Living
Since I don't have a ton else to be doing, I thought I would give this journal business a try. Hell, I'm sure it'd be nice for a few people to know what the hell's going on in my life.
Life with Ashlee is pretty cool, but of course it doesn't exactly quench the feeling that there's something else I'm supposed to be doing. I think I'm just too uncomfortable with myself to accept that there's not really a better or worse than easy living, and occupation doesn't mean a whole lot at the end of the road. I don't have a lot of myself here, since my sense of identity always had more to do with who I had fun with and where I did that. You can't replace people like you can replace things, and you can't really replace things the way you think you can. Every tiny thing makes up your life, affects you and your thinking in some minute way.
A good friend of mine has died, again (of course). He went by the name Knuckles173 or Knux at VGF.com's forums, and had a great sense of humor (always talking about being slutty and giving sluts a 'good dicking', as well as simultaneously being a big nerd like the rest of us, there). He had a really big heart, and absolutely loved animals. I'm sure if he had lived long enough, he would have become a vetrinarian or some kind of caretaker for animals. I didn't realize he was so ill, so it came as a shock, but he had a condition that prevented his bones and surgical wounds from healing when he broke his leg. He died because of an infection in his lungs he developed due to all the medication he was on. He was always in such a good mood whenever we spoke, it's hard to imagine that he was in any serious condition, but now he's gone. I shed a few tears everytime I really think about him, I miss him so much and I wish he could've seen his closest friends before he passed.
My life.. I've been driving a lot here. Ashlee doesn't really want to drive, so I take us wherever we need to with her as the navigator. I don't really mind, but it's hard to relearn something like shifting with your left hand. Also, it's a real pain to get a good sense of the left side of the car, driving from the right. I managed to crunch up the front left corner on a concrete pillar in a parkinglot. I felt pretty down about that, but eventually was able to laugh about it.
Money here goes fast, a lot faster than in the US. It's not just the change in currency, everything somehow manages to cost more for the sake of costing. The pay, of course, is a lot higher - but all the same, I'm not really working aside from helping Ashlee a little here and there. So, over all, it's a bit frustrating to have my money just disappear so fast. I mean, video games in particular cost twice as much as they did in the US. The AU dollar is worth about 70% of the US dollar, so that's an extra 20% charge after conversion. I get the feeling the companies charge that much more here just because they can get away with it - it'll cost you as much to import something, so they don't sweat it.
Speaking of games, I've been playing like 6 different ones, recently. I just beat Rayman DS a little bit ago, so I got Sonic Rush for the DS to keep me occupied. It's pretty cool, really I never liked Sonic that much, but it's probably the best one I've seen. I've been playing Sword of Mana for the GBA (on my DS), also. I can never sleep when Ashlee gets tired, so I tend to play that or Sonic when I head to bed. It's got beautiful art for a gba game, and plays pretty decently, so I've been getting on with it well. No real challenge so far, just a lot of leveling and the usual. It helps that I actually own and played most of the way through Final Fantasy Adventure for the original gameboy, which Sword of Mana is a loose remake of. That one played a bit more like a Zelda game than a game in the Mana series, though.
Also, Ashlee and I got out the original Link's Awakening yesterday, and played through the 3rd dungeon. She wanted to, so I had a good time of it. I messed around with a couple of my gameboy games, making sure they worked in the australian Super Gameboy. Later on, for most of the evening, Ash and I got into Myst on the pc. It's an older pre-rendered PC adventure/puzzle game, has great atmosphere. I played it when it first came out, but that was 12 years ago, so I don't remember much how to get through any of the puzzles. Ashlee got into it a lot, which was really cool. I love to see her get excited, and I like the way she thinks through things. Reminds me of playing Shadowgate on the NES with her when she came to visit me back in April, that was really fun. Other than that, Ash's mom and her brother like playing Mario Kart: Double Dash on the Gamecube a real lot, but I played that enough with them to get practiced so I just come in first most of the time racing against them, now.
I'm gonna miss having Cory as an opponent until we get a decent internet connection here, he's the only person aside from a few folks I know online that are really a big challenge. Ashlee is pretty fun to play versus in New Super Mario Bros., but of course I own the game so I have a bit of an edge over her. She's really cool in that she really likes to prove herself, but she can take any loss in stride. It would be lame for me to just let her win like I tend to with kids and folks when I want them to have fun, and I like it that way.
Ash has a way of smiling at me that makes everything feel so perfect. People call it love, but I hate worrying about whether or not I'm in love, so I prefer to just let myself feel the way I do. That being said, she's a lot of fun and an amazing friend, I'm happy to be so close to her.
All of that aside, I've (finally) gotten a decent enclosure for my 120gig harddrive with all of my stuff on it. Really the bulk of it is music and software I can't use on this computer, but it's such a relief to know I have access to all of it. Besides, the enclosure is all red chrome and sexy.
Ash and I went to the beach the other day, also. We had the whole evening absolutely free after we took Braidyn out for a late lunch of chinese food, so we went and wandered down the beach. Climbed on all the jagged rocks, and found some crabs (they were pretty cool, we tried to poke one with a stick but he sucked and hid in a hollow). I recall that we found a little dead crab, so we put it in a pool of water atop one of the bigger rock formations, and declared the day saved. After we found some stairs and climbed off the beach, we went and had coffee at a little cafe across the street. It was really nice there, it had a balcony overlooking the street and the ocean that we sat in the corner of. The coffee was really strong.
Oh, and before we left the mall where we got lunch that day, I got to play a free game of King of Fighters. Someone payed for it, and walked away, so I played with the characters they chose for a while. Did pretty well for not playing it before, special moves are always the same in those kind of games.
And now, I will guzzle some Mountain Dew, and probably go outside for a little sun.
Life with Ashlee is pretty cool, but of course it doesn't exactly quench the feeling that there's something else I'm supposed to be doing. I think I'm just too uncomfortable with myself to accept that there's not really a better or worse than easy living, and occupation doesn't mean a whole lot at the end of the road. I don't have a lot of myself here, since my sense of identity always had more to do with who I had fun with and where I did that. You can't replace people like you can replace things, and you can't really replace things the way you think you can. Every tiny thing makes up your life, affects you and your thinking in some minute way.
A good friend of mine has died, again (of course). He went by the name Knuckles173 or Knux at VGF.com's forums, and had a great sense of humor (always talking about being slutty and giving sluts a 'good dicking', as well as simultaneously being a big nerd like the rest of us, there). He had a really big heart, and absolutely loved animals. I'm sure if he had lived long enough, he would have become a vetrinarian or some kind of caretaker for animals. I didn't realize he was so ill, so it came as a shock, but he had a condition that prevented his bones and surgical wounds from healing when he broke his leg. He died because of an infection in his lungs he developed due to all the medication he was on. He was always in such a good mood whenever we spoke, it's hard to imagine that he was in any serious condition, but now he's gone. I shed a few tears everytime I really think about him, I miss him so much and I wish he could've seen his closest friends before he passed.
My life.. I've been driving a lot here. Ashlee doesn't really want to drive, so I take us wherever we need to with her as the navigator. I don't really mind, but it's hard to relearn something like shifting with your left hand. Also, it's a real pain to get a good sense of the left side of the car, driving from the right. I managed to crunch up the front left corner on a concrete pillar in a parkinglot. I felt pretty down about that, but eventually was able to laugh about it.
Money here goes fast, a lot faster than in the US. It's not just the change in currency, everything somehow manages to cost more for the sake of costing. The pay, of course, is a lot higher - but all the same, I'm not really working aside from helping Ashlee a little here and there. So, over all, it's a bit frustrating to have my money just disappear so fast. I mean, video games in particular cost twice as much as they did in the US. The AU dollar is worth about 70% of the US dollar, so that's an extra 20% charge after conversion. I get the feeling the companies charge that much more here just because they can get away with it - it'll cost you as much to import something, so they don't sweat it.
Speaking of games, I've been playing like 6 different ones, recently. I just beat Rayman DS a little bit ago, so I got Sonic Rush for the DS to keep me occupied. It's pretty cool, really I never liked Sonic that much, but it's probably the best one I've seen. I've been playing Sword of Mana for the GBA (on my DS), also. I can never sleep when Ashlee gets tired, so I tend to play that or Sonic when I head to bed. It's got beautiful art for a gba game, and plays pretty decently, so I've been getting on with it well. No real challenge so far, just a lot of leveling and the usual. It helps that I actually own and played most of the way through Final Fantasy Adventure for the original gameboy, which Sword of Mana is a loose remake of. That one played a bit more like a Zelda game than a game in the Mana series, though.
Also, Ashlee and I got out the original Link's Awakening yesterday, and played through the 3rd dungeon. She wanted to, so I had a good time of it. I messed around with a couple of my gameboy games, making sure they worked in the australian Super Gameboy. Later on, for most of the evening, Ash and I got into Myst on the pc. It's an older pre-rendered PC adventure/puzzle game, has great atmosphere. I played it when it first came out, but that was 12 years ago, so I don't remember much how to get through any of the puzzles. Ashlee got into it a lot, which was really cool. I love to see her get excited, and I like the way she thinks through things. Reminds me of playing Shadowgate on the NES with her when she came to visit me back in April, that was really fun. Other than that, Ash's mom and her brother like playing Mario Kart: Double Dash on the Gamecube a real lot, but I played that enough with them to get practiced so I just come in first most of the time racing against them, now.
I'm gonna miss having Cory as an opponent until we get a decent internet connection here, he's the only person aside from a few folks I know online that are really a big challenge. Ashlee is pretty fun to play versus in New Super Mario Bros., but of course I own the game so I have a bit of an edge over her. She's really cool in that she really likes to prove herself, but she can take any loss in stride. It would be lame for me to just let her win like I tend to with kids and folks when I want them to have fun, and I like it that way.
Ash has a way of smiling at me that makes everything feel so perfect. People call it love, but I hate worrying about whether or not I'm in love, so I prefer to just let myself feel the way I do. That being said, she's a lot of fun and an amazing friend, I'm happy to be so close to her.
All of that aside, I've (finally) gotten a decent enclosure for my 120gig harddrive with all of my stuff on it. Really the bulk of it is music and software I can't use on this computer, but it's such a relief to know I have access to all of it. Besides, the enclosure is all red chrome and sexy.
Ash and I went to the beach the other day, also. We had the whole evening absolutely free after we took Braidyn out for a late lunch of chinese food, so we went and wandered down the beach. Climbed on all the jagged rocks, and found some crabs (they were pretty cool, we tried to poke one with a stick but he sucked and hid in a hollow). I recall that we found a little dead crab, so we put it in a pool of water atop one of the bigger rock formations, and declared the day saved. After we found some stairs and climbed off the beach, we went and had coffee at a little cafe across the street. It was really nice there, it had a balcony overlooking the street and the ocean that we sat in the corner of. The coffee was really strong.
Oh, and before we left the mall where we got lunch that day, I got to play a free game of King of Fighters. Someone payed for it, and walked away, so I played with the characters they chose for a while. Did pretty well for not playing it before, special moves are always the same in those kind of games.
And now, I will guzzle some Mountain Dew, and probably go outside for a little sun.