The Temple of Dysonism

Everything Is Amazing And Nobody Is Happy

“Everything is amazing right now, and nobody’s happy.

Like, in my lifetime, the changes in the world have been incredible. When I was a kid, we had a rotary phone. We had a phone you had to stand next to, and you had to dial it. You don’t realize how primitive – you’re making sparks *pffdtdt* in a phone - and you actually would hate people with zeros in their numbers because it was more, like “ugh, this guy’s got two zeros. Screw that guy.” And then if they called and you weren’t home, the phone would just ring lonely by itself.

And then, if you wanted money, you would had to go in the bank for – when it was open for like three hours – you had to stand in line, you had to write yourself a check like an idiot, and then, when you ran out of money, you just go “well, I can’t do anymore things now”. That wasn’t it, and even if you had a credit card, they – they guy’d go “ugh,” and he’d bring bring out this whole *shunk shunk* and he’d write – and he’d have to call the president to see if you had any money.

Well, yeah, ‘cause now we live in an – in an amazing, amazing world, and it’s wasted on the, on the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots that don’t care – because this is what people are like now: they got their phone, and they’re like: “…uugh! It won’t…” Give it a second! Give it – it’s going to space! Can you give it a second to get back from space? It’s the speed of light!

I was on a, I was on an airplane, and there was Internet – high-speed Internet on the airplane – that’s the newest thing that I know exists. And I’m sitting on the plane, and they go, “open up your laptop. You can go on the Internet.” It’s fast, and I’m watching YouTube clips – I’m in an airplane. And then it breaks down. And they apologize, “The Internet’s not working.” The guy next to me goes “psssh, this is bullshit.” Like, how quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago.

Flying is the worst one because people people come back from flights, and they tell you their story. And it’s like a horror story. It’s – they act like their flight was like a cattle car in Germany in the ’40s: that’s how bad they make it sound. They’re like “it was the worst day of my life… first of all, we didn’t board for twenty minutes, and then we get on the plane, and they made us sit there! On the runway! For forty minutes! We had to sit there.”

Oh, really? What happened next? Did you fly through the air incredibly, like a bird? Did you you partake in the miracle of human flight, you non-contributing zero? That you got to FLY?? YOU’RE FLYING! It’s amazing! Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going, “OH MY GOD! WOW!” You’re flying! You’re sitting in a chair in the sky. New York to California in five hours. That used to take thirty years to do that. And a bunch of you would die on the way there and have a baby. You be a whole different group of people by the time you got there. Now you watch a movie and you take dump and you’re home.”

—Louis CK “Everything Is Amazing And Nobody Is Happy” (via nedhepburn)

Raindrops

Evening everyone, and welcome to another late night edition of the Temple of Dysonism. How are you all? Assuming the answer given was a positive response - good! Glad to hear it. I’m not too bad myself.

It’s been a funny few weeks as of late, for no great reason or event, but just in general. I’ve been to Portsmouth, spent way too much money on games, have dressed up three times in the past 3 weeks (which pretty much doubles my lifetime record for dressing up - ever), celebrated a milestone, and have started working with a team three times the size of usual thanks to the influx of Christmas temporary staff we’ve had start at GAME. Shall we talk about these things? Let’s.

I was lucky enough to get one of the final holiday weeks of the year booked off and as usual, made another trip down to Portsmouth to see both “Lewis and Co” and “The Girls”, splitting the time available right down the middle. The night out with Lewis and Co was one that ended in the best way possible - with us eating a full Indian meal at a curry house we discovered was open at 2 in the morning. The drunken desire of craving any type of food was satisfied by what was one of the nicest meals I’ve ever had. Why settle for a kebab on a rainy street corner when you can sit in a heated restaurant, with comfortable seating, epic food and banter? I look back on that happenstance rather fondly.

The second half of the Portsmouth visit comprised of walking to The Girls’ House, chilling for a few hours as usual and then I proceeded to dress up as a giant pumpkin. As you do. This was kind of a big deal for me, though I didn’t mention it at the time, I’ve never been much of a costume party person generally due to the effort required in putting a costume together that’s only going to be used once - twice if you’re lucky - before either being discarded or forgotten about. This costume (which looked absolutely ridiculous by the way) was one thoughtfully provided by Chloe, and I loved every minute whilst I was wearing it. It may have been hot (especially if you consider we plumped the suit up with wannabe-cotton wool) but if nothing else, I’ve taken one thing away from the experience: if me and Zoe were ever to break up (heaven forbid), I know I could go ahead and pull any girl simply by wearing a silly outfit, as the amount of hugs and pictures taken with random club-goers and me that night were in the double digits. I have yet to understand why being a giant pumpkin turned out to make me a chick magnet, so I think I’ll chalk that one down to one of life’s great mysteries.

Speaking of me and Zoe, I’ve never really written anything about us on my blog before. It’s been quite a strange one. I’ve always said to myself that my blog is written from my brain to the page as it comes; and there are rarely any exceptions. But I’ve always had a mental block when it comes to writing about my relationship. I guess it’s something that’s really very personal to me and Zoe and it hasn’t felt right to put anything out there, but at the same time this blog is all about me, and she plays a huge part in my life.

So why not? The milestone I mentioned earlier was quite a big one, as we recently celebrated one year flying by since we got together. I can’t believe it’s been that long.. it seems like only a couple of months ago I was introduced to this girl who I then decided I wanted to get to know a bit better, so what gives? I guess it’s kinda taken me by surprise a little bit.

Friends who know me from back at college and the later years at school will know I used to be quite jealous of other people simply being in a relationship and having that feeling of being close to someone; and not being able to do anything about it or so it seemed. I used to have long chats with ‘The Girls’ (pre-house) and some others (Nicki, Ryan and Mark to name a few) and would often get frustrated at my lack of a partner. It was never something that came to me naturally like it did with others my age, so I felt a bit behind, and that I was missing out.

This has been my first girlfriend to speak of, and our relationship has lasted a year with very few hiccups. It feels as if it’s been too easy to an extent, as if after waiting so long for what I was looking for I got it too easily. I guess through listening to my friends’ experiences I had expectations of rocky periods of time and other elements of our time together that simply haven’t occurred. I’m taking it as a good thing of course (it’d be silly to complain that there are too few complaints, right?) but it’s merely an observation! So yes - congratulations to Zoe and myself for making it to the one year mark unharmed. Here’s to another year :)

If there’s one thing me and Zoe disagree on it’s games. It goes without saying that I’m a big, big gamer and as such it generally takes the forefront of my mind when it comes to working out what luxury items I may want to purchase with each payslip. The new Call of Duty perhaps? A new Rock Band instrument? Or how about I really push the boat out and buy a Kinect? These are all questions I weigh up and decide on pretty frequently, and I’d like to think I’m rational when it comes to making the final decision (2 out of 3 ain’t bad going - not got my hands on a Kinect…yet…) but this past month or so has been crazy, and I’m feeling the burn a little bit.

For the first time in a good year or so I’ve got way too many games to play. This is on most accounts a good thing, having so much choice open to me. But the big issue is the lack of time I have these days, what with seeing Zoe, working in a retail store in the run up to Christmas, working out trips to Pompey to visit mates, and keeping myself social everywhere else. I just don’t have as much time to pump in to gaming as I used to, and it’s at this point where I think I’ve finally twigged on to the concept of ‘growing up’.

About 14 months ago I was unemployed and able to do whatever I wanted with my days as I had very few obligations to anything but myself. I could sit down and play Fallout 3 for a few hours, then some Rock Band 2, and then something else and be good. Now, with my time being restricted, I have a smaller window to fit in just as many games. To give you an idea of how many games I’m working through right now, here’s a small list of the games that are getting a good rotation on my systems:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops (Xbox 360)
• Rock Band 3 (Xbox 360)
• Fallout: New Vegas (Xbox 360)
• Halo: Reach (Xbox 360)
• Super Meat Boy (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Minecraft (PC)
• StarCraft II (PC)
• Team Fortress 2 (PC)

These are the games that I’m playing at any one time right now. Not to mention the two sealed games for my Xbox 360 that I bought on the cheap (Wolfenstein and BioShock 2) and my increasing desire to get back in to World of Warcraft at some point, as well as play through a backlog of DS games, there’s a lot on my gaming platter that I just can’t spend enough time with.

At some point in the next few weeks I’ll summon up the energy to write a bit more about the gaming side of things as I’ve just seen the time and would like to wake up whilst it’s still light on my day off, so I’m gonna leave it here for now. I’ll be back soon though, don’t you worry. In fact, I renewed the www.dysonism.com website for another year earlier today so I plan on sticking around for at least another 12 months. Thanks for reading over the past two years, whoever you may be, readers. I appreciate it. I’ll see you soon.

Quit These Pretentious Things, And Just Punch The Clock

Another year, another Reading Festival attended, and another wristband to add to my collection. I love this photograph, I think it manages to summarize the entire weekend quite well. How?

• Boots destroyed by mud.
• The grass has become marsh, and my feet are actually wet… lovely.
• Beautiful blue sky, with a side order of nasty black rain cloud off to the left. (To be honest, this was practically the weather for the last two days of the fest.. but if you saw anything regarding Reading Festival on the internet or elsewhere you’ll know that it suffered from torrential downpours from the Wednesday to Friday.)
• Despite all the crap, I’m still having a great time, raving in my chair, or whatever I’m doing.
• And for some reason, Richard looks like he just wants to go home.

This was the third Reading Festival I’ve attended in a row, and it was my least favourite thanks to only one thing - the weather. It just did not want to play along whatsoever, pouring down at the most inappropriate of times and screwing over our plans for evenings around the fire, or going to the arena to chill out. It made the whole experience quite a miserable affair for me in particular as I was foolish enough to think I could take on the weather without a pair of wellies, and when I realised my mistake it was far too late to take action - getting a pair of size 13 shoes isn’t the easiest thing to do at the best of times, let alone when 80,000 other people are desperately scrambling for footwear from a handful of market stalls.

That said, to say I didn’t enjoy myself would be a lie. I still got my money’s worth from the weekend - I saw some quality music, had some hilarious jokes at the campsite, ate some questionably delicious ‘food’ and drank far more than I should have anyone should. As last year, a rundown of the music from the weekend follows.

On the Friday, with none of us being particularly inspired to move from our campsite, we didn’t go to the main arena until quite late, instead choosing to stick to our chairs, shoot the shit and complain about the weather. As a result, I unfortunately missed Two Door Cinema Club which I was a little miffed about. However, when we finally got ourselves in to gear, we made our way to the arena…where I immediately lost the group. And thanks to my mobile phone dying on the day of arrival, I had no way of contacting them. I was pretty pissed off at this point, and decided to work out the bands they’d have gone to see, but to no avail. Regardless of the fact that I was by myself however, I did see Biffy Clyro’s set and got in to it whilst searching for the party. The stuff they played from Only Revolutions was done really well, and the song I heard from Puzzles (the name escapes me right now) was great too. That was all I heard however, as I quickly made my way to the Alternative Stage where Beardyman was performing.

I’ve seen Beardyman perform once before, when he was supporting Groove Armada and I was blown away. His beatboxing is like nothing I’ve ever heard before and it’s a treat to get to see live. I was expecting the same thing this time around but was pleasantly surprised to see him come out in front of a set of decks, introduce himself, and begin mixing his beatboxing together in to songs live, right in front of us. The tent was going mad, absolutely everyone was getting in to the rave, including Beardyman himself. The only thing stopping me from really enjoying myself was the fact that I was by myself, and knowing how much the guys would have loved to see him. Towards the end of his set I left in order to look for the group once more, and somehow managed to strike gold.

Whilst I wasn’t able to spot the guys, I did bump in to another group of friends and proceeded to stick with them for the rest of the night’s music. We waked past the BBC Introducing stage and instantly we were all sucked in to this chiptune, techno monster known as endoflevelbaddie. He whipped everyone there in to a frenzy and was a great crowdpleaser. I’ve not seen a band on the stage pull a crowd like he did. Soon after, it was time for the two headliners, starting off with Queens of the Stone Age who I’d have the pleasure of seeing for the second time. The last time I saw them I came away feeling disappointed, but this time I came away feeling satisfied by their set and much happier as a result. It was helped by the fact that they didn’t play an abysmal slow version of Go With The Flow like last time, which was appreciated. It was then time for a quick 30 minute break in between the Queens and the nights (and arguably the Festival’s) intended headliner, Guns ‘n’ Roses.

In the lead-up to their set I was convinced they would be a joke, but was interested to see what they would pull out of the bag. As the start time got closer I was actually pretty excited for the set - the more I thought about it the more I wanted to see them. And then it was time for them to come on stage..

Which they didn’t. For an hour and a half. By this point any excitement I had built up for seeing them had turned to anger and disappointment and a feeling of simply not giving a shit. And I wasn’t alone - Axl Rose came on stage to 80,000 people booing him and his band even during the intro to Welcome To The Jungle, possibly their most iconic song. It was great to be a part of, and I was satisfied and pleased that the rest of the crowd didn’t forgive them for fucking everyone over by making them wait with no announcement for an hour. Me and the group I was with left soon after to have a look around and stumbled in to the Festival Republic stage where Marina and the Diamonds were playing and the vibe was totally different. Marina herself seemed to be completely smashed and loving her time on stage, as did her audience. It says a lot about the night when Marina and the Diamonds were a better band to watch than miles better than Guns n Roses. It’s quite sad, really.

The Saturday was the day I was looking forward to the most, with the promise of seeing one of my favourite bands headline that night, I wasn’t going to miss it for the world. With an earlier start than previously (but still late enough to miss Hadouken! unfortunately), we made it down to the arena just in time to catch the end of Frank Turner’s set. I sang my heart out to the songs we caught, despite nobody I was with ‘getting’ his music so to speak. I didn’t care at all, I was singing along with Frank, something I’ve done 3 time in the past. He has this power over his audience that seems to ooze respect, and this was made evident when he asked everyone in the tent to sit down on the floor..and everyone did. Everyone leapt up for the line “I won’t sit down, I won’t shut up, but most of all I will not grow up!” from the song Photosynthesis which looked astonishing. I came away very happy despite everyone else I was with not really giving two shits.

We then had to make the tough choice between Serj Tankian and Dizzee Rascal, and as the majority of the group wanted to see Dizzee Rascal we headed over that way, and were not let down by our choice. The crowd went crazy for the rockier versions of his hits, leading to crowd surfing and even mosh pits. It was a set you had to experience to believe, and we all came away from it entertained and buzzing. At this point we had a divide in the group as Lewis and Richard chose to stick around for The Libertines (we caught the end of their set - it was average) whilst Danny, T and myself shot over to the tent for the mighty Crystal Castles. Another band I’ve seen twice before, I knew what I was letting myself in for and I was not disappointed in the slightest. Alice Glass made her appearance on stage in usual fashion, crawling to her microphone before collaboratively assaulting the senses in an all-out audio, light, sensory overload rave that was not to be missed. Crystal Castles was my third favourite set of the weekend for the sheer craziness it brings out in the crowd - you just don’t care what’s going on, all you know is you want to dance, and dance we did.

At this point T left to go and see Pendulum, leaving me and Danny to wait for the band I was anticipating the most for the months leading up to the festival - Arcade Fire. I’ve had a love affair going on with this band since accidently discovering them whilst idly flicking through the music channels and stumbling across Power Out on MTV2, and instantly loving the song. After Wake Up was used in the trailers for Where The Wild Things Are, I fell in love with that song and knew that the song, when performed live, would be the song of the festival for me. I was not wrong. The crowd was small to begin with but picked up a lot more listeners leading up to them coming on stage and blowing me away. I knew all but two of the songs they played and sang and danced my way through the whole thing. At one point I was worried they wouldn’t play Wake Up, having just bought out a new album, but they did. In fact, it was the second song of their encore and the final song of the night, meaning that Saturday was closed by a chorus of tens of thousands of people singing along to “Whooooooa, ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhh, ohhh, ohhh ohhhhhhh, ohhhh…”. Whilst it doesn’t come across well in text form, rest assured it was quite haunting to be a part of and listen to. I came away just stunned from the performance and knowing that at some point, I have to see them again. Unsurprisingly, they were my favourite performance of the weekend.

The final day, Sunday, was one that as a group we were all excited for. We got to the arena in time for a little bit of Limp Bizkit which we paid little attention to before meeting Martin, Jordi and Heather in time for Weezer, a band I kinda wanted to see but wasn’t hugely fussed about. My opinion quickly changed. Weezer came on with the most amazing energy, and blew the entire crowd away. The frontman whose name escapes me at this moment was constantly interacting with the crowd, climbing up on the billboards and wearing props thrown to him from the festival-goers. I went there to hear a couple of songs, and came out a Weezer fan. They put in the second best performance of the weekend, but weren’t far off taking top spot. We then had to sit through Paramore (who were a bit of a let down) before the main attraction hit the stage in the form of blink-182. Blink were by all accounts fantastic, having a very similar energy to Weezer, not taking themselves too seriously and taking the piss out of Guns n Roses. A great way to end the weekends music.

..and that was the festival! All in all, a great time was had by all. But.. I’ve already decided that Reading Festival 2011 isn’t for me. The reasons are long and complicated, and I’m too tired to get in to them after writing this mammoth of a blog entry, but long story short, I feel like I’ve grown out of Reading. The ideas being thrown around for next year currently include either Glastonbury 2011 or perhaps something entirely different - Amsterdam is looking likely at this point. Whether or not these end up happening remains to be seen..

Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Ready To Start

On Saturday, Lewis Haggar and I decided we’d do something a little different. The night before we decided it’d be pretty sweet to head over to Wilton House for the Supercars show that was on, after a tip-off to the event from a certain Miss D’Cunha. So, a 2 hour train journey later we briefly get lost and wet in Salisbury, and I get angry at having to pay to take money out of my account. We do however get there in the end..

Whilst the weather wasn’t on the best of form during the day..

..it did clear up a little later on. We saw some stunning cars..

..and some, uh, not so stunning cars..

..I got to sit in my favourite car, the Mercedes SLS AMG (as well as several other Mercs and a couple of Bentley’s - or Tanks as I like to call them now)..

And was lucky enough to snag a photo with the beast that is the Bugatti Veyron as the crowds died down..

(I may have snuck in a touch of it too, but shh..)


In conclusion, the day was totally..

And The Love Kick Starts Again

After taking 2 months out of employment, I recently started my new job at GAME in Camberley. If I’m brutally honest, before I started I was a little worried that I’d be locking myself in to another retail job with no chance of advancing, low pay, no excitement to work and a bleak future. I had reason to believe this based on my experiences at HMV, which I quit at the end of March because quite frankly the management was a shambles and amongst other things I was forced to work for free. As it turns out, I’m not the only one that has quit or voiced complaints for these very same reasons, but that’s besides the point.

Having worked at GAME for three weeks now I can safely say the worries I had prior to accepting the job have all been swept away. I’m finally enjoying the work I do, and I’m enjoying the people I work with. At HMV, I got on well with most of my colleagues, barring management for the most part. Now I get on well with the entire team - and the team aspect is one that I think has really struck me in my first few weeks. There really is a completely different atmosphere, and I finally feel like I’m working as part of a team as opposed to being forced to work on my own.

Ultimately.. I’m happy. And long may it last. Who knows; I’ve only been here for three weeks so far and been enjoying it but things may change. Give it a year or so and see if I’m still as rosy!

Elsewhere, my driving lessons come to their thrilling climax in only 11 days when I take my driving test. I’m not sure how I feel about it right now as in my past two lessons I’ve been making some stupid mistakes, generally in observation and bizarrely, moving off, which is something I had nailed down. I think it’s anticipation and nerves getting the better of me as I know I can do everything required of me to pass the test on the 12th. It’s just going to come down to how I can manage it on the day, and hopefully I’ll overcome my fears and smash it. The test that is; not the car.

Of course, I can’t write a blog entry right now without at least touching upon the heat we’ve had recently. The temperatures have been sky high the past two weeks or so and it’s been horrible trying to sleep or get to work without ending up all sweaty and murky. On the plus side, it’s most definitely shorts, t-shirt and barbecue weather, so bring it on. The weather also brings summer in nicely, which does of course mean that most of my friends are back from Uni for a few months (with the exception of the girls, sadly), which is fantastic. I look forward to easy meet-ups, some lazy days off of gaming and some banter. I really must sort these out. What else will I do with my three day weekends?

Speaking of gaming, we had E3 recently which is essentially the biggest week in a gamers’ calendar. All sorts of new technology has been announced, some look to take the Wii and turn it hardcore, some promises to remove the controller altogether and put you directly in the game, but there’s only been one thing on my mind as far as games are concerned lately, and that’s the next step in rhythm games, Rock Band 3.

As I’m sure you know, I have poured hundreds of pounds in to my rhythm games and thousands of hours of practice to match. I can’t quite explain the thrill I get from nailing a tough solo or hitting a really satisfying beat with the drums, however in recent months my joy has been dwindling more and more as I realised I’d peaked at the top of my ability with the plastic, 5 button guitar. I can beat almost all of the songs on Expert, where do you go from there? At that point I thought I was ready to pack my plastic instruments away, save for special occasions..and then Harmonix announce Rock Band 3 - and with it a real guitar. Yes indeedy, this game will teach you to play a real guitar, because you will be playing a real guitar. There is so much I could write about this, so much excitement I could pour out on to this page but it’d only make sense if you were in the same situation as me, I reckon.

I’ve tried to play the real guitar before but I just don’t get it. I can’t fathom remembering all the different chords and keys and the finger placement. It blows me away. But if the notes were scrolling down a screen, giving you instructions on where to place your fingers? Who knows. Anything is possible. Obviously I don’t have a clue how well it’ll work for me, but that’s not going to stop me from being damn excited to try it. I’ll report back in a few months, as Rock Band 3 is coming out this holiday season.

Oh.. and I’ll bring my QW3RTY [band mates] with me!

The Magic Kingdom (…Sort Of.)

Yesterday I sent a tweet to the European editor for Xbox LIVE on a whim.

Today I went to Disney Interactive studios in Hammersmith, London. I sat next to Iron Man, and opposite Mickey Mouse. After getting myself a visitors ID badge made that would be valid for only a couple of hours and looked more official than my student ID, I was lead upstairs to a room that was fully decorated with the Lion King in mind…except that it had 8 screens, 8 devkit Xbox 360’s, 8 gamepads, 8 extremely high quality pairs of headphones and a handful of people there to play an as of yet unreleased game, Split/Second.

For those not in the know, Split/Second is a racing game and your typical action movie rolled in to one and spat out in a very playable format. You drive your car very fast and with plenty of style around a race track - before proceeding to blow shit up. Be it other cars, barrels or other obscure obstacles, you will mess up the driver in front. Unless you save your energy for something really special - the chance to change the track layout in spectacular fashion. Usually this involves taking down a building, having it lay in the middle of the track, and there being a new section of course to drive on.

Basically, it’s good fun. We were there to give the multiplayer portion of the game which hasn’t been shown before in Europe, and despite me turning up with only an hour left to go I still had enough time to get in several races around a few tracks, all of which were exciting from start to finish, thoguh this was because I was able to stick with the pack for all of the races. Pulling off a successful powerplay and just snatching 3rd place at the finish line feels about as triumphant as finishing in first with no incidents. All the while, there were a few developers lurking around speaking to people who weren’t in the game at the time, or bringing us water in suitable Disney themed tumblers. Unfortunately I apparantly arrived just after a competition they ran to win a pair of the headphones we were using which is a real shame as they were kick ass (note to self: must find out what model they were..) and had to have been a pricey bit of kit.

Following this, we were treated to an early look at something special they’ve added to the game. I’m not allowed to say what it was just yet as they haven’t even announced it to the press and they asked us extra nicely, but it definitely showed promise. With polish it could be super impressive. After leaving the building and stashing the temporary ID card mentioned earlier (it has Mickey Mouse on it, can you blame me?) I got the tube home with someone I had met at the event, and had a rather good chat. One of the topics that came up was, strangely, my blog. I realised whilst talking that I’ve not done this thing justice recently and this is one attempt at rectifying that.

So that was my day, today. I did something different and it felt great. And if the experience wasn’t good enough, they’re sending the attendees promo copies of the game when it’s released at the end of May. I can’t help but think that no matter who I play it against I won’t be able to beat the feeling of playing it with other like-minded enthusiasts in the same room with the developers watching on. And I’d be willing to bet that they had a blast too.