Ramblings: Internet Safety

Ramblings: Internet Safety

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

It amazes me the number of people who will click suspicious links or open attachments they are not expecting. When I first started going online, way back when it was a whole new world and you used a modem that screeched and yelled at you, there was one thing that I learned quickly and have endeavoured to never forget: Do not click links you weren’t expecting. Do not open attachments you weren’t expecting. Doesn’t matter if you know the person they came from – double check! A quick message can save you so much headache.

The world is far more online now than it was when I first started my forays into forums and chat rooms, so it boggles my mind that people are not more aware of the big “no-nos” when it comes to keeping yourself safe online. The consequences nowadays are so much more than they once were.

I will admit, I’m not perfect. I’m certain I’ve clicked on a suspicious link or two in my past, and paid the price for doing so. And sometimes, despite your best efforts, you get bombed with an ad that has some sort of spyware in it and your computer gets fried. I get it, it happens.

But when you just go through your life, blindly clicking on every link that gets sent your way? Well, I’m sorry to say it, but you probably deserved whatever you got from that.

Don’t. Click. Suspicious. Links.

A good friend send you a link unexpectedly, with accompanying text saying something similar to “check this out”? Chances are you shouldn’t trust the link. But Arcia! you say, feeling a little hurt, that came from my best friend! Well, don’t click it until you’ve confirmed your friend intended to send you that link. Or attachment. Or whatever. It isn’t hard. And I would recommend you ask them on a different platform, just in case someone has gotten into their account rather than just made it send stuff out.

And you know what, while I’m talking about doing stupid things that cause you grief, I’m just gonna throw this out there. Companies will NEVER, not EVER, request that you pay them back by purchasing and providing the codes for Google Play cards, or PSN cards, or any other form of gift or product card. Will not happen. I don’t care how legitimate it seems, it isn’t. If you are really 100% certain that this is not a scam (seriously, though?) then take the time to call the number on verified correspondence from said company. Is it your phone company? Call the number on your account statement. Bank? Same deal. If you get online statements, then go to their official website. Don’t follow the link from an email or text message, but actually go and google their official website, if you don’t know the actual website address.

Links can be spoofed.

Protect yourself!

A concerned Arcia.

Gaming: Stardew Valley

Gaming: Stardew Valley

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

You know what I want to write about? One of my favourite games, something that I go back to quite often. Yup, that’s right. Stardew Valley.

A farming sim game, with adorable characters and what can sometimes be a very tragic storyline.

Now, I’ve played Harvest Moon games since the first iteration on the SNES. I still remember my older brother telling me I wouldn’t like it – I sure showed him! Farming sim games are among my absolute favourite, so when we (husband and myself) first heard about Stardew Valley we were sold. Then we heard about Stardew Valley multiplayer, and we were extra sold.

We picked up the game on a Humble Monthly subscription, a subscription purchased solely because Stardew Valley was the featured game for it. I don’t even remember what the other games were, they do not matter. Farming was all.

I’ve sunk more than 200 hours into the game since we got it. My Steam account says about 220, but we got a separate extension to use a couple mods and I’m not certain if Steam recorded those first hours played.

Stardew Valley is, first and foremost, a game about running your farm. Your farm that is filled with weeds, trees and stones after years of neglect. So you start small, planting a few turnips, picking a few wild plants, and schmoozing with the town folk. When you save up enough from crop sales, you can start looking into raising some animals at your farm, such as chickens or cows.

Not long into the game, you get to make a very big decision. Are you going to be the kind of villager that wants to give back to the community and help make it a better place for all, or are you going to be consumed with profit, profit, profit. Rebuild the Community Hall, or pay for a JoJo membership and watch the space be turned into a storage facility.

I, personally, have not bought into JoJo’s pitch, and have played my games assisting the community and rebuilding the lovely Community Hall. I do plan on doing a JoJo playthrough, of course, but first I have to finish getting a few more achievements with my current playthrough. Most notably, I only have one bebe and need a second one for the achievement. I haven’t decided yet if I will start my JoJo playthrough after that, or if I’ll try to get a few of the more difficult (for me) achievements, such as catching all the fish.

One thing that I find very captivating about this game is the depth and realness that the developer put into the other villagers. They all have their own stories, which are slowly revealed to you as you become friends, or more, with them.  One of my personal favourite story lines is that of Shane, a depressed, alcoholic love interest.  He starts out quite rude to you, will barely give you the time of day and he quite clearly does not appreciate your efforts to become friends. You learn, though, that this hardened exterior is a cover for a very vulnerable person who has experienced a lot of pain in his life. I almost cried at a couple points, the details of his story were just so poignant.

With adorable sprite-like characters, the ability to not only customize your character from the outset but to also change up the appearance down the road, together with a charming small-community feel, makes this game a must-have if you enjoy any sort of sim type game.

Of course, given how long it has now been out, I doubt I’ve reached anyone new with this post, but I just wanted to talk a bit about a game that I love so much.

Happy farming,

-Arcia

 

Ramblings – On Dreams

Ramblings – On Dreams

by Heather ♥ 2 Comments

Dreams. What a messed up aspect of our lives, right? We close our eyes for the night and our brains process what we’ve experienced during the day and we get to experience that as dreams. And some just make no sense at all!

As fascinating as I find dreams, I actually prefer to NOT dream. Mine are often very strange, messed up, and often give me anxiety, at least during the dream itself if not beyond when I wake. Once in awhile I get lucky – my dreams will take me on an epic adventure, with videogame-esque elements and an intriguing plot. I’m not usually so lucky. Normally I get dreams like I experienced the other night – I can’t recall specific details, but I can remember one moment. My father being absolutely PISSED that I had purchased a $20 hair dryer with my own money, saying things like I was irresponsible, it was foolish of me, how dare I. It left a sour taste in my belly in the dream, but thankfully wasn’t something that followed me when I woke up.

Anger is a common theme in my dreams. Not anger towards me, but rather anger that I feel. And it is a monstrous anger, irrational and petty, quickly ignited but not so quickly soothed. These are among my scariest dreams, because I don’t normally carry anger, I try to let it go. But I spend these dreams screaming, throwing things, breaking things, pushing buttons, and sobbing uncontrollably. Because yes, anger and tears are a package deal for me. I always find these sorts of dreams to actually be kind of frightening – it scares me to think that somewhere within me is apparently the capacity to completely rage.

I also cannot fly in my dreams, a fact that frustrates me even in slumber. The most I can generally manage is a clumsy glide, but that doesn’t stop me from flapping my arms with the best (worst?) of them. Dream guides suggest that this means I have someone or something holding me back in life. Hard to say if that’s true, it has honestly been several years since flight held any role in my dreams. Which is curious, considering how much I love wings and the idea of flying. And also probably why it always frustrated me when I couldn’t.

Locations in dreams are pretty tricky, too. Whenever my dream is at “home”, that home is a strangely distorted version of the home I grew up in. It has the open/circular main floor, my bedroom at the top of the stairs, the half wrap-around deck, the outside concrete stairs to the basement, the garage. But it isn’t actually that home. Small, subtle differences occur – the good room doesn’t exist in the dream version, the basement is far more sinister and easy to get lost in. The concrete stairs are steeper, deeper, dangerous. Sometimes the pool and hot tub exist, sometimes they don’t. The playhouse is often there, but it will look different all the time. And yet every single time, in my dreams, I understand that it is that home Doesn’t matter what changes my mind makes to it. I do wonder, however, when my mind will stop pulling up this house as my “home” when it hasn’t been for quite some time.

-Arc

Ramblings – All the Curls

Ramblings – All the Curls

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

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Aww yea, curled my hair this morning. Also burned my thumb a little in the process, but hey! what’s beauty without a little pain? OK, so I actually try to actively avoid pain for the sake of beauty. It’s why I don’t wear heels, or skinny jeans or things of that nature. Not comfortable, sometimes painful. If I wear heels too often I end up with a swollen foot, no lie. Happened to me back when I first worked at this job – naïve me figured I needed to wear heels all the time to be “professional” and then ended up spending a week shuffling around the office in thick socks because I couldn’t fit in my shoes!

Super professional, I know, I know. You may all worship my professional abilities.

Done? Yea, thought so.

Hey, here’s a question you don’t need to answer. When browsing blogs or whatever, do you like ones with a “featured image” (this post has one, most of mine don’t) or do you prefer without? I’m just wondering if maybe I should start plunking images in – maybe make a couple for different types of posts. Also, just a quick edit: featured image is HUGE. Have now changed it to just be at the top of the post. yikes.

*sigh* I really need to organize this blog too. Such a mess. I knew it would get like this, but past me was all “Meh, I’ll deal with it when I have to.” And now I’m feeling I probably have to, but also don’t want to. So much other, more exciting stuff to do!

Like working on my stories! Nearly every day on the bus ride to work (and sometimes home, too) I get a few paragraphs jotted down, at least, on my main work. It’s been coming along so wonderfully, except for when it isn’t.  I keep hitting road blocks, for some reason. The latest one was because I tried to shape the story wrong, put the wrong character in, and I was cursing, wondering why I did this to myself, why the character was doing what I had them doing. And then I stopped and realized that **I** was the one doing it, I was the one writing, so dammit, it didn’t need to be that way. So I scrapped… well, a half-assed scene and scribbled a few notes for what it should be like. Then I moved on, because I was way beyond done with that piece right now. It’ll just need to get a little extra TLC once I start typing it up.

Well, ok. I guess that is the end of my ramblings for now.

I hope you have a wonderful morning/day/evening/night. Whatever is most appropriate for you as you read this!

-Arc

Ramblings: Life Off

Ramblings: Life Off

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Sometimes it can feel amazing to just turn life off for a little while, or at least as much as you are able to. Just took a week off work and essentially spent it playing games such as Neverwinter and Baldur’s Gate with my husband – old school and lovin’ it.

I feel relaxed. I feel stress-free. I know that will change as soon as I get to work today, but I’m going to relish these last moments of quiet as much as I can.

Now, that isn’t to say I was completely out of the loop. I still pulled up my twitter and peeked at it, thought I didn’t really engage much at all. Which means that yes, I am aware that there is apparently a plan to storm Area 51 “Naruto-run” style. Hilarious! Husband and I spent a good few minutes looking at some of the golden memes that have arisen from this notion and laughing to ourselves over the ridiculousness of it all. I am particularly fond of the Naruto run bit, to avoid the bullets, of course. Best part.

I spent more time working on my novel and my little short story, as well. I can’t recall if I mentioned here or only on Twitter that I think I’m actually going to self-publish this short story I’ve been working on. It has a beginning, a middle, and I’m working on its ending, so it’s a complete story, not like the snippets that I post here. Once I’ve finished and polished it all up, I will likely be publishing it through Kindle Direct Publishing, unless I become aware of a better platform to put it on.

So that is kind of exciting for me. I will post a short blog post about it when its up, with a link to where it can be purchased and all that fun jazz. I’m pretty sure it will be $0.99, I’ve seen other short stories for that amount.

Well, I guess I don’t really have much more to talk about at the moment, except to tell you that if you can unplug from the world for a few days, you should totally do it! It feels wonderful. Let go of as many responsibilities as you can, even for a short while, just to regain some equilibrium.

Good luck, have fun. I’ll see you all again.

Ramblings – I’m busy, I swear!

Ramblings – I’m busy, I swear!

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Goodness it has been a busy week at work. Four day week, and I’ve taken next week off to help lower those stress levels somewhat. I continue to get upset with little things, so it’s time to de-stress as fully as I can!

Which means a week away from work. I was lucky to be able to take it off – lawyers two week trial ending up getting pushed for reasons, so the opportunity just kind of jumped at me! I was originally thinking I wouldn’t be able to take time off until much closer to September, so I’m pretty stoked for next week.

Not completely sure what we will be doing next week. Hanging out, playing video games, watching Stranger Things Season 3 (assuming that lasts more than just tonight and tomorrow, haha).

Just started playing some Detroit: Become Human, thanks to getting it for free through PSPlus. It is very interesting so far – much more of a story than a game, but what a story it is! I feel a strange connection to these poor androids that are on the outskirts of society performing all the mundane tasks. I’m not far in, but it is brilliant.

Anyway, my mood just plummeted and rather than bitch, moan, and complain here I’m just gonna sign off.

Have a great day, y’hear?

-Arcia

Ramblings – Word up!

Ramblings – Word up!

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

So I recently moved from using the trial version of Scrivener for writing to the full version, thanks to a slightly delayed birthday present from my momma (love you mom!). It is an awesome program, and I’m so happy I have the full version now. I’ve already got my dropbox all set up so that I can work on my story at work or at home.

I was doing it a little wrong yesterday, though. I did a “back-up” to the dropbox location, and then would do another one after I worked on it again, and I very quickly realized THAT would become unmanageable. It created a new folder each time with the date in square brackets, but when I did a back-up of the back-up, it added MORE dates/time in square brackets behind the first set. Yea, that was definitely not how things were supposed to go.

So I had a brilliant idea! Just save the damn thing in dropbox and let it do its backups to my hard drive. I know, I know, less a brilliant idea and more just common sense. I don’t always do the common sense thing right away – I like to make things difficult for myself.

If you are an author looking for something maybe a bit more affordable than the Microsoft Office 365 option, I would recommend Scrivener!

I think my favourite part about it is how you can have your scenes all completely separate, easily move them around as needed, and then compile the entire document per whatever settings are appropriate for your output (i.e. you can output it into e-book format or standard manuscript format).

Another really great feature is being able to have all my character sheets, my settings notes, all that good stuff in the same document. I only recently started getting all that stuff actually typed out, as opposed to living in my head. I realized the necessity for it when I realized I couldn’t remember what color hair one of my characters had! I mean, it’s at least a somewhat important detail, in terms of identifying a character and staying consistent. So it was time. Time to create character sheets.

And I go big or I go home, so I’m doing one for every single character. Even those that basically appear briefly and then go away. I don’t know yet which ones might come back into the story (though I have a little bit of an idea), so they all must be recorded!

I may even actually write out backstories, instead of letting those live in my brain too. I have too much crap living in there, better to get the important stuff out before it becomes overwhelmed by the useless crap. And I have a fun idea for my barbarian’s back story. He has a couple siblings that aren’t mentioned in my novel (yet, anyway), and is the son of the chief. He was quite adventurous as a teenage barbarian, and definitely got himself into trouble more than once.

It’s honestly quite exciting not only watching as I force my story to take shape, but to delve into these characters and learn them even more. I know why I’ve never been a full-blown fan of something – I was waiting for my own characters to stan!

Now then, where was I?

Oh, yes, Scrivener! It’s pretty cool. I’m looking forward to diving into it a bit more just to learn the various features and hidden gems in it. I like customizing things, what can I say?

So, uh, I guess I don’t really have much more to say right now.

Make sure you have a great day, kay?

Art Attack! A Symbol

Art Attack! A Symbol

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

So, I decided to try my hand at doodling out the Izavi Royal Crest. Now, I know all but a very small selection of people currently have no idea what I’m talking about.

The Izavi are a race of winged humanoids from my series, Wings of Shattered Shards. You won’t know much about this series because I’ve only finished book 1 and it hasn’t been published anywhere.

Anyway, here it is, in all its half-drawn glory!

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Ramblings – Today’s Thoughts

Ramblings – Today’s Thoughts

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve decided I want to try and post on this blog a bit more often, which is going to mean less Storytime and more musings or ramblings or random thoughts.

Today you get ramblings, because that is just how lucky you are. You had better feel special!

I feel like talking about my cats right now, because they are weighing heavy on my mind. I discovered puke with bright red in it this morning, which means that one of our cats is either puking up blood or has eaten something very bright that they should not have eaten. We’re looking into it, but it’s tough when you aren’t certain which cat it is. Both my husband and I suspect it is Seraphim, our little lady, but that is not based on any fact or evidence, just the fact that we have always viewed her as less healthy than our big man, Grim.

We have had Grim (fondly know as Mister, Mr. Grim, Big Man, and Twitchy Butt, among other in-the-moment nicknames) since he was a kitten, adopted from a friend of my husband’s sister. He was the runt of the litter and was small enough to fit in the palm of my husband’s hand when we got him. Of course, we didn’t have a camera back then, so photos of him as a kitten are few and far between if they exist at all. Our big Mister is an all black cat, save for a few white hairs on his shoulder that have increased in number as he gets older.

When he was a little kitten he was a rascal, getting into everything. We had a hide-a-bed couch at that point, and we liked to snuggle Grim in between us while we watched movies or TV. We were doing this one day and we suddenly started to hear these very pathetic, muted meows. Looking at each other in confusion, we tore up all the cushions trying to find the little bugger. Finally, we noticed him under/in the bed part of the couch. Husband lifted the couch (and I’m sure you realize how heavy a hide-a-bed couch is) and I tried to fish the kitten out. Of course, kitten was having none of that and dug into the carpet. I eventually won that battle and we got him out of the couch, but until he grew a bit bigger we had to be extra vigilant that he didn’t wiggle his way back in there.

His favourite toy as a kitten (or at least one of his favourites) was one of those ones you stick to the wall or door and it dangles and has a bell on it. He loved this damn thing. One night, as we tried to sleep, he was going crazy attacking this toy, the bell just jingling and jangling like there was no tomorrow. In frustration, we grabbed the toy, threw it into the bedroom and closed the door. But we didn’t throw it far enough into the bedroom, and Grim got his little kitty paw far enough in the room that he could just touch the bell with a claw. That was all he needed to bring it closer and have a jolly ol’ time jingling the stupid thing, keeping us up. Of course, we moved it further away so we could actually sleep, and now it is a funny memory; at the time? Not so funny.

When we moved back to my hometown, we shared a house with a good friend of ours and had enough room that we could consider the idea of getting another cat.

Seraphim was a rescue from the SPCA back in or around 2006 or 2007. We got her not long after moving back to my hometown. She is a beautiful little thing, a bit small for a cat, with half her face blonde and the other half a dark brown/black color. Our housemate at the time adopted her sister and named her Mittens despite her not having any mittens to speak of – he just always wanted a cat named Mittens; Mittens was much darker than Seraphim and had only a few spots of blond on her, including a vaguely star shape on her forehead. We brought them home to meet Grim, and we learned something very important.

Grim does not like other cats. Especially when the other cats take over his brand new scratch post that he was in love with. Grim spent a lot of time beating the kittens up, especially Mittens. He wasn’t as mean to Seraphim, and we aren’t completely certain if that was because he knew she was ours and he had to put up with her, or because she was too stubborn and stupid to give a shit about him beating her up. Mittens was traumatized, unfortunately, and had taken to pooping under the desks to avoid going into the open where Grim could get her. She eventually had to move into our friends’ bedroom to keep her safe. It was sad, but at least there was that option.

While we lived in that house, we took to letting our cats outside regularly. Grim had had “outside time” on a leash at our old place, but had never been let out alone before. He very quickly formed a “cat gang” that consisted of himself, Seraphim and a stray cat that we called Third. The name was actually a nod to a TV series we were watching at the time, though I can’t recall what the series was. It was pretty epic (the cat gang, not the show I can’t recall). One time, we saw another cat in the condo complex and Third was peering at it from around the bushes, clearly keeping an eye on this cat. Out of nowhere, Grim comes charging around the corner and chases this other cat off the condo property and across the street. Grim didn’t actually leave the complex, but the other cat just kept on running. It knew what was good for it. We are very certain that Third and Seraphim spotted the other cat and Third kept an eye on it while Seraphim ran to inform Grim, since she was trailing behind him like the little follower she is.

Eventually we moved from that home into a one-bedroom apartment. Grim packed on the pounds – there wasn’t enough room for him to really be able to run, and it was difficult to get outside with him on a regular basis. Sera had no issues – being a small cat, she had no trouble rip-roaring around the apartment when the kitty crazies hit her. And they do, quite regularly even to this day.

While living in the apartment, we knew we had to get Grim out more – he loved the outside, and the small apartment wasn’t good for him. We invested in a backpack specially designed to carry cats – it had a hole for him to poke his head out of and a lead to attach to a collar so he couldn’t jump out. He loved his backpack. After he got used to it, every time we pulled it out he would awkwardly jump into it. It was awkward because he is so damn big – we had to pick him up and place him in it properly, and he purred the whole time.

Cat secured in the backpack, we would take him to the nearby park where we would let him roam on a leash while we enjoyed our coffees. There was actually a little public garden that he absolutely loved – it had a wide variety of edible plants, including cat mint. If you haven’t heard of it before and have cats and a garden, I recommend you look it up. It apparently helps to keep certain pests away from the garden, in addition to being loved by cats.

OK, so, apparently I’ve managed to write 1,300 words about my cats. I’m sorry. I could also totally write more, I have lots of little stories and tidbits so, uh, I guess if you enjoyed reading about my kitties, drop me a like/follow, and shoot me a comment to let me know how much you love my cats. And you should. They are the best. I love them so much.

 

Storytime: Making Plans

Storytime: Making Plans

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Britt rubbed tired eyes and set aside the book she had been reading, a technical description of the workings of a machine called an engine. The magic she could gain from continuing that line of research could bring great value to the little colony of Free People, but that wasn’t what she was searching for right now. She had hoped to glean some small bit of information that could lead to a more destructive, or protective, type of magic.

She had always wondered about the ancients, what questions they might have if they could see what had happened to their world. Though it was all she had ever known, Britt still found it strange that studying the creations called technology by the ancients was the path to gaining magic in this new world that was created by the ancients most powerful weapons. She had once, before the invasion of the Protectors, as they called themselves, read a small reference to weapons of mass destruction, but all knowledge of those devices had been studiously destroyed in the years after the world was destroyed: the magic that could have been gained from the study of those weapons would have been incalculable. She had never been able to follow that bread crumb, however, for the Protectors had come, with their religion that banned all study of the Ancients and their technology and outlawed the use of any magic that had been gained already through that study.

No one really knew where the Protectors had come from, and most of the common folk did not appreciate their heavy-handed discipline. The Free People were those common folk who had enough and sought to regain their autonomy. They had been fighting and hiding for the past three years, and Britt had finally managed to learn how to create a magical barrier, through careful study of a theoretical book on something called “force fields”.

Britt frowned to herself, falling backwards onto her bed to stare at the ceiling. A solution was out there, she just needed to find it. After a long couple of minutes lying on the bed, Britt suddenly sat up straight, almost banging her head on the low ceiling. “The archives!” Britt whispered to herself, flinging herself from the bed to start rummaging through the trunk that held most of her books. Moments later, she emerged with a slim volume held triumphantly in her hands.

Careful to not ruin the delicate pages, Britt opened the old book and leafed through the pages until she found the passage she was looking for. The book was a traveler’s guide to a place called Canada – according to the maps, where they lived now was in what had once been Canada – and it contained several references to various libraries throughout the land. She quickly scanned the list until she found the one that was, according to the old maps, the closest to their little hide-a-way. In an old city called Vancouver, it was one of the few libraries that had not only retained its collection when the world went “digital” (Britt had never fully understood what that meant), but had moved many of the cast-offs from other libraries to its own shelves. It was perfect.

Holding the book open, Britt fished out some pressed paper and a charcoal stub and began making notes, starting with directions on how to reach the library once they reach the ruined city.

It would be difficult, and there was no guarantee that the library still existed, or that it hadn’t already been destroyed by the Protectors. She would need to bring along Gabrielle and Jorge, of course; they had been a part of this since the beginning. And Mage Cecille, of course, since her skills with magic went far beyond Britt’s own, and Britt suspected they would need that skill to even locate what they needed. Continuing to take notes, Britt considered that the way to the library may not be clear and that they may be forced underground – thankfully the Ancients had developed quite useful underground tunnels, once used to transport cast-offs from their homes, it should prove to be the perfect path if necessary.

Finally, Britt sketched out the supplies they would need to make such a journey with five people, marking off what they could easily obtain from their own stockpile and what they would need to scavenge for. She paused, sighed, and reworked the figures – she wouldn’t be able to go with them, there was simply too much that needed to happen back here and no one she trusted to do what was necessary.

By the time Britt finished all the planning, the sun had long since set and she was working by the flickering light of her oil lantern. Looking over her notes one last time, Britt left them on her bedside table – an overturned barrel that had once held grains – and turned off the oil lantern. She would talk with her sister and Jorge in the morning, though she was certain the two adventurous friends would have no problem undertaking such a journey. And it would get their minds off the broken necklace.