Had a weird dream last night. The first part was generic "First-Person-On-The-Rails-Zombie-Shooter-Videogame", the second part was rather more interesting.
It seemed to play on my usual Travel Anxiety - forgetting something important - but ramped it up to the point where I forgot pretty much everything. I think my backpack contained food for the journey.
I was with my old mate Paul, and we seemed to be meeting up with our group at the high school I went to 20-odd years ago. Naturally the layout was all screwy - for one thing, it was all car park, no school - but my dream-self recognised it well enough. We met up with the tour guide just after I realised I had no clothes, money, tickets... not even my passport.
While waiting around for the rest of the travel group, I saw my father on the street, supposedly heading to work (though he's never worked anywhere near any of my schools, and is retired now anyway) so, on a whim, I decided to follow him into the shopping area just down the road.
I lost him in the crowds but, in any event, didn't end up in the shopping area I was expecting... I recognised it in the dream as being 'downtown Baghdad', so most of the shops were not only closed, but bombed out... and suddenly the whole place was deserted.
I'm sure there was a bit more to it... but I've been very bad at blogging lately, and consequently keep forgetting things before I get round to writing anything up. Silly me. Should have done this in the morning, when it was reasonably fresh in my mind.
In other news, work is going reasonably well, all things considered. The new magazine manager isn't a complete dick, and certainly talks as if he wants to do things properly. Time will tell. The sudden announcement of the redundancy of the two Commercial Managers seems to be all but forgotten already. There was supposed to be a leaving do for the both of them last week but nothing happened. One of them had already said he wouldn't attend, so I guess that's not very surprising.
My Wii games collection is growing quite fast. Having recently got lucky and found Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love in Hounslow, I visited Harrow yesterday and found Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Skies all over the place. Obviously quite a big 'event', considering they're running TV ads for it as well. First impressions? Well, all the Treasure hallmarks are there: huge, mad bosses spewing endless gunfire in set patterns that must be learned to beat them, score multipliers, and lots of fun. To be honest, though, they might as well have called it 'Successor of Space Harrier', because that's what I was thinking all the time I was playing. Sure, ol' Harry was flying around courtesy of a combined jet engine/BFG, while S&P's Isa and Kachi get airbourne via a jetpack and a hoverboard, respectively, but the whole 'into the screen' schtick is firmly rooted in Sega's old Fantasy Zone.
I'm progressing slowly in Monster Hunter Tri, attempting to explore and get the most out of Moga Woods, rather than simply ploughing through the quests. It's quite an inspirational game... but the wonky combat is still a bit of a chore.
In Silent HIll, I've reached the point I was dreading: In the school, there's a section where you have to take three photos - in locations marked with flashing red lights - while being chased by the monsters. It'll probably not be as bad as I'm expecting, but the Let's Player who recorded it managed to literally run around in circles for most of that part of the game. Then again, this is the same person who had no comment on all the Children of the Damned references (Midwich High School, founded by John Wyndham, and with a football team called the Cuckoos?), and who couldn't figure out that, to see hidden messages written on mirrors above sinks in the hairdressers, he had to run the taps hot, not cold. Ah well.
My visit to Harrow was for more than just shopping. I was meeting up with my mother, who was paying off about half of my mortgage in one fell swoop, with some of the money raised when my cousin bought out my father's share of his mother's old house. This means that my monthly repayments will now be about £250... so I can actually start saving again. Perfect timing, all things considered.
Last weekend, I went to see Iron Man 2, and was broadly impressed. It didn't hang together quite as well as the first, and I really can't stand Sam Rockwell in most films (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind being the one exception I can think of), but it was a decent enough addition to the franchise. I suspect it might have been better if the thing slowly killing Tony Stark was liver damage due to drinking, rather than poisoning by his new power source, but you can't have everything.
New Doctor Who continues to impress, also. The two-parter with the return of the Weeping Angels was awesome, even if part 2 seemed to tie up all the loose ends rather too quickly and conveniently. Yesterday's, where the Vampires in Venice turned out to be alien insect-fish wearing perception filters was decent, but riddled with plotholes. First one not written by Moffat, first real disappointment.
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