Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Well, I have to be honest. I consider hallowe’en a bit boring these days. Last year we did the novel thing of carving a pumpkin but it was kind of retro and cool because it was our first hallowe’en away from home. This year we just didn’t answer the door to unsolicited trick and/or treaters. Humbug!

This morning I had my first lie in for what seems like weeks, but is actually only 5 days. Nikki went off into town so I finished reading Journey to the Centre of the Earth and still had ample time to do the housework (in a manly, manly fashion.) and tidy up before a brief comic-shop excursion. I got the new issue of “Stupid Comics” by Jim Mahfood because I can’t get enough of ‘em, and I got issue 7 of “Dork” just because it looked pretty good. Haven’t had a chance to read it yet though.

I look forward tomorrow to starting a new book. I’m undecided as to what to go with, I suspect I might break into some of the Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe before I start on 20,000 Leagues. If 20′000 leagues is as good as Journey though, I’ll look at getting more Verne. Of all the books I’ve read since beginning my speculative fiction spree, Journey was one of the more enjoyable. An excellent read on many levels, even if it does seem to cop out a bit at the ending. I’m thinking, having read The Divine Comedy, that I should have a read of some more classical literature. Something Greek, perhaps? I’ll get to that later though, I’m enjoying the comparatively light style of all the books I’ve got at the moment and I’d rather not go to something as taxingjust yet.

Sometime between getting my comics and eating dinner, Nikki, Tom, Ian and I went to the large Tescos, mainly because I needed more petroleum. We had a pretty uneventful shopping-based experience until the final aisle, when we discovered that all the “Dairy Milk Mint” bars had been split open and broken, by the undereducated denizens of the surrounding Oxford locality, I’m sure. Either that or a sign from god. Ordinarily I’d be appalled but the Dairy Milk Mint isn’t half as good as to near-identical “Mint Crisp” and I’m willing to fight it out with anyone who claims otherwise, so yeah, I wasn’t too upset that they had been made unsellable.

With Hallowe’en gone, however, the stage is now set for all kinds of Christmas-based fun. It’s not like it’s tomorrow or anything, but the various supermarkets around here have been bestowing us with Season’s Greetings for a good two weeks now. Tom and I believe it’s some kind of plot to phase out Hallowe’en and Guy Fawkes’ Night entirely and replace it with a single 3-month long Christmas period (or ‘Winterval’).

Speaking of the festive period, the other day I decided it was time to get a replacement monitor. Of course, being a stingebag student with little money anyway, I decided to get it for Christmas. I can wait 8 weeks or so. This monitor is getting on a bit and seems to have a broken green channel or something. It’s getting steadily darker such that I have to employ all kinds of colour correction and gamma modification software to keep things viewable. It also makes playing games a difficult affair, since the applications don’t always work, especially with DOS. Hence all the online games I’ve been playing, really. The most recent of these games is “Shade” - a really stunning example of a text adventure that shows what can be done with the medium. It starts off straightforward enough but it quickly becomes an intensely interesting and well-written piece of gaming. Makes me long for the days of text-adventures all over again.