Midget Musings

Too Many Feels

I haven’t posted here in months. I suck and can’t finish anything. 

I have a massive problem. You know the “too many feels” gifs? That’s literally my entire life. I just sit around juggling all these “feels” and spend most of my time upset because I can’t make everyone successful and happy.

It’s honestly probably a blessing I only have a few close friends because if I had a ton, my head would probably explode from trying to make everyone happy.

The last week and a half has easily been one of the worst weeks of my life. It seems like everyone I’m close to is having a crisis of some sort, and to top it off, it was my birthday. So, naturally my birthday got pushed aside and ignored and continues to be pushed aside and ignored and because I can’t let anything go… it hurts. It hurts because I feel sub-par to everyone else because I try my hardest to  make sure everyone else feels like they are important and cared for, but I really don’t have someone to return that feeling. 

I need something to marathon watch that I can get addicted to. I was able to cope fairly well with all my crazy emotions while I was marathoning Doctor Who. It’s pathetic that I need a fantasy world to go to to escape all the unnecessary stress I put on myself.

I wish I didn’t have so many feelings.

It isn’t fair. Why do I have to care so damn much about everyone else? Is it really necessary for me to spend my entire life with, like, a martyr complex? I wish I could keep it in check but it just runs rampant all over the place. 

I need a cookie and a hug and a proper birthday and a proper thank you. 

I don’t feel appreciated.

I don’t feel loved.

I certainly don’t feel okay.

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If you buy one album this year, let it be this one. “Shrines” by Purity Ring. Just another reason to envy Canada and their lovely music scene.

I know, I know. I haven’t been keeping up on this at all. I still need to blog about my Toronto vacation. I am lazy. 

Ranty McRantersons: Girls and Gaming

I’m going to express a bit of rage here one time and I’m going to preface this by stating I’m not a feminist. But… seriously? The internet (both men and women with crap attitudes) apparently has this preconceived notion that any female that doesn’t look like a troll and plays video games, discusses video games, or does anything that has to do with video games, must be an attention whore. 

First of all, I don’t play video games for you… I don’t play video games for my reputation… and I damn sure don’t play video games to attract men. I play video games because I thoroughly enjoy video games… and what do you do with things you thoroughly enjoy? You talk about them. Funny enough, however, there are not legions of trolls ripping girls who talk about cooking to shreds. Aren’t double standards great? Are men that talk about video games attention whores? How does having dangly parts automatically void you from this standard? 

The standard shouldn’t exist. Gamers are gamers.

Yes, there are girls that pick up gaming as an interest due to romantic pursuit, but honestly… who doesn’t try to pick up on the things they know their love interest likes. Sharing interests = part of relationships. 

Yes, there are way more casual female gamers than hardcore female gamers, but at the end of the day we can all still say we love video games, right? Whether it is Peggle, Skyrim, Mass Effect, or Hello Kitty Online (does anyone still play this?)… it shouldn’t matter. 

“Mermemrmerfakenerdchick. Mermemermergamezforattention. Mermermeristiontheinternetalldayandcantspell.” 

I like shooting aliens. I like saving the world. I like slaying dragons. I, nor any other girl, should be punished for talking about her passion for gaming. 

Now please, have a cookie and let’s discuss why FemShep is 1000% better than male Commander Shepard.

/endmidgetragerant

OH! OH! Maybe tomorrow I’ll write a Ranty McRantersons about how crappy it is to give people hell for liking things that are considered popular. People are so silly and petty, it is cute. 

YouTube Personalities: A List of Win

I’ve been on a YouTube kick lately! When I was like sixteen I was really active in keeping up with the YouTube community. I recently I got back into it and it turns out some of the same people I liked back then are still posting! 

• Kate Elliott (Katers17 / Katersoneseven)
• Abbe Groh (abbegirl / abbedrake)
• Charlie McDonnell (charlieissocoollike)
• Valerie Lapomme (sexynerdgirlcom)
• Jenna Mourey (jennamarbles)
• Christine Gambito (happyslip)
• Maru (mugumogu)

Things I Love Thursday: May 24th, 2012

Things I’m Loving This Week 

• Changing my wardrobe / hair color 
• That sweet investigator alligator pic by arseniic
• Diablo 3 
• Best Coast - The Only Place 
• My new camera 
• Finding inspiration to blog more 
• Trip planning 
• Catching Fire 
• Getting caught up on back logged work
• Dragonette 
• Comic book store runs
• Buying sweet gifts for people 
• Seeing Mike play music live again!
• Making progress with my productivity calendars 
• Watching Frasier reruns 
• Discussing super heroes with my boss 

Sweet Internet Stuff

• The Flog: Felicia Day’s new weekly web show is totally fun! She usually throws a few internet links out there and then runs a nerdy segment where she does everything from modeling steampunk clothing to carving an iguana swan out of ice. Could she be any more adorable? Geek girl power! 
• Lights @ Blizzard HQ: Lights got to tour Blizzard’s Headquarters in California today. I’m super happy for her. She even got to talk to the designer behind the Twinblade of the Phoenix from Tempest Keep! Way to go, Lights!
• Doe Deere in Zooey: Doe Deere’s condo was featured in Zooey Magazine this month. There isn’t much to say other than she has an amazing sense of interior design for someone not specialized in that field. Swoon-worthy condo? I think so.    
• Bora’s Draw Something Problem: I’m not gonna lie, this is just cool. I can barely draw a circle in Draw Something without the line shooting clear across the screen. 

Toronto: A List of Win

In twenty days I will be boarding a plane with Colin in Ft. Lauderdale and headed off to Toronto again for North by Northeast! I’m totally excited! I feel like we were just there!

Last June we were only there for two days but we saw a ton of stuff but I was totally hindered by the fact that my converse were falling apart from all the walking and were ripping into my feet by the end of the first day. Hobbling around Toronto with quarter sized blisters was not cool. This time I’m totally prepared, I went out and bought a pair of legit sneakers that were meant to take a beating. Roux decided he wanted to help break them in by chewing on the heels, but they’re still functional thankfully. :p

Toronto Trip Goals

• Meet Toronto Batman (SWEAR TO ME!) - This is my single most important trip goal. No lie. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t run into him. 
• Visit a Tim Horton’s - We didn’t do this last time, and I’m slightly ashamed we didn’t.
• Visit the CN Tower in the evening - Saw the city last year in the day time and it was beautiful from up that high. Can’t imagine how gorgeous it is at night!
• Eat Poutine - OM NOM NOM. WHY IS THIS NOT POPULAR IN AMERICA?
• Eat lots of other awesome things
• Scope out Graffiti Alley
• Visit the Royal Ontario Museum / Casa Loma / Hockey Hall of Fame (for Colin!)
• Gush over baby polar bears at the Toronto Zoo (if time permits)
• See Purity Ring at Wrongbar
• See The Flaming Lips / Bad Religion at Dundas Square
• Check out the NxNE Record Show (Brendan Canning is DJing!)
• <Insert other NxNE concerts I may come across>
• Check out various comic shops and record stores
• Run another “Scott Pilgrimage” and visit places from the movie
• Attend a New Music Live taping (if I can get tickets!)
• MMVAs! 
• Visit St. Lawrence Market
• Visit Kensington Market
• Scope out sweet architecture (The City Hall buildings are totally awesome looking. They look like they were designed for a science fiction film)

There are lots of other things but that’s all I can muster up right now. I can’t wait! 

Anyway, I’m trying to encourage myself to write more by giving myself little topics to write about certain days of the week. If I don’t, I’ll just sit there and go “Oh. My week wasn’t interesting enough to write anything about. LET’S JUST PLAY DIABLO 3 INSTEAD.” So from now on, my blogging week will look something like this: 

Music Mondays: I’ll share five song Spotify playlists every week since I’m always listening to something new and feel like other people should check out the music I’m listening to as well! 

List of Win Wednesdays: I’ll post a list of something I love, want to do, etc every Wednesday in the List of Win segment. I can already see list topics ranging from favorite comic book characters to “HEY COLIN, THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH MORE GIRLY MOVIES WITH ME.”

Things I Love Thursday: Inspired by Gala Darling’s weekly segment. I’ll blog about things that make me happy and include a few sweet internet links.

I think it’s time to play Diablo 3 now. 

Obviously, I’ve Been Busier than I Thought…

I haven’t blogged much lately, mainly because I haven’t really had a whole lot to blog about at any given time, just a lot of little things. April for some reason is usually a rather depressing month for me, I don’t know why. It started off kind of poopy but things started to look up near the end, so yay for that. Got through the whole month without a major crisis. It’s probably because of the fact that I’ve been forcing myself to do things I’ve always wanted to do but have been too lazy or discouraged to do them.

I started working on Khan Academy a few weeks ago. I’ve known about it for awhile but never jumped into it until recently. I originally started just watching the History and Economics videos and had zero interest in the Math vids, but I jumped into those two weeks ago, and I have to admit… I’m addicted. I hated math in school. The lessons moved way too fast for me to keep up with the other kids and I hated asking questions because I hated feeling like I had an academic weakness. (Being a nerd sucks sometimes) Salman Khan explains math like a champ and I can actually understand what he’s saying. The added bonus of being able to work at my own pace has also helped a lot. I really, really wish I had Khan Academy when I was in high school. Maybe then I wouldn’t have got a ‘D’ in Geometry after I transferred schools and had no idea what was going on! 

I started exercising again two days ago. Exercise and I don’t really have a good track record, but my refreshed attitude has really increased my productivity in everything else in my life… so… maybe it will help me with this too. For now I’m using the Nerd Fitness Angry Birds workout plan. I’m desperately out of shape but this beginner plan seems like it is something I can handle. I’m starting to look like a total chubbiekinz and I’m having problems lifting boxes at work, so this is something I REALLY need to work on… but I REALLY don’t want to do it. Why can’t playing video games all day put me in shape?! 

Colin and I did the 30 Hour Famine last weekend through World Vision. It was pretty cool! I really appreciate food after doing the famine. Even the crappiest things tasted great after doing it! Got a lot of stinky comments from people who seriously need to learn to bite their tongues, but that’s okay. We raised some money for charity and even got a few people interested in child sponsorship so that is more than enough for me!

As far as nerdy news goes, I saw The Cabin in the Woods a few weeks ago with Colin, Mike, and Ayla and it was AWESOME. I hate horror movies but I loved this film. The only thing truly terrifying in it was a brief few minutes when a clown was on screen (I don’t do clowns) but other than that it was HILARIOUS. I love Joss Whedon so much. I might go see The Avengers this weekend too to continue the Joss love! Ugh, too much awesome! 

Oh yeah. Comic book artists Comfort Love and Adam Withers drew this for me. I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favorite art piece on the Citadel. 

And my rogue in World of Warcraft got her legendary weapons. Yeah. I’m cool. I got pretty orange weapons on the internet. 

Things I’ve Learned from Mass Effect Fans

So I’m on my phone on my break at work and I’ve been reading the comments on Bioware’s press release on Facebook. Today they announced they would be releasing a FREE epilogue to the game’s ending in the form of extra cut scenes and an explanation as to what happened. That’s fantastic news in my opinion. I would’ve settled for a simple lore Q&A as to why it ended the way it did, but this is pretty great of them. I can’t wait to see if my theory is the true story.

I’ve been absolutely disgusted by the fan reaction to this announcement. Most of the comments are claiming that this means that the endings were literal because Bioware used the phrase “artistic vision” in their PR. How many novels out there had deeper meanings and didn’t hang those meanings on a stick in front of the reader’s face? Oh wait - all the great ones, right? Yeah. That’s what I thought.

A lot of these so called fans expected Bioware to patch the ending to THEIR game that THEY wrote and that THEY are proud of. By this logic, I should go wake F. Scott Fitzgerald from the dead and complain to him that I didn’t like the way The Great Gatsby ended and that Jay and Daisy should’ve ran away together to live on a magical island full of fluffy bunnies and unicorns. I also didn’t like the way Lost ended. Time to call up the whole crew and ask them to patch the last episode for me. (For the record, I feel both Gatsby and Lost’s endings were great.)

The best comments though are definitely by the people saying “DLC? I’M NOT PAYING FOR THIS BS.” Great reading comprehension skills there, buddy. The PR clearly states the epilogue is free.

I’ve never seen such an ungrateful community filled with whiners. Bioware agrees to give you closure, and you whine even more.

Thank you, Bioware for giving me a series I have thoroughly enjoyed and for being awesome and agreeing to give me further closure on the ending. I appreciate the sentiment. It’s clear the others will never be satisfied.

Lady heroes. Yep. 

Ritzy, Amy, Lights, Audrey, Mari, Zooey, Emma, Carey, Kate.

Letter from Komba

Today was pretty drab, but I came home to a cute letter from my sponsored child, and it was definitely something I needed after today.

Komba is a 15 year old girl living in Mali. I chose an older child to start my World Vision sponsorship experience with because I figured I would find it easier to write and relate to someone closer to my age. I must admit though, I’m kind of sad that my time with Komba is going to be pretty short. Once she’s old enough to start a family of her own, World Vision will place me with a new child. 

A few months ago I sent her a letter and a package with some cute little animal themed goodies. Every time I send a letter / goodie package, I try to stick to a similar theme so we have something to talk about. Last package I sent included an array of animal stickers, a few photos from my trip to Animal Kingdom, a cartoon giraffe notebook, and some animal print pens. 

My very dear sponsor, Nikki St. Pierre. 

Thank you for your nice letter and your presents. My family and I are joyful about your sponsorship. Thank you for all the good news about you and your family.

In your letter you let me know you favorite animals and told me about your pets.

I have a horse, five hens, and two dogs. As for me, my favorite animal is the ploughing bull. My family and I thank you for your help.

Komba Coulibaly

Translated by Jumba Traore

Time to go write a new letter and find a new theme!