1089: Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong

(Buffy's Swearing Keyboard. You're welcome. NSFW, obviously.)

Andie and I bought a doorbell the other day. This is not something I have ever had to purchase before, but it was something of a necessity — we live on the second floor (third if you're American) and there were doorbells for flat 1 and 2 in our block, but not ours. This meant a distinct chance of missing out on deliveries of orders from Amazon and Chinese takeaway due to a lack of any means for someone at the block's front door of letting us know we were there. And that will never do. A man needs his Chinese takeaway and AMAZOO.nep deliveries.

Actually, the statement that said I've never had to purchase a doorbell before isn't quite accurate — in my second year at university, I lived in a first (second) floor flat which didn't have a doorbell. The front door was at ground level and opened straight on to some stairs up into the main part of our flat, so if my housemate and I were in our rooms or the living room, chances are we wouldn't hear anyone knocking. (We sure as hell heard the fight outside our door one night, though, and got a bit scared when we heard shattering glass. Luckily the aggressor in the incident had punched through our neighbours' door, not ours. I say "luckily" — obviously not for our neighbours, who then had to spend the next few months with their front door boarded up because the landlord of the building was too lazy to do anything, ever. But these brackets have gone on for too long so I'd better close them before I lose the point of what I was saying.)

Anyway, yes. I popped down to our local massive hardware store, which was but a short walk from our flat, and investigated doorbells. At the time, wireless doorbells, which would have been the ideal solution, were rather expensive. As a student, spending forty quid on a doorbell was out of the question, and I didn't really feel like drilling holes in the doorframe and poking wires through, largely because I didn't have a drill. So on that occasion we survived without a doorbell.

Not so this time, though. Both Andie and I are in gainful employment, and as such we were more than able to afford a doorbell for our new place, particularly as wireless doorbells appear to have come down in price considerably over the course of the last ten years. Wired ones didn't appear to be an option, even. I am fine with this.

The doorbell we chose was a bog-standard model with a single sound that thankfully isn't too horrendous — it just makes a nice, normal (if obviously electronic) doorbell sound. It doesn't play a horrible monophonic ringtone-type tune and it doesn't go on for longer than it needs to, which were the things I was worried about. There's nothing more embarrassing than a doorbell that outstays its welcome. (Well, there is. Lots of things are. But you know what I mean.)

What I was particularly surprised about as we were browsing the fine selection in B&Q (which I maintain is one of the most tedious stores in the world despite the presence of chainsaws) is the ridiculous features the more expensive doorbells offered. The most expensive one they had there — which was about the same price as the basic wireless ones from ten years ago, as I recall — not only had a wide selection of built-in chimes for you to pick from at your leisure, it also had the ability to play MP3s.

Think about that for a moment. A doorbell. That plays MP3s. Truly we are living in the future. An incredibly pointless future where instead of flying cars and cures for cancer we have doorbells that play fucking MP3s.

I express mock outrage at this but I guess it's sort of amusing. You could, with that doorbell, essentially have anything as your chime. If you wanted Brian Blessed shouting "GIMME THAT FUCKING BADGE BACK!" (possibly the best video on all of YouTube, that) every time someone was at the door, you could. Or perhaps the chiptune ALF theme from the dancing chicken man video I used to love so much. (Used to? I just put it on and fell in love all over again. CAN'T STOP WATCHING) Or, if you really wanted to drive yourself absolutely insane, this. Or this. Or perhaps the song that gave us Epic Sax Man. Or… well, yeah. You get the idea.

Damn. Now I sort of wish I'd splurged on the stupid MP3-playing doorbell. Much better for trolling Andie with than getting Siri to call her "Bumface".

1087: Recaffeinated

I'm in serious danger of becoming a coffee snob. I haven't had a cup of instant coffee — not even the nice Nescafe Azera stuff (which I can highly recommend for people who don't have more complicated coffee-making equipment but who find normal instant coffee to be gross) — for quite a while now, and am instead enjoying an array of cafetiere and espresso coffees.

The reason for this is primarily the fact that Andie and I acquired a Nespresso machine as a Christmas present to ourselves. I've owned a coffee machine for quite a while, but it's a right faff to keep clean, plus it vibrates so much when pumping the water through it that the cups fall off the platform. Not ideal.

The Nespresso machine (a Krups U, if you're curious) is lovely, though. You turn it on, wait for the little light on the top to stop flashing (which takes less than a minute, rather than waiting for a kettle to boil), pop in a coffee capsule and close the slidey lid thing, ensuring you have a cup underneath first, obviously. After a loud farty noise (and a complete lack of accompanying vibration, unlike with my previous coffee machine) you have a cup of espresso. Combine this with the "Aeroccino" milk frother (which either does warm, slightly whisked milk for lattes and warm, fluffy, frothy milk for cappuccinos) and you have the means of making some fine, fine coffee right in your own home. It's the kind of coffee that's even nice just straight and black — the machine makes a lovely crema on top that makes it nice and smooth and easy to drink, even without milk.

We actually got a Nespresso machine just before Christmas, albeit sans the Aeroccino frother thingy, but it seemed to be leaking a lot. We just put it down to us doing something wrong somewhere along the line, but one morning it blew a fuse in the flat, suggesting that it was, in fact, faulty and water was getting into places that water wasn't supposed to get into. We're waiting for the ever-unreliable Yodel to come and pick up our old one so we can get a refund, and we purchased a combined package that included the frother thingy from John Lewis in the meantime — it worked out cheaper than buying the frother separately.

This kind of "capsule coffee" machine has been around for a while now, and I've held off looking at them until now as I was concerned that the capsules were wasteful and would end up costing significantly more than fresh-ground or instant coffee. The difference actually isn't that bad — I can't remember the exact "price per cup" it works out to offhand, but it's certainly fairly reasonable and definitely way cheaper than going to Starbucks. You also get a selection of different coffees bundled with the machine for you to try out, and we also snagged a voucher to get a bunch of money off an order from the Nespresso "coffee club", so our next order of capsules should be significantly cheaper than it would be normally! There's the mild inconvenience of having to order them and receive them through the mail rather than just nipping down the shop when you're getting low, but it's easy enough to see how many capsules you have left and prepare accordingly.

If you're in the market to become a coffee snob, then I can personally recommend the Nespresso machines as, beside our leaking problem with our first machine, they seem to be well-made pieces of kit that make good coffee and are simple to keep clean.

Too lazy to Google it? Here you go.

1086: Keep on Moving

Moving house this time around has made me realise a few things: firstly, that it's actually quite a while since I moved from one place of my own to another (my last two moves were from my parents' place to Chippenham, and prior to that from Southampton to my parents' place), and secondly, that things have changed quite a bit for the better when it comes to all the annoying things you have to do when you move.

I dread moving house every time it happens. There are many reasons for this. I don't like packing up boxes. I don't like carrying heavy boxes. I don't like discovering that the box I spent ages packing is far too heavy to carry, or that it collapses under the weight of the contents if I do manage to get it off the ground. I don't like trying to squeeze everything into a van (or, in particularly unpleasant cases, a car) and I really don't like driving a van.

But those aren't the only things you have to do when you move. They're the things that are foremost in the mind, sure, because they're the hard work, physical labour bit. But once you're in your new place, you have to deal with a whole new set of inconveniences and frustrations, mostly related to telling various utility and service companies that you are now, in fact, living in a different location.

To their credit, a lot of these companies have implemented online interfaces that allow you to tell them that you're moving and provide them with your meter readings and whatnot. This helps get around one of the things I used to dread — having to spend hours on the telephone listening to Chris de Burgh hold music and then having to deal with talking to an overly-cheerful person reading from a script and trying to convince you to stay with them. (I've moved house, asshole — I am leaving your company out of necessity.) In the case of our gas, electricity, water and phone/broadband providers, I've been able to inform them that I've moved without having to speak to anyone at all. Efficiency! It's the way of the 21st century.

For the most part, it's been great, though Andie and I are a bit miffed at BT because they delayed the installation of our broadband and phone connection without any explanation — we now have to survive until the end of the month using only our neighbour's Wi-Fi hotspot, which carries a rubbish "fair use" policy that means once we go over a certain number of minutes' usage (which seemed to be devoured alarmingly quickly) it will unceremoniously and without warning disconnect us every 30 minutes. The irony is that said hotspot is a BT service and part of the package we're paying for — if they hurried up and installed our proper broadband in our new place we wouldn't be running afoul of their stupid policies. I sent them a stroppy email today politely pointing out that by the time our broadband and phone is installed, we will have paid for a month of pretty much jack shit. Oh well. Patience is a virtue and all that — though it's infuriating to have such an unreliable connection (the iPhone and Mac in particular struggle to stay connected) when I'm trying to work from home.

Some companies don't seem to quite "get" the convenience and security of the Internet, however. Take the bank. I bank with Lloyds. Their online banking service is pretty good — it lets me manage my money, transfer money between accounts and make payments quickly and easily. Payments are transferred within a couple of hours rather than taking several days, and there are other features I could use to budget more effectively if I wanted/needed to.

The one thing you can't do? Change your address. There's a link for it, oh yes there is, but clicking it takes you to a page inviting you to print out a form and either take it into a branch or post it to them. The reason I am doing this on the Internet is because I don't want to do either of those things, jackass. Sigh. I can understand the reason for it, of course — it's presumably something to do with security and the prevention of identity theft, but given that logging into Lloyds uses two-step authentication it's already a pretty secure service, and really, do you think that sending a form through the post is actually any more secure than transmitting your information over a secure Internet connection? (Clue: It's not.)

Oh well. I guess I can't complain too much, really. At least I have some form of Internet access here, and I can walk to the bank to sort things out if and when I can be bothered. And I've successfully avoided having to use the phone for all the other stuff, so that's pretty good really.

All in all, this move has been a lot less painful than it could have been. Okay, granted, I was absent for a lot of it due to my recent jury service, and Andie sorted a bunch of stuff out for us while I was absent, but getting other stuff done has been relatively painless. And once it's all done (and our bloody Internet is installed, grumble grumble) we can really start to enjoy this new place.

Then think about moving somewhere new. Hah.

1085: Don't (Always) Ignore the Crap

I last wrote about this topic some time ago, so I figure it's time for a revisit, given what I've been playing and enjoying on my PlayStation 3 recently.

My point today is this: you shouldn't immediately dismiss stuff that is regarded as "crap" because there's every chance that if you tried it for yourself, you might just find yourself enjoying it. (Note: I'm not saying that stuff regarded as "crap" is always going to end up being good — some stuff we can all agree is shite — but in many cases it pays to go in with an open mind!)

Let's take Hyperdimension Neptunia as a timely example. Hyperdimension Neptunia received a spectacular 2/10 panning from Eurogamer's Simon Parkin, by all accounts a well-respected critic whose opinions a large number of people trust. Consequently, a lot of people didn't even bother to pick it up. This was such an issue that the (apparently considerably superior) sequel only had a limited print run and is now extremely difficult to find a copy of. (I tracked one down from Italy — European console games tend to be in English by default, perhaps with the packaging localised.)

And yet, while I can see its many flaws, I am having a lot of fun with Hyperdimension Neptunia. It's bright, brash, colourful, silly and rather entertaining despite being the sort of game some people I know would be embarrassed to be seen playing, particularly when the occasional "fanservice" images make an appearance, or every time the character Compa trips over and flashes her panties at the end of a fight. It's genuinely amusing, though — if deliberately cringeworthy at times — and packed with plenty of things to do. It combines two of my favourite styles of game — visual novel and JRPG — into one package with some really nice features. I love the ability to set custom images on "summon" spells, for example. Seeing the "I HAS A HERB" cat setting off a wind spell never gets old.

Hyperdimension Neptunia is far from the only example of a game which was poorly received but which I have ended up enjoying. In the post I linked to at the top, I mentioned Duke Nukem Forever and Alpha Protocol, both of which endured critical drubbings for various reasons — Duke for its grossout, sexist humour and Alpha Protocol for its broken gameplay aspects and appalling console versions. And yet in both cases — for I played them both to completion — I found myself having fun, being able to look past the flaws or "problematic" material and find an entertaining experience underneath. Am I somehow "wrong" to feel this way?

Well, of course I'm not. Opinions are entirely subjective, after all. I could tell you I found the critically-acclaimed movie Drive to be stultifyingly boring, for example (I did) but that doesn't stop you from enjoying it, rewatching it a bajillion times or putting it atop your "My Favourite Movies of All Time" list. Likewise, Nier's heavy reliance on fetch quests and seemingly tedious activities may cause you to switch off completely, while I found the experience to be an interesting example of a game requiring the player to "method act" the role of the protagonist, and found myself playing it obsessively as a result. We both might tell each other about how much we like our respective Things We Like, but it's unlikely we'll sway each other around to our way of thinking. And that's just fine.

The sad thing, though, is the fact that there are people out there who hold a considerable degree of influence over the public's spending decisions, and their opinion carries an undue amount of weight that might cause some people to miss out on things they might actually like. If Parkin gives Hyperdimension Neptunia 2/10, you better believe that's going to affect a large number of people's decisions as to whether they're going to buy it or not. (Probably the latter in this instance — in the notoriously top-loaded game review score scale, a score of 2/10 is theoretically reserved for an absolute stinker that is completely broken.) How many of those people whose opinion was swayed by Parkin's review would actually enjoy the game if they gave it a chance? How many people are actually going to give it a chance after reading that review?

The other thing worth mentioning particularly when it comes to titles like Hyperdimension Neptunia and Duke Nukem Forever is the fact that some critics seem to feel obliged to act as arbiters of taste and decency, when in fact everyone's tolerance for potentially "offensive" content is completely different. Both Hyperdimension Neptunia and Duke Nukem Forever attracted accusations of sexism on their original release to varying degrees of justification — the specifics of which I'm not going to get into right now because that's a whole other matter, particularly in the former's case — and these accusations negatively impacted the critic's view of the game in both instances. That's fair enough — as I said, everyone's "good taste" boundaries are different and said critics are entitled to voice those views — but when it comes to interactive entertainment, subject matter is just one part of the whole experience. And more to the point, in all forms of media, enjoying something that contains potentially objectionable subject matter doesn't imply that the person reading/watching/playing the thing in question is, by extension, a supporter of that particular viewpoint. In other words, you can like anime boobies and still see actual real-life women as actual real-life people. (I say "you" when, obviously, I mean "I".)

If you enjoy something, you enjoy something; you shouldn't feel guilt about your own tastes. Unless, you know, your "tastes" involve bludgeoning kittens, puppies and babies to death with a sledgehammer. (In real life, not in video games, obviously.) Or, you know, actively stirring up hate against a specific social group. Or just generally being a dick. Then you should probably feel a bit guilty. Basically, so long as you're not actually hurting anyone (physically or psychologically) or actively oppressing someone with the things you like, enjoy whatever you want within reason!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to plumb the depths of the bottom half of Metacritic to see what awesome experiences I can find to enjoy next…

1082: Squeakers

Apologies for the lateness of the hour, but I'm on the Very Definitely Final Dungeon in Trails in the Sky, and it was getting rather difficult to stop playing. It was one of those times where you start playing at an eminently reasonable hour in the evening, look up and it's suddenly nearly 2am. Oops. I will likely push on to the finale tonight, since it's the weekend and all.

But I don't want to talk about Trails in the Sky today. (Well, I do, but I am specifically choosing not to.) Instead I thought I'd talk a bit about our pet rats. Those who have been following for a while will remember we got Lara and Willow back in June but Willow sadly died a few months later. We left Lara on her own for a little while to see how she was, but she became much less energetic and looked very sad, so it wasn't long before we went out to try and find her a playmate.

I was a bit worried about this, as Lara and Willow knew each other and got along very well with one another despite being polar opposites personality-wise — Lara is adventurous, curious and mostly quite gentle; Willow was nervous, jumpy and had a habit of biting. (I didn't get bitten, but Andie assures me that a rat bite fucking hurts.) I'm not sure if they were related, but they certainly got along well. What would happen if we introduced a new, unknown rat into the mix?

We found out when we got Lucy, who was younger than Lara and thus about half her size when she first arrived. We introduced them to each other on "neutral territory" (the bathtub, in this case) and they both had a wander around and a bit of a sniff and didn't seem to mind each other, so we put them both in the cage to see how they got on. Lucy just hid in the corner not moving for several days, with the exception being the time she terrified us by lying down on her back and pretending to be dead to stop Lara hassling her. We were worried that Lara was being too aggressive towards her, so we tried putting Lucy in a carry box for the night so she could get some rest, but put the carry box inside the cage so that Lara could get used to her scent.

Lara's behaviour when we did that was both adorable and heartbreaking. You could see her panicking. She thought that we were taking her new friend away from her, and she was frantically scrabbling away at the box trying to get to Lucy. Lucy, meanwhile, was happily getting some rest at last. When we opened up the box in the morning, both of them were fine, and over time they got to know each other, established a pecking order and Lucy started behaving a bit more normally.

The thing that surprised me about owning rats is how much personality the pair of them have. I've never owned small furry creatures before, so I didn't know much about them. (My family had cats when I was younger, and my brother has dogs and cats, but no small furry things.) But the pair of them do obviously have different attitudes and responses to things. I'm not sure how much of this is me projecting human characteristics onto them, but it certainly looks that way, anyhow. As I said above, Lara is adventurous, curious, mostly gentle, protective of Lucy and absolutely loves coming out of the cage to explore all the nooks and crannies of the room. Lucy, meanwhile, is cheeky — there's no other word for it, really. She regularly sneaks up on Lara and tries to bite her playfully, and you can see Lara just gritting her teeth and putting up with it most times it happens, though occasionally she'll give Lucy a slap on the nose. As Lucy has grown, she has become more confident, and will hold her own in the play-fights the two of them have now rather than losing every time. She's also just started coming out of the cage to explore, though not quite as far afield as Lara just yet, and she's much more talkative than Lara, who stays quiet most of the time. Lucy, meanwhile, is always squeaking (I never knew before owning rats that they squeaked like mice!) and makes a hell of a noise when the two of them are play-fighting, which made us worry a bit the first few times they did it.

Rats are great pets, then. They're very social — they'll get up and climb up the side of the cage to come and see you if they know you're nearby or if you talk to them — and they're fun and relaxing to watch. They're amusing and entertaining once they get brave enough to step out of the cage and wander around the room, too, though they're almost impossible to catch standing still, particularly if they're female, as apparently female rats are much more inquisitive than the somewhat lazier males. It's also a bugger to get them back in the cage if you're in a hurry, but both of ours will return of their own accord when they've had enough "playtime", so I assume this is fairly common behaviour.

I'm glad we got them, in short. It's nice to have a bit of life in the house when I'm stuck here working by myself (or on evenings when Andie is elsewhere, like tonight) — it helps the place feel less "empty". I sort of wish I'd learned this a bit sooner. 🙂

1080: How These Endless "Friendzone" Rants Make Me Feel

Good morning. Today another article about "nice guys" and the concept of the "friendzone" appeared. Here it is.

Today I would like to talk about how this article made me feel.

It made me angry, and it made me want to cry.

Why? Not because I am the sort of person who exhibits those behaviours — I certainly do not expect women I am friends with to immediately jump into bed with me, particularly because I'm now in a committed, loving relationship with someone who is super-awesome — but because I recognise some of the things being described, and the fact that they are being twisted, generalised and used as a means of shaming people feels like a punch in the gut.

I don't normally talk about this stuff because it's embarrassing and difficult to talk about, but I am going to make an exception for today as a means of making my point. This article made me feel like absolute fucking shit, even though I know it was not about me. I am going to talk about my past relationships and how they came to be, though naturally I will omit names and personally-identifying details.

Some context for those who are newcomers to this blog or don't know me very well: I suffer a pretty strong degree of social anxiety, and have done since an early age. I feel enormously uncomfortable when around strangers, clam up completely when faced with the prospect of making small talk, and even, at times, find it difficult to talk to my own friends or relations.

As you might expect, these circumstances are not ideal for getting together with someone. Consequently, even as all my peers around me at school were getting into relationships, going out with people, having sex and bragging about all of the above, I was left constantly frustrated and bewildered. My already-active imagination would picture what it might be like to be in a relationship with someone — note: relationship, not simply having sex — and I'd even go so far as to imagine how those conversations might go in great detail. One of the diaries I kept as a teenager included numerous fantasy scenarios of how I might get a girl I liked to talk to me, and how I might express my feelings. Sex did not enter into this at all — I simply wanted to be with that person. (I'm aware writing fantasy conversations in itself is creepy, but I was ashamed of these entries the moment I wrote them, and inevitably ended up throwing them away immediately.)

The fact I overthought these things meant, inevitably, that I never did anything about them, and I was always absolutely mortified any time a friend of mine would tell the girl in question that I liked them. I hated myself — you can thank near-constant bullying through primary school and a fair proportion of secondary school for that — and thought that the girl discovering that I liked her "in that way" would cause her to immediately hate me because I was certain that no-one would ever want to be with me. (This never happened, of course, but it's the way my mind worked, and to a certain extent still does.)

Fast-forward a bit, and I got into my first relationship during a school production. I had got very close to a female friend of mine, and after the fact I learned that most of my friends were expecting us to get together as part of the production. However, what actually happened was that she set me up with a friend of a friend whom I didn't know very well and didn't particularly fancy. I'm not particularly proud of saying this, but I entered into that relationship because I was worried no-one else would be interested in me, and I wouldn't get another chance. (I was young. And stupid. And suffering from what I now recognise to be mental health issues.)

As it turned out, said relationship grew quite nicely over time, and I realised I actually did quite like this girl — I just didn't know her that well before we were pushed together. We did a lot together, I got on well with the rest of her family and it was all looking good.

We never had sex, though. I remember vividly "missing my chance" on this. We were sitting in her bedroom one day fooling around, and she mumbled something to me. I couldn't make out the words because she was embarrassed to say them out loud. In retrospect, it was obvious that she was saying "I really, really want to make love to you" but I was too scared to make assumptions — too wrapped up in my own self-loathing to believe that anyone would ever want to have sex with me. I asked her what she said, and to say it more clearly. She wouldn't. The moment passed.

A couple of months later, it was our school prom. We went together. We did not leave together, because she cheated on me on the dance floor with a guy she is now married to. Good on her, I guess.

My only other relationship at school was one which lasted from Monday to Friday of one week, during which time I saw my paramour precisely once and kissed her once before she decided at the end of the week that actually, she didn't want to go out with me after all, and that we should go back to being friends again. Once again, sex did not enter the equation. The fact that our relationship began at a recording of Songs of Praise may have had something to do with that. (I swear I am not making that part up.)

Fast forward to university. Early in my student career, I met someone who seemed perfect for me. We spent a ton of time together. She was constantly in my room, she was into the things I was into and we had a great time together. I knew very early in our relationship that she was someone I wanted in my life. I was attracted to her, I liked the person she was and I wanted her around as much as possible.

I said nothing. Because I was too scared. Because I hated myself. Because I thought she would hate me and think I was some sort of disgusting pervert if I said anything. Consequently, she got together with someone else, who I spent a healthy proportion of time absolutely despising as a result. (Said person is now, paradoxically, one of my closest friends. Funny how things work out.)

I liked a couple of other people at university. I even went to the effort of sending a secret Valentine to one, complete with a cuddly toy and some truly dreadful poetry. (I am never writing poetry again.) She immediately knew it was me and let me down gently. I left it at that and we continued being the friends we were before. Again, sex didn't enter into the equation. I just liked this person and wanted to be with them.

My next girlfriend at university was someone I got together with at a Christmas meal for one of the groups I was a member of. I'd never met her prior to that night, but we hit it off and were in each other's arms by the end of the night. Neither of us were the one-night stand types, though, so we went our separate ways at the end of the evening and arranged to meet up again. We went out a few times, but she dumped me after I bought her a Christmas present because it made her feel "weird". That made me feel weird.

We subsequently met up again later a few times and went out, but we eventually lost contact. To this day, I'm still not entirely sure quite what went on there, and if I could have done things anything differently. Ships in the night and all that.

I could go on, but we'd be hitting a bit close to home if I started talking about some of these other relationships. What I wanted to (hopefully) make clear by sharing some of these things is that in many cases, a dude making friends with a girl and complaining of not being able to take things any further is not always a case of "putting in kindness coins and expecting sex to fall out", as runs the phrase I've seen numerous times recently. In many cases, it is a simple case of the dude in question not knowing how to express that he would like to take things any further. In more cases than one, you can probably see that I blew my chances with someone largely as a result of my own crippling self-loathing and lack of confidence.

I have had a number of situations in my life that fall into the "friendzone" category by popular definition, and I'm fully aware they're my own fault for not expressing myself properly. But it's not a case of being a creeper, or of expecting a woman to provide me sexual gratification in exchange for my kindness — in every single fucking case I wanted an actual relationship with that person; because I wanted to be with them; because I wanted to share my life with them; because I felt we understood each other. It was not because I expected them to have sex with me. It was not because I wanted to have sex with them. I didn't express myself because I was too fucking terrified to say anything to them, because I was too fucking terrified that they would run away from me screaming if they thought I was a creep who was leching after them.

You see, herein lies my problem with articles like the one I shared at the start of this post. They are gross generalisations. There are men out there who don't know when to quit. There are men out there who have unreasonable expectations of women. There are men out there who see women purely as sex objects there for their own gratification.

I am not one of them.

But every time I read one of these endless fucking "friendzone" articles that uses a lot of words to say almost nothing we haven't seen a hundred times already, I feel like shit. I feel like a creep. I feel like a piece of sub-human scum. Why? Because I recognise some of the situations being described. I have been in some of the situations described. And yet, apparently, the following quote from the above article is universally How It Is:

Here’s the hard truth, Friendzone. You’re not a nice guy. You are a gutless, pathetic, sad, horny little worm who’s too afraid of rejection to just tell a woman how you really feel.

Yes. Yes I am. Yes, I am a gutless, pathetic, sad, horny little worm who is too afraid of rejection to tell a woman how I really feel. Do you know why I am afraid of rejection? Because I hate myself. Because the early part of my life was spent with people reinforcing my own self-hatred through near-constant bullying and harassment. Though those days may be long gone, the mental scars remain. And every time you say shit like the above, even though it may not be intended to be about me specifically, I take it personally. And it hurts. And it makes me angry. And it makes me want to cry.

It hurts even more when you make the assumption that I am afraid of rejection purely because I want sex. As I have hopefully outlined above, in every single case I was the one who wanted an actual relationship but found myself unable to express it properly. I'm pretty sure I can't be the only person in the world who feels like this, so every time you publicly shame "friendzone guys" like this, you run the risk of doing some very real damage to what is probably already a very fragile sense of self-esteem and self-worth for those people you have inadvertently and inconsiderately lumped in to your catch-all descriptions. While you may cause some of the creepers to re-evaluate their behaviour and start behaving in a less misogynistic manner — though personally I feel it is unlikely that they will read anything like the article above and take it to heart — you're just as likely to make people who already lack confidence to never ever want to put themselves out there. (Those are the people who will read the articles.)

I am very fortunate in that after my last relationship — which led to marriage — fell apart and nearly destroyed me completely, I found someone who loves me for who I am, respects me and is a good match for me. Not everyone is so lucky. If I were still alone right now, I don't want to think about how awful I'd be feeling. Fortunately, instead I find myself on the way back up from the bottom rather than slowly sliding into the abyss.

So just fucking stop it with the "friendzone" and "nice guy" articles. Please. We get it.

(As an aside, I would like to stop writing about this now because I know it's probably quite tiresome to read. But in this instance I felt it important to respond to the article linked above. I will return to writing about something more entertaining tomorrow. Hopefully. None of you die or anything in the next 24 hours.)

1079: It's 2013

Welcome to the first day of a new year. Doesn't feel much different, does it? That's because it isn't, really, yet we ascribe such huge importance to the December 31/January 1 changeover that you'd believe the world ended and was subsequently reborn every New Year's Eve.

I've seen a number of people expressing such cynical sentiments recently, and they do sort of have a point. But at the same time it's quite nice to have a relatively arbitrary place to draw a line under everything and say "right — that's enough of that, time to move on with new and better things."

I do it myself, as you've probably noticed. I refer to 2010 as a "bad year" because it was largely memorable for the bad things that happened in it. 2011 and 2012 were relatively unremarkable throughout their duration, with relatively little to distinguish the two of them, and yet here, now, on January 1, 2013, I still find myself looking forward to a new year as if something is going to be magically different. And yet we all know it's probably going to be the same old, same old for the most part, because those big changes in the world take significant amounts of time.

This is true of new year's resolutions, too. While it's admirable to use the start of a new year as a "starting line" for a new challenge, many people are a bit unrealistic about their own expectations of themselves. "I'll get fit," they'll say. "I'll lose weight." It's not that simple — those aren't behaviours that you can just "turn on", sadly, otherwise life would be much easier for the fatties of the world. It takes time to change, and it's easy to fall off the wagon. Believe me, I know.

As such, I'm not going to make any grand, sweeping statements about what I will or won't achieve in the coming year. It would be nice if I could get fit and lose some weight, but I know from past experience that neither of those things are particularly easy. There are plenty of other things I would like to achieve, too, but none of those are easy, either. As such, setting unrealistic expectations for myself is only going to set me up for future disappointment. Much better to set some long-term targets and use the year to at least start working on them, even if they do not come to complete fruition in a single year. After all, unexpected things have a habit of throwing spanners in the work. Best-laid plans and all that.

As such, here are some things I am going to make a start on (or, in some cases, revisit) in 2013, with no promises of any of them actually being finished in 2013:

I will do some form of exercise at least twice a week. I've had a hefty period off from running, gymming or indeed anything — a combination of depression and a general lack of motivation sapped my inclination towards doing these things towards the end of the year. Now I'm in our new place, I will make an effort to use at least two days in the week for sweaty purposes. I anticipate this will primarily take the form of taking my bike to Southampton Common, which is very near our house and eminently suitable for cycling around.
I will work on my visual novel book. I have already made a start on this, and now I'm a bit more settled, I'm in a position where I can devote some time to it regularly.
I will make a game. It will be a small-scale, not-overly ambitious game made with RPG Maker, and it will probably be rubbish. But I will use my writing skills and creativity to make something I can show to other people. If I find myself able to make said game relatively quickly, I might even make another one that is better.
I will play the piano several times per week. I have had relatively little motivation to make music for a while (again, partly due to depression and whatnot) but I will regularly settle down and attempt to get my skills back up to scratch.
I will see my friends more often. I am fed up of being a hermit. I know I am not an especially social person, and social anxiety doesn't make that any easier, but I would like to see my friends more often — for coffee, food, board games, video games, whatever. I am in the right place to do it, so I will take full advantage of that where possible.

I also have a more concrete target in mind, but I will keep that to myself for the moment, and perhaps share it in the near future.

For now, after an exhausting couple of days, I think I need a rest. Back to regular working days tomorrow for me — if you, too, are heading back to work, I hope you've had a suitably relaxing break and are ready to go back to the grindstone. And for everyone, I hope you had a wonderful (or at least tolerable) New Year celebration — here's to 2013 being a good one. Cheers!

1078: Things I Hope We See the Back of in 2013

As I noted yesterday, 2012 was a reasonable year, if a relatively unremarkable one. However, it did play host to a number of trends that really, really need to fuck the fuck off. Here is a selection of my picks for things that I would very much like to not see any more next year.

Gangnam Style

LOOK! LOOK AT THE FUNNY KOREAN MAN! HE DANCING! HAHAHAHAHA

No. Fuck off. When your "viral sensation" gets performed on X-Factor, you know it has officially jumped the shark.

The phrase "jumped the shark"

I can remember it now, but I originally had to look this up five or six times before I could actually remember what it meant. It is a Happy Days reference, for heaven's sake. Is there not something a bit more, you know, timely you could refer to? Or perhaps just say what you mean? Speaking of which…

Using the term "nice guy" to mean "creep"

I have ranted at length on this subject before so I will spare you that this time and simply say that by doing this you are simply perpetuating the stereotype that people who describe themselves as "nice guys" are creeps and rapists-in-training. Some of them are creeps, to be sure, but some of them are simply shy people with poor social skills. I count myself in the latter category, and have referred to myself as a "nice guy" in the past, and now feel hideously guilty about that. So quit tarring everyone with the same brush and find a new term to describe creepy guys who make women feel uncomfortable, regardless of what they call themselves. I suggest "creepy guys who make women feel uncomfortable" or perhaps just, you know, "creeps". Capitalising Nice Guy or adding a ™ is not an acceptable way of creating a new term.

Reducing complex sociological issues to binary debates

This is apparent when you look at a number of different issues in today's sociological climate, but it's particularly evident any time someone starts talking about sexism and/or feminism. If you're not in support of the most vocal, outspoken, ranty people who are standing up against sexism, you're a misogynist. If you are someone who speaks out against sexism, regardless of whether or not you're being obnoxious in your arguing techniques, you're a "feminazi". If you try and have a reasoned, rational debate on this subject, you're "part of the problem". There are no shades of grey here.

(Clarification that I am annoyed I feel obliged to include: My beliefs: sexism is bad, regardless of who it is directed towards. Women are awesome. Men are equally awesome. If the world learned this and treated people accordingly, it would be a much nicer place. Yelling incoherently at people is not the same as re-educating them.)

"dot TXT" Twitter accounts

NaNoWriMo participants, fanfic authors and bloggers are all pretty brave to put their work out there for public scrutiny, so how do you think they might feel about having extracts of things they have written or said quoted out of context, posted to Twitter and then retweeted to all and sundry? Yeah. Cut that shit out. On the subject…

Public shaming

Twitter users like "@fart" spend an awful lot of time trawling the social network for examples of things like "ungrateful teens" at Christmas, retweeting what is apparently their most offensive tweet and then, as a bit of frantic backpedaling, encouraging their followers not to harass these people. (I'm aware @fart isn't the only one, but he's certainly one of the most well-known.) Sites like BuzzFeed then collect together these tweets and post them as evidence of "first world problems" and other such bullshit. An example was here, but it has since been removed by the author, perhaps partly as a result of this article on Slate.

Public shaming of people for things like this is a horrible way to behave that makes you little more than a bully — especially in cases such as this, where we see that all is not necessarily as it first appears. Call people out if they are genuinely being publicly offensive, sure, but don't hold them up for ridicule.

Tumblr

Back in 2008, I posted this short entry in which I lamented the fact I didn't really know what Tumblr was for or why anyone would want to use it. Now I know: it's for telling the world how awful white people, men, and white men are. The second a white person says something stupid, you can count on there being a Tumblr for it within a matter of minutes, which runs whatever "joke" there was well and truly into the ground, often setting world records for how quickly it can make grumpy people like me want to set fire to anyone who makes such a reference.

White straight cis male guilt

Much of the above leads to white straight cis male guilt. (If you don't know what "cis" means, it is an abbreviation of "cisgender", which is where an individual's self-perceived gender matches their sex, and the opposite of "transgender". I had to look it up, despite the number of people who are now using it regularly, often in an attempt to make themselves look super-socially aware.) Being a white straight cis male is not anything to be ashamed of, but from the number of people who preface pieces of work by seemingly apologising for being the person they are, you'd think it was the worst thing in the world. The white straight cis male viewpoint is just as valid as the black gay transgender female perspective, and nothing to feel guilty about.

The only thing you should feel guilty about is not giving viewpoints other than your own the time of day, regardless of your ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, sex and any other factors. You can give respect to viewpoints other than your own without diminishing the relevance of your own contributions.

Variations on that Keep Calm and Carry On poster

If I never have to see an "amusing" poster that says "Keep Calm and [something that isn't Carry On]" again in 2013 and beyond, I will be happy. Indeed, if I never see a piece of merchandise that has the original "Keep Calm and Carry On" slogan on it again in 2013 and beyond, I will be happy. For those who were unaware, the original poster was put out in very limited quantities in 1939 to raise the morale of the British public in the face of the rise of the Nazis, and was subsequently rediscovered in 2000, at which point it exploded and was everyfuckingwhere. Ironically, the reaction on seeing a "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster is now a crushing sense of distress at the state of the modern world rather than a feeling of increased morale.

Data limits

We're living in the future. We really are. We carry around gizmos in our pocket that are straight out of Star Trek, and yet our usage of them is artificially limited by mobile phone companies' desire to squeeze as much money out of us as possible. That didn't happen in Star Trek.

Negativity towards new tech

The new consoles that have been released recently — 3DS, Vita and Wii U — were all met with negativity upon their initial release. The situation with 3DS has improved somewhat, but Vita is still struggling a bit, and it's too early to say with Wii U so far. These are all great bits of kit that, in many cases, don't deserve the beatdowns they get. In 2013 I'd like to see a much greater focus on the things that these systems do well, and things that people who have bought one can appreciate, rather than endless Why Not To Buy One pieces.

Sales figures being equated to whether something is any good or not

People don't like buying stuff that isn't selling (see: Vita) but this doesn't mean that those things aren't actually any good. The Vita (sorry to keep harping on about it, but it's a good example) is a gorgeous piece of kit, but people are ignoring this arguably more important fact because its sales figures aren't very good.

Fact: pretty much everything I've enjoyed this year has been a "niche" title that hasn't been designed to sell in massive quantities. Not everything has to be a blockbuster.

Unnecessary mobile social networking apps

If you're considering seeking funding for a new mobile app that "lets you Like anything!" or is yet another Instagram ripoff then just stop. Now. No-one is going to use your product for more than five minutes. Before you design your app consider whether or not the world really needs it or would at least find it somehow beneficial. If the answer to either of those questions is "no", then reconsider what you are doing.

Blind reposting

This has been a particular issue on Facebook this year. People see something that they think is amazing (like that supposed Morgan Freeman quote on the school shooting) and then blindly reshare it to their Facebook friends without checking to see whether or not it's actually true. It subsequently spreads and spreads and spreads, because very few people along the way bother to fact-check it. When someone does fact-check it, discovers it to be bollocks and says so, they are often lambasted. "It does no harm," people will say. "It's a nice quote, does it matter who said it?"

Well, perhaps not in the case of a thought-provoking quote misattributed to Morgan Freeman, but when you see the massive virality of scaremongering posts accusing, say, Red Bull of containing a chemical that causes brain tumours, that's when you can hopefully start to see where the problem lies.

Let me introduce you to Snopes.com. If something sounds suspiciously like bollocks, it probably is, so check it out on Snopes.

____

I could go on but I've already written nearly 1,500 words so far. I think if all of the above just went and vanished in time for the new year, I'd be happy for maybe a few days at least. Then something new will undoubtedly come along to irritate me, and I can write another post like this on December 31, 2013. See you then.

(Actually, I'll see you tomorrow, but you know.)

Oh, and happy new year for later, I guess.

1077: New Year's Honours

I know it's December 30, but I'm out for New Year's Eve tomorrow night (just at a friend's house — I don't really do obnoxiously loud, drunken parties any more) and probably won't feel particularly inclined to write a lot tomorrow evening. So I thought I'd look back on the year that was, as is traditional for regular bloggers to do around this time of year.

Actually, looking back, I didn't really do that at this time last year. Instead I apparently wrote a bit about the board game Pandemic, The Old Republic (was it really a year ago I was playing that and actually enjoying it before the move to suffocating free-to-play pretty much removed everyone's desire to ever play it ever again?), Minecraft and insomnia. (The above subjects may be somewhat related.) This leads me to believe that the year that was in that instance (being 2011) was not something especially worth looking back on.

And is this year? As I've been writing these first few paragraphs, I've been pausing occasionally to consider this question. Was 2012 in any way notable or interesting? It certainly wasn't a "bad" year as such — no, 2010 had that pretty much covered and thankfully I haven't had a year that bad since — but neither was it a particularly exciting year. I guess that's sort of good, though — if the most you can say about a year as it is ending is that it just sort of passed by relatively without incident, then I suppose that's a good thing.

There were good things, of course. The fact that I'm sitting in a flat/apartment/whateverthefuckyouwanttocallit in Southampton — a place I've been trying to get back to ever since 2010 went and fucked everything up — is testament to the fact that Things Are Going Sort of All Right, Really, and I'll certainly take Things Are Going Sort of All Right, Really over Things Are Going Really Fucking Terribly and I Just Want to Cry All Day and All Night. I've done both, and I don't recommend the latter.

But yes. The move back "home" to Southampton is a big positive step. I am now within walking, biking or short driving distance from the vast majority of my friends that I would like to see much more often, which makes me feel good. Okay, none of them have come to visit me yet, but I think I can excuse that, what with it being a rather busy and chaotic time of year and all. Also, delaying their arrival a little increases the chances that we will have got rid of the hundreds and thousands of massive cardboard boxes that are seemingly breeding in this place as we unpack stuff and assemble new pieces of furniture. (We now own a new wardrobe. It's a bit bigger than we initially thought, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as the rooms in this place are pleasingly large.)

What else happened in the last year? I did jury service for the first (and hopefully last) time, in which I got to see how the court system worked for a relatively major case which had to be subsequently abandoned and restarted at some indefinite point in the future. It was an interesting experience, though I would have enjoyed it more if I had a regular job in this country I could just easily take time off from, was not suffering with some sort of hideous plague and was not in the process of moving house (and consequently spending several nights sleeping on the floor of a house with no furniture in it). As I predicted it might do, jury service prompted an immediate re-examination of my life and consideration of whether or not law would be Something Interesting to Look Into.

Regarding Something Interesting to Look Into: this is an occasional crisis of confidence I have at various points in my life where I wonder whether or not I'm on the "right" path career-wise. I've been back and forth over a few careers, after all — classroom teacher, private music teacher (though that was never enough to support myself on), retail store employee, software trainer, regular contributor on a mainstream video games site, regular contributor on a specialist social/mobile games site — and frequently find myself pondering what next steps might be. Where do I go? Do I want to go there? Should I stay doing what I'm doing — which is comfortable, fun, relatively challenging and something that I'm good at — or should I do some sort of complete (early) mid-life crisis turnaround, retrain as something that I'm not currently and make a career out of that? I honestly don't know. But now's not really the time to be thinking about that.

It's funny. When I titled this post "New Years Honours" I anticipated that I was going to be able to make a list of Specific Happenings in 2012 that were particularly noteworthy, but this has turned into something of a ramble, really. I apologise. Still, it's something to think about.

All right, let's make a list of a few things just to round things out.

Best Video Games I Played: School Days HQ, Katawa Shoujo, Trails in the Sky, Pandora's Tower, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, The Walking Dead

Best Wee I Did: Friday morning this week, it was well over a minute long.

Favourite Technology Purchase: My Novatech laptop, which runs everything from visual novels to TrackMania 2 in relatively portable form without a hitch.

Most Pleasing Restaurant Chain Discovery: Yo! Sushi — I don't care how authentic it is/isn't, it's delicious.

Medium I Abandoned Completely and Don't Feel Any Regrets About: Movies.

Medium I Embraced Wholeheartedly and Don't Feel Any Regrets About: Anime. Also visual novels.

Amount I Earned by Emptying my Small Change into the Coinstar Machine in Sainsburys: About £80

Amount I Earned by Music Magpie-ing Almost my Entire CD Collection (Except for the Stuff They Wouldn't Take Like Spice Girls and Other Stuff That Escapes Me Right Now): About £80

Amount I Anticipate I Will Probably Get for Selling My Knackered Old Car Next Year: About £80

Most Expensive Purchase: New sofa

Most Expensive Purchase That is Probably Impossible to Get Into Our New Flat: New sofa

Meme I'm Most Sick Of: Grumpy Cat

Number of People I've Blocked on Twitter for Arguing Too Aggressively or Unreasonably (Not Necessarily Towards Me): Too many to count

Number of Completely Unnecessary Mobile Social Networking Apps I Have Encountered in the Course of my Job This Year: Too many to count

What I Can Smell Right Now: Smoked mackerel

What I am Going to Do After This Blog Post: Make a warm milk, go to bed, play Trails in the Sky.

Why I am Still Thinking of Things to Put in This List When I've Clearly Run Out of Ideas: I don't know.

Good night.

1076: My Favourite T-Shirts

[Author's Note: This post is a response to my girlfriend's accusations that posts about video games are "boring". She wants "boring", I'll show her "boring".]

[Supplementary Note: Both she and I are joking. But I'm still going to write about My Favourite T-Shirts just because I can.]

I have a lot of T-shirts. I primarily wear T-shirts. I work from home so, to be honest, you're lucky if I get dressed at all for my average working day, but most days I do manage to cover up my disgusting hairy flabby body with some form of cloth-based accoutrements that generally take the form of jeans and a T-shirt. Consequently, I have collected a wide variety of T-shirts over the years, relatively few of which I have actually paid for.

The reason for this is that, as many of you will know, my brother is one John Davison, veteran of the games industry and, at various points in his life, a member of the staff of publications as diverse as Games-X, Mega Drive Advanced Gaming, PC Player, PC Zone, Electronic Gaming Monthly, the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, 1up.com, What They Play, GamePro, Gamespot and doubtless some others I've missed along the way. (Kudos if you recognise the earlier ones, incidentally.)

Why is this relevant? Well, because as anyone currently working in the games industry knows, working on a mag or website means freebies. Freebies are somewhat ridiculed these days, with wearing a freebie T-shirt to a professional engagement seen as a big ol' faux pas, but I've never had a particular problem with people wearing them, largely because I spent a healthy proportion of my childhood wearing them. Nowadays, the ones that still fit (which is quite a few, due to the fact that freebie T-shirts inevitably come in gigantic sizes) have a certain degree of retro charm about them, though I must confess that many of them have fallen by the wayside and/or into the bin over the years.

So, then, without further ado, here are my Top Five Favourite T-Shirts.

The "More Drinks Kevin" MDK T-Shirt

I like this T-shirt (which I don't have a picture of, I'm afraid) for two reasons: 1) it bewilders people who have no idea why my T-shirt says "MORE DRINKS KEVIN?" on the front and "MDK" on the back and 2) it has long sleeves, meaning it's nice and warm. This is, I think, the only T-shirt from the numerous freebies my brother gave me over the years that I actually still have. It has survived my numerous house moves, the collapse of my life a couple of years ago and my subsequent clawing back to my current status of "not doing too badly, thanks." I don't wear it that often, but it's a nice reminder of simpler times.

Rattlesnake! Theatre Group Official Shirt

I have two of these (and no pictures right now) and they are among my most-worn T-shirts. They are old, grotty and horrible and really only suitable for bumming around the house in, but I like them a lot because they remind me of one of my favourite times of my life — going to the Edinburgh Fringe with the Southampton University Theatre Group (which we inexplicably redubbed "Rattlesnake!" temporarily for the trip) and putting on two shows for two weeks.

Persona 4

I have a Persona 4 T-shirt. It doesn't fit very well so I don't wear it very often, but I like it. It came free with my copy of the game. It is bright yellow (the kind that is not just "yellow" but "YELLOW!") and features a minimalist TV design with colour stripes and the "You Are Not Me" phrase from the game.

"FK In The Coffee"

I have a lot of time for anyone who enjoyed Deadly Premonition, because Deadly Premonition was brilliant. Consequently, anyone who successfully identifies the reference on this T-shirt is destined to be a lifelong friend.

Minimalist Pony T-Shirt

I like this T-Shirt because it allows me to declare myself as a card-carrying Brony to people who are "in the know", while to others it simply looks like some sort of retro pixelated design. I'll let those of you who haven't seen this type of T-shirt before into a secret: the key is in the colours.

Those are my favourite T-shirts. I hope you liked them.

[Supplementary note: I'm not sure these actually are my favourite T-shirts, but they're the first ones that sprang to mind that were vaguely interesting. I have a lot of T-shirts. Maybe if this post proves popular I'll share some more. Won't that be nice? Yes, yes it will. Now I am going to bed. Good night.]