Day 18: The only Gamer not Playing Grand Theft Auto 5... (Or, Why it takes something entirely non Televisual to Make me miss my Telly)

I have been having very vivid and violent dreams recently.
Incredibly violent.
One recently involved me running around with a large circular saw doing antisocial things. It was all very cartoony and slapstick and jolly good fun... and it is just one of many similar dreams I've been having in the past week... (albeit with the usual Odd Dream Logic, even in the Saw Dream I spent a long time looking for loose cables in room as they were a trip hazard that would reflect badly on the Health And Safety Audit I was having that day, before getting back to running around with a saw so big I couldn't even lift it in real life...)

This could be a sign of many things.
It could be that my clean living (Except Weekends) Lifestyle, with a solid sleeping pattern and no caffeine or nicotine is causing me to have vivid dreams in which I lash out. It could be a reaction to the stress of my job, which I have to feign reaction to in the office so nobody can tell how little I actually care. It could just be that I have deep seated psychological issues that can only be worked out with power tools and a shrieking crowd.

But it isn't any of that. It's just that I'm the only male Gamer who isn't playing Grand Theft Auto 5, and my brain is trying to cushion that blow by putting on it's own show of immersive, 'sandbox' ultra violence...

Yes, that Game came out, and whereas a few years ago I would be at the stores waiting for that midnight sale, I was actually in bed dreaming of Saws...

But why not?

Well I could go all beard-strokey and say it's blah blah bleeh blah glamourisation of violence and misogyny and that's why.. but it isn't.. I could try and act all alt-dot and claim I prefer Saints Row, which nobody really does... I could pretend I am too grown up and the activity shames me, which it doesn't... Believe me, I have a strong shame threshold... I could even moan about the price...

But it's none of this. I love the GTA series, have done for years. It was the game I dreamed of having when I used to play Werewolves of London on the old Spectrum.. a city at your command, where you can do anything.. Oh yes. Sign me in. I have GTA3 on my phone, and entertain myself on teh tube by racing around and trying to find all the jumps in Vice City.. I love it utterly, and it really is only getting better...

So why aren't I playing it?

Because I don't have a fucking TV!

I Have a TV license now, because of constant threats from 'The Man'... but No TV to plug my Xbox 360 into...

I was close to buying all 3 items this week, just so I could play. A TV, a new console (Which I already have one of, elsewhere) and the game itself. In fact, it is only the fact that the local shops had sold out of the game that prevented this ludicrous outlay of rent money... TV's, it seems are commonplace. GTA 5, is a rarity...

It will no doubt be the most lucrative entertainment product ever released, and good on it. People get so up in arms about what can be done in it's world.. but so what, even a copy of 'Miracle on 34th Street' can be put to ignoble use if you say... jam it into somebody's anus or something...

So I will soon be going back to the family home and getting out the ol' Xbox. And then I'll be investing in a little TV...

And then.. well and then I'll have to find someone with considerably more patience than me to go through the actual missions and unlock everything...

Any takers?

Day 17: All my readers are Vampires! (Or, That surge of hope when you se that someone arrived via Google Search)

Any Bloggers read this?

That is a moot question.. a set up really, like a comedian saying, 'People come up to me...' Which of course they don't. I've never gone up to anyone and said/did anything remotely amusing... and neither have you... and likewise you haven't read this Blog...

That is the great statistical probability. You haven't read this, none of you.. and even if you are reading this, statistically you actually haven't.. you can argue, but statistics are mighty, and they say you don't exist.. so you don't. If you divide 'Zero' into Bloggers and Non-Bloggers you get.. Well you get a confused Zero that doesn't know which column to get into, but you get the answer to my question.

Bloggers don't read this because people don't read this.

But a Blogger who did read this, if they existed, which they don't, would immediately understand the odd sensation that I am about to describe....
You have written a blog, like normal... You have published it and promptly forgot about it, because you aren't an internet obsessed lunatic (Any more). The next day you look at your 'Stats' and they've suddenly spiked. A whole bunch of clicks on your recent posting... Suddenly your heart leaps. There's loads of them. Probably each and every one is a Hollywood exec or a leading publisher looking for lazy novelists... You scramble to click to find out the more in depth stats.. where do my adoring fans come from, How did they get here...

Then the despair sets in... The list is full of referral sites with names like:
Vampirestat
Secretsearch
adsensewatch
...or just a strings of weird number/letter combos, that you just know hide anonymous links.

And where do all these take you.. why to clickbait sites of course. When you as a real person click to find out what these sites mean, you are registered as a hit on that site.. which means.. well I don't know.. I'm sure there's some money in it somewhere, but it seems a very long way round getting it, a sneaky, snidey, unpleasant and douchebaggy waste of space way of funding yourself... but I digress...

The disappointment you feel when you see this is horrible.. That big figure is worthless, in fact worse than worthless, it is a sign that a computer algorithm has designated you exactly the kind of little read sad-sack who would have the time and inclination to click on any link that come there way to chase down those oh so elusive readers...

Now, I have had posts on here do well... My most read post hit 6500, not much, but for a small unaffiliated wiffle blog, not bad... I have to say, that experience terrified me... Genuinely. I put a note down about a chap who had been unfairly dismissed for depression and it became part of the 'viral' story.. it was easier to post a link to my blog than explain the context in 140 characters.. so they did... and it flew... and I panicked...

But I would certainly trade that 'Sorcerer's apprentice and the Marching Brooms feeling' for the 'glance and shake head sadly feeling' that bumpirates such as Vampirestat and their ilk give you...

So hurrah for those days when you see that people used honest to goodness human search terms to find your blog.. even if they are odd combinations like (Genuinely) 'George Osborne Piss Bukkake'... and I  sincerely hope that after the disappointment of this blog, whoever that reader is, found exactly what they are looking for... they may be a pervert.. a genuinely disgusting one, but they are an honest to goodness, genuinely disgusting, human pervert

And for the rest of you Vampire Bots... you can give up now.. I won't be clicking on your link... I'd rather see no hits than your forgery...
*Waits*
*Sees 'no Hits'*
*Weeps*

Day 16: Same Sex Marriage? Bah, Science says NO! (Or, what happens when the Godly get to play with magnets and call it physics)

Same Sex marriage is a political Hot Potato... a real mouth burner... one with a Tangy filling that turns the stomach of some, but is utterly delicious to others.. like blue cheese and Marmite.

Of course, most people who have thought about it for anything longer than say, a nano-second have just shrugged and said; "Sure, why not it literally doesn't effect me one jot".. in fact the only person who could possibly have a coherent argument against it, is someone who is in a same sex relationship with a pushy partner who is now looking at catalogues of expensive abbeys and constantly watching 'Here comes the Bride' whilst throwing meaningful glances at them across a frosty sofa that used to be full of free-wheelin', non legally-bound, lovin'...

But those people are WRONG.
But who says so, why it's 'Science' of course...

Step forward the hero of the piece: Chibuihem Amalaha, a Post Grad at Lagos University who has decided to prove, with honest to goodness 'Science', that Gay Marriage is utterly utterly utterly wrong.

As it says in this AWESOME article

“God gave me the wisdom to use science as a scientist to prove gay marriage is wrong.”

“In the area of physics, I used physics with experiments, I used chemistry with experiments, I used biology with experiments and I used mathematics to prove gay marriage [is] wrong.”

Here is Chibuihem.. see he wears a lab coat and brandishes a conical flask. How could he NOT be legit...

If you are averse to clicking, or worried that 'silly' might somehow be catching I can summarise:

1. Magnets don't attract at the same pole, Hence Same Sex People don't attract.

2. Mathematics shows that Gay Marriage is wrong, just because it does.

3. Electrolysis shows Negative and Positive Ions attracting, not positive and positive, hence 'Eww Gays!'

There is some other 'Science flavoured' jibber before he finishes with a flourish with the not at all biased and nutty soundbite.

"In General, Same Sex is Evil"

Ok dealing with those one at a time.

1 People are Really not much like magnets, and same sex people certainly attract, I mean, some of them attract like crazy... Have you ever been to a gay bar, some you couldn't prize apart save with a fulcrum and a VERY Long Lever (Science!)

2 Mathematics proves nothing about any human relationship. If you were so inclined you could 'prove': '1 & 1 are the same number but added together they make 2 so that proves there should ONLY be same sex marriage', or you could perhaps argue: '1 & 2 makes three which is the number of people in a family with one child and the same in the trinity so yah boo, boys kissing is nasty...'

3 He's kind of covered this with the magnet one hasn't he? His only material is that things that repel, repel and things that attract, attract and so  God really doesn't like Gays...

Yeah that's the problem here. It's god talk holding a beaker and wearing a knock off Bunsen Honeydew costume. Which is fine, if you want to say that you can't marry someone of the same gender because the bronze age rule book demands it, go ahead, fill ya boots chappy.. but really.. don't try and inflict that idea on someone else, it's not up to you.. and if your God really had a dog in this fight, he could sort it himself... Either he's quite ambivalent about the whole 'Gay Bit', or he's a weakling who can't control his own creation, but for some reason decided to make same sex attraction a reality... or.. most likely of all... He was never there in the first place.. Yeah, My Money is on that one... and not just my money, I'm risking the prospect of spending a whole eternity being tortured in a pit of endless fire for my beliefs... and you think YOU have convictions...

Oh.. and if you do want to put this idea about. Don't dress it up in a lab-coat and call it science, ok? 

1) Real Scientists will come out and trounce you, your methods and your results. That's what Science is, which is why they call is the Scientific method...

2) You'll look just as foolish as the man in the photo up there... How foolish is that? All the foolish.

In fairness to his vaulting ambition though, I will give him the last word:

“My ambition is to go beyond the sky... I want to reach the level God has destined me to reach. I want to be the first African to win Nobel Prize in science "

Day 15: Those poor poor poor poor Lib Dem Members (Or, why This Party Conference is like attending A mass parents evening for a changeling)

Wooo.. It's Lib Dem Party Conference. Lolz! Awesome...
yo! #ldconf #SadlyNotEvenTrending

The Put the Party in Party, and they kinda dropped a fair bit of 'Con' into conference... and they put all of 'Quisling' into Disappointing Quisling Douchepump liars...

I nearly voted Lib Dem once. It was at the last election, like many I was fooled by Nick Clegg's 'Human Mask'... or perhaps he was one of us, and they have some sort of lizard-innard replacer machine they use whenever somebody achieves high office*. He rocked it in the televised debates, made the Tony Blair Hand gestures seem fresh and even answered some questions rather than just flapping his mouth hole and making 'politician' noises... Yes, he looked like he could actually not only challenge the other two party leaders, but might also have some useful input into the political process...
(*I don't believe in Lizard People incidentally... Because that's what THEY would expect me to do.. ahem)

Hahahaha!
Still gives me a chuckle to think of that, and they wonder why people don't engage with politics. We all know the story since then, betrayal after betrayal of his members and supporters, capitulation after capitulation and those Tony Blair gestures now just look tworn and false, and so, in a way are more authentic.

So now it's the Lib Dem Conference, and sadly for them, Labour is trending on Twitter. They aren't. Kind of says it all. Even if it does say it all, I will plough on ahead, because.. well.. because I'm bloody minded and I still find the Lib Dems a crushing disappointment. They were packaged as the party for me, centrist but essentially good. A Library club kind of party... and now look at them...

You have all the members around the giant media exercise that is 'conference', and to the ground level members, it must feel like the worst parent's evening in history (Extended metaphor from Title Line alert!).

-So.. erm, how is little Libby doing?
-Oooh well.. she's.... she's.. erm...
-Come on.. tell it to me straight...
-Well.. not so good, all of her achievement pledges.. well.. she's.. she's failed all of them...
-All of them She hasn't done.. what.. any?
-No, in fact she seems to have done exactly the opposite in some cases..
-What.. well.. that's very difficult to understand.. how can something like that happen?
-Yes.. but.. well.. there are mitigating circumstances...
-Ok, tell...
-She's being bullied... all of the other kids pick on her...
-All of them? Even the weird niche ones...
-I'm afraid so.. they call her Useless and ineffectual and a waste of space and 'one up from Ukip' and
-Yes Yes, I get it...
-.. and bumbling and a pushover and a tart and...
-A tart? What...
-Well... it's a good thing she was born in 1988, because it seems that every time 'Tori' says anything she immediately drops her knickers...
-Oh...

Their faces crumble into despair.. what has happened to 'their Angel', that beautiful child full of hope and optimism. So they turn, and they look... and it isn't even their child any more... it's literally someone else. It's some grinning demon who is bullied, but also runs with the bullies in the mistaken belief that it gives them power and credibility....
You scream, but you can never wake up...
You are a Lib Dem Member...

Someone has posted an amusing metaphor on Twitter, which is one of the few mentions of them that doesn't directly call them douchebags, they say as far as the coalition goes they are "No longer in the Honeymoon Suite, but in a nice twin room and it's all very Stable"

Awww... How Cosy.
What they don't mention is the stirrups and the ceiling hooks and the butt plugs and the whips and gimp masks...
Because this relationship is less a marriage, and more the set up for some political based S&M slash fiction... and it's easy to see which party plays 'the sub'...

Which I will now do you the great service of not describing any further... You are Welcome...