Countdown to Forty, Part Two

"There's a hole in my dreams, or so it seems."

Oh no. I must be getting old. I'm getting teary eyed listening to the Stone Rose's Elephant Stone.
Remember the early Nineties? Remember when Madchester was going to be it? Now, it's all gone, and all we have are Ladytron and Interpol to keep us warm at night.

Well, nothing movie like happened today. I did not quit my job, start weightlifting and fall in love with a seventeen year old Mina Savari. No insights on life--although I did realize one thing: life is like toilet paper. With each piece you rip off, it's like a day passing by: pretty much identical to the one before, you don't pay too much attention to it, but then you're left with an empty paper roll. No more paper. And the analogy falls apart there, but I thought it might say something deep. Or deepish.

Maybe if I watched a plastic bag float in the wind, I'd think better thoughts.

Countdown to Forty, Part One

Yes. In one week, I will be forty. Halfway to death, if you play by current genetic rules and don't download Horrible Disease, Horrendous Accident With Gardening Shears, or Terminal Fucking Boredom.

If life were a movie, the next seven days would be chock a'plenty with Meaningful Events. Like I'd run into my old high school flame, and we'd have a Glenn Close/William Hurt moment while listening to old Psychedelic Furs albums. Or I'd discover my true calling in life. Or I'd have a madcap adventure with a woman half my age in a stolen Cadilliac, running from bumbling gangsters and realizing that every day counts.

But it won't. Instead, I'll just point out that you owe it yourself to download Zork.

I find myself addicted to this very simple text game--it's funny, it's smart ass, it's like word crack. Go forth and open the mailbox. I dares ya.

Meanwhile, I'll just wait for the madcappery and meaningful moments to arrive.

Dungeon Siege and Iron Maidens

Reason No. 456.3 to stay alive: Bruce Dickinson's Saturday night rock show on BBC 6. For us aging, incontinent Iron Maiden fans, it's a joy to hear Bruce talk about things like Hawkwind, warm seats, and the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show. Get thee to the Intraweb, dear readers, and light those lighters: it's a rock and roll par-TAY!

Went to a game premiere this afternoon: Microsoft's new Dungeon Siege II. I got bling: a leynard (?)--a thing to hang around your neck and look either vaguely cool or extremely dorkish. Also received an Age of Empires III wristband. Haven't really figured that one out: do I use it to wipe my brow when I lay seige to Cathay? I guess it would come in handy then.

Dungeon Siege II succeeds in being fun, which is my first critical test of any game. It must bow towards the temple of Diablo in terms of gameplay, and it does out and out swipe Tolkien Elvish and tries to pass it off as 'Dryad'-speak, but those aren't criticisms: just observations. There was enough depth to make you feel inferior for not being as hep to all the ins and outs that you feel you should be (I had trouble switching from my Rusty Dagger to my Fire Bolt, fer instance), but I like knowing you have to move in with a game to fully be great at it.

The story--what I saw--was attempting to be different. You start off working for a mercenary for the obvious Bad Guys of the piece (orcish types sounding like British mining foremen). After the first quest--and rather impressive cut piece ending--you end up a prisoner of the hopefully Good Guys. It was nice to start an adventure without being a farmer, or a Lad With A Glorious Future, even if there was a bit too much of having NPCs look at you and think something big is going to happen to you.

Yes, we've seen the trappings of this game before, and it doesn't offer anything so drastic as to shock longterm RPG players. Plenty of quests, a journal to remind of your next wee job, some very nice effects and cut scenes. Unless it turns into giant pink bunnies playing twiddly winks later on, it looks like a decent game.

Morrissey

Yes, she is gorgeous. Named after you know who because her tail reminded me of Morrissey's hair. No, I wasn't drunk.

Just Wondering..

...if you spend the entire day at work, come home, care for pets, do housework, and begin to doze off during dinner--but don't write--does evil win? Or does conformity just grind your soul just a wee bit more?

I am surrounded by frustration trees. Especially in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. I despise the sadism that are system branch combos. I would not wish them on my worst enemy--okay, maybe I would.

What has eluded the game designers that in order to do this bloody thing you have to switch between fighting styles. To do this you have to hit the Left Trigger on the XBox controller, which means you aren't hitting anyone. But if you don't hit, you apparently lose the combo, and have to start again. Which means starting with one fighting style, (hit), then switch fighting style (no hit), which means failure. So you start again, starting with one fighting style, and....

I hate video games. Just to show, I won't dust them like I do every night or bring them their bedtime snacks.

Another Lifetime Goal Achieved

Awww.

Jane Gazzo mentioned me on Dream Ticket tonight on BBC 6. She read my email, welcomed me as a listener, and made my day.

There--another life goal achieved. Mentioned on the BBC--by someone as wonderful as Jane.

Small things make lives, y'know.

Hermit Boy

I think I've become a hermit. I haven't seen anyone outside of my wife and the occassional neighbour in well over a week. There was a series of days when I didn't even leave the house. Sure, I was sick and all, but I believe this is the beginning. I will continue to grow my hair and beard and collect cats, until the Health Department has to nuke the house because someone complained I was bringing down property values.

Forty is two weeks away, and despite myself, despite my efforts to avoid cliche, I am becoming terminally depressed over the notion. I think you live your twenties and thirties in the belief that your dreams will come true, you will land the great, well paid creative job--maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sometime in the near future. You just have to hang in there and keep trying. But then forty arrives, and you realize: Fuck. Maybe it isn't going to happen. Maybe Ms. Jolie isn't going to leave Brad Pitt for me. Maybe DC Comics isn't going to offer me the chance to save Nightwing. Maybe life is going to be scraping from paycheque to paycheque, happy for any work at all, terrified of getting sick, of getting old, of losing your loved ones to the myriad ways this planet has of causing misery. Maybe my life is going to be...just like everyone else's.

Which isn't too bad, really. I mean, I only know one millionaire--and he's a pretty nice guy. Most people I know who graduated university don't have dream jobs: they seem to leap from job to job, and if the job does seem dreamy, you know that it'll disappear within six months. And they always do. Most people I know work two jobs. Everyone is cash strapped. Everyone is in debt.

So maybe forty is finally facing reality. Or maybe I just need to cheer up.

Poor Posh

Writing, listening to the wonderful Annie Nightengale on BBC One. Annie is talking about how poor Posh Spice has never read a book in her life. Apparently, she hasn't had the time. Annie is asking listeners to compose a reading list for poor, time stressed Posh as she goes on holidays (holidays from what? one wonders.)

The best so far have been:

Being and Nothingness--to help her cope with her current publicity status

Cookbooks--so she doesn't look like a twig all her life

I'm not sure what I'd recommend Posh to read. The temptation is to suggest George Orwell or something equally class conscious, but that's too easy. I think if she starts with the ingredients on her toothpaste box and finishes that, we'll take it from there.

Stormy, then sunny here. That virus had me up last night, waiting to attack until I'm prone, the viral motherfucker. My entire holidays? Whooooosh. Sweet F.A. accomplished.

But I did manage to drink two cups of coffee today. I may even chance a glass of wine tonight. Even made headway in Half Blood Prince. Oh, and finished a review for Knights of the Dinner Table. Slightly productive, then.

Genetically Modified Viruses

I swear I have one. I still have that stomach flu, and it will not leave. Today is the first day I've been able to eat anything of substance, and I'm paying for it. My holidays are half over, and I haven't been able to leave the house.

This situation can only be summed up in one word:

Fuck.

Did manage to write the Free Press column, though, so I'm a super hero. Am now listening to BBC One, considering crawling upstairs to have a shower.

You just know I"ll be the picture of health on Monday, don't you?

Release Me, Blessed Death

Last week of vacation, and I come down with stomach flu.

Been sick since Sunday night, which in Sick Time, means three thousand years. I always seem to get the same version of flu: the stomach clenching, knife in the guts virus that allows you minutes of feeling good, of letting you think that maybe it's finally ending, then it twists the knife, and you can't breathe. All my plans this week are fading from me like ice sculptures beneath a laser cutter. I did manage to get some writing done, but since I was flying high with fever at the time, I'm afraid to look at it today.

So I'm stuck here, flicking through news channels, half heartedly trying to read Half Blood Prince, trying not to get any more depressed than I already am.

I can't even have coffee right now, so you know how dire things are.

Sniff.

My Muse Kicked Me Off Her Buddy List

Another week off the Paying Job, so now I can buy some roses, pick up a bottle of Mateus and see if the Muse still has time for me.

I have writing jobs waiting, which is always good. The Free Press has dropped me back to twice a month, which is beginniing to look like a good thing for me. I have a column to do for Knights of The Dinner Table (who, thus far, have been dreams to work with. Not only do the pay on time, but they send along gifts. Writers always like gifts. When I used to write for Maureen McTigue over at WizardWorld.com, she was forever sendnig along paperback novels and graphic novels. I love her. Anyone who speaks anything less than high praise of her shall be delivered unto a shitkicking.) I'm also supposed to be doing a piece for Jason Dickson's The London Reader. And I have a short story that I alone will find funny. And the novel. Oh, the novel.

I'm at the point in my life where I just want to get the stories and columns out of my head, on paper, and in the mail. Art is for people with government grants. I just have to get it done.

Finished The Curse of Chalion. I was unhappy with the ending after what I thought was a superb book, but upon two glasses of wine and reflection, there really wasn't any other way end it. I was supposed to read the next Potter after that, but I've picked up The Morte D'Arthur, which I've been using as phone caddy for the last ten years. Wow. Talk about brutal violence. People get cleaved upside the head with swords down to their teeth, horses being cut in half, and page upon page of people whacking others to steal their horse to give to their buddy. My copy has the 1927 Aubrey Beardsley illustrations, which are just delightfully weird and often inappropriate. (Not in a moral sense, but in the 'What the fuck does that have to do with the text?' kind of way.)

August. The year is beginning its spiral down the drain, isn't it?

Randomosity

Random thoughts in my head today, just all a-scramble:

--I had the misfortune of hearing the new Nickelback song-thing today. It's called Photograph, and it will make your insides bleed. It sounds like every other Nickelback song: like it was written to be heard by drunk rural kids high on their tenth beer. Of course, it will be played on Canadian radio until the sun goes nova.

--Venus Terzo is the most beautiful woman in Canada. She should play Wonder Woman in that universe where everything is done right.

--Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is...and I search for the correct word--completely bugfuck. Thank you, Harlan Ellison. I have crawled into the world of Solid Snake, Revolver Oscalot and discussions on stressed denim and Chinese proverbs that is the world of Hideo Kojima.

--I will run my air conditioner tonight because my workplace was 87 degrees Farenheit today. If the province goes black, it's my fault. And I shall not care.

Pagan Hated Laziness, After All

The useless ramblings about video games, comics, and Venus Terzo will continue tomorrow, gentle readers. I'm just letting this cat sized hole in my chest heal a bit more, that's all.