Laz :
I like food too much to let it fall into evil hands.

Zack :
BWAHAHAHA

Laz :
Laszlo Kovacs: Saving your bacon, litteraly.

Zack :
To keep our food safe; just add Laz!

CLEARLY the week has taken a greater toll on me then I initially thought.

The week was tiring, still slaving away at Biotest, but I'm learning everything really fast, and I've been told I'm learning and adjusting faster then anyone else that has come before, so, yay, ego boost. Kim down in micro told me she was moving over seas in a month (D':) but that she has been talking to the head tech about my experience at Gamma, and I might be offered a spot down in the main lab, which would be sweet, but I don't know what'll happen. Chances are I'll be up in spinning for a while before I get swapped. Mel is working me hard, but she is by far the best person there to train me, as she doesn't chew me out if I make a mistake, and she really is great to shoot the shit with up in the lunch room. Add Kim to the mix and it's a laugh riot. I love my co-workers.

Saturday I was conscripted to help Laura with her event (I was told last week she couldn't use me as she had a full house, but Friday told me she did, indeed, need me.) and it went off very well. I even saw a couple of old friends, Pat and Steve, there. At night, I managed to rope Laura and Kate, who invited Daphne along, into going to Live Lounge with the Leary brothers (air soft buddies of the highest order!), and I STILL get the two mixed up, even though one has a beard and the other doesn't, although I'm starting to think they swap the beards every other week just to throw me off...

Anyway, Covax (the OTHER bearded guy :P) dropped by Laura's to pick us all up, and as a group, we made our way to the Lounge. It was a blast! I limited myself to only 2 drinks, as I was going to have to drive at some point, which I nursed rather slowly, before I swapped to ginger ale. I really love going there, so much fun; Great music, great company (although Daphne really didn't seem to enjoy herself, and my only attempt to ask what was wrong was rebuffed rather viciously, so I figured it best to leave her alone), and a shit ton of dancing and singing! At one point, the DJ threw on Dus Hast by Ramstine (sp), and the men of the group got on the dance floor (which was bare) and started to dance and sing. We were all so loud (Laura and Kate joined us at some point) that the DJ piped up and said 'WE HAVE A BUNCH OF GERMANS OVER HERE!!!', to which we replied 'HELL YEAH!!!!'
He also played 'Home for a rest', which again caused us to take up the dance floor again.

After the Lounge, we grabbed a bite to eat at Zak's, an all night diner in the Market, and almost everyone ate pulled pork poutine (I had Zak's all day breakfast...) and we all made jokes of varying degrees. The brothers wanted to hit up another pub for one last pint, but our group was tired from various sources and ended up ending the night there, but we're doin' it again in 2 weeks, so I'm exited.

As for Sunday; I woke up, I ate, I showered, I played a bit of Xenosaga ep.1 and a whole lot of Borderlands (after I rolled the patch back to 1.21). My voice was mostly gone from all the singing and shouting the previous night.

One wild night! XD

So the big news is I got hired at Biotest, a lab in downtown Ottawa. I start full time shifts on Monday, and I'll be making a tidy sum with full benefits. I'm quite happy.
The job itself is a tad on the boring side, pretty much the same time of repetitive stuff I did at Gamma, but I don't mind repetition; Hell, that was my last relationship (Fight, break up, make up, rinse, lather, repeat)! The point is that I am in my field of study, I am making good money, and while it literally IS entry level stuff, it is a career!

This past weekend, Laz and I hit up New York to see Andrew to drop of footage. It was cool to hang out, even if only for a night, and Andrew was kind enough to keep his store open long enough for me to find all three Xenosaga game for a 1/3 of the price then the stores up here, so BOYAH!
The next morning we drove to see Justin in Trenton and just... Chill. We did a night of bowling with Justin's church group, and we got our collective asses kicked by a couple of pre-teen girls. Still, a good time was had by all, though I still had to take some meds for my 'condition', as it was flaring up during the bowling and I was having some trouble moving and breathing.

Monday I called the lab and was basically given the job on the spot. I declined going on that day because I was exhausted from lack of sleep over the weekend and wanted to get all my stuff set and ready for when I did go in. I really didn't think I would get it, but good things DO happen to good people occasionally. So I spent the day resting and then drove to the college to clean out my locker and get my scrubs. Ended up playing Rockband with Mandy that night which was cool and fun as always. I got to sleep late that night because Ross wanted to play Killing Floor, and I really do enjoy playing that game.

Tuesday was Work Day! I found out very quickly that I am the ONLY male in Specimen Processing. Several of the girls are quite attractive and everyone is cool to chat with. The only problem is that there is SO much work and not enough people to spread around, so it's been sort of 'train while you work', which is cool with me. That night, Laz and I hit up a pub for a small celebration of work and such. We also hit up the Chocolate Shoppe in the Market and got some super-awesome-huge chocolates. We also hung out with Chi and Mandy for a bit before I headed home, and promptly was invited to MORE Killing Floor with Ross, Ty and Mark.

Today was more of the same as yesterday, though I showed up early again and stayed a bit later.

And there you have it. The only things to do now is beat Shadow Hearts 2 and get into a better sleep cycle. Also have much budgeting to do, Anime North is approaching and I wanna move out.

.. you stay up all night reading the Misfile archives (I'm on book 4 as I'm typing this) and listening to DJ Cotts in Australia on the HHC channel from DI.FM. Great set he had!

I'd sleep now, but I gotta be up at 7am anyway so I'll sleep later...

Edit: All finished the WHOLE comic. Re-reading it reminds me of a lot of plot points I had forgotten and several jokes and such that make me enjoy the comic so much, probably my favorite aside form Dr McNinja.

Also been listening to this for like an hour solid.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0LO6v43YCo

How does Mandy find such randomly good music?

So, today was pretty cool. I went to Jen Patraki's (the wife of Rick, an old high school chum) birthday party at her place, where I had a game of Magic with Rick and Ty (I lost, badly, one more round and I could have won), then watched Ross play Muscle March, which is fun but not really worth much play time, then a quick few bouts of Brawl, and I was out the door... Late.

I was sapost to be at 'Live Lounge' at 9 to meet the Leery brothers (pair of airsoft guys) to check the place out and just hang out, then at 11, I was to meet Chi and Dave to see our friend Eric DJ at another club. Dave and Chi ducked out because of school and sleep, so I hit up the Lounge alone, though I called and invited Laz to join us, as I was so late getting there (Got lost on the way out, still new getting to/from their new place) and didn't get to the Market till like... 11pm.

Regardless, the place is great, it's not a big noisy club, with tons obnoxious people, it's a Lounge. You go in, you listen to the no rap/hip hop music, you dance on the floor if you feel like it, or you chill on the couches or booths. it's a relatively small establishment, but it's very different to what I've seen and am used to. No orgies of drunk ass party morons.

I only had a red bull to drink, but we hung out, shot the shit a bit, head banged to Ramstine, sang to a couple of rockin' tunes and then headed to Zak's Cafe for a bite before parting ways for the night. It was a decidedly great way to end the night. Good music, good friends, good time had by all.

Only problem now is I am still wide awake from the red bull. Well, at least I have Borderlands XD

Mandy showed this too me a couple of days ago, and I've been laughing my proverbial nuts off to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUqwvQKap3I

Also been listening to the Double Dragon Rap by The Adventures of Duane and Brando.

Yup, Cloud and Sephiroth are emo for each other :P

I got a site from Laz (http://www.ofesite.com/spirit/chinese/animal2.htm for the curious), and I discovered that I am a Rat. The cut and paste of it is:

Rats are imaginative, charming, and truly generous to the ones they love. However, Rats have a tendency to be quick-
tempered and overly critical. At ease with company and groups of people, their intelligence and observation allows them to quickly grasp a situation from multiple perspectives. Rats know how to spot opportunities and seize them, but their opportunism, ambition and restlessness can lead to too many commitments. Don't be fooled -- although shrewd in business at times, Rats are passionate lovers, with a depth of feeling that is seldom recognized by others.

Mandy had much to add to it, basicly saying reading off my list of personality traits and things that only the very closest to me can see clearly (sorry those 'not the very closest to me'), and I guess I fill the role of Wood (and here I thought for years I was a Water or Fire elemental) Rat well, or maybe I just fit the profile :P

So I went out to midway with Jamie and Laura, both of whom I haven't seen in FOREVER!
Laura desided to pay for the night as she missed my birthday a couple months back, so we played a round of DDR, then did this electronic jump rope, then guitar hero arcade and then just a bunch of games for little tickets. we only had about an hour but it was a blast. Afterwards, we hit up Perkins for some food (breakfast at 9pm all the way!), then up to Mandy's for a movie and a couple songs of Rockband. Jamie had to go home after the food part, so laura and I trucked onward ourselves.
The movie (called the duel) was interesting, had some funny bits and some truely cool sword fights (all wire work). We also watched some weird youtube vids and read some funny stuff.
Finally, I drove Laura home, drove home myself and managed to get a solid 6 hours of rest before I napped for 2 more.

Tomorrow is my interview, shouldn't be a problem.

So, I went out and passed out resumes today with Mandy. We got started late because my mom got home a full 2 hours after she said she would be back, but we at least go out to a couple of places. Laura was sapost to come with us, but her homework was more then she thought and was also due today, so she had to back out.

Regardless, I have a couple more labs to hit up this week. I may be working at Gamestop in the mean time. Just because I refuse to shop there doesn't mean I can't take their money while working under their employ.

Afterwards, we went and saw Chichi. I donated an old textbook that apparently is still in use for her class, and after going through it again (speed read style) there was a lot of stuff in there was is useful for anyone to read (partiqularly people who are less then stable mentally *hint hint wink wink*). After a little hangin' out, We drop der Mandy off at home and Chi and I headed out to Dave's place to play Warhammer 40k. I am slowly getting into the game. This time, Chi let me take control of the Necron army, something that I have grown to hate exchanging fire with as the Tau, my so far prefered Army.

I will say that the Necrons are powerfull, but you seem to get far fewer units per point. Again, I'm only used to using the Tau, but I've fought I think all the different factions (minus the different Space Marian factions) and even then I have lost every match save for when I was teamed with Ed and Anika (his fiance).
Anyway, I have some insight on how to use and fight them now (shoot, shoot and shoot some more, preferably from maximum range, Hammerheads raining template hell down is a good plan too!) and I'm starting to really enjoy the carnage.

Lastly, I got Dragon Age: Origins working on my PC now, and I'll probably get some gaming in this week. For a PC that is almost 10 years old and only marginally upgraded parts, it seems to run the latest games remarkably well (CoD: MewTwo, I'm looking at you) A bit more working out and I'll be out like a light tonight!

Well, I didn't get any sleep last night, so I caught a sleep period this afternoon. I woke up to see that the sun had almost set. Upon going up to grab a bite to eat, my mom informs me that the guys who are installing the new windows and such are coming tomorrow morning and that they will be going around the back, not through the garage as was planed, making my digging out the doors needless. Anyway, I looked out back and saw that I had 5 feet of snow piled on the back deck to shovel out.

Now, people who have seen my deck know it's about 50 feet long and 12 odd feet wide. That's a lot of snow. Oh yeah, and there was a sheet of ice on the snow. At 5pm, I was got angry, knowing that there was no way I was going to shovel all that snow tonight in the dark (it was pretty cold and there are no lights out back). At 6, I got my gear on and headed outside, but not before having a few choice words with my dad. After a few minutes of shoveling, I heard a mechanical roar; turns out my dad had fired up the snow blower to help me, something he normally doesn't do. Between us, we managed to finish the whole job in about 30 minutes.

In other news, I've been playing Shadow Hearts: Covenant lately, but I'm so rusty that I need to really practice the 'Soul Ring' mechanic of the whole game.
See, when you are in battle, or sometimes when you're outside of battle, and you have to proform an action, like attacking or using a spell or item, you have a little clock dial show up, with the pendulum starting at the 12 o' clock position and then moving in a clockwise direction. There are areas on the clock face called 'Hit' and 'Strike' areas. For the action to be sucesfull, you need to hit all of the 'hit' areas. Hitting the 'Strike' areas will add power to whatever you are trying to do. It sounds easy but the speed of the pendulum makes it tricky. Granted you can equip items that slow the speed down, but anyway.
I've been giving thought to playing the first game again to get my timing back. Plus the first game was really good, good story (set during world war 1, but with more magic and demons), the play mechanics were simpler, and I loved the characters.
I won't go into the games too much more here, unless people want me to.

Aside from that I've been playing a lot of Torchlight on Steam, it's a Diablo clone through and through, but then again, it was MADE by the people who had left Blizzard entertainment that had MADE the original Diablo 1 and 2. It is a lot of fun. I've also been playing Killing Floor with Ross and sometimes Tyler. Ross has really taken to the game, and he is a great sharp shooter, whereas I keep to my 'White Magey' style of play, being a field medic who enjoys using bullpup rifles to give cover fire when no one is injured. We have a knack of entering an empty server and within minutes having it fill up, usually with really nice and comunicative (and most importantly, co-operative) players. It's really ramped up my enjoyment of the game.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd that's all I have to say. Now go read something interesting!

Yesterday was good. I woke up somewhat early, passed out again for an hour, then got up for good, ate lunch, played some RoL with Ross, then went out for the day.

I started off by picking Ross up from his place, then Chi up from work, then we headed down to St Laurent mall for some shopping and such. The first thing we did was bug Mandy at work. The 2end thing was to get me a caramel latte from Pam's (I hadn't had one in a long time...), the 3rd thing was to get some school/work stuff out of the way down at the college. We hung around the mall a bit while Mandy and Chi did their shopping, so Ross and I hit up the book store to see what was new. Around 6, Chi and Mandy were done and met up with us, so we started to head out, and met up with Laura who had just finished work. After a brief chat, Laura went home, and we drove off to Dominoes.

On the way down the highway, we see a car on the side of the road, one that looked a lot like Tyler's wreak. Sure enough, it was, and we saw a figure walking down the side of the highway. We pulled over and caught up with the man, who it turns out was Tyler's father! Turns out Ty's car gave out, finally. We gave him a lift to the Mac's just off the high way, then drove off to get pizza. We were disappointed. Turns out the Dominoes in Orleans is closed till farther notice. Slightly pissed, we drove off, dropping Ross off at home before continuing to Mandy's, were we ordered Topper's and played Rockband. The gaming was awesome, except when Mandy tried to kill me from asphyxiation... Then Chi joined in. :(
Tiny attackers to which I have no defense!!!

Oh well XD

Little by little, day by day, feelings change and grow <^.^>

IF a warrior shows no fear and a fool knows no fear, then what is a man who shows his fear but acts as he would if he didn't have it?

I reinstalled windows and after I got everything working again... I started to have the slow down problem again. I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's the hard drive itself that needs to be replaced..

Well, I just reinstalled Windows XP...
I had some kind of virus/rootkit that slowed my computer to a crawl and I just got fed up, so I reinstalled. Now to reconfigure everything...

I have desided that I am going to upgrade my computer as soon as I can so I can get playing the games that I really want to play: CoD: MW2 (not the multiplayer, I hate online asshats), Borderlands, Dragon Age: Origins, and at least TRY FF14 when it comes out.

After looking at my computer, I may end up having to buy a new one and just scavage a few parts from my old one.

A week in review:

Last week I had 3 exams, 2 written, one hands on. I passed everything, though I didn't get as good a mark as I should have with the actual studying I did. However, to my defense, the whole 2nd half of both written exams were on things that were not covered in great detail. Still, 3 passed exams = Happy Zack. I go onto placement next week.
On Friday, I hoped on a bus right after my exam and headed out to Buffalo, the bus was full for the trip to Toronto, and we got there and hour early, so i partook in the sights a bit (with both bags on my back :P). Not 5 minutes after I left the station then some crazy guy grabed my shoulders and said 'Sir, we have met many times before', I gave him my usual 'death stare' and said calmly 'No, we haven't' and walked away. The next one was a few blocks down, and he was yelling 'please, spare some money? I promise I won't spend it on food!' That caused me to double take, then keep walking. The trip to Buffalo was rather dull, the bus was half full, and I had never spent so much time playing FF: Dissidia in my life. There was a small snaffu (almost) at the border; the bus ahead of us beat us to the crossing and as such, we had to wait for the full bus to be inspected first, then us. While we were standing in line, I was bored, and tired, so I was sort of swaying back and forth and staring at the inspectors, and I would giggle or chuckle when a funny thought came to mind, so this one anal looking chap (the kind who thinks 'If I don't catch a terrorist today, the chief'll have my badge') came over and said 'This family of 5 is all together, so I wanna see THAT GUY in the back!' and pointed right at me. the guy ahead of me thought he was pointing to him, so he ran ahead, all smiles, where as i was ushered along to someone else, the whole way I was smiling smugly and laughing on the inside. I got through without a problem from there.

The shoot weekend (that I was there for) was great. Saturday I was killed no less then 4 times, and I was able to put the knowledge I had on weapons and tactics to work, and the people I trained worked like pros! I think Adam could pull it off in real life, no problem. The only sad-face moment was that the one person I WANTED to spend a little extra time with, I wasn't able to due to time and circumstance, but we had a bit of time to sit and chit-chat during the day, so that was alright :P.
From what I saw and did, everything went smooth as hell, we had 2 cameras, everyone knew were everyone else was, we had alot of things pre-planed and there were only a few people sitting around at any given time (or sleeping, as even though I was getting the same sleep as everyone else that week, they were working allot harder then me), usually just to watch the green room.

It is ALWAYS a blast to see Andrew, Steph, Bryan(HAHAHA... Lazlo), and Justin, and seeing and talking to the rest of the cast and crew was kick ass (Tim is one of the very very few people who legitimitly scare the shit out of me, and seeing and actually being able to TALK to Adam for the first time[I missed him at UCF 1] made me realise just how friggin' awesome the man is). Not to mention the extra stuff we did for shits and giggles.

The drive back had it's usual 'Laz and Zack talk randomly about random randomness', though with Chi in the car, the input changed when she was awake. We also had this weird truck that passed us, then started to swerve all over the road, even on the off ramp. I was jacked up on a Mana potion (gotta love my 8 hour energy shots) to do more then stare and wonder just what the hell the guy was on, while my 2 back seat drivers (I was driving :P) were telling me what to do, that being, slow down and avoid him like the plaque he was :P.

We all got home around 4-5 am, I ended up staying home the next day due to a sinus migrain that lasted till the afternoon, but i was out and about afterwards.

Now, go read something interesting!!!

We are Officially at 6. Tyler's passed on this evening... This has been 6 awful weeks for this sort of thing...

http://www.nwshop.fi/productinfo.cfm?tuotenumero=202261&lang=en

I hate it when I browse online shoppes sometimes...

You know, I hate my parents. I really do. They are irritating, anoying, patronizing.... I could go on. The latest bit of stupidity came from tuesday. My mom told me to dig up the septic tanks last week, cause the guys were sapost to come this week (or so I recall being told, my memory is still spoty...). Well, Ty came out to help, he missed out on sleep (he works the night shift till 7am) to come and help, but he did it. My mom didn't know exactly WHERE to dig, she just gave us a broken metal detector and said 'look around'. Well, we did. For a good 20 minutes. When we found a solid 'ping' (turned out the thing pings whenever the wireing is moved somewhat, which happens when you move the detector around...), so we dug, and dug, and dug, then when we got 4 feet deep, we figured 'We're in the wrong spot...'. More dead pinging later, we give up, we had been pricked by the rose bush (no idea why we have it) too many times to count, and we pulled out, not one, but TWO chainsaws to cut the fucker down. When I couldn't get the Gas one to work, we tried the electric, but I had one of those 'I would rather not get kicked out of teh house by my drunken father because I massicured a rose bush' and desided to wait till my mom got home. A quick call confermed that she would be home in 20 minutes. Ok, so we went down to my room to play some RE5. 2 hours later, my mom comes home, as does my dad. My dad shows us exactly where the tanks are... Right behind the rosebush, next to a tree. Hmm, ok, gonna be hard to dig in there... We began by REFILLING the first hole...
We managed to dig up the two tanks, and promptly went inside to eat and rest, being both tired, weary and pissed off at my parents.

Well, yesterday, it rained... and I had neglected to put any tools away because the previous day, I was too tired, pissed off and didn't care enough. So the chainsaws, axe, extention cord, shovels (3 of them), pry bar, pickaxe (to break up all the rock in the first hole) and the metal detector all got rained on all night and all morning today. Also, the hills are filled with mud, meaning I have to redig them. And, oh yeah, the septic guys won't be here till next thursday.

So damn mad....

Next time, they can dig it themselves, after making some sort of LANDMARK to, I dunno, MARK THE DAMN TANKS! And get the holes dug just ONE day before the septic guys show up, not when you KNOW it's going to rain the next day or two... Christ, this ISN"T ROCKET SCIENCE, but my blood preasure sure is sky rocketing ><

Damn I can't wait to move out....