Of My Country Journey Day Six (19/2/09)

I know I’ve been lax in the writing of these things since I got here, but in fairness it’s been because I’ve been so busy! What I thought would be a lazy, slow and, ultimately, boring journey into the country has turned out to be anything but. Hell, it’s 11pm right now and I’ve only really been able to get enough time to myself to start jotting down all the things that’s happened in the past 5 days since my last entry. First off, and most importantly, I’ve been having a good time. A better time than I thought I would have had. Again, I figured it’d be a lot of doing nothing really, allowing me a chance to read a bit and finally lock my script, which I haven’t done due to the sheer amount of things I’ve been doing. In the past few days I have visited Milton Keynes (which I talked about in my first entry), Bedford, Nothampton and today I went to Cambridge. I really need to stress that Bedford, out of all the places I’ve visited, has impressed the hell out of me by appealing directly to the gamer in me. This place has a Gamestation, Game and CEX, all within one stretch of a shopping centre.

Their CEX was particularly impressive. Whereas most CEX’s I’ve been to (the London, Harrow, Bromley and Northampton ones) have all been small (some would say cramped), dingy places, the one in Bedford is a huge, shiny supermarket of a video game store that deals not only in the usual supply of old video games (namely, PS2/Xbox, etc) but ALSO PSX games! 

They also, ALSO (!), have a two floor comic book store with a kick ass Batman statue outside. I mean, the closest comic book store to me is Forbidden Planet in London, and I’ve got to spend about £5.70 (?) just for a travel card into London! Here I am, assuming I’m in the middle of no where, whereas in actuality I’m in a place that has more shops within a small period of space that appeal to me than I do at both Bexleyheath AND Bluewater.

I’ve been fantastically well looked after at Eleanor’s house. We’ve had home made food everyday and it’s been delicious Every. Single. Time. Not to say I don’t get home cooking at home, of course I do, and my ma makes some of the best food I’ve eaten. She’s also experimented now and then and made some rather questionable food too, but over the 22 years I’ve been eating her stuff I can say my opinion on her culinary skills is awesomeness. That being said, because she’s Filipina I tend to get a relatively Easternized version of Western cooking. It’ll be a Western dish, recognizable as a Western dish from taste and appearance, but sometimes there’ll be just something about it that highlights the fact an English person didn’t make this, sometimes it’s a blessing to be fair. The point being, on the first Sunday here I got, what could quite possibly be, my first proper, all-English Roast. I’m talking Roast Beef with all the trimmings. It was awesome! I’ve had stuff like that before at like pub/restaurants and roasts when my ma makes it (though it tends to be lamb) but eating at a pub/restaurant just can’t beat the goodness of a home cooked meal. It just can’t.

I don’t really know what else to write about right now. I’m pretty tired after wandering around Cambridge all day, including a period of time by myself after Eleanor stormed off all pissy. She didn’t really want to go to Cambridge at all today, I just go where I’m taken and today it happened to be Cambridge, so I wanted to make the most of it and enjoy my time there. To say that Eleanor freaking out and having a 5 year old hissy fit slightly dampened it would be pretty apt. It wasn’t the impression I wanted to leave this place with because, as we all know, we only get one, and I’ll most probably associate Cambridge with Eleanor acting like a bratty kid for a really long time now.

Cutting back for a moment, I picked up Yakuza for the PS2 from the Northampton CEX for £4. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Yakuza series and, after seeing just how fucking good looking the latest entry is looking, I decided I should pick it up and play it. If I pussy out of playing Resident Evil, I’ll always have Yakuza. I think the thing that’s always bugged me about playing Resident Evil more than anything else is the limited saving process. That and the limited ammo supplies. Limited saving = limited play time to me because I don’t want to have to play for ages, risking dying in the process, because I can’t afford to use a precious Ink Ribbon to save when I actually want to. I know it amps up the tension of the survivor/horror aspect of the game, but come on – that kind of game design does more to reject a potential audience than embrace them. Then again, here we are on the cusp of the release of Resident Evil 5, so there are obviously millions of people who think otherwise.

I’ll be leaving the Country for home this Saturday and, honestly, I wish I could stay longer. I love seeing Eleanor, obviously, even when she does act like a brat. But I need to sort out my own shit, I need to lock this script (which I haven’t even thought about since getting here, again because I’ve been constantly busy), shoot the movie, find a job, etc, etc, etc. Fun. It sucks too having Eleanor working to a school schedule as it means that the next time I’ll be seeing her won’t be until fucking Easter! So anyone who only lives 20/30 minutes, if not less, from your girlfriend/boyfriend and feel the need to bitch about not seeing them – fuck you. Fuck you and your little dog too.

When I get some downtime, I may write something actually focused on something other than what I’ve been up to (at least I managed to avoid that whole ‘woke up-had breakfast-yada-yada’ snorefest) – I saw an interesting topic on nodq.com asking whether predictability is really such a bad thing in wrestling. I thought that there was quite a varied range of topics you could talk about and it’s something I’d be interested in doing, especially with the whole Christian/Matt Hardy switch still so fresh.

Anyway, some quick thoughts again:

-       I finished reading Batman: The Long Halloween. It’s amazing how good Jeph Loeb is and how much of this story is lifted by The Dark Knight.

-       Lost was getting awesome again when it was finally definable (as a sci-fi shown no less) but this weeks episode didn’t blow me away the way I wanted it to.

-       I’m slowly collecting the Resident Evil games with the full intention to one day play them. I’ve always been too much of a pussy to play them in the past (despite being a massive zombie movie/comic fan) and since Chazz got me Resident Evil 2 for Christmas I don’t feel there’s that much of an excuse to not play it. Eleanor got me Resident Evil for Valentine’s Day and I’m looking to pick up Resident Evil 3 from the Bedford CEX for £3. When I get back, after doing script stuff, I’ll start playing it proper. If I don’t pussy out.

-       I really, really want a new Macbook Pro.

-       I listened to Enema of the State on the way back from Cambridge and am currently listening to Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. Yeah, I’m pretty excited for their new album.

-       My heel really fucking hurts. It’s been killing me all day. I really don’t know how much affect this physio is having on it.

-       I want new Macbeth shoes. I also wish they still did shoes in the style of trainers instead of the straight up dress trainer/shoes they’ve been doing. I miss the London II’s.

-       Was I the only one shocked at finding out The Simpsons is now in HD and screening in 16:9?! I hadn’t read anything about it and so when I saw it, it was completely out of the blue. The HD animation shows, it looks like the animation quality of the movie, but, as the episode progressed, it proved that switching over to HD doesn’t necessarily make your show any better.