Everyone gets weird dreams once in a while, but every so often they throw in something so completely bizarre, so utterly out-of-place, that it can be a quite unnerving experience. Not a nightmare, by a long shot, but unsettling enough to bring the dream - and the night's sleep - to a premature end.
Last night, I had a dream involving a former colleague who, many years ago, made up a story about me that led to several other colleagues treating me with suspicion or being outright scared of me. In this dream, I was hanging out with her and her new boyfriend - whose face I never saw, but she was all smiles and hanging off his arm all the time. There was a third other person, and I spent most of my time talking to her, but I have absolutely no recollection of who she was or what she looked like until the very end.
There was lots of wandering about in an open air location, then it seemed to leap to a train station. As we ascended the stairs from the platform toward the ticket hall, my companion observed that I seemed to have been keeping my distance from the other couple, despite the idea that we were all 'together'. I pointed out that the woman had done me a particularly nasty wrong on the past, and my companion countered that, while that may be the case, I was the one who hadn't moved on.
If that doesn't sound particularly disturbing, I should mention that, at this exact moment, I realised that my companion and the object of my ire were somehow one and the same.
Now you see why it woke me up, right?
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Friday, 23 September 2011
Clearly I Have Made Some Bad Decisions
I'm becoming very depressed lately, and it feels very much as though I made a bad choice 18 years ago, when I took on my first ever job.
I'd been unemployed for most of a year since finishing my A-Levels, visiting the job centre every fortnight to collect my benefits. All my attempts to get the sort of job I wanted had failed so, in the end, I picked some jobs at random from their boards and applied for the ones that looked interesting.
Shortly thereafter, I got an interview at a printworks. They needed a junior for their pre-press section, outputting film, etc from an imagesetter. It sounded interesting, so I took the job when it was offered. It turned out there had only been a couple of other applicants, and one of them smelt like a chip shop.
I started small, but learned a lot very quickly and, within a couple of years, had become the go-to guy for just about every problem. I was forced to do overtime on one occasion, because of a particular problem, even though I was on the morning shift, and two other members of staff were otherwise pretty much unoccupied.
The printworks went down the tubes eventually, though, and another branch of the company bought the pre-press equipment and me - by that point the only member of staff left - and shipped us off to a new location, just down the road, to continue providing the same service and learn a whole load of new stuff so I could support my new colleagues when they got busy.
When I left that job, I spent about nine month unemployed because my confidence had been destroyed, and I hadn't a clue what I wanted to do next.
And now, after 11 years in 'the next job', I'm in the same position.
Add to that, while I have an impressive skill set, I am - and always have been - the kind of person no-one actually advertises for, no-one thinks they need until I've been there for a couple of months, by which point I've become indispensable.
But I look through job listings for the sector I've worked in for almost 20 years, and all anyone's looking for is Salespeople, or Designers with experience in areas I've never been near. Employers are laying off people with my background, or just not replacing them when they move on.
I've had one two-day job and one interview from one of the agencies I've signed up with, the other agency told me I'm not suitable for a job I know I could do, and so didn't put me forward for it. As galling as it is to be told I'm not suitable for the kind of job I turned down this time last year because it didn't sound busy enough, it's a huge blow to my already flagging confidence.
Trust me to decide to work in an industry that was only ever going to be downsizing...
I'd been unemployed for most of a year since finishing my A-Levels, visiting the job centre every fortnight to collect my benefits. All my attempts to get the sort of job I wanted had failed so, in the end, I picked some jobs at random from their boards and applied for the ones that looked interesting.
Shortly thereafter, I got an interview at a printworks. They needed a junior for their pre-press section, outputting film, etc from an imagesetter. It sounded interesting, so I took the job when it was offered. It turned out there had only been a couple of other applicants, and one of them smelt like a chip shop.
I started small, but learned a lot very quickly and, within a couple of years, had become the go-to guy for just about every problem. I was forced to do overtime on one occasion, because of a particular problem, even though I was on the morning shift, and two other members of staff were otherwise pretty much unoccupied.
The printworks went down the tubes eventually, though, and another branch of the company bought the pre-press equipment and me - by that point the only member of staff left - and shipped us off to a new location, just down the road, to continue providing the same service and learn a whole load of new stuff so I could support my new colleagues when they got busy.
When I left that job, I spent about nine month unemployed because my confidence had been destroyed, and I hadn't a clue what I wanted to do next.
And now, after 11 years in 'the next job', I'm in the same position.
Add to that, while I have an impressive skill set, I am - and always have been - the kind of person no-one actually advertises for, no-one thinks they need until I've been there for a couple of months, by which point I've become indispensable.
But I look through job listings for the sector I've worked in for almost 20 years, and all anyone's looking for is Salespeople, or Designers with experience in areas I've never been near. Employers are laying off people with my background, or just not replacing them when they move on.
I've had one two-day job and one interview from one of the agencies I've signed up with, the other agency told me I'm not suitable for a job I know I could do, and so didn't put me forward for it. As galling as it is to be told I'm not suitable for the kind of job I turned down this time last year because it didn't sound busy enough, it's a huge blow to my already flagging confidence.
Trust me to decide to work in an industry that was only ever going to be downsizing...
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Fading In
I have to say that, whenever the BBC announce any kind of Supernatural/Paranormal drama series - other than Being Human - a chill runs down my spine for all the wrong reasons.
The BBC is shit at producing 'Supernatural/Paranormal drama' - other than Being Human.
So, when I read about The Fades in the brochure for the London Expo at the beginning of the year, and decided to sit in on the panel (three stars, the writer (I think) and a couple of other production staff), I was curious, but not very optimistic... and the early stuff they had on show wasn't inspiring.
At all.
But that was early in the year, and the show was due to air this month - started tonight, actually - so I figured I'd wait and give it a chance.
On balance, I'm pretty impressed.
The main character was a little weak in this first episode, but that's not uncommon... Protagonists can be difficult to introduce at the best of times, and this 'mixed up teenager who sees dead people' sounds almost painted-by-numbers. Given time, I think the script and the actor will flesh him out. The best friend is truly amazing, though. The last thing I expected from this show was for any of the characters to have me laughing out loud, so the fact that it happened several times as a direct result of his dialogue - and for all the right reasons - was a huge bonus to the show. As a character, he had a lot more to work with in terms of script... in fact, he probably had the most dialogue in the whole show because he's such a motormouth.
My only real complaint was the very beginning... which presented a woman out on the streets, on her own, walking over to a crumpled heap of possibly-person in an alleyway, asking "Are you alright?" Surely, in this day and age, anyone but the most terminally stupid (or naive) would walk away unless they had someone with them, and would be far more cautious even then..?
There's a subtle hint of Silent Hill to it - dreams filled with clouds of falling ash, rubbery monsters in the intro - and it wasn't especially scary... but it was certainly creepy, foreboding and well worth another look next week.
Played even further into Xenoblade today - I've put in almost a full day now (just over 22 hours, by the game's count). As a means of getting into Colony 6, heading to the very bottom of a mine inside what must surely be Bionis's groin seems a little counterintuitive, and my RPG Gamer's sense tells me there will be a massive Mechon waiting for me right at the bottom, but the scenery getting there has been exceptional... Some of the mine was confusing - the map is small while in walkabout mode, and the area map isn't especially helpful when area labels appear over tunnel junctions, but I didn't get lost for long...
The BBC is shit at producing 'Supernatural/Paranormal drama' - other than Being Human.
So, when I read about The Fades in the brochure for the London Expo at the beginning of the year, and decided to sit in on the panel (three stars, the writer (I think) and a couple of other production staff), I was curious, but not very optimistic... and the early stuff they had on show wasn't inspiring.
At all.
But that was early in the year, and the show was due to air this month - started tonight, actually - so I figured I'd wait and give it a chance.
On balance, I'm pretty impressed.
The main character was a little weak in this first episode, but that's not uncommon... Protagonists can be difficult to introduce at the best of times, and this 'mixed up teenager who sees dead people' sounds almost painted-by-numbers. Given time, I think the script and the actor will flesh him out. The best friend is truly amazing, though. The last thing I expected from this show was for any of the characters to have me laughing out loud, so the fact that it happened several times as a direct result of his dialogue - and for all the right reasons - was a huge bonus to the show. As a character, he had a lot more to work with in terms of script... in fact, he probably had the most dialogue in the whole show because he's such a motormouth.
My only real complaint was the very beginning... which presented a woman out on the streets, on her own, walking over to a crumpled heap of possibly-person in an alleyway, asking "Are you alright?" Surely, in this day and age, anyone but the most terminally stupid (or naive) would walk away unless they had someone with them, and would be far more cautious even then..?
There's a subtle hint of Silent Hill to it - dreams filled with clouds of falling ash, rubbery monsters in the intro - and it wasn't especially scary... but it was certainly creepy, foreboding and well worth another look next week.
Played even further into Xenoblade today - I've put in almost a full day now (just over 22 hours, by the game's count). As a means of getting into Colony 6, heading to the very bottom of a mine inside what must surely be Bionis's groin seems a little counterintuitive, and my RPG Gamer's sense tells me there will be a massive Mechon waiting for me right at the bottom, but the scenery getting there has been exceptional... Some of the mine was confusing - the map is small while in walkabout mode, and the area map isn't especially helpful when area labels appear over tunnel junctions, but I didn't get lost for long...
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