Month: March 2023

Oh wow, yesterday was so dull that I actually forgot to make a blog post! That’s an indicator of the day job if there ever was one…

So, my blogging streak hits a bump; I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, to be honest. One of the reasons I used to give for not blogging back in the day, was that I lead a fairly average life, so I didn’t figure I’d have much to talk about in this space. In fact, I often still don’t, which is why you’ll notice me repeat myself a lot week to week; we’re still trying to find a new place to live (the townhouse we wanted to place an offer on got snapped up already), which will determine whether or not we can keep our little kitten Sparrow. He’s due for his next round of vaccinations on Tuesday, so his time remaining with us is limited if we can’t secure a deal on a home. To say that we’re upset is an understatement, but we’re not the ones in control of the money, so it’s out of our hands; all we can do is suggest properties and hope for the best, not that it’s helped so far.

Maybe the reason nothing much else has been happening is that I’m trying to keep myself distracted from all the “what ifs” surrounding our living situation; I’m tired of not knowing what’s going to happen, so I turn to things I can control. I tried doing it with art, but I’m still in a bit of a funk regarding that; I have a quota I need to fulfil before ComicCon next month, but I’ve been slacking on that too; really starting to miss those load shedding breaks at the day job…

My main distraction has been gaming instead, and I’ve been on a bit of a sci-fi kick lately. I’ve been attempting to pick up Ironsworn: Starforged again after a long time away; I backed the Kickstarter, I should probably get my money’s worth for it. It’s a solo tabletop RPG, like Dungeons and Dragons but for a single player, and with a used-future sci-fi theme. I did a few videos of my playthrough of the classic Ironsworn over on my YouTube channel, and I’ve wanted to get started on Starforged for a while, though I never seem to get beyond the setup phase: I get my universe built, my character created, my inciting incident plotted… and then never get round to playing it proper. Maybe I’m trying to look too deep into the fiction too fast, but it’s meant to be a story based game, so perhaps I just don’t want it to feel like more work when I’ve already got enough on my plate.

In digital terms, I took a deep dive into Stellaris, a space empire simulation game that is incredibly intricate and detailed; in basic terms, you try to get ahead in a galaxy full of alien empires, and you have approximately 400 years of game time to get the highest score before the end. I’ve bounced off of it a few times due to the mechanics being difficult to work around, but I’m well on track towards my first real finish; I’ve placated two ancient empires, fought off a legion of psychic space squids, and proclaimed myself God-Emperor of the Galactic Imperium, so all that’s left to do is wait for the endgame crisis and hope my economy doesn’t collapse before then. Yeah, it’s that kind of game.

Both of these games, Stellaris especially, has got me thinking about a concept I came up with several years back, one that I’ve been tinkering with on and off ever since. It was a sci-fi story that I pitched around as both a graphic novel and an animated TV show, but never got any bites. With the intricate level of politics involved in Stellaris, I’ve since come up with several new concepts to add to the original idea, and might try pitching it again from a new angle, even if only to myself.

I’d explain more, but I seem to have actually managed to talk about something enough to fill space (hehe, space) for this week, so maybe I’ll get into it properly next time.

Anywho, time to get through the work day, and then it’s off to see the new Dungeons and Dragons movie tonight; see you all next week for…something, I dunno, but it should be on schedule this time.

Ciao for now.

I’m one day away from turning 34; another year and matriculating from high school will officially be the midpoint of my life.

There’s really not a whole lot to talk about this week; we’re still waiting for word on any new living situation, and not much else has really been happening. Sparrow is getting on better with Silver, and some friends have offered to look after him if we cannot find a place in time to keep him, so that’s good at least.

So I’m just going to go into the weekend and enjoy my birthday as best I can; after my 21st, I haven’t been all that enthusiastic about my birthdays since, but I already glurged out all my angst about it in the previous draft of this blog entry, so you won’t have to read it. All you need to know is that I’m doing okay, and no matter how I feel about my birthday, it’ll pass just like any other day.

See you on the other side.

Ciao for now.

So much for recovery time, I think this past week has seen me the most tired I’ve been in a while; beware the Ides of March and all that…

I don’t want to blame all of my fatigue on the new kitten, but I can’t deny he’s been a contributing factor. Sparrow is a very energetic little guy, especially in the evening when we want to go to bed, so we’re often up an extra hour or so just to let him burn off steam. It might not sound like much, but you start to miss that extra hour of sleep when it’s not there. Silver is also being slow to warm up to him; she’s either perpetually grumpy with us, or hissing at Sparrow whenever he gets close. If we’re going to get these two used to each other, and let Sparrow explore without climbing every surface in our two-room rental, we’re going to need more space; Sparrow’s arrival might have even expedited something on that front…

I mentioned earlier in the year that we’ve been looking into a new place to live, and we might be on the cusp of finding one at last. I don’t want to jinx anything, but a very nice house showed up on our radar, and although it already has an offer on it, we’re not out of the running yet. We’ll hopefully know by the end of the week if we have a shot; put out some positive thoughts for us, we could do with all the help we can get.

It’s funny to think about moving again; we’ve been comfortable in our little space for a while now. We moved in shortly after the initial pandemic lockdowns started to alleviate, and though the space couldn’t grow, we’ve made good use of what little there is to fill up both the space, and our lives. It’s especially odd to think about how much I’ve moved about in the latest phase of my life. Growing up, I lived in the same place until I was in my mid-twenties; the same city, the same house, the same room for twenty six years, before moving across the country for study and work. Since then, I’ve lived in various different spaces: a friend’s spare room, a hole-in-the-wall by the beach, an inner-city apartment, a semi-detached in yet another city, back in my old room at my parent’s house, my future in-laws’ spare room, and finally our current space. All in all, I’ve changed living quarters on an average of about once per year since 2016. For someone who prefers a reasonably sedentary lifestyle, I don’t think I ever pictured myself moving around so much.

Where we are now has been home for nearly three years, which is the longest I’ve stayed in one place since leaving my hometown; I’ve enjoyed it, appreciated it, but it really has become far too small for our little family. We need room to breathe, to craft, to grow; we are becoming stifled by our lack of space, and it’s only a matter of time before we start to get resentful of it. I can only hope against hope that we can cinch this new house, because we need it now more than ever.

Will let you all know next week if we missed out or not.

Ciao for now.

Okay, head is above water again, let’s try and take a breather…

So, as you may have surmised by last week’s blog post, things have been busy, and not in the areas I would have preferred. I think I can confirm that my comic hiatus will last through April; I just have not found the time and energy to do everything I want so far in March, and at the rate I’m moving I will need the extra month. I’m slightly disappointed, if only in that I won’t be back to telling my stories as soon, but I have to remember that I’m running a marathon, not sprinting to the finish, and I’m allowed to slow down occasionally.

The blitz of stress from last week has mostly abated; a lot of it was just me overthinking things and worrying too much, as usual. I had been called upon to do some 3D rendering for a work project, which is something I have done at my previous job. However, I’m a little out of practice, and I’m more familiar with Maya as a program; having to switch to Blender was quite the experience, due to the different control schemes. Blender has an option to switch to industry-standard controls, but that just makes learning it twice as hard; I had to find the methods for doing what I wanted in Blender, then find the translations for its industry-standard settings. I did not even consider using the standard Blender controls, because they are just too different from what I’m used to, rusty though my skills may be; it’s like trying to drive a car built for the opposite side of the road, while facing backwards and steering with your feet. In the end, though I didn’t manage to get a full render out before the deadline, I was able to supply enough that the sales rep was happy with the results, which was a huge relief.

While the level of work being thrown at me by the day job is balancing out, there was another little curveball that got thrown my way on Monday. One of the sales reps found a kitten wandering around outside the building and brought him in to keep him safe; why he decided to leave the box in the studio department, I have no idea. Thing is though, no-one in the studio could take the kitten home, because they all own big dogs… except for me.

This is Sparrow. He’s just a little guy.

This is by no means a permanent situation; he needs a place to stay, and while he is quickly winning us over, my fiancé and I have to look at this practically. We are living in a rented space, and our landlord has already made an exception for our cat Silver; we have been allowed to foster Sparrow for a month or so in order to make sure he gets his vaccinations and is in good health. There’s always hope that we will have found a new space to live in by that time, but it’s very unlikely, and we’ll have to give Sparrow over for adoption elsewhere. Of course, we would prefer to give him to someone we know and trust, or even better, have them house him temporarily until we get our new place; we’ll have to see what happens. It also depends on whether or not Silver will accept him, since she’s a very solitary cat and doesn’t trust Sparrow being around just yet; ironically, we’ve been talking about adopting a kitten to keep Silver company when we’re out, but we were hoping to have a bigger space first. Life comes at you fast, sometimes.

So yeah, moods are a little all over the place right now; check back next week to see if we’ve figured it out.

Ciao for now.