STUPID HALLOWEEN

Halloween’s a bit shit really, isn’t it? It’s not based on anything – I’ve checked, and if you tell me it’s something to do with the Roman feast of Pomona or any kind of festival of the dead then shut up, because you’re wrong because I said so. Halloween was invented about three weeks ago by some kind of evil pumpkin seller.

I reckon the guy also has a line in everything related to skellingtons, seeing as you see so many of them around in this stupid fake non-time of the year.

I mean, some might say I’m just a bit massively jealous and angry that I never got to go trick or treating as a youngster. Some might say I was indoctrinated to believe that Halloween is ‘a stupid American thing’ (which is it: FACT). Some might say the fact I’m always made to feel bad when I tell people of my bad taste costumes that I’ve worn over the years annoys me.

Some might say that, yeah. They’d probably have a point, too.

But they’d still be wrong, mainly because I just said they’d still be wrong.

Some might even say the reason I’m unnecessarily (“necessarily”) mean to children knocking on the door is because I’m insanely jealous of them. It’s not – it’s because they’re smug little bastards who need to be knocked down a peg or five. Especially the three-year-olds.

Stupid Halloween.

My plan to get on a TV comedy show (“don’t be funny”, apparently)

I’ve figured out how to get on TV (again), just as I’ve clearly always wanted to. Or something. I don’t know. Is that something you’re supposed to aspire to? Probably.

Anyway, the greatest comedy TV show of all time is on right now, Fast & Loose. Basically it’s like Whose Line Is It Anyway if it was really fucking bad. I lied about it being the greatest comedy TV show, by the way.

Anyway, seeing as I’m the funniest person alive I’ve decided I should be on it. Mainly because it’s so shit it would be really easy to be just as bad as the other schmucks on it. I lied about me being the funniest person alive, by the way. And I know just how to go about getting involved.

First I need a slightly weird face that isn’t traditionally good looking. Done. Second I need pastel colours and clothing fresh from Marks and Spencer. Not done, but I can do it if someone loans me loads of money because M&S isn’t cheap like Primark.

Then I need to say mainly unfunny, sometimes vaguely funny things that both have no character or depth of any fashion. Then I’ll fit right in. I could go to the doctor for an overall blandification, as that would be necessary. I’m far too exciting for it right now.

Oh jesus this double speak round is awful. These people are shit. I hate them.

No hope.

The Fuck Off List, MKI

I’m sure there will be some I forget, and I’m sure I will have to make additions to this list at some point, but basically I’ve decided to write a list of the kinds of people who can fuck right off. Here we go:

People who say “that’s funny” in lieu of laughing
You know what both says ‘that’s funny’ and has a pleasing effect on me/others in the room? Laughter, you fucking idiot. Don’t tell me it’s funny – just fucking laugh. Arsehole. Next person I meet who tells me ‘that’s funny’ and doesn’t laugh gets a Dransfield See Ya. SEE YA.

People who tell shit stories and think anyone cares
I don’t mind shit stories. I get it – people tell them. I’ve told my share, hence inventing the hilarious finish of saying “THE END” really loud just to get a cheap laugh. But people who are blissfully unaware what they are talking is utter boring shite? Yeah, they can get the first fuck-off-bus back to Fuckyoutown.

People who say Altered Beast was great
I get it – you think referencing old Mega Drive games will put you on my level. It won’t. I am a human encyclopaedia of videogames. I am the Stephen Fry of the gaming world. I am Best In The World. Altered Beast was one of the worst games ever made.

People who still think South Park is the same as in 1998
Not only are you showing you’re a moron for not continuing to watch the best TV show of my lifetime that isn’t The Simpsons or Futurama, but you’re also just proving you’re a bandwagon-following twat with no ability to make decisions for yourself. It stopped being cool post-movie, so you stopped watching it. Fucking idiot.

People who make tea milk before water
You fucking sick freaks. Fuck the fuck off.

People with the audacity to claim they make tea anywhere near as good as mine
See above, except they’re laughable sick freaks. My tea-making is second to none. Just like my dog was better than yours. Facts.

People who don’t like videogames at all
Note the ‘at all’ part. There are people who claim not to like them, but will play Angry Birds or some toss like that. That’s fine. That shows you are human and have a basic requirement to kill the boredom festering away in your brain. People who claim not to like any games at all are just, quite clearly, sociopaths, insane and seriously unbalanced.

People
Because can you all just fuck off, yeah?

Ah, that feels a bit better.

BORED

I’m really fucking bored. I’m bored of the same places, the same seats, the same faces. I’m bored of the routine. Bored of how I can’t see a way out of the debt that enforces the routine. Bored of the hypocrisy and idiocy I show by going out and spending the money I should save if I want to rectify that last statement.

Bored of boring people. Bored of boring lives. Bored of people who aren’t boring. Bored of you. Bored of her. Bored of him. Bored of not just getting the fuck over that. Bored of this laptop. Bored of the internet. Bored of needing to go to the shop in a bit. Bored of staring at the 17-year-old checkout girl. Bored of questions. Bored of answers.

Bored of your life. Bored of your job. Bored of your funny stories. Bored of your sad stories. Bored of your jokes. Bored of everything about you. Bored of everything about me too. Bored of music. Bored of silence. Bored of TV. Bored of books. Bored of games. Bored of films.

Just a bit bored, really. Only boring people get bored, etc etc etc etc etc bored of writing etc.

Or maybe I’m just regretting watching the computer race a car around on Gran Turismo 5 for the last hour in a B-Spec endurance race. Who knows?

My bank is trolling me

My bank loves me, it seems. See, they love rich people because of that whole ‘loads of money’ thing and how… well, I don’t know. Whatever it is they do with their money. It’s never been that clear to me why they love rich people so much.

Probably something to do with all the fancy hats they can afford.

Anyway, banks then hate people like you, because you are normal, have a bit of money (but not loads) and don’t piss about with them in any real way. I am not one of you people. Nor am I one of the rich ones.

No, I belong to a select group that teeters on the brink – never quite absolutely broke, but always having to take advantage of credit facilities and overdrafts. I’m the kind of person kept in a perpetual state of debt that I have to pay for the privilege of having, which contributes to me staying in said debt. In perpetuity.

As I’ve said before, it’s entirely my fault so I’m not whining right now.

But it’s fun – in a hilarious, cynical way – how nice the bank is to me as a result of both a) not really having any money and b) not really causing them any problems as a result. I’m a good little prole to them, always paying minimum amounts, overdraft charges and whatever else they lob my way and never threatening to earn or save enough money to drag myself out of this.

Which is why the bank just sent me a letter this week offering to increase my overdraft limit by 50%, to £3,000. Because they have a sick sense of humour at banks and think ‘well, if we can already fleece him, why don’t we try and fleece him a bit more?’

Fortunately I’d have to ring them up to arrange this, and that’s not going to happen because I hate using the phone. Oh, also I’m thick and bad with money, but I’m not that thick or bad with money. Shove it up your arse, HSBC – you’ve got enough of my debt thanks.

How to make your walk to work faster

I’ve found an innovative new technique by which I can increase the speed of my journeys to and from work. Or, at the very least, make them feel like they don’t take the 25-30 minutes they actually do. It’s so simple, I’m shocked I never realised it before.

Just be in a funk. A mood. Angry. Pissed off. Headachey. Annoyed. Irritable. Be all of those and some other ones, all at the same time, and it simply flies by.

Obviously that just means ‘be Ian Dransfield’, but it’s hard damn work to be me each and every day. I mean, some days I’ve been known to wake up not hating each and every one of you wastes of skin. Though that is admittedly a very rare occurrence.

It also requires that my day of sitting making Hilarious and Satirical comments about videogames and the rest of the world isn’t as… let’s go with ‘normal’… as it usually is. It requires I be pissed off by something.

I had to edit DVD videos today, so let’s say that’s why I was pissed off. Because I was. Fiddly shit.

But it helps, it seems. My journey to work, recovering from a complete lack of sleep and the fear I was on the verge of death by headache when I was woken up by stabbing brain pain at about 4am, seemed to take about three minutes.

My walk back, in which I was still furious about anything and everything, appeared to take about 7 Seconds.

No, wait – that’s what I was listening to.

Either way, it didn’t seem to take that long. I still need a Segway, though.

Kinect: THE FUTURE (it’s not)

I currently have The Future Of Videogames here in my house. I mean, technically I’m well behind the times as it’s Kinect, and Kinect has been out for ages. So it’s not really the future, more the now. But you know what I mean.

Anyway, it’s not the future. Something I have to move my sofa almost onto my bed in order to be able to play is not the future of gaming. I like just picking up a pad and jabbing the ‘shoot foreign men’ button. Speaking of which, I don’t want to use my body as a controller. I want to use a controller as a controller.

I don’t want to have to jump around in my room just to play some shitty game. I want to press X to stab the brown person who speaks funny. I don’t want to bump and clatter around all the stuff in my not-too-big flat.

Which leads me on to: I don’t like jumping and moving much because my floorboards make noise and, while it hasn’t happened in two years of living here, I still get the fear my idiot housemate will complain. That all comes back to a pathological fear stretching back to the insane scrubbers who lived next to us in Preston.

I digress.

I mean, Dance Central 2 is great and I had a lot of fun doing the boogie on down on my own in my pyjamas, but… not all the time. It’s not the future. It’s part of now.

Can you tell I’m having to play a Kinect game right now? Yeah, that. It’s alright. I just don’t like having to move even after I’ve done my exercise for the day. Ah, laziness.

Yeah, I just don’t get it

I am constantly amazed by the ability for people to be drawn in by what they are told to be true. I work in games, whatever that means, and there’s a lot of shit in it. I mean, a lot.

Naturally none of it matters in the real world, but it doesn’t stop people – myself included – from getting worked up about it. Mainly because we’re all a bunch of pathetic nerds who really should get a grip and realise there are more important things in the world to rant about*.

Anyway, arguing is great and all that – especially on the internet where everyone is fair and focused and mature and listens and all that. But there’s some things I just don’t get, and in gaming they really hit hard.

People, like you or I, are told things by publishers. Publishers are out to make money from people like you or I. Yet people, like you or I, take what these publishers say at face value as 100% true. I won’t go into the details as I’ll end up ranting, but it basically involves ‘we want more money, let’s extort our customers’, then telling said customers it’s for their own good.

Yet when you call out publishers on this bullshit, who comes to their defence? The people being shafted by them. It’s a brilliant system, and reminds me a lot of politics – tell the people what you want them to believe until they start believing it. Simple, effective, fucking annoying.

Anyway, yeah, back to sorting out the real ills in this world. That, or getting a yoghurt.

*That’s actually bollocks. While there are many things more important, that doesn’t discount people from getting worked up about problems with/in/around gaming. Just because you whine about one thing doesn’t preclude you from whining about another. Life 101 for you there. Just because I’m complaining about online passes doesn’t mean I don’t give a shit about starving kids. I am aware of perspective. I am also aware of the ability to have opinions on more than one thing at once. Crazy, I know. Sigh.

Powerthirst 4, in a way

Some people really are determined to take all the fun out of getting high. Legally high, that is. We all know they’d never take the true joyous glee that is cooking up your next smack bindle (that’s what they’re called) to tit off in your flagglewanging (more knowing drug-speak, sorry).

First they invented energy drinks – I still remember not knowing what the fuck Red Bull was. I still don’t – and nor do the people who make it, seeing as they don’t really know what taurine or ginseng do. Anyway, it seems Pure Energy distilled into a small can wasn’t good enough, so they invented tiny energy shots.

Waste of time, waste of point. Ruins the whole ‘getting a drink and gratuitous amounts of energy’ thing.

Seems even that much liquid is too much, if this thing here is anything to go by.

Yes, it’s inhalable caffeine. You just take a huff of it and get ‘as much as a large cup of coffee’. But the thing is, I still want my coffee. Even if I’m in a rush/on the move/those other things that real people do in their business jobs in their business suits and business ties – even then I still want coffee.

Because coffee is bloody delicious and lovely and amazing and if I could marry it I would. I would marry the shit out of coffee. I think I’ve had too much coffee today. If you’re at a loss as to what you should get me for Christmas, just get me some nice coffee.

Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee.

1 of 14 catch-up entries to go.

The fire and the fury

I attempt to govern my mind with cold, hard logic most of the time. Unfortunately stupid things like emotion and blind prejudice get in the way and make me react in a way that isn’t quite what you would call ‘logical’.

In fact, there are a number of things that I react to with blind, unfeeling fury. If I could be violent towards these things and concepts, I probably would be. Alas, I cannot. And they get to go on existing and people get to go on liking them even though they’re shit. See:

Rugby
Rugby. ‘The thinking man’s sport’, as a few of our PE teachers used to call it. It is not a thinking man’s sport, it is a sport for either northern apes or toff apes (also: the Welsh) to run into each other and pretend anything they do has any point to it. It is enjoyed by people who do not enjoy good sports, and I used to get hurt every. Single. Time. I played it at school. Bag of shit.

Skiing
It’s not so much the act of skiing that fills me with The Rage, more the fucking evangelists for it. They sit in the same realm as Mac zealots for sheer bloody-mindedness. “You’ve never been skiing? Oh, you simply must! All you have to do is spend all of this money on transport and accommodation – and then, seeing as you’ve never been skiing before, you’ll have to get equipment and clothing and training and break your leg and it’s okay because we can sit in the lodge and get boozy with all the other over-privileged twats out there on their gap years!” God I hate skiing.

Clothing that costs lots of money
You pay for what you get. Having said that, I’ve been wearing a pair of shoes that cost four (4) pounds for a couple of weeks now and they haven’t fallen to pieces, nor have my feet exploded. I just saw a deal on Hot UK Deals to get £25 off any item at Jaeger. Initially I thought this meant booze. It did not. It meant hideously, hideously overpriced shirts, trousers and cashmere sweaters. There’s nothing wrong with buying clothing that’s well made and looks nice, even with paying a bit extra because you know it’s going to last. But the fact that people will happily, blindly walk into the situation where they’re spending loads on something they could get for a fraction of the price elsewhere just because they’re too lazy, stupid or wrapped up in the concept of ‘prestige’ pisses me off no end. I am a TK Maxx enthusiast – I make no apologies for this.

Anything vaguely posh at all
That is basically what I’m saying here. I have a real chip on my shoulder when it comes to posh things, and it’s quite clearly massively down to jealousy. I’m being serious there, by the way – I can wrap it up all I want in pseudo-intellectual ramblings about ‘status’, ‘born into opportunity’ and ‘unfair leg-ups’ or whatever else. The fact of the matter is I want a starring role on Made In Chelsea.

That, or £10 million would be nice.