The Gremlin's Wings

A quick note: the skin on my blog was corrupted in the update to WordPress 3.0. I had to switch to another. I hope I can switch back, because I quite liked that old skin… Oh well. Change sometimes is for the better.

Speaking of, I should mention my situation lately. Hence the last post being done in April, when it is now late June. Two and a half months late on my newest entry, which was going to be about the Hollywood trend of shock-gore horror films instead of suspenseful horror films but I am not so sure about it right now.

Well, in my personal life, things have been going rather well lately. If you have not heard yet, I now have two jobs and a new apartment to boot. Yep, Adam had to move. Continuing in the tradition of moving to places that are accessible on foot to all work venues, my new place is about a twenty minute walk away from both places. I was insistent on this place instead of others for this very purpose. Yes, I am still working for Zellers… and now I am working for one of my old employers as well, answering telephones and generally being the helpful person that I am (though I bet that several people in my life would like to dispute this).

Has it been a change? Yeah. Life lately has been about constant change. I mean, just three months ago, I had no job, no money and a bleak outlook on life in general. My Employment Insurance (Americans: think unemployment benefits) ran out in May, right when I was at my most vulnerable point. If you think moving is hard, try planning a move then finding out that you are going to be over a thousand dollars short in your moving and rent budget. I owe my parents big time for helping me through that rough patch, both financially and emotionally.

June definitely was a changing month for me. I now live in a great new apartment (where the landlord will not try to screw me out of a damage deposit, like the last one did), I have two jobs, two wonderful kids, a smile on my face and a positive outlook for the first time since January 2009. I am so happy, I have taken to saying when people ask me how I am I respond: “If I was any better, I would be twins.”

So now you know how I am. How are you? Leave a comment below and tell me.

So now to catch up on world events… what should I next spread an opinion about? BP’s major screw-up in the Gulf? Nah… done to death already.

I have been quiet lately. Considering I had nothing more intelligible to write other than, “OH DEAR GOD DO MY FEET HURT!” a hundred times, I think I did you all a favor in restraining myself. Nor did I do an April Fools joke, mostly because there’s been more humorous ones out on the Internet – I was actually pretty sad at how Google’s joke went this year. Really, just renaming your company to Topeka? In response to this silliness?

So what have I been up to?

Recently I got myself a part-time job. It is nothing major, except for the fact that it is different work than I am physically used to and I am slowly getting my body readjusted to a regular work schedule. It is at a department store called Zellers, which is less than a block away from me. For the unedumacated American population that may be reading this little blurb, Zellers is a subsidiary of the Hudson’s Bay Company, basically the oldest corporation in Canada and one that predates America by… what is it, a century? Anyway, I am a night shift stock boy.

It is an adjustment for me. My previous employment experience involved me sitting on a phone and yelling at people; moving things for five hours a night is quite a different sort of tired at the end of the day. My mind is active, but my body feels so sore by the end. I think I discovered muscles I never knew I had doing this work, and I may have lost a few pounds in a week just from the change of activity.

Now to get used to the blisters caused by the uncomfortable steel-toed boots! YAY!

I started last Thursday (March 25th). So far, I have learned a lot about stock, setting up displays and the unnecessary amount of packaging luggage comes in before it gets put out on display.

But the really funny thing: even away from a help desk atmosphere, people are just… people.

It does not matter where you are. You still see some policies you do not agree with, some you agree with, people who enforce them to the letter, people who do not even know what the word “policy” means, people who are universally liked, people who are universally hated, the crazys, the lazys, the overachievers… I am always amazed, every time I switch jobs, at how even in different fields there are still things that show we are not too different from each other.

I only wish that world politics could take that perspective. We would all be a lot better off.

I owe my computer.

See, just over a month ago, I made a bet with my computer that my hard drive would be the first thing to go on my computer. Technically, it was the oldest component on it – out of the entire thing, I bought that drive in 2006, a Samsung 120 GB hard drive – and looked a little rickety to me when I looked at it. There has been a noise coming from my computer for the last little bit that I could not quite identify. I assumed it was the hard drive, but apparently it was not. On Boxing Day, I sought out and purchased a new 1 TB SATA hard drive for a very good deal – more than half the purchase price off. It’s given me good service since then.

Apparently I was wrong.

Today, my monitor started behaving irregularly. It is an LCD monitor that I bought in 2008. And now, almost precisely two years later from the manufacture date listed on the sticker, it is a monitor-shaped paperweight, due to the backlight failing.

Prognisis? Replacement needed.

Damn you, you electronic POS. You won.

Originally, I had a post about half-done, about my views on world government and the world currency situation. However, while I was researching everything I could about this, something came up that caused me to not put up that one post, and it is a religious reason – apparently, uniting the world in one government will cause the Apocalypse or Armageddon (not the movie) according to prophecy. Once I thought about it for a bit, that actually made sense as to why the United Nations is set up to be this incompetent power in the world, and why the League of Nations failed in the first place.

My understanding of why humanity is so messed up got better just from that revelation.

Anyway… moving on.

Lately, I have been a complete insomniac. My life right now consists of:

• Get up from bed
• Apply for work
• Eat
• Apply for more work
• Play a game to try to entertain myself
• Hope someone calls
• Sleep
• Repeat

I do not know if you know this or not, but I have been unemployed since June of 2009. When I was let go from a very familiar multinational company, I was devastated. In fact, I think I might still be. Lately, especially over the past few days, I have had extreme bouts of insomnia and today I have a numbness that I can not entirely explain. Panic attacks, maybe, or the fear of panic attacks.

My unemployment runs out soon. Am I panicking? Yes.

Am I depressed? Meh, probably.

I do not think I am going to whine about it incessantly here, though. Instead, I am going to dance with myself. If I had a chance, I’d ask the world to dance, ’til then I’ll be dancing with myself. I mean, what good is that? I am not a little whiny emo punk or anything. I think, though, instead of writing about my angst and despair, because all that will do is get you to feel sorry for me and I really do not want it…

...because this is not me.

I think I will just share some other things with you instead.

The decade ended over two weeks ago. Ten years ago, I was in my junior year of high school (11th grade), and I was starting my life down the path that would lead me to where I am today. Yeah, I did one little choice that changed me from who I was to who I am today, and it has affected every facet of my life from then on: I started to date a woman that lasted a six year stretch and ended up with two children and the place I am today. I do not regret any choice, nor do I wish it to all go away, and I would do it all over again, if given the option.

The weird thing is that everything did come full circle – I started the 21st century without a job, without too much direction in life, and addicted to the computer. Details are the only thing that has changed from then until now. I would argue that I look very similar in between then and now, except I can actually grow facial hair and lost a lot of the boyish stuff in my facial features. Oh, and I gained about forty pounds. Can not forget that one.

Am I in the place that I wanted to be? No. Life turns in odd and unexpected ways for everyone, and I am no exception to this whatsoever.

One thing that I am proud to say is that I am still seeking understanding of the world around me. It might not be as detailed or as involved as people getting into world politics, but I like to generalize. I might dabble one day in world politics, but the next day is more about the behavior of males and females, or the influence of certain factors against individuals, or my own mind. Metaphysics the next day.

What Soylent Green is made of the next day.

Life is what I make of it. I just wish there was not this incessant need to get a job that I have to fuel in order to even live life. I must admit, though, it was incredibly rewarding to work for a living, because it felt like I was contributing something to the world… but only contributing a poorly-written blog post every couple of days I guess will have to do for now.

I think this post has wandered in weird ways. I apologize for that, but this is how my mind thinks lately. It jumps from one subject to another very easily, and I guess that does not really make sense. It is like throwing a playlist on your music player on random with a list that covers multiple genres of music or something… which is something I do anyway. I like listening to The Who, Bif Naked and U2 within a span of ten minutes (and yes, all three of those are on my playlist). My mind threads things together in its own way, and I point out similarities in each of those music styles in my head, and I hum along or tap my feet at all the songs.

Ah well.

I think I am done here.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

(I could not resist the Futurama reference, sorry. Here is something a little classier for you.)

May you not screw up 2010, especially if you are a world leader. It is a new decade, a new time for discovery, change, and, as some like me want, a return to some of our space race ambitions: the exploration of space, to seek out strange new worlds, and to push the boundaries of human understanding of the universe, our world, and ourselves forward.

May you have a journey of self-discovery along the way.

I would like to eventually get married.

Is this a surprise that I declare this? Probably not, but maybe it is for those that may be uninformed about me. I’m not exactly the most sociable person around, true, but I think that there’s a Mrs. Gremlin out there for me. Some people spend all their lives searching for that special someone, and they may find them. I prefer to look at the positive side that I can find my Mrs. Gremlin, and I still have many years ahead of me, more than what I leave behind. At least, I hope I do. Have I found her already? Yeah.

You know, marriage is a true oddity. It is about the commitment of two people to each other, how they will love each other for all time, etc. Marriage and weddings is a religious ceremony repeated across many faiths; even for the non-religious and the atheists it can be a big production, though. It is one thing that most people across the globe can say that they have in common, that weddings are prevalent in societies. The ceremonies may look different, but the process is almost the same if you look at all of them. The general gist is people joining their lives together. Most of the time, I would assume this is because of another force: love.

I can’t go through a post on marriage without talking about love, and explain a few of my views on this particular subject. Whether you believe love is a wonderful thing that links people together, or a biological reactionary to the human need to procreate, it is essentially present in our lives. It is a passion for something that cannot be easily denied or forgotten, and leaves an incredible impression on our psyche, one that I would dare say would be something that shapes us the most in our lives. We associate most of our relationships through our passion we have for others and ourselves, and the direction we go in life can be heavily influenced by the aforementioned passion we can show for things. To borrow a quote from a Hugh Grant movie:

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… love actually is all around.

(TANGENT: Love Actually was an impressive movie that openly discussed love in an entertaining fashion. I would recommend it… but if you are a male, grab a woman before renting it. Definite chick flick, but it’s not as obnoxious as others. Also, rent it in the month before Christmas for maximum effect, preferably within a week or two. You’ll see why.)

Note my use of “passion” instead of “love”? Passion, rather than just being a purely physical thing trashy romance novels try to portray, is actually a general term that should be behind love… and hate, really. Nick Scipio said it best: “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.” The same passion you use for love can easily translate to hate, but the lack of passion, the lack of any intense feelings, or indifference, is at the polar opposite of the emotional spectrum. This explains propaganda so well, as the entire point of it is to erase all indifference and set the subject in a passion that is controlled in a way that is favorable to the presenter. Case in point: any political smear ad campaign ever done.

Now that I have gone off and talked about love, the point I was trying to make was that love is part and parcel for a marriage to work. An expression of two people (leaving out polygamists, sorry) to the commitment of lifelong love and partnership is getting married, and who am I to stand in the way of two people expressing that? I ask myself that in this subject, and I cannot really say that I am justified in any way to stand in the way of this, unless I believe that the couple, on a case-by-case basis, does not love each other. Yes, I take that part of wedding ceremonies seriously; you do not?

A few years back, there was a similar debate to this in the United States of America about certain people marrying other certain people. It was against God’s nature, perverse, unholy… you name it, there was an argument against it. What am I referring to? A man of dark skin marrying a woman of white skin… or was it white man, black woman? I know one was frowned upon, even illegal for a long time, within the States. Some places it is still frowned upon and discriminated against, but that is because the people that do are brought up that way and do not know any better. (They are still wrong, though, in my opinion.) Is it illegal anymore? No.

So if the same arguments are being used today for same-sex marriages, did the Bible change?

Did someone find a new scripture?

Did Pope Benedict (whom I always associate with eggs) suddenly come up with a new Bible that specifically says that weddings between people of different skin color is OK, as long as they’re not the same sex?

Actually, that last one has always confused me. WAS there a new bible that specifically forbade two people from expressing their love for each other by getting married? I am not a Christian, true, but I have problems believing that an all-mighty God that is forgiving and loves everyone suddenly hates people that openly admit attraction for the same sex. Did Jesus all of a sudden hate little Billy because he found out he liked looking at Tommy instead of Jill? I just… I do not get it. As far as I know, there is nothing specifically in any part of the Bible that says a marriage is only in between a man and a woman. Marriages had been going on for years before the New Testament was written; it’s only natural the Bible includes at least one marriage ceremony.

(Also, I would like to point out that the Bible as read today has been edited at least once a century. Oh, right, and it’s been translated from Latin. Languages change over 2000 years. Perhaps not Latin, but English does, definitely. Just saying that people reading and translating could have made errors; the Bible may be the word of God, according to Christians, but the Bible was not written in your language first, it was written in Latin or Aramaic. Some impact may be lost in translation, and other via just humans over the years that admittedly sin and seek forgiveness for their sins; nobody is perfect, after all. Whoa, heavy tangent… but I have a strong idea that you may want to question things before trusting them fully.)

The passion I see in fighting marriages in between same-sex partners, I acknowledge. Obviously, there is some passion in this subject, though I do not understand it – how is marriage cheapened by two people whom do not believe in the same thing as you but love each other getting married? – and I do not personally agree.

So everyone out there, can we agree on dropping any modifiers from the word “marriage”? According to common law, marriage has no modifier anywhere else, why should those of the same sex that are marrying be called something different so that “your” term is not cheapened? Ownership of a concept and a word that has been around for thousands of years and predates the Old and New Testaments, practiced around the world just seems to be stupid to me. If a church does not want to perform the marriage, fine. Making others not perform it? Seems like a case of “I’m imposing my morals on others, believe in what I believe in or DIE!” to me. I thought that sentiment was waning, but apparently I was wrong.

Live and let live. You will live longer.

I spend probably an unhealthy amount of time online.

This revelation comes as no shock to anyone who knows me at all, as even at work I would not engage too many people in conversation and just write and read a lot on the computer. I barely know what a book is anymore – though I will definitely NOT complain if/when the Kindle actually becomes available in the “frozen wastelands” that we call Canada. I don’t even have cable TV, which is a very unusual pattern for anyone in North America. You get different reactions from different people, where some refer to it as “makes sense” or “kind of cool” to treating me like a diseased leper because I do not watch any TV, which I think highlights one of the reasons why I am glad to not be drawn to a TV. I may get into this subject deeper down the road, but for now… I have a different thing on my mind.

Since I spend so much time online, I tend to see a lot of different names that people choose to represent themselves (unless you’re looking at 4chan’s boards, where everyone’s Anonymous), and I can see a lot of different things about people. The same is true in the gaming world, really. There’s a lot that will just use their own given name – really says that they are a casual Internet user, maybe even a first-time user. Nothing wrong with that at all, I like people who are like that. Then you have people that seemingly have random text strings as user names, but 99% of the time it makes sense to the user as sort of an inside joke with themselves or their friends. You also have nicknames that they are given in real life, by others around them. Some people use ones that refer to their birth year, or a celebrity. And then there are others that relay hobbies of the person behind them. Some even create whole new personae – they are named Bob, but they go by John online.

Then there’s those that just come randomly, and that is where mine comes from.

My online name over the last little while has been “Flying Gremlin”. People shorten that to FG, Gremmy, idiot, sarcastic bastard… you know, the good stuff. One of the questions I get asked a lot is where the name came from. Rather than explain it each and every time, I will just write it here, then link anyone to this explanation.

About a decade ago, I started on the Internet. I was still in high school, and my parents got cable internet. Of course, this was before wireless internet, and the Internet only ended up being in one room of the house – my mother’s office. So I was stuck with a computer – a pretty good computer for the time, actually – that was a standalone box. I would be able to get online every once in a while at school, but because my mother worked at home a lot, and when she wasn’t at home I wasn’t allowed to go in there and use the computer because I had my own, I was without it.

The one class I had at school that allowed me to use the Internet a lot, I actually finished the coursework about two months early, and I found myself sitting in front of a computer for 77 minutes a day with nothing to do BUT to surf the Internet. A friend of mine had introduced me to a game called Dominion that I just found out is still running – way to go Ross! I played Round 4-11, I believe is when I left. I had been playing this off-and-on when I could, but then with my accounting class in high school so far ahead, I could play this a little more regularly. Once I realized that it only took about 15 minutes to finish that part… I got bored some more, until I realized that Grand Theft Auto 2 was on the teacher’s computer, and I learned how to beat the first level in under an hour – didn’t really help that he had a program on those computers to wipe the computer’s hard disks clean every night and restore them to what they were when I entered the room, else I would have beat the game.

Once that became boring, I started to go back to the Internet and back onto Dominion, where I noted they had a delightful message board. Ooooooooh, people to talk to that I didn’t know. I registered there with the name “OneBadMonday”, because I had been having a bad Monday at that point, and I didn’t have anything better to put down as my name. I started to talk, and then slowly became part of the community. Even after that class ended and I moved on, I tried to keep up as best as I could. Life got in the way o f me participating in the forums for a bit, but I came back and said a few things. People even noticed my absence and stuff, which was nice – to be honest, I don’t get that a lot in life – and I continued on.

Now, with the name “OneBadMonday”, a couple of people were reading it as “OneBadMonkey”. I see now what that was about, and now it seems slightly silly to say, but I used to hate it when people would just shorten my name to monkey. Could have something to do with the fact that throughout my entire school life, I was made fun of for my last name, or just called by my last name instead of just by my given name. It depressed me a lot when I was younger; I guess you could say that I was emo about it before emo was created. So I went looking for a new nickname.

Unfortunately, as with all creative processes in my brain, I hit up against writer’s block.

I was stuck! I couldn’t think of any different names for myself, no matter how I tried. I wanted something that wouldn’t talk about my name at all – I’m still really paranoid about my real name getting out and identity theft, coupled with the fact that I hated how people, when they find out my last name, just refer to me by my last name – and I wanted something unique. I spent a good week debating on names, when finally, I just picked something at random.

I was watching TV when there was this Midas commercial that came on and it just got stuck in my head. Unfortunately, I can’t find anyone who thought to save it – YouTube, you have failed in your duties! – but I can at least describe it. It was one of this guy telling about a new service – I think it was a car inspection or something – and then he went in to a story where there was this one person’s car had this one problem that stuck out in his mind. Camera cuts away, and the guy’s poking his head out of the hood of a car and he just simply says: “Flying gremlin.” The people in the car stick their head out the window and are confused, but then, sure enough, a CG flying gremlin pokes his head out of the hood and starts flying around and knocking things over, and he is subdued by the mechanic hitting him over the head with a wrench. Then it cuts back to the original guy staring at the camera and he just says, “Well, actually it was just a stuck hose, but you get the idea.” For some reason, that particular ad stuck with me… and still does, since I just described it in its entirety.

UPDATE: Thank you to the guy in the Klingon armor: http://adland.tv/commercials/midas-flying-gremlin-2002-030-usa

Anyway, I had my new nickname just because of a random TV ad that no one saw but myself, because I ask people, and others are still confused when I tell them about it. It’s an odd coincidence that I got my Internet name off of a TV commercial, but I right now have not had cable TV for a year and a half. I got myself a new name, then introduced myself as Flying Gremlin over on the Dominion boards. I didn’t get made fun of unless I wanted them to make fun of me, which is what I wanted.

I don’t exactly know what “Flying Gremlin” makes me look like to anyone else, but in hindsight, I guess it does make sense. If I were to list my favorite video games of all time, I realize that there’s a significant amount of flight games listed in there, or games involving flight vehicles – I also happen to prefer sneaking in on people who don’t expect it and blow stuff up. I’ve always wanted to fly a plane, but never really had the money to do more than buy a plane ticket once a decade. Maybe a Cessna is in my future someday, but for now not so much.

For now, though… my name is Adam. Online, I am known as Flying Gremlin or just plain FG. Call me one of those online, and I’ll respond.

Outside of the Internet… getting called a Flying Gremlin is just weird. Just call me Adam. Please.

I finally did it. I installed a WordPress blog for myself. Well, here’s to only having about three readers of this area. Well, not really, but you get the idea.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, welcome, salutations, etc. For those that are visiting from, say, Facebook and may know me personally, hi, how are you? For those that don’t, I guess you’re wondering what the Hell you’re doing here. Frankly, so do I. Who am I? Who are you? Stranger danger! Keep away!

At any rate, I’m just going to post a few things here and there – upload some pictures to share with the world, post them here. Motivational posters, poems, random writings, reviews, rants, you name it. You are entering a world where you get a window into my brain, and trust me, it’s a little cluttered and unorganized in there. Not easy to see too much in there.

Might as well give a shout out to my sister, who might end up showing up here once in a while. Who knows, I might even let her post a thing or two, because I am such a nice brother and she does some fantastic anime art. Some day, I hope she gets good enough that we may write a webcomic that I have had saved up in my mind for a while. I can’t draw well, but she can, and I can write circles around people.

Other than that, I guess I am out of things to say for a first post. Thanks for visiting, and stuff like that.

Oh, right…

FIRST POST

(I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t put that in the first post.)