#oneaday, Day 173: The Adventures of Captain Generic

My buddy Kalam invited me out for a late-night cinema showing tonight as his buddy had some free tickets. We went to go and see the new film Predators, which I knew nothing about. I don't really keep up on movies that much, so it's often a nice surprise to go to the cinema and find out what's on.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't see the original Predator until much later than many others, as I discovered a videotape stuffed down the back of the sofa in my second-year university flat containing three episodes of The Mary Whitehouse Experience and Predator as broadcast on ITV in the early 90s. No, I'm not making that up. My sole exposure to the movie was via a discarded VHS tape left behind by previous tenants. I've never seen Predator 2. In fact, I've not seen that many Arnie movies generally. To be honest, I don't feel like I've missed that much, except maybe a few pop culture references.

Spoilarz ahead. Not that there's much in the way of substance to spoil, really.

Anyway, Predators. Or as I've decided to redub it, The Adventures of Captain Generic and the Stereotype Brigade. I mean seriously. We have gravelly-voiced main man who is, of course, American. We have female lead who ping-pongs between having a bit of an exotic foreign accent and being American. We have a Latino bloke with a mustache who is dressed like a janitor but has two Uzis. We have a black dude who knows all about tribal behaviour. We have an ex-convict who is handy with a knife and inexplicably hates the black dude. We have a Yakuza who doesn't say much, who has a shirtless katana-fighting scene with a Predator later in the movie. (OMG SPOILARZ. Sorry.) And we have a bland, boring doctor bloke who actually turns out to be a psychopath. (OMG SPOILARZ AGAIN. Oops.) Oh, and Laurence Fishburne. Who explodes.

This movie is a strong contender for the worst thing I have ever let anyone put in my eyes and ears. But at least it was terrible in an enjoyable sort of way. It was immensely predictable, and the various lines that characters come out with in every movie like this ever came out at exactly the expected moments. And, as all good action movies shouldn't, it doesn't make a blind bit of sense. The movie opens with all these disparate characters waking up in free-fall, conveniently equipped with a parachute and one signature weapon each, and landing in a mysterious jungle which is on an alien planet but actually has some Earth flora on it. There's no explanation at any point for why this happens, besides "we're being hunted…" and by the end it just kind of doesn't really matter any more. Laurence Fishburne's presence doesn't make any sense. He has a Predator hat and can turn invisible. But he's mental, has an invisible friend, helps out our merry band of generic stereotypes and, uh oh, turns out he's actually evil mental not endearing mental. Fortunately, he gets exploded by a Predator quite quickly.

Oh, and talking of explosions, roughly halfway through this film there is the absolute worst pyrotechnic effect I've ever seen. It's a massive explosion. You'd think Hollywood could get these right by now. But no. This is terrible, terrible stuff. Leave aside the fact that an absolutely enormous conflagration that rips through an entire ruined spacecraft comes from a small claymore mine. It doesn't even look right. The colours are all off and it looks distinctly cartoony. Not good.

Oh, and there's lots of unnecessary swearing, just like every good 80s action movie.

So, basically, if you want a good laugh, go and see Predators. If you enjoyed the old films, I don't know, you might get a kick out of it. But I walked away thinking "what the fuck was that"? I enjoyed it, but for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps it was intended to be an homage to 80s action movies. If so, it did a great job.

#oneaday, Day 172: Epic Win

This is the best. Idea. EVAR.

Video game nerds like to think about things in terms of video games. It's part of what we do. RPG nerds are the same. And when you get a video game nerd who also likes RPGs? Well, that's it, really. Everything degenerates into jokes about gaining XP for changing lightbulbs and the like.

Epic Win looks set to allow people to do just that. At last! This is the To Do list I've been waiting for.

I have no shame in admitting that I've named projects in OmniFocus for the iPhone so that they look more like quests, or chapters from a story. And I'd love a Deus Ex-style nanomachine HUD that allowed me to track my objectives from inside my own head. So long as you could turn the damn thing off. Trying to sleep with a waypoint tracker would probably be difficult.

And gaining experience points is cool, as everyone knows. Experience points are even cool for non-nerds now, as anyone who wastes hours of their life playing Farmville will attest. Experience points give us something to focus on. They give us a sort-of-tangible reward for achieving something, even if that thing is mundane. They offer a recognisable, attainable goal in the form of the next level. And they encourage competition with friends.

So why not apply them to your personal life? That seems to be the exact approach that Epic Win is taking, and I love love love it. The app may not be out yet, but for the simple reason that it aims to get nerds organised, it's a day-one purchase for me.

And you just know there'll be Achievements in there too. And probably some means of comparing said Achievements with friends. Who knows? Maybe it'll turn a generation of slovenly geeks into houseproud types.

Perhaps not. But it's a noble goal, at least, and a nice way to make the mundane and boring into a game, something which products like EA Sports Active have done with some success with other activities in the past.

Check out the app's official site here.

#oneaday, Day 171: Cracking Down On Crackdown 2 Decracktors

Right, you. Yes, you. The one who's been saying nasty things about Crackdown 2. Or should I say, all of you who've been saying nasty things about Crackdown 2. I'm going to say why I think you're wrong. I respect your viewpoint, and I still love you, but you're wrong. Actually, no, that's harsh. You are, of course entitled to your own opinion. I just happen to disagree with most of the Internet, from the sound of things.

Here's the deal. Crackdown 2 is an open-world game, but Ruffian themselves have said that they want to distinguish the game's play style from games such as Red Dead Redemption, Assassin's Creed 2 and the like. And it's true. RDR, AC2 and numerous others purport to be open-world games but actually end up having a rather tight, linear mission structure when it comes down to it. This isn't a bad thing; as everyone knows, linear games are more inclined to have stronger stories since it's a lot easier to script something when you know your player isn't going to run off somewhere completely random.

Crackdown 2 takes the complete opposite approach. Yes, there is a flimsy justification for the Agents' presence in the city. But it's not intended to be the primary purpose of the game. The primary purpose of the game is nothing more than having fun. Producer James Cope described the experience as being like "playtime at school, running around and shouting BRILLIANT!"—and if you approach the game in this manner, then yes, it's a hell of a lot of fun.

On top of this, there's the fact that it is a true example of an open-world game. The whole world is open from the outset. Agents can go anywhere and tackle objectives in any order. Sure, some places will be harder to access without appropriate levelling-up. But it is indeed possible to run off in any direction at the opening of the game and tackle things in any order desired. This is a good thing, particularly for a game built with co-op fun in mind. There's nothing worse than being stuck with co-op buddies and having to sit through cutscenes and lengthy conversations. When you're playing with other people, you want to be able to jump straight in. And in Crackdown 2 you can do that.

Then there's the criticism about the missions all being the same. Sure, the objectives are the same thing over and over again: activate three absorption units, defend a beacon, lather, rinse, repeat. But this means that anyone can jump into anyone else's game and not feel "left behind" or unclear about what they are supposed to do. What people complaining about this also don't mention is the fact that part of the challenge that is different each time is navigating the way to the beacon itself. It's normally hidden underground behind a selection of obstacles which require negotiating. Sometimes working out the best route is an environmental quasi-puzzle in itself.

And then the defense event which occurs while you wait for the beacon to detonate has a considerable amount of variation in the enemies which approach. Sometimes there'll be swarms of close-combat enemies. Sometimes there'll be a few ranged enemies. Sometimes there are massive enemies who take one hell of a beating. There's variety there. Sure, you're still defending a point against a swarm of enemies. But people do that all the time in Team Fortress 2, Gears of War and Halo and don't complain. So what's the problem here? Let's leave aside the fact that there are also races to complete on foot and in cars, Freak Breaches to close, orbs to collect, audio logs to find and, if you don't feel like doing any of those things, a limitless swarm of enemies on which to take out your aggression. There are also a wide selection of creative and fun Achievements to attempt and, let's not forget, a huge and detailed city to explore.

Now, onto the graphics. The one thing that is rapidly starting to grate about this generation of games consoles is the level of obsessiveness over the superficial aspects of games' presentation it has produced. It used to be that people could appreciate a game even if it had graphics that didn't look as "good" (and that's such a subjective term anyway) as titles perceived as "benchmarks". Now, it seems, if a game doesn't look as good as Assassin's Creed 2, it looks "crap". Crackdown 2 has a distinctive, clean visual style that is light on the detail but heavy on the draw distance. Yes, there are times when the frame rate drops a bit. But it does the important job for an open-world game set in a high-rise city; it has a sense of scale. Crackdown and its sequel are two of the only games I've ever played where I've felt vertigo—proof if proof were needed that the game is doing its job very ably in representing the size of the city and the Agents' seeming insignificance within it.

I think the thing that I'm objecting to most, though, is the assertion that the game is "bad". People are saying that they "hate" the game, that it's a "failure", that it "sucks". But it does what it was supposed to do, which is provide a solid, co-op friendly, bubblegum-pop experience that is fun. Nothing more than that. It's not trying to be high art. It's not trying to have a great narrative. It's not even trying to be hugely different from its predecessor; it's simply trying to do "the same, but more so". That does not make it a bad game. Remember Doom II? That was pretty good, right? But do you remember the fact that it only added one new weapon and a handful of new enemies? And yet people still liked it. How about the bajillion military first-person shooters out there? There's not a lot to distinguish them from each other in many cases. And yet people still play them in their millions without complaint. What about racing games? Arguably the biggest innovators in that genre recently were Split/Second and Blur, both of which suffered very disappointing sales figures. Many gamers prefer the comfortable familiarity of Forza 3 and equivalents, which still follow the same gameplay model that Gran Turismo set thirteen years ago. Yes, thirteen years.

The fact is, despite what I said in the introduction, I'm not saying that people who don't like Crackdown 2 are wrong. Quite the contrary, in fact. The game is not something which will appeal to everyone; what game is? The thing which has disappointed me about the critical reception to the game is the fact that the subjective "I don't like this" has become perceived as an objective "This is bad". The two statements are very different.

The only real way to be sure, of course, is to try the game for yourself. Take it in the spirit in which it is intended; it's not Dragon Age, it's not Red Dead Redemption, it's not Oblivion. It's Crackdown. It is its own thing. It wants to provide a shallow, entertaining experience that isn't intended to be taken the slightest bit seriously. And in that respect, it succeeds admirably. It's not an experience which will appeal to everyone. But that doesn't mean it should be branded as a bad game. It should be accepted on its own merits. I'd even argue that it shouldn't be compared to its predecessor.

So if you're one of the people who has read one of these reviews and thought "Oh… that's a shame", because you actually quite liked the idea of a city-sized playground in which to jump around and have fun? I'd encourage you to give it a chance. It's a vapid whore that just wants your love, and it doesn't mind if you cheat on it with cleverer games.

So go on. Call her. You know you want to really.

#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.