August All At Once
Well we're near the end of August and I've still not been back to work. The balance is all over the place (ha!); some days I think I'm actually okay and things are going well, then the very next day I'll be feeling sick as a dog as the world spins around me. It's really hard work, staying in all the time, although I have had some company and I don't just mean Archie! Yes, almost fortuitously, the past couple of weeks have seen the Olympics and they've made ideal background TV to keep me company. As you may or may not know, I love the Olympics anyway, hell it's the two weeks every four years that I absolutely adore sport (although still not soccer, it's got no place as an Olympic sport!). So I've seen the UK win lots of medals in the sailing and the cycling, hell even a few in the pool, and then completely dry up once the second week started and the track and field began. It was however a truly spectacular event, and despite everything I've said and written about China and it's human rights abuses somehow all that seemed to fade away with the beauty of the opening ceremony. Everything seemed to run like clockwork (as it would, communist country after all), and the presentation, the scale, everything was just stunning. Even before the games had finished our representatives are saying well obviously China is going to be the last of the games as spectacle, our intentions are much more modest. How the fuck is that possible? It's the OLYMPICS, there's nothing modest about them whatsoever, it's the fucking world gathering to celebrate sporting achievement. I'm already nervous and embarrased about what we're gonna do. I mean the Chinese opening ceremony was really spectacular, a wonderfully choreographed extravaganza depicting the history of China. What the hell are we gonna do? Is it gonna be as spectacularly misjudged as our recent Eurovision entries? I suspect it'll be some god awful attempt to appeal to some focus group, rather than honest artistic expression. And the venues... all they're talking about is legacy. Well, excuse the fuck outta me, but "legacy" isn't gonna be something that's visible during the games, or to the world at large. Certainly I can see the importance of providing something of use to the people left behind, but on the other hand they knew what they were bidding for when they did it, so it shouldn't be a surprise when they need to construct another stadium in London! Unless we didn't really want to win and were just applying to look ambitious, try and make all the other countries jealous, which actually wouldn't surprise me in the slightest now that I've written it. And why London anyway? It's not like it's exactly poorly served with facilities of every kind, why not something more central like, say, Birmingham! Fucking London, has to have everything...
So yeah, the dizzy. Well I've been given these exercises to do which will supposedly make it go away, but so far they're really rather unpleasant. Couple that with the fact that I'm supposed to sleep upright for the first couple of days after I've done them and I'm really not feeling all that bright. I can fall asleep in a chair with the best of 'em, but god forbid I should have to do it while propped up with a pillow mountain in bed.
So what else've I been up to? Not a lot to be honest; tried to read as much as I can to keep my mind occupied, played some video games when I'm up to it; the appalling thing is that there's not much I CAN do in this condition. Still haven't seen The Dark Knight, which somehow seems both a terrible crime and also terribly unimportant. Even though I've little idea of the overall story, I've kept myself as spoiler free as I can, I somehow feel like I've already seen it, know it. Which is weird. Each day just drags on, they melt seemlessly into one another, one pointless expanse of time blending into the next with little to differentiate one from the next. It's been
great.
I have caught up on a few horror flicks though, Alexandre Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes, which is extremely effective and true to it's source material, and with the same wonderful bleakness of Craven's 70s original. So that was good. Wolf Creek however... I've heard and read so much about it, I was expecting something really special and it was just another redneck movie. Now hell, don't get me wrong, if I have a favourite horror sub-genre it's probably the redneck movie, I just expected this one to be a little more creative, perhaps more extreme in it's tortures, whereas it plays it all according to genre rules and really doesn't surprise or shock in any particular way. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, 'cos I did, I just expected more. My favourite new horror though has to be KM31, a Mexican horror which was a lovely mix of ghost story, j-horror style and Mexican folklore. It also has a fantastically ambiguous ending, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Check it out if you can.
And that's that.
King Of The Iron Fist
I think it's safe to say that having been trapped inside with minimal contact with the outside world for the past two weeks is making me a little crazy. I've already told the boss I hope to return to work on Monday (although this afternoons wobbles aim to make a liar of me) so I hopefully that'll have some positive effect on my sanity.
In an effort to entertain myself I went scouring the world for second hand PS2 games (which are becoming increasingly hard to find) and managed to get hold of both Tekken 5 and Soul Calibur 3. Now I haven't so much as looked at SC3 yet (it's more Soul Calibur, I'm sure it'll be lovely) but Tekken 5 has more than held my attention for the day. In a lot of ways that's a surprise; although I've played Tekken a lot in the past (particularly when it was the only game in town!) I've never particularly been a fan of the series, over-shadowed as it is by my beloved Virtua Fighter. And it still IS over-shadowed by VF in terms of being a pure, technical fighter, but for an explosive and exceptionally beautiful action fighter it's amazing. The game looks astonishing, sounds big and bone crunching and has lots and lots of fighters to beat the hell out of each other. And the character design is great, a massive evolution of the blocky characters I remember from back in the PSOne days (and if you don't believe me, play the original arcade Tekken, included as a bonus on the disk along with Tek2 and 3). After one day I'm not convinced the depth is there, but there certainly seems plenty to do and I'm not exactly wiping the floor with the CPU players so it's all good. And on top of that they've stolen/borrowed the character customisation bits of VF4 (when oh when will I find a copy of VF4 evo I wonder? *wanders off to eBay...*) so you can have almost endless fun earning credits and dressing your favourite characters with lots of funky bits and pieces. Excellent!
In other news the Olympics has begun. Normally sport isn't something I cover here because, well, because I could care less, but for the two weeks of the Olympics it'll be the background (and occasionally the foreground) to everything that happens as I become a temporary armchair expert on diving, sailing, shooting, cycling and all the lovely track and field events. Oh and the gymnastics and weight lifting (love that! God knows why), the fighting events, almost everything except the Olympic soccer which has no place there. There's just so much to see and watch us lose at! And speaking of watching the UK lose... the opening ceremony the Chinese put together was little short of astonishing. I normally watch them and they are a struggle, but this one was just utterly charming, enchanting and ingenious. We are gonna suck ass and fail at this in four years time, it'll be so cringe worthy I can hardly bear to think of it even now. I know it's terribly British of me to just assume we'll suck at the presentation but I mean, you've seen the logo right? That's an abomination in and of itself, just imagine what the bloody opening ceremony is gonna be like... The Chinese opening ceremony was a beautiful run through five thousand years of chinese history apparently directed by the great Yimou Zhang. I'm sure I wasn't the only one thoroughly impressed by it, I just wonder what the hell we're gonna do that isn't gonna be an embarrasment?
Pleasently caving in
I come undone
Sleepy
Today feels like something of a step backwards health-wise. Yesterday I felt surprisingly not bad, and whilst today I feel similarly not bad I'm also ridiciulously tired, to the point that it's what, just gone three o'clock and I've done almost nothing at all. That's rubbish, and what's more rubbish is that I could pretty much lie down and go to sleep right now and that'd be fine.
Stop! Emo Time!
Shaz got back from Druid Camp late on Sunday night, and for all that I'd been looking forward to seeing her she didn't seem to care one way or the other. It was a sad moment, although I don't know if she shared that sadness with me or if it was just another lonely moment.
My dizzy still isn't better (although I'm pleased to say it may be starting to get there, I sat up in bed this morning and didn't immediately feel like keeling over, which is progress for sure) so I haven't been to work this week and honestly don't expect I will be, which is less than ideal. God I think I might was well just {emo /on} and go ahead a have a fucking good whine! It's clearly one of those days when I have a lot of feeling sorry for myself going on, and that's always fucking delightful to read (and write!).
So, when I nipped out to the doctors today to get a repeat perscription for my much beloved meds, I spotted (and was not spotted by) one of the guys I'd started at Diligenta with and his now wife. And also his new born child. This is a guy in his mid-twenties whose life seems to be following the prescribed path for a life and it got me to wondering why it is that my life doesn't go like that, why I'm always struggling to keep going, to live anything at all resembling a life. Of course there's also the whole "what's so great about being normal anyway?" line of thought and I must admit that much as there's a part of me that would like to have a normal apparently disaster free life with a straightforward through line I'm just not sure I'm that guy. Sure the fantasy of wife and kids, a little semi and mortgage of our own all
sounds good, but really, it's just a fantasy. Also in the fantasy I have a little study of my own, where I write and paint and game largely undisturbed by the trappings of my fantasy family. Makes me wonder why they're there to start with really. So maybe the problem isn't anything external, it's me! Well, that's not exactly a new thought is it? But how do I change myself? How do I take control of my life? What the hell does taking control of your life even mean? To me it always seems like living a life of independance, of freedom, where I answer only to myself and depend on no-one else for a living, but short of becoming the richest man in the world I'm not sure how you go about that (although as we speak I'm beginning to have an idea...)
I don't know, for some reason that little trip out to the doctors really got me kinda miserable. I'd had an oddly good nights sleep too (although I continue to be haunted by dreams of university! I mean come ON it was almost half a lifetime ago; I did what I did and that's that, it's no use giving me the guilt parade and wondering what would've happened if I tried harder (or at all! ha!), that time is SO very far behind us and I can't understand why it still haunts my dreams. Okay, so that wasn't the good part of the dream, there was other stuff about exploring a new (and entirely imaginary) city, as well as moving into my new apartment on the rougher side of town (full of such wonderful detail as only lives in dreams, like my front door being made of card-board and opening directly into a convenience store) and some odd puzzle solving that made me happy. I don't know, it was somehow a good nights sleep, and when I sat up this morning it didn't make me dizzy! So maybe things are starting to improve a little.
{emo /off}
Sex Nuts and Retard Strong (I Wish)
Well that's the end of my holiday. Which sucks 'cos all I've done for the past week is be ill, lie down, lie down and be ill. I called to tell the boss today, and he took it with surprising good humour, so I've got at least a couple more days off, or I suppose realistically as many as it takes to get me better again. Still, it's good to have a nice boss.
I've watched a few movies in the past few days, most notably Clerks 2 and V for Vendetta (again). V for Vendetta was as awesome as ever, and filled my head with revolutionary glee and the peculiar need to learn V's introductory speech (y'know the bit following "Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask" with all the lovely alliteration). Clerks 2 was the real surprise though, not that I didn't expect it to be good, because I did, I just didn't expect it to be so... grown up. In particular the bit with the go-karts is a feeling I have myself, but I don't think I've ever seen expressed by a fictional character before. Now maybe it has and I'm just not looking in the right places, and maybe there just aren't that many slacker characters in popular fiction, and maybe it isn't that unusual but there you have it. I don't know, but the feeling that life can just leave you in a lay-by because of choices you made when you were a kid, when you didn't even know you were making choices is pretty familiar to me and all too unpleasant. And you know what? It's not really something I've had while I've been driving. for years in retail, the brief time at Diligenta, I felt hopeless and lost and left behind, but somehow out on the road, no matter how trivial the job, I don't feel that. Sure I wonder where the job goes (career wise, jack ass) but I don't feel my life is pointless. Maybe that's just because I'm too tired to notice the pointlessness, and maybe it's just because it fulfills something in me that makes it all worth while. I dunno, all I was trying to say was that Clerks 2 hit on those issues in a way that surprised and moved me.
