Topics

1

Random Chat / Holy fuck, 2020 sucks.

« on: June 24, 2020, 03:10:00 PM »

So, I'm gonna rant a bit about all this bullshit.

Coronavirus sucks, and getting laid off sucked pretty hard, but that was honestly the least shitty part of things. After I was laid off, the issues I had with my car's coolant system decided to flare up again. I overheated basically as soon as I got on the highway to head to my parents' place. Since I was laid off, I didn't really need my car, so I put off getting it fixed. Then, I get a call partway through wednesday asking if I could come in to start working the following monday. So I freak out, and try to get my car to a garage to hopefully get things fixed asap. Turns out because they didn't have a full drive on hoist, the car was too rotted for them to fix. I nearly had a panic attack, and barely managed to avoid it (mostly through a combination of conscious breathing exercises and smoking weed). So now I'm getting a new car.

While I'm trying to get all this dealt with I've been borrowing my mom's car for a bit, but only during the week, leaving me without a car on the weekends. Both times I was supposed to catch a bus into town, I missed the bus. Luckily both times I was able to get something figured out, but that added stress was not helpful.

And then yesterday I went into town early to help my dad move some furniature out of my grandmother's old place (apparently she's now in assisted living and her dementia has supposedly progressed quite a bit, we didn't find that out until after other family members had made all the arrangements and had her shipped out), and my dad had a heart attack. He's still unconscious in the ICU, sedated and on a ventilator. I was right there when it happened, and had to perform CPR until the paramedics arrived. I haven't been eating well even before that, but now I haven't been able to even think about food without feeling sick. I've been surviving on nicotine and caffeine for the past 24 hours.

So uh yeah, 2020 can fuck right off the calendar.

EDIT: my parents' place is 50km away (35 miles), which is also the town I work in.

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Random Chat / How's this coronavirus affecting everyone?

« on: March 24, 2020, 12:57:49 AM »

So, I've been laid off because the big 3 automakers shut down. Initially it's supposed to be for a week, but ontario and quebec just ordered all non-essential businesses to close, and I fully expected the layoff to last longer than a week. Already applied for employment insurance, and ordered an oz of weed to help pass the time.

Gotta say, getting laid off due to a global pandemic was not exactly on my list of life goals, but at least it's gonna be one crazy story years in the future. Still, shit is fucked up.

3

Gaming / Bloodstained

« on: October 07, 2019, 10:04:36 AM »

So, I acquired a copy of Bloodstained. And holy hell, I'm loving this. Looks like I've finally found something to sink my teeth into for a while. It's rare these days for a game to just immediately pull me in. I'm not sinking every waking moment into the game, but that's a good thing because it means I might not burn out on it nearly as quickly as I often do for other games.

4

Computing / Anyone familiar enough with emacs to help me?

« on: September 18, 2019, 12:53:57 AM »

I've been playing around with linux as of late, and I've decided I'd like to try to learn to work with emacs. Of course, since emacs has a learning curve of approximately infinity (only slightly worse than that of Dwarf Fortress), I've gotten stuck with a few things.

So first, I've been trying to figure out how to activate orglink on all major modes, because I like the idea of being able to follow links I leave in comments or text files. But I can't figure out how to actually activate it. I had to install an updated version of org, which I pulled from their own repository with the standard package-install function after adding it to my .emacs file, but I can't actually figure out how to activate it because well I'm not exactly well versed in configuring the .emacs file (I have made a couple minor customizations though).

I'm also trying to figure out how the elpy minor mode works. It's a python minor mode that makes use of virtual environments. I have no experience with python virtual environments to begin with and it seems kinda.... broken. It loads when I enable it, but running elpy-configure doesn't seem to work correctly.

Here's my .emacs in all it's ugly mess if anyone cares.

5

Random Chat / I sometimes stream osu!mania.

« on: February 07, 2019, 08:20:19 PM »

I've decided that just for the hell of it, when I play osu!mania, I'll stream it. No schedule, no mic, no cam, but at least I'll stream it. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to get an overlay that shows my score, and the judgements/combo, because I play with the ingame interface off to reduce distractions, but I'd like people in the stream to see how I'm doing better. Eventually I would like to invest in a mic/cam, but for the time being I can't really spare the money.

http://twitch.tv/bobbias

6

Song of the Day / So Hyang - Bridge Over Troubled Water.

« on: December 04, 2018, 11:50:04 AM »

So Hyang is a gospel singer in korea. After surviving cervical cancer at 20 and being rendered infertile, her mission is to use her voice to comfort people going through difficult times. She is sometimes known as the "Korean Mariah Carey". I could keep writing for ages about how much I love her singing, but instead, just listen.

Bonus: Here's another track titled "Everyone" or sometimes "It's You Folks". It's an older korean song, and the lyrics are about wanting to be there to comforts someone and give them strength just the way the audience gives the singer strength from being there. So Hyang has remarked that it was one of the hardest songs she's ever had to sing.

And finally: My personal favorite performance of so Hyang. Arirang Alone. This song is a more modern interpretation of Arirang, a folk song in korea, and kind of an unofficial national anthem. Arirang itself has hundreds of regional variations with slightly different harmonies and lyrics, but the melody is more or less the same. This version was written in the 90's and has rewritten the lyrics to represent the desire for both koreas to be united one day. It's written as a love song, presumably between a man and a woman, quoting wikipedia "According to one legend, the name is derived from the story of a bachelor and a maiden who fell in love while picking camellia blossoms near the wharf at Auraji. In one version of the story, the bachelor cannot cross the Auraji to meet the maiden because the water is too high, and they sing a song to express their sorrow. In another version of the story, the bachelor attempts to cross the Auraji and drowns, singing the sorrowful song after he dies."

The vocals in Arirang Alone give me chills every time I hear it.

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Song of the Day / [Jazz] Hiromi Uehara & Edmar Castaneda - Fire (live in Montreal)

« on: April 14, 2018, 09:28:47 PM »

I was at this concert. It was absolutely amazing. They played 2 encores, with the second one being a duet of Place to Be, which is my favorite Hiromi song. Unfortunately that is neither available on youtube nor is it on the album made at that concert, so I couldnt post that specific one here :/

Hiromi has to be one of the most talented jazz pianists out there. Every time I hear her it blows my mind, and I can't believe I actually got to see her live.

This performance is one of a suite of songs Hiromi wrote specifically for her and Edmar to play together, and as its name suggests, the piece is a firey passionate song with really intense moments.

8

Gaming / Disgaea 5

« on: January 03, 2018, 06:02:37 PM »

So, the GF and I got a Switch for christmas. We got Zelda, Bomberman, and Disgaea. I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm enjoying the hell out of Disgaea. Anyone else here play any Disgaea games? Got some tips for someone who's highest leveled character is only lvl 40?

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Random Chat / Happy new years!

« on: January 01, 2018, 12:36:10 AM »

Happy new years to everyone still active here!

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Gaming / Trails in the Sky

« on: November 26, 2017, 11:50:49 PM »

Decided to grab this on steam. Why didnt I check this out earlier. Proper jrpgs on pc are bloody rare. Especially ones coming from developers with the kind of pedigree that nihon falcom has.

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Gaming / Guildwars 2

« on: September 28, 2017, 07:08:49 PM »

So, I decided I was looking for a not WoW MMO to try, and started a free account with gw2. Not even level 10 yet, so I can't pass any sort of judgement, but I'm enjoying things so far. Only issue is I barely have any time to play MMOs these days.

Anyone else here play/played gw2?

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Computing / Anyone experienced with streaming?

« on: August 27, 2017, 04:31:29 PM »

I just copied my Osu! install over to my GF's laptop and installed OBS and it seems to be just barely powerful enough to stream, but with my current settings I'm getting a pretty unstable framerate in osu, which makes things much harder to play.

Anyone here know enough about streaming to help me tweak settings and make things easier on me?

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Computing / Putting together a pc build

« on: August 20, 2017, 10:16:24 PM »

So I just threw this together on pcpartpicker to give my gf an idea of what I was thinking about, but I basically just grabbed popular parts without any research. Care to take a look and give me any tips? Should I go for a ryzen build instead? Is there any way to save money other than the psu (which i know is overpowered. Not sure what I'll need to ensure sli will work if I grab another card in the future)...

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/YcJrFd

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Gaming / Path of Exile

« on: August 07, 2017, 06:13:35 PM »

So, the newest expansion just dropped. I'm definitely liking things so far, although I'm far from hardcore enough to really pass judgement. Anyone else here play PoE?

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Computing / Anyone want to help me come up with a gaming PC build?

« on: February 20, 2016, 12:26:29 AM »

I'm looking at maybe putting together a nice gaming system, but I'm so out of the loop I don't know where to start, or what my budget should even look like. I don't want to do anything too insane (no SLI titans for me), but I'd definitely like to put together a respectable rig that will last me a while.