The lows are low, but the highs are home

A little while ago, Crysis 2 was leaked in its entirety onto the internet a while in advance of its release. Then Killzone 3 was leaked - a PS3 game. Not that PS3 games haven’t been on the internet for years, but now that people can (theoretically) actually PLAY them, it’s serious business.

        So all kinds of noise and hoopla was made over piracy and arguments were had. You know the drill. Over on Destructoid, Jim Sterling made the point that game developers only have one source of revenue - retail sales of their games. Other industries, like movies and music, can make money through multiple avenues - theaters and DVD for movies, live shows and merchandise for bands, etc. But that’s not really true, now that we have easy ways to sell additional content to players. I forget whether Jim actually mentioned that, though he probably did, but I’m in “work mode” at the moment so I’m not going to risk getting distracted while I look it up.

        Everyone feels kind of cheated when “downloadable content” comes out for a new game that’s really just a code to unlock content that’s already on the disc. Generally that just happens with console games, since PC gamers would probably just dig the content up on their own, but anyway. Fact is that DLC for an existing game is incredibly cheap to make and market, compared to making a brand new game, and it has way higher profit margins. Even if you only sell $5 map packs to 1% of your player base, it takes a fraction of the time to create those maps. As long as it’s actually adding content to the game, DLC is great for giving players more of what they want, assuming they like the game enough to spend more money on it. DLC can also be sold to people who bought used.

        No matter how you look at it, DLC is really, really profitable. Most studios need to turn a profit in order to keep making games. Conclusion: Most studios now churn out DLC for their games.

        The PC game market is different in a number of ways from console games - there’s no retail used game market, but by contrast, they have piracy to deal with. Usually pirates will get their hands on DLC and make patched versions of games that can play the DLC, but if you pirated the game and want to buy DLC, you can’t. Why not? Yes, they don’t “own” the game as far as Steam and whatever other online authentication system is concerned, but getting $5 from a customer is better than getting no dollars.

        Somehow I don’t think this is going to fly with anyone staunchly against piracy, because they want you to buy the game in the first place. It really depends on the distribution and authentication systems, though, because clearly you can’t register DLC with your Steam account without having the game registered.

        Alternatively, game developers should have tip boxes (like developers on Kongregate have) so people can send them five bucks any time they steal DLC. That works too.

This is a relatively short thought, but I wanted to have a public post and get reactions. There’s a part in Capitalism: A Love Story (that sadly I don’t have a link for - if you look for and find a clip, please do share) where they discuss how life was “back in the day” in regards to taxes and the economy - according to Wikipedia “ the past "golden days” of American capitalism following World War II". I guess it’s close to the start of the movie. Anyway, excuse the huge oversimplification, but from what I remember the basic gist was that the taxes were far higher but everything was just fine because you didn’t need as much money anyway. Then presidents got elected by promising tax cuts and etc. and now people have grown up with low taxes and feel taxes are evil and think the government is stealing their money.

        I know there’s a lot of economics and history missing from this (feel free to enlighten me, though) but just focus on the taxes aspect. Whether or not you agree with government spending policies or like the people in charge or whatever, just the part about your money and the government using whatever portion of it.

        If your government were to RAISE taxes, and put that money towards increasing your quality of life and generally taking better care of its citizens, how would you react? You and everyone else with a job might stand to lose as much as 20% more of your income, but the money would go towards cheaper/better quality education, lowered costs of living, governmental childcare, lowered sales tax and things like that. It could very well be that you come out of the equation with more disposable income.

        Don’t just respond and say “yeah sure” or ravage me for being a socialist and a tax-lover - what’s the logic behind your position? Why do you think (or, more likely, feel) that way?

        For my part, yeah, I’m sure I already sound pretty sympathetic in regards to this. But then I’m unemployed and almost all of the money taken off of my previous paychecks came straight back as a tax return. Plus my parents (both previously/presently employed for the Canada Revenue Agency) have handled my taxes for me in the past. I would be ok with this, though, because I don’t NEED a whole lot of money above and beyond my expenses - money is only a means to an end. Money pays for my food, money will in the future pay for my lodgings, and at the moment it pays for my education. Maybe if I were nearly bankrupt I would worry about how much money I have, but as long as I can afford to live, I’m doing alright. If I have extra, that’s great - but having $100 in the bank and $10,000 is emotionally equivalent for me.

        You may, of course, dismiss this as naive and nod sagely from your vantage point in “the real world.” I doubt I will ever value money, however. If that’s the case, I doubt I’ll change radically when it comes to taxes. But please do tell me if you believe I’m wrong, or right, or if you believe much of anything on the subject.

I went to fencing last night, and ended up going to bed around 10:30 - getting up at 6 am was hard for me this morning. I’m considering moving my alarm up to 6:30, because I don’t really need the extra time, but this is as good a time as any to make this post about how early I actually go to bed.

        My schedule this semester is this: I have class at 8:30 AM from Monday until Thursday. It can take a good 40 minutes to get to school, more if I get really unlucky, so it’s best to leave early - the other thing is that early in the morning, the buses are less busy because there are fewer people making their way to work. Busier buses means it takes a lot longer to get to school. So, that’s why I get up so early - I’d rather spend half an hour extra at school than half an hour extra in transit and get to class right on time.

        I happen to like getting up early, and don’t mind going to bed early to do that, which makes me the polar opposite of just about everyone I’ve ever met. A couple people barely every sleep, the rest are all night owls, and so I have this problem where every couple of night at 9 PM I get messages from people who aren’t going to bed any time soon. Maybe they have something important we need to talk about, maybe not, but of course I want to talk. Then I end up staying up for two hours and start getting ready for bed at 11 PM instead of 9, and then I end up crazy tired and it’s not really anyone’s fault. The thing is, I was likely online for hours, and they probably were as well, so why this almost always happens at 9 PM is a mystery to me.

        So here’s my request: By 9 PM, I’m already winding down for the night - I’ve been up for 15 hours already, and I need to sleep. Talk to me earlier. Talk to me at 5 PM. Just keep in mind that I have a totally different sleep schedule from you.

        Actually, there is another option - if and when I mention that it’s late/I’m getting ready for bed/I should sleep/any other not-so-subtle hints, tell me to go to bed and refuse to talk to me. It’s so incredibly nice for you to consider my best interests like that and I’m actually grateful towards the one person who ever does that for me. So that’s something else you can do that takes into account the fact that I may not be ready for bed yet.

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        Listening to an episode of the Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’ Podcast titled Come Here Uli, and here’s a brilliant quote about game design:

        “In a movie, you’re being asked implicitly to empathize with a character. In a game, you’re trying to do two things at once: you are trying to empathize with a character and to be a character at the same time. In something like inFamous, if you’re just trying to empathize with the character, when his girlfriend comes up like ‘raah I’m angry about stuff and later on you’re going to have to decide whether to save me or not’ then you can look at that passively, as in ok, we’re going to learn something about who this character is by how he decides to deal with his girlfriend. When you’re controlling him, and your girlfriend is like 'raah I’m mean at you for blowing up the city completely by accident and not your fault and later you’re going to have to decide whether to save me or not’ then it’s no longer a matter of 'what would Cole do, I’m interested to see how he grows’. It’s like ok, I guess what am I doing in this situation? I guess I’m supposed to manufacture a two year history, mentally, with this girlfriend I’ve just met, and in the entire time I’ve known her she’s just been a bitch to me, but I’m supposed to extrapolate that at one point this character, and therefore kind of me, but kind of not, once cared about her.”

I bought a Kindle copy of Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson and, thanks to that, managed to finish the book after… a year and a half. Below is a conversation between two characters near the end of the book that I really enjoyed, and reminded me of Socrates style philosophical dialogue. I’m posting it because I liked the book enough to buy it twice. So, yeah, I liked it a lot.

        ‘In the world, there are attackers and there are defenders. Most of us possess within ourselves elements of both, but in a general sense a person falls to one camp or the other, as befits their nature.

This is not to say that aggression belongs only to those who are attackers. Far from it, in fact. In my talent with the sword, for example, I am for the most part a defender. I rely upon timing and counter-attack – I take advantage of the attacker’s forward predilections, the singularity of their intent. Counter-attack is, of course, aggression in its own way. Do you see the distinction?’

        ‘I think so.’

        ‘Aggression takes many forms. Active, passive, direct, indirect. Sudden as a blow, or sustained as a siege of will. Often, it refuses to stand still, but launches upon you from all possible sides. If one tactic fails, another is tried, and so on.’

        ‘Yes. What you describe every child learns, at the hands of the bully and the rival.’

        ‘Excellent. Of course you are right. But bear in mind, none of this belongs solely within the realm of childhood. It persists and thrives in adult society. What must be understood is this: attackers attack as a form of defence. It is their instinctive response to threat, real or perceived. It may be desperate or it may be habit, or both, when desperation becomes a way of life. Behind the assault hides a fragile person.

Cultures tend to invite the dominance of one over the other, as a means by which an individual succeeds and advances or, conversely, fails and falls. A culture dominated by attackers – and one in which the qualities of attacking are admired, often overtly encouraged – tends to breed people with a thick skin, which nonetheless still serves to protect a most brittle self. Thus the wounds bleed but stay well hidden beneath the surface. Cultures favouring the defender promote thin skin and quickness to take offence – its own kind of aggression, I am sure you see. The culture of attackers seeks submission and demands evidence of that submission as proof of superiority over the subdued. The culture of defenders seeks compliance through conformity, punishing dissenters and so gaining the smug superiority of enforcing silence, and from silence, complicity.’

        ‘Is there no third way of being?’

        ‘In my long life, I have seen many variations – configurations – of behaviour and attitude, and I have seen a person change from one to the other – when experience has proved damaging enough, or when the inherent weaknesses of one are recognized, leading to a wholesale rejection of it. Though, in turn, weaknesses of different sorts exist in the other, and often these prove fatal pitfalls. We are complex creatures, to be sure. The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.’

        ‘Passive.’

        ‘Of a sort, yes. It is more a matter of warning off potential adversaries. In effect, you are saying: Be careful how close you tread. You cannot hurt me, but if I am pushed hard enough, I will wound you. In some things you must never yield, but these things are not eternally changeless or explicitly inflexible; rather, they are yours to decide upon, yours to reshape if you deem it prudent. They are immune to the pressures of others, but not indifferent to their arguments. Weigh and gauge at all times, and decide for yourself value and worth. But when you sense that a line has been crossed by the other person, when you sense that what is under attack is, in fact, your self-esteem, then gird yourself and stand firm.’

Over the holidays, literally half of my friends asked me about my “tumblr thing.” I’m glad that more than one person is actually reading it now, so to make sure everyone who finds my “tumblr thing” keeps reading, I’m going to lay out the three main ways to keep track of my new posts.

The simple way: Bookmark the site.

The convenient way: Make a Tumblr account and read it on your dashboard.

The nerdy way: Subscribe to the RSS feed.

        I’m sure you know how to bookmark a site, but the main problem with that is that you have to keep checking my ugly site and never know when there’s a new post. Eventually you’ll end up forgetting or just miss posts completely.

        The tumblr dashboard shows you all the new posts by the people you’re following, which is great, and that’s what I do. Probably what most people do. It’s easy to post your own stuff and follow a whole bunch of people and keep up with their posts.

        If I were only reading one person’s tumblr, though, I’d probably just use RSS. I think the easiest RSS reader to use would be Google Reader on a computer, but if you’ve got a smartphone of some kind I’m sure you have an RSS reader in there somewhere.

        As long as you check your RSS reader/tumblr dashboard, you’ll see the brand new posts at the top of your list and it’ll be great.

I’ve been thinking about something for a little bit and couldn’t manage to explain it last night, so I’m going to attempt to work it out here. I’ll edit before posting until I’m sure it all makes sense and I haven’t exaggerated anything.

        What I’ve been thinking about is how I’ve long had a kind of ideal image of Britt in my head, and that holding onto that was what kept me hopeful for a long time after we broke up. It’s not like I was completely deluding myself, just that I liked to think everything could go back to the way it was. Of course I knew it wouldn’t happen, but it was still a nice thought, and I had the odd dream about us getting back together and things like that.

        The problem, though, is that this ideal I had in mind didn’t change at all in the last two years, regardless of the ways she’d changed. In some way, I still thought of her as I did during the summer two years ago when (relatively speaking) everything was going well. Which isn’t really that horrible, as the worst consequence to come out of it is probably my consistent surprise at her unhappiness. My reaction tends to be something like “oh, I thought maybe it might get better…” because that’s just how I’d like the world to be.

        I started thinking about this a couple of weeks ago after a dream I had that, essentially, was really about this ideal image of Britt. I forget the details, but it was a nice enough dream, so take from that what you will. When I woke up, though, I realized that Britt isn’t anything like how she was in my dream - and that’s what made me question the fact that I’ve been doing it all along.

        Britt and I spent the day together two days ago, and that was great - I think it’s the only time we’ve expressly hung out as friends… At least, it’s the first time I felt that way about it. Essentially all we did was cook brunch, talk, cook supper, and talk some more. Fun seems like an overly exciting way to describe it, but I enjoyed the visit a lot and it was just good to see her again. What I wanted to mention, though, is that it also let me recalibrate the way I think about her. I’m one of those odd people who like the idea of platonic love, so I’m going to go ahead and say that I love her as a friend, and I’m happy with that. Despite the things that have changed over the past few years and plenty of disagreements, we still get along, and that’s awesome.

        So here’s to you, kid. These past five years have been wonderful. Looking forward to five more.

My vacation’s going pretty well. I’m catching up on my Read It Later list, I checked out a number of to-do list managers (spoiler: I realized I didn’t need any of them), and today I’m going to keep reading and start organizing music in my library. As far as what I’m reading, yesterday I read The Little Prince, a few Lifehacker articles, and a number of Click Nothing articles. Reading more of the latter today.

        Highlights of the day, which I definitely recommend: LastPass - a cross-browser password manager - a program that tints your monitor based on time of day. LastPass is pretty nice, it integrates nicely into your browser and can autofill forms for you and hang onto personal info and stuff. Most interesting is their Security Challenge, which checks all your passwords and kicks you in the butt about having bad ones. It can also generate randomized passwords for you - such as 8DIy@!Y2%EtO - but the downside to this is that you will never remember these on your own, making you rely on LastPass forever. The reality is that you need to know the password (what if you want to check your e-mail on another PC?) but you’re more likely to lose the password to a database compromise (oh snap Gawker) than to a brute force attack. Anyway, have a strong master password and then modify it as needed.

        Second recommendation is Flux - a program that tints your computer monitor to simulate a natural light cycle. In the morning, it’s the usual bright blue-white that’s guaranteed to wake your brain up and stop the melatonin flow. Later in the day, it’s a warm red that is a lot nicer on the eyes. It seems really drastic when you use the preview of the entire cycle at once, but if you change it to the slow setting (takes an hour to transition) it’s very subtle. When you first come to your computer and it’s a strange kind of red, it might throw you off, but it’s… oddly comforting. Trust me, it’s good for your eyes and your brain, so try it out.

        Third thing that may not be any use to you is custom address bar search engines in Firefox and Chrome. If you’ve used chrome, you’ll know that typing something other than a website will automatically do a google search. Great, but it gets better, because you can add search bars from sites and access them with a keyword (at least in Firefox). Go to a site, right click any search bar, and click “add a keyword for this search”. I did this for a french translation site - so I type “enfr bus” and it gives me the translation for the word. You could do this for your favourite torrent tracker, for a blog, whatever site you visit that has a search bar.

        You can also add keywords for your bookmarks by right-clicking and going to their properties - type f for facebook, t for tumblr, w for wikipedia, whatever. It’s pretty good. You should do it.

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        Went to a family supper last night, but it wasn’t actually an awkward sit-around-and-chat kind of affair. We ate our food and rushed out to a coffee house at my cousin’s high school to see him play. Some of the music was bad, some of it wasn’t, eh. Honestly I don’t have much to say about the whole event! We didn’t spend hours together and it wasn’t horrifically awkward, so… Yeah, I guess that’s it. In a few days I may have a good story to tell.

So I realize I haven’t been posting much, and there’s a very good reason for that: exams. I even had to skip fencing practice saturday because I wanted to do a bit more studying… I kinda spent too much time talking to people on thursday and friday.

        But anyway! The past week has been like this: Linguistics exam on monday (took me about 40 minutes), tuesday was Applied Linguistics (roughly an hour), wednesday was French (a little over an hour - my essay as twice as long as it was supposed to be, lol). Thursday I almost literally didn’t study, friday was more or less the same. I studied 3/7 chapters in those two days, which is like an hour and a half of studying across two days. And I read the easy chapters because I didn’t feel like studying. Friday I spent 3 hours writing up ineffective instructions for Rainmeter, and thursday I was talking to Britt pretty much all day. I even claimed I was leaving to study only to keep talking for a few more hours >.> So that’s why I avoid talking to people when I have things to do.

        Saturday I thought I had my Computers exam at 5 pm. Around 5:30 pm I realized it probably wasn’t at 5 pm. I was hoping to use one of the public computers to check my exam schedule, except some stereotypical jock was on facebook for 45 minutes and then TURNED IT OFF WHEN HE WAS DONE. You know how display consoles at Wal-mart are in little boxes where you can’t touch them? Imagine how rude it would be for someone to turn one of those off, because nobody can turn them on again without opening the case.

        So I was still afraid my exam might start any minute and didn’t want to spend 20 minutes going to get my cell phone, so I used a pay phone to call my mom and get her to check my exam schedule. As I feared, the exam wasn’t set to start until 7 pm. I told her I should be done by 7:30, because it was 45 multiple choice questions and I generally average 45 seconds per multiple choice. At least, on a normal multiple choice question.

        This was not a normal multiple choice test. I was there for an hour and a half, spending five minutes or more on some particularly crazy questions. The questions required you to check every single possible answer - “which of these is not false”, “which of these is not a problem with this code”, “which of these statements is most true” - and was generally designed to be a total asshole. So that was unpleasant but at least it’s over.

        We left my mom’s house by 7 am yesterday (sunday, day after my exam) to drive to my grandparents’ house in Fredericton. Took us ten hours total to drive there, only stopping once for gas and simply eating food we brought with us. My grandmother was worried we might be stranded in a snow storm (the weather was great) so we had supplies for two days. During the drive I finished reading The Art of Manliness, read chapter 9 in my psychology textbook (the first chapter we’ll be doing next semester, or so I assume) and read a bit about Python. Eventually I realized I couldn’t really learn Python just by reading about it, so I stopped.

        Now we’re here, and today I’m going shopping for shoes, winter boots, and pants. I’ll be staying here until the 27th, at which point I’ll be taking a bus to PEI. Staying there until the 31st, then we’ll drive back home. And the best part is the realization that I don’t have to do anything. I read ahead for my psychology course, sure, but aside from that… I really should just relax for the next two weeks. And that’s awesome. I’m going to do whatever I feel like doing, and it’ll be great. Demon’s Souls got an extension on its server expiration date, and they’re doing a Christmas event again this year, so I’m going to play a whole lot of that :D Of course I’ll have to go visiting and shopping and things like that, but I’m old enough now to not cry and complain over not getting to play video games for 12 hours per day.

Here’s a bit of psychology for you. There’s a structure in the brain, called the limbic system, which is (as far as my first year course is concerned) the basic location of emotions. Completely unrelated to the limbic system is the thalamus, a central station for your senses that passes information on to the other part of your brain. So, the signals processed by your eye go to the thalamus, which sends them to your primary visual cortex. However, your sense of smell DOESN’T go through the thalamus - it goes straight to your limbic system, creating a pretty close association between scents and emotions.

        So I was going into my psychology lecture, and a girl in front of me was wearing a lot of cotton candy perfume. I was pretty confused for half a second (as in, where am I, what am I doing here), and then I came back and started to wonder why anyone would wear cotton candy perfume - would you be attracted to someone who smelled like a carnival? When we got into the class and I walked past her to find a seat, I was starting to enjoy the cotton candy smell in a weird kind of way. Still kind of confused about it, trying to form a proper sentence to explain my confusion, and yet there was a kind of attraction to it.

        I got to my seat, sat down, and while I was waiting for the lecture to start I worked on sending Britt a text about how cotton candy perfume confuses me. I settled on “you know what I hate? People who wear cotton candy perfume. It’s so confusing when they walk by :(” She replied and asked me why it was confusing, which I had to think about, and ended up saying “because it’s like wtf, cotton candy!? And I’m able to be confused for half a second by perfume.” Her response: “I used cotton candy stuff all the time. I always sprayed my room with cotton candy perfume.”

        I don’t want to beat you over the head with the significance of that and go into too much detail, but it’s so cool! As I told her, I didn’t remember that she always sprayed her room with cotton candy perfume. I couldn’t have told you that, if you’d asked what her room smelled like. But my brain knew it, and obviously I have a pretty strong emotional association with her room, because we hung out there a lot. So I smell someone wearing cotton candy perfume, and for half a second I’m just bewildered because cotton candy perfume = her room, as far as my nose is concerned. Then I lash out, questioning the reaction, and then it’s kinda pleasant and attractive.

        So now you know how to make yourself strangely alluring to me. Though if you’re actually going to try that, go with vanilla instead. So now you know that psychology is legit! I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. And this is in no way a plug for my excellent repository of notes.

Saturday was good - I finally managed to take notes on chapters 5 and 6 for psych, which I had been “working on” for a month. Then I popped them onto my Kindle and chapter 6 turned out really well - no conversion errors at all. Sweet.

        Sunday morning, I get up at 5 am. Have breakfast, brush my teeth, get dressed, wake up my mom. Then we drive to the bus station, buy the ticket, and I sit down to read psych notes.

        Get on the bus at 7 am, read psych notes for a few hours. Finish Voltaire’s Candide, read The Art of Manliness guide to Building Your Resiliency - highly recommended, in fact moreso than anything else I’ve read lately. Continue reading psych notes. Get stuck in a detour trying to get to the bus station - turns out sunday was the Santa Claus parade. So we spent half an hour getting to the bus station, when it was like right over there.

        So anyway then I walk from my bus station over to Union Station and meet Lily, after many texts of “I am at this place, where are you” and “ok wait I’ll go where you are.” Our plan for the day was as follows: Get hot-chocolate at some place called Soma and go to Honest Ed’s, then go to Kool Haus (not a horrific carnival fun house, luckily) at 5 pm for the show. By “the show” I mean Bring Me The Horizon (eh) and August Burns Red (yeah) playing with Polar Bear Club (woo!), This is Hell (??), and Emarosa (?). Which is something I was planning on seeing with Lily for a couple of months but it turns out I didn’t mention it to anyone. So yeah! I did that!

        So we got a map inside Union Station and walked on over to The Distillery District, which was a wonderful little place and I hope to find somewhere similar closer to home. You know how the little villages were in FF VII, with little brick houses and pipes and metal stuff for decoration? I mean, they were kinda like that. At least the place Cid lived was like that.

        If you don’t know what I mean, think 19th century village. Brick houses. Metal pipes. That’s the defining features. They had metal sculptures and “art” here and there - a “Christmas tree” made out of pipes with light bulbs in the ends, two ends of a bridge that don’t connect, stuff like that. There were people with fancy cameras everywhere, so I assume it was a cool place to be.

        It was also an expensive place to be! We were there for a few hours, went into two? places, and I spent like… $35 or something. First we went into the chocolatiers place, which is to say they make chocolate and sometimes turn it into a drink, and got some Mayan hot chocolate. Which had a pretty strong after taste that burned your mouth. $4.19 for that. I also got four tiny chocolates, which were $9 total. So that was all well and good and we hung out there for a bit to chat while drinking hot chocolate.

        Then we go off to find something to eat - I got a chicken club sandwhich (pretty good, $7 or something) and an Italian cookie/bread thing with almonds in it that was dipped in chocolate - $3. After sitting there for, hmm, an hour/hour and a half, I also got some caramel cheesecake for $3.50. So $15 for lunch.

        After checking the time and checking the map, we decided we didn’t have time to go to Honest Ed’s and decided to go see Kool Haus to scout out the area. This was around 3:30 PM and there were already people in line - like hell I’m going to wait outside on a cold day for an hour and a half. There was a market area nearby so we went there, but it was just flea market stuff because it was sunday and the parade was going by there. We worked our way back to Union Station and got food from a dude in a cart for $4 (each-ish). Worked our way back to Kool Haus not long before 5 PM and listened to increasingly desperate scalpers try to sell tickets.

        On the way in, there was a bag check - I had my pockets full of electronics and maps, Lily’s bag was full of books, the security girl was o.0. Drop off our coats for $2.50, go out into the main room - surprisingly big, actually. Huge crowds around the Bring Me the Horizon and August Burns Red booths, proving who the cool bands are, and absolutely no one over by the other three booths. I got a Polar Bear Club hoodie ($40) and a tour shirt ($10) and they’re pretty sweet.

        At 6 PM, the first band comes on, doesn’t announce themselves until a few songs into their set. Their singer was not that great, their guitarist (or bassist? I can’t tell by look) was a better singer and the best part of the band. He would jump into the air and fling his legs out in opposite directions. I got Lily onto my shoulders (with some help from the bar) so she could see but we were too slow and he didn’t do it again.

        But all was not lost! For Polar Bear Club was up next and that should have been great. Except their singer was as bad live as I have heard. I caught, maybe, one piece of each song they played - except their last song, Living Saints, which was recognizable. Hell, even when they announced the songs I had a hard time knowing what was going on. Barring the occasional signal from the music, I was essentially lost, and I knew most of the songs by heart. They played Light of Local Eyes (which I wrote my mock valedictorian speech about), Our Ballads, Boxes, something, and Living Saints. There may have been one more song, but in that case, they played two songs where I stood there for five minutes and had no clue what I was listening to.

        Interest was relatively low for them. Sad, but when they play that way… It wasn’t really their scene anyway, but even so.

        Emarosa comes on, they’ve got a keyboard, I’m like oh no… But it wasn’t actually that bad. I was bummed out after Polar Bear Club but I’ve filed them away to check out later.

        Up until now, each of the bands was getting set up in 15 minutes and playing half hour sets. Opening bands and stuff. August Burns Red also got set up in 15 minutes, and played for an hour. While waiting for them to get set up, I was kinda falling asleep.

        That didn’t last for long.

        The first three bands were all pretty restrained, jumping around and stuff but mainly playing in the middle of the stage and thus being invisible to Lily. August Burns Red were not like that. They brought out a bunch of boxes to put over the speakers and spent most of their time up there and encouraging the crowd. Not only were they more interesting to watch than the previous bands, they also played really, really well. The polar opposite of the other bands, if you will. Everything sounded right, and that was great, because I knew them well enough to recognize a few songs, if only by the chorus.

        So August Burns Red was a highlight of the day. Then we wait for half an hour for their royal highnesses Bring Me The Horizon to get their shit set up. I was pretty apathetic about them from the start, but to give you an idea of what we’re dealing with… Half the people there had already seen the band seven times. I heard it from a chick talking to a fat dude. At least she was there for her eighth time, and as one of the two people I eavesdropped on, that is half of everyone.

        They also had a *SURPRISE* GUEST SINGER OMG! Some girl comes out in the middle of one of their songs and everybody screams “OH MY GOD THERE SHE IS AAAAAAH” and I’m like oh, ok. Now it all makes sense. Yep.

        So she sings for a few minutes and takes off. Wikipedia doesn’t say they’ve ever had a girl in the band or in the credits of any of their albums, so I have no idea who she was. Attractive, probably the one doing all the female electronica stuff in their songs, but if she’s not credited with anything…

        So after their half hour set up Bring Me The Horizon played for 45 minutes, then tossed their shit out into the crowd and left. A brief chant for encore died when it became clear that they were thoroughly done with us. Cue the stampede for the doors.

        We go back to Union Station, I buy a vanilla hot chocolate and a cookie from Second Cup (the first time I’ve ever gotten anything there, actually) which were pretty good. I drop Lily off at her bus stop place, then go off to my own bus stop (around 11:45 PM) and get in line for my bus - which was leaving at 12:30 AM. I popped some ear plugs in and slept for pretty much five hours straight, which was pretty nice.

        So that’s what I did! And now I want to find a place with cafes and dumb art to go with a friend, except that it isn’t five hours away from where I live. Vael, we’re going to find one of those places, and enjoy it immensely in the summer.