Year: 2014

Chilling on the couch,

Eating all the popcorn,

Enjoying a movie 🙂

It’s been a long time since I’ve actually sat on my sofa. Because of my skin condition, which is now hopefully receding, I’d been sitting on the floor or on my pooter chair but not on the sofa. I was avoiding that because I’d been leaking and that coulda wrecked me sofa. It’s an old sofa, the springs are starting to break … but it’s my sofa. And I didn’t want to wreck it.

But … sofa time ! Yey !

Good job too cos sitting on that floor was having nasty effects on my hips. If anything stops me playing cricket this summer, it’s probably going to be those hips. Problems there mean I can’t turn which makes me useless where I field.

What’s the movie ? We’ll get to that later. Before though … my poorly leg’s been feeling much better 🙂 I’ve not had the signals from the muscles that say they’re feeling that cramp. So … I took ’em on a walk today. Just around the centre of Bristol.

I like moseying around the shops, although I don’t actually go in many of them. I’m also looking at the people too. I don’t think I actually did that too much today. Must have been in thought … I did get a few smiles out of people though. Which is always good.

Lots of traffic though, it was enough that I could listen (and sing along to) two songs between hitting the stops in the traffic and getting to the car park. Two awesome songs mind, anyone remember Alannah Myles Black Velvet ? The other was Alive by Goldfrapp.

Good job I didn’t wind the window down. The other drivers would have been terrified by my singing along. We’re also suffering from Smog at the moment, although that seemed to have dispersed by this afternoon. I’ve been able to literally taste it in the air, yesterday and this morning at least. Smog is nasty. I’m doing my bit ! (points to hybrid car – lol)

I actually bought stuff too –

New albums :
Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Wanderlust – 2 for £15 strikes
Agnes Obel – Aventine – found this singer on a freebie pack and Close Watch immediately hit me as something special
Christina Perri – Head Or Heart – heard it in HMV, liked it, waited until I got home and bought it for half the price
Star Trek Into Darkness soundtrack – great film, loved it

New movies :
Rush – not seen this one, looking forward to it. I watched a real life documentary about its subject and was intrigued. It also enabled a 2 for £25 …
Man Of Steel – also not seen it but heard a lot of good things about it.
Hunger Games – Catching Fire – amazed this one was in 2 for £25 …

It’ll take a while before I get to listen or watch all that but it will happen ;-).

Movie tonight ? I’m watching Ender’s Game. It’s a scifi movie set 50 years from roughly now (there are F35’s in some scenes). I’m sure I’ve written about this one before some time ?

Great movie. It builds steadily from simple beginnings into massive battles at the end. It looks amazing too plus it brings through most of the psychology that drove the book. A book I haven’t read (yet!) mind 😉

Back to the movie ! Almost …

In case I don’t mention it – Happy Birthday CK on Monday ! I visited Amazon today but I suspect it won’t arrive until or after Monday 🙁 (must order these things earlier …)

See – now your 2nd statement is true….. [grin]

Lol – depends on point of view …

Then again, our imperfections are what make us interesting. They're our quirks, our strange habits, our distinguishing features.

Word to the wise – no one is perfect.

Indeed 😉 (Warning – Deep Thoughts Post !)

I have something I could write but it’s whiny and therefore doesn’t deserve to see the light of day here. Except for a snippet …

I have a couple of super powers … The first is one I talk about a fair bit – the Contagious Grin. It’s still getting victims ! Now if only I could get it down on camera … Whatever selfies I take of me are … screen shatterers. Let’s be honest, I wasn’t blessed with classic looks and I’m carrying a little too much weight.

I talk about what I notice about other people looking like, I’ve felt for a while that a little turnabout was required there. How do I see myself ?

Lazy – which I am. I’m rubbish at doing things for me but I’ll drop everything to help others.
Intelligent – but that’s like a massive supercomputer that can do lots of sums but doesn’t know how to direct its power.
Bigger than I need to be – very true. I’m probably 1st heavier than I need to be but I’m still able to hit that Warp Speed. Well, when my legs will support that.

I’d rather be the shape (a little round!) I am than be one of those super pumped up gym addicts who would crush jars instead of just popping the lid off like the person asked.

A bit broken – isn’t everyone ? I’ve been managing this skin condition for a few years now, plus I have the other issues with back, legs and shoulders. Do I let them get the better of me ? Rather die 😉 Very few people on the team have realised what I’ve been coping with, they just see me coming in day after day grinning at them and occasionally breaking the quiet with huge laughs and That Sneeze.

Very private – school gave me a certain type of armour that’s been very hard to crack. I’m very good at filtering the information that I give out. Too much information leads to vulnerabilities that others can exploit. And you can rarely tell who the bullies are before they expose their tendencies. I write a lot here about me and occasionally about others but … there are certain walls in place.

Other people’s secrets are their own – and that determines the communication channels I use. Talking of that, I’ve just joined Twitter ! Ok, it was to do with getting messages to someone I know is on Twitter. The tally is @dwagonman – Sleepypete was already taken and I like Dwagonman.

What’s brought this one on ?

It’s that second super power … I seem to have the power to make people Run Away Screaming. It’s not everyone, just those who I express an interest in beyond simple friendship. I don’t understand that. Perhaps its that old thing about Girls Prefer Nasty Boys. Maybe I’m too Good. That’s not something I’m planning to change. But if …

You see someone who you think is Perfect;
You send a few messages across, most based on info you’ve seen them put out;
You know they’ve read them and paid a little attention;
You get no reply whatsoever despite knowing they’re active;
And they do stuff like delete profiles on online dating agencies the day after you get in touch.

I don’t get that. It hurts and it’s not the first time I’ve had a response that seems like someone’s running away and doing the screaming thing. It does make you think that the person you thought was Perfect isn’t. That’s definitely been the case with the two major relationships I’ve had so far. I don’t attempt to initiate stuff like that because I’m very picky about who I’d want to let in past that armour but when I do, it’s whole hearted.

And I think that whole heartedness is what scares people away. It’s like a switch that flips very quickly, too quickly, I can make my mind up about a person almost instantly and it’s a switch that can flip on changing circumstances too. It’s like a sixth sense. I’ll fairly quickly know who I can trust. Or who I think I can trust (it’s not a reliable instinct ! see 2 broken long term relationships comment)

I’ll find someone truly perfect eventually. Perhaps I’ve met them already but was too shy to ask (I can think of a couple there). Perhaps they took an all too subtle approach for lack of interest. Perhaps like the PokemonGirl I was too fixated on someone else to pay attention to what was in front of me.

Doh – I promised a not very whiney post and then wrote all that which is up there ^. Oops. I can do some predictions but often the way people react is completely mystery.

What I can tell you is that if someone Special does bop me over the head and drag me off to her GirlCave, you’ll see her mentioned here as MysteryGirl. And as another codename, depending on what I was writing about. Partner = MysteryGirl, what they do = other codename. It’s a bit difficult to do that within the same sentence but I’ve definitely done stuff like that in the same paragraph, talk about the same person without suggesting any connection.

Oh one closing note – I’ve excluded the possibility of a relationship while I get better … well, I may only be weeks away now. Cor ! Yep, there’s still a few bits that are persistently resisting healing but those bits are reducing in number and needing less intervention.

Promising 🙂

PS I also forgive quickly and completely – so if you’re reading this and think you’re the one I talked about – FORGIVEN ! 🙂 Hugs.

Definitely better than the first one and I thought the first one was pretty good.

Definitely thought Capt America was very good – and I don't like Superhero movies which must mean something!

Scottie says “The engines cannae take it Cap’n” !

Well, not yet anyway.

Watched Captain America 2 last night and … I’d highly recommend it. It’s a longer than average film but it keeps the pace going pretty well. And, rarely for a Hollywood movie, it kinda keeps you guessing too. Ok, some plot twists are a bit telegraphed but … the next time I watch it I’ll be looking out for the little bits I missed the first time around. It’s a definite buy on blu-ray. Better than Thor the Dark World for sure.

There’s lots of big toys here too. And some little toys too. I shouldn’t really call Black Widow a toy though, lest she hear and make a toy out of me. She scary.

Actually that’s one thing to look out for on the bluray – better playback of the action scenes. We have 2 Vue cinema near us, one’s easier to get to than the other. Without giving too much location away :

Vue CC – clapped out screens that can’t keep up with the action but easy for me to get to.
Vue LG – Shiny screens but traffic makes it horrific to get there midweek.

Yep. Really enjoyed Captain America 2. It was one of those films that gave me that physical charge that usually manifests in me doing things Really Fast. Like running across the car park to see if I could. Yep. Doing things Really Fast tends to be connected with Doing Things Really Stoopidly.

Yeah – I’m improving to the point where I’m normalising. Perhaps that’s partly due to being in a better state of mind ? Maybe 😉 It’ll be good to have possibilities open that have been closed for … years. It’s definitely manifesting in me wanting to run about like a loon, despite :

Being bigger than I should be;
Getting a bit more broken;
And apparently a bad memory cos I forgot the rest

Anyway – that Pain I wrote about in the last post was from one of those times when you wake up to find your leg in mid cramp. And then you don’t jump fast enough to break the cramp and your calf muscle ends up tearing itself in two. That’s my blessing … and my curse. My legs have always been a bit big :

I could push start a car ! On my own !
But all that power tore up my knees
I can run so fast the wind whistles in my ears !
But if I hit a downslope, I won’t stop for miles – no brakes !
If just one bit of that leg is unhappy – big ouch

But I’ve got away with it this time. Pain started Friday and saw me limping my way around EGXRezzed but I’d mostly walked it off by yesterday morning. Enough at least, for me to test it out yesterday.

I have several speeds :
Quick walk – I can walk forever on the flat like this
Slow jog – my legs are built for speed, not for persistence
Very Fast – more of a running style than anything really useful
WARP SPEED – when I want to go fast, I go FAST.

If I’m at a fit weight (I’m maybe 1st above right now), then I can hit that top speed fairly quickly. Be a good thing if I had brakes. What can I say ? I just like to Run Very Fast. Cricket lets me do that, plus I can usually get my breath back by the time the next bit of Running Very Fast is needed. And … with the exception of a few years, I’m still one of the fastest players in both teams I play for.

So – cricket this summer ? I’m in better condition now than I was last year. There’s still some healing to do, plus I need to get my Inner Me back to something healthy. By Inner Me, I mean the mineral balances that will keep my muscles happy and the other minerals that will keep me healing properly. I’m pretty sure I’ll be physically ready to play cricket this summer. But …

Will there be a team for me to play for ? That’s a bigger doubt than my own fitness … One team got fired and the other team may have disbanded. So my cricket retirement may be outside of my control. Which means :

I’ll need another method to throw myself around like a Mad Thing. Because that’s an essential part of being me. Perhaps gym and treadmills ? Maybe. That’s something I’ve never really needed to do as I’ve obnoxiously abused Natural Fitness. Gym attendance would be easier to maintain if there were someone to keep me interested in it. That’s another of my contrasts :

I’m an Introvert Show off.

I like to show off and I try and impress certain people but I’ll also fade into the background. But it has to be a special person for me to go into showing off mode. Like only 1% of people.

I also digress a lot. I was able to get to Run Very Fast yesterday but before the switch to Warp Speed :
I was running out of car park …
The leg was telling me Don’t Be Silly (it’s ok, maybe 2 more days healing needed)

Maybe this improved mental attitude (definite up from this time last week) is from coming into contact with a certain person ? I’d like to think so. Sometimes the best things come in small packages.

I’m not going to say much more there, except – I hope she’s reading. It was an all too fleeting meeting the first time and I’m even more curious now than before.

Busy weekend this one. A few words to sum it up ?

Memorable
Meeting
Pain
Happy
Missing
Sexy

Memorable ? Friday saw me heading up to Birmingham NEC for the EGXRezzed gaming exhibition. To be honest, I wasn’t that bothered about the games on show, I was there for something different. (More in a minute !) However … there were a few game highlights with lots of potential :

Wasteland 2 – is an update on an old classic (which I missed first time round). It’s set in a post apocalyptic world and the mechanics looked like they had potential. I was watching people play through encounters in intuitive fashion. That’s what games have to be – intuitive.

Hearthstone was there – this is a game that I’m actively avoiding ! It has great potential for stealing Life !

Kenshi was another post apocalyptic setting game. There’s been a few of these come out lately. Day Z, Rust, 7 Days To Die. Those look a bit rubbish though, I’ve watched semi playthroughs of them and I really wasn’t impressed. Kenshi and Wasteland 2 look rather better sorted.

And more too. Including the Pokemon girls. More later for that too 😉

Meeting ?

Wow. Yogscast are even better in real life than they are on screen. Who are the Yogscast ? They’re a steadily increasing band of gamers who make videos for Youtube. Their primary game is Minecraft, which is a fantasy sandbox survival and building game. What makes the magic is what the players do in the world. It’s what they build, it’s the commentary on the game. It’s the way they have huge fun in their world … and bring their audience along with them.

Watching their videos is a great way to chill out. And I got to meet some of them on Friday !

Yogscast Kim – I wrote a comment on one of her videos (The “So This Is Yogscast” one) that she was the best thing to happen to the Yogscast this year just gone. Huge character, that ability to connect with the audience and absolutely adorable in every way imaginable. Yep. Even in the midst of the Mad Hax Geoguessr ragequit episodes. Kim goes in for horror themed games with Hannah as her usual suspecting victim.

YogscastLalna (aka Duncan) – is the Mad Scientist of the group. You can be watching him build stuff and all of a sudden something will pop up with a stupendous factor of Ludicrous. Or something gets set off of unbelievable craziness. However, my favourite of his videos is the Grim Fandango series. That’s an old adventure game, one of the best of its type.

Zylus – I have to admit that I don’t watch much of Zylus’s stuff. He’s one of the people who works more in the background, making the other people look awesome. I identify with that, I’m one of them too. We’re the little people who make the big things happen. They couldn’t do it without you MrZylus !

Yogscast Hannah – there are a lot of faces in the Yogscast but probably the one that sets the tone most is Hannah. Her highlights include Lets Plays which has commentaries that can get especially crazy. And highly amusing. Never a dull moment. Hannah also does an annual advent calendar series, which I see as a way of giving thanks by giving something back to the fans. She made me buy Tomb Raider ! Which I still need to finish. Also need to avoid getting Assassins Creed games, Hannah makes those look like massive fun. I’m running through the old Mass Effect 3 series at the moment, which is a game we were both addicted to, up until the third game which kinda broke it for us …

Yogscast Sjin – if I was inclined that way, I’d say Sjin was utterly adorable too (I was picking up comments from some of the lady fans around). Here we have a Genius Builder with a soft voice that explains simply and clearly what he’s up to. Unless he’s doing what he was doing in the Minecraft session on Friday – the mild mannered builder turned smiling assassin … I saw what he was doing ! Creeping up an unsuspecting person with TNT, while the audience were chuckling along behind him trying not to give the game away.

I’ll keep watching them for ages. May they continue in the Youtube game for a long time. I actually have more fun chilling out with them as I watch the videos than I do playing the games.

Pain ?

Heavy cramp on Thursday night led to hopefully just a strained calf muscle, which I thought may have been torn. But I could barely walk on it and was on my feet all day Friday. Much pain. But so definitely worth it to meet the best Yogscast day at EGXRezzed.

Happy ?

Happy Mother’s Day to all the people it’s appropriate to today ! Yep. I know there’s a different date for it in different countries. Why do we do that ?

Missing ?

I missed a couple of opportunities on Friday. The first was missing the Steamgirl – we didn’t get chance to tell each other what to look for. I actually thought I spotted Steamgirl but it was someone else. Oops. Hope the person I spotted wasn’t as freaked out as she was looking …

The second was the Pokemon Girls. I had my “Don’t Ask Me, I Make It Up As I Go Along” t-shirt on. Which just happens to be one of my favourites for a Friday subversive t-shirt for work. The t-shirt was spotted … And as I tried to hide behind a pillar, PokemonGirl seeks me out for a peek at the t-shirt. And later on, when I’m walking past that stall again ? I get grabbed (unprotesting of course!) and the t-shirt gets shown off to all her mates on the stall.

So why missing ? I’m still kicking myself there, I could have had a selfie taken with t-shirt (still on me hopefully although I did pick up spares) and PokemonGirl. Which would have been a perfect excuse to pass on an email address to PokemonGirl (with the selfie pic).

Oh well. I never think of these things at the time !!!

Sexy ?

I hope pinging this to Twitter in a minute will lead to someone reading it. But I’ll not mention her again here in case she blushes ;-).

Nah – Sexy is for the car, cos everyone in the family wants one now. I think I’ve persuaded the sister to keep hold of her Saab convertible for a few more years. No news is coming out from Japan but they’d be insane not to bring out a convertible version of my car. They can’t get mine because they need something hatchbacky or SUV to fit the Murphster in and the saloon style of mine disqualifies it. But … in a year or two when the IS-C300h comes out ? (that’s a guess) The Saab should be reaching its end of life …

Yep. Pretty full weekend and there’s a bit more tomorrow. CrazieMob is going to see the next Captain America movie. We’re expecting something special.

We all have them. Some are worse than others.

Mine aren’t too bad. Except if you run into me before I’ve diluted the blood in my caffeine stream :

Yeah, I’m addicted to coffee. And chocolate. And biscuits.

But as addictions go, it’s not a bad one. I don’t have compulsions to have it, I just need at least one mug of proper coffee a day or I get headaches. I tried to convert to fake (decaff) a few years ago but I’d be barely human by lunchtime.

To be honest, I don’t think I really need the coffee to wake me up. The bus trip and the walking tend to do that quite effectively. And whether or not I act human to others depends on :

Whether they nick my desk (had to evict someone today – he was rude so I was rude but we were grinning at each other before long)
How many smiles I get

That’s another thing I’m addicted to. I get withdrawal symptoms if I don’t have people smiling at me. I think that’s one of my gifts, to get that smile in response to my grin.

It’s weird though. There’s a few people who for whatever reason of their own, refuse to have much to do with me. There seemed to be a lot of daft stuff going on in my old team, Chinese Whispers about everyone. That’s really unhealthy. I know things have been said about me around that team but I don’t know what, who instigated it and who it got said to. I just know that it has irrevocably harmed some of the relationships I had with my old team.

And I really don’t know what I did to deserve that. Perhaps it was an attempt to be everyone’s friend and colleague, despite a few wrecking ball people within the team. There’s a definite sense of people believing what other people tell them about others, instead of going by what they know for themselves.

Whatever it is, I see it as being their problem and not mine. I’ll still give them the massive grin and a wave when I see that old colleague, despite the Face Of Stone I sometimes get in response.

But I definitely value the Big Grins, Little Smiles and Dainty Waves I get from the better people. And I must say, the Dainty Wave I got from one of my most valued friends last night on the way out of work really cheered me up when I was heading chest first into Grottiness. That took my mind off that for enough time to get home. A chat with a neighbour helped too ;-).

Oh – over the last few days with old colleagues it’s been :
One Face Of Stone
A bit of being ignored by a colleague from way back (I asked a question she should have been able to help us out with, no response even though I’ve jumped to help her out lots in the past)
One You’ve been an awesome help (she was too, she’s just this week moved on to something I think she’ll find far more fun than an office job)
A Dainty Wave as I passed the smoking shelter
The usual bemused smile from a business manager from waaaaay back – she’s one of those who I rarely see but when we happen to be in the same place, there’s that old connection again.
And the quirky smile from the Naughty Angel as we passed on the way out today.

Yeah, still having good days and bad days. Some are better than others and in general, they’re much better than a month or so ago. The bad days are better than the good days were back then. And because I don’t believe in myself that much, feedback, smiles and metaphorical pats on the back from people help me out a lot.

Addictions ?

I used to be thoroughly addicted to games. I guess I am after a fashion but it’s nowhere near the level it used to be. I think that gaming addiction is what really drove Ravenwolf away. Now I get most of my gaming kicks from watching the people on Youtube play. They and their reactions can be hilarious fun in a way that playing on your own sometimes can’t. It was like that in the WoW guilds too, I miss that. The communities I was in kinda broke up. VR is still going but it does bring back memories of when the Mercs went sour.

I still do the gaming – but it’s more something to keep my mind working on something when I’m not watching recorded stuff or have run out of YT videos. But I don’t feel the compulsion to do the grinding that many games demand these days. Doing the same thing over and over again for promise of little rewards doesn’t have that much hold on me now.

No – my real addiction these days is a craving for interaction with others.

Computer stuff, telly stuff, even books can be very predictable. But how other people react when you send them something silly ? Priceless. Or it would be if you get a reaction out of them. Sometimes the daft comment goes unseen or unnoticed and you lose the opportunity to escalate Daft into Hilarious. (Or should that be descend into madness instead of escalate ?). Half the daft comments I send have something much naughtier behind them waiting for a response from that first initiating comment.

Anyway – that’s my addictions. They’re pretty minor :

Caffeine – or I get headaches
Doing Stuff – or I get really fidgety
Interacting with people – or I get really bored and find a victim for a Daft Comment
Listening to music – this kinda fits into that variation theme, as I rarely listen to the same track twice in a month
Running Very Fast – not so much now.
Doing stuff for other people – it brings out the smile

The pizza addiction got booted because I definitely react to the cheese. The excess of acid it makes me produce is unpleasant … but doesn’t overweigh the awesomeness which is pizza. Perhaps I should make pizza a Stay Up All Night thing ? That way the acid won’t matter and it’ll tire me out enough that I’ll sleep proper the next night.

That sounds eerily like a Cunning Mad Scientist Plan.

And I’m still wondering about the Cunning Plans for Friday. I’m really looking forward to EGXRezzed. It should be a huge laugh. Hopefully I’ll hear the legendary (to me at least) Kim laugh coming out too and a bit of that Hannah magic.