Oh January, Did You Really Have To?
Well I may perhaps be an unnecessarily oversensitive sort of creature but this year does seem to have commenced with an unusually unncessary level of trying and discomfitting shenanigans! Hence such a long spell since my last journal update, I just don't seem to have had the time nor has brains been able to settle themselves into a reasonable enough order for the construction of coherent sentences. As it is then there is a bunch of stuffs that I could now document, and doubtless there will be things I miss whilst I'm unlikely to be able to put those things I do recall into the correct order in which they occurred but hopefully if I can get it down I can put the past few weeks behind me and set myself up for the days ahead now it seems I may have almost reached some sort of plateau. I had of course hoped that aftr all the excitements and challenging difficulties of job assessments at the very beginning of the year I could set myself up for making most of the time to come but it seems not to have really worked out that way. Perhaps it was a sign that after the excessive emotional trauma I subjected myself through for job stuffs I yet still felt particularly nervous and jumpy when it came to what theoretically should have been a far more straightforward trip for a jobsearch session with my fairy job folk in Scarborough. That ought to have been easy after what I'd previously been through yet I was still such a tense and uncomfortable creature that by the end of it I was literally jumping to get out of those offices and be making my ways back on the bus! Hm, still I have long puzzled the peculiarities that my nervous instincts seem stubbornly unwilling to learn any positive lessons from those things I do manage acheive. Perhaps then it was in fact the case that the energies I had used up in trying to push past the unpleasantness on my first trip to Scarborough left me with depleted strengths for my second, and indeed mayhap increased the sensitivity of my nerves to such things? Perhaps it is a problem with these things coming at variously random intervals rather than having a more strategically scheduled progression of scary exposures for my little puppy nerves to come accustomed to? Or is it perhaps more the nature of my chemistry that or thinkings that lends it this distinct reluctance to alter its attitudes and perspectives on the challenges that face it out in the world? Difficult to really say, but whatever the case I suppose all I can really do with living is to continue trying to makes the best of it I can although it certainly doesn't help much in my quest to keep hold of any real positive motiviation or desire for livings that might push me forward rather than requiring some minor crisis to spur me into some sorts of actions.
Hm, still I thinks what may have lent events of the past couple weeks their particularly unsettling effect be that a good few of them have happened here in my little flat and thus seem to threaten the one little place that I would hope to be my quiet little sanctuary? I forget precisely when these things happens but I think the first was unexpected knock on my door from neighbour, coming home drunk at sonewhere near one in the morning. Of course they were just being neighbourly in some senses so I shouldn't really complain too excessively that in their drunken state they thought they needed to enquire whether I had picked up the little bit of post that had been on the hall table for me in the days before. All very nice and thoughtful of them, but having the person in that condition casting their eyes about my ramshackle lair wasn't the sort of thing I really wanted to be dealing with at such a time of night. It's occurred before and previously I have been somewhat able to brush it off but this occasion felt somewhat more unsettling and put me a little more on edge, perhaps on account of all the various complications I had been dealing with previously. Tiresomely though that wasn't the only unexpected visitor to my little dwelling over the past few days. Having been visiting parents out at the caravan on the last weekend before they would be moving out for winter, I happened to come upon a person whom I vaguely know through someone else as I was walking back through town. They are by no means a bad person but also, in the politest possible terms, not exactly the brightest or easiest to converse with. Anyways, they apparently were looking for someone to help a friend of their's who was having troubles getting their TV to work. I can't say I was in a particular mood to be doing any of this, but I'm a relatively nice person and hadn't really the will to say no so ended up following them round to this persons flat and poking at their television for a little while until I got it working again. My good deed done for the day I shambled back to my flat thinking that all was reasonable well. As it turned out though the next night I then had an unexpected knock on the door of my flat from this person, now looking for money for cigarettes for someone else! Smrrs, now somewhat nice person though I might be, what I don't want is someone getting the idea that they can come round my place any time they may need to make use of my kindness. Maybe that sounds mean, I don't know, me being me I'll always feel some additional guilt on such occasions (of which similar has occurred on some previous occasions) but I can't just be there for someone all the time who really needs a more professional degree of assistance. If history has taught me anything I don't have the strength for such ambitious kindness, but then neither am I particularly skilled at saying no to anyone so there was an additional degree of awkward for me. I wasn't much able to dissuade them from suggesting they might come round the next night but, as it turned out, the snows came that day and I wasn't so displeased to end up not seeing them again that evening, but I was yet left feeling rather more precarious about the sanctuary of my little flat.
Anyways, in case anyone hadn't noticed, there has indeed been just a little bit of snow about the country since then!
Well, that first day of white stuff came a week earlier in these parts than the blizzards that presently occupy the news. Watching it come down and make the world all pretty was a somewhat curious experience. After what had been a reasonably reasonable day at the Coliseum and my first trip to the jobcentre of the new year which previous events left me feeling more uncertain about but that turned out ok, I found myself standing in the shelter of the train station watching the air turn white and thinking just how pretty it did all look but peculiarly not feeling it, and indeed feeling decidedly distant from my thoughts. It was a curious state of mind. As it turned out though, that was but a momentary lull in proceedings and actually probably the easiest moment of past days. Whilst the Coliseum lately hasn't been too troublesome and I've been updating the website and doing the usual sorts of silliness, the shop has been a somehwat more troublesome affair. For one thing we were due to have our annual shop audit from the powers that be and the word that came in from other branches in the area was that the person doing it this year was a particularly humourless and unpleasantly strict evaluator when it came to the following of procedures. So there had been an excessive amount of stress and missing paperworks trying to get filing systems in order and stock in the right places and so on and so forth. Manager has been particularly stressed and not altogether happy at the amount of effort put in by assistant manager which hasn't made for the easiest of working environments. Then after it seemed we were getting on top of things, dotting eyes and crossing teas and so on and so forth we had the fun news that auditor had cancelled their prospective visit to our branch! Everyone was not exactly terribly disappointed at this news but it's rendering of previous stresses particularly unnecessary seems to be somewhat darkly ironic to my little brains. That though wasn't the only nonsense we have endured at the shop as we have yet new orders from the powers that be over how my precious books are supposed to be arranged. For reasons that none of us seem quite able to fathom we are now supposed to be removing all books from the shelves that have been on the shop floor more than two weeks, regardless of whether we has the stock to replace them with or not. Quite why they think empty shelves are going to be more tempting to customers than ones fully stocked with books that may just have been on there a little longer than procedure dictates is something of a mystery. Needless to say though it sadly required us having to go about decimating our bookshelves and I yet wonder what sort of state my little flock are going to be in when I visits on Sunday. All in all then the shop for the moment seems to have become another relatively safe place where I haven't felt particularly settled so that be an additional not very good thing my nervous system has to be dealing with.
There has yet been though more difficulties going on at my flat as returning one evening from the shop I happen to find a tiny little scrap of a note under my door informing me that in just three days time some humans would be coming to measure up the windows for my flat for double glazing. Oh joy! Yet more peoples coming to invade my territory, and in the mood I had reached at that point I certainly wasn't in the best frame of mind possible to prepare for such a thing. Thus the past few days have seen in all sorts of excessive degrees of flappy panic and unnecessary ridiculous emotional turmoil, scampering about the flat and making it look presentable for visitors. Of course, there is some greater degree of tidying that I would probably be better off doing more regularly, but then there is my excessive response to unexpected turmoil which leaves me doing things like scrubbing down my kettle for half an hour at midnight and tiptoeing out to the bins at one in the morning when I hope no one will see me doing so. Quite what my nerves imagine humans are going to do if they do see me engaged in such a perfectly banal and straightforward task as going out to the bins I don't know but for somehow they seems to imagine that they are bound to hate me for it and death would preferable to whatever might ensue. Heh, death after all can only happen once but ignominy is ongoing and lasts forever! Hm, well anyways I have cleverly managed to subject myself to three long days of excessive fear and panic and cleaning, doubtless exarcebated to some degree by all the unexpected visits to these parts from humans previously. Heh, although maybe one positive side-effect from all this is that it did allow me to reschedule what would have been another unnerving trip to the fairy job folk in Scarborough but I'm aware that is still only a stay of execution. As it turned out of course, the visit of the man was really not so problematic as much as I felt like I was sitting and waiting for a judge to pass sentence and condemn me to some eternal shame. The excess of snows didn't seem to make it quite the best day to be driving up from Bridlington (quite why helpful landlady couldn't arrange a more local glazier I don't know but then I would have appreciated a little more discussion on the matter than just one little note under my door too) and it was a little late in the day when the human arrived so I ended up missing Friday at the shop too. Still, giving the state of my nerves at the time mayhap that wasn't such a bad thing. I did eventually wander out in the snows and, standing out in the train station car park once again, the location from which I had taken my first snowy picture, I stood and watched what seemed like a decidedly unhappy looking turnstone skittering through the snows and digging about in it for stones to turn. It did find one little rock worth turning but I somehow doubt it will have found any tasty invertebrates hiding themselves away underneath it.
Well anywho, now that parents are moved out from the caravan for winter I has lately been able to enjoy some brief respite this weekend shuffling around the corner to share spaghetti bolognaise with them this Saturday and later some tasty lasagne for Sunday. Hopefully this then might be a signal that this storm of chaos into which I seem to have found myself sucked these past few days may now be just starting to pass over and, if not brighter times now lying ahead at least hopefully somewhat more tranquil and predictable ones! Given the weather though perhaps the parents picked a good time to be moving back into town although by the sounds of it I don't thinks little fluffy kittykat is going to be agreeing with that sentiment! Apparently, on their first visit back to the caravan after their departure they found the heating hadn't turned on as they had set it to and so the whole place was frozen solid! The lilies in a vase on the window had been encased in ice, pipes were frozen solid and even the poor little felines water bowl had been iced over! The beast did get fed and had the fire left on for it so hopefully won't have been too chilled in the days that have come after it but if the wintriness continues as it seems to be forecast to then the beast is not going to have the happiest of months ahead. Heh, and I had been thinking just before all this snow that he might actually have an easier time of it this year but perhaps I should stop thinking along those sorts of lines now as the universe would seem to take a particular delight in proving me wrong about these things! Oh well, I don't know what much more I can really say about the business in terms of my puppy mental healths that I haven't really said before and I don't thinks I has the will for much more writing on the subjects. Now I really just hopes that after all the fun and games lately things may actually be just starting to get a bit quieter and I can gets myself back on something more of an evening keel. I can't really say my hopes are too high though and don't know how high I dare put them. Still, I should be shuffling round the corner to go see parents at their temporary abode and have me some nice lasagne in a moment and hopefully manage to construct myself a relatively more tranquil weekend. Surely now, surely there must be some easier days ahead and I will be able settle down my brains and get on with doing good things. As my schedule now stands, my next trip to the fairy job folk isn't until the Monday after next so I have a whole week ahead which should all be normal and reasonable. Heh, but I'm certainly not going to be calculating the sum total of my poultry just yet as they are good ways still from pecking their ways out from beneath their shells!
Anyways my goodly reading friends I thinks by now I've probably subjected you all enough to my self-obsessive ravings of my own foolish weaknesses. If I thought a little harder I could doubtless furnish you with a good few more examples of troubles I have brought upon my myself but I suspect that be enough for now. Long story short anyways, it's been something of a trying time! Hm, as one more thing though I might add that all this craziness has left me with perhaps some mildly puzzling physical symptoms too, I've also been aware that about this time last year I was talking about a strange sort of stiffness and dizziness that seemed to be plaguing my body which seemed somewhat strangely persistent and a little different to my usual peculiar unpleasant sensations. Lately there has been a similar degree of dizziness, aches and pains and oddness which has once or twice given me pause, but given all the other stresses and strains that have been going on it would most likely be all in my head. Still it's something to keep an eye on though if, as I hope, the world does indeed start to quieten down again in the days ahead. The way the world has been though I find myself at some points actually hoping I might have some sort of condition that would allow me to avoid the rigours of actual living. If nothing else that perhaps goes to show that all this business hasn't really done much to help induce in me a particular desire for life and doing the things I know I need to do if I am to really construct for myself the sort of life I really wants to be living. The world hasn't been too helpful lately, but then I don't particularly help myself either. Oh well, I don't thinks I has the will to go into much explorations of that lately and doubtless you've all read much the same sort of thoughts in previous entries. At the moment my brains is far too unsettled for a particularly coherent analysis of either mental, physical or environmental circumstances so all I can say is that me certainly hopes over days ahead that things will become rather more settled and conducive for getting things going in some sort of at least more reasonably coherent direction one way or another. In the meanwhile though I shall leave you with one more picture that I actually took about two weeks ago and have meaning to share for an age before all this past nonsense came along. In amongst the chaos I haven't had much time at all to be continuing my playing of Guild Wars 2, although I did just about manage to fit in the time to finish of my playings of Diablo III, finally slaying the Prime Evil, and after all the anticipations about that game not feeling myself with any great urge to play it again unlike the repeatedly replayable nature of the previous games in that series.
A long time ago in a fantasy universe far, far away however, namely the world of Tyria and Guild Wars 2 my little tree dude, Quercus Rufus and his pet wolf, Sandy Claws, (named after the inhabitants of Halloween Town's mispronunciation of Santa Claus in a Nightmare Before Christmas if you were wondering) I happened to come upon my very first absolutely massive, big stompy dragon as you can see.
My meeting with Tequatl the Sunless was however something of a peculiarly odd affair however. I was playing somewhat late at night and was the only player in the region. Alone as I was there was no chance whatsoever of me taking on the big stompy dragon but as there was no one there to actually attack the beast it was really rather weird watching this giant undead monstrosity stomping about on the ground and erecting these massive bone walls in order to protect itself from, well, from nothing whatsoever. Meanwhile the non-player characters in the area shouted out the same repeated warnings over and over again as it breathed its poison breath at the assailants who were not there and dropped poison shards from its wings down on no one in particular. Meanwhile though, whilst meeting no resistance the strangest thing was how the dragon just stood there, not doing anything to actually attack the people and the base in front of it who continued to shout about this threat that wasn't in fact doing anything in any way threatening. I mean, it's a dragon! It can fly and stuff! The whole point of the dynamic event system in Guild Wars 2 was to make the world seem more alive than the static and unchanging quest systems of other mmorpgs but watching this giant dragon stomp around on the ground conspicuously not attacking the defenders while the defenders did conspicously nothing to drive it back other than shout at it, was the clearest example yet that there is still a ways to go in making the world of online role playing games really seem like the living virtual world that they potentially could. Not that it's not a fun game of course and I would say it's still a step forward from World of Warcraft, at least in my opinion, but it's still something of an oddness. Apparently though the game developers yet have plans to introduce new game mechanics and additional dynamic events and stuffs to seek to have a go at addressing some of these issues so I do yet look forward to continuing to explore and enjoy what I hopes may yet be an improving game. Heh, that is of course so long as the real world allows me that opportunity and I can manage to cling on to a reasonable quantity of my sanity in the meantime! Heh, as a lost note though I couldn't help but think there might be some appropriate analogy for my own real life experience in the vision of that big dragon, stomping about and growling yet really doing nothing at all whilst defenders shouted and did nothing with no one actually around to see or move anything forward. There's surely some kind of metaphor in there I could expand and write more about had I the mental strength at the moment but, erm, I don't, so I shall save you from that expression of my geeky nerdishness!
Instead I shall depart from you now for it is just about time I shuffled through the snows around the corner to go sample parents tasty lasagne. In the meanwhile though I do hopes that all you good peoples out there aren't having too many problems with the snows and that the world is treating you all with some degree of reasonableness. I looks forward to what I hope may be a much quieter week ahead wherein I may settle myself and writes to you folks a bit more and sends more of my regards. Hopefully though it yet goes without saying that all and any friendships and supports of your good people out there are indeed appreciated and my best wishes yet go out to all of you in your respective adventures. I'll return at some point no doubt to tell you all of how I gets on with mine but in the meanwhile I bids you all adieu with wishes of reasonableness and sanity for all. Although as yet I'm not sure I dare risk beings too hopeful about anything, the tempting of fate doesn't seem to have had the bestest of results recently! Heh, take care all you good peoples.
Hm, still I thinks what may have lent events of the past couple weeks their particularly unsettling effect be that a good few of them have happened here in my little flat and thus seem to threaten the one little place that I would hope to be my quiet little sanctuary? I forget precisely when these things happens but I think the first was unexpected knock on my door from neighbour, coming home drunk at sonewhere near one in the morning. Of course they were just being neighbourly in some senses so I shouldn't really complain too excessively that in their drunken state they thought they needed to enquire whether I had picked up the little bit of post that had been on the hall table for me in the days before. All very nice and thoughtful of them, but having the person in that condition casting their eyes about my ramshackle lair wasn't the sort of thing I really wanted to be dealing with at such a time of night. It's occurred before and previously I have been somewhat able to brush it off but this occasion felt somewhat more unsettling and put me a little more on edge, perhaps on account of all the various complications I had been dealing with previously. Tiresomely though that wasn't the only unexpected visitor to my little dwelling over the past few days. Having been visiting parents out at the caravan on the last weekend before they would be moving out for winter, I happened to come upon a person whom I vaguely know through someone else as I was walking back through town. They are by no means a bad person but also, in the politest possible terms, not exactly the brightest or easiest to converse with. Anyways, they apparently were looking for someone to help a friend of their's who was having troubles getting their TV to work. I can't say I was in a particular mood to be doing any of this, but I'm a relatively nice person and hadn't really the will to say no so ended up following them round to this persons flat and poking at their television for a little while until I got it working again. My good deed done for the day I shambled back to my flat thinking that all was reasonable well. As it turned out though the next night I then had an unexpected knock on the door of my flat from this person, now looking for money for cigarettes for someone else! Smrrs, now somewhat nice person though I might be, what I don't want is someone getting the idea that they can come round my place any time they may need to make use of my kindness. Maybe that sounds mean, I don't know, me being me I'll always feel some additional guilt on such occasions (of which similar has occurred on some previous occasions) but I can't just be there for someone all the time who really needs a more professional degree of assistance. If history has taught me anything I don't have the strength for such ambitious kindness, but then neither am I particularly skilled at saying no to anyone so there was an additional degree of awkward for me. I wasn't much able to dissuade them from suggesting they might come round the next night but, as it turned out, the snows came that day and I wasn't so displeased to end up not seeing them again that evening, but I was yet left feeling rather more precarious about the sanctuary of my little flat.
Anyways, in case anyone hadn't noticed, there has indeed been just a little bit of snow about the country since then!
Well, that first day of white stuff came a week earlier in these parts than the blizzards that presently occupy the news. Watching it come down and make the world all pretty was a somewhat curious experience. After what had been a reasonably reasonable day at the Coliseum and my first trip to the jobcentre of the new year which previous events left me feeling more uncertain about but that turned out ok, I found myself standing in the shelter of the train station watching the air turn white and thinking just how pretty it did all look but peculiarly not feeling it, and indeed feeling decidedly distant from my thoughts. It was a curious state of mind. As it turned out though, that was but a momentary lull in proceedings and actually probably the easiest moment of past days. Whilst the Coliseum lately hasn't been too troublesome and I've been updating the website and doing the usual sorts of silliness, the shop has been a somehwat more troublesome affair. For one thing we were due to have our annual shop audit from the powers that be and the word that came in from other branches in the area was that the person doing it this year was a particularly humourless and unpleasantly strict evaluator when it came to the following of procedures. So there had been an excessive amount of stress and missing paperworks trying to get filing systems in order and stock in the right places and so on and so forth. Manager has been particularly stressed and not altogether happy at the amount of effort put in by assistant manager which hasn't made for the easiest of working environments. Then after it seemed we were getting on top of things, dotting eyes and crossing teas and so on and so forth we had the fun news that auditor had cancelled their prospective visit to our branch! Everyone was not exactly terribly disappointed at this news but it's rendering of previous stresses particularly unnecessary seems to be somewhat darkly ironic to my little brains. That though wasn't the only nonsense we have endured at the shop as we have yet new orders from the powers that be over how my precious books are supposed to be arranged. For reasons that none of us seem quite able to fathom we are now supposed to be removing all books from the shelves that have been on the shop floor more than two weeks, regardless of whether we has the stock to replace them with or not. Quite why they think empty shelves are going to be more tempting to customers than ones fully stocked with books that may just have been on there a little longer than procedure dictates is something of a mystery. Needless to say though it sadly required us having to go about decimating our bookshelves and I yet wonder what sort of state my little flock are going to be in when I visits on Sunday. All in all then the shop for the moment seems to have become another relatively safe place where I haven't felt particularly settled so that be an additional not very good thing my nervous system has to be dealing with.
There has yet been though more difficulties going on at my flat as returning one evening from the shop I happen to find a tiny little scrap of a note under my door informing me that in just three days time some humans would be coming to measure up the windows for my flat for double glazing. Oh joy! Yet more peoples coming to invade my territory, and in the mood I had reached at that point I certainly wasn't in the best frame of mind possible to prepare for such a thing. Thus the past few days have seen in all sorts of excessive degrees of flappy panic and unnecessary ridiculous emotional turmoil, scampering about the flat and making it look presentable for visitors. Of course, there is some greater degree of tidying that I would probably be better off doing more regularly, but then there is my excessive response to unexpected turmoil which leaves me doing things like scrubbing down my kettle for half an hour at midnight and tiptoeing out to the bins at one in the morning when I hope no one will see me doing so. Quite what my nerves imagine humans are going to do if they do see me engaged in such a perfectly banal and straightforward task as going out to the bins I don't know but for somehow they seems to imagine that they are bound to hate me for it and death would preferable to whatever might ensue. Heh, death after all can only happen once but ignominy is ongoing and lasts forever! Hm, well anyways I have cleverly managed to subject myself to three long days of excessive fear and panic and cleaning, doubtless exarcebated to some degree by all the unexpected visits to these parts from humans previously. Heh, although maybe one positive side-effect from all this is that it did allow me to reschedule what would have been another unnerving trip to the fairy job folk in Scarborough but I'm aware that is still only a stay of execution. As it turned out of course, the visit of the man was really not so problematic as much as I felt like I was sitting and waiting for a judge to pass sentence and condemn me to some eternal shame. The excess of snows didn't seem to make it quite the best day to be driving up from Bridlington (quite why helpful landlady couldn't arrange a more local glazier I don't know but then I would have appreciated a little more discussion on the matter than just one little note under my door too) and it was a little late in the day when the human arrived so I ended up missing Friday at the shop too. Still, giving the state of my nerves at the time mayhap that wasn't such a bad thing. I did eventually wander out in the snows and, standing out in the train station car park once again, the location from which I had taken my first snowy picture, I stood and watched what seemed like a decidedly unhappy looking turnstone skittering through the snows and digging about in it for stones to turn. It did find one little rock worth turning but I somehow doubt it will have found any tasty invertebrates hiding themselves away underneath it.
Well anywho, now that parents are moved out from the caravan for winter I has lately been able to enjoy some brief respite this weekend shuffling around the corner to share spaghetti bolognaise with them this Saturday and later some tasty lasagne for Sunday. Hopefully this then might be a signal that this storm of chaos into which I seem to have found myself sucked these past few days may now be just starting to pass over and, if not brighter times now lying ahead at least hopefully somewhat more tranquil and predictable ones! Given the weather though perhaps the parents picked a good time to be moving back into town although by the sounds of it I don't thinks little fluffy kittykat is going to be agreeing with that sentiment! Apparently, on their first visit back to the caravan after their departure they found the heating hadn't turned on as they had set it to and so the whole place was frozen solid! The lilies in a vase on the window had been encased in ice, pipes were frozen solid and even the poor little felines water bowl had been iced over! The beast did get fed and had the fire left on for it so hopefully won't have been too chilled in the days that have come after it but if the wintriness continues as it seems to be forecast to then the beast is not going to have the happiest of months ahead. Heh, and I had been thinking just before all this snow that he might actually have an easier time of it this year but perhaps I should stop thinking along those sorts of lines now as the universe would seem to take a particular delight in proving me wrong about these things! Oh well, I don't know what much more I can really say about the business in terms of my puppy mental healths that I haven't really said before and I don't thinks I has the will for much more writing on the subjects. Now I really just hopes that after all the fun and games lately things may actually be just starting to get a bit quieter and I can gets myself back on something more of an evening keel. I can't really say my hopes are too high though and don't know how high I dare put them. Still, I should be shuffling round the corner to go see parents at their temporary abode and have me some nice lasagne in a moment and hopefully manage to construct myself a relatively more tranquil weekend. Surely now, surely there must be some easier days ahead and I will be able settle down my brains and get on with doing good things. As my schedule now stands, my next trip to the fairy job folk isn't until the Monday after next so I have a whole week ahead which should all be normal and reasonable. Heh, but I'm certainly not going to be calculating the sum total of my poultry just yet as they are good ways still from pecking their ways out from beneath their shells!
Anyways my goodly reading friends I thinks by now I've probably subjected you all enough to my self-obsessive ravings of my own foolish weaknesses. If I thought a little harder I could doubtless furnish you with a good few more examples of troubles I have brought upon my myself but I suspect that be enough for now. Long story short anyways, it's been something of a trying time! Hm, as one more thing though I might add that all this craziness has left me with perhaps some mildly puzzling physical symptoms too, I've also been aware that about this time last year I was talking about a strange sort of stiffness and dizziness that seemed to be plaguing my body which seemed somewhat strangely persistent and a little different to my usual peculiar unpleasant sensations. Lately there has been a similar degree of dizziness, aches and pains and oddness which has once or twice given me pause, but given all the other stresses and strains that have been going on it would most likely be all in my head. Still it's something to keep an eye on though if, as I hope, the world does indeed start to quieten down again in the days ahead. The way the world has been though I find myself at some points actually hoping I might have some sort of condition that would allow me to avoid the rigours of actual living. If nothing else that perhaps goes to show that all this business hasn't really done much to help induce in me a particular desire for life and doing the things I know I need to do if I am to really construct for myself the sort of life I really wants to be living. The world hasn't been too helpful lately, but then I don't particularly help myself either. Oh well, I don't thinks I has the will to go into much explorations of that lately and doubtless you've all read much the same sort of thoughts in previous entries. At the moment my brains is far too unsettled for a particularly coherent analysis of either mental, physical or environmental circumstances so all I can say is that me certainly hopes over days ahead that things will become rather more settled and conducive for getting things going in some sort of at least more reasonably coherent direction one way or another. In the meanwhile though I shall leave you with one more picture that I actually took about two weeks ago and have meaning to share for an age before all this past nonsense came along. In amongst the chaos I haven't had much time at all to be continuing my playing of Guild Wars 2, although I did just about manage to fit in the time to finish of my playings of Diablo III, finally slaying the Prime Evil, and after all the anticipations about that game not feeling myself with any great urge to play it again unlike the repeatedly replayable nature of the previous games in that series.
A long time ago in a fantasy universe far, far away however, namely the world of Tyria and Guild Wars 2 my little tree dude, Quercus Rufus and his pet wolf, Sandy Claws, (named after the inhabitants of Halloween Town's mispronunciation of Santa Claus in a Nightmare Before Christmas if you were wondering) I happened to come upon my very first absolutely massive, big stompy dragon as you can see.
My meeting with Tequatl the Sunless was however something of a peculiarly odd affair however. I was playing somewhat late at night and was the only player in the region. Alone as I was there was no chance whatsoever of me taking on the big stompy dragon but as there was no one there to actually attack the beast it was really rather weird watching this giant undead monstrosity stomping about on the ground and erecting these massive bone walls in order to protect itself from, well, from nothing whatsoever. Meanwhile the non-player characters in the area shouted out the same repeated warnings over and over again as it breathed its poison breath at the assailants who were not there and dropped poison shards from its wings down on no one in particular. Meanwhile though, whilst meeting no resistance the strangest thing was how the dragon just stood there, not doing anything to actually attack the people and the base in front of it who continued to shout about this threat that wasn't in fact doing anything in any way threatening. I mean, it's a dragon! It can fly and stuff! The whole point of the dynamic event system in Guild Wars 2 was to make the world seem more alive than the static and unchanging quest systems of other mmorpgs but watching this giant dragon stomp around on the ground conspicuously not attacking the defenders while the defenders did conspicously nothing to drive it back other than shout at it, was the clearest example yet that there is still a ways to go in making the world of online role playing games really seem like the living virtual world that they potentially could. Not that it's not a fun game of course and I would say it's still a step forward from World of Warcraft, at least in my opinion, but it's still something of an oddness. Apparently though the game developers yet have plans to introduce new game mechanics and additional dynamic events and stuffs to seek to have a go at addressing some of these issues so I do yet look forward to continuing to explore and enjoy what I hopes may yet be an improving game. Heh, that is of course so long as the real world allows me that opportunity and I can manage to cling on to a reasonable quantity of my sanity in the meantime! Heh, as a lost note though I couldn't help but think there might be some appropriate analogy for my own real life experience in the vision of that big dragon, stomping about and growling yet really doing nothing at all whilst defenders shouted and did nothing with no one actually around to see or move anything forward. There's surely some kind of metaphor in there I could expand and write more about had I the mental strength at the moment but, erm, I don't, so I shall save you from that expression of my geeky nerdishness!
Instead I shall depart from you now for it is just about time I shuffled through the snows around the corner to go sample parents tasty lasagne. In the meanwhile though I do hopes that all you good peoples out there aren't having too many problems with the snows and that the world is treating you all with some degree of reasonableness. I looks forward to what I hope may be a much quieter week ahead wherein I may settle myself and writes to you folks a bit more and sends more of my regards. Hopefully though it yet goes without saying that all and any friendships and supports of your good people out there are indeed appreciated and my best wishes yet go out to all of you in your respective adventures. I'll return at some point no doubt to tell you all of how I gets on with mine but in the meanwhile I bids you all adieu with wishes of reasonableness and sanity for all. Although as yet I'm not sure I dare risk beings too hopeful about anything, the tempting of fate doesn't seem to have had the bestest of results recently! Heh, take care all you good peoples.