Whoever you think you presently are. Thank you.

Everything we think and everything we do, is a blend of our experiences, from childbirth through childhood, encompassing all our formative years throughout and beyond.

We are like sponges except that we aborb stimuli, we filter information, we process it and meld all our different sources together as we come to understand them as we start to produce… Whether we’re producing art, or music, or food, or even conversation, the process is the same, all we are is a sum of our experiences, all those experiences have been driven by people surrounding us and all that they are and all that they say is a sum of the experiences they have experienced.

I am not saying that you are not a unique and beautiful snowflake

What I am saying, is that everything is derivative of something else, life is derivative of life.

All that you read, all that you see, filling up your head with orange coloured liquid.

Entropy.

Appropriately the last post on this oft-forgotten blog was by Drew declaring his personal failure during the last NaNoWriMo. Tonight I was inspired to jot down a few thoughts I’ve had in the past few days as I’ve started the experience myself.

I never intended to do NaNo this year, last year, or ever. I’ve done a bit of creative writing for personal reasons in my past and it has always interested me but I had no desire to become involved in this project, mostly because my reaction to it has generally been “my friends who write should do this!”. This year I knew I had to get Sarah writing, I know how much she enjoys it and we’ve been brainstorming story ideas all through the year for one reason or another, knowing that NaNo was approaching I thought it would be a brilliant way to get her writing every day until on October 31st I decided out of the blue to sign up myself.

I love and hate the pressure.
Really, knowing that every day I have to sit down and write in order to reach my goal is working at me on two levels. I hate that I have to produce enough content to keep up my average, that I feel pressured and bullied by my own commitment into slaving away in Google Docs. On the other hand I’m really enjoying the creative outlet and if I wasn’t undertaking NaNo I would’ve writen about 1 paragraph in the last three days.

It’s keeping my mind occupied.
Even when I’m at work I can’t help thinking about all the story elements and ideas I want to incorporate into my writing, ideas for characters and plot devices abound and they’re keeping my mind pleasantly distracted while I mourn the loss of my primary distraction (Google Reader sharing).

Draft Zero is my novels working title.
I am under no illusions about this project (ok, probably a few at least) but the main ideal I’m sticking to is that nothing I’m writing is permanent, everything is subject to change and nobody gets to read anything that I don’t think is polished enough for human consumption. Chances are that none of this writing will ever see the light of day, and after November I’ll probably lose interest in trying to perfect it and go back to my other hobbies but at least I will have been thoroughly entertained (more like occupied) for an entire month of evenings. My hands are not the devils playthings.

Get used to this.
Let’s paraphrase my last comment. “An Idle blog is the devils plaything”. I’m not going to reread this post, or edit it in the slightest, I am just going to post my thoughts for the world (or at least 5 of you) to read. Gonzo blogging.

<insert lightsabre wielding cat video here>

… fuck. That was 500 words that could have been spent on my novel! Screw you readers, I’m out of here!

Site number: 0359035

Employee: 8842169

Room 8812A was a mostly triangular room, with one completely upright 50-odd degree corner met at the top by a gently curved hypotenuse that rose from the ground mostly upright before slanting in to create a fairly level ceiling.  The decor had a utilitarian colour scheme boasting a less-than-stylsh blueish-grey on darkish-grey motif, accented by appliances that absorbed more light than they reflected. There was a basic dresser along one curved edge sporting a vacuum sink and a polished mica mirror, another edge housed a floor to ceiling cupboard and the straightest edge was home to a recessed double bunk.

Byron Graves could have described it all in great detail without turning to look. He had spent the last 18 months living here since his posting to Hollister. The room itself was much different to what he had been used to previously but he had already spent many hours committing it to memory and now spent the majority of his time that wasn’t spent working or training staring out the nasteel window. Nasteel was a mostly transparent compound made primarily from compressed sodium that most of the facilities windows were made from. Byron was quite lucky to have been issued room 8812A, if you considered luck in the same way Byron did, as this section of the compound had recently been restored from a catastrophic structural failure and as the Site Control System, or SC as they colloquially called it, had been allocating workers to this section slowly it permitted him the luxury of a room to himself and a view.

The silence, and Byron’s daydreaming, were abruptly interrupted by the voice of SC coming in over the P.A. system. Some people received SC’s communiques in text form over their portable computer slates but as Byron’s was currently on charge and syncing his upcoming schedule the data was piped directly through speakers mounted in small pockmarks in the ceiling. Byron was always disconcerted by the warm tone of the SC’s artificial voice, while most artificial intelligence used the most basic language processors in order to save space and processing power Byron could only assume this system over-designed in every conceivable fashion, down to a small fortune invested in an appealing demeanor.

Byron took one last glance at the rising of the first solar body out his window and then turned, retrieving the tunic draped over his bed edge and pulling it over his head as SC recited the regular morning brief. He dressed quickly into a smart uniform including properly creased trousers and a loose jacket in navy blue, he then  regarded himself briefly in the mirror before grabbing his slate, tucking it into his inside breast pocket on his way out the door.

There are some drunken ideas that rightfully never come to fruition, like trying to convince Softy that I could jump from my balcony to the neighbours roof  (if I’d tried i’d be dead or at least maimed now) or deciding with your wife that you would start a YouTube channel where she sings popular songs in Golum’s voice (you’d swear it was Serkis when she does, it’s a beautiful thing). This isn’t one of those ideas, this is brilliant. Tom and I were drunk. Proper drunk. We were flicking through my film library looking for something to put on, but the flicking turned to talking and debating the merits of particular films and that, dear readers, evolved into this.

We may possibly be the first people on the internet EVER to comprise top ten lists of films. Brace yourself, this is history in the making.

Also capitalization is Wikipedia’s, not mine, I didn’t include any films I’ve seen only once (despite loving Synecdoche, Total Recall and Bladerunner) or adaptions (Watchmen) because I felt like it wouldn’t be an honest representation (despite Drew cheating… twice), also it helped me minimize my shortlist. Despite my favourite film being #1 there is actually no order to these movies, the order is arbitrary.

1. Life as a House

So many of you think of Hayden Christensen as the whiny bitch that played the third cinematic incarnation of Anakin Skywalker, but before he was thrust into the world of Star Wars, I knew him as the whiny bitch that played George’s son Sam in Life as a House. Life as a House has spent the last 10 years gathering dust, being an unprofitable  film that barely even registers in a torrent search. However you can ask anyone I know and they’ll tell you that Life as a House is my favourite film of all time, it was the discussion of this film that spawned the list making we’re currently undertaking. I could go on about Kevin’s absolutely wonderful portrayal of a man remiss about his life and resigned to death, or about the classic tale of redemption that Sam undertakes but if you haven’t seen it I shan’t bother you with the details. In the film George figuratively tears his father down and freely admits it, it gives me hope about facing my own problems before they conquer my life the way they did his. Maybe it was my father leaving when I was only young, maybe it was wanting a nude Jena Malone in my shower (or Mary Steenburgen  in lingerie for that matter) or maybe it was just that essence of family captured, but I really relate to this film.

2. Almost Famous

Ok, this is embarrassing. I completed my list, got all my photos uploaded, and was ready to post it when I realised that Almost Freaking Famous wasn’t on my GOD DAMN LIST. It is an enormous omission that I tried to explain away in the footnote and couldn’t. The Majestic used to occupy this particular section of this post. I love The Majestic, it is the film that showed me that Jim Carrey could actually act, but Almost Famous is a triumph of feel-good cinema, Kate Hudson’s only notable accomplishment in her career, and quite frankly I couldn’t live with myself it Phillip Seymour Hoffman didn’t have a place in my top ten. From the deflowering of kids to the golden god on LSD Almost Famous never stops rewarding the viewer, Zooey Deschanel is the sister we can all relate to, Fairuza Balk and Anna Paquin are the groupies we wish we had, and despite Jason Lee phoning in another film where he doesn’t even try to act, Frances McDormand takes her relatively small amount of screen real estate and makes herself one of the most memorable characters.

You said we were going to go to Morocco. There is no Morocco. There’s never been a Morocco. There’s not even a Penny Lane.

3. Cube

When I first watched this cult sensation I remember falling in love with the look and feel that, alongside Vinenzo Natali’s amazing film making, was able to make you feel like you were right there in the cube with the other victims. Nicole DeBoer and David Hewlett went on to make careers in my favourite incarnations of the most epic science fiction television franchises, and revisiting Cube now pairs my absolute adoration for the film itself with my love for two Canadian actors who I consider breakout stars of their genre.

4. Wrath of Khan

Those who know me will show no surprise at this amazing movie being on my list, but its inclusion was more torturous than you may think. Even though I will always list this film second any time I am asked about my favourite movies I struggled with it taking up space on the page of my notebook dedicated to this challenge. Perhaps it has been a part of my life so long that it almost feels vestigial, I know I love it, everyone I know knows I love it, it’s almost wasted space on the page, a slot in the list that could have been otherwise filled. However! Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Mother Fucking Montalbán y Merino. Chest bared, Moby Dick allusions abounding, and absolute on screen presence. Just as Silence Of The Lambs was made by a villain who was only on screen for 16 minutes, Wrath of Khan is exactly as the title states, and executed exquisitely.

5. Still Crazy

This is the closest I have gotten to a ‘musical’ in this here list, it has a good half dozen well written and performed rock songs in it but it’s not about that, it’s a commentary on the rock star lifestyle but done with a fantastic British sense of humour. Where Bill Nighy isn’t even the main character of the film, as the bands front man he manages to make it all about him anyway. There is some soul searching, and some sinning, but there is never any redemption mostly just acceptance. I can’t overlook this film because I still remember the timestamp on my VCR display that I had to fast forward (or rewind ) to in order to watch Strange Fruit perform All Over The World.

6. Across the Universe

HA! I forgot about this musical, but it feels wrong to go back and change my Still Crazy rant based on that… Ok! So, what they say about first impressions? They’re dead right. Listen to A Mountain Of One’s collected works or watch Across the Universe and try to compare your opinion with mine, when I first experienced these things (on separate occasions mind you) they were at the time the greatest thing that ever happened in not only my life, but the existence of the universe itself.  The Beatle’s amazing songs couple with Evan’s beauty, Jim’s voice and a range of cameos that make even Bono lovable. Without listing in detail all the songs that I love in this film I will just say; greatest trash can solo. Ever.

7. Gattaca

Of all of these movies Gattaca is one of those films that I am relentlessly telling people that they need to see, science fiction fans or not. Gattaca presents to us such a believable near-future that in the 14 years since its release we are moving closer and closer to it as a reality. There is nothing so far-fetched in Gattaca that I couldn’t imagine my own children growing up in the world presented within. Points are lost for acting, especially Ethan Hawke having the emotional range of a particularly stoic brick, but Jude Law makes me smile in every scene he’s in. I know I’ve told you all plenty of times  ”I love this-or-that-film and you have to see it” but of all of the films on this list, seriously, right this second make a plan to watch Gattaca, rent the VHS from Jon San Video that I thrashed to death or download it off the internet (I think they stop tallying gross profit from films after 14 years) or comment below and I will send you my god damn copy, but do it. DO IT.

8. Moon

Moon. As deceptively simple a film as its own title Moon is fantastically executed. It sacrifices the “big reveal” in favour of explaining the plot directly and eloquently. While films like Inception and The Matrix take a fairly straightforward premise and try to bury it under layer upon layer of exposition to try and make the film makers seem clever, Moon presents a great story that has infinite layers of a rich potential universe waiting right beneath the surface. The director (David Bowie’s spawn no less) has promised to explore this universe in further films but Moon stands on its own, brilliant acting on behalf of Sam Rockwell with an excellent assist by Spacey. I have a feeling this movie will show up in many more of the lists here on Ok, to being with, but I couldn’t omit it from mine.

9. Orange County

When I first saw the posters at my local video store I was expecting a typical stoner-flick, devoid of heart and soul like they all were, but (spoiler alert) I loved it… Every last part of Orange County gives me a happy. The cast is a veritable who’s who list of actors you recognize from somewhere or other, and they all contribute in the best ways possible. Catherine O’Hara absolutely shines as Shaun’s mother Cindy, she is raw and intense, a caricature so well done that it becomes a portrait. John Lithgow and Harold Ramis may only have small parts they make up for it with absolute scale of performance. I wanted to end this entry with a quote from the movie and I got stuck at deciding which one to include, so despite my love for Bronc0′s, and Shaun’s getting of them, I’ll have to close with: “Three people! In the history of literature!”

10. Star Wars

I like telling the story of my love affair with Star Wars, I think it’s a prerequisite for my friends now and even if you read this post I have no doubt that while drunk in the future I will tell you this again. I happened across the Star Wars VHS cassettes for rent at the Bondi Blockbuster, nobody had ever told me about Star Wars before, I had no pre existing positive bias, I didn’t know it was a ‘thing’.  I liked the cover and I rented it, I rented it over, and over, and over again. I decimated those cassettes, the 4:3 and the 16:9 versions both. A New Hope, as it was retroactively titled, is in a word; stunning.

He tasks me! He tasks me, and I shall have him! I’ll chase him round the Moons of Nibia, and round the Antares Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up!

Earlier this month Ok, to begin with…’s editor Tom suggested that as writers we would all produce a post based on our ‘Top 5 of 2010′. His instructions were vague enough to include the sentence “Anything at all, Damn” (that may be taken out of context). And since I have nothing but contempt respect for him, I immediately started working on what you find below. Though I will admit, I wasn’t too sure what he wanted.

Does he want me to post about the most internationally significant events of the year? Or the worst celebrity break-ups of the year? I certainly wasn’t sure… What I took from his instruction was that I should list 5 events that had a profound, or near enough, effect on me while the earth made it’s most recent loop around our sun, however, most or all of the significant social or event experiences of this year that I’ve experienced have included another Ok, to being with… writer in one way or another, and I’d hate to write a redundant or repetitive post! Especially when they can probably do them more justice.

So in no particular order and with no particular theme, I give you my official five ‘things’ of two thousand and ten.

Aging

Everybody has aged this year just like every other year that they were alive and everybody takes that news differently, most people I know prefer to avoid discussion of subjects like ‘age’ and ‘birthdays’ because for some reason they fear the natural development of their life, they fear the change.

There are a lot of cycles in life, lots of circular motions that move at different rates like planetary bodies orbiting their star. I’ve been through quite a few of different orbits in my life, different jobs, changing passions and growing relationships, including those that have faded away. But as time passes and there are more and more years left in my wake I find that the way I tackle each of these cycles in life has changed. The changes were subtle as they happened but have left me interpreting events and people in drastically different ways.

Sure, the insane energy levels I had as a child have withered away and I feel tired more often than I feel alert, but I’m also slower to anger, I give every situation more thought, care and attention than before. It’s like that old adage about stopping to smell the roses, and now I almost feel like I can watch them experiencing the forces of wind in ultra-slow motion.

Aging is something I’ve done every year of my life, and it’s something I’ve always relished, but this year in particular it feels like it’s finally accomplishing something.

(Not quite) Natural Disasters

Before we begin let’s just establish that I’m definitely not a climate change alarmist, but I’m also not dumb enough to sit in a garage with a car engine running so I’m not blind to the fact that every action has a reaction and that some of those reactions can be invisible to casual observance. There is no way that we as a race can say that we have no effect on Earth by the way we act, just like there is no way you can say that Wildebeest don’t have an effect on the Serengeti. I’ll go further to say that I’m not blaming our actions on all of the disasters that occurred this year, but some subtly in ways we don’t realise, and quite obviously one of the worst.

In January Haiti was thrashed by one of the deadliest earthquakes on record, completely devastating the capital Port-au-Prince and causing an unparalleled loss of life, a loss of life that was caused more by the lack of facilities to care for the victims as it was by the quake itself. Which was shown clearly when It was followed in February by an even higher magnitude quake in Chile that took many fewer lives despite being one of the largest in recorded history.

April saw another earthquake, this time hitting China, and the volcano of which we do not speak it’s name (but that’s just because we can’t pronounce it) caused unprecedented havoc with air traffic across Europe. Not long following, in July, the earth finally fell silent and from above monsoons rained despair and misfortune upon millions of Pakistani.

The thin blue line of atmosphere that surrounds our planet is, for all it’s power, a relatively delicate and fragile thing that requires more care than we’re giving it, and while we can argue endlessly about how much we are and aren’t affecting it, it’s hard to get angry at a giant oblate spheroid of rock hurtling around Sol at a hundred thousand or so kilometres an hour. With such amazing energies at play it’s easy to forgive the layers of molten core and spinning mantle for having a stretch and a twist every now and then, after all it does give us somewhere habitable to live. What’s not so easy to forgive though is people. Greedy, stupid, careless people…

Deepwater Horizon was, and still is, the master clusterfuck of 2010, of the 21st century so far, and one of the biggest in our race’s short tenure as so-called-masters of this planet. I’ll admit to pulling up to a pump once every couple of weeks and pumping the refined product of crude oil into the tank of a car, sure 98% of my driving is for work, but that doesn’t absolve me of responsibility just like it doesn’t absolve anyone else. We put this power in BP’s hands, we gave it to them to abuse, just like we gave the gold-plated Ferrari’s and giant skyscrapers to the oil barons.

3D Cinema

It would appear that not even Michael Bay could make movies big enough and ridiculous enough with his “artistic style” so we’ve had to add an extra pseudo-dimension to cinema in order to push crappy film-making, drive up ticket prices and allow the consumer electronics market to sell you an entirely new TV that’s barely any different to your current one except that it can make you and your friends look like even bigger dicks while using it.

Not only did Hollywood (is it just me or is it referred to more as an evil benevolent entity than a location) rehash a poor cinema idea from the 50’s with new films but now we start having films being converted from their original glory into horrific parodies of their former selves. The only good thing that will come of this is another chance for me to see Star Wars in the cinema again.

But this kind of hype is nothing new, it’s been happening since print/visual media has been in use, no doubt Ugg used to paint the the best possible renditions of battles with mammoths on his cave walls in order to convince his cave-mates that it wasn’t a monumentally stupid idea to come with him. And I’m sure that they were as disappointed when they got impaled with tusk as anybody who saw Avatar. Yes, I realise that you have to take into account all the people who raved about how spectacular Avatar looked, but most of them likely have about the same level of intelligence as the aforementioned cave-people.

City Life

I mentioned previously that 98% of my driving is done for work purposes, and while I haven’t collated all the data to provide that number as precisely as I have, it’s definitely close. I’ve changed from a person who drove everywhere and walked when essential (usually drunk) and I had no problem with that. Now however it has all changed, because my beautiful wife and I have moved into an apartment in the CBD.

Sure we don’t live in the biggest city on earth, or in Australia, but living so close to all the required amenities has had a profound influence on the way I live my life. More than just a swankier address and a really easy post code this change in geographical location has also been a complete change in lifestyle.

Starting simply, I walk. Everywhere! All my groceries, all my shopping, and anywhere I could possible want to eat out is no more than 20 minutes walk away, and most of it about 5. It has allowed me a freedom from the car and the traffic that used to dominate every trip I made away from home and imbues every adventure out the front gate with something else that is very special, exercise.

On top of all this incidental exercise and environmentally friendly travel my social life has changed drastically. It’s so easy now to pop out for dinner that we don’t even think twice about it, and we’re so conveniently located that having a party is no more difficult than sending a few text messages and buying some ice. I feel almost changed on a fundamental level, the old Dave would much rather spend a Saturday night huddled up watching TV than trekking out to a bar, and he would much prefer cooking and eating at home, with a bottle of wine by his side, than finding his way to and from a restaurant.

But all that has changed, convenience has created a social animal that craves the company of others and loves heading out to discover new things.

And you…

Yes, dear reader. The beginning of this year saw Ok, to begin with… kicking off with steam, and the writing team were busy! Busy meeting a personally agreed upon schedule, in order to perfectly present the amount of awesome content produced just right so as not to overwhelm you with it all.

I know without doubt that while some of those posts were quite silly, some of them stand out like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter itself, they represent a a great inner light and talent and they reflect what were previously just somebodies latent gifts. Despite everything she brought Ok, to begin with… what the rest of us posted were mostly pointless rants and over the top egoism… though there were certainly some gems…

A great example being this post, and one of Drew’s more recent being Passing in the night,  and while Sarah may be the (excuse the term darling) idiot savant of the crew, and Drew may be the dreamer, our Tom is the educated one, the journalist, which is why his opinion on the dreaded shuffle made us smile and the lowering of his guard to write the almost self-analytical piece that I would have titled ‘I’m not a hipster, I swear’ were backed up by his true inner ability to write, and to write exceedingly well, even if at times doing so with what seems like zero effort.

Ok, to begin with… It has been a varied and inexplicable beast, like a band that could never find it’s niche… For those reasons it has never found it’s place, which is why the blog itself fell into disarray, because while the blog was trying to find its place some of us were just finding work, and others found new lives blossoming right in front of them, while some, were just figuring out just where they belonged.

And this… the two thousand and tenth rotation of our earth around it’s sun (since an arbitrary point in time based loosely on rough information given in the most successful fantasy novel of all time) has been a year of change and growth for many, and while Ok, to begin with… may have hibernated through the winter, there is definitely something special to be shared from the brilliant minds of my co-bloggers as it awakens for the Australian summer…

I’ll try to keep up with them (as always, overcompensating with my overuse of commas and parenthesis).

People are excited. Every day is coolers than the last and the rain lasts longer and is more intense, everyone is revelling in it. Girls are hiding their sexual assets with stylish sweaters and scarves, working on ‘less flesh is more desire’ in their image, mini-skirts come off, stockings go on. Every guy has dug out last years jacket and jeans to help keep himself warm.

Everybody goes on about how beautiful the days are, and how wonderful the weather is. Everybody is looking forward to the next hot day on the calendar, and one dip in the mercury is greeted with moans and complaints. I’m guilty of it myself, even though I know that the moment it gets above 30 degree’s I will suffer and suffer until it’s cold again, my blood is too thick for this weather. Summer. It must be amazing…

Everybody goes on about how beautiful the days are, and how wonderful the weather is. Everybody is looking forward to the next rainy day, and one dip in the mercury is greeted with elation. I’m guilty of it myself, and I know that the moment it gets below 20 degree’s I will revel in the crisp and desirable winter air, my blood is perfect for this weather. Winter. It’s amazing…

And it is. By the end of the year everyone will be complaining. Everything is cold, all of the time, cars are cold on the morning commute, streets are cold for the walk to the shop, beaches are ruined. Heaters will strain the power grid to breaking point, maybe even causing cycling blackouts to handle the load. The dream days spent sunning on the beach are long forgotten, because it is simply too cold to venture out and impress people, but anyway, who wants to spend all day submerged in dirty sea water?

People will be dreaming of Summer, every time the temperature starts getting higher and higher there will be celebration, and much discussion. People will appreciate being able to go out without smothering themselves in an inch thick layer of wool or leather and breathing heavily on their fingers so they can adequately operate their car.

It’s a classic case of ‘The grass is greener on the other side’, except it shows how short-term our minds are working. We might dream for years and years about that greener grass and never try and explore it, or we might jump head first in and regret it for even longer. But the seasons continue to change every single year, it’s a constant cycle that we all go through time and time again, yet still we yearn for something different, for the world to be exactly as it isn’t right now.

Every country bumpkin day-dreams about a busier life, and every city slicker day-dreams about the quiet country lifestyle. People who work 9-5 jobs yearn for a break from the cycle, and those working shifts wish they had that simplified routine. It keeps us sane to be able to uncomplicate the world we live in with a two dimensional paradise in our thoughts, it breaks the monotony of our lives with a touch of freedom.

Wow. Deja vu…

When I was 15 years old my father told me that I lived with my head in the clouds, and that I would never accomplish anything in the real world if my mind was always in a fantasy one.

Ten years later I know him well enough to realise that he was simply trying to be what could be considered a ‘good father’ and not speaking entirely from the heart. Perhaps it had something to do with his own insecurities, but you’re not here to read about his, you’re here to read about mine…

Cue an artistic scene with the hands on a clock turning in reverse, clouds rolling backwards in the sky, leaves falling back onto the branches of trees, and the pages of a calendar flipping in reverse… I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, or even the age that my love for science fiction began, but I know it was early in my development.

I would never sit down to watch a straight-up action film. The gore, violence and thoughtlessness of it all never sat well with me. Hell, when I was a kid, I’d cover my eyes if there were boobs on screen.

But I would love to watch the Predator films, because despite all the violence I was intrigued by a visitor from another world and the unique way it interacted with our own. So while my older brother was watching Robocop for the action and violence, I, later in life, barely remember the pivotal early scene where Murphy was gunned down in a steel mill (I had to look that up). What I remember most is the technology. Sure, the dystopian future of Detroit may have been policed by Ford Taurus’ painted in chalkboard black, but prop quality aside, the technology of this future was riveting! I would play for hours, imagining that I too could extract a weapon from my cybernetic leg to gun down make-believe villains, and that my own vision was augmented by a futuristic HUD.

My maturation in life was influenced strongly by a few factors, one of them being my darling mother who instilled in me chivalry and a sense of right that has served me incredibly well. Another, being school. Of course, I mean the lack of school – because while I never felt comfortable in that controlled and peer-influenced society, my willing extraction from it allowed me to grow to a different design.

Though most of all, it was Star…

Without breaking into a nerdgasmic debate about the pros and cons of Star Trek and Star Wars, they both had a very different influence on my life.

Star Wars was a phenomenon that took science fiction to a very accessible adventure level and helped it attain mainstream status for lots of people. Yes, it certainly did so for me! Thankfully, due to the Special Edition re-release I was able to see the trilogy in the cinema despite only being born in 1984. It drove home an already large love for the films that progressed on to reading all the Expanded Universe novels available at the time, and, I’ll admit, roleplaying with friends. Star Wars entertained the tastes of anybody who enjoyed a film in which good triumphed over evil, the guy got the girl (perhaps to disturbing results in one case) and everyone lived happily ever after…except the Ewoks.

Star Trek, however, was something different. Through its many iterations, it has spent over 40 years building a rich universe inhabited by as many clichés and stereotypes as you can poke a mek’leth at. Reflecting cultural stereotypes and persecutions, the creators always tried to push the envelope of what was acceptable, and as time passed, more was allowed to be broadcast. Star Trek grew and matured, and I matured with it. In actual fact, science fiction has taught me more about social issues and sexuality than a government approved syllabus could ever bestow.

These beginnings have created in me a tendency to prefer anything that has a laser in it rather than a gun, a deep thought piece about the tragedy of loneliness but set on the moon, or a terrifying thriller aboard a space craft. It would appear to be the perfect formula for a stereotypical science fiction fan, with the collectibles; the costumes; the nerdy friends.

So the insecurities, father issues, and the dark side of it all? Well, dear readers. I am a science fiction fan, I couldn’t end it all succinctly in one neat go…

There’s always a sequel…

People are excited. Every day is warmer than the last and the sun stays out longer and brighter, everyone is revelling in it. Girls are making their presence known and keeping their temperatures down by sporting the tiniest of shorts and spaghetti string tops, bright colours are everywhere. Every guy has dug out last years shorts and thongs to help keep himself cool.

Everybody goes on about how beautiful the days are, and how wonderful the weather is. Everybody is looking forward to the next hot day on the calendar, and one dip in the mercury is greeted with moans and complaints. I’m guilty of it myself, even though I know that the moment it gets above 30 degree’s I will suffer and suffer until it’s cold again, my blood is too thick for this weather. Summer. It must be amazing…

But it isn’t. By the end of the year everyone will be complaining. Everything is hot, all of the time, cars are hot, streets are hot, sand is hot. Air conditioners will strain the power grid to breaking point, causing cycling blackouts to handle the load. The dream days spent sunning on the beach will be forgotten, because it is simply too hot to lie in direct sunlight, and nobody wants to spend all day submerged in dirty sea water.

People will be dreaming of Winter again, every time the temperature starts dipping lower and lower there will be celebration, and much discussion. People will appreciate being able to go out without smothering themselves in an inch thick layer of SPF30 and burning themselves just trying to operate their car.

It’s a classic case of ‘The grass is greener on the other side’, except it shows how short-term our minds are working. We might dream for years and years about that greener grass and never try and explore it, or we might jump head first in and regret it for even longer. But the seasons continue to change every single year, it’s a constant cycle that we all go through time and time again, yet still we yearn for something different, for the world to be exactly as it isn’t right now.

Every country bumpkin day-dreams about a busier life, and every city slicker day-dreams about the quiet country lifestyle. People who work 9-5 jobs yearn for a break from the cycle, and those working shifts wish they had that simplified routine. It keeps us sane to be able to uncomplicate the world we live in with a two dimensional paradise in our thoughts, it breaks the monotony of our lives with a touch of freedom.

It is why we have to dream.

Nice t-shirt.

If I spend more than half a moment staring at your chest, trying to figure out what the hell those three lines of text spell out, I’ll look like a weirdo. You’ll look at me like a creep and shuffle away whispering to your friends about me, and it’s made even worse when I need to turn around to look at your back to see the punchline. Your t-shirt is stupid, it doesn’t need to be, it can change a life.

‘Fat Guys Are Harder To Kidnap’ is a terrible shirt. If you think that shirt is funny enough that you bought it and you’re wearing it, I’m not going out of my way to talk to you, you’re an idiot. Unless the person who reads it is Jeremy Clarkson, and it gives him a brand new outlook on life.

If you don’t look at me weird, maybe you like that? You like getting the attention of people, you want them to look at your t-shirt and think “man, the person who bought that t-shirt has a great sense of humour/style, oh wow, it’s that person wearing it, they are awesome”. You egotistical prick.

Who wears a t-shirt like that? I certainly do. I love to wear a t-shirt that makes people stop and look at, or even give me a casual nod in the shopping centre. A sign of appreciation of my awesome taste. Or maybe even just something that will confuse them. I’m proud of my interests, I like the fact that you think I’m a nerd! If my t-shirt has a retro video game reference, or a science fiction reference, or even a webcomic reference on it, you know that I’m unique.

Except I’m not unique. They don’t mass produce Super Mario or Star Wars t-shirts so that they’re easily accessible to a small group of elite and unique people of which I am a member, they do it because there are countless people worldwide who want them and want to present their interests, taste, and even sense of humour.

How an article of clothing represents the inner me is really beyond my comprehension. Just because I’m guilty of being a victim of trendy t-shirts doesn’t mean that I don’t see the problem. We’re all too worried about what people think of us, even complete strangers we’ll never see again.

I don’t know your name, I don’t know where you’re from, I’m certain I’ll never ever see you again, but I know later tonight you’ll be telling someone about the interesting things that happened to you today, and hopefully I can be one of them. The imprints we leave in other peoples lives and memories is, in a sense, our own little slice of immortality. We each have our own 15 microseconds of fame, when we’re discussed by people we don’t know. Maybe I can do something memorable enough to someone that their grandchildren will talk about it, it doesn’t need to be big, it just needs to be the right kind of awesome, at the right time in their lives when they’re impressionable enough for it to make a difference.

If I can change your life I damn well hope I do, if the butterfly flapping its wings is my ‘Ice Man Says: Be Cool, Stay in School’* t-shirt to the tornado in your life that could be anything from a rousing good laugh at Friday night drinks or a pleasant memory you smile about when you most need it later in life, I’ve achieved something.

Next time I go through your checkout I will try and make you smile, and next time I buy a sandwich from you I hope my manners make your day.

Until next time… Just embrace the simple things.

*I inherited that t-shirt from a person in my life who seems to live his life by positively influencing others, even to his own detriment. This manifesto is at least partly due to the impacts, big and small, that he and this t-shirt have had on my life. Which is an embodiment of my entire point.

God wants me to…

I was meant to…

These sayings and ones just like them have been said a million times over, all with slight variations. People find solace in the fact that a greater power controls the ebbs and flows of their lives, and that no matter how bad it may get there is hope and faith in a greater meaning.

You wake up on a cold winters morning, getting up to go to work doesn’t excite you one bit, you’re tired, unmotivated, and scared. You see all these other people throughout your day who all look like they’ve got it together, they know what they’ve got, what they want, and they stroll around with little cares. But generally? It’s all a facade, that brave face you try putting on when you do something new, that smile you force when you’re talking to people who intimidate you, the little details you leave out of stories to make your life sound more dramatic and exciting.

In the immortal words of Kermit the Frog “It’s not easy being green”… and he was a frog.

I dearly hope that none of you reading this are struggling with being green, but the principle applies to everybody, who we are, what we are down to the absolute most fundamental aspects of life, deeper even than race, or societal influences. If even the task of being human can sometimes feel incredibly insurmountable, and we’re human beings. Should it really be so hard?

We struggle with our sense of self, and everybody finds some way to create a sense of purpose for themselves. One of the most common of these is religion, of which I am most certainly not going to start naming and shaming the differences or the specifics (well not in this blog post anyway), but it’s far from astounding that worldwide over 270 large religious groups are operating today and formed almost completely independent of eachother (that’s not including subdivisions, like the almost thirty four thousand different branches on the christianity tree).

It is in the nature of most humans to congregate in groups for protection and for reinforcement, it is also in the nature of humans to treat each other  poorly and disrupt the function of large gatherings. So a set of rules and guidelines for maintaining order are formed over time by a group of societal peers. Sure the use of deities to control the populace makes sense, fear is a powerful tool, fear of something greater than, even beyond, death. But it’s the other side that touches on what I’m discussing, the idea that belief in something greater than yourself can create a purpose in life that keeps you going from day to day, week to week, and year to year.

Destiny is something we’ve invented because we can’t stand the thought that everything is accidental.

Even people who refuse to subscribe to a religion of the masses will at some point reference greater powers in their day to day life, I’m guilty of it myself, even with something as simple as ‘Things always work out for us’ is assuming that there is an external force influencing events. We struggle so hard just trying to find a place in this world, even just trying to be ourselves, always thinking it would be better if we could be red , or yellow, or gold.

Life is a series of events, some of them low, some of them high, like a blockbuster film. The human part of it is the lack of production values. All of us will at some point experience those insane world bending highs, and those ridiculously soul crushing lows, while struggling to figure out who we are and what we’re meant to do. Keep warm through the winters of your life and be sure to enjoy the sun. Because YOU are all there is to it.

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why
Wonder, I am green and it’ll do fine
It’s beautiful
And I think it’s what I want to be