The Importance of Being Idle

The Morning After The Night Before

So after Eurovision and epic phone conversations last night I did the reasonable thing... and watched The Empire Strikes Back. I realise that going to bed would have made a mite more sense, but who cares for sense? Not I. The thing that struck me most in my sleep depreived state was that Yoda and Obi-wan weren't training a Jedi at all, they were training an assassin. They failed abysmally with Anakin (not just on a personal level either, their combined failures led to the destruction of pretty much everything they knew and held dear), and they only way they can think of to atone for these sins is to kill him. They fail again though, 'cos Luke doesn't do that at all, he ignores what they tell him and uses his own judgement to decide how to deal with his father. Hmmm so yeah I do think about these things too much, but I'm sorry that's just who I am. You all knew that coming in, now deal with it.
I did end up going to bed at about 5am though, and as per usual I slept remarkably little, which is starting to become annoying. I'd have thought that all these late nights would finally be starting to take their toll, but they've not yet. Another late night in store tonight as well, 'cos both Lost In La Mancha and American Movie are on back to back. If there's one thing I like more than movies, its movies about making movies. I'm particularly looking forward to Lost In La Mancha, which is an account of Terry Gilliams disastrous attempt to film Don Quixote. It should be good.
What else have I done today? Not a lot really. My shopping trip today was actually pretty good, I bought fresh veggies and everything (well I didn't buy EVERYTHING, my budget doesn't stretch that far, in fact it barely stretches to anything at all), so where was I? Ah yes, fresh veggies, cos I thought I'd make myself a yummy homemade pizza like I used to back in the day. It was disappointing though. I'll admit it's been a good decade or so, but it's not like I've lost the basics, so it looked and tasted like pizza, which was a good start, but the veggies were disappointingly bland and flavour-free which went some way to ruining the whole effect. Still it was fun to do some almost real cooking.
I've started playing Ninja Gaiden again, and y'know what? Coming back to it again it suddenly doesn't seem all that hard. I mean I'm not saying its an easy game, cos it really isn't, largely due to its appallingly bad camera which generally consipires to show you the least interesting thing happening at any given time, and an almost petty level of unfairness. But its not hard in the way games were when I was a lad. Scramble anyone? Zaxxon? Bionic Commando? Ghouls'n'Ghosts? Those are games (and that list is by no means exhaustive, they're just the ones that popped into my head while I was writing, most old-school games are in fact ridiculously rock hard) that not only demand perfection, but they also viciously punish even minor failure, and didn't believe in check-points of any kind. Modern gamers are just soft, thats all. I suppose its because the market has changed so much. Back in the day there only were hardcore gamers, and we were not deterred by such petty things as impossible difficulty, we just practiced until we could do the impossible. These days you have many different types of gamers, so you have many different types of gaming experience. The other thing worth noting is that all the hardcore gamers are old now, and we have RSI, crippling arthritis and other things to do with our time (like jobs, although that one doesn't apply to me right now which is how come I have time to learn Ninja Gaiden...). In a minute this is gonna turn into the gaming equivalent of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch...
"And you tell that to kids today and they don't believe you!"
*exit pursued by bear*

posted by BadMonkey @ 8:15 PM