Strange Realms' Random Thoughts

I’ve been quite busy preparing for my move, packing, moving and unpacking.  They finally gave me the date of december 13th for the move.  Alas for me, on the said date, the company who was supposed to move me never showed up, so we had to improvise at the last minute and find quickly another company ready to move me NOW.

Unfortunately I tripped a few days later after the move, hurting badly my right arm.  I was unable to do anything so my mother came and unpacked a few things for me.  When I felt better, a week later, I unpacked some boxes myself and managed to get the computer installed.  Alas for me, the day after I tripped again on my right arm and my back as well so I’ve been out cold since.  I’m just relaxing right now and waiting for my right arm and my back to get better before continuing unpacking.  I’ve been mostly watching stuff and playing and adding ebooks on my new Kobo Glo.  Good thing all the important stuff were unpacked first before my second fall: food, dishes, kitchen stuff, computer…

While everything might seem gloom and doom for me right now, I’m nonetheless very happy.  The building I’ve moved in is really nice and my apartment leaves me speechless.  The place looks exactly like those pictures my mother found on the internet, but the place is ten times better.  It really feel like I’m in a dream but I know this is reality.  I’m overjoyed !!!

I shall take pictures when I feel better and everything has been been unpacked and placed at their right places.  And I do plan to try to make a small garden on my balcony this summer .

I’ve ended up buying a Kobo Glo sooner than I expected.  I’ve caved in and decided to get myself a ereader to replace my novels, and on the lot I went for the Kobo Glo.  I’ve tried to read novels in English and I’m amazed to see I actually understand what I read !  I read lots of non-fiction books in English but I was worried literature in novel form would be hard on me, but I can see now I was wrong.   So I’ve started replacing some of my novels translated in French in their original language, English, by their ebook format.  I’m in love with my Kobo Glo now .

Apparently the french publishing industry want to force people to buy real books and want to punish those who to use ebook readers and read ebooks.  First by only allowing a very short selection of books in French to be available in ebook formats.  Second by setting the prices of ebooks to be very expensive so people are less tempted to buy them.

By behaving so foolishly they also punish the rest of Francophony since many countries import books from France like Québec where I live.  So that means that the ebook in French rarity and outrageous prices are in effect in those countries as well, it’s definitively the case here in Québec.

I’ve been thinking about getting a ebook reader, a Kobo Glo.  I’m a big book lover, too much for my own sake indeed.  I have an account on Goodreads and after entering all my books I’m close to 800 books.  Those books take tons of precious space at my place, my apartment is filled with bookcases and extra shelves, so much there is not much place for anything else.  So yeah, replacing slowly my books by digital versions is quite tempting.  Most of my books, especially the novels, are in French.

But like I said previously, considering the current condition of ebooks in France, replacing those books would be totally crazy and would cost me a fortune.

So I’ve been thinking, what about boycotting the french publishing industry?  My English is good enough to read non-novel books, I should invest now in english novels since that is mostly what I read, authors from the U.S.A. and the U.K. anyway.  So that means that translators who translate from English to French, and the publishing houses that publish those books in French, won’t make any money from me.

Too bad!!!

I got a really good news this month, I finally was given an apartment in a HLM.  HLMs exist in France and in Québec here in Canada, I don’t know about the rest of Canada though.  It’s housing at moderated rents.  The rent will include the electricity, the heat and hot water, and the rent will be just 25% of the check I get.  Also they will take care of the repairs if there is anything wrong.  Disabled people have rights there too which means I can ask them to modify some stuff to satisfy my needs.

The building where I will be is entirely an HLM.  The building though had various issues in the past, so they tore it down and built it up again, which means everything in the building is brand new with the latest stuff like electronic electric system.  In order to revitalize the area (because there is another HLM building next and other residences at moderated rents close), they apparently relocalized a big part of the past residents some place else and put new people there.  I’m among those new people.  We’re quite a few moving there around the same time.

My new place will be a 3 rooms apartment with a balcony.  There is an elevator there so I won’t need to use the stairs anymore.  They also have washers and dryers we can use there, so I won’t have to transport my cloths to my mother’s place to wash them anymore.  I plan to try to have a garden using containers on my balcony.  Since I will have more counter space in the kitchen I hope to be able to buy a Countertop Dishwasher.  I will be higher so I will have more intimacy.  Right now I’m on the ground floor and anyone in the area can see me, same for the balcony that I never use.

I’ve found photos on the internet about the renovation projects and I’m really excited to move there, some photos were very similar to those shown to me by the OMHM agent.  I’ve not seen the apartment yet though.  I should move around january 1st 2013.

I gave them all the papers necessary yesterday and now all that is left is for me to sign the lease.

I’m so happy!!!

Well, with the closure of Multiply, that makes me think there is another website that I should cut off my ties too and delete my account: MySpace.  I had not touched it because I had worked very hard to create a theme for my page with a ritualist wallpaper from Guild Wars for background and using similar color schemes for texts and links for my page.  It looked awesome, it was beautiful.  Unfortunately, MySpace has gotten rid of those skins so mine is gone, I should have taken a screenshot .  I blogged there at first so I’ve decided to transfer the good posts here too, like for Multiply.  Which I just did.  I’m quite happy to see that we can set the dates of our blogs in the past on WordPress, but that means that you will have to dig to see which posts have been added from MySpace.

As you now know, I have a separate Multiply account for my tarot and gaming hobbies.  I also had a pagan blog on CovenSpace , who after some bug the admin lost everything, so CovenSpace has been dead for some time now.  I’m three times a freak.  While I was sharing the links to my tarot and gaming blogs in CovenSpace, I never shared my other links on my tarot and gaming blogs.

Yes, any Pagan will tell you, telling to people you’re Pagan can cause some bad reactions.  And while here where I live in Canada no one reacts when I tell them I use and collect tarot and oracles decks, I’ve notice online though I can get bad reactions from some people too.  And I’m sure you must have heard the bad press gaming can get, that it can cause the worst things ever, from violence to addictions (which by the way the same has been told for every single new media in history including radio, movies and television), which is utterly bullshit.  Some people wonder why at my age I still play videogames.  Why not?

So like I said, I’m three times a freak but we’re in 2012, if some people, have any issues with these, then they’re the ones who have problems and who have to deal with them, they’re also the ones who need to change.