Weekly Log - 16 through 22

Monday Feb 16

Grandma's lost her marbles. Nobody wants to say it, I've typed it.

Auntie was here... and she saw it firsthand. She and Grandma had one long talk, and from what Auntie told me later, it made no sense. The zen moment of it was Grandma saying that a man dressed like a cowboy (?), who was the King of Spain (!) wanted to talk to Auntie's husband (dead for some five or six years now) to tell him cigarettes were bad and that there was a brand of smokes cheaper for horses who were trying to quit. The old lady's lost it.

Mum says it's dementia. No cure for that. Or Alzheimer's. No cure for that either.

Tuesday Feb 17

Adding up to my "Must Get" list of suvival games. Project Zero is great, but I pretty much know it by heart at this point, I'm stuck in Code: Veronica and I can finish RE2 with a leg behind my neck. I started a new Silent Hill (the very first!) game and realized games made before the 00 year were fucked up. I mean, in comparison to the elder games, today's are for pussies. I can barely get to the last levels of Sonic the Hedgehog without losing either an emerald on my way or all of my lives, and I can do Final Fantasy X without taking much damage. I remember Super Mario Bros. being a walk in the park when I was a kid, now I replay them and I suck!

You don't get many platform games in this day and age. The last one I can recall playing was American McGee's Alice and that yes, was hard... because I suck at it with keyboard and mouse. Just like I suck at FPS with the regular controller. Ask Kid Bro how I play Half Life sometime...

Anyway, Fahrenheit is a do want (a game where the first thing you do is kill a guy and you get to hide evidence too? Count me in.) and on checking Clive Barker's Undying I pity it wasn't adapted for non-Microsoft systems. I also pity, for the first time since it showed up, I don't own an Xbox 360. I'm talking of course about Condemned. Which sorta looks like everything The Suffering would have been if it was less of a shoot-'em-all and more of a horror game. I never thought I'd admit I miss Silent Hill 4: The Room. I mean, it's a decent game as a standalone. It only begins to suck if you wanna think about it as a part of the Silent Hill franchise. I love Konami dearly, but they really fucked that up. What else... I want Forbidden Siren 2 as well. I never played the first Siren up to completion, as a matter of fact all I really played was a demo and a couple of random levels. The scariest thing about that game are controls, brother. Finally, I'm still trying to get a proper copy of Kuon and Persona 3.

Wednesday Feb 18

There was coffee to be had with the guys today. Couldn't go because Mum decided to make an extra shift and someone has to look after Grandma. An extra shift at her job means 16 hours worth of work out of 24. I'm starting to wonder how much longer can she hold on.

My searches for a job remain futile. I've asked, I've pleaded, I've sent so many resumes that if I was to print it, the Amazonian rainforest would lose a few more kilometers. Nah, I bullshit you. According to something I read around, it makes a good impression to print stuff in recycled paper so that's probably what I'd be doing. Recycling is not only politically correct now, it's also very well accepted by most offices. To think a few years ago it made you look like a hippie.

Thursday Feb 19

I had the three most retarded dreams of my life in the same night. On a crow-damned row. That's awesome, Murphy: when I actually manage to get some shut-eye, you do this shit to me. Great.

On the first dream I had woken up (it's one of those "wake up" dreams) in my bedroom... only it wasn't my bedroom. It looked like a sitting room. I went out and everything was different in my place: deco, furniture, the color of the walls, everything. Then a woman walked in who looked like my Mum but wasn't my Mum: hair color was different, she was thinner, dressed in a posh way, looked odd. I asked who she was and she had the same name as my Mum. Then she asked who I was and what I was doing there, I says "I'm your daughter!". Her answer: "No you're not!", and to prove it, she showed me a picture of someone who looked like myself, but wasn't. Again, different clothes, hair and overall characteristics... then she added "You better go away before my husband gets home". I let the old engine tick for a while and yell: "I know what's happened! Somehow I entered an alternate dimension in which my Mother didn't marry my Father, but some other guy, and so everything is different! How the fuck do I get home?"

Then I woke up, sat up, and told to myself that was the most retarded thing I had ever dreamed of. And I went to sleep again. Enter dream number two.

I woke up, not in my place, but somewhere I lived before: my grandparents' old house. I walked out of the bedroom and there was a teen in blue shorts watching one of those really old TVs. I said hello, he said hello, and we stared at each other for a while... recalling a photograph where my Uncle is wearing the very same shorts, I said his name, and he agreed that was it. I started to look around (nobody found it odd I was there this time) and notice the weird wallpaper, the hideous deco, a few records atop a record player... one of them was an Elvis album, I think, and another was a Beatles album... I let the old engine tick for a while, telling myself it had to be a dream, and I was sure it was probably a dream, but couldn't convince myself it was. And suddenly I yell: "I know what's happened! Somehow I entered an alternate dimension that took me back to the past when my Mum was my current age! How the fuck do I get home?"

I wake up, sit up and tell myself this' gotta stop. Grandma being quiet tonight, I decided to try again, telling myself I really had to keep in mind whatever happened from that point on would be a dream.

This time I woke up in my bedroom... only it doesn't look like it. There's a baby crib on a corner, and a shitload of toys, and everything's very girly-girly. I walk out, my house looks more or less the same (only cleaner) and make my way to the kitchen, all the while trying to convince myself I'm dreaming, but not really buying it. There's a blond woman around my age cooking in the kitchen, I ask who she is, she answers "Don't you remember, I'm your brother's wife." I call her bluff, Kid Bro's sixteen and not even thinking of getting married. So she shows me a picture of someone who kinda looks like my brother, only in his twenties. She further adds, "Don't you remember? You were laid off the company and you've been living with me and the baby while your brother is on tour with the band." I let the old engine tick for a while, still unable to convince myself that this is a dream. And suddenly I yell: "I know what's happened! Somehow I entered an alternate dimension that took me into the future to a time when my brother is my own age! How the fuck do I get home?"

I rose the white flag on waking up from this one. Got out of bed at four in the AM, took a shower, got dressed, made myself a pot of coffee and decided to do some campaign planning, because today was retarded dream day and I was getting tired of doing the same shit over and over.

Friday Feb 20

Grandma's birthday. She's 76, and looks 90. There was some quarrel about a birthday cake today I didn't bother to partake in. From what I picked up, my Uncle wanted Mum to bake a birthday cake and said he would leave some cash for ingredients yesterday, since our food supply has seen better days. Did you leave money for me yesterday? Neither did he. I asked Mum via text message what I was supposed to do, she didn't reply, and as such I went on with my day as usual. Then today she managed to buy a cake for the purpose with money she had put away (Mum's a soft heart) and left it in the kitchen. Instead of assuming that was it, my Uncle asked Grandma, and she told him that cake was for some party Kid Bro was having, so it was left untouched.

Kid Bro isn't having any party and arguments ensued. I turned on my heels and went back to my humble abode at this point. I'm living in a sanatorium, but I don't really need to hang out with the crazies.

Once again, going out with the guys for coffee is the best part of my day. Short-lived because as usual, I'm in charge of the old lady in the morning and she eats at seven.

Weekend Feb 21 - 22

Refugee weekend, ho! I manage to get some decent shut-eye on Saturday and all, after I had been up since before sunrise to look after Grandma. The rest of the time I had a blanket over my head and was scaring myself to crow with some trailers and game runthroughs available on YouTube. Well, not really. I'm a jumpy one sometimes, but I'm hard to really scare.

On my download log, I got Dark Cloud for Mum, which means I'll be playing it as well. I gotta finish it first so I can teach her how to later on. Mum loves RPGs but her English has seen better days and she takes a while to get some things, it's both easier and faster if I play it myself and then provide an explanation. Gave it a try on Sunday -son of a bitch! Remember what I had said earlier this week about old games being harder than recent games? Holy crow! Dark Cloud isn't exactly ancient -it's eight years old -but it could've fooled you. Playstation 2 was one year old back then, and a lot of games still looked like they were made for its predecessor. This is one of them.

I have a copy of Okami on the way, Silent Hill 2 as well (both stopped working on my console for some reason, and unfortunately I have game saves for both), I got another shitload of D&D books and a couple discographies I was missing.