May 2019 Monthly Entry
Two major trips this month. The first one will be in Long Beach for Knights Gathering from May 17-20 and it coincides with their Pride weekend. We are expecting about 8-10 of us for the whole weekend with hopefully a few locals to join us. We will be staying at the (now formerly) Best Western Golden Sails. May 24-27 is International Mr. Leather 41 in Chicago and while I won't be staying at the host hotel, I'll be staying with my leather family at the Heart O' Chicago on the east side of the city. I'll be doing a lot of photography for both weekends and will write my entries on them. If any of you are local or visiting, give me a shout and join us!
The weather has been excellent these past few weeks. Essentially no rain, warm weather, and cool nights. All cherry blossoms are gone and the leaves are growing out. We are currently in a period of wetness this week but I don't mind.
Work has been all right. Dean as my new sub-foreman at Montecito is a little mixed. He's easy going and nice, but I feel he doesn't clean as throughly as Ash and Danny. He goes a lot faster and can get through his run quicker than them, but only because he doesn't put in as much effort. From what I heard, the staff are okay with him... but are they tolerating it or just don't notice? He's been a custodian for around 20 years but I he doesn't have sufficient training as a sub-foreman. To be fair, it's his first time as one and they don't train us on how to be one too. I guess I might pick up a few pointers from him as he learns the ropes. We'll see how it goes but his two weeks are long up and he is permanently locked into this position. He cannot go back to Stoney Creek -where he worked for years- unless his position reopens in the future.
Since Christmas 2014, I had my boxed PS4 here in my room, pretty much unopened. It was a gift from my parents and younger sister's family. I was very grateful and thought I'd start playing it in maybe 2016 but once I got my school district job... that derailed everything. I haven't had time for it and once the PS4 Pro was released, thought it was best to wait and get that instead. EB Games had their periodic trade-in event and thought this was the time to finally get one. On April 19 I did my trade-in at the EB Games in Willowbrook Mall. One of the clerks opened the box to check the condition of the console and says it was probably the best trade-in they ever got - even though I told him it would be in new condition. Of course, since I never unpackaged anything, it is in mint condition. I'm not sure the free download code for The Last of Us: Remastered still works. It was a $250 trade-in value for a $400 PS4 system (which means I lost money on it) for a $500 PS4 Pro. After taxes and a Premium membership card I included, it was $300. I get no free game with it so I went to Toys R' Us nearby and picked up a copy The Last of Us: Remastered to replace the one I gave away (again, I wasn't sure if there was an expiry on the free download code). It was $20 for a new copy so no big loss. I always wanted to play the game anyways. I've since set up my new console and it's ready for any of the 8 games I already have for it. I may play and review one of them later this year. Still need to look into getting an Xbox One X and perhaps a Nintendo Switch in the future. But a major plan of mine is to borrow my niece's Nintendo WiiU later this year and play some games and let my sister's family borrow my Xbox 360.
I got my new 10-year passport over a week ago. There is no change in its style as it seems Passport Canada didn't update it. Oh well, it should serve me well for hundreds of uses. I hate my picture though... my beard is so scraggly that it needed styling. The next thing to mention is my income tax: I somehow managed to get the biggest refund ever - $2413.38! I'm not sure why... I guess payroll overpaid on my taxes? All the information was entered in correctly. The timing couldn't be more perfect as I need to pay down my card and I've been hit with all these unexpected expenses. The passport renewal was a given ($160), but I had three major repairs on my car: replacing my calipers ($436.59), then soon after my wheel bearing and hub ($559.07), and yesterday replacing my horn and tie rods ($250.81). Oh yes, and do a synthetic oil change last weekend ($107.50) though I shouldn't have to do an oil change until well into summer. I just got my cheque from the CRA on Wednesday and I cashed it in tonight. I put $1700 on my credit card. But all the expenses I just listed were paid by interac so my savings took a major hit. I can't use the tax refund for an RRSP contribution I'm afraid, though I may put something toward that in the future. I pay a little into my RRSP every month anyways. Still, I'm very grateful for this big refund as it cancels out the unexpected expenses - Thank You Lord!
I watched Avengers: Infinity War on Netflix awhile ago, in preparation for my eventually watching End Game in theatres. I enjoyed it again and can't wait to see the final part. My review of Infinity War is here.
Shortly after my previous monthly entry, I finished watched Netflix's Castlevania Season 2. Yeah, it was pretty shitty. Considering how much I questioned the first season, this one confirms that the writers don't know what the hell they're doing. The animation is crap, the fight choreography is weird, the dialogue (especially with Sypha and making her "strong-female" type) is even worse, and it's just boring. The voice acting is still pretty good though. We have the three heroes from the end of Season 1: Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard. But this season adds two more main characters: Hector and Issac - both are from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. The end of the second season marked the end of the story from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and likely from Season 3, they will get to Curse of Darkness. Certainly I plan to watch Season 3 in the future but I'm not holding my breath that things will get better. Critics are in favour of the series but I'm not on board. It isn't terrible, but I just expect better from this series.
On the weekend I finished watching Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery. My review of this will be brief and doesn't require a separate entry. It was an interesting season of higher stakes and tying it into The Original Series. We get Captain Christopher Pike -arguably one of the most underrated and overlooked of Star Trek's captains- for the entire season commanding the Discovery. The focus of the show is still on Michael Burnham and it virtually completely centered on her. I'm honestly having problems with this. Very few characters get as much screen time as her and we hardly know the rest of the crew. The pacing of this series is still so fast that they introduce potential characters and situations, but resolve or kill them off in minutes. Hell, they even bring back killed characters in convenient fashion! So much wasted potential. While some episodes were pretty good, the one episode I hated was "An Obol For Charon". It had very poor direction and the whole thing with Michael and a dying-Saru was just painful to watch. It'll be interesting to watch SF Debris someday critique each episode and hear his pros and cons on them (he has done so for every episode of Season 1). Season 3 will likely appear next year though I'm looking forward to the new Picard series! Make it so!
Not sure when I'll be done Final Fantasy Tactics even though I'm on the last chapter. It depends on whether I'll take the side-quests more seriously and put the time into them or just finish the game more promptly. But after it's done, I can continue onto the next games. I'm making decent progress on RoboTech and it should be finished this summer. Season 4 of Star Trek: Voyager has just begun.
Last Move: Bohemian Rhapsody (Theatrical), Avengers: Infinity War (Netflix)
Last Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Mere Christianity
Last Game: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (PS3)
Current Book: The C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - The Screwtape Letters
Current Games: Gears of War: Judgment (Xbox 360) & Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)