Few weeks of unemployment
Diary: Week of 13/07: Adventure Games, Cinemas and Kaysters
At the beginning of the week I discovered that I'd missed my job seeker's interview, which was annoying. I attended one the day after I got back from Scotland and I assumed that the next one would be two weeks afterwards (as usual). Apparently not! Then had trouble getting in touch with them anyway. Due to being a bit lazy/having nothing better to do my sleeping pattern had gone crazy so the first day I just missed the opening hours for the phone line. Then I found out that to look into arranging a new appointment I had to phone a line that closed even earlier. Then I found out I couldn't arrange a new appointment so had to start from the beginning all again anyway! :oP Seemed to get it all sorted eventually anyway :oD
I remember when I came out of university I originally wanted to try to avoid claiming benefit at all if I could help it. I guess having spent quite some time working full-time and paying a lot of National Insurance that it now feels only fair to get some of it back between jobs, that's what insurance is for right? :o) Given that I've been doing temp work, it's not really surprising :oP
Was offered my first interview on Wednesday in any case, which was a good start! :o) Other achievements involved completing both the Hook and Zak McKracken adventure games that I managed to get running through various emulators :oP Was quite annoyed after completing the original Zak McKracken game that a 256 colour version had been released though! That would have probably made it much more enjoyable! (kind of like the 256 colour version of Maniac Mansion, great stuff!) :o)
Lacuna_Raze came over over the weekend and we watched through the last of Heroes S3, so now have to wait for the next season! I only watch them when Lacuna_Raze is about, which helps make them last a bit more, but it still feels like I'm running out of everything I like watching! :oP We also went to see Harry Potter at the cinema, which was good although possibly not as good as the others (felt the plot direction was lacking something, maybe just because it's no longer a film that can stand alone).
At home we watched W (the film about George Bush). We weren't really sure what to expect, thinking it might just be a comedy piece or similar, but it turned out to be quite good. It was definitely a negative portrayal but shied away from being a hatchet job, which may have just been too predictable. The portrayal was actually quite sympathetic to Bush as a person although not so much as a politician. Worth a watch I'd say.
Diary: Week of 20/07: More adventure games, interviews, Dungeon and Kaysters
Played through enhanced versions of Maniac Mansion and Simon the Sorcerer early in the week. Maniac Mansion was great (of course) but I didn't think much of the voice over work on Simon (when I originally played it on floppy disk for the Amiga, there wasn't any). Simon was voiced by Chris Barrie (Rimmer in Red Dwarf) so I was hoping it would be good. I guess the fact that the words were written to be read, not spoken, didn't help but it still came off poorly. :o/ Hopefully the voicing is better in sequels. :o)
Went to an interview for a part-time job with the NHS on Tuesday. Would have been good to be out of banking and it being part-time would leave me with enough money and yet plenty of free times to arrange to do other stuff on a regular basis (Which I can't do right now because I might get employed at any time). Didn't work out anyway mind... got a phone call the next day saying I didn't get it. I'm told that everyone who applied was qualified for the job, which doesn't help much. Dislike the fact that I can't get a job based on my skills but basically (it seems) likeability :oP Would have been at the General Hospital anyway, which wouldn't have been ideal.
Picked up a new book from the library afterwards; another Black Library book, this one called 'Relentless' and set around a ship rather than a planet(s)/similar, which sounded interesting. As usual, the first few pages seemed a bit tedious and painfully written but I quickly got into the book. Good so far! :oP Gave me something to read whilst waiting for my Job Seekers interview to arrange to start payments again.
Turns out they won't be backdating me for the missed payments, which is annoying but will be fine. Just to be extra difficult though, had to come in the very next day to sign in. Ack! :oP
In good news though, the broadband at my house has been finally upgraded, meaning I can watch things on iplayer properly :oP It doesn't cost us any more either, just that our ISP wasn't being keen to let us know an upgrade was possible. >:o/
Me and Lacuna_Raze chanced Dungeon on the weekend, despite risks that it might be quiet. By the time we started realising that not many people might be there, we had gotten ready to go out. Could have been a rather dull night if Metalshez hadn't turned up (after pleading texts from us) :oP We did have one drunken guy come up to us who was being quite a bit of an idiot but it managed to come off pleasantly and humorously enough that it didn't bother us, more funny than anything.
Me and Lacuna_Raze watched Cinderella before going out, which was quite funny in the way that all old Disney films are. Besides the fact that Cinderella is obviously very stupid and manages to 'fall in love' with someone after having met for the first time, the bit we found the best was when she tries to leave and everything gets very stalkerific as they start chasing after her and trying to shut the gates to trap her in... worse, when she does manage to get out the gates a bunch of black riders gallop after her as if she was running away with the one ring :oP
Diary: Week of 27/07: Comedy shows, adventure games, Industrial Fallout and Kaysters
Lacuna_Raze had some time off work on the early part of the week so we spent Monday and Tuesday in, mostly watching Mitchell and Webb Situation and Look, which is great stuff (is brilliant how we both have the same sense of humour) :o) We also watched the Peter Pan cartoon, but obviously that doesn't really compete with the film (which I have on DVD, as well as the Hook movie)
Played through some more adventure games as well. By the end of the week I'd finished playing Monkey Island 2: Return of LeChuck, Monkey Island 3: Curse of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. MI2 and DoTT are both games I'd played before and were as good as I remembered them (although MI2 has a rather surreal and confusing ending) but MI3 was new to me and was a lot more fun than I expected (was never to keen in the change of animation style so was doubtful).
Was my younger brother's birthday on Wednesday and he popped around long enough for me to give him the crate of beer I got him for his birthday (unimaginative but he is really hard to buy for). He dropped around the day after long enough for us to play Settlers of Catan (which I won!) and Ideology: War of Ideas (which I didn't win). Lots of fun in any case :o)
Me and Lacuna_Raze watched through lots of Family Guy on the weekend as well as went to the third Industrial Fallout. Whilst the first was too busy, this one was actually a little too quiet with not enough familiar faces. Guess that was predictable given that it was just a fill-in event as a band pulled out of a gig there (or something like that). Still was okay though, just lacking the same atmosphere and as much excuse to talk to people. We only left a little early I think.
Link: Comparing the old cover of Secret of Monky Island to the new cover makes me feel that they can never capture the feeling the original :o/
Link: When Divorce is the right choice - linky (stolen from Palmer1984)
Link: Interesting article on being the 'Token Black Friend' - linky
Thoughts: Am I a racist? Are You?
Okcupid put out a new feature recently where they make a flow chart of your 'important questions' and you can follow it through to see if you're a match. Taking a look I noticed the question 'Are you a racist?' to which I've answered 'no'.
I remember when I'd first started talking to someone on okcupid, who I would later date, and it had been flagged up because s/he had put 'yes'. The reason not being that she felt that racism was correct but that she felt it important to own up the internalised racism that she does have (and feels should be worked on).
Is a fair argument, but obviously I never adjusted my own answer to 'yes' as well :oP
Part of the problem is that I don't want to be mistaken for the sort of racist that is unapologetic about it. I don't want to be lumped in with the sort of person that actually believes that black people are inferior and such-like, but for most people that would be what labelling myself 'racist' actually does.
At the same time, I think I'd be in denial if I tried to claim that racism, along with prejudice in general, hasn't embedded itself in me to some degree or another (albeit hopefully only in a minor way).
The thing about prejudice is it's quite insidious. People who might intellectually disapprove of it may still act on it, sometimes without really noticing.
A person can believe that associating black people and crime is racist and wrong but still feel irrationally nervous around black people. It's not to hard to understand why, if that person is rarely around black people and thus his familiarity with them is with media depictions which tend to over-represent black people as criminals and immoral.
Worse than that, even if the reaction isn't that strong our first impressions may be tainted by a bombardment of images from media. It's a natural part of being human that we made assumptions on meeting someone based on indications that are actually rather weak.
I find it's even more obvious with gender. We live in an unapologetically gendered world where we are taught from a young age that boys and girls are different, many people still think they think and feel differently. Does this affect the way we treat people? I'd find it hard to believe otherwise.
So, yeah, I do have internalised prejudice and that prejudice probably does affect the way I think, feel and act around people, although hopefully not to a very noticeably extent.
And the problem is that it's very hard to call people on it. Despite the above, we are in a society where people generally disapprove of 'racism' quite strongly. No one wants to be thought of as a 'racist' because 'racists' are 'bad people'.
So when a generally nice and pleasant person is called on some racial prejudice they're not aware of or have never thought about they get upset. Because they think so lowly of racism they're left with very few satisfying options with the most common being denial, which feels a lot better than admitting to being a scummy racist.
Ironically, people's disapproval of prejudice is probably what stops them from wanting to face up to their own prejudices. No one wants to be that person. They've built up a comfortable disapproval whilst they believed it was other people being judged and now they find that judgement turned back on themselves.
One option in response is for more of us to try to admit to being racist. We can admit it's a bad thing but recognise that we're all flawed creatures and we should all work towards dealing with it. That seems a good honest option that requires a fair bit of courage. I guess the real problem is in situations where you can't explain what you mean by that, like on okcupid. I also wouldn't want to have to say 'I am racist' if asked in an interview either :oP
The other option, which I hope isn't just me being a bit cowardly, is to admit that I've been influenced by racism and that sometimes I might even act, feel and behave in a racist way but that I'm not a racist.
After all, I sometimes think, feel and do stupid things but I don't think I'm stupid. To say someone is stupid is to say more than they sometimes do stupid things, it's to say it's a defining trait, so at the least we'd expect them to consistently do stupid things. Yet that isn't even enough, I wouldn't call someone 'irrational' unless that was a particularly defining quality of them, yet I believe that everyone has irrational components to their minds, none of us are 'purely rational' creatures. The list goes on, being 'emotional' is more than just having emotions, being 'thoughtful' is more than just thinking, being 'sensitive' is more than being able to be hurt...
So, I'm letting myself off the hook and not labelling myself as 'racist'.
That being said, what I shouldn't do is ignore what I wrote above. People who do use the term in that way are making a valid point and even if I don't adopt their word usage when describing myself I should recognise that point. Me saying 'I'm not racist' doesn't give me a free pass to ignore examining my own prejudices and making sure they don't affect my behaviour.
After writing this, something with similar content appeared on angryblackfeed, which is nice - linky
At the beginning of the week I discovered that I'd missed my job seeker's interview, which was annoying. I attended one the day after I got back from Scotland and I assumed that the next one would be two weeks afterwards (as usual). Apparently not! Then had trouble getting in touch with them anyway. Due to being a bit lazy/having nothing better to do my sleeping pattern had gone crazy so the first day I just missed the opening hours for the phone line. Then I found out that to look into arranging a new appointment I had to phone a line that closed even earlier. Then I found out I couldn't arrange a new appointment so had to start from the beginning all again anyway! :oP Seemed to get it all sorted eventually anyway :oD
I remember when I came out of university I originally wanted to try to avoid claiming benefit at all if I could help it. I guess having spent quite some time working full-time and paying a lot of National Insurance that it now feels only fair to get some of it back between jobs, that's what insurance is for right? :o) Given that I've been doing temp work, it's not really surprising :oP
Was offered my first interview on Wednesday in any case, which was a good start! :o) Other achievements involved completing both the Hook and Zak McKracken adventure games that I managed to get running through various emulators :oP Was quite annoyed after completing the original Zak McKracken game that a 256 colour version had been released though! That would have probably made it much more enjoyable! (kind of like the 256 colour version of Maniac Mansion, great stuff!) :o)
Lacuna_Raze came over over the weekend and we watched through the last of Heroes S3, so now have to wait for the next season! I only watch them when Lacuna_Raze is about, which helps make them last a bit more, but it still feels like I'm running out of everything I like watching! :oP We also went to see Harry Potter at the cinema, which was good although possibly not as good as the others (felt the plot direction was lacking something, maybe just because it's no longer a film that can stand alone).
At home we watched W (the film about George Bush). We weren't really sure what to expect, thinking it might just be a comedy piece or similar, but it turned out to be quite good. It was definitely a negative portrayal but shied away from being a hatchet job, which may have just been too predictable. The portrayal was actually quite sympathetic to Bush as a person although not so much as a politician. Worth a watch I'd say.
Diary: Week of 20/07: More adventure games, interviews, Dungeon and Kaysters
Played through enhanced versions of Maniac Mansion and Simon the Sorcerer early in the week. Maniac Mansion was great (of course) but I didn't think much of the voice over work on Simon (when I originally played it on floppy disk for the Amiga, there wasn't any). Simon was voiced by Chris Barrie (Rimmer in Red Dwarf) so I was hoping it would be good. I guess the fact that the words were written to be read, not spoken, didn't help but it still came off poorly. :o/ Hopefully the voicing is better in sequels. :o)
Went to an interview for a part-time job with the NHS on Tuesday. Would have been good to be out of banking and it being part-time would leave me with enough money and yet plenty of free times to arrange to do other stuff on a regular basis (Which I can't do right now because I might get employed at any time). Didn't work out anyway mind... got a phone call the next day saying I didn't get it. I'm told that everyone who applied was qualified for the job, which doesn't help much. Dislike the fact that I can't get a job based on my skills but basically (it seems) likeability :oP Would have been at the General Hospital anyway, which wouldn't have been ideal.
Picked up a new book from the library afterwards; another Black Library book, this one called 'Relentless' and set around a ship rather than a planet(s)/similar, which sounded interesting. As usual, the first few pages seemed a bit tedious and painfully written but I quickly got into the book. Good so far! :oP Gave me something to read whilst waiting for my Job Seekers interview to arrange to start payments again.
Turns out they won't be backdating me for the missed payments, which is annoying but will be fine. Just to be extra difficult though, had to come in the very next day to sign in. Ack! :oP
In good news though, the broadband at my house has been finally upgraded, meaning I can watch things on iplayer properly :oP It doesn't cost us any more either, just that our ISP wasn't being keen to let us know an upgrade was possible. >:o/
Me and Lacuna_Raze chanced Dungeon on the weekend, despite risks that it might be quiet. By the time we started realising that not many people might be there, we had gotten ready to go out. Could have been a rather dull night if Metalshez hadn't turned up (after pleading texts from us) :oP We did have one drunken guy come up to us who was being quite a bit of an idiot but it managed to come off pleasantly and humorously enough that it didn't bother us, more funny than anything.
Me and Lacuna_Raze watched Cinderella before going out, which was quite funny in the way that all old Disney films are. Besides the fact that Cinderella is obviously very stupid and manages to 'fall in love' with someone after having met for the first time, the bit we found the best was when she tries to leave and everything gets very stalkerific as they start chasing after her and trying to shut the gates to trap her in... worse, when she does manage to get out the gates a bunch of black riders gallop after her as if she was running away with the one ring :oP
Diary: Week of 27/07: Comedy shows, adventure games, Industrial Fallout and Kaysters
Lacuna_Raze had some time off work on the early part of the week so we spent Monday and Tuesday in, mostly watching Mitchell and Webb Situation and Look, which is great stuff (is brilliant how we both have the same sense of humour) :o) We also watched the Peter Pan cartoon, but obviously that doesn't really compete with the film (which I have on DVD, as well as the Hook movie)
Played through some more adventure games as well. By the end of the week I'd finished playing Monkey Island 2: Return of LeChuck, Monkey Island 3: Curse of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. MI2 and DoTT are both games I'd played before and were as good as I remembered them (although MI2 has a rather surreal and confusing ending) but MI3 was new to me and was a lot more fun than I expected (was never to keen in the change of animation style so was doubtful).
Was my younger brother's birthday on Wednesday and he popped around long enough for me to give him the crate of beer I got him for his birthday (unimaginative but he is really hard to buy for). He dropped around the day after long enough for us to play Settlers of Catan (which I won!) and Ideology: War of Ideas (which I didn't win). Lots of fun in any case :o)
Me and Lacuna_Raze watched through lots of Family Guy on the weekend as well as went to the third Industrial Fallout. Whilst the first was too busy, this one was actually a little too quiet with not enough familiar faces. Guess that was predictable given that it was just a fill-in event as a band pulled out of a gig there (or something like that). Still was okay though, just lacking the same atmosphere and as much excuse to talk to people. We only left a little early I think.
Link: Comparing the old cover of Secret of Monky Island to the new cover makes me feel that they can never capture the feeling the original :o/
Link: When Divorce is the right choice - linky (stolen from Palmer1984)
Link: Interesting article on being the 'Token Black Friend' - linky
Thoughts: Am I a racist? Are You?
Okcupid put out a new feature recently where they make a flow chart of your 'important questions' and you can follow it through to see if you're a match. Taking a look I noticed the question 'Are you a racist?' to which I've answered 'no'.
I remember when I'd first started talking to someone on okcupid, who I would later date, and it had been flagged up because s/he had put 'yes'. The reason not being that she felt that racism was correct but that she felt it important to own up the internalised racism that she does have (and feels should be worked on).
Is a fair argument, but obviously I never adjusted my own answer to 'yes' as well :oP
Part of the problem is that I don't want to be mistaken for the sort of racist that is unapologetic about it. I don't want to be lumped in with the sort of person that actually believes that black people are inferior and such-like, but for most people that would be what labelling myself 'racist' actually does.
At the same time, I think I'd be in denial if I tried to claim that racism, along with prejudice in general, hasn't embedded itself in me to some degree or another (albeit hopefully only in a minor way).
The thing about prejudice is it's quite insidious. People who might intellectually disapprove of it may still act on it, sometimes without really noticing.
A person can believe that associating black people and crime is racist and wrong but still feel irrationally nervous around black people. It's not to hard to understand why, if that person is rarely around black people and thus his familiarity with them is with media depictions which tend to over-represent black people as criminals and immoral.
Worse than that, even if the reaction isn't that strong our first impressions may be tainted by a bombardment of images from media. It's a natural part of being human that we made assumptions on meeting someone based on indications that are actually rather weak.
I find it's even more obvious with gender. We live in an unapologetically gendered world where we are taught from a young age that boys and girls are different, many people still think they think and feel differently. Does this affect the way we treat people? I'd find it hard to believe otherwise.
So, yeah, I do have internalised prejudice and that prejudice probably does affect the way I think, feel and act around people, although hopefully not to a very noticeably extent.
And the problem is that it's very hard to call people on it. Despite the above, we are in a society where people generally disapprove of 'racism' quite strongly. No one wants to be thought of as a 'racist' because 'racists' are 'bad people'.
So when a generally nice and pleasant person is called on some racial prejudice they're not aware of or have never thought about they get upset. Because they think so lowly of racism they're left with very few satisfying options with the most common being denial, which feels a lot better than admitting to being a scummy racist.
Ironically, people's disapproval of prejudice is probably what stops them from wanting to face up to their own prejudices. No one wants to be that person. They've built up a comfortable disapproval whilst they believed it was other people being judged and now they find that judgement turned back on themselves.
One option in response is for more of us to try to admit to being racist. We can admit it's a bad thing but recognise that we're all flawed creatures and we should all work towards dealing with it. That seems a good honest option that requires a fair bit of courage. I guess the real problem is in situations where you can't explain what you mean by that, like on okcupid. I also wouldn't want to have to say 'I am racist' if asked in an interview either :oP
The other option, which I hope isn't just me being a bit cowardly, is to admit that I've been influenced by racism and that sometimes I might even act, feel and behave in a racist way but that I'm not a racist.
After all, I sometimes think, feel and do stupid things but I don't think I'm stupid. To say someone is stupid is to say more than they sometimes do stupid things, it's to say it's a defining trait, so at the least we'd expect them to consistently do stupid things. Yet that isn't even enough, I wouldn't call someone 'irrational' unless that was a particularly defining quality of them, yet I believe that everyone has irrational components to their minds, none of us are 'purely rational' creatures. The list goes on, being 'emotional' is more than just having emotions, being 'thoughtful' is more than just thinking, being 'sensitive' is more than being able to be hurt...
So, I'm letting myself off the hook and not labelling myself as 'racist'.
That being said, what I shouldn't do is ignore what I wrote above. People who do use the term in that way are making a valid point and even if I don't adopt their word usage when describing myself I should recognise that point. Me saying 'I'm not racist' doesn't give me a free pass to ignore examining my own prejudices and making sure they don't affect my behaviour.
After writing this, something with similar content appeared on angryblackfeed, which is nice - linky