Show, don't tell.

I watched Alice in Wonderland today. I was going to write a blog post about it. Then I watched District 9. That I didn't intend to write anything on because the amount of stuff going on in that movie requires some time and deep thought to process.

By the way, have you seen District 9? You haven't? You need to.

What, then, am I going to write about tonight?

A simple concept that is repeated again and again to and between writers. Show, not tell. Show, not tell. In writing, your prose should be of such quality and precision that it fades into the background and the images, scenes and interactions that you are describing on the page spring to vivid life in the readers minds' eye.

That's my interpretation of the phrase. Alice in Wonderland tries to do it. District 9 does this with no visible effort.

'But wait', you say. 'Am...these are films. Showing is an inherent feature of their composition, so...their ability to do this should come as no surprise to you'. Then you might suggest that a quiet rest would do me good while you go out and call a padded wagon. 'Nervous breakdown...yes, he's got his genres all crossed...indeed. Sure sign of overwork. A few weeks should do him good.'

But no. While a few weeks rest would do me good...well, working rest at least, the fact that I have chosen two films to be the focus of a post on showing not telling is not incongruous. In fact, if you have watched the films in particular, you probably have an inkling of what I am getting at. Each film demonstrates, in film, a skill set that we, as writers, should aspire to possess in our toolbox. Let me begin with Alice in Wonderland.

Side note: does no one realise that Tim Burton is insane? No one? Really? Alright then, back on topic. Alice in Wonderland is a lush yet abrupt offering. The set up and resolution of the film smacks of heavy handed plotting. Its blocky and wooden, feeling like a pair of square brackets surrounding the actual content of the film, Alice's time in Wonderland. The focus of the film, here the film both excels and also falls down. The imagery is lush yet flat (maybe meant for 3d?) and all the human characters stick out from the CGI backgrounds in varying degrees throughout the film. Yet, it was engaging enough for me to look past all that and be interested in the story. Or rather, what I thought the story was trying to be.

In my head it wavered between a feminist tale about a young lady growing up in a society not interested in her having her own opinions and direction and a generally positive tale of overcoming and believing in yourself, no matter what the situation or the odds. Of the two films, however, it is the worse of the two at showing what its trying to say. Alice runs away from a forced marriage in an insane Elizabethan setting which, by the way, would have been ripe for its own movie and runs headlong into a return to Wonderland. There she is tasked with slaying the Jabberwocky as foretold by a magic scroll. At all turns she runs away from this duty, itself a metaphor, but she is drawn in when things come to an inevitable head and no surprise there, goes out and kills it in a satisfying enough fight.

That is the actual story. The story that I've put together for it, the story in my head, comes from hints and small pieces of dialogue and other bits of innuendo that hint at said story. Alice wearing the suit of armour in the final scene, riding out to the final conflict astride the Bandersnatch, a confident young female adult. The Mad Hatter asking her 'Why are you always too tall, or too short?'. Her not wearing a corset or stockings to the garden party early on. Her walking across a moat filled with the heads of the Red Queen's victims, on said floating heads. The caterpillar's constant rebuking of her for not 'knowing herself'. All of these things add up to an attempt at multilayered storytelling that isn't as smooth or as subtle as one would like. Because so many of these points are brought across in dialogue rather than through action or the resolution of a specific conflict (such as when The Hatter drops his sword in disgust after Alice slays the Jabberwocky, right as he was about to slay the Knave of Hearts) they break the storytelling flow and don't ring as true or as deep as they might have. Still, for what it is, its an admirable effort, filled with adequate showing but a lot more obvious telling.

Then we have District 9. Whoo. What can I say about this movie? The final shot had my heart curling up in my chest and I'm not too much of a man to deny that I felt tears at the edges of my eyes as it faded to black. Uncompromising. It breaks several conventions of various genres in its recreation of a story of the 'final days' of its human protagonist, and I put those words in quotations because while true, they don't mean what you will think they mean at first. Indeed, they are his final days in so many different ways. Dear lord. I have to stop and organise my thoughts before I write about this movie.

Uncompromising. That is the word that comes to mind when I think about District 9. Uncompromising. The author and director, one Neill Blomkamp, had a specific vision for what each scene, each environment, each encounter should look like, should play like, should encompass and evoke from the viewer, and they nailed it. To say that this film is a masterpiece of storytelling is an understatement in terms. It is set in Johannesburg. It is a film about aliens, another living race of creatures being treated as less than human. Set in Africa. The parallels are immediate and totally unsubtle. It slaps you in the face that this film is going to be about the African situation and condition, is going to posit opinions and try and educate you about painful subjects that many of you would rather not focus on. But the setup and the trailers, seen here and here, do an excellent job of telling you this while rooting the film at once in modern geopolitical awareness as well as pure, high production value, science fiction action goodness. So the trailers themselves are active parts of the bait and switch that is District 9. Because that is what it is, a bait and switch.

Its structure takes a little getting used to. It is presented as a mix of documentary and storytelling, as a collection of footage of the protagonist from various sources is mixed in with the bits of the story that lay behind them, and snippets of 'live media coverage' of the ongoing events. It sounds odd, but when it is observed it is breathtaking in the way it gels to give us at once the full story in continuous and ongoing counterpoint to the outside world, or 'our' perception, of the events.

You know going in that you are seeing a film rooted in modern international political and social conflicts and stresses, so you walk in prepared and on guard. The film, aware of this, never once tries to engage you on the matter. Not once. It never tries to overtly engage you on these matters. Instead, it does one of the best jobs of showing it to you that I have ever seen. Throughout the film. From start to end. All of the shots used, the environments and situations are hand picked to get across behind all the action going on the messages of this film...and I say messages, because there are a lot. It deals with exploitation on a whole, Africa and apartheid, PMC's, Corporations and evil in its basest, purest form: selfish humans acting for profit with no regard for human life. The dialogue is a part of this showing, again never trying to engage you consciously on these matters but illustrating at every turn the unthinking nature of most people as they go about their lives and even as they spiral into a crisis. Finally, it deals with humanity in a most unique form by asking us, 'what is humanity?', that most essential of qualities that itself is a bundle of such noble principles such as selflessness, love, empathy and respect. Is it being human, or is it something more, something deeper? The answer is resounding yet never told to you. You are made to arrive at it for yourself.

In the end, District 9 illustrates what show, don't tell means far better than Alice. Illustrate, don't elaborate. Allow your audience to wake up to your message in a gradual progression, drawing their own inferences and conclusions from what you have presented and thus making them all the stronger in their minds. Achieving this requires a touch at once light yet powerful. Not easy to achieve, but more than worthy of our cons as creators and writers. It is, encapsulated in film, the method of storytelling that we should all aspire to.

More as it develops!

Blarg 1.

So I was supposed to put up a post about child - parent relationships, and how responsibility gradually, and sometimes abruptly, shifts from the parent to the child over the course of the relationship, and what this might mean for both parties...but I'm not gonna. That post seems to want to be more than one post, and so I will give it the space to percolate, breathe, think or whatever it is that it needs to do before its ready to leave my mind via my fingers and take its place here, on this blog.

So what does that leave us with? It leaves me with one more night of ending the day in a bad mood. A sudden bad mood, brought on by an unconscious action from a really guiltless party. That, however, does not help my mood any.

Its actually not right to call it a mood. Its more of a burning rage seeking to find an outlet, a rage born in annoyance and fuelled by frustration, loneliness (my wife is several thousand miles away) and chemical withdrawal. Smoking. So never a good idea.

Yeah. I really have nothing else to say about this. I find it hard to work when I'm pissed off, and even harder to work when I'm really mad at myself.

So.

More as it develops.

On Football and Divinity.

I am a fan of Brazil. They play the best football in the world. For me that means they play the most skilful, clean, satisfying football to watch and cheer for. They take an almost zen approach to football, not seeming to actively oppose the next team but instead to flow around and through them like water, materializing when needed to score or dispossess them of the ball.

That being said, I pride myself on being a fair minded football fan. I like to think that I (meaning Brazil and I, heh) are above the petty tricks other sides use to gain short term advantages in any football match. Tricks such as handballs (ha!), fouls, blatant diving (everybody dives/acts to some extent) and other nefarious tricks that have become commonplace in the sport of football.

I like to think that we are beyond all that, based on the quality of football that we play. That thought gives me a warm feeling and a (small) comfort that the aura of footballing superiority that we possess is justified.

Then today I watched as Fabiano put on one of the best footballing displays by a Brazilian player in recent memory, one that was disputed mainly because there are two separate instances where it is seemed that he was guilty of a handball. He got a goal from this display, of course. It would not have mattered otherwise. Well. The dismantled defenders that he left in his wake might still have been upset about it.

The rules for handballs in football can be found here. They're quite clear and in light of what they say its clear that Fabiano handled the ball not once, but twice on his way to scoring that goal. This is not as bad as Rivaldo in his day, but still, its far from great. Its not what I hold myself and my team to.

Or is it?

Football is a sport that's about as much as getting away with what you can, as it is winning by the rules. That's why there are referees to ensure that players stick to the rules as much as can be enforced. This goes for all players, my lauded Brazilian side included.

What does this happening then mean for me, with regards to my belief in their superior play? Does it mean that Brazil is now tarnished in my eyes, a team filled with charlatans and holier-than-thou fakers where football is concerned?

Hardly. What it means is that the reality of football is that you get away with what you can get away with. Whether what you did was blatant or sneaky, if the referee, God bless his human soul, doesn't notice it, then you will get away with it.

That's it. Brazil is a superior football side composed of human beings, beings who will still try and cheat now and then. I can argue that they don't do it anywhere nearly as often as other teams, or say that his actions could be put down to the heat of the moment, but it would ring false to me. Handballs included, his display is still a dazzling one by a superior player. Its now just a display by a human being, however, not some footballing god on a team of footballing gods that should be worshipped.

A hard realization, but not the hardest one I've had to face in my short life.

Still, its not so bad.

Rivaldo used to be my favourite player.

More as it develops!

Just Gonna Wing It, by God!

So.

I've restarted this blog too many times to count. Really. However, I do believe now that each time was for the wrong reason. I was blogging because it was the fashionable thing to do (ha!), I was bored, I wanted to create a name for myself online...all these bullshit reasons.

All of them fake. All of them wrong.

That is not to say that blogging for these reasons is wrong per se...they were just the wrong reasons for me to be blogging. Your reasons for doing something, anything, have to be good enough reasons to keep you motivated. To keep you doing it. To keep you getting up everyday and going back to that little room downstairs of your consciousness where your creative impulses lurk, waiting to jump you and drag you into the dark.

That's a scary place to have to live in, day in and day out. It's also one of the most lonely and potentially disheartening places to have to inhabit if you're not filled with complete confidence that every one of your pieces is, in fact, a masterpiece.

Who is really? George Lucas? You see how his recent efforts turned out.

Those reasons were entirely the wrong reasons for me to be blogging, or writing, which is what blogging really is. Some bloggers are genre writers; romance, slice of life, some are horribly boring or provide misinformed opinions about everything under the sun...but its still all just writing. At least, it is to me.

I write because these words fill up my head on a daily basis, and if I don't get them out they'll clog my throat and fill my ears and come spilling out of my nose and rattle around in my eyes and I'll run screaming out of the house and plow through the gate, scamper into the road and get hit by a passing truck.

So.

I write to keep myself alive. That's a good enough reason for me, I think, to get up everyday and keep doing this.

Yeah, works for me. That's my story and I'll revise it as I see fit.

More as it develops!

The Existence of Evil.

.....its not often that you (royal), come in contact with something that....defies description. All the rationalization that you apply to it is baked away by the furious heat of its focused maliciousness like so much dry tissue paper. Any attempts to label it as a misunderstanding of intentions, someone who is misunderstood, or a simple (or even a very complex) misrepresentation of events/intentions pales, withers and falls to dust and ashes before the overwhelming viciousness and calculating nature of its actions. Your mind recoils from the serpentine and self destructive reasoning that could have birthed the scenario being observed, and wraps back upon itself in an attempt to rewind time, and forget to remember that it had ever come in contact with a being of this nature.

That, dear constant reader, is evil.

I'm not talking world shaking, global scale evil, either. No, not being the head of a columbian cartel who makes sure to raise his kids in the best schools money can buy (as far away from the drug trade as possible) evil, or the head of a terrorist organisation going for maximum kill with each attack evil, or the evil of a successful politician. No. I am talking about simple (....nothing about this is simple, let me tell you), small scale, personal, evil. The kind of evil that one individual can get up to, if they're at least a median level of intelligence, are determined and driven (as these people often are) and focused on their goals, and the devil take who they have to walk over to get there. The evil that starts, more often than not, out of selfishness, insensitivity, and an inability...or an unwillingness to handle the consequences of the actions that one chooses to be involved in. Such is the worst kind of evil, for it appears small, is couched in actions that are, if observed, ambiguous at best, and can and ofttimes will be dismissed in the light of the persona that is built, for the express purpose of being the smokescreen behind which such actions will be hidden.

I now understand the meaning of the term cunning.

What do you do in the face of such evil? Such people are no doubt unhinged in some way, shape or form......I do not believe that the essential human condition, or human nature, as we have coined it, is one of evil. Therefore, such persons that become evil, are without a doubt, unhinged, or, to put it in less glamorous terms, are a little sick in their heads. Whether this is due to an abusive childhood, a sequence of unfortunate events (...one very bad day can send someone over the edge....look at the joker) or a chemical imbalance (a catchall term for a set of faulty wiring in the human breaker, the brain) is irrelevant to the immediacy of combating the effects those actions can have on one's life. The majority of us are reactionary creatures in our daily lives, and the thought of someone taking active, strategic actions against us, in a concerted effort to achieve some petty aim with no consideration for our own lives and wellbeing...well, the thought can be a little unsettling, and more than a little disturbing.

How does one combat such evil?

More as it develops

World of Warcrack

I am a gamer. More importantly, I'm a gamer that happens to LOVE rpg's, as well as co-op play in its myriad of forms. Therefore, the idea of a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), or momorpigger as Yahtzee so disdainfully calls them, is like premium crack to a crackhead.

Think about it. Fully realised fantasy worlds, existing only for the sole purpose of attracting people like me, who, will happily run around for hours, killing computer controlled enemies and gathering experience (the rewards you use to advance your character, or based on which your character is advanced in levels), seeking quest rewards and grinding (a term meaning doing the same few actions over and over again to maximise experience, or xp, gain) to gain those rare and powerful items that will make our characters more powerful and special in our eyes, and the eyes of our compatriots. All, of course, while quietly taking our money and our time. Which we were willing to give up anyway, else we wouldn't be there.

World of Warcraft is by far, without a doubt, the best...or rather, the most popular, of the lot. Blizzard, capitalising on its immense backstory to its very successful Warcraft series of RTS (Real Time Strategy) fantasy psuedo wargames, launched World of Warcraft ten years ago, following on from the release of Warcraft III, a game that vastly changed the nature of its Warcraft games at that point. Looking back now, its clear that it was all a devious plot from those creative bastards at Blizzard, as the storyline of Warcraft III led directly into WoW, as did the character interface and controls. Previously to Warcraft III, there had been just faceless units that were leveled up and sent out to wreak havoc on your enemies. Then Warcraft III introduced the Hero character, with special powers, available upgrades and items found throughout the game (albeit the best ones where usually storyline rewards), as well as scrolls, spells and other mechanics that are now the standard fare for anyone who's played WoW, or any of its copycat games released since then.

It is truly a fine product. No other MMORPG that I've played gives me that feeling of completeness. It is the best and most fully (totally bad grammar, but you get what I'm trying to say) realised digital world to be found online today, at least in the west, IMO. The races, the world design, the different options for play (while the enforcing of this is lax, as far as I'm concerned) and the overall spit shine put on this package is impressive. I've never gotten a better sense of scale in a game from just running around. Start a Tauren, then try and run from Mulgore, through The Barrens to Orgrimmar, the Horde capital, and you'll see what I mean. If you plan to, pack a lunch, you're gonna need it.

The environments are lush, and the design of the buildings, the items, the NPC's (non-player characters, i.e. those controlled by the computer/game ai), the spells and weapons, how all the quests tie in to the storyline, as well as the individual motives of the different factions that are vying for all their different aims in the game world....its one of the FEW games I can jump into, and in minutes the real world is a distant memory, and I'm gladly gathering herbs and killing pigs, all to the betterment of the Horde and its own aims. Even the PVP (player vs. player) elements are tied in to the storyline. All the different battlegrounds (0r arena's, if you prefer), are tied to the ongoing wars and conflicts that are ravaging the land. They all scale up as you advance in levels, with Alterac Valley, a 40 vs. 40 player arena, being the SINGLE BEST depiction of what large scale combat between powerful characters in a fantasy setting must be like, hands down. Spells light up the screen, raining hellfire and damnation down on the players. The ground rumbles, shockwaves ripple through the air, and players can be seen advancing and falling back, carrying out surgical strikes or simply trying to stave off advancing enemies. Also, this place is HUGE, so the effect of it being on the frontlines of the war is almost imperceptibly given. Players can encounter players from the other side at any time, as well as the beasts that roam the land which are loyal to one side or another.

Truly, there is nothing like it, and it stands as a testament to game design, and giving the fans what they want.

If you've read this far, then you're probably wondering what my problem with it is, as the name of this entry will suggest. Well, that's just it. Its so good. Its too good, to the point of being unplayable by me now, as it WILL suck me in, and not let me go.

Let me explain. Imagine if your everyday life had, well, not lived up to your childhood expectations. You're stuck in a negative and hateful society, where you're forced to toil at a job you don't like, hang out with people that don't really get you, or are themselves, as a group, marginalised by the greater part of society. You aren't rich, and hell you aren't happy with the myriad of idiots and assholes that populate your everyday life.

Not too hard to imagine, is it?

Then along comes a world made for you. A world wherein you can be what you want (within given limits), where you can excel, and be admired by a group of your peers, all of whom share the same interests and desires, hence why they're all playing this game. A world wherein time and effort translate seamlessly into ever increasing rewards and admiration for that complete set of T-1 armour you just finished collecting, and are now hanging out in Orgrimmar, usually by, or on top of, the bank by where the post office box is, and allowing all the lower level characters to admire that brand, spanking new glowing armour you just filled out. A world where you can choose one side or another, band together with others that share your outlook and choices, and go deliver your (digital) wrath on a band of opponents, everyday, all day, whenever you choose, simply by logging into WoW and selecting one of the many toons (slang for characters) that you are now levelling.

Now imagine if all that could be yours, each day, a total escape from the less than wonderful realities of your life, in the BEST realised digital world existing to date, and you can begin to see my problem with this. It first came to my attention when I started hearing stories of WoW eating lives and destroying relationships. Pretty soon, with a little research, I saw the horror stories. Relationships neglected, people losing jobs (which, to me, is HIGHLY counterproductive, as you NEED TO PAY TO PLAY, or your dealer WILL cut you off) and forgetting to eat, neglecting personal hygiene, things like that. Its a sad truth, but people will go to extreme lengths to forget their everyday troubles and be distracted from the harsh realities of their lives rather than facing them and trying to fix them, or at least exert as much control as they can. WoW provides an overwhelmingly good alternative to everyday life, and as its built to be another total world, it can become their mainlife, with this one existing only for them to eat, sleep, and earn the money they use to eat and play WoW.

Which brings me to another dislike I have with WoW, but which isn't unique to it, but to the genre of RPG's, and MMORPG's as well. That is, the Grind. God how I hate it. This happens round about level 20 in WoW, and it exists in all RPG's. This is where you hit a point where the quest rewards are insufficient and so far between that only questing cannot, or will not get you levels in a fast enough manner. So you go out and grind. In WoW, this takes the form of Instances, their version of dungeons, and a quite novel approach it is. Simply put, everything in WoW is ongoing. So, if you're out in a field and kill off all the monsters that are there, hang around for a bit. They will respawn, i.e. reappear according to a given time limit between kill and respawn. This way, the player gets a feeling of accomplishment, and other players aren't stuck with no creatures to kill when some quest giver in the barrens want 20 plain strider talons. Time passes, day to night, and the game world is never static....except when one enters an Instance, hence the name. Herein the player and his friends, as instances are listed by difficulty levels per party size, go in and depopulate a dungeon, with the rewards being higher xp rewards than found for equivalent level enemies, and better and more rare item drops overall. Enemies DO NOT respawn in an instance, as this would garauntee the deaths of the party, as these enemies are TOUGH, make no mistake.

So you put together an instance run, and you go in, get xp, and get the items. Wash, rinse, repeat. The higher you are in levels, hence the more xp you need, the more times you have to do this over, and over, and over, and over, ad nauseum. Don't even get me started on the tedium inherent in leveling your professional skills, dear god. It seems to be a design flaw inherent in the game type, that of an rpg tied to static levels, that makes grinding a must...and this is where WoW falls down. The grind is so extensive, and such a necessary part of it, along with all the other extensive features of your character that must be maintained, that you quickly realise that either you devote most of your time to this game, or you won't get anywhere fast, or anywhere at all. You must maintain your relationships with your friends online, as well as in your guild...and don't even get me STARTED on guilds. I REFUSE to join any organization set in an imaginary world wherein I will have to be subjected to an interview, a background check, a period of probation, and a post-probation interview after that, to see whether or not I 'pass the muster'. These people need to go get a life, or rather, go back to the one's they already have. Not all guilds are like this, but to get into the best ones, the process is some variant of what I've described here.

These people take their WoW seriously, let me tell you, to the point of arranging meetings in real life for their guild members, where the members have to defer to other membes, on the basis of their in-game rank.

I say to thee, no.

Once you're past all the shine, and you dig down into the meat of the game, to me, it takes on an aspect that, to me, is not necessary in video games, and is actually representative of something that I would engage in WoW to get away from, and that is work. The demands of keeping your guild requirements, the slog that item acquisition becomes at higher levels, actually requiring you to repeatedly engage in PVP for insane amounts of honor points (the PVP rewards, used to buy top level items and gear), and the lengthy quests that you have to go on to get your profession to the higher levels....WoW is NOT built for the casual player. Its all or nothing, and its 11 million plus fanbase aside, the recent and ongoing popularity of the Wii has demonstrated that there is quite a large fanbase of casual gamers looking for fun and interesting activities that do not require you to sacrifice your life and social engagement in the real world to satisfy. Also, its immersiveness works against it, but not in anyway that the money printing suits at blizzard will care for. Its effect on the lives of the people that play it cannot be denied. Rampant addiction (even among my friends, and myself at one point), while good business sense, is just detrimental to those that have to stand on the outside and watch their friends devolve into these nocturnal, pasty faced lurker that are online discussing random topics in the trade channel in Orgrimmar at three in the morning.

While this experience will not be symptomatic of all who play, you will have to dedicate extensive amounts of time and energy if choose to excel in this game, and who would WANT to be mediocre within the setting of an activity that they CHOOSE to play, and are paying for? The time and energy spent in this pursuit of digital and, in my opinion, nonexisting rewards is gone, poof, forever lost to humanity, when these creative and driven individuals could be putting them to some other, better use. I just think its wrong to build a product like this, and then not put some means in place to ensure that these people do not lose themselves in it too much. That would not be good business sense, as addiction, whether you believe it or not, is the best business model that the human race has found to date.

*Looks at the cigarette butts on the table beside him*

You get my point. You should take all the possible ramifications of your product into consideration, and then be the bigger person by looking out for your fellow man. I don't know what I want to say at this point, except that this is a disastrous trend for the users, and the society as a whole. All these stories of destroyed marriages, and people spiralling down into pits of WoW addiction cannot be made up, and as some, and most of them are true, you should then look into making some changes to your policies to try and stave this off. If this loses you money, then tough. Money isn't everything, and someone should be looking out for all these people.

Now comes the arguements about self control and whatnot, but I won't even go there with you. History and psychology shows that the average person does not stop to consider the reasons behind most of their actions, much less how to change these actions and thought processes to their betterment. They just live, and exist, between their cradle and their grave. With this in mind, it falls on YOU, Blizzard, to look out for your loyal users in some way, any way, at this point.

Not that I believe that this will ever happen.

More as it develops.

Time to face facts.

So I recently came to a realisation, and one that I daresay is, and will be a life changing one.

I suffer from anxiety. Not your run of the mill anxiety either, but serious, crippling, makes-me-unable to function anxiety. It affects me in whatever I do, where ever I go, every moment of every minute of every hour of my life.

Hell, its affecting me even now as I type this in my living area, telling me that I won't finish this on time to get it up, that it won't be good enough, no one will want to read my entries, I'll die a failed writer, never having published a novel, much less a story.

True words. Let me give you a PERFECT example of what its like for me. Go watch Revolver by Guy Ritchie. The main site is here, and its overall a worthwhile watch, especially for fans of Ritchie's particular style. What goes on in my mind is very much equitable to what goes on in the main characters mind, with the constant paranoia, the doubting of the actions of others, and the overall confusion and questioning of all that goes on around him on a daily basis, culminating with that moment of self awareness in the elevator....by far my FAVOURITE scene in a movie to date, because my ability to relate to it so far surpasses most anything else that I've watched for entertainment. Also, the surreal heights that the movie takes his reality to is very much where I find myself sometimes....but whether this is because of the actuality, or simply my own mental shenanigans, is never quite clear to me.

Having decided this, I've also decided that its time I check myself back into a focused program of treatment, as I've realised that I never finished the previous program that I was on, for my chronic depression. Yes, I've been diagnosed with chronic depression, and if that's a surprise to you, then you must REALLY not have spent much time with me.

That's where I'm at, and that's what's in front of me. I've decided to put all this down on (digital) paper, as it seems to work for all the other patsy's that live out their lives in these digital domains, giving them some sense of catharsis as they go through their daily lives. God knows I could use some, along with a healthy helping of peace of mind.

Please read through my previous posts, I will be following up on them as time goes on. I'm not writing this with any serious aim in mind, just working through the pits and peaks that my life has been, and are, through the magic that is writing. Feel free to leave a comment, my only requirement being that you think before you write. Don't waste your time, or mine, with inane comments more suited for a message board arguing about *insert fan boy argument here*...and if you don't get that, then all the better for you.

Discovered Lady GaGa yesterday. This is probably due to my determined efforts to avoid the cultural pits that are MTV and BET and all their affiliates. She is so deliciously neo-eighties (is that even a term?) electronica and disco. She's gonna be in my playlist for a bit. Been listening to too much metal and rock lately, time to lighten the mood some.

So yeah, I'll be around, and hopefully so will you. Got a lot to say if you got the time to read it.

More as it develops.