Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Vapour Trails

Despite my enthusiasm about the blossoming mushrooms all around me, I have to admit that my body is beginning to reject them in a most unpleasant way. A friend of mine, Will, who is also a keen mushroom man, found a few years ago that he literally couldn't stomach mushrooms the way he once could and if he ate too many of them, it had adverse effects on his digestive tracts... It seems I'm coming down with the same malady. Why is it that all the things you love end up killing you or making you ill? For me this is the main reason why I don't believe in God and look on with mild amusement at religious people and their obsession. I wouldn't worship a god that makes everything I like bad for me! How bloody wrong is that? Smoke and I die of lung cancer or heart disease; drink and I might do damage to my liver and kill me; don't have sex because you might catch something and/or die; don't lie in the sun or you'll get cancer and die. All the tastiest foods are bad for you!

If I wanted to live an extra 10 years, but be unbelievably dull and boring, as well as bored, then I'll just eat alfalfa sprouts, drink spring water and keep myself covered up all the time.

***

Some of my neighbours can't park. It's an incredible thing, to think these people got driving licences and yet seem afraid of parallel parking if there's another car within 100 yards of it.

The wife and I have been complaining about one of our near neighbours and his apparent ability to park anywhere in the road that isn't in front of his own house. You'd come home from work and he'd be somewhere you park, or over the road, or up the street. It looked as though he was just randomly parking to piss off his neighbours. But, the guy doesn't appear to have the mental capacity to think that deviously or be that petty. Then, arriving home from work yesterday, I spied that my usual parking space was empty, so I pulled in, just as neighbour was coming round the corner. I had effectively reduced the distance between my car and the wife's by half, which meant he couldn't drive straight in, he would have to either reverse it in - actually really easy - or drive in and wiggle about for ages until he was sorted. You could actually get a limousine in the gap and that was what alerted me. He sat on the other side of the road for a few seconds and I saw the look of extreme panic on his face. I thought, 'he's scared of parking' and dismissed it as unlikely. I got out, locked up and walked for the front door and he pulled up the street, about 60 yards and pulled into a gap you could have parked a jumbo jet in. That made me rack my brains for previous times and I realised that every single time he parked somewhere else, that I could remember, it was because there were two cars at either side of where he normally parks.

I put the idea to the wife and she agreed. The problem is, it causes all kinds of disruptions via a ripple affect. If he parks over the road, they'll park in front of my house - we don't have a drive - meaning I park as close as I can, meaning whoever parks where I am has to find somewhere else and so on and so forth. I thought for a while that he must get a kick out of pissing so many people off, but now I realise that its something fundamentally different. He's a crap driver!

***

My previously mentioned and good, yet still unmet, friend Will posted something on his Facebook page recently which had an unexpected effect on me...

Now Will, like a lot of friends, is someone I've got to know through comics and usually when they post or link anything to comics, I avoid it like the plague. However, this time was a little different. He posted a link to a six minute film featuring all the most well known DC characters. It was called DC: Who Do You Trust and amazingly it wasn't a trailer for a new forthcoming blockbuster, but the scene-setter for a new game. Constructed entirely in CGI, the only thing that was poor about it was some of the voice actors, other than that it was 6 minutes of sheer genius.

When I was younger, I was Marvel through and through, but as the continuity and convoluted nature of Marvel's comics battered me into submission, I rediscovered DC comics (with the exception of Batman), I found in my later comics reading career, it was the icons created in the 30s, 40s and 50s that I cared more about. With the exception of the first Iron Man film, I've been largely underwhelmed by superhero films based on existing characters; but the trailer for this game, pushed every button I possess.

Why haven't the major comics companies endorsed a full computer animated version of something? As this film proved, you can have a massive ensemble cast and still be blown away by the brilliance of the locations and the battle scenes.

Go look for it on Google and even if you don't like superheroes, be amazed at what goes into an introduction for a game and how that market is now becoming far more lucrative than films.

***

I had this conversation the other day, which resulted in me admitting that I have no porn whatsoever. I do not own a copy of any kind of wank mag; I don't possess a blue movie and if you searched through my Internet history you'll see that the closest I've ever... ahem... come to a porn website has been doing a search on "Alison Scaglioti sexy" (which yielded absolutely bugger all)...

I've often said that pornography doesn't do anything for me at all. That said, I have absolutely nothing against my wife prancing about the house naked. I love naked women; I actually think they were one of the greatest inventions of all time! However, the idea of viewing a naked women as an object, especially the ones where the expression 'butcher's window' springs to mind, isn't sexy, isn't erotic and in 2D it's all a bit autopsy-ish.

If I had to be honest, I'd say I was probably a wee bit Victorian. I've always been a 'behind closed doors' kind of person and therefore some things have a tendency to shock me. Several years ago, a large 'family' of Eastern Europeans bought the house directly opposite my office window. This bunch of new neighbours settled in and kept very much to themselves. There was the husband and wife, young daughter and the mother one of the parent's. The parents occupied the bedroom directly opposite my office and the mother the room just off to my right.

Five times in the last couple of years; I've been 'subjected' to displays of nudity, self-pleasure and an act of union. All times the curtains have been open and because my house sits slightly above the one over the road, I've been given a free show, the kind you'd pay hard cash for on the Internet. It's not just me; in my defence, even my neighbours have witnessed our new neighbours in varying states of sexual arousal and undress. They think it's quite funny, but they are much younger than me.

I really don't know if they're aware that we can see what they're doing and if they do they obviously don't care; but I think perhaps they're like people who pick their noses in cars - they're so wrapped up in what they're doing they don't think about the people who can see them. Or perhaps they see me sitting here most nights and feel sorry for me and have decided to brighten up my life a little? Nah, praps not.

I feel I should mention it to them, but it's difficult enough to approach someone whose first language is English and discuss something as delicate; imagine what it would be like trying to explain to someone whose English is still not that good? I'd end up getting arrested or beaten up... I can see it. The real shame of the situation though is the view hasn't really been that good - if you know what I mean?

***

I have spent the last 2 hours shouting at the television. All my trepidation was for nought, because the men beat the Boys 4-0 and I have another 6 nights to look forward to where I'll want to hide behind the sofa!

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