So, yeah, 'bout my knee. And Johnnicakes.

Minor thing first, anyone playing LittleBIGplanet 2 needs to go play my new level, Echoes of Erebus 1, http://lbp.me/v/xt2s1r/photos the first in a set of levels based on my latest book. More to come.

So, my knee.. It's pretty much healed now, but I've been meaning to do a blog with the whole thing for a while now. The less I'm in ye accursed brace, the less I'm interested, and have come to the realization that (as with most blog posts around the world) most people don't care about the details much either.

So here they are. :)

In the line of duty for my (new? Not so new now, I guess) job, I run (wheel) to the bank to get cash to refill the office petty cash box. The amount in total for a month is often... petty. But I, and Johnnicakes, a higher up I've never seen or spoken directly to* likes if the numbers all return to standard at the end of a month. This is not always easy. My 8 hrs a week, plus the boss out of the office a lot on appointments can make it hard to get signatures for things sometimes. Also, I'm marginally incompetent. :P

On my 2nd month making this trip, I tripped. If by 'trip' you mean that something on my wheelchair decided that the little cutout from a pedestrian triangle-o-crossing to the road was too bumpy. My chair decided to stop. My body did not. Out I go.

I landed on all fours. My hands were quite happy to be in my wheeling gloves. Kevlar n everything. No problem there. My knees landed in a very organized way, and no damage was immediately apparent. I knew there'd be bruising though.

For my dignity, I righted myself to be seated on my knees. It was a very purposeful looking pose, one that a person might do if they didn't want to sit right on a floor. Huh. Okay, now what? I never got the hang of getting myself into the chair from the floor. Not with the resources available to me here. A couple teenage girls across the street were looking at me. Oh look, resources!

"Uhm, girls? Help, I guess!" They made their way across, and one held out her hand as if I could just take it and be helped to my feet. "Heh, thanks, but I think it's going to take a little more than that." They were a little at a loss. I mean.. I'm not BIG BIG, but I'm not a lightweight either. And let's face it- your typical teenage girl is no powerhouse.

That's when from out of nowhere, two grown-ups showed up. One said she was a nurse, the other was just a big guy with a sufficient level of burliness.
I was soon (if not gracefully) back in the chair. The nurse kind of wanted to call me an ambulance, but I felt okay. More or less. Still shaken all the heck from the fall, shaken enough to last most of the day. But I had work to do. On I went to the bank. On the way back to the office, the skies opened up on me. It wasn't long before I was drenched. I was taking my time to find the best, smoothest way around any little obstacle.

When I was about a block and a half from the office, a happy homeless looking guy saw me and ducked around the corner. He was hiding, but VERY badly.WTF. Well, that's not a "I'm gonna mug you in broad daylight" kind of face. I made eye contact from under my hood, dripping wet.

He pops out and says "Oh! Sorry! I though you were uncle Pete! I was gonna surprise you!"

PETE?! For those of you unfamiliar with Maple Ridge's favorite homeless man, ole' Pete, is a quiet fellow who's been spotted shambling miles around. He's been in and out of the system, and most of the time when he's spotted, he's filthy as you could imagine, and often smelling as bad. A few years back, he lost his lower legs (as rumour tells us, frostbite) and is now in a wheelchair. But to the point-

I WAS MISTAKEN FOR PETE?!

Insult to injury anyone? I got back to the office, dripping down the hall, and I made my way to my wife's office, where she and a co-worker share space. They saw me and both burst out laughing. "YOU'RE DRENCHED!!!" Thanks ladies. I didn't care too much about being drenched, I was still trembling from my fall.

Fast forward to the next morning. Getting dressed, I noticed.. yeah, my knee was swollen really bad. No shock. I went on with my day. Next morning it was less swollen, so I figured everything was okay.

Fast forward to six days after the fall. I'm at GF strong for an unrelated meeting, when I tell the tale of the fall. The physio gal I was there to see wanted a peek at my knees.

"Oh. Oh wow, that's really swollen! And the colour's no good at all!"
"Colour?" I hadn't noticed much, it's pretty dark when I get dressed, I guess.
"I'm just going to see if there's a doctor handy. Yeah, Doctor K is just across the hall."

Um. Doctor K? Did he try to kill James bond once?

Doctor K and his deep, awesome russian accent come along. He takes one look at my knee. "Ack! When did this happen?"
"About a week ago."
"ACK! No, no, no, no, no."

Soon enough, he'd called 911 on me. Sure, I'd been feeling bad for that week, and I threw up in the driveway once, but the whole house was combating the flu!... yeah, so maybe masses of misdirected pain might have been causing some problems too. Before the ambulance came, DR. K had lined me up with various unrelated medical tests that he figured It had been too many years since I'd been checked out.

I spent that night in the ER, had 3 various scans done of me and my knee, and was given WCB forms and a knee brace. (They try not to give casts to people who can't feel the affected area to avoid undetected pressure sores) This brace was only meant to prevent my knee from straitening out completely. Yeah, it wasn't my knee exactly that was broken, it was the knee-end of my femur that had a fracture. And I had to wear that thing all the time, except for showers.

While I was being carted around for scans in a bed, I got to see many old familiar ceilings that I'd seen in 2001, when I was hit. I got to appreciate the tiling more, as I was not on a morphine IV this time.

Now I'm down to only having to use the brace 'when my knee is at higher risk'... which.. Yeah, I'll be sure to tell my football coach. So, I wear it to work. Meh.

That's not my knee brace, but it's close. It's definitely not my leg.

----

*Johnnycakes. Johnny is the head beancounter of the organization. I fax things to him. I get emails form him asking for more. I was told his verbal english isn't so hot, and that I'm better off communicating via email. I'm pretty good with accents, but I find email better for businessy stuff anyway. The end result is that Johnny has become some sort of financial boogeyman.

Fill that form in right! Get that signature! Calculate the deductible correctly, or the wrath of Johnny shall descend upon us all! So where does the name 'Johnnicakes' come from? It's not his fault, he didn't EARN it for any reason. In the LBP levels based on Lifehack, I have a few silly spin-off levels focusing on tormenting the character "Jonathan Coll". His tormentor enjoys referring to him as Johnnicakes. As a result, whenever I utter the name "Johnny", "Cakes" slips out now and then. Thankfully, as I mentioned, I never see Johnny face to face.

Lest the wrath of Johnnicakes descend up us all.

Echos or Echoes?

Alright, the name of book 3 is changed. It will be ECHOES of Erebus. Echos is also an accepted spelling, but it seems echoes is more common. Feh. Not that I want to be a slave to conformity, I just don't want to have to be explaining it all the time.

Hey, preorder people! I'll have my stock of Yutes sometime over the weekend, so y'all get in line! :P

In non-book news, we now have a full house again.. I'll have to think of new codenames for them, a german girl and a spanish girl. They seem quite sane and pleasant however, and are not likely to inflict such interesting stories as a couple students in the past.

And 2 minutes ago, the courier took away my ps3... fly swift and true, I need my PS3 back to start the littleBIGplanet contest, where I'm giving away a few copies of Watching Yute...!

Obsessive? OCD-ish? Me? Naaaahhhh....

One mister Dueckman commented to me this ev... er, last evening, (I really thought it was friday, not thursday, or I wouldn't have gone out)... he said I get a little obsessive over things.

True enough.

Exhibit A: Some time ago at his place, I watched a Rammstein concert on his big honkin' TV, and since then I've become a big fan of Rammstein. As long as I don't worry too much about the lyrics. They sing 95% in German, and I've found that lyrics I don't understand allow me to concentrate better on things like writing. They're easier to ignore. Now and then, I look up a translation for a song. Half time time I discover it's really not something I'd want to be listening to, nor for any German-speaking person to hear me listening to. Thusly, when the German student I'm hosting is around, you bet I use earphones.


My wife got understandably sick of my brining up Rammstein at least a couple times a day. So, I looked into music by other German rock bands. Die Krupps sing mostly in english it seems. No thanks. 'Oomph' sings in German a lot, but they're.. too pretty. After the guttural vocals, and wall-of-guitar and synth that the flaming (literally, not in the gay way) Rammstein offered, these other bands were like eating mayo after developing a taste for grapefruit. So I'll kepe listening to Rammy, and just shut up about it. Right after this. I promise. I guess.

Exhibit B:Video games. It might root from my younger years, when I got roughly two, maybe 3 NES cartridges a year, but I'm picky about games. I still get games that I know will last me a long time. Usually I'm more or less stuck into one game at a time, and I get stuck deep. Since I got my PS3, this has meant over a year of Oblivion, then half a year of littleBIGplanet, and most recently about half a year of Fallout 3. Each one, in turn, became topics my wife got sick of.


Exhibit C: Creative hobbies. Once upon a time, I was huge into music composition. I released over 200 tunes in the 604 area back in the day, the bulk of which were techno, with a little orchestral, and other genres. Rowan Lipkovits called me the msot prolific creator in the areas code. Note that he didn't say BEST.


Then I rediscovered art of the visual variety. The result can be sampled in the art section of my website, as well as various graphic works and contracts that ave happened over the years. The art led to image descriptions, which led to short stories, which led to books, which I have trouble shutting up about. You'd think that would feed well into some ability to self promote.


Verdict: Yeah, I might be a TAD obsessive. Shucks. Darn. I consider it as appreciation of a topic, a full immersion. Many of my obsessions are a waste of time. Arguably, all of them are. But to quote Phillip J. Fry, "You can't waste my time, my time is worthless!"

Lifehack price drop! Caitlin yappin, site facelift..

Thanks to discovering a new manufactirer, the trade paperback of Lifehack is now down by about $5, to 15.95! Click here to buy right now! whee! do it!

Those of you unaware of what the novel is about, you can head to my personal site, ozero.ca , which has just had a bit of a facelift. It also has some excerpts, my art, and a mixed bag of other junk.

It'll also tell you that the old sources for the $5 e-book and the "Priced insanely" Hardcover are still available... the ebook is cheapest, and has no shipping charge, but... unless you have extra ink, or like reading off the screen, the trade paperback's your best option.

By the way, littleBIGplanet people, I'm up to level 14, and a new tutorial & junkyard level, so go search ozero...!


be gentle.

In Caitlin news, she's getting yappier and yappier. Most words still dont come out WELL, but a lot are coming out. She pretends to read, holding a book, jibbering. She's go up to you, poke your eye, and tell you it's an eye, all kinds of cute crazy things.

OW, MY SACK!

Sackboy, that is. It's been too long since Ive blogged, and the game littleBIGplanet, and the hero sackboy is largely to blame.

The entire book Lifehack is now told in a set of 10 littleBIGplanet levels, in a very truncated, LBP kinda way. Two contests were run on separate Life-hack themed levels, where the top winners won a copy of the book and other LH goodies. The badguy from Lifehack also 'enjoys' some side-story silliness. Fan damand has caused another Regan side-story, and a remake of the first level, with my more developed skills, and the all-hallowed PAINTINATOR, which would have been spiffy to have when I STARTED the set, not as soon as I finished #10...

Anyone out there playing LBP, do a serach for ozero or lifehack, and you'll find em pretty easy.

In other Lifehack news, I'm moving the production of the softcover (tradepaperback 6x9") version to a new producer, which will drop the retal price by about five bucks. Whee!

-----------------

Caitlin's charging ever forward, leanring new (often mangled) words almost every other day. We have to start training her on how to wlak in public, without runnign around like a maniac. Even with the 'leash', it's a trick and a half for me to control her, thus, she still spends most of her outins with me secure in the carrier I have.. but she loves it.

When the snow hit right before xmas, I was practically stranded in the house for a month and a half... well, not quite THAT bad, but for me to get to anywhere useful, I had to wheel over a section of sidewalk that never receies even a patronizing attempt of a shovelling.. so the other option was to go on the road, which I did twice or so.. and none with Caitlin on board.

The other week when I pulled out the carrier, she miled form ear to ear. We got suited up for the cold. Then I went to the hallway mirror for a last minute 'system check'. Caitlin saw us ready to rock, and wiggled and giggled. Oh yes, there will be a tune on sourdough to mangle. Muaha.. plat and then the sandwish shop, that was the routine.

F#@$kin' snow.

So long, Lucy

Doggone!
Our dog, Lucy, has gone to a better place. Somewhere in Burnaby. (Did I fool ya?) We stuck her up on Craigslist for free to a good home, because after 3 and a half years here, "Pain in the butt" had been turning into "Look, this just ain't workin out."

One of our neighbors has a couple dogs trained as attack dogs. They've already attacked our tenant's puppy who snuck under the fence, and later the 2 attack dogs snuck under another fench to chump on another neighbor's dog. When you have kids, why are you training your gods with padded "maul me" sleeves?

The other reason we wanted Lucy outta here is Caitlin. They get along GREAT. Except at meal time. Caitlin likes to share, and Lucy doesn't know when enough is enough. And yes, we did try a lot of things to make peace, but the beagle in her found a way to destroy all possible solutions in one way or the other.

I tried to put her on Craigslist once, and couldn't make myself submit the posting, but a week later, I managed it. I felt better once I got it through my head she's be going to another home, not a wood chipper. The home she went to has a 7 year old boy and a beagle/terrier, so that family is used to breeds with attitude. They go for daily walks in a dog park, and overall, it sounds like a great place for Lucy.

Say Aah!
At 10 and a half months, Caitlin's 7th and 8th teeth are finally peeking out, surrounding her 2 lower middle teeth. Crawling is a mastered art now. Standing without support has happened many times, but not for long. I think a solid 7 second count is the current record. And she has dance fever. Tunes from a few select noisy toys can get her rockin' out like there's no tomorrow. For food, she generally has whatever we're having, cut into manageable chunks in many cases, but a bottle now and then can supplement dinner if it's something she want very fond of.. though she seems to like most things..! Check Caitlin's site here.

Optimism in the streets
The MeadowRidge Optimist Club will soon have it's won website which I'm putting together with design/content guidance from the rest of the club. When it's up, the address will be posted here, on some business cards for members to hand out to whoever, and some signs for generic uses.

These signs will be making their first appearance at the first annual MeadowRidge Optimsit Walk for youth, which will be a part of the Pitt Meadows Day parade

Lifehack and Watching Yute
2nd edition of Lifehack is in the hands of my last of many volunteer editors. And maybe my dad might take a crack too.

Yute is still being chipped away at. Not much of a page count increase over 130, but a lot of segments are getting streamlined, and re-sorted from the sort of 'sketchbook' phase that many scenes get written in originally.

Game On
I'm pretty much done my Oblivion addiction, looking forward to LittleBigPlanet, Home, and Bionic Commando: ReArmed. (2d gameplay! SLICK 3d graphics!)

Now playing: Crash Bandicoot:Warped (had an urge for some platforming) and FF7. Why FF7 all of a sudden? Blame Advent Children. Sure, the flick isn't new, but it triggered new toys! Right now I'm surrounded by AC and original costume versions of Cloud and Tifa, original Aeris, and AC Vincent and Sephy, which I've been buying one by one since AC originally came out. I'm not trying to get them all, but 'Reno' is on my 'get me' list. Anyway, I guess having all these guys standing around got me in the mood to play the game.