Life: you are a difficult one

I don’t like running my laptop through my TV, it’s dumb. It’s either too small a resolution, meaning things don’t fit on the screen, or it’s too big a resolution and the text is too small, needing constant adjustment, squinting and liberal use of the zoom function.

Bastard world, why do you have to be so difficult?

But I’m sure somehow I will find a way to struggle on through – to use my 42” LCD television hooked up through HDMI technology to my £400 Blu-ray-playing laptop to buy a new PC costing around £850. It will be difficult. There will be tears, for it is so bloody hard. But I will persevered and get through this.

Maybe I can use my balsam-coated tissues to wipe away the tears – of which I can spare many because at any point I can go and drink from a near-limitless supply of cold, clean water. But this kind of hardship isn’t something everyone can live through.

There are weaker minds – weaker people around. But not me. I keep my strength up. I have faith in a higher power. Namely: the one that allows me to form entire episodes of TV shows and movies out of thin air using ‘wiffy’ technology, or something.

It eases the pain, though only slightly.

But you know what? I’m still not sure if it’s going to be alright. This life is hard.

Shameful piles

NOTE: After writing this, tagging it, coming up with a hilarious title and proving once again I am the greatest in the world at Photoshopping, I was all geared up to post this. Then I realised I’ve done this subject before, way back in January. As such, I can only offer my apologies, as I’m not writing another one today. It’s different enough, even if both titles are the same (i.e. ‘hilarious’).

There is a cyclical realisation that sets in with any real gamer out there. After a certain amount of time – be it weeks, months or years – you will start to notice that that game you were “going to go back and finish” the other week have actually turned into dust-covered relics of a gaming past you hardly remember. The couple of weeks off a game turn into months, which can sometimes turn into years – unless you die. Or sell it.

Yet at no point do most of us stop actually buying new games. With the increasing prevalence of digital distribution and the dangers it poses (the cheap, cheap, delicious dangers…) this problem has become even worse in recent years. You buy more than you can reasonably consume, and then you feel like you’ve let yourself down, or wasted money, if you rarely play and don’t finish the games you buy.

So I’m going to propose a new tack – a new way of going about things. I will quit my job so I can dedicate my life to working through the 170+ games I have lying around my flat and on my computer (they’re mainly on my computer, in undownloaded Steam form). I will give up the life of earning money and instead replace it with one of earning fleeting satisfaction for finally getting around to clocking Planescape Torment, for putting the requisite hours into Company Of Heroes and for finally bothering to give Metro 2033 a shot. Except I don’t own that last one, so I really should go and buy it now… oh wait.

I mean, I propose all of this – all of these radical changes which will bring about a better state of mind and karmic balance to the universe. I say all of this, but I know what will happen: I’ll make a concerted effort to complete two or three games, and once I’ve done that I’ll forget why I ever worried in the first place. Then the whole sorry cycle will begin again. Oh, and I won’t quit my job.

I tell you – I have to deal with some pretty serious things in my life. You’re lucky you all have it so easy.