Fake Can Be Just As Good
Today is the first day since I started this 'blog that I really don't feel like writing anything. I couldn't even begin to tell you why I feel like that, its not like today was super-depressing or anything, I'm just struggling to find anything to write about.
So I'll start with the facts.
It was a lovely sunny shiney day today, apart from the five minutes it took me to walk to the grocery store this morning, when it rained like rain was going out of style. Unsurprisinly I got very wet. I bought some food-stuffs, resisted the urge to buy anything else at all, came home again. Not really sure what happened to the afternoon... Oh yeah, I was cleaning, that was it. It's not like proper cleaning, its just cos my brother is comin to stay for a couple days before his trip, and my parents are bringing him down so I don't want the place to look like too much of a tip. I did boy-cleaning though (y'know, when you just dust round things, rather than when you actually pick things up and dust underneath them - that's girl-cleaning), but I don't actually think I'm gonna be examined on my cleaning technique, so it'll be okay. I am gonna have to hide some of my acquisitions though, cos my parents don't seem to like the idea of me having too much fun (for some reason, Stuart just does and gets away with it, I get lectures - possibly because I actually sit there and listen to them, whereas Stu just tells them to get fucked, he'll do whatever he likes, so I get DOUBLE parenting...).
Then I watched National Treasure, which is exactly as big, dumb and exciting as you'd imagine, whilst actually managing to make nerds cool (or at least action packed history nerds, I think math nerds are still pretty much the apotheosis of uncoolness).
Then it was now.
My car got sold for scrap today to a travelling band of scrap merchants (possibly one of the weirdest things ever) who paid the princely sum of £15 for it. I was vaguely aggrieved, there was after all more than £15 worth of petrol in it, but at the end of the day I was actually expecting to pay
them to take it away, so I guess I came out ahead. Aside from the whole not-having-a-car thing, anyway.
I had a weird dream last night, or at least a weird fragment of a dream. It was one of those weird ones where you think you're awake, but you're not. All I remember was that I could hear noises in my house, like somebody moving around, and I went into the kitchen and got my biggest knife, only to find out that it was my Dad who was in the living room. I don't know if that means anything (its not like I stabbed him or anything), but it was weird. It also reminded me of a dream I had when I was
very young...
Okay, I'd just seen The Beatles' Yellow Submarine, and that night I had this weird psychedelic dream about the blue meanies (and dinosaurs for some reason), taking over Burton. I was the only survivor, they'd killed everyone, including my whole family, and they were in my house looking for me. But for some reason they couldn't open the doors, they could only go into rooms that were open and they had a whole host of ways to try and trick you and deceive you into opening the door. I could hear them outside my room, hear them trying to trick me into coming out. I dunno, it doesn't sound that scary now, but when I was five or six, however old I was, it was terrifying. Of course when I woke up I wasn't sure if it was true or not, and I could hear my Mum cleaning the bathroom (which is probably what had actually seeded the dream in the first place), and I was waaaaaaaay too scared to get up. I think I musta stayed shut in my room all morning, with furtive peeps out of my curtains, trying to see if the dinosaurs were out there. When I eventually decided they weren't (cos none of the trees or buildings had been eaten like they had in my dream), I screwed up my courage and opened my bedroom door.... Unsurprisingly, blue meanies hadn't taken over the world. I used to have very powerful, repetitive and disturbing dreams when I was young. I don't know if thats normal or not, I've never told anybody about my Beatles trauma before... Look, just trust me, it was scary!
Look, I did find things to talk about after all! Yay me!
Question:
Where do spiders come from?
And don't start telling me stuff about a mummy spider and a daddy spider really loving one another, and I don't give a toss about their philosphical underpinning, I mean where do they physically come from?
You go away for a couple of days, and there were no spiders when you left, so how come when you come back there ARE spiders (and nasty scary ones at that, lurking in very devious places)? I mean how do they know? How do they know where the undisturbed places are? How do they know you're not there and its safe to move in? And who has ever seen a homeless spider looking for somewhere to sling its web? So I ask you again: where do spiders come from? I'm starting to think that they are spontaneously generated from dust and detritus, cos that would explain so much...
Hard Habit To Break
Nothing serious, I just keep looking out my window and having a vauge moment of panic while I wonder where my car is. Then I remember I don't have one anymore.
Idiot!
Training (and Walking and Busing) Day
Well, I'm back.
Actually that wasn't too bad at all, all things considered, there was a bare minimum of snarky comments which was pretty good. Best thing about the trip was... erm... ah yeah, I got a Brighteyes CD (Lifted!) for £6.97, that was a bargain, so that was good. And it was fun to see Stu again, even if it was only for the one evening (as he was out drinking last night... my little brother ladies and gentlemen). He's gonna be up here for a few days starting Sunday, so I suspect there will be more of that kind of behaviour, which'll be nice.
Bad stuff, well there was the jibe-ing obviously, having to 'sleep' on that couch (which looks super comfy, but don't let that fool you) which rendered me fairly crooked and achy this morning not to mention depriving me of valuable sleep, the cat fur EVERYWHERE (usually in my eyes or up my nose or in my mouth...), the fact that my mother has the fucking heating on even when its the summer (which I'll admit it isn't quite yet, but its warm), and most significantly the fact that I no longer have a car. Bless her she'd served me well these many years, and she was seventeen years old, so she just had to be put out of her misery. Actually it was still mechanically sound, wasn't falling to pieces or anything, but its carbon emissions were just too high, coming as it did from an era before anybody gave a toss about these things, and there was pretty much no way you could tune it so that it would be acceptable, so she's gone now.
I don't know how I feel about that yet.
I mean I actually quite enjoy public transport for some reason. I don't know why, maybe cos I don't have to clean it and fill it with fuel, don't have to know where I'm going, don't have to find a place to park or worry that its been stolen... I couldn't tell you. All I know is that I had fun coming back home today. Walked from my parents house to the station (which is about two miles) all the while cursing myself for bringing so much stuff with me when I knew there was a possibility that I'd have to make my way home like this, caught the train to Birmingham, changed there to Northampton, got a bus home. Bingo. All that distance for £15.10, which is a good deal less than the corresponding amount of petrol would've been, not to mention all the costs of taxing and maintaining a car, let alone buying the damn thing in the first place. I even had a bottle of water on the train, and studied some Japanese, which are things you can't do whilst driving. It was all good.
Its also been a lovely super sunny day here today, which emphasised what a mainly rural place Northamptonshire is. I always think of it as
being Northampton, but really it isn't, its mainly trees and fields and little villages. Hell I was actually pleased to be back here, back home, for probably the first time ever. I will admit that for all its problems, and it has many, Northampton really isn't all that bad...
To Infinity... And Beyond!
This morning I had to go sign-on. Now, I don't know how it works elsewhere, but around these here parts when you are trying to claim some sort of unemployment benefit you have to go and sign a little piece of paper promising that you've been trying really hard to get a job. You also have to take evidence of your activity, and there's a little official log book you have to fill in and everything. Its super-fun, and massively humiliating, as I'm sure you can imagine. I'll admit it is a small price to pay to receive benefit, but then I still haven't actually received any benefit yet...
I did buy LEGO Star Wars for Xbox (sorry Em), and damn its amazing! So fun, and so funny! One day all Star Wars games (and movies!) will be made this way! I looked for the OST for 'Huckabees' but was stymied by rubbish-y shops. Now that Spinadisc has gone, there's no independant record stockist in Northampton, all we've got is the big boys HMV and Virgin, which sucks. I mean, they're not completely hopeless, cos they really aren't, but they're
mainly hopeless.
Now I've got to get ready to go visit my parents for a while. Hopefully not too long, cos its never very fun (there's a lot of sitting about and being bored), I have to sleep on their couch (which is far less comfortable than it looks like its going to be), and there are bound to be awkward conversations about "what I'm doing with my life". So its going to SUCH fun! I'm not planning on being gone for more than a couple of days, so just keep an eye on the place, and I'll see you when I get back!
Boom!
So our glorious leader went to a school in North London and was greeted with a defeaning chorus of "BOO!". Undeterred he went about his business and blah blah blah.
Apparently the kids weren't shouting "boo" at all though. According to the Labour press office, but were saying "Boom!", which is young persons vernacular for "hooray". Am I the only one who is reminded of the episode of the Simpsons where everybody boos Mr Burns, only to have Smithers claim they weren't booing at all, but were cheering "Boo-rns, Boo-rns"...
And so to Garden State.
(Yeah, that was one super-smooth invisible link there, no-one will EVER see the joins in that one)
I liked Garden State, I really did. But not to rapturous levels, just y'know, like. Appreciation even. After reading so much unswerving praise for it, I was left underwhelmed. Its a well told story, beautifully filmed, its quirky (although rarely funny - in fact the only time I laughed was the "Don't mention knights to Mark"/"Motherfucker!"/"No pun intended right?" exchange), and uplifting. I'm even willing to grant Zach Braff the possible credit that the reason the film feels less distant as it progresses is a deliberate attempt to mirror the way Large feels as he comes off his meds. Like I say, I admired its craft, perhaps rather more than I actually liked it.
One thing that did disappoint me though was the need for the characters to have 'drama'. Initially I felt great empathy with Large, with his feelings of distance and isolation. See, I feel like that too. I'm lost, alone, distanced from everyone and everything. I don't go home or see my family very often cos I'm a fuck-up, cos my life is a failure and I don't know how to deal with that, I don't know how to deal with
them. So I assiduously avoid situations where I have to deal with any of it at all. I am, like him, waiting for something better to start, even though I know on an intellectual level that
this is my life, and its ending one second at a time (to borrow a Tyler Durden-ism). So to start with I thought I understood Large and where he was coming from. I understood his need to be rescued, cos he just can't quite save himself. Then it all came unravelled and he had drama and there were reasons for why he's the way he is, and that just made me feel worse, cos I don't have reasons. I just am.
Maybe all that factors into my feelings of ambivalence towards the movie, I don't know. Regardless you should definitely check it out, especially if you don't have as many issues as I do.
I kinda feel like I should end on a happy, but I really can't think of one right now.
Not As Clumsy Or Random As A Blaster
Remember the LEGO Star Wars rant? Well I finally found out why it won't work, it doesn't support Win98se. Now I realise that still running 98 makes me something of a relic from a bygone age (a more civilised age ;p), but dammit my machine is set-up how I want it to be, and I've had it too long and it's far too personalised to go about installing a new operating system now. Even for LEGO Star Wars... The bloody demo worked on 98, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered in the first place. You realise this means I'm going to HAVE to get the Xbox version now?
Dammit!
How To Win An Election (Or Not Lose By Much)
As a kind of follow up to last nights rant, I'm gonna hit on the next big topic of the day: compulsion.
Voter turn-out has actually become the big issue of this election, as the Conservatives have all but admitted defeat. Now the game is to try and actually get people to turn out and vote so we get something even vaguely resembling a parliament representative of the aspirations of the people, and talk inevitably turns to compulsion. Now I know some countries already have this, but to me it actually seems anti-democratic to force people who are un-moved by the political process to vote for the lesser of two (or however many) evils. It could potentially lead to some very disturbing results as people dissatisfied with the main parties but nonetheless legally compelled to vote register their protest by voting for whichever extremist party takes their fancy (or whichever one they see first). That issue could I suppose be solved by giving us a "None of the above" box, but then what exactly does a massive landslide win for "None of the above" really mean? How would we enforce this system of compulsory voting? How much would it cost, and who would police it? To me the whole thing just seems wrong.
How then do we increase voter turnout? Would Proportional Representation make a difference? Evidence from the Scottish parliament where PR was introduced makes me think not, as voter turnout has remained fairly static. In the light of what we know about the way politics is moving, and its focus on a smaller and smaller number of 'key voters', what benefit is there to politicians attempting to engage and inspire a greater number of potential voters, when all they can do is lose? I don't see an answer, I really don't.
I'm in the midst of filling out job applications and I'm at the stage I call 'Creative Writing', y'know the bit where you have to say why
you are the right person for the job and everybody else just sucks. I hate doing this bit, I'm terrible at dissociating from myself and actually selling me as a great commodity, cos I really don't think I'm all that great...
Okay, back to work!
The End of Democracy?
Something I've noticed during this most recent iteration of our democratic process, is that nobody seems to have any ideas anymore. I remember, when I was a kid, the ideological differences were clear and pronounced; the Conservatives were the party of the wealthy, and Labour were for the work-class. Their policies bore the stamp of these ideologies, and were as offensive to their political opponents as they were loved by their adherents. Those days are gone.
I'm not sure if it's really possible to discern any minor political differences between the Conservatives and New Labour (or Tory-Lite, as they shall henceforth be known), let alone any major ones. In fact its actually quite hard to work out what if anything either party stands for anymore...
The Tories promise us:
1. Lower Taxes
2. Increased School Discipline
3. Cleaner Hospitals
4. More Police
5. Controlled Immigration
whereas New Labour (sorry, Tory-lite) don't make promises, they make pledges...
Your Family Better Off
Your Child Achieving More
Your Children With The Best Start
Your Family Treated Better And Faster
Your Community Safer
Your Country's Borders Protected.
What you should notice from these things is that whilst they are both to all intents are purposes identical, they are also so shockingly anodyne as to be meaningless. These promises or pledges, are so in-offensive, so lacking in character or ideology, so devoid of true meaning that they render the whole notion of democracy meaningless. We are no longer voting for whomesoever we believe will provide us with the best future for our country, because no-one is presenting us with a vision for that future. The products we're being offered are to all intents and purposes identical. All we're voting for is whichever brand of politician we like best, like choosing between Coke or Pepsi.
We seem to have moved beyond the notion of the political party now, now its all about the image, the brand. Once upon a time a political party was a group of people who shared similar views, and got together to get things done. The notion of a party is almost irrelevant. Like modern corporations not being terribly concerned with actually making things, merely promoting their brand, the modern, media obsessed political party isn't all that concerned about activists on the doorstep (or indeed activists of any kind) when there are other, more reliable ways to promote itself. Thanks to the terrifying masses of information that are stored about us in this brave new world, the political parties know altogether far too much about us, and from what they do know they infer much they do not know. Most of the voters are irrelevant too, because this database and statistical analysis shows who will vote, and for which brand, and what their certainty is (ie how sure they are in their choice, and how likely they are to vote). That certainty makes a very small number of 'undecided' voters in a small number of key constituencies are all that truly matter, and these are the people the brands are targetted at, and targetted with ruthless precision.
What this all boils down to is that a few thousand people, a mere handful, a focus group if you like, are the ones who will truly decide this election. This is disturbing in all manner of ways. For a start it makes a mockery of democracy in and of itself, as well as our so-called 'first past the post' voting system. It raises the spectre of a future where the predictable ones of us are culled from the political process altogether, and only those 'undecided' get to make a choice, because ultimately their choices are the only ones which matter. It undermines the notion that every vote is of equal weight, as clearly they aren't. But to me the hardest thing to stomach is that this great power to decide the political future of our country belongs in the hands of what I can only describe as stupid people.
Seriously, how can you be undecided, how can you NOT have an opinion? Have you at any time in the last parliament been alive? Have you seen the world around you? Have you read a newspaper, seen a news broadcast, or maybe had a conversation with another human being? Then how can you NOT HAVE A POLITICAL THOUGHT IN YOUR HEAD? I don't know what's worse, letting these half-wits make the decision at all, or the fact that they are making it on the basis of four weeks of intense lobbying that has been designed with all the efficiency and trickery of modern advertising to appeal specifically to them and them alone!
It horrifies me, it really does, but there is irony here too. The people who are going to decide this election, the people who will judge our politicians successes and failures, the people who will decide the very future of our country over the next few years are the very people who are completely and utterly devoid of any political interest whatsoever. Which I guess explains why nobody has any ideas anymore. After all, what would be the point?
How Am I Not Myself?
As you can probably tell I just watched "I <3
Huckabees", which was exactly what I needed today. I don't necessarily mean in the sense that it made things any clearer or easier, cos y'know it really didn't. It's just a MOVIE people! What it did do was it broke me out of my isolation (even though I am still all alone, look, no people here!) and apathy, because as Bernard and the blanket demonstrate, everything's different and everything's the same. Maybe the movie doesn't seem as awesome if you're not having some kind of existential crisis, but I am, so it seemed extra awesome! Even if you're not having any sort of crisis though, the soundtrack (by Jon Brion) is just absolute bliss. I unhesitatingly recommend you to go forth and seek it (and the movie) out.
Now I intend to do one useful thing. I don't know what its going to be just yet, but there must be something...
Soup and Pot, A Lesson In Something Or Other
I went out and got soup for lunch, which was slightly happy. In fact my slight happy was building ever-so-gently towards contentment and a vague enthusiasm for the day ahead, when it was time to head for home and it all evaporated again. I dunno what my problem is today, its nothing specific, just a kind of existential sadness. I want it to go away.
A study doing the rounds at the moment suggests that reading e-mail whilst performing other tasks is more detrimental to your IQ than smoking pot. I suspect the lesson here is not to try and do things simultaeneously, but to do them sequentially; smoke pot, read emails, then get on with the rest of your work!
The Never Ending Struggle
Today just feels like it's going to be hard work, even getting out of bed was a struggle. There's nothing ahead that needs doing, nothing to look forward to, no reason to do anything. Just a lot of time that needs to be filled until I go to sleep again...
We're All On Drugs
Its quite apparent looking back what a massive quantity of psychedelics I absorbed as a child, purely through the medium of kids TV. Being born at the tail end of the sixties, and having my formative years in the 70s, the kind of TV I watched as a kid was utterly fucking bonkers. The Banana Splits was probably the worst offender of the lot, but there it wasn't alone by any stretch of the imagination. Tales of the Riverbank is unhinged in a gentle, English sort of way, Button Moon was barking, and the less said about the likes of The Singing Ringing Tree the better. The Singing Ringing Tree also opened up a whole new world of European weirdness, which incorporates such things as the Moomins and Ludwig (which as I recall was about a diamante egg that lived in a tree...) and of course the amazing Pingu!
Of course it wasn't all bad, pretty much anything that Oliver Postgate was associated with was utter genius (my worship of Bagpuss is well known, but lets not forget the dark, fairytale genius of Noggin the Nog).
Oddly I remember being very scared of Mary, Mungo and Midge when I was a kid. I think there may be a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, they lived on the top floor of a high-rise building, and I'd never seen anything like that in real life, so that just seemed very odd and unnerving to me. Also, this was a world without adults, and that too was a very scary place. Oh yeah, it should be made clear at this point that Mary was a little girl, about seven or eight years old, Mungo was her dog and midge was a mouse. I was probably about six, seven years old myself, and the stark, empty world that MM&M presented was not at all appealing to me, in fact it had a lot of resonance with the grim 'Protect and Survive' films trying to convince us we could somehow make it through a nuclear war by hiding behind a door. I recently saw the 'P&S' films again, when I was at the Imperial War Museum with Emily (she wanted to go there!), and whilst she seemed to think they were funny (which I suppose they are in their naivety), they scared the crap out of me all over again, nearly thirty years later.
On the plus side, I think Sesame Street was, and is, a work of unadulterated genius. It teaches, in a very un-patronising way, about acceptance. You see all these different people, some of them not people at all, living together, co-operating with each other, and respecting each others differences. I think a lot more people should watch the show, and learn the lessons it teaches.
Here Comes... Bod
I realise that nobody who isn't
a) English &
b) 'of a certain age'
won't have a feckin' clue who or what Bod is, but its nice to be confused every once in a while, right?
Today mainly consisted of eating whatever left-over bits of non-food I have in the house, cos I refuse to shop on a Sunday if I can possibly avoid it. Also it helps to make the money (seem) to go further. I know I should look and see what the state of my bank account is, but I really, really don't want to, because no matter how rationally I look at it, I'm gonna panic. So I'll not look for a bit logner yet, and pretend nothing bad is happening. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt after all...
Hmmmmm what else?
Well obviously there was a disturbing amount of Jade Empire, which is cool. In fact I guess having the time to actually enjoy a game, book, movie or whatever is the best thing about not working. I need to make the most of this opppurtunity, and not view it as some sort of punishment (even though it clearly isn't
really a good thing to be out of work, the time itself is a gift that few of us have). I 'acquired' the new Weezer CD 'Make Believe', and whilst I've only listened to it once, it seems to be of the Happy Weezer variety. Which is nice. I look forward to spending some quality time with it. Weezer are playing a few gigs in the UK next month, so not being able to afford the tickets is a royal pain in the arse.
The most peculiar thing that happened today was that I realised that the winter is actually over and that the sun isn't just a freakish anomaly in the sky, and therefore opened windows for the first time this year. Now that might seem a little strange to regular folk, but the windows in this place are frankly rubbish and very drafty, so when you close 'em for the winter you make sure they're closed good and air-tight, cos you don't want piercing winds blowing through the house (which, lets face it, is cold enough at the best of times). So opening them and allowing nature to have its way is something of a big deal. Naturally this action caused the sun to be banished behind dark clouds for the rest of the day, lets just hope I haven't ruined summer for everybody...
Remember last week I was bitching and complaining about the "Top One Hundred Albums" controversy (and by controversy I mean 'things I disagreed with')? The number one album was "OK Computer" by Radiohead in case anyone was interested, which I mildly disagree with, but only mildly - I don't really think anything could be judged the greatest album of all time and NOT be controversial. Anyway, this week we're having "Top One Hundred Childrens Programmes" and as I have remarkably few strong feelings on this subject (providing that Bagpuss wins of course) I'm just enjoying wallowing in the nostalgia of it all. Don't worry, I'm sure it'll make me angry later!
Supercalifragilistic When We Drop We Go Ballistic
Actually I'm not going ballistic at all, I'm going to bed, cos I am soooooooooo stupidly tired.
The LEGO Star Wars game hates my PC! Bastard thing, which probably isn't something you should say about something so cute and apparently harmless. But dammit its not cute and harmless, its cute and it hard-locks my PC every time! It doesn't even appear to be at predictable times, just whenever it feels like it, normally about three seconds after I've decided its definitely not going to lock-up this time...
Gone In Sixty Seconds...ish
Ask where today went, go on, ask me!
Not a clue.
Mainly I've hung out with Jules today, which was pretty fun. We didn't really do anything very much, just sat about drinking (coffee! - she's been sick and hasn't had a 'proper' drink all week) and talking crap. We 'watched' Blade Trinity, and I say 'watched' advisedly cos we never EVER pay any attention to whats on the screen, apart from occasionally exclaiming at on screen events (such as 'what the hell happened to that dog?') and bitching that the movie doesn't make any sense (actually I paid pretty good attention when Jessica Biel was on screen, and Jules paid attention when Ryan Reynolds was half naked and chained to things). Basically we just talk for hours on end, about all kinds of everything. I discovered how she made one of her sisters' little toe fall off (no really! She pushed her out the way and the sister stumbled, breaking her little toe and catching it on a door which cut the skin and the whole thing just came off! Jules was grounded for quite a long time, unsurprisingly), and I also discovered something so geeky and nerdy about her I was threatened with swift and merciless retribution should I ever tell anybody else about it (in fact just saying that something of that nature exists might be enough to bring such vengeance down upon me, but she doesn't have net-access, or even know this blog exists, so I think I'm pretty safe). So I'm not gonna tell you what it is. Just trust me, for a brief period I wasn't the geekiest person in the room, and that almost never happens. Then I spoiled it by trying to demonstrate why DK Jungle Beat rocks (she saw the bongos) and received exactly the sort of withering looks you'd imagine...
That's about it really.
Incidentally, if you have any interest at all in Blade Trinity, or even movie star tantrums, then I'd advise reading
this to see the kinda thing that apparently went on behind the scenes. It's an interesting read, and it certainly lowered my (not exactly sky-high) opinion of Wesley Snipes. It also explains why you get the impression that Blade doesn't really want to be there, cos apparently neither did Wes...
Oops I Did It Again
Just lost another three hours to Jade Empire without even noticing, 'tis being some kick-ass fun. Of course I was planning to watch a movie this evening, so that wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but in a lot of ways it was kinda the same but better.
Y'know if Emily hadn't called me last night I don't think I would've actually spoken to a human being all week, beyond exchanging pleasantries with neighbours or being polite in shops. I'm far too isolated, but I don't know how to be UN-isolated, cos I don't really know anybody which makes it something of a vicious circle...
Thanks for saving me from going crazy tiger, 'preciate it.
Can't Help Being Nice
Jade Empire is still continuing to absorb much of my time, despite being a kinda stripped down version of KoTOR with all the stats and stuff taken out (which in turn was a stripped down version of Neverwinter Nights with some of the stats stuff taken out, and a story put in). I'm glad I got the LE version of the game, as it has allowed me access to the monk spade weapon straight off the bat, it being one of my favourite weapons, at least to watch (in real life I don't think I should be allowed to have a weapon of any type, cos I'm as likely to hurt myself as I am anybody else, probably more so). Pretty much anybody wielding a staff type weapon in a martial arts movie is gonna be my favourite for no reason other than they have a staff type weapon. Also I managed to get into a fight in a tea shop (and in the game too ;p), which is another staple of the genre, so that made me happy.
As with any game that offers some sort of morality system I seem to be unable to be anything but nice to people (lets ignore that 'incident' in Fable eh? Whats a few dead guards between friends?), much like in real life. Although in real life I don't have any martial arts skills, any sort of destiny, or even an arch-nemesis. If anybody is interested in being my arch nemesis I'd be interested in hearing from you, maybe we can work something out. Applicants should send
me a CV (thats a resume if you're hard-of-understanding, or American) and a covering letter telling why I should consider
you for the position.
Oddly I seem to extracting more fun from JE than I ever have from KoTOR, which is unusual given that I enjoy pretty anything Star Wars related (Phantom Menace, for instance) purely because of its very Star Wars-ness. Speaking of Star Wars-ness, LEGO Star Wars anyone? That is pure unadulterated GENIUS! If that doesn't make you smile, well then you either don't like Star Wars, don't like LEGO, don't like video-games, or possibly you're some kind of joyless freak. And you probably don't like kittens either.
There's A Whale, There's A Whale, There's a Whale-fish
Why do 'celebrities' endorse political parties, and why does anyone care? Just because someone is a chef on TV, or a professional footballer, or any of the other myriad half-wits who clog up the celebrity magazines which seem to multiply on an almost hourly basis, does not in anyway qualify them to speak on political matters. What makes them such deep political thinkers, such experts on our socio-political place in the world, such authorities on the effects of globalisation on national economies?
By the same argument, what makes me an authority on anything at all?
...
..
.
Well, nothing really, and unlike the celebrity nobody has even ASKED for my opinion, and yet I give it to you FOR FREE regardless. Also (he said, starting to hit his stride) I'm not trying to influence anybody to do anything other than think for themselves.
Apart from when I do this:
Today's movie recommendation is Napoleon Dynamite. I'm sure many of you (who the hell am I talking to? 'many of you'? to the best of my knowledge three people read this site, and I'm one of them...) have already seen it, but its coming out on DVD here on Monday, and it brings it freshly to my mind. Make sure you see it... again!
Sweet.
Never Could Get the Hang of Thursdays
First, I'd just like to point at that Xav is completely correct, Sprite doesn't have caffeine, so it clearly isn't a craving for caffeine that has led to my tea addiction. Doesn't change the fact that I'm having a lot of cups of tea though...
I don't really know what happened with the rest of today. I went for a run after lunch (which I survived, clearly), got back and thought 'Well, Jade Empire came today, lets see if thats any good'. Four hours later my bladders constant nagging forced me back to reality and the knowledge that it was in fact four hours later and that the whole afternoon had vanished in a haze of martial-arts RPG genius.
It was my Dad's sixtieth birthday today too. That makes me think a lot of weird things, most of them about me. Most obviously it makes me think about my own mortality, but it also makes me think about wanting a family, and various other things of that ilk which probably shouldn't be pursued. I mean, he's five years from retirement age! That doesn't seem possible, even though it obviously and inevitably happens to us all (if we're lucky - the alternative isn't all that great). Not only that, but by the time he was the age I am now, I was ten years old! That seems even less credible to me. I mean, I want children, I want a family, but to have two kids at this age... I dunno, maybe its just cos I wasn't with anything even remotely like the right person last time, but I can't imagine it, I just can't. I mean, I still AM a kid! On the other hand, even though I don't really have a biological clock, I still hear SOMETHING tick-tick-ticking...
A Good Brownian Motion Producer
For some reason I'm having a minor addiction to cups of tea, perhaps to emphasis my very Englishness. Or maybe its just cos I've run out of Sprite and I desperately need caffeine.
Nothing of any great excitement has happened to me thus far today, although I have finally received my application pack to go work for the British Red Cross, which is nice. Sadly its almost exactly the same job I was doing before at the Heart Foundation, but dammit I LIKED the job, it was just the politics (and associated bullshit) I didn't like. On the plus side, there is more money on offer, which makes for happiness (or at the very least it potentially makes for less debt, which is akin to happiness).
Its a super sunny and lovely day today, and I want to go for a walk, but I'm still having some difficulty breathing, which sucks, and I don't want to get somewhere and then be unable to get back again. So maybe I'll go for a
little walk...
Weird Things Afoot at Circle K
Not like, time travel weird, or even at Circle K (cos we don't have those in this country), but aside from those minor deviations the title of this post is entirely accurate.
So yeah, weirdness. Last night I actually went to bed at a fairly normal hour (so it was still Wednesday, for instance) and actually had a good nights sleep. I even had a happy dream, the majority of which I will not recount here, but lets just say that after a while Ash turned up in it, and after I'd thought, "Well there's no way she can be here, she lives in Canada" it then occured to me it was a dream and I accepted her presence and 'twas good... and no, it wasn't THAT sort of dream! It was just happy.
As a kind of follow up to last nights post, I feel I should mention that Yahoo Movies also has the whale clip from the hitch-hikers movie, and a couple other ones too. This movie is looking like it'll be fun.
Not a Naturally Tenable Position For a Whale
Maxim online has an excellent clip from the new Hitch-hikers movie up, and those of you familiar with the source material will be able to tell what it is already.
Go now and see it for yourself! I'll admit to being more than a little impressed (and yes, I do believe that was a bowl of petunias we saw there too - perfect). Just a week to go! Now all I need is some cool friends to go and see it with...
I am suddenly, and somewhat bizarrely, considering a career as a magician. Despite a life-long fascination with such things, my magical skills are precisely non-existent, so becoming even an embarrasingly awful amateur magician would be something of an uphill struggle, let alone rising to the ranks of the vaguely professional. Don't worry, tomorrow I'll want to be something else...
There Was I A-Diggin' This Hole...
Hole in the ground, so big and sort of round it was...
Oh wait, no thats a silly song, stop that.
The hole is now filled, it took them less than five minutes. And by them I mean the one bloke who actually did anything, while the other three sat in the lorry and did fuck all. Thats my council tax at work right there, makes me feel glad I pay it.
... and there was I diggin it deep, it was flat at the bottom and the sides were steep, when along came this bloke in a bowler which he lifted and he scratched his head, well he looked down the hole, poor demented soul and he said...
Hands up everybody who is getting the Bernard Cribbins reference here? No? Didn't think so.
Don't dig there! Dig it elsewhere!
You're digging it round when it ought to be square, the shapes all wrong its much too long and you can't put a hole where a hole don't belong!
*beams with unsurpressed happiness*
To Stupid To Live
Yep, thats me! Still suffering from hideous food allergies, it is not only painful I am also having some considerable difficulty breathing, which is a relatively new complication. This is not good in any way.
I was right about Benedict XVI, he's already decried homosexuality as an 'absolute moral evil', and whilst he just today said he wanted to reach out to other faiths, only a matter of weeks ago he claimed that Catholicism was superior not just to other faiths, but to all other Christian faiths too. He's gonna be a laugh riot this one, I wonder how long it'll be before somebody wants to shoot him. On the plus side he's already extremely old, so he'll probably just die anyway without anyone having to intervene. Fundamentalists are dangerous folk, and should never under any circumstances be given power... oops, too late!
Sadly no old people (or young people) have fallen in the hole yet. The work-men have come to fill it in now. Well, I assume they've come to fill it it, there's a big lorry with blokes and stuff in the back, but they're just kinda sitting outside my house and not really doing anything, and they've been doing that for a good half-hour now. Maybe there is a mystically appointed time for filling in holes, a time when the omens are good? Who knows what auspices these guys work under? The local council surely moves in mysterious ways its limited wonders to perform. Or maybe they're just waiting for someone to fall in...
Is That White Smoke?
There's a new Pope, and guess what, its bloody Ratzinger! Of all the possible candidates he was the one I liked the least, the one I feared the most and guess who they chose? Admittedly I'm not a Catholic, or even a Christian, so his appointment does not directly effect me in any way, but it does effect the lives of millions of people the world over, and I don't believe it will be a positive effect. He's right-wing, he's conservative, he used to be head of the modern day Inquisition
(the congregation for the Doctrine of The Faith)... I mean I can't judge what kinda Pope he's gonna be, he may surprise us all, but I'm not expecting any radical social or theological changes from the man. He apparently denounced all deviations from traditional Catholic teaching as 'trickery' during the his homily before the papal conclave, so I expect we're going to see the same ludicrous hardline stance on cantraception, abortion and homosexuality amongst others...
In other vaguely political news, Tony Blairs ludicrously stage managed appearance is really starting to get on my nerves. Every bit of his behaviour is designed to make us think that he's a nice, genuine, working bloke. Whenever he arrives at a press conference or appearance, he takes his jacket off and rolls up his sleeves. He goes nowhere without a mug of tea. These are just idiotic little bits of branding that are supposed to be so subtle we don't even notice them, but are all designed to project the image of a regular guy just doing a job of work. I notice them though, and they piss me off.
As there needs to be some political balance, I'll just mention that in terms of stage managing Michael Howard needs some serious help, as the mask of pleasantry has been slipping quite a lot this week. He's a vicious little bitch when you get on his bad side apparently, and all you have to do to get on his bad side is to question any of his policies and he's off on one. Which is funny. Charles Kennedy... well he just needs ANY stage managing! No, not really, its his very ordinariness that has seen his personal appeal rise in the polls (last week he was completely unable to articulate one of his parties key policies, and I think the fact that he was obviously having a bad day was what endeared him to so many), he has what the pundits call 'authenticity', that very thing which Tony and his cups of tea so desperately try to fake...
I finally got round to watching my Predator SE today, which would've been nice, except that the disc in the case isn't the SE at all, its the old crappy regular edition! Not that it makes a significant difference to me, I don't have the hardware to appreciate the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack, but dammit I paid for Special, and I want Special! I shall be writing to Fox customer services with all alacrity. Well, with some alacrity anyway...
The Hole in the World
Well, its not really in the world, its in the pavement right outside my living room window, which I guess is part of the world... Also 'right outside my living room window' makes it sound like I live directly on the street, and I don't my front garden is between us and the hole. Anyhoo, apparently someone somewhere on my street is having phone problems, cos a man from BT came out and climbed into a cable duct thing and did some tests, then some other men came and made a hole, and then yet another engineer had to come back again and reconnect all the cables they'd severed with their high quality drilling skills. Now all the people seem to have gone home (possibly because its raining) and they've left their big hole behind. I foresee one of the old folk who live hereabouts falling into it shortly.
I'm starting to feel a little less like death warmed up, but not much, so today has indeed heavily revolved around lying about and doing nothing. Which is tremedous fun, as I'm sure you can imagine. I did wander out briefly to my local shop (its a local shop for local people, so there was no trouble) to acquire Lucozade (an essential when I'm sick) and also Turkish Delights. These are good things, and are necessary for the healing process to take place, although I don't really understand how, they just are.
Icky
I'm not feeling too well today, spent most of the morning throwing up. It's my own fault, I know I'm allergic to certain foodstuffs, but you'd be surprised how frequently I eat them anyway. The consequnces are pretty painful even at their most trivial, and I suspect one day it is actually going to kill me, so I really should stop it. That'd be the smart thing to do, wouldn't it?
Other ickiness related topics; last night I was watching this show about plastic surgery and it just reinforced my dislike for it. I mean, I can understand why in some circumstances, like post accident and stuff, that the reconstructive thing is good, and also that for some people who either have, or feel they have serious disfigurements that it can also be a good thing. Its all the people who have it for trivial reasons that scare me. I mean there was a couple on the show, who on their honeymoon decided that they'd both go under the knife to 'improve' themselves. Apart from the mind-bogglingly shallow nature of 'improving' yourself in this manner (in what way are you then a better person?), that just seems so wrong to me. There is no way I'd ever want my partner (you reading this princess?) to alter themselves like that for me. I love the person, not the package the person comes in. Then a bit later on there was a guy who was having a procedure to remove nerves from his penis, and that frankly was pretty gruesome too. Plus the procedure only had a 95% success rate, that means one in twenty times it fails! Personally, if someone is slicing my dick open and pulling bits out, I want better odds than that. The most gruesome bit was definitely a facial surgery though, cos they cut in the hairline (to hide the scars) and basically just sliced the whole face away from the skull so they could roll it down and get to the bits they wanted. There is really no need for me ever to see anything like that again, unless its in the context of a horror movie, and maybe not even then.
Okay time to see if I can get anything useful done, or if I'm just gonna lie on the futon and feel like death all day.
No stunt doubles, no computer images, no strings attached
Well the day didn't get significantly better, but at least it didn't get worse.
I conquered my apathy and went grocery shopping, which turned out to be perfectly straight-forward. I don't know if this happens to everybody, but sometimes, particularly in difficult situations like this, everyday things, particularly things which involve interaction with the outside world, seem to take on an almost Herculean level of difficulty. I don't really know what that's about, probably a small degree of depression/paranoia, but no matter how I feel on the inside, it has become clear to me that nobody else knows. Its taken me a long time to realise that they can't just look at me and SEE how I'm feeling, so that I can actually behave with the pretense of normality, and no-one is any the wiser.
Then I got an e-mail from my (now completely) ex-wife to tell me that our divorce was finalised and that we were now single people once more. This was happy.
Then I watched Ong Bak, an absolutely mental Thai martial arts movie starring the incredible Tony Jaa. Seriously, the things this guy can do, and does do (the movies' tag line is "No stunt doubles, no computer images, no strings attached") are absolutely mind-boggling, and the film-makers frequently use double and even triple takes (and slow motion) so you can fully appreciate the complexity and intricacy of the moves. Plus the fights are insanely brutal. If you like martial arts movies (and I don't mean you saw 'Hero' or 'Crouching Tiger', I mean hardcore fighting) then you HAVE to see this. For ordinary folk, well I'd recommend seeing it anyway, but just be aware that your mileage may vary - there's no plot or characters or real acting to speak of, just enough to hang the incredible stunt work on.
Not long till the last ever Star Wars movie now, and all the related paraphenalia is starting to turn up in the shops: the novelisation (which we will dutifully ignore), and the far more exciting 'making of' and 'art of' books. I'll admit that I stood and geeked at these for quite a while today, and it was only with a quite tremendous effort of will that I didn't buy them right then and there. Two things stopped me; firstly that I don't think I deserve these things, and secondly and most importantly that a new Star Wars movie is a rare and wonderful thing, and I like to be as unaware as possible of whats going to happen. Of course that's particularly difficult with this one, cos we know lots of things that HAVE to happen, and a few things I personally want to happen (I want to see Anakin slaughter the Younglings, for instance) and there is only a limited amount of screen time available, so I want to preserve as many surprises as I possibly can.
There are other things I could and should talk about; the beginning of the Papal Conclave, the end of the Rover Group due to horrific mis-management, and of course the ever present threat of the General Election. But I can't be bothered, so you'll just have to make up your own rants on these things.
What I will suggest is that you look up your home town on wikipedia, and marvel at the amount of knowledge there appears to be about absolutely everything. To get you started,
here's the town where I was born, and
here's the place I live now. Enjoy!
Hmm Not So Sunny Today
Well, its sunny outside, but its not so sunny in me today, which is crappy.
On the plus side I have done a couple of job applications which has made the morning worthwhile, but I've already run out of motivation...
Grrr!
Assorted Madness
So I'm really pissed off because Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" has only place somewhere in the low seventies in some stupid bit of list TV thats on now (One Hundred Greatest Albums, Channel 4). Now I would normally argue that "Songs..." is the greatest record ever made (because it is!), and I didn't expect it to place highly in such a list (I fully expect the Beatles to "win", and either with Revolver or Sgt Pepper - I doubt I'll ever know though, cos I'll probably in bed before the end of the show), but the low 70s is very irritating. And to see Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" even lower... I despair. The problem with all this list TV, and there is so much of it about these days, is that the public are the ones who decide, and as we all know, the public are fucking retards (yeah I work with the public, you can tell can't you?). So I guess I should be pleased they've charted at all.
Cue next rant!
Racing games. I've been playing a lot of Midnight Club 3 in the past couple of days, and it's got me thinking, which is never a good idea... First up, I have to confess that I like the whole tuner/street race game thing. I like racing games, I like pimpin' my rides (The Fast And The Furious has a lot to answer for) so combining the two things is a natural. I'm really enjoying MC3 as well, but I have a couple of issues. Firstly, the thing I (and I suspect many other people) enjoy about racing games, is that they require skill. You need to learn the track, learn how the car handles, how to drive the optimal lap and how to extend that over the length of a race. Its about obsession and precision. Neither of these things are rewarded in the street racers, cos there is traffic everywhere! Traffic adds a disturbing random element to the whole proceeding. You can be driving a brilliant race, and then have some idiot piece of moving scenery pull out in front of you and *bam* race over. Now I'll admit that there is a thrill to all this city driving too, but I think it also dilutes the racing experience, reducing it more to the level of reaction gaming. Secondly, car upgrades. Now the performance thing is pretty obvious, you need to make your car faster and handle better to win progressively harder races. I got that. Its the visual upgrades I don't get, at least in MC3, because there is absolutely in game reason to pimp your ride out, other than that you want to. Now I'll admit there can be a purity of experience in that, just making my car look cool cos I want it to look cool, but as a game surely you miss a trick by not challenging/rewarding the player for and and every in game activity. NFSU gives you a reason to continually upgrade (enhanced reputation leading to greater reward and different opportunities), whereas nothing I've seen in MC3 motivates you to do that. My cars haven't visually been changed since I first tricked them out, simply because I made them look cool to start with (or at least I think they're cool ;p) and I've not been motivated to spend my hard earned winnings on trivia when there are important performance upgrades to buy. I am really enjoying the game though, its just sometimes things lead me to think about games and game design, and MC3 is being one of those things.
My towels are all hard and nasty. It was a nice day (and not having a tumble dryer) I put my towels out in the sun to dry, and they just never dry nicely like that. In fact the tumble dryer is the only way to get the nice fluffy kind of dry towel, or at least the only way I know. If anyone knows of a non-machinery related way to achieve this same effect, then please let me know. Who knows, maybe the fluffy towel only came into existence with the wide-spread adoption of tumble dryers...
Okay I'll finish up today with yet another musical recommendation, this time "Some Cities" by Doves. If you are in need of convincing I suggest firing up whatever file sharing utility you favour and looking for either "Black and White Town" or "Snowden". If you're not sold after that, then there's no hope for you. Or maybe you just have a radically different musical taste than I do!
This Is How Empty My Life Is
Just got my first platinum crest on Jungle Beat! That was bloody hard work, and I am oddly proud of myself.
Of course being proud of gaming feats is nothing new, its been around as long as games and gamers themselves, and like any other niche activity it is poorly understood by the outside world. Other gamers can see and appreciate the skill and dedication that goes into these things, but outsiders just look at us like we're idiots. Which we may well be. Do I even have a point here? Actually I'm beginning to doubt I ever did...
Sunny Day, Inside and Out
I actually had a decent nights sleep last night, which makes the first time in a good little while, and it's amazing the difference that makes, cos I woke up today actually feeling happy! I know, I don't understand it either, but it's some good shit. Plus it's a super sunny day outside, and that's also happy. I've done useful things this morning (well, I did laundry which doesn't actually involve a lot of 'doing' as such does it?) and I'm feeling positive about stuff in general. I wonder what I'm going to get up to this afternoon... I can't just be sitting about, gotta keep this happy thing goin', and surf it like a wave!
*listens to "I'm On My Way" by The Proclaimers*
Yay!
Object/Subject/Reject
Today on my limited travels I saw a Regimental Red 1967 Pontiac GTO. I know this, because I'm a '67 GTO geek, there's no other car that looks like it. If I ever have to money to buy such an extravagance, I shall have one in Fathom Blue. Anyhoo yeah I saw this gorgeous beast of a car, and I was so busy concentrating on it (cos I'd never seen one in real life before, and it was much bigger than I imagined) that I very nearly ran a red light. There's probably a lesson in there somehow (my guess would be Yoda's "Never his mind on where he is or what he is doing" but I'm terrible at extracting morals from stories, so it could be something completely different), but whats important isn't what I've learnt from this experience, its that the experience
happened.
This objectively happening thing differentiates it nicely from the dream I had last night where I stole a car from a museum car park and drove far far away to this massive tree, for some reason that made sense in the dream. And I'm looking at this tree and I dropped my keys. So I bent down to pick 'em up, only to discover that they were near a VERY big spider. Except it wasn't a whole spider, it was just the front half of it, the back half was all squashed. The important thing to notice about this spider is that you couldn't kill it, no matter how much you squished it the intact bits kept wiggling, and also it wasn't made out of spider, its body, flesh, whatever you call it, was made out of the same nasty slimy rubberiness that slugs are made of. Anyhoo, being as terrified of spiders in this dream as I am in real life I was hesitant to pick my keys up, even though I needed them. So I started to cast around for a stick to rescue the keys from the icky spider-smush, only to see more and more of these spiders, most of them unsquished, and they were everywhere! They carpetted the floor with their repulsive bodies, and then I started to notice that they weren't just on the floor, they were in the tree too, and falling all around me. Luckily that was the point at which I woke up, before things really got out of control.
Now this event didn't occur in any objective fashion, it was purely subjective, but does that mean it has any less impact on my life than the objectively real experience of seeing a cool car and running a red light? I'd have to say "no", with a but. I don't really believe there is any massive difference between the two events, they are after all purely internal events (for all of consensus realities aparent solidity we can only ever experience it in the privacy of our minds, once it has been extrapolated from the mass of sensory data our brains collate). They are both the products of the part of our brain that likes to tell stories about things in a vain effort to make them make sense, except in one case it bases the story on received sensory input, and in the other case it just riffs off closed circuits. As far as the percipient is concerned both events have equal value. I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't really understand why people say "it's just a dream", attempting to dismiss things which disturb or unbalance them in some way. Shitty and disturbing dreams can mess up your day just as efficiently as a shitty and disturbing day can mess up your dreams. BUT (I told you there was a but, didn't I?) whilst I think that both the objectively real and the subjectively real are both equally real to the percipient I don't believe you should grant them the same weight of importance. Clearly the objectively real should be considered the more important (and by a pretty significant margin too), I just think we should be more mindful of our dreams is all.
I have no idea where that lot came from, all I was gonna say was that I saw a cool car.
Survival Of The Thickest
Well I made it through another meaningless day!
I seem to have got a handle on the whole penniless thing, or at least I'm getting more adept at ignoring it and getting on with what needs to be done, cos what needs to be done needs to be done from a position of strength and confidence, not of panic and neediness.
No, think about that.
When you're looking for a job, you are the one with the power. The employer has a problem (ie there is something that's not being done) and YOU are the solution. Lets face it, even in the modern world jobs (no matter how crappy) are relatively common, so you could go and work almost anywhere. The employer needs to give you a reason to work for them, to give them the benefit of your skills and experience. Now it is possible to overplay this hand and come off as arrogant, and thats not what we're going for, but you certainly don't want to underplay it and appear desperate and begging to be hired. I think its important to have the right mindset on when you're doing your job applications, when you're answering the phone, going for interviews... whatever job seeking activities you are undertaking.
All of which goes to explain why I've spent the day playing Jungle Beat even MORE, and watching Shrek 2!
I liked Shrek 2, I liked the way it took the fairy tale ending from the first movie and then was actually pretty hard-headed about the realities of living out your romantic dreams. How will the respective parents take it? What will your friends think? How will two people from such different gackgrounds make it work? If you know me and my romantic situation (which of course you don't), then you'll know I think about these kinds of things, I worry about them and Shrek 2 made me think that things can and will work out okay, as long as you love one another and don't lose sight of that. Of course it dealt with all these things in the format of an animtion featuring ogres and talking donkeys, but still I liked the direction it went. I also liked the introduction of Puss In Boots. I hate liking Antonio Banderas, I really do. He's good looking, he's sexy, he's fucking cool and he KNOWS it. Yet I find myself liking him because despite all that stuff, he never seems to take himself seriously, and is never afraid to make fun of himself on or off screen. So yeah, PIB was a cool addition to the 'annoying talking animal' menagerie. Shrek 2, heartily recommended to all. Yes I know you've already seen it, I'm just saying...
Panic Attack!
I had to do it, I just had to.
I had to know for sure how much money there was in my bank account.
I'm shockingly overdrawn, and with no other income currently insight.
Hence the panic.
I just let the panic and fear do its thing for a little while, but really it doesn't help me achieve what I need to achieve, so I've put it aside for now and I can get on with the important business of finding employment.
But its still there, just below the surface, bubbling away, waiting for an idle moment to slip out and grab me and shake me until I can't think straight.
Mystery Shopping Trip; Wreckage
My normal Thursday grocery trip ended up being something of a magical mystery tour yesterday. For reasons which escape me (probably related to my anti-Tesco rant earlier in the week) I just didn't want to shop in Tesco, so I ended up gettin in the car and just driving in a random direction. This wasn't an especially smart move, but it was also fun cos I haven't really driven very much (if at all) since I became unemployed, so it was nice to get out on the open road and put the hammer down (not that 'putting the hammer down' has all that much effect in my car, its very very old...). I ended up in this funky little discount store in Wellingborough where everything was 99p! That was fun, and its amazing how much you can spend on things you don't really want or need when the price is right.
My DK Jungle Beat skills are improving, so that took up another couple hours, then it was time to chat online and get drunk! Note that I skillfully avoided the brandy last night, so I didn't feel at all crappy yesterday, although I am a little the worse for wear this morning, although that is only to be expected.
Today is looking like being another pointless stretch of time that is begging to be wasted. Its funny, cos when I was working (in a job I was growing to hate more and more on an almost hourly basis) I relished the thought of not having to go into work. Now that I don't have to go into work I see how much the work defined me. I've nothing that particularly needs doing, no reason to go anywhere, no-one to see or interact with. Also its pissing down with rain, so going on a long pointless walk (which actually would have the point of being good exercise) is ruled out due to not wanting to get wet. Getting back on topic though, yeah, the work defined me and my days pretty well, which is what makes me want to do something better, more worthwhile this time round, in order to become a better and more worthwhile person...
I just started reading Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and even though I've only read fifty pages or so, I unhesitatingly recommend it to everyone. Don't ask me what its about, cos I'm not gonna tell you, just go out and buy it, then devour it with enthusiasm. Or maybe you could just read it, whichever seems best to you.
Things I Have Learnt
Or more precisely one thing I have learnt; me and brandy do not get on at all well.
See, I've had this bottle of brandy kickin' about the house for a while now, and last night I figured it was about time.
I really didn't drink all that much of it.
Now before we go any further I think I should make clear that I'm not a hardcore drinker, but I'm not a wimp either. I don't drink beer or wine (cos I don't like 'em) but I do drink spirits, usually vodka but occasionally tequila. So I can handle my spirits okay?
The brandy however, made me feel like death.
I've since slept it off, at least as best as I could, but this morning I still feel like a can of mashed assholes (to steal one of the best things Charlie Sheen has ever said on film), so be gentle with me, okay?
Coloured Jellies in the Sky!
I went for Jungle Beat - there was a level where you had to swim through coloured jelly that was floating in the sky! I don't know what the designers were on when they came up with that, but it was clearly some pretty decent stuff. Probably the same thing they were taking when they thought that controlling a platformer with a set of bongos was a stellar idea... For the record, they were right on both occasions!
I feel its time to mention the band Kasabian to you. I don't really know a great deal about them, all I know is that I've been listening to their imaginatively titled debut album (thats Kasabian by Kasabian; odd that their imagination failed them at that final hurdle given the generally bonkers content of the music) for several days straight, and I'm liking it more and more every time. Try it, you might like it!
Todays final thought: when I was out and about today I saw lots of representatives for the various politcal parties trolling the gleaming streets of Northampton trying to collar passers-by to see if they could 'rely on your vote'. Nothing so strange there, I hear you cry (no really, I can hear you - there are cameras and mics everywhere) and normally I'd tend to agree with you, what with the impending General Election and everything. Except they weren't talking to the public. They were just all standing there in a big huddle, all talking to each other and desperately trying to avoid making eye-contact with any of the locals. I can only assume that the charming Northamptonians had been giving them a
very hard time, and they were scared and wanted to go home. It's a special place, it really is.
Easy Peasy (Lemon Squeezy)
Okay I've now returned from my 'work focused interview' and there was really nothing whatsoever to it. Interestingly the guy who is my 'personal advisor' (yep, because I'm not scrounging work-shy scum, I'm a 'client') was far more interested in telling me about how irritating all the changes that have been made over the past couple of weeks have been, and how many staff are being laid off at the moment, and why you have to escort 'clients' everywhere (so we don't go on rampages of violence apparently). Did we discuss my predicament? Not so as you'd notice. Did he show me how he's got all the commonly used sentences and phrases copied onto a Word Clipboard so he can just copy and paste them into the relevant online forms? Yes he did, and I was duly impressed (it seemed the polite thing to do). Now I've come home again.
I bought yummy Turkish Delights in Morrisons, and I've already eaten one of them. To tell the truth I only really wanted one, but the nice lady on the checkout somehow managed to ring it through twice, and rather than go through all the rigmarole of having to fetch a supervisor to void it off, I just thought I'd buy another one. Any excuse eh?
Now I face the most daunting choice of the day: Doom 3, or DK Jungle Beat? This is the kind of choice, the kind of challenge that makes getting up in the morning seem worth while...
Too Much Beating Off
Oh my god! That is the craziest most addictive game I've played in forever! Sure it takes a bit of getting used to, drumming on bongos to move an ape about the screen, but once you get it (or start to get it, I can see things that are possible but that I don't have the skill to do yet) its pure Nintendo magic, the like of which we've scarcely seen with this generation of consoles. I'll tell you one thing though, its bloody tiring and my hands are sore from all the clapping (and yes, that was two things). Easily the best ape based bongo controlled platform/rhythm game to date. Come to think of it it's probably the
only ape based bongo controlled platform/rhythm game ever, but don't let that put you off. Those of you with a GameCube, go forth and purchase!
'Work Focused Interviews' and Bongos
As part of the fun being unemployed experience this afternoon I have to attend a gloriously named 'Work Focused Interview'. A lot of people have a problem with this kinda thing, they think its the government interfering with their benefit-lifestyle, and they get very rude and aggressive. Me, I think its a small price to pay for a (kinda) comprehensive benefit system that tries to offer you a bit of protection when things go Pete Tong. Of course I've no idea how patronising and/or annoying its going to be yet, the interview itself isn't till four o'clock this afternoon. I'll let you know. What I do know is that they require (a perhaps reasonably) massive amount of paperwork to justify your existence, and I've just spent an hour or more trawling through what I laughingly call my filing system trying to get it all together. I hope they're satisfied!
I was rudely (okay actually the bloke wasn't rude, he was perfectly nice and friendly) awoken this morning by a Post Office delivery driver with a curiously large parcel for me. I dutifully signed for this parcel, wondering what on Earth it could possibly be. I opened it excitedly to discover it was... Donkye Kong Jungle Beat AND BONGOS?! For those of you not in the know DKJB is a platfrom game for the Nintendo GameCube, which distinguishes itself by being controlled through the apparent madness of bashing away at Nintendo's bongo controller, and occasionally clapping. Sounds crazy eh? I have a hazy recollection of finding it cheaply through my favourite online retailer (that's Play.com folks, be sure'n tell 'em I sent ya), and clearly I went ahead and ordered it, which made for a nice surprise. And yes, I have checked my outstanding orders, and no I haven't ordered anything else in a drunken frenzy. Which is good! Is the game itself any good? I'll let ya know!
Fear of a Tesco Planet
Well today it was announced that Tesco has become the first British retailer to make over £2 billion profit. That means that 12.5% of all the money spent in retail outlets in the UK is spent at a branch of Tesco somewhere. For those of you who don't know, Tesco is a huge food retailer which has over the past few years branched out to sell absolutely anything and everything you could ever want, from flowers to internet access, from bread to savings accounts. I'll confess right now that I do my grocery shopping at Tesco, and I do tend to find that both the price and the quality are right. And yes, I do on ocassion succumb and buy movies, music or videogames there. So i'm just as guilty as everybody else. But you see, I remember a time when it wasn't like this...
Back in the 70s, when I was a kid, Tesco was just plain hideous. The stores were dingy and grimey, the staff were notoriously rude and unhelpful, the whole shopping experience was just plain hideous. Of course I didn't really know that at the time, all I knew was that the shop was nasty looking and I didn't want any food from there cos it didn't look nice. It wasn't just Tesco that was different either, the whole look of the high street was. There were grocers, and butchers, bakers and florists, tailors and just tons of all kinds of little speciality stores. Every town didn't look the same, cos the chains didn't exist in the same way we know them today, and doing the weekly shop involved trekking around to all the different types of stores to get what you needed. I remember during the school holidays when me and my little brother used to get dragged round everywhere, and we had to be good and endure the tedium of the whole shopping trip (although its clear to me now that my mum wasn't exactly having a ball either, but this was before the age when you realise that your parents are people and have emotions too). Hell there even used to be half day closing (everywhere shut at 1pm on Wednesday), there was no such thing as Sunday trading, and the very concept of being able to buy something after 5pm was literally ridiculous. It was a whole different world.
The supermarkets changed all that. They got big, they moved out of town, and they started to offer lots of quality products under one roof. The consumers foolishly went with them. We liked that we could do all our shopping in one place, it was convenient and it was even a little cheaper cos the supermarkets had economies of scale on their side. As the speciality stores were losing trade to the supermarkets, their prices had to rise a little to compensate. This of course led more people to the supermarkets, and the sprial began in earnest. Eventually almost all the specialist grocers and butchers and bakers had gone, and the only choice we had was which of the big supermarkets we'd patronise with our cash this week.
That was a pretty dark time for retailing, and for consumers too. We'd been complicit in removing the choice from our lives and for driving the specialists out of business, while the quality and variety of the supermarkets wasn't as poor as it used to be, there was little now motivation to improve because they'd already won.
In the past twenty years or so things have continued to change. Sure we've created at least one super brand in the form of Tesco, a company with a turnover greater than the GDP of a small European country, and that super brand is in and of itself a dangerous thing, but we've also seen the return of specialist stores to our high streets, and in response the supermarkets have upped the quality of their instore butchers, bakers and grocers. Tesco have pretty much got total control of food retailing in Britain, and have diversified into other areas too, using their scale to undercut specialist retailers all over again. Just like last time, they don't offer the range of product, they don't have the specialist knowledge of their product to advise you as a customer, in fact they have no knowledge of their product at all. They just pile it high and sell it cheap... I've not even touched on the way Tesco can use their immense buying power to bully suppliers into offering unrealistically low prices and the impact that has almost everything (as an example, take the farmers who have to sell their produce at less than cost, and how the European Union then has to prop up our farmers with grants as their businesses are no longer economical... think about that: food producers are not economically viable in the modern world).
I don't think this is a good thing at all. Its inevitable in a system which values profit above all else, and shy of some form of revolution (which is taking place, look for it in YOUR neighbourhood) I think its just the way things are going to be for a while. I'm just not looking forward to a Tesco (or Wal-Mart, or Nike, or Sony, or Microsoft or whatever) planet, thats all.
The Post With No Name
See, this is what's difficult about being unemployed, or at least, what's difficult for me.
I have no purpose.
Right now, this morning, I have no purpose.
I mean, yeah okay I obviously have the purpose of finding a job, which is incredibly important, it being the lack of a job (or more precisely the lack of an income) which is whats keeping me awake at nights, but somehow that task is both too simple and too immense to even properly contemplate. There are an almost literally unending series of ways to find employment, and the very un-boundedness of the task makes it something I am reluctant to become involved in. I'm not even sure that makes sense. If I were unflinchingly honest enough to truly understand myself, I'd say that all the procrastination is about fear of failure. I've been here before, although never in quite these same circumstances, and I always said that SHE was the reason I couldn't hold down a job, hell, couldn't even find one for five whole years. But what if its me? What if this is just the start of another extended period of failure? That's what really scares me, and thats why I find it so hard to actually start doing what needs to be done, cos I'm worried that this won't work out as well as I hope, and that I'll fail again. Fail miserably.
So I sit here with no purpose.
I know its gonna be another day without human contact.
*plays Phantom Planet's Lonely Day*
Yeah, that's really helping...
Cue The Imperial March
Was it just me, or when Michael Howard was launching the conservative manifesto did he sound an awful lot like Senator Palpatine in Attack of the Clones? I'm particularly thinking of the "I love my country"/"I love the Republic, I love democracy" parallel. I mean even down to the creepy voice! I've no love for the Conservative party, I really don't, but if the job of the opposition is to keep the elected government honest then these guys are no good at all. I mean, they don't provide a credible alternative, all they've done in opposition is say "No, we wouldn't do THAT". And to paraphrase a Monty Python sketch, thats not an argument, thats just contradiction... And if they've failed as an effective opposition, and I think most people would agree that they have, then why on earth would we let them be in power!
I find it hard to believe that anyone can honestly be taking Howard seriously as a caring, sharing kinda guy. We were all there the first time round, we've seen what he does when given power, we all know what he's capable of, why on earth would we think he's changed? My favourite bit of the whole press conference was his blazing row with ITN correspondent Peter Snow. Howard really lost it there, that was no reasoned argument, he was just shouting! It was great. Then he said he wasn't gonna have 'interruptions from the floor' and just carried on.
I suppose in the interest of political balance I should pick on the other ones a bit too, so here we go; Tony Blair is...y'know I don't really agree with the whole 'Tony Blair is untrustworthy' thing. I don't always agree with him, but I also think he does he what he believes to be for the greatest good, given the information available to him. Did the Iraq War thing blow up in his face? Yes it did. But I think the documents now available to us show that he was as much rail-roaded into it as anyone else, he just thought he could provide a more rational balance to the neo-cons war mongering. Sadly he was mistaken. I also think he's easily the best public speaker of the three. As for Charles Kennedy... well he's affable, thoughtful, refuses the dogmatism of party politics, is inclined to tell the truth even when its complex, and has absolutely no chance of ever becoming Prime Minister of anything.
There, thats done that.
Michael Howard is the Devil!For some reason I don't fully understand I bought flapjacks today. I just had one, it wasn't all tha yummy. I have lots of them too, cos it was buy one, get one free, and they came in packs of four...
I have this whole rant about last weekends royal wedding, or more specifically the monarchy in general and why Britain is too fucking lazy to have a revolution. I've already ranted loads so I'll just let it lie. For now!
Pope Idol
Okay I'm sure I'm not the only person to want to see this, but why doesn't the Vatican take the existing, and let's face it, terrifyingly succesful Pop Idol format and use it to select a new Pope? For reasons which escape me, but have probably to do with avoiding my own problems, I've been vaguely looking at potential front-runners for the currently vacant position of pontif (oddly I myself am not amongst them, I'm sure there's a claim for religious discrimination in there somewhere), and there actually is a guy I think would rock, and that's Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodiguez Maradiaga of Honduras. He seems pretty cool to me, mainly because he seems to scare the conservative wing of the church, and also he's not Italian. I don't even know what his views on anything are, all I kind ever find when I search is the same article over and over again which tells us that he's studied clinical psychology and has a 'dynamic, out-spoken' style. Anyway that of course is why we'd have the Pope Idol show. The various papabile (uh huh, thats the real word for it) cardinals could come on and discuss their thoughts on various topics (I personally want to see a Pope who deals with the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly in developing countries, by allowing contraception), before nifty dance routines, and maybe even cover versions of previous Papal Bulls, but in their own inimitable style. Then every week we get to vote, until the people of the world have selected a new Pope!
Of course, none of that is going to happen. The Vatican isn't a democratic organisation, and really has no reason to be, thats not why people join a church. They don't join up to think for themselves, they join to be told what to do. What is going to happen is something that will be hidden, and that will doubtless involve much politicking, and will still result in a new Pope. It'll just be less fun, thats all.
Welcome to the Monkey House
Ahoy! Welcome to BadMonkeys' House!
I have no idea what you're gonna find here, or even if 'here' is a place thats gonna be updated with any regularity, but I figured I have a lot of time to spare all of a sudden, many thoughts which need (actually as you will see, 'need' is pretty excessive - I actually think what they need is the exact opposite of writing down, but writing down is what they're gonna get) writing down (see?), and a peculiar need to express myself. How any of this is gonna happen I can't begin to tell you, but it could be an interesting ride. Then again I may stop posting later on today, my lack of commitment to these things is almost legendary...
