Friday, December 31, 2010

Being Drunk and Productive = Counter Productive

I've finally learnt after 3 separate occasions that being drunk, in my case, and trying to be productive has often left me in a situation worse off than improved. This is also 3 occasions that I remember because they have left a lasting effect, like when you watch all of LOST and realise that you could've stared at a giant question mark for 6 years and STILL have gotten more answers.


"Previously on LOST..."

The first of these stupid escapades was something I mentioned in a previous post before. I stumbled into my room like a bowling ball falling down a staircase and saw my curtains agape. This could not stand if I were to sleep in that morning so like a whiley racoon I decided to close them. This proved much more difficult than it appeared, my drunken motor instincts confused closing with going rigid and my balance confused standing up with...not standing up. I forgot this had all happened until I woke up and thought for a moment "my window wasn't on the floor before?". Anyways, the good thing was, I still managed to close the curtains, even if they weren't attached to the wall anymore.

The second time is also something I've mentioned in previous posts. My sister and her boyfriend were over visiting and we all were drinking here in my apartment, which is also their ex-apartment. As per usual I was using my laptop to show funny videos (probably about cats) and play music no one wants to listen to at 3 in the morning. I also felt that the laptop needed no better place to be than on top of stereo speakers, at my head height with wires protruding from it all around the room. After showing them one of the trippy psychedelic fight scenes from Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World I took my own trip over my laptop charger sending my laptop on a very brief and ultimately horrendous speed date with gravity that ended at the floor. My laptop still worked but now my screen is stuck in what I am dubbing "Scott Pilgrim mode", it's flickery, crazy, fuzzy and psychedelic making reading just about bearable and the only thing that does look normal on it is Scott Pilgrim Vs. The world.

"Currently what Hibernation Mode on my laptop is like"

The final escapade happened nary a night or two ago. I came home and realised that I had left on a dehumidifier in my room for the majority of the day and as a result my room resembled something of a giant sandcastle. My bedsheets also weren't dry nor on my bed as I had just washed them, so I decided to stay up for a while drying those (not physically, in a dryer of course) and put them on my bed, all the while letting the dehumidifier suck up any dampness left in the sheets. When all said was done I proceeded to turn off and move the unit out of my room. It was probably like watching a newborn deer learn how to walk while trying to carry a dehumidifier. As you may have guessed, the simple idea of moving it didn't go exactly as planned and much like my cutrains and my laptop it ended up on the floor with an almighty crash loud enough to wake a Kraken. It also proved it did it's job well by spilling all of the daily moisture it had collected all over my bedroom floor. Now that's what I call counter productive!

After a bitter 5-10 mins of cleaning this mess and also reassembling the unit, I succeeded in removing it from my room. I walked back into my room and closed the door. Now, this was the third thing that has fallen to the ground in my apartment because of me being drunk so I think it was at this point that the other inanimate objects decided to join in on the fun too, such as the foldaway table behind my door. It lunged itself at my foot and nearly broke my toe. If I wasn't so drunk I probably would've also noticed it giggling as glided effortlessly through the dehumidified air. The Kraken awoke, ME!

"BLUAAAA MY KRAKEN TOE!!!!!!11111!!!1"

I've decided the only thing I can't do wrong when drunk and returning from a night out is to just go straight to sleep. What could possibly go wrong in that situation?

Monday, December 20, 2010

The Reason I know nothing about Music

When it comes down to music, I can tell that people think I'm stupid. More than stupid actually, I can feel them judging me when I don't know the names of the Beatles, can't name a song by Bob Dylan or remember the lyrics to Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon (which I accidentally spelt as Lyon, while trying to look up the name of the song just now). It's almost a look of "are you with reality?", which I can honestly say, most times I'm half way there.

Anyways, my lack on knowledge on, what I'll just label for the sake of labelling, Modern or Conventional music (I'm sure there's proper terms but I ain't lookin for a dictionary!) is because it just doesn't grab me. I think this stems right back to my video game days as a child.  When I think of music it always formulates in my head as some sort of theme or beat, no lyrics, just a looping catchy tune or some foreboding/bombastic/melodic orchestral piece. In turn with this, it sort of sweeps me away from reality, I start forming original (or blatantly unoriginal images) in my head which are animated, real or purely fictional and they usually tell some sort of story based on the tone of this piece. This is all accompanied by a good variety of tracks, scores, themes, music (whatever you want to call them!) because my mind is constantly churning out so many different thoughts that I need variety in sound to match. Actually my mind never stops, it's like a hamster on meth in a ball in which he runs faster than the Pope can say a Hail Mary, while it is powering a formula one car that's racing against Speed Racer on Rainbow Road from Mario Kart.

"This is F@#king crazy"

That actually makes me sound crazy but I'm not, I just have a bit of a wild card imagination that is all. Now along with all of this, I just want to say that it doesn't mean I don't like bands, I have a few that I listen to every now and again, Muse sticks out in my mind, but for the most part I just don't feel that inspired feeling you take from music when I hear bands. When I listen to scores and tracks from films, games or movies the picture factory in my brain starts firing up with more intensity than Christopher Walken reading a eulogy and during these times I usually draw or like to write.

"Lady Gaga was fond of.. the scooching..... I didn't like.... the scooching"

Depending on what I'm listening to it influences what I draw/ write and I have produced utter crap, something I can be proud of or something that makes me question my sanity after seeing peoples reactions (oh dear). This productivity is what I think ultimately brought me into doing Film and Television, scores just gave me so many ideas I wanted to make visually and show to other people.

I also figured out amongst all of the instruments I have heard, that the Violin is my favourite. I actually have one now too (thanks to my super awesome friends + my 21st Birthday!) and it's something that when I have time I will learn to master it. It probably sounds like I should've done a course in music instead and if I become good at the violin in any way in the near future, that's definitely on the cards. But realistically pictures still come first to me in my mind, I really am a film-maker (well, wannabe film-maker!) at heart, composing would be second to that if I could ever do it.

Anyways, I won't keep people reading this mish mash potato of explanations to my musical tastes, I'll just throw down a few tracks that I love and /or have been listening to lately that are "inspiring" as far as quotable words go:

My favourite song of all time (seriously, I told my mam once I want this at my funeral, she wasn't too pleased with the thought that I reckon I'm 2/3's of the way through my life):



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This is my favourite Silent Hill song as of late, it makes me feel badass, but I've stopped drawing to it because it usually not very pleasant:



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And of course, who could forget the awesome cover of All Along the Watchtower from Battlestar Galactica's Bear McCreary:




Anyways, maybe that might give you a small glimpse of the different things I listen to (if that interests you for some reason), show me what you like with comments below. Except for you Colin, we have the same music.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Dance Pants - NO!




I just recalled a slightly embarrassing memory from a few years back. I went through this odd phase thanks to a few of my friends where I would pull down my pants whenever I was drunk, because, y'know, it was just THAT funny to do. What was even MORE funny was doing it in a nightclub, on the dance floor, because everyone wants to see that right? So there we all were, early as the morning birds (except it was night time, at the club Cuba, and we're not birds), we had the dance floor to ourselves so we all took our stationary dancing posts at each corner and dropped the pants, laughing at our delightful foolishness! This idea progressed into the night but became less frequent as more people began arriving, the non early birds. It seems we were only trying to impress each other, our strange insecurities made secure by bearing our legs to each other. As the night wore on (like a pair of jeans!) we got progressively more drunk, me in particular as the event I'm about to tell you unfolds.

Everyone was dancing in a group on the dance floor. This excited me greatly so I downed the remainder of my pint, slammed the empty glass hard on the table as if what I was about to do my final note on my "to-do before I die" list and headed to the dance floor. I imagine if this was some sort of film the remainder of this would play out in slow motion. Like an unexpected ostrich I sprang onto the dance floor into the center of the group dropping my pants and flailing wildly in an orgy of cacophonous laughter while swinging my head around in a drunken insanity. If I had feathers they would've been flying everywhere. As I continued flailing but slowly succumbing to a more acceptable dance so I could read the reactions of my friends, a sudden realisation fell upon me, like a bird had shat on my head. These weren't my friends. And they certainly weren't impressed by my powerful bare ostrich legs. The looks on their faces were caught somewhere between disapproving, disgusted and eyebrow raised confusion.

As the truth of all of this dawned on me I turned around to see all of my friends sitting in the corner laughing at my misfortune. All I could do was stand there, hang my head in shame in a group of strangers, with my friends pointing and laughing at me, with my pants down. Textbook humiliation

Welcome to Silent Hill

welcome to silent hill
"If you ever see this sign run very far in the opposite direction"

I suppose it was only a matter of time before a few of you who know me have come to expect me to write a post about a little game called Silent Hill. And for those of you who don't know me, if you did know me, you would've come to expect me to write a post about Silent Hill. Now, I will write a post about Silent Hill.

I love Silent Hill because personally to me, it is quite possibly the most terrifying experience in the multimedia medium. I love the horror genre and have a bit of an obsession with them (a h-obsession?! har har har!) but this game surpasses every good horror film and gets not just under your skin but also in your head, assuming you have one, which would be quite disturbing if you didn't because then you'd anatomically incorrect. Anyways, I honestly have only played through the first game in the series on the PS1 and I have played half way through 2 and 3. But unfortunately due to compatibility issues with the 2nd and 3rd one on my laptop (yes, my laptop strikes it's whiny bitch hammer onto me yet again) I never got to finish 2 or 3. But fortunately, I'm quite impatient and have the mouth burns to prove it, so I went ahead and spoiled the rest of 2 and 3 for myself with wikipedia. I'm also only going to refer to the first 3 games as they're essentially the main trilogy that are considered the strongest in the series (there is also a prequel, a 4th and a 5th).

Basically, all of the Silent Hill games revolve around a town called (you guessed it!) Silent Hill. This town has a malicious history but in the modern era has become a tourist resort town. In each game you play as a protagonist that is some how linked to the town and winds up being caught in its hellish grasp and can only leave or escape when they have revelations about their past uncovered. You see, Silent Hill is a little different from most towns, it's caught in a certain situation, and not a Mike "The Situation" sort of situation, but something a little more terrifying (just a little!).

"Yo I'm Mike "The Situation" and don' go to Silent Hill or you'll be caught in a Situation! 
Situation, situation, situ....zzzzzz"

It seems to have somehow got itself caught between here and Hell, referred to as "Otherwold" in the games. Silent Hill has itself based in 3 dimensions. The normal dimension, which is just the normal town, the 2nd dimension which is essentially when you're caught (and also screwed to say the least...) in a fog shrouded town where demons roam the street and exits from the town fall into infinite voids, and then there's the final dimension. The final dimension is the Otherworld, a hellish twisted, rotting industrialised version of the town, pitch black and filled with stuff of nightmares. And trust me when I say stuff of nightmares, they really really are. The creatures in the game are usually representation's or metaphors of some part of the protagonist's psyche or other characters' psyches in the game and as you learn more about your in game avatar the more disturbing each revelation and monster gets. The most terrifying of these creatures usually reside in "Otherworld" and sometimes bleed into the foggy second dimension of Silent hill. I can already imagine what my terrifying creature would look like:

"Noooooo not the Custard Creams!!!!"

What makes these creatures terrifying is also their appearance. You can feel the repressed violent urges of some, the dramatic pain of others and suppressed sexual connotations of several. Usually appearing as some sort of wet sheen coated, curvy (and sometimes bobacious) twitchy and rotting entity, they twitch, crawl and run towards you in a terrifying manner. Their disgustingly sexual appearances subconsciously affect us as they take most intimate human actions and twist them into a horrifying form.

I'm trying to think of the best way to describe them but it's very tough and this quite possibly is the most honest post I have ever written about something. I remember when playing through the first one I could only handle it in small doses, probably 30 mins is the most I spent playing it on my first go through. It had me on the very edge, so much so that I had to turn my phone onto silent just so it wouldn't give me a fright. But alas that plan failed miserably as the vibration of my phone on the desk as I played nearly gave me a heart attack, and subsequently I didn't play any more that day. That would've been an embarrassing funeral story!

hello-kitty-tombstone.jpg
"Engraved on my Hello Kitty Tombstone: He played, He put his phone on silent, he got a phone call and died"

However there is one of the creatures in the game that has become iconic with the series (amongst others, such as the nurses) and he appears in the second game. He goes by the name of Pyramid Head and yes, it quite literally means he has a pyramid on his head. Welded to his head in fact, he can't remove it and it constantly inflicts intense pain on him. He kind of becomes instantly burnt into the VERY FABRIC OF OUR BEING with his first appearance. For lack of better words I shall show you instead.


Yup, the first time you come across this pointy headed nightmare (apart from one brief appearance beforehand) he's having smoosh smoosh more intensely than Snooki with two other creatures. If that doesn't make sense to you, he's raping two other creatures. This is a little "unsettling" to watch one might say but sets the dread dead into stone for each encounter you have with him throughout the game. And encounters you have, from being locked into a confined space with him while he tries to give you a little nick with his blade (the size of me) to being chased down a corridor where he slaughters the only other person you find in the town like Uwe Bowl does to every film he directs. He's just a nasty piece of work and the only thing scarier than him is being caught in an infinite time loop watching the same 2 episodes of Friends (or just "flicking on E4" as I like to call it). He's the series reminder of how creative (and wonderfully twisted) the creators of the series are and how the simple concept of putting something, such as a pyramid on someone's head can produce a jarring and unsettling appearance. Each game has it's own story and unique set of monsters but they are all linked in a way to each other and they always result in a journey to/through Silent Hill.

Anyways I really wish I could go on about these games for ages and ages but I feel like this post is already too long as it is (I know I probably would have given up halfway through this if I didn't write it) so I leave you with a recommendation of playing these games if you can get your smelly hands on them. Thanks for the read if you made it this far and hopefully you won't have the same nightmares I did about these games!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Intense Walking - The Consumer Cycle

I realised today that I can be a really intense walker when walking alone. Moving through the throngs of consumers (there are no "people" during Christmas, only the soulless creatures that crawl out of Hells hairy arse, the Consumers) on shop street in Galway today, I couldn't help but notice my intense walking affecting the lives of others around me. This intense walking is possibly the result of a mixture of things: I'm usually quite cold so I walk fast to make myself warm, I'm quite spaced out during these moments so I contain a certain soulessness to my facial expression and finally, I usually listen to music from the Silent Hill games. For those of you that don't know, Silent Hill is a videogame revolving around a town caught in a hell that depicts an industrial pseudo-sexual nightmare. Just think of the hottest girl or guy you know, castrate them, melt off their face and remove their clothes while some how nailing a rusty railway spike (or several) through some limb or appendage while they rot and you've got something that closely resembles the game. And then imagine how the music sounds to this picture.

"Your other half from Silent Hill, say hello to Betsy... or is it Alan?"

The walking which results creates a sort of hellish, depressing, unstoppable force of me hobbling towards you with a impenetrable sense of ungodliness. Reactions have been various, but I have always had consumers move with a polite "excuse me" and a smile which feels normal to me, but by the expression of Stranger A (and B,C,D,etc.), would make me imagine I have just shat on their face. They look unsettled, which at first used to kind of worry me, but now it's as normal to me as custard cream in a biscuit. However there are moments when it does get a bit awkward and it's usually when I walk behind two consumers (usually women) that are chatting away to each other and I am unable to pass them. They usually become aware of my unintentionally malevolent presence behind them as I speed up and fall behind, speed up and fall behind like some sort of demon yo-yo, because I keep thinking I have opportunities to pass them. Every time they turn around and look at me it probably appears something like this:


Their uneasiness excretes from their pores like sweat from that fat guy at the gym, and I become disdainfully aware as I now have to not only pass them, but do so before their uneasiness infects others around them. This creates a sort of panic between both parties that fuels my demon-train walk to an uncontrollable level. At this point time has become limited edition, I don't have many options so I purposefully subdue an oncoming walker with a glare:


This prompts the oncoming victim to stop dead in their tracks as I glide by the now two silent women. For a brief moment we connect as I pass them by. It feels feral, I am a predatory ostrich at a petting zoo and they are small children, time has stopped for them as they realised they had fed the wroooooong bird. They cower out of the rest of my way and then I pass while they nearly walk into my previous victim. As I walk away I can feel the tension subsiding like a landslide crap in the toilet yet still feel the eyes of the consumer locked onto me like some sort of awkward-inducing ballistic. But soon I am out of site. Rinse and repeat this situation a few times as I walk to HMV.

Then as I walk around the 2 for 1 priced DVD section of HMV I reflect on the several times this has happened and a thought hits me like I'd hit James Blunt if I ever met him. I HAVE BECOME CONSUMER! 

Irony, you son of a bitch.


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Day of Stupid

While I was working today I was giving a woman her items. When she received them I asked "Is that everything?", she jokingly replied "Unless you want to give me something else!" As she packed her things into a bag. I responded wittily "Do you want a hug?". She stopped, looked at me with a blank expression and turned and walked out of the door with her things. To this very moment, I honestly think she did not find this funny. Nor did any other customer waiting. As they all stood there silently judging me. It was embarrassing.

Then I came home and walked into the door frame with my laptop and really hurt my ribs.

FML

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Seán O'Beirn and the Drafty Window

I had the liberty of waking up this morning  (after several times in the night) completely non-refreshed pointy nipple cold and more congested than Paris Hilton's coochy in an orgy. As it turns out, there is a mild draft, not blowing, just falling through gaps in my window and as a result, God didn't give me lemons, just a head cold. This falling draft is the most deceiving kind, it fools you into thinking "Jeez laweez, my room sure is darn cold!" and you turn on the heat for an hour our two, only to return and feel no difference. This perpetual coldness just aggravates you as a) you've just run up the electricity bill a coupla euro's and b) it reminds you of how indifferent Winter is to my existence.

Of course, I dismissed the thought of a draft over another reason, my window has no curtains. This was actually entirely my own fault though as it was a result of one of my drunken escapades to close the curtains, in one of my ill fated attempts to go to sleep after a "few jars" we'll say. I will tell this tiny story as if to a child to mask the stupidity of my actions:

"Gather round ya'll! It's time for Seán O'Beirn and the Naggle in the Noggin!"

As Seán wavered quite peculiarly into the room rather presumptuously he couldn't help but feel a Naggle at the back of his noggin. "Seán my indulgent friend" says the Naggle, "You will be required to do laborious tasks for your work people when the Sky torch greets us!". Seán frowned a frown only a grumpy grizzly woken from a slumberous hibernation could achieve. "But Naggle" says he "If my laborious tasks begin tomorrow, why must I perform one now?". The Naggle responds with wisdom as deep as Paris Hilton's coochy "I only suggest to close   the curtains, my Lord, so as to sleep longer than the first break of tweet and light". Easily convinced at the notion of being called "Lord" Seán smiled and said "My Lord". Stretching his arms out like a greedy Godric, Seán gave tug to the curtains only to lose his grivity gravity! "Oh my!" Seán exclaimed as he fell backwards, hands still clutching the curtains stronger than a Ben Afleck's jaw. Down fell the Seán and down came his legacy of curtain-closing. As Seán lay on the ground, puzzled and quite confuzzled his Naggle laughed heartily saying "Oh Seán, what will you do next!?"


Taken out of the context of a childrens storybook, I basically stumbled into my room, mumbled something indefinable and then went to close the curtains. It basically looked like someone fainting slowly and then falling quickly while holding onto the curtains and dragging them down with me. They became stowed away for months.


Anyhoo, that's why I thought my room was so cold. So I took out the ol' curtains and decided I was gonna fix this mutha. And viola, Seán actually managed to do this, I was extremely proud of myself that I managed to put one WHOLE screw in the wall for a curtain hook. I was so ecstatic I felt it warranted a facebook status update "Has fixed the curtains in his room, I am officially HANDYMAN now", yes, I declared myself in a profession for doing the most minuscule of tasks. I was beaming, so I turned on the heat for a little while, closed the bedroom door and left the room alone, to give it a test run and see if the fruits of my labour paid off. Upon returning I couldn't quite put my finger on why I thought I had failed to fix the problem. Maybe it was because I could see my breath in my room or maybe it was because my nipples were harder than diamonds. I knew I had failed. A slight rage befell me, but I wasn't done yet.


Fortunately for me, my friend Roisín tends to leave things in my house when she stays over. Including half of her bed. So I took her double duvet and wrapped it around the curtain pole thus blocking off the window entirely with a duvet. This definitely will work, I thought, so I repeated step 2, turn on the radiator for a while and leave. MUCH to my colossal disappointment, my room was still Icelandic when I returned, with no goddam volcano for heat. So I cracked at it again, surveying where exactly this coldness was coming from. As it turned out the duvet left a small gap between the curtains and the window and a draft continue to emanate through like a light fart, minus the warmth, a below zero fart if you will. So I tried to close this gap. But only succeeded in pulling the curtains down... AGAIN.

"ccuuuuuuuurrrrRRRTAAAAINNNNNSSS!"

On rare occasions I scream when I'm angry, and this was one of them. It was one of those rage filled screams where you make a noise that you never knew you were capable of (and wonder for a brief moment "maybe I can sing!") before returning to a mellow gasping pitch. This probably terrified my new house mate just a tad but he will recover I'm sure. At least this second wave of destruction by myself left me the opportunity to figure out where this Arctic weather system was coming from. As it turns out, my window is just plain shit. All it ever required in the first place was tape, which I had plenty of and spent 2 mins applying. Voila, the solution had finally made itself visible. My rage subsided, my nipples became soft and my room became warm. I wasn't done though. Higher on success than Lindsay Lohan is in general, I fixed my curtains and re-rigged the duvet so that I now have an impenetrable fortress of warmth, go me! :)


Now, if anyone else has window problems in their lives come to me, I da man, da Handy Man.


*UPDATE* : As it turns out, my radiator has a super awesome button to make it heat twice as much, it's like a little holiday in my room now! :)

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

When Virtual Became My Reality


I remember when I was young the first time I played a video game. It was as clear as my first memory (which was me at the age of two, waddling down the corridor like a drunken gymnast who failed at the splits, I was after pissing myself). It all started with a program called MS DOS and a game called Sim Farm. For those of you who don't know, Sim Farm was made by Maxis, which went on to make other custard cream-like addictions such as The Sims. Now I don't know why, but even at the age of Five when I played Sim Farm I never considered myself ever to be the farmer type, it just wasn't in my blood. Yet making a 256 colour, 2-D, ever failing farm was intoxicating, I just HAD to spray more and more pesticide to keep my strawberries safe (although if this was reality, my strawberries would probably kill someone or many someone's with the insane amount of pesticide I used).

So Sim Farm was basically my introduction to the gaming world. The next step was when a little grey box that you plugged little grey boxes into Jack Bauer'ed it's way into my life. The Super Nintendo. If Sim Farm was an addiction, this would the the creation that should've made me go into video game rehab. Super Mario World dominated my life for some time, it was sort of the stem of my retarded video game flower. I couldn't get enough of going from level to level stomping, flying, eating, destroying castles, killing koopa kids, rescuing an inept princess who can't even bake a cake without a life threatening situation becoming involved:

"Actually, it's quite disturbing if you think of it realistically"

So Mario played a large part in destroying my social life at my early age. However the next part of my video  game life played (anyone see the pun here!?) a cosmological  obsession in my life that changed how I perceived dimensions in game and also what I (disturbingly, but not dangerously...I think...) drew. It was a new game for the PC and I think it's one everyone knows, it brought "doom" to my social life (I'm having so much PUN!!! writing these):

"Black Friday at Walmart"

If you didn't get it from the pun you're pretty stupid. Anyways, Doom brought violence in video games into my life. Unlike Mario which did it in a subtle way, Doom literally let you blow up creatures into giblets right in front of you, it was an orgy of violence that filled an insatiable pit and left you wanting more. It sounds so sadistic (maybe this game is what made me sadistic) but every time you came across a new enemy you always wondered what it would like after firing a rocket into their face, which often resulted in variations of half-eaten gone off hamburgers from McDonald's. And it was in 3-D, something I had never seen before (well.... apart from reality). So it was just totally Oreo Cookie in my life (it means awesome). However there was one more game that would solidify the very moment when I began wishing video game was reality. You could say it was a "Legend of" a game. And it totally "Zelda"'d my life (ok maybe that wasn't a good one.... nor did it make sense).

"Nintendo: Buy now and exchange €50 for your soul!"

The Goddam Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Renowned world over as the greatest video game ever created, it could make me breakfast it was so amazing (although, it never did :( ). This game shattered my barrier of video game reality and  actual reality, it absorbed me like Brian Cowen absorbs debt. It was my new reality. Any time I stopped playing, it would be like my world was The Sims, I'd eat, I'd talk some sort of gibberish to the neighbours, I'd pee on the floor and cry, I'd develop some sort of ability to accidentally create fires all the time, until I hit pause and went back to reality in Hyrule.

Of course there's many games in between all of those and after, but these were the asteroid hits to my brain and have left large impact craters. But good impact craters, not like the one that got rid of Velociraptors. They have left me with memories more fond than a snack box after a night out and more real than Michael Jackson's nose (although, that's not really hard to achieve), video games are just Oreo Cookie.