I guess I'm overdue for an update, huh? 
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So my birthday passed quietly this weekend. I was in Birmingham at the UK Games Expo helping out Esdevium (i.e. gettting paid to play board games) - I had a fun day even if it wasn't really a 'me' day. I came home pretty shattered in time to watch the last eps of Lost season 4 on Sk (entertaining, even if still a little baffling).
Couldn't really shake off a slight feeling of melancholy though. While I wouldn't say being over 30 is over the hill exactly, the inexorable grind towards 40 is a little unnerving. Perhaps it's a precursor to a midlife crisis. I had hoped that maybe I would've found my vocation by now. Or that I would have met a life-partner to see the world and do Cool Stuff(tm) with. Or something. I guess I just feel in limbo, like I'm overdue a change of some kind. it's not that I don't have a bunch of cool friends or that I don't do a lot of fun stuff all the time. It just feels like something's lacking, and I can't quite put my finger on it...
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It was my dad's 60th this year too. Over the first May bank hoilday I flew out to France with my younger brother to catch up with him and attend his belated 60th gathering - his birthday is actually mid-April but he was in Australia at the time. Lucky bastard landed a consulting contract in the Solomon Islands and he was out there for a few months - in fact they've just asked him to go back and he's likely to be out there again for over a year.
My relationship with my dad is a strange one. It stems mostly from the fact that when I was 9 he left my mum, my brother and I to shack up with another woman, who he eventually married after divorcing my mum. This other woman had two kids of her own which she brought with her and so he effectively started a second family of his own, and my brother and I quickly felt like outsiders. My memories of these early events from my childhood aren't well-organised, and most of them aren't good. My mum and he regularly engaged in slanging matches right in front of us, even after he left. His new squeeze was an enigma; prone to violent mood swings she would regularly throw tantrums if she didn't get her way. (One particularly farcical scene concerned all five of us - dad and four kids - locked out of our alloted ferry cabin for the duration of a cross-channel trip because she was throwing a fit.)
There was a lot of noise about wanting to include us, but she clearly didn't want us there, and we definitely didn't get the same treatment as her own kids. Not that now, looking back on it, I'm bitter or jealous of what transpired, but it certainly had an impact on my and my brother's confidence when we were growing up. Perhaps just a big an impact was left by my dad just not being around. My mum didn't cope with it well and I have memories of her crying to herself in the bath thinking that we couldn't hear her. She did her best for us though and I'm proud of the way she brought us up. I and my brother coped with things in our own ways, and perhaps I fared better than he did. Seeking replacement male authority figures I started hanging around with older kids at school - I got into heavy metal music, drinking and playing role-playing games. I wasn't really a tearaway and still did pretty well at school (third-top in my year when we did our GCSEs) but I was out a lot and no doubt my mum worried about what I was up to.
So when I see my dad (which isn't often) it's often very difficult to know what to say. There's always a lot of pleasantries and a discussion about what we've been up to lately but that's about as far as it ever goes. He doesn't really understand any of the things I'm into and doesn't know any of my friends. He never asks - he never has. It would be easy to say that he's just going through some kind of ritual obligation but it's more complex than that. I think the guilt weighs heavily on him sometimes - I see it in his eyes. Although he doesn't really understand the details he knows that the choices he made have hurt and he doesn't want to start scratching at the surface in case all the bile comes flooding out. And he doesn't want to admit just how much of a father he *hasn't* been, and he's scared that some day we'll tell him to his face and he'll have to own up.
---
I went to see Indy IV - one of the most hotly anticipated films to be released this year. I was a little perturbed by the negative reviews it was getting in the press on the week of the release by I was resolved to withhold judgement until I was in front of it.
Thankfully it was ok. Not brilliant, but not that bad either. It doesn't come near the previous three films but it does maintain their spirit, even if the story is badly paced and a little hard to swallow. Iit's certainly not as appalling as the childhood-raping Star Wars prequels, but I couldn't help wonder if Lucas' influence was the reason for it not being as good as it could've been. I'd be keen to see the previous script locked by Darabont that Lucas vetoed, as I can't help wondering if it would've made for a more satisfying film...
---
I also went recently to the Tutankhamun exhibition at the O2 (formerly the Millennium Dome). It was actually the first time I've been anywhere near the dreadful half-bra of a structure and I was amused to find that inside it's been decked out rather like a holiday camp - a large circle of over-priced franchise bars and restaurants that makes it feel like Butlins. Negotiating our way through the gays and mutton-dressed-as lamb that were there to see Girls Aloud we found the exhibition tucked away in a far corner.
Inside there was reams of space with only a handful of exhibits in every room. It was amazing to see how well preserved some of the artefacts were, and also strange to think that Carter's expedition that recovered them was over three quarters of a century ago. None of the pieces had the wow factor though - the famous golden mask was missing, as were all of the coffins and sarcophagi. Apparently it was less than what was displayed during the last similar exhibition at the British Museum in the 70s. Still, facsiinating stuff nonetheless.
Just as eye-opening was the array of over-priced tat being sold in the shop on the way out. Zahi Hawass, Director of Antiquities in Egypt really has turned his country's heritage into a gold mine. You name it, you can buy it - books, pens, pencils, fridge magnets, silly pharoah hats - there's even a 'genuine Zahi Hawass archaelogist hat' which bears an uncannay similarity not just to the fedora Hawass himself wears, but to the one worn by a certain Dr. Jones.
---
Speaking of O2 after eight years of using T-Mobile and keeping to the same old calling plan I finally ditched them and signed up for a cracking deal with O2 instead. I also got a shiny Sony Ericsson P1i thrown in, although frustratingly it's locked to O2 and they've butchered the firmware to stop you making VoIP calls, goddamnit. I've been too busy to work out how to reset the firmware to a generic version - if anyone out there is a mobile phone whiz then please let me know!
---
So my birthday passed quietly this weekend. I was in Birmingham at the UK Games Expo helping out Esdevium (i.e. gettting paid to play board games) - I had a fun day even if it wasn't really a 'me' day. I came home pretty shattered in time to watch the last eps of Lost season 4 on Sk (entertaining, even if still a little baffling).
Couldn't really shake off a slight feeling of melancholy though. While I wouldn't say being over 30 is over the hill exactly, the inexorable grind towards 40 is a little unnerving. Perhaps it's a precursor to a midlife crisis. I had hoped that maybe I would've found my vocation by now. Or that I would have met a life-partner to see the world and do Cool Stuff(tm) with. Or something. I guess I just feel in limbo, like I'm overdue a change of some kind. it's not that I don't have a bunch of cool friends or that I don't do a lot of fun stuff all the time. It just feels like something's lacking, and I can't quite put my finger on it...
---
It was my dad's 60th this year too. Over the first May bank hoilday I flew out to France with my younger brother to catch up with him and attend his belated 60th gathering - his birthday is actually mid-April but he was in Australia at the time. Lucky bastard landed a consulting contract in the Solomon Islands and he was out there for a few months - in fact they've just asked him to go back and he's likely to be out there again for over a year.
My relationship with my dad is a strange one. It stems mostly from the fact that when I was 9 he left my mum, my brother and I to shack up with another woman, who he eventually married after divorcing my mum. This other woman had two kids of her own which she brought with her and so he effectively started a second family of his own, and my brother and I quickly felt like outsiders. My memories of these early events from my childhood aren't well-organised, and most of them aren't good. My mum and he regularly engaged in slanging matches right in front of us, even after he left. His new squeeze was an enigma; prone to violent mood swings she would regularly throw tantrums if she didn't get her way. (One particularly farcical scene concerned all five of us - dad and four kids - locked out of our alloted ferry cabin for the duration of a cross-channel trip because she was throwing a fit.)
There was a lot of noise about wanting to include us, but she clearly didn't want us there, and we definitely didn't get the same treatment as her own kids. Not that now, looking back on it, I'm bitter or jealous of what transpired, but it certainly had an impact on my and my brother's confidence when we were growing up. Perhaps just a big an impact was left by my dad just not being around. My mum didn't cope with it well and I have memories of her crying to herself in the bath thinking that we couldn't hear her. She did her best for us though and I'm proud of the way she brought us up. I and my brother coped with things in our own ways, and perhaps I fared better than he did. Seeking replacement male authority figures I started hanging around with older kids at school - I got into heavy metal music, drinking and playing role-playing games. I wasn't really a tearaway and still did pretty well at school (third-top in my year when we did our GCSEs) but I was out a lot and no doubt my mum worried about what I was up to.
So when I see my dad (which isn't often) it's often very difficult to know what to say. There's always a lot of pleasantries and a discussion about what we've been up to lately but that's about as far as it ever goes. He doesn't really understand any of the things I'm into and doesn't know any of my friends. He never asks - he never has. It would be easy to say that he's just going through some kind of ritual obligation but it's more complex than that. I think the guilt weighs heavily on him sometimes - I see it in his eyes. Although he doesn't really understand the details he knows that the choices he made have hurt and he doesn't want to start scratching at the surface in case all the bile comes flooding out. And he doesn't want to admit just how much of a father he *hasn't* been, and he's scared that some day we'll tell him to his face and he'll have to own up.
---
I went to see Indy IV - one of the most hotly anticipated films to be released this year. I was a little perturbed by the negative reviews it was getting in the press on the week of the release by I was resolved to withhold judgement until I was in front of it.
Thankfully it was ok. Not brilliant, but not that bad either. It doesn't come near the previous three films but it does maintain their spirit, even if the story is badly paced and a little hard to swallow. Iit's certainly not as appalling as the childhood-raping Star Wars prequels, but I couldn't help wonder if Lucas' influence was the reason for it not being as good as it could've been. I'd be keen to see the previous script locked by Darabont that Lucas vetoed, as I can't help wondering if it would've made for a more satisfying film...
---
I also went recently to the Tutankhamun exhibition at the O2 (formerly the Millennium Dome). It was actually the first time I've been anywhere near the dreadful half-bra of a structure and I was amused to find that inside it's been decked out rather like a holiday camp - a large circle of over-priced franchise bars and restaurants that makes it feel like Butlins. Negotiating our way through the gays and mutton-dressed-as lamb that were there to see Girls Aloud we found the exhibition tucked away in a far corner.
Inside there was reams of space with only a handful of exhibits in every room. It was amazing to see how well preserved some of the artefacts were, and also strange to think that Carter's expedition that recovered them was over three quarters of a century ago. None of the pieces had the wow factor though - the famous golden mask was missing, as were all of the coffins and sarcophagi. Apparently it was less than what was displayed during the last similar exhibition at the British Museum in the 70s. Still, facsiinating stuff nonetheless.
Just as eye-opening was the array of over-priced tat being sold in the shop on the way out. Zahi Hawass, Director of Antiquities in Egypt really has turned his country's heritage into a gold mine. You name it, you can buy it - books, pens, pencils, fridge magnets, silly pharoah hats - there's even a 'genuine Zahi Hawass archaelogist hat' which bears an uncannay similarity not just to the fedora Hawass himself wears, but to the one worn by a certain Dr. Jones.
---
Speaking of O2 after eight years of using T-Mobile and keeping to the same old calling plan I finally ditched them and signed up for a cracking deal with O2 instead. I also got a shiny Sony Ericsson P1i thrown in, although frustratingly it's locked to O2 and they've butchered the firmware to stop you making VoIP calls, goddamnit. I've been too busy to work out how to reset the firmware to a generic version - if anyone out there is a mobile phone whiz then please let me know!
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