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Gods, where to start? It's been a bit of a frantic week-and-a-bit. Let's see - how about I give a rundown of "good things and bad things" and then an expansion in TL;DR below.
Good things:
Not-Good things:
Taking everything in order, so starting with the Silver Chain stuff. I got my meds packed up into a blister pack by the nice people at the pharmacy last week, and I've been trying to remember to take them on a regular basis. On the one hand, it's nice and neat and I don't have to worry too much about sorting the whole shemozzle out every weekend. On the other hand, when I think of "blister pack", I tend to think of a nice, neat pack, which is pretty close to the same size as the medication it's containing. These aren't. They're what the pharmaceutical industry over here calls a Webster pack, which is basically a series of 28 plastic bubbles (4 per day for 7 days) each large enough to hold a handful of pills, into which the pharmacist or their assistants sort the medications per day and then cover it over with a layer of papery stuff. This means the most effective way to get the meds out (for me at least) consists not of pushing on the outside of the bubble, but rather pushing my thumb through the papery stuff on the back and then tipping the whole bundle out onto my palm. Not precisely efficient. However, I'm now in a position to take my medication as specified by all the various doctors and specialists I'm seeing (okay, one GP, one psychiatrist) and I don't have to worry about sorting them all out. Of course, I've managed to prove to myself I still require assistance taking doses, since I managed to completely forget them all on Tuesday (see below for details of why).
Tuesday, I picked up Dissidia while I was in town (the details are further down the list as to why), and started playing on the train on the way home. Then I got home and installed a whole heap of data (did the 1 hour data dump of 500 or so MB of stuff from the disc) and restarted the whole thing from scratch. I've now completed all the "Destiny's Oddessy" bits for everyone except the Warrior of Light, and I'm working through him at the moment. I haven't been unlocking characters yet, but I've managed to unlock all the voice tracks for the various hero characters, and I've unlocked the alternative outfits for the Warrior of Light, Firion, Cedric, Cloud, and Squall.
So far I'm enjoying it. All the characters are sparkly (not just Sephiroth - but Sephiroth certainly stands out as the one who's had the most extraneous bling added to his outfit) and the creators must have had one hell of a fun time creating this. I think I caught a reference to "Nibelheim burning" (ie "that scene Squeenix are contractually obliged to include in every FF7 game") in Sephiroth's entry to the scene in the beginning cutscene; the various characters I recognise (Cloud, Squall, Tidus, Firion) are all in character (they've managed to pull in David Boreanaz to voice Squall again, after the job he did in both the Kingdom Hearts games - I'd really love to see a remake of FFVIII with voices added, if only to hear all Squall's "whatever" comments out loud.) and there are references here and there to their various games (Tidus makes a reference to it being "his story"; Sephiroth refers to Cloud as a puppet and Cloud tells Sephiroth he isn't a god; and Squall seems all bewildered by the fact that other people appear to give a damn about him). But the bit which really made me laugh out loud was the data install music and visual: a chocobo and rider running across the screen, to the sound of the good old 8-bit "Chocobo Mambo" (from FFV, but instantly recognisable from every other game, too). That was a real hoot.
I got an email from my Dad on Saturday (read it on Sunday) saying they were back in WA - they sent it from Port Sampson, which is up near Roeburn. They were going to be heading down to Kalbarri on Monday, via Nanutarra Roadhouse and Carnarvon, so they're probably there by now. They're going to be back in town on around about the 14th, so I've sent them an invitation to dinner (which will at least give me a reason to cook again). It'll be good to see them again.
On to the not-so-good news. I'm still depressed, meaning I'm still actively miserable, and it doesn't look to be getting any better. At least I have a good reason for it (read on).
Monday night, I got an unpleasant reminder from Himself that we had a court hearing to be attending at 9.30am on Tuesday in Perth. This was part of the proceedings by the bank to reclaim the house we're currently living in (we've been behind in the mortgage pretty much all year, and the bank is busy saying "sod that, give us our money"). So, I got a bad night's sleep on Monday, and went in to face the court on Tuesday. We got to listen to the nice registrar tell at least two other people that he didn't have much choice in the matter, since the rules are that the bank just has to show there's a debt, and that they've served notice of said debt in order to get the order to repossess. He also told us about it. Whole thing was very stressful, and hasn't helped me at all, particularly since I was in such a fluster to get ready that I completely forgot to take my meds (I managed a sip of water before I had to dive out the door, nothing more).
We're at the current address until December 5. Then we have to hand over the keys, and be out of here, unless a miracle occurs, and we're able to come up with $1.3 million before that date. Since the most likely way we'll come up with most of that is by selling the place, we're still out of here, and looking for a rental place, which given we're both on the dole isn't going to be fun. Rentals in Perth run to about $300 - $400 a week, and the dole is (at most) about $400 a fortnight. So we can either pay rent or eat. Hoo-flaming-ray.
And yeah, still unemployed, been too damn stressed and depressed to even think about looking for work. I'm just back from explaining this to the nice people at CRS, and they've basically said "yup, life sucks, but now you have to deal with it". So for next week, my homework is to keep taking the meds, keep going out in the sunshine and exercising, and take a look at the jobs available next Wednesday and send a copy over to the nice guy at CRS who's acting as my case manager. I'm also supposed to think about volunteer work, which sounds like at least a way of keeping myself from actively murdering someone.
So yeah, how's everyone else doing?
Good things:
- Meds packaged in blister pack, Silver Chain stuff almost up and running.
- Purchased Dissidia on Tuesday, already 9/10ths of the way through the initial part of Story Mode
- Heard from my folks, they're coming back to Perth early
Not-Good things:
- Still depressed
- Court hearing on Tuesday resulted in an order to hand over the house
- Still unemployed
Taking everything in order, so starting with the Silver Chain stuff. I got my meds packed up into a blister pack by the nice people at the pharmacy last week, and I've been trying to remember to take them on a regular basis. On the one hand, it's nice and neat and I don't have to worry too much about sorting the whole shemozzle out every weekend. On the other hand, when I think of "blister pack", I tend to think of a nice, neat pack, which is pretty close to the same size as the medication it's containing. These aren't. They're what the pharmaceutical industry over here calls a Webster pack, which is basically a series of 28 plastic bubbles (4 per day for 7 days) each large enough to hold a handful of pills, into which the pharmacist or their assistants sort the medications per day and then cover it over with a layer of papery stuff. This means the most effective way to get the meds out (for me at least) consists not of pushing on the outside of the bubble, but rather pushing my thumb through the papery stuff on the back and then tipping the whole bundle out onto my palm. Not precisely efficient. However, I'm now in a position to take my medication as specified by all the various doctors and specialists I'm seeing (okay, one GP, one psychiatrist) and I don't have to worry about sorting them all out. Of course, I've managed to prove to myself I still require assistance taking doses, since I managed to completely forget them all on Tuesday (see below for details of why).
Tuesday, I picked up Dissidia while I was in town (the details are further down the list as to why), and started playing on the train on the way home. Then I got home and installed a whole heap of data (did the 1 hour data dump of 500 or so MB of stuff from the disc) and restarted the whole thing from scratch. I've now completed all the "Destiny's Oddessy" bits for everyone except the Warrior of Light, and I'm working through him at the moment. I haven't been unlocking characters yet, but I've managed to unlock all the voice tracks for the various hero characters, and I've unlocked the alternative outfits for the Warrior of Light, Firion, Cedric, Cloud, and Squall.
So far I'm enjoying it. All the characters are sparkly (not just Sephiroth - but Sephiroth certainly stands out as the one who's had the most extraneous bling added to his outfit) and the creators must have had one hell of a fun time creating this. I think I caught a reference to "Nibelheim burning" (ie "that scene Squeenix are contractually obliged to include in every FF7 game") in Sephiroth's entry to the scene in the beginning cutscene; the various characters I recognise (Cloud, Squall, Tidus, Firion) are all in character (they've managed to pull in David Boreanaz to voice Squall again, after the job he did in both the Kingdom Hearts games - I'd really love to see a remake of FFVIII with voices added, if only to hear all Squall's "whatever" comments out loud.) and there are references here and there to their various games (Tidus makes a reference to it being "his story"; Sephiroth refers to Cloud as a puppet and Cloud tells Sephiroth he isn't a god; and Squall seems all bewildered by the fact that other people appear to give a damn about him). But the bit which really made me laugh out loud was the data install music and visual: a chocobo and rider running across the screen, to the sound of the good old 8-bit "Chocobo Mambo" (from FFV, but instantly recognisable from every other game, too). That was a real hoot.
I got an email from my Dad on Saturday (read it on Sunday) saying they were back in WA - they sent it from Port Sampson, which is up near Roeburn. They were going to be heading down to Kalbarri on Monday, via Nanutarra Roadhouse and Carnarvon, so they're probably there by now. They're going to be back in town on around about the 14th, so I've sent them an invitation to dinner (which will at least give me a reason to cook again). It'll be good to see them again.
On to the not-so-good news. I'm still depressed, meaning I'm still actively miserable, and it doesn't look to be getting any better. At least I have a good reason for it (read on).
Monday night, I got an unpleasant reminder from Himself that we had a court hearing to be attending at 9.30am on Tuesday in Perth. This was part of the proceedings by the bank to reclaim the house we're currently living in (we've been behind in the mortgage pretty much all year, and the bank is busy saying "sod that, give us our money"). So, I got a bad night's sleep on Monday, and went in to face the court on Tuesday. We got to listen to the nice registrar tell at least two other people that he didn't have much choice in the matter, since the rules are that the bank just has to show there's a debt, and that they've served notice of said debt in order to get the order to repossess. He also told us about it. Whole thing was very stressful, and hasn't helped me at all, particularly since I was in such a fluster to get ready that I completely forgot to take my meds (I managed a sip of water before I had to dive out the door, nothing more).
We're at the current address until December 5. Then we have to hand over the keys, and be out of here, unless a miracle occurs, and we're able to come up with $1.3 million before that date. Since the most likely way we'll come up with most of that is by selling the place, we're still out of here, and looking for a rental place, which given we're both on the dole isn't going to be fun. Rentals in Perth run to about $300 - $400 a week, and the dole is (at most) about $400 a fortnight. So we can either pay rent or eat. Hoo-flaming-ray.
And yeah, still unemployed, been too damn stressed and depressed to even think about looking for work. I'm just back from explaining this to the nice people at CRS, and they've basically said "yup, life sucks, but now you have to deal with it". So for next week, my homework is to keep taking the meds, keep going out in the sunshine and exercising, and take a look at the jobs available next Wednesday and send a copy over to the nice guy at CRS who's acting as my case manager. I'm also supposed to think about volunteer work, which sounds like at least a way of keeping myself from actively murdering someone.
So yeah, how's everyone else doing?
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