January 16, 2005

Post #2

Before I go any further into my second post, I need to make an apology. In my first post, I said that my encountering The Old Ealonians was "the most soul-saving act that has happened so far in my life". While it was definitely soul-saving, another event in my life trumps it. This is, of course, meeting the woman who became my fiance and will [soon] become my wife.

I met Susan eight years ago in February on the Internet, in a charming little chatroom called #Britzone. She was living in Perth, Australia, I was living in London, England. We got chatting, and when she came over here on holiday we met up and had a great time. So great in fact that I went to Australia for 10 months and stayed with her. We've been living in the UK now for six years now but have plans to move back to Australia.

That apology said, back to the ranting and raving.

Just saw a movie last night - The Majestic, starring Jim Carrey and Martin Landau. It's set in the 50's I guess, and is about a movie writer who's ordered to appear before Congress on the charge of being of being a Communist (back when the Americans were scared of Reds). Carrey decides to take a drive whilst drunk and ends up in an accident and loses his memory.

He wakes up on the beach the next morning not knowing who he is and wanders into a town. There he gets mistaken for the son of one of the townsfolk whom he appears to resemble. After a series of encounters he begins to settle down. You do begin to wonder whether or not he actually is the son who disappeared in wartime 9 and a half years ago.

I won't say anymore in case you haven't seen it. All I will say is that it is a Frank Darabont movie. If the name is unfamiliar, shame on you. He's the director of the Shawshank Redemption, another movie that's absolutely amazing, and one that I would recommend you watch as well.

It has an excellent line near the end though, and one that I'll paraphrase here. Mainly because it sums up what i think of Politics:

"Democracy is essentially a contract - at the end of the day, it is a piece of paper with your signature at the bottom. But like all contracts, it is renegotiable."

A very nice way of putting it.

The other thing I've been watching recently is Sea of Souls on BBC1, about a group of parapscychologists investigating events in the paranamormal. The series presents its episodes back to back, with one episode showing on saturday and the other on sunday. This has the advantage of making sure that when you go back to work, you are able to talk about the whole thing at work.


Other events - I've been stuck for what to read next.

Susan asked me to read "River's Edge" by Nora Roberts. At first I said no, because I thought it was a romantic novel but it's actually more a murder mystery. It's actually well written but I sort of guessed the murderer right at the beginning and never quite changed my mind.

I've also just finished what I would consider passably the best book I've ever read - The Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I don't know quite why it's the best book but it reaches me in ways that leave me gobsmacked. I had to actually force myself to not skim read and to read every single word and savour them.

So of course now I'm left with the notion of what to read next.

*sigh*

There is actually one book that I've been avoiding - Crossroads of Twilight, book Ten in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

Now that
The Num Num has begun reading the Wheel of Time, I find myself held responsible to read this tenth book, if for nothing else but because I've told him that he must continue reading the series.

It's a good set of books, but awfully long winded. The Num Num says the language of the books is very difficult, with odd names thrown in to puzzle the reader. I suppose it's because I'm a roleplayer that I happily assimilate the information. I do, after all, create my own roleplaying campaigns with strange names, religions, cities, etc., all from scratch so creating someone else's setting in my head isn't so hard.

The idea behind the series has been done before, that there was once an ancient civilisation that was much more powerful than the agrarian culture present today but that some huge catastrophe wiped them out leaving behind only traces of that civilisation, but never to such great effect as in the Wheel of Time.

Pick up The Eye of the World and have a read, but be warned that it is a hefty read and one that will leave you puzzled if you're not into Fantasy or Sci-Fi.



More events - I've been playing World of Warcraft and hopelessly losing myself in the virtual world of Azeroth. I'm playing a Human Rogue called Crucifer on Beta Server 2 (a few of my friends are playing there as well), and I have to say this is the most well-realised computer game I have ever played.

Just the other day I was running a delivery for the Rogue Trainer and I saw in front of me, a rabbit running from a wolf. The rabbit ran straight past me, the wolf gave me a look, ran past me as well and killed the rabbit. Then it ran off into the forest.

'Shit' I thought. That has to be AI controlled, but never before have I seen such an AI.

I now I'm going to lose myself more in this world. What can I say? Go and buy this game. Play it. Involve yourself in possibly the most realised virtual world currently on the computer game market.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

#britzone lives yeah!!!!