Picked up one of those new fangled Playstation 3 thingammy bobbins a few months back. My new flat and the prospect of impending debt brought on the need to equip it with sleek Swedish furniture. Debt calls for more debt like a moth to a flame.
Anyway, for the most part have been managing to keep a lid on the hours spent on the new toy, but it creeps in every now and again, seeing a five hour, coffee fueled solitary journey into exploring the ravaged world of Fallout 3, shooting my fellow man in Call of Duty and tripping it out lean up style in some Japanese kid’s Little Big Planet level of joy.
The new generation of consoles are insidious in that they literally do everything so well. You want to immerse yourself in an epic Hollywood budget interactive film? No worries. You want to play games with people all over the world. Couple of clicks and one username and account and you’re up and running. Watch a blue ray? No probs as long as you’ve got the requisite giant HD screen (which I don’t yet incidentally). Stream videos, tunes and images from any other computer on your wireless network? Couple of clicks and you’re there. Send abusive message to your friend due to zombie killing antics? Inadvertently make a 10 year old cry due to expertise at shooting nazis? Yes it’s all possible. Hmm the relapse to total geek fueled second adolescence, including accompanied self loathing and bad skin is near enough inevitable.
Having survived the hell of Westfields, a new shopping centre carved out of formica, like a bastard son of Stanstead airport and Brent Cross, acquired the requisite presents in the nick of time and hit the last of the impending work deadlines I settled into the Christmas season with all due aplomb. Sleeping in late, eating large plates of cake, smoked salmon and pig in a blanket and rinsing it out on the Playstation network like a new found idiot adolescent I got my energy back and turned my thoughts to bolo.
I had many drunken epiphanies and I made scant mental notes for a series of projects to launch in the new year. Who knows whether they will happen, but they sounded good to my internal ears as they were enunciated through smoke filled kitchens, leaning out the window and spending a little time away from the computer and with family and wiggly. Many ideas for things I want to write down and some I fear that must be written unless I lose them to the mists of time, or worse, they rancour in my brain. Flotsam to expunge don’t you know.
Oh well, tonight is no time for big thoughts. Arctic winds howl round the flat and the combi boiler struggles to raise the temperature enough for me to remove my scarf, put my hood down and make a sandwich. Ice under foot and the chance of slipping over precarious as I stumble up and down the stairs, laden with the last boxes of stuff from Prubast.
Its so cold, cold enough to ice your giblets my friends. Lets draw the curtains on this one. I feel a zoot beckoning and the chance of another epiphany. Arms aloft to lightning filled skies like an idiot savant searching for fractal meaning in the sight of an old man riding his bike by at 1:30 in the morning. Why would an old man be out on his bike at that time in the freezing cold? Dark things may be afoot in Ealing and there is much to consider for the Groovernort.