Cubism seems to be the way forward

To be honest, and even at the risk of stigmatising my dear readers, I find writing these blogs a chore. Thankfully, i don’t have that many readers at the moment and I’m not trying to get a big following of people to read my blogs. These blogs are just about closure, thinking things through and putting away any frustrations that might affect me in my everyday life. I’m also always aware that the internet is such a verbid and transparent place where anyone can find anything about anyone, so I’m always careful what I say, try not incriminate myself or say anything that might get me in trouble at work or in my personal life.

Even though all this is true, I find myself back on here, after the usual absense of months between posts. I value my spare time and after taking on a new job, I find that I’m still trying to squeeze too much into my life. My life took a slight nose-dive when I ‘took an educated risk’ and moved from a well-established, but depressingly menial, job and started a new position in an internet startup. After three months in said job, everything went south and the company went bankrupt, leaving me jobless. Now fast forward almost two years and we find me finally gainfully employed again, yet in a new job with many similarities to the depressingly menial job that I did my best to get away from. Today I’m doing my best to ‘forget’ the last few days at work, aided with 4 cans of strawberry cider and an hour or so of Minecraft, stolen from amongst my limited after-work time between shifts.

I bought Minecraft almost a year ago, after checking out reviews, game videos and finding out what my friends thought about it and picked it up after a short amount of time. By picking it up, I mean got used to the play structure, the controls and what I could do in it. Then the game got updated and my home PC refused to run the game, which infuriated me more than a little, especially since I’d forked out money to play the game. So now I’m at the point where I pay to play the game at £1 per hour at a cybercafe and sink several hours into the game each week. It gives me a creative release and features a world where I am in control and can do whatever I want and make whatever I desire, through mining for materials and constructing them into buildings, structures and the odd phallic object.

So the big news about this update, is that I’m finally confronting the fact that my job is ‘almost’ identical to one that I felt ‘stuck’ at and miserable, with one day slowly trickling into the next. More importantly, I now realise that I have to confront this matter and decide exactly how long I’m going to remain in this position and actively pursue the option of possibly ‘getting out of dodge’.

One small step for man….

Working for the first time in ages came as a bit of a surprise to me, giving me some of that much needed structure I’ve been craving for the best part of two years now. It’s taken a bit of getting used to, remembering that I ‘have to be somewhere’ for four hours every five days out of seven. Saying that, I’ve not yet been late for any shifts or needed to miss any due to illness and I hopefully can avoid that happening too. I’m trying to do everything I can to make sure that they keep me on after the xmas period, which also involves a little bit of second-guessing stuff at work and several days where I go home and practice stuff for the next day. I know I have a ‘good chance’ to continue working there, partly because I was the only guy in a group of women, who were all hired at the same time. It just means that I can stand out more easily, when it comes to when they’re appraising everyone’s progess at the end of january. If I even dare say it, I’ve also probably been hired to fill out their cultural diversity quota, being one of the few white guys that work on the shop floor. Another great reason for them to keep me on after xmas, that and the fact that I’m awesome!!

Even though I’m working now, I can still find time to fit in most of my previous activities from pre-job times, which is great to a point, but then some of them do have more reduced hours nowadays. They’ve given me every Wednesday off, so that I can still run Section 31, which saves me a lot of legwork between one place and the other. I’m still trying to get one of my friends to run more of the events(useful for if I’m not around), so I’ll keep pestering and hinting at her to help me out and I’m going to give her full access to all of the website etc, so even if I die tommorrow, the group could still continue on without me, which is one of my main goals.

…and one giant leap for mankind!!

I was put into a odd situation yesterday. I’d given up on relationships and women quite a while ago, after a string of failures and missed opportunities. So it was both ‘really great’ and ‘quite strange’ at the same time, when I got told that someone had a crush on me. They wanted to know if I was single, but were a little shy about asking me, so I found out via her sister and her ex-boss, who delighted in hinting and using off comments to make light of the situation. So it was down to me to ask her, a person I’d seen around my venue many times before and learnt her name over time. I wanted to be able to greet her by name because I felt ‘safe’ with her around, if that’s the right sorta word for the situation. I’d just never thought of her in that way before, being that we were only vague aquaintences and I hadn’t thought about romance for such a while. But then when I thought about it, it felt like the right thing to do, because from what I could gather, she’s kind and caring like me and we’d be good together.

So I spent most of the evening playing games, whilst trying to figure out how to approach her(she was already in the same building as me) and more importantly, just how I would ask her out. I wasn’t about to do it with a large audience, being out of practice and slightly unnerved about the situation I’d found out about a mere few hours before. I even tried to slip it into conversation, as me and craig ‘escorted’ the two sisters to our shared gym (the ‘the gym’), but she didn’t quite notice, although I did get a glare out of her sister, who had understood what I’d just done. So I had to ask her directly, took a quick deep breath and asked her out there and then on the spot and thankfully she said “Yes” and now I only have a mere 18 hours before it all happens and I’m thinking hard about what to say and do. Because even though it was unexpected, in part, I do feel a genuine attraction to her.

Quick Update

I’m a bit rubbish at keeping this blog, to be honest, but that’s partly because I’ve got a lot going on in my life. I’m an avid gamer on my ps3, go to the gym several times a week, help to run a scifi group (with bi-weekly meetings), run my own boardgaming group(with weekly meetings), like to meet folks in cafes to talk about life/the universe/what to do on sundays. I’ve also been unemployed for 22 months.

Lately I’ve also had the additional diatribes with my dentist when I had an abcess in my gum, my leg is better, but not completely healed and the unending search for a job, coupled with interviews, researching companies, trawling through the local papers, occasionally ‘giving up’ and getting bogged down by the fact that ‘most’ of my friends are unemployed also.

But all that is about to change, because I’ve managed to harrass enough people to get myself a part-time job, for Christmas at the very least.

How everything else will fit around the job is my guess as good as yours.

Crammed full of meaty goodness..

I keep finding that I don’t have much time for blogging at the moment. There’s lots of stuff going on in my life at the moment, some of it I can control and some of it I seemingly can’t. Worse still, this is in a world where I don’t have a job, a wage packet or anything that can be described as a form of income, apart from the bi-weekly handouts I’m getting from the government.

I think one of the main problems I’m having is that I have too many friends. I used to think that having lots of friends was a good thing, but now I’m starting to see things rather differently. They all want a piece of your time and in most cases, they don’t want to share that time with other people. My problem is that I have to network for the various social groups I’m in, to attract new members and in my newest group, to ensure that the group becomes cost effective, as opposed to the money trap it currently is.

I recently had a close friend say that I was like a stranger to them, and that he didn’t know who I was anymore, even though we do meet every week for coffee and chats. It was more than a little hurtful at the time, but it gave me the chance to look at the relationship from an outsiders point of view and I came to the realisation that we didn’t really have anything in common anymore. Our shared imperfections, depressions and angst about the world in general gave us things in common. The main issue is that he’d solved most of these himself and I was left without any commonalities with him. It’s not like I want to give up on the guy, I still think of him as a great friend, it’s just that we had a few issues to work out.

Hopefully I can think of some ways to improve the communication or something. Wish me luck.

Ultra-weird

Today was a special day for me because today I went for my first ultrasound appointment at the hospital. After an almost immediate start, precluded by a quick dash to the loo further down the hall, i was told to lie down on the bed and lift my tshirt up. They then proceeded to spray some mildly warm goo on my stomach and started to rub their sensor stick all around my belly.
Now, to explain the weirdness factor of this little adventure to any new readers that i may have, i’m a bloke in his early 30′s and prior to this event i only thought it was used on prospective mothers prior to childbirth. But I was here for a good reason. It was another vague attempt to find out what was wrong with me. Why do I seem to have Wolverine’s healing factor in reverse???

My leg got an infection in September, got a bit better, but never fully healed. it’s now a week away from June and no one seems to know why yet..
Even worse, i won’t find out the result for another ten days..

Point and Click

Have you ever had one of those times where you’ve just ‘clicked’ with someone? I had one of those moments today, which happened quite unexpectedly and I just so happened to think that it’d make a nice blog, mainly because I’d have to think about what happened as I wrote it down. I’m not a big person for remembering absolutely everything at the best of times, so experimenting by writing it in a blog seems like an interesting and perhaps useful idea. I know, It’s a bit “Ooh look at me and my sad but interesting life” but isn’t that what blogging is all about? Writing random stuff down so other people can read it and realise that other people are going through similar things as them.

*Points at the point of the situation/blog.* It just goes to show that some things change stuff in ways you don’t expect. I didn’t go out of my way to make things happen, which admitedly has happened ‘one time’ in the past(please don’t read that as ‘all the time’), it was just a random occurence. I was going to meet a friend in a cafe, since I was in town that morning anyway, and I happened to notice(hear) that my pal was talking to someone whilst I was getting my first coffee of the day, from the lady at the counter. So, with Coffee in hand(and cake(in other hand(because otherwise it’d be messy/melted))) I walked over and sat down at one of the tables nearby. I didn’t want to interupt a conversation, since I prefer to be polite or not there in the first place. Anyway, by chance my friend was talking to one of my many aquaintances, who he’d sat near to when he came in to wait for me.

For your information, my version of the word ‘Aquaintances’ describes someone who is not a close friend(most of which I can count on one hand), nor is it someone that I feel ‘friendly’ towards. I’m not talking about enemies either. Basically, these are the people that appear on the edge of my radar, that since I’m in several different social groups, I could be in the same room as, but not pay them that much attention. This is not the same a Facebook Friends, a term which I rarely use, because it’s really inacurate. Even though I’ve been cutting down recently, a lot of those people that I’m ‘friends’ with on facebook are just there because I didn’t have anything else to do at the time. A lot of them I don’t socialise with ‘ever’ and some, even worse, are just there because we play the same addictive game/s on facebook.

So I’m sitting there talking to my friend and one of my female aquaintances(I don’t like giving names on these pages that anyone can have access to) and after an hour or so he goes home. I stay chatting to my aquaintance(sod my rule, let’s call her “Ms L” for short) for another hour or so. We had a lot to talk about, because even though we knew of each other, we’d never got much past the occasional hello’s and goodbye’s that happen amongst larger groups of people. So we began to talk about this and that, and occasionally the other, and as we talked I began to feel that I didn’t want it to stop. I would say that we clicked quite early on in the conversation and we both were interested in what the other had to say. We had things in common too, which was strange, because my initial ‘attraction’, for want of a better word, was already present and it just seemed to make it even more fated to happen.

Then another friend popped in, randomly, after just returning from a daytrip to see a band or something and the three of us continued to chat for a while. After the while had come and gone, Ms L had wandered off to the toilet and I went to get another drink. We both returned to find my mate engrossed in his phone, and since he was busy with that, me and Ms L continued with our conversation. We started to talk other random stuff and started hypothesizing about why burping and farting are handled differently. My point was that it was the same bodily function for farting as it was for burping, and to quote a term I’d heard elsewhere, face-farting should be percieved in the same way as the stuff that comes out of your arse. It was at some point that my male friend decided to intervene, challenge us that our conversation, that he wasn’t a part of, was socially unacceptable because of the scientific terms we were using(with occasional commonly used slang for those words). The setting for the conversation was in a room full of adults, most of which were out of earshot, with absolutely no chance that a kid could overhear anything we were saying(none in cafe, with no doors or windows open and not talking loudly). So I changed the subject slightly, even though we were within our rights to talk about whatever we wanted. But then he continued in the same way and not wanting to say anything that either me or he would regret later, I walked out. I had invested hours in the conversation with Ms L, had lots of fun doing it too, but all I wanted to do was get away from my friend who was being saying that it was being getting irked because we were talking in a long conversation about something that he’d only heard one or two words of.

So, needing to get away, I went shopping. But barely got inside the first shop when Ms L came bounding up to me, after seeing me walk out, she did the same. I was touched that this person, who I’d barely spoken to before today, felt such a an afinity that they came after me to check if I was alright. So, drinks were mentioned and we toddled off to a bar together.

I’d love to say, round about now, that one thing led to another and we ended up back at her place, but I can’t, because it never happened. We chatted more, with pints of real ale starting to strip us of our verbal inhibitions and, she started first, began to tell each other of our bad relationships in the past. The reason that nothing happened, even though I thought it ‘might’[, was not because she wasn’t drunk enough, but it was because she’d just come out of a relationship and was still pining for the guy in question, even though he’d told her in no uncertain terms that nothing would ever happen between them again. Not even friendship, which potentially hit her the hardest. That’s the problem with dating friends. Do you take the risk to lose them forever, just to potentially have something more special between you?

So, with empty glasses and hungry bellies, we mooched on over to the next pub, that did cheap food too. No booths were available, like she’d originally wanted and so we sat next to one of the windows in the corner. The poster on the window was for two steaks, jacket potatoes and a bottle of wine for £15, as a Valentines special, which just so happened to begin on that day. We tried our best to pick other stuff from the menu, but opted instead to eat slabs of cow, which was very very nice.

The food was great, the company I was in was awesome and we were still chatting away without any plan to stop anytime soon. The wine was making us a little tiddly too, which is the great thing with the right wine, it’s really easy to drink/quaff and it gets you pissed really quickly. I’d occasionally try to bring up my ‘early’ feelings about the situation, but she wasn’t having any of it. It just wasn’t the reason why either of us was there. It was just nice to talk to someone for a change, find out that you have things in common and then not fuck it up by sleeping with them straight away. Still, I had a really great time and I’m still amazed that we didn’t run out of things to say, mainly because I met her that day, shortly before midday and it was now, as we were going our different ways, 9pm.

SabreCon 2011

One of my social groups, Starbase Leicester, got invited to this event when a group of us were at ConQuest last year. In amongst the stalls selling games, magic cards and warhammer figures downstairs was a small stall selling tickets to another convention. It was being run by the Leicester University’s Games Society (also known as the Leicester Sabres) on 5th February and “Would I be interested in purchasing a ticket?”. So, after having a peruse of their flyers and posters, I handed over my cash and got my shiny new ticket #1 (do I get extra Geek Points for getting the first ticket??).

So, eventually the big day arrived and I made my way towards the foreboding towers of Leicester University. It was still early in the morning and I was suffering a little from the night before. I’d only found the SabreCon forum the night before and did a little digging to find out just what I should expect. So I was a little weary and had forgone my morning ritual of coffee and cereal, in favour of getting there at the very start of the convention. There was a talk I wanted to go to about “How to make a Boardgame”, which appealed to me because I’ve recently gotten back into boardgaming etc and I was always after new ideas for stuff to do at SBL meetings.

I’d been told previously that the Percy Gee building, where I had to sign in, was a new addition to the university, but I was still surprised that after entering through a humble entrance, it opened out dramatically into a large cathedral-like hall. Even though it was still early for me, it wasn’t long before I noticed that there was a Starbucks cafe right in front of me (lucky students ). Just what I needed to perk me up and get ready for the next twelve hours of gaming.

After quickly grabbing a beverage, I went to sign in for the event, only to find that my intended talk had been cancelled due to illness, so I worked out that I had a few hours to kill before the next one. Jaffa was a welcome distraction, mysteriously showing up, quite literally, from a nearby balcony. But as soon as he was there, then he was gone again. So, I wandered over to the nearby noticeboard and tried to find a roleplaying game to play. A few of them were starting soon and I decided on a Stargate SG1 roleplay.

My GM for the game was called Evil Dan, according to his Leicester Sabres polo shirt and after a short introduction to the game and my fellow gamers, we began a mission to find out the origins of a coded message. After only about 5 minutes into the mission, I had fumbled a spot check, then fumbled the resulting combat and shot one of my team mates. Then we got ourselves outnumbered with an invasion of Jaffa troops, so we did what any other SG1 group would do. Instead of taking on the enemy face-to-face, we used the rings system to board their pyramid base ship and attempted to take it over for ourselves. We attacked the bridge with Stun grenades, but I fumbled another one of my throws and almost accidentally knocked out their leader as my grenade hit him square in the forehead. Soon after we were victorious and out-of-character I was back in the main hall looking for the next thing to do.

I decided to stop for a spot of lunch between activities and sat myself down next to Garak, who’d turned up an hour into my Stargate game. He’d been playing a few of the game demos that were scattered around the hall and was currently embroiled in a Cowboys and Indians roleplaying game with a selection of opponents. I decided soon after, still with an hour before the “GM’s Worst Nightmares” talk that I’d check out both the Traders Hall and the Boardgame Library (one of the main reasons I was at the convention in the first place). The Traders Hall consisted of three shops, one specialising in Warhammer and Magic, a second that had a large selection of roleplaying books and a final one with a plethora of card and boardgames. I walked out with a new game called “Gloom”, which I’d only ever read about before. But from what I’d read, I already liked it. That and the transparent playing cards added an extra spin on things. Next up was the Boardgame Library, which was confusingly located in another of the university buildings. Like I said, I’d particularly been looking forward to this, the chance to play games without having to buy them first, but even though there was an impressive amount of games available, I ended up showing someone how to play my “Icehouse” and “Back to the Future” games.

Before long, it was time to dash back across campus, to get to the “GM’s Worst Nightmares” talk, which was being hosted by one of the Traders, Big Bad John, who’d been a GM for the past 20 years or so. He’d written a book about how the most unpredictable things can happen, when you add playable characters to any reoleplaying system. It was mostly an informal chat about misdirected plots, annoying characters and the best laid plans of a GM being thwarted at every turn. Most of the scenarios that he told us about ended up farcically going wrong, often with characters dying due to their own stupidity.

Afterwards, I met back up with Jaffa and Garak and we tried out some of our purchases between us, in the short gap before our final roleplaying session, which was “Ghostbusters”. We weren’t playing long, until I realised that the Magic players had emerged from their room. They’d been playing a pre-release of Magic:The Gathering(Mirrodin Besieged, for anyone that’s interested) for the last five hours, almost since the very start of the day and had missed the majority of the activities. I felt slightly sorry for them, because I’d enjoyed so many different treats by then and all they’d done had was play in one game.

Eventually, four of us turned up for the game and we were all playing Victorian ghosts. Not a proton pack in sight. But we carried on regardless, slightly curious about the game we were embroiled in. It turns out that we were haunting a house of our descendants, which had been ‘invaded’ by a new family, consisting of a man and his wife, plus their two children. Our job was to scare them away from ‘our’ home and we did so with ghoulish delight, making sure that we tried as many of our ghostly powers out as possible on them. We inhabited objects to make them move, possessed members of the family and even convinced one of the children that they had killed another child(secretly a ghost). Eventually we won and they fled, only to be replaced by a group of embittered adventurers. The Ghostbusters had arrived and as ghosts we were more than a little worried(plus a little surprised). But by this point, we’d got a bit more used to being ghosts and proceeded to use our powers to take them out one by one. Ray was first, finding himself teleported from the master bedroom of the house to 20 feet in the air above the garden. With his proton pack weighing himself down, he was lucky to survive the fall, even though he broke both legs in the process. The rest were thrown off a nearby balcony in one way or another and in the end we left them all incapacitated and because we were particularly vindictive, we also managed to discredit them and possibly put them out of business altogether. After a successful game, and with SabreCon officially over, we retired to a nearby pub and continued playing yet more games late into the night, including a trial run of my new storytelling game of ‘Gloom’.

My overall impressions of the event were good, considering it was the first time they’d ever run one, but a couple of things didn’t go as well as they could have. The constant moving between buildings for games, was annoying for most of the roleplayers taking part, especially considering we were all directed to the sign-in desk inside the large hall of the Percy Gee building. There was also some time spent procrastinating, with us waiting to get into the rooms for the pre-arranged games. Next time, and I hope there is a next time, I think that they should make more use of the rooms in the Percy Gee Building. One of the talks I went to, was in one of the many rooms in the basement, which were otherwise empty and would have been ideal to hold most of the scheduled games, if not all of them. This would have been an ideal solution in my eyes. But apart from that, I liked the convention because of all the gamers I managed to meet, I didn’t play any games which ended up as a rubbish waste of time (it’s really annoying when it happens) and I even managed to find a game that I was after prior to the event. So it might not be a surprise that I spent most of the day smiling laughing and generally having fun. Shame I’ll probably have to wait another year to experience it again.

“I’m not dead yet!”

Just a quick post to all of my fans out there in cyber-world.. Basically to say that “I’m not dead yet” and that I should be back to posting again real soon. A few of my readers commented on this recently, particularly because my last post consisted of a zombie-like infection in my leg. So to clear this up, it’s got a bit better, but not totally cleared up yet and of course I’ve not had the urge to rip open someone’s head and eat their brains. Yet.

This of course could be related to a singer releasing a ‘Greatest Hits’ album and then dissapearing from view entirely, but hopefully it won’t be true in this case.

Since my last posts, I’ve been sucked into NaNoWriMo, got in way over my head with social commitments, not managed to get a job yet, realised that maybe a budget might be a good idea(then discounted the idea, because it would take too long to sort out) and slipped on an icy patch, which ended up hurting the knee on my left leg, so now from my knee downwards I have a left leg of uncomfortableness, dashing pain and downright disobedience.

More on these and many such woes in the bloggs(one g or two??) to come, plus I already have an idea for a new blog, which should happen in the next week or so. Lots of stuff to do besides that, but I’ll try to keep some time for my patient readers.

So if I don’t(just in case..) see you before the end of the year, I hope you all have a Happy Christmas and you don’t end up in hospital with a bad leg like I seem to keep doing recently.

Patient Zero

Today I feel like Patient Zero. Like the start of a great plague that will sweep the world and cause misery and death to thousands of people. One patient whose the first to catch the deadly epidemic and unwittingly spread it to anyone who comes in contact with them. I mean it’s not that any of this is actually going to happen, I hope , but I do feel lousy and I’m tired of suffering with my condition.

Some of you may already know about what’s going on with my leg, with the swelling redness of evil and the jabbing pains whenever I try to walk. But I’ve just had enough of it now and I’d like it to be over. I’m on my second type of antibiotic in as many weeks. First I had tablets to take, which increased in dosage soon after I started them. Now I have a needle and tube in my arm, so the antibiotics can go straight into my bloodstream and I’m not exactly looking forward to Friday, because, if all goes to plan, that’s when it’ll be removed from my arm.

I keep making all these plans for when I get better, but my arranged days have started to creep closer and I’m very aware that I may have to cancel all my carefully laid plans. It’s not really anything to do with filling the days up with things to do anymore. My main concern is that I don’t know when I’ll be better. It’s been thirteen days since I was first aware of pain and it’s really hard to see at the moment that any healing has happened at all. So infuriating, that I have to rely on others quite so much. Even going to the toilet is pain-drenched, especially when I’m standing there trying to pee, balancing on one good leg and one limb that fails to work properly AND keeps sending me memos that it hurts.

Once my leg heals, I have like a hundred things to do, before I can even celebrate the ability to walk again. A potentially missed opportunity at a dream job. Birthday presents to buy. Missed social opportunities to better my lifestyle. Maybe even a course or two at college that I might not be well enough to take. All of these are on hold until the plague that is my illness breaks and finally Patient Zero can get back on with his life.

Today I went to the shops.

“Today I went to the shops” might not seem like such a great title for a blog, but it was something that needed doing and was a long time coming, plus it’s got a true story behind it too.

Last Thursday was busy as usual for me. Even though I’m unemployed, I’ve managed to acrue an active social life. I’m a member of a gym, I’m in various positions in many social groups, I like going to the cinema, etc. To start off my day with little sleep, I got a phonecall on my mobile. It was one of my friends, who from now on we will call Craig, because that’s his name. So he rings me and I’ve forgotten to put it on silent, so it wakes me up and I stumble upon the scenario, where I agreed to goto the Gym with him a week ago ‘next week’, because we’re both trying to get ourselves fit and healthy, so we can do whatever mad thing we can think of to follow this years Yorkshire 3 Peaks walking event (secretly all I want to do is get fitter though..). So he calls me up to ask why I’m not there? and I realise that I’ve also organised to goto the Gym later with some other people. Craig can’t make the later time, so I goto join him anyway, even though I’ve had no food, rest(I was at the gym the day before too) and he’s already there and I’m in bed still. My plan is to go there, then come back home for lunch.. well that was the plan anyway.

Craig had been waiting patiently for me and so we started similar routines on the cardio machines and then the weights. Then we showered and changed and he went to work for the rest of the day. I decided to have lunch in town(on a whim) and went to one of my favourite cafes for a toasted meatball sandwhich. I got chatting to some of the regulars in there, including an old Uni mate from pagsoc. But I chatted for too long and 4pm came along with a shock. I was meeting my other friends at 7pm and decided to go home for a meal. Then I was right back out again, even though I was running late, so I could get my friend(Gareth, also his name) enrolled in the Gym. The original plan was to get him enrolled, do a short workout and then go and relax in a gym. What followed was more like, enroll Gareth, show him where everything is and then goto the cinema to relax, having not done much.

It was the day of the release of Resident Evil 4, which was also in 3D(£2 extra). I’d seen numerous trailers and was really excited about it, only to find that the trailers only covered the first half hour of the film. Without spoiling it too much, for anyone that still wants to see this traversty of a film, after the first hour, Alice, the main character loses all of the powers and abilities she’s gained through the last two films, rendering them pointless. Then the scriptwriter has plagurised a lot of the scenes from the BBC scifi-ish series Survivors. Both have a virus ravaging the civilisation. Both have a search for a ‘mystical fantastical’ place where everyone is well and free of disease and both render them absolutely useless, with some big-bad in control of them when they get there.
Plus points: The original characters from Resi 1, Claire and Chris Redfield, reunite. Also pretty good 3D bits in the film.
Negative points: A ‘new’ dodgy plastic reject orb from Mortal Kombat has been attatched to lots of people making them lose their memories.
Really bad point: It’s not the end of the series like I had hoped, even though several Umbrella bases get destroyed and the main big-bad gets deaded. The two hour film ends at a supposed cliffhanger and with a new ‘device’(see Mortal Kombat orb) it looks like they’ll elongate the series for at least one, if not six more films. and I don’t think I care anymore.

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So, we finally exit out of the B-movie and I’m not feeling 100%, but I don’t fully realise why. I got a bit of cramp or something when I was in there, but my leg went back to normal in minutes. Then it was back to my place for some games on my PS3 like usual(me and Gareth were trying to complete Lego Harry Potter game(story mode)). After he left, I realised I was feeling a little peaky(well maybe a little before he left) and soon after collapsed into bed. My leg was hurting for some reason, but as usual a bit of sleep should help me recover.

I had a disturbed sleep that night, tossing and turning, first too hot and then too cold, and then hot again. I knew the symptoms and so stayed in bed the majority of the day after, flitting in and out of a restless slumber. It wasn’t until the next day(Saturday) that I arose from my tomb. I was having trouble walking on my left leg, without pain and on further inspection realised(with help from my parents) that it was ‘really red’, swollen and enflamed. So much to my dismay, I was driven to the Hospital’s Emergency Dept to wait for two hours to be seen by a Doctor. They told me something I hadn’t even considered. That my leg had gotten an infection and that infection had begun to spread up my leg.

It turns out that the infection was all because of the socks that I’d been wearing all day on thursday, including when I was at the Gym. Basically, the socks had rubbed against my legs, possibly when I was training and one of them had broken through the first few layers of skin. Because I didn’t know it was there, until that point, it hadn’t even been considered. So the cut had been untreated and eventually the untreated wound on my leg had gotten infected. Even though it had obviously started off so small, it’s caused a lot of discomfort, particularly because by a few days later, it had doubled in size, even though I’d been taking the entibiotics the hospital had given me previously. So after another trip to the hospital, I was given more antibiotics to take and in bigger doses.

Yesterday I went to the shops, after spending a whole week cooped up away from the rest of the world. I’d had to get plenty of rest and to keep my leg elevated and even though it was not 100% better, I knew I had to get back out there and so I treated myself to a couple of luxuries normally excluded at home. A couple of bottles of Lucozade, some Poppadums and some Cookie Dough ice cream, which was also very nice. But now, I feel that I might suffer more from it, because my leg is still red in places and it still hurts to walk. Starting to walk, from a sitting position, is perhaps the hardest, but you get used to it eventually, normally after a few false starts.

So “Yesterday(it was Today when I did it, at the time) I went to the shops” and it was a very strenuous, but special time indeed.