everything will be alright

I should be sleeping but I slept in super late today due to being up way late last night. I got up early yesterday morning to play some Destiny, then yy cousin came to visit last night and we gamed for several hours, followed by more gaming with a buddy of mine out west. I ended up going to bed close to 3:30am, which is almost unheard of for me these days, and waking up after 1:00pm today, likewise almost unheard of lately. 'Twas a good day though, so much gaming, wow. Destiny by myself, Far Cry 3 co-op with my cousin, and NHL 14 co-op with my buddy. Good times.

Back to work tomorrow and it's the first day with the new lawyer. I've been counting down the days because man am I ever burned out. I may even try to find some days to take off later in October or November to make up for the last month or so, because damn. It's been so hectic. I like being busy but it sucks coming in nearly every day and having someone ask "so who's doing this trial/settlement conference/hearing tomorrow?" or likewise. So much crap kept popping up at the last minute that left my double or even triple booked, it's so damn stressful. With the new person taking off the departed lawyer's calendar that should hopefully come to an end because damn. Everyone's been very nice in accommodating me and my no-idea-where-I'm-supposed-to-be daily routine but it's so tiring and stressful, I won't miss it at all.

Other than that, wondering what to do with XP. The changes to the game are a few months off but we're discussing it now to see where everyone's head is at. I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing yet but I have a good idea, I think. It could change for sure but I think I'm just going to start over altogether. Lots of people seem to be aging people up though and I want to have younger characters so I don't know where that's going to leave me, so I need to think about that too. Don't want to overthink it just yet though, but we'll see what happens I suppose.

For now though I should already be asleep, whoops, so off I go. Only a few more sleeps until hockey starts too, which is awesome. :)

Things have been very busy as of late, but it's been going well. I've officially got one month punched at the new job (as does believeitup with hers) and last week consisted of four days of training, from Monday to Thursday. They actually had me booked for two weeks of training, which was just ridiculous, and they shortened it to only one, which in turn became four days. Two weeks might've been appropriate for someone just starting out, perhaps the second week would be shadowing a senior solicitor around to all the different courts and whatnot, but I didn't need it. Neither did the other two trainees with me, one who had 12 years at the bar (I'm just shy of 9), albeit mainly in NS, and the other who used to work with Legal Aid before, as well as the Crown, and who was also a judge, haha. It was great information though, for the most part, and it was really nice to put faces to a lot of names. I learned how to input my hours into the computing platform we use, and consequently have to backtrack and figure out just exactly what I did in order to post it, heh, but it's good to know going forward it'll be easier.

I've also replaced my desktop, which broke a few weeks ago or so now. At first I was looking at online sites to custom build my new rig, but I was unable to build one for less than $1,500.00, and that was before delivery, haha. So instead I checked out the local stores and got a nice little mid-level machine that was on sale for only $549.00, a huge difference, and it'll be more than capable for what I want to do - surfing, writing, playing the odd MMO or game. My old machine, which was 5+ years old I think, could do all of that, on lower settings for some games, but the point is this is still a huge upgrade and I'm happy with it. The one MMO I've been playing lately, Marvel Heroes, ran fairly slowly on the old one with all low settings but this machine can handle the highest settings with no problem, which is awesome. And with the money I "saved" I picked up a new Xbox 360 for $100.00 off at Best Buy, since my old one is completely dead, so that's something too. Just need to get a special hard drive transferring device to move my old data onto the new one, since I can't do so via USB with the old one being completely dead now, d'oh.

There's not much else to report at this time. I'm hoping to have a good chat with my boss about a Christmas / early January break, as I still want to go to England with my buddy around that time. Before I go booking any tickets though I need to be sure I can go. I know I have more than enough vacation time, I just need to make sure he's going to be around, since I won't be. It shouldn't be a problem but I think I saw his calendar mention something about holidays around that time. Here's hoping he just meant holidays in general, for Christmas / New Year's, and not that he'll be going anywhere himself.

Writing is going well, but I've been pretty slow with it for the most part. Which is ok, since I haven't had a looming deadline for awhile now, but there's some new challenges I'll be signing up for that'll fix that, as well as Yuletide time coming up very soon. Having a desktop should help with that too, I'm hoping, so we'll see how that goes. :)

I haven't been updating this as much as I should, but will try to cover everything that's been going on lately, with convenient LJ cuts and everything. :)

( On Work )

( On Writing )

( On Hockey )

( On Reading )

( On Movies )

( On Gaming )

( Misc. )

It feels weird being at work so early. I got here at like 8am when we open at 9am and my first appointment's not until 9:30am but I figured I might as well come in early after dropping my wife off at work so here I am. It's actually 8:37am as I start to type this but it's been nice and quiet, allowing me to get to writing letters I've been meaning to get done for a while now.

By way of a general update, I finished Diablo III a little over a week ago now. Only on normal, though, and I think my character was just level 33 (the cap being 60) so there's lots left to play, especially if I try another class, but for now I'm content to give it a break. It's fun, don't get me wrong, but see my earlier posts re: difficulty in just playing it for a short period of time and needing to allow for more time than I usually want. I'm presuming that will only increase with the harder difficulty settings, or at best stay the same with a new character, so it's on the shelf for awhile.

Writing has been going well, thanks in no small part to the humongous task of logging in Genosha in XP. That's been extremely fun though, definitely, and it's helped me get back into the game somewhat too. Before that I was slumping a little post-Christmas, not really doing all that much, but now I'm right back into logging again which is nice. Aside from that I've got a cool little crossover fanfic story idea that I'm slowly but surely working on, which is about the only other non-RP thing I'm writing at the moment, but I'm happy with that for now.

Music has been great lately, with a whole slew of new albums and artists having caught my ear: Jack White's new solo album, Blunderbuss, is pretty good (though I need to give it a few more spins), been loving the latest by M. Ward and by Rufus Wainwright, downloaded the new Garbage album and like it so far after a couple of listens, picked up the newest offering from The Hives yesterday which is just as short and intense as ever, and listened to all of Fun's album, the band with that big hit We Are Young. The rest of their album's not too bad either, though we only gave it one listen so far on the drive to Burin this past weekend. And the new Metric comes out in less than a week now, I'm very excited about that, not gonna lie. I pre-ordered it and will be getting one of the 500 limited edition box thingies, not sure what to call it, but it'll be signed by the band and everything, pretty stoked. :D For lack of a description, here's their site, and apparently it's called a stereobox. Neat. :)

That's about it on this end for now, back to work for which I'm still early even though I've already got a bunch of stuff done and still had time to post this. Nice. :D

Stole it from writteninsable:

Comment to this post, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

( My 7 things! )

Taken from calliopes_pen:

I'm running a test to see who's reading my posts. So, if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your LJ USERNAME. Only one word please. Then repost so I can leave a word for you. Don't just post a word and not copy - that's not as much fun!

Snowy day here, waiting to go back to court after lunch, and wondering if our office will be shut down or not. Apparently some of the other offices in Bay Roberts closed, and some of the places around here are closing too, because the snow is still heavy and not letting up. I had to shovel our pathway out because it had drifted up about 6-8" and was making it hard to open the door. We'll see I guess, if we close then I'll just take some files home with me. Thankfully this week hasn't been too bad courtwise, with my trial today getting bumped and Thursday's matter getting moved to another date for a speedy disposition. We'll see what happens I guess!

Hope everybody had a good weekend! Mine wasn't that bad at all, despite not really doing what I would've liked to have done. It being my first full weekend at home since returning from the US, I have a lot of books, movies, tv shows, etc. that I was just planning to immerse myself in but instead I had other obligations to fulfill.

Friday night was nice and relaxed. I think I had a brief nap after work and then started in on watching season one of Flashpoint. I picked up seasons one and two in the city last Wednesday and I'm pretty excited about it, and have been really enjoying the episodes I've seen so far. After that I puttered around a bit, putting in some time on SWTOR, and then I did my first bit of raiding in LOTRO in awhile. I finally got to see the new raid, and more than just see it, we did what I think is all four of its wings (albeit on tier 1, the easiest level of difficulty) in one go, in just over two hours. That was nice, even though we had to stop and couldn't do the final boss that evening. Still, I hadn't even set foot inside it before then so that was pretty awesome, getting to see almost all of it like that. Of course winning is nice too, so doing all of those bosses without any wipes (except for one non-boss pull that got us twice, hehe) was nice. The only downer to the night was me making an announcement that I'll no longer be looking after the kin's SKL, which is how we keep track of loot, because I just can't be around all week. Somehow a new schedule got set for raids (still no answer on how/when that came down, but it's set now anyway) and I won't be able to keep up with it, so that's all you can do. I'll still be around when I can, mainly on the weekends, but we'll see how that goes. Regardless, Friday night was a nice time and I even got in bed at a decent hour, around 2am, though Kristen Bell was on Craig Ferguson so I had to watch that haha.

Saturday was the day I wanted to stay home and absorb all the new things, but instead I had a party to attend. Which, well, I knew I'd have fun, and I did, but I was a little reluctant to head in for it. Maybe that makes me a bad sibling, because the party was a birthday get together at my sister's place for her and our friends Jackie and Chris, since all three of them have their birthdays within 4-5 days of each other. I slept in pretty late, because even though I had a decent-ish bedtime I was pretty tired from my first week back to work post-vacation. When I did get up, I pretty much showered and got ready to hit the road asap, getting into the city before dark. I went to my sister's first to drop off some things Mom had sent in for her, then I went to the comic book shop where I picked up the Schism trade, a D&D supplement (I have plans!), and some dice. Next was supper at Quiznos, mmm, toasted subs, and then a quick pop into Chapters where I only walked out with a new magazine (PC Gamer that covers Diablo III, SWTOR, and Skyrim ftw) and a Starbucks coffee. I went to J&A's place then where we hung out for a few hours before going to my sister's place. It was a great little party, so many people showed up, and I picked up a little flask (375ml) of scotch that I polished off over the entire night, haha, complete with a large can of this yummy German beer. I haven't drank that much in a long time and thankfully somehow I avoided a hangover, though I was pretty drunk. Those of you who follow me on Twitter could probably tell that. XD I went home with J&A because the stupid parking ban is in place now and I can't really park at my sister's place (not without a lot of fancy maneuvering but it's too much of a hassle and really only works with two smaller cars and my Sorento's too big I think) so I left the car at J&A's, since they have a double driveway with room for more cars on the side, and A was driving anyway since he was feeling under the weather. We were home by 1:30 or so, so another earlyish night out, and I slept like a champ until 10:30 or so. I was afraid I'd have a horrible hangover so I did have something to eat and a lot of water before passing out and it appears to have done the trick. \o/

Sunday was nice and quiet. I woke up and hung out with J&A some more, having lunch with them before stopping by my sister's place around 1pm or so. She was up and about and cleaning up from the night before, and apparently everyone else at the party had stayed until 3am. A good time was had by all and she said the landlords upstairs got home at around 3:30 and mercifully they were only stomping around for 10-15 minutes before sleeping themselves so Jen got a decent night's rest. I hung out with her for an hour or so before heading back out home. I got back around 3pm and spent 30-45m at the office, sending out a quick letter before I went home since I knew I wouldn't want to come back over once I was home, hehe. Then it was a lovely evening at home by myself, which is what I'd planned for Saturday, but I still had a fantastic time so it's all good. I had a little nap, then a nice supper, followed by a relaxing shower and then a good shave with my new straight edge razor and oh my. It is so choice, if I may borrow a line from Ferris Bueller. If you have the means I highly recommend it. And I didn't even cut myself this time, woo! I think I need to sharpen it though, as there was some tugging and such, but it shaves so nicely and is just a relaxing process, I dunno. I'm so glad I gave it a shot, it's an investment I'm happy that I made. Plus I shaved with it last Sunday and yesterday when I shaved again, the first time since last Sunday, it felt like I only had 2-3 days' worth of stubble, so it cuts way better than an electric razor. Plus it makes me feel all grown up and manly, haha. I wonder when I'm shaving with it if this is how Hemingway felt all the time or something. Shh, yes, I'm weird.

On the writing front, I have a lot of plans but need to sit down and actually write. Last night I meant to but then pre-shave I put on last week's Sherlock episode and then post-shave I watched some more Flashpoint. I keep seeing all these big bangs being advertised, as I joined a channel that pimps them here, and I keep wanting to sign up for them ALL, haha, but I can't. I did sign up for one (an SPN crossover one), and have another ambitious fic plot started that may or may not fall under one of the other big bang categories, so that's more than enough for now. It's exciting, though, gotta say, I'm enjoying what I've done with it so far and hopefully there'll be much more writing done as a result of it all. :D

Lastly, in general as well, I've been listening to Watch the Throne and really, really liking it. Which is so weird because normally the only rap I listen to is the Beastie Boys. I got turned onto it from another rap album, by Childish Gambino which is Donald Glover's rap name. I love him from Community and follow him on Twitter so when he put this album out I gave it a listen and loved it. He makes lots of references in the songs to many things, as most rappers are wont to do, and it lead to me checking out the Kanye/Jay-Z album and voila. Weird, I know, but hey, I'm proud of my wide spectrum of musical tastes. :)

And today I'm back to work. The boss is away until next week and I've no court at all, so it's a nice, quiet week, or so I hope. Next week and most of the week after will be crazy busy so this week is for prep work and such, so I'm enjoying the quiet while I can. Hope everyone else has a good week!

So, I'm back in Carbonear. After landing in St. John's around 2:30 am on Saturday morning, I crashed at my sister's place (mercifully less than 5 minutes away from the airport) and then got a ride back out Saturday afternoon. My luggage is still not here, sadly; it's apparently in the hands of the courier now, who isn't operating today I guess, so no bag for me until tomorrow. My work shoes and my razor and things are all in it too, and I've got court in the morning, but I'm looking at this as a prodding from fate to bust out my fancy dress shoes I got in Philly, oh, two years ago or more and haven't worn yet. Also, I can borrow my father's razor this one time, so it'll be ok.

I've unpacked my carry on, which was pretty jam packed with various gifts and electronics, so that's something I guess. It contained one of the things I bought for myself, which was seasons 1-4 of The Venture Bros. show, and I'm psyched to check it out. It also has some of the lovely Britcoms that my awesome sister-in-law suchanadorer and her hubby elevea got me, and the great books my darling wife believeitup and the awesome onlyonechoice gave me as well, so I'm not completely bereft of awesome things while waiting for my checked baggage. :)

Speaking of awesome things, I came home to a whole mess of Christmas cards from people, omg. Such beautiful words and art, you guys, you are all amazing. ♥ Big thanks to stratford_girl, shinyandnat, _bounce_, writteninsable, and jiandan for all the amazing cards omg. :D

In a similar vein, I also received some awesome goodies in my fandom stocking, including some pretty graphics from chokolattejedi, noveltea, twinsarein, ariestess, and stormylullabye (the latter is a pretty wallpaper that I think you'd really like, believeitup!), and some awesome drabbles by evil_little_dog of The Dresden Files and rise_your_dead of HIMYM. Thank you so much all! :D

The trip was pretty amazing, and if not the longest one I've had with my wife then definitely a very, very close second I'd wager. Even when we got married I was only there for about two weeks, and this was just shy of three, so I think it comes in first place. :) I didn't blog much from there, nor did I take too many pictures, because most of the time was spent relaxing and just hanging out, which was very nice. And, on top of that, we've now got a good grasp on the pending move, including dates and paperwork back from the government, so that's pretty awesome too. I need to check into a whole bunch of things in the near future to start furthering those plans but the wheels are more in motion now than they've ever been before.

Other than that, I'm not really looking forward to work tomorrow, but. I do have the desire, the motivation, to go into this year giving it my all and to do the best I can with it. This month is going to be very busy, with a lot of court, starting tomorrow, so I'm going to be hitting the ground running. I'm very much looking forward to getting it all done and, not to sound like money is all that matters, to getting it all billed out and making an awesome month out of it. December was very good, and I want to keep that momentum up, as January is usually god awful for billings. Not this one, though, I'm going to kick its ass.

That and many other things are on my mind, and we'll see how far I get with them. I won't go into detail here, both because I'm still wrestling with a few things in my own mind and am not sure how to spell them out, and also out of fear for jinxing them, but suffice it to say I want to make a lot of changes this year. No time to start than the present after all, right?

Randomly, I need some How I Met Your Mother icons, hmm. I have seriously become a bona fide bigtime fan of the show, haha, and am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Season 6 on DVD so I can catch up; I've mainlined 1-5 in the last several weeks or so.

Anyway! What's up with me, besides my newfound love of HIMYM (as us fans are oft to abbreviate said show), you ask? Quite a lot, actually! I'll put this behind a cut because lord knows there's likely very few of you who will find all of it interesting, maybe a few who will find parts of it, but that's about it. XD

( Snip snip! )

That's about it off the top of my head, I should hit the hay since I've work in the morning, an unexpected return to court but what can you do? I'm sure there was more I meant to say but it's slipping my mind now, ah well. I can always post again later if I think of anything. :)

Week is half over, although workwise we had Monday off for a holiday so it's only a four day work week, which won't technically be half done until the end of today. Still, it's Wednesday, which means Big Brother tonight, so I'm happy about that.

It's been a rough week, going back to last Wednesday, lots going on at work without getting into too much detail. Been pretty stressful, and there's been nothing but bad news going on lately too. There was a homicide in St. John's Saturday night, someone shot two people, one dead and one injured, and that person is now in custody but there's hoopla in the media over whether there was an agreement for him to turn himself in (his lawyer insists there was, the RCMP says no) because he was allegedly taken down pretty hard outside his lawyer's house. There were two drownings because of someone falling overboard and the person who tried to help them ended up drowning too. There was also an impaired driving causing death incident too, all over the weekend, and yesterday someone died in an industrial accident yesterday. Just nothing but bad news and a lot of death lately, for such a small province anyway.

Between work issues and all the bad news all over the place, it's hard to stay positive about things. I've gotten some good news / progress financially so that's a help, but everything else seems to be in a bit of a mess at the moment, in one way or another. Still, am going to try my best to deal with it, since it's not going to go away any time soon and best to just deal with things up front and as quick as possible, yeah? That's what I'm trying to do anyway.