The Temple of Dysonism

Switching Off With You

Fri, 18 May 2012 03:24:04 +0100

I’ll have to keep it brief but I just realised I haven’t updated since before the move. Right now it’s 3:20am, and I’m sitting on my computer in my room in my new house in the middle of two days off having just sent off 4 job applications, despite me already having a place at Namco. I’m looking at the figures for income and rent and whilst things are manageable I’d like to be a little bit more comfortable. I realise things aren’t going to be easy now that there are monetary commitments but I also crave to be doing something that isn’t retail or service based.

However, it’s times like this that I look around me and am glad for everything I have, despite not having everything I may want. Lucy is fast asleep behind me in our bed. I’m worried that the light from my computer screen, or the sound of my typing might disturb her despite her reassurance that they’re not, so I’m off to cuddle up to her in peaceful slumber.

Good night.
x

"I was just guessing at numbers and figures Pulling the puzzles apart Questions of science, science..."

Fri, 18 May 2012 03:12:00 +0100

“I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart”

- The Scientist - Coldplay (A Rush Of Blood To The Head, 2002)

It’s incredible how apt these lyrics are to me right now.

With my lightnin' bolts a glowin', I can see where I am goin'

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:06:00 +0100

First of all, I really wish I used this more often. It’s an incredible tool for me to use to help clear my head or write down my thoughts for other peoples’ perusal and I don’t make the most of it. I’ll try and keep that in mind.. though I have promised myself this many times before to no avail. Blast.

This week marks a pretty huge week in terms of me - sorry for the slightly self-centered approach but this is my blog after all! This Saturday, 4 days from now, I am moving out of my parents’ house in Aldershot and taking my first (well, technically second, shortlived though Bournemouth was it still counts) big step out in to the big wide world on my own, and growing truly independent. I’m moving to London with Lucy, Lex and Rob, in a three bedroom house in Mudchute, and it’s hugely exciting.

Those of you that have spoken to me about my goals within the past few years will know that I’ve always wanted to kick off my own life and carve my own path as soon as possible, and the opportunity has never arisen until now. The moment it popped up I grabbed it by the horns and here I am, sitting in a room that won’t be mine in a few days time, surrounded by piles of stuff to be packed, washed, stored or thrown away. I don’t think it’s really hit home yet. I’ve taken the week off to prepare myself and my things but it still doesn’t feel quite real just yet.

Whilst it has been an incredibly exciting time for me, it’s come with its fair share of problems I’ve had to face as well as tough decisions to make. Sadly, I’ll be leaving my job at the Guildford branch of GAME with almost immediate effect as it’s just not viable to continue to work there from London - the commute is £400 a month. I’ll be leaving behind some great, great people that I’ve grown to know and love over the period of a year and it tears me up that I’m leaving with such short notice, but I know that it won’t be the last time I’ve seen any of them. I’m hoping to pop in to the store in the next few days to say my farewells, etcetera.

Since that decision has been made, it does mean that I need to find another job in order to live. This is the tricky part. I’m facing a slight dilemma at the moment, and don’t know which is the correct choice. On one hand, I’ve been offered a job at the Namco Funscape arcade in London (the one under the London Eye - it was on The IT Crowd that one time), but I just can’t shake the feeling that I’ll be throwing everything I’ve worked towards in the past two years away and taking a step back, which is never what I intended. To this end my other option is to wait it out with GAME and see if I can get a transfer to a London store - but this option is one that comes with a few too many risks if left for more than a couple of weeks. On the bright side, there are a few spaces in the region which will make room for a Senior Sales but the question is how long will I have to wait for them to become available? With any luck I’ll have the answers to a few of these questions in the next couple of days and be able to concentrate more on the move.

Other than the move and job woes, not a huge amount has changed for me. Actually.. in hindsight, that sounds like a ridiculous statement to make. Both of those things changing are fairly massive. I eagerly await my new life in London, but I will miss what I’m leaving behind here in Aldershot.

Take care, y’all.

Like or reblog this post if..

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:38:47 +0100

dodongodislikessmoke:

likemothstoravenclaws:

Whenever you play/played the “Mario Party” games,you mainly played as BOO.

This has been a Boo appreciation post.

^ MY MAIN BOO

Boo FTW. He’s tattooed in to my shoulder!

I feel this is appropriate to the situation.

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:26:17 +0000

I feel this is appropriate to the situation.

"Hey everyone, look at these news reports from a week old we've twisted to make look like fresh new news! Everyone go and pester the staff in store and tell them how they're at fault!"

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Mmmm yeah. Work is so much fun to deal with right now.

Oh, wait. Had a woman come up to me today to express frustration that we wouldn’t be stocking any more copies of SSX (but did she pre-order? No) and when I replied with an apology and the fact that we were frustrated by it too as we were all gamers in the same boat when she came out with “Well you would be frustrated, yeah, you’ll be shutting down” which is the last thing anyone wants to hear. I stopped serving her and went about my day but that comment stuck in my head for the rest of the day. I should’ve asked her to leave the store in hindsight, that’s not who we need in our store.

So yeah, really fun times right now. We had a representative from a certain games company in our store today with one of their executives looking around. Could’ve asked him what nerve he had coming in but bit my tongue. Didn’t seem to show any care for the staff or the store. And apparently they’re coming in every Friday from now on… including this Friday. Which just so happens to be quite a big release day.

Then to come online and see news stories and Facebook stories that seemingly ring the bell for my employer and the flagship mainstream retail store for my favourite hobby, and it seems like I don’t have much incentive to give a shit any more. Luckily I’m covering another store tomorrow (one that’s closing in a month as a result actually - with some of the nicest people working there you’ll ever meet who are all about to lose their job) so have their reputation to uphold or else I’d struggle to keep my enthusiasm and support up. Morale is at an all time low amongst us guys with a few of the team asking me directly if they should start looking for another job. You know how hard it is to try and stay positive when this is happening? And all it takes is another poorly written news article to remind us how fragile our jobs are to be enough for some of us.

It’s like the general public like seeing us fall. And have no thought about the staff contained within. Because none of us are real people, we’re just here to serve you and satisfy your every need, right?

Here it is, my Boo tattoo! It’s still healing and slightly...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:48:19 +0000

Here it is, my Boo tattoo! It’s still healing and slightly bruised, hence the odd colouring, but I actually love it. I just want to show it off to everybody.

Already thinking about my next one!

Clean On The Inside

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:07:38 +0000

Up until last year I couldn’t see myself getting a tattoo at any point - I’d sort of disregarded them as quite ugly little things that would look a bit shit when I got older. But the more tattoo’s I saw on people I knew (and some who I wouldn’t have expected to have them), and the more I thought about it, the more the idea started to grow on me. As long as you don’t go and do something silly (like get the name of a fling you’re seeing tattooed across your face, only to have them leave you after a week because you look ridiculous), you choose something that has meaning to you and helps defines you and it’s somewhat concealable then what have you got to lose? And let’s be frank; none of us are going to look at our best once we hit our 60’s or whatever, so who cares what it’ll look like at that age.

The big question is of course, what do you get? And as the idea started to grow on me as the weeks went by, I had a few ideas. Obviously, what with gaming being such a massive part of my life it was going to be gaming related. There were the typical video game icons (which I haven’t totally dismissed) such as the Triforce, the Mario sprite, Space Invaders, Sonic etc etc. At one point I was seriously considering the Sex Bob-omb logo from the film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World as it is my favourite film (as I’ve written before, it’s as if someone sat down in a board room of writers and said ‘Right, we need to make a film for a Mr. Lewis Speller. This is what he likes, this is what he is like. Go.’) but I dropped that the moment this idea popped in to my head about 8 months ago.

In the Mario series there are numerous characters, enemies, items or even scenes you could potentially take as tattoo ideas. One of the characters that has been with the series almost from the very start is the ghost, Boo. Boo is a relatively simple ghost but with one huge characteristic that defines him - he is incredibly shy. When you are in a room with Boo, he will chase you and try to bite you so that you’ll lose health - but, if you look at him, he freezes on the spot, turns transparent, covers his eyes and blushes.. and is no longer a threat. And it is this image of Boo, covering his eyes, that I’d like to get.

Top right Boo. Not pixellated.

And ever since the idea came about in my head, I’ve loved it. It’s original, it’s inoffensive and it’s personal to me. It carries the extra stroke of brilliance that whenever you look at it, it will of course be hiding from you.. and yeah. The Mario games are absolutely classic, and core to who I am as much as they are core to gaming itself. I look forward to getting it done.

The last thing I settled on this week was where to get it done - obviously it needs to be somewhere concealable for I don’t want it to affect me in a professional sense - and that leaves me with two real options. The first was on my arm somewhere, which I decided against in favour of my shoulder, or more precisely, just below the shoulder on my chest. I’ve also had a recommendation on which parlour to get it done at, so I’m not going in blind.

I’m pretty damn excited, if not a little nervous. I’ll let you know what happens!

speller: Processor Layton I’m so witty.

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:27:43 +0000

speller:

Processor Layton

I’m so witty.

Nobody said it was easy, no-one ever said it would be this hard

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:09:46 +0000

I’m in a writing mood again! It’s been slowly building up over the past couple of days and as I hit my Tumblr bookmark I realized I wanted to write something. My mind is completely full of all sorts of things to write about but alas - a lot of them are about the people that read this blog. It’d seem incredibly passive to talk about such things openly on here and not expect it to have ramifications. I suppose this is the issue with having people you know read your musings, it ends up restricting what you can say.

I mean a few years ago when only my close friends (we’re talking two or three here) read my blog I could write about whatever I wanted - be it work, college, university, family, my personal life, friendships, relationships or completely inane chatter - and have very few worries about it as it used to be mostly private. But it becomes hard to maintain that freedom once you start to worry about what might happen if you write a certain thing online, there could be unknown ramifications. Frustratingly it works the other way as well, in that if you don’t have anyone reading your blog you feel as if there is no point in writing as there will be nobody to read it. The ideal solution would be to have a group of completely random, anonymous people following you and follow a selection of completely random people to maintain creative freedom, but then it doesn’t feel like there’s as much of a point either, I suppose.

Anyway, writer’s frustrations out of the way, hi again. In case you can’t remember who I am (and I wouldn’t be surprised given how often I update), I’m Speller. I am a Senior Sales Assistant in a Game store in the UK, a massive, massive gaming fan (Xbox 360 and Steam mostly. Represent!) and I currently live in Aldershot, which is just under an hour away from London on the train. Though this may soon all be changing if things go to plan in the coming weeks (except the gaming part, I totally love gaming).

There is a job opening for a Deputy Manager in the Surrey Quays GAME store which I plan on applying for, for several reasons. Point one, it’s natural progression. Moving up from Senior Sales to Deputy Manager is the next step in the ladder at GAME and I intend to climb it.
“Okay,” you may be thinking. “But why Surrey Quays? That’s London! You can’t commute that!”
Which brings me on to point number two: It’s 10 minutes away from Shoreditch. Which just so happens to be where my girlfriend (Rocker94) currently resides. Which means that moving is very possible all of a sudden, and therefore means taking a big step in almost every single direction all in one go. Obviously, it’s all ifs and buts as I need all sorts of clearances and permissions to apply for the job but I can’t help but wonder if I might be overdoing it a little bit by making so many big decisions in one go - assuming it all goes ahead of course. I just feel like I need to start making big steps in my life so I don’t get stuck in a rut.

It’s strange.. I’m 22 in under two weeks. That’s the start of truly growing in to adulthood I think. No more landmark birthdays, the next number starts sounding older. I’ll be mid-twenties before too long, and I’ll stop getting ID’d, and I’ll start getting shocked at how I can have coherent conversations with people who were born an entire decade after me. That really is weird. And it’s this feeling of “It’s growing up time!” that’s sort of kicked me in to gear a little bit and got me moving forward. When I saw the job opportunity pop up on the GAME intranet I instantly started thinking about it, and it fits quite nicely. But I should stop talking about it; for before too long I’ll find out I can’t apply for the job because I’m too inexperienced or something equally disappointing. Let’s hope this is not the case.

In other news, I’ve been seeing a lot more of some old friends recently and it’s been fantastic getting back in touch with them. I had an amazing night about a month ago in which I saw at least 8 people whom I hadn’t seen for half a year (some even more) and met a few more faces and had an incredible night with. I want to do that sort of thing more often but it’s really hard finding the time to split between the all-consuming work, being at home, seeing family, friends, Lucy and of course alone time, so that night was a total breath of fresh air. I hope to do something like that again soon - perhaps for my birthday?

Finally, I’ve been listening to lots of new music recently and getting in to a whole new selection of bands and albums that I had previously dismissed as ‘not being my thing’. After a poor show at Reading Festival 2009, I had written Deftones off as a completely overrated and overhyped band not worthy of my time, and tidbits I had heard since then had not done anything to change my mind. But having recently acquired Saturday Night Wrist as my friend Rory recommended I listen to, I found myself listening to the fifth track off of the album, ‘Mein’, and loving it. I listened to that track several times in a row. I then went on to listen to the whole thing through and suddenly it clicked, and I discovered what everyone else was talking about. To be fair, I do need to check more of it out and I have Diamond Eyes to look forward to next.

I’ve also been appreciating Nero’s debut album and listening to quite a few tracks repeatedly over the past few days, as well as Chase and Status’ No More Idols. The fact that a lot of the tracks get played at GAME every day probably helps break the tracks in so to speak, but the simple way they want me to listen to them again in my own time shows you they’re doing something right. Having just grabbed another 3GB of music from the internet I’m looking forward to checking out albums from The Bluetones, And So I Watch You From Afar, Dillinger Escape Plan (yeah, really, *head explodes*), Adebisi Shank and loads more. It’s a good time to be getting in to new music as it’s so easy to find and listen to and discover things you didn’t realize you’d like, but also very easy to slip in to the trap of finding something new and playing it a little too much. The same thing happened with Coldplay a couple of months ago and I went on a total Coldplay binge, getting their discography and listening to 15 or so songs constantly for a few weeks. As a result, a couple of the songs that used to send a shiver down my spine (Talk, Charlie Brown, God Put A Smile Upon Your Face for example) have been played to the extent that they don’t have that effect any more, which is a shame. The Scientist, however, remains one of my favourite songs of all time and I intend to keep it that way.

Anyway.. it’s just hit midnight and I need to sleep, for tomorrow at work we have some of the biggest names in the company coming to visit the store and I should rest up for the work load that’ll face us in the morning. Hurrah!

Promise me you’ll come back soon, my lovelies. And I’ll try and have something new for you next time. Thanks for reading, once again.

A clever cat who was thrown from a car stunned an RSPCA...

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:28:00 +0100

A clever cat who was thrown from a car stunned an RSPCA inspector by leading him to her litter of four tiny kittens hidden in a barn.

RSPCA inspector Jon Knight had been called out to rescue the young cat, after she was spotted being thrown from a car in the town of March, Cambridgeshire, last month.

The concerned caller had been monitoring the cat and started feeding her, and after two weeks managed to confine the cat in a green house in Upwell Road, March and the RSPCA was called.

The cat was taken to an RSPCA vet for treatment; she was quite thin and had a grazed face as a result from being thrown from the car, she was also treated for fleas and worms and given a good feed.

However, the cat had to be returned to the location as it was clear that she had only recently had kittens and she would need to get back to them as soon as possible.

When Jolie, as she has since been named, was returned she began calling out.

At first inspector Knight believed she was calling out to her kittens so he watched and waited to see what happened. But it soon became clear that she was meowing at him.

Then, amazingly, as soon as the inspector began to follow her, she moved forward meowing all the time and led the inspector across country straight to where her kittens were.

Inspector Knight said: “I had taken her back to the location she had been picked up at so that she could get back to her kittens. But it was such a rural area, I had little hope of finding them myself.

“When she started to get really vocal at first I thought she was calling to the kittens, but then it became clear that she was actually calling to me!

“I began to follow her and she took me through the rear garden, across a ploughed field and into a farm yard. All the time she was calling me and waiting for me to follow.

“She then took me into an old farm machinery barn and led me to behind a stack of old wood and there were her four kittens.

“There is absolutely no way I would have found these kittens without this cat’s help. She was a huge distance away from the garden she had first been found in, and was clearly doing all she could to lead me to her kittens.

“The kittens were tiny and still had their eyes closed. I collected them and took them and mum back to the RSPCA Block Fen Animal Centre, where they will stay until they are all fit, healthy and old enough to be rehomed.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Ely/Amazing-story-of-the-clever-cat-who-led-RSPCA-rescuer-to-her-kittens-04102011.htm

—-

Cats are amazing.

I’ve just renewed my www.dysonism.com domain name for...

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:15:40 +0100

I’ve just renewed my www.dysonism.com domain name for another 2 years. It’s so cheap it’d be silly not to. £15 and it’s done.

Anyway - and I know I said this last time - apologies for the lack of updates. I constantly find myself with less and less time to sit down and write a lengthy blog article, but I am available on the internets in many other formats. Facebook, Twitter, I even have another Tumblr blog at speller.tumblr.com that needs followers so head over there if you want more goodness (disclaimer: may not be goodness).

I’m not going anywhere any time soon, anyway.. at least not for another two years :)

HAY GURL HAY! Clearly they are Annoy Moose. ~~

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:58:37 +0100

For real. Also I dislike how Tumblr won’t let you answer asks on different blogs. Frustratingly these always go to my main blog when they’d be better off landing in my speller blog. Silly Tumblr. :(

"Grace under pressure, Cooling palm across my brow, Eyes of an angel, Lay me down"

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:55:58 +0100

“Grace under pressure,
Cooling palm across my brow,
Eyes of an angel,
Lay me down”

- Grace Under Pressure - Elbow (Cast of Thousands, 2003)

Hay again.

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:53:56 +0100

WHAT. WHO ARE YOU. Also what do you want? ._.

Hey

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:05:59 +0100

Hi! You’re anonymous. How mysterious!

CATS MAN

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:19:09 +0100

CATS MAN

The Future's Not What It Used To Be

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:02:00 +0100

Photographs.

I was just talking to Lucy on the great wide internet, sorta bumming around on Facebook and the like when I glanced over at my photo section and realised I’m quite upset by the lack of photographs I have in recent times - both of myself, my friends, and the world. And it got me thinking. And talking. And writing.

I’ve always loved looking at photographs, I think. I mean I’ve never been actively enthusiastic of them as such.. but in the past few years with the rise of things like Facebook and Twitpic where everything is instantly shared and viewed over the internet in an instant, I’ve been subject to a lot more photographs of other people. And seeing these has made me realise that I don’t have many at all.

Back in the days of college people used to take a camera to all the social gatherings, and even in day to day life there would be photos to take and share. It’s a moment that can be captured instantly and shared with anyone to relive the experience. It’s something a little bit magical.

I suppose the argument would be that we’re growing up, so we don’t have time to take photo’s. Or even think about it. But remember the feeling when you used to grab a bunch of friends, pull a stupid face and have a photo taken - even if you “hated it”? There was always something to look at afterwards.

What I’m worried about is not having anything to look back on, or share with people. I go through what few photos I do have - Reading Festival, University, a handful of photos from work - and I’m instantly remembered the time it was taken, regardless of how long ago it was. I don’t want to look back and have this massive gap!

So to my friends, family, myself and whoever reads this thing. Take more photographs. Share them online. Print them out. Look at them. Don’t be afraid of having your photo taken. Enjoy it. Because you don’t want to be left in a situation where you go to look back at what you’ve done and you can’t see how you’ve grown, or changed, or what you got up to, or what the world looked like.

And please. Tag me in ‘em. Blurry or sharp. Under or overexposed. Wonky or framed. You know I wanna see ‘em all.

Urban Legend: 1994's Most Bizarre Suicide.

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 23:36:00 +0100

completelybackasswards:

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS, President Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story:

On March 24,1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to that effect, indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the descender was aware that a safety net had been installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

“Ordinarily,” Dr. Mills continued, “a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide.”

That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the ninth floor, whence the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr. Opus.

When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. Thed old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple’s son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son’s financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

What an incredible story!

"And all these complications, they make me something I’m not."

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 04:35:10 +0100

“And all these complications, they make me something I’m not.”

- Reuben - Stuck In My Throat (2003)