#oneaday, Day 170: The Pile

Ever have one of those days where every little thing that is bothering you builds up into a mountainous heap and eventually ends up collapsing on your head? Today was one of those days. Every little and big thing that's been stressing me out attacked me all at once and beat me down until I really felt like I couldn't take any more. I had what could probably be scientifically-inaccurately-described as a mini-breakdown earlier. Pretty much a solid half an hour of really, really not being able to deal with anything. It's not a nice feeling. Half an hour isn't a huge amount out of a day. But it feels like a lifetime while it's happening. Thoughts flit in and out of your head, images of things that are going to happen, things that have happened, things you fear. Then they're gone before you can grasp them and deal with them, replaced by something else. The mental noise is awful, and relentless.

Eventually, it passes, of course, and you're left with a feeling of "what the fuck was that for?" It doesn't make experiencing it any easier. If anything, it leads to residual feelings of self-doubt, guilt and of course it does nothing for the self-esteem to know that you're the person who lets himself get beaten down by all the things that are happening.

That's stupid. Anyone undergoing a difficult situation that they've never been through before is sure to feel at least some of these things. So why feel guilty about it? Why feel doubt? Why think it makes you a worse person for letting go at the wrong minute and thinking "whoa… shit, I can't actually handle this"? No-one has infinite strength, however much they might want it, however much they might try, however much they might try punching the Konami code into various parts of their body.

It has to get easier… right?

I certainly hope so. Because right now, I don't feel like I'm making any progress. I'm no nearer getting a job than I was months ago. I'm alone. I'm in a place I can't afford to live in. I don't know where to move to because I don't have a job. And it turns out I am not dealing all that well with residual feelings of bitterness, resentment and anger. I don't like the person that these feelings make me into. He's weak, angry and cries a lot. He comes and goes. But he's always back again at some point, triggered by some stupid little thing. And it's getting to be too much.

I want these feelings to stop. I want my life back.

No. I want a new life. One that involves the important people from this life, and discards those things which have dragged me down into the mud time and time again.

I'm trying to make it happen. I'm trying.

It's got to start working soon. Right?

#oneaday, Day 169: Wrong Again, Internet

If you've been on the Internet at all for the past couple of days, you've probably seen at least one person make the assertion that at some point in Back to the Future, Doc Brown sets the clock in the DeLorean to a date 25 years in the future. That date is supposedly today. Or possibly yesterday.

This rumor is a nice thought, so everyone has been retweeting it like crazy. Pity it's unlikely to be true, since the BTTF movies were set in 1985, 1955, 2015 and 1855. None of those are 25 years in the future from the film's original release date. The closest is 2015. But that's clearly 5 years away.

The interesting thing about this is how quickly it spread across the Internet without a shred of proof to back it up. No-one, at the time of writing, has posted a still from the film. Not even a bad Photoshop job. But somehow, everyone's just accepted this blindly.

I know that ultimately it doesn't really matter in this case, but isn't it a little scary that thousands, possibly millions of people across the world blindly stated this as fact without bothering to question it or research it?

Twitter is like a global game of Chinese Whispers sometimes. All it takes is one influential tweeter to post something contentious and the world will jump on it. Sometimes this is a good thing – the huge display of generosity from the public upon the death of Frank Sidebottom's creator Chris Sievey, for example, raising well over £20,000 for his funeral costs.

And sometimes this is a bad thing. How many times has Twitter been swept by false announcements of someone's death? It's a common joke now that any time someone's name comes up in the Trending Topics that they might have died.

What happens if something seriously untrue spreads this way though? Serious accusations about someone in high office? Reports of a disaster which never happened? Earth-shattering news which is just an outright lie?

It's an alarmist way of looking at things, of course. But the Internet has proved time and time again that it can make the most stupid shit into a star, or the most outlandish fact seem like reality.

So think before you RT, kids! Winners don't use Wikipedia!

#oneaday, Day 168: Into Dreams

I was awoken this morning by the conclusion of a peculiar and very realistic-feeling dream. The details of said dream are fading a little now, making me wish I'd written this post sooner. But I shall attempt to explain what I remember. There's not actually that much.

I was in the dining room of my parents' house. I believe it was the dining room as it looked some years ago, i.e. when I was a kid, not how it looks now. It hasn't changed that much, but there's been a few additions, such as a couple of clocks and chairs that used to belong to my grandparents. Those things weren't there in the dream, at least I don't think so. Oh, does it matter? Probably not. The main point of the dream was not that I was in my parents' dining room. It was the fact that I was in there with two other people, the identities of which have slipped out of my mind for now. But I believe they were people you wouldn't expect to be doing what we were doing.

No, not that. Get your mind out of the gutter, you disgusting pervert.

We were singing. Specifically, we were singing Silent Night. A cappella. With improvised harmonies and counter-melodies. It was hauntingly beautiful in that slightly sinister and aggressive way that male voice choirs tend to be. As soon as the song finished, I woke up on the sofa I'd been sleeping on after a night of babysitting. (I know, right. Hardcore Saturday nights for the win.)

Bizarre. But not the most bizarre dream I've ever had.

I used to have several peculiar recurring dreams as a child. Both of them are utterly nonsensical in the way that only a child's dreams can be. I haven't had any recurring dreams like that for a long time. I actually kind of miss them a bit. Sort of. Although one of them was a bit scary.

The first involved a cuddly-toy pyjama case I had as a kid. This pyjama case was a brown bear from America and as such was appropriately named American Brown Bear. He was a cheerful-looking sort of bear; a bit skinny when he didn't have any pyjamas in his stomach, but otherwise he was fairly happy and smiley. So I have no idea why I found him so terrifying at night. Or indeed where this dream about him came from.

It would always be the same. I'd dream that I woke up and needed to get out of bed for some reason; perhaps to go to the toilet, or get a drink or something like that. Perhaps the context changed. But the need to get out of bed is a constant.

When I was a kid, I slept in a bedroom that required passing by a window to get from the bed to the door. In the dream, when I passed the window, American Brown Bear would leap out and shout something indecipherable which to this day I haven't worked out what it actually was, but sounded awfully like "MRS LINCOLN PUPPIES!", which of course makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This is, of course, leaving aside the fact that my pyjama case was talking to me.

There was never any sort of satisfying conclusion to the dream. It usually woke me up. I never did find out what it meant.

The second recurring dream was more surreal. Yes, more.

I'd wake up in the dream and I'd be in a strange landscape. It'd always be night-time, the sky a shade of dark navy blue with stars and a crescent moon. It always looked more like an artist's rendition of "night-time" rather than a realistic image. I believe it may well have been based on the image there was in a print of a painting we had on our landing. I forget the name of it or indeed who it was by. But I have a feeling that was the kind of image.

Anyway, that wasn't the weird thing. The weird thing was the fact that there was a silhouette of a tree in the distance (which I was shocked to discover ended up marking the end point of the first level of Flower on the PS3—yes, it totally was the same tree and I wasn't just projecting my childhood memories onto it at all, dammit) and in front of the tree there was a field I had to get through. Yes, had to. Because I really needed to get to that tree. I don't know why, and I never did. Because the field in question was made of strawberry mousse, high up to the height of those fields of sunflowers you see in zombie movies. Strawberry fields forever, quite literally. The only way through was to eat it. I could have dug through, probably, but I'd get my hands all sticky.

Inevitably, I'd end up getting lost, despite reaching the tree only necessitating travelling in a straight line for a considerable period of time. At the point I got lost, I'd rise up above the mousse-field and see how far I had to go, and the path I'd carved (eaten). It always twisted and turned inexplicably, and I was never anywhere near the tree. Then I'd wake up.

So there you are. Childhood recurring dreams… nightmares, whatever. Perhaps they might explain a few things? Or perhaps not.

#oneaday, Day 167: Introversion and Chaos

I'm an introvert. For many nerds, that comes with the territory. Enjoying the more cerebral pursuits that life has to offer often means enduring the ridicule of the "cool kids" who are into things like drinking, smoking and fighting. At least it did. As computers and the Internet have become more and more widespread over the years, there are certain things it's more socially "acceptable" to do nowadays. Video games. Communicating online. That sort of thing.

But for nerds of a certain age such as myself, we grew up in a time when it was less socially acceptable to proclaim yourself a gamer. And this meant a certain degree of withdrawal, leading to introversion. This is a gross oversimplification, of course. But it's a contributing factor in the whole shebang.

Introversion has its benefits. Being able to picture situations in your mind and mentally run through conversations is, at times, a useful skill to have. At other times, it's a pain in the ass. Especially when you know there's an important conversation you need to have. You end up thinking about all the things you know you really need and want to say, and then end up not saying any of them.

Sometimes you do say them, and the conversation you played out in your mind doesn't go the way you expected it to. This can be good. Or it can be very bad. In my past experience, conversations I've "rehearsed" in my head are almost inevitably completely wrong by the time it comes to actually have them. This may be down to me not saying the things I thought I would. Or it may be a surprising reaction from the other person.

One thing's for sure: there's so much chaos in the world that it's ridiculous to try and predict what will happen before it's happened. When I think of things that have happened recently, there are a whole string of events which could have very easily not happened had I not made one particular choice.

One of my newest friends, for example. Had I not downloaded the Gowalla geotagging app for the iPhone, and had I not allowed a few random locals to add me as friends on it, and had I not looked at one of those locals' profiles and found she had a Twitter page, and had I not followed her on Twitter, and had I not spoken to her on Twitter, and had I not gone to that first Tweetup I'd gone to, I wouldn't be sitting on the sofa I'm currently sitting on writing this. That's a peculiar thing to think about. It would have been so easy to miss any of those steps, and to think, missing one of those steps would have been an enormous life change. But they were little things; instinctive things. I didn't rehearse them. I just did them. And things turned out pretty well there.

There's a lesson to be learned in this somewhere, I'm sure. Be more impulsive? Say what you mean? Grow a pair?

Yep. All of those things. I'm working on it.

#oneaday, Day 166: Affirmations

In the interests of positivity, I've decided to compile a list of my best qualities. Please feel free to contribute to this list through the medium of dance. Or comments.

I'm a good person. I don't like to see other people suffer. I don't like to cause suffering. Even if the person who is suffering is someone I don't particularly like.
I have a strong sense of justice. If something goes badly for someone else, I'll always do my damndest to help them out in any way I can.
I'm a good listener. I may not be great with the giving of advice, but I'm someone who always has time to listen to a friend.
I'm creative. You know that, otherwise you wouldn't be here.
I'm musical. Piano. Clarinet. Saxophone. A short foray into ensemble singing. Now you know, if you didn't already.
I'm a great writer. I can adapt my style to the situation. I can write incredibly quickly. And I don't make stupid mistakes. Except occasional typos.
I have used a semicolon correctly at least ten times in the last week. See previous point.
I'm a survivor. I have been through a shower of shit over the last 18 months. And I'm not dead. I don't know how this happened. But it has. I'm not out of the woods yet, but going on past experience, eventually I'll make it out of the other side.
I'm honest. I'm one of the most honest people I know. If I'm talking to someone I trust, they can rely on the fact that I'll always tell them the truth.
I'm understanding. Got a problem of some sort? I'm not about to judge you for it. And if I can help you deal with it, I will.
I'm funny. Sometimes. More so when writing than in person. Nothing worse than telling a joke in person and no-one laughing.
I appreciate and value my friends. Even if I don't see them that often.
I have superhuman strength. I can punch a car clean across the street.
I have an eye for the "picturesque". I can spot a good photograph quickly.
I'm a fast learner. I get double XP when learning something new. Particularly if it's computer-related.
I'm a nerd. And everyone knows nerds are the best, nicest people.
I'm passionate. If I believe in something, I'll battle for that belief.
I have a wild imagination. I can picture situations easily. Both realistic and fantastic.
I can communicate with rodents. They tell me where to find hidden treasure. Unfortunately, they're not very good at finding decent treasure that isn't cheese or socks.
I like to try new things. I won't resist doing something just because it's something I've never done before or I'm not familiar with. Unless there's raw onion in it.
I can see both sides to things. Particularly when it comes to things like fanboy arguments.
I'm tolerant. I don't judge anyone based on their age, gender, race, sexuality, religion, anything. Everyone is their own person and deserves to be treated as such.
I'm committed. If I say I'll commit to something, I won't ever give up. Ever.

That'll do for now. I'm not sure if "able to remain coherent at 3AM" should be on that list or not.

It's easy to forget the good things about yourself sometimes when you're in a situation that makes you think the very worst of yourself. So I'll try to remember and add to this list in those times when it all gets a bit too much to handle.

I'd also like to add for any prospective employers reading that all of the above qualities make me an eminently attractive addition to your company. Assuming your company isn't lame.

#oneaday, Day 165: I'll Job You In A Minute

The astute amongst you will have noticed from the frequency of my tweeting, Facebook updating and the fact I had time to draw several cack-handed Paintbrush portraits of a few friends today that I still am not in possession of gainful employment. The supply teaching seems to have dried up, too—and yes, I am chasing them up before anyone even thinks about nagging me about it—so there's not a lot to do each day except do the rounds on the Internet desperately trying to see if there are any jobs worth doing.

Job hunting, as I've said before, is a distressing, depressing experience. Jump onto a jobseekers' website and you're confronted with the possibility of "OMG THOUSANDZ OF JOBZ 2 CHOOSE FROM!!" and only then do you realise you have absolutely no idea what sector you're qualified to work in. A huge list of job types appear in front of you, and not one of them seems to quite fit with what you want to do. Am I interested in "Printing and Publishing"? Or "Media"? Or "New Media"? Or "Web Content"? Or "Information Technology"? God knows.

So you tick all the boxes. Then you get told you're only allowed to tick three at a time. So you pick the three that you think are most relevant and tell it to search. It soon becomes apparent why you're only allowed to tick three boxes. That's because ticking just three boxes gives you roughly thirty-two thousand listings to look through, the vast majority of which are miscategorised. That's not a word, according to the spellchecker, but I'm officially coining it here and now.

I digress. The fact is that there's a ton of jobs listed that have nothing to do with the categories they're listed in. How is an "IT Sales Executive" anything to do with the "Travel and Tourism" sector? Answer: it's not. Bored or underhanded recruiters simply inserted the job listing into EVERY category to ensure it gets seen, thereby making the whole category selection process in the search procedure utterly meaningless.

"Use the keyword search!" you may say. But the truth is, I have no idea what keywords to search for. I look for "writer" and all manner of unrelated nonsense comes up. I look for "journalist" and all the PR jobs which say "this post is not suitable for a journalist" come up. I look for "KILL ME NOW" and a job in Asda comes up. I may have made that last one up.

It occurred to me today that a lot of the work I've done recently—paid and otherwise—has come about via social networking. My current regular gig writing news for Kombo came about through a friend who worked on the side – the fine and hairy Mr Jeff Grubb – and my past work on promotional materials for Good Old Games also came about via responses to tweets.

Are we getting to the stage where the traditional job advertisement is becoming meaningless? It's entirely possible. They're already filled with nonsensical jargon that is presumably designed to sort out the people who can do the job from the people who can't. But in these days of easy connections between people online, that personal connection is much more important, it seems.

So with that in mind, you have over 165 days of material with which you can get to know me pretty well. Who wants to hire me?

No? All right. Here's a video of a cat.

#oneaday, Day 164: Healing The Mind, And Flying Spiders

Sometimes, whatever else is going on in your mind, it's good to sit down with a friend and talk things over. Even if you're not a big "talker" for the most part, there's bound to be at least someone out there that you can open up to. Some lucky people can open up to pretty much anyone. Though that often leads to the whole "too much information" problem I alluded to some time back, when a former music performance partner decided to announce at the dinner table to my then-housemate whom she had never met before that day that she was suffering from considerable vaginal dryness and was there anything she could do about it as it was a little concerning?

No. Talking with someone you respect and trust is always good. So that's what a friend (who shall remain nameless to spare her blushes) and I did today. We spent most of the day (well, afternoon) sitting and chatting over various beverages and sandwiches, starting with an enormous caramel latte (which my companion added at least three sugars to just for that "extra kick", making a smiley face from the sugar and then stabbing it in the eyes because it "didn't deserve to be happy") and eventually moving on, having harassed our AV salesman mutual buddy at his place of work, to a large pitcher of delicious, summery, fruity cocktail atop the roof of Vodka Revolution.

We also saw a flying spider. This little dude, whom we christened Harold, had been attempting to crawl up the side of our pitcher in an attempt to get at the cocktaily goodness within, but was failing miserably. By about the fourth or fifth time he'd slipped down the side of the pitcher, he was obviously ready to give up. So imagine our surprise when he floated off the side of the pitcher and then whistled past my head at high speed.

We both blinked and looked at each other.

"That just happened, didn't it?"

"Yeah."

"That spider just flew."

"Yeah."

"What the fuck?"

"I have no idea."

There's probably a perfectly rational explanation for it. Harold was only a tiny money spider after all, so it's entirely possible he was just blown away by a passing breeze. Or perhaps there was a thread leading far away that we couldn't see. But it's a much nicer story to think that Harold was the one spider in the world who had learned to fly. I don't normally like spiders, but I have plenty of time for a tiny little one that has learned to fly.

Anyway.

The day was technically completely non-productive, but after a few days of feeling something of a decline in my mood, it was exactly what I needed. I wouldn't dream of speaking for my companion, but I certainly hope it helped her too. By the time both of us went our separate ways at the end of the afternoon, both of us had pleasant smiles on our faces; something which neither of us were sporting when we met up with each other around lunchtime.

So if you're feeling low, take a day out. Call up a friend, perhaps one you haven't seen for a while. Meet up. Drink coffee, beer, cocktails, whatever. Sit in the sun. Chew the fat. Set the world to rights. And you'll find that things will feel much better. For a while, at least. And sometimes, that little perk-up is all you need to keep going a little while longer.

So a hearty thanks to my companion for a lovely day.

#oneaday, Day 163: You are...

Queen's Park (on a bench), 9:10pm

You're sitting on a sturdy, lichen-covered wooden bench that looks like it's been here for a good few years. The wood is faded and scratched, both naturally and through human intervention. The initials of teenage sweethearts are carved into the surface of the wood, last remnants of a long-forgotten memory, a past romance.

You're at the east edge of the park. Further east is a tall hedge, behind which stands a tall, orange-and-glass-fronted apartment building.

To the west, a large stone column rises up to the sky amidst brightly-coloured flower beds. Atop the column is an intricate-looking sculpture, featuring roses, arches and what appears to be a Christian cross.

To the south, behind the swish-swish-swish of passing cars, you can just hear the sonorous tone of a ship's horn signalling its departure from the docks.

To the north, the cars swish past in the opposite direction, this patch of road encircling the haven of green calmness in which you find yourself, the sounds of the passing vehicles your only reminder that you're in the middle of a busy city.

On the bench is a bottle of milkshake.

There is a discarded coffee cup here. Ants are crawling around the coffee cup.

?>GET MILKSHAKE

Taken.

?>DRINK MILKSHAKE

It's not open.

?>OPEN MILKSHAKE

You unscrew the cap of the bottle. The scent of chocolate mint, trapped inside the plastic for so long, wafts out and caresses your nose with its sweet yet pungent aroma.

?>DRINK MILKSHAKE

The thick, gloopy milkshake slides down your throat smoothly. The scent of mint wafts through your sinuses.

?>LOOK AT COFFEE CUP

There are ants all over it, crawling in and out. It's empty, though. What could they see in it?

You feel a little itchy.

?>GET UP

You stand up, and realise the ants have taken a liking to you.

You feel pretty itchy.

?>BRUSH OFF ANTS

You do your best to brush off the ants you can see. Your skin still feels like it's crawling, but you think it's just your imagination now.

?>LOOK AT COLUMN

It looks like some sort of memorial, though to what you couldn't say.

?>CLIMB COLUMN

There's nothing to grip onto. You'd just slide back down. Unless you were Batman and had a Batarang or a grappling hook or something.

?>INVENTORY

You don't have a Batarang or a grappling hook. Nice try.

?>SIT

You sit on the bench.

?>THINK

You stare into space and let your mind wander. Thoughts of all the things you want to happen flow through your brain. The people, the places, the events. Things said, things unsaid. Hopes, dreams, regrets. It all rushes through your head like a miasma. It is both pleasurable and terrifying at the same time.

A single tear falls from the corner of your left eye and plops onto the ground silently, its impact drowned by the sounds of the city.

The feelings pass. You're not sure if you feel any better.

?>GET UP

You stand up.

?>NORTH

You find a gap in the hedge which surrounds the little park, and step back out into the noise of the city at night. It's like a different world. The bright lights, the blur of the passing cars, everyone going about their business, somewhere important to be, someone important to see.

Except you. What do you have? Where should you go? The answer remains out of your reach… for now, at least.

*** THE END?***

You can RESTART, RESTORE or QUIT.

?>_

#oneaday, Day 162: WTF?

Yesterday, my evening was brought to a screeching halt by the discovery of what happens if you go to Google, type in "2204355" and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky". (Hint: it's this.) This particular work of art is evidence of why the Internet is something that no-one will ever be able to understand. Thinking about that animation and trying to explain it is enough to make OMG HEAD ASPLODE.

Couple that with the fact that some people seem to be convinced that the number "2204355" has some sort of significance (a fact which I did some immensely frustrating and unfruitful research on today) and you've got yourself a proper mystery. Conspiracy theorists would say that the people who claim to know what "2204355" means but won't tell anyone really don't actually know and are just fucking with everyone. It's entirely possible. I've given up thinking about it and just taken to enjoying the dance and the music. CHIKKUN.

Of course, this isn't the first time that an inexplicable meme has swept the Internet. We've had this. And this. And this. Not to mention the many different cats who can do incredible things. And let's not forget the immortal Keyboard Cat, of course. Fatso may be long dead, but his legacy lives on to bring joy to millions.

Love them or hate them, internet memes like this are here to stay. They appear, explode in popularity virally, get overplayed and generally by the time parents or grandparents start emailing them to you as a .wmv file accompanied by size 18 Times New Roman type in bright pink, it's time to leave them alone again. But by then, something new will have appeared.

The thing that pops into my head every time I see something like this is "who came up with that… and how?" Who thought it would be a great idea to get a pixellated video of a black dude dancing and eating chicken and combine it with a hypnotic rainbow background and a chiptune version of the theme from A.L.F? Who realised that saying the words "badger" and "mushroom" over and over was inexplicably funny? Why combine a spinning leek with a Swedish folk song? Why are cats so awesome?

These are questions that will never be answered. But for every idiotic, ill-informed, racist, twattish, knobhead dicksplat that you come across on the Internet, remember, somewhere out there there's someone who will come up with one of these masterpieces of viral pop culture, whether it's through creativity, insanity or both.

Today, I salute those people. You make the world a better place and can brighten even the darkest of times.

#oneaday, Day 161: Shouting and Screaming

So England went out of the World Cup today. I'm not going to gloat about that, my feelings on football are well-known and well-documented. What I did want to speak about was how the whole experience made me feel as an outsider who wasn't watching it and could only hear things.

I was terrified. There is nothing else that you hear in relatively "everyday" life that matches the ferocity of someone shouting at football. When it's the World Cup or even a European tournament and England are involved, you know who's watching it, because you can hear something which sounds remarkably like a Spartan army blaring out of their living room. Combine that with those stupid vuvuzelas which everyone claims to be playing ironically and you've got a not-terribly pleasant noise for a mild-mannered gent such as myself.

Couple this with the sheer rage shown by people over a disallowed England goal (fair enough, from what I could see from reports after the fact) and you have a large proportion of a nation already fond of binge drinking and casual violence set to explode.

All credit, though, after the match happened, I didn't hear much in the way of shouting, screaming or violence. I didn't even hear that many police cars go past. That said, the vast majority of the fans would have been further into the town centre, which is a little further away from me. You could not have paid me to walk into town after the match had finished. Maybe I wouldn't have been assaulted, shouted at or anything. But it's a risk that I wasn't willing to take.

Several thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean, anarchists are rioting in Toronto. Canadians don't riot. They certainly don't set fire to police cars and smash shit up. I can't even begin to imagine how frightening the experience must be for them if I don't want to leave my house while a bloody football match is going on. I'll confess to not having paid much attention to the news for the last few days as I've had a huge amount of other things on my mind, so I'm not even entirely sure what the riots are about. I could look it up but it's terribly late. Whatever they're about, they're still fucking riots. Those are never good, right?

It's been a funny day all round really. It's kind of passed me by, almost. I wrote my articles from my trip earlier, so those should be popping up online very soon all being well. Suffice to say they will be all over Twitter, Digg, N4G and the Squadron of Shame Squawkbox when they are up.

And then tomorrow? Who knows. Each new day is a mystery right now, a face-down card waiting to reveal whatever Fate is going to throw me next. Technically it's after midnight now, so I should be able to look at the card. But I tend not to find out what it is until the most inconvenient moment.

God-dammit.