Tick, tick, tick.

It's a Sunday night at... 9:50PM. It's cloudy outside, almost like the sky wants to sigh and let out a torrent of rainfall. Hm, that sounds therapeutic.

I actually *gasp* logged into Facebook this last week. I generally don't do anything else but reply to two or three friend requests from people who obviously have the wrong person. I highly doubt that Mr Spalding from Colorado can tell that I'm such a fantastic and unique personality to befriend solely based on my sparse profile.

Among the plethora of other invitations (legit friend requests, a bajillion invites to a bajillion pointless apps), I took a quick scan over the news feed that displays all the updates from friends. Apparently an past friend of mine from high school is engaged to the chick he's been going out with from the same period. Good for him. It intrigues me that all there was to give it away was the small "Andrew _ is now engaged" status update. That certainly is one helluva way to announce something so significant in such an insignificant manner. It sounds like something I'd do.

Moving on, it's been a pretty uneventful week. At work we're doing a major reshuffle and reorganization, so it took two long days to get most of the work done. I'm sure it would've been three long days, but we had Friday off in lieu of Wednesday for Canada Day.

Which means that I'm currently staring down the remaining two hours (10:02PM) of a long weekend.

I wish I could say that I did something fantastic with the three days. But I didn't. I drew and read and gamed and napped and mapped and made music and walked and biked and stood outside during a thunderstorm. And I did every single one of those things without talking face-to-face with another soul.

So there you have it. My friend announced he's getting married, and I spent a weekend completely void of any company. Unless you want to count the cats romping around the house or the digital escapades shared with someone on the far side of the continent.

Anyways, I need to put said felines to bed, fold and put away laundry, brush the teeth, sync the iPod, and do all those other things necessary on a work night.



10:11PM. Tick, tick, tick.
-Cril

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Pink Floyd - Time

More Media Roundup

Feeling... Quite horrible at the moment. I must be coming down with something - I'm light-headed and dizzy. It almost feels like all the blood keeps rushing out of my head. I've slept so much, it almost makes the weekend seem like a surreal dream. Such a waste of two days.

I actually have a small list of some philosofickle/behavioral ideas that I wanted to explore, but I really don't feel like getting into that stuff tonight. Perhaps I'll leave it for later in the week. In the mean time you're stuck with another 'this is what I've watched' post.

I saw One Week last week. It's an Canadian indie film, and is quite good. For a basic plot... It's about a guy who discovers he has cancer and buys a motorcycle to go have an adventure. He then rides all the way across the country with nothing else but a camera. Really good stuff. I forget who did it, but the narrator's voice was quite soothing to listen to. Overall it's a very good movie, but it some spots it felt like it was trying a bit too hard to be 'Canadian'. It got rather stereotypical in some spots, and certainly felt like it played up the patriotic angle. Anyways, I still recommend it. Fantastic movie.

I watched Thin Red Line this week in two or three chunks. It's a three-hour movie, so I didn't really have the opportunity to sit down and watch it all in one go. Anyways, it's about several different characters from the same Marine outfit that's attacking an island in the pacfic during WWII. I usually stick to the European theatre, so it was a good opportunity to get exposed to some new stuff. It was a fairly solid movie, good writing and good action. It wasn't quite as gruesome as I had anticipated, which was nice. I fully understand the need to depict the horrors of war, but sometimes it just feels like gore for gore's sake. Anyways, the movie revolves around three or four flawed characters, and how they're all facing their demons and fears. The main character had a lot of voice-over/narration on top of visuals, but something wasn't quite right with the mixing. It was really difficult for me to understand what he was saying. Still, it was a pretty touching movie.



Annnd, I finished reading the Diary of Anne Frank. It's a really amazing piece of literature. That girl was much more wise and intelligent beyond her age. So much of that book is quotable material, with valuable insights and unique observations. I was really sucked in as she developed her relationship with Peter and they eventually fell in love. It was amazing how it changed her outlook on the world and improved her attitude. It was so brutal, then, how the diary ended so abruptly. It just... Stopped. And then you get this pit in your stomach, because it was the end of the line for her life. The epilogue was really difficult to read. The fact that she found her friend, Lies, in Auchwitz was heart-breaking. What was even worse was when it described that Peter had left on a winter march during the retreat, and was never heard from again. It's so brutal. It also mentioned that the standard reward for leading to the arrest of Jews in Holland was $1.40 a head. Was the person that turned them in able to live with the fact that he destroyed eight lives for $11.20? How can that be worth it? I know when times are difficult you're driven to do desperate things to secure resources, but that just doesn't seem right. It certainly makes you lose faith in humanity. The very last phrase of her diary reads "...I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and what I could be, if...there weren't any other people living in the world." It's poetic on so many different levels.

And that book pretty much rounds out a triangle of depressing holocaust stories. Life is Beautiful, Jakob the Liar, Diary of Anne Frank. All exceptional stories, so well done. Of course, knowing that the latter isn't a production of any kind and unaltered truth and fact is the worst of all.

Maybe I've satisfied my WWII craving for now.
-Cril

Ludovico Einaudi - Primavera

No love for tomorrow

Yaaay, I'm so glad the week is over. Booo, I'm so sad another one is about to start.

Finally got that ad submitted at work, which was nice to get out of the way. And no, I've yet to be replaced.

Uhrm... Started watching Joan of Arcadia. It doesn't hold up as well to how I remember it. Seems a bit too teen-angst-y. I'm only a few episodes in though, we'll see if it gets better. There are only two seasons, so it hopefully shouldn't be a massive waste of time to go through the whole thing.

I also started to watch Nurse Jackie, via Frank's suggestion. It's pretty good, like a decent balance between Scrubs and MASH. However... It feels like it's trying too hard to be edgy. The main character has so many flaws, it feels like they're just making her that way for the sake of doing so. We'll see. I'll give it a few more episodes.

What else... Saw Life is Beautiful again. It's been a while, but this one stood up very well to how I remember it. All around, it's just so well made. It'd be in my Top 5 list of movies, for sure.

Top Gear airs tonight! Apparently they'll reveal the identity of the Stig. I'm not sure if it'll be a hoax, completely absurd, or *gasp* serious. Can't wait - but I'll have to. It takes a while for new releases to download, but we should have it by this time tomorrow.

So much television/cinemetography. It's really getting to me. I simply don't enjoy sitting down to watch whatever's on - by the end I always feel unsatisfied and that I could've done something better with my time. I don't find it very relaxing or worth the time it takes to sit through an episode or movie. Don't get me wrong - I don't necessarily hate it. It's just that I really only enjoy movie or shows that I have some kind of connection with. I only watch things that strike a chord with me or that I'm passionate about. Watching some generic movie for the sake of watching a movie isn't that enticing. If I'm aiming to turn my brain off for a bit, video games are much more my poison. There's something to be said for trace amounts of interaction when being unproductive.

On a semi-related note, I spent three or four hours yesterday learning how to map in Left 4 Dead. For as much time as I've spent playing games, particularly those on the Source Engine, it's seems like a natural fit. My goal is to learn something new over the summer, and this might be it. I've got some of the basics down so far - there's still a LOT to learn, but I've dipped my toes in the water. It's surprisingly not as difficult as I had anticipated. Hopefully I can get a hold of floorplans for a location I'm familiar with, so I can be on familiar ground so to speak. It'll be a fun project.

It's kind of odd that I'm doing it in L4D. I haven't played in a while and it certainly isn't my fragging ground of choice. But the nature of gameplay suits what I want to do, and is a good place to start. It doesn't hurt that it's well documented too.

But, mind you... I've been spending a lot of time lately staring at the row of game shortcuts on the desktop. Nothing is really appealing to me at the moment. Yeah, I play a bit here and there to unwind or waste away some time... But nothing really gets me hooked. It serves its purpose, but I just have a hard time looking forward to it. I desperately want a new game to play. The problem is that there isn't anything good on the horizon. Sure, the closest thing is Arkham Asylum, but that comes out on August 25th. A whopping SIX days before I start school. I'll probably be too much of a nervous wreck to enjoy it.

And then school starts, and I'll be a busy nervous wreck. Which sucks, because between NFS Shift, The Saboteur, Assassin's Creed II, Beatles Rock Band, Modern Warfare 2, Starcraft 2, and a fistful of other titles, it certainly looks like it'll be a fantastic fall/winter for gaming. And I'll get to enjoy very little of it. Sigh. C'est la vie.

On another note, I emailed Codemasters:

Dear the fine folks at Codemasters,

Seriously, what gives? When will the 8-Ball expansion pack for Grid make it's way to the PC? I'm an absolute massive fan of Grid - I can't put it down, it's by far the best racing game I've ever played. And I want more. It's so unfair - why do the consoles get all the love, while your ever faithful and steadfast PC fans are left out in the cold? Common, show us some appreciation! You've left us wondering since early December, and not even the slightest shred of an idea regarding what's happening. Don't you trust us? We're kind, decent folk - honest!

Forever your Grid crack addict, eagerly waiting for the next hit he's willing to pay for...
-Chris

To which they replied...

I'm afraid we don't have a release date for release on PC at this moment in time, it should however still be released.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Kind regards
Jorn
Codemasters Customer Services

Wow, thanks guys. Yeah, that's so helpful. I can't wait for that expansion that's so obviously been unofficially canceled, so that customer support can't tell you that they don't care about PC gamers. Fantastic. Also, I emailed Gabe from Penny Arcade to ask how he does his textured backgrounds and people from Total Gaming Network to ask why I still haven't received prizes from a contest seven months ago.



I've yet to receive responses from either, and I sent my emails last weekend.
-Cril

We love in vain
Narcissistic and so shallow
The cops and queers
To swim you have to swallow
Hate today
No love for tomorrow
We're all stars now in the dope show
We're all stars now in the dope show
There's lots of pretty, pretty ones
Who want to get you high
But all the pretty, pretty ones
Will leave you low
And blow your mind

Marilyn Manson - The Dope Show