What, Me Worry?

Ah, the infamous Mad Magazine and their infamous mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, with his infamous credo. These days, it seems particularly relevant to me because I’d always interpreted that particular slogan as cautionary advice about stupidity. Specifically, the stupidity to be calm when one should clearly be bouncing off the ceiling and panicking. I say this, because I wonder of late if I myself am not pulling an Alfred E. Neuman and remaining stupidly calm and placid in the midst of events that would leave a more sensible human being sweating through a cold and sleepless night. But first…

Real Time Jiggle

At long last, Dead Or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball graced the television in The Cave. After watching James’ awestruck reactions to the close ups and camera pans of breasts and ass, I now feel fully justified in my enthusiasm for the game, and now attribute all the posturing of “It’s just a perv game” that most of the people I know hashed around as that ever so adorable macho hypocrisy that’s supposed to prove that you’re a mature human being with a much deeper, more profound insight into life. This doesn’t stop these deep and profound human beings from muttering “Oh… My… GOD…” the same way I was when the camera rotated around some white-haired girl in something called a “Ratri”; a V-Kini that consisted of little more than two strips of black lycra connected at the rear by a shoelace. Having spent the better part of midnight to 6 am trying to get the girl to accept this bikini (The girls, strangely enough, don’t like to wear the “raunchy” stuff, and so a lot of bribery in the form of gifts is involved, more real world lessons for all you gamers out there, pay attention…) it was with much glee and smoking of cigarettes that we finally watched her strut down the beach, unnecessarily arching her back and tilting her head at the sun as we Keanu-ed all the way and went “Whoa.”

I have learned two very important lessons from playing this game.

1) The games industry is finally starting to realize that their audience isn’t 8 years old anymore.

2) The only people who can play this game without fear of karmic retribution are single men. Anyone who is attached will automatically bring the wrath of the furies down upon their heads as, let’s face it, with a game like this, there is simply no excuse to justify why you’re playing it. EVERYONE knows exactly why you’re playing it and all the counter-arguments about “in-depth gameplay” and “astonishingly accurate physics” will fall on deaf ears and end in a cruel, cold finger pointing towards your bed for the night, The Couch.

To make matters worse, I resisted as long as I could, but the call of the Role Playing Game finally got to me, and I succumbed. Suikoden III is now slowly, methodically, anal-retentively being completed hour by excruciating hour of its 65+ hour life, which has once again turned me into little more than a gaming vegetable that cares more about finding the secret Bujutsu teacher to upgrade my combat skills than in actually caring about food, household pets, or girlfriends. This was all fine and dandy when the games were a bitter escape from the horrid reality of my single life, but now that that lifestyle is dead, this ability to shut out the world for days on end is proving something of a liability. So far the girlfriend is still understanding about this obsessive-compulsive need defeat game console RPGs, but if I ever do something really bonehead like watch her break her ankle and then tell her “Okay, I’ll take you the hospital, just let me kill this last boss in the dungeon, I’ve…almost… got it…” I’ll probably be able to enjoy my victory for exactly five seconds, then read the “Dear John, BITE ME” letter she wrote while crawling out of the house by her fingernails to get herself to the hospital.

Words, Sentences and Paragraphs

Serial Jen continues, and has finally broken the 10 page barrier, creeping up to 15. It’s going to be a bit tricky around the 2/4, since that’s the only one that seems lost in the fog. 1/4 is done. 3/4 and 4/4 I know what’s going to happen, but that second bit is tricky for some reason…

Jen, as usual, is proving to be something of a bitch, and it was nice to be able to write about my Alma Mater, the University Of Alberta again, as the story (Or at least the early part) is set there, circa 1994. In fit of whimsey, while I was enjoying the virtual tour feature and staring once more at much loved buildings like HUB, FAB and Humanities, I decided to check out the English department to see if my creative writing Prof, Kristjana Gunnars was still there. She was, so I wrote her an e-mail and thank you letter and she promptly wrote back the same day.

Kristjana is kind of important to me for a couple of reasons, but the most important one is that she really made me feel like I wasn’t wasting my time with this writing thing. After the horror of my introductory creative writing class (I got the highest mark in one semester and the lowest in the other. Long story…) I was ready for intermediate, and when I submitted my portfolio to her for consideration, she bumped me up to the senior course instead. Which was a good class for me and I knew that I was probably going to get a lot out of it when she said at the first class, “I’m not here to teach you how to good stories, I’m here to teach you better how to write the kind of stories you want to write.” And she probably regretted those words to some degree when I proceeded to bombard the class with one genre-laden/anti-literary story after another. Still, I stuck with it, and the one thing I’ll always remember is that when she bought dinner for the class (There were only 6 of us…) to congratulate us on finishing the course, I went out to smoke a cigarette and she followed me and told me, “I expect to be hearing quite a bit about you in the future.”

When you’re a struggling writer and an award winning author tells you that, it tends to mean a lot.

Living On The Dole

I have now officially been unemployed for nearly three months.

What little money I had is now gone and the rent as well as most of the living expenses are now largely carried through by the girlfriend, with the exception of a little bit of money coming in here and there for the odd freelance job, but these usually amount to a few hundred dollars and merely slow the growth of the hole, not fill it up. There are possibilities, such as the Nadya thing, though I may have to do the unappealing thing and actually call her up to ask about that. And there is still the little question of the legality of my presence in Singapore as MOM has yet to get back to me on the state of the application, and their Visa extension officially expires this Friday. So all around, it’s once more back in the pressure cooker, although, to be honest, I’ve been through worse, which is why it’s hard to get really worked up about this.

Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the girlfriend.

Not necessarily used to living on the edge of desperation the way I have, for sometimes years at a time, she is, understandably, less than a happy camper about our current situation. Although to her credit, she seems more mad at the situation than she is at me, since she can understand my motivations perfectly. Last night I was telling her that it almost seems like the universe is trying to ram one last load of worry/angst/suffering down my throat as a sort of fond farewell, because this really feels like a transitional period. With the books sitting around, waiting for a publishing date, life is going to be a much simpler, more interesting affair in a few months, what with the money coming in, and then planning for the move to Vancouver (Yes, we have talked about this. Yes, she is all for it.) life is going to be a very busy experience indeed very shortly. But in the meantime, it’s back to squandering like a rat. There will be stress, there will be low periods of morale, there will probably also be me hitting up friends and begging them for money while I look for a job that never materializes until I A) stop looking in despair or B) Get the money from the book and no longer need it, though by then it’s too late, as, in desperation, I stupidly sign a 2 year contract that locks me into this island.

Life. Ya’ gotta’ love it, don’tcha’?