took over. I slumped in a chair and tried to recover a bit. At 8:00 they were in bed, and we went out to the Indian restaurant, leaving our babysitter (whose name simply slips through my brain like teflon coated soap) to clean the house. There was a minor hiccup when Melissa woke up, but on the whole the evening was a great success.

Currently reading: Juliet Naked. Really good. (A lot better than A Long Way Down, anyway.)

Day 18 - World woken

Went to the Worldwake prerelease, basically all day. Won 2, lost 2; didn't do too badly in the end. I was pretty happy with my final black-and-white-flyers build, although it had a definite shortage of bomb cards. Just the Glorious Anthem Reanimator, really.

Picked up my new glasses from Sears. I rather like them. They don't make things as crisp as my old ones, but I think that's why the old ones were giving me headaches.

Still thinking about cells. I think I need to write down all my motivating examples and see if I can find a way to solve them all...

Day 17 - I'm British, you muppet.

Finished Crysis Warhead. Not bad, but it turns out to be a lot shorter than Crysis was. It's sad that they put so many scripted gunfights in, when it's just so much more fun to sneak into places without being seen. Still grin when I remember the "retrieve the black box" mission, where a guard was actually standing next to the box, looking at it. I cloaked, took the box, and ran before he had time to shoot.

Sylvia invited a babysitter to come over and meet the children. I let her give them a bath, then we put them to bed together. It went ok; she seems nice.

Spent the evening making comments on the WWK rulebook, and thinking about cells in Swym. Specifically, I think we could put in an @ operator that reduces the number of arguments to a function by 1, by filling in the first argument with "it".

So @Where(Even) is the same as it.Where(Even). And c.@index and @index(c) are both equivalent to it.index(c). Hmm... I don't want to allow Even.@Where though. Bleah.

Finally got round to listing my most expensive single cards on eBay.

Worldwake prerelease tomorrow. Should be fun!

Day 16 - Crysis Warhead (oops)

Succesfully packed Michael off on his Grouse Mountain field trip this morning. Also filled in his emergency contact numbers form and gave them a photo of him.

This evening: stayed at work until 9:00 playing Crysis Warhead. It's pretty good. The storytelling is a lot more ambitious than Crysis's, although the game is a little more glitchy. Looking forward to seeing the finale.

Wrote a letter to Nationwide. Job for tomorrow: print and post it.

Day 15 - V for Vendetta

Another late night, so I'll say nothing more than - all 4 jobs accomplished. More than I was expecting, I admit.

Watched V for Vendetta. It remains a fantastic film.

Goodnight.

Day 14 - School registration

Wow, what a day. My feet hurt.

Took Michael to the school board nice and early in the morning, got him registered with the school board. Waiting in the waiting room took a ridiculous amount of time, so I ended up having to take the day off work. Thoughtfully, they provided things for the kids to do, so I read Michael various books. He didn't want to play with the lego or any of the toys though.

I particularly liked one book - a man leaves his house one night, angry after arguing with his wife. He kicks his donkey, rides him around a bit, then ties him to a post and goes to bed. When he leaves house the next morning, he realizes that what he thought was his donkey was actually a tiger! He runs away in terror. Nevertheless, word gets around that a man has ridden a tiger and tied it up outside his house: the king thinks "wow, I should get this brave guy to sort out this army that's threatening to attack the kingdom". He sends a horse to collect the man, and the horse takes him straight to the enemy camp. Terrified, the man grabs hold of a tree to make the horse stop - but instead he uproots it. So he rides into the enemy camp brandishing a tree, and the army runs away at this display of strength...

Anyway, after lunch I took Michael to nursery, and then took Melissa to Hudson elementary school, and filled in more forms. Now he's fully registered for the French course. Deadline was Friday.

After picking Michael up from nursery, I took them to Sears and bought myself some glasses. Taking the insurance and the Sears gift card into account, I'll end up paying less than $50.

Finally, tonight I packed three Zendikar boxes for sale on Ebay. I'll post the first one tomorrow.

So, four jobs to do tomorrow - post the box; file insurance claim for glasses; MSP group coverage form (deadline is wednesday); talk to Joe about replacing the fuse on the kitchen power socket.

Weird how everything is due simultaneously...

Day 13 - Game theatre

Had a great time at the theatre. A weird experimental event where all 200 audience members had a gamepad, controlling a little spherical figure bouncing around on screen. Mine was called Dustin. He had a yellow top and a blue bottom. They kept giving us decision points, whereby the game area was split down the middle: we moved left or right of the line to make a choice. So again and again, throughout the show, they would make us make choices. Some choices were irrelevant; some affected which future choices you could make; some let you jump higher, or changed what your avatar looked like. Some put you out of the game for a few rounds (in jail, or in hospital, or on a trip somewhere).

My most significant decision in the end was to buy Dustin a car - which made him really fast and able to leap great distances. Dustin eventually died in a chasm at age 95. R.I.P...

Probably the most interesting part was the election; four podiums were created, and for each one, the first person who managed to jump onto it (it was quite hard to be that precise) became that podium's Presidential Candidate. They zoomed in on each of the candidates, then everyone was told to flock around the podium they wanted to vote for. We ended up electing a blue-and-red blob called Moses. Once elected, he was barely affected by gravity, and he shot off the top of the screen. This was apparently a glitch - the organizers told him not to jump, and we watched as his shadow slowly slid across the wall. When he came back onto the screen, there was a great round of applause. What a unique medium.

Busy times... I got an MSP group coverage form filled in, and registered my bank account with PayPal. And we'll be going to the School Board to register Michael (this time bringing him with us) tomorrow morning.

Day 12 - Swimming. And just a little sunshine.

Another tough day looking after the kids. They can be cute, but oh, so demanding.

On a whim we went out, all four of us, to Denny's for an overpriced second-breakfast, which kind of threw off our routine for the rest of the day. Lunch was basically a little stop-gap affair, and then I took the kids swimming in the afternoon. After an hour Melissa started screaming that she wanted to leave, so we left. In the changing room, she started screaming again that she wanted to go back in. Too late, of course. And when we got home, it wasn't 5 yet, but she started throwing herself on the floor demanding dinner. She was tired and hungry and just a little bit ill still. Still... we got through it somehow.

Finished up with a quiet evening cuddled up on the sofa, reading together. It's been so long since we did that.

Day 11 - Made Dundee cake.

Felt out of sorts all day - probably another stage of the snuffly cold I've had. All I wanted to do was get some sleep, and yet for no particular reason I've stayed up until 10:45. I don't understand myself sometimes.

So yeah, went to Safeway with the kids, bought ingredients for a Dundee cake (couldn't find a correct-size cake tin, so I bought a big high-sided rectangular one, on the basis that that's probably the most useful shape, and we needed one anyway).

I also took the opportunity to sew up the torn hole in my blue jeans.

My box is about to finish selling on Ebay. Should have added a photo to the auction - I just look unprofessional now. Probably lost a good 30 dollars there.

Someone asked me on Reddit whether I was going to make a Swym community site. Um... guess so, eventually. I'd totally do it if I thought people would actually use it.

Day 10 - a day off! Got some work done.

After a week of Not Much in terms of getting stuff done, today was pretty good. Went to register Michael at the Vancouver School Registration Board in the morning... but it turns out we were meant to take Michael with us, oops. We'll have to try again on Monday. Hopefully Sylvia will be willing to do it alone next time, now that we've gone once and seen the route.

More successfully, finally bought some new shoes, without broken soles! I'm a little concerned that my feet were already hurting after wearing them for 5 minutes, but I guess I'll wear them in soon enough.

In the afternoon, I took Melissa to the library. She slept a good hour or two, so I took the opportunity to read a bit of The Stepford Wives, and Tom Strong.

Also went to Future Shop and spent my birthday gift certificate on V for Vendetta. I loved this the first time I saw it, hope to love it again. Still have some money left; I'll go back another day and see if I spot anything else worth having.

Finally, went to work and brought home one of the spare office chairs they were trying to get rid of. It's so much more comfortable than the crappy one we had, there's just no comparison. However, it's also a LOT heavier. I brought it home by stacking it on top of the big pushchair, with its little wheels in the air. Melissa had to walk. (Not that far; we took a bus.)

Suffering from a headache this evening. Maybe I'm dehydrated.

Day 9 - What the bleep is this drivel?

Watched "What the bleep do we know?" with Sylvia. What a bizarre collage of physics, psychology, biology and psychobabble. We were pausing the movie every 5 minutes to discuss it, and sometimes just to laugh. The speakers talk as though the psychobabble follows naturally from the physical processes - "quantum mechanics is all about the observer... but most people lose focus for 6 seconds in every minute - so they're not being very good observers." "there is more latent energy contained in the vacuum inside a single atom, than in all the mass of all the universe. So just think, if your consciousness can harness even a fraction of that energy..."

I'd say more, but it's late. Lots of constructive work to do tomorrow - we'll be getting Michael's next school sorted out.

Doomsayers cautiously upbeat.

Day 8 - Archenemy

Reading Archenemy cards tonight. I'll make sure stuff gets done tomorrow.

Day 7 - 9 (the movie)

What a stupid name for a movie. It's not even "Nine". Guess they
wanted to stand out in an alphabetical listing.

So yeah, I watched "9". It's thoroughly incoherent. In the 10-minute
short film that it's based on, just about everything is left unseen.
Which works well - it's all mysterious and you're free to insert your
most convincing explanation.

But by expanding it they just show how flimsy their actual ideas were.
How many different things can the glowing MacGuffin do? Why does it
fit perfectly into that slot in the Machine? And really, what the heck
did the Scientist want the ragdolls to do with it? Because that didn't
seem to be what happened.

When I can watch a movie, guess what's going to happen next, and be
disappointed that my guess made far more sense than what actually
happens... you know something's gone wrong.

(Namely: we're told the Machine is evil because it has no soul. Well,
the MacGuffin is absorbing soul pieces into it. So we should stop
fighting, let it suck in the remaining soul pieces, then it will have
a soul, stop being evil, and... yay!)

Jobs today: made a plan for getting Michael into the French immersion
course. It had better work. We don't have much time.

Day 7 - 9 (the movie)

What a stupid name for a movie. It's not even "Nine". Guess they wanted to stand out in an alphabetical listing.

So yeah, I watched "9". It's thoroughly incoherent. In the 10-minute short film that it's based on, just about everything is left unseen. Which works well - it's all mysterious and you're free to insert your most convincing explanation.

But by expanding it they just show how flimsy their actual ideas were. How many different things can the glowing MacGuffin do? Why does it fit perfectly into that slot in the Machine? And really, what the heck did the Scientist want the ragdolls to do with it? Because that didn't seem to be what happened...

When I can watch a movie, guess what's going to happen next, and be disappointed that my guess made far more sense than what actually happens... you know something's gone wrong. (For the record: the problem with the machine was allegedly that it had no soul. The MacGuffin is sucking souls into it. So

Day 6 - My Ebay's Keeper

It's late, so this will be brief...

Created a new (Canadian) Ebay account and listed some Magic cards.

Went to see a possible apartment to live in. VERY nice. Wish I could afford the private bedroom, but I think I'll probably take the alcove in the living room. Pro: nice place, convenient for work, sharing with a nice guy. Con: he's rather big on cleaning, and seems likely to keep me up - he works in the living room until late. Guess we'll see how it goes.

Watched My Sister's Keeper - very sad, but pretty good film.

I'm sad. Not because of the film.

Day 5 - Science World!

I love Science World. It's as if an army of really smart people were given loads of money, and each made the coolest toy (with a vague scientific-educational theme) that they could think of. Every time I go, I find another secluded corner with new awesome things in it. I'm with Pocahontas on this one: there's more to see than can ever be seen.

So, that's where I took the kids today. I finally got a year's membership - not that expensive - so now whenever I'm at a loss on a rainy day, Science World will be a tempting option... and free! The only awkward bit is having lunch there - the cafe is uncomfortably expensive, and there's nowhere else to eat. I took sandwiches today, and we ended up eating them on a (rather wet) bench outside.

That aside, a slightly frustrating conversation with Sylvia. We'll get there in the end, I think.

Jobs today: eh, well, I'm going to change the rules. Looking after the kids for 12 hours (and doing not too bad a job, if I do say so myself) qualifies as a job itself.

Day 4 - Child care

In the morning, rescued files from the old Macbook drive. Hopefully Sylvia hasn't lost anything. Also made use of Joe's tiny screwdriver to put batteries in Michael's little police helicopter. Seems like a really good toy - the blades spin, and there's an LED "searchlight" on the front. He had a great time with it.

That aside, I was just looking after the kids all day. Did manage to get out and meet up with Paco, Odra and Jesus (not that Jesus); had a nice afternoon at Second Beach. The kids are older than last time they met, and Laura and Michael seemed to be much more able to entertain each other. Good times all round, despite (or in Melissa's case, courtesy of) all the huge puddles of rain water. We have each other's numbers, definitely need to do this again some time.

And I've been getting to bed far too late this week. I need to have a shower now (another thing I need to do more often), and get a good night's sleep.

Sylvia remains unconvinced that our marriage is savable.

Day 3 - Love and Independence

Wow. On my way home today, I was afraid I'd have to admit, here, that I had failed to do anything at all. Yet here I am, on possibly my most productive evening so far.

First, I finally borrowed a screwdriver from Joe. Time to get those files from the old Mac drive.

Second, long discussion with Sylvia about love and emotional closeness. Her definition: love is that emotion that makes people come to a gravestone, or to someone in a coma, just for companionship - because all they want is to feel that person's presence again, however remotely. It was was electrifying. My skin tingled all over.

Third, long email to my mother about independence, and how teenagers have to rebel (which I never did). "Patronizing" is really a very well-named word.

Enough buzzwords. Let's just get on with turning this life around.

Day 2 - ahem... Crysis.

Well, Crysis kind of won out over the jobs tonight. I got to the alien ship and just wanted to see what was next - and next - and next... Eventually Sylvia called at 10:00 to ask me to come home, so I... played on until the next time I died. Then came home.

In other news, I finally submitted the manifest file changes. Hopefully now CoHO will Just Work, even on machines without Visual C libraries. That took about a month too long.

So, need to do two jobs tomorrow to catch up. Shouldn't be too hard - write that letter to Nationwide, check with Joe where to get a small screwdriver, finalize a babysitting day with Derek, get that permission form to the nursery... and sign up for the board games thing on Saturday, and tell Sylvia.

Maybe we can combine a board games trip with my job for Saturday: buying new shoes that don't bloody leak.

What shall I spend my Future Shop gift voucher on? $20 doesn't buy you much there, but there's probably a DVD I want...

Writing a diary has an unexpected benefit - it makes me think about stuff. Should have done it years ago...

Math is hard; let's go exploring!

Day 1 - Debt and Babysitting

Wow. My resolution came within a hair's breadth of being broken before it had ever begun. Day 1, and I almost went to bed without writing. Come on, brain; I'm trying to get a habit started here. Don't mess this one up.

So then, jobs done today: I got the overdue bills paid off, and made a start on getting a babysitter. Saving a marriage requires quality time, after all.

Chat with Joe went well. Apparently I'm pretty great at my job.

Tonight's movie, incidentally: Duplicity. Pretty entertaining, but failed to be life-changing. That's probably for the best; it only needs changing every so often, really.

Julia Roberts is looking so old. 43, apparently. Ok, well, maybe she doesn't quite look 43.

On with the adventure!

Thank you, Up

Finally, I've seen the direction I need in life. A sense of adventure!

I hereby declare the following:

• Every day I will do something real and constructive.
  
• Every day I will write what I did (at least).
• Always remember, it's about enjoying the journey.
  
• And every time I feel tired, or cynical, or distant... remember the alternative.

Everything's still there for the taking. Let's go and have some fun. And as Morpheus learns: change or die.

And for times I'm short on inspiration, some examples of real-and-constructive jobs to do:

• Make some money, or at least reduce the amount being lost.
  
• Work towards a driving license.
• Find a better house.
  
• Buy grown-up clothes.
• Improve a relationship.
• Do something we'll remember forever.
  

Finally, to anyone reading who hasn't seen Pixar's last movie, Up... I can really recommend it. I don't know if what I got out of it is, strictly speaking, what was there. But either way, it's still a lot of fun.

Keep moving forward!