Aspirations, Goals, Failure, And Success - How Do I Make A Formula?

Hey there Internet Land, how's it going? Oh, that's pretty good to hear! Me, well...not so well recently. I mean, I had an absolutely smashing weekend - I saw someone who I haven't seen for a while, which was really cool. I played a bunch of games with the usual crew (Spud, Lydia, Squiggles, Emma - and Elmo and X-Man returned as well...) which is always nice. I went to Spotlight looking for stuff for my costumes, which was interesting (and eye opening...) We tried to play the WoW board game (more "interesting" than anything else!)

Don't Let Its Cute Appearance Fool You - This Is The Most Complex Game Since Riskopolynaryial Pursuit

And still, there's something that just feels like it's...missing...recently. I am really not sure what it is, and for the life of me none of my internal subconscious workings can discover it either. It is most frustrating, Internet People, as I'm sure you're no doubt aware. I mean, I think I know what is - but I can't be sure. I hate not knowing. I loathe uncertainty. Get thee back, yon probability density functions, I shall have none of your Gaussian trickery! Do not tempt me Chi Squared distribution, for I know only expected values. Verily, my rounding is precise.

Aww - How Can I Stay Mad At You?

Anyway, mathematical irreverence aside, I think that what is kind of eating me up inside is what (were I a Sim) would be my "Life Goal". For ages now I've wanted to open up a store that caters to people like me - a store where people can go to play video games either alone, or with friends. They could win prizes and such either through a "points" system, or directly from the machines themselves. They could snack away to their hearts content, and just have a good time. What - these kinds of places already have a name?! Surely you jest!! They are known as 'Gaming Arcades', you say? Well then, I suppose since I was in about my fourth year of university I have wanted to open a gaming arcade. In Bathurst. And it would be awesome...

This has, however, always just been a dream. Something about which I have though "Yes, well, that would be jolly nice but as if that's ever going to happen..." I mean, there's a lot of planning that goes into this - I have to figure out if it's feasible, I have to find a space, and of course there's the issue of the money. On average, arcade machines go for about a grand. That's the single player ones. Others - the cooler ones - are significantly more expensive. Given that I want to have a DDR machine, some claw machines, air hockey, shooters (like Time Crisis), and so forth...well...I'm going to be saving for some years yet. Decades. Hell, I'll likely die before I get that capital up.

That Is *NOT* What I Meant, And You Know It

Of course this should lead you to the inevitable problem. I've got all of this want - this drive - this passion - this need that burns through my very being. And yet I can do nothing with it. I'm stuck in a job that I don't hate (it's actually pretty good), but it's not what I truly want to be doing. I could be bringing joy to many and all, instead I'm becoming a pretty good cog in a well oiled educational hierarchy (I'm not saying that my current job is bad, after all, and I'm not saying I'm bad at it - it's just that there are things I'd rather be doing...) And my subconscious knows this. And I think that, after three years of pussyfooting about and not doing anything about it, it is starting to rebel. Apparently, enough is enough, for various bits of my brain.

Would You STOP Deliberately Misinterpreting Me?!

So I guess in order to get out of my progressively worsening funk, I need to actually start acting on this - maybe that'll shut my self-gratification urges so very rightly up. What I've started to do is create a survey that I can distribute to people - perhaps I'll see if I can get people in the shopping centre to answer some questions for me as well. The problem at the moment, however, is that any setback (no matter just how minute in size it is) seems to push me too far into the negativity zone to achieve anything else. Case in point: I was using Survey Monkey to create my online surveys, but I discovered that I'd have to pay to include anywhere near the number of questions that I wanted to, in order to properly extrapolate the correct data. The result: I almost didn't blog tonight (heck, I almost didn't cook dinner tonight.)

I Said...Well...Okay, Close Enough...

But still, I know that in the end I'll get there - or I'll get close at least. If I try my hardest, I can achieve great things. Go me. Woo.

The moral of this story is that the instrumental version of Andy Williams' "Music To Watch Girls By", rehashed by Bob Crewe Generation, is the most incredible music to set a spy drama to. Especially if it is entirely nonsense. Really - I just had one of the most bizarre moments of my life (I wanted to say surreal, but we weren't riding giraffes naked eating jello through mushroom hats whilst singing the lyrics to La Vie Boheme in reverse through clarinets...) XMan and I were performing a spoken word duet about a spy walking down the streets of Havana who left his pants in a bar, and he met a man who cupped his genitals whilst asking for the time...Okay, so I guess maybe that's kind of surreal. We'll do a good version using mics tomorrow, and I'll share it with you - promise. In the meantime, here is the song - try and come up with one yourself!!

 

LISTEN TO THIS SONG! YOU WILL BE AMAZED!!