OH HELLO BLOG CREATURES FROM THE OTHERWORLDS AND PLACES OF THE THINGS WITH THE STUFF AND ALL THAT LACK OF GRAVITY AND STARS.
Or whatever. Man, I don't know you. If you'd just let our love grow tall, like that song says, by someone I can't remember, then we could truly get to know each other.
Alternately, I could just hate on everyone in the galaxy. That works too.
ANYWAY. HOW ARE YOU?!?!?!
I have been a long time gone from the blogosphere, and I wish I could say I've been doing something Excellent, and Exciting, and Adventurous, but mostly my holidays have consisted of the following:
-Playing Pokemon Red on Gameboy Colour. Oh yes. Look at me being indie. Sometimes I even wear oversized cardigans and boots and too much jewellery and listen to Bright Eyes and feel melancholic on trains in the dying sunlight.
Mostly I just get shitty at water pokemon though. WHO THE FUCK EVEN CHOOSES SQUIRTLE, EVERYONE KNOWS HE'S LIKE THE MILHOUSE OF THE POKEMON WORLD.
"QUIET CHILDREN! NO ONE LIKES MILHOUSE!"
- Eating. During semester, my life consists of living entirely on A) Caffeine B) Sugar and C)..... no that's about it. Caffeine and Sugar. In fact, I generally just subsist on double shot lattes and stumble around uni in a confused hallucination-filled stupor, occasionally scoffing sour peach hearts. MY LIFE - IT IS PRODUCTIVE. Thus, I generally lose about 5 kilos a semester, until it gets to holidays and I eat everything in sight 16 hours of the day.
As you might have gathered from previous posts, I have the scrawny underfed body shape of a newly born sparrow (incidentally, I also have the high-pitched shrieky voice of one). The point being, when I lose 5 kilos, I weigh approximately... not much, and also I wake up four days of the week at 6am for work/uni, so the bags under my eyes and general twitchy limbs make me look a little like an emaciated smack addict (I also function like one - see: jumpy, constantly craving something (not actually smack, just to clarify), bony, easily angered). ON THE UPSIDE. it has been holidays for approx. three months, and I now have some manner of body weight! EXCITING. ROUND OF APPLAUSE, LOUD NOISES, ETC ALL PRAISE ME. In order for this to happen I have eaten a world of food. A WORLD OF FOOD.
- Planning my 21st - I am entering the phase of Being Mature and Responsible for My Life and My Choices. I can drive a car. I can legally purchase alcohol and cigarettes. I wear make up every day. I wear high heels most days. I have two jobs and am nearing the end of my University Degree (TM). I make professional phone calls at my work. I am trying to find better paying jobs.
I FUCKING HATE GROWING UP. Man. The responsibility is something I have never been cut out for (things I am cut out for: sleep, eating, boozing, kissing, playing pokemon, facebooking, falling over things). And I have no idea how to deal with it. However, I have decided that the best way to ignore it is to throw a party and drink my memory away.
I feel I've made a fairly good start on this so far.
My friend P recently suggested my autobiography will be titled "Anna Hyde: I Was So Hungover".
IT'S FUNNY 'CAUSE IT'S TRUE.
- Catching up with The Boyfriend - The Boyfriend, B, was back in Melbourne for most of the holidays. I say "most" because B is some sort of musical freak boy who plays gigs everywhere and would often leave the state for a few days anyway. But we did get to catch up on a lot of things while he was here, being: Back to the Future Marathon (we both have crushes on Michael J Fox), the Sean Connery James Bond films (B has a crush on Sean Connery), swimming in the ocean in a ridiculously cheesy romantic manner, drinking, driving (not simultaneously), playing card games, mocking each other, and, obviously, the sex.
THIS WAS PLEASING TO ME. However, now B has gone back to Sydney and I probably won't see him for around a month or so. Which is much less pleasing to me. And also somewhat bizarrely, my fellow blogger, Damacus (whose real name, incidentally, is the same as B's) has moved away recently to the same state.
WHY FOR, Bs!!!!??? WHY FOR YOU ALL LEAVE ME?!?!??!
I lose all my bs, and am left only with the rest of the alphabet.
Over the course of the holidays I also realised something that I never thought I would (that was a very bad sentence, and for this I apologise, but my sinuses are about to eat the rest of my face in some sort of rebellion against being held captive in my skull, and TAKE PITY ON ME, I DON'T EVEN DO A DEGREE THAT REQUIRES STANDARD WRITING SKILLS).
I'm not sure about you, but often in the past I've seen couples wandering around, holding hands, looking very much in love, et.c etc. vom in my mouth. Although I've occasionally noticed those vaguely unsettling situations where the woman is a fair amount taller than the man.
There is nothing wrong with this. Not even a little bit. But still, I'd often look at those couples and think, "But... doesn't he feel... emasculated? And... how does that even WORK?"
I thought these things, quietly, to myself, until I realised something lately.
I have a penchant for wearing ridiculous heels. I mean, 6 days out of seven, I wear 2 - 5 inch heels in everyday life. B is approximately an inch taller than me.
DO YOU SEE WHAT I'M GETTING AT??!?!?!
When I wear heels, I am gargantuan tall giraffe woman who towers over my boyfriend....
...
...
...
And I don't hate it. I find it fantastically funny being able to look over his head in my 5 inch heels.
And while it's kind of nice to be the short one, like it's kind of nice to be the little spoon and feel all protected and stuff, it's also nice to be all: "YO, I BE AN IN-DE-PEN-DANT WO-MAN BITCHEZ. Hear me roar in my tallness and almighty power of awesome height etc. etc."
Sometimes, you learn things.
Finally, on a closing note, I discovered something extremely unsettling in my work's kitchen tonight. My boss is a health food freak. One of those people who drink "Tasty, Healthy Shakes" and eat "Delicious, Nutritious Food Bar Replacement Foodstuffs" instead of eating Real Food (TM) for meals. Apparently his healthy obsession extends to removing sugar and caffeine from his diet. This sickens and repulses me for obvious reasons, but as I went to make a coffee tonight I discovered "Caro: Delicious Cereal Beverage".
What is a Delicious Cereal Beverage you ask? What does it do? What does it taste like? How does it work? Isn't it an oxymoron in itself? Why does it exist and what twisted individual decided to make a drink lacking in anything that tastes vaguely okay that is also part food through some confusing system I can't possibly understand?
These questions: they will be spoken throughout the universe forever more.
xx
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Things I can do with one arm part 2
Hello happy campers! Yes, I'm back with more things I can do with one arm! I know you are all dying for an update on the health and strength status of my body. I know you are all wondering what I have in store for you! So what can I NOW do with one hand after a three weeks of being in a cast? Let's see...
GO ON CAMP.
I still managed to attend a week long camp which involved lots of lifting (with one hand) and getting wet (with a purple, scented plastic bag on my arm). It was really difficult but I got through the whole week somehow.
SEW TOGETHER KNITTED SQUARES TO MAKE A BLANKET.
On camp, the JFS were given three huge bags of squares to sew together (4x4) to make blankets for poor babies in India. I managed to make two because I am a compassionate person, obviously.
WORK ON EXPRESS REGISTERS.
That's right people, Renji is moving up in the world of Safeway and can now work not only on self serve, but also on the 12 items or less register (with one hand). Customers thought I was a bit slow but I thought I was doing a fairly good job with only half of my appropriate bagging limbs working.
FEED THE DOG.
My dog is on a special diet of kangaroo meat because the vet thinks she is allergic to some of her food. Kangaroo mince is gross and sticky and hard to get out of a bag with one hand. Her antihistamine tablets are also hard to put into little kangaroo treats so she wont notice them, but you know what? I did it! She ate those damn pills and her kangaroo meat looked delicious (to her) in her bowl. She still loves me!
COOK PASTA.
Ok, I can't really COOK pasta, but dad left the sauce in a pot and I put the boiling water in another pot and added some pasta and waited for it to not be hard and fragile so it could be eaten by my family. I think that was an ok effort in helping around the house. It was the most delicious pasta EVER! (But not really because it was just ragout instead of something super interesting, although I love ragout)
MAKE A SANDWICH.
I was at work today and I needed to eat some lunch, so I bought a roll, some Dodoni fetta (only the best), and some salami. I then discovered that cutting a roll in half with one hand is incredibly difficult but after much struggling I managed to cut it in half to fill it with the deliciousness that I had prepared for it. It took ages but it was definitely worth the struggle because it was an amazing roll/sandwich.
So I apologise for the lack of any interesting stuff that I can do with one arm; I didn't really try anything that dramatic or difficult because my arm hurts. This time however, I will set myself a challenge for next week that I will make a report on (whether success of failure) in my next blog along with any other little victories I have over my heavy, dead arm. This week's challenge: clean my room. Cleaning my room is not a big deal for me as usually it is spotless and everything is in its correct place (nothing is homeless), but with a broken arm it is incredibly hard to clean. At the moment it is littered with my luggage from camp, my luggage from Sydney, my dirty laundry, my clean laundry, and just things that were too hard to put away. With my recovering arm I think I can do it this week! Stay tuned for the report on this challenge, accompanied by entertaining photos no doubt. Thanks for reading.
-Renji
GO ON CAMP.
I still managed to attend a week long camp which involved lots of lifting (with one hand) and getting wet (with a purple, scented plastic bag on my arm). It was really difficult but I got through the whole week somehow.
SEW TOGETHER KNITTED SQUARES TO MAKE A BLANKET.
On camp, the JFS were given three huge bags of squares to sew together (4x4) to make blankets for poor babies in India. I managed to make two because I am a compassionate person, obviously.
WORK ON EXPRESS REGISTERS.
That's right people, Renji is moving up in the world of Safeway and can now work not only on self serve, but also on the 12 items or less register (with one hand). Customers thought I was a bit slow but I thought I was doing a fairly good job with only half of my appropriate bagging limbs working.
FEED THE DOG.
My dog is on a special diet of kangaroo meat because the vet thinks she is allergic to some of her food. Kangaroo mince is gross and sticky and hard to get out of a bag with one hand. Her antihistamine tablets are also hard to put into little kangaroo treats so she wont notice them, but you know what? I did it! She ate those damn pills and her kangaroo meat looked delicious (to her) in her bowl. She still loves me!
COOK PASTA.
Ok, I can't really COOK pasta, but dad left the sauce in a pot and I put the boiling water in another pot and added some pasta and waited for it to not be hard and fragile so it could be eaten by my family. I think that was an ok effort in helping around the house. It was the most delicious pasta EVER! (But not really because it was just ragout instead of something super interesting, although I love ragout)
MAKE A SANDWICH.
I was at work today and I needed to eat some lunch, so I bought a roll, some Dodoni fetta (only the best), and some salami. I then discovered that cutting a roll in half with one hand is incredibly difficult but after much struggling I managed to cut it in half to fill it with the deliciousness that I had prepared for it. It took ages but it was definitely worth the struggle because it was an amazing roll/sandwich.
So I apologise for the lack of any interesting stuff that I can do with one arm; I didn't really try anything that dramatic or difficult because my arm hurts. This time however, I will set myself a challenge for next week that I will make a report on (whether success of failure) in my next blog along with any other little victories I have over my heavy, dead arm. This week's challenge: clean my room. Cleaning my room is not a big deal for me as usually it is spotless and everything is in its correct place (nothing is homeless), but with a broken arm it is incredibly hard to clean. At the moment it is littered with my luggage from camp, my luggage from Sydney, my dirty laundry, my clean laundry, and just things that were too hard to put away. With my recovering arm I think I can do it this week! Stay tuned for the report on this challenge, accompanied by entertaining photos no doubt. Thanks for reading.
-Renji
Friday, January 14, 2011
Things I can do with one arm
Hi there kids of Blogville! I have a rather funny story to tell you involving rollerblades and a broken arm... Well that's the whole story really (damn I wanted it to sound more interesting on paper). I, the invincible Lieutenant Renji, am facing a minor setback of a snapped radius that was pushed towards my elbow and had to be yanked into place by a doctor; anaesthetic you ask? Lieutenant Renji has no need for numbness, a person so tough can withstand the pain of bones moving inside them! Anyway, after a week and a half of difficulty with general things in life I have learned to do a few things with one arm and I have decided that everyone wants to hear about my great achievements as I discover little by little the boring, everyday things that I am able to do while covered in plaster.
Use the computer.
My typing skills were already so great that I was able to type with one hand on the first try, which was as soon as I got home from the hospital so I could Facebook all my friends to see who would be first to shotgun writing "milpool" on the cast.
Write a blog.
Evidently I am able to write a blog.
Fold clothes.
At first it was incredibly hard to clean my room and put away my clothes, but with the help of my teeth and a bed I am able to manoeuvre a tshirt into a perfectly folded position only to find that I am unable to put it back into its proper colour coordinated spot because I cant lift up the other shirts while holding the folded one. Soon I will learn to satisfy my OCD. PURPLE DOESN'T GO NEXT TO RED!
Open bottles.
That's right folks, with the combined power of my thighs and my right hand I can open a bottle from the fridge and pour myself a refreshing drink! Simply delicious.
Play UNO.
This involves teeth and some clever card placement. I am yet to play it completely without the help of someone else but I will get there; my sister is sick of taking cards out of my mouth that lead to her UNO demise!
Take photos.
Well I actually did this with the hand on my broken arm (obviously since my other arm is not in it) and it really hurt, but I am committed to the blog!
That's all for now, stay tuned for more things I can do with one arm, brought to you as I discover them myself. I'm sure they will get more impressive... well I hope. Thanks for reading.
-Renji
Thursday, January 6, 2011
WISH (I) WERE (THERE)
Good evening everybody.
I get the sense that I haven't been pulling my weight around here lately what with less posts and a failure to show up at all blog related functions. So this is my post. It is not a very well constructed post. It is not a very well written post. It's mine.
Like always the end of the year always seems to be a crescendo of weirdness. Just weirdness. Weird in that you do, see and think things you normally wouldn't. I don't know if this is the same for anyone else but I get really weirded out by the last couple of weeks of a year.
Yeah. I don't know where I'm going with this. I haven't thought this through at all, so I apologise, but this will be more like reading the frantic notes I've scrawled in my life's margins...
Well, I thought after Christmas that I was really getting sick of my house. Too many things. Too many gifts, too many photos... too many dreams and too many worries. Too much of the past and future, none of the present. I could say something annoying like you can only get self realisation out of pockets of occurrent experience or something, but that wouldn't be true. It wasn't something I'd thought about. I decided I'd pack a bag and head out for a week. Because what was the alternative? What was the worst that could happen?
I'm already rereading this post. Trying to think where I want to steer it. Away from some rocks, towards a light... maybe give up and run it aground here. I'm thinking, maybe this is why nobody ever wants the truth. Because it's nothing. It's definite. It's the truth, there's no way around it. It's like the cuckoo's egg hatching and pushing the others out of the nest. When you get the truth you don't get anything else... just this bigger, uglier, hungrier mouth to feed.
Well, I did some things. That's what I did. I spent time with some people, said goodbye, made my way to my next destination, rinse. repeat. rinse. repeat. It's boring. Like doing the dishes.
Boring.
Simple.
Nice.
I suppose I liked the travelling. I like train rides. Not many people talk on a train, and when they do it's pretty black and white. One hand is the people travelling in a group who send out where they're going and for what little reasoning and the ones who bridge the gap and talk to other travellers about the places they've been. I like conversations. More other people's than my own.
I read this in a monotone in my head. I'm starting to question whether or not I want to keep typing. Now I know the little pieces I'm saying. I think I'm starting to see the picture they'll make when I fit them together. But I'm still hesitant. This is inside my head. This is probably not where it belongs. It might not be understood properly... or worse, it might not even want to be understood. Scenarios float up from murky depths to the surface of my mind. Now I see separate thoughts... how do I say it?... separated from the rest. To mingle with the thoughts of others. I could be judged... I don't care much about that. I could be similar though. These could be the inner workings of someone else. If so, why do I type mine out? Am I allowed to do that? Is it right? What justifies my... hmmm... I don't think this is sadness, or happiness... it's not really expressive, it's just vague. Well, why do I type this when noone else will? What makes me special? I don't know how to say it any better...
On one of the trains I caught I sat opposite a girl in goth makeup. This was at the onset of a four hour trip, shortly before this my MP3 player died... and if I remember I'd been wanting all day to listen to one song. Astronomy Domine, by Pink Floyd. I wanted to hear the first verse specifically.
Lime and limpid green
a second scene,
A fight between the blue
you once knew.
Floating down the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground
Jupiter and Saturn
Oberon Miranda and Titania
Neptune Titan
Stars can frighten
I like the alliteration, I like the names and I like the image it makes in your head. Well, I wasn't afforded this liberty and it would be days before I'd hear the song again. I knew to entertain myself I'd be reliant on sketching, writing, reading, looking out the window and succinct glances at other travellers. The goth girl's story was already writing itself in my head...
It was a crude translation.
I saw a desire to fit in.
Three phone conversations in ten minutes later I saw the desire was met in her. Desires go when they're attained.
I saw a precisely constructed caricature of alienation and moroseness.
The fact that she was having unrestrained fits of laughter a podcast she listened to made me see no fear of happiness.
I liked being wrong.
I also liked seeing the young couple who boarded wearing peacock feathers in their hats and the old cowboy guy they traded travelling stories with.
I hate this post now. I hate it because I don't even know what it's saying. Right now there is no fleeting glimpse of something. It's just words. They aren't making me think anything, I'm not attached to them, they don't make me feel good.
The simplicity of travelling is brilliant. You only carry what you know is your life with you. Everything you find you get attached to. Everything that isn't worthwhile either remains where you came from or at your destination. It's freedom. You don't have all the good things at your fingertips, of course, but you can't find a luggage rack for what's really tied to your neck. In a way, past and future lay themselves out clearly for you to really look at.
I want to end this now. I don't want to write anymore. I can't think. I can't do it. I don't know what I'm saying. No, now I do know what I'm trying to say, and how I'm trying to write it. But the last piece can't be written down. Can't be written down yet. The last piece is up to whoever reads this. I'm sorry if it's cryptic and annoying, there's no ulterior motive behind it. It just came out and put itself together. Don't be intimidated. You're not intimidated by stupidity, why be intimidated by something else uninspired and unplanned?
Right now things are just happening. All cause and effect crumbles in this overlap of years
'It was me, waiting for me'
Tongs away... to the last piece of post... hehe
I get the sense that I haven't been pulling my weight around here lately what with less posts and a failure to show up at all blog related functions. So this is my post. It is not a very well constructed post. It is not a very well written post. It's mine.
Like always the end of the year always seems to be a crescendo of weirdness. Just weirdness. Weird in that you do, see and think things you normally wouldn't. I don't know if this is the same for anyone else but I get really weirded out by the last couple of weeks of a year.
Yeah. I don't know where I'm going with this. I haven't thought this through at all, so I apologise, but this will be more like reading the frantic notes I've scrawled in my life's margins...
Well, I thought after Christmas that I was really getting sick of my house. Too many things. Too many gifts, too many photos... too many dreams and too many worries. Too much of the past and future, none of the present. I could say something annoying like you can only get self realisation out of pockets of occurrent experience or something, but that wouldn't be true. It wasn't something I'd thought about. I decided I'd pack a bag and head out for a week. Because what was the alternative? What was the worst that could happen?
I'm already rereading this post. Trying to think where I want to steer it. Away from some rocks, towards a light... maybe give up and run it aground here. I'm thinking, maybe this is why nobody ever wants the truth. Because it's nothing. It's definite. It's the truth, there's no way around it. It's like the cuckoo's egg hatching and pushing the others out of the nest. When you get the truth you don't get anything else... just this bigger, uglier, hungrier mouth to feed.
Well, I did some things. That's what I did. I spent time with some people, said goodbye, made my way to my next destination, rinse. repeat. rinse. repeat. It's boring. Like doing the dishes.
Boring.
Simple.
Nice.
I suppose I liked the travelling. I like train rides. Not many people talk on a train, and when they do it's pretty black and white. One hand is the people travelling in a group who send out where they're going and for what little reasoning and the ones who bridge the gap and talk to other travellers about the places they've been. I like conversations. More other people's than my own.
I read this in a monotone in my head. I'm starting to question whether or not I want to keep typing. Now I know the little pieces I'm saying. I think I'm starting to see the picture they'll make when I fit them together. But I'm still hesitant. This is inside my head. This is probably not where it belongs. It might not be understood properly... or worse, it might not even want to be understood. Scenarios float up from murky depths to the surface of my mind. Now I see separate thoughts... how do I say it?... separated from the rest. To mingle with the thoughts of others. I could be judged... I don't care much about that. I could be similar though. These could be the inner workings of someone else. If so, why do I type mine out? Am I allowed to do that? Is it right? What justifies my... hmmm... I don't think this is sadness, or happiness... it's not really expressive, it's just vague. Well, why do I type this when noone else will? What makes me special? I don't know how to say it any better...
On one of the trains I caught I sat opposite a girl in goth makeup. This was at the onset of a four hour trip, shortly before this my MP3 player died... and if I remember I'd been wanting all day to listen to one song. Astronomy Domine, by Pink Floyd. I wanted to hear the first verse specifically.
Lime and limpid green
a second scene,
A fight between the blue
you once knew.
Floating down the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground
Jupiter and Saturn
Oberon Miranda and Titania
Neptune Titan
Stars can frighten
I like the alliteration, I like the names and I like the image it makes in your head. Well, I wasn't afforded this liberty and it would be days before I'd hear the song again. I knew to entertain myself I'd be reliant on sketching, writing, reading, looking out the window and succinct glances at other travellers. The goth girl's story was already writing itself in my head...
It was a crude translation.
I saw a desire to fit in.
Three phone conversations in ten minutes later I saw the desire was met in her. Desires go when they're attained.
I saw a precisely constructed caricature of alienation and moroseness.
The fact that she was having unrestrained fits of laughter a podcast she listened to made me see no fear of happiness.
I liked being wrong.
I also liked seeing the young couple who boarded wearing peacock feathers in their hats and the old cowboy guy they traded travelling stories with.
I hate this post now. I hate it because I don't even know what it's saying. Right now there is no fleeting glimpse of something. It's just words. They aren't making me think anything, I'm not attached to them, they don't make me feel good.
The simplicity of travelling is brilliant. You only carry what you know is your life with you. Everything you find you get attached to. Everything that isn't worthwhile either remains where you came from or at your destination. It's freedom. You don't have all the good things at your fingertips, of course, but you can't find a luggage rack for what's really tied to your neck. In a way, past and future lay themselves out clearly for you to really look at.
I want to end this now. I don't want to write anymore. I can't think. I can't do it. I don't know what I'm saying. No, now I do know what I'm trying to say, and how I'm trying to write it. But the last piece can't be written down. Can't be written down yet. The last piece is up to whoever reads this. I'm sorry if it's cryptic and annoying, there's no ulterior motive behind it. It just came out and put itself together. Don't be intimidated. You're not intimidated by stupidity, why be intimidated by something else uninspired and unplanned?
Right now things are just happening. All cause and effect crumbles in this overlap of years
'It was me, waiting for me'
Tongs away... to the last piece of post... hehe
Monday, December 6, 2010
A great big warm welcome to myself.
Please ignore the euphemism that is my title. I was just wanting to say a hey to this big, gleaming sphere of blogos (it's like calling someone a wino, but with more pretentious wit and less blurring of grammar rules. Actually, strike out that last bit) that I've just recently joined. Soon, you will realise the complete lack of ability I have in the worlds of narrative and the written word but, let's be clear about this, it should be fun. Perhaps. With some luck.
Moving on.
Recently I've been suffering from the worlds most horrendous terminal illness. Well, terminal in a creative sense of the word. I've become a sufferer of writers block. This is not as it sounds, a giant piece of cobblestone tied to my pen (I know you Minecraft addicts were thinking it) but instead the complete lack of inspiration to write. So I find myself here exploring the great beyond of my mind thanks to a sense of melancholic despair and a Justin Bieber track I found that had been slowed down 800% and sounded like someone exploring the electric impulses of my synapses.
Surprisingly, given my writers' block, I found it overgrown. The pot plants of my psyches' front veranda overflowing their bounds, the lawn unkempt and unruly with the crabgrass of my subconscious slowly winning the turf war (...cause it's lawn...get it?) against my boring self and last weeks newspapers piling up in the farthest corner where the annoying paper boy throws them seemingly on purpose to test his aim just to get to me. What was I talking about?
I found many ideas, but realised quickly and abruptly:
None of this is interesting.
You see, being a gamer, I like to talk about games. Unsurprisingly. However, people don't want to read a blog about your latest foray into the world of nerdery if it involves anything past a controller and a terrorists' head being blown into the gritty brown wall behind it somewhere in Afghanistan.
I retreat back into my boarded up house, finding more talk of miniatures, cards, indie puzzle games, final fantasy jokes. On and on, I wade through the flotsam and jetsam of a games junkie. Soon I feel despair that I'll ever find anything interesting or entertaining for the mass blogosphere until I hit something that overlaps in the great venn diagram of games and philosophy.
Ludology.
A really cool concept in dismantling games. It simply looks at gameplay, how a game is structured, made. It judges it's rules, it's complexities, it's way of levelling the playing field for everyone. The tactics.
Interestingly, you would think that a complex, academic way of dismantling and analysing games would eschew you're gamer staples, such as the Call of Duty series or even things such as Super Mario 3. The great thing is, often and knowingly, it encourages these things.
The thing about COD: Modern Warfare and it's successor was that it played well. Really well. These were games that were spit shined and spit shined until they played well, looked beautiful and encouraged people to introduce themselves. This isn't to say there aren't problems, the fact that the "noob-tube" exists is contrary to my previous argument, but no game is perfect. And the 'tube' serves a purpose. An awe-inspiringly exploitable, annoying and obvious purpose. It helps noobs.
However, using the same tools that you used to judge this AAA title, with millions of dollars poured into it's mixing pot of production, you can judge a game made in someones' little scummy meth (read: games) lab in a matter of weeks. VVVVV is an indie darling made by one man and it involves 8 bit graphics, an eerie soundtrack and only 3 action buttons. One to move your character left, one to move your character right and one to change the direction of gravity. This game plays smoothly and has a generous checkpoint section that makes it's difficulty bearable as well as making the game more user friendly. It's puzzles can be worked out in a variety of methods, with the trial and error method probably not being a great one but often used. Check it out, it's pretty cool.
Ludology can deal with any game from any background. However it falters greatly. I recently realised that this made the method unusable for me. And many others. Ludology ignores the story a game tells for it's nuts and bolts build. This means that, despite a game like Final Fantasy X with it's amazing storyline, great character design and set pieces, it becomes broken in the eyes of ludology. Because there is no "jump button" and this lowers user accessibility, because the movement is linear, because the combat isn't overly shaken up during the entire story and because the levelling system is broken in more ways than one. But this is one of the classic games of our generation! Ok...maybe only for gamers, but still. The method is broken.
It's like saying: "I found Inglorious Basterds only OK. The scenes are really long, and the action only happens very occasionally". You ignore the tension in the dialogue, the acting, the entire reason for the film! Ludology is the main form of games deconstruction, yet it ignores such a basic premise of creation. Games don't just have to made for fun. They can say something too.
...It would be good if they were fun too of course...just saying.
On second thoughts, perhaps ludology isn't really a big overlap between my interests and others. Perhaps I have been searching through my minds proverbial loo instead of my fridge and given you the meal of un-related turd instead of spicy Italian thought sausage. But I enjoyed this rant. And Damn right you better enjoy my rants to come!
Because Shady is here folks, and here to stay!
(Hey next week I might post something good, so stick around, eh?)
Moving on.
Recently I've been suffering from the worlds most horrendous terminal illness. Well, terminal in a creative sense of the word. I've become a sufferer of writers block. This is not as it sounds, a giant piece of cobblestone tied to my pen (I know you Minecraft addicts were thinking it) but instead the complete lack of inspiration to write. So I find myself here exploring the great beyond of my mind thanks to a sense of melancholic despair and a Justin Bieber track I found that had been slowed down 800% and sounded like someone exploring the electric impulses of my synapses.
Surprisingly, given my writers' block, I found it overgrown. The pot plants of my psyches' front veranda overflowing their bounds, the lawn unkempt and unruly with the crabgrass of my subconscious slowly winning the turf war (...cause it's lawn...get it?) against my boring self and last weeks newspapers piling up in the farthest corner where the annoying paper boy throws them seemingly on purpose to test his aim just to get to me. What was I talking about?
I found many ideas, but realised quickly and abruptly:
None of this is interesting.
You see, being a gamer, I like to talk about games. Unsurprisingly. However, people don't want to read a blog about your latest foray into the world of nerdery if it involves anything past a controller and a terrorists' head being blown into the gritty brown wall behind it somewhere in Afghanistan.
I retreat back into my boarded up house, finding more talk of miniatures, cards, indie puzzle games, final fantasy jokes. On and on, I wade through the flotsam and jetsam of a games junkie. Soon I feel despair that I'll ever find anything interesting or entertaining for the mass blogosphere until I hit something that overlaps in the great venn diagram of games and philosophy.
Ludology.
A really cool concept in dismantling games. It simply looks at gameplay, how a game is structured, made. It judges it's rules, it's complexities, it's way of levelling the playing field for everyone. The tactics.
Interestingly, you would think that a complex, academic way of dismantling and analysing games would eschew you're gamer staples, such as the Call of Duty series or even things such as Super Mario 3. The great thing is, often and knowingly, it encourages these things.
The thing about COD: Modern Warfare and it's successor was that it played well. Really well. These were games that were spit shined and spit shined until they played well, looked beautiful and encouraged people to introduce themselves. This isn't to say there aren't problems, the fact that the "noob-tube" exists is contrary to my previous argument, but no game is perfect. And the 'tube' serves a purpose. An awe-inspiringly exploitable, annoying and obvious purpose. It helps noobs.
However, using the same tools that you used to judge this AAA title, with millions of dollars poured into it's mixing pot of production, you can judge a game made in someones' little scummy meth (read: games) lab in a matter of weeks. VVVVV is an indie darling made by one man and it involves 8 bit graphics, an eerie soundtrack and only 3 action buttons. One to move your character left, one to move your character right and one to change the direction of gravity. This game plays smoothly and has a generous checkpoint section that makes it's difficulty bearable as well as making the game more user friendly. It's puzzles can be worked out in a variety of methods, with the trial and error method probably not being a great one but often used. Check it out, it's pretty cool.
Ludology can deal with any game from any background. However it falters greatly. I recently realised that this made the method unusable for me. And many others. Ludology ignores the story a game tells for it's nuts and bolts build. This means that, despite a game like Final Fantasy X with it's amazing storyline, great character design and set pieces, it becomes broken in the eyes of ludology. Because there is no "jump button" and this lowers user accessibility, because the movement is linear, because the combat isn't overly shaken up during the entire story and because the levelling system is broken in more ways than one. But this is one of the classic games of our generation! Ok...maybe only for gamers, but still. The method is broken.
It's like saying: "I found Inglorious Basterds only OK. The scenes are really long, and the action only happens very occasionally". You ignore the tension in the dialogue, the acting, the entire reason for the film! Ludology is the main form of games deconstruction, yet it ignores such a basic premise of creation. Games don't just have to made for fun. They can say something too.
...It would be good if they were fun too of course...just saying.
On second thoughts, perhaps ludology isn't really a big overlap between my interests and others. Perhaps I have been searching through my minds proverbial loo instead of my fridge and given you the meal of un-related turd instead of spicy Italian thought sausage. But I enjoyed this rant. And Damn right you better enjoy my rants to come!
Because Shady is here folks, and here to stay!
(Hey next week I might post something good, so stick around, eh?)
Friday, December 3, 2010
a look
In the fear that people will forget this place exists I have taken it upon myself to relate the fire that is this blog. Now considering all past attempts at doing such results will be bleak and nothing will come of this but it is nice to pretend.
I feel that it must be mentioned that the writers of this blog come together in a meeting of dumplings that on paper just barely rivals a meeting of the chess club though in actual fact was at least twice as cool. Much irrelevant matter was discussed in true DID a mess style and I can safely report that for you the reader there were no benefits. I myself had a glorious meal in the presence of respectable company (Crucible Tongs was unable to attend due to apparent fake illness). To summarise this was a paragraph that benefits you little but allowed me to subtly insult CT which as fair as I am concerned is all that matters.
Now on to the post… Being a poor student who cuts corners in all ways possible I find that I am doing a frequent amount of walking late at night after taking cheap public transport. See the night is really the best time to be out on your own. There isn’t the safety of daylights bear hug thus keeping you on edge and actively in thought. See I like to reflect on every irrelevant moment of my life in those ridiculous what if scenarios that don’t hold an ounce of probability. I don’t wish to be confused as some sort of pseudointellectual junkie because that is really not me. I don’t have the patience or the time to look up enough Wikipedia articles to be like that. I like to focus more on just the everyday moments of life side of things in plain speak.
So I come to where I have been heading all this time and it really is possibly more a cliché tabloid kind of topic but I would like it to be treated with a little more respect. The intimacy found in a shared daze between two individuals. If there was such a feeling as floating on a cloud this would be it. Those moments were possibility is endless and realism has no place for those few seconds can set a person free. Eyes are what I would undoubtedly say are the most beautiful feature of the human form. They don’t age like the rest of use and are a gate into everything about a person. Nothing is hidden in the eye.
This little piece came up when the other day when I made eye contact for a few seconds with a person I could never have the guts to meet but that little moment gave me everything I needed to keep going. It was a passing thing in an everyday situation but it is just a pleasant feeling that all of a sudden makes life easy again.
There is not a lot more to add to it I mean it is only like a 15 min walk that I do each night and I have a tendency to harp on only one point per trip but hopefully this is something a little different to kick start this thing all over again a positive piece is always a nice change.
…..MF
Sunday, November 21, 2010
So finally free.
I'M FREE! My year of hard work and study involving assignments, research, laboratory reports, tutorials, and lectures is over! Who am I kidding? I have been pretty much free all year. I have been hearing my friends, one by one, rejoicing about their new found free time that they have after exams and study have finally finished, and I felt the same upon leaving my last exam. Chemistry; the bane of my existance. I vowed to drop chemistry at the end of this year and after my exam I walked out with a skip in my step because not only did I not have to study chemistry anymore... I didn't have to study anything for about 5 months. Now, I am not the type who really studies at all; I feel bad for people who wanted to be in my course but missed out on the enTER who probably deserve it more because they will work harder. The freedom that I feel is not freedom from study, it is freedom from worry about how I will get through the next biology lab without having read the chapter about microbes, or how I will join in the discussion during my criminology tute when I haven't been to a lecture since week 2. This freedom, I thought, was just as good. Alas; it is not.
I finished my exams less than a week ago and already I am hearing the boredom attempt to creep up behind me; it is failing to creep as it is a dirty whore who wears high heeled shoes and my house is full of hardwood floors... THAT'S WHY I CAN HEAR IT! If it would only be sensible and wear flats it would be able to pounce on me without me noticing its presence until it was already too late and I was engulfed by the gluttonous belly of the boredom beast. (Yes boredom is gluttonous; boredom is a fat whore in high heels with too much pride to wear flat shoes after 6pm unless she is going to the supermarket on a Tuesday after 11pm in which case she is often seen wearing too much make up, tracksuit pants, a singlet that is too small for her, and some ugg boots). Anyway, the freedom that many of my friends are enjoying allows them to finally relax and concentrate on earning a bit of money while still making time to hang out with their friends during the hot, sweaty, summer months. I have been relaxing all year while concentraring on earning a bit of money while still making time to hang out with my friends, the only difference now is that I have lost the excitement and drama of having deadlines that I constantly ALMOST miss. Without a little drama in my life I will probably just shrivel up and die.
My school slash uni holidays usually fit into the same pattern where everything I do falls into 5 categories and 1 almost category.
CLEANING SLASH ORGANISING
The most exciting passtime for me during these periods of nothing involves 3 day long adventures in which I move everything out of my room and rearrange it all so that my cupboard is colour coordinated, my DVDs are in alphabetical order, and my shelves are spotless. Once my room has been taken care of, I inconsiderately move things around in other rooms and sift through our storage to find things that we put away before extending the house many years back so that I can laugh about how lame my diary was or jump for joy at finding a book containing an Aboriginal story about a baby sun getting lost from the mother sun and then getting bitten by a snake, which upon reading will still make me cry. Being organised makes me so happy and usually it lasts about a month before everything is moved and nothing has a real home; but this time my room is still immaculate from last holidays so I have NOTHING TO REARRANGE. I may just die a little bit.
SEX
During the school year I seem to have an adequate amount of this, but in the holidays there is too much time. There is no need to study or to get up early, and so the result is endless opportunities to have 'the sex' and do other things relating to 'the sex'. The thing is, during the uni year there is also a lot of time for 'the sex' in comparrison to the school year, so this year the holidays wont be that much different. Again, we lack the drama and excitement here.
WORK
I have been working 5 days a week for some time now because I am an absolute machine (working on front end at Safeway really takes a lot of effort). In the old hell hole of a store which I loved to pieces (literally, it was falling to pieces) we had heaps of fun. In the old store and during renovations we had many interesting adventures, usually involving the roof collapsing from excessive rain resulting in a flooded store, but in the newly renovated place nothing crazy ever happens. I will admit that our 2IC of front end getting punched in the throat was pretty crazy but I wasn't there so I don't count that is excitement for me (he is ok by the way... nobody panic). In the new store I basically just stand at self serve and listen to customers complain about how these machines are taking the jobs of young kids; I smile and nod while wishing I could yell something along the lines of "IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO FUCKING USE MY MACHINES THEN LISTEN TO ME WHEN I TELL YOU WHY IT ISN'T WORKING INSTEAD OF YELLING AT THE SCREEN AND THROWING THINGS TO THE GROUND! WHY ARE YOU EVEN USING THE MACHINES IF YOU THINK THEY ARE STEALING JOBS OFF POOR YOUNG CHILDREN! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOU COMPLAIN! I AM THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HAVE TO LISTEN TO COMPLAINING EVERY DAY! NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET OUT OF MY STORE YOU TECHNOLOGY ILLITERATE TOSSER!" Something along those lines, not exactly that of course. Anyway, holding back the urge to punch many customers right in the ovaries does not exactly count as interesting or exciting; it just kind of makes me need to pee.
COMPUTER
There isn't really much that can be said about how uneventful a computer can be. I spend about 80% of my day on the computer if I am not working on that day. About 70% of the time I spend at home involves a computer. This includes facebook, terrible blogging, tumblr, youtube, downloading music, and watching television shows from my hard drive on my computer screen because I am too lazy to get an HDMI cable for my mum's house and also too lazy to take the one from dad's with me to both places. None of this is very exciting, except when you hear that pre-battle music on Bleach that is the same before nearly every intense fight, then you know shit is going down.
FRIENDS
I am not the sad loner that I sound like on D.I.D a Mess I swear; I actually do have friends who I hang out with on the odd occasion. This category includes going out without drinking because I haven't been paid since Wednesday, going out and getting a little tipsy, going out and getting really drunk so that I am stupid enough to enjoy the music and the Hawthorn, and getting aboslutely slaughtered so I am stupid enough to text everyone in my phonebook with an impressively coherant message stating that I need to take a massive dump, or something of the sort. It also includes shopping trips on which I have fun, but always spend too much money which results in my being poor and not being able to drink when I go out. My friends are incredibly fun and interesting, but not very dramatic. CURSE YOU HOLIDAYS! Why can you not provide me with the intesnity that I so desperately crave?!
FOOD
Now, food doesn't really need its own category because it fits into all of these categories, but I love it so much that I wanted to give it a little bit of a mention. In the first category, aka cleaning slash organising, food lives just in the next room in the ice cave of wonderment (aka the fridge). I make multiple trips to the ice cave of wonderment to retrieve snow juice (usually milk or delicious coola cordial; and what the hell kind of flavour is 'coola' anyway?) or delicious fluffy snow treats (such as cheese, hazelnut chocolate, green olives, and savory shapes which are by far the best flavour, that's right all you BBQ lovers.. BBQ shapes are just awful). These snacks are brought back to my batcave (aka my room) during the cleaning process to keep my energy up for the long task ahead. In the second category aka sex, you wouldn't think that food would have any part in it right? Or you would think that food only had a dirty 'I-want-to-smother-you-with-whipped-cream-and-chocolate-sauce-so-I-can-lick-it-off' sort of inclusion; but you would be wrong. I don't know how many of you out there are like me, but there are certain food that I eat that just make me want to make out with somebody; and no it's not the normal things that people say make you randy like oysters anad crazy herbal tea! If I eat some tira misu you better believe I am going to find someone to make out with. After a good souvlaki all the boys better hide because the first one I see will be face raped. What can I say; I love my food. In the third category aka work, food is most important on my breaks. Sure, at the service desk we often have a packet of lollies that were found 'broken' and needed to be written off, but on a long shift in which I have 3 breaks, I feel the need to buy food in all of them even though by my ast break I am never hungry. Work makes me fatter! In the fourth category aka computer, the food is often right next to me while I munch away and watch Bleach. This is why there are many food crumbs inbetween my keys. In the fifth category aka friends, food is just food. We always eat way too much especially when we are bored. The worst offender is Shady Lewis from my other blog; when we are together we just eat sugar coated sugar and drink. Food fits in with all the otehr categories but in its own special way. It is amazing and one of my favourite things in the world; I would die without it (wait... duh). The thing is, food is not DRAMATIC!
As you can see there is not much excitement to be had in the holidays. There is, of course, many fun times to be had, but nothing that can't be done during the uni year and nothing that involves enough tension and excitement.
I apologise for the long post today, but I know how you all love me and miss my writing so I thought I would give you a large helping on which you will probably choke and die. Anyway, the point of this story is that if nobody provides me with some sort of deadline that will impact on my happiness I may have to to move to America to join the Russian Mafia to provide myself with some sort of excitement. I thirst for the blood of the innocent...
Thanks for reading.
-Renji
I finished my exams less than a week ago and already I am hearing the boredom attempt to creep up behind me; it is failing to creep as it is a dirty whore who wears high heeled shoes and my house is full of hardwood floors... THAT'S WHY I CAN HEAR IT! If it would only be sensible and wear flats it would be able to pounce on me without me noticing its presence until it was already too late and I was engulfed by the gluttonous belly of the boredom beast. (Yes boredom is gluttonous; boredom is a fat whore in high heels with too much pride to wear flat shoes after 6pm unless she is going to the supermarket on a Tuesday after 11pm in which case she is often seen wearing too much make up, tracksuit pants, a singlet that is too small for her, and some ugg boots). Anyway, the freedom that many of my friends are enjoying allows them to finally relax and concentrate on earning a bit of money while still making time to hang out with their friends during the hot, sweaty, summer months. I have been relaxing all year while concentraring on earning a bit of money while still making time to hang out with my friends, the only difference now is that I have lost the excitement and drama of having deadlines that I constantly ALMOST miss. Without a little drama in my life I will probably just shrivel up and die.
My school slash uni holidays usually fit into the same pattern where everything I do falls into 5 categories and 1 almost category.
CLEANING SLASH ORGANISING
The most exciting passtime for me during these periods of nothing involves 3 day long adventures in which I move everything out of my room and rearrange it all so that my cupboard is colour coordinated, my DVDs are in alphabetical order, and my shelves are spotless. Once my room has been taken care of, I inconsiderately move things around in other rooms and sift through our storage to find things that we put away before extending the house many years back so that I can laugh about how lame my diary was or jump for joy at finding a book containing an Aboriginal story about a baby sun getting lost from the mother sun and then getting bitten by a snake, which upon reading will still make me cry. Being organised makes me so happy and usually it lasts about a month before everything is moved and nothing has a real home; but this time my room is still immaculate from last holidays so I have NOTHING TO REARRANGE. I may just die a little bit.
SEX
During the school year I seem to have an adequate amount of this, but in the holidays there is too much time. There is no need to study or to get up early, and so the result is endless opportunities to have 'the sex' and do other things relating to 'the sex'. The thing is, during the uni year there is also a lot of time for 'the sex' in comparrison to the school year, so this year the holidays wont be that much different. Again, we lack the drama and excitement here.
WORK
I have been working 5 days a week for some time now because I am an absolute machine (working on front end at Safeway really takes a lot of effort). In the old hell hole of a store which I loved to pieces (literally, it was falling to pieces) we had heaps of fun. In the old store and during renovations we had many interesting adventures, usually involving the roof collapsing from excessive rain resulting in a flooded store, but in the newly renovated place nothing crazy ever happens. I will admit that our 2IC of front end getting punched in the throat was pretty crazy but I wasn't there so I don't count that is excitement for me (he is ok by the way... nobody panic). In the new store I basically just stand at self serve and listen to customers complain about how these machines are taking the jobs of young kids; I smile and nod while wishing I could yell something along the lines of "IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO FUCKING USE MY MACHINES THEN LISTEN TO ME WHEN I TELL YOU WHY IT ISN'T WORKING INSTEAD OF YELLING AT THE SCREEN AND THROWING THINGS TO THE GROUND! WHY ARE YOU EVEN USING THE MACHINES IF YOU THINK THEY ARE STEALING JOBS OFF POOR YOUNG CHILDREN! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOU COMPLAIN! I AM THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HAVE TO LISTEN TO COMPLAINING EVERY DAY! NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET OUT OF MY STORE YOU TECHNOLOGY ILLITERATE TOSSER!" Something along those lines, not exactly that of course. Anyway, holding back the urge to punch many customers right in the ovaries does not exactly count as interesting or exciting; it just kind of makes me need to pee.
COMPUTER
There isn't really much that can be said about how uneventful a computer can be. I spend about 80% of my day on the computer if I am not working on that day. About 70% of the time I spend at home involves a computer. This includes facebook, terrible blogging, tumblr, youtube, downloading music, and watching television shows from my hard drive on my computer screen because I am too lazy to get an HDMI cable for my mum's house and also too lazy to take the one from dad's with me to both places. None of this is very exciting, except when you hear that pre-battle music on Bleach that is the same before nearly every intense fight, then you know shit is going down.
FRIENDS
I am not the sad loner that I sound like on D.I.D a Mess I swear; I actually do have friends who I hang out with on the odd occasion. This category includes going out without drinking because I haven't been paid since Wednesday, going out and getting a little tipsy, going out and getting really drunk so that I am stupid enough to enjoy the music and the Hawthorn, and getting aboslutely slaughtered so I am stupid enough to text everyone in my phonebook with an impressively coherant message stating that I need to take a massive dump, or something of the sort. It also includes shopping trips on which I have fun, but always spend too much money which results in my being poor and not being able to drink when I go out. My friends are incredibly fun and interesting, but not very dramatic. CURSE YOU HOLIDAYS! Why can you not provide me with the intesnity that I so desperately crave?!
FOOD
Now, food doesn't really need its own category because it fits into all of these categories, but I love it so much that I wanted to give it a little bit of a mention. In the first category, aka cleaning slash organising, food lives just in the next room in the ice cave of wonderment (aka the fridge). I make multiple trips to the ice cave of wonderment to retrieve snow juice (usually milk or delicious coola cordial; and what the hell kind of flavour is 'coola' anyway?) or delicious fluffy snow treats (such as cheese, hazelnut chocolate, green olives, and savory shapes which are by far the best flavour, that's right all you BBQ lovers.. BBQ shapes are just awful). These snacks are brought back to my batcave (aka my room) during the cleaning process to keep my energy up for the long task ahead. In the second category aka sex, you wouldn't think that food would have any part in it right? Or you would think that food only had a dirty 'I-want-to-smother-you-with-whipped-cream-and-chocolate-sauce-so-I-can-lick-it-off' sort of inclusion; but you would be wrong. I don't know how many of you out there are like me, but there are certain food that I eat that just make me want to make out with somebody; and no it's not the normal things that people say make you randy like oysters anad crazy herbal tea! If I eat some tira misu you better believe I am going to find someone to make out with. After a good souvlaki all the boys better hide because the first one I see will be face raped. What can I say; I love my food. In the third category aka work, food is most important on my breaks. Sure, at the service desk we often have a packet of lollies that were found 'broken' and needed to be written off, but on a long shift in which I have 3 breaks, I feel the need to buy food in all of them even though by my ast break I am never hungry. Work makes me fatter! In the fourth category aka computer, the food is often right next to me while I munch away and watch Bleach. This is why there are many food crumbs inbetween my keys. In the fifth category aka friends, food is just food. We always eat way too much especially when we are bored. The worst offender is Shady Lewis from my other blog; when we are together we just eat sugar coated sugar and drink. Food fits in with all the otehr categories but in its own special way. It is amazing and one of my favourite things in the world; I would die without it (wait... duh). The thing is, food is not DRAMATIC!
As you can see there is not much excitement to be had in the holidays. There is, of course, many fun times to be had, but nothing that can't be done during the uni year and nothing that involves enough tension and excitement.
I apologise for the long post today, but I know how you all love me and miss my writing so I thought I would give you a large helping on which you will probably choke and die. Anyway, the point of this story is that if nobody provides me with some sort of deadline that will impact on my happiness I may have to to move to America to join the Russian Mafia to provide myself with some sort of excitement. I thirst for the blood of the innocent...
Thanks for reading.
-Renji
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Reminiscing with Uncle Tongs
*falls out of rocking chair and drops pipe full of embers down shirt and managing to curse profusely and with unmatched innovation at the same time* Well, I'm gonna try a segment again, because they don't last and I can blame a lack of quality on subject matter. Hello and welcome to Reminiscing with Uncle Tongs... because it makes me sound like a loveable old slave from Song of the South or something. *NOTE: This is NOT an example for the level of insensitivity in this post, I'm talking about MY childhood, a series of crude exaggerations of sexual inadequacy... I'm liable to lose my shit at some point and put Mel Gibson to shame, THIS IS YOUR WARNING*
Okay so I got bored and decided to catch a moth alive today, because I'm of good old(er by the day *violent shuddering*) Gen Y, I've been conditioned by the mass media to associate any and all barbarism concerning animals with Pokemon. Nice one guys! Now you know the only one's kicking up a stink about cosmetic testing had hilariously deprived childhoods that never involved the excruciating complex of having 'Catching 'em All!' carved into their brains right before starting off by deciding on the two. fucking. pokemon. you. could. never. ever. own.
Anyway, I've decided, I'm on holidays and to stop me planning the slayings of D-list celebrities I'm gonna play through Pokemon until I get stuck, lose interest or rip my laptop in half because Sand Attack used nine times is FUCKING CHEATING!!!
Oh yeah, I'm playing this illegally too, if you don't realise, but fuck the Nintendo corporation, I bought enough pokemon related shit as a child to retire them all into next week. So here I go, I'm booting this up...
Yeah, it's the newfangled colourful homosexual one, for the record, I wanted BLUE because I'm obsessive over these things
Oh god, how quaint... 'New Skool Pokemon for pussy children who don't know shit about anything' is explaining how to play... If I recall, you press A to talk, B to back out of a selection like I wish I could've done with all my past relationships and directions to walk in them... kids these days suck, you know it. ALRIGHT, LISSEN TO ME GAME AND LISSEN UP GOOD. I HAD 150 FUCKING POKEMON BY LIKE THE END OF 1999 AND THE ONLY REASON I DIDN'T GET ANY CRED FOR IT WAS BECAUSE YOU BASTARDS TACKED THAT MEW THING THAT LOOKS LIKE ABORTION, DON'T. TELL. ME. HOW. TO. DO. THIS.
Well, the ball is rolling, fates are turning... you get the point
'So you'd basically flip out if during the throes of passion I accidentally yelled Digimon Doctor?'
Oh for fuck's sake, I do this to escape the horrors of my reality, I don't need everyone over 60's definition of manhood haunting me here as well...
I want to say NO, I really do, it destroys all social convention... but I'd have to spend another four minutes typing out an alias and working out how the hell I find lower case letters
What the hell is rivalry at the infant stage? Or is it just some other fucked up element of this backwards culture of pitting everything against everything for NO GOOD REASON?!?
Okay, so I call my rival GARY because I'm a purist slut and TWATSODWITHBETTERHAIRTHANME didn't fit. I go downstairs and head off to Prof. Oak's mysterious back shed 'lab' for my free goddamn pokemon to nurture into a merciless killing machine without a hitch, oh, apart from the fact that it makes that funny noise that sounds like a beepy frustrated groan when you try to walk into space occupied by some other character... yeah after eleven minutes of going 'Oh, Ash's mum, OH, OH, OH'... WHAT?!? I'm trying to catch the perspective of immaturity alright?!?, I'm allowed. I arrive at a building that smells like sweat and acetone.
I enter the lab... and the music changes, to some stupid upbeat theme that isn't the battle music... or that really epic Route #-- song that I had for my ringtone for ages because it made me cry with nostalgia... Well, I do what anyone else about to receive their FIRST. REAL. POKEMON. would do... I check out every bookcase looking for free potions, hey, free shit... and I might find whatever kind of distressing pornography that I have no doubt in my mind the old professor is into...
CUT TO THE CHASE, I pick squirtle, that thing's a beast. It evolves and gets guns. I'm pretty sure I could wipe one of these small towns off the map with those... For all you bitching about charmander because it's a dragon, grow up. Charizard is a sexual fantasy that can never happen... The fire breathing dragon WILL. NEVER. BE. YOUR. LOYAL. COMPANION. TO. FEND. OFF. BULLIES. AND. LONELINESS. Get over it. Oh and as for Bulbasaur, it's a matter of consistency. You see, Squirtle at least rhymes with 'turtle'... Bulbasaur DOESN'T rhyme with 'cancerous frog'. Cry me a river... you seriously fucked up people for not picking Squirtle...
'Don't choose me, Don't choose me, Don't choose... Oh shit... SHITSHITSHITSODDINGFRIGGEN!!! NO, PLEASE, DON'T LET THIS KID EVEN TOUCH ME, LOOK INTO HIS EYES?!?!? DO YOU SEE A SOUL?!? DO YOU?!?!?!
Just so he knows what kind of person he's dealing with... FOR THE REST OF HIS NO DOUBT SHORT AND HORRIBLY-LADEN-WITH-AWKWARD-SOCIAL-OBLIGATION-TO-AVERT-MY-TEARS-LIFE
GARY goes ahead and takes Bulbasaur. Dick move, GARY, dick move.
And what's the first thing that cocky little bitch does?
Rubs in how my sense of style is more than a decade old now...
So now I'm thrust into yielding my Pokeginity... at least I've known the guy all my life... and so I awkwardly fumble around to determine what I'm comfortable with and trying recall stuff I've seen in the movies. He gets a little weirded out when I try to figure out what other people have done in this situation through subtle questioning and struggling not to look like I'm defensively obsessing over some of Gary's more experienced past RIVALS (because that's what the kids must be calling it now).
Like men of this land of pokemon, we duel to determine our fate...
Yeah, I'm already in tears... I get to watch my first friend get eaten alive while I flail around panicking uselessly... "JUST RUN, WE CAN'T WIN"
TAIL WHIP IS A FUCKING ATTACK. IF I WHIPPED SOMEONE WITH AN APPENDAGE IT WOULD BE CLASSED AS ASSAULT MAKING IT A DAMAGING ATTACK. SERIOUSLY, THEY USED IT AS AN ATTACK IN THE SHOW ALL THE FRIGGEN TIME?!?!?!
So yeah, I lose horribly and everyone is kind of looking in stunned silence at this display of terrifying inadequacy and what it says about the fact that I'll be a voting member of society one day... then they recall this is pokemon land and there's nothing remotely close to democracy, any ol' criminal organisation can run the show... A series of increasingly teary and reluctant retries tricks GARY into commanding his toad to fight like an acid dropping hippy... I'm serious, his attacks just started to miss me regardless... Forcing the game to let me win WAS my scheme however, so I'm cool with this... but for his passive aggression in letting me win I might go let FREND-1 relieve himself in GARY's room later...
So I leave the town... CLEARLY NOONE MISSES ME... and proceed to let FREND-1 eat as much of the native species he feels inclined to. Introducing a grossly dominant species to a fragile ecosystem gets me stupidly drunk on my newfound sense of power over a world that's wronged and ridiculed me for so long. In a stupor of violence I begin nourishing myself on the prospect of an unholy beast army cleansing the world of it's sins... Through imprisonment and extensive waterboarding I convince a small bird that it was placed on this earth as a saviour for all of mankind. Now it can only say it's own newly christened name, over and over again, but it still has claws, which will do nicely... 'FREND-2, FREND-2' it screeches in a euphoric joy as it pulls mice apart at my whim.
Now that society is aware of my deviance, I'm left with no choice but to flee to the woods. The woods are infested with filth. The filth of man's progeny. You see in pokemon land people don't have children, they have Bug Catchers, which sit among detritus the bottom of the predatory chain.
'THEY WILL NEVER FIND YOUR BODY'
Oh god, OH GOD?!? Is there even a pokemon god?!?! NO, I'm in no fit state for worship... I've just assisted my FRENDS in the slaying and subsequent partial consumption of a child?!... oh and I like, totally threw a pokeball at his caterpie, which is a hangable offence in pokemon land... I think I need some serious help, I have a condition... OAK! He's a professor!! Surely he'll know what to do... No maybe I'm taking this all way too seriously, all I need to do is hide what's left of the body and then I'll just chill out and go play some Pokemon on my laptop, yeah, that's it. I've got a feeling everyting will turn out... juuuuuuuuuuust fine...
Mel, the ball is in your court ;)
TONGS AWAY
Okay so I got bored and decided to catch a moth alive today, because I'm of good old(er by the day *violent shuddering*) Gen Y, I've been conditioned by the mass media to associate any and all barbarism concerning animals with Pokemon. Nice one guys! Now you know the only one's kicking up a stink about cosmetic testing had hilariously deprived childhoods that never involved the excruciating complex of having 'Catching 'em All!' carved into their brains right before starting off by deciding on the two. fucking. pokemon. you. could. never. ever. own.
Anyway, I've decided, I'm on holidays and to stop me planning the slayings of D-list celebrities I'm gonna play through Pokemon until I get stuck, lose interest or rip my laptop in half because Sand Attack used nine times is FUCKING CHEATING!!!
Oh yeah, I'm playing this illegally too, if you don't realise, but fuck the Nintendo corporation, I bought enough pokemon related shit as a child to retire them all into next week. So here I go, I'm booting this up...
Yeah, it's the newfangled colourful homosexual one, for the record, I wanted BLUE because I'm obsessive over these things
Oh god, how quaint... 'New Skool Pokemon for pussy children who don't know shit about anything' is explaining how to play... If I recall, you press A to talk, B to back out of a selection like I wish I could've done with all my past relationships and directions to walk in them... kids these days suck, you know it. ALRIGHT, LISSEN TO ME GAME AND LISSEN UP GOOD. I HAD 150 FUCKING POKEMON BY LIKE THE END OF 1999 AND THE ONLY REASON I DIDN'T GET ANY CRED FOR IT WAS BECAUSE YOU BASTARDS TACKED THAT MEW THING THAT LOOKS LIKE ABORTION, DON'T. TELL. ME. HOW. TO. DO. THIS.
Well, the ball is rolling, fates are turning... you get the point
'So you'd basically flip out if during the throes of passion I accidentally yelled Digimon Doctor?'
Oh for fuck's sake, I do this to escape the horrors of my reality, I don't need everyone over 60's definition of manhood haunting me here as well...
I want to say NO, I really do, it destroys all social convention... but I'd have to spend another four minutes typing out an alias and working out how the hell I find lower case letters
What the hell is rivalry at the infant stage? Or is it just some other fucked up element of this backwards culture of pitting everything against everything for NO GOOD REASON?!?
Okay, so I call my rival GARY because I'm a purist slut and TWATSODWITHBETTERHAIRTHANME didn't fit. I go downstairs and head off to Prof. Oak's mysterious back shed 'lab' for my free goddamn pokemon to nurture into a merciless killing machine without a hitch, oh, apart from the fact that it makes that funny noise that sounds like a beepy frustrated groan when you try to walk into space occupied by some other character... yeah after eleven minutes of going 'Oh, Ash's mum, OH, OH, OH'... WHAT?!? I'm trying to catch the perspective of immaturity alright?!?, I'm allowed. I arrive at a building that smells like sweat and acetone.
I enter the lab... and the music changes, to some stupid upbeat theme that isn't the battle music... or that really epic Route #-- song that I had for my ringtone for ages because it made me cry with nostalgia... Well, I do what anyone else about to receive their FIRST. REAL. POKEMON. would do... I check out every bookcase looking for free potions, hey, free shit... and I might find whatever kind of distressing pornography that I have no doubt in my mind the old professor is into...
CUT TO THE CHASE, I pick squirtle, that thing's a beast. It evolves and gets guns. I'm pretty sure I could wipe one of these small towns off the map with those... For all you bitching about charmander because it's a dragon, grow up. Charizard is a sexual fantasy that can never happen... The fire breathing dragon WILL. NEVER. BE. YOUR. LOYAL. COMPANION. TO. FEND. OFF. BULLIES. AND. LONELINESS. Get over it. Oh and as for Bulbasaur, it's a matter of consistency. You see, Squirtle at least rhymes with 'turtle'... Bulbasaur DOESN'T rhyme with 'cancerous frog'. Cry me a river... you seriously fucked up people for not picking Squirtle...
'Don't choose me, Don't choose me, Don't choose... Oh shit... SHITSHITSHITSODDINGFRIGGEN!!! NO, PLEASE, DON'T LET THIS KID EVEN TOUCH ME, LOOK INTO HIS EYES?!?!? DO YOU SEE A SOUL?!? DO YOU?!?!?!
Just so he knows what kind of person he's dealing with... FOR THE REST OF HIS NO DOUBT SHORT AND HORRIBLY-LADEN-WITH-AWKWARD-SOCIAL-OBLIGATION-TO-AVERT-MY-TEARS-LIFE
GARY goes ahead and takes Bulbasaur. Dick move, GARY, dick move.
And what's the first thing that cocky little bitch does?
Rubs in how my sense of style is more than a decade old now...
So now I'm thrust into yielding my Pokeginity... at least I've known the guy all my life... and so I awkwardly fumble around to determine what I'm comfortable with and trying recall stuff I've seen in the movies. He gets a little weirded out when I try to figure out what other people have done in this situation through subtle questioning and struggling not to look like I'm defensively obsessing over some of Gary's more experienced past RIVALS (because that's what the kids must be calling it now).
Like men of this land of pokemon, we duel to determine our fate...
Yeah, I'm already in tears... I get to watch my first friend get eaten alive while I flail around panicking uselessly... "JUST RUN, WE CAN'T WIN"
TAIL WHIP IS A FUCKING ATTACK. IF I WHIPPED SOMEONE WITH AN APPENDAGE IT WOULD BE CLASSED AS ASSAULT MAKING IT A DAMAGING ATTACK. SERIOUSLY, THEY USED IT AS AN ATTACK IN THE SHOW ALL THE FRIGGEN TIME?!?!?!
So yeah, I lose horribly and everyone is kind of looking in stunned silence at this display of terrifying inadequacy and what it says about the fact that I'll be a voting member of society one day... then they recall this is pokemon land and there's nothing remotely close to democracy, any ol' criminal organisation can run the show... A series of increasingly teary and reluctant retries tricks GARY into commanding his toad to fight like an acid dropping hippy... I'm serious, his attacks just started to miss me regardless... Forcing the game to let me win WAS my scheme however, so I'm cool with this... but for his passive aggression in letting me win I might go let FREND-1 relieve himself in GARY's room later...
So I leave the town... CLEARLY NOONE MISSES ME... and proceed to let FREND-1 eat as much of the native species he feels inclined to. Introducing a grossly dominant species to a fragile ecosystem gets me stupidly drunk on my newfound sense of power over a world that's wronged and ridiculed me for so long. In a stupor of violence I begin nourishing myself on the prospect of an unholy beast army cleansing the world of it's sins... Through imprisonment and extensive waterboarding I convince a small bird that it was placed on this earth as a saviour for all of mankind. Now it can only say it's own newly christened name, over and over again, but it still has claws, which will do nicely... 'FREND-2, FREND-2' it screeches in a euphoric joy as it pulls mice apart at my whim.
Now that society is aware of my deviance, I'm left with no choice but to flee to the woods. The woods are infested with filth. The filth of man's progeny. You see in pokemon land people don't have children, they have Bug Catchers, which sit among detritus the bottom of the predatory chain.
'THEY WILL NEVER FIND YOUR BODY'
Oh god, OH GOD?!? Is there even a pokemon god?!?! NO, I'm in no fit state for worship... I've just assisted my FRENDS in the slaying and subsequent partial consumption of a child?!... oh and I like, totally threw a pokeball at his caterpie, which is a hangable offence in pokemon land... I think I need some serious help, I have a condition... OAK! He's a professor!! Surely he'll know what to do... No maybe I'm taking this all way too seriously, all I need to do is hide what's left of the body and then I'll just chill out and go play some Pokemon on my laptop, yeah, that's it. I've got a feeling everyting will turn out... juuuuuuuuuuust fine...
Mel, the ball is in your court ;)
TONGS AWAY
Friday, November 12, 2010
reflections...
So after what can be described as the end of a very successful period of anything but study I feel it is only approriate to look back and just have look at some of the time wasting creations. Doodling is always the best last resort option becuase it can be just done right over the top of your study notes.
Each exam period brings about a new trend to my doodling crazy so to keep you up with the latest trends I will provide you with a piss poor excuse of a blog. So the fashion of the field for the spring of 2010 was arrows. Nobody really saw it comming they had been out for a while but you find once you draw one arrow it must be followed by another arrow. I mean an arrow cant point to nowhere hence another arrow must be drawn. The trend was enourmous and covered many practice exams and blank sheets of paper that could have been used for good. So now I shall leave you with just a small taster of what was on offer...
...who would have ever thought ethics were boring
phyiscs is a sorry excuse of subject and the purple pen really just makes this one so much more than a doodle....
... Some of my earlier work
To be honest a tree wasted its life for this peice of paper it came to no use and it is only here out of my own guilt.
So I hope you enjoyed this taster of boredem
MF
Each exam period brings about a new trend to my doodling crazy so to keep you up with the latest trends I will provide you with a piss poor excuse of a blog. So the fashion of the field for the spring of 2010 was arrows. Nobody really saw it comming they had been out for a while but you find once you draw one arrow it must be followed by another arrow. I mean an arrow cant point to nowhere hence another arrow must be drawn. The trend was enourmous and covered many practice exams and blank sheets of paper that could have been used for good. So now I shall leave you with just a small taster of what was on offer...
...who would have ever thought ethics were boring
To be honest a tree wasted its life for this peice of paper it came to no use and it is only here out of my own guilt.
So I hope you enjoyed this taster of boredem
MF
Monday, November 8, 2010
"There's always someone else having a worse day... like being chained to a wall in someone's sex dungeon."
So I just got out of the bath, and it made that suctioning noise that makes you cringe. You know that noise? Maybe you don't, but it's a kind of sucking, suctioning noise of water draining that happens at odd Tourettes-esque bursts and makes you feel slightly uneasy and embarrassed, like something dreadfully awkward is happening that you're not REALLY at fault for, but you ARE related to.
I felt embarrassed. I felt embarrassed FOR the bathtub.
Anyway, the point of my bathtub rant is probably due to the fact that I've been sucked into, as the french say, L'Exam Study Void.
I spent the entire day today listening to 100 different excerpts from approx. forty different pieces, over and over again, trying to differentiate between them. When I wasn't doing that I was researching the composers of them.
Suffice to say, that if I have to listen to one more minimalist/serialist/pre-emptive electronic piece with a soprano shrieking over the top, I will attempt to headbutt myself into a fine paste.
The other issue with studying is also obviously procrastination. There are far too many things I don't want to consider the amount of time I've spent doing... them.. I don't... want to... consider the amount of time I've spent doing things... too... much... I don't --- LOOK, YOU FUCKING GET THE POINT, GO AND PUT A SQUIGGLY GREEN LINE UNDER IT AND CONSIDER REVISING IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.
But anyway. For your reading pleasure, I will consider the things I don't want to consider that I've done too much of that shouldn't be things you should do much of at all.
Yeah. We got there in the end.
LIST OF THE THINGS I JUST MENTIONED ABOVE THAT I DON'T WANT TO WRITE AGAIN.
Playing Procrastination Tetris
So I got this macbook about six months ago. It and I besties. We became better besties when I actually learned how to use it properly and got a bunch of programs installed on it that were halfway useful. Anyway, the thing is, with these programs I got tetris. I haven't played Tetris since I was about seven and spent time at my Dutch grandparents' house, playing the games on my Papa's ancient computer. Interesting fact: Being yelled at and berated by a morbidly obese man with a combover and glasses in a some kind of thickly veiled version of English rife with Dutch swear words because you didn't put the right shape in the right play, while a small and feisty elderly lady in clogs force feeds you ostrich meat and Dutch liquorice is not fun for anyone, in any country, regardless of your heritage. And I shit you not about this previous description.
Anyway. So it just sat there on my desktop for a while, and I didn't think about it. Until I had to write a 3000 word essay. It started with one game. "I'll just see how I go", I thought (foolishly). I, of course, lost at high speed. But then I needed more.
The thing they don't tell you about Tetris is, it's like crack. That should be the tagline for it, in fact: Tetris - JUST LIKE CRACK.
You need it ALL THE TIME. You need to beat that last score, there are bright coloured blocks falling, FASTER AND FASTER, AND IF YOU DON'T SLOT THEM INTO A GEOMETRICALLY CORRECT PLACE, FAILURE IS IMMINENT. YOU MUST PLAY. YOU MUST WIN. But you can't. The battle is endless.
The other warning I can offer about Tetris is: it is scarily similar to a gambling addiction. Quit while you're ahead and the loan shark hasn't broken your knee caps.
Procrastination Weepin' and Gorgin'
Oh, how I wish this one weren't true.
But alas, it is.
If a career could be made out of weeping and eating (and yes, I do mean this SIMULTANEOUSLY. You cannot just WEEP and NOT GORGE. It doesn't work like that. The full effect can only be achieved by simultaneously gorging oneself and crying like Bridget Jones while you lament about all men being bastards through a mouthful of cheesecake). ANYWAY. If a career could be made out of weeping and eating, I would be the CEO. If there were a weeping and eating test, I WOULD BLITZ IT.
JT, I could cry you a river, baby, and pack my sinuses with camembert simultaneously.
Okay, so let me straighten things out: I don't actually cry THAT much. Just like, contrary to popular belief, I don't actually vom EVERY TIME I DRINK. The nickname "Vomasaur" is at LEAST mildly deceptive.
Also, I am not a thousand pound Chunk Monster. I just really like food, but my actually body type could best be described as "frail, jagged and birdlike".
The thing is, at high levels of stress, and anxiety, and general world bitterness, I occasionally have finished my day at uni, bought a block of chocolate, and wept in my car on the peak hour drive home, while listening to "Bittersweet Symphony" and stuffing my head with Cadbury.
Yeah. judge me.
But when I get my PHD in Weepin' and Gorgin', THEN WHO'LL BE LAUGHING?!??!!
A: not me. I will be doing the aforementioned.
Procrastination General Screaming and Bitterness.
Depending on who you speak to, I seem to come across in a number of different ways:
1. Friendly, exceptionally hyperactive and bubbly.
2. Vaguely careless, loud, overly sweary.
3. Generally bitter towards everything and everyone, including (and especially) inanimate objects and random passers by, and excessively sarcastic.
Sometimes I mix them up, just to keep things fresh.
I have spent many a day recently in my stompin' and clompin' boots, and unnecessarily see-through/lacey-ridiculous clothing, glaring bitterly behind my sunglasses at innocent people in the street, and throwing back double shot coffee after double shot coffee.
A nice girl takes my change. EYES NARROW.
A charity worker asks for money. JAW CLENCHES.
A slight breeze blows a strand of hair out of place. INSTANT DOOM FOR ALL MANKIND, ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR, ETC. ETC. FIERY EYE OF DOOM.
Anyway. I really, REALLY need the exam period to end.
Well. Right now I have to go write about some Australian composer who essentially wrote a piece about the Northern Territory that spends the entire time wanking itself off with Australian culture.
YOU HAVE A GOOD NIGHT.
xx Anna
I felt embarrassed. I felt embarrassed FOR the bathtub.
Anyway, the point of my bathtub rant is probably due to the fact that I've been sucked into, as the french say, L'Exam Study Void.
I spent the entire day today listening to 100 different excerpts from approx. forty different pieces, over and over again, trying to differentiate between them. When I wasn't doing that I was researching the composers of them.
Suffice to say, that if I have to listen to one more minimalist/serialist/pre-emptive electronic piece with a soprano shrieking over the top, I will attempt to headbutt myself into a fine paste.
The other issue with studying is also obviously procrastination. There are far too many things I don't want to consider the amount of time I've spent doing... them.. I don't... want to... consider the amount of time I've spent doing things... too... much... I don't --- LOOK, YOU FUCKING GET THE POINT, GO AND PUT A SQUIGGLY GREEN LINE UNDER IT AND CONSIDER REVISING IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.
But anyway. For your reading pleasure, I will consider the things I don't want to consider that I've done too much of that shouldn't be things you should do much of at all.
Yeah. We got there in the end.
LIST OF THE THINGS I JUST MENTIONED ABOVE THAT I DON'T WANT TO WRITE AGAIN.
Playing Procrastination Tetris
So I got this macbook about six months ago. It and I besties. We became better besties when I actually learned how to use it properly and got a bunch of programs installed on it that were halfway useful. Anyway, the thing is, with these programs I got tetris. I haven't played Tetris since I was about seven and spent time at my Dutch grandparents' house, playing the games on my Papa's ancient computer. Interesting fact: Being yelled at and berated by a morbidly obese man with a combover and glasses in a some kind of thickly veiled version of English rife with Dutch swear words because you didn't put the right shape in the right play, while a small and feisty elderly lady in clogs force feeds you ostrich meat and Dutch liquorice is not fun for anyone, in any country, regardless of your heritage. And I shit you not about this previous description.
Anyway. So it just sat there on my desktop for a while, and I didn't think about it. Until I had to write a 3000 word essay. It started with one game. "I'll just see how I go", I thought (foolishly). I, of course, lost at high speed. But then I needed more.
The thing they don't tell you about Tetris is, it's like crack. That should be the tagline for it, in fact: Tetris - JUST LIKE CRACK.
You need it ALL THE TIME. You need to beat that last score, there are bright coloured blocks falling, FASTER AND FASTER, AND IF YOU DON'T SLOT THEM INTO A GEOMETRICALLY CORRECT PLACE, FAILURE IS IMMINENT. YOU MUST PLAY. YOU MUST WIN. But you can't. The battle is endless.
The other warning I can offer about Tetris is: it is scarily similar to a gambling addiction. Quit while you're ahead and the loan shark hasn't broken your knee caps.
Procrastination Weepin' and Gorgin'
Oh, how I wish this one weren't true.
But alas, it is.
If a career could be made out of weeping and eating (and yes, I do mean this SIMULTANEOUSLY. You cannot just WEEP and NOT GORGE. It doesn't work like that. The full effect can only be achieved by simultaneously gorging oneself and crying like Bridget Jones while you lament about all men being bastards through a mouthful of cheesecake). ANYWAY. If a career could be made out of weeping and eating, I would be the CEO. If there were a weeping and eating test, I WOULD BLITZ IT.
JT, I could cry you a river, baby, and pack my sinuses with camembert simultaneously.
Okay, so let me straighten things out: I don't actually cry THAT much. Just like, contrary to popular belief, I don't actually vom EVERY TIME I DRINK. The nickname "Vomasaur" is at LEAST mildly deceptive.
Also, I am not a thousand pound Chunk Monster. I just really like food, but my actually body type could best be described as "frail, jagged and birdlike".
The thing is, at high levels of stress, and anxiety, and general world bitterness, I occasionally have finished my day at uni, bought a block of chocolate, and wept in my car on the peak hour drive home, while listening to "Bittersweet Symphony" and stuffing my head with Cadbury.
Yeah. judge me.
But when I get my PHD in Weepin' and Gorgin', THEN WHO'LL BE LAUGHING?!??!!
A: not me. I will be doing the aforementioned.
Procrastination General Screaming and Bitterness.
Depending on who you speak to, I seem to come across in a number of different ways:
1. Friendly, exceptionally hyperactive and bubbly.
2. Vaguely careless, loud, overly sweary.
3. Generally bitter towards everything and everyone, including (and especially) inanimate objects and random passers by, and excessively sarcastic.
Sometimes I mix them up, just to keep things fresh.
I have spent many a day recently in my stompin' and clompin' boots, and unnecessarily see-through/lacey-ridiculous clothing, glaring bitterly behind my sunglasses at innocent people in the street, and throwing back double shot coffee after double shot coffee.
A nice girl takes my change. EYES NARROW.
A charity worker asks for money. JAW CLENCHES.
A slight breeze blows a strand of hair out of place. INSTANT DOOM FOR ALL MANKIND, ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR, ETC. ETC. FIERY EYE OF DOOM.
Anyway. I really, REALLY need the exam period to end.
Well. Right now I have to go write about some Australian composer who essentially wrote a piece about the Northern Territory that spends the entire time wanking itself off with Australian culture.
YOU HAVE A GOOD NIGHT.
xx Anna
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
VALIDATE ME. CRITIQUE ME.
I should be studying for exams, but I'll pass anyway. Why? Because I'm a middle class white male. THAT'S WHY *blocks ears*
Anyway lately I've been hating on everything I write seriously rather than for artistic merit. In the last few days though I think I've been improving... but that shouldn't be for me to decide, so here's some stuff I'm chipping away at. This stuff's all pretty unfinished... but less unfinished than my usual angsty verbal wank. So judge and puke at the lack of stylistic control.
-STUFF THAT'S SOMEWHAT THOUGHT OUT-
Our hearts are on our sleeves
Because it's all we need
Fisherman's tales not to be believed
Never see someone swim so deep
I thought this sounded a bit too simple and boring but now I'm sort of warming to it. I want to write something on the importance of face value rather than the usual 'what's inside counts'. I mean, I even realise how I think I present and how things have shaped me is very different to their outward effects... Hell, I think you're reading and enjoying this...
The boiling turmoil
Right to reach for eyes in the sky
Trembling in tremors
The earth splits it's words in it's surface
Mispelled and rearranged
Again, and like everything else my noncommital births, this isn't finished, I know where I want to take it but the words aren't coming yet, if you dig. It's similar to the first one, but I'm feeling a slight variation in theme, rather misrepresentation, but I'd like to present it as both good and bad... which I'm finding hard right now.
An excellent hiding place found
Unremarkable, no movement, no sound.
Search carries on, wills never gave way
Found a corpse left behind
Given away by the stench, a stubborn decay
I tend to find my stuff too wordy and grammatical obsession taking up too much time, so this is good to get me to loosen up a bit (and not freak over 'inventing' words and stuff which noone's going to kill me for... I came up with 'lobotomic' the other day... it's awesome). Anyway, I've tried to kill some useless words and get the point across anyway.
This pride imprints in a sinister prince
Inky spectres in control
of the sphincter to the soul
Feeling fearful and forlorn
Not the reason you were born
The path you follow seems unknown
I'm thinking of splitting this into two or three different things and using them as focus points for two or three different poems or whatever I call these. Anyway, I actually like how alot of this sounds, at least the first couple of lines. I'm thinking of scratching all the 'in's because the repetitive alliteration seems to cover it anyway. Just observations.
This stake to rape a heart
that's been tearing you apart
Both have terrors in their eyes
Conceal their need for ties
This is a little lacking in actual direction I think. I THINK I know where it's going but again it's not coming to me yet (I WRITE USING FEIGNED PSYCHIC POWERS). This does strike me as a little too lyrical... and needs a little more alliterative flamboyance... I like the idea that we're not really all that separated from our own fears.
-LINES THAT SOUND TOO COOL NOT TO USE-
'Born of cold, plastic womb'
I got this from Mysterious Follower's links to abandoned building galleries. It was an amazing description for a plastic coating to stop a bannister from rusting. I really like that image with that description so I'm gonna steal it and write something using it... I just don't know where it fits yet, any ideas?
'Fogged up compliments with sales pitch'
I wrote this down in my douchey little black book of lines and sketches and words after some street preacher or whatever commented on my jumper... and in characteristic paranoid melodrama read into this a universally acquired autism. Possibly wrongly, but I think it's a good point, sometimes I know I get confused with people's motives thanks to being bombarded with advertising and stuff. I was thinking of turning this into some kind of scathing critique, but I haven't been feeling subtle enough to pull it off.
'Withdrawals from what I wished to exist'
A bit of an angsty interpretation from a bit in Naked Lunch where Burroughs types up a letter for help explaining he's become addicted to a substance that he doesn't think exists. Anyway, I occasionally slip into thinking that sometimes the things I'm aspiring for aren't real. For people familiar with Catcher in the Rye, it's a fear of phonyness. For normal people who now realise my perceptions of the universe are largely plagiaristic it's a fear for the loss of authenticity in favour of things like insecurity. But yeah, I want to use this for something, sometime.
'There's too much noise to discern sound anymore. Everything's falling into a cacophony of silence.'
'My life became the remote I held, flicking identical channels like identical people'
These are a bit scathing and angsting in here, but I thought they might suit some kind of dialogue for an idea I had watching Fight Club (AGAIN) the other day. I like the idea of maybe a short film narrated by someone in that pit of misery to just emphasize how it morphs and distorts the outside world.
'In this premade world I sit and must imagine it's destruction'
I wrote this down sitting on a park bench thinking about the idea of 'making your mark on the world'. The point, I thought, was so many other people have made marks on the world and manipulated it for themselves. My mark would be made over someone else's. I also thought it presented an idea of a world that seems to be doing alright. One where nobody has to work very hard to stay alive, everything we get is 'prepackaged'... which I think I might change 'premade' to (THIS IS WHY I DO THIS, IT GIVES PERSPEX... no... PERSPECTIVE!!!).
'Only madmen smile forever'
"Life's sinusoidal, you see" I said to someone once, no doubt waving my hand around in pseudo-intellectualism... Well, life has ups and downs and it's not life without them, opposites define each other. But this was the temptation of illusion, the idea to ignore all misery... but it also struck me as innocent. To ignore the normal option and instead smile regardless... I dunno, it's a bit weird but it's some random idea I had.
'I want a knight in shining armour, so hard they'll never hurt'
I like to play with tropes, I heard someone talking about being swept off their feet by a knight in shining armour. I liked the idea of necessitating the armour. I mean, we have an amazing capability to hurt people, among other things. But I like the idea of vulnerability in saviours, it's one of the things you realise as you mature.
'We think we're so deep, but six feet isn't out of reach'
This is a response to people complaining about how miserable they are and how beyond help they are and stuff... yeah... uh... *ducks under desk to avoid barrage of thrown implements*. Okay, well, it's just sort of thinking that maybe using your tragedy as the crux of your identity isn't a fantastic idea...
I might leave it there, everything else is still revolting and this is probably getting really boring. But I really want criticism and stuff. It helps to get ideas and improve and all that cal. So there's a comment section and I'll post a facebook link so you can comment there if you'd really rather. Hell, pm me on facebook or something if you really must warn me of how laughably awful I am. Or if you've had any ideas sound them off, I'd be happy to swipe... uuh... give my critique... (because it's SO worth something) or just read it if you'd prefer. Anyway I'm normally just enamoured with other people's talent anyway...
So, hope this was a somewhat interesting insight into my process and next time I'll try to post something substantial for a change...
TONGS AWAY!!!!!
Anyway lately I've been hating on everything I write seriously rather than for artistic merit. In the last few days though I think I've been improving... but that shouldn't be for me to decide, so here's some stuff I'm chipping away at. This stuff's all pretty unfinished... but less unfinished than my usual angsty verbal wank. So judge and puke at the lack of stylistic control.
-STUFF THAT'S SOMEWHAT THOUGHT OUT-
Our hearts are on our sleeves
Because it's all we need
Fisherman's tales not to be believed
Never see someone swim so deep
I thought this sounded a bit too simple and boring but now I'm sort of warming to it. I want to write something on the importance of face value rather than the usual 'what's inside counts'. I mean, I even realise how I think I present and how things have shaped me is very different to their outward effects... Hell, I think you're reading and enjoying this...
The boiling turmoil
Right to reach for eyes in the sky
Trembling in tremors
The earth splits it's words in it's surface
Mispelled and rearranged
Again, and like everything else my noncommital births, this isn't finished, I know where I want to take it but the words aren't coming yet, if you dig. It's similar to the first one, but I'm feeling a slight variation in theme, rather misrepresentation, but I'd like to present it as both good and bad... which I'm finding hard right now.
An excellent hiding place found
Unremarkable, no movement, no sound.
Search carries on, wills never gave way
Found a corpse left behind
Given away by the stench, a stubborn decay
I tend to find my stuff too wordy and grammatical obsession taking up too much time, so this is good to get me to loosen up a bit (and not freak over 'inventing' words and stuff which noone's going to kill me for... I came up with 'lobotomic' the other day... it's awesome). Anyway, I've tried to kill some useless words and get the point across anyway.
This pride imprints in a sinister prince
Inky spectres in control
of the sphincter to the soul
Feeling fearful and forlorn
Not the reason you were born
The path you follow seems unknown
I'm thinking of splitting this into two or three different things and using them as focus points for two or three different poems or whatever I call these. Anyway, I actually like how alot of this sounds, at least the first couple of lines. I'm thinking of scratching all the 'in's because the repetitive alliteration seems to cover it anyway. Just observations.
This stake to rape a heart
that's been tearing you apart
Both have terrors in their eyes
Conceal their need for ties
This is a little lacking in actual direction I think. I THINK I know where it's going but again it's not coming to me yet (I WRITE USING FEIGNED PSYCHIC POWERS). This does strike me as a little too lyrical... and needs a little more alliterative flamboyance... I like the idea that we're not really all that separated from our own fears.
-LINES THAT SOUND TOO COOL NOT TO USE-
'Born of cold, plastic womb'
I got this from Mysterious Follower's links to abandoned building galleries. It was an amazing description for a plastic coating to stop a bannister from rusting. I really like that image with that description so I'm gonna steal it and write something using it... I just don't know where it fits yet, any ideas?
'Fogged up compliments with sales pitch'
I wrote this down in my douchey little black book of lines and sketches and words after some street preacher or whatever commented on my jumper... and in characteristic paranoid melodrama read into this a universally acquired autism. Possibly wrongly, but I think it's a good point, sometimes I know I get confused with people's motives thanks to being bombarded with advertising and stuff. I was thinking of turning this into some kind of scathing critique, but I haven't been feeling subtle enough to pull it off.
'Withdrawals from what I wished to exist'
A bit of an angsty interpretation from a bit in Naked Lunch where Burroughs types up a letter for help explaining he's become addicted to a substance that he doesn't think exists. Anyway, I occasionally slip into thinking that sometimes the things I'm aspiring for aren't real. For people familiar with Catcher in the Rye, it's a fear of phonyness. For normal people who now realise my perceptions of the universe are largely plagiaristic it's a fear for the loss of authenticity in favour of things like insecurity. But yeah, I want to use this for something, sometime.
'There's too much noise to discern sound anymore. Everything's falling into a cacophony of silence.'
'My life became the remote I held, flicking identical channels like identical people'
These are a bit scathing and angsting in here, but I thought they might suit some kind of dialogue for an idea I had watching Fight Club (AGAIN) the other day. I like the idea of maybe a short film narrated by someone in that pit of misery to just emphasize how it morphs and distorts the outside world.
'In this premade world I sit and must imagine it's destruction'
I wrote this down sitting on a park bench thinking about the idea of 'making your mark on the world'. The point, I thought, was so many other people have made marks on the world and manipulated it for themselves. My mark would be made over someone else's. I also thought it presented an idea of a world that seems to be doing alright. One where nobody has to work very hard to stay alive, everything we get is 'prepackaged'... which I think I might change 'premade' to (THIS IS WHY I DO THIS, IT GIVES PERSPEX... no... PERSPECTIVE!!!).
'Only madmen smile forever'
"Life's sinusoidal, you see" I said to someone once, no doubt waving my hand around in pseudo-intellectualism... Well, life has ups and downs and it's not life without them, opposites define each other. But this was the temptation of illusion, the idea to ignore all misery... but it also struck me as innocent. To ignore the normal option and instead smile regardless... I dunno, it's a bit weird but it's some random idea I had.
'I want a knight in shining armour, so hard they'll never hurt'
I like to play with tropes, I heard someone talking about being swept off their feet by a knight in shining armour. I liked the idea of necessitating the armour. I mean, we have an amazing capability to hurt people, among other things. But I like the idea of vulnerability in saviours, it's one of the things you realise as you mature.
'We think we're so deep, but six feet isn't out of reach'
This is a response to people complaining about how miserable they are and how beyond help they are and stuff... yeah... uh... *ducks under desk to avoid barrage of thrown implements*. Okay, well, it's just sort of thinking that maybe using your tragedy as the crux of your identity isn't a fantastic idea...
I might leave it there, everything else is still revolting and this is probably getting really boring. But I really want criticism and stuff. It helps to get ideas and improve and all that cal. So there's a comment section and I'll post a facebook link so you can comment there if you'd really rather. Hell, pm me on facebook or something if you really must warn me of how laughably awful I am. Or if you've had any ideas sound them off, I'd be happy to swipe... uuh... give my critique... (because it's SO worth something) or just read it if you'd prefer. Anyway I'm normally just enamoured with other people's talent anyway...
So, hope this was a somewhat interesting insight into my process and next time I'll try to post something substantial for a change...
TONGS AWAY!!!!!
Friday, October 29, 2010
A Deconstruction of Bindi Irwin's "Save Me"
HEY EVERYBODIES. This is a critique/essay written by occasional blogger & regular wearer of crappy facial hair Frankly Less Than Amusing and yours truly. It's on the subject of this awesome as song by Bindi Irwin. Enjoy.
CROCODILE TEARS OR POST-MODERN MANIFESTO?
— A Deconstruction of Bindi Irwin's "Save Me"
From a thematic perspective, Bindi Irwin's environmentalist critique of modern capitalist society, 'Save Me' deals with issues of violence, death, cruelty and freedom. The narrative is penned by the oppressed flipper of what we as the audience guess to be a humpback, southern right, or other 'baleen' whale. Thus, Irwin uses the technique of personalisation in order to to give the 'whale song', pun intended, its resonating and chilling tone. From the outset, the role reversal of Irwin's sonata places the greed and cruelty of humanity at the fore, prompting the audience to contemplate and reflect on their place and responsibilities as custodians of the seas. Themes of death are interwoven amongst the narrative, as our 'friend', the 'giant of the sea' calls upon the collective conscience of society to protect the freedoms that we as humans take for granted and apply them to our 'warm blooded and skin covered' relatives. A self-conscious awareness, an ability to contemplate mortality and to contextualise identity is inherent to the text. Subsequently, Irwin brings our protagonist to recall times before the reign of man - to times of a 'wonderful blue planet...before humans overran it'. This blatant environmentalist agenda seeks to undermine man's hegemony on the ecological stage and subvert the traditional notions of state actors as justified in their exploitation of wildlife. Thus, Irwin's 'Save Me' is a timely and reflective narrative that deals with pressing and contemporary issues in a style that engages the reader on a spiritual and social level. A piece that epitomises the self-reflective and post-modern nature of the youth of today, both brilliantly constructed and immaculately executed.
On a more personal level, the devastating psychological conflict of the tweenage poet resonates throughout her lyrics. When listening to the track, it becomes immediately clear that Irwin's "whale" persona is an anthropomorphic projection of her inner existential turmoil. This is a sharp allusion to a long line of animal allegories which Irwin would have no doubt encountered, such as "The Rainbow Fish" (a striking, if hamfisted plea for the immediate introduction of a global socialist state) or "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" (a stark reimagining of Buddha's Fire Sermon and the emancipation from material desire in a consumerist world gone wrong). The overt phallic imagery of the opening line; "Save me, from the man with the harpoon gun"; is a desperate plea for girlish innocence in a world of patriarchal lust. The lyricist, on the cusp of puberty, desperately clasps to the pristine blemishlessness of childhood, where she and her cohort remain "winged angels playing games in the ocean blue". Irwin feels the palpable loss of this Edenesque state, and cries to be saved as the waters of the abyss surge above her impractically large Khaki collar. Man, the hunter, the bringer of death, takes on an a predatory, even Nabakovian character as he and his "boats that catch and slaughter" ruthlessly engage in the corruption and destruction of this crumbling child. However, "Save me" is more than a futile plea for the preservation of sexual innocence; entwined through the work is a curious dialecticism that jostles with the primary message for prominence. The major turning point in Irwin's artistic life is undoubtedly the premature demise of her father. Steve served his daughter as the loving protector of "Eden" – her innocence, and more superficially, the environment – against the ghastly machinations of perverse, self-serving hunters. Yet Irwin the Elder was felled not by an agent of man and his all-tainting industrial empire but one of the very creatures he devoted his life to protecting. The object lesson of this bloody cataclysm is that nature – Gaia if you will – is an amoral force and a fickle mistress that is at once majestic and terrible, she slays her allies as unflinchingly as her foes. The bitter paradox at the heart of Irwin's spiritual narrative is that the erosion of nature and innocence was initiated by nature and innocence itself. Sexual maturation, the eradication of our orcine brethren through natural selection and parental death ala stingray are all inherent aspects of the thing we call life, a phenomenon that despite it's "freedom in the water" is perpetually self-eroding and ultimately self-destroying. This is a profound microcosm of the 21st century predicament: that with the rise of anthropogenic global warming, nuclear arsenals and relentless overconsumption, life itself has become it's own greatest threat. The true tragedy of "Save me" is Irwin's gradual realisation that to fight against such inevitably is folly; and like a pigtailed Kierkegaard or a wallaby loving Plath, she finally sees that her only choice is to join her beloved father in the "deepest ocean". Indeed Bindi, the deepest ocean of all.
CROCODILE TEARS OR POST-MODERN MANIFESTO?
— A Deconstruction of Bindi Irwin's "Save Me"
From a thematic perspective, Bindi Irwin's environmentalist critique of modern capitalist society, 'Save Me' deals with issues of violence, death, cruelty and freedom. The narrative is penned by the oppressed flipper of what we as the audience guess to be a humpback, southern right, or other 'baleen' whale. Thus, Irwin uses the technique of personalisation in order to to give the 'whale song', pun intended, its resonating and chilling tone. From the outset, the role reversal of Irwin's sonata places the greed and cruelty of humanity at the fore, prompting the audience to contemplate and reflect on their place and responsibilities as custodians of the seas. Themes of death are interwoven amongst the narrative, as our 'friend', the 'giant of the sea' calls upon the collective conscience of society to protect the freedoms that we as humans take for granted and apply them to our 'warm blooded and skin covered' relatives. A self-conscious awareness, an ability to contemplate mortality and to contextualise identity is inherent to the text. Subsequently, Irwin brings our protagonist to recall times before the reign of man - to times of a 'wonderful blue planet...before humans overran it'. This blatant environmentalist agenda seeks to undermine man's hegemony on the ecological stage and subvert the traditional notions of state actors as justified in their exploitation of wildlife. Thus, Irwin's 'Save Me' is a timely and reflective narrative that deals with pressing and contemporary issues in a style that engages the reader on a spiritual and social level. A piece that epitomises the self-reflective and post-modern nature of the youth of today, both brilliantly constructed and immaculately executed.
On a more personal level, the devastating psychological conflict of the tweenage poet resonates throughout her lyrics. When listening to the track, it becomes immediately clear that Irwin's "whale" persona is an anthropomorphic projection of her inner existential turmoil. This is a sharp allusion to a long line of animal allegories which Irwin would have no doubt encountered, such as "The Rainbow Fish" (a striking, if hamfisted plea for the immediate introduction of a global socialist state) or "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" (a stark reimagining of Buddha's Fire Sermon and the emancipation from material desire in a consumerist world gone wrong). The overt phallic imagery of the opening line; "Save me, from the man with the harpoon gun"; is a desperate plea for girlish innocence in a world of patriarchal lust. The lyricist, on the cusp of puberty, desperately clasps to the pristine blemishlessness of childhood, where she and her cohort remain "winged angels playing games in the ocean blue". Irwin feels the palpable loss of this Edenesque state, and cries to be saved as the waters of the abyss surge above her impractically large Khaki collar. Man, the hunter, the bringer of death, takes on an a predatory, even Nabakovian character as he and his "boats that catch and slaughter" ruthlessly engage in the corruption and destruction of this crumbling child. However, "Save me" is more than a futile plea for the preservation of sexual innocence; entwined through the work is a curious dialecticism that jostles with the primary message for prominence. The major turning point in Irwin's artistic life is undoubtedly the premature demise of her father. Steve served his daughter as the loving protector of "Eden" – her innocence, and more superficially, the environment – against the ghastly machinations of perverse, self-serving hunters. Yet Irwin the Elder was felled not by an agent of man and his all-tainting industrial empire but one of the very creatures he devoted his life to protecting. The object lesson of this bloody cataclysm is that nature – Gaia if you will – is an amoral force and a fickle mistress that is at once majestic and terrible, she slays her allies as unflinchingly as her foes. The bitter paradox at the heart of Irwin's spiritual narrative is that the erosion of nature and innocence was initiated by nature and innocence itself. Sexual maturation, the eradication of our orcine brethren through natural selection and parental death ala stingray are all inherent aspects of the thing we call life, a phenomenon that despite it's "freedom in the water" is perpetually self-eroding and ultimately self-destroying. This is a profound microcosm of the 21st century predicament: that with the rise of anthropogenic global warming, nuclear arsenals and relentless overconsumption, life itself has become it's own greatest threat. The true tragedy of "Save me" is Irwin's gradual realisation that to fight against such inevitably is folly; and like a pigtailed Kierkegaard or a wallaby loving Plath, she finally sees that her only choice is to join her beloved father in the "deepest ocean". Indeed Bindi, the deepest ocean of all.
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