Dearest amigos,
My apologies for the great lack of updates recently! I’ve started my MA course now and finding the time to ramble on about life has been difficult to say the least! Everything is going fine and enjoyment is plentiful on this rather interesting and new adventure of mine!
I promise I’ll start to post more soon! I’ve just had great trouble in getting used to all the work and trying to balance the rest of my life with it!
Excuses, excuses I know.
Until the next time amigos!
Phew. What a day amigos. I’ve been busy to say the least.
I was up at around 5am this morning, through no choice of my own of course. I like to think of myself as a nice big, lazy, cuddly bear. I’m a warm person who likes to get enough sleep and remain undisturbed until my time to rise has come. Wake me before then and I turn into the grizzly variation, short-tempered and ready to rip off arms…well, maybe not rip them off, but more along the lines of just being a bit arsey if you get my drift (I’m the same when I haven’t eaten my girlfriend often tells me).
Why was yours truly awake at such an unreasonable hour? My little sister’s moving to Manchester to go to university. It was a big day for her and I felt that tagging along would be nice for both her and my mother. What I didn’t realise before agreeing to said tagging along, was that we would have to get a train at 20 to 7 in the morning. Typical. What’s more is that it took 4 hours for us to get there! I managed to have a good sleep on the way, which also resulted in a humorous picture being taken by my mother and sister of me sleeping with my mouth open…just gotta love family. I would upload it but I don’t appear to have any way of getting it transferred from my mobile to my PC (I’ve lost the adaptor for the card). Oh well…
Manchester’s a bustling city, a mini London of sorts, but without the overcrowded streets and intimidating size. It’s just about right and I imagine that my sister will have no trouble finding things to do in her spare time around her studying. Let’s hope that it doesn’t serve as too much of a distraction! My sister was going up today because we needed to collect the key to her halls of residence early from the main reception. Upon finally reaching our destination, we were met by a very unhelpful man who didn’t help matters, especially when my sister is already nervous about the whole affair of moving. Now when I say unhelpful, I actually mean that this guy was a complete and utter c***. I’ve never met someone before with such a lack of interpersonal and front desk skills. It was shocking, but thankfully we managed to work our way through his ignorance and after a quick trip to the local Sainsbury’s in order to collect a few passport photos that we were missing, we were finally back on track with our plan. If said worker should ever come across this blog, be warned, if I were to meet you in person again you’d probably earn yourself a beating or at least a good talking down to. Get off your high horse and learn that you’re nothing but a pathetic, little man.
Mum and I, after having sorted sister’s university endeavours, decided to make an endeavour of our own into the city centre to do a spot of shopping and dining. A nice day was had, although we were rather tired from the aforementioned early start. We eventually set off for home around 6 30pm and another 4 hours of train travel awaited us.
Thankfully I had an excellent little book to keep me company for the majority of both journeys. Naomi Klein’s No Logo takes an intricate look at the world of branding and discusses how branding itself has evolved from merely representing a type of product to becoming an almost crucial and omnipresent role in our lives. Klein’s style is excellent: some might be put off by the content of the book but her personal touches throughout the book and the way that she doesn’t write anything in a way which could be conceived as being too complicated (not to say that it’s by any means simplistic) makes for a easy and enjoyable read. In particular, I like the amount of research material that’s gone into backing up her arguments and views on things. It’s interesting to read about stories and cases related to well-known corporations and conglomerates that might have otherwise fallen through the radar.
So all in all, a good day. All that is well, ends well. But I’m tired, and with that my fellow amigos, I feel that I must love you and leave you and head for the land of nod.
Until the next exciting episode…
It’s been a while since I last posted! I’ve been busy doing…well not very much to be honest.
The Resistance series for Playstation 3 has been taking up most of my time lately. In true illogical form I decided to play the second game before the first one, which has only served to make the story more confusing and the first game seem less fun (mainly because the sequel is fucking awesome). I’ve never been a huge fan of Sony consoles but I’ve got a soft spot for the Playstation 3. It seems that Sony really did put a tremendous effort into making the console a winner in the current video game generation. Ironically, despite it’s superior technology, the PS3 continues to lag in 3rd place, although the recent release of the new PS3 Slim model has helped to remedy Sony’s flagging sales. Nevertheless, too much time has been spent gaming away in the living room.
While playing through Resistance 2, I did notice a few things, which simply do not make any sense whatsoever. First of all, Nathan Hale is meant to be this badass Sentinel, who possesses superhuman strength, has the power of regeneration and increased stamina. Yet for some reason, he’s a complete and utter pussy. 3 or 4 hits and he’s down. In the meanwhile, your SRPA team buddies, by which I mean the standard human soldiers who you often come across when battling your way through the game, seem to be capable of taking humongous armies, absorbing incredible amounts of enemy fire whilst doing so. I do love a challenging game but be reasonable and make it so that it actually makes sense!
Nathan Hale - Utter Pussy
Furthermore, the whole alternate timeline thing is interesting but there do seem to be a few issues with this. It’s 1950s America and while I can understand that an alien-like invasion would likely prompt a vast amount of technological advances, surely it wouldn’t be quite as rapid as actually portrayed in the game. We’re talking about massive miltary bases, complete with networked computer systems, electronic panels on doors, sophisticated gun batteries. At the same time, when you’re actually in the outer environments such as Idaho and Chicago, you see America more or less as it was during the 1950s – Funky old cadillacs, primitive TV and radio appliances, the whole general 50s vibe. It just seems like a weird mixture of modern day technology with 1950s scenery.
What doesn’t help is that the first game does look very World War II-esque. Your uniform, the quaint cities such as York, all serve to make it seem like World War II gone wrong (not that it necessarily was going right in the first place). In this game, you seem to be a lot tougher, having perhaps swapped roles with your AI-controlled allies between the two games, as it seems that all they have to do is look at a Chimera in the first game and they’ll drop over and die.
So, why am I still playing these games despite the fact that I’m banging on about all the flaws? Because they’re addictive and above all they’re pretty epic too. Resistance 2 really does show off the power of the PS3 console. The graphics are pretty outstanding, but what’s even more impressive is the amount of units found on screen at one given time. On the Chicago level, just after the Madison Avenue checkpoint, you find yourself fighting alongside perhaps 20-40 AI team mates against a near unstoppable horde of enemy Chimera. It’s intense and firefights are pretty frantic to say the least but it’s just plain awesome. That particular battle must have taken me at least 25 minutes to finish and many deaths along the way added to this overall time. Most interesting of all though, is that the PS3 just chugs along and you literally cannot witness any slowdown whatsoever. Well done Insomniac games, you’ve done well!
If you find yourself with a reasonable amount of free time like myself, why not give ‘em a go. They’re pretty cheap nowadays and they’ll take a good 20 hours of your life away as you work your way through them both to take the fight back to the Chimera.
Anyways, I’m off to watch a movie. Until the next time amigos.
A new header is currently under construction. After a week of planning to change it I’ve finally decided that I will indeed be changing it for something different. I dunno, this blog needs a fresh coat of paint, not to mention that the last image was somewhat vain. My friend Sadie says it’s okay to be a little vain sometimes but putting semi-naked pictures of yourself up on your own blog is pushing it a bit.
Hopefully the next one will be alright!
Until the next time amigos!
“When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.”
Memory is an interesting thing. The ability to more or less instantaneously recollect an event or time in our lives, which bore some sort of importance for us at the time.
Lately, as you can imagine, I’ve been remembering a lot of things, and it’s interesting how thinking about one memory, then tends to open up an entire web of similar or related ones. I’ve been remembering the good times. Lately, I’m a confused soul, my mind just seems to constantly jump from one thing to another, one minute I’m thinking about lunch, the next, I’m remembering my romantic walk to the duck pond, bag of bread in hand, on my first visit to Surrey BC. Likewise my mood appears to be the same – sometimes I’ll be joking with friends and having a laugh, the next, I find myself being miserable and fed up of everything else happening around me. I suppose it is fair to say that memories and mood are inexplicitly interlinked. As I’ve said before, the past defines the present and therefore I guess it only makes sense for memories to have some sort of effect on your present mood or standing in life.
Is this a good thing? I don’t know. It goes either way. It’s great to remember the good times, but sometimes, when the bad memories creep in, I guess you can find yourself getting angry about something that really bears little, if any, significance in your life anymore. At the same time, what could be interpreted as good, happy memories, might also cause grief or pain now because of the circumstances that you find yourself in. I know I’ve been feeling that one lately for sure.
Would a life without memory be better? I personally don’t think so. Memory is obviously important to us – it plays a role in how we go about living our lives and how we learn from our mistakes, our regrets, our disasters. I for one am learning a hell of a lot right now.
Sometimes I just wish I had the ability to turn back time, a bottle of scotch and a funky trenchcoat to go with it…if only life were that easy.
Yay! I finally had a decent night’s sleep. A few weird dreams (in which my cockatiel randomly started battling a black cockatiel – is my cockatiel racist?) but otherwise, a great night of rest. I’ve got work today, so I imagine that all that energy I’ve managed to recover will probably be spent by the time 4pm comes.
Ah unskilled labour – you’ve just gotta love it!
I’ll catch you all later my fellow amigos!
Pooki and Jess Mejia
Following on from my previous post seems a challenge in itself due to the nature of what was discussed last time but as we all know, life goes on and it helps if we move along with it.
I’ve been so exhausted lately. Old El Pookiablo here just can’t keep up. To be honest, I imagine it’s the events of the past week that have taken the energy out of me. On the plus side, I’ve had the past two days off, which have given me some time for rest and more importantly, a breather from the mundane routine that is otherwise known as employment. Although my job requires little to no thinking most of the time, I think the physical exhaustion that comes with lifting patio sets for the 20th time in a day and arguing with a customer as to why they’re not allowed their money back on a used coffee machine helps to put your mind one step closer to calling it a night. Not having to deal with that (or the extreme heat that we’re more or less forced to work in at the moment) is a blessing.
I had a strange dream last night that was related to what I found out earlier this week. I doubt it carries any true meaning but it did cause me to think about a few things when I woke up this morning. I understand that now is a time for moving on, after what appears to have been a week of recollection of past events and thus I should be making a positive (yet sensible) advance into the future. Above all, I need to remember my role in all that has happened, and as much as my emotions might like to get the better of me and make me think that I’m affected by this more so than others, I’m actually quite an insignificant part in comparison to other people. In other words (yes, I’m being vague and being annoying by being so vague), I need to make sure I don’t start sticking my oar in and causing more upset or distress than has already been experienced by Jess’ family or close friends.
Tonight, I’m going to go see my good friend Mr. Danskin and enjoy his company, by which I do not mean some romantic or sexual affair (however amusing that might seem), but rather, two good friends, talking about shit over a few video games and tea. Yes I did say tea, for some strange reason, it’s all we ever seem to drink nowadays (and I just had to be typically British in some way or another).
Until the next time amigos.
At the time of writing this post, I’m filled with sadness in my life. The main purpose of this post is to pass on some form of wisdom on to anyone who reads it, and to heed my words when you find yourself in a similar position to me.
I recently lost someone dear to me. Truth be told though, I personally lost her a long time ago, and now the sudden realisation that she no longer walks on this Earth and therefore leaves me with no option to contact her and reconcile our past, brings about a great deal of regret in my life. This week has been a dreadful week, one of the worst weeks I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.
My ex-girlfriend passed last Thursday. I won’t go into explicit details but let us just say that she wasn’t happy with her life. We hadn’t spoken properly for some time, the last time being around 2 to 3 years ago. That was mainly my fault. You see, our relationship was odd by conventional standards, but it was a great and loving one, and what made it all the better was how all those fairytale perceptions of love and romance, almost seemed true as a result of it. We were separated by a great distance and hence, spent most of our time talking to each other through MSN, email, letters, telephone. It was agony not being able to see her for so long, but just being able to hear her voice from time to time was enough to keep me going until our next encounter. On a mental level, we bonded like a perfect fusion of chemicals, creating a relationship which at one point I thought not even the toughest of things could break. She knew me like no other, my mind was completely naked in front of her. She knew everything about me, my strengths, my weaknesses, my foolish and embarassing moments, what made me happy and sad. It felt as if she could just read my mind after a while. Her personality was wonderful: smart and intelligent, witty, yet always had a certain cuteness to it, which would always suck me in and only serve to make me even more crazy about her. We’d talk about everything and anything, be it the weather, politics, why my favourite rock bands make rubbish music or picturing our wedding day, planning it all meticulously: the dress she’d wear, what the church would be like, how much money it’d cost us, where we’d go on our honeymoon. Teenage love is a wonderful thing.
Her mind was complemented even more so by her physical beauty and perfect complexion. The first time I saw her is a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life. She was stunning and I loved her from the moment I set my eyes on her. They say that love at first sight doesn’t exist but it was very hard for me to not find truth in this comment once I had experienced it myself. We went well together, despite my pasty skin and a tremendous height difference, although in my opinion all she did was make me look better for she was far too good for someone like me! I was lucky, luckier than I’d ever been before in my life.
That all ended almost 4 years ago now.
What went wrong? I don’t know. I think the biggest problem was that our relationship was just too intense for the time. We were still young, still growing up, developing, learning. We’d gotten to a stage where our lives depended on each other more than anything – missing an MSN conversation at 11pm was like missing your appointment for heart surgery. We both made mistakes, and I’m willing to admit that I probably made a lot more than she did and unfortunately, it all fell apart after what had been the best few years of my life. I stopped talking to her. I then tried talking to her because I wanted to talk to her and we’d just argue. Everytime, we’d end up arguing or upsetting one another or doing something negative. I was so angry back then – angry that my perfect little relationship had gone up in smoke, the embarassment of having to end what our friends and family had called a wonderful and beautiful thing.
I then made a very big mistake: I blamed her.
We eventually stopped talking and we both got on with our lives. I tried to shut her out and just get on with what I was doing. At first it seemed okay, but after a while, I couldn’t help but wonder what she was up to in life. During my time abroad, she tried adding me as a friend on Facebook, which looking back on it, was a nice and harmless gesture. But I was rude and didn’t want to bother, I told her to leave me alone and stop contacting me because I was depressed and didn’t want to spoil my relationship with my current girlfriend. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and all I can say is that I would do anything now to go back in time to that moment, slap myself across the face and accept that friend request. By the time I tried contacting her earlier this year, it was too late, she didn’t want to know and I don’t blame her. I was rude and downright mean to her.
Now since hearing the news of her death, I just feel this great sense of regret. I’m not saying that I couldn’t have stopped any of this happening, but I could have at least stayed in touch, enquired to see if she was happy, tried to help her when she wasn’t, talk to her about the good times gone, just something. I could have at least done something. I tried messaging her to see how she was and to ask her to forgive me for all the anger and rudeness that I earlier had no problem throwing her way. I never did get any confirmation of any forgiveness back from her and the saddest thing is now I never will. Again, if I could go back and change things, I’d send her 5 messages a day, even if it got me arrested for stalking or harrassment, I would have messaged her to at least let her know that I actually cared, rather than just sending a few “How are you???” messages her way and leaving it at that to get on with my selfish little life. Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing…
So there you have it. Never do anything out of anger, you’ll only live to one day regret it. I believe in karma and this is an example of how karma works. What goes around, comes around.
If I could have done things differently, believe me I would.
Jess, I always loved you despite all the pain and anger and heartbreak I caused you. You were one of a kind and I’m just sorry that I wasn’t always able to always appreciate that. I hope where you are now is a better place for you, where you’re no longer suffering or finding yourself in turmoil. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes I’d dream of coming back to you and whisking you off your feet and picking up our fairytale romance where it last left it. When you wanted me to marry you, I wanted to marry you too. I’m just so sorry. I love you and remember, Pooki mean no harm.
Young Love
I miss you so much, I didn’t think I would but I do. I wish you could come back, I’d do anything to make sure you could, I really would 
Please come back :’(
