Is this a problem?

Hi readers, This post is going to a bit different from the others I have thrown together haphazardly when I can be bothered.

The focus of this post is about how I feel I don’t have the right to complain about my life. I haven’t got a clue if anyone else feels this way ( though I would imagine at least some people do) but when talking about myself to others my mouth keeps moving about what’s going on in my life while my head is screaming that they honestly couldn’t care less and they have far more important things to worry about than my general well-being.

Even now as I type this I’m struggling to think up sentences that don’t put me across as being a one-dimensional self-serving being who will blindly ignore other people’s struggles in favour of being able to talk about myself for just a few more minutes. There is always this niggling little thought at the back of my head that I am selfish for telling people about myself an about the things that make my day-to-day life a bit of a mess. It’s like my head thinks I’m saying the goings on around me are far worse than they actually are, but I don’t honestly believe I’m exaggerating.

It’s difficult to explain – I try my best to keep what I say in check and that I don’t stray onto the topic of me all too often but sometimes that little niggling thought changes its stance and continues its persistence in  toning everything down with an almost stiff upper lip attitude but with the side notion that “Maybe you do need some attention, at least acknowledgement.” It seems like an eternal conflict between not wanting to seem selfish and honestly feeling like perhaps I deprive myself of attention just to stay out-of-the-way. I prefer staying out-of-the-way, it leads to less problems, maybe that’s why I kindly decline offers to go drinking with colleagues and friends, I much prefer the solitude of my own company knowing that I can’t cause trouble. Without wanting to perform a five-star ‘oh woe is me, how bad is my life’ move I think that these feelings might stem from when I was a lot younger.

My Mum was a very ill woman when I was little, though she still cared for me no matter what it took – I remember being in this strange world where things kept happening around me that seemed bad, my Sister got in fights and trouble, my step Dad wasn’t particularly sympathetic towards my Mum throughout her medical troubles and the only thing I could see that was common about all of these things was that I was there. Looking back at it now that was very selfish, to assume that I was responsable for all these things happening that caused problems. Selfish or not I became a very quiet person, not you’re average kid. I would ask if I could go to sleep early, I had a small circle of friends at school who I would have fun with but didn’t often invite to my house. The years passed and things changed a lot but I still seemed to be the quiet person who would rather sit in the library in secondary school at break

All in all, I can’t escape the feeling that I am a selfish person and don’t have the right to complain about what has happened in my life, or even that I need to talk about it. Perhaps with all the seclusion I put myself through I have experienced very little and so have little else to talk about to other people when they ask about me. It’s somewhat depressing that out of the things I have done up to this point in my life, when someone asks about me all I can think of are the things I went through and how I feel the need to tell them, but then feel nothing but guilt for clouding their day with my troubles.

 

I don’t expect an answer to the question of whether this is a problem or not. this post in itself is what I try to avoid as to not come across as an attention seeker. with my mind more muddled than it was when I started writing this I’ll end there.

What a turn around!

In my previous post about how my life had taken a turn for the joyous I stated how I found myself working for the outdoor group/ Blacks leisure group in a store as a sales assistant. since then many wonderous and splendid things have happened, I made a good impression, got a supervisor position and found out the company is completely ruined. wait, no, that’s not a good thing.

Let’s expand on that shall we?

I got a supervisor position and while it has been stressful and tense (mainly due to little time for actual training) I enjoyed it. Then about two weeks into sitting on my perch of minor managerial status My Manager furnished me with a printed copy of an e-mail sent from head office. there was lots of obligatory  blurb and clutter that was somewhat unnecessary but getting down to the nitty-gritty of the e-mail the basic message was this – “We’re out of money.”

At first my reaction to reading the e-mail was similar to that of ambivalence but then I actually realised what this ment; the company was up for sale. I couldn’t honestly say I was surprised that this decision had been made however, I knew that we were in some financial difficulties ( the ’36 million pounds in debt’ kind of difficulties). After letting the thought swim around my head and bloat a little until it dominated my thought I settled with the idea that putting the company up for sale was a smart move. one of our shareholders would come in and buy us and essentially save us from going entirely belly up. What I failed to factor in of course is that us and our shareholders are all on the same cheap inflatable Lilo floating out into the atlantic. Sure enough this failed factor-inner made itself known when our biggest share holder (sports direct) made a bid to buy us, then dropped th offer leaving us stranded with little money yet again. moods are sinking as the majority of the employees (at least in my town’s stores) are realising that one of the few ways we’re getting out of this mess is that we’re not.

Pre-packed administration may be how the company dies a quiet death with other shareholders taking the good bits of the company leaving the group itself to fend for its life under the massive debts it owes. this doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll lose my job however. the benefit of such a plan is that the more profitable stores and staff are kept aside for future use. to be frank however I don’t see the company recovering from this. perhaps there will be a magical act and we’ll all be safe but I honestly believe that by February next year I’ll be looking for a new job.

Damn.

The Possum is back.

Seems like it’s been a long time since I last wrote something up here on my little slice of the net. I don’t have any reason for it other than ‘I’ve been busy’ really…

Now I know that I write a by-no-means popular or well read Blog but it’s nice to get my innermost thoughts down where I and others can see them. “So Garry, what have you been up to?” I hear you all silently ask as if it was something important. Well I’ve been up to a lot. College is over and now I have entered the working world. Three weeks in to working for the outdoor retailers and high street name, Millets, and already hilarity is ensuing. (more on the various things that happen at work in a later post…. maybe)

To go into a little more detail I left college about a month and half ago now after receiving some… pretty terrible results overall for my classes. I did however receive an A level in mathematics so I’m pleased with that at least. after speaking to various members of admin staff around the college I found that I had one of two options. I could continue on at college for another two years (though the courses that would be available would be on the BTEC level rather than A level) or I could quite while I was ahead and leave college all together. Now… I few people wish I’d have made the opposite to the decision I eventually made and I can’t say I don’t blame them. Luckily though I managed to find a job within a few weeks of leaving college and have been working their since.

Steering away from education and employment for a moment and heading instead doggedly for the dry expanses of gaming which by now is probably more of a hobby for me than entertainment; It’s been pretty dull overall. Deus ex came out but I didn’t bother buying it, though I am reliably informed it’s the next best thing in FPS’s and cover-based shooting which to me means it’s going to be a chest-high-wall-fest.

Minecraft is still in development but has had a huge amount added to it. I’m not sure whether I like it or not though. It seems like a lot has been done to pad the game out a little so it doesn’t seem like a testing ground for mods anymore. Perhaps I’m just surprised at how full a game it’s starting to resemble.

The elder scrolls – Skyrim has been announced/ released (not too sure which, can you tell I don’t keep up with games like that?) and Bethesda also put forward it was working on another game which -could- and I hope -is- Fallout 4. let me just lay this down: If Bethesda make Fallout 4 like they and Obsidian made Fallout: New Vegas then I’m going to buy it hands down without even waiting for reviews. I’ve said a lot about the Fallout games, I know, but they’ve all been good. at least the main ones have. Fallout 3 was a little iffy but that’s what you get when you wait so long between games (except if you’re Valve….)

Speaking of Valve, nothing new has surfaced about Half-life 3 to my nerdy disappointment but good things come to those who wait. and if portal was the gift Valve gave us to say sorry for the long wait between Half-life episodes they better have something phenomenal hidden behind them to make up for the amount of time that has since passed.

Black Mesa, the Half-life 2 modification that lets the player re-play the first Half-life game on the source engine with everything made from the ground up (levels, models, voice etc) has had no major news. The mod team has steadfastly maintained that the mod is still in development and that they’re working on the last parts of the game but the release date of 2009 was quite some time ago. It’s a big mod though and one hell of a challenge considering they’re doing it in their free time so Kudos to them for keeping it going. Keep up the great work guys!

Okay, so I said it had been pretty dull. the truth is that a lot of games have come out recently and I just haven’t played them. either because they don’t interest me or because people trying to make me get the game have actually put me off.

More news to come on other things sometime soon!

Make a difference for the good for someone

You can change someone’s life for the good so very easily.

Today on my regular commute route to college, I found myself stopping off at a Gregg’s and buying a chicken lattice. As I strolled leisurely up the hill towards the top of town enjoying my (somewhat disappointingly luke-warm) meaty breakfast I remember thinking to myself that today was going to be one of those days again, one of those days where everything goes bad or is otherwise just an annoyance.

when I reached the top of the hill I put the wrapper of my breakfast in the bin after finishing the last bite and continued to walk through a roofed back ally come public pathway where my eyes met with those of a homeless man, sat on the floor in the only dry spot. I’d seen him there before and had also seen him being grieved by people younger than myself from afar as well as hearing story’s from the people themselves that they got him food, spat on it and then gave it to him for ‘fun’ (story’s to which I replied with a disgraced look on my face). On a day as cold as this even under four layers I was cold, it was obvious he too was cold. As I walked past he looked up and asked “sorry… Have you got any spare change?” With sympathy in my heart I reached into my wallet and pulled out a few silvers at first and placed them in his hand, doing so I realized just how cold he was. his hands were like ice; I reached back into my wallet and pulled out a two-pound coin, putting it with the other change is in his hand, saying “Get yourself a pair of gloves… It’s far too cold out here to not be wearing any” (had I been wearing any gloves I’d of given them to him). A smile grew on his face as he said thank you.

we both coughed at the same time, I’ve had the flu for a while now and after talking for a bit he said he was feeling a little under the weather too, that his throat was sore and he was congested. Feeling for him as I did I reached into my pocket and gave him two lemsip capsules (medication for flu and colds) that I happened to be carrying with me and said “After you get the gloves, get a drink and take these with it. it’ll stop the congestion for at least a while…” by this time I needed to head off to college to avoid being late, I went to carry on walking as he sat there looking into his hands at the change and the flu tablets. he smiled once again, looked up at me and said “Thank you… so much”, all I could reply was “no worries” and headed off for college once more.

All day all I could think about was that man, if he’d be ok, safe, warm, where he would sleep that night. I never even asked his name but I still felt good knowing I had at least helped. The point I’m making is this: It’s easy to do good for someone. all it takes is a little heart to help someone who’s down. we’d all want them to do it for us if we were in their position and vice versa.

They don’t have to be homeless. just help someone this week, the reward you get from a good deed is better than any other in my opinion.

The Internet, where I hang my hat – part 2

Goodness! It seems my previous post was by far the most popular (in views) so far. I did want to continue it into more detail because…well… I rather missed the point I set out to state.

In this part I’ll talk more about what I found the Internet to hold as opposed to reeling off analogy after analogy (though no promises are being made)

The first thing I want to talk about is Wikipedia.Here’s what i have to say first off: Genius. Wikipedia (If you’ve been living under a rock these past years) Is a free electronic Encyclopedia that has over 17 million articles (that’s Seventeen MILLION…. 17,000,000… it’s mind-boggling) in a variety of languages, all written collaboratively by the average Joe blog and for many has become the first-stop repository for any information they seek (Obscure hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy reference). The fact that it can be edited by most anyone with an account does make its accuracy arguable but the simple idea alone of a fountain of all our collective knowledge and experience is what really makes Wikipedia great in my eyes. It’s the first thing I think about when I hear the word “Internet” and for a good reason I would say, as well.

Moving on our tour we come to a grinding halt at media sharing websites, YouTube specifically. I have no problems with YouTube apart from the people using it including myself as a matter of fact. It was here I learned the meaning of the term “flame war” and it was also here that I learned to avoid them. YouTube as a website does feel somewhat gimmicky.. its idea of sharing videos can be clearly seen and there’s nothing wrong with that but sometimes it does feel like netting a shoal of fish only to find two or three that are actually worth effort to eat.

Leaving the world of shared media and Godwin’s Law behind us we move on to the world of forums and then, quickly leave again because all that appears to happen here are more flame wars, pointless remarks and topics that have already been discussed a million times before. the only thing that makes forums different from these conversations is that a middle man has been added in the form of a  computer system. While I admit that forums do play an important role in special interests a lot of them seem to be about nothing special.

Sailing ever further across the seas of the net we find ourselves floating in the worldwide web’s Bermuda triangle. Where threads and discussions are said to have died long ago never to be resurrected. empty user accounts of all kinds reside here, leaving an eery quiet.

Further still we travel to a more familiar corner of the internet The blogosphere where there seems to be an odd sense of intellectualism in the air. not that there’s anything wrong with it of course, just with my past experiences so far of the Internet I find it a bit difficult to get used to at first.

For now that’s the end of our trip as my beloved partner is calling me over to stop being a nerd for just one minute (says he, using his shiny Macbook)

The Internet, where I hang my hat

Ah yes, This is something I’ve wanted to write about for some time now but never had either the free time to do it or a means of expressing it. Now, however, I have both. I can finally write about my experiences of the Internet and how I feel it has affected today’s world and culture.

DISCLAIMER: This blog post may contain excessive amounts of waffle and rear-end talk.

 

Back in about 1998 my family brought home their very first computer. It was (as the year gives away) a Windows ’98 Home PC with… as I recall… None of the trimmings. It was absolutely awful! slow, tiresome and to me at that young age, all too confusing.

It wasn’t until later on in around 2003 when I was introduced to this wonderful thing called “the world-wide-web” that I started to see the true potential of computers as a form of communication (now of course, this had been already happening for some time, but I wasn’t aware of it then). I saw, for the first time, e-mail, forums, encyclopedias, online education And I remember thinking “My goodness! This Internet thing is amazing!” (had I had a decent sense of humour at that time I probably would have made a joke about whether it could also make a cappuccino as well).

skip forward a few years and one busted Tiny Windows xp professional home computer and we arrive at the last three years and it was noticed I was the only one who ever used the home PC anyway and also needed a computer to complete my GCSE work on (as well as taking a few sly breaks, playing my – VAST – library of games (4 in total). That christmas I unwrapped a shiny new home computer, top of the range at gaming then and still going pretty strong now. It wasn’t long after that, that we decided to connect to the internet again but with a slightly more reliable connection this time and with a mouse that was actually ergonomic in my hand I set forth to see what I had missed of the internet over the past few years.

Logging onto the Internet felt almost powerful, knowing that I could have information almost literally at the click of a button and within a few days of jumping on and off of the computer I found things like common interest Forums, VLE’s, Game websites, Review websites, instructional pages, phone listings, conspiracy theory sites, spam addresses. It was rather much like driving down Sunset Blvd with a camera on hand.

about three years or so after that first ‘proper’ surfing of the Internet I grew bored. going into Google seemed now like chore what with ads, spam, junk mail, bots and yet more spam. It seemed that golden experience I’d once had where everything online fascinated me had in fact just been a rusty hunk of iron, painted to look gold. “This can’t be it, can it?” I thought to myself traipsing through the slog and backwaters of the Internet looking for the occasional shining gems of communication being used to its fullest potential. but as it turns out these areas had existed all along and I was merely blind to them. the internet I have come to accept can be both a curse and a blessing but it still has so very much potential.

As it is at the moment, We share information, pointless, trivial information – but we enjoy it. Simply put we enjoy reading details of others’ lives and we enjoy knowing. social networking as it’s known is, I think, the beginning of something great. It’s what the internet now has become known for; Keeping in touch, sharing information, taking in information, discussing, gossiping, learning, enlightening are all things that happen on the Internet… and yes there will always be those swampy marshes around the edge of this vast lake of knowledge we call the Internet, and yes there will always be those that reside there in. but right here and right now, is every piece of information, every experience, every sight and every thought of human kind in one colossal network and despite everything, I like it here.

On days like these…

You know when you wake up and you have a feeling that everything is just going to go horribly wrong for no particular reason and you don’t want to complain about your situation because you know that there are people worse off than you?

They’re my favourite… they never used to be of course but now I’ve matured slightly I realise it happens to everyone at some point or other which actually cheers me up a bizarre way. I suppose you could call it Schadenfreude at its simplest level. But aside from that, good things that happen on these days always seem that much better after all the stress, hassle and even pain you’ve gone through to get it.

This is a mild (but still true) example:

Today I woke up with only ten minutes in which to get dressed, brush my teeth, cycle the two miles to college and arrive at my first class on time. Once I was on my bike my shoelace got caught in the chain and got completely ruined. Not to mention my bike skipping a few gears after that which was a tad annoying considering I was going uphill at the time.

When I got into college I was about 15 minutes late and arrived at my first class to find I had done rather badly on a recent test I had taken and that I was overdue for a peice of homework I hadn’t been informed about. Feeling a bit defeated by the day already I decided to get something from the vending machine after class. I couldn’t help escape the feeling that putting the coins in the machine was like paying someone to annoy me. Sure enough I wasn’t far off as my sweet sugary reward of a KitKat chunky that I thought I deserved saw fit to get wedged between the glass and the spiral of metal that had falsely promised me a crunchy, chocolaty snack. after sighing to myself and getting ready to just walk away from the machine now 70 pence poorer my previously stuck chocolate bar fell to the bottom of the vending machine with a thud which with all that had irritated me previously sounded like an angels choir in comparison.

The point I’m making is, when bad days like this hit me like so many evil sentient vending machines and broken bicycle chains I know that something good will come of it all and when it does it will feel all the better than it would on any other day.

Everyone has days like this, care to share yours in the comment section?