Thetawaves

I’ve been on a real Silent Hill/Lovecraft-ian kick lately.   Not exactly sure why, but comparing the two is interesting.  Silent Hill is more sad and melancholy with moments of Holy Shit (TM) and Lovecraft is more Holy Shit (TM) with moments of sadness and melancholy.  The thing about Silent Hill is that the atmosphere and story, particularly the music, really draw me in.  I find myself listening to a playlist of about 40 Silent Hill songs on repeat, and they just get into me and pull me in further.  For example, Alex’s theme from SH:Homecoming…
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/additem/737433361
really draws me in.

I got the comic collection they did for SH a while ago.  It was actually really good.  Had some excellent artwork (It was funny because I read it right after watching the Deadspace animated comic, and I was like, oh, Hello again Ben Templesmith - he really is good), and a surprisingly well put together story in the end.  I’d really recommend it to anyone who’s enjoyed the series.

So, anyways, with my recent kick, I’ve been going back and playing through the old games again, and it’s amazing the amount of detail and foresight that went into planning and laying out the stories.  It’s funny, because the survivial horror part has really just become a vehicle for me in terms of getting to the next story cut-scene.  Spaces of creepy awesomeness punctuated by moments of abject terror fighting.  Actually, now that I think about it, F.E.A.R. did a pretty good job of that too, but with a FPS (that game continues to grow on me over time, still have to play the sequel).

Regardless, I still have to finish SH:Homecoming.  I can just barely make progress on it tho, because I start playing and certain things trigger a complete fear reaction in me, so I end up mortally dreading the next turn or opening a door.  It makes Maureen laugh, because she’ll ask my why I play when I’m so terrified and my only response is because I enjoy it

Dreams are a funny thing.  I tend to either have the most lucid dreams that have huge plots and amazing things occuring, or completely immemorable ones.  I remember as a child one of my favorite dreams was a very realistic dream of being in Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood.  I used to concentrate on Pooh when I went to sleep and it would trigger the dream.  There’s probably something poignant there, but we’ll skip the child psych.

Nowadays, my dreams tend to be of a more… distinctive nature.  Something in the style of Neil Gaiman or The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (I always thought Jasper was a good name).  Often I think they’d make quite remarkable and enjoyable stories to flesh out and write, but I’m hindered by two factors.  The first being that I tend to put off starting something if I don’t have a good grasp on how to accomplish it, which is simply stupid as often you can’t even figure out HOW to accomplish the task until you start.  The second being that turning dreams into stories seems so… cliche.

Regardless, I’ve resolved to start writing two stories.  The first is a short story that I’ve had in my head for a couple months now about a man leading two lives, literally.  When he sleeps he awakes as the same person, but in a completely different existence.  Then upon returning to sleep awakes in the first life again.  The second being a long kind of elaborate story in the style of wonderland meets dune that’s tripping on a strong dose of neverending story.  I don’t know how to better describe it at this point.  I figure if I just start writing them the words will write themselves, it’s the getting started that’s the hard part for me.

In that vein, I started work on a new flash project this past weekend.  A simple asteroids clone, but I like it.  I spent like 5-6ish hours on it and I’ve got all the basic mechanics down, firing, asteroids, levels, etc etc.  I just need to fine tune some of the things and work on the start and end game screens and it’s basically done.  It felt really good to get the processes going making headway.  Maureen wants me to do a Galaga clone next, which sounds like alot of fun, so I’ll probably give it a go.

Had my birthday this past weekend.  Turned 24.  I feel… not old, but weary and dismayed.  Dreams I haven’t accomplished, things I’ve meant to do.  I feel like there’s a giant timeline of my life and there were supposed to be those checks along the way where I accomplished X, but it never friggin happened.  Of course it’s my own fault… part of my, not New Year’s per se but simply, New Resolution is to start more things that are positive and stop more of those things that are negative.  Whether they work out in the end who gives a damn, but I should at least be trying.

Dreams.

- Addendum - I’ve read 25 of Terry Pratchett’s discworld novels so far.  I just ordered the last 5 or 6 that are left unread.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I’m out.

Greetings programs.  This is the blogosphere.  You have been warned.