Trauma

If you think this is cute you clearly haven't watched the movie.


It's not often I think back on a recent event and realise that it has traumatised me a little bit. Yeah, maybe I am just an impressionable softie who is not sufficiently hardened because I do not watch enough horror movies or perhaps even remotely scary films. Well, I recently saw The Orphanage along with a few hundred other people at 1 a.m. at the Roskilde Festival, and I guess it was just because of the intense mood inside the cinema, but I got really frightened several times while I was watching the movie. The were moments where practically everyone screamed out loud.

Now, a lot of the effects were pretty cliché and the storyline was pretty obscure, but nevertheless it was all effective. The whole movie had as sense of brutal otherworldlyness that just drew you in. If I watched it in my living room chances are I wouldn't be quite as scared, but I'm not sure I'd like to take that chance. I can admit when something scares me even if it is slightly pathetic :-P

_____________


Apart from that I've watched a couple other movies, one of them being 3:10 to Yuma.
It is a remake of an old Western movie, and while I haven't seen the original I'd say this one did the job. It was refreshing to see another take on the whole western gang mythology that - in spite of that particular genre of movie being less prominent that it was in the 20th century - still contains a great deal of fascinating material. Seeing Russell Crowe as a villain was particularly refreshing, and Christian Bale's performance was delicately discrete.
Peter Fonda had a supporting role but really made the most of his limited time on-screen.

With all its twists and turns, cliché or not, 3:10 kept me entertained.

Wreckage

One festival, unspecified amounts of alcohol and some fabulous concerts later, I sit down to write something that might possibly resemble a coherent blog entry. So what is there to say? For large part, memories of that festival are obscured by an alcoholic haze, but there is a wide variety of moments that were powerful enough to stick around.

The most remarkable concert I remember in its entirety was with Radiohead who quietly blew some 50,000 people away. One of those things you just don't forget.
Then there was Judas Priest, an old bunch of guys whose music I didn't know all that well, but the guitar solos and gimmicky stage show kept me interested.
I heard bits of Neil Young, and I heard all of the Kings of Leon concert but was quite positively pissed at the time so there are limits to how much I remember of it.
A lot of the other concerts are bit of a blur though I don't recall hearing more than a couple of bands that I genuinely didn't like.

It's kinda funny talking about the festival like this. I got to know (at least on a very superficial level) a fair lot of new people, many of whom I probably annoyed, being an immediately stranger to the bunch - along with my generally quirky personality. I enjoyed myself though, even if thinking back on the festival is a very surreal process. It's like I was gone from the face of the earth for a week.... Gone into some parallel dimension with a population of around 100,000 people, all living in tents of wherever, waking up to the smell of piss and beer every morning in similar tents that were all heated to oven-level during the day.

It was all addictive and yet I'm glad to be back. Slowly recovering from a bloody cold that I caught. There's that usual vacuum left by spare time. But I think I can fill it in... Just takes a little while getting into the habbit.

Can't stand the silence anymore! Well... I can stand it for another day at least.

Event Horizon

So the title for this entry is probably more dramatic than it should be. The fact is that as a gamer you sometimes end up with some specimen that you cannot seem to stop playing no matter how hard you try. In this instance it is Mass Effect.

The plain fact is that I do not have to say a single word about it, because review sights all over the world are right now queuing to praise it to Heaven. Although of course there will be some ignorant people who refuse to see its brilliance and will try to brutally pull it down from its throne of glory out of jealousy and spite. Though I'll say that apart from a few inconsistensies and signs of negligence, it is, in two words, bloody awesome. I felt a bit disturbed that some insectoid aliens I was fighting were carrying enough cash to collectively buy out Bill Gates. Now I have come to assume that they are all EA stock holders.

________

While I never actually managed to watch Citizen Kane in one go, I started poking at some Alfred Hitchcock movies - Rear Window and Vertigo. Though both movies had issues with believability, they were very interesting and provided me with a perspective I had not previously explored. Granted, many modern movies have drawn inspiration from earlier decades, so I can easily recognise many of the themes, and both features definitely cannot hide their age. Nevertheless both of them are intriguing even today; as statements about human psychology and as a looking glass that allows the mind to explore the past. /exit preteniousness

Always a pleasure to discover that there is a lot of brilliant stuff just waiting to be examined.

...

Not entirely tired. No. Just a slight hint of fatigue as impersonal as a brief acquaintance; there is no attempt to bond with the sensation because it will be leaving shortly... It is liberating to be filled with that kind of apathy, but even more liberating to know that the apathy will soon be gone.
But it moves with the speed of light and will be there long before I arrive at my new destination, and I know that it will envelop me once again. For each moment it touches me it slowly becomes part of the way I think, and though it is heavy the weigh seems to be a comfort rather than a burden; not because I like its presence, but because I have grown numb and cannot truly feel it anymore.
Where I saw the dancing colours there is now a sense of grey that wishes its own place among them, as a spectator. It does not want to participate because it feels uncertain of its own abilities.

A thick liquid moves across the floor, almost seeming to grab it as if the liquid itself possessed muscles. It is far easier to watch it indifferently when it teaches my feet and gnaws at my shoes, but it is not numbness that makes me ignore it. It is rather something I thought I saw, something I glimpsed outside. But not long enough.

I am not sure if I woke up.

Rock me hard but softly

The heat's in my eyes and in my throat so deep I feel like I'm going to choke on it any minute now. The preliminary stages of allergy are slowly announcing their arrival; my eyes are occasionally itching like hell and I know it is only going to get worse. Naturally I have also caught a Summer cold while I am at it.

And a road sign decided to ambush me the other day when something made me lose control of my bicycle, learning me some tasty bruises. The sense of pain was however overshadowed by the chance to play Rock Band which was, indeed, bloody awesome. Apart from the fact that their plastic replica of a Fender Stratocaster feels like something of an abomination to play.
Nearly endless customisation options for your own individual rocker ensures that people who are so inclined can waste hours pimping up their appearance.
I made a huge, bearded muscular motherfucker called Lister Twister, which most of all sounds like the name of a hardcore pornstar. You might argue that lots of stage lights and bling is pretty superfluous when they have no effect on the gameplay, but they certainly added to the general feel of the game. The small awards that each band member can achieve after a song were also cause for much hilarity, like when our bassist got the award "Unconcious", while I could feel the comfortable sense of ego inflation that comes with getting the "Legendary Solo" award in a difficult song.

Hey dudes, it's 12 Angry Men, not 11 Surprised Morons!

As a continuation of my little nostalgia trip I have watched "12 Angry Men", a cinematic gem unknown to most people from my generation. It is about a jury of 12 men whose task is to decide whether or not an 18-year-old guy killed his father. A few things may be outdated, but to me the sum total of the movie is a great deal of character acting that adds a lot of depth to the 12 main characters even though we only know them for about an hour and a half. The fact that we only know the men by their behaviour and professions (which are revealed throughout the movie) and not by any names ensures that we are not too distracted, and the real-time approach makes the entire experience more authentic.

Next up on my nostalgia list is Citizen Kane.

Revisiting the oldies

Since the mood swing hippiefits in my last post I haven't been able to make a single entry that could sum up everything properly. The fact is that I have been dealing various exam-related stuff that I engage in, apparently bent on some manner of self-punishment, and on the side I have been on a wild nostalgia trip to the cinema. Also, I have been wasting my time on various computer games and finished off the last few episodes of Lost (3rd season) including a not so bloody extravagant finale.
The other two seasons had a razor-sharp ending, but that was not good enough for the writers who instead went out of their way to go all noir and additionally thought it was a good idea to make one of the main characters look like Leonidas from 300. Which by and large made it immensely hard to concentrate because I half-expected him to exclaim "This is Sparta!" at any moment.
Hopefully in 4th season they might explain a bit about the fabled smoke monster that has so far acted mainly as a Pwn Ex Machina whenever some character needed to get offed. When they do come with an explanation I will end up ignoring it in favour of my theory that the monster is the spawn of the massive amounts of marijuana consumed by the writers of the series.

So anyway, what this entry was actually about is the fact that I have been watching Blade Runner and all four Indiana Jones movies recently. Watched the original trilogy in a row and since then I have seen the 4th twice. You can go on and on about how special effects tend to overshadow some more important elements in today's movies, but in a film like Indiana Jones that is more or less the whole point. The storylines in those features do not make any sense so the entire thing might as well be beefed up with some overwhelmingly silly CGI that reflects the general mood of the movie. It is by far the silliest of the four, and while the villains in the earlier movies, though still a bit comic-book-ish, actually managed to be genuinely sinister, the villains in the 4th feature are so stupidly exaggerated they are almost likeable.
But like we all know, in movies like these it is not a question of if the protagonist survives. It is always a question of how. We are already aware that he will defeat his enemies and get the girl in the end. I do not honestly know if the movie had been more effective without all those silly moments to counterpoint the gravity of each cliffhanger. I think it is spot on to spend a lot of resources on showing just how tough and badass Indiana Jones really is. Like the fact that he can, while trapped in a fridge, survive being flung over a long distance by a nuclear blast.
And the most miraculous thing happened... Shia LaBeouf was likeable!

I don't declare my approval just to seem anti-pretentious. It really depends on what expectations you have when you go in. I expected something entertaining, but not revolutionary. That is what I got.

The future isn't nice.

Blade Runner on the other hand is a slower and much less action-packed 2-hour noir fest. And in its restored version, I gotta say, it looks nearly every bit as smooth as a modern day movie. It is the shooting technique and general feel of the movie that really reveal its age. It cannot be watched without a good dose of patience. When I first watched a DVD version I bought I was not very impressed, but on a second viewing - and in the cinema at that - it all made much more sense. Harrison ford is the sort of actor where you often know what to expect, but in a noir feature like Blade Runner he is right at home. It is also a movie that benefits from the fact that the city in which it takes place becomes a character in its own right.
It might not be for everyone because the pacing is so different from that of modern blockbusters. But even if it isn't your genre, it might be worth checking out at least once in your lifetime.

Skepticism; the blessing, the disease

It's a world full of information an misinformation. Skepticism is the natural reaction when you are used to filter false info and, as often called, bullshit. If people did not have that kind of filter, well.. the result is rather predictable. So we should be happy about skepticism, right?
Not always, I think... It seems to be part of internet culture to question everything, to point out every little detail about which there might be the slightest bit of doubt.
People who are skeptical about impressive accomplishments because they are too proud or ignorant to recognise the importance of these. People who will always focus on all the negative elements and never the positive. They will continue to repeat their state of being categorically unimpressed. It is an easy position to take if you do not wish to acknowledge life as it is and won't accept things that are beyond your own ability to comprehend. On the other hand it is far too easy to praise everything and forget to be critical. One of the most important things when you are a human being, in my opinion, is to find the balance between faith and skepticism. You need to be able to offer compliments where they are due, and criticism likewise. Offer an honest compliment and you may have made someone's day. Offer counter-productive criticism and you may end up causing more damage than you imagine...
Some people need a punch in the face - but sometimes it's enough with a gentle slap.

I'm not going to talk about chaos theory and Butterfly Effect...
But what I do believe is that every little thing we say to each other can have a much more profound effect than we think. The idea is not knew, and I have expressed it before... But it does not make it any less relevant.

Coincidental awesomeness

While searching for nothing in particuar - just music in general - I stumbled across some fiddle-work by someone named Ann Marie Calhoun. And no, it's not just because she's good-looking, she actually plays a mean violin and it sounds absolutely enchanting, so she's more than worth checking out.

Meanwhile I am bracing myself for the fact that I will soon have run out of Lost season 3 episodes... by then, since I have no TV channels on which the episodes are shown, I will have to watch streamed episodes from 4th season on the internet... Simply because I've become a Lostaholic like so many other people around the world. The creators of Lost sometimes show a mastery of suspense that really catches your attention beyond the ordinary, yet at times nothing at all makes sense an in spite of this you, as a viewer, just keep swallowing it all raw. Lost moves in mysterious ways, especially when they introduce things and charaters that they suddenly kill off and never indicate that they should have any relevance at all later on in the series... or their method of writing off a character that doesn't want to be involved anymore; there's always that blasted smoke monster thing to call upon or otherwise ordinary men who suddenly turn psycho and murder everyone. But it's a fun, blindfolded ride where you just hope that they will explain things eventually...

Either way by now I'm pretty sure the writers are great fans of Death Note

Fleeting

So I stopped playing the Age of Conan beta rather quickly. I don't think it's because it's a bad game; I don't think it is. I just think that the MMORPG genre and I are completely done for a good while. After my WoW cold turkey it's just not the same anymore. The games take way too much time and are more like a job to me than they're actually fun. Age of Conan did have very gorgeous graphics though and is pioneering in several areas. But I honestly think its success will be a bit limited by the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Some people may leave the WoW account base, but new people start playing it every day, and the lumbering behemoth that is Activision Blizzard will keep making tons of money.

On another note I've started listening to some old music. Not really old as in 19th century, but more like music from the 70s and stuff. I had heard about Led Zeppelin but not really listened to much of their music. When I started listening to Stairway to Heaven I couldn't see the point at first. Then I listened to it a few times more... And now it is more or less stuck with me.
There is a lot of more modern music that I absolutely love, but it does not change the fact that Stairway to Heaven is one of the most soulful songs I've ever heard. The fact that it took a little while for me to really grasp its meaning and beauty makes it even more significant to me.
It's not all about the coolest guitar solos or most fast-paced lyrics. One might point out solos that are more technicically impressive and complex than the one in Stairway, but I think there will always be a trade-off if suddenly a song focusses too much on one aspect; whereas in Stairway, as far as I see it, the timing is just right. Jimmy Page's long solo comes after a huge build-up; the song takes its time to place itself in the minds and hearts of the ones listening to it. Pressure is slowly building up and once the guitar starts screaming it is released in a way that is just full of soul and power. It fits into what seems to me a pure whole, whereas in some other songs I know the guitar solo is just there for its own sake.

I may sound pretentious and purist as hell, but I'm just saying what I think, and if someone wants to disagree, that's fine... but I just can't get enough of that song.

Hmmm...

I have these periods when I don't really know what to write. It's a combination of not knowing what to write and not wanting to write the things I should be writing. Not in the laziness sense, but in the not-wanting-to-face-reality sense. What made me think was... I don't know what it was, but the thought was this: I don't think you can contemplate suicide without being slightly fatalistic. Like, you think it's your fate; there is no manner of avoiding it, it has to happen. There are so many approaches to determinism and fatalism that it is nauseating; you can contemplate whether or not someone can be considered guilty of murder if they were destined to do it, but arguing about that is tedious and you are not likely to get a result. But as a key to understanding suicide, I think the discussion is much more relevant. If someone truly believes that suicide is the last resort, I imagine the very act of killing oneself might feel like realising one's destiny. It's a morbid thought, but it is the only approach by which I can understand it.

Welcome to Hyboria / Meet Iron Man!

In the warm Spring hours with Summer at my doorstep, what better pasttime is there than wasting hour upon hour inside at my computer monitor?

At the moment I am trying out a beta version of Age of Conan - mostly because I am just curious. I have no plans to fall into the whole MMORPG trap all over again, but it does still have some allure.
I have created a few characters so far, and while my current prime character belongs to the class Bear Shaman, he looks more or less like a hangman on a bad day.

Extravagantly clad in a loincloth and armed with a broken oar, you, a lowly slave who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck, goes into the jungle to give some pirates a good old beating.
Of course, if you are a female character (which tend to be strangely lithe and generally well-shaped) you'll find yourself wearing suspiciously dirty underwear, though I guess the developers are merely hinted at womens' value as slaves in a dark pre-medieval world where everyone's favourite hobbies are sex and violence (sometimes both at once).

Now I can't say too much about the combat system yet because my less than awe-inspiring level 5 character does not have a whole lot to add to this topic apart from the few simple combos he has gained so far. But I suppose I generally like this system a lot more than the one in, say, WoW and LotrO. It seems more real-timeish and feels more real. With the variety of combos and other abilities you can gain later on and the number of different classes available I think there is a fair deal of potential.
They still have to work on some framerate issues and loading times, but hopefully they will have that ironed out by the time the game is released (one can dream).
Still, I will file no complaints with the ones who designed the female models, and I am sure that female gamers won't be complaining about the muscular male avatars either.

Female demonologist at work. Too bad the flames conceal her boobies.

Now for something completely different. Iron Man the movie rocks. I know I mentioned it in my previous post, but I do not think it can be stressed enough: Unless you are an utter fanatical comic book deadbeat who incidentally has no sense of humour, chances are you will enjoy the ride, which is full of special effects, gadgets, bad guys that get knocked over and a very surprisingly sexy Gwyneth Paltrow who does a subtle and delicate performance.

Even if some of the elements in the movie are a bit ridiculous. Such as the magnet that is supposed to keep grenade shrapnel from his heart. I am not a science expert, but wouldn't a very powerful magnet painfully draw out the shrapnels rather than keeping them in check?
Still, it is one of those nonsensical things that you just accept because you don't want it to spoil the experience (like the battleships in Star Wars Episode III that behave like we are still in the 18th bloody century. Yeah, I even heard the commentary, they thought it was a good idea!).
Jeff Bridges did a stellar job as the evil industrialist who wants to keep the war machine going so he can profit from it even more. Even the computers that main character Tony Stark uses to build his gadgets have personalities of their own and caused enormous laughter in the cinema with their little quirks.

Terrence Howard, not that I know much about the actor, was however pretty unconvincing in his role. I don't know if he just had a lot of bad days, but it was like there was no enthusiasm in any of his lines. Other than that the cast consists mostly of anonymous arabs and slutty reporters who will do anything to get into bed with Tony Stark. But Paltrow still overshines them by far with her delicacy and grace.

Morning

Ah, morning. Well, noon actually, but morning has always been a relative thing to me.
I've slept genuinely well for the first time in a while after my little brother's confirmation party (it is a Christian thing). Not much of a Christian myself, but eh, any good reason to have a good old party should be embraced.

I had a dream last night, of which I can't remember much, but I remember that it was very vivid when I had it. It is strange because I rarely remember my dreams, but this one was quite definitely very long and very epic. Of course, it was interrupted when I was woken at 8:30. Dreams like that always have all kinds of random people that I know.. not always significant people. And it plays out like a mishmash of different experiences. If dreams have a meaning, I have no idea what my dreams mean - on account of their usual pitch black quality.
I know people who remember their dreams every night.. not sure if I should feel envious.

In the meantime the world has been knocked over by GTA IV, a game so serious in scope that even Hollywood has been fearing its impact on audiences worldwide. We've yet to see whether or not it actually has an influence on box office for the movie Iron Man, which, I might add having seen it a couple of days ago, is, in a word, awesome. They know they shouldn't take themselves too seriously and have thus thrown in a lot of welcome comic relief to spice it all up. Robert Downey Jr. is perfect for the role as a complete bastard because he is a complete bastard.

But back to GTA IV, I think it is safe to say that gamers all around the globe will be going out considerably less, provided they have an Xbox 360 or a PS3, (apart from one of my mates who has to wait because the postal service in his district is on strike - hah!), and will be slowly drawn into a black hole that will happily consume all their time. I haven't been exposed because I am a PC exclusive bastard. So I'll probably have to wait a year for a port.

"They say it is the modern disease; chronical dissatisfaction"

Dreams

When I first made this blog it was under the illusion that I'd be using it differently than my other blog. When it comes down to it, I really haven't... I guess I just needed change. Because of being generally attention deficit, yeah...

I dream of travelling a lot... Like a lot of people do. I want to go on InterRail, and while it's a nice idea in theory, it requires that I have someone to travel with - or well, it does not, but I imagine I'm not too good at handling solitary travelling. Though if I don't find anyone to travel with, I guess I'll find out eventually - whether with someone or not, I'll simply have to travel somewhere this Summer or I'll go positively nuts.

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Well it's swallowing me again
I said it would, then
I thought I'd say now
Though you made your protests
And claimed otherwise
But I let myself chastise
Courtesy of my own ignorance
I would like to thank you
Because once I am through
It will have been the trip of my life
Even if I will be dead by then
At least I will have chosen when
And you can have my things
My money and my prejudices
As I think it would please
For you haven't enough of these

Unnatural ideas

Spring must be doing something unnatural to my mind because I had the sudden urge to actually tidy up my room and be productive. Considering my general attitude to these things it is quite an impressive change.
So I suppose I am at least enjoying the concept of Spring. The clouds may have moved in the way now, but it's nevertheless warm outside. It takes a hard case of hayfever, or just a general sense of hate for all life and growth, to prevent anyone from liking this weather.

Meanwhile governments around the worlde are slowly achanging - Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is finally getting knocked off his throne, and George W. Bush is ever so slowly preparing to move out of the Oval Office even if he has gotten very comfortable in his seat there.
And Silvio Berlusconi is back in the fast lane in Italy.
I could contemplate the effects and consequences of these things, for now I'll be content to not give a damn.

Bipolarity

On one hand Spring is a great thing. Lots of great weather, a feel-good scent in the air and being able to go outside without 20 pounds of isolating winter wear. But on the other hand... Well, feels like my social life is slightly on stand-by. I can understand if it feels weird for my fellow students that I among others am going to switch to something else after Summer, but... Whatever social life takes place in relation to the university, I'm not really a part of. People have prior engagements, which is alright. But it can be bit of a motivation killer when it basically turns into a bad circle.

What I'm really looking forward to is the Roskilde Festival and the time when I'll hopefully go on InterRail. Got lots of places I wanna see, so it's a question of coordination.

Either way, it's almost impossible to be in a decidedly bad mood these days. Every moment spent outside is simply a real treat, and the bright days keep Winter depression at bay a bit.
There's still my physical condition with tension and pain, but I guess I can live with that for a while more since I am so used to it.

In this weekend I plan to squeeze in Snakes on a Plane which I bought on impulse the other day. May not have garnered the best reviews, but in my opinion it's always worth it to see Samuel L. Jackson using a gun. Right now I will spend a few moments to sit back, relax and wait for a friend of mine to come over.

I'll tell your mom!

So I finished Assassin's Creed. It was a textbook Hollywood type predictable ending. It was a nice bit of fireworks but anyone who didn't see it coming has lived on a rock for the last 10 years.
And probably shares Jack Thompson's general IQ.

Even people who aren't very interested in video-games should find this amusing at least on basis of its general principle. To cut to the chase, Jack Thompson is a lawyer whose major goal is to ban all major violence in video games. Now you can say what you want about younger people being exposed to blood and gore, but at least use sensible arguments, and please for God's sake don't write to a video game producer's MOM about it!

But Jack Thompson, in his hilarious glory, decided that now was the time to pull out the big guns.
The result was an elaborate letter written by someone with the apparent mindset of the average kindergarden populace. I'd like to know what kind of drugs Mr. Thompson was taking, but on second thought it is probably best not to wonder too much.

Inconsistent Bollocks

Two words that, when paired, can easily sum up quite a lot of things. Hopefully Lost will sort itself out as time passes. I have only watched first season and those script writers know how to wield suspense, but the series' hasn't really proven itself to me until I get solid proof that they actually do have answers for the many questions that arise.

More or less the same way I feel about Assassin's Creed, which is subject to the drop-dead gorgeous-[insert key visual element]-in-lieu-of-solid-[insert key substance element]-complex.
Though in this instance the absolutely fantabulous historical depictions of Acre, Jerusalem and Damascus keep me more than sufficiently captivated. Hopefully they'll get more out of the engine in a potential sequel - for which they likely have more than enough funds, seeing as everybody and their mom purchased Assassin's Creed.

Meanwhile it seems that Spring is finally getting the point. We don't often see that sort of prolonged ideal Spring-type weather over here, so it has caught me rather off my guard. And there is no good excuse to go out and enjoy it, but nevertheless I seem perfectly capable of coming up with a lot of bad ones that I then let suffice. I had to brave the ultraviolet shower once today when I went to a hair dresser.. for the first time in 15 months. It was a strange experience.

Now would be the perfect time to sit outside in my garden with a good book. But of course I still haven't retrieved the book I'm reading, which I forgot at some place a couple of weeks ago.
Hooray

I am doomed

So I made the mistake of jumping on the Lost bandwagon and do not have time to write anything more because LOST STOLE MY TIME.

I sure hope you are happy J.J. Abrams, you cunning bastard!

Happiness

Let's get right down to it and dispense with pretense. Now matter how normal a person seems we all have our quirks and flaws; what I don't get about the modern culture is the search for perfection. Keep searching you fucking retards, you'll never find it. Of course, there's a whole other aspect to our culture which I find much more fascinating - the search for imperfection, because, as claimed by many people throughout the ages, it's the imperfections that make us unique.
Yet there's some comfort in the pursuit of the unreachable, at least to some people. It's just bloody frustrating though, when you want to get in touch with someone and they're on some bloody opium-like dream-substance chasing some obese dragon that they know will keep eluding them.
It is the kind of randomised behaviour that does nothing except restore a sense of cynicism about humanity in general. All we do is underestimate the emotions of the people we're dealing with everyday, lying to them and hurting them more than we can imagine... a few wrong words can make all the difference between ruining or saving a day, but busy lives keep us occupied and uncaring. Ignorance may be bliss if you're an utter retard, but the majority aren't, so how about a bit of a straightforward attitude and some honesty

Yes! No.

Stop for a little while to take a breath. Add in a memo to yourself that right now time can go fuck itself. It is absolutely irrelevant and immaterial. It can go mind its own business, and so can every single chore, duty or other damn thing. Just for a little while... Just long enough to enjoy it. There should be moments like that every day. It's another slightly annoying cliché, but to me it does not cease to be relevant. Besides, so many thoughts have been conceived and so many ideas have been fostered that clichés are almost unavoidable, and some of them can justify their existence.

Okay, that's enough pseudo-philosophical bullshit for now. Let's discuss other things, like keeping our obsessive-compulsive disorders fresh and active and our prejudices fired up and ready, our minds as stressful as possible and using sandpaper to wipe our arses. And only buy food that has almost reached the point where it starts rotting. Let's keep our electronical items turned on at all times and leave the car on to contribute to global warming. Let's assume that every person has the sole intent of fucking us over and exploiting us, and let's proceed to do it to them before they do it to us. Let's get annoyed at people for no reason or emotionally involved with them after which we opt to cut all contact and send SMS's containing a multitude of ill-disguised insults and/or completely false compliments. Let's wear ourselves out utterly before we go to bed and then ignore all important appointments and promises the next day.
And feel great about it.

Bile

It has been a little while since I took the time to properly use my mental bile duct. Or, a bit more than a week, but that's more than enough...

A horrible revelation dawned on me a week ago when I purchased a game called Prey which was on weekend sale. I generally avoid bad books and bad games, but once in a while I take a stab at something utterly random, now I experience the consequences. What I realised is that a poor game is somewhat like a poor Hollywood movie. You have the most obscene plot you can imagine, yet you get this ominous feeling that the people who made it sincerely cared for the story and that they expected to be taken seriously. Even in Hollywood, making a movie that takes place in the modern world where the main character is an American indian who lives at a bar with his grandfather and girlfriend, and in which, after a small introduction, everyone is abducted by aliens, would be to expect a bit much of your audience in terms of how farfetched it can be before they start wondering exactly what kind of drugs the screenwriters were on. But like most B-movies it can provide a source of hilarity despite its faults due to adequate action scenes and oneliners so cliché that you can't help but laugh.
It's an ambivalent feeling because it makes me wonder if I haven't been trying out enough B-rated games. One of the problems with B-rated games, though, is that they take more time than a B-movie.

Speaking of movies, I checked the internet for movies to watch in the cinema and found diddly squat. I suppose Spring isn't the most usual season in which to release the big blockbusters - it's more convenient to wait until Summer when everyone has time.
After what seemed an endless wave of fantastic movies at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 it's all come to a standstill. So meanwhile I look at older movies that had slipped under my nose. Which, with the ridiculously low DVD prices these days, it would be madness not to check some of them out.

Of course, there are a few misses between, but when it comes to trying new things, they help teaching what to avoid.

Strings

In general I wish I could avoid the standard kind of commercial that uses the same retarded means in a pathetic attempt to brainwash the impressionable majority. When there's a certain use of humour, and I mean good humour, not the cheap kind that has its roots in the worst clichés available, I can actually enjoy watching a commercial. Alright, so in my case it might not actually achieve what it should, i.e. make me buy the product, even if the commercial makes me laugh, and I don't know enough about sales statistics to say which manner of commercial is the most effective. But from my own egoistic point of view, all commercials should exist with the sole purpose of amusing me.

Pitch black humour is particular is a hit with me, as in this example

I was recently blessed with a lot of new additions to my audio library of various genres to stimulate my relatively undiscriminating music taste. Darn, there are lots of talented people out there, and it's a shame that not all of them get very much attention.
I was listening to an electronic duo called Akasha ... it may not be everyone's kind of music, but at least it's somewhat different. I like music that has kind of an acid feel to it.
Boduf Songs on the other hand, was in a different category. Rather quiet and relaxing lyrics accompanied by a pleasant acoustic guitar most of the time. And in yet another entirely different category, I was listening to more music by Rise Against - which is more than one case is politically motivated and great for me personally when I feel frustrated.

When it comes down to it, I just like feeling miserable. And make others feel miserable. It's my passion.

Just a...

...quick thought. I saw a bakery at a shopping mall where the sign said "Take Away". Given the nature of this kind of bakery in general, isn't that kind of message a bit redundant? Makes you think if there are similar bakeries where the bread in fact not take away.

"I'll just have a loaf of bread and a couple of buns .... could I get a bag for them?"
"Sorry sir, but you are not allowed to consume our products outside the mall, if you need accessories you will have to buy them inside the store"
"But there are no places to sit even if I wanted to eat it here"
"So sorry sir, you should have read the sign. It's not our responsibility"

Alternatively, they could have a huge "Masters of the Obvious" banner there instead.

Paradox

You know, I'm not against animal rights activists as a rule; the whole vegetarian/vegan trip is alright all around if that's the code people want to live by. But some of the arguments pro-vegetarianism are a bit skewed in my opinion, in fact they're downright discriminating.
I mean, that only humans are capable of murdering other animals in cold blood, to assume that that kind of intelligence is unique to us, that's just rude!
As far as I know there are plenty of examples of animals doing various kinds of thievery and/or murder in cold blood, and I'm not just talking about predators, which after all have to eat something. I'm talking about birds who steal each other's food, leaving the other to starve, or who kill each other to the same effect and various other species that practice cannibalism even in situations when it's not crucial to their survival.
In honesty I think it's a tired argument that animals aren't sufficiently sentient to take responsibility for their actions or that they all abide by a common instinctive code at all times.
Not only does this mistake the capabilities of certain animals, it is quite simply a statement of human supremacy to claim that humans have patented imaginative displays of cruelty! While we should take some measure of pride in having invented obscene methods of torture and phenomena like genocide, it's quite unfair to leave animals out of the game. Sadistic sentient creatures of the world unite!

On a different note, I've started watching the activities of the English TV channel Sky One more closely after they've started adapting Discworld novels as miniseries. Their adaptation of Hogfather wasn't perfect, but it was really well done under the circumstances, and while I feared the worst for their adaptation of The Colour of Magic, so far it's showing a lot of promise.

In my case it takes an intoxicated mind to fully explore the surreal potential of my dreams, which, there were quite a few interesting twists throughout the night, no single element trying to counterpoint the general feel good mood in the long and somewhat coherent dream I had. For some reason nightmares stay away in the face of beer.
Devoid of alcohol in the blood after a long night of drinking, it always feels like my body has gone through a ritual of cleansing, and I feel a lot more rested than I would otherwise feel after just 6 hours' sleep.

The mind does a sufficient amount of wandering along the clouds that are not rudely covering the entire sky, but soon plummets when the understimulated digestive system cries out for work.
When the bitter taste of beer and garlic fills your mouth in the morning, even a cup of coffee will taste ever so sweet.

Bit of the old self-indulgence

There are the varying impulses; do you write an experience down immediately, or do you wait until your head is clear? Not because of any healthy purpose or specific merit, but because of simple self-indulgence, I end up choosing to write it down immediately.
Realizing that I won't feel completely shiny when I awake, and realizing that my recent rate of alcohol and/or fast food consumption was less than nutritious, I put less artistically relevant facts aside and focus on the morning. I left my window open before I left about 18 hours ago, and to my disappointment, my breath inside my own room does not emerge as a cluster of mesmerizing crystals, but merely as a wave of steam as I watch an indifferent blackbird in the distance - and as I observe that in the very moment of its mention it takes off and starts circling the area.
It's no big country I live in, and the closer you get to the inner city, the smaller it gets. Everyone is alienated and familiar at the same time in the weekend, drinking themselves senseless and communicating with complete strangers as if making a temporary pact that underlines a drunken and superficial allegiance. The feathers that hit the ground belong to birds and people alike, a continouous hedonistic waste where the beginning or end of any kind of sense was long pushed over a cliff into a pit of spikey granite.
Yes, I write this because of the multitude of beautiful images the morning brings when, in a mournful moment, I realize that I am not greeting it as much as bidding it farewell as others are to claim it while I enter my brief hibernation.

The faces become a blur more than ever, and the pseudo-sentimental slideshow passes before my weary eyes, pretense not lessened by a state of mild intoxication.
Wishful thinking, now a few days old, did not pay off, and yet the beauty would not be the same if the air wasn't such a fine wall of ruthless frost. I tell myself that this is what I miss every morning for all my self-indulgent oversleeping when I lazily arise to enjoy merely half a day. But I have had my dose, shutting out the experience as condensed in these words to read them as if they were created by a stranger.

I won't ever be the same person when I awake as I am just before I go to sleep, and I feel thankful for it.

Weekend rant

Some people like to think of analogies for everything because, I suppose, it seems very clever with all those similies, metaphores and whatnot, but the blunt truth (as far as I think) is that a lot of analogies are complete shite. Doesn't prevent them from being amusing diversions for the mind, and I always fall into the same damnable pit, musing over the same damn details over and over, but inexplicably I don't stop enjoying it. My latest though was comparing my life to a movie script. How I'd view it if it happened to be the final draft for a movie if I were a producer. Generally a dangerous path to choose because that kind of thinking can become an easy escape. Imagining myself as a character in a movie doesn't really answer any existential questions, doesn't bring me closer to any conclusion ... and yet it can work as a device for me to see things from the outside, opting for a different perspective. Taking the analogy further, I guess a person'd wish that they were in an A-grade movie with a sense of meaning and depth without being too slow or overcontemplative. Eventually you realize that you are in fact part of a poorly written B movie with long periods of dullness and unrealistic dialogue and really bad camera angles.

A silly wish which I know will probably not be fulfilled anytime soon is to have less attractive female (or male) leads. It's not that I don't like eye-candy in general, but it's strange how successful characters usually by pure coincidence are drop-dead gorgeous or frightening handsome. That's how successful people look! Apparently. Even the most geeky computer nerd will have designer glasses and a perfect haircut. And all those movies where the lead actress is genetically bred to wear permanent make-up. Scarlett Johansen does not need total make-up to look pretty! Some is alright, especially for technical reasons regarding lighting etc. but too much and it can be the cause of serious eye-sore. I also hate it when they place a rather fine actress in a role only to use her looks instead of challenging their acting skills.

But I guess if they want a movie to earn some money they need to front it with some pretty faces.

End of rant.

Simplicity

A brief Winter night descends in the middle of a manically depressed version of March that has so far made me believe that I live in some alternate dimension where the weather sucks all year. Still, a bit of frost and snow lightens the mood a bit, as if the strangely extended Autumn has finally loosened its grip on Winter, allowing the tortured season to say its last goodbye before Spring takes over. The reflections of street light in those fine layers of ice light up the pavement as you walk, and light reflected in the snow at the sky makes the night seem brighter. I remember past years of my life where the sunlight lit up the day in the middle of March, clouds spreading to reveal a blue sky and flowers blossoming early, but this year the weather has seemed absolutely bipolar.
I take in some full breaths of the cold evening air, savouring its simple beauty, yet longing for warmth and green trees. I want to ride my bicycle without having to wear a jacket, I want to sit in the park and read a book quietly. I want to be able to feel a touch of Summer before the wrong sort of pollen goes airborne and makes my allergies go crazy and makes me want to rip out my throat because of the constant itch. Best not to think about that quite yet...
For now I'll just let music fill my ears in those few blissful moments before I go to sleep

Easter fiction

While Danish weather is manically depressed and can't seem to find psychiatric assistance, clouds, rain and wind have to serve as the only source of inspiration to find when I look out of my window. It is a lazy day; Easter holidays have begun, time being the most abundant resource at the moment. Too many books want to be read... both the traditional and the interactive sort.
A lot has already been said about whether or not computer games can be art, and in truth I can add very little to that discussion... To me a really good game is like a painting that I can enter and interact with or a book in which I take control. As rewarding as regular reading is, sometimes it's a real treat to just sit back and process the images of a pre-rendered world. There's the occasional trap of course, such as Guitar Hero... which is sort of amusing, but when you keep playing the same song over and over just to get a better score, it becomes an unhealthy addiction, very different from an engrossing role-playing game where you have an active influence on your environment.
Most gamers owe it to themselves to check out the rave-worthy game Audiosurf - has been out for a little while - which unfortunately is only available over Steam
It's fairly cheap though and is honestly the most relaxing way of listening to music. Basically you control a little craft that flies on a road that varies depending on the intensity of the song - any song you have on your computer. There's more to it than that, but it's hard to explain every aspect of it. The graphics are simple, but still beautiful. Whenever I want some relaxing stimulation of my brain, I just pick a song and off I go.
It's certainly an alternative to games like Guitar Hero where the number of available songs is very limited.

Also, a completely different thought... Space ships in science fiction... why do they go down when their engine fails? I know there is something called gravity which may be a perfect explanation when you're above a planet, but when you're in the middle of space? Apparently space ships have some extra devices for downwards propulsion that kick in once the main engines are dead.
And how did they construct some über space station like the death star without having smaller point defence systems with homing missiles to shoot any planes that went for the "We have no weaknesses, so we'll make this vulnerable spot"? It's one of the reasons I don't often read science fiction. Magic is something I can handle.. it's metaphysical and therefore the regular laws of physics and reason don't apply to it. It's alright that science fiction does a lot of things that aren't possible, that's the whole point after all, but sometimes it just doesn't make any sort of sense.
Maybe it's because I generally avoid bad fantasy - except the kind I sometimes write in my spare time - and have mostly been looking at bad science fiction. What I like in a work of science fiction or literature is a degree of realism in anything that isn't affected by rules of physics that are unique to the setting. There has to be a sense of urgency and sacrifice... the best work of science fiction I've ever read ended with a complete apocalyptic disaster... that kind of thing is awe-inspiring and terrifying like a tidal wave.

TV + Superhero wannabes = miniskirts and hot pants

Between weathering the political storm as presented in newspapers and TV and making every possible attempt not to do anything productive, I found myself in the deepest parts of the gutter of my mind, probing around for anything that could divert my attention and inspire creativity.
All I found was the collective leftovers from last night's contemplations, which were pretty crude and mainly centered around the reality TV-show "Who Wants To Be A Superhero", the concept of which is that a bunch of geeks, morons and bimbos get to do ridiculous clothing (in the case of the bimbos, considerably less). This is roleplaying taken to another level, although it's obvious that some people take it more seriously than others. What I did not at all fathom was how a seriously overweight woman, who had named her alter ego "Fat Momma" - a super hero who gets her power from eating doughnuts - made it to be a part of the final bunch that was left after an army of other idiots were turned down. I have deep respect for Stan Lee and all that he has done for the comic book world, but whatever was going on in his mind when he did the casting is just an absolute mystery. I guess he thought it was safe to include her seeing as she's going to be thrown out eventually, but having a superhero who, in a Western culture where obesity is a prime disease, gets her powers from getting even fatter than she already is, will perhaps not send the most productive message to all the kids who are watching the show. Then again, considering the vast numbers of completely ridiculous superheroes featured in comic books across the world, the character of Fat Momma isn't all that farfetched. For example, standard weed is nothing compared to the stuff smoked by some of the people who wrote for the X-men series. The whole concept of mutation and such is rather neat, but even a world rich in imagination needs some boundaries, otherwise it's just nonsensical chaos.

Of course, I'll get addicted to watching the misery of these would-be heroes (or, in some cases, would-be villains) because I'm just that low. With great anticipation will I observe the adventures of The Iron Enforcer, Feedback, Major Victory, Monkey Woman (!!!!!), Cell Phone Girl(?!) and others if I can find the episodes. After all, the series has apparently been going on since mid-2006.

Also, I've been watching Life on Mars. Which is actually an interesting series, the plot of which I won't spoil (I can leave that to Wikipedia).

The Internet is stupid...

Well, not really, but damn, whenever I do something really stupid all I have to do is browse user comments on YouTube, Imdb or some other website where people who can't get anyone else to listen to their opinions post their perspectives on the world, and suddenly I feel extremely clever by comparison. There's seriously a cornucopia of entertainment. In particular, go look at really good movies on Imdb, and read some of the negative reviews that people have posted. I mean, I respect the right to an opinion and all, but some people seem to think that perfect spelling and punctuation grants them God status and makes every single word they write absolutely infallible. The amount of pretentious shit you get there is absolutely mind-boggling to say the least. But whenever you're looking for answers, you can be very certain that there's a whole multimillion panel of rabid self-appointed experts who are hungry for your questions, and have one and all independently invented the Philosopher's Stone.

Another absolute favourite is looking at videos of various guitarists on YouTube. You see a recording of a guy who's doing some pretty amazing things on his guitar, and then there's a horde of people standing in line to claim that he's an amateur and is surpassed by at least several others, after which they name their own favourites. Even if the guitarist is someone who is renowned among some of his top professional colleagues. Of course, they, too, are entitled to an opinion, but an attitude I just can't stand is the "categorically unimpressed" one. If you believe yourself beyond impression or surprise, you're either some kind of God or an absolute moron. Let's say there was an objective way of determining the skill of a guitarist. If someone by that method was determined to be number 100 in the world, I'd personally still be damned impressed. I can listen to a skilled guy playing the guitar and think "Damn, I don't like the sound of that", but I won't use that as an argument for claiming that he can't play his instrument. He just doesn't play it the way I prefer. Thankfully there's a near equal amount of people present on YouTube to write equally amusing replies to all those morons. And of course, nothing cheers me up more than seeing the suffering of those that don't share my opinions.

Trail-offs and punctuation...

Do you ever think about punctuation in IM conversations? No? Yes?

Either way, I think I made the mistake of doing just that. The thing is, when you are talking to someone over MSN or whatnot, unless you are using a webcam, it is a bit difficult to read facial expressions or body language. You can't necessarily determine the other person's mood, except when he/she is saying it directly. Of course, as in any normal conversation when someone has been asked if they are feeling alright, they might not give an honest answer, especially if they're extremely depressed. But from what I've seen so far it's sometimes possible to read someone's mood from the way they write. In a world of communication where long strings of non-capital letters and lacking punctuation are pretty common phenomeons, every full stop, comma or capital letter can be used as a weapon.

People who would normally skip the capital letters altogether will suddenly put one in the beginning of their IMs and start finishing each sentence with a full stop.
What could have been a casual greeting from one person to another, a " hey :-) ", suddenly turns into a passive-aggressive "Hi." Maybe this is just my weird, overanalyzing mind, but the full-stop in such a short message is almost like a landmine. It makes me tread carefully when I respond; in fact it almost discourages response, effectively killing the flow of conversation before it has even begun.
Some people can read a person's personality from their handwriting. I believe it's possible to an extent - not to the same extent as with handwriting - to tell something about a person judging by their sentence structure and choice of punctuation in IM conversations. This is only a theory, however, and its exploration would probably require elaborate studies. It wouldn't surprise me if someone else had already made such. You can sometimes tell if an individual (like me) is a grammar fetishist. Of course, some people who really are grammar fetishists use MSN as a place where it's okay to just relax and not be too serious about the formal aspects of writing. Some would choose to view lacking capitalization as a sign of sloppiness, while others would interpret it as a sign of a healthy, laid-back person.
In addition to this we have smileys, abbreviation fillers and trail-offs...
The trail-off is a phenomenon which, I think, has simply become a habit to many of us, a trail-off being a series of dots (often three) to follow a sentence. Like a lot of smileys, the trail-off is highly context sensitive, i.e. "We could watch a movie tonight..." where it makes the sentence just hang in the air as a suggestion. Though what I think is that the trail-off often tends to make a sentence seem like the writer is out of breath. "I'm doing fine..." feels like it's leaving out a major "...but..."
It's an uncertain or half-hearted sentence. "That's definitely a possibility..." as opposed to "that's definitely a possibility :-)"
I mentioned abbreviation fillers, examples of which are "lol" and "rofl". Their overutilization in games like World of Warcraft and other places of the web might generate the prejudice that people who use them all the time are retards. They work well on occasion when used appropriately, but if they're used all the time it just feels like the person in question has nothing else to say. And then again there are some people who feel that smileys should be obliterated forever.

I'm sure a lot of people have thought about all this before, this was just my personal rant about a highly subjective topic.

He's sort of beginning to consider, no, yes, ponder... Seeing the blooms everywhere, finding himself waiting for them to wither and die along with the frail signs of an upcoming Spring. He drinks way too strong coffee and dreams of a day when anxiety attacks aren't lurking around the corner. Perfect colours don't mix well in his nightmares, he can't take the pressure and reverts to black and white - there's that rare moment when he finds company a gift; the paradox of a person who feels lonely, but at the same time is addicted to solitude. Contemplates blowing the dust off a book he should have read a while ago, but he can't find the courage to open it.

He'd drift off to sleep if he felt tired enough, but he's being kept awake by the smile of a woman whose face he can't recall. Maybe she's just a conjuration of his own imagination, maybe she's his way of compensating for his social void. The chalice is filled with the wine that could drive the image out of his mind, but he doesn't drink it because every time he does, the image is merely amplified.

In the end he tells the image to go fuck itself as he turns up the volume until her voice can't be heard anymore.

Fatigue

I like taking those slightly psychedelic pictures with all these odd reflections and stuff. I don't know all that photographer jargon seeing as every picture I take is a product of randomness. Like this, taken of a window inside the metro.
I don't know why public transport remains one of my favourite ways of getting somewhere. It's comforting in a way to observe people in their everyday lives, tired, energized, old, young. Like this guy who sat with a baby on his lap. I didn't think to get a picture because that'd be a bit rude under the circumstances, but that happy child cheered me up.

Aren't our minds busy all the time? Real happiness seems a fleeting thing to a lot of people. It's an uncertain age to live in, new scientific breakthroughs lurking around every corner, feeding us with information about the latest fatality rates. I don't know why I keep getting this recurring image of a man inside a bar, smoking his last cigarette and having a drink with Death. Maybe because I'm on occasion a melancholy bastard whose outlook on life is sometimes bleak at best.
Political apathy becomes the way to go for a lot of people because politics in general seem less about ideals now than about personalities and power for its own sake. It fills people like me with a strange sense of admiration when I witness someone who is willing to work hard to support an ideology. And that's how it often starts... Then they get older, or they get elected. They sell out or they buy new ideological paradigms at a second-hand store. Though in those cases where ideology survives, even if I don't necessarily agree with a certain point of view, I can at least respect it. Of course, an age of uncertainty and sudden changes needs a sense of pragmatism. Sometimes one wishes that we wouldn't get cynicism instead.

I think one of the reasons fantasy literature, to me at least, is more appealing, is that I hear about our world all the time in the news. But then I end up reading something post-apocalyptic and I'm back to square one.

But there's light at the end of the tunnel, even in the Danish subway where aggressive automated doors will kill you if your reflexes aren't good enough.

Intarwebz debate nightmares

Debate forums, Facebook discussions, passionate rambling and contradictions, facing me when I casually do my every day browsing of various online networks. No matter what forum you go to (provided it has been going for a while), it seems there's always that random guy whose 4,000 posts haven't gotten any more sensible or relevant with all the practice he's had.
There are people out there playing World of Warcraft or other online games, living for the majority of their spare time in that alternate world, and then there are the people who live on various forums, never exhausting their desire to voice their opinions about pretty much any topic that comes up. To a lot of people it's probably just a pasttime that they enjoy, but to others I suspect it's because they simply have no other place where people actually want to listen to their fucked up ideas and self-promoting pseudo wisdom. Don't get me wrong. Ideas, theories and opinions are important tools to inspire others, but the typical I've figured it all out and you must all start worshipping me attitude seems to pop up everywhere, and people seem to read the shit and take the time to conceive a coherent response. I'd rather just ignore people who get that sort of idea since in their wisdom I doubt they need my feedback, and if a lack of any response makes their ego bleed a little, it's absolutely worth it.

Justice is gone

There's no justice in the world when The Machinist is cheaper than any awful movie made by Jean-Claude Van Damme or Chuck Norris. What a cruel and bleak world we live in.
Soon they'll probably start tossing The Prestige or City of God at people for free while The Patriot by Steven Seagal costs a fragment of your soul (not the other fragment you'll lose watching it)

Morning

Something I've been wondering about for a while is sleep. We all know I'm not the only person at my age who doesn't sleep enough, and for some reason it's a bad habit that is impossible to shake off.

I remember reading about an experiment where they took a comedian and locked him inside a room, and whenever he was trying to sleep they made sure he couldn't. Mind you, the man had volunteered for it. I can't remember the exact amount of time they kept him awake, but it was... long. The end result was, when they finally let him out of the room, long-deprived of sleep, they could observe drastic changes in his personality. The fact that his mind had had no time to rest - I can't say how it actually affected his brain tissue, I'm no doctor - apparently made this otherwise jolly guy not so jolly at all. In fact his sense of humour was almost gone, and while I haven't heard whether or not the damage was permanent, it lasted for at least a rather long while.
Now, dramatic examples aside, I just wonder how we're all affected in a minor way if day after day we get much less sleep than we're supposed to. How it might give us less energy to cope with whatever each day brings. I know that some people have less need of sleep than others, but all around, it's not a terribly healthy business for those of us who do.

And most of us know it, but aren't doing anything about it. And when I think of how much people at my age or thereabout sometimes drink each week alcohol-wise, I'm wondering that if we don't invent some kind of miraculous life-extender, we'll see a drop in the lifespan of my generation.

Personally I just hope I'll never suffer from clinical insomnia. That's one of the things I fear most.

I think it's moving

You can see it move, and your eyes want to follow it. Sometimes it slips out of sight even in the middle of the day. You wonder how it could hide while you find yourself wanting to touch it.
It's not really that you know its actual shape the way it blends with the light surrounding it, but if you could touch it, you'd know. Every little curve, every detail of its surface, and you'd smile to yourself in new-found knowledge... perhaps.

Thinking and trying to feel one of those answers that the mind knows are obvious. A series of words that can be repeated forever without the mind grasping what they are trying to tell. Because they have roots in a choice which has been made; one beyond comprehension, even with knowledge that making any alternate choice would have caused the same degree of regret. Can't go anywhere without not going somewhere else. There'll always be that missed aspect.

Even now, eluding all senses. But there is the hope that tomorrow might offer some clarity.