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Ten Things: Treasured Items

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Adam Randall

I was on David Tubb’s blog the other day and I came across this really lovely entry which has inspired me to make a post about ten items that are of significant value to me. I’d also like to say, that being fond of physical possessions is often criticised as being materialistic and I think I agree in the case of things such as solid gold yachts and the like, but in today’s entry I’m going to talk about ten items I’m very attached to because they remind me of happy memories or of relationships with close friends and I don’t think that’s at all materialistic. Of course, I have a lot more than ten items that are very special to me, so I had to leave a lot out, so maybe I’ll make a follow up post at some point, but, anyway, here they are:

LJ the Cheetah

This was brought back from South Africa (I think, it may have been somewhere else) by a friend of mine and then given to me as a gift. There was a time when I was very close with this person, but now the pair of us don’t seem to have any contact. This isn’t because anything bad happened, we just went in separate directions when we went to university, but this little wooden cheetah is a fond reminder of our past friendship.

Picture of David and I

Sadly, I can’t see David quite as often as I used to, but I see this picture of he and I every single day as it sits on top of the bookshelf beside my bed. He surprised me with this picture one time when I came round for a visit, and it was a lovely treat. Even better, he has his own identical picture up at his house! You may not be able to tell from the photo, but he has also edited a picture of Gallifrey into the background, which is a nice touch.

John-Boy Walton Action Figure

The Waltons is one of my absolute favourite television shows. Like Doctor Who, it’s one of the only things I’m always watching. As such, I was very pleased when my Mum gave me this as a surprise Christmas present last year!

Aeroplane

This does have a special name, but, I don’t remember what it is. At the end of the summer I got to meet my internet friend Rhinowater in real life for the first time, and it was wonderful. When I first saw him, he gave me this model aeroplane as a gift, having bought one for himself too. We did plan to have a play with them at a park, but unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to. In a way, it’s a bit bittersweet, as I may not get to see him in real life again or his sister (an old friend of mine), but primarily this reminds me of the happy time I got to spend with him.

Colin the Cow

I bought Colin and wore him on my jacket as a bit of an in-joke between a couple of friends of mine. I don’t wear him so often now as he’s damaged and I don’t want to make things worse, but he still regularly appears in my webcomic, Finger Puppet Show! I wrote a bit about why I like Colin so much before.

Yo-yos

For years I really, really wanted to learn how to use a yo-yo, then last Christmas a friend of mine bought me one and taught me how to use it! Then it broke a few months later… But then they got me another one that’s still fine now! I don’t think I could ever bring myself to throw out the, broken, green one. Yoing a yo-yo is often quite therapeutic, I find.

Heartfelt Card

After a certain family tragedy, I was off school. Two days later two good friends of mine popped by with this absolutely amazing card signed by all of my friends. Even now, six years later, looking at it makes me happy.

TARDIS Poster

As I mentioned above, I love Doctor Who. I never really had any posters up in my room, but then one day a good friend of mine was visiting Corsham for a while and they gave me this. It was so unexpected and kind of them, so I put it up as soon as I got home. Now it’s a pleasant reminder of both one of my favourite TV shows and one of my favourite people! It’s up on the wall beside my bed.

Fourth Doctor Scarf

More Doctor Who! Not only is this a fantastic replica of the Fourth Doctor’s scarf, but it was a great Christmas present from a couple of friends of mine. It looks really cool and it’s really good at keeping me warm on cold days.

Trusty Water Bottle

Of course this had to be included! It’s the item all my friends associate with me. This very blog is named after it! Of course, in reality, there have been more than sixty individual water bottles, but as I throw one out and it’s replaced with another, the essence of ‘the’ Trusty Water Bottle transfers from one to the other. It’s a wonderful all-purpose tool which can put out fires, clean up messes, provide water, act as a relaxant, act as a stress ball, be a pointer, give me energy… It can do anything, basically and I feel strange without it. I started carrying it in 2008 and I have fond memories involving it and almost every person I’ve ever met. That could be a blog post all on its own…

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The Best Thing About the Super Smash Bros. Series

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Adam Randall

I enjoy the Super Smash Bros. series of video games for a number of reasons:
– The gameplay is very fun.
– It connects lots of things together (I love that kind of thing).
– There’s excellent multiplayer for two to four people.
– There are very many things to unlock.
– It’s full of nostalgic references.
But none of those things are what I love most about the series.
What I do love most about the series, and the main reason I would suggest others try it, is that it opens the doors to other games. Before I played Super Smash Bros. I had never heard of Fire Emblem, Kirby, Metal Gear or Metroid but, thanks to the inclusion of characters from those series, I’ve gone on to play several games from each one and to enjoy them very much.
I think we’re all a bit cautious about trying something new, especially with something as expensive as video games, but Super Smash Bros. rather ingeniously, eases you into these things. You may buy it simply because you’re a Mario fan, but then have a lot of fun playing as Link and decide you want to find out more about him, so you then buy one of The Legend of Zelda games. So, this is why I heartily recommend these games as it may well encourage you to buy and play games which you’ll love and which, otherwise, you may never have heard of or given a second look.

(I do not own the copyright of the image)

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Christmas Killjoys

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Adam Randall

So now we’re about half way through November and it’s around now that the average person begins to get excited about Christmas and for people like me, who have been excited since September or earlier, to become very excited. But, sadly, this pleasant time of year doesn’t only bring about these happy people, but also people who feel the need to say “It’s only November, Christmas is ages away!” This annoys me for several reasons.
A month is not a very long period of time. I’m always looking forward to things that are happening in several months’ time, and so, of course I’m excited about Christmas months in advance too. I think that most people are pretty excited about things of an equal temporal distance because you so often see people on Facebook write things like “Only three months until my exotic summer holiday, I can’t wait” but then when winter comes around they write “Excited for Christmas? It’s only November, you silly jerk”. So I just don’t understand why it’s not acceptable to be excited early for Christmas, my theory is that people complain about this excitement to cement themselves as an ‘adult’. Christmas is, for them, something which is ‘for kids’ and so a serious adult like them won’t be getting excited for it except, maybe, on Christmas Eve (this is may also explain, another criticism, of this wonderful time of year). This is rather ironic though, because for a child, yes, a month may be a long time, but for an adult that time will fly by in the blink of an eye.
In the end, I guess this is just another example of people complaining for the sake of having something to say which I find quite sad. The internet is full of sarcastic, annoyed comments about things, so much so that it outweighs all the nice things people have to say and I hate to think this is an accurate reflection of human nature. Why can’t we all be more positive about life?

(Also, today is Friday so don’t miss this week’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Wandering Thoughts

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Adam Randall

I’ve noticed a strange tendency of mine to find myself thinking about very light-hearted and/or funny moments of my life whenever something serious happens. Let me give you a couple of examples.
    Years ago I went on a school trip to a place in Wales called Pencelli and I was there for about a week. One of the things I did there was go up in the mountains (where there were abandoned castles and wild horses) for exploration and climbing. On the way back, I was walking along a very narrow path on the edge of a cliff. One of my teachers was a little bit behind me and everybody else was quite far ahead. All of a sudden I slipped and started falling sideways so that I’d go over the edge of the cliff.
    “Oh no,” I thought to myself, “I’ll die if I fall down there.”
    But then, rather reflecting on that, I started thinking about something else entirely. Specifically, I started to think about the German lessons I had at the time, I had a strict teacher who I didn’t like very much and I thought he was a bit silly, but I quite liked him too. I used to sit at the end of a row of my friends, the one on the end had done the work and everybody else consecutively copied it. And I was just thinking about that. Luckily, I grabbed onto the edge and my teacher helped pull me back up.
    Another time I was staying at a friend’s house and I was in a spare room doing some reading. It was quite late and my friend knocked on the door and came in for a chat. Everything seemed fine, but after a short while they broke into tears and went down onto the floor. They were very upset about certain things and asked me if I wouldn’t mind holding them. As I held them in my arms while they sobbed quietly, I found myself thinking “It’d be funny if Mike Wing walked in now”. I hadn’t seen him in years and I smiled as I thought of his crazy antics, such as the time he wanted me to compare chests with him and the unusual night that followed. Of course, I was very sad for my friend, but at the same time Mike had randomly popped into my head, which was nice.
    I could list other examples too, but I don’t want to make this entry too long. I wonder if this kind of thing is some kind of natural defence mechanism? Every time something sad or stressful happens, my mind sends down an old happy memory, or something like that. Does this happen to anybody else?

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Webcam Problems

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Adam Randall

Back in 2007, I got two things for the first time: an MSN account and a webcam. I really enjoyed doing video calls with my friends and also talking to them from home because, until that point, they were people who I would only have contact with when I was actually in school. So, as you can imagine, I was very happy about that.

However, this blog post isn’t just an appreciation of internet communication; before long things took an unfortunate turn. Quite often I would be chatting to my friends around the time of day that I would get changed which, on its own, wasn’t an issue. The problem stemmed from the fact that my computer was also very slow, and it froze up for ages every time I started and ended a video call. As such, as I trusted my friends, if I was chatting and needed to get changed, I’d say “I’m just going to get changed now, so, minimise the call until I send another message, please!” This plan worked perfectly fine for a while, until somebody threw a metaphorical spanner into the works.

“If you get changed right now, I’m just going to watch you,” said one of my friends (it was actually two friends of mine, one round the house of the other).

“No you won’t,” I replied, “I am getting completely changed, you know!”

Of course, I had every reason to believe this was just some way of teasing me. Why would she watch? She had absolutely no reason to. So I ignored that remark and continued to get changed.

Now, before I continue, I think I should tell you that I’m often told that I’m a rather naive person. When people say that, I usually think that they don’t fully understand the way in which I look at the world, but I suppose this story in particular does portray me in a rather naive light. My friend did watch the entire time I was getting changed (the other later told me that she looked away the whole time, kindly) and then they also told every person that I knew all about it. That would be bad enough on its own, but there’s still more.

Rumour has it that she screen captured me at a rather exposed moment and showed it to loads of people. I have to say, though, that I never came across this screen capture so, perhaps a little optimistically, I don’t believe that it existed. But still, even that is not the worst part of this story; somehow or another, I was the one who came off negatively when this story was repeated amongst people. It wasn’t that somebody had spied on me getting changed; it was that I had acted indecently on webcam! Which was a shame really, because if you looked at past occurrences (like the time she ripped off half of my clothes in a garden or the time she pulled forward the waistline of my trousers and peeped inside as if I were a doll she wanted to check for anatomical correctness!) it was quite clear how things had happened.

But still, I hope this may act as some kind of cautionary tale for people!

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Role Model

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Adam Randall

Last night Laci Green posted a video on her Tumblr which I thought was very sad. She spoke about how she struggles with depression and how reading about horrible things that happen in the world and the rude comments that people leave on her work often get her down an awful lot. She also spoke about how she wishes that people with depression weren’t so stigmatised and how she hates that having a mental illness will often lead people to erroneously believe that you are crazy and/or to treat you as if you cannot cope. (Go over there and watch it if you like, I was going to post the video here, but, since it’s unlisted, I thought I had better not.)

Laci Green is a role model of mine (and, along with Earl Hamner Jr., is one of the only non-fictional ones too) and I have to admit that I was rather shocked to see her in such a vulnerable state. I suppose when we look up to somebody, it’s easy to forget that they are just regular person and have their own personal problems too. It was through Laci Green that I got more into feminism, before watching her videos I thought of myself as ‘pro-feminist’ but I didn’t really know about many of the important issues in our society and her videos opened my eyes to them. I guess I just wish that she thought she was as wonderful as I think she is.

Another part of the video that particularly affected me, was when she talked about the stigma attached to people with depression. I would say that probably the majority of my friends suffer / have suffered from depression at some point or another (and some people, funnily enough, have thought I may do too, which seems unlikely to me, but then again, I could relate to some of the things Laci was saying in the video), so it clearly is not a rare thing and I hate to think that any of them have come across any of the issues she mentioned. If somebody tells me that they have depression I just think “How sad, poor them” but I don’t treat them any differently, and you shouldn’t do, but I guess a lot of people do, which only adds to the problems.

Unfortunately I don’t have much of a conclusion to today’s post. Originally I had an anecdote planned for today, but I wrote this instead to keep things topical. I guess I’ll end be saying this: do you know anybody with a mental health problem? And do you treat them any differently? If so, you should change that. It may not even be a conscious thing and it doesn’t make you a bad person, but it’s the kind of thing we should always be wary of.

(Also, today is Friday, so don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Nightmares

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Adam Randall

I have to say that I quite like it when I have nightmares, they really make me feel good. Strangely, whenever I mention this to anybody else, they always tell me they feel the complete opposite, and I don’t understand why, so I’m going to explain today why I like having them.
Just a few days ago, I had a dream that it was late October / early November (just as it is in real life) and I was getting all excited about Christmas, again, just like real life. However, in this dream, I popped into the doctor’s for something very minor (anxiety, I think, but I can’t really remember) and then, whilst in there, he told me that he’d discovered I had some fatal illness and would be dead in under a month. I was really sad about that because, obviously, I don’t want to die, but also I wouldn’t live to enjoy another Christmas and that in particular made it a lot worse. I found myself thinking “I wish this were just a bad dream!” and then I woke up and it turned out to be exactly that.
The next day I went out and had a lovely day with a couple of friends of mine and, it being just after that nightmare, I enjoyed it a lot more because I was able to appreciate the fact that I didn’t only have a few weeks to live. And that is exactly why I love having nightmares; because once I wake up I can appreciate real life even more!

(Also, sorry if the photo seems out of place. It’s a picture I’m quite proud of, I’ve wanted to post it for some time and I think it makes for a good visual representation of a nightmare!)

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Dating

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Adam Randall

Fairly recently I went to a social event, I met a new person and the pair of us got along pretty well. However, towards the end of the evening things took a turn for the strange and she asked me on a date. This isn’t a situation I’ve had to handle before, and it made me fairly uncomfortable. I gave, what I hope was, a polite decline and explained my reasons. I’ve not seen her since, and I can’t say that I’m bothered by that. Mainly because it would feel a bit strange after that, which is a shame because otherwise we could have been good friends.

As I’m sure you can guess, I’m no expert when it comes to the world of dating and for all I know this is pretty much the way things are done, but looking rationally at this, it doesn’t make much sense to me. In my experience, when people enter into romantic partnerships, they then put their partner before everybody else and value them as the most important person in their lives. It is also my understanding that ‘dating’ somebody is the precursor to this kind of relationship. Therefore, why would you ever ask somebody that you’ve known only for a few hours, on a date? In that space of time, you can barely build up any kind of image of someone or even accurately judge how well you get on with them. So why on Earth would you try to lay the foundations to make them the most important person in your life? It just seems so incredibly forced. I can see somebody doing that after they’ve built up a strong friendship with somebody over many years, maybe even after months, but after one day? Is that really how things are done?

I realise that this entry might sound quite bitter, and I hope it doesn’t. I was quite flattered by her offer, and she was quite nice, it’s just that this kind of thing doesn’t really make any sense to me. Perhaps I’m just not intelligent enough to ‘get’ it?

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Punk Ambition EP

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Adam Randall

This Friday we have another album review! This time it’s Dalfino Madrigal Keyte’s EP “Punk Ambition” as with my last album review, I’ll score and give my thoughts on each song individually. The whole album is available online for free here.

Forsaken Friends. Rating: 8/10
This is a nice and quiet guitar song accompanied by Dalfino’s soft voice. It goes along peacefully until reaching an exciting climax which I suppose symbolises a release of emotion.

13 omit 9 & 11. Rating: 8.4/10
This song comes across as more ‘musical’ than the last, perhaps due to the bigger prominence of the guitar. This one was quite a bit more emotional and so therefore I enjoyed it more than the last.

Terraforming. Rating: 8.3/10
Again, this is another peaceful track where you’re lulled along by the gentle guitar and Dalfino’s soft voice. But this time things aren’t all right, there’s a despairing tone to his voice, it’s as if he’s weeping with his voice, making the whole thing rather bittersweet.

Take Your Leave (of Me). Rating: 8.5/10
This is my favourite song by Dalfino, and it’s definitely worth a listen. The main guitar rhythm sounds wonderful and Dalfino’s voice sounds strangely echoic and distant. It’s as if somebody already has taken their leave (of him) and his voice is echoing because he is far away and getting further and further away from them, perhaps to symbolise the loss of emotional closeness with somebody? Excellent work.

Average: 8.3/10

(Also, don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show! Or yesterday’s Halloween special.)

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Water Photography

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Adam Randall

Water has to be one of my favourite things to photograph. Due to its fluid nature, it can look completely different in different circumstances and all of them look lovely and natural. There aren’t too many, but here are my favourite photographs I’ve taken of water.