de Paul Warren

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My father has always been annoyed when I used the word “can’t,” or rather, the contraction. I guess he saw that as a sign I was giving up. I don’t quite remember as at that moment, I would usually tune out and roll my eyes. I was very negative then.

Much has changed since those times and I have picked up a much more positive attitude. It’s been so long that I’ve been like this now that only during times of true, painful stress will my negative side come out. But I’ve begun to notice that the phrase “I can’t” is once again entering my vocabulary. It seems in a different way this time.

As a Christian, I notice my failings a lot and it’s always when I try and truck it alone. But it’s not always my personal walk that I notice this. Since January of 2007, I have worked on a game called iKonquest. It’s gone through many stages but it has not caught on to the public. Reason being was for, in my view, my greatest failing. I don’t sell. I can’t sell. I won’t sell. This also includes marketing.

As the project itself has begun to grow, my eyes were opened to see that I could no longer do this as a one man show. Even if I were to finish the code. Nobody would play it, primarily because they won’t know it exists. Now that I have a few volunteers on board, things will get exciting. This will definitely be a great learning experience. One that I’m now ready to take on.

While “I can’t do this” is somewhat accurate, a more appropriate phrase would be: “I can’t do this alone.”

A fisherman, eh? I’m eating your friends. Lots of them. I pretty much need to in order to swallow. I woke up a few days ago with the start of a soar throat and only by eating the friends of fisherman would relieve me of my irritation. While it doesn’t hurt to talk, I sound like I’m on my last few days before I go for a tracheotomy.

I’m not thinking at a 100% either as I’ve been downing NeoCitran and Halls Centers as much as possible. It appears that while I may be very resistant to everything else: the flu, fevers, etc; My Achilles’ heel is soar throats and colds. If you’re within 100 km of me with a cold, guaranteed, I’ll catch it if I haven’t had it already.

As for the title of this post, that’s what I sound like half the time.

Various things are now pulling at me in all different directions. Work, life, hockey, etc. I don’t seem to have any time to spend on my hobbies anymore. Or at least what time I do have, I don’t seem to get things done. Sometimes I may have a fair bit of time, yet it vanishes with no trace.

I wanted to make an amateur TV show about that at one point. Unlike Seinfeld, which was a show about nothing, this was to be a show being so busy, nothing gets done. Probably lots of stupid jokes that even the small group of friends would say this is dumb after filming it, but still laughing for some reason. Lots of meaningless busy work, distractions from distractions, and plenty of mind changing events (the “lets try something else” kind, not the eureka kind).

But alas, having no camera to do this is probably what stopped us from trying to make a very very poor amateur TV show. One of us was hoping to get one, but that never panned out.

Such is life.

I played a game a long, long time ago. The name has since been lost to me but I remember one of the phrases used within the game. “Make Haste but take heed.” They sounded like funny Old English words to me at the time but for some reason they always stuck to me. The irony of it all is that while I often ponder those words, I’ve never managed to abide by them.

I’ve often jumped in without checking what I was jumping into. I thought I had it all covered. I do the once over on the situation, sometimes I also go over and over, but I miss one crucial point. I can only see from my own eyes. I’ve done that at work, I’ve done that with friends. One time in Carleton Place… (Ah hahaha…. um, It’s not funny…joke’s over.) Anyway.

When I was younger, I would often misinterpret something as meaningless as friends talking to each other and leaving me out of it at hockey to be something much larger than it was. I would begin to scheme of ways to respond when we would next meet and when they shun me, only to find out they wouldn’t. The haziness of it all is partially due to it was so long ago, and partially because I felt like such a tool afterwards.

I’ve told people things <s>that I intended</s> in which the intention was to be clever, wise, or they needed to know<s>.</s>, only to regret it afterwards. Like saying, “I’m glad your leaving,” to someone when I should have said something along the lines of, “you’ve answered God’s call.” The original intention was the latter, but my brain could only come up with the former. Obviously, I had to explain it later.

Writing a letter, or calling, or that one step farther: meeting them in person; requires much more commitment to see your “message” through to the end than a simple email or post on some site. I can just imagine what would have happened if I had the internet when I was young. It’s a good thing it wasn’t. I just have to train myself that when I think I’m wise, I’m not.

It still hasn’t changed; I do it less often, thankfully.

I bet that even this was rushed a little too much. Oh well, the title then suits it then.

It’s hard to stay calm as time goes by. Seeing random shootings with no intent other than to hurt others. Violent pranks such as drive-by paintballing. Super companies raising prices just because they can. Vandalism for the sake of boredom. Criminals suing their victims and winning… This world sucks and it’s not going to get better. The only thing that has changed over the past thousands of years is that we have become much more “civilized” in how we act uncivilized.

In an age where having super powers or just being a regular vigilante is popular, I must remain at peace. It’s one of the hardest things to do: to be a victim of injustice and turn the cheek. It’s a simple lesson but one that can’t be ignored. Once I start daydreaming about being a superhero of any kind, even for just the “I’d be cool if I could…” kind, hatred will now have an opening to get in. Who thinks of super powers like: spontaneous kitten / puppy creation, shooting laughing gas out of your eyes, or any of the carebear’s powers? It’s all super strength, super speed, and sharks with lasers on top. And when was the last time you ever daydreamed about dealing justice but you nicely captured the bad guys without hurting a single one?

And without going to the weird super powers, I could simply just be that little bit stronger than the perpetrator. Deal him my own brand of four fingered justice. Being that extra bit faster when they show a weapon. Or possibly the nonviolent method of spinning your own scheme to get them caught in their own plans. Foiling a plot… but really.

It’s not that you can’t do the above and you should just sit and take it. I’ll be one to admit that in tough situations, I’d probably freeze up. But that’s not the point. You see…

It all comes back to Hatred.

And the more you focus on it, the more you become like it.

What is with the changing of the keys? I understand that there are different layout standards in other countries, but I’m sure the 2×3 Insert -> Page Down group has been like that for a while now. The only time it has changed was for laptops. As one who uses all 6 of those keys, I really don’t like when they start moving them around.

I’ve had frustrations with the backslash being beside the backspace, a small backslash with the backspace taking up the remainder of the gap, Enter being L shaped, and a few other minor layout changes. Thank goodness, that I haven’t experienced the backslash being to the right of the Right Shift key!

But those were all 1-2 key repositioning. I use all 6 of the “Home/End” block. So far I’ve pressed Home when I wanted Insert, End for Home, Pageup or Pagedown for End, End for Pageup… although I’ve never accidentally hit Insert as It’s not even in the same area anymore.

All in all, I like being able to type without having to look at the keyboard, but when they keep changing the layout of some of the keys, I have to constantly look after I notice the key I intended to hit produced a different result… because it was no longer the same key. If they keep changing the keys around, I’ll have to get myself a DX1 Input System – Fully customizable keyboard and layout the keys as how they should be.