What they believed.

One night myself and my friend Liam were complaining discussing things - life mostly. And as usual it isn't the kind of subject that you can talk about once and have done with it, this is more of an ongoing complaining session discussion. Anyway, the conversation somehow managed to steer itself into the position where Liam was telling me about the beliefs that the ancient peoples of the world held.

The Ancients believed that once upon a time the Gods created the most beautiful creature the world has ever known. This creature had two heads, four arms and four legs. Nothing you will ever see would ever rival the beauty of this creature. However, over time, the Gods became more and more jealous of the creature that they had created until, eventually, they were so jealous that they split the creature in half and threw each of those halves to opposite ends of the Earth. So, everyone has another half, it's just finding your other half that is the hard part.

I guess some people are lucky and they hardly have to look at all, while others among us will spend our whole lives looking.

Fake, or real?

I think it's amazing how chemicals can affect your body. These different compounds made up of tiny atoms (like there's such a thing as a huge atom) can totally alter your perception of reality. They make you, well, me, question what reality actually is. And whether it actually exists. Like history. That doesn't exist. There is no 'right' version of events. Every single person will view an event from a slightly different place depending on personal views, significance to you, consequence to you, environment, and a whole lot of other variables. If there are six billion+ people on this planet then there are six billion+ histories. Each just as valid and authentic as the other.

It's almost like being a kid again. I was happy without reason. I wasn't looking forward to anything, I hadn't won anything, or achieved anything and I wasn't going to be given anything. I was happy just because. I guess I could say I was happy because I wasn't sad. That's the kind of cause-less feeling I'm talking about that is opened up by these compounds traveling around your blood-stream - be they naturally occurring or put there by us.

The World seems so beautiful. It's so complex - mind-numbingly complex - yet at the same time it is simple. And all the while it's beautiful. You're surrounded by friends, and laughter and all the problems you have are all faded away into obscurity.

Is this perception there all the time and I some how subconsciously control or restrain it, or is it nothing more than an illusion created by chemicals? And is it even an illusion? If we dream, are those dreams real? We know physically that our bodies don't move from the bed, we aren't sucked into the mattress and transported off to where ever we dream about, but does that make them not real? Surely, if you dream, then the ideas those dreams explore, and the emotions that they cause, surely those are real because you 'see' and 'feel' them. Surely then, dreams by definition must be real, even though they don't really exist.

I explore myself under the influence. Are the things that I find real; when you shut your eyes and you just tumble through the vastness of your mind. Feels like riding a rollercoaster with your eyes shut, only the ride never ends. Imagine how immense the universe is, we can almost not conceive the sheer size of it. That's nothing compared to what we each carry inside our heads. The universe has laws that it must obey, laws of nature, or physics etc. I don't think our minds do. Anything and everything and nothing can happen inside your head, and sometimes it's my favourite place to be.

Yup, alcohol makes me think about things sometimes.

Tom

Ok, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and at the same time I've been re-arranging my bedroom. This has resulted in me finding a lot of old photos of friendly faces, so in the next couple of days expect a lot of rambling posts, and a lot of posts with pictures of people you don't know. I don't expect it to be too interesting to read, but it will be interesting as hell for me to write :)

First up, is my friend Tom (Mr Tom, Tommy K etc). When I first knew him he had quite short hair, but then decided to grow it, so basically I have only really known him with ever increasing locks. The other day he had it cut, so after a number of references to him as 'Hair cut boy' I thought it only fair to blog about it.

This was taken in the zoo bar toilets (classy) probably around midnight in 2002...maybe late 2001. There will be another post about the 'suits and sunglasses' night at the zoo.


The full length - taken at a fancy dress party.


The short - taken at 3:52pm 07.11.2005 my garden


one for luck, taken at 11:23am 23.11.2005 walking towards Manchester city center

Ten Songs.

I'm listening to 'Ten Songs' by I Hate Myself. It's one of the most depressing and beautiful albums I have ever heard or owned. It makes you think about how hopeless somethings are and how delicate others things are.

I read a review on Amazon which I liked:

"This CD is an outpouring of emotion that is both tragic and beautiful and there is no way you can even have a conversation about it and mention bands like Dashboard - don't get me wrong Dashboard is good at what they do, but realistically I Hate Myself is an emotional torrent with NO restraint. Relating I Hate Myself to Dashboard on any level is like comparing Donny Osmond to Kurt Cobain.

Dashboard emo is like the feeling you get when you break up with a highschool girlfriend.

I Hate Myself is like the feeling you get from watching your sibling/best friend die in your arms of an overdose. If your not opposed to loud, hardcore music, and you have experienced this kind of loss first hand... Listening to this CD will touch your heart.

IMHO - If you don't get goosebumps every time you hear - This Isn't The Tenka-Ichi Budokai - then you have a dead cold heart of stone."

Mid November.

Computer still isn't fixed (hence a lot more offline time than normal) and I'm coming down with a cold (hence bad mood, sore throat etc etc). Anyway, I'd like to dedicate this post to the nice guys.

So, here's to the nice guys. You're the type who'll sit and talk to her for hours about anything she wants. You're understanding, compassionate and caring. You're the type to tell her how great she is, not because you want anything in return from her. You just want her to be able to see herself as you see her. She'll tell you what a nice guy you are, or how you are such a great listener. This is the kiss of death for the type of guy like you. There are only so many ways of telling someone, in a polite way, that you would rather play with a razor against your neck than have anything to do with them in a physical way.

"Well...you're a nice guy and all...but...."
"Erm, well to be honest I never really thought of you in that way"
"Oh I love you...as a brother"

Yeah, you're a nice guy, and here's to you. You're the type to laugh with her when she's high, and comfort her when she's low. You'll even act like you're happy for her when that day comes that she introduces you to her new boyfriend. All the time wishing it was you.

Are you gonna tell her how you feel? Don't be silly, you're a nice guy. And there are only so many ways of telling someone, in a polite way, that you would rather play with a razor against your neck than have anything to do with them in a physical way. And you've heard them all before.

Yeah, you're a nice guy. You're the last person that she will ever be interested in. So here's to you.

Broken computer, broken self

Thursday night my pc was working fine, however, come Friday morning, and of course that was not the case. Now, I can understand when things are used a lot, they break. That's natural. You can be driving along a road and all of a sudden your engine makes a god awful noise, smoke/steam pours out from underneath the bonnet and the car comes to an unplanned halt***. I can understand that. What I can't understand is how something can break when you aren't using it. HOW???? You drive your car, park up at night, the next morning it wont start. How can something break when it isn't in use? It's silly and it shouldn't happen.

So now I can't do any work, play any games, or even get to my mp3's. Hopefully it should be fixed soon enough though, I have new parts on order and they should, should be arriving in the next couple of days.

So, seeing as I couldn't waste away my life on the internet I decided to go outside, into that real world thing. Well let me tell you, the real world is cold, and on this particular night, it was raining too! Ended up at the zoo with Neil, Phill, Jodie, Jodie's friends, Cwarz and Robert 'Diego is an emo kid' Vardy. And now I'm paying the price in aching muscles....long story short - I was very drunk, there was a pole by the DJ booth, we were playing at pole dancing on it. If you are ever going to pole dance, warm up with some stretches first, if you don't you WILL feel like your arms aren't connected afterwards.

***my car is actually fine, it went for it's MOT on Thursday night, by Friday afternoon it was ready to be collected, no faults, nothing wrong with it at all. At least some things work like they are supposed to.

Current WiP

Quick render of my current wip...



Why am I making this? Because I need something to keep me occupied, and I need some content for my new portfolio. In fact I REALLY need to get that sorted out sometime soon. From talking to people already in the industry, the portfolio is one of the most important things; it's the thing that grabs people's attention and is what persuades them to give you an interview. Looks like I'll have to brush up on interview technique too. Oh fun fun fun.

Grr.

You know, sometimes I forget just how much I hate you. But then you go and remind me. And I remember exactly how much I hate you.

Build #0

So we managed to get the very first build completed. We've got a toggle-able 3rd person camera view, the player can control the player avatar, we have the basis of the first area, and we've gotten a model to act as a physics prop.....ok, it's not much in the grand scheme of things (not sure if anyone is nerdy enough to understand any of that) but at least it shows

1) the things we want to do are possible in the Source engine and
2) we (the team) have the skills required to make those possibilities a reality. Of course there is still a long way to go, and a lot of 'pretty-ing up' needs to be done. But it's a start right :)

On an altogether different note, here are some photos of Ked and Conny in fancy dress







Cool eh?